Zhatt

Hey all! It's been a very very long time since I spent time in these forums. In fact all my old post and city journals don't show in my history since the forums have been overhauled once or twice since I posted them. But I wanted to share my news series I've been working on for a while since I think you'll find it informative. It covers city-builders, management simulations, and general tycoon games. Here's the episode for this month: And if you enjoyed that, here's the full playlist. I'm always looking to improve the quality and content of these videos, so if you have any suggestions, let me know! -Zhatt

Here's the second half of the news for this month.

I never heard of City Builder Games forum. Too bad its gone now as I would have been quite active there. I'm glad you're enjoying the videos, Ocram. I'll be sure to put Children of the Nile of my list of games to look at.

I noticed that a few people were making the Arcos from SC2K in the BAT and needed information so I'm posting them all here. The Plymouth Acro is Solid as a Rock, or so claims Plymouth Arcologies, Inc. It is knows that they have stood through sevreal earthquakes, notably in the NeoRepublic of Mexico and the Taiwan CoProsperity Region. Plymouth Arcologies are designed primarily to suppory heavy industries, as witness Greenland Motors, maker of the Narwhal 3000. This might not be such a good choice if you are overly concerned about pollution. Plymouth Arcos cost $100,000 and can attract up to 55,000 residents. The Forest Arcology is named for its attractive forest setting on the top level. Throughout the structure, citizens utilize recycling, operate ecologically sound industries, and maintain a rich verbal haritage that replaces television and radio. Unfortunately, the youth of Forest Acros are bored silly and roam out into your city where they stare mindlessly at soap operas and sports programs displayed in the electrionics department at local malls. Building a Forest Arcology costs $120,000 and can attract up to 30,000 residents. 'Darco' is slang for De-Urbanized Arcological Constuct. Originally designed by the twisted genius of Dante McCallavre, the artist/architect proclaimed it a reactionary response to the rigid, archetypal Arcologies of his day. No one really knows what this means, and many engineers are frankly baffled at how the thing stay standing. Inside the ill-lit corridors twists into odd, meandering corscrews that tysteriously turn back on themselfs. There are rumors that a strange sub-species of man inhabits the air ducts. Darcos cost $150,000 and can attract up to 45,000 brave souls. 'Launch' Arcologies were nicknamed for their resembleance to modern orbital launchers. The resemblance is not entirely coincidental, as sophisticated methiods of biological support were necessary to oxygenate and feed the thousands of inhabitants. While never tested, the manufactures claim the occupants could stay self-contained for up to two decades. The sides of the Arcology are equipped with vernier jets to stabilize the structure during storms and earthquakes. A small nuclear facility independently powers the building; spare energy is stored by electrolyzing water into two tanks for oxygen and hydrogen. The 'Launch Arco' is the larget, costing $200,000 and holding 65,000 inhabitants. Hope that helps *Edit: I noticed I keep switching between Arco (the real word) and Acro. When I played this game when I younger, that's the way I always said it and it just sorta stuck. Also note that the game switchs between Plymoth and Plymouth*

Hello again everyone! You might not remember me, but I started a Simcity 2000 journal was back. About a year ago infact. I've decided to start it up again just for the heck of it. The original CJ was here , but all the images are broken, so you can view all the past chapters as well as all future chapters it's own webpage: St. James' Falls official webpage Here's a quick overview of the city in 1985. Click here for a larger view with names of the areas. http://isra.dynalias.org:8080/Zhatt/sjf/7-14/01.jpg width=800 align=baseline> There are about 15,000 residents in the city with a 17% unemplyment rate. Residential demand is going into the negitive and comercial and industrial demand is peaking near the limit. There are still no civic buildings such as schools, or emergency services as the city is only profiting about 1,500 simolions a year. The city has a 10,000 simolion outstanding bond with a 5% intrest rate. Expect the style to change a little. Reading everything before this point almost embarrasses me with the quality of writing and all the spelling mistakes I needed to fix. I'm also using a different version of SimCity 2000 witch does not work quite right. I do not have access to newspapers and I am unable to pay off the last 10,000 on my loan. Any ways, on to the next chapter...

Twould be nice if I could see the pictures... Sorry 'bout that, having some server problems. They should all be there now. By the way, I REALLY miss the individual taxes for separate industries!! That's something I was planning on showing.

Alright. I'll keep at it. Next update I think I'll show some of the features that we've lost in SC4.

Hum. No replies yet? If no one is intrested in this, I think I just may stop.

Chapter 10: The Millennium Tour http://isra.dynalias.org:8080/Zhatt/sjf/7-14/08.jpg width=800 align=baseline> It's the year two-thousand and St. James' Falls is 103 years old. I think its about time for a little tour of the city. Shown above are the areas we will be visiting. First up, Downtown. #1 - Downtown http://isra.dynalias.org:8080/Zhatt/sjf/7-14/10.jpg align=baseline> It's mid-day, so the traffic is quite heavy here. Up to the north is the relaxing, once top-notch, Waterside Hospital. I say once top-notch, because since it was such a nice hospital, no one wanted to leave. Now it is over-crowded and under-staffed. Right on Main Street is City Hall and the PDSJF HQ. It's called that because the Chief complained that he couldn't fit Police Department of St. James' Falls Headquarters on his cruiser. Note the five churches here. Churches only pop-up on dense-res and once they do, are no longer zoned as such, therefore, never go away. Unless you blow them up yourself, but I doubt the sims would like that. Last we take a look at the Ainkin Fire Department, named after Firefighter Charles Ainkin. The fire department pride themselves on not having a name as silly as the PDSJF HQ. #2 - Westhill Park & Bronze Beach http://isra.dynalias.org:8080/Zhatt/sjf/7-14/09.jpg align=baseline> Here we are at the two most expensive parts of SJF. At the Galaxa Hotel you can see some of the highest rates for a room in the SimNation. On the West side of the building, that is, where you can get a view of the ocean and beautiful mansions. On the East side you see nothing but industrial, rail and a big empty lot for the to-be seaport. Some say the seaport will run Galaxa out of town, but it didn't happen at Westhill Park. Westhill park is, and always was, a high-class, environment-friendly area, yet, even in the early days of city expansion, large industrial factories have been build just next door. Right now Carbell Organic Chemical Manufacturing (COC Mfg.) takes the spot of the blight of society. Every morning all the COC employees take an hour to go though all the inquires about what they're going to do about the smell. Westhill Park people are stubborn people, and aren't going to move any time soon. They even kept the name Westhill despite the fact that they are now on the east side of the city. Next to Westhill park is the Hill Hospital. They used Hill instead of Westhill as not to confuse people trying to find the hospital, as if they went west, they would end up at Waterside Hospital, wicth, as already mentioned, is over-crowded. #3 - Ambit Island http://isra.dynalias.org:8080/Zhatt/sjf/7-14/11.jpg width=437 align=baseline> Ambit Island is the third highest-valued place in SJF and is known for being the home of the mayor. Lucky him. It is also known for have a very ugly bridge. So ugly infact, that it became it's official name. The mayor thinks it's just the bureaucrats in City Hall getting back at the mayor for the recent tax hike. #4 - The Ugly Side http://isra.dynalias.org:8080/Zhatt/sjf/7-14/12.jpg align=baseline> There's not much in the northeast side of SJF but industrial and the road out of town. To the north is Pocket Lake were over 15 pumps deliver water to the hungy factories. The reason we visit this area is because it has two of the oldest buildings in the city, Old Smoky the coal-power-plant and the old water tower. The internals of Old Smokey have been upgraded and replaced many times, but the exterior is original. Soon this building will be knocked down and a new, more efficient plant will be built up on the hills. Every day Mr. Willson Montgomery writes a letter demanding that the building stand as it a part of the city's heritage. The official response from city hall was Shup up you old hack, you still have the water tower!. Member of the council, Tom Goodwill, was fired the next day. Hope you liked the tour. I'll have some downloads of the city up in a bit. The file is smallar than any one of these pictures.

Thanks pmiller19574. I think i got it figured out. I mostly needed to turn off Auto Lease so I didn't accidently pay when I could have just waited. Here's a pic of mine so far. The Strawberrys work great. Odd thing was Strawberry Fields by the Beatles come on when I took this shot. Sorry for jacking the thread.

I played this game for the first time last night, and it's hard! I couldn't make any money; all my crops kept going bad. They only way I could make a good crop was to keep pumping fertiliser on it all time time. Also, what's the point of buying machinery if you can get (rent?) it from the town any ways? By the way, if your intrested in old Maxis games, check out my St. James' Falls CJ made with Simcity 2000.

Chapter Nine One of the power plants have already been relocated to the north, far from the city and work has started on the new line. (1996) http://isra.dynalias.org:8080/Zhatt/sjf/7-14/06.jpg align=baseline> Industry was struggling in this area because of commute times, so a new low-class residential area was built for the factory workers. Some higher class houses were also built near the large park. The park is part of the plan to lower pollution on the east side. More residential was zoned north of downtown creating the new gated community of Leature Creek as seen in the picture below. You can also see in this picture the slow expansion of downtown to the west. (1997) http://isra.dynalias.org:8080/Zhatt/sjf/7-14/07.jpg align=baseline> There have also been some changes to the train switching yard. Sorry for just the small update, but alot of my time was just waiting for money. I think next update I'll do a tour of the city and work on some details.

Chapter Eight: Taking care of bussiness Ever since its founding, the citizens of St. James' Falls have been asking for protection. Protection from crime, fire and disease. The mayor knows that unless he deals with these demands, the city will always be behind and no longer expand. Here's a quick look at the city; first is the road network, next to that is crime, on the bottom left is pollution and last is land value. http://isra.dynalias.org:8080/Zhatt/sjf/7-14/02.jpg align=baseline border=0> Most of the pollution is coming from the coal-burning power plants, but those were slowly being phased out of the city and new ones built up on the hills by the hydro dam. Crime wasn't as large of a problem and rampant as the Mayor thought it was, but none the less, new police stations needed to be built. http://isra.dynalias.org:8080/Zhatt/sjf/7-14/03.jpg align=baseline border=0> http://isra.dynalias.org:8080/Zhatt/sjf/7-14/04.jpg align=baseline border=0> Shown here are the new police and fire stations in the industrial area (left) and the new hospital and the police station down town by city hall and the creek. Another fire station was also place downtown later as well as another hospital by the east end of the Opus Ave. Bridge. It's 1900 and now that some of the citizens immediate concerns were taken care of, the Mayor could deal with some of his own. http://isra.dynalias.org:8080/Zhatt/sjf/7-14/05.jpg align=baseline border=0> Here's the plan for a new cargo line for the new industrial sector and future seaport. Some sections will be easy such as in the south where planning a ahead has left a rail allowance, but there are still three major problems. Mainly the three coal-burning power plants. Residents of the Westhill park area have been complaining for years that the power plants have been making the whole east side of the river stink and that the site of the old 4th power plant just plain looks ugly. The new 4th plant is up on the hills and that's where the rest should be going, but each plant costs about 4000 simolians each. It would take the city about 10 years to make enough to move the plants. It's not as bas as it sounds for the city, because that gives the old power plants time to live out the rest of their normal life. (each only lasts about 50 years). So rail will start to be put in now, but the new line won't be done before the year 2000. After that, there's still many items on the to-do list: schools, seaport, airport. The mayor starts to think that the best way to celebrate the new century might just be a tax increase. Seven percent it is. Let's just hope that everyone doesn't get up and leave the city.

This is the only CJ I read. I hope he's not dead.

Woh. Looks good. I didn't think something like that would be posible. I think you're going to have a ton of trubble editing the train paths. As far as I know, no ones done such a thing yet.

I still love this CJ. I believe its the best on this page. The only problem I have with it is that since its not updated very offten, I only check it once a month or so. So I have to surf though a bunch of pages of other peoples posts (im sure they're aprecated by lewellan222, but I dont have the time to read them all my self. So I can't wait till you get its own page running so I have have pure Digby. And if the page is already running, what's the address?

Here's yet anouther vote for Vancouver, BC, Canada. It has nearly all the transportation options, downtown fis nicely on one map, and almost everyone commutes to or thu downtown once a day. One major problem would be that Vancouver's Downtown is almost compleatly diagonal. Unless we can mod the game enough as buildings can grow on the 45 degree Vancouver wont work. As for maps, I have a great one if we do choose Vancouver: VanMap It has every building, lot, street, lamp post and sewer main on the map. I also have a map of zoning information somewhere. I'll see if I can find it

I was looking at the great job you did on thoes Rising-Sun Oil tanker cars and it suddenly reminded me of the lego gas company, Octan. http://www.igl.co.uk/english/Kids/stunt/Octan.jpg> Just thought that it might look good on a car if your in need of more fictional company names.

I decided I might as well throw the Lama Dome in here too. Not only can you get a breath-taking view of the city from here, cators to weddings and bungi jumping. Many people have also claimed sighting llamas from this location. This is still being looked into. I also have a little request. I always liked the simple look of the fusion power plant from 2000. I have a pictue here if someone would like to recreate it. It dosn't have to be a powerpalnt even. Maybe just a high-tech building. If no one wants to do it, oh well. I'm not exactly craving it.

Airports (if used) will be very intresting. Here are some quotes from the X-Plane page. It's an FAA certified flight simulator that lets you fly on earth and mars. Landings are impossible without arresting gear. If you can work the flare out right (it IS possible with advance planning) then you will touch down doing about 400 mph. Now how do you stop? ->PARACHUTE? NOPE!!!! 400 mph is only 40 mph worth of drag due to the thin air. You will run off the end of the runway going 100 mph with the chute only seeing 10 mph: USELESS for slowing down ->BRAKES? NOPE!!! You only have one-third gravity, so only 1/3 of your weight on the wheels. NO TRACTION! ->Reverse thrust? NOPE!!!! With only 1% atmosphere, jet or prop engines can put out basically no thrust... just barely enough to keep the airplane in flight at mach-0.85.. the jet plane needs a JATO to take off! So how do you stop? I finally went with ARRESTING GEAR. I know of no other way to avoid blasting off the end of the runway at 200 knots with the chute uselessy deployed and brakes uselessly locked. If you don't know Arresting gear is, it's what they use on aircraft carriers. It's a wire that goes across the runway that the plane grabs onto with a hook on the bottom. So what sort of planes can fly on Mars? Not anything from Earth, that's for sure. Not enough lift or thrust. A Cessna or Boeing will just sit there on the ground without even moving. Put them in the air and they drop like beveled bricks with no wings. Both of my Mars-plane concepts are much like the U-2 Spyplane (designed to operate at around 100,000 ft, in simlar density air) one with a HUGE high-bypass jet engine built AROUND THE FUSELAGE, and another with a smaller rocket engine in the tail, like the X-15. The rocket plane has a lower-thrust engine, with plenty of fuel, for about 30 minutes of flight or so... the JET plane can fly for hours! By the way, if anyone is intrested, you can find X-plane here: http://x-plane.com/default.html

Anouther idea: I've been thinking about the roads and trains. At first I'm thinking that all roads would be coverd so people could walk on them without a suit, as suits are dangerous, or at the very least, unefficiant. Even if all perdestrians were removed it wouldnt make much sence for someone to get in their spacesuit, go outside to get to their car, and remove the suit as soon as they're in the're car. Same with the trains. Not all of the traintracks would have to be enclsed, but at least the stations. I'm not too sure where I was going with this. just throwing out ideas. Edit: I always thought hovering cars and trains is a silly idea. It's unrealistic as it would be almost imposible to control and it has no real advantages. With mars having 1/3 the garvity and 1/10 the atmoshpher of earth, the real problem would be keeping cars ON the road. I think the farthest we should go is Mag-Lev trains. Altho with no friction from the track and almost none from the air, it could easly go the speed of sound and beyond. Think of the commute times!

I agree with domes for the lower class buildings. Not all the domes will look the same as in-game they'll be made by sepreate companys and in reality, they'll be made by differnt modders, so some will be glass, some plastic, some stuctured, some build like tents. Also, not all the domes have to be clear with the insides showing. Maybe only green-house like buildings would be that way. Some would have windows and some would have no glass/plastic at all. If a dome is made out of glass, not much of the inside will show anyways as the dust on mars would slowly turn it red. Or at least when it becomes abandoned.

How are you going to make the Airport, with the diagonal runways? Some of them run on to the other map too.

lewellan222, I'm afraid you have Photoshop Fever. I find a simple cure is to look at some interesting tutorials, learning a few new techniques, playing with the program for hours on end, delete everything you just made and move on. Most of what you have posted in the last few days has nothing to do with simcity. Not that I don't enjoy a joke now and then but I wana see your region!

More work has been done on the censored picture, now more can be seen. The public deserves to know! Want to know what's really going on? We want YOU! Join the Digby Coverup Group today!