88fordwayne

Great work with your projects so far, @RRetail! I'll add another vote towards the creation of a Meijers. Here's a design that is quite common around Kentucky/ Indiana. (photo is in this article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-meijer-shop-and-scan-20180417-story.html )

Please be sure to vote in the above poll to help pick the name for our new port! I'll announce the winners this weekend in our next update. Thank you all for submitting name suggestions! We have gathered a list of very unique names, some that I wouldn't have never dreamed of. Good luck and hopefully your suggestion will win! Tonraq - Things are peaceful around here… for now. Huston - Thank you. And yes, there is nothing worse than having a bunch of cows blocking the road! Mymyjp - Thanks for your comment! Poor cows indeed, thankfully they have not caused any more trouble. Akerbeltz - Thank you. I really like a good city journal with a storyline. This is my first attempt at going through with one! jpross123 - I added your suggestion to the list. Update 3 Let's see how things have changed since we left off! Baden… it's a changin'! Each update, our community has nearly doubled in size. Now we are at 2,442 sims! Impressive. Hard work at the Santos Oil Company has really paid off. All of the main roads have been paved, and several new subdivisions have sprouted up. Agriculture is becoming big business at Baden. Everything from tobacco to oranges are being grown locally. One of the recent developments is the new Baden Primary School. It's conveniently located off of Route 1 just east of the port. The community enjoys the new softball field, baseball is a local favorite. Several school buses have been ordered from the United States to help bus students from the more rural parts of town. As part of the deal with the Santos Oil Company, the railroad has been opened for public use. A passenger station and a freight station were built respectively. Santos purchased some excess land to store some of his oil trucks. As you might have noticed in the new areal shot, one might ask… where does the railroad lead south? That's a good question. Today we are adventurous, so we will take a journey down Route 1. It's a good thing we filled up the limo with gas before our journey. This might take a while... After a 20 minute drive and a sharp left turn, we are greeted to the familiar dinging sound of a railroad crossing. Wait, where are we? Where did that train come from? And what idiot paves the sidewalks into a forest yet doesn't complete the ones in town... It appears we have arrived at a farming community. But wait, where did this place come from? The town council never approved new development. Welcome to the unofficial township of Mayberry. The town formed after some local farmers got upset with the politics of the oil company. They moved as far east as they could to get away from the drama. With the help of some of the Baden town council members, they got the funding needed to start developing a new community at the end of Route 1. Many farmers supported the move, as things are starting to get cramped back at home. Local businesses include a battery store, wig world, car lot, a diner and a "greasy" taco stand. Question for You With Baden growing so rapidly, space in the town center has become increasingly valuable. At the last town meeting, they have decided to start a "redevelopment" plan. This includes relocating three farms close to the residential district. Should this space be used to develop more houses, or should it be used to start a new commercial district? How about a mixture of the two? Let me know your thoughts and how you think we should plan accordingly.

ffstg24 - Thank you! I've always preferred building cities on islands. I named Baden after a place I visited in the United States. That's pretty cool that you are from there! fuhrerrick - Thanks! Tonraq - Thank you, and yes we do. Mymyjp - Thanks. I hope you enjoy! Sexysark:P - It will be a journey indeed! Akerbeltz - The Santos Oil Company will play a very big twist in the development here. Also thanks to all who have viewed and followed Baden so far! Update 2 Things have been booming in the quaint little settlement of Baden since we left off! After a few long months and many ship loads of supplies later, the settlement has grown into a nice village. Mr. Santos was quite eager to start his oil business up. While other sims were still moving in furniture and having their possessions moved over, he insisted the ships be unloaded and steel to be brought over "immediately". Construction workers spent several long months constructing the new oil derricks northeast of the settlement. There was only one problem, though. The current dock could not handle the excess capacity. The solution was building a new freight docking station. With most of the towns roads being made of dirt, it proved very hard to transport supplies to the main land. The more well-traveled roads were already being paved, but Mr. Santos could not wait. He went back to the United States and purchased surplus equipment to start a railroad. The tracks were not finished and Mr. Santos had the train loaded up with steel to build the derricks. Locals were amazed by the passion of Mr. Santos and would sit and watch the construction. After several long months, the oil derricks were finally complete. Trucks were loaded up with crude oil to take back to town. From here it is loaded back onto ships and shipped elsewhere for refining. Meanwhile, back in the village... Sims are coming in by the boatload (literally). With the new oil business, Mr. Santos is promising more jobs with hopes to build an oil refinery in the near future. The settlers took advantage of the extra land and started developing it into farms. A town-wide meeting was held at the church and a census was conducted. The results were startling. Baden has grown from nearly 50 sims to 890! Included in the count is Mr. Santos himself. He decided to formally move his residence to the island with his oil company. Several mansions and big houses mark the location of the Santos estate. Mr. Santos even lined the dirt roads with cast-iron lamp posts. One thing is for sure though, Mr. Santos was not pleased with the town's dirt roads. Rain has poured for almost two weeks now and his Oldsmobile is stuck knee deep in mud. He marched to the next town meeting and demanded that all the roads be paved. In fact - he's even offering to pay for it! The community declined his demands, but insisted that they would finish paving the roads if he would open up the Santos railroad for commercial use. Mr. Santos agreed. The noise from the machinery paving the new main roads caused the cattle from a local farm to stampede. Workers quickly ran as cows started rushing towards them from all directions. The cows have since been brought back to their owner's farm. Question: What should we name the port area? Let me know your ideas in the comments!

Welcome to the Nation of Baden! For those who might remember, I experimented with this city journal almost six years ago now. With the new year and some renewed interest in SC4, I thought I might try to kick it off again. There is a twist - though. I plan on starting from scratch and showing the development along the way. I also plan to develop this into an interactive city journal, a concept I've never tried before. For some background: I am using the map called "Isle of Ree" from the STEX. I have also downloaded and will be using the most current NAM (as of this posting). It's really neat to see what has been done with the NAM considering I was previously using a version from 2009. To start things off, here is the pre-development regional view of the northwest corner. Founded in the 1970's, Baden is an island that remained largely uninhabited until recently. Not much is known about the history of the Baden Island prior to its founding. During the 1800's and early 1900's, the region was considered protected due to an endangered species of wild goats occupying the region. It was later discovered in the late 1960's that the wild goat population has widely vanished, from thousands to a lone herd of twelve. Wildlife activists rescued the remaining goats and confined them in a reserve on the eastern part of the island. Geologists studied the land and later discovered that the island was rich in crude oil. With the discovery, a group of people from the Santos Oil Company (ran by billionaire Guanchez Santos) decided to develop roots on the island in 1971. Early settlers are arriving to the island by a cargo ship filled with supplies. Development has already begun on Baden. A ferry/ port station was built to unload supplies to the newly built village. Early settlers are awaiting their friends and family to join them after the ship docks. Overview of first settlement. Although there are other reasons why the settlers have picked this spot to build their village, their first successful business is growing food. Here is a view of the first farm to set up shop on the island. With development still being new, early settlers have to battle with local wildlife to claim their territory. In this photo, you can see a group of farmers trying to fight off some deer that are eating their plants. (More to come )

Going for A, love the farms!

 Option 3. Glad to see you are back! :). I've missed following VS. I also just got back into SC recently, working on hopefully getting something whipped up today to maybe announce as a CJ here and on AFDES.  Jake

very good start you have here! my only suggestion is you can try to level out the land before building and you won't get those walls around buildings.. unless you like those! I think theres another way to avoid them by putting grass or something around the buildings, but don't quote me on that! great work.

 not too bad! like the looks so far

 awesome work! how did you get the flood water to look/ do that?

 AMAZING! i love this!

love the newsletter! 

 really liking this one, definitely put it in my bookmarks! 

 looks awesome!

 nice update!

 awesome CJ! Can't believe I've missed it, read all 40 chapters today! :). i'll definitely be keeping up with it for now on!!