Hello everyone! Although I've long been a member of Simtropolis (since March 2010) and the SimCity 4 community, I've tended to keep more to myself and share my game activities in a more piecemeal, impromptu fashion. It's now between 2017 and now that I've started to become more active and thus have showcased my game activities in a more open and organized fashion. With this topic I want to feel the pulse of members actively interested, and especially those potentially interested, in my existing and upcoming content. Ultimately, I want to stay relevant to the community by making things that are memorable, fun, unique and appealing than ever before. For this I want to know your opinion on my future plans for my SC4 activity. I intend to update this topic as time goes on to keep tabs on my plans for SimCity 4 and to engage with other members, perhaps a few collaborations could result from this discussion!   GAMEPLAY TUTORIALS I've delved with this topic to a more limited extent, with two entries to a tutorial series I call Dragonxander's Earthworks Tutorials (started before I changed my username in the site). I started that tutorial series because one of the most important parts of real life construction is earthworks--shaping the terrain in preparation for construction, and for construction itself. Over the years I've developed ways to do this very efficiently and precisely with the combination of hole digging lots, surface transportation slope mods, God Mode in Mayor Mode and the terrainquery command. With this I'd like to help others who are struggling to make realistic terrains and easy-to-build surfaces, which ultimately enhances the look of cities. I've also used these skills to build other types of infrastructure, like power grids, seaports, dams, reservoirs, waste management facilities and recreational faciltiies; as well as natural features like lakes, streams, waterfalls and beaver ponds.   I've also stopped to think about which other tutorial contributions I could make to help other players, and have come up with a nice list of feasible options: * Slope mod shoppe: inspired in @CorinaMarie 's and @Toby Ferrian 's nature shoppes series, I think I could start a project featuring gameplay content for the built environment. Slope mods, to me, are a particularly attractive option to discuss because of how useful they can be for gameplay in general and how there's the ongoing debate between building realistic transport facilities versus building transport facilities with ease. * Dams and reservoirs tutorial: with so many pond and freshwater body ploppables out there, I'm surprised that there's so few players who build dams and reservoirs, one of the most useful kinds of infrastructure for any city or region. After some years playing, I've gone from making crude dam look-alikes with game water to making reservoirs with a complete set of components, including dams, spillways, hydroelectric plants and even fish ladders. I do reckon the process is tedious, but the results are so worthwhile! * Power grid tutorial: for many players, dealing with utilities can feel like a chore, but they can add character to the appearance of cities when done right. I do recognize I've slowed down in making nice and robust power grids this year, but it has always been one of my favorite things to make when wanting an authentic-looking city. And I believe we might be reaching a golden age for this category with @Simmer2 's wide contribution of power grid components he's made during the last year or so. * Building roads and highways compliant with engineering standards: my education is that of a civil engineer (currently doing a Master's degree in civil engineering), so this is a topic I've actually studied formally for some time now. With how the NAM has become so robust over the years, it's becoming more and more practical to build roads and highways following actual highway engineering standards in-game, which also helps me keep practice for highway geometric design. Now, this is a topic I recognize as being more widely known in the community, with great talents like @Tarkusand  @Haljackey leading the way. Although I'm not a NAM developer, nor tester, I still enjoy squeezing out the most authenticity of what's available with the game's most famous and arguably most important mods.     POKÉMON REGION CITY JOURNALS AND REGIONS This is perhaps the SimCity 4 project I've given the most thought to during the last year. I actually started tackling the idea when I started to get serious about collecting Earth location maps for SC4, and I asked myself, "which real Earth location maps out there is readily available and usable to make a Pokémon region?", and found drunkapple's small scale map of Hokkaido indeed fits the bill. By August 2017 I started my first ever Pokémon-themed region in SimCity 4, Sinnoh, which roughly corresponds to a combination of Hokkaido, the Kuril Islands and southern Sakhalin, in the Japan-Russia maritime border area. This particular region has been very experimental and has confronted some critical issues with glitchiness as it approached its conclusion, which I had originally scheduled for late February of this year. For the time being it continues as a dormant region and its continuation would require drastic measures to address the glitched city districts. Below is the most recent view of the region, corresponding to its 74th full regional view update.   Afterwards I decided to combine my favorite videogame ever with my favorite pokémon movie, Lucario and the Mystery of Mew. This is what started the Kingdom of Rota, my current and active city journal, and one I spent nearly a year cooking up in my head as I searched for the best buildings, terrain mods, story ideas and regional map, as well as searching for suitable reference material from both the movie and behind-the-scenes illustrated booklets about it. So far I'm feeling super proud and giddy about its progress, which will continue through mid-2019 and concluding before the year ends.   Parallel to these two regions, I've continued to search for other terrain mods, buildings and maps to use for other Pokémon regions, my original discussion on the topic being a post in the Show us what you're working on thread:   As an update superseding this post, this is the current planing status of future pokémon regions:   MAIN SERIES REGIONS * Kanto: terrain mods fully determined, starting to gather appropriate buildings, no satisfactory map identified yet. Just in case, this region encompasses all of the south and central Kanto Plain of Japan, not just the Tokyo metropolitan area. I'm planning to make the map myself for this one. * Johto: terrain mods fully determined, good progress in gathering buildings, map rendered. This one corresponds to the Kansai (where Kyoto and Osaka are at) and Chugoku (where Nagoya is at) regions of Japan. Strong candidate A for a future CJ. * Hoenn: terrain mods under testing, good progress gathering buildings, draft map rendered but will be replaced by a higher quality version. This one corresponds to Kyushu and the Nansei/Okinawa islands in southwestern Japan. * Sinnoh: mostly complete, but never featured in a CJ. I wouldn't feature it in a CJ as-is because it's too experimental and never had a story attached to it. * Unova: terrain mods fully determined, need more appropriate buildings, all necessary railway buildings finally available, a potentially satisfactory map has been identified. This region is based on the New York metropolitan area geography and the northeast USA theme. The map I need, however, must be more expansive east-to-west than most New York metropolitan area maps out there.Strong candidate B for a future CJ. * Kalos: terrain mods fully determined, all required buildings available, map fully rendered and ready to go. This region corresponds to the northern 2/3 of France and spilling over to the Rhineland along the border with Germany. Strong candidate C for a future CJ. * Alola: terrain mods under testing, not that many buildings available, map pending creation. The trick with Alola is that, although it's based on Hawaii, its geography is not strictly Hawaiian. As such, I have to figure out how to get four volcanic islands to play nicely as a map. I'm very likely to combine islands from Hawaii, the Galapagos and the Canary Islands to get the desired look. * Galar: not much planning possible just yet, as this region has not been unveiled in its entirety. There's speculation on it being geographically based on the British Isles but having the geographic theme of central Europe, it's also speculated to have a direct connection to Kalos.   MOVIE AND ANIME SERIES REGIONS * Altomare: this region is based on the 5th pokémon movie, Pokémon Heroes, whose setting is based on the city of Venice. I've found maps of Venice and the Veneto area, but the tricky part is getting more buildings and setting up functional water transport. * City of Larousse: this region is a movie-exclusive city of the Hoenn region, with a very futuristic vibe, and featured in Destiny Deoxys. I'm debating on whether to include it as part of the Hoenn Region or if I should develop it separately. Its real-life inspiration is the city of Vancouver, BC, Canada. * Kingdom of Rota: this is my ongoing city journal region, whose location is specified as being somewhere north of Kanto but which is based on a non-disclosed place in the Alps. For this one I modified the map of Berchtesgaden, a small municipality of Bavaria, Germany. * Michina, Alamos, Crown City: these regions, although featured in separate pokémon movies, all belong to locations in the Sinnoh Region. As such, I'm actually featuring them within Sinnoh, and I'm still halfway through Michina (from Arceus and the Jewel of Life), completed Alamos (from Pokémon: Darkrai) and have been planning Crown city (from Zoroark: Master of Illusions). * Lucario Kingdom: allegedly this is a sovereign state found within the Sinnoh Region, it was featured in a few anime episodes. I've actually made this one as six city districts within my Sinnoh Region map, and also served as a practice spot for the Kingdom of Rota.   SIDE GAME AND TRADING CARD GAME REGIONS * Almia: this region hails from Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia. This one is based on the area around the Tsugaru strait, including the northernmost bits of Honshu and the southwestern peninsula of Hokkaido (the one bit of Hokkaido Sinnoh does not use) in northern Japan. The terrain for this one would be easy to create, as it can be derived by scaling up a cut-out of the Hokkaido map. It would use roughly the same terrain mods of Sinnoh. * Fiore: this region hails from the first Pokémon Ranger videogame, and is based on Naples, Italy. I've already selected its candidate terrain mods and might be easy to start off. * Orre: this region is featured in Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, and it's supposedly based on Arizona. Its topography, curiously enough, is better represented by the Mount Fuji area, which will be the map I'll use. I've also selected its corresponding terrain mods. * Ransei: this region is featured in Pokémon Conquest, a spin-off videogame set in the Sengoku period (the last Japanese era with samurais in active combat). Its shape is weird, because it's based on a legendary pokémon, Arceus.  This one, by obligation, requires me to make the map. Its terrain and buildings are likely to be very similar to those of Johto. * Ferrum: this region serves as the setting of Pokkén, a fighter videogame featuring Pokémon. Its suspected real life inspiration is the metropolitan area of Busan, the largest city in the southern coast of South Korea. I believe the geographic scope of it can be realized with either a map made by me or with an existing map of Busan, courtesy of drunkapple. * Others: I haven't given much thought to Holon and Southern Islands, two of the regions exclusively featured in the trading card game. This one would be small, but very difficult to pull off because there really isn't much source material to work with. A more feasible one instead would be the Sevii Islands and the Orange Islands (this one from the anime), I have to check the feasibility of making region maps based on their real locations.   OTHER CITY JOURNALS AND REGIONS I actually have one other city journal that isn't pokémon-themed, it's my first-ever CJ, the Republic of Drakensberg. I started it back in January 2016, but a combination of a dangerously busy and complicated ending of my Bachelor's degree, paired with the demise of Photobucket as a convenient image hosting website, made me stop it after the second entry. I don't intend to forget about this one entirely, because I have fully functional files pertaining to that region, because it's a fun military story and because my involvement with the Kingdom of Rota CJ has made me get a lot more medieval-themed content for the game.   I do, however, have plenty of ideas for other city journals and regions I can develop, including other countries of my fictional planet, Xorg, or also making regions loosely inspired in real locations. On the former, I have been modifying various maps of real locations to create terrains that resemble their geographies. These tend to be easier for me to develop because they bear strong resemblance to parts of the world for which there's sufficient extant custom content to use, including places of Europe, East Asia, the USA and Mesoamerica.  They also help me accomplish worldbuilding, essentially fleshing out my fictional world by making it more tangible through our beloved game. On the latter, I've started to hone my mapmaking skills and at last am able to create decent regions based on locations of Puerto Rico and other Caribbean jurisdictions, which I really haven't put any of those to use just yet. I'd like to know if any of these would be of interest to my fellow Simtropolitan mayors, urban planners and civil engineers. Do consider, however, that developing properly authentic-looking Puerto Rican regions would be more challenging because there really isn't any content specifically based in Puerto Rico's flora, architecture, landmarks and economy that would make for a convincing-looking representation. I've made some requests concerning this kind of architecture before and there were no lotters nor BATters taking them in.