deimo5

I see that you are implementing height adjustments for the stations. Does this mean that you can simply have a station connect to subway track at any elevation? Or is this intended to make it possibly to create transfer stations? Transfer stations is a MAJOR missing piece from vanilla because you're forced to make weird loops and stuff to simulate a transfer.

Thank you @eufl. A site was chosen for yet another entertainment district... Should be interesting to see how it stacks up to Century City.

CENTURY CITY Century City is the entertainment hot spot of the city... for the whole family that is... the Red Light District is a hot spot for a "different" type of clientele. Everything is here---theaters, casinos, educational centers, museums, shopping, sports... it's all here. And at night, it likes up like a Christmas tree.

Thanks much, @korver

Thanks @The Big Z. I never thought about that before but you're right, it kinda does. Haha.

A FEW PLACES OF INTEREST I am just going to cover a few places of interest in this post. There is obviously a lot to see, but definitely too much to cover in one post. First up is Marble Park, featuring the world's largest globe. It's actually quite a bit away from the city center but is a nice addition to the Kaybridge neighborhood. Next up is Target Park. This park features a fountain set as the bulls-eye in a target made of concentric circles of flowers. From the overhead walkway, people throw their coins and try to land them in the fountain. Only if it hits the water does your wish come true. Those driving into the city from the west will first encounter the Statue of Industry which looks great upon the backdrop of the rising sun. The Nuclear Plant in the background kinda adds to the appeal. Looks cool at night too. Then there is Coit Tower, one of my favorites. And of course, everyone wants to visit the Colossal Mills Cereal Factory. The tours are amazing---it's like a real-life Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory, but without death around every corner. I will mention a couple of parks downtown though. First is Regency Park which is bounded by Hilton---the hotel district, the Red Light District, and the district of Regency Park (which has all the older buildings). Next is Prospect Park which is in the middle of the Financial District. And here are a few shots from, of, and around Infinity Park. And of course, there is so much to do downtown, the urban jungle, but I won't go into that now... but I will post a couple of night pics from different angles. For frame of reference, check the angle of the Shanghai Financial Center. Next post, I will talk about Century City, the Entertainment Capital of the country.

INTRODUCTION TO TRANSPORT Darrylton has an extensive yet relatively simple transport system. Highways carry a great deal of cargo in and out of the city. In these shots, you can get a pretty good glimpse of the downtown expressway system. In addition to the highways which handle a host of imports/exports, at every entrance to the city, the incoming rail lines split to handle both cargo transport and passenger transport, specifically so the cargo lines do not get bogged down with unnecessary traffic. A majority of imports and exports are handled by the cargo hub at the Inner Harbor which is lined with popular shops, forming another popular tourist destination. Finally, there is an international airport to handle the intake of all the tourists. Next post, we will take a look at some of what they are all coming to see.

OVERVIEW OF THE CITY Like I said earlier, the downtown skyline can be seen for miles, and from practically anywhere that doesn't have an obstacle in the way. On a hilly terrain nestled between a cluster of mountains, citizens from all over the city can enjoy natural, scenic beauty and an urban silhouette against a rising or setting sun. For example, the following home is very modest, but it's poolside view of the city skyrockets the home's value. A view of downtown from above the Twin Rivers Country Club. And the city is still growing. There is lots of space to build, even near the core of the city.

WELCOME TO DARRYLTON This is Darrylton---a center for business, leisure, and everything in between. With a downtown skyline that can be seen for tens of miles, it is simultaneously a home to some of the most prominent financial institutions in the world and a haven for the cultural elite. You should know that people seem to die by the thousands every couple of weeks here, but that's not important right now. What's important is that you stay and enjoy the sights!

Thanks @korver. Working on another update as we speak.

Great looking farm area. #jealous :-P

Thanks @The Big Z. It really did take a whole lot of pre-planning.

This is looking really good. Really like the long-distance shots.

Beautiful... nice colors, nice landscaping, just beautiful.

Good! I'm not the only person thinking about that water. Glad to know I'm not. LOL. Sure, the water thing looks cool, but if the rest of the game doesn't look good, or better yet, work well, then what's the point. And, the lack of free-forming zoning is a feature I really enjoyed in SC2013. It's actually a bizarre circumstance, because Cities XL has free-forming parks. Surely, they could throw in free-forming zones. LOL add a third to that water thing. I was watching the videos and thinking to myself... "so, they spent all this time on the water, but the farms are 4x4 lots with fences... ...." After seeing that and hearing that there are no tunnels and no night view out the box, I pretty much wrote off Cities: Skylines and have turned my attention to Cities XXL. I am pretty impressed right now with Cities XXL, and that's really just based off of watching Keralis play Cities XL Platinum on YouTube. If you haven't seen those, watch them! FHI does a particularly poor job of selling their own product because if they were good, they would have highlighted being able to establish bus routes, bus lines, and schedules, building towns on the water, etc. I was blown away. Gotta be careful with Keralis though, he's so excitable and entertaining to listen to that he could sell garlic to a vampire. Not having owned any previous "Cities" titles, I'm not as particularly ornery as some other folks that have purchased previous versions of the game. I would typically wait for the reviews, and based on what I saw/heard from the previous titles, I wouldn't spend my money. However, a big thank you to the martyrs who did purchase the previous titles, because without them, we wouldn't be where we are today---a great looking city builder with multi-core support and (hopefully) a remedied memory leak. As consumers though, we have to be smart and not expect the memory leak to be fixed. To my knowledge, they haven't acknowledged that there IS a memory leak, and they haven't reported that they fixed it, so...

In Part 1, continued along I-20 per our normal plan, but we took a slight detour to go into detail about San Andreas. Now we turn our eyes to the eastern coast of our main attraction, Andremore. This picture shows Kendallport which contains the main commercial ports for the entire metropolitan area, and Krystalport, the navy port. But before we go there, let's look at the neighborhood of Juanita Heights. Juanita Heights has a very walkable waterfront which features a mall, a shopping center, and several high-end stores on the lower floors of the small office towers. In the main square is a statue of Jenova...those who know her history know her history... those who don't........... don't... Anyway, she looks toward the north which can be seen even from the small office towers in Fairfax. Inside the statue is an elevator that tourists can take to the top and peek through her eyes to see the various cityscapes of Geminia. Moving over to Kendallport, here is the cruise ship port from which some international cruise liners leave. Andremore is not a popular spot from which cruises leave because it is so far from the tropical south, but demand has been increasing for more northern cruises (and even some longer term southern cruises), so there are plans to add many more cruise ports to meet the demand. The commercial ports of Kendallport look more like those to the left of the following picture with long docks, parking garages, and freight train stations to carry goods throughout the metropolitan area. Then there is Krystalport, the Navy Port. Not much to say about this except... it's a Navy Port... and good luck getting that big a** ship outta there! Leaving the main commercial ports to cross the bay are the Sapphire Bridge for cars and the Ruby Bridge for trains. The two bridges take you over to the minor ports---Tungsten Port, Port Pacifica, and Port Atlantica. The Sapphire and Ruby bridges empty out right into Port Tungsten, which isn't really a port so much as it is a pier. It used to be a port, but it was redesigned to be more of a park for the industrial workers in the area. It's not very popular... Port Pacifica however is a very thriving area with skyrise apartments, condos, and hotels. On the north side of Port Pacific (across from the actual port) is Pacifica Mall which has high-end shopping to match its high-end clientele in the neighborhood. Even the areas surrounding the mall are loaded with high-end shopping and restaurants. Here, nestled between two fancy residences is Riverwalk Park which is at the tip of the Riverwalk itself. Small bit of Trivia... there was actually a petition going around to get the name of Riverwalk changed to Baywalk since "Riverwalk" is a minomer (... it's not on a river). Because of its historical value, the name was never changed. The Riverwalk is loaded with small stores at the foot of the high rises on the hill. Traffic trying to get to Riverwalk. Between Port Pacifica and Port Atlantica are the Oceanic Marinas which sit along the Oceanic Inlet. There is sport fishing, Yacht clubs, and plazas with plenty of shopping, activities, clubs, and restaurants. The land value of the residences within walking distance of this area is astronomical. This exit of of I-5/405 is NOT the best idea if you are trying to get to Riverwalk... just an FYI. This IS the correct exit. Honestly, if I had to pick any place to live in this city, it would be here---easy access to the Interstate, within 3 miles of downtown (straight-line distance... not driving distance), great neighborhood with great schools and healthcare, walkable---unfortunately, it's expensive as all h***. Here are the actual Port Atlantica ports. Leaving Port Atlantica to the north takes you over the Diamond Gate Bridge into Geminia via San Andreas. Some locals really dread taking the bridge because the bridge provides a spectacular distant view of the Andremore skyline which is about 2.5 miles west, so they slow down to look at it... some even take pictures. There's a healthy amount of middle-fingerage going on when crossing this bridge, practically at any time of day. You will see why in the next journal which finally shows DOWNTOWN ANDREMORE... which is really what all this fuss is about. Here is a shot with all of the ports and piers in Grid E5. And now the obligatory clean overhead shots of Grid E5.

Always appreciative of the comments! @Tuffarancio, I generally keep my images to 800px in width. I believe that's in the forum guidelines. But some of the pics (like in the Introduction and Satellite Overview) I have two versions of the images on the host site--one original size, one reduced. So I use the reduced image for display here and create a link to the larger one.

Looks so cool. Is that a night light mod or photoshop work?

IMPRESSIVE region!!! And I love that stadium! I went back to see some of the older posts, but it looks like you had the same issue I had with Imageshack because some of the images are missing.

This city journal is INSANELY well-done... and you are hilarious.

Thanks for the comments. @feeroz123, THANK YOU!!!!! I've been wondering how to do that and every time I think about looking up how to do it, I forget. Now you have me wanting to go back and retake all my pictures! (Not going to happen.) But you caught me just before I got to downtown, which is perfect timing. Thanks AGAIN.

Hello all. I've been away for a long time (just about a year... which is probably why my original thread here was deleted... but, life gets pretty busy as I'm sure everyone is aware.) After going through a bunch of image server drama with imageshack working my last nerve (with their random deletion of images which you've undoubtedly seen throughout my CJ), I have finally found a new home at deviantart which I hope will prove reliable. The city journal is still available at https://community.simtropolis.com/journal/3831-andremore-metropolitan-area/ I will be updating old entries to move the content to my new image hosting site, but in the meantime, I have added a new entry - Interstate Tour - Ports of Andremore and San Andreas (Part 1) As you know, I am running an interstate tour from the outskirts of the metropolitan area all the way downtown, and we are almost there. We are about two updates from the first up-close shots of downtown Andremore. Here is a preview of the entire metropolitan region: Peruse the journal, and prepare for some major updates. I wish I could guarantee that there will be no more long absences, but... only time will tell. ENJOY!!

@Benedict - Thanks! New City Journal entry available at Interstate Tour - Ports of Andremore and San Andreas (Part 2)

Yep, it's working now... and it's true that the counts didn't retroactively update. I have 7 views and 8 comments. First big update in a year and 7 views are the fruits of my labors... :-( Oh well, hopefully the next update will bring 'em in.

Thanks for all the encouraging comments!!