Kell Pollard

Something has been bugging me for years... How are the capacities of SC4 buildings determined? They never seem to add up correctly. I see single family houses with 18 people living in them and 43 floor office buildings with 1,000 occupants. Is there some logic to this? Here's what's annoying me: I'm an architect working on a 6 story office building with 30,000SF per floor. Pretty sizable footprint. Per the Internation Building Code (which is obviously over cautious) I would end up with a maximum of 400 office employees on each floor assuming that 30% of the floor area was dedicated to bathrooms, stairways, elevators, mechanical rooms, etc. At six floors, thats 2,400 office workers if the building is 100% occupied. So how does a 43 story office tower wind up with 1,000 or 2,000 workers? It seems like the capacities are being skewed in order to force more office buildings into existence. The reverse is true with residential... I just finished a project for a 4 story loft conversion with 26 units. In the code world, this building is calculated to have a maximum of 192 occupants in it. But the actual number of occupants would probably never be more than 2 or 3 per unit (thats 78 residents.) A single family home should contain only a single family right? Average family size is 4.5 people... definitely not 18. In the game, these tendencies are reversed... any thoughts?

That makes perfect sense to work within the game's reality. As an architect who computes realworld occupancies for buildings on a daily basis, that issue has always annoyed my professional sensibilities but, knowing that Maxis has set the standards for gameplay differently helps me get a hold of my geeky tendency to nitpick. I had been playing with converting some of my work related models to GMAX and when I looked at the occupancy I submitted for a building permit compared to the game standards. I kept thinking something was off and now I know why I think it's off... it is! Thanks for talking sense to me.

Originally posted by: spa There use to be one that halved residental buildings to make them more realistic. I don't know of any that increased office space though.quote> I'll look for the one to 1/2 residential... but I guess it seemed like the low density lots were taking the biggest hit in exageration. I'm much more optimistic about the numbers for denser lots. The problem with office space might be the opposite that the number of people who work in a high rise is lower than it should be while a low or medium denisty commercial lot is more accurate. It'd be hard to make blanket adjustments to all residential and commercial lots... is there a guide for BATers on how to determine the number of occupants in a building they've designed? Or do people usually wing it?

that kinda takes the realism of the cities out of it... huh? The point is well taken though. However, it would make region play more integral to getting highrise buildings in a major urban center. My current home, Lexington, KY is a large city (area-wise) with a small population of just 350,000 people. It has approximately 5 buildings over 11 stories. There are like 10 smaller cities with no high-rise at all (everything under 5 stories) that support this city. That feels like a good start for a region. And realistic too. As for region size being outrageous... maybe the problem is building scale? Are the single family residences too big for their lots? Should we actually see three or four houses on a 1X1 lot? I'm trying to remember what a 1X1 tile is supposed to be in reality (30' x 30' or 10m x 10m maybe?) I live in a nice neighborhood with homes that would be on 1x2 lots and our lot is average size for a partially urban neighborhood. Lets call it R$$. Some of the houses I see are enormous relative to other structures. We can assume they are large old houses that have been divided into apartments (this happens near colleges and a grand single family house ends up housing 12 or more students. But that would be the result of property degradation rather than design. Some of the houses on 2x2 and 3x3 lots are the size of apartment buildings with the occupants to match but they are designed like a single family house which should actually house 4.5 people unless some slumlord bought it and turned it into apartments lowering the value of the building and the neighborhood. Most low density residential buildings that are multifamily are the two, maybe three-story variety that crop up near single family housing... each building occupying a 1x2 or 1x3 space on a lot. I've seen a lot of those go up in single family home areas filling a 1x2 or 1x3 lot that used to contain a house. Mostly they are R$ type. Maybe the idea is that you can get more detail at the closest zooms if the building sizes are exagerated? Maybe we just need more realistic low and medium density apartment buildings of all wealth levels. The residential building I mentioned above sits on about a 2x3 lot. It's definitely not a house and it actually houses more than many lots with 2x3 footprints. Are we just asking too much of our suburban style lots? You can put in a lot of sprawl, but those properties cannot support even a small city by themselves. There has to be buildings of higher density. I suppose if you had to account for all the apartments above urban businesses in mixed-use buildings that cannot be shown in the game, you could get them back into the population by adding them to other residential lots but that screws up the travel dynamics as they wouldn't be commuting that far in reality. *sigh* Are there better solutions to this dilemma?

I'm very interested in seeing some medieval buildings. My CJ attempts to construct a city in progressive stages of urban planning theory and I am slowly attempting to define some medieval style urban spaces at this point. However there just aren't that many BATs around which have that medieval feel to them. In particular, I'd like to see some Italian palazzi with towers, a key feature in medieval Italian cities. Some more realistic fortifications (wider ones that I can demolish and make into boulevards later on.) The castle ramparts plug in leaves a lot to be desired. Lastly, some tall sailing ships. This could work for a more modern city as well. I remember the Tall Ships Festival in Baltimore when I was a kid. Tall sailing ships from all over the world would sail from city to city. It'd be a really cool piece of a coastal industry reward chain (hint hint) that focussed on the unique character of coastal towns.

As a reward for his many years of servce to the crown, Douglas Zoar was granted a royal charter for a mostly unexplored and unpromising slice of mediocre farmland at the very edge of the Empire and the civilized world. Elevated to Lord Kell, the former royal architect officially retired from service in 1324. He was eager to escape the court politics of the capital and settle into a more agrarian lifestyle. Naming the new territory Ashleigh after his wife, on who's birthday the royal charter had been issued, he immediately began plans to settle the distant land. His best surveyors we dispatched to the territory to investigate and map the region. Previous expeditions had found little of interest in the area. The first explorer in the region, William Watt, had named the narrow river which slowly curves out of the Eleph Mountains to the North. From his ship, the wide valley appeared to be surrounded by mountains and did not appear to offer much in the way of treasure or adventure. Several months later, Watt had stumbled upon gold rich lands far off to the East on the Eastern shores of the Griffin Sea. For decades the Watt River and the unassuming land along its banks remained unexplored. In 1330, when Lord Kell's surveyors returned they brought this map of the territory and some exciting news. The valley Watt had discovered actually extended quite far into the continent. The Picket Mountains, which had appeared impassable were not as imposing as Watt had thought and beyond them to the South was a vast unrecorded ocean with a large protected bay. Promising his survey team charters of their own in exchange for their silence on this discovery, Lord Kell began assembling a larger expedition to settle the territory and establish a foothold in the region. While the whole empire was focussing on the gold mines in the East, he and his confidants would be quietly establishing the next great trade route. Six ships set sail for Ashleigh in 1332 and landed at Oakslip in 1336. The town of Oakslip was established on a gentle hill along a deep inlet just to the South of the Watt River Valley. Protected by the Cotovelo Mountains and far from the shipping lanes (and pirates) of the Southern Griffin Sea, the town was able to avoid the attention of the Queen and potential looters. The settlers had orders to begin quarrying stone for defensive structures and planting crops. When Lord Kell and his family arrived in Oakslip in April of 1340, the tiny port town was unimpressive but stable.

From Lady Kell: If anyone can recommend some BATs/Lots that resemble Italian Palazzos with towers, please let me know. Oakslip is entering a feudal enclave era and the lords need some good towers from which to keep an eye on rival lords. Something like this perhaps: Any information concerning BATS/lots with strong street facades and jobs would be appreciated as well. The public squares need better definition before some close-up images can be posted. Regrettably, the local townspeople have no gifts for architecture. Greatfully, Elizabeth Thorne, Lady Kell

In July of 1347, a ship of the Royal Navy, captained by Edward Thorne, limped into the quiet inlet. Captain Thorne's ship had been the victim of a pirate attack two days before. The sun had set before the pirates were able to cripple the ship and lay their hands on the gold making its way to the capital from the East. Captain Thorne had managed to distance himself from the pirates in the dark and was attempting to lay low in the long inlet when he happened upon Oakslip. The weary captain and his crew were more than a little pleased to stumble onto the town and dropped anchor to make repairs and purchase fresh supplies from the local townspeople. The Queen's gold was moved into an empty barn within the town walls while the ship was under repair. A week after Captain Thorne's arrival he was followed by a tenacious Captain Angus and his rogue ship, the Dark Squall. The Squall had been tirelessly combing the inlets for several days in search of Thorne's ship and the gold in its belly before wandering down Oakslip. When the pirates arrived Thorne's ship was nearly empty and unguarded. The pirates quickly overpowered the sentries and soon discovered that the treasure they were seeking was not on board. In frustration they turned their cannons on the town. The town walls concealed much of the city from the ships gunners so they targeted the spires of the two parochial churches which peaked above the parapets. The volleys miraculously missed the churches but damaged several structures nearby. The resulting fires finished off several more nearby buildings and drifting smoke damaged frescoes in the Narthex of S. Thomas but its structure remained unharmed. The town militia was able to eventually score a few hits from the fortifications but it was soon apparent to all involved that the battle was a draw. The pirate ship turned and headed off to find easier prey leaving the town to put out fires and lick its wounds. Captain Thorne and his crew found their already-crippled ship beyond repair after this second attack and consented to settle in as Oakslipians until word could be sent to the Queen as to their fate. Captain Thorne and the aging Douglas Zoar, Lord Kell, became good friends and together set about planning for improvements to the town's defenses. It was obvious that a ship which gained access to the slip could float offshore and lob cannon fire over the walls reeking havoc as long as it could dodge the return fire. To block access to the inner slip by larger ships, the town's masons and Thorne's soldiers constructed the North Bridge. Sailing ships would be unable to pass under the bridge and thus be deprived of clear shots at the town. In time, many of the weary sailors decided to take wives and take up farming after it became clear that Oakslip was seldom visited by her majesty's ships and as Thorne pointed out, was not even on his charts. By May of 1358, a second bridge (Black Bridge or West Bridge) had been constructed even further into the slip. This bridge could be manned by soldiers to discourage any landing attempts by long boats near the weak side of the town's walls. Across the slip on a fortified rock formation near the mouth of the inlet, Thorne had a fort built using part of the orphaned cargo gathering dust in a barn to pay for stone work and iron for cannons. From this vantage point, any hostile ships would be easy targets. The soldiers-come-farmers and second-generation Oakslipians soon discovered the rich soil in the Spalla Gap as they spread out. Small farming clusters and hamlets soon began to pop up in the long valley. New houses for Oakslip's growing population were built on former farmland within the walls as farmers opted for the roomier parcels of land outside the walls which was now protected from invasion by the defensive bridges spanning the slip. In May of 1362, Douglas Zoar passed away leaving control of the town and the title of Lady Kell to his eldest daughter, Elizabeth Zoar. She married Captain Thorne with her mother's blessing two years later. In February of 1375 Douglas Zoar's wife Ashleigh passed. Oakslip had made it onto the maritime maps as a safe harbor for her majesty's ships and Captain Thorne was officially assigned to the protection of the town by the recently ascended Prince Conner. At the end of 1375 Oakslip began to attract more and more attention thanks to the (greatly exaggerated) tale of it's brave rescue of Captain Thorne and the defeat of Captain Angus (who was captured shortly after he apparently ran aground on a shallow reef taking on water from the town's defensive cannon fire.) Prince Conner sent the sculptor, Charles Winfield to Oakslip to produce a statue honoring the former Lord Kell. The statue was erected in a small plaza across from S. Thomas with the story of the pirate attack engraved on the base. The other damaged structures were cleared to make small plazas near the two churches. In a mere 40 years Oakslip had grown from a tiny settlement of 313, to a bustling port city of 12,000. The secret of the Inizio Ocean to the South was passed to Elizabeth and Edward Thorne. The forgotten gold from Captain Thorne's cargo hold sat in the town's treasury as Edward and Elizabeth planned the town's growth to swiftly secure this new frontier and fulfill her father

Are those images showing up for everyone or is it just me? For some reason today, they seem to be missing. I can still navigate to the images directly so there's nothing wrong on that end. Maybe it's just me? Today? Here? Edit: Nevermind... I obviously need more than 4 hours of sleep each night. It's JUST me.

From Lord Kell, This is my first City Journal. I've been a SimCity fan since the very first release but never thought about sharing any of my creations until I happened upon Simtropolis last year. I'm an architect by profession so, I'll be as realistic as possible with regard to my faux architectural history of this imaginary Colony. The region was adapted from Flamesrock's banks Penninsula. I'm using a ton of mods but nothing that would significantly alter the game play. This is also the first time I've attempted a hard game in SimCity4. My concept for this CJ was to look at various urban planning concepts as they've evolved through the centuries. So, I've set the beginning of this journal at the end of what would have been the medieval era of European history. I'm sure Ashleigh will spawn some interesting cities as time goes by. I'll also be trying to adapt older cities to the times as they grow. My two big references for this project are Edmund N. Bacon's Design of Cities and Spiro Kostof's The City Shaped First thoughts: 1. Someone with better BAT skills than me ought to make some good fortifications. The kind you see at Fort McHenry for example. 2. I wish there were more building style options for earlier periods of architecture. Some of the buildings in Oakslip just don't help the illusion of the middle ages. 3.It's hard to build up a town from the 1300s when you have to squeeze in a power plant. 4.I wish I could find some tall sailing ships. They'd be great for my harbor and make a cool Tall Ships festival for more modern cities. 5. I'm still working out how to construct some public squares in Oakslip that resemble medieval ones. Tricky.