Rokton (Entry 7: Let's all catch a bus to Perrin Head!)

[89James89]

Introduction to Rokton

So, having not been around for ages I've lately had the itch to start playing a city simulator again and have a go at being a virtual mayor. Deciding on Cities Skylines because hey, I like it (also because I have my SC4 discs and no manual and the Rush Hour manual and no disc but hey, such is life) and as usual for me choosing not to use Custom Content (reason is that I have a tendency to over detail things and get bored of projects, also with a little one now and other commitments I don't have a huge amount of free time (*any) and would like to have fun playing the game and growing a city rather than getting bogged down with detailing it. Plus watching a city expand has always been my favourite part over detailing stuff. I will try and make it look nice and as realistic as I can though).
So anyway after that wall of text this will basically just be my CJ for, as of now, the small town of Rokton (might add additional towns/cities later on, who knows). I can't promise that updates will be regular though I will try my best with them but I do hope some of you will enjoy this laid back approach to building a city.

Entry 1: Oh look, a town!

Right, lets get you introduced to Rokton, a small but growing town in this small coastal valley somewhere in some country (as you can tell, planning this back story wasn't exactly top of my list). You see some guy by the name of Mr Rokton wanted a quiet life and bought this out of the way area (yup the whole of it, he's pretty rich, including rights to the highway and rail network) complete with dodgy highways and precarious railroad to live a life of solitude.





Only trouble is he got bored, set up a farm, decided it was too much work for himself, hired some folk, let them rent some land and build some houses which in turn, attracted more folk who did the same and well, several years pass and the quiet area now boosts this town complete with industry and all. There's also a small chance that the horrifyingly horrify journey into the town along one of the coastal highways convinced people to settle here.



Mr Rokton isn't exactly impressed but as the local shopkeepers (fast food chains) like to point out it's his fault!



Anyway while he sat on his farmstead complaining to his farm hands about the situation his financial advisor showed him his earnings and how much rent everyone was paying.



Suddenly a lot more planning applications got approved and the town grew a bit to where it currently stands.



Hell, he even approved that dump. What a man of strong Principal Mr Rokton is!

Anyway that's what the town currently looks like, perfect little piece of paradise in the middle of nowhere.

Join us next time when I've no idea what will have happened! (or how long the next entry is even going to take me to get up)

So yer, there's the first look at this tiny little town and new CJ. Feel free to like it, leave a comment on it (or at least something remotely related) and even rant about how bad it looks (and the lack of Custom Content) and I'll see you again at some point in the future (hopefully!)

Till then enjoy!

James

PS. Jesus, how many brackets did I use in this post!

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Entry 2: Grow my pretty!

So, in case the title didn't give it away this entry shows how the town has grown since the last entry starting, usually, with the overview of what it currently looks like.



No, as you probably can't see because I took the overview form so far out, there has been a bit of growth around the town in various places so, choosing one at random, lets jump in and take a closer look.

..................

So, starting with the towns growing and developing commercial strip (OK, so it wasn't that random, this is pretty much what you'd see first of all when you enter the town). As you can see there's a lot more concrete and parking now than there used to be. There's also a number of very sound financial and commercial decisions based on the amount of duplicate businesses in this small area. That's Rokton for you.



Moving onto more concrete we have the expansion to the numerous warehouses and workshops that line the shore of the bay. The lovely high tech coal power plant can be seen in the background as well. One of the towns most expensive projects so far can see seen here in the form of the sea wall, implemented after one stormy day when several cars and a warehouse fell into the sea. (These, I found, are also quite annoying to implement in game but there we go. I got there in the end)



Moving back into the town we have the relatively huge Old Pine Park (relative to the town anyway). Old Rokton's attempts at placating the town folk not to happy with the concrete strip in the centre of town. It's not used all that much at the moment and I'm pretty sure its not safe at night but at least its green.



Speaking of which, we do have another area of green and trees though strolling through them might be a whole lot more dangerous as there's a tendency to be a lot of chainsaws in the area. This is Mr Rokton's latest financial venture. Exploiting the areas trees!



So we've one more photo to show you from the city. This one is also in regards to parks and recreation. I present Rock Point. Apparently one of Mr Rokton's favourite parts of town. This however, was presumably before he signed the planning application for the towns sewage outlet as, Rock Point, or as its more commonly known, Sewage Point, isn't exactly the nicest place to be (in fact neither are any of the houses located near Sewage Bay but that's another story).



I'm guessing no ones told Mr Rokton about this fact. Oh well I'll see you next time!

Till then enjoy!

James

(PS This is still a serious town though ok?!)

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Entry 3: A bit of a divide

So, were back in Rokton to day where we've had a few new things happened. Starting at the beginning of the cause of these events because, well, that's a good place to start, we have the mayor of Rokton Mr Henning and is best friend and deputy Mr Danton.
Anyway these two were normally the best of friends doing everything together (hell they even specifically built semidetached houses next to each other) but recently they had a bit of a falling out over education (or Edumakation as the illiterate residents of Rokton call it) .
Now, despite the fact that most people are apparently scared of Edumakation, Mr Danton was adamant that the town needed some. Mr Henning however was more interested in building anything that might not make people realise that he wasn't that good a Mayor. So, as things escalated quickly, Mr Rokton himself stepped in and told Mr Danton that he could have some land to build a town of his own to prove Mr henning wrong.
So, here we have Danton Bay, ironically enough missing the school as of the moment.



Yer, the residents aren't too happy about that given that they moved there because they agreed with Mr Danton.
Meanwhile, Mr Rokton decided to cement the fact that although the Mayors were allowed to run the towns as they wanted he was still in charge by installing this massive statue of himself at the end of the commercial strip. Money well spent!



So, whilst Mr Henning and Mr Danton were arguing a number of people had a word with Mr Rokton and convinced him to allow them to settle in the woods near his house (to be fair most of these people worked for him so it made sense) which, given how far it is away from the harbour and polluted water would probably mean this is the nicest place to live, still there isn't much to do unless you like trees....



This expansion though, meant that the towns needed more juice than the old power plant could provide at which point I went a bit mad and placed these 4 wind turbines at the end of the peninsula Rokton is built on. Turns out, after building them all, that 1 would have done.............



I was future proofing, honest!
Anyway that was it for this look at the growth in the town along more of the vague and random backstory that I hope is at the very least confusing you, here's a overview as usual to finish with!



So there we have it for entry 3. Feel free to complain, criticise, comments or make vaguely related chit chat until next time!
Cheers
James

[So there we go, that's the first three entires so were all up together over here as well. Hope you all enjoy it so far!]

[89James89]

Replies:

Thanks for the likes guys!

Entry 4: Even more divide


So, welcome back to Rokton where apparently growth never ceases. True for the most part this growth is pretty splintered and the results are various communities that may or may not get on all that well but hey, its growth right?

Jumping straight in and to prove the point we have another new settlement by the name of Middleton, creatively named because.... well it's in the middle of Rokton and Henning Bay.




Settled by a load of people from both Henning Bay and Rokton who were tired of the bickering and gossip and weren't allowed to settle in the Rok Estates on account of not working for Mr Rokton directly, these folk cleverly (perhaps the clever move anyone's made in the area, though, given the lack of education this isn't saying much) settled in the middle of Rokton and Henning Bay, allowing themselves easy access to both towns.

Meanwhile Henning Bay has continued to grow outwards as the population of the area rises and more houses are needed. You can also see its expanding commercial area in this picture clearly. Obviously they can't hate Rokton that much, they seem to have taken  few design cues from it.




So moving onto what I assume you all noticed in the background of the above picture (or didn't notice if your skim reading/glancing but hell, I'm going to make you scroll back up and make you notice it anyway), the area has now decided that feeding themselves is cheaper than importing food so have begun to build farms (is that the right term? How the hell do you build a field?)

Here you can see them around the Rok Estates though, as with most things in this place, they made a half arsed attempt at actually defining land ownership and boundaries. Might have to fix that.




Speaking of Rok Estates, here's a random close up picture of the peaCEFUL.... (sorry had to shout to be heard over the tractors) area and its nice large homes. Mr Rok pays well at least.




Meanwhile back in Rok, the increased population means more jobs are needed so the nice cle... cough cough.... an harbour got a bit of an expansion alongside the wind farm.




Which leads me to another close up of a lovely little place to have your dinner if your feeling peckish half way through your day!




Mind you it's not all fun and games in Rokton (who'd have guessed eh!). Apparently the loggers aren't to happy about the expansion of the dump right next to there woodland and in other places across the area (they don't understand recycling yet)




So there we have it for another episode of the lovely area of Rokton! Here's the obligatory overview and also a population list for the towns in the area.




Population Counts:

Rokton: 2006
Henning Bay: 1251
Middleton: 489
Rok Pines: 314

Till next time!

(PS. If anyone has any good home security tips can you please give Mr Henning a call. He still hasn't built a school yet and people aren't looking all that pleased!)

(PPS: I've tried using some after effects and editing on the images in this entry. I quite like it but let me know what you guys think!)

[Nanami]

Well I guess, let me to be the first comment here.... 

I guess for Cities Skylines city or maybe town, its already pretty good without much custom content.    Pretty nice work so far! is this city will become a bustling city or just a minor town like now? I want to see more 

[89James89]

Replies:

Nanami: Thanks for taking the time to comment! Don't really know what sort of town or city it will become to be honest. I don't really plan on having a huge metrolpolis though. Just some small towns growing into one really.


Entry 5: Educating the farmers!

So, were back in Rokton today with another small update for you all (basically not a hell of a lot of note has actually happened but we'll pretend lots has!).

Jumping straight in, were pleased (and relieved in Mayor Hennings case) to say that we finally got a school built and actually staffed in Henning Bay. Alongside this he also found some money in the budget to actually build some services so people wont have to rely on Rokton for their safety which is a bonus for them as can be seen in the picture below.


Meanwhile, across the highway we've seen some rather large agricultural growth (large in relation to what we had before in any case), the towns having collectively decided that growing your own food is much cheaper than importing it (maybe not so reliable though given the skills of some of these farmers)


Fields a bit small you say?

Well here in Rokton getting sizeable plots of land is a bit hard as Mr Rokton is very fair with his land rental laws and reasons that everyone should have a chance to own some (ok he's tight). So we've come up with the novel idea of having co-operative farms which share machinery and supplies and each farmer works his own little field. Much friendlier than huge open fields (screw efficiency, who needs that? Also the friendly might be a bit of a stretch, everyone seems to have planted huge tree rows around their fields. At least it keeps in the noise in).


Its not all corn and wheat though in Rokton, As we hit 5000 population, it's getting increasingly likely that you might have a dump sited next to your house as rubbish spirals out of control a bit.


Luckily though, someone apparently has a brilliant idea (oh god........) so we'll have to see how that pans out next time as I leave you with this short entry and the obligatory overview.



Till next time!

[Nanami]

Another nice pictures! well considering the nearby terrain it is indeed that metropolitan kinda hard to make. but small city is also rather interesting to see. especially at detailed view.
also can i ask what is the map you using?

[89James89]

Replies:

Nanami: Thanks, I like low down skylines with multiple business areas, the kind you get when places grow into eachother. As for the map its my own one that I made. Haven't released it yet either sorry but might do in the future. 


Entry 6: Burn everything!


Oh, how apt a title, even if it wasn't meant to be so literal. Anyway, you see we may as well jump straight into Rokton with the issues being addressed in this entry.

The rubbish issue from last entry you say?

Well that was the plan. Unfortunately we found ourselves with other things on our hands namely this....


Bit of traffic, not too bad though. This however was another issue......


Apparently some farmer decided to light a bonfire, inside the treeline judging by this outcome. Still we managed to get it under control only for it to happen several times again over the course of the next few years.


Also, just to prove that its not just the rural lot that have issues with fire safety, the nice park in Rokton has gone up in flames several times as well.


Dear god.......

So, this led us to trying to come up with solutions to all three issues at once, which , we somehow, amazingly managed to do.

Starting with the original problem this is the new entrance into Rokton. The filter lanes really help ease congestion on the roundabout. Were currently planting trees along it due to complaints about noise levels from the road. Apparently the local bookie gives pretty good odds on when someone will burn down the treeline as well!


Then, too kill tow birds with one fire we managed to apparently somehow scrape together another cash to build this huge Waste to Energy plant in the centre of the bay, currently producing more than enough power to power the whole area and burning all the rubbish too boot.  (350MW from 4 incinerators and two Oil Power plants if you were wondering. The Oil power plants are pretend incinerators ok!). We also choose (probably rather sensibly) to build a large fire heliport here, to help combat the increasing risk of burning the entire area down.


This huge capacity to burn everything has predictably sorted out the rubbish issues in the whole area and has meant that we could reclaim the land previously used by landfills for other purposes. Rokton Forestry is especially pleased they don't have to put up with the smell anymore.


We also still have more people moving into the are despite all the issues and several small settlements have sprung up like Glenville here, situated outside Henning Bay next to all the farmland.


So, that's all for this eventful entry. Apparently people are enquiring about public transport because their too lazy to drive so we'll have to see about that in the future. For now though I'll leave you with the obligatory overview of our growing region, now proudly supporting the glaringly obvious Waste to Energy plant.



Till next time!

PS: I got Natural Disasters DLC. Turns out my region really likes to catch on fire despite disasters being turned off. Oh well it makes for some interesting situations.

[Nanami]

Aww... kinda want that map though...

yet another nice update! I suggest you better prepare for random disasters with that DLC especially with the meteors and tornados which will be very devasting (I cant see tsunami as big threat looking at the topography).... But that can be avoided by turning down the random disasters in the option menu.

[89James89]

Replies:

Nanami: Thanks! Well I have random disasters turned off so I don't think I'll get anything other than forest fires. Don't really feel like destroying everything (plus the fires are doing a good enough job at causing me a headache.

As for the map, I don't have time to release it at the moment but I can do so in the future. Just keep pestering me until I do lol!


Entry 7: Let's all catch a bus to Perrin Head!

So, welcome back to Rokton where we've had a few problems, some new buses and several new settlements springing up like daisy's!

Let's start by getting the boring bits out of the way with a look at several improvements to Roktons transport system and network with a couple of interchange upgrades being done. Firstly with this one, where as you can see a bonfire gone wrong ground the area to a complete standstill resulting in a slight decrease to the trees and farm buildings in the area.


Deciding that we needed to prevent this in the future we gave the junction some slip lanes. These did precisely nothing in helping out with the traffic which is when some clever soul suggested improving the roundabout on the Henning Bay side. Thankfully this seems to have cleared it up completely which is useful when bonfires inevitably go wrong.


Meanwhile in Rokton, the interchange was still giving us issues so we needed a solution for it fast. Luckily some tunnelling seems to have solved the problem of traffic trying to cross each-other and causing congestion. Its beginning to look a bit chaotic though.


Speaking of Rokton though, we saw the tip of the peninsula that used to house the wind turbines until we built the WTEP (Waste To Energy Plant) be renovated with sea walls and some piers. No real word on what's going here yet but it looks like something's planned!


Something else that was evidently planned had to be Henning's Bay new 'I want what my neighbour has!' craze where everyone has built pretty much identical houses across the board. Oh well, as long as their happy and paying taxes I suppose......


So, your probably wondering where Perrin head is given that its in the title (ok, your not, but I needed a segway into this so were rolling with it). Its this small town that's begun to develop on the coast down from Henning Bay, I assume by people that wanted a quieter life.


And, for people who wanted a even quieter life than that we have Riverbend and Cliffside which have developed inland from the rest of the settlements.


And, for the other part of the title being a bus ride the city finally has a actual bus line. Well it has several lines (one for each of the three centres of population and then a regional line that visits every settlement (except Cliffside but their tiny anyway). Here's the lovely new bus terminal, right next to the fire heli depot which in turn, is right next to the WTEP (yes, it probably won't to shiny for too long).


So, because I like abrupt endings to entries here's a current overview with all the lovely new towns and villages that have popped up over the last couple of entries. No idea what we'll be doing in the next entry but I'm sure it'll be interesting as always (don't laugh!).


Till next time!

[Nanami]

Another nice work! 
Hope the CIMs will enjoy the bus service you gave! too bad for some people though because of the slip lane development, they lost the pathway through the highway.

also consider how the farming area has grow from the burnt out on 1st picture into normal 2nd one picture, seems it has been rather long time after disaster.