Supported
About This File
Addon Lots Pack
Are you ready to venture back in time?
In our 2nd official CoriBoom™ release to the STEX, @CorinaMarie and I have developed a collection of RCI lots to complement Cori's Castle.
Wandering in the deep, dank, dark dungeons of the Maxis Longfellow Castle, Cori discovered the hidden treasure of 6 rarely seen buildings. We've extracted these from CastleSet.dat and lotted them specially to create this pack. The models were used on the original 13x12 sized Maxis lot, but it seems a bit of a shame they couldn't be built individually outside the castle grounds as regular functional growable buildings. That's where our Addon Lots Pack for Cori's Castle comes in. 
They've each been designed around a central medieval theme. The general idea is to represent an era when civilization had to live and survive on basic resources, making do with what they had without the modern technology we've become so accustomed to today (and often take for granted). As such the lots contain no cars, satellite dishes, or lawnmowers, and the buildings are tenderly lit by oil lamps and from candlelight.
Design Considerations
Minimal Dependencies, with Maximal Variety
All lots use standard Maxis props and those included in the CastleSet.dat file as a dependency. The lot design incorporates prop families to maximise variety. This means with 6 individual lots in this set, there are additionally dozens of different combinations possible between them. The game will randomly select from planted bushes, shrubs, furniture, and other details each time upon growing, meaning there's a reduced probability of two lots side-by-side ever being identical.
Custom Base Textures
The pack contains specially developed base textures combined into an included DAT file. These add dirt walkways and other details, such as where people are visibly seen to gather on the lots, most notably so on the Travelers Inn as timed animated props. The idea with the custom textures is to incorporate them around the building, and so helping everything integrate more naturally.
Effects for Enhancement
Bringing the lots more to life, there are a few effects strategically placed on the lots, including smoke rising from the chimneys. They're subtle enough to not stand out obviously, but they'll intermittently be displayed to give an added element of character. Each have been correctly raised and oriented from the ground when viewed from all 4 directions. Additionally as hinted above, there are Sims which are shown at certain times of the day. These use a prop family too, so various Sims will appear interchangeably for each lot.
Modular Design
Thinking of how these lots will accompany each other, they've been lotted with the purpose so the boundaries fit together. Bushes and shrubs are on the edges, and then fences are used further back on the 2x2 lot, so the 1x1 Houses can blend in with a degree of seamlessness.
Proportionate Stats
All lots have been based on Maxis original growables of the same size, with the intention to keep them within the realms of what the simulation expects. To fit around the idea of old style growth, they've each only been assigned to the Chicago 1890 Tileset. So just remember to enable that option in the building style control or else the lots won't develop.
Sample Preview
Here's an example pic showing all lots built within the Cori's Castle region:
(Dirt roads used are the SAM-3 texture variation from the Network Addon Mod. These go really well.)
What's Included?
6 growable Stage 1 lots. (3 Residential, 1 Commercial, 2 Industrial)
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2 R$, 1x1, Small Cottages (6 R$ residents)
- Castle Shake Roof House
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Castle Thatched Roof House
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1 R$, 2x1, Large Home (12 R$ residents)
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Castle Big Thatched Roof House
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Castle Big Thatched Roof House
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1 CS$, 2x2, Travelers Inn (28 CS$ workers)
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Castle Travelers Inn
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Castle Travelers Inn
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1 IR$ (Ag), 2x2 with field, Stable & Farm (4 IR$ workers)
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Castle Farm and Stables
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Castle Farm and Stables
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1 ID$$, 2x1, Blacksmith Shop (9 ID$ workers)
- Castle Blacksmith's Shop
We recommended using the Ctrl+Zone method to encourage the 2x1 and 2x2 lots to grow. See this post for a summary of this and other precision zoning techniques for use in the game.
Dependencies
- CastleSet.dat contained in Longfellow Castle. Thanks Maxis for these, they really are superb!
- Cori's Castle - Addon Lots Base Textures.dat (Included)
Note: Should anyone find a use for the base textures included, feel free to add the file (or the extracted textures you use) and include it with your download.
There's no need to make anyone's life more difficult by linking back to here. Do mention where they came from though, and how if anyone already uses our Addon Lots, they probably already have said textures.
Another Note: The CastleSet.dat may also be named Castle Ramparts.dat which includes the same models.
Installation
This pack uses the standard process of installing SC4 content.
Copy the entire contents of Cori's Castle - Addon Lots Pack into your Plugins.
This named folder contains the above texture DAT file required for the custom base textures, and then each lot is contained within an individual subfolder per developer type. Who knows, we may someday create a few more of these, and so this structure seems logical to begin with. You're free to place them in your own system of organization though as you see fit.
Note that instead of combining them all into one merged DAT file, we've specifically created them as separate lots to easily allow you to mix and match with other content as desired.
The CastleSet.dat file can be copied in here also, or you may wish to have it separate if using the Maxis Longfellow Castle. In which case, just ensure it's placed somewhere in your Plugins.
Recommended Content
Did we mention these lots are great to use when playing Cori's Castle - Complete Region?
Yep, we did, and they do. But yeah. 
Additionally along with the Maxis Longfellow Castle itself which provides the building models, you may also find selected items useful from the following authors to fit the theme:
- Content by @Pegprod from the Mountain Theme Pack.
- Content by @onlyplace4 including their Wild West Barn.
- Content by @SimCoug such as their Little Well.
// CoriBoom™ Productions Release \\
Cori's Castle - Addon Lots Pack v1.0 — (10 Jan 2019)
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