TigerXtrm

Not many CJ's on Simtropolis start from the ground up, with absolutely nothing. Most CJ's you see around here will have some sort of background, pre-existing cities or towns which can be used to tell a story. Needless to say, this CJ has none of those things and started it's first entry with a naked patch of land and a railline. Of course this also means a lot of building and expanding and I know for a fact that you people are not waiting for me to list and show the construction of every single block of houses, so let me just fastforward a little. The year is now 1915 and Jordan has grown... a LOT. Jordan has grown to the respectable size of 20.000 sims in a mere 15 years. Where does the time go, right? I remember when this huge town was just one freight station in the middle of nowhere... But a lot has happened in the 7 years we've just skipped so let me highlight a few of them. First of all, the town finally got a decent hospital that has more than just bandaids. Plans for it were drawn up in 1907 and construction started in 1909 after a long debate about it's proposed location. The original plan was to buy out a bunch of the old worker homes and build the hospital in a central position. The council however thought that solution to be to expensive, especially with plenty of free land still available. Van Dyke Hospital was eventually constructed on the east side of town. Van Dyke Hospital. Building by SimGoober. Another big development was the construction of a road through the small valley south of Jordan, connection two outer parts of the town and providing sims with better ways of getting where they need to go. This small valley now has a road running through it, you should be able to see it on the regional photograph. And remember the smart business owners that set up on the road to Mount Jordan? Well, those small businesses have grown up to become a small shopping district with many different stores in the area. From furniture to groceries. The Jordan council has approved expansion of the shopping district until it reaches twice it's current size. From smart business owner to business tycoon! Late 1912 the plans for City Hall were finalized. Because there were few recreational facilities in town the city hall was to become a modern building in the center of a large recreational park. A patch of land east of the town, next to the hospital, was chosen as the ideal spot. The new City Hall with surrounding parks. The building was made by Dmscopio and can be found here.

Tek & Sneakeypete: Yeah it might be a bit to modern for the year 1915, but this journal isn't supposed to be an accurate historical representation of technology so take the dates with a grain of salt :). They are mostly meant for keeping a timeline for the development of the town to give you guys an idea at what pace things are happening.

So basically you run all save-games and plugins from a webserver? I see mutliple problems with this, first and foremost what would happen if two people are playing the same city at once? Second, you'd be depending on the server for plugins since those reside in the same folder. It's a nice discovery for a home network, don't get me wrong... but I sense a sort of 'I discovered multiplayer for SC4!!' vibe from you and I can tell you right now that it's never going to work.

Windows 7 Ultimate - 64 bit version runs the game just fine for me. No compatibility settings or anything, works like a charm. Under Vista I did used to have crashing issues which I've never been able to pin down to source off. I dunno if that problem migrated to Windows 7 or not, though.

Try to make bigger pictures (800 width max) and turn the grid off to make better pics (g-key im I'm not mistaking). Looking good though!

Growing oh so fast! Jordan is quickly approuching the 4000 inhabitants mark and garbage and sickness are becoming a real problem. In fact, just yesterday someone was reported to have been looking for oranges in the piles of garbage in the streets. He said he needed the vitamins. Time to take action! The landfill for the towns garbage will be located north of the town. Finally no more garbage in the streets! With that taken care of it's about time this town gets some healthcare. People are now living here 24/7 and seeing a doctor all the way in Westwood isn't exactly a two minute drive. While plans for a hospital are being drawn up at city hall (which is also still being drawn up) the town has to make due with a small clinic. As long as it doesn't get worse than a broken bone you should be okay. Don't you dare need surgery! Being the mayor of this town must be a real crappy job, by the way. When people aren't complaining about healthcare, you've got residents and industry complaining they need a better infrastructure. Workers can't get to work and trucks can't truck anything out of town. Well fine, first things first. Problem number 1. Give them traffic lights and all hell breaks loose. Solution number 1. MORE ASPHALT!! Problem number 2 required a more drastic approuch. The industry to the north is complaining that trucking goods out of town is almost impossible due to the clogging up of the mountain road. They demand a connection to the South East Delta Link. The council was opposed at first, but gave in as soon as they realized that laying down new train tracks would create a lot less hassle than upgrading the existing road. Train tracks it is! The South East Delta Link splitting up with one track going to Jordan and the other to Mount Jordan. The other end of the railline, ending at the base of Mount Jordan. Satellite view of the new stretch of railline. With the constant expansion of Jordan came the cutting of wood. A lot of cutting... of a lot of wood. Luckily there was a company who jumped at the opperitunity to... help out... with this problem. Cutt'em Logging Company settled just north of Jordan. Not far from the garbage dump. Ready or not, trees. You're going down! (Structures in the picture are Pegasus' Saw Mill and its maintenance yard, who's link I could not find).

I have a few questions about custom seaports (by Pegasus and others). Sorry if this is in the wrong place or has been asked a million times before, I couldn't find what I was looking for . 1. Do you need a specific water mod to match with the seaports or do they look good on any water type? 2. Do the seaports actually work with shipping off industrial goods? And if not, how do you solve that problem? 3. Is there a tutorial anywhere on how to level the ground to build seaports? 4. I want to use Pegasus' seaport set but there are so many different files, I have no idea which ones I need. If someone could push me in the right direction that would be great! Thanks a lot!

Thanks, I'll give it a try then.

Because... I... said so?

Jordan is growing so rapid that the total number of sims in the region (which is basically the main town and the farm area next to it) has already gone over 13.000 sims since the last update, when it was still 5.000. The town has expanded heavily to the west and is now hugging the farms, sometimes already overtaking them. Needless to say, the small mountain road leading to Mount Jordan was really taking a beating. It simply couldn't handle all the cars anymore. Time for a few upgrades. The small road to Mount Jordan and it's industry. The road has been expanded and the speed limit has gone up. Room for more cars! I'm sure the shops there won't mind the extra traffic. Another development in the town of Jordan is the removal of the freight station. After having done it's job in supplying materials for the construction of the power plant, it kind of lost it's function when Mount Jordan got it's own train connection. The last few factories at the town are slowly preparing to move to the industrial park, leaving no more use for the freight station. Former freight station, now a pizza place and a grocery store. Meanwhile the farms could use a freight station nearby to ship off their goods. So in the end, the station was simply moved and no-one had to lose their jobs. The farms are happy with the new freight station!

Fixed. Had a setting wrong on my server. My mistake.

Damn that's impressive...

Jordan is approaching the 5000 sims mark! Yay! But wait, it's not all fun and joy, you know. 5000 sims need water and trucking in thousands of bottles of water every week is becoming a logistical nightmare, to say the least. And don't get me started on toilets... No, we need a solution. We need water! As luck would have it there is a nice fresh water spring underneath Jordan. Isn't that convenient? Jordan's first water tower! Of course we could have 5000 sims walking up and down to the water tower, turn open the faucet and fill their cups, but that probably wouldn't work for very long. Lets lay down some pipes instead. Stretch of road broken open to lay down the pipes. Let there be water! And Jordan grows on... Now for some nice trivia about water and Simcity. Did you know: - that 'Water in the desert' is the cheatcode in Simcity 3000 to access all water facilities? - that the official Simcity 3000 manual actually recommended laying down pipes underneath streets to be sure all buildings had water? - that, until Simcity 4 came along, this was a widely accepted strategy for Simcity games? - that, incidentally, one of the biggest strategy guides for Simcity 4 recommends not laying down water until you have at least 5000 sims in your city?

Picture issue has been fixed :).

November 29, 1807 - The South East Delta Link, the railway that connects Coldwater and Westwood, is completed. May 18, 1901 - A group of geologists start a survey project at the base of Mount Jordan. September 9, 1902 - The geologists confirm the mountain is an active vulcano. June 14, 1903 - The geologists conclude that the site is suitable for a geothermal powerplant. The amount of power the heat and steam in the underground tunnels would create a massive boost in the area's energy production when harnased right. The South East Delta with the South East Delta Link (SADL) running through it's landscape. The geologists first present their idea to the city counsil of Coldwater, but the so called 'experts' find building a multi-million dollar powerplant next to an active vulcano too risky. Crazy right?! When presented to the city of Westwood, however, the plan was received well and after more extensive research on the plan and the vulcano the green light was given. Preperations for the project started on October 7th, 1904. As luck would have it there was already a railway nearby, which made the transportation of goods to the construction site a lot easier. Erecting a freight station west of the river would be the most ideal solution as it would provide the most direct route to the vulcano without having to cross the river. Overview of the South East Delta region with the proposed location for the freight station. Freight station completed, but with no source of power it could not yet operate at full capacity. A road to the constructionsite was also being built. With the freight station and the road to the construction site complete, work could begin on preparing the mountain side for the power plant. Trees would have to be cut down and good part of the mountain excavated and flattened. Work on this began early 1905. The power plant was completed ahead of schedule in December 1905.

Oh noez! That sure went quick. No problem, I'll host them somewhere else then. Stay tuned!

Sumwonyuno: Railways are always as straight as possible to make the risk of derailment as small as possible. Remember that this part of the railline was originally meant for getting from point A to point B as fast as possible.

abcvs: I use the flattening method in other cities but for this one I decided not to do so. Only in extreme circumstances where I really need flat terrain, but other than that I like the city forming around the terain and not the other way around.

Blotch, yes :).

Dutchneworleanian: There are no plans for it right now since, at the moment, there is no need. Should the need ever arise though, they might consider planning for one. It all depends on the circumstances :).

With the settlement growing at an alarming rate, more means of reaching the settlement had to be created. The old rails were quickly reaching full capacity at this rate and the trains would hardly get around to delivering goods between Westwood and Coldwater anymore. To fix this little problem, a road was to be built between the settlement and Westwood. Preperations are being made. The road completed. The road running next to the train tracks. Meanwhile, the settlement was planning it's very first major project since the construction of the power plant. More houses were needed, so in order to meet demand the council decided on a brand new and big block of houses south of the settlement. Area for new block of houses. Logging for construction. First streets in position. Fresh houses! Get em while they're hot!!!

The trees were put down in god mode but I have Cycledog's Tree Mod installed.

Nice CJ, I like the details you've put in here. I'll be watching :D.

English isn't my native tounge so I'll slip up from time to time, haha.

I will update this entry with regional shots soon.