Terring

I just downloaded the Sim-Melody songs. They're so awesome! I mostly enjoyed the jazz tracks, and some of them sounds like Jerry Martin's "Rush Hour" from SC4. I guess JM had a great inspiration moments when he made his tracks Now I have SC2K, SC3K (my very first SC ), SC4, SC Societies (some tracks are actually neat) and SC13: Cities of Tomorrow (of course ) in my track list.

OK, we have seaports, we have airports, but how about spaceports? Is your city in contact with the wonderful universe? If yes, show us your connections... that means your spaceports Here is one of my experimental spaceports. The Baikonour Space Center, the radiotelescopes and the Saturn 5 rocket are available at Simtropolis, while the other parts are available at Somy's website. Now show us your spaceports

To be honest, I don't have something specific to suggest. But if you're going to dive deeper into the SimMars ocean, you might want to give the next buildings a try too.

Well done, very nice work

A new entry for my CJ is underway. Who said that the cities of the future can't have some trees?

When we think about cities of tomorrow, we tend to think of something big, strange and epic. We usually tend to think of huge metropolises populated by robots and cyborgs, with plenty of buildings so tall that their height can only be measured by kilometers, with flying cars soaring around the sky, holographic advertisements everywhere selling various stuff, and highways larger than all the modern highways combined. When we try to imagine how the cities of the future would look like, we tend to think of Coruscant, Los Angeles from Blade Runner, the Mega Cities of Judge Dredd, and @2ch.net simplayer's Zanapolis. In other words, a modern city on steroids where everything is possible, and not always in a good way. Of course those predictions look cool and badass, and they work as warnings of what we might get if we let problems like overpopulation, pollution, poverty, scarcity and wars unsolvable and uncontrollable. But they're also very mainstream, so let's try something different for once. How about humble cities of tomorrow, with smaller but more efficient buildings and infrastructures, electric cars guided by computers, green energy sources like nuclear fusion, and a system of values way different than the one we have today? How about an eco-friendly, post-scarcity civilization, blessed with both a high level of technology and a high level of living standards for everybody, while having its environmental footprint as low as possible? In other words, how about a story that inspires you to do something instead of warns you what not to do, showing a future way more different than we have in our mind? Now that's something you don't see very often, right? There are very few futuristic city journals here in Simtropolis, and most of them have this classic, high-tech, cyberpunk feeling we all know and love, with huge buildings populated by creepy cyborgs, titanic infrastructures that laugh at ours, epic spacecrafts covering the skies, and not a single bird or tree to have around. All those are cool, but let's try something different. How about a city journal that's still futuristic but in a much different way, emphasizing this time not on cyberpunk, but on a new movement named "solarpunk"? Solarpunk is a new -punk that shows a positive vision of the future, this time with green cities that has more trees than buildings, renewable energy sources, eco-friendly technologies, and a high living standard and spiritual level for everybody. Solarpunk is not technophobic, and was made as a reaction to cyberpunk and its dystopian visions of the future. It's not utopian though. Utopia mean perfection, and perfection doesn't exist at all. It's eutopian, which means it's something better but still plausible. While not as adventurous as cyberpunk, solarpunk can still provide us with plenty of stories, adventures and visions to explore. And this city journal is going to explore one of them. So... welcome to Fairview. Fairview is one of those maps made by the Maxis team available into the game to play with. In this very small map we'll be building our eco-friendly civilization. The goal and challenge here is to build cities that provides the highest standard to everybody with the minimum impact to the environment. This means application of ecological technologies and strategies, plenty of green belts, and no excessive terraforming. So don't expect huge infrastructures and epic cities here that devours the natural landscape. Right now Fairview is an empty canvas without a single tree, but we'll fix it very soon. Not only the map is very small, it also has plenty of small tiles and only a few medium ones, some of which can only be colonized by excessive terraforming, which is out of question. We're not going to built on the entire map and our construction options will be limited in order to preserve the environment. Despite its sci-fi nature, don't expect big aerospaceports, huge farms, highways or seaports, but you can still expect AIs, cyborgs and flying cars Despite the small size of both the tiles and the map itself, there are still plenty of flat enough areas to build our civilization. Not enough for a futuristic metropolis, but still enough for a small city made by mini towns. Who said that the future must be big? So how those cities will look like? Because of the environmental limitations and thanks for the flat open spaces, those cities will mostly have low density zones but still provide all the necessaries to the citizens and some more, mixing the best from both worlds, the comforts of the big city with the tranquility of the village. They'll look like these, but a bit bigger... If small futuristic villages is not your cup of tea, Simtropolis has plenty of awesome city journals to explore. But if you wanted something a bit different and more optimistic, something familiar but still fresh, something advanced and still cozy, welcome to Fairview

@TheMurderousCricket, @TogaMasterJohn, @carlosmarcelo, @mitsos, @Chappington, @raynev1, @TG24, @Golan0, @whiteshark365, @CaptCity, @MissVanleider, @ByeByeBayou, @Dead_End and @Kuba138, thank you for your likes, comments and follows Time to begin the construction of a new solarpunk city, this time named Olivia-4. Olivia-4 was supposed to be another linear chain city, just like the previous ones, with only 2 road connections. However if you see closely at the east part of the city, you'll find a third road connection too. Olivia-4 is going to be connected with 3 cities, with Hazelfield already being one of them. This city is going to have many futuristic surprises. See the wavy street? Notice that the main road is expanding into an empty area? In the next entry you'll see why. We have the roads, we have the magnetic railroad, so now it's time to prepare the ground for our city. For once again, no excessive terraforming. Just let the landscape as it is. This is also a good time to build our public transportation systems, with bus stops in every corner and underground pods stations in the main roads, which will be expanded later. And now we can plant our trees... ...and begin the construction and the landscaping of the area. Right now the town has some parks, some neighborhood mini farms, a vertical farm, a market next to it... ...a police station, a fire station, a clinic which expands underway as well, a primary school, a secondary school, a library, a museum, some playgrounds... ...a college and a lake. But this is just the beginning. How the town will like is something we'll see in the next entry. And let's not forget the landscaping, making the area as beautiful as possible. The construction has begun. Sims are coming to the town to build their houses and infrastructures, but we have to wait to see how Olivia-4 will actually look like. The only thing I can say for now is that after taking those pictures I made some progress and many things has already been changed. This teaser is a little small because, as I said before, Olivia-4 is going to have some really cool futuristic surprises. Can't tell what, can't show you now, just be patient. Right now I'm reading and making some homework for my postgraduate studies, but hopefully the next entry will be ready soon. See you there

Big truth over here

Cool job

That was really a heck of an experience, an epic journey through space and time. My salutes to you, my friend

Very nice

@carlosmarcelo You mean the railroad tiles? I use them to level the area and later as placeholders for further development. So yeah, you can say that (at least some of them actually) they have to do with the incoming surprises

I'm sure he created them.

Great work, very nice

Oh boy, that's awesome

Very nice

@Michi, @AtkinsSJ_, @Dead_End, @Dominic1 , @Sinister, @ThizGamer24, @TogaMasterJohn, @TheMurderousCricket, @luklitzke, @mitsos, @ByeByeBayou, @chick3n, @carlosmarcelo, @Chappington, @MissVanleider, @CaptCity and @Golan0, thank you very much for your comments, likes and follows I'm participating in a program of postgraduate studies about environmental technologies and politics, which means more time for studying but also better cities, because I can use and apply some of those new knowledge to my incoming towns. I already have some neat plans for my future cities, so watch this space Now, hopefully you wear pajamas and have some hot chocolate, because we're going to visit Hazelfield at night. This time I don't have a lot to say, so just enjoy the pictures. All AI-controlled transportation systems are in 24/7 service. No matter when and where, you can always take the train or the subway pods to go wherever you want. And yes, some of the benches have neon. We're in the future, we want unnecessary but cool Tron-styled futuristic stuff There is still some activity in the night. Many people prefer to sleep, but others are what we called them "night owls", who prefer to sleep at day and get active and productive at night. We need both day and night people, so mocking night owls is bull crap. James Rolfe, the creator of Angry Video Game Nerd, has something to say about it in his You Know What's BS series. Warning, lot's of bad words What? No lots of light? Well, yes. The more trees you have to hide them, the less lights you see. After all, don't you hate it when you try to sleep and some external lights are disrupting you? Humans need sleep, but robots, drones and AIs doesn't. If you need something you can still get it even late at night. Make your order and a drone will bring to you whatever you need. Just respect the owners and don't wake them up. Unless they don't sleep too. Insomnia? Don't worry. Take your time to enjoy the night view of the forest from your apartment, or visit the forest and go stargazing. Be careful though, you don't want to disrupt a bear or fall and break a leg. As we said before, robot's doesn't sleep, so they can keep the factories and laboratories ruining even in night. The machines do all the job, so humans can enjoy the night however they wish, like having conversations and swimming in pools. Daytime can be very busy. This is why some people prefer to pray at the church late in midnight. Cyan Tron-like lighting. Welcome to the future Wanna play chess and feed the ducks in 3:00 am? Go ahead. Meetings in 2:00 am? Why not? This is why we invented artificial lighting, to expand our circle of activities and do whatever we want whenever we want. Fountains of clean water in night. A beautiful sight to see and a wonderful sound to hear. Now that Hazelfield it done, we can keep expanding our futuristic solarpunk civilization... ...by building a new town, which is coming with a neat surprice. See you there

Great work and excellent choice of music. You can't get wrong with Vangelis

@TheMurderousCricket, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. I love nighttime too, but it's not fun when you live in a big city full of ugly places, night pollution and the danger of falling into a criminal, and it's not fun when you live in a society that demands you to live only on day just to work and consume trash. I envision a future where people will not be forced to follow a very specific schedule and be free to live however they wish and set up their own schedule. Of course this require massive social changes, even a total redesign of our culture, but history is already full of such mayor changes, and the future might hide even bigger ones. This video will give you an idea of what I mean. The last time I enjoyed nighttime was I think 15 years ago, when I was a student of the Technological Educational Institute of Ionian Islands in the small Zakynthos City. I wake up in 4:00 am and I had the Idea of exploring the city. It was beautiful. Very peaceful, very tranquil . A very beautiful feeling that you can't have it in the downtown of big cities, although even there you might find some calm pockets of peace. This is the feeling I want to bring to anybody when I make my cities and put them in nighttime, while mixing it with the potentials of a different and more free future society. A balance of action and peace, that things are more calm but still something is going on, that the city is getting a rest without reducing its momentum too much. Parties and drinking beer with friends is a neat way to spend your time, but it's not the only one.

More in my CJ

Yesterday I tested dreXmod (available here) that allows you to zoom out even further and gives you some extra tools for multi-playing. This mod is indeed great. It gives you more and better control over your armies and spectacular views of the battlefield. Burning empires to the ground has never been that epic It even gives your even more awesome views of your empire. SimCiting at its finest Like my colony? But sadly I had to remove this mod because of a strange graphic glitch that turns black color into transparent. At first I was fine because I thought it was only a problem with the buttons, until I found that even units and ambient graphics (like Space itself) suffered with this problem too. I'm sure it's my PC's fault, it's not a gaming powerhouse after all. And besides, having so many things going on in a single frame and monitor lags my game a lot. So no dreXmod for now, but hopefully soon again. Hmm, I think I've been spending more time playing this game than SimCity, but can you blame me? The last time I played Empire Earth was many years ago in an Internet café

New desktop

Realistic cities vs my cities