Tri-County Region

[Tubthumper 499]

Okay - take 2...Hettelsburg file got corrupted, mainly because I kept messing with files and everything else...so after playing around with numerous test regions, getting things where I want, learning the game play, I think I am officially happy with the setup I have now and how I want to layout my cities.  So, I downloaded @drunkapple's Riga region - forested it all - and got around to planning out how I am going to tackle this region.  I am going with a mixture of natural growth/pre-planned layout.  I decided that with an area of 5,040 sq km, that this area will be called 'Tri-County' region, as 3 counties either wholly or partially in that land area is feasible and makes sense.  I started out with 7 core 'Cities' - each roughly 15-20miles away from the other cities.  From these core cities I am going to develop them at slightly different rates - basically keep my region at the same date, but certain cities I will play more of that I want to be bigger.  This will happen for awhile.  I don't really plan on filling out every city tile and every part of this region - but that is not out of the question - I mean you look at an area like the metropolitan LA area - it has an urban area of 5,907.8 sq km - so this area if fully filled would still be a bit smaller than the greater LA, so it isn't too unrealistic to build it up fully.  One thing I am going to not do though is have just a massive amount of skyscrapers in the entire area.

Anyway - to start things out - I established my seven core cities and built/developed them for a year of game play.  This is just the start of the play - also will help me identify what cities I would want to be my major cities - which ones would be minor.  This is the region layout with cities identified and just a picture of the region with no labels to get an idea of the look.

After one year - the cities ranked by population are: Fort Defiance, La Porte, Bend, Auburn, Oldenburg, Columbus, and lastly Union Dale.  This was close to what I envisioned going in - I always planned Fort Defiance to be my largest, and La Porte being the second largest.  However, Oldenburg being number 5 surprised me - I figured it would be swapped with Columbus - but oh well - guess them German immigrants are more industrious than the Italian explorer funded by the Spainards...Here are the top 7 cities in order of population

Fort Defiance - at 7,201 residents, this is definitely the jewel of the region

La Porte - population of 3,340 - and at the mouth of three rivers, will definitely be my industrial hub, focused more on getting manufacturing industry going.  As the name implies - I plan on building quite a bit of seaports in this city

Bend - population 2,992 is named after the 2 bends of the river running north of the city.  I eventually plan on building a nuclear power plant along the lake sometime in the future

Auburn - population 2,873 - this one was also a bit of a surprise.  Being far away from any major navigable water ways.  Obviously will have a rail line eventually moving north to Bend to access some sea ports.

Oldenburg - population 2,797, came close to beating out Auburn...my little eastern town was a surprise for me.  Again with no major navigable water way will rely heavily on rail to move goods out

Columbus - population 2,381 - just upstream from Fort Defiance.  Luckily it does have navigable water so will not rely as heavily on rail.  There is a plan in place to build some water transport in Fort Defiance

Union Dale - population 1,895 - the only city that didn't manage to cross 2000 people in one year.  This sleepy little city has a lot going against it - no navigable water - farthest away from any navigable water.  Will rely on rail to get to Auburn - will most likely be a major agriculture hub as it has a lot of flat low lands around it to continuously grow crops for the region.

[CarstenB 660]

Wow, really good. I like it and will follow your region.
 And in my region ''Bundesrepublik Mexico'' i have a Oldenburg too. Im from germany and i was on the school in Oldenburg, so it make me happy, to see the city name in a region outside mine.

[Tubthumper 499]

2 hours ago, CarstenB said:

Wow, really good. I like it and will follow your region.
 And in my region ''Bundesrepublik Mexico'' i have a Oldenburg too. Im from germany and i was on the school in Oldenburg, so it make me happy, to see the city name in a region outside mine.

There is actually an Oldenburg close to where I grew up in south eastern Indiana - hence the choosing of that name.  Always liked the name

[Tubthumper 499]

Five years into the region.  Most cities retained their ranking, however Oldenburg moved up from 4th to 3rd, and is actually just 64 people away from taking over Bend.  This next year will be establishing rail connections between cities to help alleviate caps for industry and to allow additional growth.  Additionally, any development in the next year will be for farmlands only.  After the next year, each city will have 9 years of development.  To help separate cities and city sizes I nerded out a bit and made an excel sheet.  Basically, the amount of years of major development is based on the ranking of the city after each block.  So, for example, Fort Defiance came out on top - so after the year of farming, the following 9 years will be focused solely on development of industry/commercial, and Union Dale will have the next year of farming only, then the next 9 years will be 5 years on industry/commercial, 4 years on farming.  Everything between will be a bit less or more.  Should help with just keeping a somewhat natural growth going.  I will pause the simulation only on "major" development projects, but other than that play on slow speed.

Anyway, onto the 5 year review!  After 4 years of development, the region saw a 157.36% increase of residents to have a regional population of 60,246.  Though that would be a pretty solid number for one city, spread out among 7 cities in 70sqkm, not as impressive - still room to grow.

Fort Defiance is still the largest city in the region, but only by around 800ish people.  A new seaport was opened up to help some demand cap issues with industry, but still some additional work needs to be done.  Hopefully rail connections will help out a lot more, especially with getting goods from Columbus up the river to La Porte for further export to SimNation

La Porte definitely is becoming an industrial hub - although less people than Fort Defiance, it has a stronger Industrial population.  Two seaports are running in this city, one handling the export of goods and grains, one handling the import of natural gas to help power the region.

Bend retains the third place, just barely though.  Struggling with getting a good industrial sector going, hopefully the addition of the seaport, and the soon to be laying down of rail lines will help jump start this city.

Coming in strong is Oldenburg taking over fourth place.  Even though it had one less year of development than Auburn, it definitely had stronger year over year growth, just a nice smooth steady increase each year.

Auburn had a rough couple years, but its fourth year had a major growth - a 67% increase from its prior year - the strongest single year growth of any city.  It wouldn't surprise me if it reclaims number 4 spot over the next 10 years.  

Still in sixth is Columbus.  Columbus took a line from Fort Defiance's book and built a small hydroelectric station for its power needs.  However unlike Fort Defiance, this station just relies on the current of the stream and won't be able to provide long term power solution, as it didn't dam the river up

Last but not least - still in the middle of nowhere - Union Dale.  A large farming community surrounds this city producing a lot of food for the region.  A small industrial sector has opened up to provide additional jobs for those who would rather sweat inside than outside

[Tubthumper 499]

This post will focus on the city of Fort Defiance.  In 10 years, the little city of 11,131 has expanded and grown to a population of 53,583.  Lot of industry forming in the core city, pushing farm lands out more.  This city is now roughly the size of Sanford City, FL (pop. 53,570).  Some rail lines have extended out connecting to Columbus, La Porte, and even a line that goes further west to a branch that reaches Bend, Auburn, and even Union Dale.  So far no major issues occurring with the city - just upgrading and zoning.

Downtown area has seen a huge change = first the original hydroelectric dam needed expansion to produce more power.  An elevated rail line was built running through the center, and a cathedral was built for the local diocese.

The neighborhood of Westview was established to the west of downtown, with a small rail station to provide access to downtown, Crosspointe Center, and the industrial area.  Additionally a high school for the city was built along with a football field for their team.

Crosspointe Center is just north of downtown and at the junction of the three main roads leading to other parts of the city. 

The industrial heart of the city saw its seaport expand to provide more transportation of goods down river to La Porte and export out to the rest of SimNation.  Many little shops line the main road to capitalize on the amount of traffic in the area.

[Tubthumper 499]

La Porte has been developed for a total of 15 years now.  Although it looks bigger than Fort Defiance, it is still a bit smaller - the massive look is due to the numerous streams and rivers that define the city.  With a total population of 47,237 - it is roughly the size of Methuen Town, Massachusetts (pop. 47,255).  Next few years will be spent filling in the random undeveloped areas.  Had some issues between YR10 and YR13, with major unemployment issues due to commute times.  Had to demolish a few abandoned buildings and rework the districts a bit, and saw some population stagnation in those times.  If that issue didn't pop up, I am sure La Porte would have taken the number one spot from Fort Defiance.  Rail lines have been established to bring goods from Fort Defiance, Oldenburg, and Bend to the ports, and to ship supplies out as well.

Here we can take a look at the original town area, and see how the massive industrial area and ports have created a major boom for commercial services and offices.  

This area is one of the district restructuring.  Built a nice industrial center just southeast of the original town, but to combat major air pollution - local ordinances ensured that only manufacturing and high-tech industry are zoned.  This did help quite a bit, because after one year the city saw a 13% increase in population.

The northern district of La Porte has a strong agriculture presence with many residents residing in the area to commute to the city core. 

Just west of the main city a local dump was established to centralize all garbage and ship it out to other buyers.  Also due to the cost of constructing bridges high enough for boat traffic, the city council decided instead to establish ferry routes.  These little guys are getting quite a bit of work.

Next off, we head west to see what Bend is up to...

[Tubthumper 499]

Well, we have a new number 2 - and almost a new number 1.  The city of Bend really took off quick - jumping to a population 52,519 - just a little more than 1k less than Fort Defiance - even with two years of stagnant growth.  The past 15 years saw the creation of rail lines to La Porte and Auburn, as well as new ferry services across the lake (looking for suggestions for the name of the lakes, and rivers, through the region - feel free to drop your suggestions.).  Part of the increase of population was a very lenient tax rate on property ownership - a 2/3/4 plan (mainly because I had a huge surplus of funds - and a huge surplus in monthly profits.  I have the mod in that doesn't charge for zoning - so don't need too much money to continuously expand).  A few issues are starting to arise - mainly with road congestion on some of the major roads.  Will likely have to plan on some future expansion projects.

The city core is actually the largest core city of the region - with a population 30,963 it easily beats out Fort Defiance (26,546) and La Porte (22,029) - but the outer regions are a lot smaller than the out regions of the other two cities.

The southeast region is a nice little area right on the lake and providing a good amount of agriculture/food for the city core.  

The northeast region is also a strong agriculture hub with a nice commercial strip along the main road.

[Tubthumper 499]

Oldenburg has surpassed La Porte and has moved into the third largest city, with a population of 52,331 (just a bit smaller than Battle Creek, Michigan's 52,347).  This one has been fun to work on - and actually had a slight issue with the west end of the town that couldn't be corrected - so I had to God mode demolish it and start it up again.  Luckily only had a few years on the west end so didn't cause any major headaches.  Here we can see the city spreading out her farmlands.

This is the city core, what where the city was first founded.  A couple of changes occurred, moving the industrial sector mainly to the eastern edge of the city.  Also, a new regional hospital was erected and creates a very prominent icon of the city.

Here we have the citizen's square, where laws are made not just for the city but for the county that Oldenburg is the County Seat of.  Excellent model by @mattb325 that looks really nice along the riverbank. Also here we have another close up view of the regional hospital and construction of new commercial offices. 

To the west of the city core we have a sprawling residential neighborhood and another industrial core.  This area is surrounded by farm lands and has rail access to the city core and westward towards La Porte.

A close up view of the Carsten Oldenburg Power Station (named for @CarstenB since he made a comment about loving the name Oldenburg).  This coal power plant has new scrubbers installed (Thanks @CorinaMarie for the reference!  The original add-on just completely destroyed the air pollution in the city and was the cause of aforementioned issue.)  This power plant definitely dominates the skyline.  I know most people put coal plants on out-skirts and away from the city, but for this I took inspiration from the Martin Drake coal plant that was operational in downtown Colorado Springs until 2021.  I lived in ColoSpgs for 6 years and always thought the plant looked cool.  And unlike the default coal plants in this game, it wasn't pushing out black smoke all the time and really didn't visually affect the air.

Just south of the city core we also have another residential neighborhood and major farmlands.  Also down here is where the city dump is located that ships out garbage via rail to unknown locations.

Next up, Auburn and see what she produces over the next 10 years...

[CarstenB 660]

I like the development of your region very much. It feels so organic and the cities are growing at the same time. And I also like power plants (with high chimneys) in cities. Some of my cities have big power plants in the city on the river and thus is the skyline.

And thank you very much, I am very honored.

As always, I'm looking forward to further development and I'm curious to see how the region will continue to grow and what else you will build.

Fun fact: The original power plant is in Wolfsburg in Lower Saxony (the same state where Oldenburg is located) and therefore in my home state.

[Tubthumper 499]

42 minutes ago, CarstenB said:

Fun fact: The original power plant is in Wolfsburg in Lower Saxony (the same state where Oldenburg is located) and therefore in my home state.

Wow! I legit had no idea that this power plant was based on a real-world one...and then the crazy coincidence of where I placed it and all that - happy coincidence.   Definitely aptly named then!

[Tubthumper 499]

Auburn has been built for 15 years, and remains in 5th place with a population of 43,329 (roughly the same size as Summerville, SC 43,392).  This city kind of ticked me off, for some reason I was having trouble at first with getting it to grow in a N/S orientation - and I am sure that is due to the grid orientation I started with.  Oh well, finally getting it down working.  Have a few undeveloped areas yet that will be filled in next go-around.

The central part of Auburn has changed a bit, a growing industrial sector with some low wealth residents around.  Agriculture moving towards the west and northeast.

The business district is right across the river from the industrial sector and a regional hospital overlooks the flowing waters.  St. Mark's Catholic Church is shown with some nice prominence just to the east.

The rich sims have moved in mass to the north side of the central city and have a nice sports complex built for their leisure activities.

Just north of the central district is another small industrial sector and more farm lands

Just west of the central district is a large farming community and a very busy rail yard transporting goods out of the area.

Next up - Columbus!

[Tubthumper 499]

Well, the city of Columbus still remains in 6th place with a population of 34,980 (slightly smaller than St Cloud, FL at 35,183).  For some reason it felt like the years flew on building this city, probably due to the layout and not having to pause at all to do minor terrain fixing - the only major things were building the L.J.Bauguess Memorial Bridge (named in honor of my former BN S3 who was KIA in 2007), and the numerous ferry docks that provide quick connections to other parts of the city and even potentially up to Fort Defiance in the future.

The small hydroelectric plant quickly ran out of power capacity and was supplemented with a natural gas power station in the central city next to the rail lines.  LNG is brought in via train and converted to NG to then power the city.  With the busy rail line built, industry soon started to move in and a strong industrial center was established.

With the creation of the new industrial sector and a growing population, trash started to pile up.  Needed a place to move all the trash so a small sector to the west of the core was established to hold a dump.  Trash is brought in by rail and after sorting, some remains and some gets shipped back out by rail to other places.  Not deterred by the dump, some residential and industrial, and even farm land, quickly built up and a small neighborhood was formed.

The city also saw an expansion to the southwest of the central core and along the southern banks of the lake.  Farm land abounds here providing food for the community and region as well as a small industrial center.  Most residents here prefer to use the ferry to get to the city center over driving on roads.

So 15 years down in Columbus - next to move west and work on the last city of the region - Union Dale

[Tubthumper 499]

15 years is done in Union Dale.  Just like the first five years - Union Dale remains in last place, and the only city to not cross 30,000 people.  With a population of 29,172 - it is roughly the size of West Lafayette, IN (29,596).  A large agriculture center, as originally envisioned, is evident in the overview of the city - massive farmlands sprawling from around the city's core.  

Not everyone in Union Dale is content toiling away on the soil - a strong industrial core was developed along the tracks and a city dump to gather the refuse of the people dominate the eastern part of the city.

Just south of the city across from the river, a small community of wealthy sims was developed with some farms surrounding them.

The western edge of the city has another small industrial center and where some of the low wealth sims reside to work in the fields.

To the north of the city, another small, rural, low wealth neighborhood was established.  These may be simple salt-of-the-earth folk, but you can't say they are dumb.  This is the location of the regions first ever library.

All in all - it has been a fun 15 years of development - and now onto expanding the region more.  I now have my top-three cities identified (in order: Fort Defiance, Bend, and Oldenburg).  These cities will be the core of future development and as such will be the three "County Seats" of the three counties comprising Tri-County Region.  Over the years, a lot will be spent on making these cities the biggest and most cultural - with the remaining cities being relegated to farming communities for the most part - with smaller rural communities forming around around them.  Not saying that La Porte, Auburn, Columbus, and Union Dale won't grow - but I am going to kind of force them to be lower density area.  La Porte will probably retain it's fourth place, just due to it's geographical location at the mouth of the main river and centrally located between the three big cities.  Auburn and Union Dale will likely be the largest farming areas, due to the relatively flat area around them.  Word is the Generals of SimNation Military are looking at establishing a new military base - and have been eyeing the lands to the south of Columbus and Southeast of Fort Defiance.  Who knows...  Anyway, here is a quick overview of the entire region after 15 years - you can see how the cities have started to spread out.

Up next - back to the center and working on Fort Defiance

[TheMurderousCricket 5,061]

Nice idea with starting your region in several separated "pockets". It might be interesting to see them grow and then coalesce and mix away with one another.

[Tubthumper 499]

On 5/13/2022 at 7:57 AM, TheMurderousCricket said:

Nice idea with starting your region in several separated "pockets". It might be interesting to see them grow and then coalesce and mix away with one another.

Indeed, I just always thought it would be fun to do a true 'regional' play...the default size isn't really a region - more of a suburb connected to a major city.  Thanks for the comment, I do appreciate it.

Anyway, just a quick update.  Built Fort Defiance area up for about 5 years, city has a population of 149,221 - or slightly larger than Pomona, CA at 149,058.  Not going into details quite yet.  Will say that a few new 'towns' are going to be developed in the northeast notch area to fill those up with farms to break the straight line up.  Still have 10 more years in this area before I give a full report of it.

[Tubthumper 499]

FORT DEFIANCE AFTER 30 YEARS

Well, a lot of pictures this go around and a lot of development in Fort Defiance.  A couple cities have grown to basically make one continuous city - but these 'cities' will maintain their unique names - however their population totals will be included with Fort Defiance, in what I am going to call the Fort Defiance MSA.  As Fort Defiance continues to expand, some of the smaller outer towns will likely be absorbed as well.  A quick look-see at the city and surrounding areas as of now.  A total population of 178,054 - roughly the same size as Providence, Rhode Island (178,042) 

Here you can see the city limits of Fort Defiance, Marion, Saint Joe, Brooks Park, Belen, and Landis.  Saint Joe and Marion are counted into the population totals for Fort Defiance, as it is a continuous urban connection.

Taking a closer look at some areas of interest in Fort Defiance MSA. Here we see the Cathedral on Power Island with the city center across the street.  Also the Defiance County Courthouse has been built and a small farmers market can be a nice area to get local produce from the surrounding community.  

Crosspointe Center has the first tall buildings of the region, standing at 20 stories - the West & Co Tower is an easy landmark for the citizens and a sign of pride for the region.

Just north of this we see a developing high-tech industrial center area

Along the river bank is the major manufacturing a dirty industrial center for Fort Defiance.  A large railyard also employs some sims in the area

Just north of this industrial hub a large 'slums' has developed, bringing in low wealth residents to work in the factories or the fields surrounding the city

Over in Westview, a new marina has opened up providing recreational activities on the reservoir

To the east of Crosspointe is a higher end district with many boutique shops and wealthy offices.  Also a large mall has been built providing numerous shopping excursions and a place to hang out for the teens

About halfway between Crosspointe and Marion, another industrial hub was established

As we continue eastward we cross some arbitrary line where even the people of the area don't know whether they are in Fort Defiance or Marion - but alas it is for the postal service considered Marion.  

The northeast part of Fort Defiance is stereotypical of US suburbs without goofy roads that make no sense.  Many shopping areas line the main roads with a factory here or there and nestled behind all that is the large group of middle-class residents who, despite anything luxurious, call this home.

At the far north of Fort Defiance you enter another town called Saint Joe.  Although home to low wealth residents - the town manages to provide decent services mainly by taking in the trash from Fort Defiance and the surrounding town.

Now we leave the Fort Defiance MSA and take a look at a few of the outlying towns/farming communities.  First up we have Brooks Park, with a population of 10,254

North of Brooks Park is Landis - population 3,010

North of Saint Joe and northeast of Landis is the small community of Belen

That is it for now - was quite a bit of fun switching between all these areas over the years and seeing how they grow.  But up next, we head to Bend and see what the next 15 years brings for that city.

 

  Edited June 1, 2022 by Tubthumper  
Deleted erroneous pictures

[CorinaMarie 29,776]

I really like how this is developing.

With your greater expansion it's reminding me a lot of central Indiana. The smaller towns within the Metropolitan Service Area (MSA) makes perfect sense and if they later get overtaken by Fort Defiance, that'd be the same as how Indianapolis absorbed other smaller towns like Speedway, Irvington, Beach Grove, Lawrence, Broad Ripple, and several others.

[Tubthumper 499]

I grew up in south eastern Indiana and live up in North Eastern Indiana now.  A lot of Hoosier style is definitely influencing this - either with names or layouts.  Thanks for the kind words!

[Tubthumper 499]

Well - sadly this is now a dead topic, I can't win...my computer took a major mechanical dump on me and in my stupidity I didn't back this up correctly.  Now I have a new system, but it is a Linux based OS.  Gotta get SC4 figured out on there, and rebuild the files/setup.

Good news, learned a lot about custom content and what I liked/didn't like.  So moving forward into this new build, I will be taking my time on what mods/addons I actually use.  Obviously NAM is going to be there.

[TogaMasterJohn 711]

Oh no! That is very unfortunate. I really like this region a lot (I just came across this thread today).

On 11/7/2022 at 10:30 AM, Tubthumper said:

Now I have a new system, but it is a Linux based OS.  Gotta get SC4 figured out on there, and rebuild the files/setup.

Linux for the win! 

I've had varying success with the game under Linux. To me, it really comes down to your distro, your hardware, your drivers, and the version of Wine (some versions work, some versions do not work).

I've been meaning to write a guide regarding what I have found and what I know, but I have not done so yet due to IRL things. It can be either very easy to setup (little to no tweaking) or it may require some additional tweaking... and some time and patience! You may need a wrapper if you experience graphical issues (I have ran encountered some strange graphical oddities during my tests ).

[Tubthumper 499]

17 minutes ago, TogaMasterJohn said:

Oh no! That is very unfortunate. I really like this region a lot (I just came across this thread today).

Thanks for the kind words - It was a fun region for sure...I am almost ready to start another region with a similar process - just a couple more things to finalize in my plugins/downloads.  I will probably just continue on this thread with the process to be easy for people to follow who may have followed my work.

I will be working on a different base region that I found and really like - good mix of hills/mountains/river/islands/etc.  So stay tuned!  It will be a smaller region (but still bigger than default) - and in honor of Tri-Counties some of the city names will come over - with a Fort Defiance being a major city.  I am disheartened on Tri-Counties dying but am looking forward to what is to come!

[Tubthumper 499]

Okay - so, testing of plugins done, still a few minor ones to get when I find them, but they don't affect the game enough to worry about right now.  New region downloaded, looks like I am good to go!

For this region, I downloaded the beautiful "Hudsonia Region" by @tagehring.  I absolutely love the view of it, and gives me good areas to build up, while not being sooooo expansive that I won't know where to start.  For this region my terrain mod is "LK's Appalachian Terrain" with "LK's Starter Set"

For trees, I usually used Cascadia, but for this one I went with "Central European Tree Controller" by @11241036.  I think it fills up the area nicely.

So, now some intrepid settlers are moving north along the river, to set up a new home.  How will the world change with their meddling?  

 

[Tubthumper 499]

Got rails laid out and one "highway" established along the eastern bank.  Now it is time to start building.  LETS GO!

[Tubthumper 499]

Fort Defiance has been established and after 5 years has a small population of 1,679 sims calling it home.

A central town surrounded by quaint farmlands through the small rolling hills.

[Tubthumper 499]

Oldenburg - just northeast of Fort Defiance on HWY 3, sits at 1698 people.  This area has a few more hills, making farming a bit more unique.

[Tubthumper 499]

Auburn is a further north up HWY 3 and has a population of 1128.  A nice flat ground allows farmers to easily grow their crops.

[Tubthumper 499]

Columbus sits between Fort Defiance and Oldenburg along HWY 3 and has nice flat lands for farmers to grow their crops.  A small town with 755 sims calling it home.

[CarstenB 660]

Im sorry because your old region is broken/way.
But its cool, that you build a new region and i like it. Your cities look really cozy and im excited for the big future of Tri-County Region.

 

So good luck!

[Tubthumper 499]

2 hours ago, CarstenB said:

Im sorry because your old region is broken/way.
But its cool, that you build a new region and i like it. Your cities look really cozy and im excited for the big future of Tri-County Region.

 

So good luck!

Thanks - yeah it sucks, but I have back-ups in place now that are completely separate from my comp - so should be able to handle a mishap should it occur.

Here is another small update.  Just south of Fort Defiance on Highway 3 sits the small community of Belen with a population of 884 sims.  Nestled along the slopes of the hills, this small farming community doesn't have as much flat land for farming as can be seen in the second photo.

[Tubthumper 499]

I'm still around and lurking...slowly but surely working on my region.  Here is the town of Landis