Lakeville - a city in cyberspace

[needgames 0]

In the year 2179 the Mayor, sitting in his helicopter, looked out over the city he had helped to build. He remembered the first years, when there was just a big chunk of land and just a few businesses and houses in this vast emptiness. Also he remembered the crude beginnings of City Hall, that had been his home in these early years.

He had been among the first group of settlers, just a group of Fringes that came to the new continent to start a new life, away from the conflict stricken lands that had always been their home. Soon after that the first Blue Collars arrived. It seemed the problems they had fled from just came after them to continue to haunt them. But through clever negotiations, the right investments and well thought-out city design the Mayor succeeded in keeping the peace in his city.

And the Mayor grew with the city. Soon after the first Radical Chics settled in Lakeville the Mayor joined their ranks. But he never forgot his roots. Still he would enjoy a good night out in the Fringe quarter of the Old City. Later, when the city had grown into a huge metropolis of ten million souls the Mayor had the audacity of joining the ranks of the Elites. He didn’t like the entertainment of the Fringes as much as he used to by then, but he would still have a warm welcome for them when they newly arrived in his city.

And here he was, hovering over his city of sixteen million people, and he felt proud about it. The city was really big and looked really great from here up above. And he remembered all of the walks he had made through the streets of this city. It also looked great from down below there. Luckily the history of Lakeville had been well recorded at http://forum.deepsilver.com/showthread.php?t=18062 for all who were interested to see.

[hamsterTK 93]

neat.

has the city life people made anything like the BAT yet? waaay too many repeating buildings

not your fault though, the design is really cool. it makes me think of Hong Kong.

[Abc987 3]

Yeah I would sooo get City Life if it had a BAT type thing. Anyway great job.

[needgames 0]

The first building created by a user was recently published. I haven't used it yet, though.

I try to create as much diversity as possible by not creating these large neighbourhoods of the same kind of people, by having lots of recreational buildings and by having businesses in the same area as the residences.

I'm glad you like the design. It's not at all easy to develop a city like this.

[RushHourFreak 1]

I really like it good intro, like the panorama, it is really cool can't wait for more my friend

[needgames 0]

Well, there are two pages more when you follow the link. It will be some time before I post again, because it takes a lot of time to develop a city like this.

[McJason513 1]

What excatly type of computer do you have? When I got a new laptop a Dell Inspiron E1505 it wouldn't work o my computer so i decided to get SimCity4 instead of CityLife.

[patriots_1228 51]

wow this is a really cool idea cant wait to see more!

[eggie99 6]

Looks great...I didn't see the game in the shops in Holland, that a shame because I'd love to buy it. Is it slow like rollercoaster tycoon 3? ( Í've got a brand new pentium D computer but, RTC3 is still slow if the park get's bigger) I ask that because the graphics look a littlebit like it. 

Great job, I'm really lookin' forward for more!

[jacqulina 162]

wonderfull start beautifull pic

[Goin2Chicago 4]

that looks pretty cool. i'll be watching for more.

[needgames 0]

Thank you guys for all the compliments. Now that you all love it so much I'm thinking about copying the highlights of my journal on the official City Life forum to Simtropolis.

So about my system. It's a desktop with an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ processor, 2 GB of dual-channel memory, Asus Extreme AX800 graphics card, and I run Windows XP Professional x64 on it, so it's quite a fast one and the game works well on it, even with all the graphics options set to highest. When walking through the city now that it is so big the game seems to skip a frame occasionaly, and sometimes it crashes. For the rest it works well, as fast as it should.

About buying it in Holland, I bought mine at the Mediamarkt. You could also try bol.com. They often have things that are difficult to find in the shops. I don't know about RTC3, but I guess that if 3D simulators are a problem on your brand new computer, the graphics card might be the problem. If you bought a complete system in a shop you probably just don't have a good one in it. It's often a part they save money on. I also have the impression that when playing games is what you will mainly do on your computer AMD Athlon is the better choice. But anyway, I do not really know ofcourse, I'm just guessing.

[jacqulina 162]

great system there and a great idea

[RushHourFreak 1]

i'm definetely looking forward to morre!

[crazychickensc12 84]

Wow that looks cool!! can't wait to see more!!!

[needgames 0]

Okay, I have to rearrange pictures a bit among the servers I use and activate some accounts and then I will start posting.

[jacqulina 162]

looking forward to them pics

[needgames 0]

There will be lots of pics. I like pics. Hope you like them too. The stories will be enjoyable too, I hope.

[jacqulina 162]

looking out for them

[needgames 0]

Let's go back to the beginning of the story...

One fine morning in 2112 the Mayor found himself in a helicopter. Now that construction of Newburgh and Waterthrown Height had finished he thought it to be a good idea to take a look at the city before rushing into some new megabuilding project. Hovering over the sea he overlooked the Old City. Originally this area was called Lakevalley, part of the larger lands of Rocky Lake. When in the year 2000 it was decided to build a city here it was appropriately named Lakeville. Later on, when construction of Newburgh was well underway, the name Lakeville was used for the entire city, while the area where construction originally had started became commonly known as The Old City.

The Mayor became quite pensive while looking at the crowded Old City. He remembered his original idea, to build a city where every person would live in an appropriate apartment and where every apartment would be located in it's matching neighbourhood, while at the same time the city would have a natural, messy look. He noticed how the Fringe businesses were located a bit away from City Hall, a bit more to the seaside. That worked out quite well. He knew that Blue Collar businesses would cause pollution, so he couldn't build them in the same area where the Blue Collars lived, or he'd risk spending a fortune on maintaining all the needed parks and plaza's. At the same time he needed for Fringes and Blue Collars to live near City Hall, in order to cut costs on services. So to have two well separated neighbourhoods next to each other near City Hall he decided that businesses should be built a bit away from City Hall. That way all apartments could be build in their matching neighbourhoods, because no concentration of businesses would exert so much influence to cause parts of the other neighbourhoods to switch to the other side.

At that stage of the development of the city it was no problem to have Fringes and Blue Collars move into their matching apartments. They usually did so by themselves. And if occasionally they didn't, he'd just tear down and rebuild the apartment. A bit more trouble the Mayor had with the Have Nots. For some reason they were less eager to come to his city. But the contracted demolisher did his work well.

Unwillingly the Mayor's mind wandered off to last night. After the official celebrations in honour of the completion of Newburgh were over, he and a couple of friends went out on a night on the town. Having been a Fringe himself in his younger years it was only logical to have some informal celebrations in the Fringe area of the Old City. It had been a goal from the beginning on of the construction of Lakeville to keep the people entertained. Not only was it good for the mood of the residents, it was also good for the cities' treasury, moreover it livened up the look of the streets of Lakeville. The Mayor had heard of other mayors involved in the settlement of the New Continent that streets in their cities looked a bit dull, because all houses looked the same, so what better way, he thought, to make the streets look more interesting than to have lots of leisure facilities. And they look great at night, when the lights are on, as well. Anyway, the Fringe area of the Old City was teeming with life at night. They visited a heavy metal concert first, afterwards they ate some tapas at a local restaurant, and the better part of the night was spent in some bars, of which there were plenty in Lakeville.

Then the Mayor remembered the great number of playgrounds available to the people in Lakeville in it's early years. It had always been the goal to have large residential buildings close to City Hall, so room was left for them. But to not have a city that would look as if it was under construction for many years playgrounds were used to fill in the gaps. It was a pity, he thought, that those had gone. In the years of rapid development, when the city had become so large that contractors were finally willing to construct large buildings, attention for the living environment had faded. Luckilly during construction of Newburgh, due to the fact that Elites had moved to the city and awareness of the demands of people went on the rise, the focus had changed from as many people as possible to people as happy as possible. For the people of Newburgh and Waterthrown Height the situation had improved just in time, but up till now it was unclear what it would mean for the people of the Old City and Rockshore Cliff. The Mayor suspected that their situation could not be improved so much that they would be completely satisfied when the city had grown to it's full size.



Soon to be continued...

Maybe some of the things I describe are of less interest for people who do not actually play the game, but rewriting the whole thing would take up a lot of time. So I hope you guys and ladies don't mind.

[jacqulina 162]

very nice,nope dont mind one bit,excellent pics

[IliaMerk 0]

nice city, btw how did you get the roads to go in so many angles? i have city life and i only know how to make up and down and left and right roads. also, how do you terraform, i just dont really get citylife.

i love the night pic of the street with the concert and hospital.

[needgames 0]

jacqulina, I'm glad you like both the pics and the stories. I do a lot of walking through and flying over the city to get the right ones.

IliaMerk, for odd angles you have to press the mousebutton a bit longer at the point where the road should start. I never terraformed, but it can be done in the map editor. You can even load a city and terraform it, not just empty maps, so I've heard. I studied both the manual and the tutorial and after that I got off to a good start. Glad you like the street at night. You can also see some restaurants just beyond the hospital.

[needgames 0]

Let's continue with the story. I hope you guys like it.

Suddenly the pilot of the helicopter awakened him out of his pondering. He wanted to know whether the Mayor wanted to see some more of the city. For a while he had to gather his thoughts. "Yes," he said, "take me to the industrial area."

As the pilot continued his way to the industrial area a truly magnificent sight opened up to the Mayor's eyes. Right in front of him he saw the Blue Collar industries and wastewater treatment plants. There also used to be coal power plants here, but technology had come a long way since then. Since the invention of cold fusion technology the coal power plants were gradually dismantled and replaced by wastewater-treatment plants. A bit sad the Mayor was about this, since he had this strange preferrence for those ugly, polluting factories. It kind of made him feel that his city was a real city. If there were no pollution at all, it would just be too clean, that wouldn't be realistic. The Mayor had heard that it was quite popular among his fellow mayor's to get rid of polluting industries as soon as possible, as well as that this goes hand in hand whith a restructuring of the city, in order to get as many rich people on as small a plot of land as possible. He decided right then and there that he was not going to do that. He had also given this strategy some thought, and he even ran a couple of simulations, but he found out that this strategy was not consistent with his other goals. He found it very difficult to keep all people employed, all jobs taken, all people live in their appropriate appartments and have all appartments located in the right neighbourhood while reconstructing the Old City. Also he found that doing this right required a lot of money in the treasury. No, another strategy was going to be his challenge. Up until now the percentage of rich people living in Lakeville had been on the rise. He figured, that if he would just continue to expand the city, eventually the number of rich people would rise to more than 50%. And there was still room enough to expand in Rocky Lake. He was going to build a real metropolis.

Next to the industrial area the Mayor saw the large Have Nots neighbourhood. This had gone a bit out of control. It wasn't his intention to attract that many Have Nots to the city. Altough he had kind of a liking for them. On the one hand he always felt sorry for their deplorable situation, which was strangely enough a feeling he liked, but on the other hand he liked their attitude towards life, which was more like just enjoying and not making much of a fuss about anything.

But anyway, he resumed his thoughts, a lot of them came to the city, because coal power plants and wastewater treatment plants are Blue Collar businesses, and since Have Nots are the only ones that can live well in polluted areas a lot of Have Not businesses were needed to counteract their influence on the area.

A bit further away the Mayor saw, beyond the industrial area, the latest additions to the city: the proud area of Newburgh and high in the mountains the neighbourhood of Waterthrown Height. He felt really proud looking at all this from above. It had been hard work, given the high goals he had set for himself, but looking at it now he felt very content.

Then the Mayor remembered a day, not so long ago. It was shortly after the last coal power plant had been demolished and he had to go for an inspection of the new wastewater treatment facility. There was lots of discussion that day with his co-workers about how to handle waste treatment in the city from now on. On the one hand there was the financial position of the city. Now that the Elite had moved into the city it had so much money that it could easily afford to not invest anymore in waste treatment, but to just sell it all to neighbouring, less fortunate, cities. On the other hand there was morality: 'Is it ethical to not treat your own waste, but to just put the burden on other peoples shoulders'. There is also the practical problem of where to locate new wastewater treatment facilities. The area that had been used up until now was filled up, now that the last coal power plant had been removed. So either regular Blue Collar industries had to be shut down, to make place for wastewater treatment plants, which would cost lots of Blue Collars their job, or a new area for waste treatment had to be found, but that would cause new pollution and therefore more unnecessary Have Nots to move to Lakeville. To escape from the heated debate the Mayor made a stroll around the industrial area, to gather his thoughts. Looking at what had been accomplished here he thought that it would be better to just sell all the waste to other cities. A bit selfish maybe, but certainly better for Lakeville.

A bit selfish the Mayor more often was. Although he felt sympathy for the Have Nots, he found kind of a develish pleasure in running highways straight through Have Not areas. They wouldn't complain about it anyway, and it looked great, he thought, like a real big city. Even more great, he thought, was when the highway was used by Suits. To see a luxury sedan run through such a poor neighbourhood kind of made the social tensions in the city visible. Although on his latest trip on one of the highways of Lakeville he didn't see a luxurious sedan, he remembered the trip with great fondness.

Thanks for everyone's attention. Soon to be continued..

[jacqulina 162]

wow awesome pics there excellent shots

[Tommy_Vercetti3 3]

Amazing. Enough Said.

[DioAngel 1]

Whoa!!!! Really Nice!! Keep it coming!

[needgames 0]

Jacqulina, thanks a lot for your ongoing positive support, I really like that.

Tommy, I like a man who says it all with one word. Thanks a lot.

DioAngel, thank you very much, I just love those exclamations of amazement. Much more will be coming. I usually keep only 1/5 of all the pics I make for an update, lots of them would be good enough to post, but I do not have infinite space on the servers I use, so I can't do that. Also I lack inspiration for stories to go with them all. On the bright side, you only get to see what is really good about Lakeville.

[Krio 626]

I agree with Hamster. City Life needs more custom content. I hope that SC5 will include somekind of BAT with it. If not, I'll stick with SC4.

The nightlife picture is awesome: Pizza Gino and a VW Beetle.

[RushHourFreak 1]

wow the pics are outstanding, keep them on, i liked the history, impressive shot angles, cant wait for more