Mattb325 plays Shosaloza

[bat]

Fantastic new work!

[NikNik]

reat work matt. I like they way you want to preserve the green touch.
I hope you'll succeed in getting the 1 million goal with a green touch to it.

Nik-Nik

[jacqulina]

wonderfull work you are doing

[Colyn]

Man if anything could do it for me ... this was it ... I am really going to make a damn good effort to get to a place wher eyou and me can toss some meat on a barbie and down a few tall ones ... you have the right frame of mind. 

[BarbyW]

Please don't throw meat or prawns on me.

[TheTeaCat]

Very nice. Very nice.

Excellent use of the buildings.

I like the mixed up style of the buildings.
A bit more realistic to me and also makes the city look "older and more established" if you know what I mean.

Kettle's on for you!

[Colyn]

I knew you woud say something like that Barby 

[mattb325]

Alfred, Bat, Nik Nik, Jacqui and TTC, thanks for all of the comments - glad you like it....

Sebes. My style of play is painfully slow. These homes are all medium density zoning. Basically I zone about 6-8 blocks at a time and wait with the bulldozer tool.
Anyzing zhat pops up vhat zhould not be zhere vill be bulldozed!
Everything else is marked historic if I like it. The pic showing all of Mona Vale was probably the equivalent of 20 hours game play, so very, very slow indeed.

Colyn, I'm always up for a longneck. I have one at my desk right now  , and Barby, after 6 or 7 longneck beers you won't notice the prawns we've thrown at you. Believe me. Failing that, after I've had 6 or 7 longnecks, I won't notice the prawns I've thrown on you...(or I won't remember, whichever comes first!)

Now, for a small update, here is the CBD - not quite the original images, as I stupidly deleted them...there's a fine line in knowing how many beers one can consume in an SC4 sitting!

MONA VALE CBD

All of the zoning here is dense commercial. This little space will eventually become the office and commerce power house of the region.

To break up the higher densities, plazas and parks are placed early before the area becomes too tall.

(Actually, the park is a cheat park that gives me $500, but don’t tell the rector (he, he, he) as it actually takes the money from the parish plate each week and donates it to the city coffers), the other plazas are just normal in game ones modified in the L.E. with the same costs and stats as the original.

Now, as we all know, the game does some odd things some times; mostly it has to do with the buildings it chooses

To demonstrate, I’ll show an early pic of part of the CBD (remember the Central Business District will straddle two tiles, so it will be built right on the edge).



Now we all know that starting out is hard work. Finances are tight, there are networks to establish, advisors to appease, Sims to keep happy, schools, hospitals, police, fire, civic and utility structure to build and maintain….the list is endless!

So when shopping for commercial buildings, I saw the “Buy One, Get One Free”, sign on Spa and Vanderap’s buildings .

“Great, I’ll take two”. Little did I know the town planner would run the things up side by side!

And the kindly shop assistant who threw in some Sim Goober buildings (I do some mean haggling), thinking that she was doing me a good deed, only added to my woes:



Oh dear. Nothing like endless repetition to bolster realism. Thankfully, as time passes, new buildings are created. The city even gets its first skyscraper; the demand for high wealth commercial offices being fed by the growth on this and the neighbouring tile.



The train line carries folks up and down the mountain and ensures inbreeding up in the hills is kept to a minimum.

Mona Vale comes of age: the city rejoices as it gets its very first town hall.

Goodbye sensibility, hello bureaucracy.

The first act of the city was to ship all of the horses you see wandering around the CBD off to another part of the country to be converted into glue.

The city had tried to strike a deal with the Saudis but these horses simply weren’t racing material, so glue, marrow, gelatin and other manufactured meat products they shall have to be....
Thankfully the green lobby was busy at the time up the mountain protesting to stop a car from reversing into a puddle with tadpoles of the very rare tittyla-la frog in it and so didn't notice 40,000 horses disappearing from the plains.



As you can see, more skyscrapers are rearing their heads.

But on the other side of the CBD things are definitely more sedate.

On Elizabeth Street, we see a Marks & Spencer Department store, and many luxury hotels (including Her Majesty’s, Moritzplatz, the Tripolis, Milne, Bavaria and the Rott). An exclusive private school for the residents of the inner city is seen at the base of the picture.

This is one of the more elegant streets of Mona Vale, where residents often stroll along Church Street (to the left) admiring the many wealthy terraces before stopping at the pub for lunch opposite the church grounds in the quiet foothills of Mona Vale.

To the right of the picture are some modern and post modern encroachments, but these are still of high quality including SAS Nettan, Frogfaces' London Wall and the Administration and Records Building.



This is all for Mona Vale for the time being, by the time we return to Mona Vale, the CBD should be completely transformed to help reach the regional goal of 1M sims.

For the next updates, we'll go to St Leonards, an industrial area to the upper right of this city and one of my favourite tiles so far...

[Alfred.Jones]

It looks very european I like it

[sebes]

I like it a lot. It has a very European touch.

Thanks for your detailed answer Matt, I really appreciate that. Do you make them historical once you have the building you want?  I am so glad that you are slow gamer - so I am not the only one. But your result is big heap better than mine, so  I bet you are more patient then I am 

[bat]

Great new work!

[mattb325]

Thanks everyone for the comments: much appreciated. Yes - anything I like here is made historical to try and stop the game from growing over it.

UPDATE TIME!!!!!

Firstly, I have to say that this tile was an absolute joy to work on even before I had started thinking about where all of the towns, farms, cities etc, would be located in the region.

When I had finished terraforming this tile, it reminded me of a train trip from Bex to Montreux which if memory serves correctly, is shielded on both sides by the Alps, but the valley floor itself has a mish-mash of less than inspiring industrial, commercial and residential (including a trailer/mobile home park).
But snow is all around and mist hangs low on the mountains' steep slopes, shrouding the firs and making the birches' bare branches glisten; the train rounds a bend and lake Geneva sparkles as a jewel before you: the scene is breathtaking.

At once I knew St Leonards would be my high tech industrial area.

UPDATE: ST LEONARDS

St Leonards sits to the north East of Mona vale in a high glacial valley that slopes gently and quickly from Mt Victoria to the East.

Here is one of the largely Industrial areas of the region: its proximity to Mona Vale ensures that Manufacturing and High Tech industries are favoured. Development is in a sliver along the high valley floor.



Here we see freight, warehousing and high tech industry on the north of the Old Bathurst Road, separated from motorists' view by rows of trees. Further up the hill is the water treatment plant for the area. Given the need for indsutry to have access to flat land, this is one of the few areas of the region where retaining walls will be allowed.

Oh, and remember the horse problem that the Saudis didn't want to take off Mona Vales' hands?
If you look to the right of the picture, you will see the hoof and mouth glue factory. Problem fixed.

The township along the western border is little more than a main street commercial area. The bulk of the citizens are employed by the industry. Those that can't find work here commute by rail to nearby Turramurra or Mona Vale.



At the opposite end of town, in the foothills of Mt Victoria, there are more residential developments and some farmland.

A close up of some of the Residential development prior to the farming areas:



The soil here is excellent and volcanic in nature, but at such a high elevation, the growing season can be rather short: here we see the summer crops being planted



Some of the farmland. Hardy crops are grown at this altitude: Lavender, roses and tulips are grown for the markets in Mona Vale:



Wheat and other grains also manage at this elevation:



Overview of the farms at the start of the autumn harvest. The farmers have to ensure crops are harvested before the first frosts.



However, mother nature doesn't always comply. An early snowfall causes havoc for the farmers during the autumn harvest:



The grains are particularly susceptible: here you can see the frenetic pace of trucks taking the harvest for processing even before the streets are ploughed.



This snow fall was a record for so early in the year (the leaves haven't even fallen yet), it has reached right down to the town some 600 metres down



Nothing like a happy snap of the first winter snowfall! Even the lake (just visible in the pines) in the top left of the pic has frozen over:



While the early freeze had  some impact on the economy, development progresses.

Up on the plateau overlooking the valley, the small borough of Dural, its main street full of cafes, pubs, restaurants and boutiques, is thriving. Most of the wealthy residents here own hobby farms within St Leonards:



The borough of Dural with its cafes and hobby farms. A prefect enclave for the wealthy.



This whole area has been made popular by the cool clear mountain lakes fed by springs.

Perfect for trout fishing.

Here is one such isolated lake near a timber logging area (the mountain Red Cedars of the area are also an important 'crop', but are carefully managed to ensure that re-growth occurs). A small operation takes tourists to this remote spot by sea plane from the coast. There is also access by road, by the drive up the mountain is long and difficult: timber logging trucks also make the drive less than pleasant, so those who can afford the stay here, usually opt for the plane trip.



Overview of St Leonards including the borough of Dural and the areas farmlands. Development here is largely complete. There are approx 10,000 living here and many Industrial jobs. If regional pressure is too great, further residential development may occur on the clearing in the bottom left of the picture.

Hope you've enjoyed looking at some of the pictures.   

[jacqulina]

beautifull work you have done its really looking great

[Alfred.Jones]

Very very nice Keep it up

[sebes]

No words can describe how beautifull this is. Astonishing realistic, and so much eye for detail.  A joy too look at. 

[BarbyW]

That is gorgeous, Matt. I love the way you have the mix of rural and industrial areas. Also your story telling is excellent and makes my efforts look very sub-standard but as long as you stop throwing things at me I'll let you off.

[bat]

Great new work!

[mattb325]

Thanks for the replies everyone, I promise I won't throw anything more - as a matter of fact, it's a New Years Resolution

******                       ************                         ********

Now, back to our story...(as well as I can manage here). Remember the cheating Rector (he, he, he  )?

Once a month, to ensure that Cindy maintains her strict client confidentiality, the Rector (he, he, he  ) has to perform a little chore.

He drives from his house on the hill in Mona Vale to the Retirement home on the coastal plain to collect Cindy’s aging mother and take her out for a day trip.


Cindy would do it herself, but the Retirement home ‘relatives-day’ is on a Saturday, and, this incidentally, is Cindy’s busiest day…

In truth, the Rector (he, he, he  ) dreads his monthly outing Driving Miss Cindy’s Mother: she is hard of hearing, has terrible eyesight, and shows him about as much respect as her soiled ‘Tenna lady‘ incontinence pad, but he accepts that it is penance for his adulterousness and so tolerates these drives with a good grace.

In truth, Cindy’s mother also dreads these monthly drives with her daughters’ ‘client’ – she would rather the Fukitol ^TM medication she is given on a Tuesday, but she accepts that it is her penance for being the mother of a Madame and so tolerates these drives with a good grace.

UPDATE GALSTON

Lest the Rector (he, he, he  ) be seen, he decides to take Cindy’s mother well outside the city for their monthly outing. With a tank full of petrol, they head to Galston some 100ks east by north-east of Mona Vale on the other side of St Leonards.

The Rector (he, he, he  ) is in a particularly despondent mood this Saturday as the parish collections are down by $500 each month and he cannot work out why.

(The city’s parks are looking verdant though)…shhhh

Galston, an industrial city, will suit his mood perfectly.

Let’s watch.



The bulk of Galstons’ 110,000 residents are working class, living in close proximity to their factories. As a consequence of this Dickensian existence, diseases of the respiratory tract in this part of Shozalosa are much higher than elsewhere.



The view from this council flat would never allow the residents to forget exactly where they were.



Those at the very bottom of Galston’s social ladder have very little in the way of extravagances: Factories at the bottom of the hill and shops and a chemist at the top. Because the bulk of the citizens in these apartments do not own a car, the council installed stairs to at least allow the residents easier access to the supermarkets and chemists on the highway:



Getting the shopping is a vile task at the best of times; up such a huge flight of stairs would be hellish!



The apartments in this area are mostly a mix of old apartments which have since been abandoned by the middle classes for other areas of the region (Galston was not always an industrial centre) and council flats which run up to house immigrant workers when the large factories arrived.

Surprisingly, here and there, wealthy apartments are still to be seen.

However, luxury apartments aren’t the norm



Cindy’s mother, still suffering the drive with her daughters’ "client", ruefully remarked that suicide rate in these apartments would be justifiably high. The Rector (he, he, he  ) decided they had seen enough of this part of Galston and turned left into the industrial area which was at the centre of the town.

There was a huge mix of factories which representative of many eras and purposes:











The Brewery conducted tours of the factory on Saturdays. They give out free beers: unfortunately some people take advantage of this and then attempt to drive home:



The Rector (he, he, he  ) decided that he didn’t want to mix with the drunken drivers, so he made a quick turn right.

Cindy’s mother was becoming bored with the silence of this intolerable drive, so she decided to spice things up a little…

“What’s that building?” she asked sweetly, picking the least palatable structure she could see:



“Err, it’s, ahh, um, a petting zoo…” answered the Rector (he, he, he  ).

Cindy’s mother was pleased with the discomfort she was causing.

“And that one dear, what’s that for?”



“Um, ahh, that’s an indoor plant shop.” The Rector (he, he, he  ) sweated

“Can we stop? I want to get a new pot-plant for the window-sill?” Cindy was delighted at tormenting his middle-class prudishness; so much so, that she didn’t even notice that he had chosen not to answer her.

“Ohhh look, how pretty and colourful!” Cindy’s mother chirped. “What’s that one sell?”



“Balloons.”

“Then we simply must stop, Cindy’s birthday is in two weeks; I bet I could get her some unusual birthday balloons for you to take to her.”

“I bet”. The Rector (he, he, he  ) had rather had enough of this torment and turned the car around to go home. On the way out of town, they were forced to stop at the lights next to one of Galstons’ Retirement homes:



“Oh look,” said Cindy’s mother, pretending to refer to the design of the Retirement home. “It looks just like mine”.

“Indeed” gasped the Rector (he, he, he  ).

He was indignant at this debauched display and was about to say something about smiting this devil’s town when he remembered that he was in fact driving his harlot’s mother around, so he could ill-afford to preach.

As they drove off towards Mona Vale, Cindy’s mother wished that there was such a billboard outside her Retirement Home; they could use the money saved on Disney for new Bingo cards….

Next update we'll look at some of the nicer parts of Galston...

[sebes]

LOL - you have a talent Matt325! The story and pictures that come with it are of an advanced quality. I admire how you combined this great collection of bats in the storyline.   

[BarbyW]

I would make a sensible comment but I am laughing too much. You and Colyn write such wonderful prose. I love the explanations of the factories and what a wonderful co incidence to have that wall decoration by the Benevolent Asylum.
I love this, Matt.