Shaping Invermere Valley

[jimmymac 0]

Hello everyone and welcome to my city journal. I'd love for people to comment on what they think and leave me some tips if they have any, you never know, suggestions could make it in

So first of all a quick breakdown of everything that I'm using.

I'm going to be using the basics in terms of mods, the Radical Ordinance mod , the Simolean RH mod, the NAM, and the Abandonment Dilapidation mod.

I will be using the following terrain mods: The BSC Itiala terrain texture, Peg's weatherd granite rock texture and his Brigantine water mod.

In terms of BAT's I have too many to count, my plugins directory is 3.9 gig in size and simcity takes roughly 8 minutes on a good day to even get to the EA logo.

In terms of region, I will be using the amazing NHP Invermere Valley map

I'm going to start off with some history of the area (with pictures obviously) and then ultimately move into a more step by step changes. My overall aim is to shape Invermere Valley into a completed region by altering as little of the regions natural beauty as possible.

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Quick Access Contents:

Page 1

Update 1 - Bayside

Update 2 - Bayridge

Page 2

Update 3 - Bedford County

Update 4 - The Other Side Of The Coin

Update 5 - Bayridge/Bayside Revisted

Update 6 - Creating Port Talbot

Update 7 - Building New Port Talbot

Update 8 - Reststops, retouches and overviews

Update 9 - The Bridges Of Bedford County

Page 3

Update 10 - Welcome to Bedford

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Update 1 - Bayside

I will start the first few updates with history on all the towns in Bedford County.

Bedford county is just below the metrolpolis of Bedford, around the Bedford Basin. It includes the towns of Bayside, Bayridge, Port Talbot and Hooligans Landing.

First of all we will visit Bayside

The above shot shows the dispersed township of Bayside. The dispersed township of Bayside was one of the origional towns around the basin, it was origionally a fishing town, until the industry moved in and took over, then most of the people moved away, leaving the town as it is today, with roughly 250-300 people. The town plays a huge role in getting people too and from Bedford, as it contains the southern ferry terminal to cross the basin.

When the ferry terminal was built, it was decided that a mass trainsit system was required to prevent the quite town from being taken over by parked cars. Due to this fact, all of the commerce left in the town relocated to the shore close to the traffic.

As Bedford grew, Bayside was forced to grow with it, the main street was replaced by a high capacity avenue that was connected to the newly built highway offramp, at that point Bayside became nothing more than a passthrough for the busy workers on their way too and from work.

Bayside is also home to MacAndrews elementry school. MacAndrews El was built after all of the local elementry schools were consolitated into one. It was named for Father John MacAndrew, who was the vicar of the church at the time.

Finally, we come to the cause of the problems in Bayside. When the industry moved in it slowly killed the old fishing town, and now nothing remains of the old town, which sat in the bay where the port now lies.  There is still more industry planned for this area, as they continue the expansion.

The industry just kept growing and growing, and soon the aircraft manufactures saw that the great open space and rail links was perfect for an aircraft production facility

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So ends update 1, in update 2 we will visit the other side of the basin and see Bayridge. We will revisit Bayside in a later update to see how things continue to get worse for the poor citizens of the town.

[granto93 4]

looks really really cool! like the terrein and the small town. looks like you have a nice variety of land to work with in the region. i wiah you the best of luck with this and i definantly will be stopping by to see more!!

[jacqulina 162]

wonderfull intro and start my friend,great start to the building lots of trees which helps with keeping pollution down.nice shore line building the docks ect.wonderfull pics

[penguin007 27]

Wow this is great everthing is so spread out and the terrain is also very good

Good luck

Will

[Cleaner475 150]

best of luck but when taking pics for a CJ it is advised to turn of grid line sby pressing 'G' on the keyboard to make the image look better. But it looks great so far - keep it up - I'll be waiting

[jimmymac 0]

Thanks for the comments so far, you will see as we move on that Bedford County is very spread out, many little towns and villages etc, plus a few little surprises here and there.  It's been a huge challenge to do this without altering the natural features of the map too much. Of course for a few things I wanted to alter the features of the map to show the blight that they had on the landscape.

As for the issues with the grid, I realised about the grid after the 4th set of pictures, so unfortunately I will have 3 more updates with the grid, then I move away from it. It's usually the first thing i turn off because it irritates me a lot during play, but it seems that this time i forgot..... doh!

[Amerikaner 42]

WOW i love the idea of the plane factory...(how do they leave lol) but anyway, for a new CJ, its very nice, i love all the trees and your railroad and your use of those street turns...(borat speaking here) VERY NICE lol

edut- dont worry about that grid ( unless taking pictures) i personally find it helpful

[Godzillaman 21]

sure the industry would be bad for the fishing community, but least it can do for them is give them jobs, and makes great looking pics

[patriots_1228 51]

wow that looks fantastic for a start! Invermere Valley is my favorite map by far, glad to see it in game. your city looks great awesome job!

[jimmymac 0]

Amerikaner: ]In a later update you will see how they addressed the problem of getting the planes off of the ground. It doesn't boade well for the poor people in the town thats for sure.

Godzillaman: Sure it looks great in pictures, but I certainly wouldn't want to live next to a smoke belching smelting plant. lol. I always assumed that the people would think the same way, with it being a small town and all.

patriots_1228: The amount of work I did preparing myself for doing this CJ was immense. I actually sat through and filled in half of another region just to get an idea where to start with this. The scope for Invermere Valley is so huge and I wanted to do the map true justice, so I hope you will like it as we move on.

Speaking of moving on, I think I will push forward and put update 2 up tomorrow evening so that  we can get the history bits over and done with (they should finish around update 5 or 6) and then it is onto the actual development step by step.

[mencc1701 0]

Hmm... you started your CJ off with a former fishing town, just like mine. Despicable.

Haha, no, it's really good, actually. I love the airplane factory and the industrial district. The commercial strip looks cool and realistic, as well.

[Abc987 3]

Great job!!!!!!! I love how you made the airport!!

[PennDOTguy 5]

Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

[Schulmanator 5,787]

A nice start. You have hit the ground running with this one.

[The Big Z 103]

Jimmymac, I'm glad I'm not the only one that has to wait 10 minutes for SC4 to load. lol. A good thing to do is download the SC4DataPacker. If you follow the instructions and helpful comments, it helps the region loading and city loading time a lot. You are using pretty much the exact modds and such as I am in my CJ! I like your city, and the layout is good, too. I look forward to see my. Oh, and btw, I like your avatar.

[Zelgadis 638]

Good start indeed. Lovely pictures already. And a nice story to go along with it.

ISF

[jimmymac 0]

As I have a few minutes spare before I start teaching for the day I thought I would spend a few mins replying to the comments that i've had so far, we will see another update tonight around 7-8pm UK time. So without delay, on with the show.

menc1701:  Thanks for the comments, I assure you I had no sinister plan for starting the same as your's, honest lol. Thanks for the comments about the commerce, I was trying to create a semi-realistic look with it, how everything big moved in where the people are and the smaller shops died out.

Jrhnemo: Sadly the plane factory doesn't double as an airport, however I do intend to have an airstrip somewhere in this area, you will see it in a later update.

PennDOTguy: I'm glad you're enjoying the journal so far, hope to see you around Invermere Valley as we move along too.

Schulmanator: Thanks for the kind comments, as I said to patriots_1228 above, I spent a lot of time preparing for this region, because I wanted to hit the ground running with it and do it justic, I just hope that people enjoy the later updates too, as we move along the valley floor toward Bedford itself.

The Big Z:  Thanks for the tip, i'll definately look into it, however I like that fact that the game gives me a chance to go make a drink and a sandwich before it fires up, and seeing how 1 play session normally lasts at least 2-3 hours the wait time isn't all that bad.

Zelgadis: I'm glad you like the journal so far, everything in Bedford county has a back story, some a little more colourful than others, we even have a dark side to the county yet to be seen (insert maniacal laughter here)

Everyone who has replied thusfar, thank you for your comments and tips, I hope you will enjoy the journal as it moves on. And to everyone who is currently lurking, welcome to Invermere Valley

[jacqulina 162]

looking forward to more my friend

[jplumbley 5]

Ohhhhh very nice!!

Thank you very much.. That is all I have to say. We are always impressed and proud when a CJ is brought to one of our maps! Do you mind showing an overview so I can see what part of the map your working on?

[jimmymac 0]

jplumbley:  I was saving this until update 4, but here is the full region shot, it's the least I can do for providing me with the map in the first place , be mindful though, as it is around 2-3 meg in size.

[jacqulina 162]

beautifull region pic very nice work

[jimmymac 0]

OK, as promised, it's time for update 2 of Shaping Invermere Valley as I said in the update yesterday, we will be visiting the township of Bayridge today.

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Update 2 - Bayridge

The township of Bayridge was founded shortly after the township of Bayside, it sits across the bay from Bayside. Origionally it was home to the miners who worked in the mine not far from the town, but after the coal seam was used up, all the miners left and the town, much like Bayside, died. It wasn't until the industry ran everyone out of Bayside that the town thrived again.

Bayridge had it's mass transit system upgraded to match that of Bayside, as Bayridge is the main entry point for the city of Bedford, with it being on the same side of the bay it sees a lot of through traffic.  Much like Bayside commerce flocked to the station area and soon a secondary out of town shopping area was formed.

Bayridge town centre is very much the same as it was when the miners moved out, a few shops and restaurants have moved in and the addition of a hotel to the area really had an affect on the land values. The hotel was built in an attempt to house any people who wished to visit the area, or for many other extra marital reasons too. As soon as the hotel was built, Outback bought out the old diner and rebuit it as an Outback steakhouse, much to the approval of the locals.

As Bayridge was expanding, the old rural route 9 was no longer good enough to support the traffic, therefore it was decided that highway 40 should be built to provide express access to Port Talbot's ferry port. Many people hated that fact that the highway ripped through the countryside,

The above picture shows rural route 11 as it extends up the hill from highway 40 toward Bayridge, many people enjoy the view from the top of the hill, as it looks out over Bryce River and down over Rodgers Falls to the sea below.

The above image shows the above meantioned view, down from the top of the hill, over the river, over the falls and down the sea, many people chose to live in Bayridge for just this reason.

The above picture shows the overall progress so far. The trees don't seem to show in the full panned out view, which is a shame, but it really shows how far apart these towns actually are.

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That brings us to the end of update 2, I hope that everyone enjoyed this look into the history of Bayridge and how the growth of a large city can really affect the small towns and villages around it.

In update 3 we will be visiting the areas around Bayridge and taking in some of the beautiful countryside.

[Amerikaner 42]

really nice update, the port area looks very nice, the highway looks pretty cool, andso does the village, really like that highway and the way its slopes up with the retaning walls too, wonderful update my friend

[granto93 4]

awsome update. liking all the highways and transportation networks. looks like a nice seaside town. really nice work and i'm interested to see where this is going!!

Oh, by the way, i cant wait to see some larger towns and cities!

[jplumbley 5]

Very nice jimmymac!

I am impressed least to say.... I have not seen those treelots you have used, did you make them yourself or are they from somewhere else? I like the "darkness" to them as they feel more realistic rather than "cartoonish".

Thank you for the Overview! The rivers are turning out to be exactly what I had envisioned while terraforming from PEGs Pond and Stream Kits.... The merger from land to lake turned out better than expected, bravo! I really love the bridges you used.

As they say in french, "C'est magnificant."

[jacqulina 162]

wonderfull port beautifull work my friend,great trees,very nice progress so far and wonderfull pics.

[jayo 44]

Lovelly trees there.Nice port too

[jimmymac 0]

Amerikaner: Glad you liked it, Hopefully you will like the countryside around the town that we see in update 3 too, I'm very much looking forward to the later updates myself, I have some great stuff ready for viewing

Granto93: I'm also looking forward to getting to Bedford itself, however I wanted to tell the story of how Bedford had a profound effect on everything around it, then when we actually get to the city you will see it in a different light, I assure you of that.

Jplumbley: I'm glad that you think that I'm doing the region justice, as for the trees they are Peg's from his Random Pine Forest sets, the ones I have are from a discontinued set that had semi transparent ground textures, however he still has the other set availabe on the stex right here. They have either transparents or textured ground to them and look very good when placed in this sort of environment, the only downside is that they only come in 1x1 or 2x2, so as you can guess I'm doing a hell of a lot of plopping of trees. Oh and as for the plop river to normal river transition i figured out a little "cheat" way to hide it. I flipped the peg waterfall bottom peices around to face backward, so that it would look like a mini waterfall dropping into the sea and hide the transition piece. It took a bit of work but ultimately I found it to work perfectly in hiding the transition. Thank you for making the area so easy to drop the ploppable pond parts into.

Jacqulina:  I'm glad you think that it's turning out well, because I read quite a bit of your first Paradise Falls cj in preparation for doing this and it was what inspired me to try and leave the natural beauty of the land as much as I could.

Jayo: Thanks for the comment, glad you liked it and welcome to Invermere Valley

[Mike the Mayor 51]

Great pictures and work there, lovely start. Keep up the very good work!

[jimmymac 0]

Thanks for the kind comment, welcome to Invermere Valley, I hope you enjoy your time here.

As a totally unrelated message, I hope to have update 3 up for tomorrow, and maybe update 4 up for Friday, if everything goes according to plan. I hope everyone is enjoying the journal so far