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From the Bassan English Herald 17 December 2014 Leaders from across the political spectrum, as well as business titans, congratulated the US and Cuba on mending relations after half a century of mutual hatred. "Today, two of the world's most bitter enemies have reconciled, in a move that bodes well for longstanding conflicts around the world. The US president has announced that he will begin to restore Americans' freedom of movement and trade and will petition Congress to lift the remainder of the trade embargo against Cuba. Simultaneously, Cuban ruler Raul Castro announced the release of at least one political prisoner from his country's jails. We look forward to assisting Cuba in its evolution towards a social-democratic future," reported President Zak Michel (Democratic Worker's Party, third cousin to Pras of the Fugees, in an official translation from the Creole). "Praise is deserved for His Holiness Pope Francis!" announced the leaders of the VDP (Vodou Democratic Party) in an unsigned statement. The only major political organization to express concern was the Right Sector, a far-right political alliance consisting of the Alternative for Bassa, National Democratic Party, Kreyol Front, and Awakening Bloc. This array of parties together only holds five out of 320 seats in the Bassan Parliament (pictured below) but has grown fast thanks to concern about European migration and excessive Americanization. Stock in the country's largest homebuilder, Lakay Bassa, increased over 5% during the trading day with the expectation that lucrative contracts could be awarded in the near future. The image below shows a Lakay Bassa sales center at the under-cosntruction Dajabon Golf Resort. At the same time, concerns mounted that the country's filming industry could decline, as several historic towns have been used as stand-ins for the Havana Malecon by American and European productions. Bassa's auto industry is also expected to perform well. Most of the country's automakers were founded by Cuban emigrants and Cuban-style "kit cars" still dominate many a Bassan street.

Thanks to plugin issues I have had to rebuild much of my folder, although I have added in some new Art Deco buildings, largely from SimCityPolska. I'm not gone yet, though! And yes, I am following the news regarding Cuba. This will likely lead to a real estate boom in Bassa, so brace yourselves.

I recently attempted to dat-pack my SimCity 4 plugin folder and got all sorts of bizarre errors. The game refused to load and refused to accept plugins, resulting in a rash of brown boxes in my city even when I imported the dependencies 2, 3, or even 4 times. Now, I have fixed about half to the issues by rebuilding my plugins folder but a number of trees are being replaced with low-wealth, stage 8 tenements. What is going on here?

Aspyr version. It's working pretty well although I lost a number of plugins.

I've narrowed it down to one of four .dats. I can probably rebuild around that.

As the weekend ends, I will not have enough time to write these entries. Want to buy a condo in SimFlorida instead?

Yeah. I now can build Singapore/Malaysia style neighborhoods. Pretty cool lah!  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlish#Lah)

Roughly 2 SimYears ago, Bassa announced a new immigration policy that would allow unlimited migration from economically crisis-hit countries in Europe. This policy, known as Secunda Europa (Bad Latin for Second Europe), divided the country as the far-right, concerned about the erosion of Haitian Creole and Vodou culture, strongly opposed it. The end result was that many of the poorer neighborhoods in Bassa's cities and towns voted overwhelmingly for far-right candidates. Some pictures of these "ghettoes" are shown below. The bonus entry image is of a neighborhood inspired by Singaporean and Malaysian shophouses; this has been made available thanks to Wallibuk's early Christmas present of 1x2 Czechoslovak row houses. Toledo Morne-Bassa Karelia (I speak neither Latin nor Creole, so apologize for any errors. I'm trying to create the effect of a mixture of Haiti, Cuba, Hong Kong, and the Nordics.)

Where did you get those high-density low-rise residentials? Kisa Atsuko uses them in his/her Southeast Asian journals; I've been looking for them for a while. They're mostly Maxis houses but denser.

Looking good, Derr1. One suggestion is to download more buildings from the STEX and SC4Devotion. While Maxis buildings aren't ugly, the game doesn't ship with nearly enough to create a realistic city, and the repetition gets really glaring with skyscrapers as 1) they're big and 2) while you may see the same house plan repeated all over the place (ever since the days of Sears houses), you will rarely have two identical skyscrapers on opposite sides of a city.

Thanks! And yes, of course they're plopped. Haven'y you got Buggi's extracheats.dll? Type "buildingplop" in the cheat box and you get an alphabetic list of all the Lots in the game. Then just pick your choice. If you have a "no mod policy" or you find the list confusing or something, you could also wait for the buildings to grow and then make them historical. Takes some time, but it always works. You also don't have to worry about the houses getting abandoned. Just asking, is there a Mac version of this cheat? I use the App Store version and this plugin is solely a .dll, which Macs can't read. No, there is not. Macs can't run .Dll scripts because Macs suck! But seriously, I feel your pain. A shame, because I've actually created some neat stuff on the App Store version. Edit: I also would like to see Mac versions of modding tools like Lot Editor, Reader, and BAT.

Thanks! And yes, of course they're plopped. Haven'y you got Buggi's extracheats.dll? Type "buildingplop" in the cheat box and you get an alphabetic list of all the Lots in the game. Then just pick your choice. If you have a "no mod policy" or you find the list confusing or something, you could also wait for the buildings to grow and then make them historical. Takes some time, but it always works. You also don't have to worry about the houses getting abandoned. Just asking, is there a Mac version of this cheat? I use the App Store version and this plugin is solely a .dll, which Macs can't read.

Take your pick. Also threw in some condo towers because they are as tall as many CBDs.

The most notable things about Bassa to an outsider are 1) a lack of American-style suburban sprawl and 2) a lack of visible slums. Although there is some inequality and relative poverty, like in any country, Bassa's highly educated and tech-savvy population, as well as its creator's strong New Urbanist leanings, have resulted in Bassa being a uniformly dense and vibrant republic in which walkable cities and suburbs contain a broad demographic variety. The above is a typical example. Note the coexistence of R$$$ and R$ Sims in the same neighborhood. Downloading class-ambiguous BATs, such as the angled tower and the small high-wealth houses, creates the appearance of low inequality and implies that "crappy" buildings are just old rather than being poor or blighted. Here is one of approximately six downtowns in San Pedro. Note the close proximity of undeveloped parkland to dense urbanization. Every neighborhood has a bus stop and many have rail. In addition, a variety of W2W BATs from around the world have been downloaded to create more realistic architectural diversity. Elements of East Asian, European, and Latin American town planning combined with a vaguely Cuban feel and some American influences create a cosmopolitan, environmentally-responsible, and well-planned country. Also, you may note that there are a lot of old-fashioned cars. This adds to the Cuban atmosphere and the fictional story is that a lot of Cuban mechanics came over in the '70s and '80s with their old American cars and set up an auto industry that specializes in creating vintage Havana-style automobiles. Bassa's main industries would be automobiles (and mass transit), tourism, and technology. Random, but here's a favorite CBD. And another. Lastly, a wall of condos in the Municipality of Bassa (but not in Bassa's city tile) with ocean views. Guess which are low-wealth, which are mid-wealth, and which are high-wealth. This neighborhood is mockingly called "Florida" by residents for its very Floridian look.

Welcome to the Republic of Bassa! Located between Cuba and Haiti, this ethnically-diverse yet culturally homogeneous (yay assimilation!) country has 1.5 million people. Please see the data box below to get an idea of its attributes: Name: Republic of Bassa Population: 1.5 million Population target: None. I like the population as it is although I may redistribute people from city to city Languages (official): Creole, Latin Languages (regional): Standard French, English, Spanish, Garifuna, German Languages (minority): Italian, Chinese, Arabic, Filipino/Tagalog, Serbo-Croatian, Hungarian, Swedish, Dutch, Indo-Caribbean dialects, Dutch, and Portuguese (among others) GDP per Capita: $89,000 (1st) Gini index of Inequality: .19 (very low) Drives on the: Right Cheats used: Occasional money cheats when zoning, fightthepower. Abundant BATs are used, however.

Too many red brick retaining walls.

TEKINDUST - 4 Militant_Radical - 3 Mother Russia vs. optimistic modernism...I'm going with the modernism.

I at least know it exists...because it grows in my cities! SRBIJA

Blunder - 7 Tekindust - 8 I like seeing SimCity 4 used to create something other than strictly a "city."

Excellent use of NYBT buildings. You've successfully created the sixth borough!

That grid-busting Olympic park...nice job.