St. Louis in SimCity 4

sc4mayor · Dec 07, 2018#12018-12-07T16:22+00:00

Not really sure if this counts as a photography showcase, but I stumbled across a couple pictures on Simtropolis.com, a SimCity fan site and thought there was probably a few people here that would find these interesting.

I quite like his take on the Kiener garages here...

Created by a user named Korver...his stuff is actually worth a look:
https://community.simtropolis.com/journ ... rue-earth/

urban_dilettante · Dec 07, 2018#22018-12-07T18:58+00:00

Holy crap! Those are beautiful... maybe even better than the real thing. The little sail boat on the river is a nice realistic touch.

I haven't played Sim City in like 20 years... the graphics sure have come a long way. Wonder how long it took to build this.

bwcrow1s · Dec 08, 2018#32018-12-08T17:20+00:00

They should try deleting the highway and seeing what effect it has on the traffic

In all seriousness, are there programs or apps that simulate what actually happens when we make decisions that impact the street grid? Where you'd be able to measure car volume over, say, a few months, input it into a map, and then make changes to the grid and accessibility? I think that would be a useful visualization for city and state government.

framer · Dec 08, 2018#42018-12-08T17:35+00:00

^Back in my SimCity days, changing streets to one-way always improved traffic flow. Most urbanists, of course, prefer two-way streets. Go figure.

urban_dilettante · Dec 08, 2018#52018-12-08T22:59+00:00

a little off topic but i've had a couple of drinks so... given the number of sh*t cars in St. Louis, i would kill to have Meramec St. changed to 1-way east (downhill) between Grand and Broadway so that I don't have to listen to freight trucks and clunkers with swiss cheese exhaust systems accelerate uphill over and over and over again after every f*cking stop sign. you can't block that sh*t out.

and in all seriousness this city has a REAL problem with cars that couldn't possibly be passing inspection. there is no f*cking excuse for me being able to hear your f*cking car from 5 blocks away.

Trololzilla · Dec 09, 2018#62018-12-09T07:38+00:00

urban_dilettante wrote: ↑
Dec 08, 2018
and in all seriousness this city has a REAL problem with cars that couldn't possibly be passing inspection. there is no f*cking excuse for me being able to hear your f*cking car from 5 blocks away.

There's at least one place I've heard of up in either North City or North County that straight up passes your car through both sets of inspections if you pay the "special" price ($80 vs $40). Wouldn't surprise me if there's a bunch more like it. I'm sure that does nothing to help that problem. Then there's the issue of all the expired tags everywhere...

sc4mayor · Dec 09, 2018#72018-12-09T16:27+00:00

Yeah, definitely a ways off topic lol, but these places do exist. My family used to know the guy that owned the gas station between 4th and Broadway at Lombard, we'd pay the "expedite" fee and he'd just give us stickers. He's no longer around and now we do things the correct way lol, but I'm sure there are several more. For the record, we were all driving Hondas and Nissans, not beat up old junkers, so our cars would have passed no matter what, still though lol.

To get somewhat back on topic here, this version of SimCity was released in 2003...so nearly 20 years old. It's still by far and away my favorite city simulation game, though today it's considered on the older end of the spectrum and quite a ways out of date. If you really want to have your mind blown check out what these guys did with the newer Cities Skylines...pretty insane:

aprice · Dec 10, 2018#82018-12-10T20:34+00:00

One of my favorite aspects of SImCity 4 was the University campus:
For the record this was built into the game, not a Mod like Metropolitan Sq or Busch Stadium up above

apologies for the image size

sc4mayor · Dec 11, 2018#92018-12-11T00:36+00:00

^ The vanilla University is one of the game's better original civic lots. It still features prominently in my downtown university district.

For the record that Busch Stadium is rather garbage lol. Not at all a good representation of the real thing. There is a 3D model that includes both the stadium and BPV for Minecraft that looks amazing though. Wish someone would BAT it for SC4. The Met Square looks fantastic and there are lots of other St. Louis BATs available too. The US Bank Tower, the old (and long gone Buder Building), I've seen a very crude Eagleton Courthouse too. Several of the Cupples Station buildings are available. One of the original Maxis office buildings is a copy of the top half of the Wainwright. Even the Kiener garage is out there. I've got a request in to get the One Hundred building done, but that's not likely.

kipfilet · Dec 21, 2018#102018-12-21T15:28+00:00

bwcrow1s wrote: ↑
Dec 08, 2018
They should try deleting the highway and seeing what effect it has on the traffic

In all seriousness, are there programs or apps that simulate what actually happens when we make decisions that impact the street grid? Where you'd be able to measure car volume over, say, a few months, input it into a map, and then make changes to the grid and accessibility? I think that would be a useful visualization for city and state government.

Urban economists develop spatial equilibrium models to study commuting, firm location, etc. that typically combine optimizing behavior by agents with geographical data and allow them to study counterfactuals of the type you are describing. A recent and very cool example can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2utm63q6qoy20 ... P.pdf?dl=1
The author basically studies the distributional consequences of Bogota introducing a BRT system and finds that it disproportionately benefited higher skilled workers (who can now more easily access higher paying jobs).

I am not familiar with the field of urban planning and transit management, but I would assume they use these types of models as well. Not sure if the City of St. Louis does, but I do know that the MTA in NYC does use related models to study bus routes etc.

sc4mayor · Apr 30, 2019#112019-04-30T00:54+00:00

Recently I was scrolling through Simtropolis and saw a building that had been released by a mod'er that looked pretty similar to one of the mid-rises in Clayton. Since this particular guy tends to build lots of urban/suburban mid-rises I suggested he take a look at Clayton as he could probably find some pretty good source material. Well today he released the Midwest Regional Bank located in Downtown Clayton. He took some creative liberties, it's not an exact copy, but it's pretty close.

https://community.simtropolis.com/files ... onal-bank/

symphonicpoet · Apr 30, 2019#122019-04-30T04:37+00:00

Nicely done! It's pretty obvious where they took their inspiration, to the liberties really didn't go at all too far. And it's lovely! :)

aprice · Apr 30, 2019#132019-04-30T13:43+00:00

That's awesome. My mom used to work in that building in the '80s when it was Clayton Federal Savings & Loan. I wish I had this download 10 years ago.

sc4mayor · May 29, 2019#142019-05-29T02:07+00:00

Another Clayton building will make its appearance in SimCity 4 pretty soon. He added the pool improvements from the refresh currently happening, but overall he wasn't a huge fan of this particular building based on his comments, outside of the starburst panels.

The Sheraton Clayton Plaza:

The starburst panels:

moltingcicada · Jul 13, 2019#152019-07-13T15:24+00:00

Someone tried making St. Louis in Cities:Skylines too: It's a pretty good representation, though most of the southside and a lot of the northside hasn't even been laid out.

framer · Jul 13, 2019#162019-07-13T16:33+00:00

^Hey, that's pretty nifty! Here's another of his screenshots:

symphonicpoet · Jul 14, 2019#172019-07-14T05:52+00:00

^You know, I could live with a suspension bridge replacement for the Poplar Street. Apart from that I think I almost universally prefer the real structures, but in that one case . . .

. . . And bravo, in any case. Heck of a setup!

sc4mayor · Jan 28, 2020#182020-01-28T04:41+00:00

This showed up online today. The American Zinc Building from downtown St. Louis:

https://community.simtropolis.com/files ... -building/

symphonicpoet · Jan 28, 2020#192020-01-28T10:21+00:00

A nice building. Wonder if they'll add in the rest of the block. (Or if some or all of it is already there.)

framer · Jan 28, 2020#202020-01-28T17:49+00:00

Speaking of SimCity4:

I have the old Maxis CD version of the game. Ever since I upgrade my PC to Windows 10, I haven't been able to get the game to open. Anyone out there have some ideas of what's wrong?

LArchitecture · Jan 28, 2020#212020-01-28T18:55+00:00

framer wrote:Speaking of SimCity4:

I have the old Maxis CD version of the game. Ever since I upgrade my PC to Windows 10, I haven't been able to get the game to open. Anyone out there have some ideas of what's wrong?

Maybe slight cracks in the disc? I tried the old toothpaste trick once on a PlayStation 1 game and that seemed to work. Maybe it’ll work for you if it’s a physical disc problem. I can’t imagine your computer specs would being a problem.

aprice · Jan 28, 2020#222020-01-28T20:48+00:00

framer wrote: ↑
Jan 28, 2020
Speaking of SimCity4:

I have the old Maxis CD version of the game. Ever since I upgrade my PC to Windows 10, I haven't been able to get the game to open. Anyone out there have some ideas of what's wrong?

If you don't mind paying for it again, I think you can buy it from Origin (EA's version of Steam). Unfortunately it's still $20 or so. Although I've heard several people have had trouble with SC4 & Windows 10 in general, even new from Origin.

sc4mayor · Jan 28, 2020#232020-01-28T21:03+00:00

From what I have read on Simtropolis, do NOT buy the Orgin copy. This could be outdated information by now, but originally Orgin was the only one selling the game without the appropriate patches so it was very unstable. They may have fixed it by now, but my go to is the Steam copy. Works wonderfully on my 2018 MacBook Pro (running Windows 10 on Bootcamp).

Depending on how much you love the game (it's still my all time favorite (hence the sc4mayor haha)), it would definitely be worth the $20, if not just to play around with the NAM and all the new BATs and other custom content. It's like a whole different game now.

aprice · Jan 28, 2020#242020-01-28T22:25+00:00

Apologies to any non-gamers seeing this thread.
I had assembled quite a bit of downloaded content by 2009 or so, I've barely played since. Good to know that the Steam version works well.
Cities Skylines has been holding my attention for the last 4 years or so but I barely play it. I haven't even gotten into any Skylines mods yet. Maybe I'll check and see if they have any good St. Louis buildings.
I definitely prefer SimCity 4's graphics & buildings. Everything just looked so much cleaner and more refined. Much more urban too. I found myself crafting little spots around my city much more than I do with Skylines. Skyline's buildings are cheesy and rushed. It's like they wanted them to be slightly ugly.

framer · Jan 29, 2020#252020-01-29T02:11+00:00

Thanks for the tips, guys. I'll look into buying one of the new versions, although I'd hate to give up the cities and regions I've already built. Plus, I'm a bit of a Luddite, and I think the latest version would tend to overwhelm me.