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Identify City/Metro from Satellite Image To play, observe the satellite image and try to guess the city by: - Analyzing the shape and layout of the urban area - Inferring the climate region from the earth's surface texture - Spotting recognizable landmarks visible from above The Rules: - The first person to correctly identify the city gets to share the next Google Earth satellite image - Make sure to remove all labels and layers, leaving only the satellite basemap - The screen capture orientation must be set to North-up (i.e., the top of the image points towards the north) - The scale of the image should be set to show the entire urban area, with a small portion of the surrounding rural or suburban area visible - You can choose to skip your turn if you'd like While it can be fun to challenge one another with more difficult guesses, I suggest limiting the game to metropolitan areas with populations greater than 100,000. This will help keep the game moving, make it more enjoyable for everyone, and avoid situations where progress is stalled by hard guesses for small cities in remote or lesser-known regions. Here we go: ^ Original Pic Name: image.png
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Meandras, obsessed with creating a realistic satellite view
Adamskisc4 posted a topic in SC4 City Journals
I'm new to this forum and community so if this is the wrong place to post I do apologise and stand corrected. It was really great to discover and play the Maxisland region uploaded here by member catty-cb. It gave me the idea to create one of my own, with the aim to reach roughly the same regional population but with a more european look to it. Like flying in and viewing the region from the cockpit of your little Cessna at 4,000 meters of altitude, and thinking “Oh man! I’m gonna land over there and get a rental car to drive around, discover… explore.. and meet potentially interesting sims.” In Meandras we have some clearly outlined urban and suburban areas, and some that have merged over the years due to high-capacity transit routes, just like in real life - bigger urban landscapes that consist of several municipalities. The urban areas in Meandras follow the contour of the terrain, and neighbourhoods have their natural structure, mostly a mosaic of residential and commercial with industrial areas kept to themselves. To avoid the typical square urban structure that emerges in SimCity, I would start each city tile with a road following the terrain, encircling flatter ground to be built, and then zone with a criss-cross of diagonal roads, streets and avenues to counteract the typical american grid structure. I found that I could just drag i big zone over the area and then chip off/de-zone the tiles that ended up beyond the road contour, a little bit like chiseling away on a piece of marble, hoping it’s going to look like Aphrodite. Tedious work, but coupled with some diagonal roads or even avenues this gave quite an interesting street layout with some “no road connection” tiles perfect for parks, playgrounds, plazas and whatnot. Then, to finish a city off I’d sneak into God mode for a touch of re-forestation - sparsly on hillsides and mountains, more densely in valleys. On the whole it’s been like painting the Timbuktu landscape with settlements, infrastructure and vegetation. and I’m so pleased with the result I just had to share it with this community. Using mostly Chicago and New York tile sets and BATs with Europan origins, the satellite view offers lots of red, orange and yellow, mostly medium density buildings and only a few high rises, which in my opinion corresponds well to the aerial view you get from flying around Europe, staying clear of Frankfurt... This on the visual, aesthetic aspects of Meandras from high above, which has been the main goal. On the functional level it is an integrated region, with most cities living in symbiosis - sharing their space and livelihoods. Since the challenge was not to succeed in the game as such, but to get this satellite view, I played all cities on the easy level but mostly without cheats (oh I did cut a corner here and there to steal a reward building… sorry for that - but no "weakness pays" …) NAM has been very useful to help me manage mobility, but for interurban transit I have used Maxis standard items. Things like Real Highway need a lot of space for offramp, onramps etc, more adapted to an american model with urban sprawl and lots of open space to spare. Have you ever driven on the peripherique around Paris or the Autostrada through Naples? Although it has sometimes miscalculated regional growth and intercity impact, The Census Repositary Vault ( I never understood the difference between the vault and the facility - if someone cares to explain it to me..) has given me invaluable information for my city planning. The most common bug has been that in a mainly residential city that obviously has lots of sims commuting to Sim Nation, the Census guys set that numer to zero. Even so, it was not too hard to balance offer and demand between the cities concerned. Of course there is still a lot of commuters crossing borders around the clock never to go back home, but that’s a known bug. Lastly if wish to thank this Simtropolis community for sharing their knowledge and creations for us to learn from or download. Sadly some really good-looking w2w buildings and other lots would cause my Mac to CTD, like the ones uploaded by WannGLondon, but others - such as the BAT files uploaded by koumus corporation, and Odd from Sweden to mention a few, have given the cities their nice atmosphere. So, is Meandras now perfect? Maybe looks OK from the cockpit of a Cessna at 4,000 meters altitude, but can it grow its population without sprawling further and pushing mother nature out of this idyllic picture? Even with so many graveyards in cities that have since long stopped zoning new residential areas, we still get loud (!!) protests from schoolteachers against any budget cuts, so yes - new little sims keep coming and we need to accommodate the growing families. My job will now move from macro to micro level, from regional "governor" to arrondissement mayor, and fine tune each little neighbourhood, downtown commercial street, government block, parks and recreation, and our responsibility as elected officials - law and order, education, health, utilities and transportation. Of course sims will keep moving from town to town, seeking new opportunities, and as mayor, no longer too concerned with that regional harmony that has so obsessed me as governor, the gloves are off and the weapon of choice is going to be tax policy, coupled with this wonderful word: desirability. Unity will have to give way to competition, even if we also remain interdependent. A delicate balaning act to follow, so: Stay tuned if you like the approach and more importantly, pls offer feedback - always welcome! -
Brownsville, New York: Google Satellite virtual tour of a low wealth SimCityscape
Naomi57 posted a City Journal entry in Brownsville, East New York – R$ Manufacturing City (NAM36)
Brownsville, New York: Google Satellite virtual tour of a low wealth SimCityscape Aside from being a Google Satellite tour, this post is also a little tutorial on demand caps, pollution, NIMBY and YIMBY, describing SimCity 4 game mechanics for stable R$ residential neighbourhoods, pockets of highly profitable C$$ development lining high volume highways, and wealth creation in manufacturing (I-M) cities, using just the vanilla SimCity 4 plops. Of course, you can get around demand CAPS issues by developing a small city tile, which is much more forgiving economically, but my Brownsville is a large city tile. You can get around pollution management issues by zoning industry on one side of a Neighbour Connection, and zone commercial C$$ and residential R$ on the other side ... but I want to do it all in one city! Here's the Google Satellite link for Brownsville, New York. which I am interpreting as a high density and medium density residential/manufacturing city, mostly low wealth R$, with lots of manufacturing (I-M) throughout, for many-many R$ jobs, and a few designated high density manufacturing zones where they occur in real-life. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brownsville,+Brooklyn,+NY,+USA/@40.6311899,-73.9239773,4087a,35y,37.13h,40.17t/data=...!4d-73.9125304 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: I do like to use three small cheats ... A very big city startup loan (Ctrl+X moolah ), using downloaded Maxis Extra Cheats.dll (v1.0) , with the goal of repaying the startup loan in a few short decades. Access to ALL my city planning resources from the get-go (Ctrl+X you don't deserve it ), no download required. This is not as cheaty as it sounds, as I still have to balance the books and pay the monthly maintenance for all this stuff! Ctrl+Alt+Shift God-mode terraforming whenever I feel the inclination. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: When planning a city tile, I like to base initial primary features off the Google Satellite images, so let's take a look through the real city, shall we? Manufacturing + Real Railways! This will be my first foray into the NAM railway features. Notice the R$ high rise neighbourhood nearby, which is rather typical of Brownsville. This proximity of industry and residential is quite achievable and healthy, using a combination of the Clean Air Act in the City Ordinances, lots of trees, plus many Water Treatment Plants in close proximity to the cleanest and dirtiest areas. The many trees in unzoned green spaces inside the residential areas will also be a big help with moderating air pollution. This kind of proximity of R$ and I-M increases employment and high residential demand in the area, so I'm hoping all the Water Treatment Plants will pay for themselves with increased tax revenue. The thousands of residents in each high rise tenement also more than make up for the tile space allocated for trees. This is both efficient and oddly beautiful. This proximity of industry and R$ residential is one of the easier ways to help prevent the oompa-loompa problem. One thing I won't be doing, is the greenway along the rail line. Placing rail directly adjacent to industry lots provides industry with automatic railway siding features. Although you won't see it in the industrial lots, you can certainly see the increases in freight train automata, and the high use of rail for export freight (using the Alt+/ route query tool), from industry lots adjacent to the rail line ... as long as the nearest Neighbour Connection is that same rail line. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Jetro/@40.6438314,-73.9077286,1146a,35y,37.13h,39.06t/data=...!4d-73.902221 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brownsville,+Brooklyn,+NY,+USA/@40.6710838,-73.9061233,715a,35y,37.13h,40.78t/data=...!4d-73.9125304 Residential High Rises! R$, R$$ and R$$$ This is also rather typical of Brownsville, these residential high rise districts. Most of them are low wealth R$ tenements, though a few are medium wealth R$$, and just one is high wealth R$$$, Starett City on the eastern side of this screenshot. Many trees and no parks helps with air pollution, and the resulting low desirability (from having no parks), protects the R$ tenements from gentrification. The canal on the eastern side will have a Car Ferry, along with an OWR-4 ferry loop road, an area with all the ingredients for a highly successful local C$$ zone. Just outside this screenshot, on the eastern side, is a Water Treatment Plant that will help protect the C$$ and R$$$ zones from dilapidation caused by water pollution. The many trees in these residential zones will likewise protect the C$$ commercial zone from air pollution, where the commercial lots are clustered around my high traffic ferry terminal area. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brownsville,+Brooklyn,+NY,+USA/@40.6492741,-73.8905339,862a,35y,37.13h,40.75t/data=...!4d-73.9125304 The Stadium, shown on the western side of the above screenshot, has high commercial YIMBY value (22 or 27 tile radius), and negative residential NIMBY (16 or 20 tile radius), thereby also supporting my goals of preventing R$ gentrification. Given the NIMBY from the Stadium, I can even gift the R$ residential area with just 1 small Playground, or 1 Small Park Green, or 2 Small Plazas ... maybe, depending on the other YIMBY plops in the local neighbourhood. You've got to be extremely careful not to unbalance the ZERO YIMBY value of R$ neighbourhoods! Here's some super handy vanilla plops with YIMBY commercial and NIMBY residential, very useful for this mix of R$ and C$$ neighbourhoods: Minor League Stadium (22 tile commercial YIMBY, 16 tile residential NIMBY) – This provides R$ and R$$ residential CAPS uplift of 200k. Major League Stadium (27 tile commercial YIMBY, 20 tile residential NIMBY) – This provides R$ and R$$ residential CAPS uplift of 300k, but it's really pricey to maintain! Tourist Trap (36 tile commercial YIMBY, 17 tile residential NIMBY) – This also provides a potent R$ residential cap uplift of 100k, with the lovely side benefit of being FREE! I'm most definitely using this one. Television Studio (22 tile commercial YIMBY, 17 tile residential NIMBY) – This one is FREE, too, and provides a modest C$$ CAPS uplift, which is rather handy. Lighthouse (22 tile commercial YIMBY, 22 tile residential NIMBY) – This one is a little expensive to maintain, but I might get me one of these, even though I don't even have a Sea Port ... I've got 5 ferries, don't they count? Convention Centre (32 tile commercial YIMBY, 22 tile residential NIMBY) – This one is almost as expensive as the Major League Stadium, but also provides potent C$$ and C$$$ CAPS uplift, which is useful for my mixed manufacturing (I-M) and C$$ commercial economy. Of course, R$$$ Starett City will have many, many parks, and the R$$ neighbourhood in the centre of that screenshot (above) will arise naturally off the overflow YIMBY gradient from these R$$$ neighbourhood parks. ... and Water Treatment Plants, of course! Dirty Industry (I-D) will tolerate heavy water pollution quite well, but other sectors don't, with the most fragile ones being C$$, C$$$, R$$ and R$$$. These Water Treatment Plants are critical components for my pockets of R$$, R$$$ and C$$ zoning in this industrial city. Whenever I plop one of these, I like switching to Water Pollution view to watch it at get eaten up by the Water Treatment Plant. Trees help with air pollution, but for water pollution, this is the "plant" you need. The first one below, is just to the east of that last screenshot (above), and this screenshot (below) shows both R$$$ Starett City and the 26th Ward Wastewater Treatment Plant. As a delightful side effect, the location of this Water Treatment Plant, on the banks of Hendrix Creek, will keep the creek's water pure and beautiful. One thing I really hate is yucky looking water. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brownsville,+Brooklyn,+NY,+USA/@40.6439653,-73.8838843,861a,35y,37.13h,40.75t/data=...!4d-73.9125304 I'm not sure what the Sperandeo Brothers Playground is, but I'm turning back the clock on this one, and it's becoming another much needed Water Treatment Plant, to support the C$$ zonings clustered around the high traffic commercial opportunities of one my large RHW-4 interchanges. My apologies to the local R$ citizens, too, who won't be getting those tennis courts! https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brownsville,+Brooklyn,+NY,+USA/@40.6764673,-73.8854109,106a,35y,37.13h,41.06t/data=...!4d-73.9125304 Even this Betsy Head Pool is being repurposed as yet another Water Treatment Plant, right near my second Stadium (which will provide much needed C$$ YIMBY and R$ negative NIMBY for nearby zones). https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brownsville,+Brooklyn,+NY,+USA/@40.6591806,-73.9167838,732a,35y,37.13h,40.78t/data=...!4d-73.9125304 I have two other Water Treatment Plants planned, but they are situated entirely in relation to SimCity 4 economic gameplay, with no relation to Brownsville reality. Heavy Passenger Rail Let's take a closer look at Livonia Ave (from above screenshot), shall we? https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brownsville,+Brooklyn,+NY,+USA/@40.6612625,-73.9149799,90a,35y,45.46h,45.03t/data=...!4d-73.9125304 An avenue made of train tracks! Let's zoom in a bit further, down to Street View ... https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6617255,-73.914584,3a,60y,45.46h,90t/data=...!8i8192 Weeeee! An L1 rail viaduct over the avenue! Does NAM36 have one of those??? I'm only a wee bit disappointed that this isn't Underground Heavy Rail, but I'm sure Brownsville will give me opportunities for that, too! Heavy Passenger Rail is the cheapest of rail options, so that suits early economic development of my Brownsville large city tile very well. House of Worship ... too good to pass up The churches are basically FREE parks, with wide residential YIMBY, and zero commercial YIMBY. They also raise R$$ residential CAPS, important for a larger population, and R$$ is part of my overall economic strategy for this Brownsville large city tile. The problem is, where to put them! Most real-life Brownsville church locations are very BAD places to plop a House of Worship, because the residential YIMBY will cause gentrification, driving out the R$ sims ... so I had a sticky beak around my single solitary R$$$ neighbourhood, Starett City, looking for good spots for a church plop. Young Israel of Canarsie sounds like a Synagogue to me, so yep, I'll do that. This eastern side of Brownsville large city tile is actually Canarsie in real-life, hence the YIMBY gradient with high wealth R$$$ and medium wealth R$$ on this eastern side. Two Houses of Worship on the banks of Fresh Creek will also do a great job of simulating the YIMBY value of the pristine Fresh Creek Nature Preserve, the SimCity 4 game mechanics having no idea that the area is so beautiful. My second church will go where the Spring Creek Rehabilitation and Nursing Care Center is, just because it's a convenient spot! https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brownsville,+Brooklyn,+NY,+USA/@40.6417598,-73.8884424,380a,35y,45.46h,44.85t/data=...!4d-73.9125304 My third House of Worship will be plopped at the location of the Brooklyn Sports Club, in close proximity to Hendrix Creek canal, and the 26th Ward Wastewater Treatment Plant, on the other side of this same R$$$ Starett City neighbourhood. A sports club is almost a church, isn't it! https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brownsville,+Brooklyn,+NY,+USA/@40.6436454,-73.883356,664a,35y,45.46h,44.74t/data=...!4d-73.9125304 Army Base, and all the nastiest NIMBY stuff Last but not least, here's the location of my Army Base, in the very far north western corner of my Brownsville large city tile. I need me an Army Base, for the very potent manufacturing (I-M) CAPS relief it provides, to the tune of 100k!!! This delivers the most potent CAPS uplift of manufacturing (I-M) in the vanilla game. I NEED THIS ... and what I really don't need, is a Cemetery (which is basically just another FREE Park with no CAPS relief whatsoever), so the military is in, and The Evergreens Cemetary is out. While the Army Base potent wide area residential NIMBY doesn't bother me at all, and the Army Base even provides a wee little bit of commercial YIMBY, there is something else that bothers me about the Army Base, so this is going in the remotest corner of Brownsville. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brownsville,+Brooklyn,+NY,+USA/@40.6755989,-73.9096806,904a,35y,45.46h,44.65t/data=...!4d-73.9125304 What bothers me most about the Army Base, is it's little known Police Corruption Effect, a premium cause of crime, over a whopping 64 tile radius! Crime being a primary cause of dilapidation and vacancy of local C$$ and C$$$ commercial zones, I've even drawn out an Army Base exclusion zone delineating that 64 tile perimeter using the Road tool, with no C$$ planned for that area at all. Rather than waste the land, I'll put a wildlife reserve and some agriculture (I-A) there, along with some other nasty NIMBY plops which are further causes for the Ten Silent Killers of SimCity 4 Commercial Growth: Dirty power plants. Waste to Energy Plant, for eating all the trash. Federal Prison, which gives me both §250 cash each month, and free housing for the many criminals the Army Base will cause. Missile Range, which is the one and only "clean" NIMBY business deal, another §450 cash each month, which only causes plain NIMBY + additional fire risk. In for a penny, in for a pound. Convention Centre, which provides huge 100k uplift of C$$ and C$$$ CAPS ... which will probably assist my C$$ commercial zones around my ferries and interchanges. The Convention Centre doesn't mind the crime or pollution, curiously enough. International Airport, which tends to be another hotspot for crime anyway, and airports don't mind crime or pollution, either! How much police protection to provide for this nasty corner of Brownsville, is something I'll have to experiment with. The money of these three NIMBY Business Deals might just end up going into higher police protection, but whatever is leftover will be invested in pollution management ... and my Monorail for scooting R$$ and R$$$ citizens from their cleanest possible residential areas to work at their C$$ businesses. Incidentally, Monorail across half a large city tile probably won't make any difference at all for R$ sims going to work in a factory, but some sims will commute further for a cushy office job than they will for a factory job. Perhaps most odd of all, right next to the Army Base, will be the location for a plantation of flowers ... well away from all the residential zones. Another little known fact of SimCity residential CAPS ... the Small Flower Garden, aside from being a potent (and very cheap) source of residential YIMBY, is also the most potent vanilla plop for raising residential CAPS! With Brownsville having a huge high rise residential population, I need me some of that residential CAPS relief. -
View Album A suburban beehive... Across the river - the Mountainview Heart Center Right to Left: New Heart Center, Admin Building, Old Heart Center, Emergency HeliPad, Labs, Nurse's Home... the large ranch-style house is the 'De-Tox Farm' (where rich kids go cold turkey) - Night views -
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Forgive me if this has occurred and been answered, but I looked on the forum and can't find an answer to it. Perhaps I'm just not using the right words in the search box, but here is my problem. When I load my region, "The Republic of Maxis", my newest city Rockingham is only showing in Satellite version. I click on my transportation map and this is the only city that does not change over. I have been working on this city for two days, I have not entered any other city in the region. Since loading the city up I have only added two major modds, the NAM31 and Simcity4 Launcher. Any idea's on this? Or a possible fix? So far I have loaded SimCity 4 without the launcher, the normal method. I have also logged out of the region, into another region and back again and still the same thing.
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Overview of the Metropolitan Area Update 11/16/2014: You can now click on these images for a full view. These images provide views of the metropolitan area from a top-down perspective. I. Satellite View At this angle, the building heights are substantially exaggerated, but it still provides some idea of how large this region is. II. Map View
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Welcome to the Andremore Metropolitan Area Update 11/16/2014: You can now click on these images for a full view. This City Journal takes you on a journey through the expansive city of Andremore and its surrounding regions. I. History The story begins when settlers migrating from the north found a plot of land just outside of the limits of the State from which they migrated. The settlers wanted to incorporate a city where they could have a freedom of cultural expression that was being stifled by the conservative attitude of their parent state. The site of the proposed settlement was on the border of two relatively small states on the east coast of the country of Zodia--Geminia and Tauria. The city of Andremore was founded in the northeasternmost corner of the State of Tauria. II. Today Today, Andremore is the largest city on the east coast, featuring the tallest and most diverse skyline in the country. With the most expansive seaport in the country, Andremore serves as the largest importer/exporter of commercial goods. The metropolitan area has a whopping 6,835,000 residents and 3,049,000 jobs spread out across several incorporated cities and suburbs. The remainder of the City Journal will walk through each of the major highlights of the metro area, stopping in various cities and suburbs along the way. With a sprawling populace and rapid growth, the Andremore government had the foresight to invest liberally in the development of an intricate highway system. More details about the interstate system will be provided in a later post.
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