garyF

Apologies for putting this up so late. Yea, lots of work (especially my new plopped region). This one is a close up of the city I posted in "Ushering the Industrial Age" with Dark Night effects. Hope you like it. I tried stitching these two vertical panoramas, but it just didn't work out. There'll be one last city I plan to finish "growing" before I devote my entire SC4 time to the plopped region. (The one with many tunnels and bridges.)

well folks, it's been a while since i last posted, because i was up to something I didn't like to do all this while... plopping. but it gave me more control of what i wanted where. this is a picture of what was going on while you waited. suggestions are welcome (actually, needed ) as i am plopping a whole region for the first time!~ (thanks to all those on ST who inspire me to continue playing this game, even after 11 years since its inception)

nice to know that the multiplayer thing is underway. i had voted for it a long, long time ago... (can't remember :P)   is it too late to join?

very well done, Hiigarar!~ WTF!~ (well, that's fantastic!~)   :-)

woah!~ very nice indeed... i noticed you were taking quite some time to post a new entry to your CJ, but then i got busy with my own exams and didn't see that you posted on 29th!~   this theme is very novel indeed!~ sorry to say i was disappointed to know that twitter.com/Chihiro_Mayuzumi does not exist. i thought to follow him there as well. ;-)   and most importantly, nice city. :-) hmm... the japanese have switched to learning RHD? darn... i have a LHD licence :-( :P (just when I thought of cruising in Beika City x-( )   there's lots of detail to be appreciated in your city, including the painstaking street wires. i was about to post my pictures, but now you're making me rework and rethink of what the SC4 hobby actually is... x-( :-)  

nice night pictures :-)   but i'd prefer the Simtanic near the docks... or maybe a bit further out into the sea... it looks like it's aground.

Replies (in the spoiler) A balloon ride over Wind "Welcome dear Guest," says Mayor Wanda, as she invites you to her mansion in Wind Village. "It isn't very windy here," she jokes, "but it'll be useful for a hot air balloon ride over my little cove. We will go up tomorrow morning." As you get in her house, the sims of Wind flock outside to greet you, their first visitor. "They're so glad you stopped by," she said. If you're thinking why the village was named Wind, it's not because of the south-easterly winds. It's because of the neighbouring village of Breeze. And of course, Wanda wanted something to go with her name. As you go up, you see her keen liking of symmetry. It's Hot in Oven All this farming has made the sims self sufficient. They now want to progress ahead. Mayor Fry is given the responsibility of creating the first industrial city in Casdent: Oven. With the population swelling over a 1000, Mayor Fry is advised to provide the sims with a house of worship. The advisors said that it helps calm frayed nerves, especially binary ones. Not too impressive in the night. But most of all, the advisors mentioned that it gives a sense of relief to the sims knowing that their loved ones can rest in peace after they crash… um… die. Keeping a power pole at the top of the graveyard ensured that the spirit becomes one with the heavens and the electricity which flowed through the sims houses. That way, the sims would be assured that their loved ones do not roam around as undead. Too eerie for a night mode picture? And we shall zoom in the next time!~ ;-)

nice use of bats and props :-) but isn't it getting a bit repetitive?   I like the story... always wanted to create a region from scratch with a nice story, but it never worked out for me :-( I want to see Provident Bay come up and its natural harbour develop!~ (maybe with PEG's CDK? ;-) )

Ted, one of the more discerning sims, realised that rampant development was bound to create problems. He was wise, for his mother was a well-established researcher in the early days of the Empire; and she passed on wisdom when they were travelling to find a new land. She used to tell him stories every night about life, the universe and everything. Sadly, it seems smartness has its side effects. She decided that 42 was the age to die (instead of the common sense age of 100 (which in my opinion, is as stupid anyway)) and so on her forty-second birthday party, she bade farewell to everyone on the ship and was never seen again. Ted, now 24, saw the sims just trying to rampantly colonise the land; and decided to go some distance and create a food resource for the hungry sims. Of course, there were those who were against him, for they feared that he might gain total control once he came to power. The sims broke up into a number of groups, each one with its own radical ideas. What happens next can only be feared now. Leaving the other power-hungry sims aside, Ted went up the banks of the Casdent River (another river, which fed into the same sea) and built a farmland there. But first, of course, he got his house built with pomp and splendour. The farmlands were criss-crossed with canals, essential for irrigation. On one of those occasional hot air balloon rides over the town, we can clearly see the edges of the village. The sim world is flat indeed! Ted ensured the continuous supply of water and electricity by installing water wheels and windmills. Small shops already sprung up, catering to the grocery needs of the sims. A power transformer provided an extra boost of electricity stability. Across the river, on the other side of the village, more shops spring up. The engineering feat of the village: a stone bridge across the river. It cost ¤2000 and six months to build. Ted was wise. He built a clinic early on so that sims don't die to disease, as many of the members of the Expedition died. As we let the sleepy little village of Breeze rest… Next up: The neighbour village tile of Breeze.

you've cramped up everything so well!~ :P no wonder the airport is on the other side of town... i thought the mysore palace would be a good addition to the city.. ;-)   a lot of tunnels out there... i'll definitely need an underground map too! :D   and speaking of airport... i see two tunnels coming out!~

well, I rather missed your SC4 cities... which gameplay is this on?

Elsewhere, a few sims of Rasper had a sixth sense of danger about their existence. They were afraid that the computer they were existing on was going to crash. And so, they tried to convince a bunch of people and set out on an expedition to find a safer, stable region. They did have to look far. For they spent many sim years travelling and didn't find a safe region. The generation that set out on the expedition never got to see the new land. Months of trekking and sailing harsh environments took its toll. Out of the 579 people who set out, only 174 remained. They heard a loud crash, louder than the Big Bang: and they realised that the Rasper region crashed, the computer unable to continue further due to technical issues. They chanced upon a computer which was quite stable and had a lot more RAM. They searched a folder in which was rendered a river valley, and they liked it. And so they decided to settle down in that river valley they called Casdent Valley. The place was very fertile, with a huge potential to support over a million people. They just hoped that they would reproduce quickly enough to fill the region, for their numbers were already dwindling. A grove of orange trees was found on the banks of the Suweg River. That was where they would begin their new life. They began a new calendar from the year 0. The farms began to grow. And houses began to spring up. Sims began to get thirsty, so they built a water tower in the centre of their village. They thought that grocery shopping would be much easier under a roof, and so two enterprising sims built two small shops. Another fertile site was across the river. A rural bridge connected the farms there to the original settlements. Power lines shared the wind power to the new village. With the growing population, more small shops were needed. And that was the development for that day. The sims rested well that night, and all 174 of the expedition were proud of their settlement. Sleepy little Casdent Valley. The next day saw the growth of dirty and manufacturing industries in the centre. The sims are beginning to get industrious! No sooner did the industries come up than the sims realised they were poorly prepared for the development. That's what happens with uncontrolled growth. The lone wind power plant was not enough to meet the demands of the industry, and something needed to be done very soon. The day closed with some houses not being powered at all! How can the sims solve this problem before growth is stopped? How much money and time would be spent before this problem can be addressed? It's very taxing for the sims.

I think japan drives on the left side of the road... ;-) otherwise, I like the metropolis :-)

i don't know if i use the "bridge height mod"... i haven't installed it myself, but I've included NAM 32. the problem is that the special textured and covered street bridges are all high. the others are at normal land level.

nice curves you've got there!~

feeroz123, this is really a nice city... :-) and how did you get that Chamber of Commerce and Industry? and all those high-rises so fast? do you use CAM?

Since my laptop crashed without any backup of the previous Echo Valley, i will start on this new region, SITW01 by NHP. I have named it Rasper. The sims were furious at what turned out to be the provision of the Empire. The Emperor tricked the rebel sims into almost obliterating them by giving them Echo Valley province. The ruse was to gather all the rebels together and then obliterate the entire region (Maxis SC4 is very good at it) and get rid of all the rebels of the Empire once and for all. But, as is the stuggle for survival, the sims found out and escaped to Rasper. They vowed to get their revenge: a very bitter one. (Image files are 1-2 MB and 1360x768 in size) Rasper region: The sims founded the capital of Rasper and named it, well, Capital. (Marked in red in the region map.) Farms were set up to grow the food for the expecting flood of people going to fill the valley in which it is situated. The overall view garyF

cool :-) i like your region mosaic and the airline mods :-)

@feeroz123 & @City_Master: thanks :-)   next up.. the industrial revolution... ;-)

i'm using blunder's PNW tree controller. it CTDs even though i've installed it to a vanilla installation (no other plugins except for LK's applachian mod, which co-exists with PNW tree mod) of SC4 deluxe with the official EA patch. every time i try to place trees on the edge of a city (i.e. the tree brush circle extends over the boundary of the city tile) in god mode, it crashes. i've set the -CPUcount:2 and it works flawlessly (so far i haven't had any CTDs after 5 hours of gameplay, so i assume that these two plugins work perfectly.) i think 3 CPUs may affect SC4. however, i see (as far as tree controllers is concerned (keeping to the topic )) that 2 CPUs is perfect. i guess one then goes to render the graphics and display while the other processes the game engine.

Sorry guys :'( A terrible problem happened. While checking out the LK_Appalachian_Snow_Terrain and all those terrain effects which needed hardware rendering, i crashed my installation. Actually, maybe it was my fault. I played in VirtualBox so far, which gave only software rendering. So I thought to install Windows XP directly on my laptop to play the game. But my laptop turned out to be far too advanced for XP. While installing, some MBR-GPT-BIOS stuff got wrong, (also some AHCI and SATA problems) and XP managed to delete my hard disk :'( I recovered my files and important documents... but couldn't recover my virtual XP machine on which SC4 was there with my game (since it was 25 GiB). So long.. Echo Valley :'( This happened exactly one week back. And the staunch SC4 player i am, after one week of getting the fixes right (XP is just not compatible with my i5 lappy :P ) i finally installed XP to my lappy with SC4 Deluxe :P   For those who are following me, should i continue with this city journal (a fresh restart, of course) or start a new region?   I was thinking of doing something on Japan (and out of the SC4 grid). Does anyone know how to take a snapshot of two or more regions together (not the Region view, but detailed city view) or is image editing and merging the only option? (It would be nice not to be restricted to the city grids while building.)

The prospect of a new home attracts many. Once they heard that a liberal state of Echo Valley was founded, they wanted to move into its capital quickly. Of course, for the wealthy, it means buying a nice estate at dirt cheap prices, in the beginning at least. But... No sooner was the natural gas power station set up than a fire broke out. Some call it bad luck. Hardly four months into the year, the citizens loved their mayor so much, that they almost maxed out the mayor rating meter! Maybe pride comes before a fall? I'd earlier zoned the land as industrial. Now i replaced it with agriculture and moved the dirty industries to the neighbouring city. Oh yeah, my relative sim, Bob Newbie decided to move in right behind my house! What a copy-cat! I think he's trying to show off by copying my courtyard style, but with a bigger compound! x-( After my work hours, i have fun driving... not my limo, but the neighbourhood school bus. The children wanted to see the newly built underground highway.

The government was grappling with a problem: its sims were bursting at its seams with most of them living a substandard life. A rebel group threatened to overthrow the democracy and set up a monarchy, led by one of their prominent leaders. The government was taunted for years of oppression and compared with other countries where the sims lived a utopian life. So, the government decided to get rid of the rebels by giving them a piece of land to manage on their own. They were given the newly captured territory north of the northernmost bounds. It was named Echo Valley; due to the way the hill ranges were placed, one could always hear an echo if you were in this place (and made a really loud sound). The government made an agreement with the rebels: it would recognise them as a separate nation as long as they could sustain themselves. The government pact included a map, which showed the boundaries of the Echo Valley region, and what was to become their home. Thanks to gjahn for the Now there was one peculiarity about the rebel sims. They were so impressed by the Egyptian civilization and their use of the right angle, that they decided to make their new home based on squares, even if it looked a bit unnatural. After all, they were fed up with the government and its non-square boundaries. They all agreed that the square was the pinnacle of perfection (and simplicity). So they began marking out cities in their new region. Casdent was marked out as the capital of Echo Valley. It was decided from the very beginning that this city would be the nerve centre of the entire region, and also the largest. It was funded a million simoleons to build up all the infrastructure. And this is how I came to be mayor of Casdent. I hope to share the development of one of the most crowded cities built. With the help of simtropolis maps, modifications (mods) and plugins, let's see how many sims can fit into one large city. I begin with placing the underground highways first, since it'll be very difficult to place them later on without destroying the buildings and development. Here's the first underground highway tunnel built: I'm trying to go underground with the highways since it's neater and i can cramp in more sims. I've used the NAM's hole digger to build this. It's tricky, and it requires both the ends of the tunnel to be at the same level. Well, you can imagine the dynamite blasts of the tunnel construction uprooting the trees above it. Technically, i used streets to level one end of the tunnel to the other. The sad part is, Maxis never programmed tunnels to go underwater, so i'm forced to build bridges there. Here's a bit more of the network: And it took me six hours to get this network (mostly tunnels) right. You can see the tree line where the highway goes underground.

Sorry guys; i wanted to update this post, but my NIC card got fried up just after i posted my comment. :-( Using a USB converter now; will upload more pictures in the next post.