tSlater

This is reporter Allison of the Citizen's Journal reporting to the world at large regarding the state of Jala Valley. The picturesque tropics, a fishing village, a greedy mayor, and poverty. Jala Valley was once a peaceful fishing village on the shores of Peño Bay. An entrepeneur from a nearby city came to the village promising wealth and happiness, and purchased the village from the state. Immediately came the factories, pushing the villagers out of their homes. Then came the immigrants from neighbouring villages, seeking work at the factories. Now we have a massive slum and polluted water. The fishermen can no longer fish and starvation is rampant. The government is also cracking down on the media, doctoring our photos to show satellite dishes and brand new cars in the slums, amongst other touch-ups. If it looks clean and shiny, it's not! But one thing they do have that other slums don't: a spectacular view! Rather than spend profits to better the lives of the people, the mayor is building a plaza for himself. The pathways have been laid down, and rumour has it statues will soon be installed. Next chapter: A Tale of Two Villages

iviaarten: Thanks! Yeah I love those buildings, too. Especially how they stand out on the skyline as a cluster of crammed slivers compared to the wider buildings of the rest of the skyline. As for the smartphones, that shall be revealed in this update.. Ln X: I actually haven't needed to use it much. The benefits of the schools and parks on the other side of the city just barely reached the edges of the slums, most of the slum has grown just as it appears. I got lucky! I think a lot of it has to do with how I arranged the areas, the roads, and the traffic. I basically created barriers of congestion and the slow speeds of the dirt roads help limit the reach of the schools and the like from straying too far past the edge. Chapter 7: The City's Burning Down! Allison here, I know you're all wondering what's going on. I'll lay out everything I know about the situation. Apparently some activist group, we're not sure who but many are suspecting Anonymous, sent a container through our port containing mobile devices and basic weapons. The mobile devices aren't too fancy, but they all came set up with service and chirper, and was delivered right into the heart of the slums. People were unsure of what to do at first, many left it alone. But when the government heard about it, they sent an entire squadron in to confiscate it. That's when the people all started grabbing the devices and weapons and started fighting back. The unrest has spread to every corner of the city, the port has been shut down to all traffic, and there's a media blackout. It's a good thing we're trickier than they are. Here's a few of the chirps: End the corruption, fight for freedom! #OurValley Military is burning down our homes, burn theirs! #OurValley Concentrated effort to push to the mayor's mansion meeting at Oppression Square to take back #OurValley There are fires all across the city, factories are closing because of the unrest, and some of the rich are fleeing. The city is in bad shape and is looking like a mess. Everything's been very disorganized, and I've been working to try to organize everyone and focus on goals to take care of the problem for good. I'm now an enemy of the state, but a champion of the people. "Doing a delivery in Jala, pray for me" ((And then I overheated my laptop without saving once, so when it comes time to "rebuild," I'll be rebuilding with an un-destroyed city lol)) Next Chapter: An End to the Revolt!

I have never seen these before, at least not this large. They're usually on small tiny plots. Are they still like that after exiting and returning?

CDM Madero: It's good to remember the past, even the parts we don't like. Gurra09: Apparently it is actually tropical, just the map had no tropical trees already existing on it and all the tropical trees have to be placed manually. It's a sneaky map that likes to trick me. Chapter 6: Chirper in the Hands of the Many Allison back, and things aren't much different. It's really just more of the same here, so I'll just provide you some pictures for now. Oh, there is a new port: The mansion of Glorious Mayor (right) and the private guard's quarters (left) A second slum has sprung up on the edge of the city. The old slum is just as slummy as ever. Aerial view of the city. The homes of the wealthy and the small middle class. The slums still stand out like a sore thumb in the distance. And over in the-- Something's happening.. I hear noises in the streets.. angry noises, and lots of them! My chirper is blowing up... I'll have to report back later!

iviaarten: Thanks! I think the map is actually temperate, but the topography feels tropical. I've been adding palm trees manually to nudge it more towards tropical. SimWarrior: That must be bittersweet. Unfortunate that they exist and are trapped in poverty, but also interesting and a reminder of the world's imperfections. The density and chaos of a slum always fascinate me. perken: I'll have to do that with the next update! Chapter 5: An Artist's Take on Jala Valley ((Before I dive in here, got a few OOC things to share! For one, this update will not have game screenshots, instead it will have real life photography of Kowloon Walled City, a now-demolished anarchical slum in Hong Kong, which was the densest place ever inhabited.. where sunlight rarely reached the streets. The photos are all taken by Greg Girard. ( http://www.greggirard.com/work/kowloon-walled-city--13) I figure the art style of the game being "real" will make for real photos being good "art." It's the best way I can see of really highlighting and showcasing life -inside- these slums, rather than just hovering-above-the-ground views of the streets. It also has excellent timing after stumbling upon this mod: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=409184143 I'm hoping to experiment with that mod a bit, at best narrowing the streets to one tile wide if possible to make the slums more dense (requiring a complete re-build of them), and at worst just removing all the cars from the slums. Right now my biggest frustration is the openness and wide roads of the slums, and I'm hoping this will help cure that. I'll be exprimenting with a new, second slum and then rebuild the current slum if I like the results. It means not much to update with in the meantime and a lot of work, but hopefully worth it in the end.)) Allison here! So an artist recently visited Jala Valley to capture the poverty of the slums here and alert the rest of the world of the poor conditions through art. The following are a series of paintings by Gieg Grard. I'll just let the paintings speak for themselves!

Ln X: Thanks! And that mod looks interesting. I may have to use it for any fringe slums I create, but for now my trick with the current slum is proving really cool, I think. Gurra09: For a long time I had no schools at all in the city. When I did, I placed it on the complete opposite side of the city. When I had to place more schools to keep the oil refineries working, only then did I begin to encounter problems, but I've found a fun solution for that problem. TekindusT: Thanks! I had no idea what I'd get when I started it but my first attempt has been very fruitful! Jala Valley has made #8 on Ben's Top 10! Woo! Not bad at all for a first CJ ever I think. (I actually did one for SC4 a long time ago but never added updates, so I'm not sure it really counts. It was a grimey 20's Chicago-inspired city.) Chapter 4: The Changing Face of the Slums A lot of time has passed since the last update, and with that a lot of changes! It's almost a completely different city! Almost.. the social and wealth divisions are just as large as ever. But so, too, is the city.. larger than ever. But before we take a look at how the slums have changed, let's look at the city's new railyard! Previously the industries just took their goods to the tracks and loaded where they could. It was complete chaos. The new railyard keeps things organized and efficient. The population has been rapidly increasing ever since the explosion of the oil industry. One of the rumoured statues has finally been put into place. It was celebrated in one half of the city with champagne, the other half with burning effigies of the leadership. And now for the part you've been waiting for, the slums. They look nothing like they used to, aside from the trash, filth, and poverty. Still, some of the old parts of the slums hang on. The explosive growth has replaced the shacks with hastily and cheaply built low and mid rises complete with (rarely) working plumbing, power, and the like. Despite the concrete constructions, the fire situation in the slums is getting worse. Deaths by fire are a common occurrence, but do not outnumber deaths by workplace accidents. The wealthy continue on with their peaceful lives, as the slums grow taller in the distance. Next Chapter: An Artist Visits Jala Valley

Woo I made a list thing!

This looks like it's going to be very cool. I love starting with a handful of separated hamlets.

Just a mini-update: It's back into the work week so not as much time for me for a bit. The slums are also changing, but I've got a few tricks up my sleeve to keep them slummy. I'm pretty excited about it!

89james89: I zoned all 1x1 and exactly what I got is what you see there. I was pleased that I didn't have to do much else for the effect, although now that I've installed some bus lines in my latest update, it's becoming clear I'll have to do a bit of manicuring of the slums from here on out. Ln X: Thanks! iviaarten: Time will tell, but even if they get kicked out the residents don't just disappear.. they'll have to go somewhere. Chapter 3: Gold is Dirty Hey everyone! Allison back here with another update. The situation in Jala Valley is getting worse, as predicted. The investors have found gold, and it is absolutely filthy -- it's black gold. Investor profits are climbing so high, their previous wealth is insignificant. Oil derricks are everywhere now, and a large refinery is taking shape. Waste is just dumped into the sea, and oil spills on the grounds around the village go ignored. Unrest has been growing, resulting in a more militarized police force. The wealthy have also begun building gated communities to keep the poor off of their streets. Education and schools are available to residents of these gated communities only. The slums and oil refinery both were becoming so large that employees were coming in exhausted from their walks. They tried firing the exhausted and hiring others, but the only ones available were those who are exhausted. So the city has built a bus system to funnel the poor to the refineries and back again. The employees spend most of their wages on the bus fare and are now worse off than they were before, but it's either that or no food on the table.. their table being a piece of scrap metal or wood laying on the floor. Or just the floor itself, which is usually just the ground. Another reality of the slums are fires. Fires are very common in the slums, with no tools for fire prevention and open flame at communal cooking shacks the only way to cook what little food they have. (Most do not have their own cooking area.) Fire trucks often become lost in the maze of streets and thus the flames are left to destroy what they please. The city has also begun dumping its trash in the slums, because everything else is potentially prime real-estate for more industry.

iviaarten: Thanks! It was actually your Forkton journal that gave me reason to tell the story from the viewpoint of a resident rather than just an informational journal. Forkton's probably my fave CJ right now. Chapter 2: A Tale of Two Villages This is Allison of the Citizen's Journal back again! It seems imperative to highlight the alarming wealth gap growing rapidly in this once peaceful village. As mentioned in the past, the most noticeable change is all of the factories. These are the primary source of employment now, and safety and ecological regulations are... well, they aren't. The few local cooks and fish fries are all going out of business with the introduction of big chains, like this Big Bite that's moved in. They're paying the workers about 3 cents an hour, less than what anyone made operating their own eatery. And of course managers and other fairly high-up people at the factories have moved in, building large manicured neighbourhoods. What you don't see is the village that once stood here and the homes they demolished. More people forced into the slums. Those statues have not arrived as rumoured, but instead the mayor blew a huge amount of money on a structure to "exemplify the progress of this nation." Not a dime went to the poor. But those wealthy investors sure do feel good about it. It towers high above the village, visible from anywhere in the slums, and serves as a constant reminder of oppression. The slums are now bigger than ever. Recently an aircraft flying overhead took some aerial photos. I don't think anything really demonstrates the differences between the two halves quite like these. Next Chapter: Gold is dirty.

I've been playing for 9 or 10 hours now, apparently. Just found the breakfast in the microwave I made 10 hours ago..

I saw a stream of this very briefly last night and was intrigued -- very pleased to see there's community engagement here, as well! I have to learn more about and see more before I can really offer suggestions. I just wanted to show thanks for engaging the community in the development process.

It seems to me there is absolutely no promise here. It's a poll asking for user input, and then the article above talks about the things often demanded by players. There seems to be no indication at all that Maxis/EA is even considering such things? Nvm, not the kind of poll I thought it was. I guess it does have some promise, but no guarantee.

Barely 1 year after launch, SimCity Social is closing down: "The decision to retire older EA games is never an easy one to make but in order to re-allocate servers and resources to more popular titles we are removing SimCity Social from Facebook. Players who still have a balance of in-game currency are encouraged to spend it before the game is shut down on 14th June and is no longer available for play." For more information, click here: http://forum.playfish.com/showthread.php?t=2968221

Or Detroit. Oooh I went there. Sorry, Detroit. =[

It's probably a default high price intended to include things like small expansion packs, etc. A price automatically filled in by a system and left unchanged because it's unfinished. The pictures, too, could be stand-ins. Maybe it actually is some $15 feature but isn't a single building and rather much more. There's really no way of telling what'll happen with the store at all from this other than what the UI could look like.

I am in no way endorsing the use of them, but I've been told by close friends that there's already a cracked version out there which works offline and doesn't connect to EA servers -- and functions completely with exception to multiplayer elements, further supporting the idea that all of the simulation and calculations are done client-side. I cannot confirm this, however, since I do not have such copies and the new Sim City can't even run on my computer.

Personally, I'd love to do a dark 80s-style future cyberpunk city, like the one seen in Total Recall.

The weather mod looked like it came, in part, from a much older (5+ years ago) source as well and had been reworked into its current form. (I think the old one required plopping each weather effect individually?) SimFox Day n Night mod also had been done before. But that's the dirty little secret of innovation.. innovation is just improving upon things that someone else had already done (and they, too, took their ideas from elsewhere and improved upon them.) Xannepan is truly revolutionising this game by breaking down the limitations. I dare say Sim City 4 is entering a new era of possibility.

NAM Team is best pony.

Dynamic night lighting =O The online-only and number of cities restriction sold me away from the game, but this is temptation.

A fix for the night-time darkness! Awesome! I didn't think it'd be possible at all without affecting the day. I tried switching to the "storms can cause damage" option today and really enjoyed that, too. Actual damage was infrequent enough to be a pleasant addition to gameplay. (As opposed to my previous method of having no fire stations, which seemed to make fires increase with occurance on a rapid arc and would quickly become a nuissance.) Unfortunately, I noticed that a tornado had ripped through a farm without the disaster notice ever popping up. The rare fires from lightning strikes worked excellently, though. Now if only farms which lose a few tiles of land would regrow to what they were instead of needing to become whole new farms. Maybe I should play with this mod more in urban areas than rural.