Urland, a (mostly) rural coastline

[Benedict 3,119]

I have to say if you keep up this quality for a whole month of updates I'm going to be on SC4 realism overload! Another wonderful overview. How many hours do you think you have spent on this area to get it the way you want?

[heitomat 156]

Amazing. Just amazing. I'm on my own computer now, so I don't care about the drooling this time..

I love the HD signals. I heard that royal is working on HD light signals as well? Anyway, you truly make those signals come to good use. I love the "Behind the church" part, by the way.  

[Simbourgeois 139]

Edit: Welcome to page 37!!!

Oh, what a sinful place you're showing here!

It feels like Christmas - so many updates!!!

Yours sincerely,

Simbourgeois

Mayor of Belleville

[Nardo69 51]

Hello to All!

I am bit late today, sorry, but an especially clever exemplar of the tribe which is called Turks thought it would be a good idea to look after our apartment houses main electric line.   As a result of this we had no electricity for hours ... 

Today's Friday, Day 5 of my OSITM 4in1 special week, and after lots of rural pictures we will discover the meaning of "(mostly) rural"! 

But as always before we start:

@Benedict: Don't worry, this week has drained my picture dumps screenshot archives quite a lot. And the time on the maps, well, I think "hours" are too short to be an adequate time measurement for the time I spent on such a map / map quadrant ...

@heitomat: Hehe ... my wife is also very sensitive when it comes to her netbook...

Yes, royal has began the electric daylight signals. But due to their vast number of possible kombinations it'll need quite some time to show you some of these babies. In addition to this he is quite busy IRL

@Simbourgeois: Not guilty, it grew like this! (I just marked it historically! )

Well, as I said before, my archives a bit drained now, need to play the game in order to have something for you at christmas ...

Thanks for opening a new page (the secon time in a row! ) - as the last one became a little bit crowded ...

OSITM Special 4: Highrise! Or: The deeper meaning of "(mostly) rural"!

Sometimes even me need some changes after having plopped some 50 million trees on my rural maps.Then I like to do some (dirty  ) industry or breed out some highrises. In such highrise area my focus is on a working traffic infrastucture with a lot mass transits, more or less all the game + NAM offers me (except monorail, I prefer the (G)HSR ).

Overview. What started as a midrise worker quarter at the lower edge of the map soon developed into a highrise city, the most dense in my region to be exactly.

The other part of Grünwinkel. There's some industry on the other side of the river, too.

I showed this situatiion in "Show us your NAM jigsaw puzzles" on SC4D  - but without the buildings. Again - all grown! 

I was inspired by the Istanbul metro station "Merter" which is situated at such a 45 degree angel to the city highway. The bripizza station don't fit perfectyl to the diagonal avenue but I haven't found a better alternative. That does not mean that I don't like this station it's just the pillar on the avenue.

And as you can see it works fine. 

The overall setup. There are a lot of blind fields next to the Maxis diagonal avenue onramp that hinders me to do the developement I wanted to do on these empty spots ... 

On the other side of the highway I stayed elevated with the tram and used even elRail over road (behind these prentiss towers, there are 11 of them on this map  ) before I crossed the heavy rail and continued elevated untill the river bridge which is partially seen in 5.03.

This time I made even more parks than I usually do ...

But then again it's these situation I like in urban situation when I start puzzling with the NAM... Possible in an urban setup, not suitable at all for a small village ...

And on this map I had a lot of joy developing a working network for pedestrians. While this setup here is pure eyecandy made out of JeroniJs white tarmac trails ...

... I used here marast's footpaths and the NAM pedestrian Plazas to create a real working additional pedestrian network. The standart parks and recreational lot could be easily added to get a nice park there.

And I really was satisfied with the results as you can see!

I sat hours in the LE to create a nice plaza here. In the end I all deleted my LE works and used Khiyana's car park, two marast plazas, a stature plaza and the NAM pedestrian plazas .

I like that shot. And now you know my HSR / Monorail automata skin, too ...

A railway station between highrises. It isn't used too much as the neighbour map is still empty and most internal traffic is GLR traffic.

A closeup.

For the lovers of industrial shots!

And another one.

That's it for today. Please don't be too disappointed, urban developement isn't my main focus and this map is rater young and still kind of a construction site.

Tomorrow we will visit another construction site. Untill then

Have fun! See you tomorrow!

Bernhard

[Benedict 3,119]

Congratulations, Urland is number one on Ben's Top Ten this week!

Great to see some city-building from you - I love all the different styles and positioning of station you've showcased here today.

[Simbourgeois 139]

Oh, what a variety of differents bats!!! Very nice use of gif images - they make the CJ look so lively! Very inspiring!!!

Not at all rural update... Nice!

Best regards,

Simbourgeois

Mayor of Belleville

[dfnva 34]

Nice diversion, I like all the mass transit that you have featured in the urban area.

-Dan

[Nardo69 51]

Hello to All!

Day 6 of my OSITM 4in1 Special week.  Today I'll show a construction site of my latest project. Rather ambitious, maybe the last reason to eventually master the BAT for me ... oh well ...

But as always before we start: 

@Benedict: Glad you still like even after 6 days.

Concerning Phat's Top Ten I must confess I was so busy updating I haven't found the time to look there ...

@Simbourgeois: You are the first one who mentioned the animations I used them for the first time. If anyone told me earlier how seasy they could be made ...

Well, hope you like today's update, too. It's a bit closer to Belleville then the ones before! 

@dfnva: Thanks for the compliment!

OSITM Constuction Site Report: A de-fortified town

France is rather well known for his fortifications - not only due to its master engineer Vauban who was a master in designing fortifications as well as breaking through them (you may say that one was the reason for the other). He also laid the basics for modern soil mechanics. Quite a lot of them have survived the course of time, even the citadel of Verdun though or because it wasn't involved in the hell of 1916. His most well known would be Neuf-Brisach a planned city within a fortification built by Vauban, regarded as a ideal town of iots time.

If you ever have the chance of going there for a day you really should visit the fortifications. Take some time and wear good comfortably shoes - you'll need both but it's worth it!

The ring of fortification Vauban built at the Frenmch borders kept France in relative piece for a long time. It was Napoleon Bonaparte with his tactic of ignoring the fortifications and battles in the free areas who should decrease the value of this defense ring combined with the vast developement of artillerie in the 19th century but eventually turning useless at the rise of modern warfare.

There are discussions which war was the first "modern war" - The American Civil War 1861-65 or the war between France and Germany 1870/71. Regarding modern infantry and the use of rifles it was the American Civil War. But both Confederated as well as Union troups used old fashioned straight shooting cannons that were completely outdated by the huge ballistic artillerie used in the war of 1870/71. As an example you can take Neuf Brisach: it was shot down by German ballistic artillery within days. The straight shooting artillery of the civil war wouldn't have been able to do this. But then again compared with the Old World there haven't been really strong fortifications in North America at that time.

Not so much well known are the German fortifications. Be it cause or consequence wh knows. But a lot of German towns ans small towns have been fortified - Köln, Koblenz, Mainz, Mannheim, Ulm, Würzburg, Ingolstadt, Landau, Germersheim, Bellheim, Philippsburg, Rastatt (where the German Revolution was beaten down in 1849), Breisach, just to name a few of them. Most of the fortifications have gone, quite some due to the restrictions of the treaty of Versailles, but you can still guess the walls and trenches on the city maps.

My inspirations for the town which beginnings I'll show today are a mixture of Mannheim, Germersheim and Neuf-Brisach. The town is / was limited by a octagonal wall / trench. Inside it is separated in quadrats with a big central plaza (like Neuf Brisach and - much bigger - Mannheim.  The wall itself was strengthened by eight bastions which have partially disappeared but can be still guessed in the road layout.

The central plaza is located where the two main city axis / roads met in the middle  of the octagon. I showd the system in the animation above.

Three bastions that have survived not all - partially (wet trenches) and completely. However: Since I did not modelled the glacis the bastion is too high - the walls are always below ground / wall level in order to be protected against direct cannon hits.

An almost disappeared bastion. Most fortificated exploded right after the fortification walls were given up in the second half of the 19th century. Here you can still see the wet trenches as a kanal surround a park (which is still to be built ...  )

Two bastions. While the bastions in the middle of the sides of the octagon weren't so difficult the bastions at the corners of the octagon are a problem - actually they needed to be designed as FAR + FAC 

Depending on the availability of sufficient water trenches are either dry or (at least temporarily) wet. Strassbourg has wet trenches as the Île runs through them. In Landau and Germersheim the local creek could be ponded to flood the trenches in case of defending the town.

I decided to have wet trenches all the time.

There is / should be / was a gate on the place where you can see the GLR station - something like the Weissenburger Tor in Germersheim. Like other buildings that were necessary for a fortification - magazins, armoury and caserns frtifictaion gates are completely non existent in SC4 based my knowledge ...

(I checked and downloaded Yoder's BATs but they are too representative, not militarily simple enough for my need)

Sometimes you need to be very creative if you want to have  diagonals and trams ...

The overview from the last pic. You can see two bastion - one more or less complete one hidden in the street layout.

I said it before - the kanals used as trenches weren't deep enough for my taste. So I tried out budsybud's highway walls in combination with different kanal sets. Unfortunately there are no real extenders in SG kanal set. So I tried both PEG's CSK2 and the new kanals of CallagrafX.

Lokks rather good bur ...

PEG'S will disappear - no diagonals .

CallagrafX' set has neither extenders nor diagonals but I confess: I fell in love with that water texture.

But either someone does me a favour and creates the missing pieces or ... well, I did see the BAT behind the corner with that diabolical grin meaning "Eventually I will get even Papa Nardo" ... 

D'oh! - of course this is OC 11 ... 

Well, unless I can solve the above probleme I'll have some fun in W2W. BTW: If its not diagonal it's not plopped!

Well, the traffic query said Tram traffic is high ...   I changed it later to tram-on-road though. 

Something I don't see very often are the great smooth curvers of the elevated heavy rail. Why?

Outside the old walls I am going to do a big RR station. Some of its facilities are already plopped.

An overview of the already finished railway facilities.

No, no bastion this time - just a diagonal highway

That's it for today. This one is my most ambitious project, I'm not sure if it will be necessary to blow ip that city to restart or not at the moment. And there's that problem with the BAT ... 

Hopy you liked it. Tomorrow's the last day of my OSITM week. See you then!

Have fun!

Bernhard

[Norby(ToG) 6]

Absolutely awesome update, I like you tram and train lines, realistic and well planned. Keep up the good work.

Congratulation for your 1st place in Ben's list. You deserve it.

[Benedict 3,119]

Very nice... and you are number one on a weekly (current) top ten that I do each week, different to Phat's (where, I believe, you reached number one then were 'retired' into his Hall of Fame).

I love the little orange + blue tram in your update.

[Nardo69 51]

Hello to All!

Today's the last day of my OSITM week. And in the final update we go back to the roots forests so noone has to worry if he's in the right CJ or not ...!

But as always before we start:

@Norby(ToG): Thanks for the compliment!

@Benedict: Now I am curious!  Next week I'll check your sig but now I am bit exhausted from last week .. 

And now without any further a dos: 

OSITM Special part 6: Back to the forests!

You might know Emmelshausen already as I showed pictures of it before, one of it made it even into the SFBW Hall of Fame! 

Overview of the northeastern corner of the map. To the left the Mühlbach and the Landesstraße (state road) are leaving to Schwarzritters Mühlem to left a road connecrts to Hochrot.

The ridge isn't completed by now...

... but so you can see how I lay dirt tracks in the woods.

The Mühlbach Valley. To the left you can see an early trials only with c.p. trees. You can see why I didn't continued this on the right!

The village of Emmelshausen. In order to gain height the railway passes the village in a wide 180° degree curve.

The small lake was made after a fire which almost couldn't have been distinguished because of a lack of water. Thanks to this fire water pond this danger was banned. However the now increased ground water level destabilized the hill so that a massive reatining was necessary in order to save the factories between the railway line and the pond. Otherwise the hole area might have gone to the valles ...

The Mühlbach valley above Emmelshausen.  While the railway and the creek are sharing the small valley the road went up the hill and accesses the small hamlet Steinrod.

This is the picture that won 5 rounds in the SFBW (SimForum Picture Competition) and eventually went into the Hall of Fame.

The props at the level crossing are missing due to some harddisk problems. (by now I could restore most of them)

The other side of the level crossing. The props have reappeared as you can see!

So, everything has to come to its end. And to close this weeks I prepared some closeups for you:

The Mühlbach inside Emmelshausen.

As you can see I used quite some stones due to the topography.

I placed church and cemetery at a high point at the edge of the village.

I just loved that view into the Mühlbach valley.

And finally, a small fireworks to celebrate the birthday of SC4Devotion:

That's it. That was my OSITM 4in1 Special week, the next update will be in the "normal rhythm" ... 

I hope you had as much fun as I had. But now I need to play the game in order to have enough picture for the next update ...

Untill then:

Have fun!

Bernhard

[hijodecordoba 74]

man, you are updating way to fast for me i missed so many things that i don't know what to say first.

i loved you street layout with the orientation on former city walls in german town. one can really imagine. the river embankment is a great idea, too!

and the your rural areas are brillant as ever.

[Benedict 3,119]

Great conclusion to your week of special interest here at Simtropolis. I've enjoyed every single image!

[Simbourgeois 139]

What a wonderful area, so many nice scenic views!

And I really like the layout of the tram line and roads and canals in the pic CS06 - splendid!

And CS09 - those canals are just breathtaking!!! Amazing work indeed!

And those curved railway tracks...

And...

And...

I really feel inspired after seeing all these OSITM updates! Well done, indeed!

Can't wait for the next "normal" update!

Yours sincerely,

Simbourgeois

Mayor of Belleville

[Nardo69 51]

Hello to All!

Well, I planned to have a longer break after that OSITM Special week - however ... When I saw Robin's (rooker1) nice night pictures I realized that it must have been ages since I showed the last night shots and immediately decided to steal his idea that time is overdue for a night shot update.

I haven't had enough time last week, so with a short delay how about a regular update with them?

But before as always: 

@hijodecordoba: Hehe, don't worry, that update speed is way faster than I can play the game ...

Glad you like the updates! 

@Benedict: Thanks for the compliment my friend! 

@Simbourgeois: Thanks for the compliment my friend! 

And if I could you some inspirations for Belleville all the work would have been worth it! 

Update 25: Under A Maxis Moon ...

I don't want to write anything concerning the pictures except where I made them. I had some associations while working on them you can find in the captures. Unlike I do usually I used my stone age PiantShopPro 5 to get the Maxis night a bit darker. It's my first try so don't refrain in constructive critics and hints how to make it better.

The first townis Blaubach. I am going to have to rebuilt the major parts of it as I lost some plugins in a harddisk problem and since then the city CTD after loading - inckusive all backups of the last months ... 

Maybe I'll show some more pics. (If you want to ...)

Grünwinkel. Don't become confuse, you're still in the wright MD. As all highrise quarters and towns it has its own beauty during night.

Schwarzritters Mühle. Most picture became too dark, but I did manage to show you some:

And finally, Leimersheim, some pics before the morning comes:

That's it for tonight. Have some nice dreams!

Bernhartd

[reaps 105]

some really nice pics,an awesome CJ you have

[DustyLee23 6]

Just been goin back through your previous updates. im simply blown away. you are a master in all aspects of the game. i really wish i could build regions like yours, seeing your work really pushes me to try and be a better city builder. i will definitly be watching for more

[Simbourgeois 139]

Oh, the sinful businesses keep people awake till early hours in Leimersheim... but I see that the God's servants also stay awake lost in their prayers!

Nice pictures indeed!

Yours sincerely,

Simbourgeois

Mayor of Belleville

[Benedict 3,119]

I really like the night shots - excellent addition to your CJ.

And congratulations, your CJ is number one on Ben's Top Ten for the second week in a  row.

[Mr. Beer 12]

Hi Bernhard!

Very nice work here! Your rail network and all the details are so stunning! It remembers to me what you can see on a scale-model railroad.

See you and take care,

David

[Benedict 3,119]

Congratulations, you are number one on Ben's Top Ten for the third week in a row.

[madhatter106 3,931]

I love that my little voodoo and magic shop from the first New Age and Occult pack have popped up next to the church in your city's CJ.

I can imagine what sort of drama this has caused the congregation...!

[Norby(ToG) 6]

Great looking night pics, I love the way you presenting your cities.

Keep up the good work.

[Nardo69 51]

Well, this time I do have a good reason for having no update prepared: 

Yesterday at 11:10 local time my wife gave birth to my 2nd son Sinan Josef: 

Mother and child are doing fine and my older son did appreciate his little brother, too!  

[Simbourgeois 139]

Oh my goodness, he looks so handsome!!! May he have a long, happy and healthy life

Congratulations, my friend!

Here's a small gift from Belleville.

All the best wishes,

Simbourgeois

Mayor of Belleville

[bwong 36]

*stutters* bb-ee-aa-uttilful!

beautiful!

[nathanthemayor 1,263]

Nice CJ you have here!

[wwetom1 831]

After scrolling down the page and looking at all of your updates, I must say, you've done a great job with this CJ! Some of them, like the Mulbach Valley, show off just how realistic you can make your cities look, while others show off your excellent city/transportation planning. Your night shots are good aswell! And congratulations on having your second son!

[Nardo69 51]

Hello to All!

That OSITM week really burned my picture dumps and I don't have to explain that I wasn't able to play the game a lot during the last weeks ... 

however

I found some still not published nice screenshots plus 2 teasers from 2 map that I haven't shown (much) so I thought it might not be a full blown update but maybe some nice pictures as a kind of christmas present would be nice.

I'll do answers later -it's December 24th, 01:45 am here ...

Update Nr. 26: Fragments

Some fragments from two maps, one in the doing, one restarted.

I somehow lost an important plugin for Blaubach; the last month's backups only do CTD. So I had to go nearly to start. Unfortunately unlike my ussual habit I was very busy building there and didn't do too much screenshots. 

So, what did we learn:

Lesson 1: Back up all and eveything!

Lesson 2: Make screenshots of all and everything ...

(just a tad too late ...)

A flagstop. That map of the map is a rather narrow stripe between mountains and a river ...

Another flagstop. I had to do a lot of retaining walls there ...

Even though I build the tramway rather late and only a small network it quickly became very important.

Well ...

This one is dedicated to Ryan (choco). I got him on the nerves to mod some Maxis bridges to be compatible to the viaduct railways (otherwise I wouldn't have been able to realize this and other situations) but until now I haven't seen anyone taken advantage of them ...

Anyway: A big huge "THANK YOU VERY MUCH! LONG LIVE THE BRIDGE MASTER" to choco!

Yes, I did some night shots. This one's just the other side of the previous!

Industrials and nightlights are a really thankful combination!

but so is Wall 2 Wall! 

BTW we just changed the map from Blaubach to my defortified town.

PEG's CSK2. The lamps in such an environment look nice, but in industrial or worn down areas ...

Nice contrast I would say!

Well, there are also some nice industrials here!

I once had a very bad night in the emergence of an hospital. My wife had some very bad aches, my turkish was really bad, no one spoke English or German, and from hour to hour my wife's condition got worse. In the early morning my brother-in-law came and helped me. That day around noon she had an emergency operation.

These are the kind of memories that don't leave you...

Well, somewhere between midnight and dawn there'S always somewhere are place where people can get a drink ...

Teaser 1: This should have been my map for the village competition but it quickly became to big for it ... But by now it looks quite OK closing in for update condition.

Teaser 2: A small map, some hills, a creek, no railways but maybe a tutorial. If you want, of course. Anyone in?

That's it for today!

Merry Christmas!

Joyeux Noelles!

Fröhliche Weinachten!

Felis Navidad!

Bernhard

[Benedict 3,119]

Fantastic Christmas Eve surprise! Love all the shots, for some reason I like your highways a lot.