Scarton

I just logged in to post a picture of Osaka's Crystal Tower and I see @Odainsaker beat me to it. The post is more informative than mine would have been anyway. Good job Odainsaker! EDIT with UPDATES: @coolsim1 is correct that the Umeda Sky Tower appears to be the main inspiration for Huge Enterprise. Thank you for the assist! I will update my earlier post with a picture. @Glenni: You are correct that the Yokohama Landmark Tower is the inspiration for the skyscraper to the right of Jadyn's Tower in the picture. However, I was referring to the skyscraper to the left of Jadyn's Tower in the picture. It's a silly little directional confusion that I've had before also. The tower you indicated is called Pan Pacific Insurance in the game.

If I hadn't already done my three suggestions I would have included the domed building (bottom right-hand side) That's the museum. The prominent skyscraper to the left of Jadyn's Tower in the picture is also a favorite of mine. It's simply called Huge Enterprise. Jadyn's Tower was heavily inspired by the Maybank Tower in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Huge Enterprise was heavily based on a real building as well: the Umeda Sky Building in Osaka, Japan. (@coolsim1 helped me remember in the second post below this one.)

Perhaps this was Peck Cinema's concept of expansion?

What is your vision for the type of settlement Piedra Verde will develop into? I am assuming Piedra Verde will develop into a place similar to Honolulu or Tahiti I see some roads winding up the mountains to some plateaus. Some wealthy individuals are going to love those locations for their summer homes. Great job leaving property adjoining the major roadways in the freshly established suburban housing area empty for future business growth. That is realistic expansion for many well-planned modern neighborhoods.

Artist: The Tangent Song: Titanic Calls Carpathia Album: COMM Genre: Rock -- Progressive Rock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWNaXRtwdhU

@andisart & @T Wrecks: The Bradbury Building was already nominated. Here is the initial post it was nominated in. The picture is small, however. Perhaps a larger picture could be uploaded, and/or a Moderator could replace the small image with a larger image?

Above and beyond BATing!

As a modern colony, it appears Piedra Verde has learned from other cities' pasts and established urban mass transit early to preempt future infrastructure problems. Also, I love maps!

I like how the separate grid based sections follow the contours of the primary established roads. This is a realistic organization of street networks. While @TekindusT mentions an important point about creating additional crossroads connecting the parts of town opposite the railroad tracks, I have seen some towns arranged somewhat like this in real life that also lacked such additional crossings. Sweet cozy small town!

The last picture shows the sort of entertainment center that would have been featured in a Simlympic bid back in the day. It looks great!

Tameki Tower (From the Asian tileset, it rivals Quigley Insurance as the tallest skyscraper in the game.) Some of my honorable mentions include the Defense Contractor reward, GigaMall 9th Wonder of the World from the Standard tileset, midrise towers like Hurt Plaza and other mansions like Bayberry Manor. Many great buildings were created for this game. By the way, is there a way to obtain higher quality images of these buildings than what I have posted? Small details are blurry at the closest zoom.

Bueller's Haus (a mansion from the European tileset)

It's late in the process, but here are my nominations: Buff's Athletic Club

I like your story of Piedra Verde's development over the years. The town has some nice areas that share a common theme with the buildings as well. The natural growth reminds me of your fantastic old MD Barsalargonia over at SC4D. I haven't played C:S (still stuck playing and enjoying SC4), but Piedra Verde shows the same high quality that Barsalargonia had. Keep up the good work!

@T Wrecks: Thanks for introducing me to that song and artist. I love the song! The band sounds similar to Dream Theater in my opinion. I'm currently listening to "Close to the Edge" by Yes; in particular this is the live version from the album "Yessongs" performed in 1972.

Nice vibrant, modern suburban area. Are almost all of the BATs in this update by Mattb325?

Great work! It resembles a few hospitals I have seen.

I like how the highway has broken off before the remains of the Golden Gate Bridge. It adds a poignant feeling which is essential to any dystopia. You should add lots of water pollution (by whatever method you see fit) to sell the idea of the dirty, dilapidated dystopia.

Is it permissible to create the same City Journal in both the City Journal forum section and the other site City Journal section (I'll refer to it as the "community.simtropolis.com/journals" CJ section)? Also, is there an easily viewable area which contains new updates and comments posted in the "community.simtropolis.com/journals" section? I haven't found one. This is my primary concern with posting a CJ in the "community.simtropolis.com/journals" section because it makes me doubt that both areas attract the same audience. However, I am interested in trying out the CJ format of the "community.simtropolis.com/journals" section.

Thank you for the information! I may provide some suggestions for this in the future.

@rivit & @Joey Auburn: #RecursiveNews That would make an amusing addition to the game's news scroll.

Excellent analysis. Thank you for running additional experiments concerning this issue. Unfortunately I don't have a prop pox infected savegame to send you for further analysis.

@That Retro Guy Let's see if I can help you. 1. When you say "cross-street," do you mean a major avenue or higher traffic road intended to cross the town, or do you mean any typical street that bounds urban development? Because you are trying to avoid a grid, I recommend determining city block sizes for yourself. Let the individual lot size limits in the game determine how far apart your streets are. Most buildings will not need lot sizes any larger than 3 - 4 grid tiles wide and 3 - 4 grid tiles deep. A few low density Maxis buildings, many Landmarks and Rewards, and some BATs will occupy grid tile areas larger than 4 by 4. Next you can arbitrarily decide to have major thoroughfares a certain number of these street blocks apart. For example, if your streets bound blocks of zoned land 8 tiles by 10 tiles in area, you could place higher traffic avenues 4 blocks or 5 blocks apart.The following information about game scale may assist you: 1 grid tile is 16 meters long and 16 meters wide. From your region picture, you are working with small and medium sized city tiles. 1 small city tile is 64 grid tiles long and 64 grid tiles wide. 1 medium tile is 128 grid tiles long and 128 grid tiles wide. 1 kilometer would be 62 - 63 grid tiles long, and 1 mile would be 100 - 101 grid tiles long. Your entire region is 256 by 320 grid tiles, or ~2.56 miles by ~3.20 miles, or ~4 km by ~5.1 km. Also, the scale of buildings, props, and textured assets (for example roads and footpaths) in the game is not consistent. 2. Yes, Elementary Schools, High Schools, City Colleges, Universities, Libraries, Museums, and any other structure that provides an educational effect only need to cover Residential areas. 3. Hospitals, Clinics, and other healthcare providing structures also only need to cover Residential structures. Police Stations, Fire Stations, and other protective service providing structures indeed need to cover all development. In addition, Landmarks and other buildings which provide a landmark effect should be placed near Commercial development to boost desirability and demand. Likewise, Parks and places which provide a park effect increase desirability and demand of nearby Residential zones.

Ski resorts are a rare delicacy. @RobertLM78 I like your slopes. Badsim at SC4Devotion recently posted a great looking ski resort in his Mayor Diary "AntigOne's Project." I recommend viewing it if you want another example of a ski resort. Unfortunately, it didn't show much of the slopes.

I don't know if this is truly a milestone, but it feels like a milestone to me. Around the beginning of December I visited Simtropolis and SC4Devotion like I'd been doing about twice per year for the last five or six years. I spent much more time than usual reading about the developments that have occurred since I last played the game several years ago and was inspired to attempt to return to playing the game and contributing to the SC4 community. In the time that has passed I've been reviving and refreshing my Simtropolis and SC4D accounts, reading about how to setup SC4 to function properly with recent hardware and operating systems, purchasing and installing the digital version from GOG because I couldn't find my discs, and doing various other things in preparation for my return. Finally, yesterday I played SimCity 4 and built a few small, experimental cities in the game for the first time since about 2012! I'm back in the game, and it feels great!