Principality Of Tantico Entry 36: The Rubic Incident: Nearing A Verdict!

[89James89]

Hentan, A built is built vanilla rush hour journal


Right this is my new concept on city building and what is going to be my last short and failed journal/diary. While building on Herran, I was thinking about the concept of built is built. It's probably already been done many times but I've never actually seen it on any of the Sim City 4 sites I've visited.

Basically the idea is taken from the concpet of dead is dead in other games. Basically anything I do I have to save. If I accidently bulldoze half my city then I have to save it. If I zone a huge area residential by accident I have to deal with it, no reverting to a earlier save to fix it. If the city suddenly loses tonnes of money then I'll have to fix it rather than trying to rework it from a earlier save.

The journal/diary will be my usual no mods with just Rush Hour and the official updates. I may in the far future add some mods but for now I'm staying vanilla.

I'm also playing each city on hard so will have to make each one profitable to actually work and further the building of city tile .

Also as I like seeing jounral/diaries built from the ground up so that's what I'm doing, working at Rhino speed so I can see stuff building and work on gradual growth updates rather than huge jumps.

As for the whole storyline approach, I will probably add a few in character updates at times but for the most part they'll be OOC as

Right anyway let's begin.


Part 1: Newtarn, a small town in the middle of nowhere

Newtarn is going to be the first town we develop in the Hentan region. I haven't done any terraforming in the region other than this tile. Speaking of which the region itself is a blank canvas, 24 by 24, all large tiles. This one is one in from the east edge of the region.

As for what I want the region to be like (a small coastline, a inland region or a island for example), this will be decided as we expand, we are literallly starting from the ground up in all ways.

Anyway Newtarn is the first town to be developed, our intrepid sims srtting up shop alongside a winding river with several rolling hills on either side, just upriver from a fork (and in all probability, the mouth).

Here's the initial overview of the area.



Choosing the spur in the river by the west side of the tile to found their fledgling community I go ahead and zone areas for the sims to move into. To avoid boring squares, I've let the zones look haphazard and all over the place. The ferry terminal there is also a bit pointless but I like having an area or feature that looks like it might link my little communities to the outside world (or Smearth in this case, as I like to call the world where my journals take place) and the small ferry terminal looked right for the part.

Initial zoning to get he ball rolling



I'm also taking the approach of just zoning what the sims demand without any particular areas for them. The only one that is separated from the rest is the farmland, mainly due to the fact that having huge farms in the centre of town (initially anyway, once we grow it'll be different) would look a bit silly. Anyway as you can see, growth continued with this mish mash zoning, slowly as more people moved into the small town.

More growth



As we expanded eastwards we suddenly got a large spike in demand for industrial dirty so this small industrial estate was set up next to this farm.

Industrial growth backing onto farmland.



This in turn led to a spike in residential and me setting up some small housing areas on the otherside of the town, though thinking about it, why I did this on the otherside of the town at the time I've no idea. As you can see community allotments and parks aren't neglected in Newtarn, just fire services, health, public safety and education.

Houses for everyone.



That's all I've got for now though, with just this overview of where were currently at to finish up. As you can see the town is developing into a pretty linear settlement and is slowly being surrounded by the highly demanded farmland. For now we can continue to develop without effecting the farmland but I'm not sure this will last.

Overview



That's all for another update though, so for now I'll leave it here. Hope all this typing hasn't put you off completely and I promise to stick with this one.

Till next time

James

[89James89]

Part 2: Expanding Newtarn

Well today we'll continue to develop Newtarn a little bit. We left off last time with the town expanding along the coast with the farmland continuing to grow inland. Today we'll continue to look at the growth of the small town starting with power issues.

As we've continued to expand so too has the need for power. Up until now we've been powered by random wind turbines on the farms surrounding the town.

Wind turbines on the farmland.



While this works, we had the income to get a actual large scale power plant. Not wanting to pollute the town though I decided to make a central wind farm, rather than spreading them out. It doesn't make any difference too if they were spread out but I like it. This I placed in the centre of the farmland a little way outside of the town. Six will do for now.

Wind farm on the outside of town.


As you can probably guess the wind farm is more than substantial for the town at the moment but it doesn't matter as the income is more than enough to cover it. Below I've included a shot of the town accounts and budgets which shows that we are definitely in the black and can easily afford the wind farm.

Town accounts (taken after the wind farms construction)



Now that we'd dealt with the whole power issue it was time to actually expand the town a bit. Not wanting to build over any of the existing farmland as we expanded but also trying to balance the need for farmland as we expanded, we ended up with a shallow horseshoe shaped town as we expanded along the coast.

Below are some photos as the town grew outwards along the coast and the farmland inland towards the steep hills far behind. While building the farms I also wanted to try and avoid completely deforesting the area. As you'll see we've worked around several large woods as well as leaving several copses in-between farms. Has no affect on the actually improving the city, I just like the look of working around woods. Anyway here are the pictures.

Firstly the right hand side of the town stopping just short of the edge of the map.


As you can see a combination of edging onto the farmland, the map edge and the wood behind it has effectively halted expansion on this side of town for now.

On the other side of the town however expansion can continue and has done around the farmland as residential demand outweighed agricultural demand for a bit.

growing around farmland.


Finally this random image of the farms growing between two of the woods that I didn't want to build over.


This is where we've got too now. As you'll see from the overview I'm about to show you the town has nearly ran out of room to grow in without overtaking farmland. There are several options as to what we could do next but I'll leave you to think of before the next update.

overview



Till then

James

[89James89]

Part 3: Newtarn village growth


I've got a fairly large update for you all today detailing the further growth of the town and area around it and the first issues that have sprung up detailing them as they happened starting with the continued growth.

With the right side of the town stunted due to the woods and the map edge, this growth continued to happen along the left hand side of the town, with both residential and farmland being the most asked for zones. This however couldn't last forever and as you can see by the below image, it was eventually shut off by a forest and the ever wanted farmland. For the time being this now acts as the boundary of the town, with expansion now halted inwards and along the coast.

Final developments on the left side of town.



However during this the need for industrial expansion had arisen so we'd have to come up with a solution to that soon. For now though we had bigger problems in the form of trash.

Without any way of disposing of the trash it'd slowly been building up outside the sims homes and businesses and they weren't very happy. The solution for this was to zone a dump, inland from the town on the other side of where the farmland had reached. As we also had more than enough income and recycling centre was also installed so that the small dump woudln't become overwhelmed. Below are some images of the cause of this new dump and also where it is in relation to the town itself (very north if you can't find it)

Rubbish piling up on the streets.


The position in regards to the town. There will be a band of trees between it and any farmland eventually.




With that solved and the sims happy again we could get back to discussing industry. Or so we thought. Fate had other ideas though as we got our first fire that couldn't be handled by locals with buckets. A hastily converted van for a Fire Engine and a bunch of volunteers and we managed to stop the fire from destroying any houses. The same can't be said for the industry that used to be here but at least we now have a fire service.

The aftermath of the blaze


Right now we can definitely get back to expansion. Having decided that we had several choices of expansion the easiest and least costly for now would be to expand behind the growing band of farmland. The first of the small villages to spring up was Horton. Situated just beside the same wood that limited the growth of the left side of the town, the small village which started off as a industrial site and a few houses has quickly expanded to the size of a very small town. Below are some images of the intial site and expansion.

Initial site


Growth of every type.



Where we are today. As you can see the whole boundary usually left between the farmland and the residential areas has been a bit lax here with residential areas backing right up on farmland. As you can see expansion has been halted a bit due to surrounding farmland.

Growth restricted by farmland.


Other than Horton we did also have another small village spring up inbetween the two woods shown at the end of the last update. This tiny village of Lipton hasn't really had any growth and has stayed the same size since its initial development.

Lipton village.



Anyway that's all for now. Next time I think we may be exploring the whole expansion across the river idea but until then, I hope you enjoy the growing town and surrounding area and as always, heres the overview of the current state of the town.

Overview



Till then

James

[Nexis4Jersey]

Very Nice little town you have there , I look forward to more.

[89James89]

Replies


Nexis4Jersey: Thanks and I hope you continue to enjoy the updates.




Part 4: Cross River Growth

Well toady we'll take a further look at the expanding tile of Newtarn and how its coming along. Starting off we'll look at one of the several new settlements that have sprung up since last update. Now if you look at the overview from the last update you might be able to see that on the far left side where expansion was halted, there appears to be a small clearing just along the coast. This was sited as a area to build a small riverside village deemed Shoreside.

If not this should make things clearer:


As you can see form the below image this small village was a immediate success with new people moving in and setting up home. Interestingly enough, due to the fact that its in the middle of a wood and has no zone connections, its the first settlement to be fed by overhead powerlines. Not the best looking things but they'll have to do for now.

Shoreside village.


The next big settlement to spring up was Ferrin. Built on the otherside of the river, this small town is probably set to become bigger than Newtarn town itself. As to why we built it on the otherside of the river, it was down to wanting to keep the population rather central around Newtarn so expanding further down the same coastline as Newtarn might produce traffic problems on the long roads (or streets rather as we still don't have a sibngle road on the tile), plus I wanted to expand over the river. Built as a self sustainable community this small town has its own windfarm and industry and is connected to the rest of the tile by a passenger ferry (not that anyone uses it though).

Initial look at Ferrin.



As you would probably assume this small town then boomed and industry was greatly in demand as the small settlement expanded. This facilitated the building of this industrial estate along the road towards the Wind Farm. At the moment this is the highest concentration of industry on the tile.

Ferrin industrial estate.



Meanwhile on the otherside of the river back in Newtarn we'd continued to expand the farms and had received several awards.

The first was this church and graveyard, both located rather centrally to the town, with the graveyard in a wood. As you can see I've also replanted the tree rows between the town and the farms. They won't have any impact on the actual game, but, given that there's a lot of tile (and region if need be) to still develop befpore Newtarn has to grow, it'll help to improve the look of Newtarn until that time.

Church and graveyard


The other was this farmers market which, built on the edge of the town provides a nice little piece of commerce for the large community of farms on the tile.

Farmers market


We then finish this update with expanding the farmland around the steep hill behind Newtarn in the corner of the map. We did have a problem though with the farms not developing, due, I think, to the fact that they were to far away from any area of residential workers. A image below shows the area and problem.

No growth of farmland.



To solve this we zoned for the small agricultural village of Fielding. This small settlement would have no factories or industrial zoning of any sort , to hopefully push the surrounding farmland to develop. The results were very positive with the farmland expanding around the village. It's not completely developed but it's a lot better than it was. Also I've added some trees around the edge of the map here as well.

Village of Fielding



Finally as usual I've got a overview. This on is a bit different from the usual ones as it has the settlements labeled onto it so you can see where everywhere I've talked about is. The colours are an attempt at a code of sort, the red being a small town, the green villages and then the large town of Newtarn in white.

Overview


As for next time, I plan on expanding the farmland, Ferrin and maybe seeing if the budget could facilitate some services for the citizens of Newtarn.

Hope you enjoyed the update.

James

[89James89]

Part 5: Investing in the future


Well as I stated at the end of the last update our budget looked very healthy so it was probably time to give our sims some services. To have a full picture of everything though I'll show you my budget as it stood at the end of the last update and then the budget again at the end with the services installed.

Budget before services.



As you can see, with the monthly budget being around 3k profit, we easily have enough income to provide our sims with services. We start however by expanding Ferrin. We have a large amount of demand for all zones and if were going to give the sims services we may as well make sure their zone of influence is completely full. As such here is the large scale expansion and zoning for Ferrin almost doubling it in size in preparation.

Ferrin large scale expansion.



With that expanding I continued working on the farms on the otherside of the river trying to finish filling out all the open space with them. This large amount of farm growth led to another new village springing up along with a state fair award. This new village of Tinby is pretty far from Newtarn but it has the State Fair next to it so is still a popular place to live.

As you can also see it has its own wind farm seeing as the other one didn't have any room to expand and more power was needed.

The village of Tinby and the as yet un-named State Fair.



Now with Ferrin bulked out it was time to add some services in. Starting in Newtarn I added a Elementary school, a clinic and a Police station. Unfortunately due to the shape of the settlement these centrally placed services didn't cover a whole lot fo the town but oh well, such is the failing of poor town planning.

Civic services in Newtarn.



Meanwhile in Ferrin its a different story. Due to how the town was more nucleated it was easier to have the civics serve most of the town. As such it was decided that the areas High School would be built here as well as a town Elementary school, Clinic and Police station. It does feel kind of weird that the High School isn't in the town that is meant to be the captial of the tile but hey, this way is much more functional.

Ferrin High School and sport fields here in the centre of Ferrin.



After this Ferrin went through another state of growth leaving it looking like this. I've also added another dump south of Ferrin to service this side of the river.

Ferrin as it currently stands.



This is all I'm going to add services wise at the moment. I know a lot of the tile isn't covered but if I added a school and clinic to every village it'd eat into my budget to much. I'm thinking of dotting a few libraries around though so we'll have to see. Speaking of budget though, here's how we stand at the end of adding all the services. The incomes dropped by a lot but its still making money so that's good.

Current budget.




As for next update, it'll probably revolve around fixing some growing traffic issues that my sims seem to be having. Looks like 14,000 sims is finally too much for no roads in the tile. Till then though here's a overview showing everything but Fielding. You can also see the new village Tinby and the State fair up in the north east of the map.

Overview



Till next time.

James

[gn_leugim]

I like it, keep it going

[89James89]

Replies:

gn_leugim: Thanks and don't worry I don't plan on stopping any time soon, I'm really enjoying myself with this.



Part 6: Not doing what I said I would


Well as the title says I kind off didn't even look at traffic today. Instead I decided that I should try and finish of adding farmland to the Newtarn side of the river.  This came in the form of a bunch more farms and another small village, this time Ancombe rounding off the area. Now all that's left over here is to add in a whole bucket load of trees (may start creating tree lines to split up the farms as I do plan on moving to another tile when I've filled this one and sorted out some traffic issues and tree lines will definitely improve the look of the farmland. Not sure if its very useful in a natural growth game but screw it lets do it anyway) and then this sides done.

Here's a image of Ancombe and the State Fair so you can get your bearings.



With this area all laid out it was time to move across the river, however not before I had to add this little guy to Tinby. Apparently the farms over here are too far away from Newtarn for the fire engines to reach them in time to stop the fires, (as one unlucky farmer discovered) so adding this fire station to TInby seemed like a good idea.

Fire station in Tinby.



Anyway with that done this side of the map was complete for now accept the trees (what I don't understand is why are the mayor  mode trees all different to the god mode ones?) so I jumped over to the other side and begun expanding industry over there. Below is the general idea of what I had going. As Ferrin had grown to a larger size than Newtarn it needed more power so I decided to add a new power plant in the form of a Natural Gas power plant. Below is the plan for the industrial expansion for Ferrin.

Industrial expansion plan.



As you can see this will add the first dedicated singular zoning area to the map (not including the farmland covering it already). I thought that an industrial site close to the dump would be a good way to fill in the space and would look nice so hey lets get on with it. Several months later and Ferrin town council has beavered away to created this for its citizens. I'm not sure the power plant looks brilliant there but hey it works for now.  As you can see I've also tried to beautify the area a little bit along the way. I also like the fact that there's a high proportion of manufacturing there so hopefully that will help combat some of the joblessness for the medium wealth citizens.

Ferrin Industrial Estate.



This left the Wind Farm that did power the town obsolete so the town council quickly dismantled them and replaced it with housing to fill the jobs created by the business park.

Housing replacing the Wind Farm.



With that done I discovered how leaving the game running in the background while watching videos on youtube is a stupid idea as when I returned, this was what greeted me. Devastation in Ferrin's southern industrial district (the one in the actual town next to the old Wind Farm). Fires are evil.

Industrial carnage!



On the plus side though, once I'd bulldozed the rubble nicer buildings built up there so it was all good in the end.

After that I expanded the farms around Ferrin. Now there wont be as many farms as there was on Newtarn's side of the river as I want to preserve a large part of the trees, now known as Ferrin Forest. As such I'm thinking that this area will probably only have a couple of small settlements to help fill the jobs on the farms. As you can see I've filled in the area to the right of the dump complete with a small village to service it. Welcome to Kanton (yes at this rate I'll run out of names before we've left the first tile but oh well), a tiny little village surrounded by trees and farms.

Kanton village



Right that's where were at with the whole filling out thing. As you can see from the overview I'll show in below I'm starting on the rest of the farmland so hopefully next time we can get that finished and then we can either add some tree rows around the farms or actually get on with fixing traffic issues.

Overview



Till then

James

[Wodong]

Wow.  I haven't played vanilla in so long I'd forgotten what it looks like.  You make it look good!  I'm really liking this journal, your region has a very organic feel and look and I really appreciate the look of the agricultural zones.  Can't wait to see more.

[gn_leugim]

good you are enjoying it on your own, that's the most important thing above all.

I guess you won't be viewing more youtube while the game runs in the back   

[89James89]

Replies:

Wodong: Thanks and I'm glad the organic look is coming through that's what I wanted to achieve. I've not planned everything, just grown it as the sims demanded in most parts and its great fun watching it expand. Vanilla is also fun as it stops over complication which I'm pretty sure I'd suffer from if I downloaded a load of mods, plus I hope it shows that deep down, the game can look nice and not too broken.

gn_leugim: Yep, if I wasn't enjoying it then it would soon run out of steam and fall by the wayside which I don't want to happen and no, viewing you-tube videos for periods while leaving the game running is definitely stupid when you can't reload a earlier save. Poor sims.


Part 7: More housing for the people.

A smaller update today based on expansion to the suburbs around Ferrin. Although Ferrin Forest is penning the large town in, there are still areas around Ferrin that are clear enough to only warrant the removal of a few trees and therefore, the council happily give the go ahead on them. Below is the biggest of these, around the size of Shoreside (maybe a bit larger) and we have a couple of images of the zoning and construction process below.

Firstly the council agreed on the piece of land. A nicely sized lightly vegetated area between the bottom of the town and the industrial estate.

Planned area for expansion.



With the plan given the go ahead the builders began clearing the area and paving streets for the new houses. We also put in a link to the nearby industrial estate for sims working there, instead of them having to drive right the way around. Also you can see a rather poorly planned Baseball field there. High nets were later installed around the edge to prevent car windows being smashed by balls hit out of the field.

Areas zoned, ready for sims to move in.



Finally for this little time lapse, construction has begun on the expansion.

Construction begins on zoned areas



Other than that more zoning was given the go ahead on the other side of the town below Shoreside. Not as large as the bottom one but still a nice new place to settle in.

Construction in North-West Ferrin



Finally for this small development update, the new Baseball field in Ferrin sparked a petition to have one built in Newtarn as well. It was successfully acted upon and soon we had the first two rival teams in the area regularly battling it out on the field most weekends. Currently the Ferrin Ferrets have the higher percentage of wins but the Newtarn Nightingales aren't that far behind.

Newtarn Baseball Field, an altogether better planned field.



Other than this farms have spread throughout most of the Ferrin side of the river so next time we'll probably take a look at that.

Till then

James

[gn_leugim]

nice update, I like how you try to preserve the nature

[89James89]

Replies:

gn_leugim: Thanks and yes, preserving the nature gives the story more flavour and helps to shape the cities more realistically in my opinion. I'm glad your also enjoying the updates. I do hope you continue to as we progress.


Part 8: The tile is full!

yes as the title says we've finally managed to fill int he entire area around Newtarn. Growth really has taken off from that small riverside development that was the beginnings of Newtarn. Now there a total of 13 different areas of population on the tile (yes I'm going to run out of place names by the time I've started the second tile) and Newtarn has been overtaken by Ferrin as the largest continuous areas of population. Anyway I've got some more pictures for you regarding developments in the area (yes I'm still avoiding the traffic issues but I promise that's what the next update will be about).

Recently we've had our first big issue raised by our farming community in regards to land ownership. Basically a bunch of farmers were straying into land that others claimed was theirs due to the lack of actual farm boundaries across the area. As a solution to this, Newtarn Council of rural planning decreed that every farm would have its boundaries clearly marked out by way of a treeline around the fields. The farmers complained a bit about the cost of planting a row of trees, but it was better than the constant bickering and local court cases so they carried out the new mandate and soon tree rows lined the areas rural landscape. As a bonus they also ate into some of the pollution caused by the pockets of industry (and Ferrin Industrial Estate) so it was a smart move on the councils behalf.

A picture to show the treeline's now surrounding the farmland, taken from outside Newtarn.



As for the existing settlements, planners have paid the large prices to buy up small pockets of sparsely vegetated areas on the edge of a couple of settlements, what with the land price, whilst still high due to deforestation laws, being a lot cheaper than the heavily vegetated areas further inwards. We'll have to see though if these small scale, yet expensive expansions catch on throughout the area.

These small scale expansions have taken place in Shoreside, Tinby and Ancombe as shown below.

Firstly Shoreside has expanded a bit to the east, towards the edge of Newtarn.



In Tinby the expansion is southwards towards Shoreside. What with the fire station and continued expansion, Tinby is quickly growing.



Finally Ancombe has also expanded into the small woods behind the village. Due to it not being part of the forests around Newtarn town, the development costs were a bit lower here. Also you can see the developers forked out for the cost of planting trees in the area to the left of the village.

Ancombe expansion



As for the filling out of the area, several new settlements sprang up, some of which I've got some photos of. The biggest of the three settlements to develop around Ferrin was Stencombe. Sitting on the North East edge of the map, the small town has both a fire station and the areas first dedicated library. It also has a small industrial estate on the outskirts of the town where they process the farm produce that comes in from the nearby farms, especially Joe's big old place opposite the site.

Another rather strange development was the truck stop on the outside of town. Despite the fact that as of yet this is the first area explored of the unknown region someone has planned ahead and got a truck stop in outside the town. Hopefully his gamble will pay off in the long run.

Stencombe complete with industrial estate (right side of town) and the truck stop (left side of town)



Of the other three settlements, Hetton, Geron and Upton, I've only managed to get a image of Geron but the other two are much the same anyway. Just small pockets of housing amongst the vast sea of trees and farms. Of note though is that it perfectly shows the newest trend in Newtarn of building cul-de-sacs instead of straight streets.

Geron village.



Finally for now here's the updated overview of the entire tile, also showing all the settlements names. As with last time. White is a large town, red a small town, green and village and blue a large industrial estate.

Tile overview



That's all for now. Next time we'll definitely be taking a look at the traffic issues in the area. With everything filled in and no roads in the entire tile, traffic is definitely becoming a issue.

Till then

James

[SimCity V6]

Hey, that's a pretty nice MD!  What's next for this Mayor Diary??? 

[89James89]

Replies:

SimCity V6: Thanks. Read on below to find out whats next.


Part 9: Density Experiment

Well once again I may have got a bit carried away with other things than the traffic problems. Mainly due tot he fact that there weren't that many in all honesty (just a few intersections and a road in Tinby). Instead I decided to try and see what building upwards would bring rather than outwards. Here follows the accounts of the first medium density buildings in the area.

With growing pressure to provide more homes for the residents of Feriin but with no where to zone new land due to deforestation laws it was decided that they would try going upwards. This would require controlled water access to carry out so the first job was to build this water tower on the edge of the town.

Water tower just inside Ferrin Forest on the edge of town.



Next step was to decide where to allow the buildings to be built. Deciding on the centre of Ferrin a small swathe of buildings were demolished and the building contractors moved in with their plans and got to work. (NOTE: In hindsight this was a very unrealistic way of doing it. I should have just over zoned the exsisting buildings rather than demolished them. Will have to keep it in mind for the future),

Heres the area that was demolished and re-zoned.



New buildings started taking shape in the area that had been allowed. Most of these were still rather small but a few small high rises sprang up, mostly for the higher wealth residents.

High wealth housing



Unfortunately, this didn't go as well as we'd hope and soon the buildings became abandoned due to  commute times and the lack of high wealth jobs in the area.

Abandonment due to no jobs.



To try and counter this the unsuccessful buildings were torn down and the area was re-zoned for commercial and residential in the hope that commercial shops could provide jobs for the sims moving in. This is what the area now looks like. There's still a small high rise there but its smaller than the last few that came in and the added commercial means that this area is now alive with life. The small high rise is also being used for the Ferrrin council officers.

Current look at the area.



In other news we decided that upgrading the ferry would be a good idea to try and create more of a link between Ferrin and Newtarn. These new ferries can take cars as well as passengers and definitely seem to have helped the situation with usage going up by a lot.

A look at the Ferrin Ferry Terminal.



As for the entire experiment, its been decided that the trouble we had with it and the cost (we had to replace the water tower with a water pump in the end) has limited its usefulness for the minute and that people would rather expand outwards. Not to mention that the power plant for Ferrin is becoming a bit strained, limiting growth while we decided how to alleviate the problem and the stress on the farms to produce enough food. With this in mind join us next time join us as we move further up the river into brand new lands for us to explore.

Till then

James

[SimCity V6]

Not what I expected, but still GREAT!  Hope you get to upgrading roads and showing us your traffic stats next. 

And also, what time period is Hentan set in???

[89James89]

Replies:[/u]

SimCity V6: Thanks. This one will definitely not be what you expected but I hope you still enjoy it. As for Hentan we might not be seeing it for a little while, as I'm trying to think of a natural way to progress it. Got something new and much more manageable for you though.


Principality of Tintaco

Well this is completely different to what I'd said would happen but hey that's me. Basically Hentan is huge (well ok it's only 6x6 large tiles but that's pretty big for me) and I started in  stupid place so while I try an figure out how to progress it in a sensible and realistic manner I've made this small region (6x8 medium tiles) to play around on.

This will be the Principality Of Tintaco. It will also be a natural growth journal but will be more story focused than the Hentan region which had a lot of out of character posting. As usual it'll be no mods or downloads, just Sim City 4 and the Rush Hour expansion.

Anyway lets get on with things.


Entry 1: Founding Tintaco


His Royal Highness Prince Henrik Kerin

Situated on a tiny sliver of land south of the much larger region of Hentan, the Principality Of Tintaco is the land that Prince Henrick Kerin has recently laid claim to after exploration in the name of his father, the great Gregory Kerin brought him here.

His father, always a kind and fair man, allowed the young prince to claim the small piece of land for himself to rule over as he saw fit. So came about the Principality Of Tintaco (Tintaco being his late mothers maiden name and the former royal name of the lands ruled now by his father).


The Topography of Tintaco

A small sliver of land, Tintaco is a area high in water and therefore, fertile and well suited to support human settlers. The coastline is pock marked with inlets and natural harbours which also help in the suitability for settlement.

Other than that there's a small but steep mountain range in the rear of the area and several rives run through to spill out into the ocean at a single point. All in all a rather promising place to settle. Below is a satellite image of the area as well as the area best suited to found the city at.

The region of Tantico
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/834/ud1endof.jpg/


The founding of Tantico CIty

Decided on due to the natural harbour for getting goods in and out of the region, as well as the plentiful wood along the shores, Tantico City Harbour quickly took off as it strives to become self sufficient in the growing world of Smearth.



The initial settlement was just a small dock and a couple of houses but soon more and more people flocked to the area, looking for new opportunities as the small fishing village became a small town. Below are soon pictures taken as the settlement grew in size, along with some annotations about the growth.

Initially just this tiny fishing village powered by the wind, the tiny community was set to grow massively in the following few years.



Several years in and you can see that dedicated farms have sprung up around the now large village to help support it. Meanwhile many of the population work in the large factories that provide the region with most of its trade and income. 



After about 7 years you can see that the agriculture has grown immensely in the area. Along with the goods not consumed by the growing population, logging in the fertile woods around the coast provide the town with increasing amounts of income.



Where we currently are with the town celebrating its 10th birthday. As you can see the income has shifted heavily towards factories with a large industrial presence on the spur sticking out into the harbour. Not the nicest places but they provide income and jobs.



Finally the region update for the tenth year of habitation in Tantico. As of yet the population of around 3.5k have yet to leave the small town of Tantico despite the large swathes of land available to them.
[IMG=http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/8909/ud1endof.jpg][/IMG]


That's all for now in this breif history and look back at Tantico. Join me next time when we'll take a more detailed look at the settlement and its growth.

Till then

Jay Goodrick

NOTE: Sorry about the links. I wanted to retain the large image sizes but not induce the scroll bar of doom.

[89James89]

Entry 2: Tantico Harbour growth


Well this entry follows the continued growth of the harbour and its surrounding areas with a detailed look at the harbour itself. Starting off with this photo below showing some new developments for the harbour in the form of several Lanterns.

Tantico Harbour Lanterns



Built to help the increased shipping traffic using Tantico Harbour navigate the natural harbour, these three Lanterns are smaller versions of full blown lighthouses usually providing light over a fixed area of the channel (rather than continually turning like lighthouses). Sticking to these lighted areas means that ships can be guided in safely and quickly and has helped increase Tantico's wealth through exports and imports.

As you can see from the above image whilst two of these lanterns share the same immediate body of land around Tantico Harbour (if we travel far enough there all connected by land just not immediately), the third is situated on a spur that recently became a much sought after place to live (initially colonized due to the lantern). This new village quickly drew the attention of Prince Henrik, with its secluded and quiet atmosphere and soon he had a permanent large residence built there. This attracted a large amount of people, all wanting to live near the Prince and as the picture below shows, despite the ferry being there, led to unemployment as people struggled to get jobs.



Seeing this issue as a big downside to living in what has now been named Henrik Point, the Prince orders the planning council to construct some industrial jobs in the growing village. Naturally the citizens of henrik Point opposed this but it had to be done and, to prove that he wasn't above anyone else the Prince had these small factories built along the coast opposite his estate.



Although originally opposed the move has been greatly praised since the first factory went up and Henrik Point has continued to grow as you'll see from the overview at the end of this entry.

----------------

On the otherside of the harbour however, the population were getting a bit restless for public services. For the last 13 years the population had been without proper education, with home schooling and several small school houses providing what they could to help the young sims. Eventually something had to give though and the town council passed a planning proposal for a proper education facility and school big enough for the whole towns youth. Although we now have Tantico Harbour Elementary (as shown in the centre of the image below) and a small library in Henrik Point, the town has still to provide anything for further education past the age of 12.  A issue that is currently being looked into.

Tantico Harbour at 12 years with the new Elementary School in the centre of town.



With the growing settlement needing more food to keep import costs down, a new settlement was aslo started on the other spur of land in the harbour. Mainly set up to be a agricultural strip of land, the village of Tepin point was settled in the 14th year of the towns growth and quickly made use of the large swathe of land behind it to farm extensively, providing more home grown produce for the growing town. As you can see from the photo below (shot just yesterday) its still growing.



Finally for this update is this Ariel of the Harbour in its 15th year. As you can see were beginning to really run out of room and planning proposals are already being passed to zone over some of the farms around the edge of the town, whilst rebuilding the displaced farms further inland behind the town.



Till next time.

Jay Goodrick

[gn_leugim]

wow great update rate eheh I went off a couple of days and bang eheh

lovely ones btw

[89James89]

Replies:[/u]

gn_leugim: Thanks and yes there has been several large updates this week. Mainly due to me being on holiday so this might slow down a bit next week.



Entry 3: More Growth and Royal Weddings

Well I've got some very good news for the Principality of Tantico coming up but first, lets continue where we left off.

Firstly we've had a number of areas change land usage during the last 10 years. Firstly was the expansion of the industrial zone in the harbour, replacing some of the housing that was in the middle of the industry already there. Luckily displacing the residents wasn't too hard as it was never the most desirable place to live, in the centre of a industrial estate, so the relocation's went relatively smoothly.



As you can also see, the new school seems to be paying off (even though we've managed to skirt the whole further education up until our current year), as more and more manufacturing businesses are moving into the area rather than the usual dirty industries.

Anyway with the residents displaced they needed new homes so we had to start eating into the farmland surronding the town. This wen't smoothly as well as the farmers had had plenty of warning that this was going to happen and were all being moved to the new outskirts of town (or across the harbour) as we expanded. As you'll see though as we go through the update, a small number of farm buildings remain standing, even without their farmland.



-----------------------

As this growth continued over the next few years, a couple of service based issues arose. Firstly was the issue of the building amount of rubbish and the fact that he small local tips were beginning to spill over. What with there only being a limited amount that we could ship out of the town, we needed a long term solution to the problem.

The solution was this, a large tip and several recycling centres outside the small village of Ketin.



With that solved the next issue was rudely thrown at us. Initially a small blaze, a farm fire which engulfed a large hay barn on the outskirts of town showed us the need to maintain a proper fire service instead of the private ones that we used. With this in mind a small plot was developed in each of the four settlements to provide coverage for most of the area. These four stations are circled in the image below (year 17 in case anyone was wondering when this was taken)



The third and final issue was power. As the city grew and consumed the farmland, so to did it's power needs grow, far outpacing what the wind turbines could provide. It was decided then, that the town get its first proper power plant. Running on natural gas and built in the centre of the industrial district the new Tensea Power Plant should hopefully provide power to the area for years to come.



----------------------------

Now we've got them depressing issues out of the way it was time to rejoice as Tantico opened its first church. The Church of Saint Alex was built outside the town next to the orchard in response to several issues. Firstly was the need for a proper place to worship for the majority of the population, who were of the Gendantian faith and secondly, the royal marriage of our beloved Prince Henrik to the lovely Lady Josephine.

The royal wedding was the largest event in the small countries history, as thier prince, at the age of 35 had finally married (since this was 3 years ago, the couple have been blessed with a boy by the name of Gregory II after Henriks father). The prince himself, a keen gardener had a lovely garden commissioned for the royal wedding from his own treasury to be built around the church and has also since decreed that the orchard, where several wedding photo's were taken after the ceremony, is royally sealed land, preventing any alteration to it in the years to come.

Here's a ariel photo from the princes wedding day showing the church, gardens and the orchard behind it.



Speaking of buildings or areas bearing the Royal Seal, there are now three in the city, The first is the Royal Manor at Henrik Point, the second the Church of Saint Alex and the thrid the Orchard. There are several other buildings that are being looked into for the honour as well but I'll bring you more news on them as it comes.

---------------------------

Finally for this update I have another series of ariels tracking the growth of the town up until the curretn year 25.

Firstly year 20. If you look closely you can see that the Tensea Power Plant has yet to be built here (it was finished late in year 21)



Year 23. The town is growing outwards quickly and you can see the Royal Orchard and Church becoming surronded by housing.



Year 25. Not a whole lot more housing but the farmland in Tepin and Henrik point has finally reached the edge of the area.



That's all for this update. Sorry for the large amount of text and feel free just to look at the images as they're the main part after all. As for what the future holds, plans have finally been passed for actual growth to begin outside of this area (much to the relief of the farming community) so hopefully we'll have a bit of that for you all next time.

Till then

Jay Goodrick