Sunset Valley

[Neekoid 13]

Sunset Valley started as an idea to create a custom map and then try to build a city on it. Not only that, but then to create a story in the form of a city journal. I have never done any of this before. (Strictly speaking I have built a few cities in CS so far and a lot more in SC too.)

I wanted mountains with lots of small streams all winding their way into a deep meandering river, then leading to an estuary and out to sea. I also wanted hilly areas, flat regions, some pretty coastline, a small island, and for the sun to set behind the mountains. The small streams didn't make the final cut, due to a mad desire to actually try playing on the terrain I'd created, but most of the other things did. I think of the map in its current form as a diamond in the rough... I will definitely revisit this at some time in the future for refinement and adjustment. The resources and trees were literally pebble dashed onto the terrain, which I feel very guilty about after giving so much time to the areas of the map that won't even get played on.

The mountains are at the sides of the map, primarily to give additional awesomeness to long range views in game, and by being at the sides of the map they wouldn't interfere with the city building area. I thought it might be cool to have a reservoir in the mountains, created by a dam, so I experimented in the map editor and made a dam of mud and earth, to see what it might look like... I liked it so much that I ended up keeping it, after first making it look more like a giant waterfall.

That seems like a good start, and because I've never done this before, and don't know how this will appear after I "submit topic", I'm going to submit it now to see what happens... OK. That seemed to work nicely. So, here's an aerial view of my map with mountainous regions to the North and West, Ocean to the South, and a bit of hills, jungle and beach in the East. There are road, rail, sea and air connections available and super generous quantities of natural resources, except for trees oddly.

 

This is the second waterfall in the mountains. The first one is just behind it but the water is not flowing in this picture due to the fact that the reservoir is so large and takes an age to fill. There's a water spawning widget at the bottom of the reservoir, and a second one for this waterfall. I wanted to give my citizens lots of fresh water, because I am a kind and benevolent creator/mayor.

 

My current computer is old and so most of the images I post will be without shadows and fairly low res... I can't wait to buy a new one where I can switch it all on and marvel at the loveliness!

I will also say that I use a few mods, which I will probably list for posterity at some point, although this is more relevant to the actual city side of things, so, without further ado, lets visit Sunset Valley's first city (currently called Sunset Valley although this may change in the future.)

 

Here's a view looking North at sunrise. The last mountain in the range is called the Lonely Mountain, and the large flat-topped mountain to it's left is called Flat Top. Not very imaginative as a name maybe, but at least it has one! There are some in the Western range which don't yet - shocking!

 

Above is the Main Bridge which takes people across the river from the Northern and Eastern freeways. Anyway, getting sidetracked... Sunset Valley is being played properly, with limited money, but with the "Unlock All" mod on.

 

So the first thing the city needed was the basics, power, water, somewhere for the sewage to go. (I had conceived to build a lake for this purpose but in my haste to build a city, kind of forgot.)

Bizarrely, more through luck than judgement, the starting square has the river along two of it's sides and offers a pretty good set up for putting some distance between the water pumps and the sewage plant. Even more bizarrely, the train track almost makes a diagonal line through virtually the centre of the starting square. (It wasn't planned to be this way, unless it was and I've simply forgotten this.) I always like to have a power grid where possible, so if I have different power sources at different locations, they all feed into one connected grid.

I've gone for the cleaner sewage treatment plant as I don't want Sunset Valley's coastline to get ruined.

 

So here (above) is the Telegraph Road. Humble beginnings for what will hopefully become a great city. I named the first road Telegraph Road after the Dire Straits track, because it is a completely awesome song and it conjures up some imagery which is quite appropriate to city building (and I know they're power pylons, and not telegraph poles, but it's my city so there.)

Then came the churches, then came the schools... Well, eventually but first some domestic dwellings...

 

And here's the first bit of industry, Lowdale Farm...

And here it is again after thinking it didn't look much like a farming district, and then realising I'd forgotten to set the farming district policy - doh!

 

Uh-oh. Bad Guys... better upgrade the dirty old track and get some street lighting... and a sheriff.

 

That's better. Residents happy again and ready to face another day in Sunset Valley.

Can't wait to get a more powerful computer... shadows at sunrise looking lush!

 

Nice. You can just see the Lonely Mountain in the distance. And I've just found out what the "+" symbol on the uploaded images means. Woo-hoo! Things are looking up. I can stop submitting and then re-editing every time I want to add a picture. Great stuff.

 

Above is a snapshot showing the first little expansion to Sunset Valley, and this is the first time I've properly used the districts... The Telegraph Road has a heavy traffic ban policy, to keep the industrial trucks out of the residential and commercial area. (Thanks to Skye Storme for his 60 second tip on that - I can probably figure out how to plop the URL in here at some point...)

Cemetery Lane has Sunset Valley's first final resting place, for any unfortunate souls who meet with a premature demise, after all it is still a young town and it's oldest residents are currently middle aged adults, and only likely to die by meeting a gruesome end with a piece of farming machinery.

New Avenue extends away from the Telegraph Road and provides a means of linking the two roads again at their far ends, and lo, Ocean Drive was built - a premium stretch of land, with amazing views over the ocean. For now, these roads will be zoned with low density R and C. In the future this area may be redeveloped...

 

Just driving into town at sunrise... I think its the Enhanced Zoom mod which allows these low down camera angles.

 

Telegraph Road needed to be upgraded further to a two-lane one-way street, so a parallel one running the opposite way was built to cope with the increased future traffic. And it also provided a neat way of keeping those ugly pylons. There are severe consequences for anyone who damages the sacred history, as the local highways department was about to find out during the roads final phase of construction.

The Telegraph Road landfill site will one day be relocated, but for now it suits to locate it there by the wind turbines. The residents nearby don't care about a few bad smells and a bit of noise pollution, so long as their rubbish isn't piling up in the front yard, they're happy.

 

 

In order to keep the little folks happy, I plopped a couple of custom parks on Ocean Drive, and after a while noticed this crazy suburban guerrilla's dwelling built in between - the audacity! 

 

That's a nice view.

 

Now. How to deal with this end of TR... I sense another roundabout is imminent...

 

Finally, construction on the reformatted Telegraph Road has been finished, and dedicated on and off ramps now bring all the heavy traffic more directly to Lowdale Farm. The new junction's resemblance to a phallus is entirely regrettable, but it functions well. Maybe when the city has grown and there's more money in the coffers, this can be improved.

 

I don't know why, but I really like this image... If I had to critical of my map, then I would say there are some quite steep bits. According to the stats when you start a new game from it, it's only 45% buildable, but I like those odds. It makes it more challenging probably, and thus, more fun!

 

Oh sweet Jesus! Another cock-shaped road. Grand Viaduct Boulevard (or GVB as it will henceforth be typed) loops from New Avenue, round and under the Grand Viaduct, before looping back towards the TR. This will be the backbone of a new high density district for high rise living and consumer craziness.

 

Nightfall.

 

More to come soon. The population is currently a whopping 17K approx. (Sneak preview below.) My aim is to have a city that makes sense in terms of how it develops. My previous cities lacked a soul, because I was still learning the ropes, and was a little obsessed with building freeway exits, and trying to get industrial one way systems running efficiently. Now that's out of my system, I'm stepping back, creating a bit of backstory, enjoying the journey, and keeping a record - which I'm sure will be hilarious to look back on in the future. By virtually creating Sunset Valley's history, I'm hoping this city will be awesome. Only time will tell...

If anyone actually reads this, as I imagine they will, because it was reading a city journal (The City of Rockhill by charlesnew) which inspired me to create this... So, if you have read this far, well done, you must be bored as hell by now, but think about leaving a comment, as I'd fascinated to know your opinion. As stated earlier, I've never published anything online before, and I'd be interested to know where this sits relative to similar works.

[boformer 3,169]

The waterfall looks great! It's one of the best I've seen yet.

The suspension bridge is also really impressive. I wish that we had different bridge models.

I also like the road layout in the last picture. It is the perfect mix of symmetry and chaos, and the right amount of free space. My cities are always too dense.

Steep slopes are indeed a problem, especially if you want to build rail tracks and roads with realistic slopes (3%, 12%).

Just a tip: Make sure that the user interface is always hidden when you take the screenshots. You can also download the first person camera mod to take some interesting screenshots.

[dedgren 830]

I really like the waterfall and the farm pic.  The lighting you are using makes me think of southern California.  I agree with boformer that you have a very nice sense of keeping things low-density.  Too many CJs have images that are just overly packed with stuff.

Nice work.

 

David 

[Neekoid 13]

The waterfall looks great! It's one of the best I've seen yet.

The suspension bridge is also really impressive. I wish that we had different bridge models.

I also like the road layout in the last picture. It is the perfect mix of symmetry and chaos, and the right amount of free space. My cities are always too dense.

Steep slopes are indeed a problem, especially if you want to build rail tracks and roads with realistic slopes (3%, 12%).

Just a tip: Make sure that the user interface is always hidden when you take the screenshots. You can also download the first person camera mod to take some interesting screenshots.

Thanks.

Additional bridge models would be great.

Hiding the UI is something I am working on... the problem I'm having is that, I get so immersed in the virtual world that I don't even register it's there... until I look at the screenshots later! I've reassigned the F11 key to Free Camera mode - that way I'm thinking F11, then F12 for pics.

I really need to add to the journal, to bring it up to date... In fact I'm deliberately not doing any more to the city until I've done that... The next stage of expansion will take me out of the centre square - but in which direction? A difficult decision, as what the city now needs is more Industrial and my original intention was to get all the industrial on the other side of the river - except, what that will do to my traffic? And what do I do with the industry already established?

I have now named all the mountains, but the journal will have to wait until I get time to add this in!

[charlesnew 262]

This is a great city so far with a great start! Can't wait to see more

[Neekoid 13]

Holy cow! Nearly a year since I posted anything here... and I had such grand plans... Sunset Valley has more-or-less been abandoned in terms of development... and there are many reasons for this, but the biggest two are:- A) I felt that the scale of the terrain compared with the scale of the buildings was utterly wrong, and it was messing with my mojo man, and B) I felt I needed to experiment more with the game dynamics - particularly the traffic... Then, during this period of experimentation, a few other things happened... I upgraded my hardware, oh yeah! And then some DLC's came along, so additional experimentation was required to figure these out... I must have started a dozen or so CSL games in this time, as well as a few custom maps, and I've yet to start one and reach a point with it where I'm happy... Too many ideas and not enough free time! Lol.

 

[Neekoid 13]

To conclude this thread (for now at least) here are some screenshots of where Sunset Valley currently stands:-

 

The dirt roads extending from the low density suburb in the bottom left, were going to be home to some upper crust locals, but plans changed as shown in the next picture.

 

I couldn't resist the urge to build my first port... It was at this time I realised just how crazy the terrain heights were!

 

These new high density suburbs/secondary town centres basically screwed the traffic flow, although it doesn't look too bad here.

 

The farming community was probably my favourite region...

 

To be continued... one day... maybe!

 

(For some strange reason these images are coming in twice, even though I've tried editing the post and deleting the duplicates... one day, I might understand what I'm doing here!!!)