The City of Rockhill

[charlesnew 262]

Hey! I decided to post my city journal here. It was originally posted over at the Paradox Forums, but this seems like a better place to put it in. I've copied and pasted the updates (sorry for the overload of posts), so the first 8 might be a bit outdated by mods and updates. I'll be updating both versions of the journal at the same time.

 

(If I talk in bold brackets like this, it means I'm out of character).

Hello, and welcome to my city journal.

In this city journal, I'll be staring from a small city, and building it up from that. I'm not staring from scratch, but instead a already built city. But you haven't missed out much, because it's still pretty small. In fact, it's still, really a town.

Update 1

 

Well, this isn't really much of an update, I'm just gonna get you familiar with the city first:

Well, here's an overview of my city to start. I took it during a hot air balloon flight I had.

 

And here are the districts and traffic:

 

 

Traffic's a little busy in some areas, but generally, it's pretty good. I sometimes get small queues but they normally clear up over time. Though, I don't know how well it's gonna do once the city expands, it's gonna be tough. Sometimes, I wonder why I decided to be mayor...

 

(I know there are a few garbage problems, but I'll try fix those) (and land value.. I don't know how that happened)

 

Here's a picture one of my friends took. He's a good photographer, and I'm sure he'll be taking a lot of pictures for me.

 

 

Here's a roundabout we have. Had lots of traffic problems in this area, but we built this, and walah! Named it Pick-a-Dollar circus because I found a dollar on the floor when I visited its construction site while it was being built. 

(or maybe there's another reason why I named it that *wink* *wink*)

 

 

 

And here it is on Goggle Skylines.

 

 

Here's our high school. Its got its Its own football field and basketball court. It's called Edford Elementary, even though it's a high school now, it used to be a boarding school for elementary students before I became mayor. Hence the name, but because of the growing population of teens, we needed a high school in our city. Oh, and also, if you look at it from above, it looks like two "E"s which are the initials of the name.

 

Just a picture of one of the avenue that goes through Pick-a-Dollar circus and out again.

 

I'm surprised that this still runs very smoothly for the amount of traffic it gets sometimes. I call this Sunglass Interchange, because it kinda looks like sunglasses from this angle. Or maybe I just drank too much from that party last night...

 

A look at one of my shopping areas. This is mostly for smaller businesses or grocery stores.

 

Here's a picture taken from the rooftop of another building. One of the tallest buildings in our city.

 

Here is an avenue going through my industrial district. Industry doesn't clog up much, but it's probably because our industrial district is small. 

 

Here is the whole thing. Even though the industrial district is small, the rail yard is pretty big. Ready for any future expansion. 

(I mix in a few offices in my industry for a more realistic look and feel)

 

Oh, and obviously, gotta show the trains:

Here's an observatory that we've got right on the outskirts of the land we have.

 

 

 

Oh, and the farms:

 

 

My photographer friend took this for me too with this drone he got recently.

 

 

And here's the tiny town of Mulberry, we own it though, so it's not really a town, but more of a district.

 

 

Here's the beach. There's nothing much to it yet, we're saving it for the future. We don't want development on it yet.

 

Here are our two intersections too:

 

 

To finish off, I want to give a big thanks to IVIaarten for inspiration and ideas. Here's a link to his city journal, Forkton: 

https://community.simtropolis.com/to...hed-boob-job-and-some-service-stations/page-8

 

 

Here are mods that you can see in the pics. 

 

Stacked Containers: 

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=419832440

The map is a customised version of the Boulder Rapids Map 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=409024545&searchtext=boulder rapids

Fall LUT 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=403437135&searchtext=fall

 

Also red and purple flower bushes which I can't find for some reason on the Steam WS

First Person Camera: 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=406255342&searchtext=first person

Underground Power Cables: 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=409251698&searchtext=power

Tree Brush:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=406723376&searchtext=tree

Sun Shafts:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=410805639&searchtext=sun shafts

Area Fillers: 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416082909

Old High School: 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=407328355&searchtext=old high school

A more realistic coal power plant: 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=412240463&searchtext=Coal

power plant

Football Field: 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=409641585&searchtext=soccer

 

And a whole bunch of custom zoned buildings which I can't list here because it's too much. If you want to know a specific one, just ask, and I will gladly reply. And a big thanks to all the modders who created these mods. If I missed anything, please tell me, and I'll put it up

 

 

  Edited June 18, 2015 by charlesnew  
Messed up

[charlesnew 262]

Update 2

Well, we've done a bit in Rockhill recently, here's what we've done...

 

The biggest change first. I've added quite a few more houses. I've expanded Dunely (on the right side of the railway) an added a new district called Applepine Park ( on the left side of the railway). It's named after the river it's next to, the Applepine river. Oh, and thanks to my friend for letting me borrow his drone so that I could take a few birds eye view pics.


Here's the park, which is also what the district is named after.



And here is the whole district with the park in the foreground. Sorry about the house of fire. It's because this district was quite rushed, since there was so much demand for residential. I rushed the workers while they were building it so I could save money and time. I guess the houses have a few faults. Oh wait... why did I say that... You're not planning on leaving my city are you?



I've also added a road going from the highway to the farms. It's not really used yet, but I'm planing on putting farms on it, though the rest of the people don't agree with me, because they feel like the farms will be built over later, once we expand. (We've got plans)



We've also added a recycling area, because the people were complaining that we weren't green enough. I don't really agree with them though. I mean, have you seen the amount of trees? But I added it in anyway, because I want to keep them happy and I'm a good mayor.

 

Oh, and last but definitely not least, we've got plans..

 

A few mods from Hest:

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198012749154/myworkshopfiles/?appid=255710

 

Recycling Centre:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=417133223&searchtext=recycling

 

 

  Edited June 18, 2015 by charlesnew  

[charlesnew 262]

Update 2.5
This isn't' really much of an update, more of a news headline.

The Town Hall was on fire!
Luckily I wasn't there at that time. I was busy over at the construction site of the new building we're gonna get (check the last update). No injuries or fatalities though. Everyone was alerted when the fire was still really small. although, the cause of the fire is still unknown, people think it might have been because someone was smoking and dropped a bit of ash.

The Town Hall's fine, thanks to my amazing firemen!

Some pics from a news helicopter:




The helicopter went dangerously close here. But came up with a pretty cool pic:


Anyway, thanks for reading. I'll be posting a proper update tomorrow. I've got lots to show!

[charlesnew 262]

Update 3

More Suburbs

First off, lets celebrate for what we've got so far in the early morning sunrise:


We've expanded quite a bit recently. And I'll start with the biggest expansion first.

We've expanded Dunely all the way till it touches the Applepine River. The district Dunely got so big, that I split it up, and made East Dunely (which is next to the river) and West Dunely. I managed to get a hold of my friends drone in the evening to take some more cool birds-eye-view pictures. Here it is:


Some nice suburbs stretching across the hills...



We also made a bridge to get across the river. There are a few houses there, it's a new district called Riverside (creative name, huh?). Not much yet, but it won't stay like that for long I'm actually really surprised at how high this drone can go, this is it's maximum height:



And a nice view of the city from Riverside. We do need to get rid of those power lines...:



We've also expanded near the factories in New Millard. It's a pretty small district as of now though. It's just a low skill area to supply workers to the factories. Anyhow, here's Vixer (don't ask me about the name. I didn't make it):




A small town has also sprung up nearby. Welcome to Goghson:


This a normal evening view for these people:



Just another overview of the city from a helicopter flight I had, as a break for this long update. You can see most of Goghson right at the bottom there:



Well, that's the end of the expansions, here's a few more things that have been added:

We've taken an old building, and turned it into a military history museum. It's a good memorial to the Great War that was fought here before there even was anything here. In fact, Rockhill was born because the army needed a military base. A pretty cool history for our city. You should research it. (there isn't actually a history of the city that you can research about! Though, I am planning to make a one eventually):


And here's another drone shot:



We've also got an expansion of the trees against the beach. You can see it in this shot:



Anyway. I've been driving around town, trying to take some nice pictures. Here are my best:

Here's the a shot with the sun shafts during the evening.



A shot with the highway, also during the evening (it's when you get the best lighting)



The city got a blackout for a couple of minutes (cause unknown). I was up on the hill during that time:



A view from the roof of a building with the (not so) rush hour traffic in the morning.



A view from the top of the town hall. I don't know why it's still called the "Rockhill Town Hall". Rockhill is officially a city now, according to the law but we haven't got a city hall yet.



The beautiful Rosewood Observatory during late afternoon:


New mods:
First off, the main mod. Moving Sun. It's amazing. Doesn't have night time or rush hour and that stuff, but still really gives the feeling of the days going by. I put my settings to 1 full day cycle in 15 minutes.
Museum of Military History
Cypress Tree
I'm also using the Early Death mod, which you can't see here.

And that's it for this update. Next update is gonna be about bus lines. I don't think I have a really effective one set up right now, so I'm going to be changing it.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to include a screenshots with the new districts. I'll do that when I get a chance to play again.

[charlesnew 262]

Update 4
This update is just for buses.

We've completely redone the bus lines in Rockhill. We thought that they weren't getting people around fast enough. Here's what was before:




I wanted the bus lines to be more organised. I though of a bus line that just goes on the Evercress Avenue/boulevard, and then kinda having bus lines jutting out of the avenue. I talked to the the guys who do the public transport work on the city. Here's what they've come up with:

So you can see the red line. That's the bus line that goes through the Evercress Avenue. We've then got the purple, the green and the yellow lines jutting out of it. People can just swap buses easily.


Here, you can see one of the ends of the red line. You can also see here that the yellow line just goes in a rectangle. It takes people from Duxon and drops them off over at West Dunely to go to work or shopping.


Here, you can see the other tips of the purple and green lines. People can swap between these buses if they need to.


Here, you can see the other tip of the red line. It just goes to the station there, and goes back the other way. You can also see the blue line here. This is just for people in Ashton or Alexander of they work in the factories.


And, well that's it. I've just got buses to show for today. See ya in the next update!

[charlesnew 262]

Update 5
Rockhill has expanded a bit more now. It's really starting to get that sprawl feeling for a bigger city. Who knows what it's going to be like in the future!

Anyway, so, first off. Clarkson has expanded a bit more now. I had to buy the field that used to be there. The farmer was really mad at me, but I already warned him that he won't be able to stay forever when he bought the land. Apparently, he didn't listen to me. Managed to get a hold of the drone at midday:


Riverside has also grown a bit. It also has its own connection to the highway, as we'll see later.


Here's the highway connection. It only has connections going in and out of the city, and not the outside world. It allows the uneducated people living in Riverside to easily get to the factories at the other end of the city.



Well, that's really it for the expansion of the city. There have been quite a few changes in the city though.

Here's Jackson Roundabout. Not the best name, I've got to admit, but it is a great roundabout.





We made it because of the amount of people who were going on and off Evercress Avenue. It got so clogged, we had to take emergency measures, and Jackson Roundabout was born. (It takes FOREVER to get the monument in the centre, and to keep the roads in a circle, but it's definitely worth it!).


Also, here's a bonus shot of the older roundabout - Pick-a-Dollar Circus. It's the best roundabout of the two, at least in my opinion. (I'm just so proud of it).


We've also got more offices. If you can remember, there used to be residential in the cul de sac, we changed to to offices (and commercial) because there was lots of demand. Though, it was tough trying to get the people to leave, because they've been long time residents in the city, and they didn't want to move. I had to sign a lot of papers and make a lot of promises to finally get them to move. They're now living somewhere else in the city. (Not really a big thing, but there will be a lot of small things like this happening as the city grows, so I though I might share one, just so you know)


New Millard has grown a bit. Not so much, but you can see that it's expanded below at the farm, and on the right section on top. Traffic is really clogged up. It's partly because the avenue is two separate roads, and the intersections are so close to each other. Also, I think the dynamic traffic lights are kinda contributing to this. Need to do something about this...



We've also made a few beautifications to the city, to some areas we felt needed.

We've got a little church over at Vixer.


(The tracks have also been changed. They were a bit steep for a realistic look, so I changed them.)


Some tiling has been added here. Not much else to say.



And to finish off, here's a view of the whole sprawl of the city. It's really starting to grow, and I'm exited for what the future holds:


And last but not least, the districts, which I forgot to put before. (Gohson is above, at the top, I couldn't fit it in the picture)


Sorry if this update didn't bring in many "big" things. I've just been doing small things lately. The next update will be bigger, I promise. 

New mods shown:
Modern Art Plaza
No More Purple Pollution: Silty Water Version
No More Purple Pollution: Tan Grass
And if you don't want those colours for your pollution, here's the full collection so you can pick what you want.

[charlesnew 262]

Oh wow. Been a long time since I've made an update. I've been working on somethings for the city. You'll see why it's been a while.

Update 6
I managed to get a helicopter flight. We got a new helicopter pad nearby the observatory, so we decided to try the helicopter out.

Here's a distant shot of the city from the heli:



And here's a view of the observatory as we head towards Rockhill:


And here is the baby. It might already look a bit different from last time.



And here's the first change. Riverside has grown. In fact, it's grow so much that it's split into two other districts. Cloverluck and Waterlake. Riverside goes up against the ocean, and is where the bridge connects to. From the angle of the picture, Cloverluck is at the bottom right, and Waterlake is on the top right, against the Applepine River.



We didn't get much time on the helicopter, so the rest are drone shots, except for the overview, but that comes later.


We also have a new elementary school in the Riverside area. It's full of students.





We've also expanded nearby the industry. Hillmore has got its own nice park, to make up for living next to the factories.



There's also a roundabout that connects to Hillmore. These roundabouts really help with the flow of traffic with the avenue, because it's made of 2 streets right next to each other.


We've also expanded Vixer. Just for lower class workers, so that they can live near work.



We haven't hear much about Mulberry lately, so here it is. It's now doubled it's size.



And now for some "minor" changes before we get to the biggest news:


We've got a new coal power plant, isolated form the city. The old one wasn't enough. Man, our citizens need to stop using night lights! They're using too much power.



We've also added some shops to Ashton:



And now for the "biggest" news.


Our industrial traffic was just too much. We HAD to do something. Trucks were piling up way too far, and it looked ugly to not see them moving. After some planning with my great colleague who works on the road designs, and some signing papers, we got this:



I mean. Look how smooth it runs, and it's compact, and it's beautiful. Here's another shot, from a different angle:

I gave my colleague a pay raise because of this.


I've also been signing more papers. Construction on the new skyscraper (look at update 2 if you don't know what I mean) has had a slow start. Some stuff's been going on, and we couldn't get a crane in. Once we did get one, though, it's been rising. It seems to grow every time I look at it now.

Here it is (can you guess what skyscraper it is going to be?):



(At least now you know why I haven't been putting out updates for a while. My first 2 models for Cities: Skylines, and my first 2 textured models on Blender!)





I also asked the crane operator to get a picture from the cabin. Yes, I was too scared to go there myself. I don't even know how people survive with jobs like that, they must be really brave.




Can you guess what building is being constructed? (I'll give you a huge hint: It's not a modded building).

And that's it for today. I'm not putting the crane on the workshop yet, as there are a few weird things where you can't see some faces at certain angles, but when I fix that, I'll upload it. The automatic LOD model also sucks, so I'll need to do that. I'll also be making different heights for it for different skyscrapers. (Yes, I'm basically gonna do this with every skyscraper, but don't worry, I think I've got the hang of it now, so it won't take me so long anymore).

I'm not going to share the construction building unless someone asks. I don't want to fill the SW with something no one's going to download.


New mods:
Traffic Manager This is a great mod. I honestly don't know if traffic++ or this is better, but at least I can make real roundabouts now!
Portable Toilet (for the construction site)
Site Office (also for the construction site)
City Copter Love this mod. It's like a whole new game!


If I missed a new mod, I'll put it on.

[charlesnew 262]

Update 6
Time for a new update! We've got a lot of stuff that's happened recently, so let's take a look.

We'll start with an overview of the city, as always. It's just dawn, and the citizens of Rockhill have just started to wake up. All of these aerial pictures are at dawn, as that's when we went on our helicopter flight. It's definitely changed a lot since we last saw it here:


So, as always, we'll start with what has expanded in the city first, and move on to other stuff later.

We've expanded below Clarkson, towards the ocean. It's not yet an official, official part of the city, we have yet to make it a district, but it will be one soon (or in other words, I forgot to make it a district).


We've also got an area on the hill north of our city. These houses are mostly there for the residents that had to move out because we expanded our commercial and offices. The houses here aren't as good, but the view makes up for it, so they're fine. It's also not a district in the city yet, but it will be.




We've also got an expansion over at Waterlake. We've also built a bridge across the river, just to balance out traffic (and for aesthetics).


Remember that new coal power plant we made? Well, there's been some demand for industry so we decided to get some of it around the power plant. This district's called Armygore. We don't want to expand the existing industrial area (New Millard), because Industry's smelly, and we don't want anymore near our beloved residents. Well, here's the start of our new industrial district:


Well, that's it with the expansion in Rockhill, so lets get on with the other stuff.

If you compared the last overview picture, and the overview picture in this update, you'll notice that our downtown area has greatly expanded.
Millard Square was part of that change. It used to be a residential area, if you remember, but we decided to finally just connect the offices and shops there to the main downtown area.


We've also got a nice road that goes through the area.


A look on street level:



There have also been a series of pipes bursting through out the city. We've got the situation under control, though we still don't know if there are going to be more or if the two we have now are all that there is. Anyway, I've got screenshots of the maintenance going on.

Here's one on the Evercress Avenue:


Here's the other one on one of the newly developed areas:


We've also put in some nice shady trees in Evercress Avenue in between jackson Roundabout and Pick-a-dollar circus. We're still deciding if we'e putting it on the rest of the avenue, or if it could be something special just for this section.


Here it is in the shade from one of my favourite restaurants:


Remember when we made some houses in Anchor Woods? Well, we've now started construction for a highway intersection there. It's going to be a trumpet intersection, as they're pretty efficient. The roundabout intersection sometimes fills up too much, (probably wasn't the best intersection to put there. Who knows, I might even change it to something more efficient in the future. Plus, it doesn't really look all too good anyway, I should save roundabouts for other stuff). Anyway, here it is in construction, it's not really much yet:



(Speaking of intersections, I've rebuilt the one for Gohson to something else. It's also a trumpet intersection, as I think they're pretty good. I've also made a change in the highway. I changed the whole slope where there is the intersection that connects to the industrial area. I did it to add realism. I don't have a screenshot of it, but you can find it in the overview screenshots).


We also have a new roundabout in. (Some people say to not overdo it with roundabouts, but I kinda have to for Evercress Avenue, as it's 2 roads that are parallel, and just connecting it like normal doesn't work). This new roundabout over in between Alexander and Clarkson. Here's the picture:


And that's it for the update. Now for a glamour shot. This was taken on a lookout area in that new neighbourhood on the hill (I really should make a good LOD model for the crane sometime soon):


And here's a full overview:


And last but not least, here's a district overview. (Ahem... don't mind the crime popups everywhere. I already have way more than enough police stations in my city, and I still get them. I really don't like how people need police cars to patrol. Only the red popups are actual crimes, which there is an unusual amount of in this picture).


Sorry for the really long entry. I've been doing so much lately, and I've just been too lazy to add stuff into the journal recently. Maybe I should change it so that it's short, but frequent updates instead of long infrequent updates.


Anyway, enough chit chat. Here are the new mods:
Sunken Plaza (I've had this mod for a while, I was just looking for the right time to use it).
Shady Tree (left) (right)

[charlesnew 262]

Update 7
Hey! Time for another update!

Of course, we're gonna start with where the city's expanded.
Vixer has grown again. We've got more houses, and eventually the whole area could be snaking around the hill:



We also built a nice squiggly road to Gohson from the hill. There are also now more houses on Hawk Hill. And yes, now the whole hill is a district.



Also, here's a nice picture of the road I took with the drone for fun.



Armygore has also grown. A huge change for the district. We've made lots of houses there for the factory workers to move into. The amount of factories themselves have also grown.



And that's basically it for the expansion. Lets get on with some other stuff.


And since we're still in the topic of Armygore, lets talk about more construction. We've decided that we need more connections to the outside world. And we've also got an ocean. Finally, we're constructing a port for shops to get into. Right now, the city is only accessible on water by a small ships, as we've got a couple of small docks round. They're mostly for fishing or tourism, though, so we still need connections from larger ships. Here it is in construction. Hopefully, by the next update, it will be done. (I'm still figuring out what the "VTS" can stand for).



And speaking of construction, our new highway connection has finished. It's being used nicely. The connection into the city (towards the bottom of the picture) is our most dangerous intersection in the city, be careful when driving there!



We also made a local recycling centre in West Dunely. We're trying to get our citizens to recycle more. We've also encouraged recycling and litter cleaning programs at schools to educate our youngsters about recycling. It's likely we'll put more smaller recycling centres around the area, and hopefully get rid of a couple of incinerators.


And speaking of schools, we've got a new school on Hawk Hill. It's both primary and high school. They've still got another primary building planned for the school as it's still pretty new. We want all of our residents in Rockhill to have access to primary and high school education. Obviously not all of them will be educated, but we want enough for everyone.


(This is not part of the dev diary, it would be unrealistic if it was, just something I'd like to point out. I've made the rail through Waterlake an underground one, just cause it looks cool).



And just a nice photo I took from the bridge. Heh... um... don' mind the smoke in the background. It's just... uh... a barbecue.



This guy bought a bit of land in our city, and made this. Yeah. I couldn't resist the money he payed me though. He basically designed a house and just rebuilt it with different colours tonnes of times. He said it was for some kind of project of sorts, but he didn't explain it much.



Here it is from above. It stands out a bit, but that's fine.



And, just a few aerial shots. Rockhill's already getting very crowded. We've already started talking about a metro or tunnel system throughout the city.



I've got a few new mods for this entry (note that I'm not sure if these are compatible with 1.1.0. I took the pictures from the last version and haven't played after it yet):

Building Eyedropper Tool (A great mod so you can pick which zoned buildings go where. It's really good if you want your city to look the way you want it, and can make much more variety in places where it's lacking).

Control Building Level Up (Another great mod to add variety to buildings. Goes really really good with the Building Eyedropper Tool mod. The two mods make my life feel almost complete. All we now need are automatic icons for parks and props).

I used a few letters from the Create Your Own Signs Collection Even though, I have all of them.

I might have missed a few mods, so please point them out if you notice one missing.

[charlesnew 262]

Update 8

Well. Recently, the city hasn't grown very much. We've mostly been refining it instead. The whole point is to keep the Rockhillians (what else can I call them? Rockhill citizens? Nah...) happy, so we've been refining and changing a few things around.

I said there hasn't been hasn't been much expansion, but there has been some. We've recently got a new district formed north of Waterlake. The district started getting too big, so we either had to split it to form North Waterlake and South Waterlake, or make it a completely new district. We put out a vote, and eventually settled on making a new district. Welcome... to Birchwood:

It's still pretty new, so there are some empty plots, but all of those plots are already sold.

(also, you probably have realised that I'm using a new LUT now. You'll find it at the end)

.

From another angle:

And, well, that's all for expansion. Lets go to the centre, there's been a lot of new development there.

We've changed up Sunglass Intersection. As you can see, we've made the roundabouts into 2 lanes instead.

(With the help of Traffic++ I also managed to get them to use both lanes instead of the outside one like they normally do)

:

Since I was taking pictures of the area already, I decided to just turn the drone around and take a picture of the new building so far. I wouldn't call it a skyscraper, as buildings can get much taller than it, but it's going to be a unique spiral shape. Anyway, here it is. 2 new storeys added since the last update.

(You might have noticed that the props were put back to front in the building. Just... ignore that...)

:

Due to the demand of buses, we had to add more busses. Instead of making new busses, we decided to use the old ones. They didn't require much repair, so it was cheap. They're back in action again, and now everyone's happy. Here's a picture of one of the old red busses next to a newer green bus:

Moving on. We've changed up Main Avenue. There are two bus lines that run through the avenue (yellow and green), and the increase of buses has put a bit of pressure on the roads, we know it's only going to get worse as the city gets more people, so we upgraded it before it was too late.

Here's another picture of the avenue with one of the "newer" busses.

Some of us were thinking that the city didn't have much character or uniqueness to it, or anything "special". Because of that, we made some nice compact mixed buildings over in Sesame. We call it Sesamini, because the buildings don't take up much land and it's in the district "Sesame". Makes sense.

And here's an overview of Sesame, with Clunch and Main Avenue:

Speaking of small buildings, we've also made a nice small district called Tiny Town, a suitable name as you'll see. All the buildings are the same with just a few differences each, and we have strict laws about what they can change to them, as we want to keep the whole district like this. There are a lot of small convenient businesses here:

And another angle:

And down at ground level. It's early morning so there aren't many people around, but there normally are more.

(I also made the bit of Evercress Avenue that goes through the rail into a tunnel. I had to add a tunnel somewhere right?)

Remember last entry? We were building a harbour? Well, it's finished. In fact, we've also very recently finished a rail yard there for the harbour and industry. People haul cargo from New Millard and back by train which relieves the traffic around here. Even though it's not as fast, it's cheaper. We made it cheap so that they would use it more.

(I just found out about the Harbour Pack by VIP. I'll probably use some buildings for the harbour from the pack)

.

Here's the rail yard. It's not as big, but it's not 100% done yet. Let's see what happens later.

And a nice overview of Armygore:

Last but, not lea... hmm... forget that.

Last and certainly least, up on Hawk Hill. The guys have finished the school (from the last update), and it's now complete. Let's take a look at it:

Well, that's it. Just a couple of overviews of Rockhill before we leave, as always:

Latest mods:

Some nice 1x1 commercial buildings from 

Ngon

. (I have the link to all his mods instead of the buildings as they're all separate and not in a collection).

Control Building Level Up

 (a great mod to control buildings leveling up. It's really good for adding variety to buildings).

Building Eyedropper Tool

 (Goes perfectly with the Control Building Level Up mod. Just great).

Traffic++

 (The dream has finally become true! I can now use Traffic++ with Traffic Manager! Wooh! Been using it so much lately).

True

 LUT (a lovely realistic LUT. I'm probably gonna keep it for a while).

 

[charlesnew 262]

Update 9
Alright. I haven't updated for a while. It's been busy at the Town Hall. I've been signing papers, having meetings and stuff. We've had talks of a new city hall and of an airport, so you can see why we've been busy. Eventually, I finally managed to find the time to take pictures and update this, and oh what a change. You'll see why I've been busy, and I'm not done yet!

So, as always, lets see where Rockhill has grown. We've got three new districts in the city.

Here's Felix and Roseburry. Felix is the bottom section, and Roseburry is the top section above the avenue. Mulberry is now properly connected to the rest of the city.



We also have a new district in the area called Elton.



There's also some nice cheap housing we made. it's called Dan (yeah, I know it's a persons name, but sometimes I'm just too lazy to come up with a good name...).



To compliment the cheap housing, we also have some nice expensive stuff being built up on Hawk Hill. It's still new, the houses have just been built and only a couple actually have residents at the moment. In fact, some of them are still in construction, as you'll see in the picture.



Now, below Hawk Hill, we also have expanded. The area has been made a separate district and there are more houses there now. Here's a picture of Salvey Valley. (I'll probably change that intersection to something more efficient before the next update, it's just not working well enough).

That's it with expansion. Our city is now at 32k residents, that's 32 thousand people living in the city, and that's not going to be it yet.

One thing that our city was lacking a lot was a college or university. With the city in the developed world, this is something that the city definitely needs. We've now got our first college. This is the Rockhill College of Music and Arts. It's pretty popular with students. Now we need a University.



From the back:



And from the Right at sunset:



The demand for cheap housing has been rising in Rockhill. More lower class people are moving in because there's opportunity for them. Building "Dan" wasn't enough for them, we needed more. We decided to build some cheap apartments over in Duxon. (I actually made these quite a while ago, but I have been forgetting to put them on the journal. I finally remembered to post them).



Now, the rest of the post is out of character. I'm making the updates out of character because they're too unrealistic, and wouldn't actually happen in a city's development. I did these mostly to add realism to the city. I thought some parts were unrealistic, so I decided to change them.

So I changed the intersection in the industry. I thought it was too unrealistic. It was a pretty nice intersection, but it wouldn't be something that people would make in real life. I also changed half of the industry to commercial and offices. 



I also made the intersection over at Anchor Woods more realistic. The turns were a bit too sharp, and it was a little steep. I changed it, now that we have tunnels.



And for the biggest change, I made the port much better. It looked a little weird before, and it looked unnatural how the industry stuck out, and was squarish. Normally in real life, you'd have the industry hugging the water. The district is now just the Rockhill Port, but I'll do something with Armygore. The port's probably gonna grow a lot as the city grows. I also too the sewage stuff away and made proper treatment plants. Come on, we're living in the 21st century, who throws poo in the ocean nowadays?



Showing the right half:



From the back:



I also decided to take a few pictures of downtown. Using the Building Eyedropper Mod and the Control Level Up Mod, over time, I managed to get much more variety in the buildings instead of all of them being the same.







And, well, that's it. Here's an updated aerial shot:


And here are the districts (I managed to get the crime thing solved. Now I've got some level 4's moving in, and they're complaining of high taxes):




I'm planning on making a list of mods that I use. I use quite a lot, but with the help of this guide, I managed to really reduce the amount of mods that I use. But for now, instead of making a list of new mods, I'll just answer questions about what mods I'm using if people ask.

[charlesnew 262]

Sorry for the large amount of posts with large amount of content in a small amount of time. 

[_Michael 2,681]

Wow. Some excellent work here. Good job!

[charlesnew 262]

Thank you! I'm glad you like it

[simcityperron 2]

one of the better cities I've seen here.  Keep it up.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

That's one amazing city !!!!!! What an awesome job.

[charlesnew 262]

one of the better cities I've seen here.  Keep it up.

Thank you so much

That's one amazing city !!!!!! What an awesome job.

Thanks! I'm really glad you like my city!

[Mr. Bones 14]

What mod did you use for the ploppable containers in your industrial districts?

[charlesnew 262]

What mod did you use for the ploppable containers in your industrial districts?

Hey there

I use multiple mods.

There's the stacked containers with cranes and there's the one without the cranes. They both require lots of props, make sure you subscribe to them or else it wouldn't even be a container yard.

If you're talking about the other container yard, it's part of the Harbour Pack by vip. It doesn't require props like the other one.

[Mr. Bones 14]

Thank you so much!

[mutton noir 170]

What a great series. Some really fantastic design and layout. Your city has a unique authentic feel- not easy to achieve. Hours of work constructing this masterpiece, time well spent. Like many aspects and details but the harbour & container port are especially impressive.

[charlesnew 262]

What a great series. Some really fantastic design and layout. Your city has a unique authentic feel- not easy to achieve. Hours of work constructing this masterpiece, time well spent. Like many aspects and details but the harbour & container port are especially impressive.

Thank you SO much! I'm glad you like my city!

I do spend lots of time trying to get the buildings right. When land value is high in areas, I try to get some lower level buildings in with the Building Eyedropper mod and keep them there with the Level Control mod for more variety. I like going back to places and adding some touches, and I don't leave an area alone.

And for the port, thanks. I thought it wasn't so realistic before when I made it, and I redid it with the industry hugging the ocean more. I'm glad I rebuilt it, and I'm glad you like it

[simfanheatermayor 17]

Truly a nice city, and great storytelling. Good job.

 

[charlesnew 262]

Truly a nice city, and great storytelling. Good job.

 

Thank you!

I'm glad you like the story telling and the in character-ness 

[kirelire 7]

Really like your city, keep it going! 

[Titanicbuff 1,262]

has a feel of England a bit- love that- as an American I'm so use to no real imagination on roads- wil lbe buying Skylines in the future- and will grab lots of mods.

[charlesnew 262]

has a feel of England a bit- love that- as an American I'm so use to no real imagination on roads- wil lbe buying Skylines in the future- and will grab lots of mods.

Yeah, I guess it's more of a British style than an American style.

 

Really like your city, keep it going! 

Thank you!

 

Announcement

Hey everyone, just an announcement, I'm away for 3 weeks, so I can't post any updates in that time. I wanted to make one before I left, but I didn't have the time. Sorry about that, I only just posted this here and I am already leaving it for a little while.  

[charlesnew 262]

Update 10

Well, It's been a while. I've been so busy at the Town Hall lately and I still am. Rockhill has been seeing some huge changes, and I've been so busy, I've forgotten to post a new entry. Now that I've remembered, it's time to get this update happening! More good news? Well, I now have my own drone, so I don't have to borrow my friends one to get pictures, and this one can fly much higher than the other one so I can get much better pics.


Well, as usual, we start with the expansion, and we've been having some huge expansion lately.

Hawk hill is completely different now. It doesn't look so unnatural like it used to, we've now got lots of connections going to it from all over. There are many more houses. The houses are bigger and it's quieter here. It's one of the best places to live because it's also not too far from the city center. The hill is pretty steep, so we only get to build in some areas.



Here are the new houses:



Here it is from the back. Gohson is still pretty much the same. There are some nice houses on the hill too.




Dellmore Valley has also had some expansion. We've stopped working on this because the hill there is just too steep to build anything on. While we figure something out, we can still expand into the plenty of flat land we've got near the coast.




Roseburry has changed too. We've got a few big houses there.




Over at Cloverluck and Riverside we have some new roads put down. Some houses have built but it's still pretty empty as it's still pretty new.



Here's an overview of the East.




Well, we're now done with that, there's still some big stuff I've got for you.


We had to rebuild the big roundabout intersection. It was getting too crowded up. We decided to build a Single Point Urban Interchange as they're made to take higher volumes of traffic. It's recently been opened, and we're pretty happy with it. Traffic flows nicely in it.




We have also finished the skyscraper. Last update, it was still in the very early stages of construction, but it's now done. It's our new tallest building in the city.



Now we've got 3 dominant buildings. 



Here's the skyline from the highway:



And that's it. We're still busy over at the Town Hall, we've got a new City Hall planned and an airport is coming soon 

And of course, here's the aerial shot:

[SAVAGExPHOENIX 955]

I absolutely love that single-point interchange. Any chance I could get a shot underneath the bridge to see how it's connected? I tried one and and the way it was built was just horrible  Yours is simply beautiful!

This entire journal is beautiful. I played this map but I don't like how the largest river flows unnaturally into the ocean causing those monster waves.

[boformer 3,169]

Amazing city journal!