Sim City (SNES) - Any Fans? + Bug Questions

[Ziggy]

Ziggy, try holding down either the L or R button for a while and see if the months pass.

I'll try that next time I put the game on. But when I hold L or R, the animations don't freeze. Like if you press A to scroll the map, the animations freeze (which means the game freezes). When you hold L or R, do the animations freeze? And by animations, I mean smoke from Industrial zones, water moving, etc.

@Zing: Does that work around for the loading bug work for you?

[o.pwuaioc]

Ziggy, try holding down either the L or R button for a while and see if the months pass.

I'll try that next time I put the game on. But when I hold L or R, the animations don't freeze. Like if you press A to scroll the map, the animations freeze (which means the game freezes). When you hold L or R, do the animations freeze? And by animations, I mean smoke from Industrial zones, water moving, etc.

Ah, there's the problem. The animations don't freeze, but time does stop, i.e. while you're holding them down, you won't change months. I think pressing other buttons while holding them down negate their effect, though (at least temporarily?).

[Zing]

Holding L & R definitely pauses time. While I hold those buttons down, time does not pass.

I did a bunch of tests. First of all, the "Zzzz" speed in the options is apparently not "pause", it is just a very very slow speed. I loaded a game then immediately changed to "Zzzz" and the game still proceeded. Contrast this to when I load a game holding L/R, the game does not progress for even one second.

Second, if you load a game, then immediately go to the maps and look at pollution and crime, you will see they are not filled in at all. I believe this is in relation to the bug. The game seems to not load the saved valued, or is not saving the previous values at all! The other maps (traffic, power, etc) appear have the normal data there right from the load, but pollution and crime definitely do not.

I'm not sure why all power is lost on load. Again, either the game doesn't explicitly save the powered state of each zone/building in the save file, or a bug is preventing it from loading.

Pausing using L/R does not workaround the bug. I sat holding the buttons for several minutes after loading, and as soon as I let go, the power goes out and crime skyrockets.

Holding L/R does not pause the animations, just the game processing.

[Zing]

I think pressing other buttons while holding them down negate their effect, though (at least temporarily?).

You can do anything you wish while holding L/R and time stays frozen. You can scroll around using Y, you can go into the menus, you can build or destroy, and so on.

[o.pwuaioc]

I just tested this out twice to make sure there weren't any errors on my part. Basically on fastest one month is about 35 seconds. Well, if you hold R/L starting at 34 seconds, then turn the menu on and off by pressing X, it'll switch months, meaning you went forward another second. I assume this means that every time you press a button while holding down R/L, you'll move forward a (split?) second. Maybe it's only X that does this?

[Ziggy]

Ah, this makes me wanna reach 600,000 even more...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQIa1otB ... re=related

Apparently you get that and a note in history, but no class change and the music stays the same. But yeah, 600k is my new goal. After that, I'll still play the game from time to time, but I'll consider it "beaten" (even though you can't win or lose at Sim City). Highest I was able to reach in my last city was about 518k, but I couldn't hold it there. Currently it's at 512 steady.

[retrosportsgamer]

What is zone stacking exactly? I loved this game on the PC originally and also have a CIB SNES version.

[Ziggy]

Check out zone stacking in this link: http://incise.org/advanced-sim-city-strategies.html

That guy takes it to the extreme though. I really don't see that as fun, just annoying and tedious to do. The only time I zone stack is to fit in more zones around coast lines, otherwise I leave everything whole. Some people consider it some sort of cheating. The fact is, it shows you how to do this in the manual (specifically to fit in more around coast lines).

I don't "zone stack" the airport, but I use the other trick to shrink it down. As soon as you build the airport and supply it with power, a plane will take off in a few seconds. As soon as the plane starts to take off, before it's even fully in the air, hit the plane crash button in the disasters menu and the plane will crash into the airport. Hopefully the entire airport will go up in flames. After the fire burns out, you'll be left with a much smaller airport. Hopefully only one square. The airport still functions as normal, but now takes up much less room, and pollutes way less too.

I'm gonna try another city soon and attempt 600k. I was thinking about zone stacking the power plants so they take up less room, and maybe zone stack the stadium and seaport. But I don't think that's fun.

[Zing]

Do most of you play on "easy" difficulty? The manual infers that it affects how easily your population increases as well as starting cash, but a FAQ or two I read claimed it only affected starting cash.

Either way, it is really hard to start with only 10k. The nuclear plant uses half of that.

[o.pwuaioc]

I don't it's hard, it just takes way too long to accumulate more money. Way too frustrating to wait. There should be some mini-games or something while waiting!