JHoward88

I have been tinkering with City Builders for almost two decades now, and still love them! I used to spend a lot of time on this website back when SimCity 4 was still a new title. Now, getting serious again with my city building hobby in Cities: Skylines, I felt it was time to get involved again with this online community. I've started working on a detailed recreation of the Helena Valley in Western Montana (Home to about 70,000), where I currently reside. I will share routine progress updates. The goal in this case is to create - as much as possible - a realistic recreation of a real place, though I do give myself at least some allowance for artistic license. 😃

More work on areas near Highway 12 going toward East Helena.

After taking a break for a while, the Helena build continues with the completion of a nasty junk yard area.

A little bit more work on the West Side neighborhoods. Streets and houses are done for that part of town now. My process for this is to start by getting the road layout correct and planting houses. Then I go back thru later to add flora, small decorations, and trees.

Here's a few more screenshots of the city as it progresses. As was the case with my first model of Helena, the one artistic license which I am taking is the addition of various Casinos which are being tastefully added in. Beyond that, I'm focusing on keeping it as true to life as possible. In the case of the Casinos, I'm also making a point to add them in only to areas where they would actually fit in real life without requiring the addition or removal of any major development or roadways.

This city started off a decade ago as a thought experiment, a fictional capitol city built on the banks of Bristol Channel in the Western United Kingdom. Many of the major buildings were painstakingly drawn in concept art which I created at the time with Google Sketchup. Accompanying this project is a fairly elaborate alt history fiction which sets its stage. The World Capitol, known commonly as New Babylon, exists in a world which never saw the fall of Communism or the defeat of the Nazis. World War II never happened. Instead, all major political factions Capitalists, Communists, and Fascists, came together to create a super seat of global power. This, it is supposed, was the peacetime city which they created together.

More work on north end of Downtown and adjacent Neighborhoods.

More progress on the Movie Theater and North Downtown Areas, and the Neighborhood directly East of Downtown.

Tonight I did some detailing around the Cathedral of St. Helena, and the downtown Methodist Church.

Progress on the South Downtown Area/Last Chance Gulch walking mall. Next will come finishing work on the North Downtown/Centennial Park and Carroll College Area, and the neighborhood which rests between the Capitol Campus and Downtown.

More work on the neighborhood east of the capitol, and on the areas around Saint Peter's Hospital this week! d on the Saint Peter's Hospital area.

I have a new gaming PC now, which is awesome! Been a bit distracted with some other games lately, but sooner or later I always return to my city projects. After taking a break for a while, it was nice spending a few hours today working on Helena. It's been a little hard to get motivated to start over essentially from the beginning, this time focusing on making my model of Helena a true 1:1 scale replica of the real city. But it is amazing seeing the difference which comes from making space for parking lots and yards, trees and open spaces. In many ways, it isn't so much the buildings that make a city, as it is the spaces in between, the roads, the beautification. In that regard, while my goal is to be true to the real life city I am modelling, I really want to take a lot of artistic liberty with props, trees, and beautification to create a pretty, idealistic urban space.

I took a little break from Skylines while I got into some other games that have been grabbing my attention lately. When it comes to games, I've seldom played Skylines as it was originally intended to be played, with mods off, simulation and financial consequences turned on. The modding community is so vibrant and the capacity for customization is so deep, I view Skylines as a city painter, a hobby much like what some people do with model railroads in their garage... not so much a game. As such, sometimes - Skylines can start to feel more like work than gaming, and lead to burn out. But in the end, I know that I'll always come back. Today is just some trees, the Bryant Elementary School, and some detail around the capitol campus. My goal is to just keep pecking away at this, and at least detail a couple blocks or a few intersections every day or two. I'm excited to keep the project going, and appreciate all the folks in message boards over the years who have taken the time to give it a scroll and check in from time to time!

Storage units on Highway 12 and some subsidized housing near the capitol were added.

Storage Units and Exxon appear directly East of Hampton Inn & Big Lots on Prospect Avenue.

I did a little bit of work on the intersection of Lyndale & North Montana Avenue today. This is one of Helena's busier intersections.

For comparison, a satellite image of what I'm currently working on. A little slow, but definitely rewarding to see the similarity.

Block by block, a few more residential blocks in central Helena, and the track near the High School.

I am rebooting my Helena model. My first Helena model, which has been showcased up to this point in this thread, was very heavily reliant on downloaded assets, and made an effort to map out the entire Helena Valley. I have started rebuilding again from the building, this time focusing on the area in and immediately surrounding Helena's City Limits. I am starting with an accurate Height Map and Imported Street Mapping to ensure accurate placement of roads, and an approximately 1:1 ratio throughout the entire model. I'm also applying what I learned in my last model to improve my utilization of mods and downloaded assets for accuracy while avoiding unnecessary ones. This week we get started with a view of Mount Helena's distinctive form which I know, as a resident here, looks very much like the real thing. Next we move on to the two city blocks which contain my apartment complex, and the Intersection of Interstate 15 and State Route 12 (Prospect/11th Ave) A view looking south toward the hills of Mount Ascension also appears in this post. The chief objective of the new "Helena II" project is to recreate, in the most careful and authentic way, the actual city. While I deviated from realism to imagine a Casino strip and various other changes in my last model, this one will be purely devoted to the real-world city. Special thanks go out to all of the modders who have made the custom content which makes it possible for Skylines to be played and enjoyed in this way!