Commonwealth of Marathon

[art128]

Great couples of update Dustin! New development looks good.

[metarvo]

Nice update!  The presence of all those parks and plazas makes it look like a particularly pleasant city center.

[Badsim]

Hi Dustin,

Nice, original and inspiring new urban layout. 

We'll visit here again when the expansion plans are finalized and construction begins.

Hope to see that area again indeed... with traffic on roads and the marathonians crowd on plazas and sidewalks.

Most of all, that's comforting to see a veteran coming back, we can feel how much you love the game and how much you missed it - free time becomes a luxury - so, the pandemic has finally some bright sides. 

Take care.

C.

[thundercrack83]

UPDATE LXII
Tonight, I'll Be on That Hill!
Part I: Remembrance
22 October 2020

Hello all!

So, we're back here with a proper update in Marathon! Today, we're going to take a look at the northeastern tip of Marathon Island—and a hill that sits atop it, actually...

Surrounding the hill is the an older neighborhood in Marathon, known as Brothers & Sisters (Frères & Sœurs in French). It's named this because all of the streets in the neighborhood are named after Saints of the Catholic Church, both male and female.

The avenue that splits at the foot of the hill is Boulevard-de-la-Croix-de-Fer, which is named after the hill itself, which is the Col de la Croix-de-Fer, or "Hill of the Iron Cross." (I'm a big fan of the Tour de France, hence borrowing the name of one of the climbs...)

It is atop this hill that we're going to develop today, and in keeping with the saintly theme, the first thing we're going to build is...

...a cemetery! Appropriate for Halloween, right?

Anyway, here's another section...

...and another...

...and also, a mausoleum at the foot of the hill.

We keeping growing (boy, people are dying to get into this place, aren't they!?)...

Until we have this:

Fill in the blank tiles and we're now here...

Before we go further up the hill, let's go around it for a second...

...with a walking path, which follows the northeastern edge of the hill. We'll skip over the large slope for now and add more pathway...

Until we come back and think about what we're going to do with the rest of this hill. First, we'll add some more walkways and...

...a small market area. I know what you're thinking, "A market in a cemetery? That's a little strange, isn't it?" Well, I suppose it is, but stay with me! Next, we climb...

...the stairs and we are at the top of the hill. So, now what? Well, first, we'll fill in the blank spots.

And then...

...welcome to autumn on the Col de la Croix de Fer! Still, it seems like something is missing. What about, maybe a...

...cathedral? The Cathédrale de la Croix de Fer, to be exact! Here it is in autumn—

And spring—

I'll leave with a few shots of the cathedral and the hill for now, I hope you enjoy it!

But what about this slope?

Yes...what about that? Maybe that's what Part 2 is for?

Hope everyone is doing well!

See you soon!

[gn_leugim]

now that is a big graveyard! great job

Regarding the slope, here in Portugal we like make stairs cases out of them, so the faithful may climb them as an act of faith..  If you google images of " Bom Jesus Braga" or "Lamego Senhora dos Remédios" you will understand what I mean 

[art128]

I must say I was not expecting a cemetery there.
Still great spot for xannepan's Antwerp Cathedral!

[thundercrack83]

Feast your eyes on the new 2020 banner for Marathon! Amazing, isn't it!? OK, not really, I'm just teasing! The real reason I've posted today is that on this date, twelve years ago, the Commonwealth of Marathon began here at SC4D.

12 years...

I was looking back through the years at everything we've done together here and I have to say, sincerely, that I got a bit emotional while paging through. I grew up here in Marathon; here at SC4D, really, where I joined in 2006. I made some very great friends here, whose contributions,  camaraderie, and inspiration here I miss a great deal...Robin (rooker1) and David (dedgren), just to name two. I was 25 years old then, still in college, and it would be another two years until I finally started Marathon here on November 5, 2008.

There have been a lot of ups and a lot of downs in the past 12 years. Marriage and divorce, loss and mourning, starting and maintaining employment, building a house, a pandemic...a real life. But throughout all of it, SC4D and Marathon have always been with me. Whenever I drive on a highway, or walk through a park, or look at a map, or visit a new place, it is there.

"How could I make this in Marathon?" I ask myself. "What would this look like in SC4?"

In paging through the elder days, I decided to update the Catalogue of Updates. If you would have told me in 2009 that I would go five years without posting an update in Marathon, I would have called you a liar! Sure enough, though, from 2012 to 2017, things were quiet here.

I know that things here are different now, but it still feels good to come here and not only reminisce, but to continue this little piece of me that I've shared with you all for so long. I hope that we're all still here, still healthy, and still enjoying SC4.

Enough blathering now! Here's a few random pictures that I took while messing around last night. Just a small commemoration of today.

I'm still actively working on things, so hopefully, I can get some more updates and such going here on a regular basis (Boy, hasn't he said that before!?)

Take care, everyone! See you soon!

[art128]

It's great to see you use the RHW and RRW. Really makes a difference compared to how you used the Maxis highway in the past. The snow scene is really cool.    (pun intended)