Entry #3

Hi all! Welcome back to Illyris! Sorry it's been a while since my last entry, I've been busy with a family wedding, and...alas..life :/ However,  I am back today and looking forward to sharing some new city photos with you. 

Let's begin with Balks Islands! As a refresher -- Illyris, is a world in which live four major races (Elgers, Amarians, Ruskins, and Danis), this entry is primarily the story of the Amarians.  They live on continent Red, west of a landmass Elger (home of the magical Elger people).  Balks Islands is at the south-east end of Red, and southern peninsula of Elger. 

Balks Islands (on the Elger continent coast)

This series of 8 tiny tiny islands was a bit of challenge for me.

 It was the first port city started by Nate Harbinger and his sister Julie Harbinger's parents. Their father, James was an Amarian whose ancestors traveled the furthest east of any Amarian in known history all the way to the border of the Elger continent.  There he met and fell in love with an Elger woman from the then new city of Othello. They married, and had Nate and Julie. After James' death, ownership of Balks Islands transferred to Nate and Julie. 

Since most new cities need factories to invite new citizens and provide income, all islands, except for 2, were filled started with smoke-blowing factories. The sea around the islands was filthy with industrious waste.  When Julie went broke trying to recover these small islands financially, they moved the seaport to Balks Islands mainland and re-zoned the islands to be a residential tourist area. At the time, Elger cities Southampton, London, and Othello were growing and commercial opportunities opened up for the islands -- Julie dedicated one island to shops and offices, and finally built a long bridge north to Southampton (Elger).  The islands are still struggling to attract tourists, but since surrounding the waters become clean and clear, Nate and Julie are hopeful.

Chief Comptroller notes: I've decided to dedicated larger islands for more residential and commercial development. Balks islands simply don't have the space!

Next, is Tristana Hill - a lovely suburb north of Allistar (see Entry #1). Both are Amarian cities.    

Tristana Hill is a city of almost 28,000 residents, set upon none other than Tristana Hill*

 Tristana hill contains every amenity and comfort for the perfect suburban lifestyle including a baseball field, a golf course and soccer stadium!

It provides sweet tasty water from its water treatment plant, situated by the beautiful, flowing Snake River. 

And has the only bridge on the east side of the Snake River, Tristana Hill bridge, -- an important commercial connection to Red mainland, and its port city of Ephesus.   

New York

Next, let's follow up on New York and how it's growing into a lovely metropolis! This week I worked on the city and added a few new things. 

A disease research center was founded by New York Hospital doctors.  They believe it will become a great place for Columbia University's medical students for gaining research experience and perhaps find the cure for cancer!

I expanded its subway system to provide a station at the hospital and Disease Research center (above), Columbia University (below), Industrial area, commercial area (multiple stations), and riverside airport. 

Although there are a lot of great universities in the real New York City, I chose Columbia as the name for mine, as it's my colleague and friend's alma mater.  Also,I didn't like the un-embelished university, so I cleaned it up a bit, terraformed the brown terrain, leveled it, and added a cluster of trees, grass areas, and plazas with flowers. 

And that's about it for today!

Sorry for such a short entry, but I've been busy with family,  and testing out the new games SC2013 and CSL - -plus, that ever pesky frenemy - life!  I bought and have played SC2013, and C:SL for a good 20 hours each so far. I've really been having a blast playing around with these new games. I think the three of them have their own charm and I like testing their limits.  Now that I have the two, as well as my old faithful, SC4, I'll be making a city journal for my SC13 cities and CSL cities, so you can look forward to that if you're interested.  Hope you enjoyed this tour of south Illyris =)  I'll be seein' ya in my next entry =)  Until then, take care, city-builders!

FOOTNOTES

*(This is a city I imported from the region I played several years ago.  As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to create a new region this year, but didn't want to start from scratch so I imported a few cities from an old region.  I've added a couple of lovely additions since then.