BRAD'S SC4 American Series M-1

[Brad 343]

Lehigh- in charge of track construction and maintanence. has the most population growth of the 3 railroad regions.

 

[Brad 343]

Moosic- with a feed mill and a dairy creamery.  with this the northeast regions are all completed for Phase 3.  North half of the map done to year 7.

I wish the pics would work better. pic 1- the creamery and a shopping plaza. pic 2 the industry section. pic 3- the feed mill. is small but handling the low amount of trains coming thru. pics of the riverside downtown and high rises. and 2 overviews of the northeast regions.

 

[catty-cb 4,412]

Am OK with picture size, but maybe the occasional closeup picture if there is something you particularly want to show people

[Brad 343]

south of the railroad and Amish regions, we have several factory regions. each is different.  I tried to get different factories to grow here than the northern sections. the 2nd has the SPAM food processors, and the 3rd is HT.

Nicholson-

 

 

[Brad 343]

On 10/19/2023 at 12:31 PM, catty-cb said:

Am OK with picture size, but maybe the occasional closeup picture if there is something you particularly want to show people

I have tried that with some things, like the militaryy base and port areas. I don't want to make 20 pics of 1 region. plus it would be like a jigsaw puzzle and everyone would b lost. there are some showcase pics coming in time to highlight some stuff I have planned. with each phase or play through, there will be less pics. I skipped doing pics of many of the small regions this time and some of the medium sized.

[Brad 343]

Sweet Valley with the SPAM farm processors.

[Brad 343]

Wind Gap- the HT region. with a population increase of 13,000, it needed another school and a jail.

 

[Brad 343]

Berks with Raceway park and casinos. Along with the bus route, churches, and cemetary, it needed a 2nd hospital, more power, and a jail. There was enough funding to afford a few hotels and restaraunts.

 

[Brad 343]

We head back across  the map to the Southwest regions but still north of the metro cities.

Susquehanna grew by over 10,000 sims.the prison town built churches, a bus route with parking garages, a city hall and census office. 

[Brad 343]

Haven't posted on this in awhile. many of the regions are small and some haven't seen much change other than adding churches and cemetaries.  population grew to 1.25 million before starting the metro regions.

PHASE 3 metro regions-  MILITARY BASE- the new housing upgrade mod has helped. still there are more R$ living here than we have jobs for. R$$ and $$$'s are moving in slowly. population at 19,000. Also waiting for the PEG docks to unlock. The region did need a 2nd hospital for the population growth and added an airbase with some research labs.

 

 

[Brad 343]

the PORT region- a huge population growth. needed a hospital and jail.

[Brad 343]

Pittsburgh is growing decently. Started to unlock a few skyscrapers. The city center has a court house and tourist center. More steel factories keep the Sims employed. 

 

[Brad 343]

Airport region- about a 50% pop growth. a bus route and churches serve the residences. hotels await travelors..

 

[Brad 343]

MALL region- added some grocery stores and gas stations. Started a restaraunt row near the center. Needed more roads to handle the traffic.

[Brad 343]

we move on to the rest of the metro regions. these have to be synchronized and played at the same time due to the Utility region supplying power and water.  The Utility region supports the 3 cities plus Hershey. so 5 regions in total. A monorail connects Scranton to Hershey. An E-train/subway system connects the 3 cities and runs thru to the Airport. plus the line coming south from Harrisburg.. Each has a bus route. Churches and cemetaries were added. 2 of the cities have a government area. Philly has not built theirs yet. The 3 metro regions donated $150,000 each  to the Utility region to help support it.

SCRANTON- the main transport hub connection.

 

 

[Brad 343]

ALLENTOWN- with a huge culture district. south of Scranton, between the Airport and Philly. with an E-train and subway.

 

[Brad 343]

PHILLY- east of Allentown. an E train connection to Scranton and then thru Allentown to the Airport. This region has a university but I have not built the main government section yet. This region gained over 100,000 population.

 

[Brad 343]

HERSHEY- a medium sized region east of Scranton and north of the Utility region. a monorail brings Sims from Scranton. there is a bus route. Then there is a challenge.move Sims thru the MAPP amusement park with no NAM mod. I saw somewhere that a player did this with subways. my attempt with that is not working. some of the rides flash in/out as abandoned due to commute times. experimenting with a monorail in the park.

The region does have a chocolate factory, wharehouses to support the park, and a water park. It has 1 resort hotel and a campground.

 

[Brad 343]

The last region- UTILITY region- built more power plants and water pumps to support the other metro's. zoned more population for workers that can commute to Hershey. extended a rail line to bring coal and garbage from the other far off regions. just made sence to do that since many send trash out via railroads. upgraded some roads to handle the flow of traffic. the E train runs through here from Scranton to Philly. this region was granted $$ from the 3 metro cities of $450,000 total.

 

[Brad 343]

PHASE 3 is completed project started in April with downloading mods, mapping the terrain, and unraveling the tree controllers. Phase 1 was to get all the regions established and powered. P2 added services such as police, fire, and schools. P3 churches and cemetariers were added and transportation was greatly improved. population is lower than I hoped-1.6 million.

some notes-huge project that took 9 months. I do wish I had started with a smaller map. am glad and lucky that I started this before the other site went down. the modding system is much harder than BANISHED. the mods interact so much and function different than each other... how do  word that better? some mods work well, some are decorative with no jobs, and some have jobs but no Sims traveling to or from. have played SC4 off/on since it came out, but still lack understanding on much.

am unsure of what to do going forward. do I decide to continue this map or start over? recently made some computer improvements. will they help enough to run NAM? will I comprehend all the changes it brings? can it be added to this map or does it force a re-start?  as much as I tried to keep it organized, my mod folder is in shambles. it is a folder full of folders. some organized more than others. this goes back to the mod complexity and interactions. you add 1, you need 5 others. move 1, and things fail to function. to add to the confusion, each adds more and more icons to the same toolbars.have not found an easy fix yet.

 

sorry for sounding so negative. I don't mean to. SC4 is the most modded game ever. I enjoy playing it but it is a lot of work to unravel mysteries. I did hope i would have more understanding of the modding this time around. am frustrated with myself for that. I will take some time and debate much myself. might be a month before I decide what to do.

IF I continue this map. Phase 4 will concentrate mostly on the larger city regions and populated medium sized regions. that is still bout half the map. there are many mods already downloaded to be double checked and added. 1 of the goals for the next phase is to weed some of the copying of buildings. another will be to push the population a lot higher.

it has been a fun year. we shall see what the next brings. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

pics of the southern regions.

 

 

[catty-cb 4,412]

On 12/25/2023 at 6:48 AM, Brad said:

as much as I tried to keep it organized, my mod folder is in shambles. it is a folder full of folders. some organized more than others. this goes back to the mod complexity and interactions. you add 1, you need 5 others. move 1, and things fail to function. to add to the confusion, each adds more and more icons to the same toolbars.have not found an easy fix yet

As you know its been a while since I played SC4, and I think I probably spent just as much time twiddling with plugin contents as I did playing the game, this is what I finally ended up with ... but on top of that I've also got three STEX discs, 2 LEX discs and I have a feeling I've also got an ancient simpeg disc somewhere 

[Nihilianth 25]

Williamsport! My home town! Looks nothing like it though. lol. I played on a Williamsport region map for a long time back in the day. Still have all the saves, but cant open it now and play from where I had left off years ago.... It isnt corrupted, its just that the mapper tool isnt saving the region in the way it did before. I dont think I have the Williamsport map I had back then.

[Brad 343]

srry I missed the post. been a long time since I opened this blog..  the map sure isn;t correct.  a lot of differences, Williamsport does have lots of ballfields thou for the Little League.