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Tepin Ialand's

Started by 89James89, March 26, 2013, 05:38:23 AM

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89James89

OOC: Just found this site through Simtropolis so thought I'd post my city journal here as well in case there were some that didn't visit both sites. This first post is a coagulation of the first four updates so were all up to date.



Growth of Tepin Island's


OOC: Right, I know I've only just started Gabbtoria but frankly, I did that with no planning and no real idea of where to go. This is why I've now made a new cj but this time for my new island region Tepin Island's. I also have much more of an idea of where I want this one to go so it will hopefully be a lot more enjoyable to view. I've also terraformed the entire region already so everything has more context and will look more realistic (hopefully) in the end.

The actual cj will be vanilla Sim City 4 and Rush Hour expansion, and each city will be built organically and will be managed so that it is making a profit, although the idea isn't to build the biggest cities I can, but rather make the cities I do build look nice and functional, while still work in game.

Hope some of that makes sense and without further ado here's Tepin Island's for you all.



Part 1: First look at the Tepin Island chain[/u]

Welcome all to our small nation of Tepin. Recently discovered the small island chain was granted independence from any of the larger nations here on Smearth to develop itself. Below you can see the initial ariels photo's from the exploration phase of the colonisation.

This is the main island Tepina, the largest of the three and the area that will be used for initial colonisation.


This is the second largest island, Goodrose, to the south-west of Tepina. Not a huge amount of space but enough for a small city when we've expanded enough on the Tepina.


The third sizeable island, Helena. Though smaller than the other two it should still be able to support a small area of development.



Initial stages of colonisation, Shoreport

Shoreport is the islands current largest city, boosting 10k people at the time these photo's were taken. A lrage industrial port, it has been the initial funding point of the rest of the development on the island. Built up on the north-east side of Tepina (the area just below Helena in the ariel above), this port is a bustling hive of activity and currently the main entry point for people moving into the island.

Below are some shots of the initial construction phase Shoreport starting with a photo of one of the two industrial ports, and the car port which service the city and island.


Next we move into the industrial area, which provides the life blood for the city and the small nation as a whole. Not exactly the nicest place but it makes us money which is more important at the moment.


Moving up the road to the north of the industrial area we continue along to find the commercial heart of the city. Not exactly huge but it's enough at the moment.


As you can see initial growth around the CBD led to a number of apartment buildings springing up around the area.


Fianlly for now we have a image of the suburbs that surrond the CBD. These may have to be developed over when we expand, but for now they provide some nice photo's of the city.



Well that's all we've got for you at the moment. Next up we'll move inland and show you all Gerrin Rise, one of our larger farming communities on the island.

Till then.

Han Kinle, Foriegn Relations Minister for the Tepin Island's.

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Part 2: Visiting Gerrin Ridge


OOC: Right first thing I've got to show you is a updated view of the region. Annoyingly the game crashed while saving a city so it wiped the tile that Gerrin Ridge was going to be built on. This has meant that I've had to re-terraform a bit of Tepina so here's a updated overview of the island (also discovered that I could turn of names and the grid so bonus).




Gerrin Ridge


Right Han here, last time we left off in Shoreport, the industrial heart of the island. Today were going to travel to Gerrin Ridge, the island current largest farming community at 4,000 people.

Right anyway we start our journey here in Shoreport, leaving the city via the avenue we take a right onto H1,Tepina's central highway. We could have also taken the train but for now the highway will be fine.


Traveling along the highway and leaving the built up area of Shoreport behind we head into the heavily forested area known as Turtle Bay, taking a left at the intersection onto H2, the highway that leads to Gerrin Ridge and Cliffside.


A little while later we reach Gerrin Ridges exit. Only a single road feeds the small town but it's enough. You can also see here how close the farms have got to the highway. As you can see retaining some trees to break up the farmland is important to the residents of Gerrin Ridge.


Traveling through the farmland towards the town you can see the source of the towns power, clean wind farms dot some of the farms, the farmers more than happy to sell excess power to the town.


Reaching the outskirts of the town, you can see how the community has expanded right up to the farmland that supports it.


Then we reach the centre of the town. A lovely roundabout is surrounded by both commercial business, and several factories, used to process some of the farm produce. Its also intersting to note that unlike Shoreport, where the commerce is centered, in Gerrin Ridge commerce strings the main road through the town. A lot more linear a settlement than Shoreport.


Then through to the other side of town and instantly back into farmland, showing just how boxed in the town is.


The rest of the housing in the town however is more like Shoreports, with a very much suburb approach to neighborhoods.


That's it from Gerring's Ridge for now. Hope you enjoyed the little visit to busy little farming town as much as I did. Join me next time where who knows where we'll be visiting here on the Tepin Island's.

Till then.

Han Kinle, Foreign Relations Minister


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Part 3: Development in Turtle Bay.


Changed a hell of a lot from the last time we drove through the previously wooded area, Turtle Bay is now an area for those with deep pockets and not faint of heart when it comes to driving,

The area itself,  a group of small communities is, much like Gerrins Ridge, are centered around farming.  In fact that area has a higher amount of farming jobs than Gerrin Ridge but still the population totals just under 3k as opposed to the 4k in Gerrin's Ridge, where there are several factories to provide employment as well.

Also unlike Gerrins Ridge the population is spread over the small town of Turtles Bay, a popular beach side area (if you can stomach the steep roads), and three other small villages, Shaftton, Hanscombe and Kern. Overall a very high value place to live in with the highest house prices so far out of the three settlements we've seen.

I've taken a few photo's for you of the area and here they are.

Firstly here's some photo's of Turtle Bay itself, in here you can see the steep tiered design to the settlement as well as the commercial beachfront, rich housing and rail connection.





This photo shows all the forms of transport located in the area, the H1 highway, the island rail connection and a road all lead into neighbouirng areas, penned in by the ever present farms. (OOC: I will be going back through Gerrins Ridges and removing a lot of the farms to make them look more like these ones).



The largest of the three small villages, Shaftton, with it's freight station serving Turtle Bay's many farms.


Finally the other tow villages, Hanscombe and Kern respectively. Nice liitle communities for small numbers of people.




That's all for now from the development of Turtle Bay. Next time we may be back in Shoreport as there's word of slight unrest regarding the pollution in the area reaching ever higher levels, and apparently the city has plans to start countering it.

Till then.

Han Kinle, Foreign Relations Minister for the Tepin Island's.


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Part 4: OOC update on farming


Just a small out of character update to the farms in Gerrin Ridge. As shown in part 2, Gerrin Ridges farms, although pleasing to me at the time, quickly became a bit of an eyesore regarding the fact that there was streets around each and every farm. Now in real life I've realised that as a farming region would organically grow they wouldn't have put roads around every farm lot. With this in mind I've gone back today and changed up all of the farms to get rid of all but the most needed streets, the outcome of which I'm about to show. In my opinion it now looks a million times better.

Firstly the connection to the islands H2. Basically the same picture as the one from part 2 but with new farms.


Below is my attempt at making use of one of the ugly huge farm silo buildings that seem to crop up on most lots, which I assume is due to the demand for jobs and the large lots I'm zoning. I did get around this though but I'll explain that in the next picture. For now though this is meant to represent a small farmside freight yard for the railway. The idea is that this area represents a smaller freight station for the farms around it due to them being the furthest away from the towns freight station. The siding is there to let passenger trains pass loading freight trains as its on the main line through to what will be Cliffside, so eventually, if all goes well, a pretty busy line.



The third image shows how I decided to add some housing to the farmland to represent the farmers houses. Not exactly game chanigng but it helped increase the population of the area a little and in my opinion looks a little bit more realistic.



Now for the other workaround that I've discovered (though is probably very well known by most of you). I found out that I could zone a area, de-zone all but the farm building and then rezone to have it create another farm and another building. Using this I've managed to keep up the farm jobs without having to have a load of huge silos everywhere.  Also means I might be able to play around with large farmyards in the future.


Anyway that's all for now. Sorry the the update wasn't improvements to Shoreport as I said it'd probably be and probably a bit boring, but I'd decided to try and rework some of the look of the farm regions before tackling Shoreport and thought I'd show you all the results.

Right that's SC4Devotion up to date as well now so I hope you all enjoy it.
James


rooker1

It's always great to see a new MD, very nice start too.

Robin
Call me Robin, please.

APSMS

I agree with Robin. Not sure why this is in the inactive section, but may I make two suggestions?

Perhaps you are new to SC4, but I'd recommend getting the NAM and a water mod, if nothing else. The NAM gives new transport options, like diagonal streets (and is relatively bug free and easy to use if you stay away from the Real Highway [RHW] option). Also, personally I find the default Maxis water hideous, but that is just my opinion.

Hope to see more of this in the future.
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

My Mayor Diary San Diego: A Reinterpretation