Aurora

[timstam001x0w 0]

Welcome to Aurora everyone.

 

This is my first CJ, but I am doing my best to make this CJ the perfect one. Aurora is a huge region, divided into many large cities. Aurora City is the capital city here, and so that one will come by quite often. Currently I am still working on Aurora City itself, but I have come pretty far by now, so I decided that it was time to start my CJ.

 

The following pictures are all About Aurora City.

 

There is one thing I want to note: I do use mods, and I do cheat.

without that it's just plain boring

 

Also, the text that belongs to pictures will always be above the pictures, unless noted otherwise.

 

This picture here shows a small part of the region Aurora(small is a relative term here). Aurora City is the capital here, and is founded a bit to the west of the island you can see. I will not yet show a region picture of Aurora City as it is not yet completed, and I only want to show completed pics.

 

This picture of Aurora City was taken when the population just exceeded 70.000. What I want to show you here are two fabulous buildings;
1) To the left you see J&J Condo's. This building houses a few of the very rich among us, and the design of the building attracts many people, not just from Aurora City itself. The city council decided that this building should be declared  a national monument of architecture, and so they did.
2) Fairly close to the J&J Condo's we have the Cobb Oceanic tower. This building rises above this part of the city as if it owns the skyline, but it is no match to the commercial highrises in downtown. Nonetheless also this building was declared a monument by the city council, and so it will probably last for centuries before it's torn down again.

       

 

Meet Aurora International Airport. This photo shows the main terminal itself, along with the train station and subway station out front. Plans have also been made to connect the airport to high speed monorail lines, but as there are no other major cities yet, this option will remain on the drawing board for now. The airport can serve up to 11.000.000 people and so serves the entire region instead of just Aurora City. Since this massive airport was built, business in Aurora City boomed again (never thought that was still possible). Aurora City's skyline is absolutely massive now, and will probably dominate the region's skyline forever more. 

 

This photo shows the airport in an overview. You can see the big terminal here, next to the two runways. Along with the airport the city council also decided to build a new powerplant complex next to it. This powerplant now consists out of two solar power plant units, which, combined together, have enough power to supply the entire city seven times. In the lower part of the picture you can also see the terminus that connects the airport to the entire region, and next to that a few big parking garages, for long stay and short stay. The highway you see has also been built specially for the airport. The highway that runs through Aurora City didn't even come close near the airport, as the airport lies to the south, and the highway runs from west to east. Also, plans to expand the city eastwards have already been made, making it impossible to build a highway to the airport. To solve this, the city council decided to build a tunnel in advance of the construction works, to connect the airport to the highway after all.

 

This photograph is meant as a little teaser for all of you. It shows a small part of my downtown area, with the less prominent buildings (heheheh). I assure you, things do get a lot taller in Aurora City, but let's save that for later . Anyways, with this skyline Aurora City has put itself on the map for sure. This is the main CBD (Central Business District) in the region, and over a 150.000 people commute here every day to make their money. Many of the bigger national and international companies have set up their HQ here, and obviously they like this town. The buildings are HUGE, but they never seize to find people to work for them in their divine palaces of capitalism. If you want to see more, just be sure to keep an eye on this city journal.

 

This picture shows a bold overview of Aurora City the way it is now. Down-right you can see Aurora International Airport, and in the upper-left you can see downtown Aurora, or Aurora Regional CBD. In between you can see vast medium density residential area's. Just north of the airport you should be able to recognize a triangular shape in between roads. Within these roads we find Beatrix Park, named after the queen of the Kingdom of The Netherlands. The hot-spot in this park is Beatrix Zoo, where many exotic animals can be found. From polar bears to pinguins, and from camels to alligators, Beatrix Zoo has it all. 

 

Owkay....I hear you all thinking....unemployment in Aurora City with such a massive CBD??! Well, it's fairly simple; the CBD is indeed massive, and holds about 200.000 jobs in total, and the city only has little over 161.000 inhabitants. The only problem here is that about 150.000 out of 200.000 jobs are high wealth, and only 50.000 are medium wealth jobs. This, while Aurora City houses about 63.000 medium wealth citizens. I'm not sure whether I will build more medium wealth jobs in other cities, or if I will build them in this city, but I will update that later, for you all to see.

 

This picture shows the new industrial area along with the harbor. I decided to build this area to create some more $$ jobs, but my sims seem to prefer $$$HT above anything else. I don't have any good harbor BAT's, and was unable to find any on the STEX, so I did my best to make this as real as possible, and to my opinion it worked out quite good.

 

This picture shows Aurora Arch. This arch was built to honor the enormous technological advances that have been made in Simland. Since the new industrial area in Aurora City is high-tech, and so, will concentrate on technology and science more than production, the city council thought it would be a good impulse to the employees of this area. As you can see the area is not yet fully developed, but it is well on the way.

 

Aurora City has been granted permission to build a congress centre in town. To house this prestigious building the city council decided to build a beautiful peer to build the congress centre on. As you can see here, it worked out quite well. The peer is lined with lush green trees, giving a nice touch of nature to this very urbanised part of town. Also, a beautiful artistic fountain, designed by Edith Lefranc, was built on the peer, to simply make this project prefect. Behold!

 

Well, that's it for today folks. I am going to work on Aurora City some more, and maybe even complete it today, but that remains to be seen. I hope you all enjoyed my little preview, and I would love to have some comments.

 

Keep up the good work y'all! We'll meet again.            

[Alkaola 18]

zeer goed man ziet er echt prachtig uit , vooral het centrum en het vliegveld heb je goed gedaan ,

 

ps : je sig ziet er perfect uit , als amsterdammer kan ik daar altijd van genieten onze skyline

[timstam001x0w 0]

Thx Alkaola! (I will write my replies always in english so that everyone can understand)

 

Your reply is quite a relief to me. As a newbie on City Journal's it's good to hear very positive things.

And I'm glad you like my downtown area and my airport, because that's the part i invested most time in.

 

Thx again

 

Now I'll be hoping for many more positive replies

[ryleeys 1]

You know, I've read dozens upon dozens of city journals and after awhile, the pictures tend to look the same...

 

That being said, I really appreciate the analyis that you put into this. It'll make it a much nicer journal to follow.

 

 

If you're looking for ports, do a search on the STEX for PEG and CDK

 

That stuff is crucial to coastal development.

[jacqulina 162]

great start and yes you will have fun with pegs things

[MayorTim 16]

Wow! Great start! This could easily turn into a great cj. I really like the ammount of detail and information you put into your captions, it really makes the journal interesting. I also like your airport, it isn't too big but it isn't too small either it seems to fit the area perfectly. Downtown looks good from what I can see, and it doesn't look like you have to many repetitive buildings. Good job on that.

 

So far, the only thing I can see that could be worked on a bit are your beaches. If you want Aurora City to be a tropical city, and it is on an ocean, you should download the Beach Modd of of the Stex and use the limitless beach modd included in it. With that you can make your beaches wider and nicer with a little terraforming.

 

If you want Aurora to have a bit of a coolder climate, or if it is built on a river, use the grass beach or the dirt beach files included in the Beach Modd on the STEX. Since it is around downtown, you could also do some terraforming and add in some of PEGs or Marrasts great seawalls, just make sure they don't go on for too long.

 

Again, nice job so far, and I can't wait for the next update!

[timstam001x0w 0]

Once again, to everyone, thank you!

Also thanks for the hints about where to get seawalls, ports and beach sets. At the moment I already do have a HUGE beach set in the game but I kind of forgot aobut them since I haven't played SC4 for a long, long time.

 

For now I would also like to tell you about some projects I am currently working on:

 

1) Today I decided that I think the terrain is way too flat. After drawing this conclusion for myself I started terraforming the place. I can tell you that the island you can see in the first screenshot on this page is now actually mountaineous, and looks much better. I also created a vast mountainrange to the north of the region, with some volcano's and a beautiful canyon. More details about that in the next update.

 

2)The second thing I will do is complete Aurora City.

 

3)I am also planning on making small stories in between, and I have already thought of a storyline for the first one:

Edith Lefranc, the famous artist, visits Aurora City to see the sites and her own fountain that has recently been finished at the congress centre. But during the busy ceremony her guards are distracted and she is kidnapped, and taken through perilous situations...

If you want to know the whole story just stay tuned for the next updates, but don't expect them too soon, my guess is two days.

 

4)After all of this it is time to stretch the arms of civilization into the wilderness beyond Aurora City. What history unveils itself, and what events will occur? Just keep an eye out for more updates!

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well folks, that's all for now again. I hope to see you again after (or before, if you wish ) the next update.

[Superchan 23]

looks cool.

[jacqulina 162]

great i look forward to seeing the changes

[timstam001x0w 0]

Well people, it is finally time for the next update, and it's quite a big one.

1) I changed my harbor, it looks really cool now if you ask me.

2) I changed the waterfront at one of the city's beaches

3)I have my story of Edith Lefranc ready.

4) I have come quite a long way with modifying my region's landscape

 

Well now, let's start off with the region's changes:

 

Well, this picture reveals a bit of the new terrain. This part of the region lies to the northwest, and is obviously a big mountainrange. If you look closely to the upper-right quarter of this picture you can recognize an active volcano, which is the more blackened mountain.

 

The next bit of the region I am showing here is just east of the previous picture. Here you can see the canyon I was talking about earlier. Nobody really knows how this canyon came to be. It has already been proven that the sea never stood high enough to carve it out, but recent discoveries suggest that this canyon is the silent witness of a cataclysmic meteor impact about 3,5 million years ago. The canyon is officially called Grand Canyon (don't tell me this name isn't very original, cuz i know ). It is grand, and it's a canyon, so it's not that hard to come up with Grand Canyon. Unlike the official name, the locals prefer to simply call it Meteor Canyon. This picture shows a big volcano too. In this picture it's in the down-right quarter of the screen, also darker than the rest of the mountains.

 

This is the last picture of this huge mountainrange. Again this area is just east of the previous picture. This area has the biggest volcano on the continent, appropriately called the Dragon's Maul. This volcano occasionally spews lava, so people dare not come too close to this intimidating piece of earth. This mountainrange is better known as 'the Fire Belt'. This because there are a few hotspots, of which three have already caused a volcano to break through. Most other hotspots are expected to end up underneath other area's as the continental plates move on over time.

 

This is the last regional picture of this update. It shows the island also shown in the very first picture of this CJ, but it looks much, much better now. Also you can see a part of eastern Aurora City in the upper-left corner, also showing Aurora International Airport.

 

Now for the changes withing Aurora City itself:

 

Now would you look at that! This whale is the first large sea mammal to come this close to Aurora City in two decades! Since the city was founded here, sea life started to slowly retreat. Somewhere halfway the second decade the city was finally 'discovered' by the rest of the world. This resulted in a huge boom in business and industry, resulting in a population growth of about 150%!! (70.000 to 185.000). This pretty much killed the last of what was left, but today this whale doesn't seem to care about the situation off the coast of Aurora City. This could be because of the relentless efforts the city put into the local environment in the way of reducing pollution, and even removing certain chemicals from the regional waters. Let's just see how things evolve...

 

The mayor ordered the construction of a brandnew boulevard. In honor of the pioneers that discovered this region in the 18th century he decided the boulevard should have the buildingstyle of that era, and a replica of an old sailing ship was also built, now moored at an 18th century dock. This ship is active though, mainly for tourist trips out to sea, although the ship has also been booked by a few VIP's. Along this boulevard also stands a row of 21st century glass hoteltowers, accomodating many tourists visiting this brandnew, beautiful city.

 

The new harbor:

 

Ok, so this is how the harbor looks today. I sculpted the shoreline endlessley to create square forms, to that I could put the harbor on them without seeing natural land. Since the port was built the demand for all kinds of industries skyrocketed, especially for high-tech, since Aurora City is specialized in that sector. Many ships venture to Aurora City Harbor to drop off their loads and load a new one. On the southeastern tip of the peer you can recognize three taller buildings. Just like every port in the world , Aurora City has a harbor control center, where everything is arranged, from calculating shiploads to making sure each ships docks safely. They also have to keep the city waters deep enough so that the ships won't get stuck on banks. This port now acts as the main import and export facility of the city. It has much more freight capacity than the airport because whole trains can load and unload here, directly at the docks, greatly reducing docking time.

 

In this picture you can see the main loading/unloading area for the trains. Only little more transport is needed to get the cargo from the trains to the docks. In the lower part of the picture yo ucan also see the main passenger station of the docks, mostly used by the employees who have their jobs in this new port.

 

This picture shows two of the three most important docks in this seaport. They are so important because they can handle larger ships than most of the other docks, and they have their own track, which trains can conveniently use to load or unload right on to the ships. In the left of this picture you can see one of the three towers from the control center.

 

This part of the harbor is used solely for liquid freight, mainly oil. These fluids are stored in the large tanks after being pumped out of the freighters. Next to oil, the ships also deliver lots of gasoline and glue, which is then packed and made ready for sale. Next to that any other random fluids are excepted as well. The only downside of that is that the tanks will have to be completely cleaned before they can safely hold a different kind of fluid. This is the main reason most tanks are dedicated to certain fluids.

 

This picture shows the main parking facility. Because of all the freight traffic in the harbor normal cars aren't  allowed in, unless they have permission to enter. The employees park here, and then take the bus or subway to their jobs deeper into the port, depending on what type of transport is available near their work.

 

This is the east side of the port, which is used for the smaller loads. The access to resources is a tad lower here, so that's why this part is dedicated to handle smaller loads. Also this part has a main railway station for employees, as well as one for freighters.

 

Ok everyone, these were all the updates I have made so far.

 

As I promised, I also have the story of Edith Lefranc ready, which will be posted right after this post, just scroll down

 

[timstam001x0w 0]

Edith Lefranc visits

Aurora City

The following story tells about the great artist Edith Lefranc. She is known throughout Simland for her many works of art which include paintings, statues, water features and many more.

For Aurora City she designed a beautiful fountain to stand proud on the congress centre peer. On invitation of mayor T. Stam she is visiting this beautiful new city. She will be visiting her own fountain, and she wants to see some more of the city itself.

Things do not go according to plan however;

 

After a seven hour flight Edith Lefranc finally arrives at Aurora City International Airport on flight KL1769 from the Royal Dutch Airways (KLM).

Upon leaving the airplane she is immediately surrounded by bodyguards for her safety. Transport from the airport has been arranged by the mayor himself. On the way to the airports exit a few small incidents occur, but none of any potential danger, since it was mostly about freaked out groupies acting as metal objects swarming around a very powerful magnet that listen's to the name Edith Lefranc.

 

 

Outside, a police escort is waiting to pick up Lefranc and drop her off at the mayor's seaside villa, where a meeting has been arranged. Edith Lefranc likes to talk a lot, and keeps blabbing about some bold man she saw on the airplane. In quiet contemplation the driver wishes a piece of tape would suddenly appear over her mouth to seal her lips, but in an effort not to tick her off he decides to join the conversation.

 

 

After a half an hour ride, and after many detours to elude the press, the police escort finally arrives at the mayor's seaside villa. Classy as Edith is, she elegantly steps out of the vehicle. She swings her boa around her neck and walks gracefulyl towards the villa's big front doors, where the mayor is already waiting. The mayor admires her very much as a person, for her success as a female artist in a world that is somewhat dominated by men. As warm a person as she is she hugs the mayor, who is a good friend of hers, and hands him a small present. When the mayor opens it he is amazed to see a small, but beautifully handsculpetd crystal swan. He immediately gives it a special place in his house, on the old 17th century dressoir in his main lounge. As they are there anyways, they decide to sit down for a bit, before leaving for the meeting at Edith Lefranc's fountain. As the mayors wife walks into the lounge she offers them both a drink. She helps herself as well and joins the conversation, which is mainly about arts and Aurora City. 

 

As they still have an hour before they have to leave, Edith decides to take a dive in the new pool behind the seaside villa. The water feels a bit cold, but she doesn't mind and does a couple of lanes. The mayor and his wife both sit on the terrace, gently cuddling eachother.

After much more talking between the three people it's finally time to leave.

 

 

As they arrive at the fountain they make their way towards the pedestal that is set up in front of this magnificent water feature. The mayor speaks first, congratulating the city on this new acquiry, after which he introduces Edith Lefranc to the people of Aurora City.

Edith takes over and thanks the people of Aurora City for recieving her here. She explains that the mayors driver was very kind and left a good first ompression about the locals. Thereafter she starts about the sunny weather, the beautiful beaches, and the architecture of the city. She thanks the people once again and symbolically flips a coin over her left shoulder into the fountain, upon she may come back to Aurora City some time in the future. 

 

 

A few others wanted to do a speech as well. Among them a few Auroran celebs. Edith Lefranc makes her way to the mayor, who is now standing close to the road. Her bodyguards lose sight of her and as she is standing next to the mayor, listening to what everyone has to say with interest, a blue volvo station wagon comes screeching around the corner and snatches her from the street. As she is pulled into the vehicle it disappears around another corner. The mayor and the present police officers immediately alarm the local police and intelligence, and in an effort to intercept the vehicle all police units are dispatched. Aurora City is a big city however, and nobody has a clue as to where the blue volvo has gone.

 

 

What nobody knows is that the kidnappers have made their way to a warehouse in the harbor. Inside Edith is tied to a chair, and as she screams for help, and even attempts to scratch one of the kidnapper's eyes out, she is hit hard on the back of her head with a baseball bat and loses conciousness. Next she is put into a silent room, where absolutely nobody can hear her, should she wake up.

 

 

Far away from the harbor, all the way in the eastern part of town stand the tower of Curicom, a telecomunication company. They have however always done 'curious' things, in the way of setting up customers, or spending money on projects that are never completed, while the money seems to have disappeared into thin air.

A phone rings in the penthouse of the tower, where the boss has his office;

ring ring, ring ring. As the phone is picked up, a voice on the other side says: we have her boss

A brief answer follows: Well done, bring her here.

By now it should be obvious that the boss of Curicom has something to do with this. He needs more money for his curious projects, but as the city has stopped all subsidies to Curicom, the company obviously turned to other resources. Edith Lefranc is a very rich woman, and the boss of Curicom wants to get money by kidnapping her, and then asking for a ransom.

 

 

The local police force and intelligence service have already set up a massive search, which includes car patrols and search helicopters. Every alley and potential hide-out in the vicinity of the congress centre is thouroughly searched, but unfortunately without any result in finding her. They have however found carpaint of a blue car on a wall in one of the alleys, which could mean they scratched the wall in their hurry. 

 

 

After three hours of relentless searching, a supervisor in the harbor, who was unloading a stationed freighttrain, noticed suspicious behaviour near the warehouse. Of course the whole city already knew about the kidnapping, so he took no chances and immediately alarmed the police. They too did not want to take any risks, so they dispatched four cars and a helicopter to the warehouse. The building was immediately surrounded, but nobody was found inside. Investigators are still searching for clues in and around the warehouse.

 

 

The kidnappers were right when they thought the port supervisor got suspicious and would call the police. In response to that they put Edith in a large box and loaded her into a speedboat, after which they sped off. They also made a phonecall to their boss:

we have a tail, boss

-Damn you! I'm surrounded by fools! Take her out of this state, I don't care how. Once you manage that the local police can't follow you anymore, giving you some time to get away before the police in the neighbouring state is alerted. And don't fail me, or bad things will happen to your family!.

 

 

In an effort to get to safety the kidnappers hijack a stationed bullettrain, which just arrived. One of them puts a gun to the head of the traindriver, threatening to kill him if he doesn't get the train rolling. Thinking about his wife and three kids, the traindriver takes no chances and releases the brakes, after which the train leaves the station. The kidnappers figured that they could easily outrun the police in a bullettrain that maxes at 350km/ph.

 

 

There is however one thing that they didn't think about, which is that every interstate train has guards on board. They hijacked the train assuming it was empty, as all passengers just got off, and they were still unloading luggage, but they did not take into account that there would be security guards elsewhere in the train. Of course, these guards immediately made a plan. One of them called the local police, and discussed the plan with the head of police. The plan involved pulling the trains emergency brakes at a predefined location, so that police forces could immediately storm the train in an attempt to end the hostage before it would cross the state border.

The traindriver wasn't stupid either, and knew there were still guards on board. As soon as one of the guards applied the emergency brakes the train started slowing down as it if was suddenly glued to the tracks. One of the kidnappers totally flipped out, but the traindriver kept insisting on a mechanical failure. After all the kidnappers didn't know there was anyone else on the train, and the traindriver didn't do anything. The traindriver then boldly told that he didn't have any knowledge of the electronical and mechanical components of this train. After a brief but loud and uncivilised discussion between the three kidnappers they decided that one of them would stay with the traindriver to keep him low, while two of them would get off the train to see what's wrong. Immediately after they left the train however, the traindriver quickly knocked the kidnapper who was watching him on the nose, and as the kidnappers was totally confused he managed to keep him down. The other two kidnappers were immediately shot in their ankles as they got off the train, competely immobilizing them. A huge policeforce pulled up to the train and took the kidnappers in custody. Edith Lefranc was found locked away on one of the toilets. As it was locked from the outside they had to knock the door down. 

 

 

Edith Lefranc was taken to the hospital to see if anything was wrong. She only had a few bruises which were treated. She decided to come hoem with the mayor, to be with him and his wife, just to have some company to process this dramatic experience, before getting on another seven hour flight. After two more days she went home to her family.

The kidnappers have not been so lucky however. They ended up in the most guarded prison in the state. They now fill their days with hard labor and road work. They have all three been sentenced to 176 years of labour, so they don't have a chance of getting out either.

 

 

Edith Lefranc fully recovered after about four more months. Luckily she finally able to leave this horrid experience behind her.

As for the boss of Curicorp, nothing has lead to him so far. Since the three kidnappers won't talk in fear of their boss hurting their families, the police it totally in the dark as to what the reasons of this kidnapping were, and neither do they know for sure if the kidnapping was assigned by someone, or if it was a stand alone action from the three kidnappers.

What nobody knows, but what we all do know, is that this boss could easily cause more trouble in the future, but after this incident he has to lie low for a while, not to attract too much attention.

 

This was my story about the kidnapping of Edith Lefranc, I hope you all enjoyed yourselves reading it, and i can promise you more stories in the future.

 

Happy citybuilding everyone! 

[timstam001x0w 0]

Hey I could use a few replies here, please tell me what you think of all this

[jacqulina 162]

be patient people will,great story,i love how the police go on the rail,great pics,great so far