Welcome to Condor Bay

[masochist 111]

I found this in my attic recently while trying to get rid of...ahh, incriminating evidence .  Apparently it's the lost logbook of some older relative of mine, who was an explorer.  He was the one who founded the city that I will document here.  I'll let you guys have a look at the relevent stuff. 

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The log of Capt. Pierce
March 2nd

We have entered into unfamiliar territory now.  Traveling east, gliding the small strip of land between tall hills and serene ocean, we find that the body of water known as Willow Bay has cut into the land ahead of us.  The grass around here is green, but not as fertile as the lands up north.  Still...it might be fit for settling.  Tonight we have set up camp at the base of a tall hill.  Tomorrow we shall round the mountain and find out what the water has done to this land.  We suspect it is a fjord.

 

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The log of Capt. Pierce
March 3rd

The morning has produced a fine dew and fair weather.  Today we rounded the mountain...and what a wonderous sight we beheld!  The inlet of water splits the hills as a canoe splits the river.  The body is not a fjord as previously assumed, but it is instead a bay into which an old, wide river empties into.  Surrounding this water is an almost too-perfectly shaped valley framed by hills higher than even those under whose shadow we camped last night.  The team has voted to name it Pierce Valley, but I don't like the sound of it.  Besides...I already have a valley named after me.

I have no images of the entire valley yet, but I do have one of the foothills on the otherside of the large hill we camped near.

 

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I have finally made a composite panorama shot of the valley from the top of the hill.  I start looking towards the Northwest corner and end looking East.  Because I was able to make this shot from there, I have decided to call this particular formation Valley Vista Hill.  

 

[Panorama Shot]
(Warning: 15 MB .gif!!!)

It reminds me that I still need to name this great land...but it will come to me in due time.

 

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The log of Capt. Pierce
March 4th

 

 Today I have left the campsite on my own to explore the other side of the river.  I am particularly interested in the tall mountains to the Northeast.  They seem to draw me to them...

 

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I have discovered a valley in the midst of the tall mountains in the NE part of the region.  The valley seems to show signs of glacial geomorphology: the mountains surrounding it are horseshoe-shaped, and rather jagged.  It is among the most beautiful natural sights I have ever witnessed:  

 

An amzing thing happend as I was exploring this mountainous region: I viewed what I believe to be the extremely rare Condor bird.  I have never seen such a thing so majestic in my life (and I have viewed many things). 

The creature inspired me so much that I have finally decided on a name for the region: Condor Valley.  The bay shall be called Condor Bay.  This small valley that I have found shall be known as Ace Valley, which is what I first said when I first spied the condor (and what I have unofficially named it).  The river and this mountain (which I believe to be the tallest in the region) shall also share this name.  I will spend the night here...I want to soak it in.

 

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The log of Capt. Pierce
March 5th

 

I have climed one of the mountains that separates Ace Valley from Condor Valley.  It was a tough climb, but the view was worth it:

I am ready to rejoin the camp to continue exploring and surveying the land.  It appears as though our prayers have finally been answered and we have at last found a land ripe for settling.

 

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The log of Capt. Pierce
April 7th

 

We have finished surveying the land and have officially decided to settle.  We pondered on a name; it was suggested that it be Fjordville (as Clark still swears that it is a fjord, though he has never rounded the mountain ), but we have chosen a slight alternative: Fordville.

We have taken a rather unique approach to building this establishment: we will build a port first to help bring in goods and resources, and build the town around it.  Mrs. Sinclaire has generously offered to fund our endevour, expensive as it will surely be.  I already have a vision of it...we will dig out the low-lying coast here next to Valley Vista Hill and form the land to our needs...

We will take this beautiful land from small port to bustling urban area.  The team has thusfar looked to me for guidance and leadership...I will not disappoint them in leading us into the future.  Fordville will be a city on the hill, a shining example for all others to follow!  This is my vision...this is my dream....

 

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And the rest is history.  No, it's not, because you haven't seen anything yet.  But hey, at least my Terraformer pictures didn't go to waste...  And yes...there's no sense of timing in this at all.  Oh, well .

 

As it was, Capt. Pierce threw down a small port...and after a while it was demolished and a huge, modern port was built in its place.  It was the new port that attracted the people...at least, that's how I tell it.  Because that's where I started to build....

I'll go ahead and tell you that this City Journal doesn't have a real story to it other than me building the city from nothing to something.  It's actually a recreation...but I'm getting ahead of myself.  I'll give you a proper introduction and such next time...until then, consider this a teaser:

Happy New Years, everyone!  See you next time...

[nihonkaranws 88]

This is a very beautiful CJ, and I love how you use the SC4 Terraformer to make the shots seem like they're taken from the ground. I find it interesting that you describe it in logbook format, and you are probably the first to do this. Great job, masochist, and keep up the good work!

Good luck on your CJ,

nihonkaranws

[Schulmanator 5,799]

NICE!

What a way to start a CJ. I am eager to see where you go from here.

[jrone3 2]

A very nice start to this CJ. I especially like the different perspectives in your pictures. I'll be definitely coming back

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

Captain's log NZT 1613-1-2-2008.

We came, we saw, we posted.

[androidboi 57]

whoa! 3d terrain. can't wait til u start ur first update.

[njdevi66 12]

Very nice start, i like how you started it with a ground view and was that a bird flying, if so where do you get that?

[edmonton_stinks 5]

Those terraformer shots are crazy. Nice looking region you've got to start with.

[deimo5 52]

Wow... intense start. Nice.

[Deever 23]

. . . this City Journal doesn't have a real story to it. . .quote>

Hah! No real story. . . I see it is not only me who has chosen the path of Seinfeld for making CJs (a lot about nothing ).

Nice to see that you finally started a CJ, masochist. You used SC4 Terraformer shots in your presentation (who would've thought). Not bad. Good Great start!

[penguin007 27]

Nice start to the cj cant wait to see it develop

Will

[anarchy0029 2]

That is nice, what program did you use to get that image. I like the POV shots of the region

[bbfan02 23]

Great start to this cj! I love the terraforming of the region! That region looks great! Eager to see some development soon!

-bbfan02-

[Mike the Mayor 51]

Interesting but great start, very nicely set out and the SC4 Terraformer pics looks great.

[jacqulina 162]

excellent start and intro my friend great terraforming

[archesrule29 0]

I really like the terrain, and how you put the text from a journal's point of view (or at least its author's), and how you used the SC4 Terraformer to do screenshot from a 3d point of view. Some pretty brilliant ideas. I think I'll be following this CJ for a while...

[masochist 111]

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nihonkaranws -

Thanks!  I don't know if I've the first to do it...but I found it sort of strange that hardly anyone does a "journal" format for city journals.  Oh, well...thanks for the comments!

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Schulmanator -

Thanks!  Glad you liked it!

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jrone3 -

Thank you!  I tried to make something different here...and I await your return!

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abcvs -

Hello!  Veni, vidi, you posted...a day ahead of me...

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truflip99 -

Well...this one will be more of an introduction than an actual update.  But still...glad you came around!

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njdevi66 -

Yes, that's a bird flying.  That comes from the game...if, while in God Mode, you place wildlife, you can find them flying around.  The hard part was getting them shot without the giraffes and rhinos...

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edmonton_stinks -

Thank you!  Did you download the panorama shot?  It's a large file...and probably not worth it.  Still...it might be an interesting look...

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deimo5 -

Lol...I don't know about intense, but thanks!

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Deever -

Yeah, I prefer the randomness of just going along with no real plot and a random story thrown in here and there...like Seinfeld .  It's been a little while coming, but you'll find out why I waited so long in the following intro.  Glad to see you came around to see, though!

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penguin007 -

Me, neither!

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anarchy0029 -

I used the [sC4 Terraformer], which is a tool made by wouanagaine to create SC4 regions all at once (as opposed to one city at a time).  You can take pictures in there of the regions you create, as well.  Glad you liked it!

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bbfan02 -

Ahh, thank you!  Nice to see you coming around to visit.  Hope you stay...development isn't quite here yet, but just around the corner, I assure you ...

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Mike the Mayor -

Thank you for the compliments!  I hope you stick around...there might be something better around the corner

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jacqulina -

Heh heh...thanks!  Big compliment coming from you, oh queen of  nature

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archesrule29 -

Thanks!  I just really wanted something to draw people's attention...I'm glad you enjoyed it!  I hope you do stick around...might actually have real SC4 pictures one day !

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FORDVILLE - A Proper Introduction

Hmmm...I may have to shrink the size of these banners...

All right!  So now I suppose I get to give you guys the inside scoop on how Condor Valley and Fordville came to be.  Well...it starts with a guy named Rubner.  Wayne Rubner.  Wayne Rubner is the mayor who made the stunning city [Newport Bay on SC3K].  I downloaded it from http://www.sc3000.com, altered it a bit (put a river up the middle and made a horseshoe of mountains, deleted all the developments), and began work on Fordville.  Here're some pictures from SC3K Fordville:

[Overhead view of Fordville (no buildings)](1.47 mb)

Downtown

Ace Mountain State Park

The Seaport

A church on a mountain

The University

And I'll show more as I go on...

Well...when I got SC4 Deluxe, I wanted to recreate my SC3K cities, since I worked so long on them.  Power City and Fordville were the most aesthetically pleasing out of all of them, so I thought I'd choose one of those (and as Power City is much larger than Fordville, I chose that one first).  Almost all of the pictures you've seen from me since I started in this community have come from Power City.  After a while, however, the city became sort of stagnate, and I tried building a new city.  Next up in line was Fordville.

I tried to terraform the region multiple times.  The first attempt was huge...and terrible.  Some might actually remember the second attempt...if not, here're a couple of pictures for you:

That one was coming along nicely...until I made it around the hill.  That's when I realized that the scale of the region was much too big for what I had planned; it measured out to a standard region: 16 large cities arranged in a 4x4 grid.  For one city with about 550,000 people.  Too big for me...so I had go back to the drawing board again .

Now I'm trying with this region I have here.  I terraformed the region basically the same as the larger one...but this one's only the size of 2x2 large cities, and there's only 1 large city in the thing (the rest are medium).  So yes...it's a pretty small region.  It might even be too small, but we'll see.  Here's an overview...these pictures are kind of large because I want to show you some of the details:

That's the region.  That's Condor Valley, Condor Bay, Ace Mountain, Ace Valley, (Valley) Vista Hill, Crystal Rock Mt., etc.  And here's an overview with those certain named topographic features on it:

So the city of Fordville, as it was in SC3KU, will be built around and between these features.  Here's an overview of my plan for the city itself:

The planned freeway network.  Whether those will be the only freeways or not remains to be seen...although if there are any additional freeways, they'll probably be RHW's...

The planned zoning layout.  The blank spaces are blank for a reason.  The black spaces are parts of the city that I'm not quite sure what to do with yet...we'll see, though, right?

Hmmm...what else? 

Ahh, yes!  Within Fordville are areas that I will take special notice and build carefully and with much planning.  These projects will be pretty heavily documented throughout their development (except for the first one), and they will have LOTS and LOTS of pictures devoted to them (judging by the one I just got done with...).  I have seven planned...there may be a couple more depending on what happens:

Some of them are obvious, a couple of them may not be so.  The first one is, of course, the seaport.  One more thing: be prepared in this CJ for lots of things to have either Condor, Ace, or Fordville in their names.

Okay...if you read any of the above, you might remember that I said that I had another city (Power City), and that most of pictures I posted (including all of the CBD ones) came from that city.  So maybe you're wondering why it never got a CJ...or why this one is my very first one.  Well, the reason is that I play SC4 waaaaay too sporadically to be able to update regularly.  I've also never been a frequent visitor to the City Journals forum.  I don't follow any CJ too rigorously (with the exception of any of Aleking's); in fact, it was only last week that I made my first post dedgren's great project.  Suffice it to say, City Journals and Mayor's Diaries have never really been "my thing."

I'm trying to change all of that with Condor Bay.  I'm hoping that this Mayor's Diary will motivate me to play the game to stay ahead of updates and to be able to give teasers, and that posting here will give me initiative to visit other people's Diaries and Journals and see what they have cooking.  That...and I want to see if I can use as much of the 2 GB of plugins I've downloaded as I can.  I've got a few Maxis zones blocked thanks to dusktrooper, so we'll see how it works...we'll see if I can do it .  If I may be a bit self depreciative for a second, however, I wouldn't really expect too much from this Journal...there may be a few pretty pictures, but I doubt there'll be anything you haven't seen before.  Still...never know

So there's your introduction.  Hopefully I don't ever post an update that straightforward again (I'd rather spice it up a bit); still, I hope you enjoyed it.  As I said earlier, the Seaport's the very first thing to be built in the city.  Most of you have probably already seen pictures of it...but I'll show 'em again ;-).  And even before that update, I'd like to thank emilin for his amazing [seaport Tutorial] on SC4 Devotion (without which that seaport would've never come to fruition)!  Anyways...here's a teaser, eh?:

I'll try not to make the next update so late in coming.  Thanks for reading!  See you next time!

[penguin007 27]

Awesome pics and intro there did sc3000 really look that way?

Will

[bbfan02 23]

Wow, fantastic job! I love the road layout in the suburbs and the region looks fantastic too. Looking forward to more!

-bbfan02-

[Godzillaman 21]

I hope this becomes a classic! Looks extremely promising!

[jacqulina 162]

thankyou some really nice work your doing and great green areas my friend

[jrone3 2]

Great planning. Actually, what you showed is exactly what I am doing with my new region. For some reason, all starts well and it kinda loses its luster . But with the planning, everything is going good. I love the teaser shot. Can't wait to see that 2GB of custom content!

[Schulmanator 5,799]

A lot of good stuff -- and the water in the paradise postcard is about as real looking as I have ever seen! Rockin'!

[edmonton_stinks 5]

I agree with Godzillaman, this could potentially be one of those 5000 post legendary CJ's. Glad I caught this one early!

The region looks great right now and your plan seems very promising. One thing: I think you have too many cul-de-sacs in the first shot.

Can't wait to see what you have in store for us.

[suplado! 23]

cool pics...really like the beach post card effect!!

[masochist 111]

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penguin007 -

Yes, it did!  I loved that game.  I played all throughout high school because my mom's computer couldn't run SC4 (I graduated in '05...that December I got my own computer and my own copy of SC4 Deluxe).  Thanks for the compliments!

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bbfan02 -

Unfortunately, that city/region is pretty much defunct now.  I had to start over.  Still, thanks for the compliments!  Hopefully you like what I do with this new (re)development...

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Godzillaman -

LOL!  That would be amazing!  But I'm not getting my hopes up...

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jacqulina -

Thanks!  I'm trying to throw in more parks (especially more custom-made ones) into this city, because usually I get lazy and plant a three-by-three Maxis.  Hope you come back, it's always nice having you come around!

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jrone3 -

Ahh, that's what happened with my first city (Power City)...I just sort of lost interest.  Too bad, because it was growing quite nicely (400,000 + with no signs of stopping).  Maybe I'll have a look at your CJ after this update.  It depends on if I have time...(hopefully I'll be able to explain better at the end of the update).

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Schulmanator -

Thanks!  I was trying to experiment with that water to see if I could make it more realistic...and as it turned out, the first thing I tried happened to work for me .  Bump-Mapping, I think it was...on the GIMP, with a lighting effect.  But anyways...thanks!

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edmonton_stinks -

Heh heh...potentially!  I don't even know if the city will be large enough to cover that many posts...but thanks for the vote of confidence!  I'm glad you like those pictures, but that region is defunct now.  I'm on my third attempt on this region layout, but this one's much smaller, so it won't look anything like that.  Still...I hope you like what's coming!

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suplado! -

Thank you!  For a while now I've been trying to copy your particular editing style, as I love it so much...so that compliment from you means quite a bit !

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PROJECT ONE (1) - Fordville International Seaport

Warning - LOTS O' PICTURES follow!

Welcome to the first official update of Condor Bay!  As promised, this one will deal with the very first of the seven-or-so proposed projects of Condor Bay: the seaport.  Here's what it looked like in SC3KU:

...and this is how I prepared for it in SC4:

Heh heh...nice!  I suppose this would be the spot to tell everyone that I had never ever done a stylized seaport in SC4 before this one.  Never even attempted one.  Oh, I've seen plenty of pictures before, and I had all of SOMY's stuff just in case, but it never happened.  Needless to say, I had no idea how to go about it.  "Where to even start, eh?  Well...maybe there are tutorials?  Search, search, search..."Building a Seaport (The Hard Way)?"  What's this?"  I clicked...

And then my eyes were opened .

emilin of SC4D created what is, in my opinion, a contender for the Most Informative Single-Subject Tutorial," right up there with phillippbo's BAT tutorial.  The tutorial, if you haven't seen it, comes complete with three or four full posts of information BEFORE you actually start building in SC4; things like links to seaport-related props and lots, Google Earth pictures of real-life ports, and a lot of knowledge about the structure and layout of ports from someone who has lived around ports his entire life...basically everything that I needed to build this thing in confidence.  So yes...emilin, thank you!

emilin's tutorial can be found [by clicking here].

Armed with the info that guy provided, I realized that my current proposed seaport was unbelievably inadequate...so I reworked it a bit.  Here's what it looks like now (as seen in the SC4 Terraformer pictures, as I took those recently...there are other foreshadows in those pictures, as well ):

A little better, maybe?  The arms are thinner and longer, and there's more coastline for more ports and such.  This looks like a good place to throw down a seaport...yeah!  So I got to work:

Hmmm...look at all that abandonment!  Left the game running without a powerplant....

As you can see in the picture, I started out experimenting how I wanted to juxtapose different BAT'ers ports.  In this one picture alone you can see SOMY, Pegasus, and fukuda.  I already figured that Pegasus would dominate the port because his ports are the most customizable, and look the best when used over long stretches of coastline. 

I wasn't too happy with this strange jumble of SOMY pieces...so I got rid of the blue ones right there.  I also wasn't too happy with the breakwater piece there, so I got rid of it after a while.  I did really want to use SOMY's gigantic fishing harbour, though...but where to put it?  Hmmm....

One thing I tried to do during all of this was figure out my rail network...because what's a port without a rail network?  I have that huge railyard there, and I love it!  The rail network you see up there isn't the final network, though...it changes quite a bit.

Anyways...next progress report:

I just don't learn, do I?

Here, more of SOMY's stuff makes its debut...including that fishing harbor (dressed in "Dilapidation Black" for the occasion).  Also, jeronij pops on the scene with his seawalls and  maritime control tower...which is called the Emilin Maritime Control Tower.  Peg's ports have filled in the corner there.  I start to throw down filler: NOB's pipes provide nice looking space-wasters, as well as Peg's canals-turned-pools (as per emilin's suggestion).  Something I didn't mention above is that Newman Inc.'s industrial lots are up, and I love how the rail runs under the overhanging parts of the buildings.

So I do a bit more work, a bit more filling, and a bit more cleaning up, and...:

This could be considered the "beta" version of the seaport, I suppose.  Not much will change after this from this part.  You can see I finally finished the westside of the port (which is on the edge of the region, so those who complain that the seaport is too small: that ain't all of it ).  I increased the amount of Peg's canals on that arm of the port, and I filled in the rest of the space with small container stacks.

This is the seaport with a better view of the rest of the town.  The big empty area in the Northwest corner there will be a nice, large industrial area, and the coastline on the Eastside with the cliffs will be a beach.

"But what about that big empty area on the opposite side of the port?"  Well...you'll find out in a moment .  Right now, it's time for me to shut up and deliver those LOTS O' PICTURES I promised....

The Pegasus arm

I love how that ship can magically go through the seaport like that...

The big red tower.  There's another picture of it further down...

Lots of open water here...

I think this might be my favorite arm of the port...

I just love the way that rail goes under the silos!

Nice railyard...with the rec harbour in view already.  Oops.

Hmmm...no border.  And a bit of a surprise for the next part of the update...

I gotta take it on the other side...

...the other side, of course, being the other side of the harbor.  It just so happened to be my luck that as I was making this seaport, PEG was releasing his reworked CSK Marina kit, and I was collecting them.  This presented me with an opportunity to use quite a number of them, as well as plenty of pieces that I've always wanted to use but never really found a place to before (such as Goldiva's Yacht Club and Marrast's seawalls).  I don't have any progressive pictures to show (lucky you), so instead, you just get the entire shebang right here and now:

The whole recreational harbor...harbour...however it's spelled in your neck of the world

Focus on PEG's stuff...that's not the last you'll see of it here...

Goldiva's Yacht Club.  I've always wanted to use this...

Hmm...another one with no border...

Night mod!!!

The teaser from the last update

I like the trees...

The seaport after this point:

Notice how the entrance to the seaport on the Southwest side is a bit wider than before.  Fukuda suggested I do this...so I did.  I think it looks a lot better...but it also helped emphasize something else that irked me a bit.

My eyes kept getting drawn to SOMY's cranes on the water.  I lined them up all in a row, but they weren't meant to be like that because there are cranes on the side facing the shore, as well (which have no use if those land connectors get in the way.  So I fixed it a bit...:

Which one do you like better: the row of cranes, or the separated ones?  Please let me know...thanks!

I've also got some edited photos of the seaport for you:

The Big Red Tower

Emilin Tower In focus

Sunset on the Pier (as seen on SC4D)

Whew!  That was intense!  I've got a few remaining pictures for you:

Where the heck are these rail and street textures???  I should have all the dependencies for this lot, and yet...*sigh*

Hmm...you guys aren't supposed to see those houses yet...

That is, obviously, a lighthouse for the inner part of the rec port.

And for the Grand Finale:

The completed seaport as it looks today, complete with SAM-textured parking lots and SOMY/Jeronij cargo ships (it's slightly oversized to show detail...I hope that's all right).

And finally, you get two teasers for the next update:

So to recap...

I used emilin's Seaport Tutorial to guide me in making my very first seaport.  I used the following people's stuff to actually build it:

-Pegaus

-SOMY

-NOB

-Jeronij

-Fukuda

-Newman Inc.

-Goldiva

(If I missed anybody, kindly let me know!)

...and the next update will be me building the rest of that town.  It'll come after a while...I'll let this one sink in, first.

And there you go!  This update is officially done!!!  I hope you enjoyed it!

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Just to let you guys know, most updates (hopefully) won't have this many pictures.  Only the special projects (like this one) will be as graphically heavy.  Just to let you know...

Also, I really appreciate all those who leave comments and replies in here!  I'm trying to get better at returning the favor if you have a City Journal.  Thing is, the internet in my dorm room, for some reason, cuts off five minutes after I turn my computer on.  I'm at the university library right now, but it's closing in 15 minutes...so I might not be able to get back on tonight.  Still...I'll try and visit you guys more often .

Congrats!  You made it to the end...stay tuned for the next update, eh?  Thanks for reading!

[bbfan02 23]

Wow, excellent update! I love the industrial port and the areas around it. The pictures are amazing and the quality of work is just exceptional.

-bbfan02-

[edmonton_stinks 5]

That was unbelievable. That is without a doubt the best port I have ever seen.

Like the teasers too. That beige/pink condo tower looks very ritzy.

[Mulefisk 15]

Awesome update! That's a very well laid out seaport. Your last pic is my favorite though.

[jacqulina 162]

thankyou my friend,this is amazing work with the building of docks / harbours,ports.excellent details and planning,awesome pics.