Entry 66 - Mini-tiles, Potter's Slink 1, W2W
Entry 66: Introducing Mini-tiles!
It's been some months but a lot has happened, thing have changed and a few new ideas have come along. In this entry I'll explain my latest outlet to get back into SimCity 4 and my plan to deal with the backlog of SC4 projects I've got.
You may also have noticed that I replied to the comments via quotes in the last entry. From now on I'll be replying to comments at the end of the day, so it's time for that change as many other CJers here do.
Right- Let's get into it!
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First of all, what is a mini-tile?
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Ingame it's a 1km by 1km tile, the smallest of the bunch.
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It's small and the perfect outlet for getting back into the game for I did not want to start another medium- or large-sized city tile.
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It's a means of creating a small project within three to four days.
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It's a chance to experiment and produce something quickly, roughly four entries worth of content.
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It had been about three months since I last played SimCity 4 so I needed this "Mini-tile" to get back into practice.
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For the next mini-tile it will be purely rural as I splurge out on MMPs.
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The name of this city tile is Potter's Slink, it shows part of the town centre as the rest of the area transitions to suburbs.
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In this entry we explore the north-eastern part of the town centre.
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As part of the mini-tile experience I decided not to photoshop the pictures.
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Thus I can make these city tiles quick and perform minimal preparation upon the photos.
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And what of the other projects? Cindersville for instance?
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I've been working on Cindersville for two and a half years on and off, the project became increasingly complicated.
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Every building, every lot, every area and every city tile is built upon, refined, developed, turned to urban development or transformed into the countryside.
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The process is exhausting, especially the rural scenes which require extensive MMP work and planning.
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Developed large city tiles are also very unstable and can crash, especially during saves.
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To minimize this I've had to restrict RAM to play the game, this slows down everything from loading up my computer, to loading up the game to even the simulation. Thankfully it doesn't get in the way of MMP work.
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But without this method I can't save my progress with any reliability, and I can't lose progress because the saving crashes.
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It also means resetting the RAM to normal and rebooting my computer which takes some time too.
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The entire process has become this industrial operation, this sprawling project where every single city tile has got to look right.
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My output also dropped as I started two new jobs in Capita, one after the other. The first in March required training, while the second (which is permenent) required further training as well.
22.
Also in the background is using some of my evening time to complete an accountancy course (AAT Level 3), while the rest of my spare time has often been spent developing the middle portion of my sci-fi novel. With the bulk of the novel complete and a few rather difficult, expansive chapter complete, it's become easier.
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Which thus brings us to my plan to deal with the three projects I have outstanding on SimCity 4: Cindersville, The Big Mango and Travis City.
1. Cindersville: I've booked time-off in August and my job has become a lot more easier now that I've put some weeks behind me with the completed training. The urban area of Cindersville is done but the south-western mountain and the northern mountains need to be MMPed, trees need to be placed down again, scree slopes added, paths created and the whole thing prettied up to a good standard. I'm not just leaving the area as simply the terrain and trees from the tree controller, it hast to be developed. In August Cindersville should be done.
2. Travis City: This was a quick, though large, city tile to develop and this is next on my list to be completed. I intend to complete this once Cindersville is done and commence work in September.
3. The Big Mango: I love this city, this recreation of New York. Not the best or most accurate but it's recreating New York (SC4's take on it) and it is good fun. But I've reached a major stumbling block with the recreation of Brooklyn. It can't just be a continuation of grid-conforming buildings, there hast to be diagonal city blocks but there are no New York W2W diagonal brownstones or similar themed buildings. If anyone is interested in creating New York W2W diagonal brownstones send me a message, I don't mind if it takes months as I have that amount of time giving the other projects I have outstanding. I offer to test out whatever buildings are created and if it works then featuring the buildings and their potential all over Simtropolis, it will be a collaboration and I'll state it as such the "<Username> / The British Sausage Collaboration".
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Once all of the above is done then I truly think that might be it for building areas and cities with SC4. There's NAM37 and a whole of cool stuff from Mattb325 to explore for a different city tile, but aside from that I think I can see an end in sight for my days playing SimCity 4.
Now that I've got a permanent job I intend to upgrade my computer some time next year, I want to upgrade it to play Cities: Skylines. I've seen so many amazing videos from Cities: Skylines that I know that game will be my city-building medium. I'll still be here on Simtropolis, but I'll also be posting on other platforms (Reddit, Youtube) to showcase any future C:S cities I make.
But for now there are the mini-tiles and there is the task of winding down the Cindersville project. It has taken much longer than I expected but from the pictures below, ones I've published previously, there is a reason for taking so long. See the reasons below!
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Thank you for your patience, your comments, your views and your advice. I hope all of you have first stayed safe from this Covid-19, this influenza variant. I also hope that those of you with jobs still have your jobs and haven't been laid off or furloughed- unemployment sucks because I've been there myself. Finally I hope you stayed clear of the general cultural madness in the western world, particularly in the USA, as fear, hatred, paranoia, racism, Marxism, the left-right divide and the very rewriting of history intensify their grip on the USA.
If one cannot avoid the madness at least don't let it take away that spark, that spark that makes us live and grow and build and truly help others. We've either hit a major speed bump or facing a Fall of Rome moment. Whatever happens I'll still be here posting content and I intend to live.
In the famous words, from the film Trainspotting, of one burnt-out Scottish character Mark Renton: Choose life.
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