Somewhere in my Mind

[petercintn]

I like the reconstruction theme.  The first pics were not bad, they showed a lot of work before the upheaveal (sp?.)   Plus I love the III Will Hill Park.

On a side note, I too had to get a hardware upgrade for this monsterous game.  Love to see pics of yours here

[Flipside]

I like the reconstruction theme.  The first pics were not bad, they showed a lot of work before the upheaveal (sp?.)   Plus I love the III Will Hill Park.

On a side note, I too had to get a hardware upgrade for this monsterous game.  Love to see pics of yours here

Oh, Peter! I'd contribute to that thread of yours but I don't have any pics of my machine.  It's not really that good anyway. 

Thanks for the reply.  There's a lot more reconstruction to do and to be shown ... I'll get around to it tonight, maybe. 

[Flipside]

Excellent work, Flipside! I lvoe the region shots at the beginning and also watching you destroy and recreate the city after changing the terraforming. Quite an interesting concept. Also, I like the names of your cities and other landmarks, very creative! I'll be looking forward to more!

Thanks, Thundercrack!  I always thought the beauty in the game was the endless innovation possible. If you don't like it, you can just blow it up and build a new one.

[Flipside]

Or I'll just do some now ...

When I resumed the city, it was economically depressed. C$$ and C$$$ were in the tank, so was CO$$$. The only thing that really had demand was R$$. So I thought, fine, I'll give you R$$, you jerks. Fine! So I embarked upon a crash building plan ... anyway, the seaport area was the first to get it ... including the removal of the seaport!

Before, sans plugins:



I sort of liked the idea of the meld of residential and industry there, but it all had to go.











Reconstructed ... still have to fix the bridges.







I'm a bit disenchanted with the area now ... I am going to change it further, but the idea hasn't struck me yet. Any ideas?

[threestooges]

Based on the appearance of the area as it is I recommend:
-Maintaining a uniform density around the water's edge
-perhaps fill the middle with a park (or the water's edge with a park and buildings inside)
-For an avenue bridge ending there, and with avenues heading that way, it seems to all stop suddenly at their intersection: perhaps continue the avenue all the way through: make it more prominent.
--This would be better for traffic flow as well
-perhaps spruce up the appearance of the avenue bridge (it seems as though you are attempting to make a more upscale area (as it would be, being surrounded by all that water)) it seems to be out of place with the other bridges/rest of the area

Please feel free to use (or disregard) any of these. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

[thundercrack83]

I like the changes that you've made. The only suggestion I would give would be to look into a Slope Mod so you don't have those really steep hills leading to the bridges. Other than that, I think the suggestions made by threestooges would work great, too!

[petercintn]

The reconstruction is going well.  Looks good to me.  About the brides and the steep incline, thundercrack83, will the bridge fix mod help too?  Not really sure.  But Flipside, you may like it like that.  But give these a try, you'll most likely have to rebuild the bridges, but you don't have to save it if you don't like the outcome. 

[Flipside]

Based on the appearance of the area as it is I recommend:
-Maintaining a uniform density around the water's edge
-perhaps fill the middle with a park (or the water's edge with a park and buildings inside)
-For an avenue bridge ending there, and with avenues heading that way, it seems to all stop suddenly at their intersection: perhaps continue the avenue all the way through: make it more prominent.
--This would be better for traffic flow as well
-perhaps spruce up the appearance of the avenue bridge (it seems as though you are attempting to make a more upscale area (as it would be, being surrounded by all that water)) it seems to be out of place with the other bridges/rest of the area

Please feel free to use (or disregard) any of these. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Threestooges, thank you for the suggestions.  I bolded #2; that's the one that was on my mind - Buildings lining the shore, big park in the middle. I had also thought maybe I would do some "land reclamation" and put Pegasus' Docks lining the waterfront, in front of the residential towers ...

Oh, and as for the traffic network, yeah it still needs work.  I will get on that ...

Peter and Thundercrack: Thanks for the replies.  I am going back in time with these pics, all the way back before I had the Bridge mod which levels things out. I know, that bridge looks horrible, doesn't it? I will fix it next time I play the city. 

Thanks for the thoughtful responses, folks. I'll next switch to another area in the city which has probably been rebuilt more drastically than any other. The Northern Banks ... 

[bat]

Great update! Fantastic work!

[thundercrack83]

I can't wait to see what you've got in store for us with the Northern Banks!

[rooker1]

Very interesting city you have here, and it's on hard with no cheats.  Great work.

[Flipside]

Bat: Thank you for your support, Bat! 

Thundercrack: The wait is about to be over, you can stop holding your breath. 

Rooker: Thank you! Although, I do use plops - did I mention that somewhere? Some people consider that cheating, I think? I dunno, given the cost of a lot of them, I think it's fair play.

The Northern Banks

When I was building the city originally, I had no real vision of what the Northern Banks would look like, and it shows.  Basically, I used it unimaginatively to absorb my high demand for I-HT. At some point, my city started to stagnate - commercial demand dropped off, residential demand, save for R-$$, slowed. But that's getting ahead of myself ...

I had to move the University and the Country Club to SOMEWHERE, and I wanted to bring the subway system above ground.



But the whole thing turned into a big mess:





The residential development along the coast in the below pictures is newer than the rest - as I said, imbalances in demand led me to build whatever would grow; In this point, just I-HT and R-$$. So I embarked on some crash development which you see there. I didn't put any thought to it; I knew that the city needed thousands of R-$$ Sims to revive the economy, so I did it as quickly as I could. That would have consequences later ... but again, I get ahead of myself ...

This is the wasteland of haphazard zones I confronted as I sought to create something worth looking at ... it's an absolute eyesore ...







Gross ... but at the same time, it was a large swathe of zones I didn't care about so it opened the door to some very enjoyable destruction. 

[Flipside]

The first area I wanted to tackle was the University Borough:



Looking back, I should have made room for more green space. But I can still do that, I suppose. 





I was dead-set on putting that SG Train Station there, but it never got the ridership numbers I had hoped for ...

Here it is rezoned and rebuilt. I used the Stonewall Jackson memorial in the middle there with the baseball parks ... I still like that.





One from above ...



I don't entirely like the renovation of that area now ... in that last pic, it looks out of place, although that changes as I alter the surrounding areas. But on the whole, I could do it better these days, and I will get back to it. But anyway, that last pic well sets up where I'm going with this; you see the developing residential district along the water - it's expanding, and that's where I'm going next. 

[Flipside]

You've seen the waterfront residential district I'm building - it would come to be known as Downtown North - but that's a bit in the future. But like I say, I was building to satisfy demand; I wasn't concerned with how things looked or how practical it was. When I first started rebuilding the region, it was full of I-HT factories that didn't appear to have anybody working in them.  I would just rezone residential right over top of them and move on. That filled a lot of the jobs, it also spurred commercial demand by creating thousands of potential workers - but it would cause some problems later, as we will see.

Now for a bit of a pause and a look at the changes I've wrought before I move on to what I did with the Downtown North area: 

The reconstruction I've shown you covers about 30 game years. In that time, the city grew at a positively breakneck pace. The population nearly doubled that which took more than 300 years prior to amass.



It wasn't cheap though ...



When I finally finished the Downtown North area, the budget would bottom out near $0. The cost of widespread destruction, expensive plops and lost revenue from destroyed buildings adds up ... Hey, if the Mayor didn't have the newsmedia in his pocket just think of the outcry ... 

The grand totals aren't seen, but a quick addition shows the city was running a deficit of a thousand or two per month at this point. I got used to vast profit/loss swings with this city; you have to if you're going to demolish/rebuild on the scale I was.



It wasn't all gloom, though.





I had a profitable mass transit network, which I always like ...

However, it cost me in commute time ... or at least, something did.  Who knows with that ... I plopped more than a few NDEX parking lots - I hear those can hinder commute time but I don't know how much. Anybody? Otherwise I have only my bad transportation network to blame and you know my motto - never blame yourself when others are around.   



I'm actually kinda impressed that things integrated as smoothly as they did - that's a lot of Sims in a short time! Anyhow, I've hardly even begun to show what I did with the Northern Banks. That's what I'll get to next, probably tomorrow since I have the day off. 

'Til then.

[rooker1]

Great work. I love the graphs.  The city looks very well laid out.  I like everything, and here comes the but, but there are two eye sores for me.  First, I think you should try using the Bridge height modd which can be found here.  http://www.simtropolis.com/modding/index.cfm?p=details&id=314
By no means is this a cheat.  It just changes the bridge height to look more realistic, although you may have to build the approaching ground up to allow ferries to pass under.

Second, I hate the Maxis golf coarse.  Too small, unrealsitic and ugly.  Just my opinion for those who do like it.  Have a look at this golf pack made by Joerg found here.  http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?page=1&keyword=joergs%20golf&type=all
I love this pack, it's great, Joerg is great, it's all good.

Everything else is just right, these are just suggestions.  I hope you like them.

[Flipside]

Great work. I love the graphs.  The city looks very well laid out.  I like everything, and here comes the but, but there are two eye sores for me.  First, I think you should try using the Bridge height modd which can be found here.  http://www.simtropolis.com/modding/index.cfm?p=details&id=314
By no means is this a cheat.  It just changes the bridge height to look more realistic, although you may have to build the approaching ground up to allow ferries to pass under.

Second, I hate the Maxis golf coarse.  Too small, unrealsitic and ugly.  Just my opinion for those who do like it.  Have a look at this golf pack made by Joerg found here.  http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?page=1&keyword=joergs%20golf&type=all
I love this pack, it's great, Joerg is great, it's all good.

Everything else is just right, these are just suggestions.  I hope you like them.

Thanks, Rooker.

I have the Bridge Height Mod now ... these are older pics from a few months ago, actually. Makes a big difference to have it. I agree the Maxis bridges ARE eyesores ...

Thanks for the link to Joerg's Golf Pack ... I hadn't seen it before. Seems way better than the Maxis Country Club, although I don't hate it ...

And ack! All my pics now say I've exceeded my photobucket monthly bandwidth limit! I will have to fix this ...

[rooker1]

Try image shack, I think it's the type of thing, but I have never had any issue with the amount of pics I upload.

[NikNik]

 
I cannot see any thing but Photobucket Bandwith limit....



Bummer.

Nik-Nik

[thundercrack83]

Your renovation of the University Borough is quite nice! You've given in much more of a campus feel with all the parks, trees, etc. Great job!

[Flipside]

Try image shack, I think it's the type of thing, but I have never had any issue with the amount of pics I upload.

Is ImageShack better, Rooker? A free PB album only allows a certain number of linked pic views per month ... the pics will all show up again on March 2nd. 10 Gigs of bandwidth per month allowed ... I hadn't realized I was going to go over the limit!

Nik-Nik: Hee, sorry.  I've started the process of transferring a bunch of those latest pics to another album to make them show now and hopefully avoid this in the future. 

Thundercrack: Thanks for the kind words, but I think the Uni area just isn't quite there yet. It needs more detail and thought. What would you do?