SC4Fanatic

Hi to all, Yeah, I've not been very active on this forum lately, but I have been very active with my Octavia region, or Octavia nation (it's a rather big region that takes almost all of my spare free time ). I've decided to buy my own domain for my SC4 creations. I don't want the bandwidth restrictions of picture sites and I have a lot of webspace at my current hosting company where I host my sites (and some backups). One of these days I will inform you about domainname, etc. I am very busy building a mayor road- and rail network now and sometimes SC4 isn't cooperating that much (experienced some crashes lately). The region is a 48x30 km region and has over 300 cities in it. There's a lot of water (rivers, lakes, bays). It's roughly based on the Yokio-bay region (A big thank you to the one who created that region) , but I terraformed a lot (more islands, etc.). The main idea of my own Octavia country is this: there is a metropolis and there are other cities. It's my intention to make the metropolis a multi million citizens area and for the other cities in the nation I don't have any ideas right now, but I'm sure those cities will also grow. I'm now busy with a road- and rail network and the metropolis will need some subway system too. All highways (interstate like, like german autobahn) have been constructed, I'm now busy with the avenue (or like in GB: dual carriage way) network. A bad limitation of SC4 is the inability to build diagonal bridges. It's truly a big pain and it makes a real-life-like scenario almost impossible. Well, I will keep you updated. Greetings, Jan

It was just registered a couple of hrs ago, so it can take some time. I will put up some test page tomorrow morning (thursday morning my timezone).

Hi all, The domain has been registered today. domainname: sc4fanatic.net (yeah, I used my username here). It can take up to two days before the domainname works worldwide. I will post my pics and some more info there. Of course I will also post here. It's my intention to not only the new site for my main region (Octavia), but also for some SC4-related experiments.

I'm afraid my region (cities) won't have enough time to prepare for the simolian version of the Olympic Winter Games. Besides, it's a nation somewhere in the tropics. The only snow they see will be on the TV screen. Average January max temperature (the coldest month) will be around 27 degrees (celsius, 78/79 F); July max temperatures are around 33 degrees (91/92 F). So, my sims are living in a most wonderful place and have the best climate .(I once experienced above 122 F (above 50 degrees C) in the shadow while travelling. That is terribly hot and you can't do anything anymore). It would be something like the bobsleigh team of Jamaica (and that team exists). I truly wonder where they practice . Anyways, Octavia Country is situated in the tropics and is a very nice country. People love sports there: Octavians love sports: Soccer, American Football, Cricket, Tennis and Badminton, and also many other maybe less well known sports, like table tennis, volleyball, gymnastics (turning). Octavia is a more-or-less socialist country, but it's a socialist country with a human face . This means that big companies are state-owned and that the state has a big influence in daily life (laws, social security and many laws about public wellbeing (which means state-induced influence)). Privately owned companies are, however, accepted and any private company below 100 employees is legally accepted. This is to promote small companies that are willing to invest money and to help the tourist industry. People living in Octavia country have perfect social security and support after their 65s birthday. Public transport is almost perfect: a good-working railroad network. The national coach company is responsible for another perfect network: all towns are accessible by bus and the buses are running frequently. The metropolis has a subway (metro) network. In the central section it runs 24h daily, 7 days per week. Outside the central area it runs from 5 am till 1 am. But after 1 am there are still enough bus and taxi (cab) services to take you home in a safe way. Criminality rates are very low. The police have a license to kill if things get out of order, but in everyday's life they will act in a severe, but correct way. Don't play tricks on them or try to be funny. Never ever try to enter the country illegally. Borders are protected intensively. Anyone illegally trying to enter the country will be arrested. Octavia is a very peaceful country and you will enjoy your stay here. People are nice, helpful and want to make your time here a perfect one. There is no such thing as an obliged currency exchange. Feel free to have a great time here and to talk to people. Freedom of speech/opinion is part of the constitution. Well, soon enough you will see some of my little nation.

Hi all, While working on my own region I sometimes like to play on other regions as well and I found some great maps on the STEX and other sites that I would like to try. All goes well during the first few steps (creating new folder in C:\Users\<username>\Simcity4\Regions (Vista) and the copying the config.bmp and the greyscale jpg to the new folder). I always check if the config.bmp and the greyscale map have the right sizes (16x16 config.bmp should be 1025x1025 greyscale map (16x64+1). However, when I start SC4, point to the new region and want to import the jpg greyscale map, all goes wrong and SC4 refuses to do anything. I tried this with different maps. Manuals on different sites/forums tell to hit ctrl-alt-shift-r and then a window pops up to locate the file (altgr-shift-r on wireless, like my keyboard). Locating the file works, but after clicking OK nothing happens. Very frustrating. Anyone knows what causes this? Maybe the SC4 Patch from EA? Importing maps has worked before, but now for some weird reasons it doesn't anymore. I don't want to give up, but am at a loss now and have no idea how to fix (except that I could try to reinstall without EA SC4 Patch). Any reactions/help would be appreciated here. Greetings, Jan

Hi all, I have a weird problem with my railways. There are a couple of passenger stations and one freight station that are all connected by rail (the railway also has a connection to another city and to simnation). All railway stations have power. However, there are no trains running. This is very annoying and I have no clue how to fix this. Only railroad-related plugins I use are a few nice railway stations and the trolca Trainset (the last mentioned plugin has worked before). Of course I also have the NAM, Version June 2007. Anyone knows how to fix this? I don't want to rebuild a city from scratch, just because of this. Thanks in advance. Greetings, Jan

Hi all, At first I want to wish you all the best for this new year and I truly hope it will be a good one for all of you. I'm truly impressed by many of the CJ's here. All the work that has been put into it, all the wonderful buildings, harbors, road networks. A big thumb up for all of you! To be honest, sometimes it's making me jealous, but not in a bad way. I admire those beautiful cities. I will be starting a 3rd attempt soon (after 2 failed attempts). The Democratic Republic of Octavia. I'm not a master in landscape designing like some of you are, so I used a STEX map and changed it (using SC4 Terraformer) to meet my ideas. (Yokiobay was the original map). I added a lot of islands, changed some coastlines to enable building of bridges and I added some other islands to make up for some lost space. It's a difficult map for planning ahead. It really makes me think and try, but I want to have some mayor road-, highway- and railway network before I really start to build. I hate destroying lots of a city because of some minor change. This means that I'm really calculating: lots sizes etc. It will be a project that will keep me busy for some years. some 300 cities (from small to large are waiting to be built) Greetings, Jan

Great works. You've done a wonderful job. But maybe you should adjust to to the bad roiad signing and signals they have in Romania. Not to hurt anyone there; I love the country and have been the dozens of time.

solved, partially that is. seems like some of them were not really greyscale, but RGB. That part is fixed. However, most of the areas are now water-covered instead of land and I don't have a height-mod installed. So, it's importing, but still no good-looking map. I also followed the manual on this forum, but it didn't fix the issue with regions that are fully water-covered. Any ideas? Greetings, Jan

Hi all, A few days ago I started a new region, named Octavia. I named it after one of my best female friends (and not after that car model, just for you all to know). (big smile). The Budapest, Hungary, region inspired me, so I made a rather big region with a river, an island somewhere in the center. The western part of the city has some mountaneous area and the eastern part is flat (like in Budapest). I used SC4 Terraformer to build the region. Right now, nothing has been really built yet, but I'm planning and thinking of names for the different parts of the city. A mega-city is impossible in SC4, so a mega-city has to consist of some big SC4-cities together. Let's see how this develops. I have big plans and ideas, but somehow things always change when building, LOL. It's a great pleasure to look at other's city journals and sometimes they make me jealous. Well, not really jealous, but I admire the work of others. Why Budapest, you might ask. Well, I've been there a few times when travelling by car from Holland to southeast Romania. Budapest is a great city, Romania a great country. Well, enough said, I'm going to work on my new region and I hope it will be something nice. Greetings, Jan

Hi all, I want to make big cities, which in SC4 means that you have to build cities that together make a big one. I tend to name my main cities after my region name (like region name: Octavia, city name: Octavia). My inspiration for the main city in my region, are the names of some gorgeous people (women) I met in my life and who have become wonderful friends. I am planning to meet some of them soon again. For suburbs I often use an atlas or map and sometimes I use a theme, like musicians, politicians, artists, geography, mythology or a mixture of all of those. When I build regions, I first just establish cities and build nothing. The agglomeration cities will be named like "(main city name ) - city name" (example: Octavia - Astoria) and the other cities in the region will get their own names (and mayors). After that I start planning and building. Greetings, Jan

Hi all, To reconcile edges or not, that seems to be the question here. I founded 9 cities which - together - will be the central area of my region (the downtown area). In the picture below you will see the ugly looking city borders (where rivers cross borders; this seems to be only a problem in north-south direction). I tried to reconcile edges after establishing and saving the cities, but things mess up terribly (making all city borders like areas covered with water). I guess I have to accept this as a bug of the program? It's only looking weird in region view (in city view all is normal). Thanks for the reactions so far. I still hope I can fix this, but this lil' problem is not the end of the world of course. Greetings, Jan Here's the picture:

Hi all, Well, life was very busy lately, but here's a pic of part of the region to show the bad-looking city borders (I turned off city borders in region view, but that doesn't help). The region was made with SC4 Terraformer and if someone knows how to fix this, I would be very grateful. I need this fix before I am starting to build (don't want to obliterate cities to fix this problem). Thanks in advance! Greetings, Jan

Looks like an amazing and blooming city to me! Looks wonderful!

Hi all, Sorry for the late update. My region crashed. It was never a problem, but when I wanted to make some changes (a few extra rivers and a few nice lakes) Terraformer crashed. The good news: no lives where lost . And although it pissed me off at first, I am happy that nothing was built yet. I just had made some pictures to show, when all went wrong . So, I build a new region, basically the same idea and the Budapest region is stll part of it. I added some lakes, some extra rivers (and made the mountains a bit higher than they are there, but hey, after all, I'm not going to rebuild an existing city . So far all looks good and I will post pictures as soon as possible. Seems sometimes Terraformer has some minor issues, although it's a fantastic tool for creating regions and landscapes and I'm very happy to use it. The city will be Ameropian. I know , a new word, but what I mean is something like a mix between American and European cities. I will keep you updated and I'm glad I finished building the new region in Terraformer. I made the new one a bit smaller then the original one to prevent future problems. And before I might forget: A very Happy New Year with all best wishes to all of you!

Correction (LOL): Britain is part of the EU. Other EU-member states where driving is on the left side of the road are Ireland and Malta. Yes, it's right that Americans think we drive on the left side . Anyways, doesn't matter

WOW!!! England for sure has a lot of beauty to offer! I've visited England quite some times and I really like it there.

Still busy with the region itself and I downloaded some mods and other stuff. Credit of course to all who developed those! I made already some region overview pictures and hope to post them soon (is a rather big region 12x12 big cities, so around 48x48 km, so sometimes things get a bit slow, LOL). What I already can tell is that it will be an european-like region, maybe with a downtown with a little american accent. I've visited many towns in my life so far, some american, but most european (I live in Europe, Netherlands to be exactly). I loved Berlin, Budapest, Cracow, Brussels, London and even Bucarest and Rome (of course) and Genova. I never was in Paris (shame on me, but I will visit that beautiful city too, I promise). And of course I visited many smaller and great-looking towns too. So, lots of inspiration here Sometimes I think I have to work the "wrong way" here, cause I don't want to bulldoze a lot of buildings when I build a ring-road and mayor railroads and stuff, so maybe I should first build some main infrastructure and then the rest? Any ideas? (Normally a city grows and things are added when they are needed).

Looks great to me. Wonderful.

I'd go for the river region, but I admit: I'm a bit biased. I'm developing a river region at this moment. Good luck with your region!

Hi all, I'm living in Holland and I'm a true Simcity addict. I am 37 yrs old right now and I am working from home (ICT, video-editing and some web stuff). Simcity is a really great game and I love the City Journals some members here have. I am truly impressed by their work. I built some own regions with the terraformer program and am now building on it, but not that impressive so far, but you have to start somewhere of course. Of course it's not a contest and let there be no arguing about tastes.. My newest region is some variety of the Budapest (Hungary) region. A big river (Danube) crossing and in the centre there's an island. The west bank has some hills and mountains and the east bank is flat, like in Budapest (I've been there a few times when travelling from Holland to Romania). I named this region after one of my best female friends: Octavia. If someone can tell me how to keep kind of a city journal, I would appreciate that I have one question to add: why do river and water connections between cities sometimes look so awful (has to do with the edges thing, but only seems to happen in north-south directions). Greetings, Jan

WOW!!! This is fantastic! Bankrupt? No way anymore