Experimental City Journal Preparations : Developing Internations

[mrbisonm 1,620]

Mickebear:
Thanks for making things clear. I would appreciate if you could render the greymap for me. My game just doesn't do it, I mighjt have to re-instalkl the whole game, and that is out of the question for the moment with all the thousands of files that I have. Thanks in advance, much appreciated. I think you still have my e-mail address, right?....and Yes, my name is Fred also ( Fr

[Mickebear 2]

Welcome to page 8!

 

First the news : Tijn21 has finished working with the map. Here is preview of 12 squares combined as one. I think we can safely say now that our region is called Istrina. There not one single vote against it.

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//Internations-Project_thumb-.jpg align=baseline>

Then to comments:
Petriknl: yeah, it was busy

[SIMMANIA 4]

 

No, it's just that when I go from Canada to US there is fences.... So that's why I think that. But I can put fences just near of customs and after put just trees! And also i'm trying the BAT! And Mickebear can I sugest something for you? Ilive LeProp is very easy and you can modify the values of any lots with it! Hehe!

[tijn21 2]

Hi everybody!

 

I just want to say thank you for all you enthousiastic comments on the region i made.... That's just pretty amazing and motivating... I spend a lot of time on it... However, it has been a lot of fun seeing the region grow little piece by piece....Adding mountains here, adding a river there.... And then I heared some guys talking about naming cities, towns and oceans after me()... That just gave me a warm feeling telling me it was all worth the time i spend on it....

 

So now the region is completed and Mika is dividing the region into the pieces to send them to each player.... Hopefully the project will lift-off very soon. Judging by the number of views this thread has, it's gonna be on of the most popular Cj's in the history of Simtropolis...certainly the most talked-about... And you can bet your bottom dollar, i'm going to be following this one very closely....

 

Maybe you all set a new trend in Cj-making...Many may be inspired to follow your extraordinary example...It's a Cj worth following not only to watch the region grow but also see so many people work together to make a region look alive not just a concrete plateau overgrown by skyscrapers and industrial area's... Here's so much more behind the curtains of plain city-building...here's an exclusive group of people working on a living nation, discussing, making compromises and adjusting to make it work.... That's the main reason why I was very interested in participating in this wonderful project....

 

I wish you all the best, good luck and most of all, have a really great time!!!!

 

 

Greets,

 

martijn

 

 

[SIMMANIA 4]

Here's what I did on the BAT, it's my first try...

 

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/8199/lebat12jg.png align=baseline>

[Mickebear 2]

Simmania: I-Live LE Prop, ok, because I never used it yet... it is my second day with LE, and I brought with me my personal laptop to work, so that I can practice with it... I modified today already a hospital, a firestation and a policestation to more Mediterranean looks - and started with a cultural center (a big 7x8 lot, takes a long time to find good stuff to have the looks as I would like them to be). My batting experiences will have to wait until next week, because we have friends over from south of France... And your BATting example looks very nice - try if you could create something Mediterranean looking (take a look at some pictures earlier here) for your inspiration. Although Mediterranean buildings are not necessarily big, they are often very detailed and a real challenge to make.

Tijn21: I am so so so greatful to you, as is the rest of the team - you really deserve a few towns named after you - and why not, a few statues as well...

 

Like you say, we are pushing the limits here with the game, and at least I am happy that our group can include influence from a talented map maker like you.

 

I don't think our project will die, on the contrary, it is only seeing its birth in some weeks.

[petriknl 15]

tijn21.... St Martinus will be a name to remember haha and when I was reading your reply.. I was thinking YES thats the CENTRAL IDEA of this entire Cj (btw cj.. city journal, should this not be changed, I think we must get our one forumpart haha lol)

simmania: dont feel offendend, I am funny Mika says so...

 

mrbisonm: I indeed hope for good relationships, w are happy to have a embassy of your nation within our capital...

 

mickear: very nice lots and experiments, I hope to see a lot of your creations in the nations of Istrina

 

To all Istrinians: With the map almost ready.. it should be time to give your toughts about your nations here or in a pm.. about the culture, political system, history, people, language, religion etc etc. i think it is a good idea to start small as a somewhat poor region (like Spain and Portugal in the 70s and 80s) and then during the time become richer??

[Mickebear 2]

Message to fellow Istrinians: as an old travel agent, I have of course a lot of information on real Croatia; Kvarner area and Istria (our map) especially.

I am now reading travel guide, because I am going there on vacation in a month - and that gave me idea: why not publish alongside the history and current affairs also a little travel section (like tips and tricks for traveller: where are good beaches, restaurants, pubs, discos, hotels, camping grounds, historic sites - is there something worth taking as excursion, natural parks, health spas... where do you get help when in trouble; and for the more mature of us: maybe also the seedy side of area should be 'warned' or how to get in trouble with the law... maybe there is a prostitution area in some border town - or maybe just a good nudist beach needs to be told to everyone)... and is there something special in YOUR nation that you can think of including in the travel tips and tricks. How about the format? Do you all have Photoshop or other photoediting software? Because we should have a certain 'format' (albeit different for each of us) when posting to CJ... like history section - travel section - current affairs section - personal messages section...

[SIMMANIA 4]

My BAT was just a test! I just want to finish that tower. I did a tower because it's easy. After finishing that I will try to make a mediterannean style BAT! ;-) And some mid-rise towers for more realism, Croatia don't have big towers but 50 meters towers are more realist for a national capital.... But just whem the nation will be very powerfull, not at the beginning!!!

[Mickebear 2]

hehehe, Simmania, I thought your tower was a test, but I had to say it anyways... we have so often here Europe big fights about new constructions and destroying old to give way... when I was younger, I was often in demonstrations against demolishing old Helsinki... so you can kind of guess that I can be militant enough in real life to defend our architechtural history. And of course, there are laws everywhere in Europe against skyscrapers - or cities being part of UNESCO World Heritage, like is the case with Dubrovnik, surprise, surprise, in Croatia.

Having said that, I find some skyscrapers just breathtakingly beautiful. But in general, I am so in love with our little European continent that its influence on my taste is inevitable... sorry...

[SIMMANIA 4]

Yess.... Here in Quebec it's so much different! Except for the old Quebec city! But anyway. I can create some modern 5 stories embassies? Something like Ottawa's embassies.... But I will try to do some europeans BAT's but I would need some tutorials about european BATting because I'm not really inspired.....

[Mickebear 2]

Simmania, I have noticed some really interesting threads that might inspire you in the Custom Content forums, there are a lot of things to just to see, and you can get an idea how to get started. That is what I am doing now as well... as we speak

[petriknl 15]

Mickebear: Good idea about the travelsection, I will download photoshop and play with it because I have not done this before, but he you practice with batmaking I do it with photoshop...

and Simmania: nice to see you having fun with the bats...

[mrbisonm 1,620]

SIMMANIA....fences between Canada and the US.??? Geez I live on the border in Quebec with New Hampshire and Maine, never seen a fence for hundreds of miles, not even with Vermont.

 

I'll be gone for a week on vacation, so you all know....not that you think I'm dead.

[SIMMANIA 4]

Eastern Townships??? Me I saw theses fences I think when I... The memory doesn't remains.... Sorry.... But in reality when I was there's a river between border so...

[brtim2 11]

I may have a suggestion for you all for neighbor connections between nations. You can count, but that might cause a mistake somewhere: 50 tiles to the right? I thought you meant it was 50 tiles, and then the road, not the 50th tile! Crap, there goes my {insert very exensive landmark here}.

Why not, perhaps, make a connection with a water pipe? Say, hey Mickebear, I want to make a connection with a rail line to your city, check your border with me and look for the water pipe, that's where I would like it to go. You can see the pipe in underground mode and in a data mode so you can see what is above it and what, if anything is destroyed. If Mickebear likes it, he can then make the connection, if he doesn't want it there he can destroy the water pipe and make a connection in another place, and then they can continue until they find a common connection point. Once they are connected above ground each can destroy their section of the pipes and carry on normal routine business functions.

 

That also works if you want to make sure forested areas line up in the region view, just put a water pipe on one edge of the forest and a water pipe on the other edge and fill in between with forests. Works wonderfully.

 

Can't wait to see this journal start up and take off.

[Mickebear 2]

The maps have been sent...

 

The areas from up to down and from left to right:

 

A (taken by mrbisonm, maps not yet sent) - B (taken by Alkaola, maps sent) - C (taken by NicolaiS, maps sent)

 

D (taken by petriknl, maps sent) - E (taken by SIMMANIA, maps sent) - F (taken by Aleking, maps sent)

 

G (taken by Mickebear) - H (taken by fredval, maps sent) - I (still needs player)

 

J (still needs player; geography is now richer, look at screenshots a few messages back) - K (still needs player)

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//RegionLayoutIdea1withMap.jpg align=baseline>

[Mickebear 2]

Sorry for the double post... I realized that I made some mistakes with the posted maps, so I need to resend the maps to you, so sorry for that.

[fredval 26]

Date: 7/30/2005 9:44:38 AM Author: Mickebear Sorry for the double post... I realized that I made some mistakes with the posted maps, so I need to resend the maps to you, so sorry for that.

quote>

 

Cool !  I hope it will work better for me now. I've spent almost two hours trying to upload this map without any success.

I hope it does not come from my computer

 

I take the opportunity of this post to remind you that i'm leaving for holidays (3 weeks). My train is leaving in 2 hours

 

Cheers to everybody and see you later

[Mickebear 2]

Hi Fred,

Good holidays for you! The config.bmp was 12 x 12 pixels, should be 16 x 16 pixels (for the nation map, for the Istrina Whole it should be 48 x 64). Same thing with the maps: should be in greyscale, by accident I sent the maps in RGB. Visually you don't see the difference, but the game won't load it...

 

It takes me until tomorrow to investigate, and also load the whole Istrina to see on a different machine (where I have virgin installation of SC4, without any plugins) to see that it all loads well. I will also render each region so that in case of, there is a back up in one of my machines.

[SIMMANIA 4]

I have some questions? What water mod and wildlife and forest trees mod we will use? Because I won't export 'till I don't know that, I need to know theses things...

[petriknl 15]

Simmania: Yes very important to know.. I understand the Cycledogg terrains mod right? and waht about the water and rocktexture??

[Mickebear 2]

I am on a verge of nervous breakdown: after I figured out the problems of importing the maps (wrongly defined config.bmp file; map in 24-bit color scale, instead of 8-bit grey scale), I was able to load the maps, but only to discover that the water level in game is higher than in the map. I retried without any plugins, same result. So maybe this is due to something Photoshop did during the transformation process, I don't know... I have asked help from Tijn21 to troubleshoot.

Yes, indeed this is the moment to decide what modds to use for the terrain, rock and water mods. For terrain, I think everybody agrees to use CycleDogg's terrain. For trees in God Mode, I wouldn't use his trees, simply because they are not fitting in the Mediterranean theme (too big), but stick to the game default god mode trees.

 

For rock/water, I don't have a preference as such, but let me remind you that water color is like in petriknl's avatar. Rocks are normally very light cream, almost white. I think there was a rock modd like this from Peg.

 

Opinions? I am very sorry about the maps so far, I really don't know yet, what is wrong. I will send you also a new mail to apologize...

 

EDIT:

 

Just to show what is the difference between the good map that Tijn21 has made, and after I cut the big region to small regions and was able to import to game:

 

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

 

EDIT 2:

 

I am starting to see the problem. Indeed, I don't have any mods to regulate the hight of the regions (but only the terrain mod of CycleDogg), but if I remember correctly, there is a mod where you can have snowtop mountains. And Tijn21 has apparently used a modd like that, because the mountains have snowtops. Could this have an effect on hights on the maps as well?

[petriknl 15]

strange... my SC is not willing to 'make' this region, using ctrl+alt+shift+r, very weird...has someone a idea what could be wrong??

 

The essential mods

1) Cycledogs Terrain Mod get it  here and a readme here

 

2) No palmtrees get it here

 

3) Euroroads set get it here  if you want to.. not a must-have but looks more European

 

4) Watertexture (first attempt) get it here

 

 

 

Nicolais and I would like to see your (short/ global) national history idea's before monday the 8th of august... could that be possible??

 

 

Principality of Arcazzo

population: 200.000-300.000

language: Istrinian Italian and some bilingual munipalities with Istro-Roman

religion: Roman-Catholic, some Orthodox people from the Sudoslavia time

economy: agricultural, some manufactoring industries, and growing tourism

[Mickebear 2]

Petriknl, I know exactly what is wrong. But before sending the fixed files, please delete that region from your

 

my documents\simcity 4\regions\YOUR_REGION_NAME.

 

I will send new files, which I have tested before that it works.

 

For the rest, could you prepare list of used modds with links to download, in case people don't have them yet?

 

EDIT and EDIT 2:

 

My history in short:

 

- form of governship: Republic

- name: Istrska Pula - Polazzo Istriniana

- Roman Catholic with pockets of Orthodox population, and a few muslims

- language is Venetian (Istrinian Italian) with big pockets of Croatoslavonian and Serboslovenian.

- historically the nation was dominated by Venetian republic until early 1800s, then shortly by French, Austrians, until 1920 when it became part of Sudoslavia; after years of totalitarian rule and ruining economy, country went into war against the federation, became independent, and is now undergoing an economic revival, thanks to tourism...

[Latexmaali 1]

This looks great! I wish I were in I'm keeping an eye on this.. interesting

[petriknl 15]

Maybe more nations could have been part of the Federation of Sudoslavia?? End we can all have been independent around 1980 or later or something like that...??

For the mods, see my previous post..!!

 

 

[jacqulina 162]

excellent work

[Mickebear 2]

Finally the map rendering worked for me, I have sent test package for petriknl, could you let us know the results, so that I can continue tomorrow? I will go to sleep now...

[petriknl 15]

Ok here its is...... the map seems to work fine... tijn21 is using a beautifull water texture (which one tijn?).... my land is somewhat to flat in the northeastern parts but that can be fixed.. further more.. no words.. lets look...

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//Istrina-1122844705.JPG align=baseline>