Retro's Practice Makes Perfect

[That Retro Guy 321]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

Yes. Farmers can do this too, but it is the anchor lot which needs to be touching the rail line. (I could dig up some pics if you want a visual.)

That would be great seeing as I have no idea what an anchor lot is. 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

40 minutes ago, That Retro Guy said:

That would be great seeing as I have no idea what an anchor lot is. 

I'd prolly better clarify first: Farms have Mech Lots and Out Lots with the latter being the ones the Fields appear on. However, it's rather common to call the main lot that has the farm building the Anchor Lot because it serves a similar function to the anchors of regular industrial.

So, in this pic the important part which needs to touch the tracks is the lot that is not the fields. (Ofc, the fields can touch too, but it's the main lot that matters.)

[rsc204 21,808]

To add, note how the "Anchor" or Farm itself is always touching the road, whereas this does not matter for the Fields that attach to them. So by designing your roads to control where the Farms grow, you can coerce them to build in a way that best supports rail taking their goods.

Another option is to build a rail freight depot (station), like with Seaports, provided getting to this depot is faster than any other exit from the city, trucks will drop off freight to be transported by rail at them. This allows you to cover those zones which don't touch the rail tracks in addition to those which do.

[That Retro Guy 321]

So in my village (seen here from my Sandbox Region)

if I replaced the street (that's indicated by the Yellow line) with a Rail, the Farmers could load their crops on the Train as it goes by, right?

If this is true, I'll have to re-think my Village a bit.  I'd have to:

• Move the Bus Stop (that's right next to the Northern Farm) to the street at the Railroad Crossing that would be created.
• Build a Freight Station where the undeveloped Commercial is in the picture.
• Build a new Street connecting the Elementary School to the Village.
• Move the Industrial zones (located near the right edge) someplace so they can have access the Rail as well.
• Convert all streets (and the road leading to the Waste Management building) to the PEG dirt road.

Questions:

• 1.  If I replace the yellow-line street with a Rail, can the Sims still get to work if they take the bus?
• 2.  Would they have to walk along the Rail to the farms?  Sounds dangerous. 
• 3.  Do I need a Passenger Station for the Sims to commute? 
• 4.  Am I over-thinking things again?  Probably! 

 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

59 minutes ago, That Retro Guy said:

1.  If I replace the yellow-line street with a Rail, can the Sims still get to work if they take the bus?

If you only replace the street with rail then no. Your Sims could no longer get to their farm jobs.

 

59 minutes ago, That Retro Guy said:

2.  Would they have to walk along the Rail to the farms?  Sounds dangerous. 

Way too dangerous. Even Sims won't do that.

 

1 hour ago, That Retro Guy said:

3.  Do I need a Passenger Station for the Sims to commute? 

That still wouldn't help in the proposed street to rail replacement.

 

1 hour ago, That Retro Guy said:

4.  Am I over-thinking things again?  Probably! 

Or not. Until you've played enough (or asked enough) these sorts of things may not be readily obvious.

 

Any place of employment needs street/road access for the Sims. They can ride the rails providing there is someplace they can embark and disembark meaning they need to be able to convert their mode of transportation from walking/driving/bus riding to rail passengers and then back again at their destination.

Here's one possible way your village layout could be altered such that the farms can both receive workers and can toss their goods onto passing freight trains:

[rsc204 21,808]

5 hours ago, That Retro Guy said:

• 3.  Do I need a Passenger Station for the Sims to commute? 

Right now I'd say possibly not. It seems the residences around the farms work in them, so it certainly isn't going to change their commutes to add a station. When I look at the overall population, a station seems a bit frivolous, make the sims walk or buy a car . I think you have to factor in your future plans and this tiles place in your greater region. Will there be at some point sufficient unfilled jobs in this tile to justify bringing sims into it by rail? Or will there be sufficient sims to justify giving them a rail link to find work elsewhere? Even then, a lot of this depends on what is on the other side of the border where the rail connects. Busses may not be as glamorous as trains, but right now a bus stop or two is a much cheaper transit system that's probably more than sufficient for your needs.

[That Retro Guy 321]

I re-worked the Village a little bit and built another next to it (taking care not to overlap with Water and Power . . . each Village is self-sufficient, after all).

Thus:

As you can (or rather, can't) see in the Upper-Right corner, the Waste Management building is gone.  As Limerick and Killarney are (mostly) farming communities, they would not have such a building.  Dublin will, of course.  This Village isn't finished.  I destroyed the Police Station in order to make the street to the North farm.

 

Next, I built the second Village.

Thus:

As you can see by the School on the right, the 2 Villages are connected only by Rail (for the moment).

The Upper-Left Farm grows Barley (and it burps if you click on the correct square in the fields; the Upper-Right Farm grows Rhubarb (Completely misspelled in the game . . it's spelled Rubbarb or something like it); and the Lower Farm grows Tomatoes.

I don't know . . . I think that it still needs a lot of work.

However, I saw something exciting!

 

Behold:

A Freight Train!  An actual honest-to-Gosh Train!  Could you imagine being in class at the School when this bad boy goes rumbling past?!! 

The U-Drive-It pop-up was above the train . . . I clicked on it, and the Advisor said that it was out-of-date or something.  How difficult of a mission could it be if you're driving a Train down the Tracks?!! 

Oh, about 30 seconds after I demolished the Waste Management building, the Advisor popped up and complained about the trash.  I think he called me a donkey's backside or something . . .  I mean, how rude! 

As always, any thoughts and comments are greatly appreciated and welcomed. 

  Edited March 19, 2021 by That Retro Guy  
Grammar failed me once again!

[dylansan 65]

12 hours ago, That Retro Guy said:

The Upper-Left Farm grows Barley (and it burps if you click on the correct square in the fields; the Upper-Right Farm grows Rhubarb (Completely misspelled in the game . . it's spelled Rubbarb or something like it); and the Lower Farm grows Tomatoes.

Haha, I can tell you're using SPAM. Do the query sound effects ever start to bug you? I'm not sure how much more I can tolerate the distorted cries of "E I E I Ooooooo"

I just noticed the "Rubbarb" mistake yesterday, too. SPAM is great but there's a lot that could be improved.

 

One thing that might be helpful to know (if it hasn't already been mentioned) is that while farm buildings and fields all provide jobs, only the buildings themselves produce any tax income. I believe this is true with or without SPAM. It doesn't look like you're having any issues with money but it's a further piece of the strategy puzzle when it comes to farming.

[That Retro Guy 321]

14 hours ago, That Retro Guy said:

How difficult of a mission could it be if you're driving a Train down the Tracks?!! 

Well, I found out how difficult of a mission it can be.  Go too fast and you derail, go too slow and you run out of time.  Hopefully, I'll figure it out someday.  What are the rewards for completing a Train mission?  Some sort of building, I would think.

Since the Waste Management building will be located in Dublin, then Limerick and Killarney will need some sort of Trash Disposal before then.  I zoned a 3x3 Landfill where the WM building used to be.  Within 10 minutes (real-time), it was already over half full.  Geez!  How much trash can 275 Sims make?!!

I downloaded the LandfillEraserMod to take care of it.  However, while reading the ReadMe file that went along with the .dat file, it says that I shouldn't leave it installed all of the time.  Will it corrupt my savefile or (even worse) my Region?

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

10 hours ago, dylansan said:

One thing that might be helpful to know (if it hasn't already been mentioned) is that while farm buildings and fields all provide jobs, only the buildings themselves produce any tax income.

While it was surely known before my topic Maximizing Farm Income the Silly Way, I did happen to discover that too. And based on what we know about how the game works, it seems quite probable that SPAM would be the same for the income.

 

7 hours ago, That Retro Guy said:

I downloaded the LandfillEraserMod to take care of it.  However, while reading the ReadMe file that went along with the .dat file, it says that I shouldn't leave it installed all of the time.  Will it corrupt my savefile or (even worse) my Region?

Based on the change it makes, it seems to me very unlikely that it would actually corrupt anything at all. I believe @cogeo is really indicating that it's an extreme cheat, but also being appropriately cautious.

[That Retro Guy 321]

I wasn't too happy with the small access roads that I had to make for the Sims to get to work on the farms.

Here's that picture:

So once again, I redesigned the silly thing.

Thusly:

It's a lot more pleasing to my OCD, I can tell you that much . . . It probably needs a little more work.

My Water Tower now has a Water Pollution level of 1!  Oh, the humanity!   Please, won't someone think of the children?!! 

I noticed in the previous first Village that Pedestrians do not cross Railroad Tracks hence there are now 2 at each RR Crossing.

It's probably overkill, but what the heck!

 

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

I believe @cogeo is really indicating that it's an extreme cheat, but also being appropriately cautious.

Gotcha!  I was just making sure. 

In the Upper-Right hand corner, you can just see the Landfill.  Of the 9 squares in the Landfill, 4 have trash.

I mean, seriously?!!  Does each SIm produce a certain amount of Trash or something?  I only have about 300 Sims or so. 

[dylansan 65]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

While it was surely known before my topic Maximizing Farm Income the Silly Way, I did happen to discover that too. And based on what we know about how the game works, it seems quite probable that SPAM would be the same for the income.

As it turns out, it is possible to make the farm crop tiles produce income, and it's as simple as giving them a "building value" in their exemplar. I had actually tried that and given up until I found an old mod doing just that. My mistake was editing the wrong files... I can confirm that the change works consistently.

Not to go too off-topic here (I'd PM you but it doesn't seem to work—am I too new a user?), but I'm curious whether it would be problematic to release a mod specifically overhauling a lot of the SPAM mod, considering I wouldn't have any permission to use or share the work done by others to create it. I mean I know it's not being supported so it's unlikely to ever get any updates otherwise, but I don't want to "steal" anything, so to speak...

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

9 hours ago, That Retro Guy said:

Of the 9 squares in the Landfill, 4 have trash.

The game rather likes having 4 cells with trash so you get a nice rounded looking pile. The initial visual amount really does look like overkill, but as you keep increasing population it'll take a while before it needs to expand the trash pile graphics.

 

8 hours ago, dylansan said:

As it turns out, it is possible to make the farm crop tiles produce income, and it's as simple as giving them a "building value" in their exemplar.

Ah! That makes perfect sense. I can now imagine exactly how it could be done. That would then let the agricultural income be proportionate to the overall farm size.

 

8 hours ago, dylansan said:

(I'd PM you but it doesn't seem to work—am I too new a user?)

Nope, not too new.

Peeps can PM an admin (or anyone) as soon as they are approved for posting in the forums. If you were typing my name, remember it's not prefixed with the @ like it is for the mentions in a post. If that's not the trouble it could be the site's cache is full and/or fragmented and we might need to manually clear that out.

 

8 hours ago, dylansan said:

I'm curious whether it would be problematic to release a mod specifically overhauling a lot of the SPAM mod,

That should be fine assuming you intend to make new exemplars to override the ones in SPAM. Ofc you still cannot include their models or FSH for textures, but the data portions would really be the same as re-lotting BATs.

[That Retro Guy 321]

On page 7 of my Prepping my First Region thread, I was interested in @CorinaMarie's 4x4 Cori's Farm House.SC4Lot that she created on one of her farms.

She replied,

Quote

Well, sure if you want it you welcome to have it. (I didn't upload it since I've used a medium wealth house as a low wealth lot.) You'll need the bldgprop_vol1.dat and bldgprop_vol2.dat or Maxis Prop Names and Query Fix by T Wrecks as dependencies. As a separate download are the fences I plopped around it: Farm Fences. They are not a dependency, but they look good.

Also, in order to get it to grow you need to use the Ctrl+Zoning to create a 4x4 low density residential lot. No water is required. You can dezone that size out of an already grown farm so it can blend in.

R$1_4x4_Cori's Farm House.SC4Lot

I have both bldgprop_vol1.dat and bldgprop_vol2.dat so I figured that I'm good to go.  I downloaded the Farm House.SC4Lot and moved it into my Plugins folder.

I also downloaded the Farm Fences mod.

I loaded in my Villages city, and tried to build it.  I held down the Ctrl key while I zoned 4x4 Low Density Residential out of the farmland.  The crops disappeared leaving a nice 4x4 zone.  I waited and waited (a couple of months, in-game) but the Farm House never appeared.

Questions:

• 1.  Did I move the Farm House Lot into the wrong folder or something?
• 2.  Is the Farm House a ploppable?
• 3.  If so, where is it?  I checked the Landmarks tab, the Rewards tab and the Parks tab . . . I can't find it.
• 4.  Did I do the Ctrl+Zoning procedure wrong?
• 5.  Is there an English version of the Farm Fences mod?  (High School Spanish class was over 40 years ago!)

 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

13 minutes ago, That Retro Guy said:

1.  Did I move the Farm House Lot into the wrong folder or something?

It should be fine in any folder in Plugins. It has a unique IID so it's not overriding anything.

Do be sure to have the Chicago 1890 tile set enabled as it only grows in that single one. (I'm not fond of how Maxis made CC be in every single tile set so I make mine in the one I feel it fits best.)

 

14 minutes ago, That Retro Guy said:

2.  Is the Farm House a ploppable?

It is growable only.

 

14 minutes ago, That Retro Guy said:

3.  If so, where is it?  I checked the Landmarks tab, the Rewards tab and the Parks tab . . . I can't find it.

It is unfindable that way as it's not a ploppable. (Residential can sometimes be tricked into working as a ploppable, but it's best not to.)

 

16 minutes ago, That Retro Guy said:

4.  Did I do the Ctrl+Zoning procedure wrong?

That depends. Did you do it like this?

 

16 minutes ago, That Retro Guy said:

5.  Is there an English version of the Farm Fences mod?  (High School Spanish class was over 40 years ago!)

Nope. No English version. They are easy enough to tell which is which from the PNG images in the menus.

[That Retro Guy 321]

17 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Do be sure to have the Chicago 1890 tile set enabled as it only grows in that single one. (I'm not fond of how Maxis made CC be in every single tile set so I make mine in the one I feel it fits best.)

That was the problem!  Once I enabled Chicago 1890, it popped up no sweat.

Since it worked on the Northern Farm, I tried to build it on the Southern Farm.

Umm . . .

A Victorian Mansion?!!  Seriously?!!

Can you only have one Cori's Farm House on a map at a time or something?

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

17 hours ago, That Retro Guy said:

Can you only have one Cori's Farm House on a map at a time or something?

You can have as many as you care to grow.

Seems like you watered that plot of ground to get a mansion to sprout. My farm house uses well water so doesn't need to be near any public water supply or pipes.

[That Retro Guy 321]

5 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Seems like you watered that plot of ground to get a mansion to sprout.

Well actually . . . they're both watered:

I wonder why the Victorian Mansion popped up instead of Cori's Farm House?

 

5 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

My farm house uses well water so doesn't need to be near any public water supply or pipes.

Just double-checking here . . . do farms (in-game, I mean) need to be watered or should they not be watered?

I remember drinking well water when I was a kid.  What an odd taste! 

  Edited March 23, 2021 by That Retro Guy  
I was typing too fast and forgot a couple of words.

[That Retro Guy 321]

I've been jumping through hoops (so to speak) to make my Village perfect when in Real Life, there is no such thing as perfection.  While it's cool that Farmers can just chuck their goods onto the passing trains, this isn't realistic.  I realized (finally) that I'm not going to have a Rail running through the center of every Village.  Freight Trucks will deliver the goods from each Village to a Freight Station in the Commercial center of each city (Limerick, Killarney, and Dublin) and then have a Rail connect the three cities.  This would simulate the Farmers in the Villages of each city working together as a Co-op.  

Maybe I'll have the Rail be a circuit connecting the three Freight Stations as a loop. 

Having said all that, it means that I'll have to re-design the Village again. 

Any thoughts?

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

14 hours ago, That Retro Guy said:

Well actually . . . they're both watered:

Cori's Farm House can grow with or without water under it. And the low density R$$$ must have water. If there is water in both cases, each one can look at the site zoned for their size and decide if they want to grow. If the 4 x 4 residential zone is not watered, then only my Farm House can grown. (This is assuming there is no other custom content created for that exact footprint.)

 

14 hours ago, That Retro Guy said:

I wonder why the Victorian Mansion popped up instead of Cori's Farm House?

Like anything which grows in the game, there needs to be demand as well as the minimal requirements. In this case, there was obviously sufficient demand for the low density R$$$ mansion as well as the right size zone and the water it needs. At that point the game decides somewhat randomly taking into account the demand level between mine and the mansion.

Also note: The low density residential zoning is a minimum requirement. My farm house and the mansions could also grow in a 4 x 4 medium or 4 x 4 high density residential plot.

So, the bottom line is if you want only my farm house growing on 4 x 4 residential, not watering it is one way to keep the mansion from growing. Slightly raising taxes on R$$$ until demand is flat or slightly negative would be another way to discourage them.

 

14 hours ago, That Retro Guy said:

Just double-checking here . . . do farms (in-game, I mean) need to be watered or should they not be watered?

Any farm (or other zones) up to Growth Stage 3 do not need watered. For Maxis vanilla farms, this is all of them. Other custom content may have farms in stage 4 or above. So, as long as your question is with regard to stages 1, 2 or 3, then no, they do not need water. The presence of water does not, however, hurt them in any way. It does cost you, the mayor, in the water budget for how much they drink tho.

From various posts I've read, most peeps simply crisscross water pipes under the entire city tile from the beginning so they need not worry about water coverage later on. I'm the oddball inasmuch as I'll selectively water only the parts of small towns and cities which actually need it. You've prolly seen my water view pic(s) in other threads where someone asked about that specifically. (If not (and if you are curious) we could find a linky.)

Do note: Not having all the water supplies connected means the water graph is the average overall for the city tile and there can still be individual areas at 100% usage while the main graph shows a huge surplus. I'm not recommending my method, but just stating what I personally do for the realism I like water-wise.

 

9 hours ago, That Retro Guy said:

While it's cool that Farmers can just chuck their goods onto the passing trains, this isn't realistic. 

If the train in the game would stop there briefly, it'd help the realism. For larger farms in ye olden dayes, they could simply have a little loading dock with a ramp at the rail edge of the farm zone:

 

But, ofc, it's perfectly fine to let the goods be transferred from the farm via trucks to a freight station and from there loaded onto the trains.

 

9 hours ago, That Retro Guy said:

Maybe I'll have the Rail be a circuit connecting the three Freight Stations as a loop. 

That sounds alright to me. Lay out your villages however you like to see them.

[That Retro Guy 321]

@CorinaMarie, you post the best pics!  There's just something about that pic that I absolutely love!  Maybe in a previous life, I was a farmer or something . . . idk

I wonder how that worked though.  Obviously, the Farmer would have all of his crops all bundled up into bushels, pecks, cases (or whatever) on the platform waiting for the train to arrive.  Would there be someone from the Freight company on the train to inventory and document how much of each crop the Farmer put on the train?  How would the Farmer know if he was being treated fairly or being given the royal shaft?

------

I loaded my Villages city, and went to the opposite corner of the map.  (Old man voice:  When I was young, we called it Catty Corner . . . or something like that.  The memory is the second thing to go when you get old . . . I forget what the first thing was) 

So (in honor of @CorinaMarie), I zoned an 18 x 18 farm, and grew her Farm House on it.  Thusly:

If you're curious, it's a Corn Field, but others call it Maize.

Now there's a Retro memory if there ever was one . . . There's a reason why I call myself That Retro Guy, you know 

@CorinaMarie, did you know that you have 17/20 people living in your Farm House?   It's the SImCity4's version of The Waltons!

Another Retro memory . . . God, I miss the past! 

But I digress . . .

On the corner of the Corn Field, you see the Anchor Lot with a building on it.

But what's this?!!  A horrible accident has happened on the Farm.  Let's zoom in and take a look!

I think the caption says it all.  Before I took this pic, there was a pickup truck and a man standing where the Ouch! is. 

Let's visit the Residential part of this Village . . .  

Uh-Oh!

Here lies Goliath . . . who mouthed off to the wrong kid who had a sling and a stone!    (I'm in a silly mood . . . I'll see myself out)

It's kinda hard to see in the first pic, but I zoned a 4 x 4 Light Commercial zone on each side of the street leading to the Farm.

This is what popped up:

• A Used Car Lot.  OK . . . That makes sense.
• Bob's Grease Pit.  Again, makes sense.
• A Parking Lot.  Meh.
• A Medium Density Import Company!  HUH?!! 

An Import Company that close to a Farm?!!  I realize that what pops up in a Lot is what pops up in a Lot, but again, HUH?!! 

I was thinking that one restaurant would pop in there . . . that too would have made sense.  Could you imagine running a restaurant that close to an actual Farm?  Talk about the freshest produce available.  Yum! 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 hour ago, That Retro Guy said:

I wonder how that worked though.

Prolly like consignments with Grain, Produce, and Livestock Consortiums and the rail line acted as the intermediary? (I don't actually know that's how they might've done it, but for letting farms in the game toss their goods onto passing trains, it would seem reasonable that type of dock could be used.)

 

1 hour ago, That Retro Guy said:

@CorinaMarie, did you know that you have 17/20 people living in your Farm House? 

OMG! Call Lassie! Timmy and two others must've fallen in the well.   (While those were before my time, I've seen lots of old shows as re-runs.)

 

And the rest is cool too with your pics and narrative to go with them.

[That Retro Guy 321]

18 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

And the rest is cool too with your pics and narrative to go with them.

Thanks.  I really was in a silly mood when I posted that.  I'm sure that I'll make more sappy jokes as time goes by here. 

-----

While at work today, I got to thinking about one of the pics that I posted.  Specifically, this one:

Question:  When I see a chalk outline like this, should I dispatch the Police to that house, or is that not necessary?

 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

4 hours ago, That Retro Guy said:

When I see a chalk outline like this, should I dispatch the Police to that house, or is that not necessary?

I personally never do. The police handle what they can automatically, but they are not overly efficient at it. I just let it be one of those statistics that is either a crime with an arrest or a crime without an arrest.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

Presenting a few of my own silly crime management strategies...

This car thief known colloquially in Corillion as Aquasteal is a water well thief.

Here we see a new police tactic of a "cattle blockade" which seems to be working rather well:

 

These infamous WANTED signs are very prevalent on every 11th lamp post in most neighbourhoods:

(The reward is very inviting given most of the water supply has been stolen.)

So when thirsty, I take over to get the job done myself in mighty fine style:

(I figure riding the cop car like a horse gives the best vantage point possible.)

Of course, commandeering crime isn't strictly necessary at all in UDI mode for managing it, and most Sims are tolerant to crime which occurs sporadically in a region. There often will be splotches on the Crime data view indicating the areas, and only really is the mega lot bug a concern which commonly occurs with airports.

[That Retro Guy 321]

17 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I personally never do. The police handle what they can automatically, but they are not overly efficient at it. I just let it be one of those statistics that is either a crime with an arrest or a crime without an arrest.

Is there ever a time when you do need to dispatch the Police?

Once again thinking about the pic, the Police have already been there.  They drew the chalk outline around the poor soul and they put up the 'Police - Do Not Cross' tape around the victim.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

4 hours ago, That Retro Guy said:

Is there ever a time when you do need to dispatch the Police?

Yes. When your Sims get so upset that they start a riot.

Game time will stop. They'll be turning over cars and starting fires. If left unchecked, they can destroy a city tile.

[Propfam 2,288]

Yes, but it's so rare. Only happens when your mayor rating is negative.

[That Retro Guy 321]

I started to post about how i was setting up a YouTube Channel when I realized that I should just start a new Topic in the Off-Topic sub-forum.

Here's the linky:

Retro Tries To Start a YouTube Channel

I wanna share the SimCity4 video that I made with all of you in all of it's inglorious drekness.

It's so bad that it's hysterical!  

  Edited April 1, 2021 by That Retro Guy  
Punctuation was never my strong suit.

[That Retro Guy 321]

Now that my YouTube channel is set up and I've released the 31+ minutes Monster into the wild, it's time to get back to my Villages.

Here's the latest attempt at a Village with the School Radius:

And here's the Fire Radius:

And the Medical Radius:

And finally, the Police Radius:

As you can see, everything is within the Radii so I should be good-to-go in that respect.

The Farms are 9 x 9, and there is a Cori's Farm House on each one.  Cori must have a huge family! 

In an earlier attempt, I saw this:

Creepy!

Looking at the Elementary School is driving my OCD right up the wall. Please help.

Like the top caption asks, which face of the school is the front?  It's easy to tell which face of the Police Station, Fire Station and the Medical Clinic is the front and should be facing the road, but the Elementary School?  I can't make heads-or-tails about which side is the front.

And finally, down on (one of) the farms is this:

Not sure about the Nationality of the MacDonald name, so my apologies for this.  I'm pretty sure that centuries ago if you called an Irishman a Scotsman (and vice versa), it was an big enough insult to start a blood feud.

Not that I'm trying to start one, you understand . . .