Monthly Challenge January 2015 - Re-Establish The Region

[Hamish 1,370]

Monthly Challenge January 2015 

Re-establish The Region

   

 

 

Last month we introduced monthly challenges as a 'beta' challenge, this month we officially release them. Last month highlighted  couple things that needed to be changed, but over all it seemed like a lot of fun was had, and lots of people seemed to open SC4 for the first time in a long while, which is great to see! This months challenge will be kind of the same as before, but with a couple alterations and specifics that need to be achieved, so continue reading and enjoy this months challenge! 

Next months starts with our first user generated challenge by who ever ends up winning last months challenge.

 

 

This challenge will make you re-estrablish a region hit by natural disasters. What was once a farming and industrial region was hit by a massive flood, which altered the low lying landscape, and a forest fire which devastated the natural forest which surrounded the region.

 

 

 

Your challenge is to re-establish this region. Reconnect the railway lines which ran through the tile and create an industrial railway station for export goods.  Connect the road ways to the city, and create a new highway to take goods by road out of the city (this highway must exit to the bottom right of the city tile). Regrow the forest that once existed on the mountain side and some sort of recreation activity within the forest to attract visitors. The city must have some agricultural or industrial sector, however what else the city contains is up to you. 

 

 

Last months challenge saw lots of people creating cities within the tile, so we thought we'd focus on that aspect of last months challenge this month. So create a agricultural or industrial town of your dreams, provide access to citizens and freight traffic to access the region at the points provided, with an industrial rail freight yard somewhere within the tile, and develop a new highway to reach a far off city at the south east of this region. 

 

Submission Requirements:

Like last month we will be restricting the size of one image. Thats a regional view of the city which shows how everything is arranged and created. Now, heres where things get complicated. These will be at an aspect ratio to 4/3, or multiples of 800 px wide by 600 px high. You can make the images at a higher resolution than this, 1600 x 1200 for instance would be acceptable, however we are restricting the aspect ratio so that the built-in ST image resizing will shrink the images to around one image per screen. We hope this will keep things fairer. Additional images or video can be of any other size, however these will be hidden inside a spoiler tag in the voting thread

So, an aspect of 4/3 or multiples of 800 by 600 will be accepted for one main image

We will only accept multiple images or videos, so long as the main image conforms to the requirements above.

 

 

• One view of the whole city tile or region and any other views of the interchange in a ratio of 4/3 or multiples of 800 by 600 for main image.
• Additional images or video can also be supplied of any size which will be hidden by a spoiler tag in the voting thread.

 

 

Building Rules:

• No major terraforming, minor alterations (like hole diggers) and slope mods are allowed
• You must connect all railway stubs into the same system
• Road stubs must connect to the city
• A highway must be established which enters the lower tile of the right side of the city
• Some industrial or agricultural area must be created
• An Industrial rail yard must be created and connected to the rail system.
• You can use any mods you want and use cheats any way you would like.

 

Required Mods:

Nothing required. Feel free to use what ever you want!

 

 

Submission Dates:

This thread will be open for submissions until midnight pacific time on the 31st of January. Voting will then be open for a week which will declare a winner. Following this the winner will have the month to create the rules and any appropriate files for the following months challenge. The winner of this month will create the challenge for March, the winner of February will create the challenge for April etc. If you don’t think you will be able to get time to set up a challenge for the following months, then try not to enter, however we will have some ready to go if unforeseen circumstances mean you can no longer help out.

 

 

Download The Region Here

 

 

Installation:

Really simple, most of you will know how to do this, but just a quick recap. Move the entire folder, which can be downloaded from the link above, into your regions folder. Thats My Documents/SimCity 4/Regions on windows and Documents/SimCity 4/ Regions on mac. Launch the game and load the region.

 

Let me know in this thread if there are any issues with either the download link or the challenge rules. And feel free to use this as some kind of journal thread, if you want to share what your working on as the month progresses feel free, although you will need to explicitly state on your final submission that it is your final submission.

 

Happy building mayors!

[Hamish 1,370]

The voting thread for the last months challenge will be up shortly. Taking little longer than I thought to format the topic, but once that's done it'll be pinned to the forum and I'll mention it in here, so you shouldn't miss it.

In the meantime, start playing around with this challenge. It's a lot looser than last months because the most creativity came from creating cities or other features within the region, so I thought we would focus on that for this months challenge. Just make sure to include the specific requirements and you'll do well!

Good luck, hope you enjoy it! I'll be really looking forward to seeing the large variety of solutions everyone comes up with!

[kschmidt 6,198]

Nice new challenge ! Mayor terraforming prohibition, good whe aren´t God; who may have the power to move whole mountains ! Ridge doesn´t form a challenge rail makes a nice tunnel, road a extended ramp and RHW is making a cut. River can be crossed either straight or with the diagonal bridge enabler. Mayor Highway connecton needs to be RHW or Maxis ?

[GMT 389]

 

Monthly Challenge January 2014 

You sure about that?

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

Let me be the first to say this: the roleplaying potential is high in this challenge.

[NielsC007 499]

Let me be the first to say this: the roleplaying potential is high in this challenge.

 

I like the format of that video. The music and text, I found it pretty amusing.

 

I want to take part in this challenge, however that means redownloading all my lost plugins. Good thing 1 month is plenty of time!

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

 

 

Monthly Challenge January 2015 

You sure about that?

 

 

I don't know what you're talking about

[Hamish 1,370]

Mayor Highway connecton needs to be RHW or Maxis ?

 

Either, thats up to you and what fits in well with your city.

 

 

Let me be the first to say this: the roleplaying potential is high in this challenge.

 

That's what I was hoping for. A bit of roleplaying in the last challenge, but was kind of hampered by needing to create an interchange. With this one, the sky is the limit!

[astronelson 339]

Not my final entry, but a teaser in-progress shot:

Not bad for an afternoon's work, eh?

 

I'm debating whether to expand down to the floodplain.

 

I also extended my highway out to the edge of the region - I'm not sure if that was required.

 

There was some very minor terraforming done to quickly repair misclicks with roads, and a little bit of slope-making to get the highway up to the main town and to avoid the rail and highway meeting at-grade. I could have used the rail-viaduct rail (not the on-slope one), but that always seems a little too steep for my liking.

[NielsC007 499]

Are we allowed to build more towns/suburbs/agricultural areas outside of the centre tile?

[De Ja Vu 117]

Are we allowed to build more towns/suburbs/agricultural areas outside of the centre tile?

As I understand, yes you can, but that's not what the challenge is about, so it doesn't even matter probably.

 

What I want to know is, can we change the layout of the south rail, since it doesn't follow the lines of the river quite exactly. The entry point to the main tile would be the same, I would just add a bitt of curviture to it. Can I do that?

[klanding33 42]

Here we go again!

 

A start to the small farming/industrial town of Remontovati (Croatian for overhaul, repair, rebuild). Not final entry. Fun so far! Good luck all!

 

[okaleldar 10]

Does it have to be a freeway highway connection, or is a controlled access non grade separated highway an option?

[kschmidt 6,198]

Here we go again!

 

A start to the small farming/industrial town of Remontovati (Croatian for overhaul, repair, rebuild). Not final entry. Fun so far! Good luck all!

 

Won´t know the folks wanna live in that part of the valley anymore ! Industry or low Commercial is Ok. Another flood around the corner ?

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Here is my progress so far for Broadsville.

 

//

 

 

To the South-east is where the town will go, the industrial area will be East of that and the farms will laid down up North. East of the town there will be some houses.

 

 

 

I do love the sight of industry.

 

 

 

The centre of Broadsville. I decided to splash out on W2W and diagonal W2W buildings.

 

 

 

Everyone was using Heblem's Mall del Sur so I decided to stick into this town- boy is it big! Of course I added some fillers around the edges to make it just right.

 

 

 

Here is one of these fillers- nearly seamless I tell ya.

 

 

 

Diagonals oh lovely diagonals. One thing about Broadsville is that I want this town to have space, so there will be minimal MMP work. But it will be the full works for the agriculture area of course.

 

 

 

I have been on a downloading spree finding as many diagonal, and their W2W brethren, buildings as I could find.

 

 

 

I used American, British, Polish, French and Spanish diagonal BATs with a few more modern buildings sprinkled in. In general I reckon the area is Eurocentric but it shows the modern times with office blocks rising up from the cobbled streets. I highly recommend the 6th SAM street as it always comes with pavement.

[Hamish 1,370]

Does it have to be a freeway highway connection, or is a controlled access non grade separated highway an option?

 

Any highway option is fine, just use what suits your region.

 

 

 

What I want to know is, can we change the layout of the south rail, since it doesn't follow the lines of the river quite exactly. The entry point to the main tile would be the same, I would just add a bitt of curviture to it. Can I do that?

 

 

Sure, edit what every you want, just keep the entrance to the tiles in the same place.

 

 

 

Are we allowed to build more towns/suburbs/agricultural areas outside of the centre tile?

 

 

Yeah, thats fine as well, what ever you want to do!

 

 

 

The progress so far looks great! Keep it up!

[klanding33 42]

Final Entry! Remontovati (Croation for 'rebuild, repair, overhaul') struck by tragedy years in the past, generations of citizens have rebuilt a thriving community. Have fun all!
 

 

Additional Photos:

 

 

 

Downtown

 

 

RHW 6 Bridge

 

 

"The Flats" - Hopefully the flood risk has diminished since the tragedy!

 

 

"The Bluff" - For the conservative aquaphobes... and their pools.

 

 

Farm depot and rail lines heading out of the region.

 

 

Industrial Depot

 

 

North West Farmland

 

 

The "Village" in the Plateau

 

 

Campground in the Plateau

 

 

Remontovati Rail Bridge and "Cliffside Road" out of town to the north. Map facing east here.

 

That's it! Good luck to all competitors!

 

[art128 4,622]

It would be great if future challenges were on medium city tiles, as large tiles completely done makes the game lag a lot. (and even crash)
 
Anyway, here's my entry. The town is called Tokiyama.
 

Official entry picture: 

 

Additional pictures:

 

Transport view showing that all the transport requirements are made.

 

Overview of the middle area. 

 

Overview of the bottom area.

 

Overview of the top area, you can see the temple.

 

The rail interchange.

 

The main train station serving the city center.

 

The auditorium of the city located in front of the station road and not far from the castle's cable car. 

 

The power plant located on the bottom of the map. Thanks to the flooding prevention system, it is relatively safe. Notice the abundance of rice fields on the area around the river. Because of the previous flooding the soils have a lot of water.

 

The city's castle located at the top of the mountain, overlooking the whole area.

 

The observatory located on the mountain. The old building made of bricks and wood is now a museum.

 

The entrance of the temple is well known for the lineup of traditional shop and the massive red torii. 

 

 

The zen garden, inspired by Ryōan-ji.

 

And finally the flood prevention system that was put in place after the tragic flooding. It is composed of a very big water tank and four very concrete containment silos dug into the ground and connected via large tunnels with powerful pumps. It is of course inspired by the famous flooding prevention system of Tokyo. 

[Harry's Place 918]

Troutville still work in progress.....

 

 

 

 

 

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Your city of Troutville is looking pretty good Urban Constanta!

[rivit 3,402]

rivits Entry - all images are direct screenshots.

 

News Item:

The Mayor of Build Here, Bruce Mcleod is calling for the Federal Parliament to finally apply funds to the Riverbank Protection Scheme after the 2015 wet season again inundated the lowlying regions of his city,  reminiscent of the great Flood of 1917 which  required the town to be rebuilt 40m higher than the old one. The human and livestock losses have been low, but there is much material damage.

"So with great difficulty we've rebuilt this thriving little town based on Citrus Orchardry and Forest products and turned it into a gateway import/export Railyard for the surrounding region, making a real difference to the Gross National Product. You'd think this would make a difference and make it worthwhile protectiing, wouldn't you. But the bloody pollies (doesn't matter which colour) just see fit to take our taxes and won't consider us important enough to
protect with dykes high enough to stop the river flooding us. At least when they built the freeway it was raised high enough or we'd be completely swamped"

We approached the Ministry for the Protection of Small Towns Threatened with Flooding but a spokesman declined to comment.

    Pressman Smiley,  Channel 27 3D-News.
 

 

 

 

The Regional Transportation Map

 

 

 

The Great Railway Viaduct was built in the '30s

 

 

The southern freeway in the late '90s

 

 

Part of the Railyard showing the Cattle Export facility and Abbatoir

 

 

The main town station

 

 

Its a tidy, quite wealthy town

 

 

The 2015 wet season has led to extensive flooding on the river plain. While the freeway and bridge escaped, the railway did not.

 

 

 

Local farmers are struggling to find their feet after 3m of water covered their fields

 

 

[Harry's Place 918]

fighting the flood and some development