New Gelderland

[psander5 195]

Table of contents
 

Constructing New Gelderland Updates:

Intro - Below this post
01 - First Look at Interlaken
02 - Interlaken : Spitalfields
03 - Interlaken : South Hendon
04 - Interlaken : West Greenwood
05 - Interlaken : Chartwell
06 - Interlaken : Broadmeadows (And Introducing Trentham)
07 - Interlaken : City of Trentham
08 - Interlaken : Thurston Vale
09 - Interlaken : Asfordby (26th September 2010)
10 - Interlaken : North Hendon and Hendon Heights (29th September 2010)
11 - Interlaken : Mayfields (4th October 2010)
12 - Interlaken : Interlaken International Airport (14th October 2010)
13 - Interlaken : Replies and the Death of Interlaken (27th October 2010)
14 - Elden Crossing : Introduction (29th October 2010)
15 - Elden Crossing : Orden (31st October 2010)
16 - Elden Crossing : Driel & Randwijk (7th November 2010)
17 - Elden Crossing : Elden Port (24th November 2010)
18 - Elden Crossing : Haulerwijk (28th November 2010)
19 - Elden Crossing : Cooktown (5th December 2010)
20 - Victoria : Preview (11th December 2010)
21 - Elden Crossing : Airport (29th December 2010)
22 - Elden Crossing : Cooktown Power Station (4th January 2011)
23 - Victoria : West Birchfield (8th January 2011)
24 - Victoria : Netherton (16th January 2011)

Chronicles:

Introducing the National Herald Newspaper - 5^th March 2010

[psander5 195]

Introduction

 

About the country:

New Gelderland is a large island nation in the southern Indian ocean sitting approximately 400 miles to the west of Perth, Australia.  The country has a European colonial history dating back to the mid eighteenth century, and since gaining independence from it's colonial past, has emerged as a significant global power in it's own right. 

 

 

New Gelderland is a melting pot of colonial Europe, with strong historical ties to Britain, the Netherlands and France.  A liberal approach to immigration has also led to large populations of people descended from a wide range of other European (and later Asian) countries; a trend that is visible in many of the place names. 

Click for full resolution...It's quite large

...Map showing the major settlements of the country

The population stands at around 30 million engaged in healthy industrial commercial and financial sectors.  New Gelderlanders speak English as the major first language, but another official language is Dutch (Which I can't speak so you won't be seeing me try!),  spoken mostly in the old Dutch colonial states.  A significant population on the islands of La Perouse also speak French as an official first language as a result of that areas history as a former French colony.

New Gelderland uses two flags.  The official flag is the union canton with red fern motif.  This is used for all official purposes.  The second is called the red fern flag (even though the fern depicted is white) and is used in less official circumstances. 

The country is part of the Commonwealth of Nations along with Australia, New Zealand, and many other former members of the British colonial empire.  New Gelderland is governed by parliament, which convenes in Hamilton.  The official head of state is Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, but being fully independent, is led in practice by it's Prime Minister, who is currently Henrietta De Vries MP.

...Parliament hill in Hamilton (note: Since this particular city has prop pox, this is all you'll really see of it.  It will be re-done though in the future, however it will probably look quite different) 

...Map of the states of New Gelderland

For a more detailed history and description of the country(which I've painstakingly tried to squeeze into real world history, but which I don't claim to be perfect), visit the AFDES wiki page for New Gelderland

About the CJ:

New Gelderland began as a weak parody of New Zealand ('Gelderland' is also the name of a region in the Netherlands; I stole NZ's silver fern, made it red and a different shape; I mirrored NZ's location in relation to Australia etc).  The city names are nearly all taken from real places around the world, and several key cities share names with large and recognisable real-world cities (particularly Interlaken and Tampere).  This trend is usually because I've based the terrain on those cities in some way, and is because I'm essentially lazy with naming cities. 

This then, will be a multi region CJ, chronicling the in-game construction of numerous key metropolitan areas, cities, towns and hotspots.  As well as traditional construction and city showcase updates, there will also be updates that are more story led, mostly chronicling the country's interactions with the Alliance of Fuel Developing and Exporting States, and various forays into my idea of human progress.  Each of the two update styles will be covered by a different banner.  

For comprehensive descriptions of New Gelderland and it's cities, people and enterprise, you can read the articles on the AFDES wiki... if you choose to that is.  Throughout this CJ I'll be linking to pages from the wiki in an attempt to keep some of the long texts out of the actual updates. (Me being me however, I'll probably still write far too much wordy commentary with my pictures)  As a result, New Gelderland's pages on the wiki will be updated as the CJ progresses and will form much of the 'fleshing out' of the updates... some of the existing articles have big gaps.  These will be filled in as I go along.

A note on past problems:

Since my old CJ, Calder City (which is in New Gelderland) ended, I've been working on this CJ at various levels of intensity.  During that time, I've had a few major problems such as prop pox and a computer meltdown (lots of data loss).  Consequently, there are a few relics of my past work on several key cities that will have to be re-done.  For now they exist in the wiki, and will probably be referenced in the 'story' updates, but for the time being I can't show any full updates of them... this includes the capital city! 

_____________________________

The first region I will be focusing on is Interlaken:

(teaser – picture is not clickable!)

[Gilikov1994 4]

wauw! ziet er waanzinnig uit!

woow! looks awesome !

[mightygoose 92]

you have a fan XD your cartogragraphy is exquisite and wordy descriptions are great.

[Roger51 381]

Very nice cj. And the location of the Island is perfect, very close to where I live. 5/5. Will try to follow this cj, should be good (no pressure!!)

[Schulmanator 5,787]

Looks cool. I am intrigued and will be back to see more. A great start.

[Benedict 3,119]

Excellent introduction, loving the attention to detail and Parliament Hill looks amazing.

[tostartpressanykey 2]

JESUS H. CHRIST!

This is amazing! But where's OLD Gelderland?

[kingdiz_55 12]

I was scrolling around and I suddenly saw the region pic. I went like WHOA!

[SounderBruce 173]

Great start! You spent tons of time working on the details of the region itself, psander!

[art128 4,618]

Nice teaser, but we want more !

[Follarch 326]

O:.... OH MY *beeeeeeeeeeeep* GOD!

New Gelderland is BACK! And it's got so many supporting images, god I wanna nominate this for a Trixie already! Geez Paul do you know how to make an even more spectacular entrance?

[Korot 6]

The population stands at around 30 million engaged in healthy industrial commercial and financial sectors. New Gelderlanders speak English as the major first language, but another official language is Dutch (Which I can't speak so you won't be seeing me try!), spoken mostly in the old Dutch colonial states. A significant population on the islands of La Perouse also speak French as an official first language as a result of that areas history as a former French colony.quote>

I speak Dutch, do you want me to teach it to you?

Anyway, nice first update, can't wait to see the next ones.

Regards,

Korot

[kj3400 178]

About time Paul......I'm so excited!

Those are some impressive maps there.

[Patricius Maximus 236]

After all these long months, it is finally here! New Gelderland is fully operational, and I am sure it will turn out to be quite an epic city journal.

[penguin007 27]

Lovely start here I really like the region you're working with and the setting looks great

Will

[psander5 195]

Gilikov1994: That must be what Dutch looks like!  Thanks... and thanks for the translation!

mightygoose: Thanks.  I'm glad you like the maps.  They take a while to make! 

Roger51: Thanks.  It probably won't be very Australian in truth... I've never been there and I'm not skilled enough to do it.

Schulmanator: Thanks a lot! Intrigue is good. 

Benedict: Thank you. Sadly Parliament Hill is a relic... but hopefully the new one will be an improvement when I get round to re-doing it.

tostartpressanykey: Thanks! 'old' Gelderland is a region in the Netherlands.  Just like Zeeland (New Zealand).

kingdidz_55: I'm glad you like the region pic!  To be honest, I'm not that great at the close up stuff... it's the region views that I go for ultimately. 

ComputerGuy890100: Thanks.  You're right, I did spend quite a lot of time on the region.  Filling a tile with farms and villages takes longer than you think it's going to!

art128: Thank you... more is coming!

Archean: Thanks! I wouldn't say it was spectacular, but I should have lots of supporting images considering how long i've been working on them! 

Korot: Thanks.  I'm not sure I have the time to learn the whole language! I might need a Dutch language 'consultant' at some point though.  Google translate is only useful for so much.

kj3400: Thank you.  It is about time, yes! Don't get too excited though... knowing my luck my computer will explode destroying everything! 

Patricius Maximus: Thanks... I hope it lasts long enough to justify the 'many months' it's taken to get to update 1! 

 

Update 1 will follow presently (I'm keeping them separate from replies for TOC reasons)

 

[psander5 195]

 

Update 1 - First look at Interlaken

 

 

              

Interlaken is a large metropolitan area nestled into the New Gelderland Central Range of mountains. The city occupies plains between two large glacial lakes in a vast, mountainous valley.

Obviously, this city is lazily named after the city of Interlaken in Switzerland. My Interlaken region is inspired vaguely by that same region of the real world (which is a very impressive sight)

                      Click for full resolution
                      

...As you can see from the region view, I've done much of the southern portion. I'll take you on a tour down there at some point. For now though I'm going to focus on the construction around the main metro area, the city of Interlaken and it's suburbs.

Click for full resolution

...The networks have been laid in preliminary configurations, and I've done some starter development in one corner. You can probably guess from that huge train station where the CBD will be. It's also clear that the terrain around the coast and river banks needs a lot of attention.

Click for full resolution

...This is the northern tip of a large industrial district named Greenwood (ironic aren't I ), and the beginnings of a residential district. The highway you can see is the M111, a spur of the major trans-mountain route, the M1.

I'm aware that I need some new industrial custom content. I'll work on that at some point.

Click for full resolution

...New Gelderland is a sporting nation, and like the other countries in the region, it is keen on cricket and rugby league. More unusually perhaps, the country is very keen on association football. (I'm English, and I make no apologies for imposing my own tastes onto this fictitious nation of people!) Parks like this are a common site all across the country.

Click for full resolution

...Close to the city centre is the Interlaken Munitions Workers Memorial Park. In 1943, the munitions factory that occupied this lot was destroyed in an explosion, killing 102 workers. At the time, the factory was a key munitions factory supplying the Allied forces in WWII. The explosion was proven to have been accidental, but many at the time suspected sabotage by Nazi sympathisers. Today the site serves as a blissful oasis in the industrial desert, and in the summer many a blue collar worker can be seen sitting under a tree eating their lunches.

 

And so ends update number one. I haven't formalised an update style yet, so I won't promise more of the same. A lot of these early updates will probably be covering various boroughs, districts and suburbs as they are built, but even I don't know where I'm going next.  As the map gets filled in I'll probably periodically work on the CBD. I may or may not show updates that part in development. We'll see.

[Patricius Maximus 236]

I like Interlaken thus far, and that update banner. The city has a lot of promise, as I'm sure you've already figured out.

[bluemoose 223]

Wow this looks awesome!! I like the trams in road and the parks!

[Korot 6]

Industrial area needs a lot more diversity, but you already said that. Other than that, I've got nothing to add at this time.

Regards,

Korot

[Benedict 3,119]

The bridge on the last picture (at the lower right) is perfectly placed! Great cj, hope to see lots more from you.

[DCMetro34 576]

Wow; that is stunning! I can't wait for more, it is put together very well!

[SounderBruce 173]

Very nice work here! I love the beautiful park and the industrial section...Where did you get the park/sports fields?

[Follarch 326]

RHW, GLR, Custom Lotting, and yet only a little portion of the city proper is finished. Paul, you're going to be one of "those" CJers at the top.

I'm very impressed. This city I can see is going to have the planning that I can never have with my cities. I mean, I LOVE those two rivers running through. Great terraforming that has the potential for very appealing retaining walls like that Japan river walls i've seen on the LEX.

[deathtopumpkins 43]

Whoa, Paul, you finally started it! Epic SQUEE-age.

All looking great so far, and fantastic extra visuals (banners, etc.) and texty descriptions to accompany amazing SC4 shots, just as I expected.

[Blazerhawk 162]

Awesome work. I look forward to seeing that city completed.

[Roger51 381]

Wonderful work on the area and the developments for the city. Don't worry about making look Australian, see enough of it in RL so a different perspective is always nice to see. The southern region looks as if it has come along great.

[mightygoose 92]

nice work i don't thilnk think there would be that many bridges in real life but your masterplanning is very aesthetically pleasing.

[art128 4,618]

Interlaken looks really good my friend, I really love the small parks you've put around the city. The industrial area is kinda nice, but also there is a bit too much repetition in the warehouses, try to plop or let grow some different ones. And nice planing for the other part of the city btw..

Arthur.