"God Mode" may be required for Online Regions soon...

[Bulldozerman185]

In SimCity 4, released in 2003, before you establish a city, you are allowed to use the game's "God Mode" to terraform the landscape to your heart's content, raising mountains, gorging rivers, and shaping the land that will serve as the stage for the great Metropolis to come. And you're allowed to do it for free until you establish your city. Needless to say if you have a map that's mostly water, it's a very handy feature for shaping the map in a way that you can actually build a city with it before you begin plopping down roads and zoning Residential and whatnot.

In my time playing TheoTown, I couldn't help but notice a lack of this feature, which has been ESPECIALLY frustrating in Online Regions where everyone's taken up every available map except the ones that are mostly, or entirely, water. And the last time I played an Online Region, I had to watch FIFTY ADVERTISEMENTS just to get enough money to make a sizeable island to get my city started on, because I was forced to pick a map that was pretty much entirely underwater. And that was when I played on mobile. I'm on the PC version now, where ads for money don't exist anymore. So there's a pretty good bet I'll never be able to do that again.

I hate to say it guys, but with land-based maps in the popular and up-and-coming Online Region's vanishing left and right, sometimes to people who never play them again after claiming them, you're going to have to find a way for us to turn those water-based maps into usable maps as well, and I'd start with adding in SimCity 4's "God Mode", active before you establish your city and allowing you to terraform the map for free before you start building. If SimCIty 2000 could pull it off over 30 years ago, I know TheoTown can do it, too.

[Khajnagari KH 09]

Ok.

[Bulldozerman185]

Ok.

Hey, I'm serious here. It's starting to get annoying just finding a half decent map to use in Online Regions these days. Something's gotta give soon, or us PC players are going to end up just not playing Online anymore. And nobody wins when that happens.

[Khajnagari KH 09]

Why don't you make a region and get all cities in it, modify the terrain and then upload the region online?

[Bulldozerman185]

Maybe when the Urban Planning Guide is done.

[ArthurJ22]

I have done a lot of terraforming in online mode without problem, it is more tedious, yes, but it doesn't take away the fun of it.

If it is not sandbox, the tip is basic, gather 500K, place the military base with 5 missile silos, with those +50K you can start terraforming the map to your liking, and after you finish, remove the missile silos so that some failed rocket don't destroy the city.

Example of terrsforming in 5 plots in online mode, without sandbox mode.

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Final Result

And with the new plugin update of i13 Terrain Tool B by Ian much more easier now.

[Bulldozerman185]

Hmm, not bad. I'd still love to see God Mode, or some sort of pre-established city terrain editor, become a thing, since such a feature's been a staple of these sorts of games since the early 90's, but if there exists workarounds, then I guess that's acceptable.

[ArthurJ22]

In any case you can make your own Heightmap and upload them as city/region maps (instead of a seed), there is really nothing that limits you.

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Heightmap of Tributaries

Credits to Kulche.

And on the discord channel of seeds-n-maps you can find many more.

[Bulldozerman185]

I'll definitely keep that in mind. I do have some plugins on hand that can help with the process, too.