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Cattala | Last Update: 21st November 2012

Started by ThomasK, April 09, 2011, 01:10:12 PM

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art128

Great farming areas. Reminds me the south of France.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

Props & Texture Catalog

ThomasK


Welcome back to southern Lessito, where we're continuing to follow the A25 road eastwards towards the A45 bridge. Today we're in Callavre, as we move ever closer to the end of our journey.



Callavre is a small town, like so many others in Lessito, that has hugely benefited from the improved transport connection to the economic heartland of Cattala, in the south west. Callavre now has a fast A-road connection and the South Coast Main Line link to Jennai and the rest of Lessito, speeding the distribution of goods and improving access to Roumeli and the other islands of the Ionian.



The A25 broadens as it reaches Callavre, due to the later split into the much-busier A3 and A45 roads, spreading Jennaian traffic to the northern reaches of Cape Almae and our old Lessito haunt, Ontano Island. Due to the easy access to the road from the west of Callavre, lorries and other heavy vehicles often try to navigate the tight roads of the town centre to try and reach the triple carriageway, leading to calls for a bypass or eastern access road.



Callavre is served by a small station that also acts as a hotel, competing with many local farms that rent out rooms and converted barns to tourists. Commuter trains from and to Jennai speed through the station throughout the day, although most do now stop at the station since the town has grown substantially in the last 50 years.



Here we can see a number of those farms that have sought to ply the tourist industry with their converted barns and outbuildings, some more successfully than others. The busy railway has severely affected the volume of tourists to Callavre in recent years, especially with the higher speed and more frequent trains travelling to Ontano and central Lessito. Some have countered this fall in tourism by inducing businesses to use smaller buildings as offices, benefiting from the very same thing that hurt other income-boosting ventures.



Outside of the town and away from the busy roads and railway, Callavre is much more like the rest of Lessito. The commuter enclave is surrounded by sprawling olive trees, vineyards and fields of fruits of various colours and flavours. The streams of the hills weave and flow just the same as anywhere else in rural Cattala... just a tad more managed, mind.



Pendella lies to the east of Callavre, further along the A25's edge. It sits in a narrow spit of land between the lorry-lined carriageway and the passenger-laden railway that gets narrower the closer you get to the eastern coastline.



To end today, another overview of the village, but on a summers night instead of the day. The station is open, the road's lights are glaring, but the town tries to sleep. Once it could, easily, but now, the times are different. Progress.


kelis

Great job my friend, I like so much your style, it is very mediterranean  :thumbsup:

Keep up the good work !!
.                                                                                                                      

                                                                                     || Benelux Team || Windows on the World || My Photos on Flickr || Kelis BNL Projects ||

RickD

My name is Raphael.
Visit my MD: Empire Bay (My old MD: Santa Barbara County)

ThomasK

Thank you both.


We'll be back in Lessito soon, but first, an interlude in the capital. This is the seventy-sixth update of Cattala, and the nineteenth of Celeste, so I thought it was about time I started showing some urban scenes. And here, is Aziens!



Aziens is the culmination of three decades of development and regeneration in the east of the city. Celeste was once the commanding, dominant city of Cattala but the rise of heavy industry and commerce in Jennai meant that Celeste fell into decline, and is now a third of the size of the economic powerhouse. By the 1970s, even Calora was developing and growing faster and bigger and better than the capital.



Celeste was the old face of Cattala - history, pomp, pagentry - with no place in the present. It's streets were clogged with tourists, not money-makers and businessmen. So a plan was created, to turn a former hunting ground and war-ravaged brownfield site south of the old city into a bustling modern district, a hub of sport and enterprise alike. By the mid-1980s, the Stadio di Lady Eliza was complete and the rest, is history.



Public broadcaster RMI was roped into the redevelopment, and built a brand new media park just off the main carriageway into Celeste. Light industrial warehouses hugged television studios and offices for the media elite.



RMI's brand new headquarters were finished by 1995, a mix of modern architecture and classic cubic design. The centrepiece of the multi-million lira project, RMI moved its news, television, production and radio services to the complex from their old homes spread across Calora, Jennai and Celeste.



The rest of the site was leased to international broadcasters, producers and media companies. The international media building is home to more than 20 different news channels from around the world, with many basing here due to easy road and rail access to the city centre, Calora, Jennai and all three of Cattala's major airports. There's also a good view of the modern skyline.



Aziens wouldn't have existed without the central station. Cattala's third-largest station is also a changeover point if you want to go to the north, the rest of Amosseri and is a key terminal between Jennai and Calora. The InterCity services between the three carries millions of passengers a year, more than all the other lines combined.



Next time, it's back to Lessito for the rest of our A25 journey. Here's a map of the province, showing you all the places we've been over the past 18 months. The five towns and villages in the southern island, along with San Pietro, were visited last summer and you can clearly see the route of the A25 from San Pietro to Callavre, where we left off. See you then!


nbvc


ThomasK

#186


emperordaniel: Thank you!

MarkusJ: Thanks very much for the comment, and yes it did take a fair while but the result is what I desired.

Vivapanda: Thanks, I'm glad you liked that one.

rewright: Thank you!

sim_link: Glowing at night is exactly what that was going for.

So this interlude seems to be taking a bit longer than I expected, as I've been on holiday and busy building motorways and Celeste. But don't despair, as our Lessito journey will be returning shortly.

Today we're visiting the north of Celeste, the opposite end of the city to Aziens. Vittoria is one of the three initial districts of the capital that I built in the previous incarnation of Celeste, and now it's been made bigger, better and 100% more functional than before. Here is its smaller station, Stazione di Alberto, pictured during the late evening. It's a busy little station, with many commuter trains from Vittoria, Celeste and Calora thundering past throughout the night.



Vittoria is the northernmost district of Celeste's metropolitan area, and was one of few parts of the city not to be adversely affected by the colonisation of Cattala in the 19th century. The British governor relocated the capital to Calora Harbour, then the main port of trade with the Empire. Much of Celeste fell into disrepair as the monarchy was pushed aside and wealth moved to Jennai and Calora.



It benefited from becoming a major station on the new railway line between the two main economic cities and saw substantial development as wealthy Caloran merchants and businessmen left the crowded city and wanted a quieter life in the country or the comforts of home in the Shires. Vittoria, named after the reigning Queen, boomed.



As more and more people moved in to the new town, it drew in the Celestinian, British and Caloran middle classes and caused a further depopulation of the derelict royal city and became a sprawling settlement around the railway line. In its own right, Vittoria rapidly became independent from Celeste.



In recent times, Vittoria has continued to serve as a commuter town for both Calora and the reinvigorated Celeste. As the old city expanded northwards, it was swallowed back into the capital and benefits from the faster and more frequent railway services to all three of the country's main cities. Since the 1980s, many offices have been created in Alberto Business Park, named after Victoria's consort. With easy access to the economic centres and cheaper rent Vittoria has appealed to many companies, including DHL's Cattala offices.



Corona-Sesta was developed in the post-war years, as part of a new residential boom as Cattala adjusted to life after occupation and the emergency government tried to encourage economic growth. Located in the east of the town, it benefited from the construction of the M2 motorway a few minutes drive away and its expansion in 1990.



Vittoria continues to grow even today. Suburban development and the large number of affluent city-dwellers that move to a quieter life ensures a steady stream of new residents to the town and one of the recent waves led to the creation of Meandrati, an estate that resembles more Americanised desires of modern buyers.



One of the older areas of the town is the Borough of Hannover, named after the royal house that Victoria heralded from, with a minor change in the spelling. Hannover is the wealthiest district in Vittoria and is home to Hannover Park, a controversial regeneration project that led to the demolition of a number of old buildings and replacing them with what locals described as "blue boxes". A wider redevelopment of Hannover was stopped in the Supreme Court when the local elite joined with the province's millionaires in demanding an end to the Park plan and forced developers to back down in a landmark ruling.



I hope you enjoyed learning about Vittoria's past and present and I leave you with a Hall-to-Market mosaic stretching across the town. Thank you for visiting Cattala.


rooker1

Very nice pics after the five minute wait for them to load. 
Please remember to post your pics as jpg....please change these as soon as you can.

Robin
Call me Robin, please.

ThomasK


Welcome to Cattala. Today is a huge milestone for this journal and that's why we're returning to the capital. Over the past 88 updates, more than a quarter have been Celeste updates so I thought it would be fitting to have a general view of all areas of the ever-growing City of Kings. We'll be back in Cressa again shortly.

Since Cattala began one of the most audacious projects I've done is the rebuilding of Celeste. In the New Year it became clear that the way I was creating my cities was taking its toll on my game and the ability for me to update. I started anew with Cattala then, and growing most of my cities has been the priority. For example, Vittoria...



In the north of Celeste, Vittoria is my first fully-functioning, modern Anglicised town. The original Victoria was empty, lifeless. Now Celeste's suburban neighbour is a thriving town of not just imperial sprawl, but modern homes and construction and industry.



Vittoria is it's own, individual town, with it's own Council and its own style. Not a dominion of Celeste, but a defining part of its character.



The capital has evolved from a city for the aristocracy into a vibrant hub of trade, politics, transport and most of all, people.



Its history still has an important role though. Celeste is the most popular city with tourists, thanks to its historic Citadel and architecture that breaks the Mediterranean mould. There's no Colosseum but having an active monarchy with dozens of palaces sure makes up for that. Anyway, Cattala's history didn't stop with the Romans.



France and Britain extensively adapted this country. A small island kingdom had to find support from overseas and the centuries of trade and cooperation with the Great Powers means Celeste is more of a melting pot of all of Europe. You can find traces of Paris, London and Milan around every corner.



In the original Celeste, the city had barely changed since 1820. This year I've developed it much further forward, with modern skyscrapers and plenty of glass and steel dominating the skyline now. Functioning transport and even sports have finally been given a role in Cattala and make the continued growth of my cities in-game even easier in the long term.  Plus they make half decent images too.



There's been a lot of development and evolution in this journal over the past two years. Cattala is a constantly changing region and part of this journal's philosophy has been that if I don't like something or someone spots something that's a bit odd, it gets changed. It's this flexibility that has ensured Cattala is always becoming better and never staying the same.
The proof, though, is in the pudding. Cue Update 1: An Introduction!








731 days, 88 updates and several revamps later we arrive at today's Cattala...



This has been the longest Cattala update in history, and I hope you enjoyed it, and the past two years, as much as I have.

Thomas

ThomasK


Buongiorno and welcome back to you all. Those celebrations left the journal with a bit of a hangover so apologies for the delay in getting a new update. Over the coming weeks and into January these entries will become more sparse as I have exams just after New Years. But we've got something a bit different in store today!

The Cressa roadworks are still ongoing and have now over run. Trust contractors at your peril!



Instead we'll head down a country lane, which was once an important link between Jennai and the villages and towns of the north of Monte Calida. This road has existed for centuries, carrying travellers and traders to the north coast through the rocky mountains that split the island down the middle. But now, a modern motorway has destroyed hundreds of years of travel and the communities that relied on this trade route for their livelihood. One of these, is Errosan.



Errosan was a humble hamlet, with a small wind turbine on the hill providing the electricity that its residents needed. Now it sits abandoned, with the wind running through the blades harmlessly. Not an ounce of power trickles into the houses anymore.



Even the lifeblood of the hamlet has dried up and closed now. Errosan was the only village with a petrol station for dozens of miles and its owners grew wealthy off the trade and tourism that it bought in. They've all left now - the pumps are coated in dust and there's not a car in sight.



For as long as anyone's great-grandmother could remember the village had been a bustling thoroughfare. It didn't rely, like the villages of Lessito in the western valleys, on farming and tourists for its livelihood. Even twenty years ago, the hamlet was busy with traffic and people and life. So what changed?



The village was reliant on the road. But when Monte Calida's M5 motorway was completed in 1994, the traffic was diverted to the state-of-the-art new fast road and very few cars ever drove through Errosan any more.



As time passed, the businesses closed and the people left. Now, nothing remains but the relics of a bygone era. All you need from this hamlet any more is a map out.


ThomasK

#190

Buongiorno and welcome back. This could be the last update for a while because I have my exams soon and the time it's taking to do updates is not sustainable at the moment. But nevertheless I hope you enjoy this update.

Today we're starting in Celeste, the capital. We've seen this station many times before but this time we're starting our journey from it, and we'll be heading a bit further than Aziens and Alder Hill.



Celeste station is one of the busiest in the country and is a terminus for many northern and south-eastern rail services. The redevelopment of Aziens over the past fifty years means that as you enter the city, you're surrounded by sparkling skyscrapers and office towers.



It's also a busy junction between Calora and Jennai, so Celeste station is always busy with passengers, trains and the odd pigeon as well.



Further north, the InterCity line takes a direct route north towards Calora. This stretch of line is the oldest in the country and encompasses Vittoria and the southern suburbs of the colonial capital.



The InterCity line, a triangular network of lines linking Celeste, Calora and Jennai, was formed in the 1980s after major track upgrades and the introduction of faster trains meant that now slower, suburban trains could be bypassed by fast trains operating direct services between the major cities. Journey times were reduced significantly. There are now proposals to upgrade the network again to high speed rail.



But upgrading the InterCity network could draw funds away from the other National Lines, like the Northern Line between Calora and Seina. More rural routes outside the main cities could lose crucial investment in better infrastructure and faster trains if the focus is on the urban lines. Villages like Larito, in Monte Calida, depend on the railway for a fast, reliable service to the cities and towns elsewhere in the country.



To build up to 100 updates of Cattala, over the next ten entries we'll be going down memory lane. Today, we're in Seina. Seina was part of the original 4Cities proposal for Cattala, and was meant to form my natural growth area, inspired by CSGDesign's Boston and emgmod's Illu'a. Seina grew into a large town but was a victim of my transfer from desktop to laptop. It was an important part of the journal but whether or not it will return again is unknown.



Thanks for watching, and see you again soon!

Swordmaster

These look nice, but it would have been helpful if you had actually read Robin's comment.

Quote from: rooker1 on August 30, 2012, 10:12:15 AM
Very nice pics after the five minute wait for them to load. 
Please remember to post your pics as jpg....please change these as soon as you can.

Robin

Cheers
Willy