Bantha Reale

[Wildkittyv1 1]

 

Edit: I have to abandon this temporarily. I thought I was going to have more time to play, but a bunch of real life stuff happened very quickly and I will not have the time to play, do these posts, and mess around with mods to keep it interesting. My apologies to anyone who was anticipating further work on this, but I have other things I have to tend to. Hopefully I can clear them up quickly and get back to this, but it has to be shelves for the time being.

 

Thank you anyway to all those who took their time to look in here.

 

Peace

-Ryan

[Wildkittyv1 1]

Welcome to Bantha Reale

 

Hello and welcome!

 

Again, we'll start off by addressing the map, which is the Cape Newenham, AK map by flamesrock, and I'm concentrating on the bay area on the eastern edge of the map. I've already named some of the cities, but I'm only going to be working on one to start -- Bantha Kal. I'm not going to go into my method for naming the cities just yet, but I likely will explain it all at some point. So let's take a look at the city we have to work with.

 

Bantha Reale Region Map

 

Bantha Kal City Map

 

So here's the tile I'm going to be working with to start. I'll be starting development east of the river and working my way north and west to connect to Kala Drez, which will be the main agriculture area for this region. I'm going to see if I can develop without any agriculture in this city to start, but if I have to I will temporarily place a small community near the train tracks and highway which will be connecting to that city. This area isn't quite to my liking, so a bit of terraforming is in order, and the first order of business is getting rid of that small pond by the river as it's eating up space for planned future development.

 

So let's get to it!

 

Early Terraforming by the River

 

Alright, so we've gotten rid of that pesky little pond, but I raised the land a bit more than intended.

 

No worries!

 

There's that convenient hill on the west side of the river which will serve as a convenient landing point for a bridge I intended to have crossing the river. I also intend to widen the river along most of its length to make room for ferry terminals, seaports, and other water amenities, so it's a happy little mistake. I know I've heard that somewhere before.

 

Let's get to placing down our initial network of roads.

 Roads for the Commercial District

 

In this little composite you can see the initial layout of what will be the main artery of the eastern part of Bantha Kal. This is almost an exact duplicate of the layout I originally had, but it has been made wider. Originally, the center section was only a 6x6 and the edge partitions were 8x6, but they had been widened as I realized how quickly land gets devoured as your city grows, especially with some of the footprint sizes of certain ploppables. A trench was also dug for a sunken highway and leveling work was done on the edges for the exit and entrance ramps and ease of adding aesthetic pieces.

 

 

 

 

Album of the creation of this area: https://imgur.com/a/vXilo#0

 

Here, a bit more of the area has been done and some roundabouts added to set the cornerstones of further developments. Entrance and exit ramps have been added, but I misjudged my space (this happens quite often) and went back near the end of this play session to extend the roads and lengthen the transition with less abrupt curves and termination.

Let's move on to the first residential, commercial, and industrial developments of Bantha Kal.

 

First Zoning

 

Album of the creation of this area: https://imgur.com/a/LlksL#0

 

So here are the initial layouts for the beginning urban and industrial areas for Bantha Kal. Again, the residential/commercial area is a close approximation of the layout I used in my initial city, but with a little more room and forethought implemented to make room for expansion and through-roads. The industrial zoning is all temporary, as I plan on overhauling that area extensively rather soon, but it will serve as a placeholder and a good place for jobs to get people moving in. Down in that same area we have our public utilities buildings, including some new-fangled technology which basically solves every need the Sims could potentially have at this point. Some of it doesn't look cheap. Mayor Voss must've had deep pockets when he started this little place.

 

The green space between everything also serves as room for expansion and integration of parks, bike paths, walkways, and other facilities to keep the residents of Bantha Kal pleased. They don't have much right now: a few schools, the basic public services like a hospital, fire department, and police station; but it'll get them on track and sets the stage for things to come.

Entry Summary

With that, I finished up my first play session after doing a bit of rework on the highway, a bit more land leveling, and adding a few major roads (major for now) off to the east to serve as building blocks for future plans. Things are a bit blocky at the moment, but it's definitely something I intend on straying from and experimenting with more interesting street layouts. Most of this is designed in such a way to simply replicate the original build I had, but reworked slightly to be more spacious and ready for additions and improvements. I've got more experience under my belt and I understand the pieces and capabilities better, so I'll definitely be moving further away from "grid city" style building as time progresses and the city develops.

 

 

Non-Composite Images: https://imgur.com/a/plJ7d#0

 

Finally, above is a composite of a zoomed out view of the revamped highway ramps and the small addition to the east alongside a view of the developed area so far. Bantha Kal still doesn't have any residents, but the doors are open and the lots are waiting to be filled. This was the end of the first play session and I got down most of what I needed to move along from here. I have some areas measured out for specific buildings I had down previously, and have some roads in place to lead to other areas. Again, I'll be getting away from grid-like building very shortly, as in my original city this was where I started to diverge.

 

Anyway, thank you for reading and I hope you come back. It's not much at the time, but Bantha Kal will be expanding rapidly in the near future. I may make another update tonight as there's not much else to do with the snowstorm hitting New England, and that's ample opportunity to play a bit more.

 

I'm not sure if the readers want more of the roleplaying thing or just a straight dictation of what I'm doing with building the city, so let me know. I enjoy doing some creative writing, so if it's something that's wanted I can come up with something and I can have some fun with it. If that's the case, I'll come back and edit the posts already made to fit into whatever storyline is developed. Same thing goes with the writing style. I can be straight forward or try to get creative, just let me know what you'd like and I'll do my best. Also, I'm aware that I'm sort of using "cheaty" buildings in terms of public services, but those may be temporary and if I do go the roleplaying route then I'll mess around and try to do something interesting. I do want to have a dirty part of this city, but I also plan on moving all dirty industry to a separate tile like I plan with agriculture.

 

That's enough though, we'll see!

 

Peace

-Ryan

[Titanicbuff 1,262]

off to a good start- the tiling is confusing but other then that it looks good.

[Schulmanator 5,815]

I am looking forward to more of your work.

[Wildkittyv1 1]

Alright, it's time for entry two in the Bantha Reale City Journal.

 

Edit: Quickly: Thanks for the views and replies so far. Not sure what you mean on the confusing tiles, Titanicbuff, but I'll clarify anything if you have any specific questions.
 
As a disclaimer, I did download a water and terrain mod last night and was playing with them today, but something funky went on with the grass textures. You'll see in one of the first images that the grass looks pretty solid, but then, after New Year rolled around, everything went really green and looks over saturated. I'm gonna see if I can fix it, but if not I'm going to ditch the mod and go for something else. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm open.

 

Columbus terrain mod by JeroniJ: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=169

Brigantine water mod by Pegasus:
 
On that note, I'm going to be updating the initial post with some info regarding mods, or at least the major ones I'm using in the near future. I'm also going to be categorizing things into spoiler sections the way I altered the first entry in this CJ. I also made a little image for the CJ, though it is likely temporary and will be updated when I have more time to spend on it.
 
Outside of that, we have a little progress to show today so let's get right to it.
 

 

New School For Bantha Kal's Brightest

The up and coming hopefuls of Bantha Kal were looking for a building to waste capitalize on their talents within, so Mayor Voss approved the building of a new city college.

 

 

The new city college opened with a great success and immediately saw an influx of students to fill its halls. Temporary housing has been built on the road leading up to the college and at the base of the retaining walls. The students living on campus are not entirely satisfied with their new homes, but they have agreed to cease protests at a promise by the Voss to improve the housing situation as more funds become available. The Dean of the College has managed to quell questions revolving around an argument that the money spent on zoning the area for commercial buildings by the college could've been better spent on beautifying the campus. Mayor Voss has explained that the zoning was actually intended to save money in the long run as electrical lines needed to be ran to the plot of land and the area will be developed in the future anyway. Funds also needed to be allocated to a new bussing program to provide transportation for the students living off campus.

 

 

The above image is a closer view of the campus retaining wall and temporary housing below. The newly founded Student Association of Physical Safety (SAPS) demanded hasty construction of a wall to prevent unnecessary injuries by falling over the edge in the event of frat parties an unfortunate accident. The Dean approved the construction, but is considering more aesthetic options and has apologized that the funds spent shoring up the hillside and making it safe had to come from the College Beautification Fund.

 

((Here you can see the grass textures went sort of odd. This picture was taken after New Year rolled over and I had saved the game. Not sure what's going on or if there are seasonal changes or something, but I'll try to fix it If not, I'm going to go with a different terrain mod -- feel free to suggest. Also, I'm probably going to change those walls. I was just looking for the mod they're in, but I can't find it again. I do like these walls, but the fact that there's no blank tile with the same ground texture sort of throws a wrench in the works and I had to do that weird diagonal thing. Aesthetics will be a WIP constantly, and again feel free to suggest any walls you think might fit -- transparent ground would be the best and most adaptable.)

 

The Mayor's New Pad and High Wealth Commodes

Sometime around August, the people of Bantha Kal got together and celebrated their new College and transport system by offering to pay for a new home for their beloved Mayor, Deacon Voss. Coyly, he accepted the offer and promptly began zoning on a new residential area aimed at the higher wealth residents of the city. This was not received well by the general populace and felt that he was playing favorites in an attempt to garner the support (and money) of his richest members of society. Voss did his best to silence these arguments by promising a complex public park system for the city along with ease of access via an apt public transport system.

 

The people are holding their tongues and wallets, but also their hope.

 

 

Recent Developments

 

With the advent of the New Year, Bantha Kal has taken a survey of its growing populace and funded aerial shots of the burgeoning initial developmental community. With just shy of 1,000 residents, Mayor Voss is pleased with the growth of his city in its first year. The year was rang in with a festival of fireworks launched from behind Voss' new home and the citizens celebrated in the lovely plaza nestled in the heart of their community.

 

 

The above photo was taken from the East.

 

How Do We Fund All of This?

The people of Bantha Kal keep prodding Mayor Voss during Town Hall meetings about where he's getting the money for all of this. He doesn't answer with words, but merely points through the southward facing doors of the hall. Of course, he's pointing at Bantha Kal's growing industrial park, which MPR Metals has taken quite a liking to and has set up multiple facilities in the area.

 

 

The above photo was taken from the North.

 

The people keep asking for agriculture to give their uneducated a place to work that's not a soul-crushing, dead end factory job, but Voss responds only that it's impossible to have everything and the community needs to work with him and what's available. Many have said they prefer local produce to mass-grown, genetically modified crops, but they can only eat what's available and they are thankful that Bantha Kal is not a food desert, even if their groceries must be imported.

 

Entry 02 Summary

 

Progress was made, but not a whole lot. Some more roads were planned out and measured for specific buildings planned down the road. You can see my plans to start to get away from square road and community layouts, though it's not apparent in practice. I'm also going to be working more with terrain and experimenting with raised areas similar to the College and public works area in the south. Didn't get a whole lot done since I was watching football (NFL) the majority of the day, but I was browsing mods and found some good stuff to implement. Still not sure if I'm going to need agriculture or not, but I think the industry will suffice for now as we're starting to get a healthy supply of medium wealth and also some manufacturing buildings. As a note, I am using a mod which doubles the jobs of industrial buildings (only dirty for the time), but it also doubles all other things like taxes (irrelevant) and pollution.

 

So we'll leave off with a zoomed out photo of the city so far. I only have a few more areas I need to map out with roads and zone, and then I should be able to fast forward about a decade so we can get some more interesting buildings and expand a bit more. I might give any key players in this series names, similar to what I've done with Mayor Voss, and possibly develop storylines and such and try to build around them. If I do, I'll come back and edit the first few entries to fit like I've said I would.

 

Thanks for reading

-Ryan

 

[dlsni 156]

the "solid green" is how the columbus mod is meant to look, I believe.

If you're unhappy with that, I'd suggest

LK Appalachian Terrain Mod

Gobias Sudden Valley

I'm currently using the Sudden Valley terrain, which gives a nice, cold-ish rural type feel imo. I've also used Appalachian and I loved that, that one is also very highly regarded among users here. Gobias also makes some beach mods which may be worth checking out as well

[Ke|is 3,338]

Yes, I agree and also I suggest one of those two terrain mod, great job so far anyway

[Benedict 3,119]

Welcome to the CJ forum. I like your use of roads - nice anti-grid work.