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We are here: Responses: First of all, thanks everybody for your continued visits on my CJ and your interest. If I recall correctly, there've been 7 comments on my last CJ entry, but 2 of them fell victim to the recent Simtropolis server wipeout disaster. I don't recall what you wrote, you're of course welcome to post it again. Since I couldn't think of any specific answer to your last comments, I'd like to send a thank you to the 5 people who wrote the surviving comments: @EastChapel, @Tyberius06, @simster007, @Xander2005. And of course to my long-time visitor, @justforfun, I'm glad you liked it too, especially the mire. I got my inspiration of it from visual inspection of some pictures I found on the internet, as, unfortunately, here in westernmost Austria, coherent wetlands are almost extinct. Disclaimer: Most of you heard it: The server containing all data from Simtropolis got wiped due to nothing more than a billing error, which resulted in the loss of files, pictures and other content after a certain date. Fortunately, none of my CJ entries themselves were lost, however, some pictures are gone now, as well as at least 2 comments of you on my last CJ entry. I'm doing my best to restore them in the next weeks, as soon as I'm finding time; my job unfortunately takes a lot of time every year in June. If there's something you'd like to see, please feel free to PM me (that way, it's more likely that I'm noticing you wrote something). Contents: After exploring the mainland areas of Birkenhang, we now conclude this city tile by exploring the islands surrounding it, namely: Langland, Windau, Grünau, Sonnenau, and Einsiedeln. Let's first recall this picture of the village parts of Birkenhang: Langland: Actually, Langland isn't an island, it's actually a peninsula, but I didn't had time to finish it in the last CJ entry. Langland is famous for the Donnertafel (lit. thunder table), one of the many mesas on the peninsula from Sebastianskirch to Birkenhang and one of the many results of volcanic activity there. It is only connected to the mainland via a short sandbank, with the only street connecting it to Birkenhang going over a dam: As already shown in the Show us what you're working on thread, the combination of AGC rocks and the new Plop & Paint mod made it possible to place some rock formations there, looking similar to a cliffside (although it's still clearly visible that the altitude difference to sea level isn't very big): Even an area as remote as this has a small village: And an overview: Sonnenau: This island is close to Mariahilf and Eschenfall, and is home to a large monastery complex, with a main building and two side buildings. First, a view of the three buildings, second, a view from the rear, additionally showing the graveyard: And an overview of the island, complete with some fields (that new Plop & Paint mod greatly helped me with that, especially with the fences) and a public park: Windau: Unlike the other islands, this one is uninhabited, but signs - some abandoned buildings on stilts - indicate that this hasn't always been the case. It is unknown who built these houses, presumably this has been an outpost of fishing people that got abandoned: Other than that, Windau is famous for a big grotto, the remainder of a caldera that collapsed, and the warter started eroding away one of the walls. Two pictures from different angles. By the way, I took inspiration for this picture from a similar island named Vila Franca do Campo on the Azores (picture courtesy of Alamy): Grünau: Unlike Windau and Langland, this island is actually mostly the result of sand being gushed to an underwater sandbank and gathering, forming an island. Singns indicate, however, that the western parts of this island have been there much longer before that. Grünau (lit. green land, in German, the suffix -au, derivated from the Latin word aqua [water] is occasionally used for areas and villages at rivers or on islands) is the largest of all of the islands. It is famous for a small village which is actually part of Birkenhang, its green landscape and its vast areas of coastal grass (I don't actually know what type of plant it is supposed to be, I just took Girafe's feather grass, cattails and some of the ALN plants). First, let's have a look at the village itself. I wanted to give it a coherent style, especially with the roofs of the buildings. Next, the harbor, the coast has partly been fortified with rocks to limit erosion of the rather sandy ground: Further to the east and north, let's have a closer look at the sandy coast, partly overgrown with various plants and shrubs. Let's continue to the west now, to see some other parts of the coast (this time used as a public beach for bathing), and the small village part on the northwest of this island. There's even a small extra island, the first one I made only with MMP'ing, nothing else: And an overview: Einsiedeln: The German word "Einsiedler" means hermit, one could thus translate this island's name as hermitage or the like. In fact, despite its rather warm climate, it is actually barely inhabited. It became famous when one of the mayors of Birkenhang shipwrecked on it after a voyage to the Seeviertel with his crew, thereby actually discovering this island (maybe re-discovering it, nobody knows for sure how long his island actually has been known to any humans). They managed to survive there until they were rescued. Since then, it has interestingly been custom for most mayors to live there at least during summer. This island also contains a farm from a rich family growing lemon, fig, and peach trees in the warm climate. It is even being reckless enough to try to grow date palm trees; on the southernmost shore, palm trees are growing. First, a picture of the harbour, the mayor's villa and the beach. According to history (aka urban legends), the people who shipwrecked there built some temporary wooden shacks there; nowadays, this area is interestingly used as a small vacation spot for surfers. Next, the aforementioned farm, with its outpost on the southern shore. I should mention that I made heavy use of the Plop & Paint mod, especially for the lavender farm and the small community garden: And three overviews, first from the northern part of this island, second from the southern part, third from the entire island: And that's it for today's update. Next up - who knows. There are a lot of areas to discover. Unfortunately, my current MMP-ing style for Maxiland takes a lot of time, and only 5 out of 49 city tiles have been completed so far. I'm considering to develop new, less time-consuming, ways of MMP-ing and designing the landscape; I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this. Hope you liked this entry.
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Responses: @Ke|is Thank you for your continued interest and your nice words. It's actually the sea, not a lake, but I'm nevertheless glad you liked it. We are here: Contents: In today's entry, we are continuing to explore the market community of Birkenhang. Or, to be more exact, the community parts of Eschenfall, Mariahilf, and Außerdorf, as shown on this sketch from the last entry: This coincidentally allows me to finish more or less the coastal parts of this city tile, something that is usually very MMP-heavy. First, let's recall this picture from the last entry, from the area Klarenbach. We are going to continue the road leading to the left of the picture. And we arrive in the center of Birkenhang, the community part of Mariahilf. This part was formed when the first harbour was erected; a lot of merchants moved into this area and thus, this part, nowadays the old community parts, have been built. Nowadays, people have also thought of the recreational aspect: On this small peninsula, a sports center, a hotel, and a marina have been built, and we have already seen the popular beach with a series of small restaurants. Next, a few close-ups: First, the old military building, the so-called Alte Kommandantur, former seat of the head of the local military, nowadays a museum with a small park in close proximity. Second, a close-up of the sports area, I like the way the promenade along the coast has turned out. The bridge there leads to an island with a monastery, we'll see about it in a future entry. Third, a close-up of the old village parts. A small part of the old protection walls, including the gate, has survived and is now part of another park. Fourth, the newest addition to Birkenhang, the small temple the local Buddhist community built there. And fifth, I'd like to include this picture of the rocky coast, I already showed it off before, but I wanted to include it here, for the sake of completeness: A bit more to the north, there's the community part of Eschenfall, more or less a modern expansion, with a nice view to the sea. Even some rich people are living there, enjoying the view. We now head into the opposite direction, to the southwest. This is the new harbour, a good amount of cars and passengers can board and leave ships there. There's also a fishing harbor. The federal route B2 ends at the harbour, but a small street continues all the way to the next community part, Außerdorf (lit. outer village), a small hamlet on a precipice. Two pictures from different angles. Between Außerdorf and the harbour, rainwater has formed a small wetlands area. The people decided to keep it, it is just looking so interesting. And here, an overview over the entire area, including Klarenbach, Unterdorf, and a small part of the Spitz. I've blackened out parts of this picture, since this ara is still a WIP and looks horrible right now. And that's it for today. There's still a good amount of work to do in Birkenhang, such as the mire and the fortress in Oberdorf, the lighthouse area and four islands. Hope you liked this entry. As a bonus picture, I'm showing my first attempt at making a screenshot from a different camera angle with the new Camera DLL mod. The buildings and the marina are looking quite odd, but this picture is capturing the feeling of the hilly terrain around this coastal area much better than the default SC4 angle.
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We are here: Introduction: The last weeks have been taking me to a different direction I expected: I started developing the eastern tip of the peninsula Sebastianskirch is located (the yellow frame in the picture above). There's only one community there, Birkenhang, but due to the terrain, it is interestingly split up into several smaller hamlets and village parts. As usual, the historic background: It is unsure when the first humans arrived in this area, but the community of Birkenhang (lit. birch hill), as it is now, literally was formed at a very late year, the year of 1907. It should be noted that in this area, there were several villages and hamlets for a long time, each of them appearing at entirely different times; the eastern tip itself has, however, been called Birkenhang for a pretty long time. In 1907, all of these settlements have been put together to a single community. Here is a sketch of the different parts of Birkenhang at an earlier stage of development (white names: names of village parts, in italics: mountains and hills, in grey: island names, colorful: various building projects): The most important aspects in the history of Birkenhang and its village parts are related to the fact that people there lived mostly from fishing (there's still a considerable amount of fishing industry there, we'll see about that in a later entry), and, interestingly, military and trade. You might have noticed the light blue frame in the second picture above. This part of Maxiland is called "Seeviertel", I already mentioned the 4 realms of Maxiland in Entry 4. In the year of 712, at the time between the first and second Empire, military forces from an Arabian-speaking country started taking over the peninsula at the southeast, taking advantage of the fact that there was no coherent Maxiland empire which could have organized a defense against them. It took until the years between 1325-1443, until Maxireich (even the third Empire) was able to take back part of this area (at least the area visible on the map above; the first Empire possessed much larger parts, but those turned into other independent states at about this time). The close proximity of Birkenhang to the area occupied by Arabian Caliphates made it an ideal staging ground for a counterattack, and thus, in earlier time than nowadays, a military harbor, some barracks (the so-called Kommandantur) and even a huge fortress have been erected, the latter one in case of an attack of those Arabian countries. We'll see about the Kommandantur and the fortress later; for now, I'm concluding the historic background by mentioning that after that, Birkenhang gained some importance in trade between the Seeviertel and the adjacent countried with the rest of Maxiland, and some buildings became cultural centres, such as the fortress itself, the various old village parts and the monastery. Contents: Let's first recall this picture from Entry 13, dealing with the village of Weinbach. The road at the upper left, the federal route B2, connects to the easternmost parts of Birkenhang. We'll start at Klarenbach, the direct connection point, just beyond the border. Two pictures from different angles. It is still a WIP, the adjacent parts haven't been developed yet. Klarenbach is more or less a 19th century expansion at a piece of flat land, and at the intersection (the roundabout) of the B2 with the B7, coming from Michaelshaven over Zirbenbucht to Birkenhang. Agriculture never played an important role in Birkenhang, but as you can see, there are at least a few fields in the little free space available. First, we continue following the B7 (on the top right of the last picture) to the village part Oberdorf (lit. upper village). The very low amount of wine fields is actually part of Weinbach. The small street at the left of this picture goes all the way to the large fortress. And a close-up of the Klarenbach spring: Between Oberdorf and Krabbenfels (see Entry 20), this special spa hotel has been built. It should be noted that there's a small mire nearby, and the hotel's most widely known specialty are mire baths in the mud which is rich in minerals. We'll see more about it later. Back in Klarenbach, here's a close-up of the park between Klarenbach and the center of Birkenhang, Mariahilf. Unlike my usual way of laying out villages (people in Maxiland like building their houses on slopes), slopes in this village are being used as parks, farmland, or just covered with forest. Next, we follow the road into the opposite direction, to the village part of Unterdorf (lit. lower village). The old village buildings are witness to the fact that this area once was covered by several small settlements. Two pictures, the second one is a close-up of the old village and the beach. I should note that I chose these old town buildings because I think they fit with the style, but unfortunately, they're a bit large compared to the rest of the buildings here. The coastline quickly gets more rugged, but as you can see, this didn't stop some farmers from at least deploying a few farm fields on what little flat or smooth land this area had to offer. By the way, I took inspiration for these pictures from a CJ from here, Kanin Fjord. And we arrive in the most peripheral village part of Birkenhang, Spitz (this just means tip), owing its name to its twisted landscape. This area has been living from fishing for a very long time and is most likely actually the oldest village part of Birkenhang. First, two pictures from different angles: And three close-ups: First, the old village parts. Second, the so-called Angler's land, a small peninsula which now only contains a single house, a restaurant, and the local anglers' club, and is a very popular recreational area. Third, the beach of the fishing people still practicing some traditional fishing. And that's it for today. There's still a lot to do in Birkenhang - the village parts of Eschenfall, Mariahilf and Außerdorf, as well as the fortress and the mire are remaining on the mainland; furthermore, the 5 islands of Langland (with a mesa and a lighthouse), Einsiedeln (with the mayor's villa), Sonnenau (with the monastery), Windau (an uninhabited island, the remains of a caldera), and Grünau (a very flat sand island) remain. Hope you liked it.
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We are here: Today's Entry - Introduction: Long time, no see, I'm glad I'm back again. This year, RL really took much time, and I'm sometimes a person who's horribly stuck with dreaming and thinking of how to pull off my ideas - so, that's the reason why I was away for nearly a year now. Fortunately, I got my wits together in the last few weeks, and so I made another entry, this time dealing with Neumarkt, the city tile north of Sebastianskirch, which has already been featured in the entries 14-17. I would like to mention today that I've been laying out various projects for the map I'm working on, mostly dealing with terraforming (creating valleys, mountain ridges, rivers and lakes), and the settlements. Today, I'd like to share part of my planning process, at least as far as I'm still having pictures ready. As already mentioned in the introduction of this CJ, in 2020, a stupid mistake on my part forced me to completely redo everything in Maxiland. I'm still having a few overview pictures of the area of this time. This is the area I'm showing off today, as seen on a picture dating back to 2021: This area is mostly a narrow strip of flat land, squeezed in between two low mountain ridges. I decided to make some terrain changes, the most prominent ones creating a small ridge between both mountain ridges and making two rivers, one flowing to the north (into the lake), one to the south (into the sea), along with digging a deeper valley for the southbound river. This is a makeshift sketch of how I was laying out my plans: Pink lines: limits of additional hills Blue lines: rivers, lakes Light pink lines: settlements Orange lines: main roads And after a few weeks of terraforming (the most difficult part), placing lots, and MMP'ing (the most time-consuming part), the overview picture looks like this: Today's Entry - Contents: Fortunately, this time, very little historical babbling, so let's just start with the southern settlement, a market community called Neumarkt. Neumarkt has an age of centuries, despite its rather small size. Its location at the intersection of two main roads, all connecting major cities like Sebastianskirch, Eichenwald (to the north, at the lake) and Maxistadt (to the northeast), allowed it to thrive, despite its rather hilly location. In earlier times, its harbour was even more important than the one of Sebastianskirch, although its importance declined over the years. I should also note that up to the 19th century, the main road leading to the northeast was going over a small covered bridge, but with the advent of motorized traffic, a bigger bridge had to be built, close to the river delta (we'll see it later). In the 20th century, the new railway station and the fact that the intersection of the main roads was now further to the west, encouraged people to settle further to the west - this is the reason why Neumarkt has about three village cores - one near the old harbour which isn't in use anymore, one in the center, close to the church, and one to the west, close to the railway station. Now a few pictures from the area to the south (at the left of the former picture), where the road connecting Neumarkt and Sebastianskirch is located. By the way, the area of this community is rather hilly, and the hills are only partly settled. The upper right road (to the north-to-northwest, actually), the federal route B2, is connecting many cities and villages of Maxiland. it is passing through the valley of the river Thurn. Here are two pictures, one of the river itself, and one of its delta that I already showed off in one of the threads here. One can also see the small covered bridge and the larger viaduct over the delta. During the 19th century, two rich families bought some land in the hills and started farming activities there, as sort of a charity project for poor people. Two pictures, one of the family Kolhof, whose farm is still flourishing today, and one of the family Carolath, who also has a flourishing farm of sorts - growing flowers instead of grains and vegetables today. We are following the route B2 further to a small hamlet with the name Langen am Thurn. Nothing to tell about it, maybe a farming community, except the fact that the railway is splitting here because the terrain forced me to do so. Two pictures, one of Langen, one of the road climbing further to the north, over a low mountain pass. And we arrive in the next village, Breitenbündt. This village is also rather unusual in its layout, consisting of three parts - Oberbündt, Unterbündt and Achwaid. Before the 19th century, Oberbündt and Unterbündt were two independent villages, now they are part of the same village. In the 19th century, there only were a few houses in Achwaid, but the rather senic view of the lake there made many people move there in the 20th century. It should also be noted that in the 20th century, people were shifting from animal husbandry to growing plants in the Feldviertel (exactly the opposite of what happened in my country, at least the part I'm living in). This is the reason why there are many open areas of meadows which are partly being reused as farm fields (in fact, "Bündt" is an old German word, mostly in some slangs, for "Meadow"). Two pictures; in the first, Unterbündt is located at the left and Oberbündt (at a slightly higher altitude than Unterbündt) at the right; in the second, Achwaid is below the lake. Also, as you can see, the terrain made it difficult for me to construct a railway line there - it had to be placed literally at the shores of the lake. And a few close-ups, one of the small brook between Oberbündt and Unterbündt, one of the small castle overlooking the lake. And that's it for today's entry. I hope you liked it, admittedly, this time nothing extraordinary and special. Edit: Due to the server wipeout of Simtropolis in 2026, I'm uploading two extra pictures related to this CJ entry here. I used them as sneak peeks for it, but they do as well fit in here. First, a close-up of the small street bridge connecting Achwaid with the rest of Breitenbündt, next, just a picture of the two bridges close to Langen am Thurn form a different angle.
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We are here: Responses: A big thank you again to @justforfun and @Lazarou Monkey Terror, for their continued interest and their nice words, as well as @Dead_End. I'm glad to have caught your interest and getting such nice comments. Contents: In today's entry, we are going to give a particular area of the first city I've shown off, Michaelshaven (entry 1-3), a bit of a "facelift". I've never been very happy with the river dam I've made there to generate electricity, it's a horrible eyesore and probably not very good for the environment. So, to improve that at least a little bit, I've decided to make some changes to this area (as well as a few minor changes to the city). First, let's recall the picture of the aforementioned dam: My goal was to turn at least a part of this area into a waterfall or some sort of river rapids while keeping part of the dam. I'm now going to show you a makeshift sketch of how I was planning to change the area first (in fact, it is one out of 4 sketches), basically to show how I'm laying out plans to make changes to my cities: Red line: Relocation of the federal route B1 Orange line: Relocation of the B7 Yellow lines: Other roads Cyan line: Waterfalls Blue line: Riverbanks Dark blue line: Canal shores for the reservoir and dam Black line: Upper end of the dam Green and dark cyan lines: Dam itself My idea was to split the are in two about equally large parts, to the east (at the botton of the picture), there should be an area with rapids and waterfalls, and to the west, a dam with a small reservoir lake. In order to improve the aesthetic value of this dam, the dam should be covered with earth and decorational plants should be grown on it; there would only be a few water outlets at the botton of the dam. In cases of high water levels, there should also be a spillway, to allow high amounts of water to quickly flow to the ocean. Admittedly, something important is missing - the power lines. I couldn't find a way to implement them without bulldozing half of the city. This is the result: And two close-ups. First, the rapids in all of their glory. Admittedly, the waterfalls look quite boxy, I couldn't find a way to make more irregularly looking waterfalls in a game with an orthogonal grid. A restaurant and a lookout platform have been erected there, to watch the waterfall and the fish jumping when they return to their grounds where they lay their eggs. And the dam itself. On the lower parts, sort of a "lizard garden" has been laid out. Lizards like rocky grounds, they can sunbath there and hide away quickly whenever animals and humans show up. I gut the idea from a flood dam in my country itself, where some rocks have been placed there to create a refuge for lizards. On the upper parts, some azaleas and hydrangeas have been planted. On a side note, I also decided to make some changes to the industrial area close to the dam. I've mainly replaced the GLR by elevated light rail, and added a solar farm there. Also, as already mentioned before, I've relocated the federal route B1, as well as the highway interchange there. Before: After: And, on a side note, I've replaced some apartments I didn't like anymore by other buildings. There are too many minor changes to list them all, but I like how the overview turned out a bit more than before: And that's it for todays entry. It's a bit of a surprise (especially for me) where I'm going to next (aka I don't know it myself). Hope you liked this entry, and I hope to see you again.
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We are here: Comments: A big thank you to @TakemeThere, @Tamijo, @justforfun, @Honolulu, and @Lazarou Monkey Terror for your nice comments and your compliments! I currently can't think of any specific answer, I hope this will do. Content: The last weeks have been taking me to an entirely different area than I expected at first: I've been developing another part of the lowlands area that has been outlined in this sketch in Entry 8: As already mentioned, this has been a lake about 10,000 years ago that slowly started to dry out over the years. In particular, I started with the city tile of Ulmengrund, and at the small village at the very edge of Maxiland, just to the left of the label "Ulmengrund". I should note that this took me really much time; the main reasons being a lot of MMP work again (and work is returning to me after the summer vacation), and the fact that I had to start the entire city tile with first laying out the agricultural zones because I can't develop them after growing too many houses. In fact, the whole basin here is one of the most important agricultural backbones of Maxiland. I'd like to share an intermediate picture of large parts of this area under development, as sort of a sneak peek of what is awaiting you, and also to demonstrate how I'm trying to work out my plans: We've already seen the southern parts of this basin in the entries 9 and 10, which were dealing with the villages of Weißenfels and Erlbronn. As you can see, the northern parts has three villages, all located at one river flowing from west to east, the river Sill. I should note again that I'm going to wipe out most of the villages that have been there before 2020, when I started this CJ, but in this case, I'm going to keep the main locations of the villages. But long story short: Let's start with the village of Hinterulmingen. This is the main core of the village. Unlike other villages in the Feldviertel (more or less the southwestern quadrant of Maxiland), this one is pretty scattered, with a lot of small hamlets everywhere. This was the result of the fact that in the days where the first people settled there, this was more or less a wetlands area that had to be drained, and people settled where it was possible. A lot of lonewolfs built their houses somewhere at the edge of the wetlands area, where they could collect a lot of plants and mushrooms in order to survive. There's, however, still a bigger village core there, at the location of a former turf pit, where people dug for turf which could be burned for heating, or sold off. Later in time, the collection of turf was forbidden, and the pit started to fill up with water. The algae there give the water a distinctivly green hue. The turf digging activity is also the reason for the unusual design of the village - being built literally around the lake. Two pictures from different angles. Please note that north is at the top of the first picture. And a close-up: As already mentioned, there are a lot of small hamlets surrounding this village core. We'll start at the north and continue to the south. If we go to the south, below the river Sill, we can have a look at the agricultural area there (even the mayor is a bit of a lonewolf, and has built his villa here): This small hamlet here is the result of a few houses that acted as sort of trading posts, and a few other people that liked to live a bit separated. It should be noted that the river Sill is flowing through a ravine to the east (at the left of the picture), which made it impractical in earlier days to get direct access to Hinterulmingen by traveling over or along the river. Thus, there have been two older pathways into the village, and this is one of them. And even further to the south, this is another separated forest village, nowadays acting as sort of a health resort. Two views from different angles. I'd also like to share a few close-ups of the riverbanks of the Sill. Again, another experiment of mine where I didn't know what i was doing. As already mentioned, even this is an area that once was a lake that dried up over time. The result of this development: The entire flat parts of this area has a lot of gravel and pebble in the lower parts of the ground. Thus, the riverbanks of the Sill contain high amounts of gravel that is, however, already partly overgrown with shrubbery and a few trees. And, to conclude this entry, a few general overview pictures. I hope you liked this entry so far. And I hope I can write the next entry soon, because RL keeps me busy - work has started again, and I'm going to move to another apartment which costs a lot of time. Next up - I'm not sure. I already have plans for this city tile, so most likely we'll continue along the river Sill. Hope to see you again.
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Entry 17: Sebastianskirch Bay, Buchberg Adlerkanzel
11241036 posted a City Journal entry in Maxiland
We are here: Comments: A big thank you again to @Honolulu for visiting my CJ and his nice comment. I'm taking back my statement in Entry 14 that I'll only write a comment on your posts if I think it is necessary (it's more personal and appropriately grateful), and thus, I'd like to also write a big thanks to @Lazarou Monkey Terror @Kuba138 @albireo38 @mayorleers @justforfun @JulioC for their nice comments. My special thanks also goes to @memo for his Submenus DLL mod - without this mod, I would not only have given up playing SC4, this entry and its vast MMP work would have been nigh impossible. The ability to put all MMP's n my Plugins folder into submenus (and, you know, there's only one in-game menu for MMP's) has made this process 5 times faster and easier. Content: We're still not done with the city tile of Sebastianskirch - we are going to visit the eastern coast of the bay, as well as a small mountain close to Buchberg in this update. It was really much work - I had to place MMP's about almost everywhere, and I'm not the best MMP landscape designer - but I hope it works out. Please do not hesitate to write me a comment in case something is unrealistic or if there's something I could improve - I've never made such an intense effort in placing MMP's before, especially along a coast (after all, I'm living in a landlocked country, I've barely ever seen the coast myself...). This small cove is the connection between Weinbach and Sebastianskirch. Nothing special here, except maybe the greenhouse complex, but I still wanted to show it off: We continue along the gravel path (mostly for the tourists) to this area below a cliff: This is a special place with a lake being fed by ground and rain water. After enough rainfall, the surplus water is flowing out of the lake through the now dried-out riverbed. Two pictures from different angles, on the second one, you can also see the dried-up waterfall and the paths better: Here, I made something very special: The entire mountain ridge where Sebastianskirch is located (almost everything from Storchenfeld to the east) is actually of volcanic nature. One of the interesting results of this development are the many mesas in this area, made from granite which can resist erosion much better than the surrounding basalt. This mesa is called "Zwergentafel" (lit. dwarf table). Some historicians think it got its name from its small altitude in comparison to other mesas (we'll see them later), some think because of the 5 dwarf rocks on its surface - having been placed there in ancient times to worship the 5 Holy Dwarf Gods, the Gods of the earth who protect the miners and the shepherds. Three pictures, two overviews from different angles and a close-up; we can see the unique flora up there as well as the rocks and a small chapel (having been placed there in times of early Christianization in an effort to divert people from the old Pagan rites): At the northeasternmost area of this section, there's this part of the coast, mostly steep cliffs and a bit of special grassland and shrubbery: I already posted the small cove there in the "Before-After" thread, but I'm repeating it here because it has been a special experiment for me: This cove is very small in size, and one can clearly see the 16mx16m cells on the first picture below. I was trying to mitigate that effect by placing MMP's there - I hope it turned out well. And we continue to the eastern arm of the bay of Sebastianskirch. There's a small hamlet there; centuries ago, people there lived from fishing and harvesting the salt from the cord grass at the salt marsh (the cord grass emits the salt it receives from absorbing the ocean water on its surface, and the salt can actually be harvested). First, an overview of this area: This is the small hamlet, nowadays only a few people sticking to the old traditions, as well as a restaurant, are there: And a close-up of the salt marsh. The beach is barely above sea level, and the salt water flows into the marsh through small channels. I've placed Simmer's small brown stony sand MMP's in order to give it more visual depth, it is supposed to look like wet sand. Other parts of the bay arm are overgrown with pine trees, feather grass, and shrubbery. And the last picture from the bay, the legendary Simlore's Rock. According to old lore, Simlore was once the most beautiful woman living in this area. Every man seeing her fell in love with her, but she only had eyes for the only man that did not love her (who was a sailor). This was supposedly the rock that she occasionally sat on, looking for her love, and unintentionally making some of the sailors that fell in love for her careless enough that they shipwrecked nearby. And after enough ships sank at this location, it was decided to relocate the harbor of Sebastianskirch to a different location. (Nowadays, the industrial harbor of Maxiland is at an entirely different location - well, things have changed, and industrial harbors nowadays consume enough space that I would probably need more than a region of 7x7 large city tiles to make one.) And an overview of the entire bay. I altered the picture a bit to remove a small island at the bottom of the picture - I'm going to move it a bit to the north, outside of this city tile, it's supposed to be a bit easier to make something there. We now leave the sea and head for the mountains. This is the mountain Adlerkanzel, located between Buchberg and Sebastianskirch. If you are lucky, you can see eagles from its top; this is why the boardwalk next to the restaurants and the infopoints have been placed there. Speaking of which, here's a close-up of the restaurants, the infopoint, and the Adlerkanzel itself: We also have a closer look at this part of the street leading up to the restaurants, as well as the surrounding pastures. The brown spot is supposed to be a bit of a wetlands area overgrown with "Seggen" (in German we call this "Seggenried", I couldn't find an English translation for this word), a plant with a higher stalk than grass, usually brown or green. I used the ALN Pasture brown rye grass, but I'm not very satisfied with it; it isn't high enough, and cattails, however, are too large. Here in westernmost Austria, we unfortunately do not have large coherent wetlands, marshes, bogs, or swamps anymore, but occasionally, there are some small protected wetland spots. A bit further to the west (on the top of the last picture), there's a place where a rockslide occurred a good time ago. Nature already started to overgrow the rocks with shrubbery and the first trees. The rockfall also dammed up rainwater in the cove there, forming a small mire with a lake and reed grass. Three pictures, first an overview, second a close-up of the rockslide, third a close-up of the mire: And that's it for today. It was quite picture-heavy, I hope you liked it nonetheless. Next up - I'm not sure. I'm already having some plans to redo the mountaineous area in the next city tile to the west (Storchenfeld), as well as the city tile to the east (Birkenhang). Hope to see you again.- 6 Comments
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We are here: Comments: @Honolulu Thank you very much. That's quite an honor to hear that from you, your last pictures were quite mindblowing and among the best contributions to SC4 so far. @Ke|is Dito for you, your last Japanese scene was quite impressive. Content: This entry, again about Sebastianskirch, will be shorter than the previous one. It will cover two smaller areas but with more detail. We'll start with an island not seen so far. It is actually located in the city tile of Neumarkt, to the north of Sebastianskirch, yet regarding administration, it is part of Sebastianskirch. Here is a picture of where we are: In the last entry, I mentioned the land gaining efforts of the Republic of Maxiland in the late 19th and early 20th century. This island was actually there long before that, and land expanding has been performed there already in the 17th century. Nevertheless, it should be noted that Maxiland's land gaining has been adapted to this island in a way that it remained as much as possible the way it was. First we have a look at the small old town section at the coast, as well as the Sebastianskircher Konservatorium (conservatory, a college for musical education): As already hinted at, the history of Maxiland goes back as early as the time before Christ, and an important reminder of this area has recently been reconstructed, namely, a part of the temple district, throning above the city. There's also a modern building with a restaurant and an info point where you can learn about the history of these temples. Another historical landmark is this palace, seat of the former Lord of the area ranging from Sebastianskirch further to the east. We can also see the modern observatory; the old one has been destroyed. In fact, priests and priestesses back in the First Empire also sometimes have been sort of scientists, exploring matters of astronomy, mathematics, and musics, thus, the city council deemed it appropriate to erect a new observatory there. We can also see that actually only a small part of this island is inhabited. A few houses can also be found at the northern (to the left on the subsequent picture) side, close to the lighthouse. And two overview pictures, the first from the west, the second from the east. We now leave this island and move back to Sebastianskirch, this time to the hills. Remember the hillside expansion from Entry 14? We now continue along the street at the west (at the right of the last picture) to an are where a few cow pastures are located. Sometimes, where the slopes aren't too steep, the forest has been removed to make place for animal husbandry. Two pictures, the first from the north, the second from the east. And a close-up. There are some areas that formerly were pastures as well. They have been left alone for a few years, and have slowly been overgrown with shrubbery and stuff. Since these mountains are a nice hiking area, and there are children living in these farmhouses, this area even has a bus stop. That's it for this entry. I hope you liked it. Next up: There are still a few loose ends to tie up on the city tile of Sebastianskirch, mostly in the bay and the mountains. I'm also redeveloping a part of the next city tile to the west, Storchenfeld, which has already been featured in Entries 4 through 7. There's also been some considerable development in Erlengrund. Hope to see you again.
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We are here: Content: In today's entry, we are going to have a look at the lower elevation levels of Sebastianskirch, directly at the coast, as well as the old town parts. Brace yourselves for a long entry, because it will also cover historical aspects of Maxiland. In the beginning, when humans first moved into the area which is now known as Maxiland, those were mostly nomadic tribes. Sometimes those tribes were founding settlements, sometimes they retained their nomadic way of life, although those disappeared over time. Among the more politically successful tribes was the one that founded the city of Maxima at the shore of the Maxistädter Lagune (lagoon of Maxistadt) in 723 BC; thus, the First Empire was formed, the Imperium Maximum. Unlike the later empires, people there spoke Latin (in later empires until present-day Maxiland, German succeeded Latin as lingua franca). This empire, led by kings, senators, and dictators, eventually was able to take over large areas, even outside the boundaries of present-day Maxiland. It was more or less an era of culture, big marble cities, science, and law (unfortunately also the era of a good amount of violence towards other countries and people who did not do what the Empire wanted, as well as slowly spreading decadence and destruction of the environment). This is a makeshift map of the Imperium Maximum. Note that the northwestern quadrant actually never was part of the First Empire (but of later empires). What we know now as Sebastianskirch is basically the successor of the ancient Vitellium. The map covers all important cities and fortified settlements, as well as the most important rivers: Tibris, Fluvius Ruber (red river), Fluvius Albus (white river), and, of course, Lobnavius, the most important river, which has already been featured in previous entries. Very little traces of that era remain in the field of architecture - over the next centuries, people just tore down existing buildings, selling the materials or constructing new buildings. But recently, some ruins have been discovered, and an ancient temple disctrict has been partly reconstructed (more about that in Entry 16): As already mentioned before, the First Empire started to crumble, and eventually fell to its own decadence, and the immigration of Germanic tribes in app. the 5th century AD. The Imperium was shattered, and again saw an era of countless small tribes. Some historicians called it a dark era, but it was not without its laws and rights of people; besides, the decadence, and destruction of the environment, as well as the waste of valuable resources (can you imagine how expensive it is to build an entire city from marble?) came to an end. The temples and big marble buildings were removed, making place for simpler and more unpretentious timberframe buildings. The year of 812 marked the beginning of the Second Empire, Maxirrîchi, as this was the first time it has been mentioned on a document somewhere. This empire started expanding over time, by marriage and still sometimes conquest, more or less retaining the timberframe style of architecture. It should be noted that unfortunately, civilian unrest and attacks by marauding bands and hostile tribes and countries were quite common, and thus, settlements have often been founded on elevated locations, giving them a defense advantage. And a view from a different angle, showing the Rathaus (city hall), as well as the big church, constructed in the 12th century AD. In 1352, the Emperor Woyzeck's only daughter (and only throne successor) Simone eloped to a hostile city. An attempt to get her back by attacking this city resulted in defeat. In 1357, the Emperor was assassinated (some think by his own wife, some think by other nobles), therefore, due to the royal line dying out and its humiliating defeat, an interregnum began. Unlike the fall of the First Empire, Maxiland didn't break apart, but the lack of a king/government/whatever made life very difficult. This interregnum was finally put to an end by the takeover of Emperor Kasimir Falkenhorst, founding the Third Empire, called Maxireich, and his own dynasty, the House of Falkenhorst. Over time, his dynasty was able to put an end to all the intrigues, inner unrest, and various scandals (such as banning people from the Empire for not accepting Christianity or inventing curious new machinery). As for the architecture part of this history, the people started to rediscover their artistic roots. The town expanded over the hills, colorful buildings popped up everywhere. Some call it a mess - that is the result of centuries of growth and addition of new buildings. Two pictures, one from a more distant zoom level, and one covering 4 particular areas of interest: the old church, the market hall, the old lookout tower, and the old noble quarter. The growth of the city increased in the 19th century with the advent of industry, and thus, the first land reclamation efforts began. The newly gained land was quickly filled with Gründerzeit buildings and rowhouses. You may have noticed the small canal below the old town parts. Back then, the land areas below them didn't even exist, those are results of land claiming in the early 20th century. In 1906, due to pressure from both inside and outside Maxireich, as well as economic disaster, the last Emperor had to resign, making place for the Republic of Maxiland and a parliamentary democracy. I'm really not a fan of modern architecture, although, if it comes to modern buildings, I prefer the content I've been using (mostly SOMY, madhatter106, and LBT) over other stuff. The land gaining efforts continued, two new islands have been constructed, new buildings been erected, and extensive recreational areas laid out. Two pictures, showing both islands: Here, we see the passenger harbor, along with the recreational (and also cultural) center, mainly, the Musikverein, the open-air stage, and the museum. We conclude this entry with various different pictures of Sebastianskirch which aren't actually related to the historical development of Maxiland. This is one of the arms of the Sebastianskircher Bucht (bay of Sebastianskirch), where the swimming pool, restaurants, and the sports area are located: A close-up of the colorful area at the bottom. This is a small, very shallow area with mostly sand, overgrown by cord grass. This type of plant (in reality, there are huge areas of this grass on the coast of the North Sea, ranging from Denmark over Germany to the Netherlands) can tolerate high amounts of salt and looks interestingly colorful. In comparison, a real-life picture from the island of Langeoog, Germany (courtesy of Huebi, Wikipedia): Another picture of the Fine Arts College, located on top of a small cliff. Some free areas in this city are interestingly sometimes used as farm fields. At the opposite end of the city, there is a hillside park close to the old town parts. We can also have another look at the small cove with a beach there. And finally, an overview over almost the entire town (there is an additional island located on another city tile; it will be shown off in Entry 16). Note the small cove at the top right, and the bay. You can also see the villages of Weinbach and Buchberg, which are part of Entry 13. There's still some work to do - the area around the overly green spot at the top shall be cow pastures, and the eastern parts of the bay (at the bottom of the picture) need to be MMP'ed. I hope you liked this entry, it was - quite intense and long.
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We are here: Statement: I hope you don't mind, but to keep things easier, I'll only write comments to your posts if I think it's necessary. I'll however read them and give you a heart if I like them. As you may have noticed, there's been quite some time (more than 2 years) between this entry and the last one. This has several reasons: Real life keeps me busy (however, during summer I'm having less work, so I might write a few entries over summer). I was quite appalled by the behaviour of some people here in the beginning of 2022 related to this Russia-Ukraine war. I thus decided to leave this forum for a while until things started to get normal again. Scrolling through endless menus was becoming tiresome to me. I'm having some hobbies beside playing SC4, namely, occasionally surfing through the internet and reading various articles about nature and cities, as well as hiking. This made me laying out various plans for the region I'm playing, but since no one is playing SC4 better than Mother Nature, I started to become pickier and dissatisfied - especially with my own content. I'm really no expert in graphics and MMP-ing. However, let's give it a try again, perhaps I can find a way to improve my skills; doing nothing surely won't help. Introduction: In this entry (and most likely the next one), we are going to explore the city tile of Sebastianskirch further. Let's first recall three pictures, one from the last entry, showing an overview of the entire area: Next, a picture with an overview of part of the peninsula where Sebastianskirch is located: Next, a picture from Entry 5, Biberstein. Please make note of the river, the road, and the cobblestone street - they are connected to Sebastianskirch, and we are very soon going to see where they end up. Content: Sebastianskirch is a town with about 50,000 inhabitants, being located on a very hilly peninsula. I decided to make some small changes to the terrain, but the area itself should be pretty recognizable. For this entry, we are going to explore the areas at higher altitude, with mostly 19th century expansion, more modern apartments, and industry. I should note at this point that I tried to make the town look like after centuries of slow growth. This is a makeshift sketch of how I was imagining this process to be happening (it is a bit outdated, but you should be able to get the gist of it): bis 15. Jh.: before 15th century AD When traveling from the B4 from Storchenfeld via Biberstein to Sebastianskirch, we first get to this industrial area close to the river: At the outskirts of the town, a small suburban settling has formed. The area here is a pretty weird mixture, with empty spaces covered by forests and small farm fields: As we continue to the town itself, we get close to the main railway station. We can partly see that the engineers had a hard time building this railway line: Two tunnels are there, one in the industrial area and one running under the town itself (the tunnel entrance is behind the Kitagata Apartment building). There are also at least two bridges necessary, one covering a pretty big distance, as seen above. Next, we make a bit of a jump to the east (the view of the last picture was from the north, thus, east is at the left). When coming from the federal route B2 from Weinbach, we end up in a bay with a small cove. There are some condos there, as well as a few beaches: And a close-up: A bit higher than this, this is mostly the 20th century expansion of this city, trying to adapt to the terrain. After creating it, I quickly noticed the high abundance of forests here - after all, the government of Maxiland decided to keep them because it helps preventing erosion. And last, the area where both starting areas we have seen touch, the highest levels of this town. It is even starting to expand into the hills. And that's it for today. The areas in the lower altitude levels are already under construction, so you may expect the next update to cover this area. Hope you liked this entry, it didn't cover anything very special, but as already mentioned in the last update, I like building on hilly terrain, it's much more challenging.
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We are here: Replies: It's been quite a while (RL keeps me busy these days), and since I still can't think of any specific answer, I'd like to say thank you to those who have visited this CJ so far, especially @Lazarou Monkey Terror @mitsos @monkeywater @TheMurderousCricket for their nice comments and @rsc204 for the link to Neko's brooks, this is highly appreciated. Content: In this update, where I couldn't think of anything special, we are going to continue our journey through Maxiland to the east of Storchenfeld, into the city tile of Sebastianskirch. Sebastianskirch is a town of about 50,000 inhabitants, but actually, it isn't part of this update yet, instead, I focused on developing two small villages on the same city tile, Weinbach and Buchberg. As we can see, Sebastianskirch is located in very hilly terrain on a peninsula: But I've always liked this, since it gives me quite a bit of challenge, and it looks more interesting than doing anything in completely flat land. Make note of the location of Buchberg - it is quite close to Sebastianskirch, but the difficult and steep terrain made it necessary to build a road from Weinbach to Buchberg instead of over the mountains. This peninsula fortunately has quite fertile soil, and so it is no miracle that extensive farmland is being found there, mostly grain and potatoes in the lower elevations, wine a bit uphill, and fruit tree plantations further uphill. We'll explore these locations today, and so we start in the village of Weinbach, a small and not really all that significant village in the center of the lowlands farmland: A small picture of the farmland to the north (at the bottom of this picture and many subsequent pictures) of Weinbach: And here, the federal route 6 branches off the federal route 2 and climbs its way into the mountains to Buchberg, passing extensive wineyards and fruit tree plantations there. First, a picture of the wineyards: The road also passes two briges, one being seen here, close to a small spring: And we continue uphill, to a second bridge and a second spring. Three pictures, one a bit of an overview, another a close-up of the spring, and a third one a close-up of the bridge: The fruit trees are in full bloom now that it is spring: And we arrive at the third bridge, at the outskirts of Buchberg: And this is Buchberg itself. Again, in earlier times, a lot of farmers have been living here; these days, it is mostly the home of people who want to escape the cities' noise. Buchberg has a lot of hiking paths, one of them connecting it to Sebastianskirch, and other ones to the mountains, which are quite popular goals for hiking tours. Here, a picture of a location I quite liked much: Buchberg also has a small power plant, damming up the water and forming a small lake at a location where two brooks are merging. Two pictures, from different angles: And that's it, already. We conclude today's update with an overview of the entire area, in fact, I mostly designed this whole area to look well in overviews (warning: WIP): Next update: As you can see, there's still a lot to do. You might expect the next update to deal with the city on this hilly area at the bottom of the picture (I've already laid out the roads and streets there), from the bay, the small cliff, or the mountain valley at the top right of the picture. Hope you liked this update, nevertheless.
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We are here: Replies: Again, thank you very much, @RobertLM78 and @MissVanleider, for your nice words! Contents: In this update, we are further exploring the landscape to the west of Storchenfeld and Weißenfels. Let's recall this picture from last update; we are continuing along the main route shown there: The route continues its way below the hills to the next village, and it passes two lakes fed from groundwater. When the big lake dried up here in prehistoric times, some puddles have been left; we'll see some of them in this update. And two close-ups. I should note that I've been experimenting with this one, how to make a realistic shore without always only using rocks and gravel, especially because the water level of this lake changes very little since it has no rivers flowing in and out. Thus, I'm ve been using the Small Shoreline MMP by Pegasus directly at the water (to have something like dirt or gravel directly at the shoreline), and then I've covered the rest with grass and sometimes shrubs. It turned out mostly well, and especially at the one place where there's gravel, the small darker gravel adds more visual depth to the scene. Unfortunately, it's sometimes a bit too large. I hope you like it. At the second lake, I simply used NBVC's small rocks instead of Pegasus's content. I tend to use this in further updates; on this scene, it was difficult to use because the grass was sometimes overhanging into the water, and I had to use a lot of rocks to cover that. BTW, this small lake is now part of the property of the Benediktinerinnenkloster (monastery of the Sisters of Benedict). And now, we are continuing to the large village of Erlbronn. First, we see the old village parts to the southeast (north is at the right of the subsequent 3 pictures), between the river Meisse and the creek Farnbach. (I've intentionally left out the grass square in the center of the old village parts, as sort of a community area used for various purposes, such as demonstrations or celebrations, but I couldn't find a way how to design it; so this small part is still WIP. Also, the Farnbach itself is not complete, as you can see at the left of this picture.) The northern parts are a bit more apartments, along with the industrial area and some newly built offices and stores. The next lake is also being part of a recreational area: And the southwestern parts. Mostly low-density residentials, having developed along the next main route which leads to a small village in the hills. And some shots of the river Meisse there, flowing its way from the west to the north, making a bend in the village. Lumberjacks sometimes have the sad duty to cut trees for other reasons than gaining wood: This little area has been flooded a few months ago when the river's water level was rising dangerously, causing several trees to be flooded. Unfortunately, the trees had to be cut because they have been infected with a dangerous fungus that threatened to spread to all other trees. This leaves an area with a lot of tree stumps, slowly being overgrown with weeds and stuff. And another shot of the Meisse in the village. I originally wanted to make a dam there, for flood protection, but then I ran into the nasty zigzag diagonals issue. So I couldn't do that, and instead, I turned the river shores into sort of a promenade. And a close-up of the estuary of the Farnbach. The Meisse also flows through 2 narrow lakes, which are also remainders of the big lake filling the entire lowlands area millennia ago. First, a general overview of the first of these lakes (the second will be located in another city tile and part of another update): I already showed these two pictures in the "Show us what you're working on" thread, but I'm repeating them to have them in my CJ. First, a picture of the shore with the reeds; due to the rather flat shoreline, this area is frequently flooded, which results in one of my experiments of a mire-like landscape, with an area transitioning from reeds to marsh, grassland, and forest. The small lake at the upper right corner of the overview picture is sort of an artifical basin, used to drain surplus water from the adjacent fields. It is connected to the larger lake by a ditch with a gate, to let large amounts of water flow into the lake. The small dam between both lakes has been fortified on one side to prevent erosion, and the entire area is very popular with hikers. And an overview over the entire area. That's it for today. I still have to develop the two small villages in the hills, which will finally give me a chance to make my experiments with cow pastures. Also, there are two city tiles close nearby that I don't want to make major changes to, but I still need to wipe them out because of the issues I've caused there. So you might expect the next update to continue uphill from Erlbronn, or somewhere else entirely.
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We are here: Replies: @RobertLM78: Thank you very much! Fortunately, as for wiping out my cities, it won't be all that extreme - Storchenfeld will stay for now, and Lobnautal and Erlengrund have already been wiped out, only Ulmengrund remains. Usually, I also make screenshots of the development before wiping a city out, in order to get some inspiration of what to make next. @RipRap: Thank you too. Unfortunately, as for the large stream, I currently don't have an idea how to design the riverbanks - they are supposed to be mostly rocks because it's an artifical riverbed. I'll try to add some detail every now and then, although I need to admit, I like making overviews much more. @ulisse, along with RipRap and RobertLM78: Thank you too. I'm glad you like the MMP work, I'm usually not very good with this, I've seen better work. Unfortunately, MMP-ing everything costs much time, so I hope I'll find a solution to this some time. @koumus corporation: Thank you very much, it is especially pleasant to hear from you, since you've provided me with some good plugins I'll try to put to good use in Maxiland. I definitely had something like this in mind - compact villages along rivers like the Donau, or along main roads. @TheMurderousCricket: Thank you very much for your nice words. I do, in fact, have plans for the entire region. I'll include a map of them in a later update if you're interested. @MissVanleider: Thank you very much. It's just a pity that there are no downloadable wolves, so I guess my background story will have to do. Contents: In this update, I'm continuing the development of this lowlands area I already depicted in last update. This type of landscape has formed partly due to human influence and partly due to geological changes. As already mentioned, about 10,000 years ago, there has been a big lake there, but over time, the rivers, especially the Lobnau, have carried huge amounts of sediments and pebble into the lake, thereby slowly causing it to dry up and form new land. Now, only a few puddles are left. The interesting result of this process is a very high groundwater level, which sometimes causes trouble because in order to make farm fields there, the surplus water had to be drained with drainage canals. Speaking of which, the inhabitants of Maxiland have over time cut the forests there in order to gain land for farming. Only a few areas remain, and in order to protect at least the birds there, parts of this area are now protected in a way that farming is allowed, but you are not allowed to erect buildings and roads there. The northern parts (not being part of this update) are more protected; usually there's grassland, along with wetlands forest, and the only type of human influence there is cutting the grass once per year. As you can see, the two western city tiles take up much more space in this area than the two eastern city tiles, so I decided to start my work there. The only reason for this is the fact that I need to let the farm fields grow first before growing towns and villages because the farming demand will drop. We'll start at city tile A6, Erlengrund, in the village of Weißenfels (lit. white rock), to be exact. First, let's recall this picture of Storchenfeld from Update 6: Note the two main roads at the top of the picture. The right one is the new main route, leading to Weißenfels, and it's not a big distance. The left route, however, also holds a few points of interest. Being a former main route which has been degraded over time, there are still some farmhouses along it (I already showed this picture in the Show us your farmland thread): The right route continues to Weißenfels, and here we also see a few farmhouses. I'm currently considering to make me a T21 mod that puts trees on the gravel route, to improve the picture, because, unfortunately, everything looks a bit barren, and I can't just put fences along the gravel roads because I can't lay out zones anymore. This will cost me the money from the farms, and I'd need to plop my fields everywhere which is a major hassle. This is an overview over the village of Weißenfels. Again, a rather compact village, although with some empty spaces that are used for planting fruit trees. We can also see the prominent rock formation which gave the village its name "white rock", with the church on top and other old village parts on the bottom. And some close-ups, of the old village parts and the brook: At the outskirts of this village, there's a small lake with an interesting backstory: This is a man-made lake that appeared some decades ago by coincidence. Before that lake was there, someone got a licence from the village council to dig for pebble there and sell it. (This also explains the rather regular shape of this lake.) When he was done, this, of course, left a big hole in the earth. But due to the already mentioned high groundwater level, the hole filled up with water over time, creating this lake. The pebble factory isn't there anymore, but instead, the entire area has been transformed into sort of a recreational area, with a small park, a restaurant, and some areas partly protected, because reeds are growing there, being a habitat for water birds. And an overview: The federal route 4 continues its way to the west of Maxiland, leading past this area with a spring made from groundwater, where the water flows to the north (north is at the bottom of this picture). In earlier days, the wooden bridge was the only bridge over this brook, but with the arrival of motorized traffic, it turned out that it couldn't carry cars and buses. So, a new road has been built. The old bridge now is still kept there, but only pedestrians and bikers are allowed to use it. There's also a restaurant there, next to the watermill, and the local farmers sell berries and flowers that you can pick up on your own in the fields. Also, since large parts of this area are protected, farmers have built large farmhouse complexes close to the main road. (I had to turn off the shadows for this screenshot due to strange graphical glitches with the brook.) As an extra, this is an overview over an area with a lot of fields. One can see the drainage canals there. I'm thinking to add some forests there, I just added this picture so you can get an idea of how I'm developing this area. That's it for now. Next up, probably further developing this city tile - there's still much left to do, especially the large village of Erlbronn, and two small and remote mountain villages there. Hope you liked it.
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We are here: Replies: @mitsos @younghappy @ulisse @RobertLM78 @MissVanleider @monkeywater @RipRap Wow, I'm very happy to see that I have got 7 comments for my last entry! Thank you all very much for your interest and your nice comments! I currently can't think of any special answer to any of you, so I hope this will do. Content: Before starting with the picture part of today's update, I want to share some background info about the project I've been working on, which will most likely require several updates to present to you. I'm currently working on developing this lowlands area in the southwest of Maxiland: As you can see, it takes up 4 large city tiles: Erlengrund, Ulmengrund, Lobnautal, and Storchenfeld. Again, I'm going to wipe these cities out and start them from scratch. This will still be an important agricultural area, but I'm going to make some major changes to make it both more interesting and more realistic: I'm trying to change the farm fields in a way that they line up along routes that aren't always orthogonal. I've found that it is very difficult to make large farming areas interesting. Thus, I'm just laying out farm fields with fractional angles, because I'm at least satisfied with how it turned out in Storchenfeld. I'll try different approaches on occasion, but this is just supposed to be the agricultural backbone of my city, thus requiring a large chunk of land to be filled with farms. The river to the west, flowing to the north, will flow through two narrow lakes. More about that later. There will be two small settlements in the hills to the south, which will live mostly from animal husbandry. The shore south of the river flowing from the west to the east will be a protected area, with sort of a wetlands forest. This will probably be the most challenging part, considering my general lack of experience with doing such a thing. This is a picture of my planning so far. I'm also planning to make the area around the rivers a protected area, and I'll try to even add a dam or the like, for flood protection. While I somewhat regret that in my country, there's barely any river which doesn't have a part of its path artifically changed by human buildings such as dams and power plants (up to the point where fish routes are being disrupted), it's somewhat realistic, anyway. I'm thinking of this area as a former wetland that has been drained and used for agriculture over time until the government decided to put the last remaining parts under protection. Unfortunately, work is progressing slowly so far, because of three reasons: I'm reluctant to wipe out Ulmengrund too early, because its surrounding city tiles are taking profit from the neighborhood connection. It's difficult to lay out a comprehensive network system for three city tiles. Especially because only small parts of Lobnautal and Storchenfeld are affected, and I'm suffering from space constraints there. Besides, real life keeps me busy these days. But long story short, I've at least been able to build a new village today, located in Lobnautal, the city tile to the north of Storchenfeld. Its name is Wolventhal (lit. wolf valley). The proper German spelling for both parts of this name is Wolf and Tal, but I'm changing a few letters to make it look like several centuries old. Unfortunately, I'm suffering from mysterious unemployment issues in parts of this village, and I can't find a way to solve them, so, occasionally, you will see some dilapitated buildings. Let's start with the area directly adjacent to the river Lobnau, at the highway interchange. Like in Storchenfeld, there's a bridge going all across the river, where the next village will be. Wolventhal consists mostly of low-density residentials, but a few 19th century expansions and apartments cannot be missing here. Centuries ago, the people here lived from hunting, but to do that, of course, they also had to learn how to deal with wolves, which may be considered rivals of us humans when it comes to hunting for food. Unfortunately, as it is the case with large parts of Europe, wolves are now mostly extinct in Maxiland, especially here in Southwest Maxiland, only in some areas of Northeast Maxiland, a few wolves have occasionally been sighted. Thus, Wolventhal has never played a big role in the history and the economy of Maxiland, but a few people still live there, they mostly enjoy the remoteness and the view. Especially those living in the upper parts of the village. And a close-up of the brook estuary. Empty space in villages like this is being used for small farm fields. Also, some rich people are living here, far away from the traffic, but, much to their chagrin, close to two cow pastures (well, one can't have everything). I've also made this little bike path along the river. A nice recreational center of sorts in Wolventhal. Here, we also have the older parts of this village, placed a bit more loosely than in most cities in Maxiland because back then, there was enough space available. Here, we have a small industrial area, as well as another local employer, the sawmill. And a self-made lot, a small highway rest station, in case you are tired and need to prevent microsleep, or you need to go to the toilet. BTW, I'm fencing in the highway, and constructed 5 short tunnels for it, to protect the wildlife in its proximity. I'm now having a last picture for you, this is a sluice that controls how much water flows into the old river arm of the river Lobnau. During times of high amounts of rainfall, in order to protect the surrounding villages from floods, it opens and allows the water to fill up the old riverbed. That's it for now. I'm still developing the lowland area, I hope to be able to make an update on it soon. Hope you liked this update.
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We are here: Replies: A big thank you again to mitsos, MissVanleider, ulisse, and RobertLM78 for your interest and your comments! In fact, thinking of a background to the region I'm developing was something I was lacking when starting it 5 years ago, and it really helps making it more lively and unique. I'll try my best to keep it up. For some reason, the tagging function doesn't work for me, so I need to include you this way. Contents: In this entry, I'm completing the city tile of Storchenfeld. Not much is left, so this will be a rather short update. But it still makes more sense to share it independently, the next project I'm working on is rather huge and includes 3 large city tiles, therefore requiring good planning, so it will take me a while to share another update. First, a bit of MMP work. Recently, a beaver dam has been spotted near Biberstein, the small forest village we've alredy seen in Entry 5. So, we are traveling into the forest to have a look at it, and first, we have to cross a small suspension bridge: Beavers create dams at flowing bodies of water in order to flood the entrance to their lairs whenever the water level rises. Beavers are good swimmers, so they can enter their lair from under water, making it more safe against predatory animals. To do that, they sometimes cut trees literally by gnawing around the stem of a tree until it falls, along with using other materials such as fallen branches, twigs, mud, and stones. While beavers are protected in some areas of the world, of course their activities aren't always popular with us humans, and can cause issues such as some trees being flooded by the rising water, dying thereby. Therefore, to watch the beaver activities, a ranger station has been built. It also serves as an info point for interested people. And here, we have the beaver dam in its glory. One can already see the dam itself, the lairs, made from wood as well, and the tree stumps. By coincidence, this path here leads to another area of interest. As already mentioned in the last entry, some Pagan myths have survived in Maxiland until this very day - although the times for sacrifices are over, there are still some people meditating close to this mysterious stone circle, and it is a popular spot for summer parties. According to some people, this stone circle has been used to worship the God of the forest, although recently, there are speculations that it has something to do with Zodiac, as there have once been 12 large rocks surrounding the huge rock in the center, placed in equal distance to each other. For reasons unknown, 4 of these rocks have been removed, which may indicate that there still were times when whatever Deity has been worshipped there, this area has completely been ignored and the rocks have just been recycled as building materials. And an overview of the entire area: Next, we are visiting an area close nearby, but actually part of the community of Storchenfeld. This is the small hamlet of St. Laurenz, which has been founded by monks several centuries ago. Back in these days, when the river was a bit farther to the west, this was a really enjoyable spot - the scenery was awesome, with the view to the river, and there was still enough farming land available for a secluded life but still not too far away from humanity. Nowadays, due to decline in interest in such a lifestyle, there are only few monks living there. But they are allowing educational institutes, professors, and artists from all around the world to perform courses at their monastery of St. Laurenz in order to help adults further improve their education or develop their interests in art. Stl Laurenz only contains 6 houses, the monastery itself, a restaurant, and a small church. This is a view to St. Laurenz from zoom level 2, along with the street to this hamlet, so you can notice its location in comparison to Storchenfeld. And an overview over almost the entire large city tile. Whatever is missing is mostly forest, without any special development. And with that, we can consider the first city tile of Maxiland finished. I hope you enjoyed this short update. I'm currently developing the areas to the west and north of Storchenfeld, as well as Zirbenhang (to the east of Michaelshaven), so you might expect the next update to show some pictures from there.
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We are here: Replies: I can't believe that it has already been so long ago that I posted the last entry. Yet unfortunately I had a lot to do, and later I couldn't find an idea of how to proceed with this CJ. Fortunately, it seems that if I just sit down and do something, it usually turns out to help me much more than I'm imagining. Again, I'm grateful to @RobertLM78, @Bobelboy, @MissVanleider, and @ulisse for having posted nice comments on my last entry, and I hope you will further like this CJ. Contents: Before starting with the picture part, allow me to share some background information on which religions are mostly present in Maxiland. As you may have guessed, the majority of the people of Maxiland are Catholics. But various other religions are present, either because they have been there and have resisted Christianity, or due to immigration. Interestingly, some of the more considerable minorities focus specifically on one of the realms of Maxiland: Orthodox Christianity has been present in Maxiland for several centuries, along with Catholic Christianity. It is mostly present in the Bergviertel (the northeast of Maxiland) Islam has spread in the southeast of Maxiland (Seeviertel) during its conquest of these areas, and has receded after Maxiland took over these areas again. More recently, its amount of members is increasing again, due to high numbers of Muslimic immigrants. Interestingly, Buddhism and Shinto are starting to gain interest amoung the people of Maxiland. Various small communities are spread all over Maxiland, but the most followers of Buddha's teachings or Shinto are living in the northwest of Maxiland, in the Waldviertel. Last but not least, several Pagan rites and codices have survived "Christianization" in the southeastern part of Maxiland (Feldviertel), and several Pagan Deities are still being worshipped today. This is a table showing the distribution of religions (atheism not counted): I will occasionally share a picture of religious sites whenever I'm getting a good idea. But enough about that for now. In today's entry, we are continuing the work on the city tile Storchenfeld, with the main focus on developing the market community of Storchenfeld itself and its surrounding farmland. Storchenfeld lies at the intersection of two main federal routes, route B1, running through large parts of Maxiland, and route B4, starting at the western border of Maxiland, continuing through Biberstein, and ending in Sebastianskirch. This location allowed Storchenfeld, despite being just a market community, to slowly grow over time and have a certain importance. Most settlements smaller than cities mainly consist of low-density residential zoning, but due to space constraints, Storchenfeld contains a considerable amount of apartment blocks because the city council buys whichever land is available and not under protection and erects apartments there. Here are two pictures, first the nothern part, then the southern part (north is in all pictures at the right). We also see that there are already some shopping centres along the main routes, and there's still a considerable amount of suburban zones. In the southern part of Storchenfeld, we already see that a small Korean community has requested permission (and has been granted so) to build a temple in Storchenfeld. Furthermore, I should note that Storchenfeld has already existed for centuries, and there is a small old village part along the river. Further to the south, there's a small lake in a transitional area between village and farming land. It is very popular among hikers. Also, some small cottages have been erected at the brook to the west, sort of so-called "Schrebergärten", where people spend some time during summer, growing small amounts of plants there or just relaxing, being a bit closer to nature. Two pictures. To the north, there's farmland, but due to very little space, it's not all that interesting to show off. However, since the level of soil humidity is rather high in these areas, there are some reservoir ponds at some places in the Feldviertel that collect surplus water which has been drained from the fields, and either return it in case of hot and dry summers, or transfer it to the nearby river via the spillway. You might have noticed that on the last picture there have been two rivers parallel to each other. Actually, this is the same river, it just has two arms, an old one (the dark blue water) and a new one (the light blue water). This is the result of an important project related to flood protection: In 1899, a huge flood of the river Lobnau destroyed several square kilometres of valuable farm land, thus, some measures had to be taken to prevent further floods. In the beginning, the government was working on moving the entire riverbed further to the east. At a certain point of development in 1900, the new riverbed was already dug up, but the old one was just barely blocked by a dike. Unfortunately, as bad luck wanted it, another flood occurred, breaking through the dike and flooding the old riverbed. Faced with this setback, the government simply decided to keep it that way, at least partly. Since then, the river Lobnau has two arms there, separated by the Lobnauinsel (Lobnau island), and a spillway (not in Storchenfeld, in the city tile further to the north) controls how much water is flowing into the old river arm - during dry summers, it is being closed, and the old river arm is partly a stagnant body of water (being only fed by some small brooks), and during wet summers, the spillway is opened, giving high amounts of water some room to spread. This decision turned out to be pretty good: Large parts of the Lobnauinsel are now either used for recreational purposes (for bike paths) or under nature protection. In fact, in Storchenfeld, the new island was this popular that it now contains a park with a lot of grass where people can spread their towels to rest there, a few restaurants, an amphitheatre where theatre pieces can be performed during summer, and, of course, the main attraction: the annual Inselfest (island festival), with music, festival, and dance. Another project that came along with the idea of environment protection: About 60-70 years ago, the old and traditional routes had to be upgraded in order to cope with the increasing traffic. We've already seen remnants of the old routes in the shape of cobblestone streets. After the route upgrade, the southern part of Storchenfeld, close to Michaelshaven, looked like this (remnants of the old route are still there, the Tarsealed street): Of course, over time, it turned out to be a bad idea that the road and the railway tracks weren't grade-separated. Also, the environmentalists protested against the road because it endangeded the nearby stork population. After all, what would be Storchenfeld (lit. stork field) without its namesake animals? Therefore, the road has instead been moved further to the west, not crossing the railway in Storchenfeld, but in Michaelshaven: And here two pictures of Michaelshaven, where some routes have also been upgraded and replaced. Before: After: Let's conclude this entry with two overviews, one from zoom level 2 and one from zoom level 1. Hope you liked this entry. Next up - who knows. I'm already having plans about how to develop the nearby farm land in Erlengrund, Lobnautal, and Ulmengrund, and I've already started to develop Zirbenhang (east of Michaelshaven).
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We are here: Replies: @ulisse @Chappington Thank you very much! I also like the fantasy nation theme; it's unfortunately not a case where I've thoroughly thought of an entire story, but I'll share some info about it whenever I can think of some. @RobertLM78 @tomz16 Thank you, too! Contents: In today's entry, we are continuing the development of the city tile Storchenfeld. Starting one of the city tiles in the Feldviertel is a major hassle - mostly because you always need to start with farm fields, because SC4 doesn't like to grow fields after there's enough population in a city. I've grown some farm fields to the west, but for now, it isn't really worth sharing a picture. Also, I can't make angled fields because of the very limited space and it's orthogonal because of the hills and the river, anyway. Storchenfeld contains two settlements, a market community with the same name and a village in the hills with the name of Biberstein. Biber means beaver; the village quite literally got its name from the fact that it has originally been founded by lumberjacks. This is one of the villages that remained relatively untouched by modern ages and retained its somewhat old look, with buildings predominately made of wood and stone. It's also still partly living from cutting trees and various industry related to processing wood, but some of the houses are only inhabited in summer and belong to people outside the village because they are vacation resorts rather than permanent residences. Biberstein also gave me quite the opportunity to try out some MTP stuff by Pegasus. Pegasus's stuff looks really quite great, even though it's sometimes a bit special. I've added a few content from other creators as well, but you'll see, the forest village theme is quite dominating. Biberstein is located at the federal route 4, connecting the settlements in western Feldviertel with the ones to the east by being one of only two routes getting past the mountains and the only one getting across them. Route 4 intersects with the highway; it starts much further to the west, but we've already seen the place where it starts ascending to the hillsides here: This is nowadays' village center, at the railway station. I really should add some more shops there, for a village living more and more from tourism, there are too few of them, although it was more difficult to find shops than residences. TheHalifax Boxes by spa are also a really good addition to this wood-and-stones theme. And the industrial area, cutting, selling, and processing wood. Pegasus' toy factory is currently my favourite, it does not only add jobs but also a quite iconic feeling to an area living from cutting trees: The former, old village center, with the church, the city hall, a park, and the market square; located along the former main route through this village (the main route has been relocated long ago to get the traffic past the residential zones): At the eastern end, shortly before route 4 ends, a few fruit farmers have set up some fields: Also, some rich people have set up lodges along one of the creeks starting in Biberstein: I should also note that I've been experimenting lately with new ways to make riverbanks with MMP's. In general, Pegasus' MMP's are pretty useful, and it's one of the few sets with gravel and rocks in varying sizes, but unfortunately, the gravel and pebble MMP's are sometimes a bit too large. Thus, I've added some stuff by Murimk (especially the large rocks) and other creators I can't remember now. It really helps adding quality to the scene, although, unfortunately, the colors sometimes do not mix well. Two creeks are starting in Biberstein and are flowing to the east, merging somewhere; we have already seen this on the last screenshots and will see more of it in the overview picure at the end of this entry. A few close-ups from the MMP development: Where both creeks are merging: A watermill is located further uphill, when following the left of these creeks: Close to the eastern outskirts of Biberstein, where the forest begins, there's this pond: Nothing special for the other creek, but there's a scene I like particularly, it furned out quite well for me: And finally the overview. That's it for today's entry. Hope you liked it. There's a small area to the left of this picture that I still need to finish, also, the community of Storchenfeld still hasn't been begun yet. Next up is also continuing the large river in the Feldviertel, with the splitting of the river because of the flow regulationg project there.
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Overview over Maxiland I figured in order not to upload too many pictures, I should make a separate entry to show my progress on Maxiland. First picture: a satellite view after the last regular entry: Second picture: a table showing which city tiles have been featured so far and in which entries:
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Michaelshaven Michaelshaven is Maxiland's 3rd largest city, located far in the southwest of Maxiland. It is noteworthy for its difficult landscape - it is very hilly because its lowest elevation is at sea level - its old town, located on an island (more about that in a later update), and its otherwise rather modern view, cosisting mostly of detached apartments. I should note that I've been actually working on Michaelshaven for more than a month now. It has mostly been fun, aside from occasionally waiting very long for certain residentials to finally grow. I'm using the technique described here to make certain residentials grow, but still, it can sometimes take very long, depending on the desirability of an area and the demand. But let's start with a small overview over Michaelshaven before I wiped it out (yes, you read right: I had to wipe out its previous incarnations; more about that in the introduction): I actually didn't bother much wiping it out because of two reasons: I met with a serious case of Phantom Slider Bug in this city, anyway. And I wanted to make some considerable terrain changes (see picture below): The island with the skyscrapers should be removed. Instead, I attached a good chunk of land to the mainland in the very south of this city. In turn, the airport island moved a bit farther to the west. (Pink rectangle) There's now a bit of a hill in the northwest. (Pink line) To compensate for the loss of inhabitants (Michaelshaven had almost 250,000 inhabitants before the wipeout), I planned on adding additional residential areas to the west, south, and north (just opposite the river, and uphill). (Light red areas, purple area) In the center, there's a small river coming from the west (the upper one). I added a bit of a park there. (Light green circle) The coastline should now mostly have conifer forest and look rugged, with some scattered sheep pastures. (Dark green designated area) Instead, the empty area, formerly designated as huge pastures, will just be covered with forest. (Red) The landscape should also be more difficult, with deeper bays and cliffs. (Cyan) There should be a larger industrial area to the north. (Yellow) But long story short: Let's start! We'll start at the airport island and move to the southernmost area of Michaelshaven, an area just recently been built on, with a lot of apartments. Even the rich ones live in apartments, they like the view of the island. Next, there's the central business district with the main square, next to the main railway station. To the north, there's a bit of recreational area along the beach, inviting for a stroll and swimming, as well as parts of the old town, sort of a 19th century expansion. In the 19th century, there have been some factories along the channel here. Today, most of them have been removed, only some lofts remained. But there's still high-tech industry around here, as well as more apartments and some highrises. Farther to the north, the poor people live just below the dam. This picture also shows the highway interchange Michaelshaven Nord. The reason for this unique setup was that it was somewhat difficult to get the interchange to the avenue, so I placed it at the location it is now and just made an extra on-ramp for the traffic coming from the lower elevation levels. As soon as later editions of the NAM will make it possible, I'll make an extra off-ramp for the traffic coming from the highway bridge, but that's impossible now. Let's now continue to the higher elevation levels. Apartments and more apartments, mixing in with low-density residential areas, parks, a few scattered farm fields, and forests. To the west of the highway: Suburban sprawl, albeit also with a lot of apartments. The agricultural areas to the very west are already transitioning into the traditional farming common to the city tile to the west, Dornfeld - with a lot of scattered farmhouses with rather small and diverse farm fields (more about that later). Even the hillsides are inhabited. The small road leads uphill, along mostly low-density zones, to an area where I plan to make some starting points for hiking paths later. This is, by the way, the interchange Michaelshaven Süd, along a diagonal stretch of the highway. Süd: south This is the industrial area at the northwest of Michaelshaven, along with the freight station and the Engineering College. And last, but not least, the castle ruins. Only the church survived, and it is now a popular spot for weddings. Enjoy a good meal at the castle restaurant and bring home some gifts from the gift shop! And an overview of Michaelshaven (view to the west): There's still a lot to do, such as the island with the old town, and the expansion to the east (at the bottom of the picture). See you in the next update!
