Downloading "starter" regions with transit already laid out

[madhatter106 3,911]

I hate when the riffraff from Littleass City make their way into Big-ass City.  Brings the property values down.

[SimCoug 5,973]

I hate when the riffraff from Littleass City make their way into Big-ass City.  Brings the property values down.

 

No worries... .

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

You sure the hyphens are in the right place, though?

[TekindusT 3,809]

 

Yes sir, I'm interested!!  That would be awesome.

 

Would it be possible for you to just use a clean install of SC4 with NAM32 as the only plugin? That way we would know that is the only prerequisite. You could lay out a sick transit network across the entire region and share it with us and we could build our cities from there.

 

My asks:

 

Biggest size region with all large city tiles

Water/different elevations (but not too much)

Sunken highways through cities (maybe picture where cities would form on the map, etc. and we can build around that)

Rural highways

Complex interchanges where they would make sense (maybe picture where cities would form on the map, etc.)

 

 

 

There is a region I'm very fond of, Madison County:

 

It's huge, like 50 x 50 km, all large cities, but it is not too big even for older computers with say, "only" 4 gigs of ram:)

 

And the layout is excellent imho.

 

+1 to the above parameters: vanilla SC4 Deluxe with only NAM32 installed.

 

 

 

 

You guys gotta draw a regional plan map for me.  I'm not gonna do all the creative work for you.  

 

Now, it doesn't have to be as spectacularly detailed as my example here (no need for compliments), but you get the idea.

 

 

 

Still lookinng better than my SC4 cities!

[Major from Bajor 24]

^ haha, I will try to do a little draft for Madison. Wait until you see my artwork lol:)

Thanks for establishing official terminology for building blocks of these endeavours!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

We await your results.  Don't add a new jewel to your ear ring just yet.

[Major from Bajor 24]

OK, so here's my idea of perfect region with cool network. So, black are awsum highways, pink is LeFast, red is ol' schoole railroad. Lumps are fancies:)  But feel free to lump them wherever you fancy them yourself:)

 

Small broken lines are part of LeFast that should go under the mountains, which I'm not sure if it's possible. I checked last night, didn't even know how to do a road tunnel.

 

One note: I don' really expect you to do this, unless you find this region increadibly, mind stoppingly, uncontrollably droolably messing tha pants cool as I do and intend to use it yourself!

 

If you decide against it, can you tell me, are such things as LeFast going over/under regular train/highway/mountain even possible?

[ultramegatiny 25]

Sorry for chiming in so late, but I figured I'd add my two cents if Tikkytik is still interested.
I was in the exact same boat as you just a couple weeks ago. New to NAM and extremely confused. My advice is this because it worked for me: Install Project Symphony/Maxis Highway Override and play with it a little. It looks better than vanilla and it's about halfway between vanilla and RHW in terms of ease of use. I was fed up with trying to "get" NAM, so I tried Project Symphony. After an hour or two of messing around with the relatively simple Project Symphony, I had a big eureka moment where I totally got the way the whole thing works. Haven't touched Maxis Highways or the override since. Now that I get it, I can't imagine going back. Takes just a minute to make a really cool, not too intricate interchange.
The learning curve is definitely a little steep, but once you get it, it's really not that difficult.
Anyway... my two cents. Cheers!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Everyone to his own taste.  What I found out is that Project Symphony needs to have a new region to play in.  If you have an existing region with Maxis highways, it is more work to fix things than it is worth.

 

RHW is for people who like to play with huge, U.S.-style interstate models.  I am sure they have fun with them, but it is not for me.

 

I play a rural style with several settlements per city tile, often with much IA, and little cross-roads villages (wide spot in the road).  This models the part of the world I live in.  I use a lot of railroads, but not RRW (yet).  Because villages don't have tram services, I don't use GLR, and for distant road connect I use Maxis highways with blacktop skins (they are in the NAM) and not RHW.  This saves a huge amount of space in my Plugins folder, because NAM generates a custom controller.  This also saves strain on my aged little grey cells.

[Turjan 1,048]

RHW is for people who like to play with huge, U.S.-style interstate models.  I am sure they have fun with them, but it is not for me.

 

I actually use RHW just for rural stuff. Two-lane, asymmetrical three-lane and four lane highways with at-grade crossings. It's still somewhere in that big plugin, and with the modular installation, you can just install what you want.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Interesting.  I am not sure I want to embark on that learning curve at this time.  I handle this with Maxis structures and an occasional dip into NWM.

[Indiana Joe 1,751]

Sorry for chiming in so late, but I figured I'd add my two cents if Tikkytik is still interested.

I was in the exact same boat as you just a couple weeks ago. New to NAM and extremely confused. My advice is this because it worked for me: Install Project Symphony/Maxis Highway Override and play with it a little. It looks better than vanilla and it's about halfway between vanilla and RHW in terms of ease of use. I was fed up with trying to "get" NAM, so I tried Project Symphony. After an hour or two of messing around with the relatively simple Project Symphony, I had a big eureka moment where I totally got the way the whole thing works. Haven't touched Maxis Highways or the override since. Now that I get it, I can't imagine going back. Takes just a minute to make a really cool, not too intricate interchange.

The learning curve is definitely a little steep, but once you get it, it's really not that difficult.

Anyway... my two cents. Cheers!

 

Another convert!  Welcome him, brothers and sisters!

 

 

OK, so here's my idea of perfect region with cool network. So, black are awsum highways, pink is LeFast, red is ol' schoole railroad. Lumps are fancies:)  But feel free to lump them wherever you fancy them yourself:)

 

Small broken lines are part of LeFast that should go under the mountains, which I'm not sure if it's possible. I checked last night, didn't even know how to do a road tunnel.

 

One note: I don' really expect you to do this, unless you find this region increadibly, mind stoppingly, uncontrollably droolably messing tha pants cool as I do and intend to use it yourself!

 

If you decide against it, can you tell me, are such things as LeFast going over/under regular train/highway/mountain even possible?

 

Bwahahaha that's great.  I didn't expect you to take my map so seriously, but if you're not familiar with the NAM and transit networks it shouldn't surprise me.  I didn't realize you were so new to the game (usually my recommendation to anyone to get a successful region or two under their belt before tackling custom content, but screw it at this point).

 

Anyway you should know the map was mostly sarcastic.  Your map is a great start, let's get it straightened out.  Literally.

 

 

So now we have a nice flat map, taken from the download description page.  I assume you want to keep it 12x12 large-size cities?  We can change the city sizes and locations if you want.

 

Once that is satisfactory, let's work on the map layer by layer.  In history, railroad is built first.  It connects industrial centers.  You have to zone industry first anyway, don't you?  Since we don't have the dynamic resource abundance feature thingy from SimCity 2013, we have to use our imagination.  Find some spots you want to be ports, factory complexes, mining operations, power plants, high tech industrial parks, etc.  These are the places the "heavy rail" lines will connect.

 

Once the jobs are in place, the people move in.  Decide where you think you want the big cities to be.  Big cities like:

• Flat land
• Water nearby (river or lake/ocean)
• Not cut off from everything else (in some inaccessible valley)
• Near industrial centers

 

This is where the freeways will connect.  You can also have a freeway going off the map to other imaginary cities, but there's no need for one to go over in some direction where there's nothing at all, just because there's a big freeway gap.

 

I can also do the second-tier highways.  Not interstate routes, but these are major roads that connect the smaller cities and towns and locations.  These usually have a major interchange when they meet a freeway, so I can take care of those for you.  If you don't want me doing so much, at the very least you could draw little stubs where you want them to connect with major freeways.

 

That takes care of the most important parts of the regional transit network.  I included High Speed Rail (HSR) in my map.  This is a less commonly used, less developed NAM component.  But I can certainly put it in the region if you want it.  It would connect the high wealth, high population areas, and would not be a very extensive network (unless you're going for a futuristic/Asian theme).

 

Everything else would be intra-city transit: trams, subway, el-rail, and monorail and buses and whatnot.  I can't really do these without making your cities for you, so if you want to use the fancy NAM features for these you'll have to figure it out yourself.

 

Now let's talk about limitations.

• Diagonal, curves and weird angles are no problem for highways and heavy rail.  Those networks are extensive enough that they can go pretty much anywhere.
• Regular and diagonal bridges are possible
• Tunnels are possible for highways and rail.  Tunnels must be orthogonal (not diagonal, not curved at all).  Very long tunnels are not realistic if they can be avoided (matter of preference).
• High speed rail is much more limited than the other networks.  Tunnels don't really work because it is based on monorail, so the tunnels would have an ugly transition.

 

Highways should be continuous if possible; rail can have lots of spurs and dead ends.

 

Now, have an updated key, and feel free to tweak your original map considering these points.  Definitely don't have to change it completely, it's a great starting point.

 

[Major from Bajor 24]

^I know you're map was sarcastic and I intentionally adopted your terminology because I found it spontaneously and unburdendly funny. I even thanked you in previous post for establishing "official" language of our little playground here

So I'm not that much of I n. .b that I wouldn't know you were joking with awsum highway, fancies and LeFast trains, but my "expertise" definitely ends at recognizing difference between freeway and secondary highway, so I'll have to inform my pitty self before editing

 

Regarding the realism of long tunnels, not sure how is it in America, but here in Europe we have a LOT of tunnels that stretch 10-15 km, and one that is some 30 km long under construction, so tunnels under those hills wouldn't be unrealistic, I think.

 

Regarding fast trains, the tunnel limitation is for the one included in NAM? I guess the other addons are similarly limited?

 

Layout of the cities is perfectly fine. The only thing I changed in "my" version of this map is putting the island in the middle of the map, right of the mountain in one city tile, didn't like it to be split in half. That island looked promising as a whole entity. Then I got four middle size cities at the sides of it, two on the left and two on the right.

 

I don't expect you to build cities of course, it was not the point, but of course they'll have to be established to build traffic network on them. It's easy to change their names afterwards. And of course, I recognize what seems to me a huge amount of work, so do it only if you will use yourself, or if you feel it's a good general map that a lot of other people will want to use. At the moment, it seems perfect to me because it's big, but not so much almost anyone couldn't load it, has huge flat areas, rivers, ocean, islands, mountains, good layout... And of course because it's my main map:)

[GMT 389]

copyright?

not so much.

 

site rules?

only concerning the stex.

[Major from Bajor 24]

^Copyright in what sense? If you mean credits for the production of Madison County region, I'd have to recheck my previous posts, but I think I already expressed my gratitude to the author, and if I didn't, I do this now. The man did fantastic and amazing job. And it's obvios from download page it's the other user, not me.

[Indiana Joe 1,751]

^I know you're map was sarcastic and I intentionally adopted your terminology because I found it spontaneously and unburdendly funny. I even thanked you in previous post for establishing "official" language of our little playground here

So I'm not that much of I n. .b that I wouldn't know you were joking with awsum highway, fancies and LeFast trains, but my "expertise" definitely ends at recognizing difference between freeway and secondary highway, so I'll have to inform my pitty self before editing

 

Regarding the realism of long tunnels, not sure how is it in America, but here in Europe we have a LOT of tunnels that stretch 10-15 km, and one that is some 30 km long under construction, so tunnels under those hills wouldn't be unrealistic, I think.

 

Regarding fast trains, the tunnel limitation is for the one included in NAM? I guess the other addons are similarly limited?

 

Layout of the cities is perfectly fine. The only thing I changed in "my" version of this map is putting the island in the middle of the map, right of the mountain in one city tile, didn't like it to be split in half. That island looked promising as a whole entity. Then I got four middle size cities at the sides of it, two on the left and two on the right.

 

I don't expect you to build cities of course, it was not the point, but of course they'll have to be established to build traffic network on them. It's easy to change their names afterwards. And of course, I recognize what seems to me a huge amount of work, so do it only if you will use yourself, or if you feel it's a good general map that a lot of other people will want to use. At the moment, it seems perfect to me because it's big, but not so much almost anyone couldn't load it, has huge flat areas, rivers, ocean, islands, mountains, good layout... And of course because it's my main map:)

 

I've already got Madison Co.  rendered and construction is underway.  It won't be that much work honestly.

 

I can do it as you originally drew it.  But it's going to be up to you to create all the interchanges to connect roads to the highways (probably the most complicated part of using the RHW).  And there won't be any elevated sections of the highways, which is much more suitable for going through developed areas.

 

My recommendation is to add a bit more detail as to where you want roads to connect to the highways so I can knock out major interchanges.  Deleting stuff you don't want is easier than making new things from scratch.  I've put some examples in this map (the little yellow dashes are where road-interchanges would be; 2 or 3 every tile would be a realistic max, but could be more in dense areas).

 

 

But if you don't want to bother with those things, I'll move ahead and do it.  I'll just put a few interchanges here and there based on my own opinion.

[Major from Bajor 24]

^Man, this is fantastic! Feel free to spread those intersections according to your taste, I'm really not nit picking in that regard and you're far more experienced and will be better judge. For instance, I like how you placed the tunnel on the narrowest part of the mountain, which is of course how it would be in reality.

The only thing I would change, if it's not too much of a hassle, is make that central island on the river complete in one tile, instead of split in half. As I said, then you get four medium size cities, two at each side of "island city". I can make a screenshot for you if it's not clear what I meant:) But if it complicates things for you or the network in any way, nevermind.

 

I dare to say you're creating something original here in the very concept, that doesn't exist amongst all those downloadables on the site: a region with the NAM network already laid out! Crazines!

[Major from Bajor 24]

Hey Joe, I'm not pushing or anything, just wanted to know is this still in production or you gave up?

 

I'm really not unpatient, take all the time you need, just need to know shall I/we who find this incredibly useful, proceed with my/our own futile attempts or wait.

 

You simply made it sound easier than it probably is

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

The basic premise is illegal from the point of view of this site.  The prebuilt city would require only default (Maxis) stuff, and would probably violate the EULA in some way.  If it contained anything from the STEX, PLEX or LEX there are individual copyright issues to be considered.

 

I am very much afraid that players are stuck with the prebuilt scenes in the default regions, which were originally built for the first edition of the game and never upgraded.  There is also one more Maxis produced region/city called Maxisland which was released on the old web site, and I am sure is on at least one of the summary sites such as screwpile developments.

 

Beyond that, I would not expect such things to appear on any of the standard exchanges.  STEX does not allow city files.

[Major from Bajor 24]

Nonny, sorry but I don't understand single word from your post, apart from the fact it may not appear on STEX due to size, which is understandable. Dropbox, YouSendit or such service is perfectly fine with me and anyone interested.

 

First of all, we (I mean Joe, if he's still willing) are not building anything in the cities apart from NAM stuff. Which is readily available for free download for the whole city simming world and we are recognizing it is their stuff, so I really don't get copyright violating thing. I don't get how downloading standalone free content isn't against rules (of course it is basic premise of stex), but downloading that same content in combination with other content that is also free, and with recognizing due credits, somehow violates some copyrights.

 

Second of all, I don't understand why would we, players, be stuck with "prebuilt scenes in default regions"? We (Joe) are working on custom region, thanks to the original author who made that region available on stex.

 

If it's really all that much of a problem, I guess we can ask NAM authors and Madison author if it's ok, but the problem of copyrights when everything is clear and in the open seems really overblown at the moment. It's not like anyone here is taking any undeserved credits or god forbid money for anything.

 

One good soul, Indiana Joe, is trying to help us people that would find immense help from this. Yes the pleasure is greater if you understand inner workings and nuances of something, but as we all know the learning curve of NAM is tough and not everybody has time to go through it. In my case, I'm a father of six month old baby and I don't really see myself having any fun with this game if don't take shortcut. And that comes from a guy who was hard core gamer since C64. And heavy modder for Flight Simulator. Times change.

[Tarkus 6,933]

First of all, we (I mean Joe, if he's still willing) are not building anything in the cities apart from NAM stuff. Which is readily available for free download for the whole city simming world and we are recognizing it is their stuff, so I really don't get copyright violating thing. I don't get how downloading standalone free content isn't against rules (of course it is basic premise of stex), but downloading that same content in combination with other content that is also free, and with recognizing due credits, somehow violates some copyrights.

 

. . .

 

If it's really all that much of a problem, I guess we can ask NAM authors and Madison author if it's ok, but the problem of copyrights when everything is clear and in the open seems really overblown at the moment. It's not like anyone here is taking any undeserved credits or god forbid money for anything.

 

Technically, free or not, the content is actually under the copyright of its creators, unless they've specified otherwise.  At least here in the US, that happens automatically, regardless of whether or not the author/creator has filed anything with the Library of Congress (which merely gives additional legal redress).  As we are discussing things that are released free--and based upon the generally accepted reading of the EULA, can't legally be sold--it'd be hard for any creator to prove damages in court. 

 

That said, this community has a long-standing practice of respecting such copyrights, and from the perspective of the NAM, which is a technically complex mod that has been updated 31 times, there's a more practical consideration involved--tech support.  The NAM Team only provides technical support for the most recent release, so when someone is distributing an outdated version, that's a liability for us.

 

-Tarkus

[Indiana Joe 1,751]

Indeed, regardless of whether it's free or not, I need permission from the authors to re-distribute any files they've created, at least by site rules if not the law.

 

My plan for this project is to include the pre-rendered region with the transit networks built as outlined, with plugins listed as dependencies.  So I will try to get permission from the creator of Madison County (although so far he's not contacting me back).  Since I'm not distributing any NAM files at all, or any other plugins for that matter, everything else is in order.  And I'm definitely not going to break any team policies by providing experimental content that I have access to as I'm actually a NAM member (just don't ask me if I've actively contributed anything to the mod recently  ).  Everything in the region is going to be NAM 32 content and will be compatible with the v33 update.

 

And as I stated I'll be using third party file hosting.

 

So with the red tape outta the way, here's proof I'm working on it.  I'll admit I only worked on it for a grand total of 1 day.  But I'll finish it, promise 

 

 

A close-up to prove it's quality work.

 

[Major from Bajor 24]

^Ahhhh.... I'm salivating from one glance and will continue so for the rest of the... month!  ^Man, I know the names of at least two cities in "my" version of region development: Indiana City and Joe Town Incidentally, they even sound like proper city names!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Bajorans should be wary of this.  It might be a trap from the Dominion.

[Major from Bajor 24]

Hey Joe, still working on this or you gave up?

 

Not pushing or anything, just wondering if I should still hold my breath or...well, start breathing

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

You won't find this on the STEX.  Maybe someone would post a region like this on some other site or in the cloud for you, but it is unlikely.  With all the tools available for this open canvas, why would you want to use someone else's artistic impressions when you can do your own?

 

I don't know about you, but I often make my own regions let alone road layouts.  Why would you want something made by an alien?  He might be a Cardassian.

[Major from Bajor 24]

Well, no need to reinvent the wormhole if far more advanced races found the means of controlling it up, in the cloud.

 

We are primitive people, too busy with grinding the rudimentary stages of existence.

[nathkel 31]

I too like to create regions with prebuilt networks. The fun is building from the highways or railways already present, and working with what you got. I prefer to create fictional regions, build realistically designed highways and rails (that conform to topography or economic considerations, like in real life), then start with any one of the regions and begin play. I used to map out with pencil and paper all the regions and possible cities, all the topography named ("Black Lake" or "Tropico Mtn"), and begin to get a feel for what cities in the region would handle what responsibilities. (Small cities would be garbage collectors and hilly cities would be farmland, for example.) Then I'd translate them into SC4.

 

But I can tell you it takes a while; even if you don't have fulltime job, it can take at least a week, more if you're going off a preset map.

 

If someone is willing to provide the space I'm happy to contribute these kinds of starter regions with NAM 32 roads. I know they're seriously large files and I can understand why the STEX never hosted anything except raw maps. Just give us a link and instructions on uploading!

[philforhockey51 4,216]

Though much to take from this, Le fast trainz and Awsum Highway will stick with me for awhile.

[crishy 57]

I too like to create regions with prebuilt networks. The fun is building from the highways or railways already present, and working with what you got. I prefer to create fictional regions, build realistically designed highways and rails (that conform to topography or economic considerations, like in real life), then start with any one of the regions and begin play. I used to map out with pencil and paper all the regions and possible cities, all the topography named ("Black Lake" or "Tropico Mtn"), and begin to get a feel for what cities in the region would handle what responsibilities. (Small cities would be garbage collectors and hilly cities would be farmland, for example.) Then I'd translate them into SC4.

 

But I can tell you it takes a while; even if you don't have fulltime job, it can take at least a week, more if you're going off a preset map.

 

If someone is willing to provide the space I'm happy to contribute these kinds of starter regions with NAM 32 roads. I know they're seriously large files and I can understand why the STEX never hosted anything except raw maps. Just give us a link and instructions on uploading!

 

Starting out with a pre-built network is hard though because NAM is tedious to play with, let alone placing these pieces up just for sharing (unless the creator is going to play on it after) and you have copyright/distribution issues, besides the issues of the map files being very large and hosting websites.

 

I would think the best way would be to render a map, and then either suggest someone else to physically create a rough map of the infrastructure you want, and then build it yourself. You could even ask them to place the infrastructure themselves - just do not expect them to use NAM or other puzzle pieces unless they play SC4 a lot as well lol, and in any case the challenge to bring infrastructure to a more realistic standard could be fun as well. Or you could just randomly draw starting roads yourself.

 

Personally, I would do the inverse, creating a fairly built region with minimal or no rail and/or highways. You could then plan said infrastructure as your region grows, or you could just grow fast to a determined point and then just focus on the infrastructure aspect on existing cities.