Minka City

[Captain Mark 13]

Hi city builders!

Well it's been about 15 years since my last city journal (SC4) so it's high time I started a new one.  Relevant points:

• Inifinite money enabled
• 81 tiles enabled
• Graphics all on max (although researching mods to improve them even more, suggestions welcome!)
• Aiming to make the city unique, interesting and beautiful
• Mass Transit DLC just installed, looking forward to getting all of these methods of transport underway!

 

Base map, 7th Island (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=421324015)

 

As I always like to do, I get the infrastructure moderately completed before even thinking about laying down any zoning.  Some initial stages can be seen below, with the island the highway ends on set to be the main industrial and port hub (subject to change, but I like to generally plan things out in advance).

 

And the full highway system finish (but as always, and probably likely, more highways will be added in as required).  The zoning will come after a lot of additional infrastructure has been completed, and when the zoning is complete I'll sit back and put the game on max speed and watch large areas shoot up and into existence (perhaps 10% of buildable area at a time).

 

 

Eye candy...  (note that the highways aren't quite perfect yet.  They'll need to be smoothed out in areas so they don't look too lumpy, but overall they're fairly close to how I want them.)

 

 

 

 

Suggestions always welcome!

Cheers, Mark

[Captain Mark 13]

It's been about a week and many hours of hard core city planning used, so time for a brief update.  Still working on the infrastructure for the most part and as you'll see there's still lots to add in before it's a vibrant community, but at least it's progress and I really love this early city planning stage and figuring out how everything will click together across the entire map.

 

I've typically gone with flat maps before, but this time I'm trying to use the decent height variations in the best and most aesthetically pleasing way possible.

 

Lots more to do before this industrial port island is complete...

 

Other odds and ends. (excuse the resolution window I forgot to close...)

 

 

Cheers all!

[Captain Mark 13]

A little bit more progress, although I've not turned up the resolution to max... all in good time.

The infrastructure continues to grow and I'm reasonably happy with how it's all jigsawing together so far.  There'll be lots of little fiddling with it to make it perfect in future though.

 

A small amount of feeder residential for ongoing testing of the road network as I build it in large swathes.  I haven't finished detailing each residential plot yet and separating the individual yards, but you get the idea of what's going on with this shot.

 

Cheers all.

[dedgren 830]

Hi Mark!  Welcome back to CJing.  Your last must have been an SC3K CJ- fifteen years is an amazing long time to take a break, and I can speak from experience there.

Anyway, a couple of comments.  I love island cities.  I'm wondering if you have a master plan sketched out for Minka, or if you are just going to build here and there and see what develops.  The greenish LUT is, IMHO, a little offputting, but that's a personal preference sort of thing.  Others may love it, I don't know.  You also might want to consider using TPB's great Remove Dirt (Tree and Props) [linkie] mod to give things a more natural feel.  Vanilla game tree dirt can work great in densely forested areas but sort of odd under individual trees in a field.

Always great to be the first to comment on a new CJ.  Hope Minka City has a long run.  Good luck!

David

[Captain Mark 13]

Cheers David, I've been looking for that Remove Dirt item for ages!!  Thx for the comment on the LUT, I've been of two minds about how it looks.  I'll play around with things a little and see how it comes up.

Well I like to put in as much infrastructure as possible before opening up large chunks of zoned land, so the highways have gone in, I'll continue with the industrial port island, I've got a small residential zone happening on an adjacent island, and the rest is still to be planned aside from an island earmarked for an airport.  Outside of that I'll likely have a CBD that spans the edges of three adjacent islands and includes highrise residential as all cities do, and spread the density out from the center until it's fairly open (not quite rural) on the map edges.  And of course the obligatory landmarks areas which I'll aim to have stand out, including a botanical gardens somewhere along the way.  Ultimately I'm just aiming to get it looking as unique as possible, taking inspiration from other CJ's, and I'm not afraid to bulldoze huge sections if it doesn't stand out in some way.  I'm also aiming to get a large population so that the new Mass Transit travel options are used to maximum effect.

 

On a side note, I've got a 'broken' piece of land in my city.  The terraform tool won't get rid of it and it's looks way odd and out of place.  See pic below.  Does anyone know what's going on here?  I was using the terraform tool nearby to it ages back, but didn't notice this happen at the time.

 

[dedgren 830]

I'd bet you have the remnant of something underground- a water pipe or similar.  That's given me the odd result as well.  I think one of the bulldozer mods does underground- if you don't find something in the next little bit hopefully someone else will join in and help.

David

[Captain Mark 13]

David: Still no luck figuring it out, ah well, I'll just build around it and incorporate it.  I'm getting a few other terraform oddities in a similar style as well, possibly a small bug.  

 

Not sure what I think of the new ferry terminals...  they're just so drab and boring.  What do you guys reckon?