Mattb325 plays Shosaloza

[mattb325]

OK, so we have the crazy BSC Shosaloza map and the aim of the game is to try to get as many sims into the map without trashing the natural terrain while using custom content which is usually set to more realistic numbers.

I can do that

Firstly, I've never done a CJ before, so any resemblance this hodge-podge of pictures and words has to a CJ with a story line or any didactic purpose will be purely coincidental.

So I believe that these things usually start with the sorts of mods etc that the person uses.

Phooey to that list!  #stsfd·

I use anything and everything that catches my eye. You like something you see? Ask.

The worst I can do is ignore your request (well, I can do worse, but I've been told not to talk about that in public).

So, onto the map: I don't normally play on such mountainous areas, so this is a huge departure in style for me.

I detested the craggy contours of the original map, so, like Barby, I opened up the god-mode and softened the whole thing so I could actually think about how to play this map.

I haven't altered it fundamentally in terms of height, slope etc, but I have weathered it to be more like the mountains I know here in the S.E. of Australia, which are soft, worn, ancient and covered in Forest.

As you can see, I don't have a snow mod installed apart from Cycledogg's Olympus terrain mod as I'm not a fan of trying to do anything on year round snow.

The softened region:



Like the others, I intend to build my largest 'city' in the river delta. The CBD will be in the middle of the two tiles with a dense core. The middle tile and the tile behind on the bay will be largely residential and business; the tile to the right will likely be weighted towards industrial. The rest of the map will be farms or towns (terrain permitting); some tiles may never have anything more than a handful of houses and farms on them.

MONA VALE

Mona Vale has steep, wooded terrain falling to the coastal plain.

So, as the saying goes, 'build it and they will come'. I connected two rail stations, one on the plain and one at the top of the mountain. The mountain is where the first residents move in.



Power at this stage is from solar and a water pump has been placed. Small areas are levelled but the green lobby ensures that no more than 10% of residences are back-to-back to maintain the natural contour of this hilly area.



Within a few years (and my leaving the simulator run to do some weekend chores), the zoned areas at the top of the mountain have become a nice little suburb. There is a chemist, a clothier, video store and, most importantly, a pub.

To shut the green lobby up, the council has undertaken massive tree planting programs in this area.



It's worked: the folks live up here because of the spectacular autumn colour and quiet leafy streets.



A sample of the types of housing up here in the suburbs (shameless plug I know, but the cream coloured house has been done for this project to house 18 people instead of the usual 12).

Things are going wonderfully, but the sims here have a long commute down the mountain to where the CBD, and work, are; many streets have to be upgraded as the sims simply won't take the long way around, so sit at home watching television:



Now the sims can happily cross the train line to get to work with the new bridge; this side of the tracks can now start developing with proper connections. Some extra commercial zoning will go a long way as well.



One business takes advantage of the new connections and positions itself on the road down the mountain. Cindy has opened her establishment to serve the needs of the mountain men.



Traffic always slows to a crawl at this stretch of road and the mountain women wonder why their husbands, who work in the offices down on the plains, are always so eager to work 'back late' on Friday nights...

The local Rector (he, he, he ) was outraged at Cindy's new business until he realised that he could keep a 'watchful eye' on her business from high up on the hill.



Each Sunday, the Rector (he, he, he ) makes snide remarks in his sermons about the men who visit Cindy on the Friday night, but turn up to church with their wives on Sunday.

The Rector (he, he, he ) lives in the yellow weatherboard house across the road from the church with his wife.



In fact this house has a much better view from the second floor of the comings and goings of Cindy's clientele than the church: it is just as well that the Rector's (he, he, he ) wife has dreadful eyesight or she would have seen her husband every Sunday afternoon walking up to the Madams door.

It's a good thing too, as the mayor gets most of the kick-backs from this sordid little business. It's got him a nice house though:



Kids, don't ever under-estimate the benefits of being shallow, rich and powerful when you grow up. Bribes don't hurt either.

But life up in the hills, is mostly about the little things; the 'blink and you'll miss it' scenes that make you go 'aaahhhh' Like this little stream that winds it's way through the woods behind people's houses.



The area has truly become a desirable hill suburb (unlike the normal sorts of mountain suburbs where cousins marry each other). Here's an overview of the suburb of Lawson so far:



This is about the extent of the building work for this area. Most buildings have been made historical. I've obviously done something right because on the road out of town, Dalene can finally build her mansion to take in the view of the valley below, thanks to Colyn's patented SF technology.



Word has it that the view from the terrace of the city below is splendid. The only concern Dalene has however, is keeping the water from spilling out of her pool...

Next update, we'll go down the mountain to check out the CBD...

[jplumbley]

Hey mattb nice start.

In the 4th picture from the bottom (the mansion) is that one HUGE lot?  Or is that modular? It look awesome and in the range of a 6x6 lot which I have never seen before.  If its a lot did you make it yourself or is it on the net somewhere?

[hamsterTK]

^^^
*seconds*

I like your take on this, it seems to be a more laid back approach, going for pleasant low density and natural forested slopes versus having concrete embankments

[TheTeaCat]

 
Excellent. great start I look forwad to more

[sam]

I like what you did with the map to start with, its certainly a different point of view. Being from Brisbane I'm more used to the rocky slopes and angular mountains around here, so its interesting to see how other people from different places see the same thing.

I love your houses in among the forest, they fit very well with the environment.

[sebes]

Great start. The trees and nicely curved roads and streets make it very cosy! 





just realized : this post must have made me a citizen on this site!

[bat]

Fantastic work, mattb325!

[mattb325]

Thankyou to everyone who has left a comment, I appreciate them all very much .

I was a little nervous in showing such forrested suburbs and wondered what the result would be like. 

To jplumbley. The mayors house is one lot and exists only on my machine. If I released it, people would rightly be able to hunt me down with a big stick.

I had downloaded the larger mayors lot when I first had Simcity and had always lamented it (if you're unfamiliar with it, it has a hedge maze, a heliport, a zoo...completely unrealistic, large and ugly).

So rather than trashing the lot, I redid it as you see above; makes great eye-candy, but isn't brilliant for the game and the reasons are:

*It replaces the ingame mayors house - and existing lots placed prior to this will always look screwy, cover the roads etc, etc...
*I simply choose a prop to cover the existing mayors house building. Absolutely no modding was done (I can't mod to save myself): so while you place it you can still see the shadow of the mayors house under SG's highgrove model (fine for me, but not at all professional)
*It's transit enabled from left to right along a diagonal with the SC4 tool. Looks catchy in game because I wanted to make the lot appear not square like all the other in game stuff, but transit enabled lots, if not placed well out of the way, can cause real havoc with commute times. This one also mimics a street, but the sims can't 'really' go through it, so it could technically cause one side of the street to abandon if there is no other access point.

That said, if anyone really wants it, I'm more than happy to post a lot-editor picture for you to replicate it yourself - it just seriously isn't something that I consider to be a quality download.


UPDATE MONA VALE

Before we leave the suburb of Lawson and head to Mona Vale CBD, seeing as at Christmas many people get into their car and drive for hours on end, I thought I'd show some of the things the sims have to put up with.

Sims that play together, stay together.

These are the inhabitants of 'Rue Suisse', a middle class apartment block by SWI21 mid way up the mountain at the lower point in the suburb of Lawson. Lets watch as they start their morning commute.



Still commuting...



Are we there yet?



Almost...



"I'm bored, I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 't'"...  "let me guess, trees, could it be trees? Enough with the trees!!!!!!!???"



Still going, I hope no one had baked beans for breakfast....



So if living together and car-pooling isn't strange enough...wait for it....they all work together!



Let me tell you how much I would HATE to live in that block. I don't care if it has an amazing view!

So if you are driving at Christmas, do so safely and don't overload the car with your neighbours. Actually, leave your neighbours at home: THEIR home!

Merry Christmas

[bat]

Great new work!


Merry Christmas to you, too!

[jplumbley]

ROFL  You must have pulled off some magic  with that lot LOL.  Sounds like there are quite a few little problems that you have created with it too... LOL  But its a work of art  one of a kind!!

I will stray away from making a replica of it.  I will just do my own lotting

Nice work on the lastest update.  The car ride was quite fun.  Lets do it again sometime.

[sebes]

Great update again Mattb325. Driving with you down to the village is fun. Indeed hope more rides will follow.

[BarbyW]

Super update, Matt. I love the commute as it is so typical of the stupid sims. 

[vab423]

Matt, great start to your not-a-CJ.  The Rector (he he he) had me on the floor    (twisted perverted minds must think alike.  I can't wait to see how this develops.

[daeley]

neat... looks like a nice neighberhood to live

[Alfred.Jones]

This is fantastic Mattb Keep up the awesome work

[Alek King of SC4]

from the looks of it you have a very nice little downtown i would like to see more of.

[TheTeaCat]

Lovely example of great skills

[mattb325]

Thanks every body for the replies. The rector (he,he,he) will pop up from time to time....but his understudy <ewww> might as well. Benny Hill makes me do it. I swear.

As for Sms being stupid, well, yes this is true, but their creator can be more so - I inadvertantly deleted a swathe of new images instead of the old ones...so this update (instead of the CBD) will be on some of the inner suburbs down on the plain.

UPDATE MONA VALE

Residential Styles on the Plain.

The dry ancient river delta is perfect for housing many sims en masse and providing ample employment centres. This area has been chosen as the dense core for the region and will straddle the neighbouring tile also.

This will eventually become a pocket of skyscrapers and tall apartment complexes <shudder>.

This should push the population close the 1,000,000 magic number needed in this region.

I'm of two minds here: I know that high density is unavoidable to achieve the regional goal, but I truly don't want to see forests of concrete boxes, so I will keep the CBD as small and dense as possible, with an aim of around 100,000 in the CBD through apartment towers.

To get the remaining numbers, large swathes of terrace housing and apartments in the scale of terraces will have to be used.
There are many different styles available, and I have chosen almost all of them in the Euro set.



The builders are hard at work.



More apartments and terraces and the start of commercial zones along the avenues. Small commercials are zoned at all other intersections to help the many sims find work and alleviate some commute times.

Road-top bus stops by deadwoods help commute times for those sims who don't live and work on the same street as well as not taking up precious real estate. These are a god-send  in situations like this as one tile can hold approx 20-30 sims in terraces; every bit of space needs to work.



An overview of a typical medium density inner city suburb. The numerous building styles including English, Dutch, Italianate, German and French are all tied together by the use of London plane street trees.



Down here on the warmer plains at sea-level, the residents prefer CSX's Poplar and Jacaranda trees to provide seasonal colour and interest. Many small parks ensure that the residents are never too far from nature.



Overview of the Mona Vale tile showing the terrace house areas in the centre left on the plain next to the CBD. The population stands at approximately 10,000: .1% of where we need to be! #?¿?¿?$

Next update will show the start of Mona Vale's CBD (assuming I don't delete the photos!)

[sebes]

I like it! I like it a lot. Your use of trees is really adding a special atmosphere to these streets. The different styles of buidlings mix well together.

May I ask how you zone? Uni-density or different densities?  #?¿?¿?$ The result is so much better then what grows in my residential areas..

[Alfred.Jones]

That looks great Mattb I'm looking forward to more mate