Entry 12: Schattenfels
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I'm again happy to see so many comments to my last CJ entry. A general thank you very much thus to @ulisse, @Kuba138, @mitsos, and @Humanunderproject.
@tomz16 Wow, that's quite the compliment. Thank you very much!
@TheMurderousCricket Thank you again, too. Unfortunately, actually I don't have an elaborate transition to in-game water in Maxiland, currently, as it seems. However, I'm having a few old pictures on my PC, I'll look through them in the next few days. And I'll probably write a special entry on this, anyway, since sooner or later, I will have to face that challenge to make my rivers meet the ocean, and it makes sense to me to try this out in a sandbox region before messing with my CJ region. For now, I'd like to tell you that the most important help to me is using the small turbulence piece from the RFR Plopwater system as a transitional piece between two different water systems - it looks a bit sharp, and occasionally cheap, but it is at least realistic, and some sharp corners can be hidden behind some rocks or a tree.
Contents:
In this update (a bit shorter than the last one), I'm tying up a few loose ends in Schattenfels. The area it covers is rather small this time, but the MMP work has been really intense, so I think it deserves a separate entry.
If we recall this overview image from last entry, we observe that at the top of this picture, there are three traffic routes (a road, a Maxis street route in the center close to the waterfalls, and a SAM 4 gravel street at the pig farm) that lead upwards. We'll continue our exploring of Schattenfels there, now.
If one wants to make lettuce salad with pumpkin seed oil, as mentioned in last entry, of course one has to harvest lettuce somewhere. Thus, a bit further uphill, a salad plantation can be found, along with a few sheep and goat pastures (technically only sheep pastures, I couldn't find some ploppable goats anywhere):
Among the few industrials in Schattenfels, as already mentioned, was a pottery, and it gets its most important resource, brown clay, from this clay pit, which is located close to the sheep pastures:
We also see there that the lake at the bottom left of the former picture filled up the remains of a former clay pit. Clay dams up water pretty easily, thus, clay pits frequently have to be drained with pumps. Nature already started to take back the area close to the lake, thus, it is partly overgrown with grass, shrubs and stuff. Speaking of the lake, here's a picture of it:
Next, we are continuing up a small secluded gravel route close to one of the pig farms of Schattenfels. You may be wondering, by the way, why there's a gate in the fence leading into the forest. Well, the local farmers occasionally lead the pigs into the woods where they can eat acorns and whatever stuff they can find there, as part of an improved way of holding pigs.
The path quickly gets narrower:
...and continues along the aptly named Höllbach (lit. Hell's creek) into a dead end, at the gazebo. In earlier days, there used to be some sheep pastures there, too, but due to quarrels with the community government, they got abandoned, and the meadow quickly got overgrown with shrubs and stuff.
Also, those 11 birch trees have been planted there intentionally: Back in those old days, when Schattenfels has just been founded, two important deities have been worshipped there; the God of Earth, from which all goods would come from, and the God of Water, which occasionally had to be appeased in order to cool down his wrath which would manifest in floods and heavy downpours, something Schattenfels suffered from frequently. Thus, a row of 11 birch trees, considered to be holy trees in Germanic culture at this time, has been planted in a location a bit further to the east (at the bottom of this picture). As already mentioned before, those old rites got mostly extinguished with the spread of Christianity, losing their importance, thus, no one cared about them, anymore. In 1964, a rockslide occurred, relocating the Höllbach a bit and burying the former line of birch trees, but in an attempt to remind the people of these old rites, some gardeners have simply planted a new row of birch trees at the new shore of the creek.
And another view from the opposite direction. One can see a bit the location where the rockslide caused the creek to search for a new bed. Also, since the creek bed is rather shallow, occasionally the water overflows it pretty quickly, which results in a small line of reed growing there.
And the reason for the name Hell's creek: a natural cave where the creek is flowing out. I really admit, the cave entrance itself is pretty cheap, I just made a plain black texture myself. But I couldn't find another way to make an entrance. This cave really caused the death of some careless people entering it, because after strong rainfall, it can quickly fill up with water, thus, people in general are not allowed to enter it.
We conclude this entry with an overview picture of the hillside area of Schattenfels. Next up: As already mentioned, there is still really much MMP work to do - it will probably take me years to fill up this city tile. Also, I'm already having plans of what to do with the city tile between Schattenfels and Erlengrund, and the city tile to the east of Storchenfeld. So you might expect the next update from one of the two locations mentioned last. Hope you liked this update.
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