About This File
NHP Cape Cod 3-PAK By blade2k5
Map Details and Information
Cape Cod was a landmark for early explorers, possibly the "Promontory of Vinland" mentioned by the Norse voyagers (985-1025). Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524 approached it from the south, and Esteban Gómez the next year called it Cape St. James. Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602 gave it the name that survives. Samuel de Champlain charted its sand-silted harbors in 1606 and Henry Hudson landed there in 1609. Captain John Smith noted it on his map of 1614 and at last the Pilgrims entered the "Cape Harbor" and--contrary to the popular myth of Plymouth Rock--made their first landing near present-day Provincetown on November 11, 1620. Nearby, in what is now Eastham, they had their first encounter with Native Americans.
Cape Cod was among the first places settled by Europeans in North America. Aside from Barnstable (1639), Sandwich (1637) and Yarmouth (1639) the Cape's fifteen towns developed slowly. The final town to be established on the Cape was Bourne in 1884. Provincetown was a group of huts until the 18th century. A channel from Massachusetts Bay to Buzzards Bay is shown on Southack's map of 1717, but the present Cape Cod Canal had a troubled development from 1870 to 1914. The Federal government purchased it in 1928.
Thanks to its early settlement and intensive land use, by the time Henry Thoreau saw Cape Cod during his four visits over 1849 to 1857, its vegetation was depauperate and trees were scarce. As all heating was by wood, and it took 10 to 20 cords (40 to 80 m³) of wood to heat a home, most of Cape Cod was cleared early on. Other areas were planted to crops familiar to the English but unsuited to Cape Cod's thin, glacially derived soils. For instance, much of Eastham was planted to wheat. Burning of woodlands was common to release nutrients into the soil. Improper and intensive farming led to erosion and the loss of topsoil. Farmers grazed their cattle on the grassy dunes of coastal Massachusetts, only to watch "in horror as the denuded sands `walked' over richer lands, burying cultivated fields and fences." Dunes on the outer Cape became more common and many harbors filled in with eroded soils. By 1800, most of Cape Cod's firewood came by boat from Maine. The paucity of vegetation was worsened by the Merino sheep and wool "mania" that reached its peak in New England around 1840. The early industrial revolution, which occurred through much of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, bypassed Cape Cod (notable exceptions being the West Barnstable Brick Company and the Sandwich Glass Company, both defunct) due to a lack of significant water power in the area. As a result, and also because of its geographic position, the Cape developed as a large fishing and whaling center. After 1860 and the opening of the American West, agricultural abandonment began on the Cape so that by 1950 it had more forests than at any time since the 18th century.
Cape Cod became a summer haven for harried urbanites beginning at the end of the nineteenth century as improved rail transportation made the towns of the Upper Cape, like Bourne and Falmouth, accessible to Bostonians. At the beginning of the twentieth century many large, shingled "cottages" were built along Buzzards Bay for the Northeastern mercantile elite. The relaxed summer environment offered by Cape Cod was brought to the attention of the whole nation by writers including Joseph C. Lincoln, who published novels and countless short stories about Cape Cod folks in popular magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post and the Delineator.
Guglielmo Marconi made the first transatlantic wireless transmission originating in the United States from Cape Cod, at Wellfleet. The beach he made the first wireless transmission from is now known as Marconi Beach. He then built upon this success in 1914 by opening the maritime wireless station WCC in Chatham, which had a hand in the communications of Amelia Earhart, Howard Hughes, Admiral Byrd, and the Hindenburg. He chose this site due to Chatham's vantage point on the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded on three sides by water. Walter Cronkite narrated a 17 minute documentary in 2005 about the history of the Chatham Station.
Much of the East-facing Atlantic seacoast of Cape Cod consists of wide, sandy beaches. In 1961, a significant portion of this coastline—already slated for housing subdivisions—was made a part of the Cape Cod National Seashore by President John F. Kennedy, and thus is protected from development. Large portions are open to the public, including the Marconi Site in Wellfleet, a park built around the site of the first two-way transoceanic radio transmission from the United States (by Theodore Roosevelt using Guglielmo Marconi's equipment).
The entire Cape Cod region has been split into 3 maps, West, Central and North and all three are contained within the zip file.
Map Specifics
Map Type: Real World
Region map size:
Cape Cod West: Map is configured for 54 large city tiles and is 6x9 in size. Cape Cod Central: Map is configured for 54 large city tiles and is 9x6 in size. Cape Cod North: Map is configured for 63 large city tiles and is 7x9 in size.
config.bmp size: included with zip file
Dependencies: Either SC4 Mapper or SC4 Terraformer for importing.
Maps were created by taking USGS DEM data and converting the data through a series of processes to a 16bit grayscale png.
Credits
blade2k5 - Original map creation, scaling, importing. SC4TF modification.
Check out more maps by blade2k5 and NHP
Feedback and Support
NHP Simtropolis Support Thread
Any comments and feedback welcomed. Thanks for looking and enjoy.
Install/Uninstall Instructions
Installing the Map
To install SC4M map file:
1. If you don't already have SC4Mapper, download it here and follow the install instructions.
2. Unzip this file.
3. Run SC4Mapper, click on 'create region'
4. Choose SC4M
5. Browse to the unzipped folder and point the map file .SC4M
6. Click on 'Save Region' and name it, and Quit SC4Mapper
7. Run SC4 and load the new region. The colors of the region in SC4 will be the same colors as SC4Mapper until you enter and save each city tile. But you have the choice to do it as you go and not right away.
SC4Terraformer
1. Create a new region folder in your Plugins\Region
2. Copy my config.bmp into the folder and overwrite the old one. (make changes to config.bmp file now if you want)
3. Open the new region you just created with SC4 Terraformer
4. Click on Import Image in the Global Tools Menu and browse for my SC4M file.
5. When file is imported click File - Save (the region is now saved to SC4
6. The colors of the region in SC4 will be the same colors as SC4TF until you enter and save each city tile. But you have the choice to do it as you go and not right away.
Start opening tiles!

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