New Dublin

[dresik 0]

Hi,

Welcome to NEW DUBLIN city journal.

I started plying SC4 just recently, few weeks ago I came across Simtropolis.

Then I spent a week downloading from STEX and reading tutorials on forum.

What inspired me at most were Gascooker's beautiful UK style houses so I decided to build a UK style town using them.  As I used to live in Dublin (and I like the city), I decided to try to create my own version of this city. I know Dublin is not UK but I think I can still use Gascooker’s UK style stuff to build a nice Irish city without upsetting any Irish Simtropolitans. It is still a game at the end.

Latest screenshot:

The Region

Before I started, I’ve made some preparation for making a Dublin-like region.

Mainly I’ve been studying maps, here's the one I found most useful:

First, I created a scaled Dublin region map. 

I have limited hardware on my laptop so I decided to have just one big city 5x5 with small 1x1 around it as huge regions would probably bring my machine to the boiling point. Then I spent 2 days digging waterfront using Smoncrie's hole digging lots into a Dublin-like shaped bay. Pity I haven’t done any screenshots, could be fun for you guys to see how much work that was. You can check the screenshot of the region just for overview. 

Then I made few cliffs (mainly on Howth peninsula) and gentle hills around the city, small island near Dalkey, Bull Island beach, few trees ant the map was ready. The plan is to build the city in the center 5x5 map and in future I can build suburbs like Malahide, Swords, Blanchardstown or Bray on the small 1x1 tiles around.

[B]After the map was done I was ready for the challenge to build the New Dublin.

Construction journal of New Dublin

A snapshot from construction with my notes on it:

New Dubin was founded on 5th June 2007 and the elected (ok maybe not) Mayor Mr.Ben O’Stuller (that’s me hehe) started his hard work to bring the happy Irish Sims to the new capital.

Mr.O’Stuller received some initial funding grant to kick start the city – I have intention to build the best possible looking city I can build and to have fun with it so I cheated some starting money for the start (800000+ I think I’ll need some more for the port and Guinness Brewery), however there are no additional funding grants to be expected for the Mayor after the initial grant is depleted – I hope my city will work without cheats once is built.  

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For the start of planning I've decided to try to copy the Dublin transit system, consisting of:

DART commuters - passenger train

LUAS tram - glr

Dublin buses

Freight trains to port

M50 highway around Dublin.

I'll probably leave the Dublin Port Tunnel out as I'm only few meters above sea level in my game. As an addition to the existing transit In Dublin I'll make an extension of LUAS glr routes to make the city more interconnected. It is in compliance with reality as the city authorities also plan to extend the Luas network in future.

I found an useful map of the train and tram routes, with planned extensions in it:

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As a next thing I've made a list of what I want from real Dublin in my game city.

Few things that I’m clear how I want to build them:

The Spire - Blam landmark by glenni - thanx

O’Connell Street, Grafton Street, Henry Street - I plan to us UK high street lots by gascooker and barbyw

Liffey & Canals - BSC brick canals by Simgoober

The Port - I'll use BSC Industrial waterfronts and some other lots, lots of credit to emilin - Building a port - the hard way  tutorial

Poolbeg Power plant - just a normal Maxis gas plant

IFSC - A complex of office and residential buildings around canal.

Grand Canal Plaza - 3 office buildings – A must build place for me as I used to work there.

Howth Fishing Harbor - Somi's fishing harbor

Council Houses – Chavs paradise by ILL Tonkso and 50s Residential Estates by andreas roth

Lansdowne Road Stadium – I searched STEX stadiums and I think the best will be to use the lovely Highbury stadium by franz ferdinand

Other city features yet to decide how to build them or what lots to use:

Dublin Castle

Connolly Station, Pearse Station, Heuston Station

Phoenix Park

Croke Park Stadium

Trinity College University Campus

Guinness Brewery

St Stephens Green park

Christchurch

St Patrick’s Cathedral

Clontarf Promenade - some nice waterfront

Bull Island Beach - some nice beach

Dun Laoghaire Marina & Port

Liffey valley shopping park

Dundrum Shopping park

Dublin Airport

Botanic Gardens

St.James's Hospital

Some Golf Courses

 

*the list is still growing so I wonder how will all shape up.

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Early stage construction journal:

I started the construction the hard way – from the city centre.

8.6.07 First days:

With the game paused, I plan to build a small part of the city centre before enabling first sims to move in. First I shaped The Port and surrounding areas –  Liffey banks, IFSC, Grand Canal Dock. Then I planned rail (DART) connection From Howth – Connoly – Pearse – Grand Canal Dock – To Bray with interchanges to GLR (LUAS) at Pearse and Connoly. The rail connection took me two days to figure out how each track will go as it is a complicated Passenger Rail, Elrail, Glr & Freight rail system built around canals, roads, river and buildings. I wanted to make it perfect so I used different stations, transitions, and crossings to find out what will suit each place at most. For example I changed the old Pearse station for new modern Eastland Grand rail+glr interchange station as I extended the existing Luas line to Pearse. Other problems I’ve been cracking was elevated rail to normal rail changes (not very easy in high density city centre) road crossings under elevated rails, and avoiding using elevated rails on tracks that need to be freight enabled. Maybe I’ll write about my early transport building problems later, when I’ll actually see if it works.

11.6.07 Construction continues:

After zoning first neibourhoods, I've let first residents move in. Then I finished the port so they have a job. Then my attention turned into finishing the river Liffey and canals. Southern Grand Canal was without problems, the harder part was northern Royal Canal beacuse I wanted to have railway next to it. First I made the rail on a elevated hill/embankment with road crossings as underpasses but then I realised it takes a whole 7 tiles with the canal,banks and rail so I decided to build the rail on ground and roads crossing over using the NAM modular stuff. After the canals were finished I started laying roads in the city centre. This was quite difficult because I wanted to keep the main streets in compliance with reality but I had to fit it somehow to the game grid. Then I started laying glr tracks but I've made a little progress as the game tends to crash when using NAM modular stuff. 

12.6.07 Progress made

After numerous game crashes the brave Irish,Polish and Latvian construction workers have finally finished both lines of Glr-Luas tracks in the city centre and the happy citizens of New Dublin can enjoy travelling with this new modern mass transit system. 

When this was done the mayor O'Stuller turned his attention into two important city features: Trinity College campus and finally the long awaited Guinness Brewery. You can read more and see screenshots in todays reply.

13.6.07 Getting shape

After huge technical issues, caused by some new stuff in plugins folder and reinstaling the game I managed to get the Chicago tilest mod working (didn't work before reinstal). Thanks to this I'll be able to grow a beatiful custom style city. You may see how it is shaping up in the screenshots. I've zoned some more of the city centre and the population reached 30000. The city centre is allmost all filled now altough there is still huge amount of work to be done. I have to focus on growing the right stuff on some particullar streets (Henry,Grafton,Temple Bar) and not forget eye candy as well. The next big project could be the Phoenix Park.

19.6.07 Early Phase finished

After adding St.Stephens Green, Phoenix Park, Dublin Castle and few other things and after the population reached 50000 I focused on city functions like budget, civics and transport. Now the city centre is allmost finished and the developement can progress to another stage.

City development plan:

The development plan for next stage includes:

Adding some suburbs:

Bray, Malahide, Lucan, Liffey Valley, Swords, Blanchardstown etc...

Adding infrastructure:

M50 motorway, Rail connections to Bray and Malahide, Airport, Dun Laoghaire Port

Developing the city:

Adding districts like Clontarf, Blackrock, Dundrum, Howth, Finglas

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Hope you like the start. 

I will be posting construction journals about next stages in later replies.

If you have any suggestions please post.

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[jacqulina 162]

wow thats a great start my friend and very nice intro,excellent start to building your city too,and wonderfull pics,im interested to know what castle you will be using or building your own,i have all the original castle pieces if you need them.just pm if you do

[sEAhAwk fAn121 0]

wow great start! very realistic!

[Cleaner475 150]

nice star - I'll be waiting for more - Looks like it will be a nice Irish CJ - good luck

[Amerikaner 42]

wow, this is a very nice start, your city looks very promising and fun, i like all the preperation, the maps, and the pictures they all look very good ( need money, there's a plaza that gives like 4 billion dollars a month LOL but thats for big cheaters lol) anyway i cant wait to see where this goes

[penguin007 27]

great start the planning is excelent keep up the good work

Will

[jayo 44]

wow!!Hope this is good

[jayo 44]

wow!!Hope this is good

[Schulmanator 5,812]

Nice start! I have fond memories of Dublin!

[GreekMan 246]

Great start!

[dresik 0]

Hi,

thank you all for the interest.

jacqulina: What castle pieces you mean? I might need some as the Dublin Castle is stil to be built.

Amerikaner: Thanx, but 4 million a month would be too much. Only if it would be so easy in real life.

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Check out how the construction goes.

On friday 8th June 2007 the gates to New Dublin opened and first residents moved in.

Above you can see the first house built in the new city.

And guess what was the first commercial building that grew up.

Yes it can only be the first Irish Bar.

I've made it historical.

Now that I had first Irish Bar I started heavy construction so I could eventually build the Guiness Brewery. But till there it was a lot to be built:

I finished a small neibourhood around Lansdowne Road stadium:

While I was busy with that, a whole steet of council houses grew on the other side:

Of course full of chavs with no jobs.

This is how the same street looks now after rebuilding:

When I had the first residents and neibourhoods I had to develope some plan.

I decided that the best will be to first finish the river Liffey and both the northern Royal Canal and southern Grand Canal. After that I will have the city centre area within the canals.

So the focus in will be to build the city centre within before building anyting outside the canals.

A general overview to sum the first part today:

This was taken before building the canals and Liffey. 

I've rotated the camera so you could see the Bull Island and Howth peninslua.

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More comming soon

[Revol 0]

It looks great so far! I am from Dublin, so I will be watching this CJ closely I think you could use some of the breweries on the STEX for Guinness', there is a great one by Porkissimo somewhere. I would also recommend some of vanderaaps Dutch style buildings, I think these are closest to the Georgian buildings in the city centre. Plus the Georgian buildings by Ill Tonkso, and some of his commercial buildings for shopping streets like Henry Street.

[Mike the Mayor 51]

Great start - very strategic planning and an excellent intro I must say. Good luck with this one, it should be great fun!

[jayo 44]

Great work there.I do reccomend tileset mod.I t helps to get althose maxis buildings out of the way.I    also reccomend realistic water mod to get rid of that maxis water.Its found in the mods and downloads section

[jacqulina 162]

hi my friend the castle pieces i am using in my cj,this is awesome work your doing with the canals and gardens / parks,beautifull residential,wonderfull docks,excellent work and pics

[belfastuniguy 18]

Very interesting indeed, I will be watching as you develop and grow the city, fantastic potential here

[SoNell 0]

Looks very promising..!! Can't wait to see more

[Schulmanator 5,812]

I agree. A nice start. I loved my time in Dublin. Woud love to come back sometime!

[dresik 0]

Hi,

First, presonal replies:

Revol: Hi, nice to see some Dubliner interested in.
Thanks for advice. The Porkissimo brewery is the best. As about the Dutch houses, the main problem is that the Dutch houses have narrow roofs, Irish are usually flat on top (ideally with a roof terrace) but I've checked all Vanderaaps stuff on stex and I think I'll use some of it. About ill Tonkso - very nice buildings, I'll defenetly use some of his stuff.

Jayo: Hi,
I've tryed both block Maxis buildings tileset mod and the Chicago tileset mod but it seems to block everything, custom stuff included and nothing grows at all. I dont know what is wrong, maybe someone has had similar problem?
I'll check for some custom water for sure. Thanks for reminder. I even plan to plop some rocks to creae a nice shore.

Schulmanator: Hello,
Me too. Last time I went was in April but only for a weekend. Before I lived in Dublin for more than a year.

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Today's topic:
Closer look at the three of many unique city features

New Dublin Port
First a satelite map of a real Dublin port:

As I'm creating scaled Dublin I've made the shore straight without the docks.
I've used mainly BSC industrial seafronts set,Somi's and Nob's port stuff. 
Another features - JRJ Martime Control Tower, two freight train stations and some factories, Glr track towards the passanger ferry port.

This is the latest picture, there might be some rebuilding in the future so I'll keep you informed.

Trinity College Campus

Trinity College is Ireland's top university. Founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I, Trinity College boasts some world-famous alumni. Just a few names: philosopher Edmund Burke, Jonathan Swift, Wolfe Tone, the man behind the 1798 uprising, Bram Stoker the author of "Dracula", or Samuel Beckett and Oscar Wilde. Trinity College has its share in the history of women's fight for equal rights: it was the first European University to grant degrees to women.
Trinity College is also the home to two wonders of literature and arts - combined excellently together. The famous "Book of Kells" and the "Book of Durrow", two priceless manuscripts from the early Middle Ages ("Book of Durrow dates back to the 7th century) are on display behind thick glass. Every day, a page of Book of Kells is turned over for the visitors showing yet another masterfully illuminated page.

An aerial view of the campus:

I had to modify it a bit to fit it into my city but I'm pretty satysfied how the main complex and the sports field look. Check it out:

I have to develope the area around now.


Guinnes Brewery

This is the coolest feature od Dublin city which, at least in the eyes of the Irish people, is not just another company. Truly. The brewery itself is not open for the public which is a pity, but those wanting to know the history of the company may visit the Guinness Storehouse. It has exhibits and the famous Gravity Bar on the roof of the building, giving your Guinness a special taste. It is said the closer to the brewery your pint is poured into glass, the better it is.

I've used 4 main lots to create the brewery complex.
The main is the brilliant Mistral jaune brewery by porkissimo, the export of beer is done via 9x2 small freight station by Tag One, third is a nice factory made by Jestarr, and fourth building will be the Wiessner Brewery by Marczar currently under construction.

Let's all celebrate the grand opening with the glass of Guinness!
Slainte!

[Cleaner475 150]

nice update and I also liked the one before this although I recommend you turn of the zots when taking pics - but good work - the last uodate was very nice - I'll join you at the bar (Is the Guinness free?)

the work so far is nice - keep it up

Richard

[Evil_Someone 1]

lovely, keep up

[granto93 4]

hmmm, looks pretty cool. nice job witth the docks. gosh, all of these recreations want me to do one of my own!

[jacqulina 162]

wonderfull work on the docks,excellent pics,looking great so far and coming on great my friend

[pipishere 3]

Cool CJ! Love your images.

[Uumke 0]

All right! looks good...keep on going like that!

[dresik 0]

Hi,

Latest screenshots:

This is the latest look at the south city high streets. You can see Grafton street, Dawson street and Kildare street in the back. Right is the corner of St Stephens Green Park, on the left is a piece of Trinity College sports field.

Some problems with the wrong stuff growing:

I have to get rid of this white Porkissimo building in my plugin folder. It's growing all over the city. Only if I knew how is it called.

St Patrick's Cathedral is allready in place as you can see. (thanks to jule78)

North city is looking good as well.

The only problem is the missing texture of Bourke Street Public School by Mattb325. i have to check what dependencies I'm missing. You can see two of them with the black ground on the screenshot.

As you can see Dublin Spire, CineWorld Complex, Parnell Monument & Parnell Square, GPO are al in place. I'll be working some more on the shops and buildings on Henry and O'Connel street, so that is in more provisional than final state. And definetely no Aral Gas stations on Moore Street market.

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[jacqulina 162]

looking great so far my friend,excellent work and pics,growing well

[jayo 44]

Lovelly update!!!I'm reccreating dublin for my british isles journal.This will surelly help :0

[Mike the Mayor 51]

Great work and pictures. Very well kept to the city itself!

[dresik 0]

Hi all, todays theme is:

Transport and vehicles

I'm trying to figure out what mods,skins and other stuff to use for the transport.

Currently I have two main transport netwotks glr - Luas and part elevated/part normal rail - Dart. I will add buses in a short time as well. 

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LUAS GLR:

This is Dublin's newest modern transport system. LUAS stands for "speed" in irish. It currently operates on two lines (Red and Green) and it is estimated that 80000 people use Luas daily. The Luas is also one of the safest transport systems in the world.

Currently in the game, I can see some various tram engines with too many green carriages behind. I didn't find anything looking like Luas on STEX so at least I'm gonna try to get rid of the green carriages behind engines. I like London Docklands Light Rail very much and there is a glr skin of it from Ill Tonkso on STEX so maybe I'm gonna use it, but I havent been able to make it work yet atough it is in my plugins folder.

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DART trains:

The Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART), or Mearlíne Átha Cliath in Irish, is part of the suburban railway network in Ireland, running mainly along the coastline of Dublin Bay on the Trans-Dublin route, from Greystones in County Wicklow, through Dublin to Howth and Malahide in County Dublin.

Part of the DART route, from the city centre to Dún Laoghaire, is of historic note - it was the first railway in Ireland, opening as the Dublin and Kingstown Railway on 17 December 1834.

I searched STEX once again and among a few trains I've found a is only one green - Connexxion train by Tag One so I've put it into my plugin folder but again without effect. In the game I see now two sets of train on my tracks one is some blue modern and another is a default Maxis elevater train so I guess there might be some conflicts in plugin folder. I will have to take a closer look itno this.

Just for fun, here is a brilliant advertisment motive from the Dart's taxsaving campaign:

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Dublin Bus:

Dublin bus operates an extensive network of nearly 200 radial, cross-city and peripheral routes in the city and the Greater Dublin Area. It consist mainly of doubledecker yellow and blue vehicles.

Unfortunately I havent seen any doubledeckers on STEX.

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Garda police cars:

Garda Síochána na hÉireann is the police force of the Republic of Ireland. The force is headed by the Garda Commissioner who is appointed by the Irish Government. Its headquarters are located in the Phoenix Park in Dublin.

I plan to use one of Peg cop car mod vehicle skin for it.

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Please if you have any suggestions just write  I will be grateful.