Sim City: Terrain Editor

Hi Joe, with this ittle info i can't tell what the cause could be since this never happened to me. Also read what i wrote in 2019 the Terrain Editor for the Floppy version(s) is slightly broken (but should run nonetheless). The "Quaders Release" seems to be a new upload probably you used this one? However you can check my YT account for "SimCity Classic (MS-DOS)" ;)
The config files do not contain any path only the usual switches you can use for the game.

NOTE:
The content of the config file is the same as for SimCity Classic.
SC Classic and the Terrain Editor depend on the config file.
The TerrainEditor config needs to be named "TERRAIN.CFG" (case independent) and the application must be run in its home directory! You must CD to the Editors directory else it won't find its config file.

The config is a originally binary (last character is 0x92) but it is absolutely no problem to open it with the Notepad and edit the file SC will accept it, three variations are handy for DOS-Box
EGA screenmode
"ENT1'" (EGA, No Joystick / else J, Tandy sound) EGA gives you largest editor area
"enT1'" (CGA, no joystick, Tandy sound)
"2NT1'" (MCGA, No Joystick, Tandy sound)
the function of "1" and " ' " is unknown to me but there is no difference if you leave it away (?).
There are other screenmodes possible but only of interest if you would use auch an ancient monitor (to emulate it would be posssible but do you like to run it virtual on a monochrome monitor?) the sond switch has no influence on the editor.

A possible [autoexec] section for a DOSBox.conf file:
[autoexec]
CLS
@ECHO OFF
MOUNT C "your simcity directory" NUL
C:
CD TERED
TERRAIN
EXIT

This mounts the the top level directory "your simcity directory" as C: and changes the recent directory to "TERED" (or however your terraineditor directory is named). The reason is that you have access from "TERED" to your saved city files. It requires that you have "SCClassic" and "TERED" in the same top level directory named "your simcity directory" but it could be as well your DOS games directory or any or "TERED" could be a sub-directory of "your simcity directory" just keep track of this in the autoexec section.

In general the error message "TERRAIN.CFG not found" can only mean two things:
TERRAIN isn't run in its home directory
TERRAIN.CFG is corrupted

You can use any TERRAIN.CFG as long as ENN is present in the cfg file (E = EGA, N = no joystick, N = no sound) and override the settings by using the switches of SCClassic which are:
SIMCITY (TERRAIN) [/d{E, e, 2, C, T, H, M}] [/A] [/S{N, I, T, SM}] [/J {N, G, S}]
/d Display
E EGA hi-res
e CGA lo-res
C Monochrome hi-res
T Tandy
H Hercules
M Monochrome lo-res

/A Autostart (starts simcity immediatly bypassing the selection screen)

/S Sound
N no sound
I Internal Speaker
T Tandy
SM Sound Master

/J Joystick
N no
G Gravis
S Thrustmaster

SM stands for Covox SoundMaster but i can't get it to work emulated (SC outputs an "M" after /S but that alone doesn't works "/SSM" will try to use the soundmaster but as i said it fails to recognize it). However the only sound the TerrainEditor outputs is a buzz when you i.e. try to undo when there is nothing to undo (or on similar errors) thus you can choose between a speaker buzz or a tandy buzz and if the soundmaster would work it would use a soundmaster buzz - yeah!

Btw, the same method to override the .CFG file works of course for SimCity Classic as well (the switches for SimCity 1.02 are the same).

I hope that will help you

greez commander jameson

"terrain editor configuration not found" despite there being a terrain.cfg file there, i renamed it to config.cfg with no luck, anyone know whats up?

The game isn't broken (you need to install and use it with DOSBox or a similar emulator) but unfortunately this early version has a bug. The Terrain Editor will not read or save the terrains hardness level "easy, medium, hard" which means each city in a different hardness as easy will turn to easy after you edited and saved the map with this Terrain Editor. There exist fully working ones i had two versions which do this fine the latter is the latest release of it which you can find in SimCity for Win95 (or SimCity16). I will see if i can contribute this to you because it's sad if the software won't proper work. Because i have a new Laptop and haven't had access for a while to my old stuff i searched the web for it and each version i found is identical with your release here and includes the same fault.
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A few words about the version from SimCity Win95, unlike the Game itself it's a DOS application and so far identical to the one on this floppy. Version Nr. is 1.03.
It's just not easy to get it because you will have to install "SimCity Win95" to get it and this works only with a Win95 OS (virtual or real).
Version Nr. of your upload and all others i found and still lurk around on my HD is "no version Nr." (i assume 1.0). Sure SimCity Classic won't need a separate Terrain Editor because the Editor is implemented in the Game itself (pulldown "Windows").
The only difference between the standalone version and the implemented is that you can't change the once at start chosen hardness for your city.