District of Wenzel - Update 116 - 3/17/15

[packersfan]

I loaded a backup from January 18th, everything appears perfectly fine, so this must be before the pox struck for the first time.  I saved and loaded a number of times to check, but no pox has shown up, however I won't be surprised if it does show up.  In regards to how much work I lost, really not much, I guess I didn't work on the city much after the pox showed up.  Hopefully this version of the city is clean, otherwise I have a January 10th backup and then December backup.  From now on I will backup each city I work on each time I'm done working on it for the day, and hopefully I stick to that because it sucks to lose any work, but the possibility of losing a majority of a tile is gut-wrenching.  So right now, I'm cautiously optimistic after starting the day bummed about the pox, then very worried when I read about it more, and then after doing a little work feel my spirits rising.

[RickD]

Oh ,no. I know how you feel, had the Prop Pox, too. The problem is that the backup probably will develop the pox, too when the subfile gets uncompressed. 

[packersfan]

I have no idea when the pox was introduced, so I'm hoping this backup was before that point.  The file size is already well over 25mb and the network file well over 16mb. I'll keep you posted and my fingers crossed.

[RickD]

Oh, then you should be fine. You just have to pay attention not to delete too many props, so that the network file drops under 16 mb. I have the same issue with one tile in my region.

[packersfan]

Yeah, that won't be a problem, the city is only growing...and like I said the pox culprit I think is gone.  Like I must have had the prop for a short period while I was only working on that tile and then got rid of it.

[packersfan]

Update 22 - Holmes Neighborhood - Olivet Cemetery
Today we look at the area north of Lincoln Terraces and Ivanhoe Park.  This is the east end of Holmes Neighborhood.  In between N Humboldt Ave, Lincoln Terraces, and N Prospect Ave is Olivet Cemetery.  E Townshend Ave is the neighborhood's commercial district.

Above: Farmland many years before the encroaching expansion of Martin.

Below: High-tech industry between the neighborhood, cemetery, and park.


















Townshend Station (WTA Metro - Line 1) at the intersection of N Webster Ave and E Townshend Ave.









Olivet Cemetery.  To the north of E Townshend Ave is Glenwood Cemetery on the little strip of land between Townshend, Humboldt, and Prospect.









The eastern part of Holmes neighborhood.  Next time we will look at the western part.



Thanks for stopping by.  I've been working on the downtown, but I keep running into an issue with my props loading in the city tile.  For some reason, a section of the city doesn't load the props.  I fixed it once, because I saved before I saw the problem, but it happened again, urgh. (NOTE: This turned out to be Prop Pox, an incurable disease, but I have since gone back to a backup that I am cautiously optimistic is uninfected.)

Another problem I'm having is placing subway stations.  In SC4, when placing a subway station it takes the game into quasi-underground mode, not true underground like when laying subway or pipes.  Unfortunately this quasi-underground forces the game to rerender the entire city once I try to change to a different tool and consumes a ton of time!  Any way to lay subway stations without this quasi-underground mess?

[GreekMan]

great job packers!

[packersfan]

Damn, the prop pox finally manifested itself...of course after I build up an incredible section of the city.

Okay, now I'm testing a December 3rd backup of the city.  I wonder how much disappointment I'll have to swallow, because if it goes all the way back to the beginning of the region, then all my large tiles are in jeopardy!

[rooker1]

 If this prop pox is in your plugins folder from the begining of when you started these tiles than they are all infected.  You'll need to find the prop, remove it and start everything all over again.  This is my understanding.  Now on the other hand if you down loaded this prop afterwards than you may be able to find a point that is good, remove the prop and go from there.
Sorry to hear that you have this problem and I hope it doesn't discourage you too much that you stop updating.

Robin 

[packersfan]

Yeah, I'm testing right now, hoping that it was a prop I downloaded later.  So hard to figure out though if it is gone because the prop pox only seems to show up when you are actually trying to play the game...when testing, it remains silent, but put actually work into the tile and then it will show up.

I'm testing this 12/16/10 backup to death, nothing seems to be showing up (much like the later backup).  Most of the time the file sizes increase, even when I don't add more development or props, but then sometimes they decrease a little, but I've exited and entered many times and still no sign of pox...But like I said, the pox WILL show up once I actually go to work on this tile for real, just my luck right?

I stumbled about some advice from Diggis:

OK, a few weeks ago I stumbled upon this thread here:

Adding Props to Resized lots

which struck me as interesting.  The trick outlined in that thread appeared to force the game to reload the props on a file from the lot files, not the prop subfile (where the Pox apparently lies).   

This got me thinking, if we can rebuild the sub file we might be able to remove the Pox.  After a few failed attempts which left my cities still poxed I have found a technique that at first checks appears to remove the Pox and restore props to poxed lots.

1. Back up the poxed city
2. obliterate the city (using the mayor mode tool with the dynamite that removes the city, but not the terrain)
3. open the backup in the reader and delete the prop subfile
4. open the obliterated copy in the reader and copy the prop subfile into the backup
5. restore the back up and open the game
6. set the city display level to minimum, save and exit
7. set the city display level to high and save and exit.

8. send the file to Tage for testing   

It would be very helpful if people with an affected city would be able to have a go at this and see if they can also restore their cities to a working state.

Edited by Barby to correct spelling errors

Edited by Callagrafx to correct even more spelling errors

I tried it and it does indeed replace 99% of the props, just a few easy things to replace are missing and any plopped trees on lots (mostly my parks).  I noticed that this solution was presented on page 16 of 26 in the Plop Pox thread, so it might not be a permanent solution, but it will at least allow me to keep playing a poxed city and take good pictures and once in a while have to do a little roundabout way of temporarily fixing the issue.

Wow, I saved that city and checked the file size.  The first save put the file size to 27mb, the file had only ever been 25 or 26 before, then I saved it again with all the props replaced and it jumped to 38mb!  I read through the Plop Pox thread and this isn't a cure, but only a mask, but I'll live with the inconvenience on this tile, my main downtown, South Martin, and North Downtown (my developed tiles = if they break out in this too.)  For all my only farmed large tiles, I'll restart them fresh when I get to the point of developing them more (though if I could find if they are infected or not would be really nice to not lose the farmland and the road system built within the tiles.

Okay, I've played the tile for a while. I just exited and will go back in later, hopefully the pox won't manifest.  My city file is 39,784 kb and the network file (prop subfile) is 31276616, the biggest I've ever seen it.

[packersfan]

Okay, I said I was going to play the next large tile for real without testing risking loss of much work.  Instead I decided to test it, built up a terrible city and the save file and subfile jumped to 24mb, 16mb respectively.  No prop pox on that tile...I will likely load up backups of all those large tiles from September just to be absolutely safe, all my farm tiles were essentially done by that backup, so I should be in the clear on the new tiles.  I will be EXTREMELY disappointed if it shows up on the tiles after I actually build the tiles for real!

Tomorrow I get back update 23 posted for ya'll to see.

[packersfan]

Update 23 - Redeveloped Peninsular Downtown
This update has been in the works for awhile.  Finally a new view of downtown Martin.  I redeveloped the street layout and the buildings have grown considerably taller.  D50 originally ran along E Main St to the docks on the east end of the peninsula.  Now D50 has been redirected on E Mitchell Ave which becomes a boulevard after the intersection with D29 (N Wisconsin Ave).  The downtown peninsula is now serviced by three Wenzel Transit Authority Metro lines - Line 1, Line 2, and Line 3.  Line 1 currently terminates along the Hawthore Pike (D34) south of Martin and runs along Wisconsin Ave (D29) until the Mitchell Ave Station which serves as a transfer point between Lines 1, 2, and 3.  Line 1 continues east along with Line 2 until Commerce Ave Station where it then heads north to the Near East Side.  Line 3 starts at the Mitchell Ave Station and runs along D29 northwest.  Line 2 travels east-west along D50 through the downtown.

Downtown Martin on the peninsula in its earlier days.  The docks are still around along with many small tenements and small wall-to-wall businesses.





Many years later, the street layout has changed, with Mitchell Ave becoming a wide boulevard with bus stops and metro stations in the median decorated with flora.









The iconic Church of St. Linus is still on the corner of N Wisconsin Ave and E Main St (the former D50), but the first high school and grade school of Martintown have been replaced.



New government facilities stand at the end of the peninsula where docks and marketplaces used to thrive.  An old brewery still remains on the corner of N Market St and E Jackson Ave.











The Martin Municipal Convention Center.





Quite a transformation to the peninsula.



Here is a picture of the problem I was describing.  I open the city tile right next to the downtown one and the edge props don't seem to load, giving the appearance of many abandoned residential lots...I suppose if I can figure out this problem and it doesn't become incredibly widespread, I can adapt the game error to emulate more abandoned lots.  (WE ALL KNOW THE REAL STORY OF THE PROP POX NOW.)



Thanks for checking out my journal.  I plan to add the metro lines to my street map, might even start working on that today.  I think my peninsular downtown has evolved well, not perfect.  I'm also building downtown further out around all the warehouse industry between the Brittany River and Bitter Creek from many updates ago.  The downtown was far too small and compact, especially for the size city I plan on Martin becoming.  Keep stopping by and feel free to offer suggestions, tips, and help.

[packersfan]

Update 24 - Martin Municipal Airport
A long needed update to the District of Wenzel.  Finally an airport for the burgeoning region and the city of Martin (population as of this update of about 360,000).  The city definitely needs an airport, but I didn't want to build a huge international airport, yet.  So, here is Martin Municipal Airport, placed in a triangle of land between Oliver Rd, D15, and Martin Rd, north of Jefferson.  I built three runways because this airport, while small, still services a growing city of 360,000.  The runways are barely a mile long, though, so this airport will quickly become secondary in the future.

ABOVE: Scenic Newberg's Creek across Martin Rd from the planned location of the airport.

BELOW: Farmland soon to host the city's first airport.



Martin Municipal Aiport complete with three runways (one north-south, two east-west)




The terminal and metro station (Martin Municipal Airport, Line 5)














My first airport since my wildly successful recreation of the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky Airport in my Sessquenna City Journal.

[Reikhardt]

I'm not normally a big fan of airports (too much concrete!) but that's a really good one 

[RickD]

Wenzel is developing fast. The airport is great. I wonder how it is connected road-wise. Is there a freeway to the airport?

[packersfan]

RickD: Yeah, I'm trying to get this city larger.  Right now the airport is just connected by surface roads, no freeways in Wenzel yet.  Someday, like in real life, tearing through the developed city.

Reikhardt: Thank you.  I try to make things as realistic as possible.

[marsh]

The city is growing fast. There is something unique to this MD that I love. Perhaps it is the large use of maxis to it's actual potential? Or maybe the way you seem to be recreating a city when you are not. Whatever it is I love it. Keep this going please.

,marsh

[packersfan]

Marsh: Thanks.  I don't know what you mean about the large use of Maxis, I do have a ton of custom content, but maybe since I don't block Maxis and us it in addition to custom stuff that's what you mean.  I'm successful if you are getting the feeling I'm recreating a city while creating a completely fictional area.  I do recreate various sections of different cities.  I look at Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, even Los Angeles for inspiration and sometimes I'll recreate an area (usually just a normal neighborhood, no landmarks).  In Sessquenna, I recreated the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky Airport for my cities airport, so I do a little recreating but not as the main focus of the journal (I attempted a Milwaukee recreation a while back, but just couldn't fit the city in with the limited tile sizes, etc.  My goal is to create a realistic made-up city.  If it feels like a recreation then I'm succeeding.  Thanks for the compliment!

Check out the updated District of Wenzel Street Map.  It is obviously updated to where I am currently at in development for the most part (I just finished mapping the Downtown West (West Town-Washington Park, etc).

[packersfan]

Update 25 - City of Jefferson - Growth
As you have all probably seen in the street map of the District of Wenzel, Jefferson is a small community north of Martin on D15.  My expansion of Martin is getting near overtaking the small community of Jefferson, so I decided to expand this soon to be suburb and give it it's own identity and downtown.

The small farming community of Jefferson on D15.








New Industries along the Martin Custer Railroad





Newberg's Creek runs between Jefferson and Martin Municipal Airport to the north.



Downtown Jefferson has grown considerably along with the addition of thousands of factory workers' homes.





New downtown intersection of D15, Monticello Rd, and Northway St.



The western stretch of Monticello Rd in Jefferson now hosts many businesses.





Jefferson Elementary School on the south end of town along D15.



The eastern end of Monticello Rd passes by the new industries along the railroad.



Night view of the expanding Jefferson complete with the new Uniform Lighting Mod which really brightens the street lights.



Day view of expanding Jefferson.



Thanks for visiting Jefferson.  It is a nice change to not use alleys and to have different colored streets.  I'll be working on updating the District of Wenzel Street Map.  Check it out for reference.

[RickD]

The street map is awesome. Especially where it looks exactly like Google Maps.  I can only imagine how much time that must have taken.