Las Palma Experiment - an island with no highway connection

[boformer 3,169]

I did a little experiment: An island with no highway or train connections. Instead, I placed a cargo and passenger harbour in map editor (with the Advanced Building mod).

 

 

The results are pretty cool: When I started the simulation, residential and commercial buildings were spawning, but there were no residents or cars on the road. A bit later the first passenger ship arrived and brought the first 30 residents:

 

 

The interesting thing was that most of the residents were working in the cargo harbour, the passenger harbour or the power plant. These 3 buildings provided about 350 jobs alone. That was also the reason why no industry spawned. Cargo ships only brought goods for the commercial stores and the power plant.

Industry started to spawn when the population was twice as high as the job count:

 

 

The good thing is that the harbours didn't cause any expenses. It looks like buildings placed in the map editor are handled as "untouchable". That also means you can't open the info window, but that's only a minor problem. At least you can bulldoze the harbours.

 

 

It would also be possible to use an airport instead of a passenger harbour. And it doesn't have to be in the initial tile!

[BorisS1990 27]

Pretty cool. I was under the impression that the map editor wouldn't let you make a map playable until you have a highway connection to the starting tile. (The little checklist that chirpy gives you must be satisfied)

The other option would be to make an initial highway connection with a bridge. Then once you start the game, use the Cross the Borders mod (allows you to edit things outside your city limits) to demolish the whole bridge and connection and build a port.

I imagine having people come in only a boatload at a time would help keep the death waves to a minimum.

[Ryno917 102]

This is amazing!

[boformer 3,169]

10 hours ago, BorisS1990 said:

Pretty cool. I was under the impression that the map editor wouldn't let you make a map playable until you have a highway connection to the starting tile. (The little checklist that chirpy gives you must be satisfied)

It just requires you to have one incoming and one outgoing connection. I made a mini highway loop in a map border.

But that requirement could also be modded away.

[Kaschperl 92]

Here comes "Tropico: Skylines"! Well, more or less. Very interesting experiment, I didn't know this could work at all! Now all you need are some cigar factories and a fancy palace for El Presidente