TheJerseyDevil73

Edmonton and Alberta.... Many on Simtropolis know me to be very proud of Edmonton and Alberta (Canada to if it wasn't for the east). And many of those who follow this City Journal know I like to add real life content to the recreation to give everyone a feel for the real Edmonton. Edmonton and Alberta are among the strongest and fastest growing economies on earth. And with no debt and nearly 10billion in surplus each year our future is looking very bright. Alberta is home to more Oil then the United States has of there own and rights to. But to think Alberta only has oil is out of the question. Edmonton is host to Canada's most diverse economy. Everything from construction to nanotechnology. Also having Canada's highest rated health system (capital city health by MacLeans Magazine) and the worlds second best school system (Alberta 2nd to Hong Kong by the United Nations). With so much oil and extra money each year the Alberta government has also decided to give every man women and child $400 each at the end of this year. There is over 3million people in Alberta... Now only if we could have our 25C summers for more then 5months..... I'm not looking forward to winter... Here is an article that stood out today at work. It gives a good perspective of where our economy and standard of life stand vs anywhere else. https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//Alberta%20Boom.jpg align=baseline>

Ajs : Pending on your computer you could make any size. earth if you wanted. Edmonton : here is a look at the Edmonton Expanded Map as shown just the other day but with a google earth picture at somewhat the same angle. Edmonton is also done in half winter and summer if your wondering about the colors. How fitting lol.

How to extend your region in SimCity.... 1. Open your region file.... (Example) C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\SimCity 4\Regions\City of Edmonton 2. Open up your config file with MSN Paint. You should see a picture like so.... (when magnified / zoomed in). This is a picture of the original City of Edmonton config. 3. Now when you go into your attributes (picture dimensions) you will see your config size/region size. For Example the picture above is 19x20. Each is number is equal to one small city in the region. 4. Why is there different colors? Red - Small City (1x1) Green - Medium City (2x2) Blue - Large City (4x4) When you add to your region you must use these colors. Aswell as use them in the right sizes for each city size. For each color the value must be 255. So for red the amount of red must be 255 with the green and blue saturation being less then 255 each. 5. How do I expand it? If you have a 19x20 Region go into your attributes and change them. For Example I changed Edmonton to 25x22 for the expansion. Now you will notice a blank white area added to your config. Depending on what city sizes you want you can add the proper color and size for each lot as shown above. You can add to make different shapes if you wish. Any white area left wont show up in the game. Note : When you add to the attributes (size of the config) it always goes to the right (east) and bottom (south). So this limits how and where you can expand. If you wanted to expand in the other directions you would have to move all of your previous config into the expanded area. But to do this it gets complicated. You will need a second copy of the region (old copy). Now when you enter your new altered region you will notice all maps are blank and moved. Now you will have to hand copy and place every city in its right spot. On the bright side you would have new land to the North and the West but you would have to do alot of work. 6. Now this is Edmonton Expanded. And shows how it should look if you expand your region. 7. You can also fill in colored areas with white to take areas out of your map, or even shrink your region if you want. Also before rendering maps you can change your config (exsisting cities only, no adding land at that point) to get different city sizes. And if you do change city sizes in an exsisting regions or already rendered regions you will end up with flat blank maps in the altered areas. Loosing previous land or cities. Please ask any questions if you have them. And back up any region you are going to try this on.

louisville327 : I'm not planning anymore expansion right now..... but there is always the chance. It is easy to expand to the south and the east...but to the north and the west I would have to export and place every city back in place after a new jpeg is made.... but with going east and south you just add to the jpeg and go on playing. This is true for any region. Just north of the map is a large military base and landing strip. South is the Internation Airport and a few towns. To the West, North, And North East is a couple more towns of various sizes. In real life there within 10minutes of Edmonton. But to include them in the region I would have to expand quite alot. Simen : I haven't checked out that tutorial. But making up curved roads in any style of region isn't that hard. You just have to use simple math and keep to a pattern. As for remaking them in game...Its just using the game to its limits and taking measurements to double check and line all up....

E.J.C. - The city in small tiles is.... Edmonton - 19x20 small cities (1216x1280 lots) 1,556,480 Sherwood Park - 6x8 small cities (384x512 lots) 196,608 Elerslie Road - 8x2 small cities (512x128 lots) 65,536 So 444 small city tiles to fill, or 1,818,624 tiles to fill... Simen - If you look at the picture above with the roads and power lines you'll see how its done. The roads and avenues slowly stagger in areas and then sharply turn in others...In the small picture you can't always see how it curves and turns... But when you step back and look at it and use proper measurements the big picture resembles the real thing quite well.

The style you have made your pictures in is great. Very unique.... it almost looks like a comic book. Reminds me of the old 80's horror movie Creepshow...when they take a real life seen and show it as a comic....anyways this looks like a very promissing CJ.

Edmonton cracks 500,000... The real city of Edmonton Metro is 1,014,000 and the recreation should easily pass this number. 500,000 isn't much in the game of sim city... but 450,000 of this is residential housing with a good percentage of those marked historical so no housing will grow into the larger R$$$ lots. Imagine laying out a few hundred thousand in housing and having to check off the historical box on every 3rd house... https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//City%20of%20Edmonton%20Expanded7886.JPG align=baseline>

City of Edmonton How the accuracy is made and the roads are laid. This city journal is over 2 years old now. I would like to show exactly how the regions begginings where made. Later in the CJ I will show how the buildings, parks, and other areas are accurately placed. To show how the scale is used I will use Sherwood Park. The current area I am working on and expanding. This will also give everyone perspective of just how accurate this City Journal is compared to all others. And also explain why in 2years only half the city is done. To lay roads out for just the area of 1 small city map takes around 1 hour. Here is the Sherwood Park area... Here is a scanned picture of my old beat up map. This shows exactly how the scale works. I will often measure from grid lines and other roads several times to get it exactly where it should be. And here is the scale I use. The scale took about 3 days to come up with. This is the most important thing when your remaking a real city. If its off you can run into alot of headaches down the road. This is an in game picture of a half finished area. I lay power lines down every 64 tiles so the grids shown on my map show up. From there I use these as markers to measure from. Its alot easier then taking huge measurements. An in game picture of the transportation map in progress. And last a map from yahoo to use to compare with... Any questions please ask....

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Edmonton October 4th 05 Coming up on page 49 I will have a review of how the scale works in the game. With a picture of the scale used and how it is converted into the game and tiles. This will give people a chance to see how and why all the roads are nearly perfectly acurate using SC4. Lately I have been expanding the roads in Sherwood Park. I would say that expanded area is about half way finished. I should have some previews of the area soon to show its progress... Get involved... I have a few request. Things that are beyond my skills that I could use for the city. If anyone would like to contribute to the city please pm me.... - 1x1 grass lot(s) with 500 Ind jobs or 500 com jobs. To help employment and R$$ demand in the region. - 1x1 Rapheal Ninja's civic lots without the buildings. Currently I use these to supply all civic duties but they have tall towers on there 1x1 lots which look out of place in areas. If these where remade onto grass 1x1 lots they would be a great help for appearance. - 1x6 rail strip, transit enabled. For rail yards I need a 1x6 rail strip that looks the same as the regular rail. I will take it from there adding train cars to lot making 3 or 4 different sets. These inplace can go over exsisting rail to give areas with rail a realistic look with actual rail cars in place with a random but full look. - Ploppable Props!!! , this is my biggest request. God mode ploppable props. You could take blank plaza areas and have plopable props such as tables, art work, garbage bins, cars, you name it...or for industrial yards have plopabale crates, trucks, wood piles, anything. I find in many areas of industrial Edmonton there are open outdoor storage areas. Instead of recreating many many lots you could have these props to place to give a very random look aswell as realism. I think once a set of these ploppable props or two come out the Stex could take a new look with continued sets.... - And of coarse Edmonton Bats... I need a million buildings with any to choose from. Edmonton has some interesting or easy buildings for anyone who would like to bat. Add your touch to the 2004 most realistic CJ. Again please PM me if you can help...

Edmonton Sept28/05 An Example of Detailed Recreation of any and every area of a few hundred sq/km's. I don't take the replication as far as I could. That said this region will still take 4 to 5years to finish. Mainly due to wanted areas to atleast somewhat resemble what they are in real life. I know most recreation CJ's on Simtropolis just place a res/com/ind roughly in the area they belong and most major buildings acurately done. I liek to take it to the level of roughly placing even trees in the proper places on one of hundreds of plots. For most they can see that roads are exactly replecated. I am going to release a few sat vs game pics of the few areas completed. These pictures are far from what some areas are in there recreation. But since it is what I worked on tonight I wanted to show my completed small tile in North West Edmonton.

Plopable God Mode Props I would like to see plopable industrial props such as crates, garbage piles, cars, trucks, wood stacks, barrells,... you name it. I find industrial area need alot of additional items to look real. And to give it a very custom look without having 40,000 lots this is the idea. It could be applied to park props and much more aswell. Someone please give this a try. Its possible and will take SC to teh next level. Who ever begins doing this will have a crazy amount of downloads on there work.

Civilization It is the best strategy game. But can be slightly repetitive. Also 3 was nearly the same as 2 with almost no signs of any change in the game. From what I have seen of 4 it is an exact copy of 3 down to every aspect. But again from 2 to 3 and now 3 to 4 slighlty better graphics. And maybe a new unit or two. This will be a great game. But don't expect alot of change. Not that its needed. They shouldn't call the Civilization 1-4. But 1.1-1.4 as every version shows little change. More so improved exact copies. None the less. I'm looking forward to it.

United Cities of Simtropolis - 4 Player Region - TheJerseyDevil - Helomoto - ThatMonkeySim - Rymac This will be a 4 way shared region with cities that interact with eachother. With a few rules in place a region like this is possible and takes SimCity4 to a new level and challenge. Rules and Guidelines - No cheating (extra money). You must run a balanced budget. - A few Mods. A few for appearance aswell as NAM. - A few Lots. Selected by the 4 players. - A shared plugins folder. This is so we can load eachothers cities. - Each city starts with one or two road or highway connections and a rail connection. This is so the cities RCI demands interact. - Cities are exchanged rougly once a week on MSN after everyone has completed 50yrs of playing time. This is so the cities RCI don't crash due too, to many changes over a long period of playing time. - Only small alterations of the land are allowed. Straightning beachs or fixing land for new buildings. - A note for those who are playing : When you put in this regions plugin folder be sure to have removed your usual plugins folder to another place on your PC. Your Documents or Desktop for example. Then place this plugins in place. - Also when we exchage cities on MSN they will go into your recieved files folder. From there you have to put them into your regions/downloads folder. Then after loading the region import the new version of eachothers cities over the old ones. This completes the update and exchange. Here is a preview of the region.

I remember playing this in 97'. It was fun for a week. Great game...just a little to basic. Nice ot see a CJ on it. Makes me want to play it again.

Beebs : Obviously I am, but if Edmonton has 8 lane areas then what... two avenues.... and if you want to be technical all residential roads are considered 4 lane roads. Should those to be avenues. Where do I draw the line. More so for use and capacity. Again roads that are majorly used get placed as Avenues. Roads that are used at a moderate capacity are layed as streets. And last side roads...commercial ways...and residential streets are used as the lowest capicities. I doubt that a road in a strip mall area has 20,000 or more cars on it as a way of getting somewhere in peoples daily commute. When in fact a strip mall side road is part of a destination. The regional map would be plastered with avenues and wouldn't show where Edmonton truley has its main ways if I built the city in that style. https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//South%20Common.JPG align=baseline>

Mountain Biking in Edmonton Sept 21st/05 As always a few times a year I take pictures of Edmonton while Mt Biking. With it being fall it's a great chance to head down to the huge river valley to take in the saeson. These pictures are from a small area of the river valley. Probably about 20% of the whole stretch threw the city. Just south of downtown to just east of it. The tallest buildings in Edmonton are around 500ft. Not overly tall due to the airport just north of the core. But when your hundreds of feet down in the valley these buildings can seem to be 8 or 900 feet tall. I know when I seen the 111 story Stratosphere in Vegas it didn't seem that tall. I guess it was from being in the valley so often. Edmonton is a great city for parks and mountain biking. Just the river valley park system alone is 21 times the size of central park. Edmonton has the most parks for a city in North America. https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//2005%2009%2021st%2000.JPG align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//2005%2009%2021st%2001.JPG align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//2005%2009%2021st%2002.JPG align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//2005%2009%2021st%2003.JPG align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//2005%2009%2021st%2004.JPG align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//2005%2009%2021st%2005.JPG align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//2005%2009%2021st%2006.JPG align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//2005%2009%2021st%2007.JPG align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//2005%2009%2021st%2008.JPG align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//2005%2009%2021st%2009.JPG align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//2005%2009%2021st%2010.JPG align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//2005%2009%2021st%2011.JPG align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//2005%2009%2021st%2012.JPG align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//2005%2009%2021st%2013.JPG align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//2005%2009%2021st%2014.JPG align=baseline> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//2005%2009%2021st%2017.JPG align=baseline>

Beebs : There is no way in the world that would be or will be an avenue. Its lucky its a street. It is a 4 lane road in real life. But any road that runs threw a strip mall area isn't going to be an avenue. I even took out many avenues in downtown despite being 4 lanes. Only main arteries of the city have the chance to be avenues in this recreation. This road only goes threw this one shopping area. Keep posted I will have some great pictures of Edmonton in the next hour or so.....

Edmonton Sept20th/05 Full Size Region Transportation Map Google Earth has finally updated the Eastern side of Edmonton to a much higher detail. Including the area I have always lived in in NE Edmonton. the only down side is the picture was taken in December. I can tell by the Christmas trees in the mall parking lot lol. But I figured I would show my area on the sat pic and on the transportation map. The Markers on the map Green/Yellow - Outdoor Hockey Rink Orange/Yellow - Indoor Hockey Rink Blue - Top one my Highschool, Middle one my Elementry, Lower one my JrHigh. Red/Yellow - places I have lived. Top 1998-now, Lower Middle 1986-1997, Right 1980-82 and 1997-1998. Also marked is where I work at Bud's Lounge, Londonderry Mall. Any questions, Comments, or Request Please post...

I wonder what the league would be like with trades..... ....or GM's who could name a player on each real life team... or perhaps two blades in hockey....

Thanks for the updated picture. I've used some costum interchanges that look nearly accurate. Aswell as some of the SimCity standard ones. But again I like your approach and I may try a few. Edmonton is currently building ALbertas largest Interchange and it alone may take a new idea or two. Keep this Cj rolling. It has a great foundation and player behind it.

I really like how you have used roads for your highway system. It gives them a nice flow threw out the region. Aswell an accurate look. I would like to see some real maps or even a sat pic or two of the region posted. Weather it is an exact replica or not it would be nice to see what scale you have chosen or the methods you use of your recreation. Dead on or not its very pleasing to look at. Keep the updates rolling. This is one real life city journal I don't want to see dry up due to the long process of creating it and patieence it requires.

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1ajs : You can find the cemetary lots on the stex by typing in my name. I would also recomend my transportation map modd. packersfan : I got the airport pack with diagonal runways from a friend on MSN. The deal was though I wouldn't share it. And I'mnot sure if its on the net anywhere. I don't know what kind of airport lots are out there. Or if this one has been released yet. I've had it for over a year...

This is one of the most detailed CJ's with many realistic lots and the look of a natural region. Its continued growth is tribute to your dedication. Trixies are coming up and this should be up for one or two..