NorthStars

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!

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.

Introducing Triventa Okay, so I've been a leech. I've been coming into these forums, and on the Paradox CSL forums, happily checking out other people's awesome stuff, and I haven't really "given back" much of anything, besides a few posts over on Paradox. So, I figured it's time for me to be a bit more productive, so please allow me to introduce the City of Triventa... Current Date: April, 2060 Population: 48,533 Cash Reserve: 1.9 million credits Triventa is my third city, but the first two were just quick experiments to learn the basic controls, so it's the first 'real' city. My aim in building Triventa is to create a beautiful city that has grown entirely organically. My main strategy in doing that is to (normally) build small areas at a time, added to existing areas all over the city. In other words, instead of building an entire new district, and then moving on to another district to build, I only add little bits and pieces to each of my districts gradually, and keep moving around from one area to another to find new things to add. The result is that my city isn't nearly as 'neat' as some other ones I've seen. I'm still trying to create something that looks nice, but by only building small areas a little at a time, the overall effect is that Triventa is more irregular (and sometimes more chaotic!) than it could probably be. I like it that way, but sometimes the Triventans feel otherwise. So, let's start with a poster brought to you by the Triventa Tourism Board: The good folks at the Tourism Board shouldn't feel too comfortable in their jobs... the TTB's motto right now is... "74 tourists last year... a jump of 58%!" A couple of more shots to give you an idea of the overall skyline: On the motorway coming into town: And closer to the middle of town: I love seeing the downtown from this angle below... it shows some of the green spaces that are close to the heart of the city. And yes, you do spot TWO fires raging in the middle of my Central Business District while I'm happily snapping pictures of my creation... More shortly...

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?

I just put my house up for sale... I'm moving to Forkton!!

I don't envy you this task, Ben. Awesome that you're doing it, which we all appreciate, but the judging must be getting tougher and tougher. When you put the first couple of lists up, it was all pretty obvious (IMHO), but with more and more excellent quality work being done, putting a list like this together must getting more difficult every week. Like I say, though, it's much appreciated... fun to watch, and gives me a heads-up of cities I should be checking out!

Update #2: Usage of East Terminal Takes Off Current Date: October, 2081 Population: 72,201 Cash Reserve: 2.2 million credits 21 years has passed in Triventa since my last post. When I made that post in 2060, the major transportation hub that I showed pictures of, Triventa East Terminal, was fairly new. As the name would imply, it was built on the east side of town, and at the time it was built, there was very little population to the east of it. I knew I was going to slowly build in that direction, and I knew the airport would eventually be built to the east, so it made sense to build the hub there. However, the problem was that the whole concept of "hub" normally means something in the middle of things, and it was built more on the edge, so it wasn't used very much to start off with. Of course, it goes without saying that city planners were more than a little disappointed with the fact that their massive investment in this hub was used by so few people. The metro station arriving at the terminal, for example, was the last station on the line at that time, and was only used by about 20 people per week. And one of the two train terminal buildings in the hub stood empty for 20 years, because it was for a dedicated Airport Express train, and Triventa didn't even have an airport yet! Flash forward 21 years, and here's a map of the main part of Triventa, and you will see that Triventa East Terminal is now very much in the middle of things... The dramatic expansion of Stendehl Heights and Apremont to the east, along with the new airport being built in the south-east, has resulted in a new city reality that puts the East Terminal right at the heart of everything. The result is that there is now massive usage of the terminal. The metro station, for example, is the exchange point between two lines (one going downtown, and one leading to the eastern suburbs), and now has over 1000 people per week using it. The bus lines are packed, the skywalks in the area are pretty heavily used, and the trains are now getting very well-used. A screenshot of East Terminal in the afternoon: The purple train on the far right platform is the Airport Express, the orange train in the middle is an intercity line, and the green train on the left is a local suburban line about to head east to Apremont. The people on the platform across from the green train are waiting for the blue line that goes downtown and to west city. The shot below is early-evening: I totally love the Moving Sun mod by rmbackslash... I've got my day cycles set to about 12 minutes. Sure, we'd all love to eventually have nighttime in the game, but in the absence of that, this mod absolutely makes me feel like the city has a daily pulse to it. The early morning light, for example, casts a totally different mood over various neighborhoods than the afternoon, evening or nighttime. The fact that I can actually set the length of the day cycle is icing on the cake... I never would have dreamed that I'd have that degree of control over my city this early on after the game's release. Brilliant work, rmbackslash!! Next project up: With the success of the East Terminal, Triventans have decided to build a North Terminal, which is the new direction of growth in the city. The land for the North Terminal has already been allocated actually (you'll see it on the district map at the top of this post) and we expect construction to begin this year!

+1 on creating a beautiful and unique location!! You have demonstrated what I love about this game... between the lighting, the biome, the layout and the buildings we choose, cities can take on so many absolutely different looks. It's not like I'm going to see every style and think I'd like to use that myself, but just like going to an art gallery, I love seeing what others are doing and appreciating their work. So while I don't expect I'll be wanting to recreate this style myself, I really appreciate seeing the look -- well done!

I could continue to give a million compliments on Forkton, but right now I'm writing about two specific things: 1. The reworked Portside Interchange = Exquisite!!! That entire area now is beyond compare, but I particularly like the way you've done the interchanges themselves. I like that fact that your highways aren't designed 'over the top' in terms of extravagant networking, but they are still designed in a unique way that's distinctive in style. 2. That monument at the tip of the peninsula... for my part, two thumbs up. Personally, I think its setting lends a dramatic flair. Keep it up, iviaarten! I give a big "+1" to all the positive comments being posted about Forkton!!

I'm glad people like the signs. I agree about your point on the scale... I really struggled with that... to be big enough to read effectively, they have to span the lanes going in both directions, which in RL an overhead sign would almost never do. I just decided I liked the idea enough that I was okay with 'fudging' that little bit of real scale issue. :-) The one thing I gain by the 'full width' approach is that the back side of the sign is actually a separate sign for the traffic going in the opposite direction... so I get the value of two road signs for one imported asset.

Triventa Transit's East Terminal Hub When I started running into some traffic congestion issues, I decided my public transit was lacking, so I decided to build a major train-bus-subway hub in my east city district of Jathen. Jathen is more planned than the other ares of my city, so it's also got a really strong network of skywalks, which of course lead right into the East Terminal. The result seemed to have a really good impact on traffic in that area, although there's still a lot more I can do with it! I am really pleased with the sign I created for leading into the East Terminal area: The bus terminal building itself was only my second blender creation, so it's okay, but I would do it differently next time: But, I'm still mesmerized watching all my little buses stopping in the terminal. I don't know why I'm so fascinated by it, but I love the fact that my "Norven Green Line" buses all know to stop in the green lane, and then they go on their merry way to Norven! It all works!!! OK, I'm a geek!! Alright, that's all I can post for now... time to get to work and earn some RW $$$ so that I can come back and spend more hours playing CSL...

Triventa's Message of Appreciation I would be remiss if I didn't thank so many of you for all of your ideas (and mods & assets as well!) that have made their way into Triventa. In particular, IVIaarten provided some serious inspiration for me. My gratitude for that, THANK YOU! Of course, I've tried to make Triventa my own, but in shots like the ones below, you will probably see the influence of others on this forum...

UGGGH! That newest video does look really good! I must admit, it pains me that I can't buy this game. It looks amazing in so many ways. I agree with the 2km x 2km tiles being a problem, but everything else I see is darn close to exactly how I'd like to see it. I notice they seem to be having some problem with their release dates. The Amazon sales page says February 8, "in preparation for the official release of the game on February 12". But SimCity.com says March 5. What gives? That's a difference of 3 weeks! Oh well, it doesn't matter to me either way. I still can't get it due to the always-on connection to Origin, but I'll watch from a distance with big sad puppy-dog eyes. I won't give in, but for this game, I wish I could!