Monthly Challenge February 2015 - Show off your bridge and interchange skills!

[klanding33 42]

Monthly Challenge February 2015

Show off your bridge and interchange skills

Well it's a deep freeze here in Canada's capital, but the February challenge is about to heat up!

For the February challenge we are getting back to one of the more popular engineering tasks that city builders like to complete and admire, interchanges! Our 'Build Here' city is located at the mouth of a couple of large tributaries that flow out into a large southern sea. Bridges or tunnels will be needed to get your highways over the waterways and real estate will be tight to complete the connections. New to this challenge is a population requirement. We are looking to see at least 40,000 sims lay down roots in 'Build Here'. As well we are looking to see some sort of industrial seaport as the city is located in a prime location to allow for large sea going vessels.

Rules:

• Stubs must remain where they are and the capacity they are or greater. For example, in a previous challenge, Haljackey wanted to convert an RHW4 to an RHW6 and that would be just fine.
• All four RHW networks must be accessible to each other in some way. Whether that's one large interchange or multiple interchanges, it's up to you!
• For rail stubs they need to remain in place but the rail routes within the tile can go wherever the user wishes.
• Population must be 40,000 or greater
• There must be some sort of seaport - simple or complex, totally up to the designer
• Teraforming is limited to coastal development to allow you to build your seaports - no major teraforming to create mountains, large lakes etc.

Required Mods:

The NAM will be needed to compete in this challenge. We suggest NAM 32 as this will give you the most stable and feature rich experience, however you may use older version though this could put you at a disadvantage.

Submission Dates:

This thread will be open for submissions until midnight pacific time on the 28th of February. 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 April, the winner of March will create the challenge for May 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.

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 imageWe 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.

Post your questions here and good luck! I hope it's a fun terrain to work with!

[coolwiththecool2 827]

 

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.

 

Is this supposed to be February 28th?

 

Edit: One more question, may I plant trees on the outer tiles?

[klanding33 42]

Edited to adjust date. Plant trees, create adjoining cities on adjacent tiles if you wish. Only images of 'Build Here' tile will be judged. Have fun!

[Hamish 1,370]

Eagerly awaiting the first entry for this month. I'll put a feature on the home page for those who may have missed this thread tomorrow, but spread the news to people who may be interested. Its a great challenge that will offer a lot to those who want to create a great interchange and who have a great bridge collection.

[iviaarten 534]

Hmz, I think I'll give this a go. Need something to keep me occupied untill Cieties: Skylines hits anyways. Been checking that forum and reddit way too much

I'm terrible at seaports though, so could use this as training.

 

update:

 

 

I think I've got most of the interchange done. I think I made it rather difficult on myself with a few extra challenges;

- minimal weaving (no weaving after entering the interchange)

- logical lane choise (take left lane if you want to go lef, middle lane(s) if you want to continue in the direction you were heading, and right lane when you want to turn right

- fully grade seperated

 

I think I've managed this sofar, now I need to add off- and on-ramps for people who actually want to exit the motorway, and build the town itself

 

Here's a preview of what I've got sofar (not final entry)

 

[McDuell 301]

I'll most probably not be able to fulfill this challenge as there is less than a week left and I just managed to finish the interchange and bridges so far. Not having built a real city from scratch since many years and generally not really having much of talent in city building, time is running short too fast for me. And there is the fact that I've never built a seaport other than the prefab one at all.

The interchange has a small flaw as well as there is weaving in one part of it, but I couldn't be bothered to resolve this without making that part considerably larger. At least it features a full connector to and from every direction to the local network.

Anyway, here is a preview of the city tile.

 

[klanding33 42]

Hope to see more entries for this but time is getting short! I am going to post an entry although as the creator of the challenge I don't think it can be judged. Let's see some cool stuff guys!

[iviaarten 534]

Ok, here's my official entry for this month.

 

Official front picture (I hope it's correct)

 

 

Ok, the rest should be hidden in a spoiler tag. Should I do that here? or will that be edited in for the voting thread?

 

Anyways, here goes.

 

I've set myself some extra challenges:

- minimal weaving (no weaving after entering the interchange)

- logical lane choise (take left lane if you want to go lef, middle lane(s) if you want to continue in the direction you were heading, and right lane when you want to turn right

- fully grade seperated

 

Since space was not at a premium in this map, I've decided to go big

 

Here's the entry from the south of the map, with the bridge of course. It's one of the 2 points where there's a merge lane (after the interchange):

 

 

This is where it splits into multiple directions. As stated before, the left lane is for going westbound, middle lane is northbound, right lane is eastbound:

 

 

This is the entry and split from the east of the map.

 

 

Here's the main bridge for the entry from the north. You can also see the rail bridge and a road bridge connecting to the farm area:

 

Here is the lane split for the highway coming from the north:

 

And of course, we were missing the west, so here it is:

 

 

Some picture of the main 'spaghetti' section. It looks like a mess from above, but if you're driving on it, you can't make any mistakes Choose direction, and drive. No merging required at all!

 

 

and another one:

 

 

And to show it all works:

 

 

Of course there was a target for the population of the city as well, so here it is:

 

 

Here's some pictures of the main city:

 

 

 

 

There's also some outskirts and rural area's, with low density buildings:

 

 

 

 

Then we were still missing the Port:

 

with all the rail-lines connecting:

 

 

Also some shots from the nearby industry, providing the port with a lot of exports:

 

 

 

And of course no highway is complete without a service station:

 

This was pretty fun to do, but a larget tile is a lot to fill. Maybe a medium tile would be a good idea for the future.

 

Hope you've enjoyed my entry.

[RustyXL 14]

Here is my entry for the month.

 

An overview of the tile:

 

Some closer views of the interchanges between the RHWs:

 

 

Here are some of the other interchanges in the city:

 

 

Here's a picture of the port:

 

A closer look at the downtown interchange:

 

Some pictures of the railroad interchanges:

 

[iviaarten 534]

Glad to see someone else post an entry

 

Good luck to everyone!

[kschmidt 6,198]

Since the last challenge, we maybe happy to have two or three competitors. Giving away anyone´s work to early might be a bad thing. Variety in admision should be kept up at the highest level; please don´t go for the same sollution it will only make the challenge less exciting. Today entry´s are quit very well. Haven´t seen a tunnel like sollution, should all bridges be at navigating hight maybe at least the harbour to sea one´s ?  Think this month challenge might a little bit to ambitious for the shortes month of the year. Time go so quick, spread it over 2 months might be Ok !

[Tomatentobi11 21]

Hi Guys!

Well, I'm not done yet and I won't finish the city tile till the end of the deadline. I got everything done in it's raw form though, so I thought I might share it anyway. I really liked this challenge and I'm probalby gonna keep developing this region.

 

 

[MagicChicken19 43]

I can't put SC13 down long enough to give this a go, so instead, I'll share my SC13 work on a similar map (sorry its not SC4, but I'm not in it for the competition anyways)

This is my work from a public region, done a little bit under 2 months ago:

[rubberduck3y6 45]

It took quite a bit of work today but I managed to finish my entry with 3½ hours to spare (according to my time zone)!

 

Anyway, welcome to the city of February, population 43,922.

 

Overview:

 

Rest of the images in spoiler:

Overview of February Interchange where the M2 (running north-east) meets the M28 (to the west) and M15 (to the south):

 

The M2/M15 part of the interchange:

 

The central braided part:

 

The M2/M28 part of the interchange:

 

Local connections just north of the main interchange (taken looking south):

 

Local junction on the M28:

 

Another local M28 junction and some nearby bridges:

 

The M2 north of February showing a local junction, rail bridge and the M2 bridge to February, plus the town of Norton:

 

Overview of East Port, the main port in the region, located south of February between the M28 and M15:

 

A closer view of the port, looking west:

 

At the western edge of the port is the old East Point Lighthouse which was moved to its current position when the container port was built, looking east:

[McDuell 301]

>>> Announcement: This is no official entry! <<<
 
There are two reasons for this:
 
1.

Population must be 40,000 or greater

I wanted too much, so time was simply running out.
As I said before, it's been years since I last built a city from scratch, so I actually had to re-learn parts of the game again. I also wanted to let the city grow gradually, so no radical demand mods were used. Furthermore, I'm not really a fan of grids, so I used quite a bit of FAR, which took more time than I first thought. Especially the FAR-FAR cross- and T-roads were time consuming, and I still often don't get a crossroads right on the first try, which means: rebuild the crossroads with a shift to the right (or left, or double-shift, or up, down, blah, blubb... ).
Item: my city has only about 20'000 inhabitants, which put me out of the race per definitionem.
 
2. From the rules:

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, ...

I'm afraid that I can't fulfill this one either as I seriously lack ideas for a possible challenge. Interchanges? This is what I do best, but we already had two challenges dealing with them. Anything other? But what? 
It makes more sense to leave this decision to someone more suited than me.
 
 
But as I have already put some time into the tile, I'd like to show my city anyway . I spoilered my pictures as to not disrupt the real entries.

Overview in 3:4 resolution:

 

 

The main interchange:

 

 

Progress:

 

 

The Parclo interchange in the north:

 

BTW: Sometimes I just hate trees! No way that I'll redo this transition again! So how to get rid of the trees then? (answer: see spoiler ) The result is shown at the right.

Burn the trees down! Seriously, this is the one time where a disaster is actually useful. Remove any fire protection in this area (save the game first, just in case), then set fire to the offending trees . (Don't forget to re-establish the status quo with the fire stations afterwards.)

 

[klanding33 42]

Here is my entry but since I created the challenge I am not sure it can be submitted to be voted on. Good luck all! For those wondering about the March challenge, it will be less intense and more flexible for those who have less time to create their entry for the month. Hopefully we will get more entries that way. Stay tuned!

 

 

[kschmidt 6,198]

>>> Announcement: This is no official entry! <<<

 

There are two reasons for this:

 

1.

Population must be 40,000 or greater

I wanted too much, so time was simply running out.

As I said before, it's been years since I last built a city from scratch, so I actually had to re-learn parts of the game again. I also wanted to let the city grow gradually, so no radical demand mods were used. Furthermore, I'm not really a fan of grids, so I used quite a bit of FAR, which took more time than I first thought. Especially the FAR-FAR cross- and T-roads were time consuming, and I still often don't get a crossroads right on the first try, which means: rebuild the crossroads with a shift to the right (or left, or double-shift, or up, down, blah, blubb... ).

Item: my city has only about 20'000 inhabitants, which put me out of the race per definitionem.

 

2. From the rules:

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, ...

I'm afraid that I can't fulfill this one either as I seriously lack ideas for a possible challenge. Interchanges? This is what I do best, but we already had two challenges dealing with them. Anything other? But what? 

It makes more sense to leave this decision to someone more suited than me.

 

 

But as I have already put some time into the tile, I'd like to show my city anyway . I spoilered my pictures as to not disrupt the real entries.

Overview in 3:4 resolution:

 

 

The main interchange:

 

 

Progress:

 

 

The Parclo interchange in the north:

 

BTW: Sometimes I just hate trees! No way that I'll redo this transition again! So how to get rid of the trees then? (answer: see spoiler ) The result is shown at the right.

Burn the trees down! Seriously, this is the one time where a disaster is actually useful. Remove any fire protection in this area (save the game first, just in case), then set fire to the offending trees . (Don't forget to re-establish the status quo with the fire stations afterwards.)

 

Time challenge is indeed high this month if not started early those 40.000 sims population is beside the bridge building and harbour creation a challenge apart ! If one´s enters the competition one has the obligation to create sometning interesting, map making isn´t something for pro´s only one can make something nice, but one do need to have the time for it ! Still your work is first class !

[Hamish 1,370]

Well done to all the entrants this month! It was a short month, but very impressive what you managed to come up with in a short amount of time.

A voting thread will be started shortly, but in the mean time check out March's challenge!