Villages

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Recently, I started a new version of my New Harbor region mapped into all large tiles. But instead of working to create large cities, I created sets of villages, several per tile. All my tiles are currently in the black, and all the tiles with land are occupied. Today, I put together a little picture essay on one of them. Here it is. Fishermen's Bay.

Please post any misspellings or other errors. This is hot off my editor.

I am also interested in discussion of this concept.

[Follarch 326]

We're you trying to make functional developments without making them into huge cities?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

We're you trying to make functional developments without making them into huge cities?

Yep. The idea is that villages can be done and it is a satisfying exercise. Just growth for the sake of growth is not really necessary and need not be a goal. I had a lot of fun just getting that boardwalk done.

[Zeth 23]

I have played around with this concept off and on for a few years myself, usually with regions that offer only little pockets of reasonably flat land to build on. I don't have anywhere near the dedication to detail to do things like that boardwalk, though; it's just a plaything for me.

Your speling and gramers are spot on with two exceptions: "These scences make use of many plugins, notably PEG's OWW board walk, Captain Jack's Landing; Goldiva's water Taxi, and Yacht Club, and a couple of A Nonny Moose's utility lots" and no comma is needed or desirable in the phrase "And last but not least". And thank you for not misspelling "realise".

[Ion_Cannon 677]

neighborhoods should also be neighbourhoods, but that might just be the american spelling I guess.

[simlink 1,098]

I have to say I find this interesting. I myself enjoy mostly creating suburbs/suburban sprawl. I have played around with the concept you are using here, and I myself enjoyed it. I created a small little village mostly spending time laying out the farms and other random things within the city tile. So it is true, you do not need to create megatropolis', small villages can be quite fun.

Your village looks quite nice, I like the boardwalk especially.

[Jack³ 291]

neighborhoods should also be neighbourhoods, but that might just be the american spelling I guess.

Neighborhood is speelled that way in the U.S. Everytime I type it here it says I spelled it wrong. Some other words do that too like harbor and color.

[Zeth 23]

That's because they ARE spelled wrong.

[guns_of_fire 3]

In my case I try to make small city tiles as locations for a small city feel. Like in the current region I have one small tile that has farms built on the edges of the city and the city of course is dead center. Another small tile is basically a small island in the middle of a river. However I can't resist building them to higher densities however, that farm city for example has a lot of low rise apartments in it. Thought it does give it a unique look with the Chicago Tileset.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

neighborhoods should also be neighbourhoods, but that might just be the american spelling I guess.

Since Hansard dropped all the 'ou' spellings, I have followed suit. The spelling checkers always flag them, so I have given up.

Hansard had good reason. The Parliamentary transcript is now carried on a data base and all those 'u's were costly. Some government departments, notably the Office of the Speaker, are really frugal.

Thanks for the edit, however. I'll fix it later.

@Zeth:

speling and gramers

spelling and grammar

Editors are supposed to be able to spell.

EDIT: Fixed, thank you.

  Edited September 9, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[Zeth 23]

From the desk of Wise Guy Sammy: One word in this ticker is mispelled

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

From the desk of Wise Guy Sammy: One word in this ticker is mispelled

If you mean the majescule character after the colon, that is moot. On the other hand there is misspelled.

[Ltw 401]

Nice way to make a region this way. I tried this with several cities in a region which has big cities as well. The smaller villages have a lot of farms and some industry and commercial zones. Everything is low density.

Though you could make great small villages (there are a lot of CJ's which prove that) it isn't my favorite. I like to build cities which are having problems (mostly with commute times) which aren't easily solvable. Keeps me busy.

Nevertheless, I like the link and the idea!

[glazert 89]

Playing with a region with lots of villages can be very fulfilling.

Many larger towns and cities develop by villages gradually growing together, either as one village becomes a town and aborbs the others or as a more multi-cephalic conurbation. In real life, these would not tend to develop on a single common grid.

I am not suggesting this as a substitute for a region of villages. One possibility would be to save one copy of the region to continue with as a region of villages, and a second copy to explore how they might evolve to form larger urban areas.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ You have a good point.

Actually, as my region is developing now, a couple of the city tiles are starting to develop a little urban sprawl, while trying to retain the small-town feel. Some tall buildings have cropped up as I raise the zoning, and one of them has a couple of airports.

I've been very careful to keep the intercity connections arranged in a tree to that commuter loops are not likely, but I have a intra-city situation now that is starting to look like one. This may cause some very destructive urban renewal. I am not a very tolerant god when it comes to stupid commuter loops. I may just cause an earthquake.

You really can't stop development if you play the cities. The program inists on shoving problems at you for you to solve. I apply the usual response to a problem by taking it as an challenge and making it into an opportunity for development.

Once the city has matured into profit, I pay close attention to the Opinion Poll bars, and the ticker. Playing on hard mode, all I get by way of dialogs is rewards or real panics. If I am feeling particularly put out with the Advisors, I convert them into llamas (dollyllama command). Gods don't need Sims with private agendas.

[jacksunny 741]

I usually do this when making rural areas, because there are a lot of small villages usually scattered about. I fill in the space with farms, forest, water, etc.

[EyeofMobius 27]

I have been enjoying the village developments for sometime now and I find it all very satisfying. I have made a small swell happen in my parks menu usually from giving a town centre point with a roundabout and some sort of mini landmark / park. I think the only sort of missing visual thing for me is not enough trees but hey you are the supreme being of this universe.

[MandelSoft 2,769]

My current region currently has one big city, spreading over 10 large city tiles. Surrounding this large metropolis is a large area of agriculture, undeveloped land (forrests) and some small vilages. Aestetically it looks very pleasing

[eggman111 8]

I think this is a great idea. I've been thinking about making a region like this for a while. It seems that every time I try to, I end up making sprawling cities and I fill up the tile. I will get to it, though.

My main suggestion (if you're looking for any) would be to fill up a lot of space with farms and maybe some trees. I'm not sure if you're interested in the SPAM (SimPeg Agricultural Mod) but I think it would really enhance the small-town feel.

[Keder 116]

I think its a pretty good idea, I'll do it when I create a large region with nothing but large tiled cities.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Glad to see this response. Here is yet another way to use this canvas for some considerable fun.

[Mithrik 562]

I always build small towns/villages, so I completely approve this.

[Sandis_van_Great 346]

hehe, i alwats do this, when i start region i start with a city thats the main city of the region, and than i develop villages and towns around it, connect with highway and stuff, like a real country. Thats alot more fun.ANd than just time after time make a big city and than again country side, towns and villages

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Naturally. After the first flush of megalopolisitis, I think most people will settle down to working in a more natural manner. I certainly have for years.

[jigsaw 227]

ruralism is the trend in the community nowadays.

many years ago i experimented with running 2 small towns on 1 big tile. it looked nice, but one thing i always had problems with was traffic.

as for the big picture, most world cities that exist today were not created or designed as big cities, they were small towns. Even with colonialism throughout the world, all the cities created by european colonisation were not built/designed to be big cities by their creators... they just ended up that way over time.

im glad more people are starting to develop smaller towns/villages surrounding a big city on a region. in all my travels around the world i have yet to see a city that is extremely high density, then has pure wilderness literally across the road from it.

[amirapp 0]

how can you make the recreation area?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

how can you make the recreation area?

Now that depends on the map. If you have a seacoast you can make a nice waterfront park with PEG's CDK3-OWW boardwalk and marina lots. There is enough there to make a very nice recreational complex, but you have to be pretty good at civil engineering. There is a tutorial somewhere on PEGs on how to approach this.

If you have no seacoast, then you can lay down areas with formal parks (Maxis ones will do), dirt/brick streets (SAM), and trees (Maxis, PEG, whomever). The Maxis soccer field is very useful in this regard, and there are two rewards stadiums that can be used when you get them or you can use "you don't deserve it".

Here is a seaside example. If you look closely, you'll find a fishing dock, and some recreational boating/yachting facilities. I don't have a handy image for one of my villages at the moment. This is more of a developed town, complete with industrial pod. And you can look at the referenced page at the top of this thread. Relink

  Edited September 14, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[Sandis_van_Great 346]

You can see my part of the region, on which i have spent alot of time, just becouse im building all the small details.

You can see that its only 2 big city rest is just villages or 1 big industril region which provides water/garbage/electricity to all regions

  Edited September 14, 2011 by dzekins  

[dazza262 133]

I'm definately in the rural/village camp.

I just like the more realistic feel to it, (though it doesn't have to be ultra real).

In fact it was your good self who inspired me onto this journey. I remember reading a post of yours some time ago in which you talked about how you looked at how cities grew in real life.

So taking that on board, I now start out with a few farms, then add a few small houses and ind units. Once this starts to grow, I will then try to create a village. This will generally center around a church, maybe a small pond, a pub, and a small few shops at crossroads, which makes it easier to grow the village in a more natural way.

The trick then is not to keep building that village up. I will add some more surrounding farms, and perhaps a forest, river, or other natural border to stop the sprawl. I then repeat this across the tile, sometimes letting them build up into towns, and eventually a city.

I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it gives me an enormous sense of satisfaction. The only downside is that even when I'm not playing, I find myself almost constantly thinking about that next village !

Anyway, I went commando on this post and didn't use any spell check. Feel free to point out any spelling or grammer errors

[Lucario Boricua 7,026]

A difficulty I have with building villages is when using the SPAM--when I want to build a large city tile with villages, I want as much of the tile as possible to have farmland. The problem here is that my farmland will stop growing unless I add more inhabitants. It can get to the point when I surpass the now lower population cap for agricultural demand (20,000 sims, rather than the original 30,000) and still have a lot of the farmland parcels on the tile undeveloped.

  Edited September 24, 2011 by Dragonxander