New Testingstan

RogueIce wrote:Yeah, I bought the deluxe edition straight up.

Hey Oxy let's trade city building tips!

TBH, I often ended up using cheats.

But if there's one thing I have to say if you want to build a legit city :

- Start little : a coal plant, a few blocks of houses, a few squares of commerce on the road between the house and the industries, some farms and a few industries near the coal plant. No utilities apart from electricity, zero service except a fire station near the coal plant. Let the cash flow in before starting to expand.
- See big : plan your growth, and make sure that each step on the road see you with a positive cash income, or that your reserve is enough to be able to take the next step.
- Don't be hasty : try to grow too much too soon, and you'll go bankrupt before you know it.
- Always keep a good supply of cash on hand : money is life, cling to it dearly.
- Only build the bare minimum of service for your city to run smoothly : if only 75% of your sims can go to school or to the hospital, that's already more than really needed, and you can think about some cuts. And don't be afraid of congested roads. It happens, deal with it. Building too many metros or putting too many buses is counter-productive and will bankrupt you really quick.

I'm jumping straight back into NAM. I had the SimCity box thing but lost it the last time I moved. My fiance got me SC4 to replace it but didn't realize you need the expansion and got grumpy when I was going to just rebuy the deluxe. :V

Oxymoron wrote:TBH, I often ended up using cheats.

So basically you're role-playing as an actual politician.

Oxymoron wrote:- Don't be hasty : try to grow too much too soon, and you'll go bankrupt before you know it.

Honestly I'm really bad about that. I just can't resist that starting fusion power plant.

Oxymoron wrote:- Only build the bare minimum of service for your city to run smoothly : if only 75% of your sims can go to school or to the hospital, that's already more than really needed, and you can think about some cuts.

You terrible right-winger you!

Everyone knows you should just tax the shit of the proles to pay for their healthcare anyway.

Losonti Tokash wrote:I'm jumping straight back into NAM. I had the SimCity box thing but lost it the last time I moved. My fiance got me SC4 to replace it but didn't realize you need the expansion and got grumpy when I was going to just rebuy the deluxe. :V

Aw... Well it's the thought that counts, as I always say.

Possibly because I need to cling to that as I'm a terrible gift giver.

The problem if you raise taxes too much, is that people and jobs start to move away.

Better to have a lot of taxpayers dying out from pollution and exhaustion than fewer taxpayers living well off the services you're pouring money into without actual return in your bank account.

Everyone knows you just build your pollution heavy industries in another square so you get all the jobs and none of the smog or crime!

Losonti Tokash wrote:Everyone knows you just build your pollution heavy industries in another square so you get all the jobs and none of the smog or crime!

This.

I did that with a big regional project.

Strangely enough, a lot of sims don't go working on the other cities, because they perceive it as "too far away", even when I provide them with the BEST network of subways and monorails.

The sims were living in a Big map, and the industry was on an adjacent Medium map.

Maybe it's a bug, or just a quirk, but I learned than in big cities the way sims find jobs can act a bit wonky.

Apparently they can get stuck in a never-ending loop if you're unlucky.

Yeah, I had a number of buildings who had the "unemployement" icon above them, when I had fuckass huge industrial and commercial zones and the residential tiles were only 3/4 built (everything was in dense).

I'm furious.

Me and my boss are supposed to go on a trip up the west coast after this camp ends. However, he decided that rather than stay in hotels we should stay in youth hostels the entire time. I'm older than the youths of youth hostels, 6'6", and have real trouble falling asleep. He's a 59 year old shaggy man who sheds, and if he were born in the last thirty years would have been instantly diagnosed as having severe aspergers. Needless to say, youth hostels are not appropriate, and I (admittedly a man who likes having some creature comforts) am not happy with the idea that he thought this was okay, but he's pissed at me because I'm objecting at the last minute and because my attempts to find new places to stay is messing with his vision of how the trip was supposed to work out/where we were going to stay.

Straha wrote:I'm furious.

Me and my boss are supposed to go on a trip up the west coast after this camp ends. However, he decided that rather than stay in hotels we should stay in youth hostels the entire time. I'm older than the youths of youth hostels, 6'6", and have real trouble falling asleep. He's a 59 year old shaggy man who sheds, and if he were in the last thirty years would have been instantly diagnosed as having severe aspergers. Needless to say, youth hostels are not appropriate, and I (admittedly a man who likes having some creature comforts) am not happy with the idea that he thought this was okay, but he's pissed at me because I'm objecting at the last minute and because my attempts to find new places to stay is messing with his vision of how the trip was supposed to work out/where we were going to stay.

sounds like it has movie rights potential though

Ugh, the president of the Oglala Sioux had a meeting with our governor but walked out after less than three minutes because the governor just refuses to do anything other than say "too bad, not our problem."

Losonti Tokash wrote:Ugh, the president of the Oglala Sioux had a meeting with our governor but walked out after less than three minutes because the governor just refuses to do anything other than say "too bad, not our problem."

No drinkum firewater! Seemed to be the gist of what he said.

Pretty much. Same guy who refused the Medicaid expansion and proposed a tax reform that lowered property and corporate income taxes while raising sales taxes, while eliminating exemptions for foods and medical goods.

thejester wrote:

Straha wrote:I'm furious.

Me and my boss are supposed to go on a trip up the west coast after this camp ends. However, he decided that rather than stay in hotels we should stay in youth hostels the entire time. I'm older than the youths of youth hostels, 6'6", and have real trouble falling asleep. He's a 59 year old shaggy man who sheds, and if he were in the last thirty years would have been instantly diagnosed as having severe aspergers. Needless to say, youth hostels are not appropriate, and I (admittedly a man who likes having some creature comforts) am not happy with the idea that he thought this was okay, but he's pissed at me because I'm objecting at the last minute and because my attempts to find new places to stay is messing with his vision of how the trip was supposed to work out/where we were going to stay.

sounds like it has movie rights potential though

Drama or comedy?
What I hate is that he's actually a good friend and I want this trip to go well, it's just a fucking painful experience to butt heads with him over this.

Losonti Tokash wrote:Ugh, the president of the Oglala Sioux had a meeting with our governor but walked out after less than three minutes because the governor just refuses to do anything other than say "too bad, not our problem."

Serious question: what kind of authority or ability would a governor have to do anything? Isn't Native American stuff generally handled on the federal level?

RogueIce wrote:Apparently they can get stuck in a never-ending loop if you're unlucky.

don't link corners together in a loop. force sims to drive around for long distances and this will evaporate.

Losonti Tokash wrote:Pretty much. Same guy who refused the Medicaid expansion and proposed a tax reform that lowered property and corporate income taxes while raising sales taxes, while eliminating exemptions for foods and medical goods.

jesus

RogueIce wrote:

Losonti Tokash wrote:Ugh, the president of the Oglala Sioux had a meeting with our governor but walked out after less than three minutes because the governor just refuses to do anything other than say "too bad, not our problem."

Serious question: what kind of authority or ability would a governor have to do anything? Isn't Native American stuff generally handled on the federal level?

There's quite a bit he can do. The town that's causing most of the trouble, Whiteclay, has a population of fourteen and yet has 4 separate liquor stores. It is 2 miles south of the Pine Ridge reservation and in 2010 sold an equivalent of 4.9 million 12oz cans of beer, almost all of which was taken to the reservation. Alcohol possession and consumption is banned on the reservation itself, but that doesn't mean much when it's so easy to get shitloads of it. There historically was an exclusion zone of about twenty miles from the reservation where alcohol couldn't be sold, but it's been gone since 1904.

There's protesters there basically all the time, but several weeks back one of the liquor store owners was handing out baseball bats and promising free booze to anyone that beat them up or set their tents on fire. A delegation went to the Liquor Control Commission to testify and get the liquor license taken away, but the witness was arrested and charged with terrorism before he was able to.

Meanwhile, the Budweiser delivery trucks are literally escorted by state troopers and all the governor says is that the Sioux need to just deal with it. The reservation does have a treatment center, but just do not have the funds to expand it from the current capacity of SEVEN.

20% of infants born there have at least some symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome and literally over 90% of the criminal cases in the tribal courts are alcohol related. But the governor of the state responsible for the vast majority of the illegal alcohol can't be bothered to treat the president of the Oglala Sioux with a modicum of respect and has a spokesperson after the fact call him a liar and say "tough shit, not our problem." He can find the time to ride the Budweiser coach in a parade and accept $96,000 in contributions, though.

Losonti Tokash wrote:

RogueIce wrote:

Losonti Tokash wrote:Ugh, the president of the Oglala Sioux had a meeting with our governor but walked out after less than three minutes because the governor just refuses to do anything other than say "too bad, not our problem."

Serious question: what kind of authority or ability would a governor have to do anything? Isn't Native American stuff generally handled on the federal level?

There's quite a bit he can do. The town that's causing most of the trouble, Whiteclay, has a population of fourteen and yet has 4 separate liquor stores. It is 2 miles south of the Pine Ridge reservation and in 2010 sold an equivalent of 4.9 million 12oz cans of beer, almost all of which was taken to the reservation. Alcohol possession and consumption is banned on the reservation itself, but that doesn't mean much when it's so easy to get shitloads of it. There historically was an exclusion zone of about twenty miles from the reservation where alcohol couldn't be sold, but it's been gone since 1904.

There's protesters there basically all the time, but several weeks back one of the liquor store owners was handing out baseball bats and promising free booze to anyone that beat them up or set their tents on fire. A delegation went to the Liquor Control Commission to testify and get the liquor license taken away, but the witness was arrested and charged with terrorism before he was able to.

Meanwhile, the Budweiser delivery trucks are literally escorted by state troopers and all the governor says is that the Sioux need to just deal with it. The reservation does have a treatment center, but just do not have the funds to expand it from the current capacity of SEVEN.

20% of infants born there have at least some symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome and literally over 90% of the criminal cases in the tribal courts are alcohol related. But the governor of the state responsible for the vast majority of the illegal alcohol can't be bothered to treat the president of the Oglala Sioux with a modicum of respect and has a spokesperson after the fact call him a liar and say "tough shit, not our problem." He can find the time to ride the Budweiser coach in a parade and accept $96,000 in contributions, though.

Whiteclay has been an atrocity ever since 1940 when it was established for the explicit purpose of selling alcohol to the Sioux. It's blindingly obvious that the state is complicit in its operation, considering the absurd ratio of liquor licenses to population and armed escort of beer delivery trucks.

Wait isn't the Oglala res the one that lost power for like two months during one of the harshest winters a couple years back?

No, those were the Cheyenne River Sioux, but they are both in South Dakota.

Though I guess to be fair it was the Feds and FEMA who were letting them freeze.

Los. That's super fucked up... Every now and then I am viscerally reminded of just how completely fucked up the United States' relationship with native tribes is.