Nardo69

Hello at All! It has been a while since I posted, partially due to really bad RLS, partially because I haven't played the game for a while. and I must confess I miss the previous post editor ... Update 29: Hauereichen - A Bedroom Community Hauereichen is a small suburb of my small megalopis. It has some nice villas, some prefab blocks, not much commerce, a little bit of industry and farming and lots of woods. Actually the woods brought me back to game - I just had to try out the new HD seasonal trees by Girafe (even though I used the evergreen ones - I am still the same slow, stubborn oldfashioned donkey that needs its time for new tricks ...) The "urban" part of the map. The Glr-in-Ave separates prefabs from the villa. You can also see the CBD and industrial area. From an different Angle. It took some time to get the prefabs grown as I wished but it was worth it! The "CBD". The main function of Hauereichen is Residential - a typical bedroom community at the edge of town. That was kind of a hard NAM jigsaw. All Glr-in-Ave and TuLEP pieces are somehow glued together, remove one and the whole intersection will be gone. In addition to this the GLR station was the reason for some CTDs: it is modded for draggable GLR but here the short distance only allowed GLR puzzle pieces ... Usually something like that would have been my "after" - picture. But the whole quarter here is rather new - somewhere in the middle of 20th century - so the old buildings didn't fit. And this is usually the "before" - situation... But together with the industrial area on the other side of the avenue these buildings just do better. (and yes, that corner building could have been replace, too, but I just like it). I just love how that school and the profab com together! OK, Journey meant the sun in their rock classic - but somehow the line just fits. Here you can see the woods that I created mostly with the new trees from Girafe - to the left all new trees (that are available evergreen and seasonal) and at the top and to the left combined with his old pine trees and cp.s pine trees. Incredible but unlike Simfox's trees you can create a rather dense woods only with Girafe's maple without all props becoming one monotone mesh! All kind of forrests. The edges of the forests still are the domain for Simfox's trees as you can place them more exactly than Girafe's ones. That's my belated easter present for you - hope you liked it. Have fun! Bernhard

Hello at All! It has been a while since I posted, partially due to really bad RLS, partially because I haven't played the game for a while. and I must confess I miss the pervious post editor ... Anyway before we start the new update there are some Answers&Replies left to do: @Schulmanator: Thank you and Thank you! @hijodecordoba: Well, I confess "New World" isn't my "special area" Glad you liked the last update and Thank you. So, without any further Ados: Update 29: Hauereichen Hauereichen is a small suburb of my small megalopis. It has some nice villas, some prefab blocks, not much commerce, a little bit of industry and farming and lots of woods. Actually the woods braught me back to game - I just had to try out the new HD seasonal trees by Girafe (even though I used the evergreen ones - I am still the same slow, stubborn oldfashioned donkey that needs its time for new tricks ...) The "urban" part of the map. The Glr-in-Ave separates prefabs from the villa. You can also see the CBD and industrial area. From an different Angle. It took some time to get the prefabs grown as I wished but it was worth it! The "CBD". The main funtion of Hauereichen is Residential - a typical bedroom community at the edge of town. That was kind of a hard NAM jigsaw. All Glr-in-Ave and TuLEP pieces are somehow glued together, remove one and the whole intersection will be gone. In addition to this the GLR station was the reason for some CTDs: it is modded for draggable GLR but here the short distance only allowed GLR puzzle pieces ... Usually something like that would have been my "after" - picture. But the whole quarter here is rather new - somewhere in the middle of 20th century - so the old buildings didn't fit. And this is usually the "before" - situation... But together with the industrial area on the other side of the avenue these buildings just do better. (and yes, that corner building could have been replace, too, but I just like it). I just love how that school and the profab com together! OK, Journey meant the sun in their rock classic - but somehow the line just fir. Here you can see the woods that I created mostly with the new trees from Girafe - to the left all new trees (taht are available evergreen and seasonal) and at the top and to the left combined with his old pine trees and cp.s pine trees. Incredible but unlike Simfox's trees you can create a rather dense woods only with Girafe's maple without all props becoming one monotone mesh! All kind of forrests. The edges of the forests still are the domain for Simfox's trees as you can place them more exactly than Girafe's ones. That's my belated easter present for you - hope you liked it. Have fun! Bernhard

@ImVhOzzi: Well, I am.. Thank you! @TekindusT: Thank you my friend! The smoke stack is SimGoobers small waste power plant, you can find it [url="http://kurier.simcityplaza.de/details.php?file=855"]here[/url]. And I think I go on with the large reolution.

Actually - there are some issues in the pathfinding of Simcity. Maxis chose the easiest way of implementing the pathfinding routine - just look for the geometrical shortest way from Point A to Point B. Sounds logical, is kind of logical but not working properly if you want to simulate RL halfway adequately. Actually this very basic pathfinding fails if you want to create a simulated model off most Traffic networks except some very small villages. Why? Well, one of the analogies of traffic in the world of physics is electric resistance. The higher the resistance due to capacity or congestion the less electricity / traffic is flowing. Trucks will not use small side roads if they can use a major arteria - just think of all that maneuvres that would be necessary. More or less the same for busses - if you ever had to check out if a bus or track can pass geometrically through a given road you will know what I mean. You need to know the local quarters to use shortcuts and side roads. Or would you leave the highway, make your way through unknown quarters, maybe ghettos to the next highway exit just because leaving the highway would make you drive 22,750 km instead of 23,1? You might change km to miles, the units don't matter, just get the idea. Another thing are road signs - even in the era of navigation systems. As a planner you can make people use different roads just by placing or not placing road signs. An aspect that is completely missing in SC4. Sims are doing all this. People in RL won't. do. Not the 99,9% maybe the 0,1% which are the exception from the rule. As Andreas said SC4 was designed in a way that it can be run on a Pentium III with 128 mb RAM. HOWEVER in one aspect I do agree with tysons4: you should have understand how the game works before you go into aesthetical details, how to make you traffic flow the way you want it, the micromanagement, etc. For the basic understanding of the game mechanics you don't need the NAM. But after you got to a certain level you don't want to miss it. At least not me.

Hello to All! First the bad news: No, I didn't go on with SC4, not even with the beta 2 of the new water. Appr. 2 weeks ago my father died which made my RL worse than it was before and wasn't helpful to my disappeared inspiration, too, as you might think. As a result of his death I got his laptop. Not the newest model it's father than my old box - even my 760k "mega"city is runner much better with 1440*900 than on my old box with 1024-768. And the bigger resolution in zoomlevel 5, that's pretty cool! Fooling around in Urland I found that little map that I once began for the Thematic Competition. But right after starting the map I had more than 2000 sims so I started another (rather unsuccessful) map fo the competition and with my usual "speed" I developed this one. It is named "Neuenbürg", like the small town in the Blackforest, as I got some inspirations from there as you will see. For this update I tried another format: scaled pictures larger than thumbnails and if you click them you'll get the pleasure of the full resolution of my laptop. Tell me if you like it. ) And now without further ados: Update 28: Neuenbürg Let's start with a region view without region census. A little bit more of resolution does make a difference! Today's map from far far away ... ....and a little bit closer. The map's name is Neuenbürg and is inspired a bit by the small town with the same name in the Black Forest. As a "main theme" I wanted to have a summer residence on a hill that is surrounded by a river valley. A great place for a castle that has been changed to a residence in the 18th century. On such a ridge space is limited which is the reason why the garden is a bit small here ... I plopped the lot the other way round - IMHO the buildings fit better that way. I just should've relotted the lot accordingly ... A nice touch are the small harlemmergold buildings that grew there. I consider them housing for the service stuff. This layout - flag stop, overpass just before a tunnel - is inspired by the set up at the RL flag stop Neuenbürg Süd. There an overpass passes a railway and a main street just before they enter a tunnel. The setup in SC4 is mirrored, too. Nice creek, isn't it? I know quite some rivers and creeks where you aren't able to see the shore in summertimer because it is covered by trees which foliage touches the water surface itself. Well, you need some power, don't you? Like IRL the railway station is on the other side of the tunnel. Unlike RL we ware here on the southern entrance of the tunnel. I located all industrial zoning on this map along the railway line in the valley. And to finish off today's update some rural shots along the river Enz (as IRL ): That's it for today. Hope you like what you saw. Have fun! Bernhard PS: My first Update with ST7.0. I like the design, it seems to load my humble old CJ faster than before ... however ... I'll guess I need some time to get used to it. I especially miss the old Insert Image dialog ... Old donkeys need their time to get used to changes PPS: I had to a walk today and see what I found: And no, the first one is neither a snake nor a warm but a rather useful reptile and completely not dangerous at all. I do love especially the white flowers, these small white stars are telling winter's gone which is why I do love them. Hopefully summer will be kinder to me than winter was this year ...

[b]@heitomat:[/b] Glad you liked the update my friend! There's already a beta 2 but I wasn't able to use it. RL had been ... not nice at all to me lately ... [b]@Johan_91:[/b] Danke für das Kompliment!

Hello to All! First the bad news: No, I didn't go on with SC4, not even with the beta 2 of the new water. Appr. 2 weeks ago my father died which made my RL worse than it was before and wasn't helpful to my disappeared inspiration, too, as you might think. As a result of his death I got his laptop. Not the newest model it's father than my old box - even my 760k "mega"city is runner much better with 1440*900 than on my old box with 1024-768. And the bigger resolution in zoomlevel 5, that's pretty cool! Fooling around in Urland I found that little map that I once began for the Thematic Competition. But right after starting the map I had more than 2000 sims so I started another (rather unsuccessful) map fo the competition and with my usual "speed" I developed this one. It is named "Neuenbürg", like the small town in the Blackforest, as I got some inspirations from there as you will see. For this update I tried another format: scaled pictures larger than thumbnails and if you click them you'll get the pleasure of the full resolution of my laptop. Tell me if you like it. ) But as usual first some Replies&Answers: @hijodecordoba: Glad you liked, sorry that I didn't mention that one - as a middle European it was kind of out of my limited sight, hope you can forgive me ... @Simbourgeois: I do hope it's a bit warmer now at your place. While doing a walk I discovered these: And no, the first one is neither a snake nor a warm but a rather useful reptile and completely not dangerous at all. I do love especially the white flowers, these small white stars are telling winter's gone which is why I do love them. @Norby(ToG): Thanks for your compliment! @rewright: Just givve me a short call and then we go together! And now without further ados: Update 28: Neuenbürg Let's start with a region view without region census. A little bit more of resolution does make a difference! Today's map from far far away ... ....and a little bit closer. The map's name is Neuenbürg and is inspired a bit by the small town with the same name in the Black Forest. As a "main theme" I wanted to have a summer residence on a hill that is surrounded by a river valley. A great place for a castle that has been changed to a residence in the 18th century. On such a ridge space is limited which is the reason why the garden is a bit small here ... I plopped the lot the other way round - IMHO the buildings fit better that way. I just should've relotted the lot accordingly ... A nice touch are the small harlemmergold buildings that grew there. I consider them housing for the service stuff. This layout - flag stop, overpass just before a tunnel - is inspired by the set up at the RL flag stop Neuenbürg Süd. There an overpass passes a railway and a main street just before they enter a tunnel. The setup in SC4 is mirrored, too. Nice creek, isn't it? I know quite some rivers and creeks where you aren't able to see the shore in summertimer because it is covered by trees which foliage touches the water surface itself. Well, you need some power, don't you? Like IRL the railway station is on the other side of the tunnel. Unlike RL we ware here on the southern entrance of the tunnel. I located all industrial zoning on this map along the railway line in the valley. And to finish off today's update some rural shots along the river Enz (as IRL ): That's it for today. Hope you like what you saw. Have fun! Bernhard PS: My first Update with ST7.0. I like the design, it seems to load my humble old CJ faster than before ... however ... I'll guess I need some time to get used to it. I especially miss the old Insert Image dialog ... Old donkeys need their time to get used to changes

No,Idon't agree. SimCity4 itself is not art. It's the color palette, the brush and the and the canvas to draw a picture that might or might not be a piece of art depending on how good the user - or artist - is. Unfortunately its code is outdated and bugged and uncompleted. Bugged: see above. Outdated as it could make great use of multi core cpus but doesn't because it's so old. Uncompleted because right after the release of Rushhour at least one more EP was announced but never released. And if you played the game as much and as intense as I did you could've discovered so much things that could've been improved - region play, traffic simulators and so on. EA left us alone after they screwed one of the best games ever. I am glad that the community is still alive and going on. Without the community I would've stopped playing SimCIty4 years ago. Challenging vanilla isn't a hard deal. Nor a long lasting challenge.

GIMP is one possibility but for beginners a bit hard to use and not all functionality is needed. A smaller Alternativ would be Irfanview or paint.net (which is not to be mistaken with Windows Paint!). Irfanview also has a built-in Batch Mode that can save quite some time if you have a couple of images to deal. You might do a lot of altering to your pictures but this is really a question of personal taste and preference. Me, I like to see the SC4 skills rather than the photoshopping skills of the CJer, other might see this different. But Resize & Sharpen is more or less a must to follow the forum rules, and a nice caption with pictute number will be very helpful to comment your CJ. Just my 0.02 simoleons. Bernhard

As I am an Opera user like T Wrecks I do agree with him in all points. And: I would like to see that "Schulmanator bug" fixed - no offense meant but it's kind of annoying if you have to use the Google Search in order to get into your CJ in the New CJ Section just because you had the bad luck that your CJ and one of Schulmanator's CJs happen to be on the same page ... (Again, no offense meant, Schulmanator, but AFAIK you are aware of that problem ...)

Good work on the RHW (something I never was able to build anything worth noticing yet) . I also like your railway layout.  But really a pleasure are the "empty spaces" in between.  Great job! Go on like this. And take your time - see this update's title for a reason! 

Nice update. And the railway signals seem to be correctly placed from what I can see.  

@Reikhardt: Well, I'd say they are non-transparent transparent ...  They are textured in a way to show a shallow slow resp. fast flowing water. And this they do rather good IMHO. 

Nice one! Especially the upper half with that NDEX church looks phantastic!

@avrelivs: Thanks for the compliment my friend! Well, inspirations is like the waves of an ocean - there are ups and downs, sometimes the ups are very high, but also sometimes the downs are very ow, too ... @ImVhOzzi: Thanks for the compliment my friend! The signs are part of a SFBT  mod in betatesting made by royal who also made the railway signals. The mod and the signs are not public yet. @pizzazzip: Well, the darkest hour of night is the hour before sunrise. But it's still pretty dark here. Glad you liked it! @heitomat: Sometimes it needs just some new toys to play round it seems ... @TekindusT: Oh boy, if you do creeks as good as you do ghettos you might demotivate that ol' donkey of me!  Naah, just kidding. Focussing on only one aspect of the game might become boring that's why I like to do urban setups, industrial areas etc, too, from time to time- even though not half as good as your ghettos!  @Reikhardt: Glad you liked it. You know bigges doesn't always mean best or most beautiful ... @Samerton: Go and have lots of fun!