Port Matthew Update 18: The End Of Southport!

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

Port Matthew, home of the Best Defense.  Formed in a battle between the forces of good (the ill-fated first team of Defenders) versus Black Alchemist himself, it was raised from the icy cold depths of the Pacific Ocean, and was developed over the course of several decades.  If you are interested, But you're not here for that.  No, you're here to see what happened to Port Matthew after the battle with Morning Angel and Black Alchemist in the climactic 100th issue of The Best Defense.  Yes, it faded to white, leaving naught but Sensational Girl behind, but they had to come back to something, right?  Well, here is it, our first update!

FUJI-CHO

 

Fuji-cho is in the heart of Port Matthew.  It is said that all roads lead here, but that's not really true; it's just most of the railroads passing through Fuji-cho Station.

 

From my limited knowledge of the BAT itself, I believe a rather sizable number of people are employed in the station, mostly mid- and low-wealth workers.

 

It has a HUGE department store built into it.  (in real life, in Shinjuku, this place is massive and confusing and the Kinokuniya nearby is awesome)

 

Look at all those train lines.  Who was planning this city, honestly?  Wait, don't answer that question.

 

Fuji-cho is also the media center of the island city-state.  Here is the PM Fuji TV Building, a popular sight for tourists and an excellent location for spotting celebrities.

 

PMHK has their main studios in Fuji-cho as well, located across the street from Fuji Arena, the city's main convention hall.  Sharp-eyed readers will notice the courthouse and the annoying Deconstructivist Mall zombie lot cluttering up my shot as well.

 

But we need something a bit more... high-class than crass TV, right?  Well, you could visit the PM Public Library's Fuji Branch and read a book on the lawn next to it.

 

Port Matthew is a bit hilly.  In Fuji-cho, the hills are dealt with by just... ignoring them and forgoing terraforming in the creator's rushed quest to hurry up and get the stupid thing done.  Still, some nice homes up there.  Even the plebs live like royalty in PM.

 

Speaking of royalty, Fuji-cho is home to some of the most expensive apartments on the island, although you have a bit of a walk to get to the station from them, something I aim to rectify with a tram system.  I have big plans for this place, as you'll come to see.

 

The luxury apartments in Fuji-cho give amazing views of much of the city, and many of them look down on Fuji-cho Plaza, and one of my absolute favorite BATs, the NY Times Building playing the role of the Fuji Financial Building.  The FFB is home to several floors of shopping and restaurants, but most of it is office space: financial firms and the like.

 

We'll finish the first update with a shot of the Plaza itself.  There is year-round ice skating in the rink there (apparently drained for maintenance in this shot).  There are seasonal festivals, people playing in the fountains on hot summer afternoons, and always a large amount of people cross them on all manner of missions.

 

I have been hard at work on this since the end of July.  I wasted a couple of months before that rebuilding on the original map, but the plugins folder was a mess, even after I attempted to clean it up and pare it down and then I decided, screw it, I'll just start from zero.  Man, that was intimidating.

So now I have a few goals for this, and one main rule: The plugins folder shall NOT exceed 1GB including the NAM and dependencies.  I have separate folders for buildings unique to cities I'm working on, but the biggest of those is the PM City folder with about 80-90MB of unique buildings.  Everything else is shared across the island.

 

As for my goals: No highways, I want to eliminate them.  I want to make this city greener and with more open spaces/forested lands than in previous incarnations.  Yeah, that looks like a laughable goal in this entry, but just wait till you see the rest of the city.  I think I did okay, especially once you're out of the heart of it (Fuji-cho, Southport, East Bank, Mori-no-Machi).  Trams.  I want to include trams and I wanted to wait until the city was mature so that I could identify trouble areas before adding them.  Originally I was going to put them in all the avenues, but there really isn't any bad congestion on them, so roads will be the initial aim, especially in Mori-no-Machi.

 

I hope you enjoyed my first entry and the rebirth of this old city journal.  I wanted to necro my old thread, but that bad boy's been archived, so oh well, I have to obey the rules I enforce, too, right?  See you again before too long!

[Bdub01 201]

Hey!!!! I like it. I want to see more. Question: How do you get the river water so ummm blue? It almost looks neon. I really dig the water.

[raynev1 1,886]

Looks great . 5/5 +1

[Schulmanator 5,787]

Glad to see you back! And it's about time!

[RipRap 4,400]

Glad to see you around once more, NMUSpidey-san!

[blunder 1,079]

Sweet, Spidey-san is back. 

 

 

So now I have a few goals for this, and one main rule: The plugins folder shall NOT exceed 1GB including the NAM and dependencies. 

 

Wow that would be tough.  Those two take up 1gb on my machine just by themselves

[jmsepe 2,038]

Good to see you back. Will you be making stories again or you will focus on city building this time?

[SimCoug 5,972]

It makes me happy to see you at it again. Keeping a tidy plugins folder is definitely possible and it will make game play much more enjoyable later on. Keep it up!

[Fox 1,444]

Great to see you remaking Port Mathew with all the skills you've picked up over the last decade

 

I've lost touch with your storyline over the years, but it is great to see you are still playing and building and I feel excited to see how you redevelop your ideas of city.

 

Love the position of Fuji-cho Plaza, and can't wait to see the rest of the city.

 

Good luck with the 1gig limit on the plugins

[packersfan 666]

The plugin idea is great.  I should really reorganize my plugins again or at least create plugin folder sets that correspond to different cities.  Then I could have different house styles in different parts of the city.  Quite an undertaking really...too bad I didn't think of it earlier

[Benedict 3,119]

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

Hmmm...  Someday I'd like to make a "REPLIES" banner, but that day has not yet come.  Anyways...

 

REPLIES!

 

Bdub01: Thank you!  I use a mod called RippledSeaTropic, but I can't remember who made it.  Probably one of Drunkapple's Drunken Water Mods.  Yeah, it's... vivid.  We'll see how I feel about it when my region is more built up again.

 

raynev1: Thank you!

 

Schulmanator!  Thank you!  It's good to be back!

 

Tonraq: Thank you!

 

blunder: Yes, it has been difficult.  But the good news is that my CTD problems are cut way, WAY down (almost eliminated, in fact) and my loading times are almost unnoticeable!  It's fun to play again.

 

jmsepe: Both!  My superheroes will continue their work in the no-longer-quite-so-"New" City Journal Section.  I only had up to about #115 finished when I got to #102, and I wanted a bit more of a buffer (I was sidetracked with a separate story that probably won't get put on here) and then I decided that I didn't like what I had written so I deleted everything after #106 and re-started.  I'm back up to almost #120 with a more exciting story, so I'll start putting those out on Wednesdays again (new comic book day!).

 

SimCoug: Thank you!  It already is paying dividends.  I knew I had invested that time in restructuring and actually organizing it well!

 

Fox: Thank you!  It's less redeveloped and more like... completely rebuilt.  It's even a new region.  The story is going to continue on, but I want to be prepared to continue it, which I guess I wasn't quite prepared to do last summer.

 

packersfan: It took weeks to re-download everything, get and keep it organized, and re-make my region, by hand, from flat plains.  It's probably not the most detailed or graceful region, but it does the job.  Thankfully, everything is working smoothly this time around!

 

Benedict: Thank you!  And a #4 debut in your list is probably the best I've ever done!

 

And now, we'll re-visit Fuji-cho... AT NIGHT.

 

The city center at night.  They keep those tracks lit up real bright at night, don't they?

 

Some things I did not point out before: the PM Stock Exchange is in the hills around Fuji-cho.  To cut down on commute times, PMers are generally allowed to keep odd schedules, and many work from home offices.  Still, with 500,000 people in the city, traffic is starting to become a problem, especially in East Bank and Mori-cho.

 

Moving a little bit farther north, we stick to the hills where we see many people like to go home, turn on their lights and probably watch TV or play PS2 or something like that.  Wait, did I say PS2?  I meant PS4, or PS6 or 10 because this actually takes place in the distant future.

 

I still really like some Maxis buildings.  I think their convention center is a good one, and some of their residential towers are really nice.

 

And near the convention center, there is the main library, still apparently open even at this late hour.

 

Fuji-cho Plaza over night.  Even though they operate the ice skating rink year-round, it must be down for maintenance in these pictures.

 

The station at night.  Trains do not operate between 2:00am and 5:00am to give PMR time to maintain the railway network properly.  Some bars and restaurants are open overnight in the station building, however.  PMers work hard, and they play hard.

 

The other side of the station.  I now wish I had made it greener instead of all that white concrete.  Maybe something to think about for a future entry...

 

A look at the busy center of the city of Port Matthew.

 

The PM Fuji TV Building never rests.  In addition to production studios and the broadcasting company's home offices, bars and clubs for entertaining visiting celebrities and VIPs, classrooms for training staff and students from PMU, and PM's only Disney Store (along with Disney's PM branch offices) are all present in the building's vast interior.

 

The luxury condos at night, side-by-side with low-income housing.  That's how we roll here in PM.  Being stuck on an island in close proximity with each other, you either get along or you get out.  Thankfully, most people choose to work together and life is fairly good.

 

One final overview of the northern end of Fuji-cho.

 

BUT!  I worked hard on this city, indeed on the whole region, so we'll head across Shinbashi next...

To Mori-cho...

 

Thank you, everyone!  I look forward to continuing this for a lot more than a page or two, so stick with me!

[Schulmanator 5,787]

Looking good! A tranquil land free of the curse of CTD and other naughty folks, like Morning Angel!

[slickbg56 778]

That's a quality rail network you're maintaining there. Great looking city. Regarding the plugins, I too cringe when I think about restructuring those folders... blech.

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

REPLIES!

 

Schulmanator: Yes!  Here is hoping that they have forever been banished from reality!

 

slickbg56: Thank you!  Yes, it was... quite the undertaking.

 

The update!

 

Now, here is where the limitations of the 1GB plugins folder start to show themselves.  Lots of repeating buildings, limits to what you can accomplish with parks and open spaces, etc etc.  Whatever, I did my best to make something different from what I've made in the past.  It's probably the best I've done, but at least it's enjoyable this time.  The quick uploads and lack of lag really make up for the repetitiveness of some of the buildings.

 

A popular PM landmark, the PM Kanransha offers spectacular views of the surrounding areas: up the river to East Bank and Matthewton (the new capital), across the bay to the Defenders' Cliffs and Stranahan Terraces, out towards the sea, and of course, across the rest of Mori-cho.

 

A spacious park with the city's best ice cream sits at the base of the Kanransha.  There are carnival games, carnival food, and carnival atmospheres to take in.

 

For shoppers, the Parco across the street is home to great bargains for many designer brands.  While not exactly a fashion capital, Port Matthew is not poorly dressed.

 

Down the street from the Kanransha are the Mori-cho Markets.  Continuing the festive atmosphere of the Kanransha Park, they are a popular tourist attraction.  Many locally well-known artists from the Blue Village market their wares here.

 

A reverse angle.  One of the things I was really working to accomplish was more open space, or at least more space between towers.  The population of this version of PM is 500,000 or so, down from 800,000 in the previous incarnation.

 

Not far from the Markets are Mori-cho's schools, Darryl High School and Mori-cho Primary School.  PM's educational system puts the kids together for 1-8, and then sends them to high school for 9-12.  As with the previous version, trouble-causing youths are removed from school and sent to Fort Mison to be dealt with by the PM Police Force and their therapists.  The little museum there is a advertising museum, focusing on the artistry involved in tricking people into buying crap they don't need.

 

As night falls, the Markets are a popular place to be.  Many food vendors are there, and the beer gardens open up for office workers.  Tram and bus service is 24 hours, but overnight the runs are far fewer than they are between 6am and midnight.

 

The Kanransha's views at night are really quite something, and it is a famously romantic (if a little cheesy) spot for dates.  The extra-large capsules will accommodate any large stuffed animals won by those trying to impress their dates.

 

There, on the other side of the Kanransha park is one of my favorite Maxis residential buildings.  There's another bluer one that I like as well, and I rarely get them to grow, so I felt really good when I saw that one.  That is where Austin Goldberg, PR man for the Defenders, lives.

 

An overview of the western section (facing south).  As you can see, Mori Tower stands tall, the anchor for the neighborhood, looking down on the large swath of forest greening-up what would otherwise be a pretty suffocating urban setting.

 

And an overview of the same area during the daytime.

 

Next time we'll look at the parks of Mori-cho.  Hopefully you liked this update.  See you next time!

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Nice city, that ferris wheel looked really good.

[LexusInfernus 908]

Looks great. I love how you managed to give the city a bit of an open, parky feel. 

[Schulmanator 5,787]

Nice! Looking good. And a little repetition is not necessarily a bad thing.

[Schulmanator 5,787]

Here's your free gift to celebrate our 400th!!!

 

Thanks for coming to our party!

 

[jmsepe 2,038]

Wow, such traffic. I can see a lot of things that I can learn from here especially the GLR in the middle of the avenue.

[naftixe 131]

I really enjoy your style. There is a lot going on but you somehow also keep the empty/green space up in between your urban development. keeping green space is my forethought because of CJ's like yours. Thanks!

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

Well, I wanted to do these on Sunday, but our kids kept us up all night and I was tired and blah blah blah.  Anyways...

 

REPLIES!

 

Ln X: Thank you!  I give more credit to the BAT than to anything I did!

 

Lexus Infernus: Success!  I wanted to build a city I would want to live in, and a city without open spaces and parks does not fit that bill.

 

Schulmanator: Haha, some repetition is unavoidable, for sure, and with my limitations it'll keep happening more often than the more skilled players

 

Schulamanator!  Thank you!  I'm happy to be a part of it!

 

jmsepe: The GLR was something I absolutely wanted to incorporate into this iteration of my city.  It does a lot to relieve traffic congestion, believe it or not!

 

naftixe: Thank you!  I actually went back through and removed buildings to expand the open areas.  Endless tall buildings feels too claustrophobic, and I'm just not good enough to pull that off.

 

Okay, here we go, our next update.  Our theme this time will be...

 

PARKS!  So I've said I'm maintaining a 1GB plugins folder, but solid concrete plazas or endless green lawns bothered me after a while.  I mean, you gotta grow man, try something new.  So I combined them, to mixed results.  Certainly it's more interesting than the same half dozen parks or plazas repeated over and over again all through PM.

 

The companies that laid out the parks were big fans of stark 90 degree angles and geometric shapes.

 

They weren't all that big on custom lotting, however, because ain't nobody got time for that.

 

But they used 1X1 parks and plazas and arranged them modularly into a number of different configurations.  Pleasing, aren't they?

 

There are lots of kids in the city, too.  Having kids myself, I made sure there were lots of playgrounds in close reach of the apartments.

 

I tried using paeng's industrial relots, but I went back to the Maxis versions because I like how the original high tech areas look stock better.

 

Originally I was placing football fields next to the schools.  I went with baseball fields this time for two reasons: first, they are more space efficient than the football fields I've found, and second I was building this in August and September and I was more interested in baseball than in football.

 

Kind of a zoomed-out view of some of the parks we looked at above.

 

Another look at some others.  I'm really glad I kept areas open like this.

 

And that'll do it for this update.  We'll get a real overview of this section of Mori-cho (the eastern part) with our final Mori-cho update, the centerpiece of this area, the Mori Tower itself!  I hope you enjoyed this!  See you around!

[Schulmanator 5,787]

Some pleasant outdoor areas... makes me want to head outside and fly a kite... or maybe chase a squirrel!

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Hmm... Have you tried using Andy2k10's plazas and Gobias' sidewalk mod to spruce up your paved areas? Also throw in some FAR plazas from Daderic21!

 

Then you could add lamps and trees to the plaza paths, or diagonalise the corners or even create diagonal paths. With these items I'm certain you could create plaza areas which have that wow factor. Good luck!

 

p.s. rsc204's MGB Diagonal Filler Set is an essential item to have to create smooth diagonal plaza/grass transitions.

[jmsepe 2,038]

More GLR in the roads and avenue! Nice parks and buildings. 

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

Time for another update!

 

REPLIES!

 

Schulmanator: Plenty of squirrels to chase in PM!

 

LnX: I kinda like the white tile sidewalks I have, but I'm going to see if I can fit some of those other plazas into my city.  Thank you for the links and the advice!

 

jmsepe: Yup!  This part of the city was my first time using it.  I think it turned out alright.  Thank you!

 

And now, the centerpiece of Mori-cho.

 

The Mori Tower anchors the neighborhood.  From the observation deck on the third-from-the-top floor, you can see much of Port Matthew to the south, up the coast past Northport to the Royale Mountains, and down the east coast towards Marquette.

 

It dominates the skyline.  It is the third tallest building in the city of Port Matthew and the sixth on the island.  It has a wide range of attractions including restaurants and bars, a large shopping mall and boutique areas, a cinema, and a hotel etc etc.  Anyways, it's a big deal for the city.  10,000 people work there.

 

In the case that traffic fails to improve with the expansion of the tram system, there are already areas that can developed into subways and subway stations.

 

The tower is a landmark and a favorite place to meet up.  With the large number of workers and residents in the area as well as its proximity to the wealthy 'suburb' of Georgetown, the Mori Tower always has something going on.

 

And a minor office area to the north of the tower.  I'm not entirely sure what the point of this picture is anymore, but here it is.  The city is not all tall towers and major tourist attractions.

 

It cleans up nice at night, too.

 

The trams run until 2am, allowing the Mori Tower to support after-work drinking parties and the like.  With the international population of PM, there are many odd-hours sporting events being watched throughout the year in the various sports bars and pubs within, as well as traveling exhibits, special performances, etc etc.

 

Anyways, the word 'mori' (森) in Japanese means 'forest.'  As such, a large forest sits right in the middle of this area of the city.

 

One of the things I like about my city is that the low-wealth housing and the high-wealth housing always grow right next to each other (upper left in this image).  I like to imagine that they help each other out, they work together to keep their neighborhoods clean, their kids play together.  I might be deluded, but this is my city and this is what I hope is happening.

 

The city has a lot of forested area, and as we move out of Mori-cho you'll see that other areas have this sort of thing going on, also.

 

Finally, our overviews, first the center area.

 

And the eastern section with its expansive parks and whatnot.

 

As always, thanks for taking the time to take a look at my city.  I'll get back to putting out The Best Defense probably next month after I finish my third novel.  We'll see how it goes, anyways.  See you around!

[naftixe 131]

Love your style. Loved your comment: "... I might be deluded, but this is my city..." This is now my mantra! 

[Schulmanator 5,787]

Nice looking area -- built up with plenty of green space. Too bad they don't build like that IRL!

[jmsepe 2,038]

Nice update. What water mod where you using in the 5th image? Is it me or does the water looks different in the 5th and 1st images?

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

Well, it's been a bit busy here in my Japanese volcano lair, but I've finally gotten around to putting more pictures together to show you!  But first...

REPLIES!

 

naftixe: Thank you!  I think that every time I play this game.  My city obvious is not going for ultra realism, so there's a bit of escapist fun going on

 

Schulmanator:  Seriously!  There are parks in Tokyo, but they are but mere islands in the vast sea of buildings that stretch on and on forever in every direction.  My area is a lot nicer, but you can't call it a city here...

 

jmsepe: It's the same water mod, I think it's a tropical selection from someone's drunken water mod series, but I don't know for sure because I only kept the water mod file with its ambiguous name that gives me no clue what to look for.  Anyways, it's the same water, it's just one area is shallower and under a shadow that makes it look different.

And here's our new update!

EAST BANK

 

We'll start at the north end and work south.  This stretch is the famous East Bank Beach.  I wrestled with the idea of using a modular beach but I kept forgetting to download it and eventually just went with the beach mod that loads up with my terrain mod.  So anyways, directly to the left of this picture is Mori-cho, so we're kind of heading in a circle around the city.

 

The beach is a popular place for people of all stripes to hang out.  They must bring their own stuff, however, and I completely forgot about adding restrooms of some sort, so that'll be something I go back and add later for realism.  But it sure does look nice uncluttered with man-made stuff, doesn't it?

 

There are a HUGE amount of mid-wealth residents in this city.  It's nice that they can afford beachfront living like this, but again, in this city everyone kind of lives together.  There's not really a poor section and a rich section, everyone's mashed together.  There are low-wealth buildings hidden along the beach, too.

 

I was so pleased when this building grew here.  I think this is my favorite Maxis residential building, and I'm glad it fit in in this zoom level.

 

And the south end of the beach.  There were an awful lot of repeated buildings here.  I waited for different stuff to grow for a long time, but this is what we got.  It looks nice, though, it's a good, built-up, beachfront area.

 

This picture includes a hint of East Bank's biggest feature, the second-tallest building in the city.  Also, another shot of my favorite residential building.  What should I call it?  Namidome Mansions (mansions in Japan are just big apartment units).  That sounds good.  This is the Namidome Building, full of the Namidome Mansions.  YES.

 

And our last picture, a nice zoomed-in view of some buildings near the north end, in this case the the Higashigawa Estate low-wealth apartment building.  It's popular with snorkeling and scuba instructors.  Eagle-eyed viewers will notice the building change between the alternate angle at the beginning of the update and this one, because I do it live, you guys, the city's running and I'm snapping shots.  Things change real fast, I wish real-life construction companies were so effective!

 

And that brings us to the end of another exciting Port Matthew update.  The whole city is more or less complete and there's plenty of build up around the main city tile, so I should be able to keep this up indefinitely.  I hope to see more of you visiting here!  Everyone's welcome!  Bye, and thank you for your time!