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

[Samerton 833]

Looking good! It's nice to see a town which isn't full of grids.

[Schulmanator 5,815]

That's some serious traffic they had. I think the improvements made a noticeable impact.

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

 

Samerton: Thanks and yes, natural growth does solve the boring grid issues.

 

Schulmanator: Thanks and yes they did make a very noticeable improvement. In fact, the Harbour area (or at least the area that the update covered) is completely free of traffic issues.

 

 

 

Entry 9:  Road Trip

Kyle Longton back again for this entry. Today ladies and gentlemen were going ona road trip. Not a hell of a lot of talking from me this time but first a bit of background as to why your son to find a road seemingly driving into the middle.

A little while back, while we were discussing the the road from Tantico to Ellington a group of Geologists that had been surveying the areas surrounding Tantico had discovered that vast deposits of coal could be found in the hills behind the town. Seeing the potential in vast profit from mining the coal it was decided that an, initially small, operation would be set up in the hills closest to the town. As such it was quickly decided that the proposed main road through the existing regional development would terminate at the time being at the newly proposed mines. This update follows a road trip along the road through to Salen Mines.

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Well first off we start at the ferry in Tantico Harbour. On a slightly different note, the observant among you may realise that Tantico Elementary used to be where those new commercial buildings are.

Well fear not, were not neglecting our kids (unlike some of the buildings int he picture below). A new much larger St Alex's Elementary School has been built in a more central position.

Anyway back to the road trip. This is the image as we leave the harbour area and move into what could classed as the suburbs of Tantico Town.

Another picture as we leave the suburbs, as you can see the area is continously growing as expansion develops into farmland.

After driving through farmland for a little while, the road takes us through, what could be classed as the CBD of Ellington.

Next we move back into farmland as we head west from Ellington and away from what this journal has shown before. This is Heltan Village, a tiny settlement between Ellington and new town of Riverbend. Heltan itself is little more than a small farming community though it does have a small truck stop outside the village itself.

Now before Heltan VIllage developed the farmers took to building their dwellings on their land. Old Man Ken's farm is one such farm shown here as we leave Heltan.

Next up on the trip is Riverbend. A fast growing settlement built for the sole purpose of providing a small dock to transport the coal mined from the nearby hills to Tantico Harbour. Shown here is the single pier for the small ships to load up. Interestingly Riverbend is also one of three towns to have a car ferry in it.

Leaving Riverbend we find ourselves at the end of the road. Terminating at the small recently settled  village of Salen, built for the mine workers. You will also notice that as this settlement is new, not much farming has had a chance to develop along the normally farm lined roads.

Finally just a small picture of the entrances to the still small mines. Over the coming years both these mines and Riverbend are expected to see a large amount of development as the coal mining takes off.

That's all for this entry. Hope you liked the trip along Tantico's principal road.

Till next time

Kyle Longton

 

OOC: Also made it into Ben's Top Ten so thanks to everyone who's shown support so far (both views and comments are all appreciated).

 

[Schulmanator 5,815]

They are still making good progress. And I like the new school. I'll bet there's plenty of learning going on there.

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

Schulmanator:Yep, lots of progress and lots and lots of learning going on (though it may be a good idea for the developers to learn that half the high wealth buildings they've built get abandoned after a while). Lets hope it can continue.

 

Entry 10: A lazy Sunday afternoon

Well Jay Goodrick back again. Just thought I'd post a small entry today. Just some random pictures of the region to break up all the development entries.

As their annotated I'll just show the pictures.

Well that's all for now. Sorry this entry doesn't have much talking in it, were pretty busy here in the office, talk about providing more water to area or the regions and increasing the size of the mines and Riverbend as well as smaller issues.

Anyway until then

Jay Goodrick

 

[FreewayofFlight 41]

Looks like a great place you got going! The only thing I'd suggest is a more streamlined road network, other than that you are doing fantastic!

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

 

 

FreewayOfFlight:Thanks and yes the road network is a bit all over the place (though I reckon it looks more intersting and nicer than a grid layout personally). Rest assured though there are plans to alleviate some of the other congestion issues throughout the region.

 

 

 

 

Entry 11: Is that track I see?

Jay Goodrick here with a update regarding the mines over at Salen. Recently a lot of expansion has been made by the Salen Mining Company (SMC) regarding their coal mines. This new company has recently bought out the previous owner of the mines with a big eye towards expanding them.

With the Prince's son Gregory II as a major shareholder in the company, he was able to get the government to review the companies plans. Below are a summarized copy of them.

As you can see the plan would be for several more mining shafts as well as a large coal plant to power the surrounding areas, as well as the mines themselves. Although this would have a rather large impact on the surrounding area, it was eventually agreed that the power plant would be partly state owned, and in return the plans could go ahead. This would allow the state to have access to cheap power for the surrounding areas, and the SMC to expand its operations.

Several years later this huge power plant was finished and started producing power from a portion of the mined coal, now in plentiful supply with the two new shafts.

Slowly however, it became apparent that the manual method of drawing the coal to the surface and then transporting it by truck to the power plant or Riverbend harbour, was rather less than adequate. With this in mind the company returned with another planning proposal, this time for a small railroad, which small coal trains could travel along and down into the shafts, providing a much quicker way of getting the coal around.

Seeing how this would benefit the area in the long run, the council approved the plans and soon new rails were laid around the mines in Salen.

Around the power plant itself a small dumping yard was built, where the carts could dump the coal to either be picked up by lorries and taken to Riverbend, or used by the power plant itself.

This is where were at now. The power plant is only being used to a small part of its capacity, but with plans to run power lines through to Riverbend to power the growing town there, its probably set to be used more in the future.

Also on the proposal block is a main freight line running from the power plant/coal storage area to Riverbend Harbour for faster freight transport but we'll have to see about that next time.

For now though here's a final image of Salen, with the growing worker housing estates provided by the SMC.

That's all for now though. Join me next time for more news of the growing region.

Till then

Jay Goodrick

 

[89James89 1,169]

Entry 12: SMC Expansion

This entry carries on pretty much from where we left off last time but first some very important and not so brilliant news.

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Unfortunately Prince Henrick has fallen ill. Also hampered by his old age the Prince has handed down his royal position to his son, Gregory. Now Gregory had never really been that interested in being a Head Of State, himself more interested in business and commercial enterprises (hence the fact that hes the majority shareholder of the Salen Mining Company) so has announced his abdication of the throne to his younger brother Prince Oliver Henrick Kerin.

As such, although Prince Henrick is still technically Head Of State his youngest son is acting Head Of State for him.  

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Meanwhile, moving back to the  where we left off last time, the SMC went ahead with their proposal to introduce the rail road from Salen through to the port in Riverbend. A meeting was arranged between Tantico Transportation Department (TTD) and the SMC where this proposal was shown.

After reviewing the proposal and several compromises between SMC and TTD regarding a few changes that would need to be made, the plan was approved and construction started in Riverbend to level out the land for the Harbour expansion. Around a year later this is what the site looked like, the housing previously inhabiting the space, having been relocated to the otherside of the town.

Moving on a bit and this is what came of the plans and the construction. As you can see the jetties were moved about a bit and a smaller pier was also added next to the car ferry. Other than that the plans seemed to have gone ahead as, well, planned without much of a hitch. Also, as the harbour expansion took place before the Coal Line (as the railway has been labeled) was installed the SMC took it upon themselves to pay for road paving in Riverbend and Salen, meaning that both these small settlements have the best transit network in the entire region (much to the annoyance of the TTD, though in all fairness they didn't have to pay for the roads and SMC is also responsible for the upkeep of the railway line). Below is a overview of the completed project in Riverbend.

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Now regarding the Coal Line itself, the railway has a total of foru stations on it. Salen Freight station (unchanged from the above entry as the railway joins the mine railroads just before the sidings and freight station). The Salen Passenger Station at the end of Station Street shown here.

Then moving onto Riverside, we have the Riverside Passenger Station and the Riverside Harbour Freight Station, where the track terminates at some sidings for storage and offloading.

Now as for the running of the track its a simple shuttle service with a engine at either end of the train. Also the trains are both freight and passenger ones with the last two carriages being the passenger ones meaning that there's no worries about not being able to pass a train at a station anywhere along the track.

All in all the system itself seems to be working fine and is being looked at closely by the TTD who are monitoring it as to how usable it is. Seems like they may be considering more railways in the future then.

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Unfortunately they've got bigger problems at the moment. With the increase in freight out of Riverbend and into Tantico Harbour, the harbour itself has become too crowded to function properly without a proper harbour present. As such the TTD are currently drawing up plans for a multi million simoleon project to revamp it. Still in the development stage at the moment though, it may not be long before we see something happening.

Then on top of that they have the growing traffic issues around the Ketin district of Tantico Harbour, what with its lack of roads and all. Buses have been mentioned but I think it may take a little bit more than that.

With these points in mind I think its safe to say that we'll probably be hearing from the TTD in the coming entries but for now, here's a Regional Transit Map that they've just released showing all the major roads and other transport links in the region.

Anyway until next time

Jay Goodrick

 

 

[Luiz P. Romanini 132]

Getting better and better. Great job for a vanilla CJ!

[kj3400 178]

This little region is getting bigger slowly. I like it.

[nas786 104]

wow the high tech industry came alot quicker than I expected.  I like the farms too, I hope they don't all get wiped out.  Interested to see how the rail lines develop throughout the region.

[Schulmanator 5,815]

They must have a great economy because they sure are making rapid progress.

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

Luiz P. Romanini: Thanks and I'm glad your enjoying watching it grow and me and the CJ improve! Let's hope I can keep it up.

 

 

kj3400: Thanks and yes were are getting bigger. Slow and steady wins the race and all.

 

 

nas786: Well, a lot of the areas that have high tech have had education present for a long time before they had water, which I think, coupled with the slow growth of the areas and the number of parks around have led to the high tech jobs being developed. The only trouble is that this has led to a lot of High Wealth residents moving in, but the nightmare that is Tantico's traffic system at the moment has meant that there has been a lot of commute issues.

As for the farms I wouldn't worry about that. The agriculture board has already started to grow the farming community outwards in response to increased food needs for the region.

The train however is another thing as the single line is privately owned. Add to that the way that the TTD needs to get itself in gear, state owned rail may be a little while off yet. Nothing to say that the private one wont develop though.

 

 

Schulmanator: Well the small country has been gaining immigrants from around Smearth for a long time now, they just didn't have anywhere to build until the vertical construction started. This coupled with the heavy investment on the SMC's behalf has led to the growth booms we've been seeing.

 

 

Entry 13: Letting More People Drink!

Well as the title says, this update will be about the introduction of water to Tantico Town, in a effort to house all the sims coming into the region. First though we've got some more royal news. With Prince Henrick still ill and not getting any younger, he has finally passed the mantle over to his youngest son Oliver.

Oliver, at the age of 38 will be the first successor to the throne in Tantico and as his father before him, has chosen to bear the title of Prince rather than King, in keeping with the title his father retained throughout his reign. In recognition of these two events (the stepping down of Henrick and the coronation of Oliver) as well as the planned growth of Tantico Town, several buildings were constructed to mark the event's.

First we have Prince Henrick Hospital. Built in Tantico Town to provide health care to the fast growing population, this building was named after the former Prince Henrick won by a landslide in a vote as to who should give their name to the new hospital. Although this is fourth area/building  in the region to be named after him (Henrick Point, Henrick Bay, Statue of his majesty Prince Henrick and now Prince Henrick Hospital), all agree that with what hes done for the region, there isn't anyone more deserving.

With the coronation of Prince Oliver though, it was decided that the planned College would be named Prince Oliver College in commemoration of the first coronation to occur in the Principality Of Tantico. The largest educational building in the entire country, this College is sure to help get the Tanticoan's schooled in many areas and given it central location in the growing city, will probably see a lot of use.

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These two buildings opening up led to large amounts of sims wanting to move into Tantico Town, wanting to benefit from the health care and education. Unfortunately there wasn't anywhere for them to actually move into so plans were made for some large scale expansion, mainly vertically.

To allow for this though water was needed so a small pump facility was constructed at the end of the bay.

With the pump up and running the pipe system was laid under the roads to provide water to the busiest and more important parts of Tantico Town. These included the new Hosptial and College as well as the Gregory Square Commercial District. This is a image of the initially planned piping system for Tantico Town.

With the water flowing in more vertical and higher wealth sims moved out of the Harbour area and into the cleaner area in Tantico Town.  Many developments occurred around the watered areas with row houses and apartment blocks seen previously in Tantico Harbour being built around the important buildings. This led to the expansion of the pipe layout as more development spread outwards.

Below you can see one of the redeveloped areas around the upgraded car and passenger Ferry Port. This area used to be a mix of industrial and commercial with a bit of residential, but the developers and the Tantico Commerce Board worked together to create a small riverside shopping district, taking full advantage of the traffic network present (this road leading from the Ferry Port to Gregory Square is one of several new short road upgrades that the TTD has carried out recently across the city) and making this one of the most expensive commercial development areas in the region (Gregory Square just north holds that claim).

With the huge amount of growth (Tantico Towns population has doubled since the redevelopment went ahead), the existing wind farms weren't able to keep up with the demand. In stepped the same company that owned the Tensea Power Station in Tantico Harbour and a short while later, Fields Power Station was commissioned and built in between Tantico Town and Ellington, with a mind to future expansion and providing power to both settlements.

For now though the single power plant of the same design as the ones in Tantico Harbour provided the perfect place to build up a industrial estate to help with growing unemployment in Tantico. As such this is the current state of the Fields Industrial Estate and Power Plant, though growth is definitely set to happen in the near future.

With all the pieces in place the growth as mentioned above has been both fast and big, showing no signs of stopping any time soon. Below is a image of what the area currently looks like, 38 years since the its founding, around Coronation College and Prince Henrick Hospital, as apartment blocks and towers meet suburban neighbuorhood sprawl.

Finally for this growth update here's a regional overview of the area and a population and job breakdown for the region, both provided by the newly formed Tantico Census Department (TCD).

Settlement size by population:

Tantico Harbour area

 (including Henrick Point, Tepin Point and West Ketin):

Pop: 32,206, Com: 4,685, Ind: 7,703

Tantico Town

 (including Chilton):

Pop: 19,794, Com: 2,745, Ind: 3,456

Ellington:

Pop: 8,347, Com: 2,182, Ind: 1,622

Ketin

 (not including West Ketin):

Pop: 5.504, Com: 1,253, Ind: 1,734

Riverside:

Pop: 3,036, Com: 760, Ind: 1,320

Henrick Bay:

Pop: 2,892, Com: 751, Ind:454

Salen Mines:

Pop: 2,122, Com: 234, Ind: 1,263

Clearwater:

Pop: 523, Com: 59, Ind: 216

Heltan Corridor:

Pop: 329, Com: 74, Ind: 499

Tantico City Bay:

Pop: 0, Com: 0, Ind: 291

Totals

 Pop: 74,753, Com: 11,743, Ind: 18,567

As you can see from the Census, there's a large amount of growth int he population but he available jobs are lagging behind badly. Also of worry is the slow growth of the farmland as its the regions main source of food so that will have to be addressed at some point.

Anyway, we'll have to see what happens next time as I have to sit in on a TTD meeting in several hours so need to finish this entry here.

Till then

Jay Goodrick.

 

[89James89 1,169]

Entry 14: Yon Wurzel Tree!

Well its Jay back again to give you an update on whats happening her in Tantico. To put it briefly a lot of things. Basically when Prince Henrick left the throne the Principality wasn't in the best of state. True he was loved by the populace (well mostly), but in the later years of his rule a number of issues had been slowly creeping up.

This entry will focus on the issue of rising unemployment as the newly crowned, Prince Oliver tries to short it out.

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First off is a bit of a fill in as to what has been  happening employment wise over the last few years. Basically, whilst the Principality was in the midst of a residential boom, with people moving in in droves (thanks mainly to the vertical growth in Tantico City), the industrial economy hadn't grown at all really. In fact that last real growth of industry in Tantico was the development of Salen MInes and Riverbend.

Due to this increase in population and stagnation of jobs, a large amount of buildings were being built and then abandoned as jobs were too hard to come buy (not that the traffic helped this but more on that later). This was also leading to population divides with the gap between the employed population and unemployed population rising constantly whilst the food production was quickly outpaced by the growth and imports were needed, causing the economy to crash slowly as more and more of the countries income was spent on food.

All in all, not a situation any monarch wanted.

As such a state of emergency was called, stopping nearly all residential growth until the economy could be sorted out. Recent population censuses showed that there was about 70% of the population at working age, and only employment for two thirds of these. Something that the Prince wanted to quickly sort out.

Offering subsidiaries for industrial growth (mainly centred around the growth of agriculture) meant that over the last few years, industrial growth has really taken off and although it still isn't fully solved the deficit has nearly been halved. More importantly though a lot less money is being spent on importing food now thanks to the huge growth in farms. This means that more money can be pumped into other areas that need it (such as transit infrastructure).

Anyway below are some photo's I've got of the newly developed areas that are growing up here in Tantico.

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Lets start off in Tantico Harbour, where all the areas of commercial that didn't have access to mains water were given the access and were quickly redeveloped into larger buildings. During this time several of the abandoned mid rise residential towers were also torn down and redeveloped as commercial buildings. Shown here is a image of some redevelopment down in the borough of Ketin, namely around Beacon Square, as larger shops move in.

Moving further out we get to the, still purely industry with a tiny amount of commercial, area east of Tantico Town. Mainly farmland this area contains a small inlet which has recently been developed into a small harbour to help provide jobs and easier transport links (what with the growing congestion into Tantico City) to Tantico Harbour.

Next two photos are from the Heltan Corridor. This strip of lightly developed land has since been expanded agriculturally with a large number of farms developing via feeder streets from the Pr1 road (the road that connects most of Tantico's settlements, Pr standing for Primary). With this growth and not to mention growth around Riverbend and (as you'll see in a minute) Salen Mines, the Truck Stop also got an expansion with several more shops and cafes added.

Finally for this part of the update I've got a photo from a industrially developing Salen Mines. Already an annoyance to the TTD due to the fact that they seem to be able to actually provide the small town with a better infrastructure (the rail and already existing road upgrades), they gone and got citizens in other parts of the Principality even more annoyed at the TTD by once again, upgrading the busy roads in town. I'm hoping that it'll finally make the TTD step it up a notch but I'm not going to hold my breath.

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As to highlight all the problems with the traffic this is a copy of a report that just hit my desk. TTD definitely have their work cut out (though quite why these motorists are choosing to go east, north then west when they could just go north I've got no idea.

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Anyway, apparently, with the economy slowly getting back on track the Prince has turned his attention towards the traffic issues, meaning we should definitely see some improvements to that soon.

Lastly though here's a updated overview of the region, showing all the agricultural growth.

Till next time.

Jay Goodrick

[Shortsonfire 67]

Wow you have some nice spread out growth James. Tantico harbor is looking really great. A whole lot of industrial going on. Your update from Friday showed that you have a population of 74k, which is double the amount of commercial and industrial jobs. This is normal, since you're playing vanilla SC4d. I've read that the game believes that each residency is a single income home.

Heres a quote from thread by A Nonny Moose explaining it.

I've always believed the number of Sims is about double the number of jobs. Momma doesn't work, and there is a fuzz of kids who don't work either. The whole thing fits nicely into fuzzy logic, and I am pretty sure this is what was intended. If you have 5,000 jobs (total) you need at least 10,000 Sims. This rule of thumb works for me, and I use it all the time.

Its nice to see a bit of park/plaza growth amidst all the industrial workings. Still have lots of ocean pollution though.

[Akfr 1]

Amazing. I hope to know more of Tantico.

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

Shortsonfire: Thanks and cheers for clearing that up for me, I just thought I'd done something to really bring in the resident's and was worried about the job count (plus a few buildings in Tantico Harbour were being abandoned but I think this was down to traffic and commute rather than lack of jobs). Still a growing industry and economy is always a good thing (plus I like my farms) so we'll still try and keep it at around the level we have it now ( I think its around 2/3 of the pop in work or something like that).

 

Yer the parks are slowly filtering in as the area is improved. Still that pollution doesn't look like its in a hurry to go anywhere just yet, though the hopefully upcoming Harbour redevelopment program may help, who knows.

 

 

Akfr: Wow, thanks. I hope you continue to drop in as we continue to grow.

Entry 15: Road to success!

Well today we have a entry from our newly appointed Head of Transport Charles Heywood. After the  whole debacle regarding the lax running of the department previously, a new official was appointed to take charge of the apartment and, working closely with both the Department of Finance and the Prince himself has already made a dent in Tantico's growing traffic issues.

Anyway other than the coming transport news I have some quick news first of all. Just a quick look at some expansion around the region. First of all is the redevelopment of Chilton Industrial Estate (ironically now fully surrounded by Tantico City suburbs). Initially unconnected to the main water supply, the continued needed growth of industry has meant that it was quickly decided to incorporate it into the pipe system.  

As such the growth was instantaneous, as more advanced companies bought out the older factories. Below is an image of the redevelopment of the industrial estate. Note also the planting of trees to separate it from the growing suburbs.

The other photo that I have shows an Ariel view of the developments that have happened in the Heltan Corridor. With the relaxing of the ban on residential development a small number of rural villages have sprung up around Heltan.

This image just shows the placement of the viallges and there respective names.

Anyway with them two images out of the way it's time to hand you over to our new Head of Transport.

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Charles Heywood here,bringing you up to date on the long overdue improvements to several of Tantico's road systems.

Now when I took over there were areas of the region where the traffic was terrible. Sure the small road upgrade a while back had sorted out a few of the issues but no where near enough in the urban areas. Sure the rural roads were fine but in Tantico City and Ellington the traffic on all the streets was a nightmare. As such road network upgrades were first on the list for these two areas.

Below is a series of traffic data images showing the before and after congestion as the road improvements take affect.

Starting off int he Harbour area we can see that, whilst the old road system took care of traffic int he centre of the Harbour there were still a number of issues around the previous improvements.

As such, we spent a lot of money  upgrading a number of key roads and junctions. It's not perfect but as you can see its a big improvement.

Now moving onto the Town, were made aware that the previous improvements appeared to have ran out of steam here and that the only roads really present led to Gregory Square and the main roadway for the region, out towards Ellington.

As you can see afterwards its a hell of a lot better. Again not perfect but we didn't have a unlimited budget and still needed to do some work in Ellington after here so it has to do for now. Still a big improvement.

Finally we moved onto Ellington where there was the least amount of issues to deal with. What with it still growing though, issues were likely to crop up in the future.  Also of note which I don't think has been mentioned before was that before I took the office, my predecessor had seen fit to incorporate Ellington into the Principalities, Ferry network. You can see the dock on the north shore line just before the inlet starts.

Still improvements were made which the town council were very happy about and most of the traffic issues were sorted out for the growing town.

Anyway that's all I've got for you for now, Were still in talks about adding another mass transit system to Tantico, with buses taking most of the votes at the moment. Then on top of this we have the improvements to the Harbour area that we've been intending to do for the last few years and I've had proposals for a couple of bridges to link the harbour with Tepin Point and Henrick Point.

All in all a lot to come from us here in the TTD.

Till next time.

Charles Heywood

[Titanicbuff 1,262]

Great job.

[Schulmanator 5,815]

It looks like Oliver has what it takes to set things right and get the economy going again.

[Benedict 3,119]

Great to have another vanilla CJ in this forum. And interesting that we both have a city called Ellington.

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

 

titanicbuff:Thanks.

 

Schulmanator: Thanks and yes lets hope he does continue to have what it takes as some parts of the small nation still need it.

 

Benedict: Thanks and I'm glad your enjoying my vanilla CJ. Yes it is a bit odd that we both have a town named Ellington. By the time I'd read it in your CJ though, it was a bit too late to change it. Also whats stranger still is that its the second biggest town in both our CJ's.

 

Entry 16: A Mosaic for all!

Just a small update for you all today. A intrepid photographer has sent us in this tall Panoramic of Tantico City from coast to coast, showing several of the cities key buildings.

Other than that the plans for the bus routes are being finalised so that should be ready to show you soon.

Till then

Jay Goodrick

(OOC: I hope the image isn't too long as its my first go at a Mosaic. Also hope that I hid the cross tile border well enough)

 

[_marsh_ 1,118]

I like everything going on here so dar. Keep up the good work

[Shortsonfire 67]

Woah, very nice mosaic! I see some I-HT in there, so you must have some smart sims. I've been loving me some cross-tile mosaics as well, and yours is pretty well hidden. I'd have to guess that its where theres that crosswalk looking thing in one of the center streets. It looks really good, if thats the border.

Tantico is developing quite well considering its strictly vanilla!

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

_marsh_: Thanks and I hope you continue to like it as we progress!

Shortsonfire: Thanks and yep we've had primary/elementary and secondary/highschools in the city for a while before water was added so the high tech growth was pretty big at that point (pretty much all of the isolated blocks of indutry went high tech and a lot of the rest wen't manufacturing, only the Harbour area has remained dirty in the area in and around Tantico City.).

 

As for the mosaic your right, the crosswalk in the two streets is exactly where it crosses so well done. Damn nessecary road connections for cross tile connections giving it away .

 

Entry 17: Natural Marshes

Just another small update while the now finalised bus routes are implemented and installed around the region. This will just concentrate on several more areas of growth that Tantico has experienced over the last few years.

Starting off in Salem Mines we can see that they've had a lot of housing growth since the zoning ban was lifted, expanding west across the tracks and expanding the shopping area of the town.  Mainly due to the continued growth of the mines and the agriculture around the small town.

With this growth and continued tree clearances across the region, a new, environmentally conscious compnay moved into the region. Named Sustainable Forestry Inc, this company does exactly what it says it does. Planting several forests throughout the region on bought out farmland, this company aims to help Tanitco's environment as well as providing continued lumber for buildings and material. As you can see from the photo below of the companies first plantations, there using a tree non native to Tantico. This is the Blue Fir (which contrary to its name isn't actually blue), Native to the former country of the initial settlers, these trees grow to harvest-able height at a lot faster rate than Tantico's native flora, so, while others tree are soon set to be trialed at the moment te plantations are all Blue Firs.

Here's the photo of the first plantations, situated around Salem Mines to see if they can help combat the increased industrial growth.

Keeping with the environmental theme, we now move onto Tantico's first recognised nature reserve. Having been found to contain a small number of bird species native to this salt water marshland (including the Giant Crested Woodparrot and the Flamincock) as well as many other species of wildlife and strangely enough, home to the rare Marshland Llama's, we give you the Tantico Marshland Nature Reserve.

Situated just west of Tantico Town, the immediate marshland and surrounding area were all designated part of the Nature Reserve. Below you can see a overview of the area with the small road dictating where the nature reserve stretches too. As you an see, development and farming has begun in the area with two small towns trying to capitalise on the tourism in the area. The one bottom left is Jenkins and the other one which we'll see in a minute, is Marshton.

As said above this is Marshton. Considered the better of the two small torusit villages, this small community are mostly employed by the nature reserve or the Marshland Llama rest stop (can be seen at the entrance to the village. As you an see there's plenty of places here to enjoy a pick-nick while visiting the marshes and several educational facilities for school trips and visitors alike, as well as the much loved Marshland Hovercraft Tours [the small jetty to the north of the town].

Now from marshland to urban sprawl as we move back into Tantico Town. FIrstly we have the new stadium for the Tantico United Football Club. The main team here in Tantico, having represented the country in a small number of the less recognised Smearth footballing events, it was decided to give the team their own proper stadium (instead of having to train and play at Coronation College). Situated on the edge of the town this is already becoming a weekend favourite of a large number of city living sims. Eager to support their team or just yell at the ref.

Still in Tantico Town, we move onto what is quickly becoming the best place for shopping in Tantico. Due to increased prices and space issues that Gregory Square and the other larger, more centralised commercial districts were suffering from, this small commercial strip, on the edge of town took advantage of the nearby Coronation College and the new and growing football stadium and saw a whole lot of vertical development in a small amount of time, even seeing Tantico's first large hotel (the building that looks slightly like a palace). Still set to increase in size over the next few years College Road Shooping Cnetre is one to watch.

(OOC: Also happens to be one of my favourite shots so far in the journal)

Other than this I leave you with a current overview so you can get your bearings and see all the growth that we haven't looked at yet.

Until next time

Jay Goodrick

 

 

[vivapanda 422]

Despite not having much custom content I think of your CJ as one of the best around here!

[Schulmanator 5,815]

I am glad they set aside a natural area. They will find that to be an asset in the future.

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

vivapanda: Wow thanks and yep no custom content or mods at all. I'm really enjoying it myself and I'm glad you are too though I'm not sure its one of the best lol  .

 

Schulmanator: Yes that's the main hope. As the areas around it grow the marshes will remain a quiet haven for wildlife and sims alike.

 

Entry 18: Bus Trip (Part One)

Jay here with some good news. TTD seems to have truely got their act together under the new minister as the long promised and overdue bus routes have finally been added to our growing settlements. Having recieved this route map of the Tantico National Express Bus Route, I decided that the best way to show you the new buses was to take a trip on one of them, photographing each stop along the way.

 Now although there's a few different bus routes around the region, given that we've got the route map for it and its the main route, traveling on the national route makes sense to me. With this in mind I made my way to the Ketin Bus Depot and waited for my bus to begin it's journey.

Here's a image of the Depot. As you can see its pretty small at the moment and generally only acts as a large terminal for the National Express and the Tantico City Link. There's also a small area to park several coaches and a garage for maintenance.

Now lets head through the stops, first one is Ketin's Primary School.

Then onto the first commercial area that the coach stops at.

Next is Sandy Way where development gets higher as move towards the waterfront commercial area.

First however is this high tech industrial estate at the end of Sandy Way. The dilapidated building in the background is a bit of an annoyance for the city council but, given that it houses nearly 800 citizens despite its looks, they're not prepared to do anything about it yet

Finally for this first leg of the bus journey we reach Tantico Harbour Ferry Terminal. One of the growing transport hubs for the region.

Finally though we've got this image of some commercial development growing ever higher. This tall building is currently the largest in the whole region and, together with its smaller neighbours provides about 1.5k of the 7k commercial jobs in the Harbour area. The commercial minister states that he hopes to see more business invest like this in the near future.

That's all for the first part of our journey. Join me next time as we continue to move inland.

Till then

Jay Goodrick

 

 

[Schulmanator 5,815]

Nice route map. Looks like you have an extensive transit system in place here.

[Dr. Boom 37]

You make Vanilla SC4 look awesome. The sprawl is coming along nicely.

[Dannibee 138]

Really loving your journal, it makes me want to go back and play the game vanilla for once. You've got natural growth done right.