Recreation: Cardiff

[6underground 11]

Well, it's FINALLY here, "Ail Luniad: Caerdydd" / "Recreation: Cardiff"

Cardiff / Caerdydd is the capital city of Wales. Wales is a member nation of the U.K. It has a population of a mere 3 million, spread out over 20,799km2 or 8.022 miles. Cardiff City as a population (2001) of 305,353 people. The city can trace it's roots back to the Roman times, the medieval castle which is located in the very centre of the city is built upon the Roman fort that was overseen by the Roman General; Aulus Didis.

Aims;

    * The city must reach a population of 610,708 (doubled from 305,354. To compensate with SC4 residential "stuffing").

    * The city must remain as accurate to the real thing.

    * The city must encompass all the current boundaries and suburbs.

    * the city must be guided by satellite imagery

    * Adjust to the changes in the city after the "completion" stage.

What have you done?

Aided with satellite imagery, ordinance surveys and alot of feedback. I began my quest to design and construct the small Capital, with a twist. This was not an easy task. Unlike North America, DEM (Digital elevation models) or DTM (Digital Terrain models) are hard to come by for free or at a reasonable price in or for Europe. Either the free information i could find was barely detailed, or was shot from so high that it encompassed all of South Wales. While helpful, it was not as beneficial as I would otherwise have liked. So by the help of http://www.multimap.com I took at least 25 images from a single height, and then created a montage of images side by side, aligning them, until i had one huge satellite image that was both detailed enough for me to see what i needed to, and good enough in size to start a region. The next part was more consuming, avoiding all rivers, major lakes and resevoirs, i applied one "level" colour, that would be interpreted as the main height level for the land in SC4. This was trial and error on my part as i had only made one map previously, many moons ago. Then section by section, from Penarth to Castleton, and the Barrage to Llandaff and beyond, i start adding more and more "levels" to the map, and while not 100% accurate, i figured more accuracy would be gained in time and in-game. Though of course what was achieved in the greyscale layed the foundation for what went where.

**Space Reserved for table of contents**

Live Webcam in Cardiff City Centre

*Personal thanks to SA for the banner design

Comments of course welcome. Diolch

[decola 0]

Fanatastic! Love the terraforming, it's a wonder that was all done by hand! good luck with the recreation, it's looking good so far!

[GMT 389]

awesome map!

can't wait to see more!

[Battlecat 14]

Great terraforming work!  It's not easy to replicate a real region by hand.  Looking forward to seeing your city construction. 

[dale_bel 0]

Oh.Your cj looks very nice! i can't wait to see more!

[simmax 0]

Another recreation... Good luck! Recreating an exisiting city is so hard...

[Boggy1 45]

Woo! I can't wait to see more of this 6u!

[RiverCocytus 0]

neat. There is a little town in the North of Harford County called 'Cardiff'. It is a small, semi-rural community up in the hills between Pennsylvania and Maryland. When I saw Cardiff, i was like, "huh?"

Looks neat. In particular, I like the history you provided.

[6underground 11]

@ River, you may be pleased to know that Pennsylvania and Ohio were "the" top destinations for Welsh immigrants into the "New World", At one point Pennsylvania was to be called, New Wales. Undoubtedly you know this, but there are towns and places in Pennsylvania (known as the Welsh tract) that still have Welsh names: Brynmawr, Gower, Gwynedd, Cardiff, Swansea/Abertawe. Even a slight anglaciation of Cymru (Wales) into Cumru.

[E.J.C 9]

good luck with this one

I hope you will manage to get a European Like CJ..................

[Simen 1]

Aw! youve marked out my church for me!! how nice

Anyways, love the work youve done till now, Ill keep watching this one

[andymcnab666 4]

Awww noo... what have you unleashed 6underground... lol... j/k

Im actually really interested to see how this one develops... high expectations...

[Dubya 0]

Very creative in the technique used to create the terrain, excellent graphics, looking forward to more.

[patfirefghtr 160]

I'm intrigued cant wait to see where this go's looking forward to more updates

[tomdapom 79]

Im gonna follow this CJ looks interesting

[szarkoz 8]

I'm sure this is gonna be interesting. I'll follow this.

[sloppet 3]

I hope you finish this one before I die...

[Yoman3 5]

Can't wait scence i luv your other cj

[Nardo69 51]

Recreations of existing cities is not my style of playing the game - tried it with SC2k and SC3K and failed ...

but I do love to see good recreation CJs!

In that sense:

Good luck!

Bernhard

[Weird 0]

That map is incredible!! I love the terraforming. Keep up the great work!

[Sproxxx 0]

Hey! This is great! I've always wanted to know more about Wales. My Dad is Welsh. He immagrated to Canada and then I was born here. I'm looking forward to this one.

On a side note, I've always wanted to learn the Welsh language. My dad can speak it fluently but I don't think he has the patients to teach me. Would you know any good web sites to learn it from?

[spikeydarren 1]

oh my god this si so exciting! I can't wait to see more

[Tommy_Vercetti3 3]

Awesome map! Nice introduction too. Can't wait for more!

[GingerBlokey 30]

Wow, I love Cardiff sooo much. I cant wait to see this.

[Fabiocb 1]

wowowowowowow

this sure will be fantastic, the map already looks outstanding and nice historical introduction.

[soldyne 111]

this is one of those CJs that gives me mixed feelings: I am unbelievably impressed with the work and detail shown here, you are certainly a master at SC4 and CJs; but then I think how horrible this makes my CJ skills look and now I am jealous...

good work

[chriscf 0]

Shame about all that work, I've got high-resolution DEM data for the area you could have used as a starting point ;-)

Still, I'm looking forward to seeing this, right down to whether or not I can see my house. One of the things I wanted to go, but never got around to doing, was BATing the Ty Glas towers, home of the Revenue bit of HMRC (I think the Customs bit still lives in Portcullis House in Riverside).

Pob hwyl!

[choco1 4]

Great start! Its great to see you start up a new CJ 6U. As always your quality is very high, the presentation is stunning and I'll be very interested to see what the city looks like.

Brilliant stuff mate! I look forward to more.

[capitol1 1]

sounds very hard to recreate an entire city in the sense of creating most of the landmarks and the transportation system..should be a gooder 6u ill watch it on sc though...

[sloppet 3]

hello once again 6underg. !! Are you still alive? I can't wait to see the next update here my friend..