Adara - Update 184 - March 26, 2012

[Battlecat]

Vivien (Earth quake): Thanks for stopping in!  I do like how 53-9 turned out as well, it's amazing how much of a difference trees make!  Glad you like how it all came together!

Ethan (ecoba): Thanks for your enthusiasm!  I've got the housing style selector set for switching on 5 year intervals, it helps keep the maxis homes that inevitably develop from getting to monotonous!  The commercial building on the left in 53-9 is indeed on of Simgoobers lots, the one on the right is a historical gas station by dk1 and can be found here on the STEX. 

Glad you like the results on that clear cut.  I would prefer to use the dirt streets for this as well, except for the problem of my slope mod!  Logging roads tend to be quite steep, and the streets as they are in my game have a fairly shallow slope limit.  I think I might be able to craft an alternative solution to this issue though.  It'll probably take a bit of time though, it'll just have to go on the pile with all the other great ideas I just haven't had time to actually mod into existence yet!  Thanks for the inspiration! 

Dreamcat: Yeah, if you haven't noticed by now, I love using trees in this game. Ever since cycledogg released his set, I never get tired of putting them on my maps!  Thanks!

djvandrake: That was my goal, it's amazing how much development you can hide with these large trees! 

Tomas Neto: Thanks very much for your kind words!

Zack (woodb3kmaster): That's a good name for this development type.  And actually now that I think about it, it's probably the accurate technical turn as well.  Exurbs are incredibly common in my region, and many of them do look a lot like the ones I've built!  Some of them are even lower density than what I've created.  Thanks for commenting and for providing the appropriate term! 

kwakelaar: Glad you're enjoying the effect, I'm actually really pleased about the diversity of the development styles that I've managed to create on this tile!  Glad you are still enjoying this area!

metarvo: Thanks, that's exactly the style of development I was shooting for!

Fabian (Fabian93): Glad you're finding the rural aspects of this project inspiring!  I certainly find your urban work inspiring, and eventually I may even get to a point where I can put that inspiration to good use!  Thanks for visiting!

976: Thanks! 

sumwonyuno: Indeed it is a very different strategy from yours!  I actually developed this strategy based off the style of journal I'm building.  My goal is to craft a world tile by tile, without making major development changes after the fact.  So to make the game run faster, I only add the trees as necessary, since the more trees there are on the tile, the slower it seems to run. 

As well, an odd quirk of the game with trees, when a growable lot develops, most of the trees in tiles immediately adjacent to the lot disappear.  So, adding the trees afterwards just saves me the trouble of doing the job twice!  Thanks for stopping in! 

Bobbi: Thanks very much!

Update 54
Jackson Pass – Going Around the Mountain

Welcome to update 54!  Today I'm moving across the mountain ridge to the Williston Lake side.  This area actually has an odd quirk that's caused me a lot of headaches in developing it.  I'll explain that before I start with a quick sketch map.   

54-1: And here's the sketch map, give it a quick look over and then I'll explain the implications of this drawing.  The thick red lines on the Jackson Pass tile represent the approximate route of the two highways on the tile.  1 marks the location of the town of Jackson Pass, and 2 marks the location of the second town site I'm starting on today. 


So here's the issue.  The Jackson pass tile is connected to Delmar Junction through a road connection, which carries all the demand of the region through to this tile.  So there's actually a bit more housing in Jackson Pass than there are jobs since a bunch of people are commuting to Delmar Junction from the location marked by 1. 

Here's the quirk.  Demand is tile wide, but the town I'm starting at location 2 isn't actually connected directly to any of the active towns in the region.  So this town is getting a massive demand boost for housing development through the Jackson Pass connection, but it doesn't actually have any way for people to drive to those jobs! 

So you'll notice a few no job zots on occasion as this town builds because homes are developing based on regional demand but the people can only access the businesses that are developed in town.  Obviously this'll fix up once I develop the town directly south of here, but for the moment, this is going to be interesting!

54-2: Here's the area I'm going to be starting on today.  The first thing on my list is to adjust the highway a bit.  I'm not happy with how it turned out, so a tweak is in order. 


54-3: Straighter is better in this area, and it makes a lot more sense from a highway designer perspective.  The idea here is that the 4 lane section is a passing zone.  It just happens that it runs through the center of my future town. 


54-4: First on the list, an interchange to provide access.  I would expect the town council demanded this when the highway was widened to make room for it.  By the way, I've decided to call this community Salmo. 


54-5: To give you an indication of the final size of the community, we've got a Safeway and a Super 8 Motel here.  It's not going to be a huge community, but I expect there will be a couple more small clusters of homes along the highway that would use some of the services here. 

54-6: Working along, I've wound up developing this twon in four quadrants.  I'll be finishing up the cliff side of the highway first.  With some careful development, I've created Cliffside Drive, a nice variety of homes with great views of Williston Lake. 


54-7: Continuing to fill in the gaps, here's the town from another angle after the majority of the zones have filled in.  I'm zoning for 2x2 residential in most this area; I really like the resulting lots that are developing.  This is a low density community through and through.  Interesting note, the only block of medium density residential in the region to date was way back in Alexandria.  I think I might change that on the next tile though. 


54-8: I left a pretty large gap behind these homes, rather than trying to fill it in with roads to add more homes, I've got a different idea.


54-9: I found these low wealth style bike trails on the STEX a while back, and I think they fit the style of this town quite nicely.  Most of the remaining gaps are filled in with seasonal trees. 


54-10: Over near the highway, the same seasonal trees make an excellent sound barrier. 


54-11: And that pretty much takes care of quadrant 1 of this town.  But I'm not done yet for today!


54-12: Just a quick shot of a few homes overlooking Williston Lake before I move onto quadrant 2. 


54-13: As I develop my way though Salmo, I really want to avoid making the four quadrants perfect mirrors of each other.  The access road to this area is beside the Safeway.


54-14: Of course I forgot to take any intermediate shots for this area, so here's the finished project complete with trees!  That last undeveloped lot is going to be filled with a plopable feature. 


54-15: A small church fits quite nicely into this area. 


54-16: A small commercial strip faces the side of Safeway.  A small art gallery is tucked in between blockbuster and a batch of other stores. 


54-17: There's not a wide variety of homes in this area, but it turned out pretty nicely!  The prop families on these lots help a lot! 


54-18: Behind these homes, there's a trail down to the lake.  I'll be detailing the lakeshore in a future update. 


That's all for today, but once again, I've got another update coming down the line soon!

[sumwonyuno]

Oh, I didn't realize it was plopped water at first 

I've had that quirk too, and I've taken advantage of it many times.  The lake side town turned out quite nicely.

[ecoba]

Oh, a pretty, shiny, new town.

I like the name Salmo, I would move there, any listings for the homes in one of the quadrants?

Gee I really wish I could get Matt (Mattb325)'s houses to grow! They would really improve the smaller towns that I've been trying to build now.

I like those bike trails, unfortunately, they wouldn't go in my plugins correctly, and I have not been able to work with them... sigh...

Those are by 6459978 right? I sometimes use his ploppable homes to create some suburbs.

Oh, it looks like the lakeshore is going to be very nice, but will it be RRP flora or Pegasus flora? Find out next time...

Ethan

[djvandrake]

Fantastic.  You're really doing a great job of making this lower density city look very convincing.  I especially like the use of the seasonal trees and bike trails between the homes.

Great stuff. 

[Bobbi]

Great update!

[tooheys]

Battlecat, the town is coming along nicely. The Mattb houses are some of my favourites, up there with JenP and SG.

Will be watching to see what you do along the river.

Dave

[woodb3kmaster]

Indeed, "exurb" is the usual term for such ultra-low-density developments. I read quite a bit about them in Robert Bruegmann's excellent book Sprawl: A Compact History, which is why I know so much about which parts of North America have them and which don't.

Anyway, on to the newest update. Salmo sounds like a very nice name for a town, and given the parts of it that you've built so far, I think it fits quite nicely. The views from those cliffside houses must be the envy of the region! From what I can tell, you appear to be using a set of random woods lots that I'd love to get my hands on. Did you make them yourself or download them?

As always, I look forward to the next update!

[Earth quake]

Splendid Upate.
I really like your "exurb" near the lake and the interchanger is look nice.

[Tomas Neto]

Wow my friend, It's a pleasure to see your city to born and to prosper!!! Awesome work!!! 

[Nardo69]

Nice one but completely not German. In the neighbour village they are just rebuilding the A8 (an old Reichsautbahn build before WWII) just because it passes the two parts village on an embankment ...

[Dreamcat]

You know of the 'tastyzots' cheats, am I right?  If you are having problems with zots interfering with your landscapes you can always stick that in.

You have a charming little community there, Battlecat.  I really like the highway, but still, even with the trees for the sound barriers, wouldn't things still get a little noisy?  At least, that's what I'd think.  I love the low-wealth bike trails.  Do you know who made them?  I'd like to get a hold of some.  Very nice work with Matt's houses.  They make the area look just perfect.  What I want to know is how do you get them to grow so much?  Whenever I lay down zones I get only a handful of Matt houses and mostly Maxis lots.  Do you use Nomaxis or some other such plugin?

I also have to say that I really like the path going down to the lake.  Very nice and windy and realistic.

As always, great job.  But I have realized the only shots you have in your MD are day shots.  I'd like to see some sunset and night shots, perhaps.  Instead of only doing construction shots, you should have a few more close-up shots just of finished areas, because I think that is the one thing your diary is lacking.

Thanks for another great update, and keep up your excellent work!  Until next time...

[Battlecat]

sumwonyuno: It really is amazing how good some of the latest plopable waters look!  This particular quirk became a bit of a headache for this update, but I think I sorted it out in the end.  Hope you like the remaining work on the urban portion of Salmo!

Ethan (ecoba): Thanks for all your enthusiasm!  Glad you like the town name, it's actually the name of a real town in BC.  Let me do a quick look to see if any places are available!

It's funny you know, Mattb's homes are growing almost unstoppably in my region.  I suppose it must be because of the massive quantity of farmland I've got in my region; low wealth residential demand is through the roof!  Strange that you're trouble with those bike trails, they're pretty simple lots.  Yes indeed, they are the ones by 6459978.  I considered Shadow Assassin's trails, but they aren't quite appropriate for this town. 

We're not onto the lakeshore quite yet, but it'll most likely be a mix of RRP and Pegasus flora, much like what I did on the Vavenby tile.  Thanks for stopping in!

djvandrake: Glad you like how the town is turning out!  Thanks for your kind words!

Bobbi: Thanks very much for stopping in!

Dave (tooheys): Mattb really has provided an incredible diversity of homes, I particularly like this set since it includes a nice batch of low wealth homes to improve the look of these small towns I've been building!  We've got one more update for Salmo before I move onwards to the short of Williston Lake and the rest of the area.  As a quick guess, I'd say two more updates after this one to finish this tile. 

Zack (woodb3kmaster): Very cool, you're certainly better read on the subject of suburban development than I am, which is rather ironic considering I work for a municipal government!  I might have to try to track down that book.  But we don't really have any exurbs around here.  The closest thing we have is true suburban development creeping up the hills into our forests.  There are a lot of these further out the valley but they don't come up in casual conversation with the planners here.  It certainly is nice to have the appropriate word for it, easier than coming up with a descriptive title in the future! 

I have no doubt that those lots would be the envy of the region, but I expect the local engineers are watching that cliff face carefully!  Just like Vavneby, Salmo is the name of a small real world town in BC, this time in the South Central part of the province.  Glad you like the name!

As for the trees, those are the creation of Dave (Dedgren) for the Three Rivers Region project.  They are available here, about halfway down the page named cp/cycledogg seasonal tree lots.  There are a lot of options, but I haven't installed the majority of the lots for the sake of my parks menu.  I've only installed the four variations on the 1x1 lot (4 in total).  As I place each type, I leave gaps to vary the lot and then rotating them randomly as I place them.  So I've got 4 lots, 4 different angles and random placement. 

Earth quake: Glad you like the look of Salmo so far!  Thanks for visiting!

Tomas Neto: Thanks very much!  Glad you're enjoying this small town.

Bernhard (Nardo69): This town actually reflects a fairly common development pattern here in BC.  First, a small highway is built (1 lane in each direction).  Then the various small towns along the highway grow around it and expand off into the hills.  Then the highways department comes along and widens the road through town using the wide legal right of ways they keep for that purpose here. 

Traffic lights are installed at a four way intersectionsince this is a highway, not a freeway.  Usually that's where the story ends, but since we don't have T21 traffic lights for a RHW – Road intersection yet, the interchange is just a better visual choice.  Generally in BC it's like pulling teeth to get the funding to build a bypass or grade separated interchange.  Thanks for commenting!

Dreamcat: The zots don't bother me too much, after all I'm playing the game without demand mods for good or ill!  They are an important indicator that something is going wrong; it just hasn't come up to often in my games!  The weirdness I described in the last update caused be some troubles, but I think I managed to get it under control. 

The bike trails are available here on the STEX.  They're a creation of 6459978. 

When it comes to Mattb's homes, I'm honestly quite surprised about how many of them are developing in my towns!  I think the issue that a lot of people are encountering with these lots is that they actually have a pretty high number of residents.  It's possible their stage is a bit higher, but I'm not 100% sure why I'm getting them so easily!  I'm very carefully zoning 2x2 lots in Salmo to ensure a nice tidy neighborhood; that might be helping things out as well. 

You've made an excellent point about providing more close up shots of completed areas, plus some night and sunset shots.  I'll see what I can do to remedy that oversight today!  Thanks very much for your comments and enthusiasm!

Update 55
Jackson Pass – Nighttime in Salmo

Here we go once again with another update to wrap up the urban core of town of Salmo.  Only a day later than I'd originally planned due to family commitments yesterday!  Today I'll wrap up development of the urban area, and do my best to avoid messing up the town to much due to the quirk I mentioned at the start of the last update.  It did wind up causing me some pretty annoying problems, but it won't be terrible apparent in this update. 

Additionally, you can thank Dreamcat for the shots that are at the end of this update, I honestly can't believe I've gone through 55 updates without a single night shot! 

55-1: To start with on the North side of the highway there's a small clinic.  This area will be a matching commercial area to the south side. 


55-2: An electronics store and a Denny's restaurant  along with a small gas station are the major features here.  It's funny just how big some businesses in small towns like this can get.  I guess they depend on there not being a competing business in neighboring communities. 


55-3: This area is quadrant 3 of the town, and where I'm going to develop next.   That little lot that's in the middle of the area is the MML for the BSC parks from when I was placing a couple of playgrounds in the area. 


55-4: Here's the initial zoning layout.  As with the last update, this is mostly 2x2 lots for residential. 


55-5: In case you're wondering, the demand for low wealth residential is through the roof.  This are developed very rapidly. 


55-6: Before I finish the final details on quadrant 3, I'm moving onto quadrant 4.  A major road runs through town and provides a second access point to the 2 lane highway.  A medium sized industrial area is going in at that intersection to help provide the necessary jobs to the area. 


55-7: Here's the first batch of businesses, I'll be adding a few more shortly.  As you can see, I've started running into some employment issues at this point.  In fact, I'll have to add a few more businesses to stabilize the employment in this town.


55-8: Here's the last block of residential, and the one that's having the most problems with employment.  There's a small set of homes that are a higher stage than the rest, I wound up demolishing them to reduce the population of this tile!   


55-9: In the meantime, I'm continuing with the addition of critical details to the various industrial lots.  Some are better than others, but these maxis lots require serious attention! 


55-10: I finally wound up developing a second small block of industrial south of the highway.  It all turned out reasonably well, although it's a bit bigger than I originally intended.  I think I'll be putting in a couple more small single industry sites along the highway before I wrap up. 


55-11: Finally, a nice dose of trees to polish up the area.  That seems to be developing as the catchphrase for Adara: "Everything looks better with the trees".  Regardless, it really does help fill in the gaps nicely!


55-12: One Here's the town of Salmo in early fall.  We'll be coming back to take one more look at this town once I put the last bit of polish on the lake shore. 


55-13: Orignally, the previous shot was intended to be the final shot for this update.  But as I mentioned in the title, Dreamcat made an excellent point about the absence of night and sunset shots in this entire MD.  I'm going to remedy this situation right now!  First of all, while I was casting about for good night shots, I noticed I'd forgotten to build the park in an empty space.  I found this little playground which filled in the area quite nicely. 


55-14: First off, a quick look at the north side of the highway, the electronics store and the Denny's at night. 


55-15: And the over into suburbia, where I quickly realized that the mixture of streetside mods I have seem to have eliminated suburban street lighting.  Combined with the apparent absence of night lighting on most low density residential, we have very dark suburban areas at night here!


55-16: Over to the Safeway and Super 8, there's a bit more lighting, but still mostly darkness in the area!


55-17: A few industries at least seem to run a night shift.


55-18: Just quickly popping over to Jackson Pass, there's a bit more light along the highway here.  The police station on the left side of the image is very well lit indeed!


55-19: And over near Jackson Pass Elementary, there are a few homes with lights at this late hour, but mostly darkness!


Based on what I've seen in this update, I'm going to do some digging around in my plugins folder to see what I've got installed.  Perhaps something I'm using is interfering with the appearance of street lights.  Regardless, I'll shoot for the odd night shot in the future, particularly if I can figure out what's happened to the streetlights. 

That's it for this update.  Among other things in the next update I'll be building the scariest chunk of road yet in this region!  See you soon!

[Tomas Neto]

The care with which you take of every detail, and the beauty of your cities, make your MD be a unique and fabulous place! Another beautiful update! 

[mattb325]

First time visiting - I'm very impressed! You take great care with the detailing of trees and other rural scenery and it's really beautiful! I'm glad you like the houses. I never have any issues getting them to grow either....

Re your nightlights it seems you are missing the Maxis patch to allow custom content to light up at night

Great work

[kwakelaar]

Salmo is a very nice little community, and they have chosen a good spot for the town. I like the overview image where you can just see the lake underneath the hill where the town is situated.

[Dreamcat]

Wonderful shots, again.  Salmo is a wonderful little place.  Thank you for the bike trails.  I love those security fences around the industrial areas - I could never get those to look right!  You know, I hadn't even realized there were no nightshots in Adara until I started up Simcity again and discovered the lighting options - wow!  Generally I just leave it a day only, like you do, so I tend to forget about lighting.  It certainly makes for some beautiful pictures, though!

My only gripe would be that the ramps near the highway have some grass color-changing tiles on them, which sort of looks bad.  I don't know if that's unavoidable, though.

Adara looks wonderful by night.  Although Matt is right - it would look much better with the Maxis update installed!  You know, I didn't even realize it was lacking until I read his post.  Just goes to show how out of it I am!  Go figure...

Five more posts until the big 500!  Better prepare a celebration...I'd take the 500th post myself but I'm just feeling nice today...you can congratulate somebody else.

[ecoba]

Oh, another great update from Battlecat...

..what else is new?...

I think David (dedgren) might have done something similar to what I just did at the beginning of Ensenada. Sorry, David, I didn't mean to steal it.

Really, Salmo is the real name of a BC town? Cool, I should move there. I like the ways that those new quadrants turned out, I especially like that new industrial shot. I don't usually like industrial shots, but that one is especially nice in my opinion. Hmm... farms are the trick to your housing experiances... hmmm.

....runs off to build some farms.....

I like all the tree fillers, and those new night shots of the region are amazing.

Can't wait to see some more Adara!

Ethan

[sumwonyuno]

The expansion of the town look nice!  What are those black tiles under some of those trees in some of the pictures?

[threestooges]

Nice night shots. It does look like Salmo really rolls up the streets at night. Perhaps the reason all the houses are dark is that there's a PTA meeting or something (just look at how bright the school is at night). I like the fence around the playground, but what really caught my attention was the "work" you did on the Maxis industrials. I generally prefer to grow my regions, but I've never been quite satisfied with the industrial development. Never enough space/parking. Did you add those concrete bits onto the actual lots, or are those stand alone filler pieces (in which case... have a spare copy lying around)? Nice little area you've come up with, and indeed, the trees are a nice touch.
-Matt

[danielcote]

Wow I can't believe I havn't come here in such a long time.  I forgot how beautiful this MD was.