Knezevina Slovenija [Countesy of Slovenia]

[Strucka 2]

The countesy of Slovenia  

Capital city: Celje (pron.: celye) pop:~350.000

Other cities: Koper, Gorica (in development), Domzale, Kamnik, Sobota and more.

This is fictional, but it is leaning on realistic cities and their historical development, and has real city names, Slovenia is also a country, which is not a countesy, neither it has any real counts, it's a developed country in the European union, and some say it is the most developed of the new members. The cities here are a bit similar to these in my city journal in terms of tidying and large old town centre's. However we have not yet awaited the tram system, which our capital (Ljubljana (~ 300000 pop.)) would need, neither we have any real skyscrapers, but who needs them if we have one of the nicest, cosiest and tidyest centre's in the world. Well if you wish to know more about Slovenia, go to google and google it, or you can also look it up on slyscrapercity.com.

This thread will be mainly focused on Celje at the moment, because my main focus was to make an established city, a large city, that later on got a few marine cities (Izola and Koper with its port) and some larger cities (with less than 50000 residents), with smaller towns (up to 5000 and some 10000) in the mainland, that is quite hardly divided by steep relief and rivers.

                       

They say it was called the second Troy, as it was unacsessible to the turks in the middle age's trying to enter the Europe from Balkan's, through Slovene lands and Austria. The castle

         

               

 was owned by the counts of Celje (really), that worked up their way to the holy emperor of Germany at the time (15th century), by marriages and simmilar stuff, and here is where the stories get different, mine continues with the counts in charge of the whole German Empire, but the real one was that the Hapsburg's (that later on ruled the Austrian empire) paid the Hungarians to kill the last Count in Belgrade and because he had no children they gained the power over the huge amount of Celje land. So in SC4 the counts rule with authority, but not greed and in 19th century Celje is one of the most flourishing cities in Europe. Counts have given the land to people and nations, that weren't Slovene in this Countesy, gained independence in 1867 by a decret from Count Vladimir Celjski, that insisted the Istrian, Slavonic, Bosnian, Serbian and German parts gain independence if they wish to. Slovenia was left with 1/7 of it's original land, but the left over is one of the most beautiful and diverse lanscapes in the world (look it up if you don't believe).

                                                                                 

                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                                                  

 And so I shall begin with pictures of my city, development seen will be hardly visible, because the city is allready developed and is overgrowing and eating up other cities, in this year, it is expected, that it's population will increase 124,6544%, to allmoast a half a milion residents. The real country has ~ 2mil. residents, so this one shall not have a lot more but still not a lot less. So the pics:

                                                         

   ^  This is the Celje Flag (not real) and it's coat of arms, which is still the same as the one of The Counts and is also used in Slovene national coat of arms.

Let's start with the entrence to Celje arriving by train. You hop of at the Main Celje Terminus

     

     

     

This is also a transit hub for the whole city, you can hop on the tram, that is videly spread over the city, or take a bus, which spreads even more and both are usefull to get around the centre, because it's closed for car traffic and there is also a lot of pedestrian only zones, that are nice and tidy.

The city also offers a few parks and loads of space for football, handball, hockey, volleyball and other sportfans.

National parliament, the Congress square in front and the government building in front of both

The main city park

This is the Sports park Celeia (which is the city roman's made at that spot). It got constructed, out of need, because the old stadium (football) was, nearly disintegrating of age and because the handball games got to packed in the old hall called Golovec, which is a hill in Celje, The new arena Celeia has a capacity of 14000 and when Celje Pivovarna Lasko plays an important match, there is also another 6-7000 people outside cause the ticket's run out in 2-3 hours after the sale starts. And it is something worthy of waiting for. The team is in the handball Chapions league top 10 every year and has won the throphy a few times (in reality it was 2004).

So this is a little bit for now, next set of pictures will be showing the newer and higher built areas of the town, now don't expect Dubai and it's (for me) disgracefull skyline. But something very nice and soothing.

[CarmineHilton 6]

Welcome! Great start of your CJ

Love how you used the NAM rail pieces and GLR! Very good

Good luck!!

[feliwi 4]

hey, it really reminds me of Ljublijana, where I've been in summer, a nice city, and a nice start of a CJ!

[Strucka 2]

Thanks! Well the NAM is bothering me since I've first started this city. I kind of got bored of the yellow brick look but don't want to destroy everything with the unninstalation and reinstalation of the NAM system. Does anyone know how to change it without destroying the city?

And to feliwi: yes you guessed it right it takes a loooot after Ljubljana.

[Tomasneto 20]

Nice start guy!! Very good work!!

[chicagoflo 8]

Great region! How did you get a customized region key? Can you please PM because I probably won't be able to see your post again.

[Benedict 3,119]

Fantastic. You rail and tram network is incredibly well done. I love how 'organic' the city looks at the moment. When's the next update ?

[thepianist 0]

Woww The buildings and light rail system looks fantastic! (:

[panthersimcity4 162]

Nice work! I LOVE Ljubljana

[s_olah 87]

Incredible...Great start!!!

[dabadon5 295]

Damn that city looks sexy. good job man i cant wait to see more

[Schulmanator 5,815]

A nice introduction and a very nice Euro city. I look forward to more.

[Strucka 2]

Thank you all for your comments, I really apriciate it. And because all of you were so nice, i'm giving out two teazers. I am not telling when the update will come but will give you a hint what's it about.

[SounderBruce 173]

Love the NAM usage!

[suplado! 23]

wow -- i like the view of those pics, and what i really like is the cool regional view

[Strucka 2]

As I have promised, an update:

As the teaser pictures showed it will be residential block buildings, or as some call them commieblocks (eventhough they originate from britain). These block neighbourhoods are on all the main avenue entrances of the city. Most of them are limited to the Celje city municipality, but some stretch even to another municipality (to which the city has grown), however some are only in the other municipality, because of the simple fact, that the centre of the city is streched so far south, that it almoast hit the border, so actually the city itself stretches over these municipalities: Celje (city), Celje- Jug (Celje-South), Teharje, Vransko and Dolsko. The city is connected with all those by road surfaces (road, avenues, highway) and also the city transportation system. However the PPC (Potniški Promet Celje or Public Transport Celje) is divided into city PPC (MPP) and suburban PPC which is called Primestni promet. The MPP is carried out only in the Celje city municipality (or Mestna Ob?ina Celje-> MOC) and in little part of Celje-Jug and Teharje, other municipalities have to gain more citizens to gravitate on MOC, to get the funding of the MOC for MPP. The system is not so complex and will be presented later in another update, but for now I will give you some more pictures of the commie block neighbourhoods.

Let's start in the South (mun. Celje-South).

This here is a beauty called Borova vas, at the moment it holds ~ 35-40.000 residents.

As you can see it is limited by two obstacles, the green forresty hill on the east, and a rail line, which is actually the line for the fast train from Celje to airport Edvarda Rusjana (the most famous (Yugo)Slovene ''flier'' inventor, pilot, constructor and a lot more). The line also divides here and the other smaller part goes thru the industrial zone South and Teharje, it's actually only for freight. Borova vas ends in suburban small houses.

Here is the begining of the Teharska Avenue

 where on the south side of it lies the biggest neighbourhood of the city with ~ 45.000 residents.

 

It is also cut in two pices by the west highway bypass (Celje has a Ring of highways) and there you can see on of the convention centers that is made over the highway and the two oneway roads made because of the space problem on this side of the river Savinja.

A part of it even has it's own tram line with 2 stations and a loop at the end. This is one of the loveliest parts for me.

Then there is the Visoko polje neighbourhood which also counts up to 30.000 res. is a bit different then the others (was constructed in 90ties) and also lies on the tangent road which connects almoast the whole north part beetwean the avenues (I am working on deleting that almoast).

This is the overpass of the oneway circling around the main part of the neighbourhood

 Here is the main part of the neighbourhood

The tangent ends here (actually a bit later on the road that comes from a farawayland at the moment, cause there has been no development yet)

And this is also the end of another  part of the city, which has no name yet, but lies on the Konjiška ave.

Here you can see the road tangent in a little bigger extent and by those 4 story blocks, it goes in to a tunnel that comes out on the other side of the hill crosses the Torino ave cuts the Visoko polje neighbourhood and intersects with the North avenue. That is also the quickest route from the north bypass to the center.

On the east stretching towards Vransko is another part, that is not very popular, because of it's congested traffic route, towards the city ( it's conected only by a tram bridge anda an avenue bridge, oh and also there is a pedbridge, but not a lot of people use it, it conects to The University of Celje, which is established on a special part of the city and is cut of from the city, but at the same time has very good connections and is in the center. Here is the neighbourhood I've been talking about.

Well that's all for now, next is the Airport Edvard Rusjan. Maybe tomorow maybe not, but something will happen to it and you will witness that.

Thanks for all the feedback you're all great!

[Tomasneto 20]

Nice update, very good work in your city!!!

[jacqulina 162]

very nice start and intro my friend,love the castle,very nice region.great suburbs too.

[panthersimcity4 162]

I LOVE those Russian style high-rises!

[Strucka 2]

I'll give you guys two options for the next update, my Tram system or the airport?

@Panthersimcity: you mean the two towers? I like them to so I let them grow evethough my initial plan was a simple boring workers commieblocks and to make it different than other's they were supposed to be from maxis =D

@jacquilina: The castle would almoast be a boring stack of those towers in the wall, but then I scrolled over the London tower and it got to me however the suburbs aren't really appearing here, they are yet to be made.

[Dino007 1]

Nice but shame that there isn't any simularity with Celje or Slovenia (except names).

[lucky7 73]

Great start and good development so far, very good choice of buildings and full of details. looking forward to more,

lucky7

[Namesys 3]

Great Update Strucka.

Dino007 -> Well, there's slovenian FLAG in one of the pictures, and churches do look more Slavic than anything else.

Strucka, can you tell me, where did you get the Slovenian flag? I'd LOVE to use them Slovenian flags in my cities!

[Dino007 1]

Originally posted by: Namesys Great Update Strucka.

Dino007 -> Well, there's slovenian FLAG in one of the pictures, and churches do look more Slavic than anything else.

quote>

Churches look Slavic but in Celje is one little Orthodox church, not like this big on this picture http://www.shrani.si/f/1C/hv/1tpqpEu5/simcity-4-2008-12-20-22-.jpg.

[Petrovar Ambassador 15]

amazing start and great update! i love the amount of custom content in your CJ, keep it up!

[Strucka 2]

@ Dino007: That was the whole point, I've done numerous recreations of real Celje, but they all sucked, because in SC you're limited to a square, and it all ends strangely, not to say how strange i got the measurment, because of no real (metric) ruler, so I've decided to make something out of my imagination, something where the ideas would flow in the city together with the arrangement of of everything, so I would create something very good, a big city, maybe even the biggest one ever that would be as realistic as it can be in this still greatly admired (by me) game, there is some more flags around the city, but I didn't want to show any reallife cities or parts of them, that is why it only shares names. You should see that from the begining, because it all starts with the name of the region (country (countesy)), that only shows my imagination and nothing real, one of the cities I've now continue to work on is Koper, as i elieve you have probably been there, you will see that Koper has even less in common with the real city. And as for the little orthodox church, I didn't try to bother with it because i think there are 3 of those on the STEX (from where at least 80% of the things you see originate) one of them is Sv. Sava from Belgrade (one of the biggest in the world) the other is the biggest and i don't recall the third. So this is why there are none similarities. The churches are German and one is Dutch.

@ Petrovar ambassador, lucky7, Namesys and Dino007: Thank you all I will continue adding updates and there will be nicer and those a little bit less nicer, so take care and look for the news.

[Strucka 2]

Tomorow there will be another update... so make sure you check it out!

[Strucka 2]

Well this is the update, I am much sorry that I am rather late, but there was a lot to do for me the past week. I am also an architecture student, and we are having the end of the semester tomorow. So that is why I am late here.

To get back on bussiness. Today's discussion will take place, a bit out of the city of Celje. 30 kilometers out of the city core, to be somewhat exact. Very close to the place where river Celjska Bistrica joins Savinja, there is also a little lake, more of a pond actually. The pond is inaccesible however. Why you ask? Well mostly because of this:

The airports runway ends here and standing close to the pond would be hazardous.

Well this is the airport of Edvard Rusjan.

The largest and the only international airport in the Countesy, this far. It was very small and so it got an upgrade. We upgraded the airport, and is now between the biggest in the region, with over 1mil. passangers per year. It also got a real Cargo terminal, that before, kind of didn't have. So first thing to do was the runway. It had to be longer, but because there was no room for a longer runway, at the current location, there was a new one built right next to the old.

Then after the old one was abandoned, the parking area got a bit more space.

And so did the cargo area

Then it was time to take on the passanger terminal and the infrastructure needed to get the sims to the airport.

This is the rail overpass

Here you can see the new terminal and the train station, bus station, parking places and a new car entrance to the airport, which had now been pulled out of the highway in an T interchange from the north-west (before it was N-East):

On the eastern section of the airport there is also a new set of hangars, big and small, as also seen on the pictures.

A cargo facility was made on the west part of the LER (Letališ?e (airport) Edvarda Rusjana)

And near it a small commercial zone was zoned.

Here is the pond now with the rail (via Celje) on the top of the picture and the hangars on the bottom left.

NeXT uPDaTE: Trams of Celje

[Zezug 6]

Pretty interesting city you have here, I really like how you have the trams set up in the city.

[kant01 5]

this is a very cool cj you have here. I like the way the airport has been developing - nice job!