Empire Bay: Green Meadows

[threestooges]

I was afraid you'd say it was done in the LE. Any chance you'd be willing to pass the file along? Either way, it's one of the better ferry lots I've seen.

As for this update, you found the perfect fit for Maxis highways, and made them look good. Time will tell how much of a benefit they will provide, and also how much of a burden as they have now cut borders through sections of the city. The LA area here in Southern CA has a number of those older freeways too, and indeed they aren't suited for modern day traffic. They are kind of fun to drive on though as, at least around LA, they're built in and around the hills, which leads to some fun curves and looming bridges/overpasses. The biggest issues facing them, I think, are a lack of land to widen them, and such heavy use that maintenance is difficult if not impossible without major traffic disruptions. Then again, traffic downtown is always a bit of a mess. Always good to see an update here Raphael.
-Matt

[Dantes]

Your capital in the region is growing. Your w2w is great and the Skyway is very well thought out. My favorite is the first image. On the picture you can see that it's not even there so fantastic places. 

It has great charm. 

[RickD]

Hi all,

sorry I was not able to post an update or attend the Forum much lately and I probably won't for another couple of weeks. I just quickly wanted to wish Merry Christmas to all of you who are celebrating it and A Happy New Year to everyone.

Here is a little teaser of what you will see in the next full update:

[noahclem]

Beautiful overview Raphael    Looks like the center is really taking off. Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to you as well!

[Jeroentje]

It's amazing! I love to see the highrise coming up!

Merry Christmas to you too as well! And a happy and creative 2013!

[metarvo]

This is a superb night view, Raphael!    The streetlight mods you must be using add a lot to these far zoom shots.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

[Swordmaster]

Fantastic night shot, buddy. Happy Holidays!


Cheers
Willy

[art128]

Merry Christmas and happy New year to you too, Raphael!

Wonderful picture you showed to us. The CBD seems like a lovely place, can't wait to see more if it!

[threestooges]

That is gorgeous right there. I've seen many city centers in SC4 (even attempted a few myself, but the less said about those the better) and this picture here is one of the best I've seen. The density shifts fluidly throughout the area, and everything just seems to fit together perfectly. It also feels like there is a sense of growth over time in the area too; that things filled in as opposed to being built all at once. Very nice work.
-Matt

[MTT9]

What a great overview Raphael! I'm a bit surprised that the CBD isn't near the waterfront. Would you mind telling me why you chose to place it inland?

Merry christmas and happy new year to you too

[sunv123]

I hope that you had wonderful Christmas! Frohe Weihnachten!

The skyline looks great!

[Kergelen]

Wonderful night overview

[benedict]

Stunning view of the city. I'm guessing that is the main railway station in the center? Really looking forward to seeing more aspects of it.

[sim_link]

A great overview of the city - the downtown area looks like is is taking off nicely. Hope you've been enjoying your holidays and a happy (early) new years to you as well.

[Dantes]

A successful night photo, a great overview of your city. 

Fantastic work again 

[solsystem]

Amazing night pic, wonderful! 

[marsh]

     You put a lot of effort and detail into not just your vast mass transit networks, but the city's beauty itself; I love it. Things like that small market on that skimpy street really do a lot for the lore of the city. A thing I dislike about turning cities into massive metropolis's is you start to miss the finer details within the city. The small streets and quaint neighborhoods, and get focused on the big picture. I myself suffered from this but so far you're doing an amazing job on showcasing those small things, probably from focusing so well on the transportation networks. Sometimes, I admit, I ignore the main focus of your picture (Eg the Tram) and find myself just observing the surrounding structures.

Yes the maxis highway was a perfect choice. The only thing I dislike about elevated networks is the bare earth underneath, though conveniently the buildings hide that. I know of some mods for say, El rail, but that's it. In the future you'll have to Ixnay that and start a massive urban renewal project. Should prove a great update. I remember asking a lot of questions about the big dig; My dad was a civil engineer on the Central Artery when we used-to live back in Boston.

Anyways, enough of that. Empire Bay is expanding very fast, and Jacksonville gives me the lure of a small midwestern farming town, which for some reason I love when pulled off in Sim City. I'll be sure to check in to see what the future holds.

,marsh

[Schulmanator]

Great picture! Very nice! Happy new year!

[dedgren]

...the highway to Farpoint Ferry...

How incredibly evocative when said while looking at the fantastic pic.  I know, I know- I'm behind here a bit.  But I'll certainly enjoy catching up.

Happy New Year, Raphael!


David

[RickD]

Empire Bay is back after a badly needed hiatus. I ran out of ideas and motivation and when some real life problems came up I just needed to take a break from Sim City and several other things.
It was a great "vacation", though. I finally got around to finish some Xbox 360 games that were piling up and I could enjoy the new DLCs for Train Simulator 2013.
Last but not least, on New Year's Eve I asked my girlfriend to marry me. To my utter surprise of course she said yes. 

Scraping the Sky

In the few years since the Grand Central Terminal and the Crosstown Skyway were built, the face of the city, once again, has changed dramatically.

33.1

Empire Bay is no longer dominated by countless factory smokestacks. The new skyline is formed by several impressive skyscrapers.

33.2

The once dilapidated area between the central station in the north and the skyway in the south is now the new Central District. The soil here consists of hard rock, making it possible to build skyscapers.

33.3


33.4

The largest skyscrapers line up along Broadway.

33.5

This is Empire Bay's new courthouse. In the past, the Empire Mining Corporation had the sole authority in the region due to a contract they made with Simnation's government. But since the contract will expire in 15 years and probably won't be extended, step by step the authority is being transferred to the Simnation government. The days of corporate court-martials are gone. Finally, justice is coming to Empire Bay.
Dang, another Palm Tree. Sorry about that, I think I managed to repair the no palms mod after I took this picture.

33.6

There is quite some competition about who builds the highest tower.

33.7

Empire Bay is now home to the four largest buildings in Simnation. The Empire Bay Building is even the largest in the world.

33.8

To the right is the Empire Mining Corporation's headquarter. It has been the highest building for only three months. Then it was topped by the Empire Bay Building to the left, which is currently the highest building in the world.

33.9

There are not only office towers in the Central District but also many residential apartment buidlings. The limited space on Empire Island and in the region makes real estate extremely expensive. In the long term, the city can only grow up, not out.

33.10

The Mercantile Building is a massive shopping complex on Federation Avenue. On its 372.000 m² (4,000,000 square feet) of floor space it houses over a dozen department stores plus hundreds of individual businesses. It is one of the largest buildings in the world today.

33.11

The top of the Empire Mining Building over Griffin Park.

33.12


33.13

Railroad Avenue here is the divider between the Central District and Old Town. In the picture you can see the Grand Central Terminal and the market halls.

33.14

Here you can see Old Town with its piers and waterfronts, and the Central District with its skyscrapers. Then there is the inner harbor with its two basins, east harbor and west harbor. The Ajax Steelworks is still the biggest employer in the city.
Due to the unstable soil in the lower areas, no skyscrapers can be built in Old Town.

33.15




Replies:

art128, Swordmaster, Earwhyckque, Kitsune, WannGLondon, nbvc, sunv123, Jeroentje, samerton, io_bg, solsystem, apeguy, Ricky112233, benedict, solsystem, bat, threestooges, Dantes, metarvo, Kergelen, sim_link, Schulmanator, dedgren:
Thank you all for the comments. I really thought I would get more beating for using the Maxis Highway. Now I am surprised that so many seem to like it. Come on, you can be honest with me.

I really thought I commented on the last update as I liked it very much! All kinds of great elements and transport coming together into a beautiful update. In this update I understand that you were going for the effect of a very early network of freeways but I don't know that freeways were ever built with lanes as narrow or turns as sharp as MHW features. You are among the greats of SC4 highway builders so I guess I'm holding you to a higher standard    Looking forward to what's next 

EDIT: I really should add that for the tools you were using you created a very good look. Those kind of old W2W brick buildings and industrial estates are exactly what the view looks like from the inner, cramped portions of the freeways of cities like Milwaukee and Chicago 

Thanks for your thoughts on this, Noah. I understand your resentments against the MHW.
I agree about the sharp turns, the problem with the smooth turns is that it is even harder to cover up the green underneath. It would visually destroy my cramped downtown look.
Concerning the lane width, I do not fully agree with you. There are real world examples of extremely narrow lanes. Just look at the FDR Drive in NYC in Streetview: http://goo.gl/maps/gQMmk Granted, I have not measured the lane width but to me this looks very close to the MHW. That truck barely fits in the middle lane! The RHW is definitely way too wide to resemble this.

Anyway. Long story short, I made my choice and the MHW will be there for a while.

Nice update. It was quite a surprise that you used MHW, but it makes a lot of sense. I look foward to whatever problems that kind of networks brings and how you will deal with those.

The low left corner of 32.1 seams like Empire Bay is about to expand quite a lot... and i love it!

Whoops, that was for testing purposes only. I forgot to remove it. Thank you, though.

I did not expect something like this looking good, when done with Maxis highways. It does fit well in between tightly packed buildings and it also looks good. Are you going to ad some more parking space? That would go visually hand in hand with the new highway.

32.6: Palms look a bit strange in your mountainous region. You could consider a mod to change them to something more fitting.

I am anxious to see how the story of this region continues.

- Ilja 

Thank you. Parking lots are a great idea. The palms, well, it looks like my no palms mod stopped working for some reason. I hope I have resolved it now. Thanks for making me aware of this and let me know if you see another one of those nasty things in the future. There definitely shouldn't be palm trees in Empire Bay.

What a great overview Raphael! I'm a bit surprised that the CBD isn't near the waterfront. Would you mind telling me why you chose to place it inland?

It would have been the obvious choice to place the CBD near the waterfront, wouldn't it? Well, the ingame explanation is that the wet soil near the coast can not support such large buildings whereas the inner island is made of solid rock.
The real reason is, that I have created so many nice little details in old town that I did not want to destroy it just yet.

     You put a lot of effort and detail into not just your vast mass transit networks, but the city's beauty itself; I love it. Things like that small market on that skimpy street really do a lot for the lore of the city. A thing I dislike about turning cities into massive metropolis's is you start to miss the finer details within the city. The small streets and quaint neighborhoods, and get focused on the big picture. I myself suffered from this but so far you're doing an amazing job on showcasing those small things, probably from focusing so well on the transportation networks. Sometimes, I admit, I ignore the main focus of your picture (Eg the Tram) and find myself just observing the surrounding structures.

Yes the maxis highway was a perfect choice. The only thing I dislike about elevated networks is the bare earth underneath, though conveniently the buildings hide that. I know of some mods for say, El rail, but that's it. In the future you'll have to Ixnay that and start a massive urban renewal project. Should prove a great update. I remember asking a lot of questions about the big dig; My dad was a civil engineer on the Central Artery when we used-to live back in Boston.

Anyways, enough of that. Empire Bay is expanding very fast, and Jacksonville gives me the lure of a small midwestern farming town, which for some reason I love when pulled off in Sim City. I'll be sure to check in to see what the future holds.

,marsh

Thank you, marsh. I appreciate your thoughts. You raise a good point with the danger of neglecting the details when getting crazy about huge buildings. I will certainly keep this in mind. As I mentioned to MTT9 above, this is one reason why I chose the location for the high rises there instead of demolishing the old town with all the nice little details.
I totally agree about the green spaces under the networks. It would be so great if there was a mod to add concrete or parking lots under the elevated networks. The green grass can really ruin the big city feel. I tried to hide it as best as I could.