Experimental City Journal Preparations : Developing Internations

[petriknl 15]

Nicolais, it would be very helpful if you would help me with the regional history, and about tijn.. maybe we can make this more realistic by adding a important figure in our history with that name, in that way it would be more logical to have more cities than 1 who are named something with Tijn..? (Martijn could be fine too, maybe St. martinus)

But if people don't want to have a city with that name its ok I think, maybe I have a river named after him or a village I do not now yet.

[NicolaiS 8]

Petriknl:

 

Okay ... The next few days I will think about the history issue and send you a short draft of the possibilities. I think you are right about the Tijn naming. It is not to difficult to include him in the histories.

[mrbisonm 1,622]

petriknl, with two pacific neighbors like us, I am sure our relations will be an example for others....lol

Map A will be just fine. Can I finetweak terraform it a little bit?

[Mickebear 2]

First of all, you cannot believe how proud I am of you all. Our CJ is taking the wings of its own, the roles for each and everyone of us are forming naturally, petriknl and NicolaiS now writing history together, cities named after Tijn21, talking about pacific relations between neighbours (mrbisonm)... This is really going to be extraordinary - because even with preparations only, it is so much fun!

mrbisonm, everybody can terraform their regions with moderation, but for the sake of visual unity, nobody should touch - say 10 tiles away from the regional border - their frontier towns that touch your neighbours, in your case petriknl and alkaola.

 

To all:

Remember that you MUST always negotiate with your neighbour(s) when you need to have a road or railway built from one region to another.

 

In practice, best way might be to think on the lines of following, here is an imaginary example: 

 

my Istrina South region touches Istrina North region of petriknl. We have one town that is actually cut half because of language (in petriknl's town, they speak istrinian, whereas in my town, the language is closely related illy-dalmatian; anyway, border separates the town halves from each other) issues in the past. Hence to prepare this town, we both need to calculate tile by tile where to draw the roads and possible railway crossing the border. When there is one day the moment in the CJ that we present visually the town, petriknl or myself have to use Photoshop to show the frontier and the town beyond (as in the visual, photoshopped, example below)

 

 

To facilitate our task to calculate, you could name your city tiles with this format:

St. Martinus G - Ca. First you have real name of your town tile, but then you have your region number as we have given them (of course you gave real name to region) and Ca means C column of 6 x 6 city tiles and a row (as in this visual example below)

 

 

Motorways (highways) shouldn't be built without regional council (that's us all )  has had its say and careful planning has been done...

[petriknl 15]

yes I agree developments are really underway great to see this happening, I am looking forward to our project Nicolais

Mickebear; a short discussionpoint ... I was not planning to name my nation Istrina or yours but the entire region (so all 11 nations together). St. Martinus would be great to name this bordertown.. the Nicosia/Berlin of Istrina btw I think the official language of my nation is Istrinian-Italian maybe some other nations would have this language also? (dialect from Italia, introduced by the Venetian republic in the 14th century in the Istrina area.)

To make sure the confusion about region and nation let us from this point call your own region as NATION and all nations toegther as THE ISTRINIAN REGION or ISTRINA?? So now more region when you are talking to your nation... I think that this will be easier for all of us.

[Mickebear 2]

to petriknl,

It is good to make things clear, there you are right; common terminology needs to be decided, in order to avoid confusions. About my example, it was just that. No names have been decided upon so far.

 

to all,

 

I was thinking of making a poll about the names that you have suggested so far; before that, let the ideas flow

[petriknl 15]

the name I would draw to the polls is ISTRINA

[Mickebear 2]

I started to use LotEditor for the first time in my life... and this is what I came up with...

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//LotTest.jpg align=baseline>

 

And for the polls:

 

Region name suggestions:

Istrina
Estria
Illistria
Adriata
Dalistria
Barathrum

[SIMMANIA 4]

Istrina sounds really good! I like the name a lot!

 

But for connections from a region to another we need customs?

 

Motorways (highways) shouldn't be built without regional council

 

You're talking about a highway connection or simply highways?

[Mickebear 2]

SIMMANIA,

I edited my previous post with the suggestions so far.

 

I actually mean the whole highway system. Normally, highways are always really expensive to build, and here in Europe the highway system needs to conform to pan-European planning (bigger than EU) at least for their naming conventions (we have something called TEN or Trans European Network), where highways or important roads get named, as for example E19  : highway from the Netherlands to Paris for instance. And often, although highways are built on the national needs to curb traffic, there are special planning boards to conform the planning from point A to point B, where you need to consider the opinions of the people on the communal, regional, national and international levels. Very lengthy process indeed.

 

Realistically, if for instance in my nation (I am trying hard to get used to petriknl's suggestion for terminology convention ) there are mostly farms and not a lot of population, there is hardly any need for a motorway (this is how highways or freeways are called for the most part in Europe). Except if it is decided on a regional level: in your nation, there is a need to get from your town A to petriknl's town B - but the only way of doing that is through my region; a good point of negiotiations with my peasants for them to allow the motorway to be built...

 

EDIT: Customs... good question. Maybe there are bilateral agreements between two countries if customs are not needed. Without such an agreement, I think a customs institution is practical Practically, this could be for instance a toll booth masqueraded as customs building...

[fredval 26]

Date: 7/26/2005 1:19:45 PM Author: Mickebear

And for the polls:

Region name suggestions:

Istrina Estria Illistria Adriata Dalistria Barathrum

quote>

 

Istrina is OK for me. I also like Adriata very much...

 

This game is really going to give us a lot of fun

[SIMMANIA 4]

I really want to begin my nation! It's the preparation for the project and everything is going fast! I'm sure that will be very fun! I'm thinking of how I will build my cities and all theses things...

 

 

Mickebear:

 

I think a customs institution is practical Practically, this could be for instance a toll booth masqueraded as customs building...

 

 

 

Thanks Mickebear! For the Toll Booth I know there's one we can download that is really large and it's for highway with a modern look. Something like that:

 

  |  |

  |  |

 /    \

| TB |

 \    /

  |  |

  |  |

 

I don't know what's exactly his name... And there's also a special lot named custom something that can be used....

[Mickebear 2]

Indeed, that customs solution is practical for a highway. But most of the connections to the neighbours are via normal road. So we need to think of this as well...

[SIMMANIA 4]

connect with an avenue and then 5 squares after convert to road. Build a toll booth in the avenue. Do that on both sides...... What do you think?

 

          |  |

          |   \

          |    |

          |TB|

B------|    |------B

          |TB|

          |    |

          |   /

          |  |

 

B for Border, TB for Toll Booth. And for customs I suggest that:

 

http://stex.simtropolis.com/lots/mrsnoopy/mrsnoopy_mr%20snoopys%20new%20toll%20stations/snoopystollboothday1.jpg

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=4003

 

Just need to find other buildings like duty-free market and a main security building!

[Mickebear 2]

Those pictures are great, just what we need indeed. Maybe a police station could do the trick for the security building. There aren't so many police buildings around, can you use LE to 'create' a security building?

EDIT: I could ask Bobbo62 to make us a plain duty-free market area...

[petriknl 15]

mm I like the discussion about our borders, and indeed a good custums building is needed, altough if there is only one variant that should look odd, remember there are 11 nations, a dozen of ports and I think almost hundred of borderroads. About the tollboots to use as a borderguard.. but what will we use for tollbooth, when there should be a highway in my nation it must be financied by toll, otherwise we will not able to effort it.

 

And yes I really loves to begin

 

And furthermore, maybe it is time to set up some projectworkgroups, like Nicolais and I doing a regional history (about that please pm us your ideas for your nation....)

[Roketti 0]

Onpas mielenkiintoinen CJ, tai proggis mut kummiski. Ja Mickebear, se sun ranskalainen CJ oli tosi magee, ihan omassa luokassaan kaikkien noiden pilvenpiirt

[SIMMANIA 4]

Just people in the project can vote...... Also the vote's deadline was july 15 I think...

 

And:

 

petriknl:

About the tollboots to use as a borderguard.. but what will we use for tollbooth, when there should be a highway in my nation it must be financied by toll, otherwise we will not able to effort it.

 

 

The solution is to download theses toll booth and use them for customs. And for the real toll booths use the standard that is in SC4. 2 kind of toll booths, one that means customs and the other (the standard SC4) that is really a toll booth...

[petriknl 15]

Simmania: could it not be viceversa also...??

About thanking tijn21 for his huge work for the maps, maybe we can honour him on a more realistic way, as making St. Martinus the patronage holy for the entire region of (I hope) Istrina.. with some geofysical places named after St. Martinus??

[SIMMANIA 4]

petriknl: I think that the ground highway modern toll booth that gets larger would look great for customs... But it's not to me to choose what will be the official toll booth and customs.... Maybe someone can make a special toll booth that include all buildings on the sides in one lot... A small version and a large...

 

And also, good idea for St-Martinus. I'm okay with that!

[Mickebear 2]

I have used Lot Editor for the first time in my life today. I tried to see if I could actually change eg. school or reward to something more pleasing.

And here are the results, thanks to Keiko (Japan) and BSC (BarbyW, SimGoober, SWI, Porkissimo, D66, Vlakhaas, GasCooker), I was able to get something done. It actually gives me the appetite to learn how to BAT. These tests are not to be released, if somebody asks, they are just that, tests.

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//LotTest1.jpg align=baseline>

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//LotTest2.jpg align=baseline>

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//LotTest3.jpg align=baseline>

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//LotTest4.jpg align=baseline>

[petriknl 15]

wow really really good Mickebear, amazing... maybe you can make some special lots for us, eg a regional parlement building ect (if there will be one someday) or other special buildings lik the St Martinuschurch of the town of St. Martinus, the burialground of the holy man.....

[mrbisonm 1,622]

Glad to hear that we can terraform a litlle bit in our cities. Of course I will keep the border squares intact, like 8 to 10 tiles or so and only little terraforming will be done further inside the land.

For the connections to other cities, I recommend to simply count the squares (tiles) and then make the connection, while informing your neighbor of the exact place . Ex: If my City has 50 tiles on the right side (east) and I make a road connection to my neighbor (east), I will inform him that I did a Road Connection on tile 16 counting from the top and he should be able to make the same. I suppose before each connection the two individuals should contact each other prior to the connection to agree totally on their decision.

 

btw ....The name Istrina sounds good to me also.

 

Two questions: will each city have already a name or do we name them ourselves? (hope so) Then do we receive the whole region, of just the part that was given to us? I mean, will we get the region greymap or the datfile for the specific city. I cannot use the greymap, it does not work in my game, just to let you know, someone would have to render it for me and then send it in parts. (I don't know why)

 

I will use the toll booths for my Borderline offices ( unless I will find some time to BAT my own Checkpoints later), whether for roads or Highways, and for tracks I will use this, one of my own homemade lots:

 

 

I hope that we will go through with this and I also hope that everyone will stick together and not someone leaving in the beginning of this ( I think I will shoot him/her....lol).....I hate projects that never get going

 

Good Luck to us

 

Edit: I will be doing an Embassy lot form my Country and for everyone's City, once the connections and citiies are established. An Ambassador will be implanted.You can always burn it down, if you don't want my Embassy anymore in case of political difficulties between our countries.

 

[MissTonya 2]

your images do look all good? cute stuff though

Yo it's Tonya!

[Mickebear 2]

Happy for your responses, petriknl and mrbisonm (and thanks Tonya)

petriknl: I was thinking of doing a few lots for you and me, but also for all others (like embassies or something like that). I still don't BAT, so doing a church is maybe too much to ask.
But at least I can edit lots for our needs. I am going to modify some police stations, hospitals, schools and libraries for more Mediterranean style.

mrbisonm:

• everybody names their own 'nation' and towns/cities as they like. Only the whole region will have a common name (for the sake of naming the City Journal ). Maybe the naming convention could be like (if Istrina is chosen, looks like everybody so far is happy about the name) this:
  (in my case, when I have a town called St Martinus Sud, in my nation called Polazzo) Istrina - Polazzo - St Martinus Sud. What do you think?
• I was going to send everybody first of all their own nation map (6x6 medium squares), but also the whole supra-region. If you need, I can render the greyscale maps for you - in the next two weeks I am working in night shift, so I have time to spare at home.

Your homemade lots are wonderful, by the way! I am also very happy that you could also make some embassies for us - it gives more character to our games. Burning them down? Maybe a good riot can be in place at least,

 

I want to push really hard to go through with this project; it really is one of the kind. I am worried of two our members, who haven't responded to any messages for a long time: Baro and Artorius. If nothing is heard of them in next two weeks, we need to look for two new members. Pikatchoum is on holiday, he is with us.

EDIT: Hei Roketti, onpas kiva etta taalla on suomalaisia kaymassa kylassa Ja kiitos kehuista, Ranska on pop, vaikka Chirac sanoisi mita suomalaisten ruoasta, hehehehe...
And same in English: Hi Roketti, nice to see fellow Finns for a visit And thanks for your comments, France still rocks, eventhough Chirac bluttered out his comments on Finnish food...

[SIMMANIA 4]

We Also need fences for borders.... Mrbisonm your home-made customs look nice! And Mickebear your lots are also good! If you want I can try to make some lots. I'm $%&^! with the BAT but I use the LE and I know how it works!

[Mickebear 2]

SIMMANIA, short reply: BIG THANKS - we need everybody's skills!

To all: I think we are getting two work groups here:

 

Storyline group : for the moment petriknl and NicolaiS

Lot/BAT group : for the moment Simmania, mrbisonm and Mickebear

 

And of course, more people in these groups and others needed

[SIMMANIA 4]

You Answer fast! I though that people were sleeping in Finland!

Here's what I did with the LE.

 

http://stex.simtropolis.com/lots/simmania/simmania_sc4%20sciences%20museum/museum.JPG align=baseline>

 

Here to Download: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=3747

 

I also know how to use LeProp so I can change stats and uses for a lot but it's basic so I can't touch some difficult things! Also does someone know where I can find a tutotial for the BAT in french?

 

EDIT: I'm thinking of that? We would probably need of another group to determinate the dependancies and mods that e will use for the whole region (Istrina) ! Choose a common vegetation, water color, terrain mod, road mod, things like that and make them available via a post with all links and how to install them...

[Mickebear 2]

Simmania, although I am a Finn, I live in Belgium, I am working at nightshift for the moment, *et je suis francophone. Desole, j'ai aucun idee s'il y a un tutorial en francais de BAT. Par contre, tu trouve beaucoup d'information  ICI a Simtropolis, en anglais evidemment, mais c'est mieux que rien.*

 

Edited *translation:...and I am french speaking. Sorry, I have no idea at all if there's a french tutorial about the BAT. But you find a lot of info here at Simtropolis, in english though, but that's better than nothing.

mrb

 

Challenge for the English speakers... translate the above

 

EDIT: Answering EDIT of Simmania, ... I think fredval is the best to organize the 'dependancy' group, although most of the Europeans in our group have already been to real Istria region. He has been there several times, and has a good eye for this. Fred(val, because mrbisonm is also Fred, heh), what do you think?

[petriknl 15]

wow. this was a really busy night I see (for me it was nigth ) great to see we have an other projectgroup now!

Mrbisonm: I think your tilecounting thing is very good for lying out roads, but hey if you build a highway from a rather large city to the border and at my side their is only a small farming community I think that the highway build we a waist of your national treasury, and making the minister of Finance a not so happy man / woman lol. So the connections should be realistic also, I agree with you that we maybe can better use the SC4 tollbooths as borders but he.. with the new Bat-group why don't we make ones, maybe combined with a customs union in 11 styles .... as for the 11 nations. Btw you called us earlier pacific neighbours.. why? lol

 

Simmania; You want a fence around your nation.. mmm sounds like the former DDR.. we dont like to work together with a regime which supress their citizens, but he .. if you have money we will trade ofcourse!

 

Mickebear: I hope Artorius and Baro will shout out to us, I hope they will be in this project.. maybe they are also on holidays? Very nice to know you will be 'modify' some civbic buildings to make them more mediterranean ones.. btw can you set the cover area for the policestaion, hospital and firepatrol to its maximum, its more realistic maybe atleast when it covers a medium sized city??