soldyne

very nice work everyone. here is the latest region view of Newtopia Valley:

My current install of XP is getting old, over 6 months actually, and I have heard that I should reinstall XP to help optimize my system. I have never reinstalled an OS on an existing comp. I have only installed OS's on fresh, new comps. so, I have some questions: Obviously, I will want to back up my important files before trying this, but, are there any folders or files which will be overwritten by the reinstall? how much of my system will get overwritten by the reinstall? will all of my old programs and folders and files still be there when I am done? is it a simple matter of booting up with the install disk inserted or is there more prep work involved than that? will I need to reinstall drivers and service packs? any other advice or experience to share would be most helpful, thanks.

thanks for quick response guys. my system seems to be fine so I will hold off on the reinstall i guess. the game I was thinking of getting soon is Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion which if you know anything about it, is very graphics intensive. I did recently do some basic cleaning: defraging, removing old programs, turning off unused services and such. again thanks for the responses. if anyone else wants to chime in with a word of caution or story feel free.

well, I use an extension of the ring road concept in my CJ. the thing is I play the entire region as one big city so my ring road actually extends through about 5 or 6 city squares. I also use the highway itself as a seperation of my suburban and medium density urban areas to give the region view more of a "natural" city look. I also have two highways going through the center of the ring (north-south and east-west). my highways get decent usage but I also like to have my cities concentrate on using mass transit instead. I will come back later and post some pics of my regions transit map. ok here is a pic of my downtown area (still under construction) you can see the transition between the suburban and urban areas, this is also where my highway is: now here you can see the highway going around the downtown and a highway bisection the north and south areas. the city has not developed far enough to the point of the north-south highway but you get the idea:

R$ should always be high as there is very little that deters R$ from moving in anywhere. you may be hitting a demand cap. try putting in some large flower gardens, large plazas, and some rewards (if you have them) like the stadiums. Also, the other suggestions made could work too, people need jobs you know

well, hmmm, I think you are looking for something that is not possible. the whole point of Dirty Industry is that it is Dirty! to have a whole city full of ID means to have RED air pollution. but, if all you have in the city is ID then pollution does not matter. ID will build anywhere so long as there is demand. Just dont build any res or com and you should be fine. I built a nearly all ID town in Newtopia Valley which was supported by a completely R$ city neighbor: if pollution is really a big deal for you then plop tons of trees and parks all over the place. I did that in another city and it turned out quite nice: good luck and let us know how it turns out

Hey its only supposed to be one image, but they all look very nice, so, 7/10 for all of them.

testing, 123, my last post is not showing up, hmmm.... (I will edit this post later when I figure out what is going on)... ok it is working now, sorry about this...

I cant believe that this great thread is dieing! Does no one have any more great park pics? Well I do, fresh from my latest CJ update! ok, now its your turn! show us what you got!

Here are some pics of Port Newtopia:

and to continue the nice streak: Justaregular_joe - the best place to start learning how to build cities is to go to omnibus. there is a wealth of information there on how to build all kinds of citys from starter towns, realistic suburbias, and pretty much anything else you could ever want to know. good luck and keep playing, posting, and lurking.

I think my best so far is about 90k a year. 200k is quite high, nice going.

I live in the Northeastern US (Ohio to be exact) and I dont really see any sunken highways anywhere. where did this idea come from? is it a European thing? or this just something that was developed in a SimCity? sure it looks good, but what purpose does it serve other than eye candy? just wondering.

You were superb when you started but you just keep improving with each update! these pics are amazing. the mosaics are astounding and I love the streams, rapids and waterfalls. good use of pegs hydrodam too. keep it up.

I use a BAT by simgoober called the Hardin Coal Plant or something like that. do a search for simgoober and filter for utilities. anyway, I modded the plant with ILives Reader and Easy Tweaker to have it produce 60,000 MW instead of the standard 6,000MW. I only need one plant for about 100k people. I also use Simgoober's Modern Waste to Energy plant modded to handle 2500 tons of garbage instead of 500. I find that these modifications seem more realistic and the BATs are nice too.

hmm I think I can jump in on this thread: Mulefisk: nice suburban layout. I really like the use of trees here and you photoshop skills are decent. The one BAT does show up a lot in this pic though so I rate it a: 7/10 Anubis89: very excellent work with elevation and nice integration of road and rail here. I also like the diversity in buildings and the river in the pic. I give this an; 8/10 now for my submission:

awsome mosaic and great suburbs. did you plop the CS$ in the suburb area cause it looks so well planned. great job everyone <edit> oops, it was not a real mosaic, sorry man </edit>

wow, ok, I admit I never knew how to do that but always wondered. Now I have to make some plans for a multi lane highway project in my CJ. Thanks warrior!

oh yeah, thats a close up alright! I really like the Peg trail park you have there Facelessman. great shots everyone!

parks. that is how you keep it interesting. also, terrain (hills, rivers, valleys, lakes, etc). try getting some of jeronij's (trail park pack, seaonal trees) and Pegs stuff (seasonal trees, canal kit, CDK, pond and stream kit) to decorate your city and build massive gardens and parks for your sims to play in. get the edmonton ploppable water and build rivers and streams above sea level. you can even download my lots which I like to call plaza gardens, just click on the Urban Beautification Pack link in my sig. shameless promotion> Building cities in this game is easy, making them interesting is where the fun and challenge is at!

I have been working on just this issue and I think I have done fairly well with it. here is the latest region view of my CJ, Newtopia Valley. you can plainly see the suburbs and the urban area. What I did was to seperate the two with a winding highway and that seems to have worked. here is a closer view of the suburb/urban transition. I think the trees help a little, but then again, I think trees help everything

ah yes, your problems were mine many moons ago. what I lacked was inspiration and vision. When I saw the CJ's in the City Journal forum I found my inspiration. When I started playing with the terraforming tools I found my vision. now I have a masterpiece in the works and everything else is just falling into place. I no longer build cities I am painting a world! as for the city naming conundrum try picking up a thesaurus or a dictionary. Try to name the cities after natural formations within the city. do you have any idea how many words there are in the english language that describe a river? quite a few. I think I have 6 or 7 cities in my region right now that are named with synonyms for a river: Rive Creek, Brooks Bend, Beckburn, Forkfont, Rindle Haven, Rill Run, Riverdale just to name a few and I have a whole thesaurus of more city names to come. Then there are synonyms for trees and forests; timber vale, wetwood junction, Nouvea Verde, Harvest Hollows, Blissful Acres, Arbor Glenand more. then you can just add some directions to nearby smaller cities like West Verde, South Verde, SouthEast Wetwood, etc. You can even just use words that describe the city in some way. I have two small city squares named Iota and Scintilla. I have a dump city named Rubbish Hill (it has a big landfill in it). there are a myriad ways to name a city. I have been known to sit for hours just comming up with new names. I have a whole list of neat words that I have not even used yet. dont give up, just keep plugging away. when the inspiration and vision hit, you will be working on your masterpiece in no time.