Establishing a city

Establishing a city is a critical step in the gameplay of SimCity 4. The procedure for starting a new city is as follows:

1. Start the game
2. In Region View, select a blank city to start
3. City View loads, in the pre-establishment phase sometimes referred to as God Mode because the God Mode tools are most useful at this point.
4. During this phase, the city will render (if necessary), and any God Mode terraforming can be done.
5. Establish the city by clicking on the Mayor Mode button. This brings up a screen that allows you to name the city, name the mayor, and select a difficulty level.
6. Once established, the Mayor Mode and My Sim Mode toolbars become active, and you can now develop the city. At this stage, the God Mode tools are significantly diminished. This phase of gameplay is often referred to as Mayor Mode, since those tools are most active going forward.

Establishing a city is reversible by obliterating your city, which will remove all development as well as all city information. Establishing a city also creates the savegame (.sc4) file for that city in your Regions folder if it didn't already exist (SC4Terraformer for example, creates .sc4 files when it saves a region).