Port Matthew and Vicinity

[suomi2005 52]

Your cj is getting better and better. Nice residential areas and industrial development.

[djvolatile97 0]

great job.

[Schulmanator 5,812]

Alls I can say if this town is TREE-riffic! Looks sorta like the homeland to me.

[Zelgadis 638]

Working class. My kind of neighborhood. I'll take it over yuppies anyday!

I do know what you mean about plopping trees. I only do one variety usually, and it's still a pain it the rear.

ISF

[Gn_leugim 858]

very nice update.. and I'm not so skilled with nature as you say ^^ yours is very good..

may I suggest you something? on that very twisted rails, the second last pic, maybe you should elevate the road.. there are to may crossroads in a single area

[PhilsCafe 8]

Very nifty work with the railroad tracks... it even looks like this could be in real life somewhere. Nice green update, I like the residential development in the forest  and the separation from industry.

- Phil

[Hester 700]

I'm with Zel up there in his remark..looks like a great neighborhood to be in.

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

SO, it's been a while but here I am, yet again, with another super-spectacular update-o-rama.

But first...

Tomasneto: Thank you very much!

suplado!: Thank you.  That is high praise indeed.

Archean: There may have been some manufacturing industry in mixed in there, though.  Thank you!

anarchy0029: Thank you!  I appreciate the sentiment.  It was kind of a lot of pictures, wasn't it?

suomi2005: Thank you!  It's fading into pleasant countryside.

djvolatile97: Thank you.

Schulmanator: Haha, great!  You still live near the homeland, do you not (you lucky dog- er, cat, you)!

Zelgadis: I was originally going to do one kind (it looks great in your cj), but I started out with birch trees and though it needed something more...  Hence the variety!  Part of the reason I'm so late putting out updates with this is that half the time I'm just putting off plopping trees (parts of Port Matthew are still bare, much to my distress), but eventually it gets done.

Gn_leugim: Thank you!  Yes you are, you're the man.  Heh, when I go back to that city I'll make a special picture of that, just for you!

PhilsCafe: Thank you!  Green is one of my favorite colors.  The police (and the Defenders) patrol regularly, keeping the forests safe from criminals.

Hester: It's a very nice place, they would be honored to have such a great neighbor!  That is, if we could tear you out of the penthouse in the city.

So, this is a slightly different kind of update.  There are two new sporting events in the region of Port Matthew.  The first is our participation in the SimTropolis Winter Baseball League.  The Port Matthew Suzumebachi sit somewhere on the good side of .500 and the Matthewton Tigers, well, they're struggling a bit...

The other even we're going to witness on a semi-annual basis is the Rally of Port Matthew.  Starting in the Royale Mountains National Park, Stage One kicks off with something of a festival atmosphere.

Here, in the shadow of the mountains is the starting line, underneath the pedestrian bridge (which is reserved for VIPs and Hester).

Like any other good rally, we veer off onto a dirt road for some sideways fun.  Be careful when the cars approach.

They fly around those bends.

A pair of binoculars affords you a great view of the action from the cliffs overlooking the cabins.  No pushing, though.

The dirt road continues into the next county, where we actually leave the park for farming towns.  The steep elevation changes combined with curves make for an interesting race.

I suppose if I had left the grid on it would give you a better appreciation for how steep that is.  But I forgot, sorry!

To make Stage 1 extra challenging, cars have to be tuned to do about half the race on asphalt, really stretching the drivers' and cars' talents.

And we go over a hill...

And wind through a small farming village.  Occasionally, too-brave drivers will murder mailboxes...

They wind their way through these farms, too.  In one incident on a practice run, driver Kurt Warner flipped his car and tore up a few thousand dollars worth of prize potatoes.  The farmer, being an amateur weekend racer himself, gave him a few tips about how not to flip a rally car when Warner and his navigator, Larry Fitzgerald stopped by to drop off the check to pay for the damages.

This N-shaped turn catches many drivers off guard, slowing their cars down and bogging the engines with prodigious turbo lag.

The final stretch of Stage 1 takes a few 90 degree turns through this town.

And we end here on the main street of this town (whose name I have conveniently forgotten) between the elementary school and the library.

And another farmer (who happens to have a healthy stake in the Port Matthew Rally Association) has set up a dirt field to serve as a pit-area to tend to the cars and driving teams after each car finishes Stage 1.

We'll do a couple of overviews to close things down.  Keen eyes will recognize the landscape from an earlier Royale Mountains National Park update.  It's been upgraded wtih some new cabins from PEG's incredible Mountain Theme Pack (which I FINALLY figured out how to use!).

This next town isn't anything amazing, but it's a nice buffer between undeveloped land and rural areas.  Also, kick-ass dirt road.  Nice.

And another transition tile, this from rural to suburban.

That concludes this update.  Thank you very much for the great comments, I look forward to reading more!  For more about the Rally of Port Matthew, head over to the SimCity Rally thread in the Off-Topic Community Goings On forum, where you'll see maps (really just these pictures with MS Paint used to show the route) detailing Stage 1 of the Rally!

Exclamation mark!

[Hester 700]

Jumpin' Jiminies. Now THAT was an update and by the way, I will stay in my Penthouse forever rather than get on that road on the cliffs overlooking the cabins. That gave me acrophobia just looking at it. Love the dirt road. That's a first for me to see. Great update. "Can't wait for more" ;-)

[Schulmanator 5,812]

Awesome! Can my former 1978 Chevette enter the race? It does have a lot of trouble getting uphill and overheats when over 55 mph... but I don't mind if it gets dirty off road!

[Zezug 6]

Great scenery, looks great for a rally!

[Zelgadis 638]

Wow, those are some crazy hills you got there! Try farming on that.

The dirt road looks like an awfully fun drive. I can borrow my grandfather's Scout and take it out there.

ISF

[Lyhoko Leaci 770]

Brad: Looks good!

Brian: I wonder how well we would do with our car in the rally...

Brad: Without purposely making it fly, that is.

[De Ja Vu 117]

Wow, interesting roads! I'd love to take a evo lancer through your country I'm just not sure how would I manage on the edge of the cliff...

[Gn_leugim 858]

nice farms there =)

and nice cliffs too.. cars, watch out ^^

I'll try to be back to my cj again.. I have new tools now and the first setters have arived

[PhilsCafe 8]

Great rally course... it makes me want to include more dirt tracks myself! Great update!

- Phil

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

SO, it's been a while but here I am, yet again, with another super-spectacular update-o-rama.

But first...

Hester: Haha, you must be VERY careful driving on that particular road!

Schulmanator: There are some downhill sections, so you should be able to turn the car off and let it coast while it cools down.  Might actually give my first car, a 1997 Hyundai Accent, a run for its money!

Zezug: Thank you!

Zelgadis: Be my guest on those roads!  If you liked those, you may be interested in this next set, too.

Leech10: You may want to fly over the hairpin turns in Stage 2!

De Ja Vu: Luckily, the cliff is just for show, the real action will be on the dirt.  You're welcome to the Evo, though, if you think it can keep up with the WRXs!

PhilsCafe: Sideways racing is so fun.  For this reason, Stage 2 completely excludes the tarmac.

AND NOW, the first few turns of the second and final Stage of the Rally of Port Matthew.

We have ourselves a dedicated set of warehouses for the end of Stage 1 and the beginning of Stage 2.  During Rally Week, this is one of the most interesting places to be, as well as the nearby Mount Plains and Schulman, where most of the drivers and their teams stay during the Rally.

And we set off from here.  The pillars under the bridge make for added excitement as the drivers not only have to deal with drifting on the gravel, but make it without killing themselves or wrecking their cars around the concrete supports.

There are also hairpins and trees.

HAIRPINS AND TREES.

HAIRPINS AND TREES.

And here we have the overview of the first part of Stage 2.  The second part is forthcoming.

Thank you all again for the great comments.  I'm looking forward to reading more from you!  Word to your moms!

[PhilsCafe 8]

I always wondered why they're called hairpins ... great update once again spidey! Looks like one hell of a challenging course. Dammit, I totally didn't think about accommodation of the teams... gosh, now I really have to improvise!

[Gn_leugim 858]

I will say to my mom ^^

nice farms, and woods

[Schulmanator 5,812]

OK... you are your Hyundai vs me and the Chevette...

if you can hit 60 mph without an overheat, you will win. It also took about a quart of oil each week due to leakage.... so I would need to stop every stage to load up.

[Zelgadis 638]

Since we're doing firsties here, I shall enter my 1984 Toyota Camry DX hatchback into the derby.

All of 92 horsepower. Vroom!

Still better, however, than my third car. A 1992 Daihatsu Mira J:

Max I got that car to was 110 kph going downhill.

ISF

[Lyhoko Leaci 770]

Brad: Why would we fly over the hairpins?

Brian: The bridges, however, are another story.

Brad: Also, we're still driving the same car we started out with, even though it is 17 years old now.

Brian: Myonian cars don't wear out anywhere near as much as Earth cars do.

[Hester 700]

Looks like Schulmy had a real beater there! I had a Ford..wish I still had it. It was gorgeous. Cream and turquoise in color.

[De Ja Vu 117]

Man, now I really want to build a rally track in my city! :=) No way WRXs are going to beat my 10th gen evo Vrooooom!!!

[suomi2005 52]

That is a great track I love rally and it's a huge motorsport in my homecountry. I dirve a metallic lightblue Mazda 323 from 1987, it's topspeed was nearly 180km/h when I tested it last summer.

[fabsies55 5]

its better that at the beginning i can tell you that, is it "great" im not so sure, but it is good.

[Tomasneto 20]

Nice rural area, with a great track, and trees and all... beautiful work...

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

With ninja-like quickness, I am already back with a new udpate to  excite your eyes.  This is going to be a bit of random stuff that I've been putting together haphazardly between spreading out my region.

But first...

PhilsCafe: Haha, the teams in Port Matthew will have to do a bit of traveling, but it should be no big deal.  HAIRPINS.

Gn_leugim: Thank you!  Although, I wonder if that translates well into Portugese!

Schulmanator: Well, luckily, the teams get some rest and repair time in between stages, so you'll certainly be able to top it off.  60 mph isn't too big a stretch, but uphill?  Hm...  We may have a race, especially with the next competitor rollin' up next!

Zelgadis: That old Toyota is one *****in' car.  Sweet.  So far as kei cars go, I rather prefer the Subaru Pleo, though.  Got give it up for the Pleiades!

Leech10: Myonian cars must be engineered as well as Japanese cars, eh?

Hester: Ooo, classic colors.  Was it an old T-Bird?  A Falcon?  A gigantic Galaxy?  Chrome and fins?

De Ja Vu: Ah, the new Mustang vs. Camaro: WRX vs. Evo.  BRING IT!  WOO!

suomi2005: Ooo, nice.  You must be Finnish?  Finns have something special in their blood, so many great racecar drivers who have won world championships in pretty much every major racing series on the planet.  I think I've been that fast in my dad's old Honda Accord, but it was limited at 115 mph.

fabsies55: Haha, I'm mostly aiming for "not sucking."  Those pictures on the first few updates are a good record of my modest improvement.  You'll never see me claim to be a great cj-er, though.  Unless, of course, I'm exaggerating for the purposes of being a comedic blowhard.

Tomasneto: Thank you!  Those trees take FOREVER to plop.  Part of the reason I don't update so often.

And now, a short break from the rally and the expansion to bring you this.  I've been messing around in Port Matthew trying to make it look nicer, as well as working on Arrinson to finish it off (impossible with the way every building seems to dilapidate and how high unemployment seems to inexplicably be), but I've modernized PMU's campus, gotten a few new skyscrapers to actually grow by themselves.  I've also played around some more in Mount Plains, but those pictures will have to wait.  First, here's the original, plain, Maxis PMU Central Campus:

You can kinda see it there, just to the right of the cliffs.  Oh my god, why do so many of those Catallus Towers pop up?  Most of those are gone now.

In the first version of Port Matthew (before the Abyss struck and swallowed it whole), here it is again.  It's boring to look at.

So instead, we have a new campus, including the Thunder Bowl (where the PMU Defenders play) and the Medical Campus between the Central Campus and the Thunder Bowl.

The Thunder Bowl.  The Defenders play in the PAC 10, and are usually above average.  They played and lost to Tennessee in last year's Capital One Bowl.  The year before that, they won the PAC 10 and lost against Ohio State in the Rose Bowl.  Next year, they're hoping to get some actual bowl game success so they don't end up like Notre Dame or Michigan.

Hey, wasn't it just daytime?  Man, time goes fast.  Anyways, the Medical Campus.  I have yet to name the School of Medicine.  Any suggestions?

And now, the Central Campus at night, in the spring.  Don't worry, I'm not hiding behind night shots to cover any deficiencies this university project may have had.  It actually looks pretty.

See?  It's nice.  Even got a park.  This is the HSG School of Liberal Arts, history and English/Japanese, and foreign languages and whatnot.  And also, BAM!  Just like that, daytime.  We seem to have lost ourselves in some kind of a time vortex.  Hopefully we don't see ourselves or our parents and cause a paradox!

Here we have University Park and the Laren Building, which houses most of the science and technology-related classes.

Now, PM's Financial District has changed, as well.

Old.

New.  I know, a slightly different vantage point, but you get the idea.  That Eclipse Tower was a grow, not a plop.

Not only did it grow once, but it grew twice, again here near the Simlympic Village.  Those babies house 8000 $$$CO jobs a piece!  I'm impressed.  Still, such a tower demands uniqueness.  Which one should go?  Which one should I replace, and with what? 

Well, thanks for plowing through another update with me!  Thank you all very much for reading, and I look forward to reading more of your great comments again soon!

[Lyhoko Leaci 770]

Brian: By the way, our car can reach 300MPH...

Brad: Looks like they have a bit of a TP problem...

Brian: Other than that, looks good!

Brad: I think you should keep the Eclipse Tower near the Symlympic Village.

Brian: Don't know what to replace the other one with, though.

Brad: Can't wait for more!

[Zezug 6]

Looks good, I would say get rid of the one in the bottom picture, the top one has a train station and onramp so convieniently placed to it, however I don't have any idea what building should replace it.