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Sim City 4 does not produce working neighborhoods for TS2

OldeseadoggeOldeseadogge Posts: 4,973 Member
Have come to the conclusion that EA was telling us stories, and not nice ones, when they said in the documentation for TS2 that Sim City 4 could be used to make new blank neighborhoods. I tried it over the holiday weekend and it was a total failure. Although I was able to make the neighborhood, using the small city rectangle per the directions, it did not show up correctly. Several experiments produced:

A world that was totally blank other than the grass, trees and a portion of the pond that had been made.
Only a tiny portion of that template appeared, from the upper left hand corner.
Not a single road appeared, regardless of type, although several were placed as close to the pond as possible for testing purposes.
The displayed patch was apparently flipped 180 degrees. The pond had a lone tree at the northern tip in SC4, said tree was at the southern tip in TS2. The pond was oblong in SC4 and a bit angled towards the northeast, but in TS2 it had been cut to somewhere between 1/3 & 1/2 of it's length and the fragment now pointed southeast.

Both games are installed on the same Windows XP machine, so there are no Win 10 conflicts. TS2 is the original from disks version installed way back when, has all packs, and runs just fine. The SC4 is the deluxe edition with rush hour added in, gotten a week or so ago. By itself it runs fine, but the whole reason for getting it was neighborhood making.

Anyone have any suggestions, or do I just write it off as an early example of TS4 style fibbing and uninstall? Thanx in advance.

Comments

  • Rflong7Rflong7 Posts: 36,584 Member
    Hi :)

    Only 1 type of road and 1 type of bridge transfers to TS2 from SC4.

    From the readme.txt -
    Custom Neighborhoods Using SimCity 4 Terrain:
    New custom neighborhoods for the Sims 2 can be created using SimCity 4 terraforming tools. First, only small cities can be imported into The Sims 2, so be sure not to start with a medium or large city. Make sure the city you use contains roads; otherwise you will not be able to place lots in your new neighborhood. Take the .sc4 file you wish to use, and place it in your My Documents\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\SC4Terrains folder. When you go to the neighborhood creation screen in the game, your terrain will be available to use to create a new neighborhood.

    When creating custom neighborhoods, please also note the following:

    Most of the terrain features created with the God mode tools can be imported, including foliage (except for palm trees); however, fauna (animals) are not imported. Also note that terrains are imported mirrored from the original SimCity layout.

    Switching to Mayor Mode, only original SimCity 4 road bridges or SC4 Deluxe small steel arch bridges, manually laid roads/street that are straight, right angle bend, cul-de-sacs, and T & 4 way intersections are imported as streets into Sims 2 neighborhoods. Diagonal roads and railroads are ignored and not imported. Practically all other placeable features are ignored upon import: zones, elevated roads/highways/freeways, buildings or other facilities, airports, landmarks, etc.

    Once loaded into the game a neighborhood's default terrain type can still be modified via the following cheat:
    1. With the neighborhood you wish to change loaded, open the cheat dialog by pressing Ctrl-Shift-C.
    2. Type:
    terrainType Desert (Changes current neighborhood terrain type to Desert. Note that the cheat is case sensitive.)
    terrainType Temperate (Changes current neighborhood terrain type to grassy terrain. Note that the cheat is case sensitive.)

    There are still tutorials out there.
    http://simechoes.org/simechoes2/sims2/sims2info/tutorials/neighbourhoods/sc4/sc4terrain.html

    I make lots of maps, too many really. :)
  • OldeseadoggeOldeseadogge Posts: 4,973 Member
    Thank you, @Rflong7! Between what you posted and the links provided have been able to get first neighborhood up and running. Determining what the boundaries were and the mirror imaging were the toughest nuts to crack. The mirroring part might not be a problem for those making boring modern boxes of street layouts, but when trying to re-create an 1840s village that is neither boring nor rectangular it's a different story. Pity, one can't go back into full god mode after a city is established. Would make terrain editing a lot easier in terms of the area you actually have in TS2. Still, with your help it's done, and am very grateful! Now to get building and move in sims, though I suspect a working blacksmith shop is out.
  • Rflong7Rflong7 Posts: 36,584 Member
    edited December 2018
    You Can go back into full God mode once you make it a city. Press Ctrl + Shift + Alt (corrected) then click on the god mode button (or the sun or the button on the left)... iirc. :mrgreen:
    Post edited by Rflong7 on
  • OldeseadoggeOldeseadogge Posts: 4,973 Member
    Thank you! Let's see... Ctrl+Shift+*Alt... that's enough to keep both hands busy, so need another hand for the mouse...
  • Rflong7Rflong7 Posts: 36,584 Member
    Lol! Press them and then hit the button to open god mode. No need to hold them. XD
  • OldeseadoggeOldeseadogge Posts: 4,973 Member
    Have written it down for next time I'm in it. Thanks!
  • ParyPary Posts: 6,871 Member
    @Oldeseadogge , are you going to show some pictures of your terrain? My interest was piqued when you mentioned 1840's village :)
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  • CinebarCinebar Posts: 33,618 Member
    Hope you share a 1840's village!
    "Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
  • OldeseadoggeOldeseadogge Posts: 4,973 Member
    Have no photo sharing capability. The few places I've seen mentioned in the forums come across as very confusing when I read the descriptions. In addition, the neighborhood is on a different machine than this one, the XP where SC4 lives.

    At this stage there is only the lot (thank you, Rflong7!). No buildings yet as I've managed to misplace the layout sketches (2 or 3). Need warmer weather to go to the prototype village to gather more. To see what I'm up to, look for 'Old Sturbridge Village' on the net.
  • CinebarCinebar Posts: 33,618 Member
    Have no photo sharing capability. The few places I've seen mentioned in the forums come across as very confusing when I read the descriptions. In addition, the neighborhood is on a different machine than this one, the XP where SC4 lives.

    At this stage there is only the lot (thank you, Rflong7!). No buildings yet as I've managed to misplace the layout sketches (2 or 3). Need warmer weather to go to the prototype village to gather more. To see what I'm up to, look for 'Old Sturbridge Village' on the net.

    If you have a flash drive or thumb drive you can copy the pictures over to the different machine. :) Yeah, I know, I've never found a suitable picture host, either. The one where everyone says you don't have to log in or sign up never did work for me. :/
    "Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
  • StormkeepStormkeep Posts: 7,632 Member
    Tumblr works well for image sharing even though that's not its actual purpose. If you use tumblr that is; alot of simmers do to follow their favorite CC feeds so I thought I'd throw that out there in case y'all were one of them.

    Love what you're doing OldSeadogge, really do hope you find a way to share some images with us. Neighborhood creation was always one of my favorite things to do in TS2. Really wish I'd have backed all of them up when I replaced my PC some years ago...it was the TS3 era and I didn't even think of my TS2 stuff on the drive at the time.
    This post will be edited by StormKeep at some point.
    2c2ab3785fad83173d9a155efa4afd1fc99b9595.jpg
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  • ParyPary Posts: 6,871 Member
    IMGUR is a fine pic host.
    I also link pics from my Tumblr, as mentioned above.
    Sims 3 Household Exchange - Share your households!
    PoppySims Archive
    InnaLisa Pose Archive
    Devolution of Sims - a once customisable open world sandbox which has become a DLC Party catalog in a shoebox
    I ♡ Pudding
  • OldeseadoggeOldeseadogge Posts: 4,973 Member
    I've no idea what Tumbir even is. There's a dim memory floating around in my aged brain about a photo site used to share shots when I was part of a model building group. Now all I need do is remember what it was and see if it still works.
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