Re: PATCHED SimCity 2000 Windows Version
Napoleon Hauck
I couldn't find a really fitting subforum so I ended up here. It's not about emulation.
I have a IBM PS/2 System with VGA onboard and a 8514/A graphics card that gives a decent 1024x768 with 256 colors under Windows for Workgroups 3.11.
So I thought about getting Sim City 2000 to run. Plain DOS Version disqualifies since this very old machines lacks SVGA capabilities.
But I have a 256 color Mode in windows...
So I tried the Win9x SC2000 Edition, it installs fine but when I try it to run it fails. Some analysis shows that it tries to read back some configuration from the registry, that is in this case incompatible with Win9x.
I had some talk with the EA support and they told me that this version of Sim City 2000 is not produced and sold since years. There are also no plans to release it as download version f.e.
My personal guess is that they even don't have an internal version themselves left.
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Yeah, since game companies are bought and sold so often alot of times you'll see the new company want to give a game away for free and it turns out that the copy they'll have is an abandonware version! ?
I've got a Collection CD that includes Sim City 2000 and the Urban Renewal Kit - I have no idea if it will work in 3.1, though, but I can check later today after I get back from my appointment. I have 3.1 loaded on this 486 here, that should be as good a test as any.
The SimCity 2000 Special Edition CD-ROM-sized manual has separate sections with system requirements and installation instructions for DOS, Win 3.x and Win95. It specifies the following system requirements for Win 3.x:
One of my favorites! The newspaper articles in the game are some of the stupidest yet funniest things I have ever read! The developers had a lot of fun coming up with the jokes and Easter eggs in the game.
I'm sure this guide will also be quite beneficial to those who would love to get the Windows versions up and running on modern versions of Windows. I grew up playing the Windows 95 version of the game, and it really is the best version of the game!
In terms of the console ports... those are truly hit or miss, haha! The PS1 and Sega Saturn versions are pretty cool (the latter I haven't played yet, but I've seen what it's like). I've played every port of the game except for the original Macintosh version and the Sega Saturn version... one day, though! I can't recommend the GBA version; it has some quirks and it's missing the water system, if I remember correctly. If one wishes to play the SNES version, be prepared for a sloooooow (yet kind of fun) experience!
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Judging from the error code, it looks like the patch is failing because the patcher is unable to access the game files in C:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 2000\ to replace the SimCity.EXE file with the patched version.
If you haven't yet done so, make sure you're running the SC2000X patcher in Administrator Mode. This can be done by right-clicking the file, then pressing the "Run as Administrator" button (if you use Windows 11, that may or may not be hidden behind a "show more options" button).
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SimCity 2000 is a city-building simulation video game jointly developed by Will Wright and Fred Haslam of Maxis. It is the successor to SimCity Classic and was released for Apple Macintosh and MS-DOS personal computers in 1993,[7] after which it was released on many other platforms over the following years, such as the Sega Saturn and SNES game consoles in 1995 and the PlayStation in 1996.[8]
SimCity 2000 is played from an isometric perspective as opposed to the previous title, which was played from a top-down perspective. The objective of the game is to create a city, develop residential and industrial areas, build infrastructure such as power and water facilities and collect taxes for further development of the city. Importance is put on increasing the standard of living of the population, maintaining a balance between the different sectors, and monitoring the region's environmental situation to prevent the settlement from declining and going bankrupt, as extreme deficit spending gets a game over.[9]
SimCity 2000 was critically praised for its vibrant and detailed graphics, improved control menu, gameplay and music. An approximate total of 4.23 million copies of SimCity 2000 have been sold, mainly in the United States, Europe and Japan. While its predecessor pioneered the city-building genre of video games, SimCity 2000 would become the model upon which subsequent urban simulators would be based over the course of the next decades.
The unexpected and enduring success of the original SimCity, combined with the relative lack of success with other "Sim" titles, finally motivated the development of a sequel. SimCity 2000 was a major extension of the concept. It had a near-isometric dimetric view (similar to the earlier Maxis-published A-Train)[10] instead of overhead, land could have different elevations, and underground layers were introduced for water pipes, subways and road tunnels.
New types of facilities include prisons, schools, libraries, museums, marinas, hospitals and arcologies. Players can build highways, roads, bus depots, railway tracks, subways, train depots and zone land for seaports and airports. There are a total of nine varieties of power plants in SimCity 2000, including coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, wind turbines, hydroelectric dams (which can only be placed on waterfall tiles), solar and the futuristic fusion power and satellite microwave plants. Most types of power plants have a limited life span and must be rebuilt periodically. Players can build highways to neighboring cities to increase trade and the population.
Another new addition in SimCity 2000 is the query tool. Using the query tool on tiles reveals information such as structure name and type, altitude, and land value. Certain tiles also display additional information; power plants, for example, display the percentage of power being consumed when queried, and querying roads displays the amount of traffic on that tile. Querying a library and selecting "Ruminate" displays an essay written by Neil Gaiman.[11]
News comes in the form of several pre-written newspaper articles with variable names that could either be called up immediately or could be subscribed to on a yearly basis. The newspaper option provided many humorous stories as well as relevant ones, such as new technology, warnings about aging power plants, recent disasters and opinion polls (highlighting city problems). SimCity 2000 is the only game in the entire series to have this feature (besides the discontinued children's version, SimTown), though newer versions have a news ticker. The newspapers had random titles (Times, Post, Herald, etc.), and prices based on the simulated year. Certain newspapers have a special monthly humor advice column by "Miss Sim". Some headlines have no purpose whatsoever in the game, such as "Bald Radio Found" or "Frog Convention".
Though there is no "true" victory sequence in SimCity 2000, the "exodus" is a close parallel. An "exodus" occurs during the year 2051 or later, when 300 or more Launch Arcologies are constructed; the following January each one "takes off" into space so that their inhabitants can form new civilizations on distant worlds.[12] This reduces the city's population to those who are not living in the Launch Arcologies, but it also opens wide areas for redevelopment and returns their construction cost to the city treasury. This is related to the event in SimEarth where all cities are moved into rocket-propelled domes that then leave to "found new worlds" (leaving no sentient life behind).
Fred Haslam recalled being pitched on a sequel for SimCity at a Maxis company dinner in December 1990, just as he and Will Wright had finished SimEarth. Wright had spent five years working on the original game and did not want to work on the sequel, delegating the task to Haslam. Haslam spent the first 8 months of 1991 working on a top-down two-dimensional game. At that point, Maxis had contracted to work on the game A-Train, which used near-isometric dimetric projection to represent the landscape. Maxis decided that the SimCity sequel should also use this graphical style. Haslam spent the next year trying to accomplish this task without success, at which point Will Wright joined the team.[13]
Haslam and Wright worked together to complete the game, and each found their input complemented the other's. Haslam gives examples such as including the square grid from A-Train, which Wright then removed for the underground view. Haslam also describes how Wright wanted to add labels for locations, which Haslam also used to signify neighbour connections. Wright's other additions were arcologies, microsimulations, and the underground view. Haslam's additions included the city newspaper (in place of the 'score' from SimCity), free-size zoning, and the ability to issue bonds. Haslam coded the lists of variable terms in the newspaper headlines, with Debra Larson writing the actual newspaper articles. Other features were removed during the production process, such as zones for mining, farming and lumbering, one-way streets, and tidal waves.[13]
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