Hi @Lizstar and other SimCity 2000 runners!

@beerfullofbelly and I were taking a look at some mechanics tonight and discovered/tested a few things.

I've been loading up a Scenario map to move the river location to the coast in my runs. This doesn't really save any time, it just offloads the RNG to whatever mountains and lakes would normally generate in place of the river. On average it allows for a few more good runs per map load and ensures that the River doesn't screw ya 10 times in a row and you throw your mouse at the wall.

However, editing the map ratios on the edit screen ALSO similarly affects the generation RNG. Using this, you can edit the map to be nearly flat and have almost no water. As @beerfullofbelly put it, this kinda feels dirty to do. I personally agree and kinda like the minimizing clearing time to building time pressure this puts on a run. It's pretty easy to see when this is done as the ratios are displayed on map generation, luckily, so assuming we don't want people doing this, it would be relatively easy to spot an invalid run. This might be appropriate for Glitched runs though, as it seems the intent is more "anything goes"!

Another thing of note is that most if not all of the DOS runners are using GoG.com version of SimCity 2000 DOS. This version sets the DOSBOX emulation to 20k CPU cycles fixed. Setting this game to MAX cycles makes things run much slower, but there is actually a sweet spot at around 300k cycles that doubles the game speed in certain areas. I kinda feel like this goes against the spirit of the current meta. No one likes to win simply due to load times. Luckily, again, this is very easy to spot. A normal series of months takes about 12.25 to 12.5 seconds to pass (minus any popup menus) and it's very noticeable if you time the months. Again, maybe something for the glitched category.

Another concern to this is the fact that a real machine running DOS could potentially be as fast or faster than 300k cycles DOSBOX. No idea how to handle that one. Maybe it just isn't feasible to limit things by DOSBOX cycle settings.

So I guess we're just wondering what everyone thinks on the legality of the following:

• Moving the river by loading a scenario.
• Use of Map Editor to edit water/land RNG.
• Use of CPU cycles other than the GoG.com defaults.
• Runs on actual DOS that are faster than the emulated runs.

For the record, I wouldn't mind if moving the river is banned. I'd be happy to remove my runs and redo them! Anything that gets me playing more SimCity 2000 is fine by me!

I've actually been running on the Origin version of 2000 DOS. This version has DOSBOX set to 20K cycles as well, I'm not sure if there are any differences though. As for the legalities, I say we allow scenario loading. It puts us all on a level playing field rather than having to endlessly cycle through random maps. And I agree with you two, editing map ratios does feel too easy.

I totally forgot the Origin version existed. I have it (don't ask why >_< ) and can confirm as of last night that it's essentially the same files with the same DOSBOX settings. That said, at one point, Origin and GoG could have had way different settings or files due to how updates work on these platforms. Don't really think it's worth controlling what versions people use at this point anyways (or ever really) though.

Okay, so after some testing on an actual DOS laptop and a DOS Virtual machine, it does look like higher processor speeds to make Date transitions move faster. You can emulate this in DOSBox by setting the configuration to run the game at around 200k to 300k cycles. Basically the equivalent of an 833Mhz Pentium 3 is the cutoff for performance gains - much beyond that and the game accumulates a bunch of interface lag in too many places, and the Date transitions go slower.

I've known about this behavior in DOSBox for a while but haven't had a chance to test on real DOS until now.

Given that we can get this to happen on real hardware, and it's easy to configure, it's hard to argue against it's use in runs, but please feel free to voice concerns!

a few points: the start frame in Dos should really be when the button is released (not pushed), as the game cannot progress until release (especially if timing to the millisecond).

also, having to reroll map rng was always (a very tedious) part of this game. modding should not really be used in the main categories, it's changing default game behavior and effectively using a different set of rules to which we all ran with. editing might be appropriate for an Any% category, and does keep things fresh. having them together in a single category seems unfair.

optimal or recommended settings are a good idea, perhaps something specific should be mentioned in the rules with a mini-guide ?

The start frame sounds reasonable enough. I'll have to see if we can get some sort of common visual cue on that in the current runs.

I agree on the map reroll personally. I've recently discovered that the MAKE button on the map edit screen resets the seed every time which tends to give you slightly better chances than just pressing New City. It probably should be legal to use so long as you show the full generation per attempt to confirm no cheating since it's the easiest way to reset the seed beyond constantly quitting and reloading the game.

How do you feel (and others feel free to chime) in on the river/coast switch? Since it doesn't change the fundamental RNG and it's a part of the game's generation algorithm that you can access, it seems like it's fair game to me. Though we probably should specify that you must have at least 1 river or coast.

If anything we should probably be promoting things that make this ~1 minute or less run less tedious so long as we can ensure a fair playing field!

Though it is interesting to note that some of the versions, notably SNES, has no map generator and one of the choices is entirely flat. If we ever add more game versions that'd be something to account for.

I like the idea of making glitched into an anything goes category. Sounds fun to me!

And yeah, I plan on making the rules (and a guide to them) a bit more clear soon. Just want to make sure everyone is on the same page about what they should be. =P

If there's any interest in running one of the many versions of this game on a console not specified yet, please also feel free to mention here! I have a semi competitive run of this on SNES done but I feel like it doesn't need a board if it's only me. I know for some seeing an empty Category is a motivator though.

we really shouldn't be going near the edit screen for a speedrun, it leaves the door open to too many interpretations and arbitrary rules that have to be defined, as we can see here.

if you're really keen on using edit mode just to get a seed, without actually terraforming (just using sliders and make), then maybe that's a category. flat map perhaps it's own category entirely, or some combination of the two.

changing the course of a river is a heavy edit, and should probably be part of a timed run if it's to make any sense. you might as well just run flat map, though.

you might get some interest in the Snes version, why not try ?

Only problem is, you can load a scenario and move the river to the coast and change seed RNG as well in this. We could outlaw the edit mode, but it would still be possible to do what I mentioned through game mechanics, and it'd be difficult to definitively rule that someone had or hadn't loaded a scenario at some point.

Just banning edit mode won't solve the need for at least some complicated rules.

The end goal is partly to make it so that we don't have to try to determine all of this retroactively, which would probably be impossible. Luckily, we can see the map generation values every time the New City loads, the Make button is pressed, and loading a scenario does not change the default Water, Hills, and Trees values for RNG, only the map seed.

I'll do a video demonstration of this later today to show what I mean. The main take away is, the base land defaults aren't changed via either MAKE or Scenario loads.

having had a chance to try out this edit mode :

-there is effectively no way to know if a user used edits, if they choose not to show it. -enforcing edit screen to be visible, and using MAKE button is only way to implement it. -what we'd been running with up until a few months ago seems to match default options when you first go into edit screen (shown below). -spamming MAKE is a great way to get new maps, compared to what we had to do. -can repeat maps, just pressing edit map & done. *not sure I like this.

we can enforce use of the MAKE button to get round repeating. but adjusting parameters seems to be going into cheating territory, effectively removing terraforming with no skill involved. unless we set a 'less tedious' limit on what we can change.

[default parameters:]

COAST disabled RIVER enabled Hills: 4 Water: 2 Trees: 5

So here's what I mean:

(Wife joking about 2020 being terrible included!)

And yeah, I guess the point is we probably want folks to show the map generation values one way or another from now on, as that is the quickest way to prove nothing's been cheated. Make button would have to be pressed as just using the map you just did a run on leaves it in an edited state.

By the Terrian Generator popup window that flashes up whenever a map is generated, the correct values for a default map are:

Hills 25% Water 10% Trees 31%

I also highlight the scenario loads here and how they throw a wrench into things by allowing you to move the river to the coast, but not ever eliminate either. Another point to be made is that the river/coast mechanic is clearly something the developers intended the RNG engine to make use of. It is rather balanced and so long as MAKE is used for more variable seeds, there might be little benefit to coast over river in reality.

that was a good video, thanks for uploading !

edit mode is certainly more enjoyable. the default parameters are the same as before (except we're running Coastal), but there seem to be less repeated patterns than I remember (little sections repeated / rotated etc.).

as we're changing a parameter, it's still a different setup to the old way. I'm inclined to say we just continue like this though, enforce pressing MAKE. as it's easy to misclick and adjust the sliders, having the slider values for reference might be useful too.

From a Quality of Life standpoint yeah, just makes more sense.

Just as a follow up, I had a chance to take a look at all the current runs and it's clear we can see a demarcation when the button is released at many different cycle speeds. Either the button itself is visible or more commonly the first frame where the window begins to disappear on higher cycles makes it easy to tell. So I think it's pretty obvious that the timing should start there as @Arran suggested.

This, timing ending on the first frame where the paper is fully visible, having the map generation within the submission video, and allowing the use of MAKE and having at least 1 River/Coast seems to be all we need to define in terms of rules!

I should have time to spruce things up and add to the board next weekend. Let me know if there's anything you'd like me to add or clarify! I'll be doing up a How to on changing the cycles for speedrunning on the DOSBOX config then as well.