Tarino (a vanilla growth MD)

[89James89]

Entry 1: An introduction to Tarino


Hey guys. I've not played the game in a little while but picked it back up the other day and began playing again. Now although Tantico isn't dead as such I've no inspiration to update it at the moment so instead have decided to do something new.

Now, like my other stuff it will be vanilla and rather than a long term storyline I'm just going to be building with this one. The main goal is a sort of Natural/Demanded growth CJ. By this, I mean that I'll be building it in a natural way based on whatever is the highest demand on the indicator at the time.

Will this end up breaking everything?

Probably as generally the sims and the advisors are pretty stupid but hey, lets just see where it goes.

The natural growth side will hopefully work to make sure that the city grows in at least a semi realistic way. I'm also not allowed to redevelop already used land into another zone type unless that zone demand is at zero.

Anyway enough talking, here's a image of the large (5x4 large tiles) map that I've terraformed for the region.

(please click link due to image size).
https://imageshack.com/i/5hot9ep

As you can see iys a mostly flat area with a number of waterways dividing it up which will hopefully provide a interesting look to the city as it grows.

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Next is a image of the area chosen for the initial town of Tarino. A nice amount of land and river connections should serve this area well as the centre of the city.





One year later and we have a small settlement of around 380 people. At this point demand for agriculture took over and farming started to blossom.





As you can see at year 5, the farming really has taken off with a spidery web spreading out from Tarino. Although a small amount of housing has been added farming is still the main demand and will probably continue to be so for the foreseeable future.





At this point we had around 1,280 people in the town and they'd started complaining about the lack of services. Ever the one to try and please, Mayor Goodfrey and his advisors built a fire station, clinic and school between the harbour and the housing, because, you know, a school near a huge power station makes perfect sense.





Still it stopped them complaining and meant that the mayor could go back to planting crops.

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Anyway, that's where I'm at with it at the moment. Sure there's not a lot to see but hey, everything's go to start somewhere right?

Till next time

James

[89James89]

Entry 2: Farmer Bill the Factory Worker


Right lets get back to Tarino, still growing strong (and apparenrtly smelly but hey).

Starting from last time the famring boom suddenly ended leaving us with the small town looking like this.





Seems that the education is teaching them sims that you dont have to labour for peanuts on a farm all day, instead, you can labour all day in one of the new factories, currently springing up along the riverbanks (flawless planning there Mayor Goodfrey, flawless planning).




Of course all the new, not so clean factories along with the slightly questionable health and educational system meant that more and more sims appeared (from where I don't know) to live in our small town. Only trouble is while Mayor Goodfrey was happy for all the tax co..... I mean new citizens, he hadn't planned for all the extra employment needed and this happened.




So, what do you do in this situation?

Why build more factories of course.

Apparently however, not everyone agrees with the whole factory jobs for everyone approach and soon the Environmental Advisor was complaining. Ever one to listen to his citizens, Mayor Goodfrey had this park built in his bac.... I mean, for all the citizens to enjoy.




This didn't really help matter but hey, at least he tried.

Anyway lastly here's a current view of the growing town, currently 18 years old.





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Till next time


James



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Entry 3: The road to success!


Well we left off last time with the farming demand still at rock bottom and factories beginning to take over. Well it wasn't soon before all them long days in the factories making god knows what led the sims to want to do some shopping.

With this in mind a small CBD was built on the eastern edge of tow..... wait I think we may have gone wrong here. Why did the mayor build the CBD on the eastern edge of the town. Oh well nevermind. The farmers also set up a permanent market here to help sell their good to the sims who already bought them and lived off of them (since there's no way for anything to leave or get into the town).  Good job farmers good job.



This photo also shows the mayors further commitment to trying to shut the Environmental Advisor up by planting trees around the edge of the town. Well at least he's still trying.



next on the list of issues was the overcrowding of the two streets that led out of the town and onto the roads leading to all the farms (and therefore a large number of sims jobs). This is what they looked like before the mayor did anything about it (bear in mind this is just one of the two streets. The other one is just as bad).






Now in this case the mayor didn't actually screw up all that badly, deciding that the best approach would be to remove on of the streets and upgrade it to a road. Then, add a new street on both the east and the west side of the town leading out into the farmland to further spread the weight of the traffic.



Thankfully this was successful and is currently managing to not overburden either of the streets or the road so the mayor can choose to ignore the traffic again for now. He may however need to upgrade some more roads in the town or maybe just introduce some public transport. We'll have to see.



The next issue the mayor couldn't ignore was the disposal of the trash that was building up on the streets of the town. Initially he had proposed just burying it ina  landfill outside of town but the Environmental Advisor nearly had a heart attack at this so, ever one to capitalise on the situation, the mayor took the refusal for a dump as the go ahead for a incineration plant and built one outside the town to the north.



Needless to say the Environmental Advisor is even more displeased at this than the dump but hey, the town can afford it and its producing energy and not meaning that they need a unsightly landfill.



Anyway that's all for this entry. Here's a current overview of the town. As you can see the everything including the farmland has expanded and apparently, even more sims are wanting to appear out of nowhere to live in Tarino so we'll have to find more space to house them.





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Till then

James

[89James89]

Entry 4: Farming again!


Welcome back and lets take a look at how our small town has grown since last time. What with the demand for new jobs that was brought on last time it was time to start farming again. Several years later and with some more farms built up some enterprising sim decided to build a farm themed fair for everyone to enjoy. Eager for anything that'd help make the sims more complacent the mayor jumped on the idea, buying some farmland for some ridiculous price on the edge of town and handing it over to the enterprising sims. Several months later and bam, we have a fair.




Excellent. Anyway the next image I have for you all shows the town at year 30. As you can see theres been a small bit of expansion on either side of the town and, although not as obvious the farmland has grown over the years since the last overview.






Then came a landmark event for the town in year 36. With more sims still coming into the town more housing was needed. What with the other issue the mayor was having with a few farms out by the incineration plant not growing he decided to found a small village up there to help pormote growth. Although the new village, Heltin was fairly popular there was the issue of no demand for commercial so the villagers had a long commute to buy goods. Aiming to placate the villagers and the Environmental advisor in one shot the mayor had a small park built in the centre of the village (the first in the town). it seems to work as no one complains about no local shopping. Also don't worry there are plans to plant trees around the village like on the edge of town.






What they did complain about however is more traffic problems in town, especially towards the commercial area and east exit from the town. As such roadworks were carried out to improve the roads along the congested route. This is the result.





Now with everyone more or less happy for the moment the mayor needs to make a choice as to where to expand next. The two popular choices seem to be to expand northwards and to bridge the river. No decision has been made yet so I'll instead, leave you with the year 40 overview.





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Till next time.

James

[rooker1]

Nice work.
I remember playing the game like these many years ago. It's nice to go back and play like that sometimes.

Robin

[MTT9]

It's really nice when you can just focus on playing and planning, with no addons to distract you

[89James89]

Replies:


rooker1: Glad you enjoying it and yes, I for some reason like playing games without all the mods and changes. Not that I don't appreciate them I just prefer it this way myself.

MTT9:Thanks and yep, playing and attempted planning lol   .




Entry 5: Somerton Sorrow's

Right guys today were back with the results for the expansion bids. In the blue corner we had bridging the river. In the red corner we had northwards expansion. In the yellow corner we had eastwards expansion, and finally in the green corner, westwards expansion. (MENTAL NOTE: That sentence was pretty much redundant after the first option as the rest are pretty self explanatory but hey.)

And the winner was!

Expand northwards!

Otherwise known as 'I'm too cheap to build several bridges or demolish some factories at the moment' the northwards expansion plan takes place in this area and is a lot less hassle to instigate.




Now as with pretty much every single update so far in this log, farmland is once again a important factor for the growing (and often illiterate) sims. After a few farms cropped up (powered by wind energy on the basis that I couldn't get greedy Tarino to sell them electricity), the small settlement of Somerton exploded into life with many people moving into the new area. This is what it looked like after a year of growth. All nice and cosy (though they still don't have shopping poor sims).




Fast forward several years and as you can see, the influx of people has definitely hit a issue. Large amounts of sims were moving out or living in squalor due to lack of jobs, despite the RCI indicator showing that residential was still in demand.




With no more plots growing due to this issue, we had to hand more areas over to arable farming to help kick-start the small town again. (this is the first time I've broken the RCI rule but there wasn't any other way of doing it).  This is the town 5 years in. As you can see most of the job shortage has been taken care of but there's still some left. Plus there's the issue of heavy traffic on the small roads between Somerton and Tarino, currently being looked into by the transport department.




Anyway that's all for now. I'll leave you with this regional overview to show you how the city (or towns at the moment) is slowly growing.

http://imageshack.com/a/img822/3268/j6cx.png


Till next time

James

[89James89]

Entry 6: The Mayors on fire!

Right so I'm back with more news from our small growing towns. Starting firstly with the news that it would seem the sims of Somerton aren't very happy with mayor Goodfreys choices as this happened shortly after the last entry.




Apparently the sim living behind the mayors Somerton residence, a man by the name of P.Y.R.Maniac had decided that he'd had enough of the unemployment and general living conditions in Somerton and firebombed the mayors residence. Unfortunately for the mayor, he had yet to build a fire station in Somerton and byt he time the Tarino fire crews got there the house was burnt down.

Unfortunately for P.Y.R.Maniac, the mayors wine cellar at the rear of the house had exploded and blown several peices of burning timber into his house behind the mayors residency, so he lost his home in the end too. I'm sure there's a moral here somewhere.

Anyway as the above photo shows, the mayor rectified the whole fire station shortage problem pronto, though he has so far decided to not rebuild his residence there, instead handing the land over to more housing.

Having decided that general improvements were needed in both towns (screw Heltin apparently. It still hasn't got its trees), the mayor got to work providing mains water to Tarino.




This prompted some rich people to move into the town and then swiftly leave due to lack of work (do you see a pattern emerging here?). Repossessing the land, the mayor decided to take this opportunity to provide some more commercial in the centre of the town.



(PLEASE NOTE: This picture failed. It was meant to show a kind of time lapse image where you could see the abandoned mansions and the new commercial areas. It didn't work so I'll include this one but you probably won't see any more like it.)


Second on the list was to try and sort out these traffic issues.




After upgrading a number of roads, including the main route between Tarino and Somerton, the traffic is much better. It does indeed seem our mayors calling is in transportation rather than any of part of his job.




It was also decided that some improvements to Somerton's services would help the situation, so a Health Clinic, Elementary School and the regions first Church and Graveyard were built.




As you can easily see that didn't help at all, in fact unemployment got worse.


Can the mayor ever solve this problem?

Find out next time !
(Maybe)
( Most likely not)

Till then

James

[benedict]

Good luck solving the problems - I always found it tough in the beginning when I only had a few cities in the early stages started in a region.

[89James89]

Replies:

benedict: Thanks, I'm sure they'll sort themselves out eventually. Will just have to educate them a bit more.



Entry 7: Riverside Wonders


Hey guys. Today we take a look at our mayors attempts to make people completely forget about the whole unemployment issues with improved recreational facilities.

First we'll take a look at how retailers are attempting to help with the unemployment by hiring chea.... I mean by providing more jobs due to increased business sizes, meaning this is now what the commercial area of the town looks like. As you can see by the immediate housing quality. Someone's managed to avoid the whole unemployment crisis.





Speaking of which several more settlements have sprung up in the area around Tarino. Riverend, to the east of Somerton, is a bog standard residential settlement at the end of one of the rivers spurs where the citizens have so far managed to avoid the whole unemployment crisis. Not sure if this will last though.





The other settlement that's srpung up is Riverside. Situated to the west of Tarino where the river Swade joins the river Tarin.





As you can see from the overview several years down the line. The terrain around the small town is rather hilly when compared to what we've seen so far so the road from Tarino had to be cut into the steep hills between Tarino and Riverside. Anyway we'll take a look at that some other time for now here's a overview showing the area (complete with the arbitrary farmland).





As you can see though, the mayor did try and help with recreational facilities making Riverside the place to be to if you have any money. Which unfortunately, not a lot of people do in Tarino.





Till next time

James

[MTT9]

Nice view from Riverside's mayor recidence

[gn_leugim]

I'll be following this  

[Shroud]

That is some nice work with the layout of the farms.

[89James89]

Replies:


MTT9: Yep, its almost like he planned it that way.

gn_leugim: Thanks I hope you continue to enjoy it!

Shroud: Thanks, I've tried to make then follow the roads rather than spread them into every spare space in the map.




Entry 8: Banking on a Bridge.


Back again with more progress of Tarino. With this entry focusing on the main town Tarino.

Why is this?

Well, Tarino has changed slightly since the last time we've looked at it. Initially we added this Secondary School on the edge of town as the sims were getting worried that the restless teens were going to start trouble if they didn't have anything to do (at least this was the educational adviseos reasoning).





This seemed to have the effect of introducing the sims to means of labour other than farm work and a large influx of people suddenly wanted to build factories to actually do something with the large amount of farm produce. Several frantic years passed and this is what the area just to the east of Tarino look like. You can also see the newly finished harbour as well, built to help ship the surplus goods to god knows where but hey, it helps with road congestion.





Anyway this is what the town looked like after the sims decided that maybe the Health advisor was correct when he said that working in that high a concentration of polluting factories was damaging to your health, and stopped building factories like they were going out of fashion.





At which point farms came back into fashion. Given the lack of room on their side of the river the mayor decided it was time to bridge the river Tarin. Having decided that a single bridge in the centre of the town would be to much effort due to the amount of stuff that would be destroyed and moved to make way for it, the mayor spent a large amount of money building two bridges on either side of the town, which , unintentionally was actually a lot better than the single bridge in the centre for more reasons than the potential disruption.

Anyway several month's of population and farmland growth and Southbank has sprung up on the end of the west bridge, a fast growing town that actually has some shopping opportunities.





Anyway this is what the whole area looks like a couple of years after the bridges were constructed.





And apparently in recognition of the successful growth of our small town (at least that's what it says on the statue), this small statue of the mayor was erected in Tarino by his loving supporters (aka the city funds).





Anyway until next time.

James

[gn_leugim]

And apparently in recognition of the successful growth of our small town (at least that's what it says on the statue), this small statue of the mayor was erected in Tarino by his loving supporters (aka the city funds).

I had a laugh here 

nice update