The Principality Of Tantico Entry 36: The Rubic Incident: Nearing a Verdict!

[89James89 1,169]

Hentan, A built is built vanilla rush hour journal

Right this is my new concept on city building and what is going to be my last short and failed journal/diary. While building on Herran, I was thinking about the concept of built is built. It's probably already been done many times but I've never actually seen it on any of the Sim City 4 sites I've visited.

Basically the idea is taken from the concpet of dead is dead in other games. Basically anything I do I have to save. If I accidently bulldoze half my city then I have to save it. If I zone a huge area residential by accident I have to deal with it, no reverting to a earlier save to fix it. If the city suddenly loses tonnes of money then I'll have to fix it rather than trying to rework it from a earlier save.

The journal/diary will be my usual no mods with just Rush Hour and the official updates. I may in the far future add some mods but for now I'm staying vanilla.

I'm also playing each city on hard so will have to make each one profitable to actually work and further the building of city tile .

Also as I like seeing jounral/diaries built from the ground up so that's what I'm doing, working at Rhino speed so I can see stuff building and work on gradual growth updates rather than huge jumps.

As for the whole storyline approach, I will probably add a few in character updates at times but for the most part they'll be OOC as

Right anyway let's begin.

 

Part 1: Newtarn, a small town in the middle of nowhere

Newtarn is going to be the first town we develop in the Hentan region. I haven't done any terraforming in the region other than this tile. Speaking of which the region itself is a blank canvas, 24 by 24, all large tiles. This one is one in from the east edge of the region.

As for what I want the region to be like (a small coastline, a inland region or a island for example), this will be decided as we expand, we are literallly starting from the ground up in all ways.

Anyway Newtarn is the first town to be developed, our intrepid sims srtting up shop alongside a winding river with several rolling hills on either side, just upriver from a fork (and in all probability, the mouth).

Here's the initial overview of the area.

 

Choosing the spur in the river by the west side of the tile to found their fledgling community I go ahead and zone areas for the sims to move into. To avoid boring squares, I've let the zones look haphazard and all over the place. The ferry terminal there is also a bit pointless but I like having an area or feature that looks like it might link my little communities to the outside world (or Smearth in this case, as I like to call the world where my journals take place) and the small ferry terminal looked right for the part.

Initial zoning to get he ball rolling

I'm also taking the approach of just zoning what the sims demand without any particular areas for them. The only one that is separated from the rest is the farmland, mainly due to the fact that having huge farms in the centre of town (initially anyway, once we grow it'll be different) would look a bit silly. Anyway as you can see, growth continued with this mish mash zoning, slowly as more people moved into the small town.

More growth

 

As we expanded eastwards we suddenly got a large spike in demand for industrial dirty so this small industrial estate was set up next to this farm.

Industrial growth backing onto farmland.

This in turn led to a spike in residential and me setting up some small housing areas on the otherside of the town, though thinking about it, why I did this on the otherside of the town at the time I've no idea. As you can see community allotments and parks aren't neglected in Newtarn, just fire services, health, public safety and education.

Houses for everyone.

That's all I've got for now though, with just this overview of where were currently at to finish up. As you can see the town is developing into a pretty linear settlement and is slowly being surrounded by the highly demanded farmland. For now we can continue to develop without effecting the farmland but I'm not sure this will last.

 

Overview

 

That's all for another update though, so for now I'll leave it here. Hope all this typing hasn't put you off completely and I promise to stick with this one.

Till next time

James

 

 

[Benedict 3,119]

I like the premise - good luck!

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

 

Benedict:Thanks, it'll be interesting to see how I fix things when I inevitably screw something up big time.

 

 

 

Part 2: Expanding Newtarn

Well today we'll continue to develop Newtarn a little bit. We left off last time with the town expanding along the coast with the farmland continuing to grow inland. Today we'll continue to look at the growth of the small town starting with power issues.

As we've continued to expand so too has the need for power. Up until now we've been powered by random wind turbines on the farms surrounding the town.

Wind turbines on the farmland.

While this works, we had the income to get a actual large scale power plant. Not wanting to pollute the town though I decided to make a central wind farm, rather than spreading them out. It doesn't make any difference too if they were spread out but I like it. This I placed in the centre of the farmland a little way outside of the town. Six will do for now.

Wind farm on the outside of town.

As you can probably guess the wind farm is more than substantial for the town at the moment but it doesn't matter as the income is more than enough to cover it. Below I've included a shot of the town accounts and budgets which shows that we are definitely in the black and can easily afford the wind farm.

Town accounts (taken after the wind farms construction)

Now that we'd dealt with the whole power issue it was time to actually expand the town a bit. Not wanting to build over any of the existing farmland as we expanded but also trying to balance the need for farmland as we expanded, we ended up with a shallow horseshoe shaped town as we expanded along the coast.

Below are some photos as the town grew outwards along the coast and the farmland inland towards the steep hills far behind. While building the farms I also wanted to try and avoid completely deforesting the area. As you'll see we've worked around several large woods as well as leaving several copses in-between farms. Has no affect on the actually improving the city, I just like the look of working around woods. Anyway here are the pictures.

Firstly the right hand side of the town stopping just short of the edge of the map.

 As you can see a combination of edging onto the farmland, the map edge and the wood behind it has effectively halted expansion on this side of town for now.

On the other side of the town however expansion can continue and has done around the farmland as residential demand outweighed agricultural demand for a bit.

growing around farmland.

Finally this random image of the farms growing between two of the woods that I didn't want to build over.

This is where we've got too now. As you'll see from the overview I'm about to show you the town has nearly ran out of room to grow in without overtaking farmland. There are several options as to what we could do next but I'll leave you to think of before the next update.

overview

Till then

James

 

[Schulmanator 5,815]

The town is coming along nicely and making money. Soon you will have all sorts of amenities for them!

[darkaliendude 44]

Mods sometimes make things a little too complex. I love playing vanilla every now and then. Therefore, I like this city journal. Expand more comm and resi along the river. I like that.

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

 

Schulmanator: Thanks and yes lots of money should hopefully mean plenty of services and happy sims. Well when I actually install them but at the moment making money is good.

 

darkaliendude: I agreethat sometimes they make things complicated and I believe that the base game can be rather good looking at time. Although expansion of the main town has halted for the time being I hope you like the alternate expansion.

 

 

 

Part 3: Newtarn village growth

I've got a fairly large update for you all today detailing the further growth of the town and area around it and the first issues that have sprung up detailing them as they happened starting with the continued growth.

With the right side of the town stunted due to the woods and the map edge, this growth continued to happen along the left hand side of the town, with both residential and farmland being the most asked for zones. This however couldn't last forever and as you can see by the below image, it was eventually shut off by a forest and the ever wanted farmland. For the time being this now acts as the boundary of the town, with expansion now halted inwards and along the coast.

Final developments on the left side of town.

However during this the need for industrial expansion had arisen so we'd have to come up with a solution to that soon. For now though we had bigger problems in the form of trash.

Without any way of disposing of the trash it'd slowly been building up outside the sims homes and businesses and they weren't very happy. The solution for this was to zone a dump, inland from the town on the other side of where the farmland had reached. As we also had more than enough income and recycling centre was also installed so that the small dump woudln't become overwhelmed. Below are some images of the cause of this new dump and also where it is in relation to the town itself (very north if you can't find it)

Rubbish piling up on the streets.

 

The position in regards to the town. There will be a band of trees between it and any farmland eventually.

 

With that solved and the sims happy again we could get back to discussing industry. Or so we thought. Fate had other ideas though as we got our first fire that couldn't be handled by locals with buckets. A hastily converted van for a Fire Engine and a bunch of volunteers and we managed to stop the fire from destroying any houses. The same can't be said for the industry that used to be here but at least we now have a fire service.

The aftermath of the blaze

Right now we can definitely get back to expansion. Having decided that we had several choices of expansion the easiest and least costly for now would be to expand behind the growing band of farmland. The first of the small villages to spring up was Horton. Situated just beside the same wood that limited the growth of the left side of the town, the small village which started off as a industrial site and a few houses has quickly expanded to the size of a very small town. Below are some images of the intial site and expansion.

Initial site

Growth of every type.

Where we are today. As you can see the whole boundary usually left between the farmland and the residential areas has been a bit lax here with residential areas backing right up on farmland. As you can see expansion has been halted a bit due to surrounding farmland.

Growth restricted by farmland.

Other than Horton we did also have another small village spring up inbetween the two woods shown at the end of the last update. This tiny village of Lipton hasn't really had any growth and has stayed the same size since its initial development.

Lipton village.

Anyway that's all for now. Next time I think we may be exploring the whole expansion across the river idea but until then, I hope you enjoy the growing town and surrounding area and as always, heres the overview of the current state of the town.

Overview

Till then

James

 

[89James89 1,169]

Part 4: Cross River Growth

Well toady we'll take a further look at the expanding tile of Newtarn and how its coming along. Starting off we'll look at one of the several new settlements that have sprung up since last update. Now if you look at the overview from the last update you might be able to see that on the far left side where expansion was halted, there appears to be a small clearing just along the coast. This was sited as a area to build a small riverside village deemed Shoreside.

If not this should make things clearer:

 

As you can see form the below image this small village was a immediate success with new people moving in and setting up home. Interestingly enough, due to the fact that its in the middle of a wood and has no zone connections, its the first settlement to be fed by overhead powerlines. Not the best looking things but they'll have to do for now.

Shoreside village.

 

The next big settlement to spring up was Ferrin. Built on the otherside of the river, this small town is probably set to become bigger than Newtarn town itself. As to why we built it on the otherside of the river, it was down to wanting to keep the population rather central around Newtarn so expanding further down the same coastline as Newtarn might produce traffic problems on the long roads (or streets rather as we still don't have a sibngle road on the tile), plus I wanted to expand over the river. Built as a self sustainable community this small town has its own windfarm and industry and is connected to the rest of the tile by a passenger ferry (not that anyone uses it though).

Initial look at Ferrin.

As you would probably assume this small town then boomed and industry was greatly in demand as the small settlement expanded. This facilitated the building of this industrial estate along the road towards the Wind Farm. At the moment this is the highest concentration of industry on the tile.

Ferrin industrial estate.

Meanwhile on the otherside of the river back in Newtarn we'd continued to expand the farms and had received several awards.

The first was this church and graveyard, both located rather centrally to the town, with the graveyard in a wood. As you can see I've also replanted the tree rows between the town and the farms. They won't have any impact on the actual game, but, given that there's a lot of tile (and region if need be) to still develop befpore Newtarn has to grow, it'll help to improve the look of Newtarn until that time.

Church and graveyard

 

The other was this farmers market which, built on the edge of the town provides a nice little piece of commerce for the large community of farms on the tile.

Farmers market

 

We then finish this update with expanding the farmland around the steep hill behind Newtarn in the corner of the map. We did have a problem though with the farms not developing, due, I think, to the fact that they were to far away from any area of residential workers. A image below shows the area and problem.

No growth of farmland.

To solve this we zoned for the small agricultural village of Fielding. This small settlement would have no factories or industrial zoning of any sort , to hopefully push the surrounding farmland to develop. The results were very positive with the farmland expanding around the village. It's not completely developed but it's a lot better than it was. Also I've added some trees around the edge of the map here as well.

Village of Fielding

Finally as usual I've got a overview. This on is a bit different from the usual ones as it has the settlements labeled onto it so you can see where everywhere I've talked about is. The colours are an attempt at a code of sort, the red being a small town, the green villages and then the large town of Newtarn in white.

 

Overview

 

As for next time, I plan on expanding the farmland, Ferrin and maybe seeing if the budget could facilitate some services for the citizens of Newtarn.

Hope you enjoyed the update.

James

 

[89James89 1,169]

Part 5: Investing in the future

Well as I stated at the end of the last update our budget looked very healthy so it was probably time to give our sims some services. To have a full picture of everything though I'll show you my budget as it stood at the end of the last update and then the budget again at the end with the services installed.

Budget before services.

 

As you can see, with the monthly budget being around 3k profit, we easily have enough income to provide our sims with services. We start however by expanding Ferrin. We have a large amount of demand for all zones and if were going to give the sims services we may as well make sure their zone of influence is completely full. As such here is the large scale expansion and zoning for Ferrin almost doubling it in size in preparation.

Ferrin large scale expansion.

With that expanding I continued working on the farms on the otherside of the river trying to finish filling out all the open space with them. This large amount of farm growth led to another new village springing up along with a state fair award. This new village of Tinby is pretty far from Newtarn but it has the State Fair next to it so is still a popular place to live.

As you can also see it has its own wind farm seeing as the other one didn't have any room to expand and more power was needed.

The village of Tinby and the as yet un-named State Fair.

Now with Ferrin bulked out it was time to add some services in. Starting in Newtarn I added a Elementary school, a clinic and a Police station. Unfortunately due to the shape of the settlement these centrally placed services didn't cover a whole lot fo the town but oh well, such is the failing of poor town planning.

Civic services in Newtarn.

Meanwhile in Ferrin its a different story. Due to how the town was more nucleated it was easier to have the civics serve most of the town. As such it was decided that the areas High School would be built here as well as a town Elementary school, Clinic and Police station. It does feel kind of weird that the High School isn't in the town that is meant to be the captial of the tile but hey, this way is much more functional.

Ferrin High School and sport fields here in the centre of Ferrin.

After this Ferrin went through another state of growth leaving it looking like this. I've also added another dump south of Ferrin to service this side of the river.

Ferrin as it currently stands.

This is all I'm going to add services wise at the moment. I know a lot of the tile isn't covered but if I added a school and clinic to every village it'd eat into my budget to much. I'm thinking of dotting a few libraries around though so we'll have to see. Speaking of budget though, here's how we stand at the end of adding all the services. The incomes dropped by a lot but its still making money so that's good.

Current budget.

As for next update, it'll probably revolve around fixing some growing traffic issues that my sims seem to be having. Looks like 14,000 sims is finally too much for no roads in the tile. Till then though here's a overview showing everything but Fielding. You can also see the new village Tinby and the State fair up in the north east of the map.

Overview

 

Till next time.

James

 

[89James89 1,169]

Part 6: Not doing what I said I would

Well as the title says I kind off didn't even look at traffic today. Instead I decided that I should try and finish of adding farmland to the Newtarn side of the river.  This came in the form of a bunch more farms and another small village, this time Ancombe rounding off the area. Now all that's left over here is to add in a whole bucket load of trees (may start creating tree lines to split up the farms as I do plan on moving to another tile when I've filled this one and sorted out some traffic issues and tree lines will definitely improve the look of the farmland. Not sure if its very useful in a natural growth game but screw it lets do it anyway) and then this sides done.

Here's a image of Ancombe and the State Fair so you can get your bearings.

 

With this area all laid out it was time to move across the river, however not before I had to add this little guy to Tinby. Apparently the farms over here are too far away from Newtarn for the fire engines to reach them in time to stop the fires, (as one unlucky farmer discovered) so adding this fire station to TInby seemed like a good idea.

Fire station in Tinby.

 

Anyway with that done this side of the map was complete for now accept the trees (what I don't understand is why are the mayor  mode trees all different to the god mode ones?) so I jumped over to the other side and begun expanding industry over there. Below is the general idea of what I had going. As Ferrin had grown to a larger size than Newtarn it needed more power so I decided to add a new power plant in the form of a Natural Gas power plant. Below is the plan for the industrial expansion for Ferrin.

Industrial expansion plan.

As you can see this will add the first dedicated singular zoning area to the map (not including the farmland covering it already). I thought that an industrial site close to the dump would be a good way to fill in the space and would look nice so hey lets get on with it. Several months later and Ferrin town council has beavered away to created this for its citizens. I'm not sure the power plant looks brilliant there but hey it works for now.  As you can see I've also tried to beautify the area a little bit along the way. I also like the fact that there's a high proportion of manufacturing there so hopefully that will help combat some of the joblessness for the medium wealth citizens.

Ferrin Industrial Estate.

This left the Wind Farm that did power the town obsolete so the town council quickly dismantled them and replaced it with housing to fill the jobs created by the business park.

Housing replacing the Wind Farm.

 

With that done I discovered how leaving the game running in the background while watching videos on youtube is a stupid idea as when I returned, this was what greeted me. Devastation in Ferrin's southern industrial district (the one in the actual town next to the old Wind Farm). Fires are evil.

Industrial carnage!

On the plus side though, once I'd bulldozed the rubble nicer buildings built up there so it was all good in the end.

After that I expanded the farms around Ferrin. Now there wont be as many farms as there was on Newtarn's side of the river as I want to preserve a large part of the trees, now known as Ferrin Forest. As such I'm thinking that this area will probably only have a couple of small settlements to help fill the jobs on the farms. As you can see I've filled in the area to the right of the dump complete with a small village to service it. Welcome to Kanton (yes at this rate I'll run out of names before we've left the first tile but oh well), a tiny little village surrounded by trees and farms.

Kanton village

Right that's where were at with the whole filling out thing. As you can see from the overview I'll show in below I'm starting on the rest of the farmland so hopefully next time we can get that finished and then we can either add some tree rows around the farms or actually get on with fixing traffic issues.

Overview

Till then

James

 

[89James89 1,169]

Part 7: More housing for the people.

A smaller update today based on expansion to the suburbs around Ferrin. Although Ferrin Forest is penning the large town in, there are still areas around Ferrin that are clear enough to only warrant the removal of a few trees and therefore, the council happily give the go ahead on them. Below is the biggest of these, around the size of Shoreside (maybe a bit larger) and we have a couple of images of the zoning and construction process below.

Firstly the council agreed on the piece of land. A nicely sized lightly vegetated area between the bottom of the town and the industrial estate.

Planned area for expansion.

With the plan given the go ahead the builders began clearing the area and paving streets for the new houses. We also put in a link to the nearby industrial estate for sims working there, instead of them having to drive right the way around. Also you can see a rather poorly planned Baseball field there. High nets were later installed around the edge to prevent car windows being smashed by balls hit out of the field.

Areas zoned, ready for sims to move in.

Finally for this little time lapse, construction has begun on the expansion.

Construction begins on zoned areas

Other than that more zoning was given the go ahead on the other side of the town below Shoreside. Not as large as the bottom one but still a nice new place to settle in.

Construction in North-West Ferrin

Finally for this small development update, the new Baseball field in Ferrin sparked a petition to have one built in Newtarn as well. It was successfully acted upon and soon we had the first two rival teams in the area regularly battling it out on the field most weekends. Currently the Ferrin Ferrets have the higher percentage of wins but the Newtarn Nightingales aren't that far behind.

Newtarn Baseball Field, an altogether better planned field.

Other than this farms have spread throughout most of the Ferrin side of the river so next time we'll probably take a look at that.

Till then

James

 

[89James89 1,169]

Part 8: The tile is full!

yes as the title says we've finally managed to fill int he entire area around Newtarn. Growth really has taken off from that small riverside development that was the beginnings of Newtarn. Now there a total of 13 different areas of population on the tile (yes I'm going to run out of place names by the time I've started the second tile) and Newtarn has been overtaken by Ferrin as the largest continuous areas of population. Anyway I've got some more pictures for you regarding developments in the area (yes I'm still avoiding the traffic issues but I promise that's what the next update will be about).

Recently we've had our first big issue raised by our farming community in regards to land ownership. Basically a bunch of farmers were straying into land that others claimed was theirs due to the lack of actual farm boundaries across the area. As a solution to this, Newtarn Council of rural planning decreed that every farm would have its boundaries clearly marked out by way of a treeline around the fields. The farmers complained a bit about the cost of planting a row of trees, but it was better than the constant bickering and local court cases so they carried out the new mandate and soon tree rows lined the areas rural landscape. As a bonus they also ate into some of the pollution caused by the pockets of industry (and Ferrin Industrial Estate) so it was a smart move on the councils behalf.

A picture to show the treeline's now surrounding the farmland, taken from outside Newtarn.

As for the existing settlements, planners have paid the large prices to buy up small pockets of sparsely vegetated areas on the edge of a couple of settlements, what with the land price, whilst still high due to deforestation laws, being a lot cheaper than the heavily vegetated areas further inwards. We'll have to see though if these small scale, yet expensive expansions catch on throughout the area.

These small scale expansions have taken place in Shoreside, Tinby and Ancombe as shown below.

Firstly Shoreside has expanded a bit to the east, towards the edge of Newtarn.

In Tinby the expansion is southwards towards Shoreside. What with the fire station and continued expansion, Tinby is quickly growing.

Finally Ancombe has also expanded into the small woods behind the village. Due to it not being part of the forests around Newtarn town, the development costs were a bit lower here. Also you can see the developers forked out for the cost of planting trees in the area to the left of the village.

Ancombe expansion

As for the filling out of the area, several new settlements sprang up, some of which I've got some photos of. The biggest of the three settlements to develop around Ferrin was Stencombe. Sitting on the North East edge of the map, the small town has both a fire station and the areas first dedicated library. It also has a small industrial estate on the outskirts of the town where they process the farm produce that comes in from the nearby farms, especially Joe's big old place opposite the site.

Another rather strange development was the truck stop on the outside of town. Despite the fact that as of yet this is the first area explored of the unknown region someone has planned ahead and got a truck stop in outside the town. Hopefully his gamble will pay off in the long run.

Stencombe complete with industrial estate (right side of town) and the truck stop (left side of town)

Of the other three settlements, Hetton, Geron and Upton, I've only managed to get a image of Geron but the other two are much the same anyway. Just small pockets of housing amongst the vast sea of trees and farms. Of note though is that it perfectly shows the newest trend in Newtarn of building cul-de-sacs instead of straight streets.

Geron village.

Finally for now here's the updated overview of the entire tile, also showing all the settlements names. As with last time. White is a large town, red a small town, green and village and blue a large industrial estate.

Tile overview

That's all for now. Next time we'll definitely be taking a look at the traffic issues in the area. With everything filled in and no roads in the entire tile, traffic is definitely becoming a issue.

Till then

James

[Luiz P. Romanini 132]

Nice job!

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

 

Luiz P. Romanini: Thanks, I hope you continue to like it.

 

 

 

 

Part 9: Density Experiment

Well once again I may have got a bit carried away with other things than the traffic problems. Mainly due tot he fact that there weren't that many in all honesty (just a few intersections and a road in Tinby). Instead I decided to try and see what building upwards would bring rather than outwards. Here follows the accounts of the first medium density buildings in the area.

With growing pressure to provide more homes for the residents of Feriin but with no where to zone new land due to deforestation laws it was decided that they would try going upwards. This would require controlled water access to carry out so the first job was to build this water tower on the edge of the town.

Water tower just inside Ferrin Forest on the edge of town.

 

Next step was to decide where to allow the buildings to be built. Deciding on the centre of Ferrin a small swathe of buildings were demolished and the building contractors moved in with their plans and got to work. (NOTE: In hindsight this was a very unrealistic way of doing it. I should have just over zoned the exsisting buildings rather than demolished them. Will have to keep it in mind for the future),

Heres the area that was demolished and re-zoned.

 

New buildings started taking shape in the area that had been allowed. Most of these were still rather small but a few small high rises sprang up, mostly for the hgiher wealth residents.

High wealth housing

Unfortunately, this didn't go as well as we'd hope and soon the buildings became abandoned due to  commute times and the lack of high wealth jobs in the area.

Abandonment due to no jobs.

To try and counter this the unsuccessful buildings were torn down and the area was re-zoned for commercial and residential in the hope that commercial shops could provide jobs for the sims moving in. This is what the area now looks like. There's still a small high rise there but its smaller than the last few that came in and the added commercial means that this area is now alive with life. The small high rise is also being used for the Ferrrin council officers.

Current look at the area.

In other news we decided that upgrading the ferry would be a good idea to try and create more of a link between Ferrin and Newtarn. These new ferries can take cars as well as passengers and definitely seem to have helped the situation with usage going up by a lot.

A look at the Ferrin Ferry Terminal.

 

As for the entire experiment, its been decided that the trouble we had with it and the cost (we had to replace the water tower with a water pump in the end) has limited its usefulness for the minute and that people would rather expand outwards. Not to mention that the power plant for Ferrin is becoming a bit strained, limiting growth while we decided how to alleviate the problem and the stress on the farms to produce enough food. With this in mind join us next time join us as we move further up the river into brand new lands for us to explore.

Till then

 

James

[89James89 1,169]

Principality of Tintaco

Well this is completely different to what I'd said would happen but hey that's me. Basically Hentan is huge (well ok it's only 6x6 large tiles but that's pretty big for me) and I started in  stupid place so while I try an figure out how to progress it in a sensible and realistic manner I've made this small region (6x8 medium tiles) to play around on.

This will be the Principality Of Tintaco. It will also be a natural growth journal but will be more story focused than the Hentan region which had a lot of out of character posting. As usual it'll be no mods or downloads, just Sim City 4 and the Rush Hour expansion.

Anyway lets get on with things.

Entry 1: Founding Tintaco

His Royal Highness Prince Henrik Kerin

Situated on a tiny sliver of land south of the much larger region of Hentan, the Principality Of Tintaco is the land that Prince Henrick Kerin has recently laid claim to after exploration in the name of his father, the great Gregory Kerin brought him here.

His father, always a kind and fair man, allowed the young prince to claim the small piece of land for himself to rule over as he saw fit. So came about the Principality Of Tintaco (Tintaco being his late mothers maiden name and the former royal name of the lands ruled now by his father).

The Topography of Tintaco

A small sliver of land, Tintaco is a area high in water and therefore, fertile and well suited to support human settlers. The coastline is pock marked with inlets and natural harbours which also help in the suitability for settlement.

Other than that there's a small but steep mountain range in the rear of the area and several rives run through to spill out into the ocean at a single point. All in all a rather promising place to settle. Below is a satellite image of the area as well as the area best suited to found the city at.

The region of Tantico

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/834/ud1endof.jpg/

The founding of Tantico CIty

Decided on due to the natural harbour for getting goods in and out of the region, as well as the plentiful wood along the shores, Tantico City Harbour quickly took off as it strives to become self sufficient in the growing world of Smearth.

The initial settlement was just a small dock and a couple of houses but soon more and more people flocked to the area, looking for new opportunities as the small fishing village became a small town. Below are soon pictures taken as the settlement grew in size, along with some annotations about the growth.

Initially just this tiny fishing village powered by the wind, the tiny community was set to grow massively in the following few years.

Several years in and you can see that dedicated farms have sprung up around the now large village to help support it. Meanwhile many of the population work in the large factories that provide the region with most of its trade and income.  

After about 7 years you can see that the agriculture has grown immensely in the area. Along with the goods not consumed by the growing population, logging in the fertile woods around the coast provide the town with increasing amounts of income.

Where we currently are with the town celebrating its 10th birthday. As you can see the income has shifted heavily towards factories with a large industrial presence on the spur sticking out into the harbour. Not the nicest places but they provide income and jobs.

Finally the region update for the tenth year of habitation in Tantico. As of yet the population of around 3.5k have yet to leave the small town of Tantico despite the large swathes of land available to them.

That's all for now in this breif history and look back at Tantico. Join me next time when we'll take a more detailed look at the settlement and its growth.

Till then

Jay Goodrick

NOTE: Sorry about the links. I wanted to retain the large image sizes but not induce the scroll bar of doom.

[Schulmanator 5,815]

Nice map. I look forward to seeing the area grow.

[vivapanda 422]

I really like how you combine natural growth with non-grid city building

[89James89 1,169]

Entry 2: Tantico Harbour growth

Well this entry follows the continued growth of the harbour and its surrounding areas with a detailed look at the harbour itself. Starting off with this photo below showing some new developments for the harbour in the form of several Lanterns.

Tantico Harbour Lanterns



Built to help the increased shipping traffic using Tantico Harbour navigate the natural harbour, these three Lanterns are smaller versions of full blown lighthouses usually providing light over a fixed area of the channel (rather than continually turning like lighthouses). Sticking to these lighted areas means that ships can be guided in safely and quickly and has helped increase Tantico's wealth through exports and imports.

As you can see from the above image whilst two of these lanterns share the same immediate body of land around Tantico Harbour (if we travel far enough there all connected by land just not immediately), the third is situated on a spur that recently became a much sought after place to live (initially colonized due to the lantern). This new village quickly drew the attention of Prince Henrik, with its secluded and quiet atmosphere and soon he had a permanent large residence built there. This attracted a large amount of people, all wanting to live near the Prince and as the picture below shows, despite the ferry being there, led to unemployment as people struggled to get jobs.



Seeing this issue as a big downside to living in what has now been named Henrik Point, the Prince orders the planning council to construct some industrial jobs in the growing village. Naturally the citizens of henrik Point opposed this but it had to be done and, to prove that he wasn't above anyone else the Prince had these small factories built along the coast opposite his estate.



Although originally opposed the move has been greatly praised since the first factory went up and Henrik Point has continued to grow as you'll see from the overview at the end of this entry.

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

On the otherside of the harbour however, the population were getting a bit restless for public services. For the last 13 years the population had been without proper education, with home schooling and several small school houses providing what they could to help the young sims. Eventually something had to give though and the town council passed a planning proposal for a proper education facility and school big enough for the whole towns youth. Although we now have Tantico Harbour Elementary (as shown in the centre of the image below) and a small library in Henrik Point, the town has still to provide anything for further education past the age of 12.  A issue that is currently being looked into.

Tantico Harbour at 12 years with the new Elementary School in the centre of town.



With the growing settlement needing more food to keep import costs down, a new settlement was aslo started on the other spur of land in the harbour. Mainly set up to be a agricultural strip of land, the village of Tepin point was settled in the 14th year of the towns growth and quickly made use of the large swathe of land behind it to farm extensively, providing more home grown produce for the growing town. As you can see from the photo below (shot just yesterday) its still growing.



Finally for this update is this Ariel of the Harbour in its 15th year. As you can see were beginning to really run out of room and planning proposals are already being passed to zone over some of the farms around the edge of the town, whilst rebuilding the displaced farms further inland behind the town.



Till next time.

Jay Goodrick

[kj3400 178]

A fascinating thing you've got here, i've always liked city journals like this. Keep it up!

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

kj3400: Thanks. I'm glad you find these sorts of journals interesting. natural growth is definitely my favourite journal to do and see. I hope you continue to enjoy it!

Entry 3: More Growth and Royal Weddings

Well I've got some very good news for the Principality of Tantico coming up but first, lets continue where we left off.

Firstly we've had a number of areas change land usage during the last 10 years. Firstly was the expansion of the industrial zone in the harbour, replacing some of the housing that was in the middle of the industry already there. Luckily displacing the residents wasn't too hard as it was never the most desirable place to live, in the centre of a industrial estate, so the relocation's went relatively smoothly.

As you can also see, the new school seems to be paying off (even though we've managed to skirt the whole further education up until our current year), as more and more manufacturing businesses are moving into the area rather than the usual dirty industries.

Anyway with the residents displaced they needed new homes so we had to start eating into the farmland surronding the town. This wen't smoothly as well as the farmers had had plenty of warning that this was going to happen and were all being moved to the new outskirts of town (or across the harbour) as we expanded. As you'll see though as we go through the update, a small number of farm buildings remain standing, even without their farmland.

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

As this growth continued over the next few years, a couple of service based issues arose. Firstly was the issue of the building amount of rubbish and the fact that he small local tips were beginning to spill over. What with there only being a limited amount that we could ship out of the town, we needed a long term solution to the problem.

The solution was this, a large tip and several recycling centres outside the small village of Ketin.

With that solved the next issue was rudely thrown at us. Initially a small blaze, a farm fire which engulfed a large hay barn on the outskirts of town showed us the need to maintain a proper fire service instead of the private ones that we used. With this in mind a small plot was developed in each of the four settlements to provide coverage for most of the area. These four stations are circled in the image below (year 17 in case anyone was wondering when this was taken)

The third and final issue was power. As the city grew and consumed the farmland, so to did it's power needs grow, far outpacing what the wind turbines could provide. It was decided then, that the town get its first proper power plant. Running on natural gas and built in the centre of the industrial district the new Tensea Power Plant should hopefully provide power to the area for years to come.

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

Now we've got them depressing issues out of the way it was time to rejoice as Tantico opened its first church. The Church of Saint Alex was built outside the town next to the orchard in response to several issues. Firstly was the need for a proper place to worship for the majority of the population, who were of the Gendantian faith and secondly, the royal marriage of our beloved Prince Henrik to the lovely Lady Josephine.

The royal wedding was the largest event in the small countries history, as thier prince, at the age of 35 had finally married (since this was 3 years ago, the couple have been blessed with a boy by the name of Gregory II after Henriks father). The prince himself, a keen gardener had a lovely garden commissioned for the royal wedding from his own treasury to be built around the church and has also since decreed that the orchard, where several wedding photo's were taken after the ceremony, is royally sealed land, preventing any alteration to it in the years to come.

Here's a ariel photo from the princes wedding day showing the church, gardens and the orchard behind it.

Speaking of buildings or areas bearing the Royal Seal, there are now three in the city, The first is the Royal Manor at Henrik Point, the second the Church of Saint Alex and the thrid the Orchard. There are several other buildings that are being looked into for the honour as well but I'll bring you more news on them as it comes.

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

Finally for this update I have another series of ariels tracking the growth of the town up until the curretn year 25.

Firstly year 20. If you look closely you can see that the Tensea Power Plant has yet to be built here (it was finished late in year 21)

Year 23. The town is growing outwards quickly and you can see the Royal Orchard and Church becoming surronded by housing.

Year 25. Not a whole lot more housing but the farmland in Tepin and Henrik point has finally reached the edge of the area.

That's all for this update. Sorry for the large amount of text and feel free just to look at the images as they're the main part after all. As for what the future holds, plans have finally been passed for actual growth to begin outside of this area (much to the relief of the farming community) so hopefully we'll have a bit of that for you all next time.

Till then

Jay Goodrick

 

[Schulmanator 5,815]

Nice. I am glad the royal family had somewhere nice to celebrate the big day.

[Shortsonfire 67]

Growth around that church is quite nice. You can really see the residential bloom from year 21 to year 25. And its really too bad that all the farmland is being eaten up.

Hows the air pollution around the river? You have a decent concentration of industrial down there, yet I don't really see any brown clouds.

Keep it up, your story telling really adds to the CJ.

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

Schulmanator: Thankyou.The small church was a little cramped but it was a lovely occasion all the same.

Shortsonfire: Thanks and yer the growth around the church is really starting to take off. Don't feel too bad for the farmers though they were more compensated for their farms and were relocated to the growing farmland on the outside of town.

 

Sure I'll get a pollution overview for you next time. There is pockets of it but the area is slowly transitioning into manufacturing rather than dirty.

Entry 4: Continued spread into the surrounding areas

This will just be a quick update today with not much to narrate as its just growth (OOC: still that's my favourite part watching the growth of city journals). This has mainly taken place north of the Harbour, moving further inland as the now large town (approaching 13,000 citizens at the end of this update) grows.

The first image is this one of the new Tantico Farmers Market in Tantico Harbour. A small place requested by the farming community so they could sell their produce directly to customers rather than having to sell it the shop keepers at a reduced cost and then them to the customer. The market is held every Tuesday and Saturday and then every other Thursday. It's been a great success since its inception as seen by the large amount of parking set aside for it.

The next image shows the huge growth that the residential area of Tantico Harbour has seen. As you can see the only patch of true farmland left is the Royal Orchard with all the other farms that once stood here gone or just sheds or chicken barns. You can also see that a lot of the odd pockets of land that was left after zoning for new housing has been turned into neighbourhood allotment, the farm soil perfect for the job.

The next image shows an empty space outside the city where the new expansion took place. Unlike the Harbour this area can hold a lot more people due to the reduced amount of water. The photos below that show the growth of the town here.

As you can see initially it was mainly housing spilling over from the industrial expansion. A ferry terminal helps people to reach Henrik and Tepin point without overloading the Harbour ferries. At this point Tantico Harbour still had some of its farms left (the ones now covered by housing).

Several years in and this is what the area looks like. Growth has been fast over here as industry both provides more jobs and pushes them out of the Harbour.

This is a random image of the Gregory Square. Named after Prince Gregory II, this area is another Royally Protected place (the flower garden in the centre anyway, not the commercial buildings around it) and the hub of commerce in the growing town. The Church of Saint Peter is also here and the area also has its own Elementary School (whilst plans are being drawn up for a Secondary School in the Harbour) but I didn't get a picture of that.

the other expansion that the town saw was this small area expanding east from Ketin along the shore. Mainly just agriculture but its also provided Ketin with a ferry link.

Finally another regional overview (again I'm going to leave it as a link rather than a image int he thread so sorry about that).

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/715/ud4principalityoftantic.jpg/

Till next time

Jay Goodrick

 

[Schulmanator 5,815]

Nice little town. I like it.

[IL. 1,043]

Indeed, great town

I like it that you're not using any cheats 

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

Schulmanator: Thanks, hope you continue to enjoy the growth of the area and its various settlement's.

 

IL.: Thanks and nope no cheats at all. All cities work and earn money as well.

 

 

Entry 5: Growing a High School

Centered around looking at some of the issues and growth in Tantico Harbour today's update begins by examining some data requested by a viewer of this blog. These are the Tantico Harbours pollution surveys. First up is air pollution. As you can see its not all that bad, just the expected concentration around the industrial band around Tensea Power Plant. Hopefully this will be reduced over the years as more and more cleaner businesses replace the old ones.

Next is water pollution and as you can see the dependency on farming in the Harbours early years has really taken a toll on the ground water. Hopefully as residential development pushes outwards, over time the pollution levels will reduce but we'll have to see.

 

 

As to reducing this pollution, the Tantico Government are looking at city ordinances that could be passed that would have a impact on the levels of pollution but as of yet no decisions have been made.

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

Now with that slightly depressing issue out of the way, onto better news. Firstly Tantico Harbour and surrounding areas, have now grown large enough that the Principalities government has erected a proper seat of council. Previously using a small office building, the new seat can easily accommodate  the entire government, even as it grows over the coming years. This Tantico Houses Of Government (shown below) is also another Royally Protected building, situated in Tantico Harbour just behind the Church of St Alex.

With the new Government building came the official governmental departments, of which the educational one was not happy at the continued lack of further education in Tantico. As such one of the new governments first acts was to have Tantico Harbour High School constructed. A much larger building than the Tantico Harbour Elementary, the high school also sported several sports fields , the football one surrounded by still maintained apple trees, as well as a greenhouse study area converted from one of the old farms across the road.

On another note. The cattle farm in the above picture is owned by a farmer who's determined not to move away from his land. This has led to the compromise of the land being used for cattle markets every Thursday and then hes free to farm for the rest of the week. A compromise that seems to suit both parties well enough, though how long the farmer can hold onto the real estate in the middle of a growing town who knows.

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

Next we have some overhead progress iamges.

Firstly year 33. As you can see, the high school and city hall are both present and the residential growth has slowed down a bit.

This all changed in the next few years. This is the current day one in year 36. As you can see major housing developments have occurred both in the harbour and one both Tepin and Henrick points. Also of note is that Ketin has now been consumed by Tantico Harbour growth and will soon become a district of the town rather than a town itself.

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

Finally with the growth of Henrick Point spreading outwards, the area below it has started to become populated. Named Henrick Bay after the large swathes of extremely shallow water present. This area is one of lovely sandy beaches and plentiful wild life.

As you can see the small town took off incredibly quickly (the image below was taken in the second year). Although the Environment Board has decreed that no large scale buildings should be built in Henrick Bay, small family homes were fine and as such, the richest families from around the Harbour flooded into the area to take advantage of the lovely beaches, seafront shopping and quieter life.  I think its safe to say that this growth is set to continue down here for a long time yet.

End of update population count: 21,890

And that's all from Tantico for now.

Till next time

Jay Goodrick

 

[nas786 104]

Nice growth, that was pretty fast.  I like how you lay out your streets, adds character.  I always do boring grids

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

nas786: Thanks and yes it is growing fast. The layouts look fun but are probably going to give me headaches in the future lol.

Part 6: Ellington

Well in this update I introduce you to the new settlements of Chilton and Ellington. Firstly however with Tantico Harbour continuing to grow the Tensea Power Plant was beginning to feel the strain. As such its been doubled in size, mostly in preparation for the continued growth of the area. As such here's a image of the enlarged power plant.

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

With that out of the way though its time to take a look at the two new settlements. Firstly we've got the smaller of the two. Originally built to provide a lot of non agricultural jobs for the growing town of Tnatico, the industrial estate plans also included this small village to fill some of the jobs the site would provide. Although tiny in comparison to Tantico, this small settlement will probably grow over the years but for now remains little more than a housing estate.

The village of Chilton

Chilton Industrial Estate

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Oringial site of Ellington

The other settlement of Ellington is all together a lot bigger. Originally sited to provide homes for farm workers on the farms that had spread directly north of Chilton, this settlement has grown at a huge pace, easily outpacing any other settlement in Tantico in terms of growth per year. Now the second largest continuous settlement in the Principality (the first is Tantico town including the amalgamated town of Ketin), this settlement is also set to grow in the future, though more interest has been shown in new settlements in the area of Ellington than the growth of Ellington itself.

As with most of the settlements in Tantico, its mainly focused on agriculture, though the quick influx of new residents has meant that the town commercial centre grew quickly and has continued to grow as the settlement grew around it making it one of the largest commercial centres in the region (Tantico Town Centre where the Gregory Square is still holds that title).

As you can see in the several years the town was growing before I took the following picture it's definitely the fastest growing settlement in (end of year 2 in the pciture).

Since then we've had nearly double the growth and with it came industrial factory interest. As such Ellington Industrial Estate was given the go ahead and formed outside the growing town, providing even more growth.

That's all in regards to pictures of the town. At the moment there are concerns regarding powering of the gorwing area so hopefully next time we can see how that pans out.

For now though here's a population table of the region (OOC: I've done it as tiles rather than settlements for ease) ordered by size, including the total population at the bottom. As you can see although not detailed, each settlement has grown slightly since last update leaving us with a large amount of net growth across the region.

Settlement size by population:

Tantico Harbour area (including Henrick Point, Tepin Point and West Ketin): 15,924

Tantico (including Chilton): 5,821

Ellington:4,239

Ketin (not including West Ketin): 2,621

Henrick Bay:2,048

Total Population: 30,653

Finally I've also got this image of the region as it stands, showing only the populated areas.

Anyway that's all for now. There's talk of Tantico Harbour growing upwards or something along them lines so that might be interesting but until then.

Jay Goodrick

 

[vivapanda 422]

Interesting map. I like the cities' steady growth, I'm looking forward to see the entire region filled!

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

 

vivapanda: Thanks, I prefer steady growth than bam here's a city too. Yup havignt he entire region filled out will hopefully be a real nice sight and a definite goal for the future.

 

 

 

Part 7: Let the people drink (well some of them)

Right today's update focuses around vertical construction in Tantico Harbour. Having filled Harbour area to bursting point there was no where for construction to go but up. This required water (before now the town had been watered by a small series of neighbourhood towers but these were at breaking point). After a lengthy discussion with the Utilities officials the government decided to have the water pumped cleaned and pumped in from a inlet west of Tepin Point.

Named Clearwater due to the small traces of salt in the pooled water (interestingly enough given that its fed mostly by the sea), this small settlement was constructed around he water pump sat on the shore.

This water would then follow the roads network out of Clearwater itself and through the surrounding farmland until it reached Tantico Harbour itself.

Plans went well until we reached the river between Tepin Point and Tantico Harbour. Plans were brought forward including the building of the pipes elevated but that was quickly ignored due to the fact that ferries used the river. Eventually it was decided to just lay the reinforced pipes along the bottom of the river and keep a close eye on the maintenance of them.

Several long years later and the Tantico River pipe system was finished.

This meant that the project could continue full swing and soon most of the road network under the Tantico Harbour Industrial sector and around the initial ferry port were watered.

 This led to larger factories being viable and larger residential and commercial buildings being viable, not to mention the whole increase in land value due to running water. As such construction ran rampant as large parts of the west side of the Harbour grew upwards.

Industrial construction

Residential/Commercial construction

Below is a image of a developed section of the town. As you can see increased growth has also led to the opening of the Lady Francis Hospital. Named after a citizen that had recently been made a Lady by Prince Henrick, after helping Tantico's poor and needy since the days of initial growth. Initially by feeding and clothing the poor from her own possessions and later by setting up the first charity Francis's Food Kitchen, after a vote on the name of the Hospital, a landslide vote ended up in The Lady Francis Hospital and the hospital was built, made viable by the introduction of the running water.

That's all for this update, I will leave you with a overview of Tantico Harbour as it celebrates year 45, having increased in population by about 7k or so.

As for next time, with the increased population traffic issues are becoming a real headache. With the new Tantico Transport Department headed by Kyle Longton coming into full effect next year, hopefully these traffic issues can be addressed.

Till then

Jay Goodrick

[89James89 1,169]

Entry 8: Paving the way

Different from usual, its Kyle Lonton here instead of Jay. Been asked to update you all on the problems that Tantico was having with congestion and traffic accident's and how we've tried our best to combat that. The entry itself will concentrate around Tantico Harbour mostly but rest assured, other network improvements have been or are being implemented in the other parts of the region.

A good place to start would be a congestion map for the worst place, Tantico Harbour and town centre.

(OOC: This is also my first attempt at a cross border image as it shows both Tantico Harbour and Tantico Town).

As you can see its pretty backed up in places around here. Unfortunately the town still relied solely on the old streets and the lack of traffic lights and the bad general condition of the more traveled streets were causing issues. Below you can see the proposed plan.  

As you can see the plan incorporates the major areas of issue as well as providing a road that will eventually stretch from the ferry terminal all the way up to the centre of Ellington (the primary road closest to the graveyard at the top of the image). The other primary roads will each lead to busy places (in this case, Tantico Town's busy commercial district and the Ketin area of Tantico Town). These will then be supported by the secondary roads, generally helping to relieve the worst traffic issues rather than leading anywhere in specific.

Fast forward a year or so, and all these plans have been approved and implemented. Here's the updated traffic map I want to show you to highlight the affect these have had on the congestion of the area. As you can see its a hell of a lot better.

After the roads were finished other area were looked at for improvement. Given the heavy increase in population over the recent years, the ferry route between Tantico Harbour and Henrick Point, popular with recreation seekers looking to spend the day at Henrick Bay's beaches, had become overloaded with pedestrians. Add to this the rising complaints for having to have to walk from the Henrick Point terminal to the beaches, a new car ferry link has been implemented alongside the passenger one. All in all the improvement was rather cost effective given the huge use its seen in the few years since its opening.

Tantico Harbour Ferry Terminal. You can also see continued redevelopment along the coastline, in this case high wealth apartments.

The Henirck Point Ferry Terminal. No apartments here but the ever growing classy shopping district, with its well kept walk ways and the Royal Mansion are also big draws for Henrick Point.

With this done that was it for the time being for improvements in Tantico Town. With the new roads though, my department has been testing some new road maps for the area. Here's one that was made for the area around the Tantico Harbour Ferry Terminal.

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Finally for this update is a look at some of Tantico Harbour, showing how wealth, building size and different zoning tupes are all thrown in together.

Anyway, join me again next time when we take a look at the road as it leaves Tantico Town and heads towards Ellington and what improvements and growth its brought with it.

Till then

Kyle Longton