The Worthington Times

Maxis style growable buildings obviously will create a random amount of repetative buildings ! As a novice the Bat´s, Lot´s and MMP´s are jsut stunning to watch; several style´s in different UserDir can be explored http://simcityforum.com/showthread.php?t=848 .so complety different regions and custom ´material; Blocking Maxis Bat´s Lot´s so only custom buildings will appear, wich do require to install custom replacement Bats, Lot´s customized to your own taste 

. So No Maxis Art Deco, but installed European or Asian style  Bat´s Lot´s as desired ! Agree, writing a story in present time will be much more easier as non modern or to futuristic material isn´t around very much, more a side track without any real story telling potential. Long paragraph´s will not encourage readers to take notice of your work, so keep it ballenced, some line´s and then some pictures to show, otherwise it gets borring, nicely done !

Thank you for the comments, Scribosilyn and kschmidt,

In regard to same...

Re: referencing dates, I've changed 2200 to Yr200 and will use that type of notation going forward. Too bad SimCity doesn't account for centuries of modernization, as, say, the Civ games. If I could've, I'd have started in the year 1600 with thatched-roof huts, dirt paths, and small tobacco farms, a la Jamestown VA in 1607. As it is, if I stick with this region, I guess it'll wind up being hundreds of years old but never growing up -- like Bart Simpson.

Re: modifying the game, I've done some of that, from the STEX discs... you'll see that in later posts. Blocking all Maxis content seems a little extreme, and I'm not ready to go there yet. Not sure my laptop would ever be ready, but I'm not particularly tech savvy, so I don't know. Would love to sit down with someone like Haljackey, who's stuff is an amazing mix of Maxis and custom, and just have him install everything he has on my PC. I can't compete with y'all there, but I can slowly work more of it in. And I will check out the URL you sent.

Someone calling himself Mas on Blogger once chose his top 10 city journals, and his #1 was Civitas by PaleTexan, which had NO custom content at all. His journals for Civitas and Carthage look almost like guides to real cities. He's kind of my inspiration here. Of course, his cities/regions weren't that big, so building repetition wasn't such a problem.

Re custom content I'm looking for right now: Bike paths and dirt roads. Please let me know if you have any recommendations.

Will peruse your journals, too, when time allows for leisurely looks...

Thank u,

Simoleman

 

Nice entry! I personally use a mix of Maxis and custom content, which works as long as you have enough plugins installed to balance out the vanilla buildings. I must confess that I personally don't have quite enough custom buildings installed to stem the plague of repetition, but I'm getting there. A couple of suggestions:

(For your screenshots)

In terms of your requests, dirt roads are often best accomplished with MMPs – I'd suggest checking out Scribosilyn's Phoenix Project city journal for inspiration:

Alternatively, the Street Addon Mod, which comes as part of the NAM, contains (two?) functional dirt street sets.

In terms of bike paths, there are several options that can be unearthed with a quick search on the STEX or the LEX.

Hey, folks -- I love the dirt roads, which are perfect for my outlying rural/farm areas... but obviously I need some education. They don't work like regular roads, where you can just drag them across each other to make an intersection. I read about "starter pieces," but don't really know what that means or how to access them. Are there particular starter pieces for particular types of roads?  Is there a comprehensive tutorial on NAM that you would recommend?  Thanks! 

There's a pretty decent explanation of the usage of the SAM in text here: https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=1617.0

As you mentioned, the SAM does operate using starter pieces. The starter pieces can be accessed through an icon in the roads menu, and the different texture variations can be cycled through by pressing tab (or shift-tab to cycle backwards) while the icon is selected. They can be oriented using the home/end keys – when you are satisfied, click to place. Once the starter piece is down, you can drag the regular street through the starter piece and it will be constructed with your texture of choice!

MGB's NAM tutorials are pretty comprehensive if you want an explanation of all of the components of the NAM: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM3PEmgLUV_m-S79gAcjNkUL3uVPJQ_yW

I believe his explanation on SAM is in the 4th video of the series.

The NAM is a really big mod with many components and it will probably take quite a bit of time to get used to it. In the end though I think it's worth it because it adds so much to the game!!