Valence - Tale of two cities

[acrobuddy]

   First I would like to say hello to everyone. Now I will say a little information about my first MD.
   After having done several regions, testing new stuff and getting used to working with all my custom content and dealing with other aspects with traffic and transportation, I finally think I can start a region as a MD. The region is only the size of 2x2 large tiles, only 1 large tile surrounded by medium tiles. Sorry about the edging of the tiles, always seems to happen to me when I go from sc4terraformer, also the thumbnails, normal pics wont be in thumbnails, just for the larger region shots.

   The terrain was terraformed in sc4terraformer and is a pure imagined terrain. For the region I will be using Cycledogg's Olympic Terrain mod and white sand beach from the Beach Modd by Teirusu.

As shown here :

the terrain will be two cities across the river and bay area. It is just a rough outline and I expect it to change as I play through the region.

   The idea is that I will start two cities, one on the western shore tile and another on the eastern tile, 1 tile above the coast. Built along a regional interstate I want to see how these 2 cities grow into one metropolitan region centered around the bay, which will be a major port. The cities will be 99% grown, as I don't like the idea of ploppables that much.

About the Valence Region
   The region will be mostly western style, mostly southeast US, where I am from Florida, and a mix of east Asian influence. Rail and GLR, will be used extensively as a mode of transport around the region. I use GLR as more of a commuter train then a tram system, as I'm not used to a tram system and I find GLR as main supplement to the faster, more long distant commuter rail to work great for more suburban areas.
   I don't expect to have much in the way of high-density skyscrapers, most of the region will be more tight packed medium-rise buildings around a few spots of those skyscrapers everyone loves.

   Some of my goals when I play is to make a city that is fully functional, I start tiles on hard $100,000, and take loans over money cheats when I need cash. I try to keep traffic congestion to a minimal where I can, as well as air and water pollution. I try to be as realistic as possible and keep the sims happy

Anyway, I will try to make my first real update late tonight or tomorrow after I play a bit, all comments are welcome and ideas to make the cities look better and more functional are always appreciated. I'll try my best to answer any questions as well.

-Scott

[acrobuddy]

Update 1

The first people have arrived to the Valence region, starting on the eastern seashore, what will become the Harborview historical district has been established. These people arrived to the area depending on the fertile soil and the fresh fish in the ocean to sustain wealth. This update 1 will cover what happened over the first 10 years of habitation.



Founded along Highway 102, the area started as a small community based around farmland and few commercial services for those sims traveling the highway.

Found someone flying a kite


The commercial was centered around fast food and gas for travelers




Next we will take a closer look at the shore, where the industry is housed, which primarily is focused on the shipping and transport of the fish caught in the area.

as well as waste removal to who knows where, I noticed when looking at this pic I need to go run street through the waste dock.


here is a look at some of the close quarter housing that is zoned in the area, currently I have the city to build Euro contemporary an Houston style housing.

and last the look at the areas hospital, which sits across from the local cemetery


Currently the city provides home and shelter to a little over 5200 citizens, who are employed among the various industries in this area. This tile is one the medium tiles, and next time I play I will be working across the region and starting the area of Old Valence, spending time going back and forth every so many game years, usually 10 or 20 depending on development.

This was the starting tile in the region, and I can never get them looking that great, but I try. Overtime with development and redevelopment it should start to look better. Also, if anyone has any requests of close-up or other images of the region I am happy to take requests to post.

Well cya next time when we visit the roots of Old Valence.

-Scott

[sebes]

THis is an excellent start of a new MD... I will return soon to see how it will developpe further. 

[acrobuddy]

Update 2

   The roots of Old Valence have been placed, stuck in heavy industry this area is home to the regions first rail line. The East-West Heavy Freight Line, leaves the area on the northern side and will follow the region towards the bay area and finally to the west leaving the region in the tile above the one I started on.

   The fun of this region is the slight elevation changes, they create tricky spots many times for RHW and other NAM pieces, as I use Ennedi's excellent slope mod, the medium version. MIS is the biggest pain if the terrain is almost completely level.

   This area houses after the first 10 years over 11,000 citizens in low and medium density housing.

The main area is seen here, there is another residential community to the east that isn't in this shot.


As I said industry funds this area


Of course there is also a small commercial shopping district to the east, here are 2 shots of the district




The rail line, runs in close proximity in elevation above the highway, and due to the weight of these trains, an stone embankment was built to insure the safety of the rail and highway

the rail also has an elevated overpass over a small local highway


Last we have a couple shots of the residential development, as you can see I like 1x1 residential zoning

this region is set to grow on Chicago only, of course I have plenty of custom residential that pop up

im actually trying to get rid of the red brick and have just the white brick for the region, still playing around with Jeronij's Street side mod a bit


That is it for my second update, next update will cover both areas after I play both for a bit, probably around 20 years game time each. Will go ahead and expand the freight line to its route across the region, and expand the farmland to the next tile up on the west side.

At some point I should datpack more on my plugin folder, almost to 2GB now :S and grows almost daily  I did recently solve my only crashing problem with SC4, it wasn't liking my sound card, removed and on onboard sound and all fine now until I can afford a better card. The card I was using was a creative soundblaster audigy SE :S, bought it cheap when I needed something to use when onboard died on my old motherboard -.-

Anyway, probably expect the next update Monday.

-Scott

[Tarkus]

Scott, this is an excellent start here!  I absolutely love the way you've used the RHW and MIS, and you've got a nice mixture of Maxis and Custom Content in there.  The way you've worked with that forest is quite realistic as well, I'd say.  Superb work!  I'm looking forward to seeing where you go with this.

-Alex (Tarkus)

[acrobuddy]

Update 3

First a few replies:

sebes: Thank you, and hope you drop by again

Tarkus :I try my best, although my use of MIS is basic at best, simple diamond interchanges and they are most common around where I live. The forest is also mostly just filler, as I dedicate more time the forests will mostly go away except where they really are.

Now first, about the MIS interchanges, they are as close as I could get to the common interchange here on I-75 in south Florida.

and others, where they add a single clover leaf for routes of main traffic


if the MIS could take tighter turns I would like to build interchanges like that, but this is what all of mine look like, except the new one in the large tile, I don't have any pics of it though




Now I will start this update with a region shot, with city borders, so you can see how the region is planned


As mentioned before, the Heavy freight line was built across the region. A note about my railways, because in most cases freight and commuter rail will never share the same line, only my commuter lines will have electrical wires, since my freight engines diesel powered.
When the line was built across the river, they also upgraded the seawall protection for the highway bridge.






The railway continued to "Area 3", which is where we will take our next look at region development. This area is farmland on the lowlands and undeveloped towards the highland area. I'm not best when it comes to farmland, maybe one day I can make it better, but for now this works for me, and doing all the trees is a pain too





Area 3 also became home to a large regional fire department, to cover the large area of farmland

and here are a few shots of the area covering the farmland and small township






   Now we will once again focus our attention to Area 1, where a new development has taken place to house more people as well as the region's first high school.

This is the new development



as well as I would guess the most worthless highway exit, this is positioned at about the very left edge

which shows part of a line of windmills, which take advantage of the open area and low winds for some extra power


   Now for the last part of the update, we will look at the development in "LC" or the large city. Due to high industrial demand in the region the first stage of the seaport was built, specializing in break bulk. A large trainyard was also constructed to deal with the large amounts of freight that would be arriving by train to the seaport. The seawall was also extended south to the edge of the seaport.













   That is all the pictures I have for today's update. I would like to leave this update with a few questions.
First, is there a way to stop the dirt farms from growing, just have grass, trees, plant type fields?
Second, where should the next major residential development take place? I'd like some ideas for this.
Last, I block Maxis CS$ and CS$$ from growing, as I have a enough customs to cover it, I also recently grabbed some more stuff, anything else I should block growing, such as any RS or maybe farming?

Cheers!
-Scott

[acrobuddy]

Been about a week since I last updated this. I was working on it and had did quite a bit to the main part of the city, but unfortunately my computer decided to up and die on me, lost all my data. Due to this, and the time I'm trying to get my computer back to working order, and then spending time trying to fix my plugins, it may be awhile before I do any Simcity stuff.

For now I will have this MD closed, and hopefully in the future I will be able to restart one similar or a different MD here once I'm back up and running again.

-Scott