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How can I or should I save my city?
My recommendation for all regions this year is to submit their entire region, via either CD or DVD to each level of the competition. If we submit the cities alone, any metrics that are dependent upon neighborhood deals - income, expenses - will change when the city is loaded into another region.

Even if the city is loaded in paused mode, the program is smart enough to notice that the surrounding cities are not there. If coordinators want to keep size down, they can submit their main city and the connecting surrounding cities, but I doubt any region is going to be bigger than 210 MB, which is the size of a mini CD, and I know they will be smaller than a 640 MB (74 min) or 700 MB (80 min) CD. Coordinators will need to plan ahead for this.

In the rules it says we need to have two connections to another city. What does this mean?
When attempting to make your 2 connections to other cities, David Davenport of the SimCity virtual committee says if your city has any neighbor deals, they need to include the connecting cities. If they don't include these connecting cities, they will lose that data and it will affect the income / expenses in their budget.

If they don't have neighbor deals, including the connecting cities is not important. What is important is that you show that you have 2 connections. In this case it can be a road that leads off the edge of your city. When you do this and query the road at the point of exit, a dialogue box will say that this is a connection to a neighboring city.


Saving a Sim City 4 Deluxe region and transfer to another computer:
When you save a Sim City 4 Deluxe region the game automatically creates a folder named Sim City 4 Deluxe on your C drive. That is where all your game files will be stored. If you want to move your region to another computer you must do the following.

1. Go to your C: Drive
2. Open "Program Files" folder
3. Open "Maxis" folder
4. Open "Sim City 4 Deluxe" folder
5. Open "Regions" folder
6. Right click and copy the region file you wish to transfer
7. Paste the region file onto your flash drive

Now insert your flash drive into the computer you want to transfer the game files to and follow these directions.

1. Go to "My Documents" folder (For Windows XP operating systems; if you are using an older version of Windows, then go to "Program Files").
2. Open the "Sim City 4 Deluxe" folder
3. Open "Regions" folder
4. Save your region into the "Regions" folder.
5. Now open the SimCity 4 Deluxe game and click the "Regions View Options" Icon, then click "Load Regions".

You should now see your region, open it up and you're ready to play.