A DLL Plugin for SimCity 4 that allows the game to use more than 4 building styles.
This DLL mod is intended as a dependency for other mods that add new building styles beyond the 4 that Maxis included, it does not add any building styles to the game by itself.
Maxis programmed the Building Style Control UI to only recognize the check boxes of the 4 built-in styles, no matter how many check boxes are actually present. This mod patches the game's memory to remove that restriction.
Adding new style check boxes requires creating a patch that overrides the default
Building Style Control UI, TGI 0x00000000,0x96a006b0,0x6bc61f19 in SimCity_1.dat.
After creating the patch you need to edit the UI to add more check boxes, or use the BuildingStyles.ini file with a
suitable Building Style Control UI template.
The check box or style ID (e.g. 0x2003) identifies the building style to the game.
The building style IDs are assigned in the SimCity 4 Building Styles Index thread, you will need to use the
16 Maxis/community styles or request your own public and/or private building style ID range in that thread.
Finally you will need to update existing buildings to use the new building style IDs.
This property allows the custom building styles to be specified separately from the Maxis styles in the Occupant Groups property (0xAA1DD396).
The Building Styles property is optional for custom building style support in residential and commercial buildings.
When the property is present, the building will use custom styles specified in the property and ignore
the styles in the Occupant Groups property (0xAA1DD396).
When the property is not present, the building will use the custom and Maxis styles specified in the
Occupant Groups property (0xAA1DD396).
The Building Styles property is mandatory for custom building style support in industrial buildings.
When the property is present, the building will use custom styles specified in the property.
When the property is not present, the building will be treated as compatible with all styles.
The DLL supports an optional check box that will automatically mark new growable lots that use building styles as historical.
Industrial buildings are only marked as historical if industrial building styles are enabled for that building type.
This check box uses the reserved id value 0x9476D8DA.
The DLL supports an optional check box that will automatically convert plopped growables to use a growable zone type.
The growified lots will be marked as historical based on the value of the Auto-Historical check box described above.
This check box uses the reserved id value 0xB510A368.
The DLL supports optional radio buttons that control how the game handles W2W buildings. The 3 radio buttons are as follows:
Mixed, both W2W and non-W2W buildings will be built. This is SC4's default behavior, and will also be used if the radio buttons are not present. This radio button uses the reserved id value 0x31150389.
W2W Only, only W2W buildings will be built. This radio button uses the reserved id value 0x3115038A.
Block W2W, no W2W buildings will be built. This radio button uses the reserved id value 0x3115038B.
W2W buildings are identified using either of the following methods.
This is a Boolean property, a value of true indicates that the building is W2W. If the value is false or the property is not present, the building will not be considered W2W.
If the building has any of the following values in its Occupant Groups property (0xAA1DD396), it indicates that the building is W2W.
BTE: Ind. W2W: 0xD02C802E
BTE: Comm. W2W: 0xB5C00A05
BTE: Res. W2W: 0xB5C00B05
BTE: W2W General: 0xB5C00DDE
SFBT: Hamburg W2W: 0xB5C00F0A
SFBT: Paris W2W: 0xB5C00F0B
The DLL supports an optional check box that stops the game from changing the user's zoned lot size in residential and commercial zones to fit the lot it picks. This check box combines the functionality of the Disable Lot Aggregation and Disable Lot Subdivision check boxes into a single control.
When this option is enabled, it forces SC4 to only pick residential and/or commercial lots which have sizes matching
the zoned area.
When this option is disabled (the default), SC4 will use its standard behavior of aggregating or subdividing the
residential and commercial zones to fit its chosen lot.
This check box uses the reserved id value 0x3621731B.
The DLL supports an optional check box that stops the game from aggregating multiple smaller lots into one larger lot in residential and commercial zones to fit the lot it picks.
When this option is enabled, it forces SC4 to only pick residential and/or commercial lots which are the same size
or smaller than the zoned area.
When this option is disabled (the default), SC4 will use its standard behavior of aggregating the residential and
commercial zones to fit its chosen lot.
This check box uses the reserved id value 0x102.
The DLL supports an optional check box that stops the game from subdividing one larger lot into multiple smaller lots in residential and commercial zones to fit the lot it picks.
When this option is enabled, it forces SC4 to only pick residential and/or commercial lots which are the same size
or larger than the zoned area.
When this option is disabled (the default), SC4 will use its standard behavior of subdividing the residential and
commercial zones to fit its chosen lot.
This check box uses the reserved id value 0x103.
The DLL supports an optional check box that attempts to prevent the game from replacing an existing lot with one
that has a different building style.
This check box uses the reserved id value 0x104.
The DLL supports optional check boxes that allow the user to change whether the game will kick out lower wealth occupants when redeveloping. These check boxes come in two versions that have the opposite behavior when checked, the UI developer can pick which one to use.
This check box will allow the game to kick out lower wealth occupants when checked, and prevent that behavior when
unchecked. This check box uses the reserved id value 0x100.
This check box will prevent the game from kicking out lower wealth occupants when checked, and allow that behavior when
unchecked. This check box uses the reserved id value 0x101.
The plugin provides the following cheat codes:
ActiveStyle shows an in-game message box with the ID of the currently active style when
Change building style every N years is selected. When Build all styles at once is selected, using this cheat will
display a message saying that mode is active.
DebugActiveStyles writes the currently enabled style IDs to the plugin's log file.
This file allows styles to be defined without editing the Building Style Control UI file. When the check box button ids for the Building Style Control are in the range of 0-127, these ids can be mapped to a specific style and style name in BuildingStyles.ini.
The style entries are placed under a BuildingStyles section and use the following format:
<UI button id> = <style id>,<style text format>[,<style name>]
<UI button id> is a style check box id in the range of 0-127.
<style id> is the building style id assigned in the Building Style Index, or
the text Show (case-insensitive) to display a disabled placeholder check box.
<style text format> is one of the following values: N (normal text) or B (bold text).
<style name> is optional, when present it uses one of the following formats:
<name> or CaptionRes:<LTEXT group id>,<LTEXT instance id>.
If <style name> is not present, a default name will be used.
Examples:
0 = 0x2005,B,Mediterranean & Tropical
1 = 0x2006,N,CaptionRes:0x6a231eaa,0x6bbbd875
2 = Show,N,Placeholder Check Box
3 = Show,B
This file contains settings that control whether the growable debug logging code will write to the plugin's log file. It is recommended that you only enable these options for experimentation. They will slow down your game and quickly produce a large log file.
As an example from one of my tests, a 22 second run with the BuildingStyleSelection and LotStyleSelection options enabled produced a ~2 MB log file with ~15,500 lines.
This DLL provides several types for use by other DLL plugins, see the documentation for more details.
The plugin can be downloaded from the Releases tab: https://github.com/0xC0000054/sc4-more-building-styles/releases
- SimCity 4 version 641
- Windows 10 or later
The plugin may work on Windows 7 or later with the Microsoft Visual C++ 2022 x86 Redistribute installed, but I do not have the ability to test that.
- Close SimCity 4.
- Copy SC4MoreBuildingStyles.dll, SC4MoreBuildingStyles.ini and BuildingStyles.ini into the top-level of the Plugins folder in the SimCity 4 installation directory or Documents/SimCity 4 directory.
- Start SimCity 4.
The plugin should write a SC4MoreBuildingStyles.log file in the same folder as the plugin.
The log contains status information for the most recent run of the plugin.
This project is licensed under the terms of the MIT License.
See LICENSE.txt for more information.
gzcom-dll Located in the vendor folder, MIT License.
EABase Located in the vendor folder, BSD 3-Clause License.
EASTL Located in the vendor folder, BSD 3-Clause License.
Windows Implementation Library - MIT License
SC4Fix - MIT License.
Frozen - Apache 2.0 License.
Boost.Algorithm - Boost Software License, Version 1.0.
Boost.PropertyTree - Boost Software License, Version 1.0.
- Visual Studio 2022
- Open the solution in the
srcfolder - Update the post build events to copy the build output to you SimCity 4 application plugins folder.
- Build the solution
Visual Studio can be configured to launch SimCity 4 on the Debugging page of the project properties.
I configured the debugger to launch the game in a window with the following command line:
-intro:off -CPUcount:1 -w -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32
You may need to adjust the resolution for your screen.