NorthStars

Thanks for the suggestion... I didn't know about that!

Coming from one of the masters, I really appreciate that, thank you!

Belmont's Name Under Consideration in City Council Wow, it's just come to the attention of the Belmont city council (after the Mayor did a Google search!) that Belmont was a name already used by someone else on a previous city journal. The council has gone into an emergency session to determine an appropriate response to this naming crisis.

Many of you have raised really good criticisms about some of the shortcomings of CSL. I don't think there's a single person who's really into city building who would disagree with the fact that we'd LIKE to see way better traffic, more stats, and better info-driven simulating on all fronts. Totally agreed! However, I just want to say, for my two little cents worth, I still love this game. And yes, that's 90% because of the mods/assets. But CO still created an environment which gave modders the opportunity to do what they've done, and IMHO, nobody else has done that (yet!!!) And, with due respect to those who have pointed out the weaknesses of CSL's graphics, I need to say in all honesty, when I look through some of the gorgeous city journals, that I just don't find the graphics of this game "horrible", as some folks have suggested. True, they could have improved on the graphics if they hadn't insisted on investing the memory in simulating every resident individually, and I absolutely would have preferred that! But the graphics are still pretty darn good, compared to what we've seen before in this genre. In terms of the whole "city painter" argument, I agree... I started playing this game hoping for a city simulator, and for me as with others, it's become more of a city painter. Do I find that a bit disappointing? Sure, yes I do. But OMG, it's a frackin' fun city painter!!! And it's not like there isn't ANY city simulation value happening. I paint away enjoyably, all the while watching my little cims zipping around and keeping an eye out for things happening in my city. And I've had 400 wickedly fun hours doing it. (...and I'm someone who hadn't been gaming for almost 5 years because I couldn't find games I enjoyed any more!) All I'm saying is that I know this game isn't precisely what I was hoping for, and I'm with many of you in saying that I'll still be watching out for new entries into this genre (including a CSL 2.0 if they ever do that), but in the meantime, I'm still having a blast creating my cities in this game.

This will be my last image for today. A friendly pick-up game under the Friday night lights in Donegal. This is a working-class industrial suburb... and (American) football is definitely the game of choice in this part of town.

More of the rail yards... I'm working hard to "budget" my props use in this kind of area, in order to preserve my processor speed. I'm shooting for a few well-placed props to create an impression of authenticity, even though it's hard for the whole scene to keep that level of realness without going crazy with the detailing. I've got an okay system, but it's no high-end gaming rig, so this kind of arithmetic is part of how I need to approach the game. Thoughts anyone?

I think Arlington District is probably my favorite area of the city so far. It's basically just a suburban commercial strip -- nothing special -- but I feel like it's got a realness to it that I really like. Even there, I still have a lot more to fill in, but I think this part is coming along really nicely. More of Arlington District... This one is labelled wrongly... this is actually the West Central Rail Yard. Anyone else find that you lose your compass bearings in your city sometimes???

I love the O'Mally farm... I had fun with this one. Belmont County was originally settled by a large percentage of Irish immigrants, such as Patrick O'Mally in Thunder Township south of the City of Belmont. But the region has become more diverse in recent years. Back into the city itself... I should say Belmont cims love their fast food. This is one of 3 Pizza Huts in the city already. And there are 5 KFCs and counting... you'll notice those in coming photos, I'm sure!

I'm trying to put life into my city, and to have some interesting stories along the way. My favorite CJs from others are the ones where the creator has put some background thought into the city's evolution and character. Hopefully I'll be able to do a bit of the same. Anyway, this is an early morning scene from Donegal Park. These two jokers (the ones whose cars are flipped over) apparently decided to do a little early hours drag racing on the industrial strip. Apparently, it didn't go so well. PS- I absolutely love how the traffic goes around the blocked lane. I used the mod (sorry, I forget which one it is!) that allows you to control lane selection, and about 10 meters back from the collision, I forced the right lane to merge into the left. Then, with the pylons and the blinking merge left arrows, I think it re-creates this scene beautifully! PS- The darker side of me actually searched the workshop for a 'covered corpse' asset... no luck... probably just as well!! The line leading up to North Bend is one of my rural areas. There's so much I want to do with this line... I just hope my FPS holds out long enough for me to get it all done. I love the skyline just visible in the background in this image. BTW... sorry some of my images are uploading twice... apparently this is a current bug on the site.

This is the first stadium I built. Then I got the Stadium/Football DLC, and built two more major stadiums. For a city of 35,000 with 3 massive stadiums, Belmont CIMS must be wickedly fanatical about their sports teams!! I'm not too happy about this area yet. I've tried to build up the entire city to its current size quickly, so that I have something to work with, and now I'm slowly going back over areas and adding detail. As a result, everywhere I look, there's work to be done. I have a sense of what it is meant to look like eventually, but it's going to take a lot of hours to get it there. Plus, I'm sure some of my plans will change along the way. Anyway, this junction is definitely fodder for big changes later.

Well, it's been a while since I contributed anything here (my first CJ was the City of Triventa). That's mainly because I felt that so many people were doing so many more impressive things, I just didn't think I had anything even close to "worthy" to post up. However, thanks to so many awesome Youtube series, such as Strictoaster's, I have been watching and learning how to use a few of the many amazing mods and assets that have been produced. Thank you to everyone who has made those incredible contributions to the community!! I am but a little man standing on the shoulders of giants. OK, enough humility. Now my CJ... I finally feel like I have something I'm starting to be pretty happy with. The City of Belmont is fairly small (35,000 right now) and I want to keep it on the small side for the purpose of FPS. The max limit I'm shooting for is 100K. Belmont has a small core, plus two subsidiary cores on the opposite side of the Belmont River (Belmont North and Scarborough), and a series of outlying suburbs and rural areas beyond. I'm thinking of starting a Youtube series on Belmont myself, but I'll wait and see if the city seems to be received well here before deciding that. Enjoy the City of Belmont... Don't ask me why, but I just love my FedEx Distribution hub below. Just feels very 'real' to me. The rail yard has also had some TLC, but everywhere I look, there's a tonne more that I want to work on in the details!

And, now, the good folks from the Triventa Tourism Board would like to present their latest Triventa Tourism Poster: Regrettably, the people at the TTB aren't very good at their jobs.

That graveyard shot is eerie. That's a lot of capacity for dead folks! :-) Great work, Balthoraz!!

You need to edit your first post and use "more options", there you can update the title. Btw, nice city! Thanks on both counts!

Informational question here... I noticed that most city journals update the main topic title each time there's an update. I feel stupid, but even though I created this topic myself, I can't find where to change the title of the topic. Anyone help pls?