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Calidores

Started by 11241036, January 22, 2015, 11:48:08 AM

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vortext

Castle is very nice indeed!  &apls

Only quibble I have is the walls don't go all the way around but other than that it's quite inspirational. And nice to see my textures in action!  ()stsfd()

The overview is great, really like the transition from plop water to canal and back.  :thumbsup:
time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

romualdillo

Fantastic work!!! Looking forward to your new update!!  :thumbsup:

Fasan

These are beautiful pictures of your work.
:thumbsup:
This castle with the timber-frame houses, as well as the
Flow design, I love.
The transition from the different types of water you have
well get there.
Do please keep it going! ;)

art128

With a great attention to details while landscaping cities and rural areas, it was just a matter of time before this MD got itself a place under the spotlights. Congratulations, 11241036. Here's to a great month.

I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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c.p.

Congrats on the OSITM &apls

Your villages, castle, woodlands and agricultural areas all look great, and complement each other well.  :satisfied:  Also, I like the map you posted a few updates ago.

belfastsocrates

Congratulations on OSITM!

Some very lovely work here, looking forward to seeing more.
A unique nation fusing technological prowess and unparalleled grandeur

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination" - Oscar Wilde

11241036




Responsa


First of all, of course, a big hug and thank you for the OSITM nomination for June 2015 to art128 :). I'll try to give my best to present you all good pictures during this month, and in regular, shorter intervals. Also glad to hear that you like the mountain picture.

Furthermore, I'd like to thank all of you for your interest; without your comments and suggestions, I would have probably given up :).

vortext: Thank you again very much for your attention. About the castle walls: I had my doubts indeed about this structure, since it facilitates invasion :D. My main thought was: Since there's a walled precipice to the south of the monastery, building the walls all around the castle would not be necessary. I could actually use overhanging wall pieces to fill the gap between the castle walls and the retaining wall. This will, however, be part of the next update.

romualdillo, Fasan, c.p., belfastsocrates: Thank you too for your comments!


Progressio


During June 2015, I will present you mostly my work on one specific (nearly) "virginal" city tile, B3 Vella, as an example how I usually design cities. Along with in-game pictures, I'll also present you drafts made with GIMP and Paint, and, if possible, road maps. Pictures from other cities may occasionally be added, but I'm not really planning this.

Since I had little time last week, today I'll only show a preview of what awaits you.

This is an overview over Calidores, with Vella highlighted:


#1; Click to enlarge

And this is a screenshot of how the city currently looks like. As you can see, aside from the railway, I haven't built anything there yet. And the only reason for me for building the railway first was: There are two railway lines leading to the city tile to the west, and I had to find a way to connect them to Vella in a way that they wouldn't end up somewhere at the sea or in the mountains. As you may know, railway trains can't tolerate steep grades, therefore, I had to take care of this first.
The rivers are already there; they are usually the first thing I'm planning, because rivers have in most cases always been there before humankind. (Forests too, but it's easiest to place them at the end of the city development, so they'll have to wait.)


#2; Click to enlarge

Next comes something that took me a while to think: The placement of settlements. I thought that this time I'll take my time to consider: If I were to found a settlement (in the Medieval, as this was the time where most of the Calidorian cities and villages have been founded), where would I do this? My main reason of doing this was the fact that I frequently like to include old town parts in my cities. Therefore, I need to put myself in the place of the people who built these parts centuries ago.

If I were to decide where to found a settlement, I'd most likely prefer locations
* with enough fresh water,
* with fertile land or any other source of food,
* at intersections between trade routes,
* at the coast,
* probably with access to other resources (such as iron, wood, etc.)

The following screenshot shows the ancient trade routes, as well as the settlements back then.


#3; Click to enlarge

Back then, there have been 4 settlements:
* Mithrax: The name is based on Mithrax spinosissimus for no reason other than I liked it ;D. The only fortified city on this city tile, it has been founded due to easy access to the sea and close proximity to farming land.
* Pons Iriamus: Misspelled in the screenshot as "Pons Iriamum" (I changed my mind...). Just a few houses and a wayside inn for travelers at the intersection between the trade routes.
* Staricum: A small village, located at the farms along the creek there.
* Tyrsalis: Again, access to the sea, to seafood, and to wood were the main reasons why Tyrsalis has been founded there.

Nowadays, after centuries of progress, Vella will look like this:

Yellow: Farms
Red: Cities/villages
Brown/orange: Railway
Blue: Bodies of water
White/grey: Roads



#4; Click to enlarge

Please note:
* Mithrax, the capital of Vella, has taken over Pons Iriamus and Staricum due to continuous growth. But I'll try to reflect the former development when building Mithrax.
* About the two grey roads: I haven't decided yet which one of these I'll build. Most likely the top one, although there will be a small village at the westernmost edge of the city tile to the east that I need to take into account.
* About the different colors of the projected railway lines: The hilly terrain will most likely make the construction of a railway line difficult. In both cases, I'm currently considering two different plans how to construct a railway line. The brown line itself will be a ground railway, whereas the orange line will be built on railway viaducts. As with the grey roads, I haven't decided yet.
* Anything that isn't farms or settlements will be filled with forests and perhaps a few clearings and meadows.


That's all for today. I hope to present you the first pictures as soon as possible. Hope you liked it, despite many words and few pictures.

art128

Great to see some development stage pictures of your work. It certainly is interesting to see how you plan out your cities and the thought you put into them. :)

Looking forward to see the growth of Mithrax.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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vortext

Congrats on being OSITM!  &apls

Nice idea to show development from the start, plans are promising. Looking forward how it pans out!  :thumbsup:
time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

Themistokles

Congratulations on the OSITM! Interesting to see the planning. The rivers are looking very good and I'm especially looking forward to seeing the river delta!
Come join me on a hike to St Edmea!

Latest update: 7

"In the end, our society will be defined not only by what we create, but by what we refuse to destroy." - John Sawhill

c.p.

The should be interesting to watch develop. :thumbsup:

11241036




Responsa


art128, vortext, Themistokles, c.p.: Thank you all for your interest and your congratulations! Let's hope the city will develop nicely.


Progressio


Today's update, as well as most of the updates in the near future, will lead us to city tile B3, Vella.
I'm afraid that I couldn't start really building anything so far, because in this update, I will mainly perform three tasks:
* Making notes in our city in-game to look whether my plans made in Paint can actually be carried out in-game,
* Taking care about the two imo most tedious and complicated tasks: Building the railway and laying out farms,
* Building a basic road infrastructure that runs all over the city to make sure that workers will have access to all farms, as well as the city border, and to adapt the viae and the farms to each other in special occasions (such as sloped terrain)

While I'm aware that this may not necessarily be realistic (and it doesn't give screenshots I'm really proud of), I fear I have no other choice since especially building farms and railways always comes first in my cities.

The first step includes: Drawing riverbeds (with Jeronij's ploppable water), labeling unique terrain features (such as the futural harbor and beach), delimiting the city growth (with tree logs), delimiting the old town parts (with riprap), and drawing the old trade routes (with ballast, brown lines). Of course, all planning is anything but accurate. This is an example:

Leuchtturm: lighthouse
Hafen: harbour
Strand: beach



#1; Click to enlarge

The second step includes: Drawing the railway line (grey sand), delimiting the agricultural areas (pebble heaps), and labeling various areas in my futural city according to my plans. With Mithrax, the decision where to build the railway has been surprisingly easy because I couldn't have built a railway line on ground without making sharp railway curves and complicated road overpasses. Therefore, at the area around the river the railway will be raised onto either a dam or a viaduct.

Altstadt: old town
EZ = Einkaufszentrum: mall
Station: (railway) station
Apartments: means the same
Vorstadt: suburbs
IG, I-Gebiet = Industriegebiet: industrial area
Gewerbezone: commercial area
HBF = Hauptbahnhof: main railway station
Staudamm: (river) dam



#2; Click to enlarge

In the case of Tyrsalis, however, making a decision really troubles me somehow. There are two possible solutions for the railway line, as you can see, I haven't decided yet. I even went as far as building both solutions, making a screenshot, and then exiting without saving to visualize them - something I've really never done before, but it's a troublesome location. The road connection encircled with red will BTW moved a little to the south.

Solarkraftwerke: solar power plants


#3; Click to enlarge


#4; Click to enlarge


After the planning, we can finally start with the work.
As already mentioned, I will mainly be laying out farms, railways, and a few roads.

Mithrax:

You might wonder why I'm using two roads at the coast to connect this city to the city tile to the east: the southern road will lead to a close village, while the northern road (the "supervia", as I'm calling it, basically an RHW-2 highway) will allow travelers driving from Mithrax to Suradis Nova, capital of Calidores, to bypass the farm fields (that usually mean a lot of slow tractors) and the aforementioned village. Finally an occasion allowing me to try out this nifty little road intersection construction that has been lying around in my plugins folder for quite a while without ever having seen usage.
By the way, most of the roads (save the bridges) won't be there for very long. They're just there for connecting workers with farm fields, not more. For the sake of building the bridges, I've temporarily raised the water level. Gaps between farm fields will later be filled with trees.

BaH = Bauernhof: farm (house)


#5; Click to enlarge


#6; Click to enlarge

Tyrsalis:

In this case, I've been using FLUP pieces to connect the roads of Tyrsalis with those from Mithrax, in order not to terraform the terrain too much - especially before actually knowing what to do exactly with this area.


#7; Click to enlarge

I've also whipped up a small little picture because I didn't want to let you go without at least one picture that looks more or less complete ;D I won't keep the buildings there, but it took merely 5 minutes to plop them.

This small gem, found here, also sat around idle in my folders for very long, until (after being relotted a little) finally been able to spring into action. It also has its own history: Back in the medievals, it served as a toll booth for the people who have built the bridge - after all, building and maintaining a bridge is expensive, so at least traveling merchants have been charged a fee to be allowed to use this bridge. It also doubled as a wayside inn, providing food, a good night's sleep, and a little hay for the horses. Recently, however, the cobblestone bridge lost its purpose as the main traffic route (it can't carry a large amount of car, bus, and freight truck traffic), but it has been recycled as a pedestrian bridge because it's too dangerous for pedestrians to walk on the avenue bridge. This former toll booth is now a restaurant, being owned by a family of Scottish immigrants, serving Scottish cuisine there.


#8

With this, we are finally done for today. Hope you liked this update. The next step will be actually developing the farms, as well as the first suburban areas, commercial buildings, and industrial zones.

art128

That is certainly interesting. This is going to be a great month. :)
As for the railway, it all depends what kind of traffic you want. Do you want people from Mithrax to go by train to Tyrsalis, and allowing a train line from the North of the region and the capital to go south through Tyrsalis? If yes, then make the viaduct way along the shore.
But if you want a traffic oriented toward a line from Friganium peninsula going south, then the railway along the mountain is the best idea. 

If it were my region, I'd make the railway line from the capital going south through Tyrsalis a reality as it seems more realistic to have that kind of corridor.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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romualdillo

Congratulations!! (a bit late, I know) Keep the good work!!!  &apls

11241036




Responsa


art128: Thank you very much! I do actually think that you've got a good point there. I want the main traffic to travel from the northeast (via Mithrax) to the southwest, so I guess I'll build a railway viaduct along the coast.
romualdillo: Thank you again for your interest. Late is better than not at all :)


Progressio


As already mentioned, today I'll start developing the farms and the suburbs. However, the first residential development is merely made in order to "provide the farms with workers". Therefore, I'm starting with suburbs, for 1. they are mostly in close proximity to the farm fields, and 2. they mostly contain low-density residentials.
Vella has three areas with a low amount of fields, therefore, I'll create 3 small suburban areas. (Sorry, while writing this update, I realized that I forgot to make a picture to show where the farms are located. I'll show a picture later.)

The first area, called Staricum (it used to be a small independent village before it has been taken over by Mithrax), already contains a small old village center, this time mostly made with Wallibuk's Slovakian housing. I'm basically skipping some of the possible 1x2 zones to make sure the game doesn't grow 2x2 or larger residentials (you may surely already know that SC4 always finds a way to mess you up); then, when a substantial amount of 1x2 residentials I want to see has been grown, they become historical and I'm laying out the missing zones. If some areas don't develop at all or only give me a large amount of R$ buildings, I'll dezone them and place a park or the like there.

A note on my plans concerning suburban zoning: I usually prefer 1x2 low-density mid-wealth residentials over all other low-density residentials because
* they take up a low amount of space (less than R$$$ villas) while having at least a little garden,
* they are mid-wealth (I need those most),
* I have a large amount of plugins with 1x2 R$$ buildings which allows me to reduce repetitive patterns to a minimum.
Every now and them, however, I'll grow a few R$$$ villas; R$ inhabitants mostly live in apartments or a few scattered low-density houses I either tolerate or forget to remove.

Commercials are usually placed this way:
* Along an important road in the center of a village/town part (usually in low numbers, perhaps about 10 buildings),
* At locations such as road intersections or railway stations (I think of them as small boutiques, food stores etc.; usually only 1 building there),
* In large cities, I sometimes build large commercial zones at the center of the city (usually close to the main railway station) or at the city limits - sometimes pretty close or even adjacent to suburban areas.

This is how Staricum looks like while being planned:


#1; Click to enlarge

... and after a couple of in-game months:


#2; Click to enlarge

... and even later:


#3; Click to enlarge

To the east, we have a suburb with the name of Lamira. I haven't mentioned this name before, but like Staricum, it has been an independent village until it melted together with Mithrax.

Planning phase:


#4; Click to enlarge

... and first development:


#5; Click to enlarge

There are also some farms around Tyrsalis, the village at the bay to the southwest. Unfortunately, I had really bad luck with this village and although I've been running the game for at least 1 year and 9 months, nearly no development occured at all, so I only have a picture of the development phase. Since I don't have any plans so far how to design Tyrsalis, the suburbs is located a little farther away from the fields (actually, at the opposite border of the village) - where I have enough space and there's a low risk of me messing up everything.


#6; Click to enlarge

That's all for today. Hope you liked it. Usually, after this first steps, I simply build how I want (as the only sensitive aspect is developing the farms) while paying attention to the commercial/residential demand, so no one can tell what awaits you the next time.

c.p.

Clever use of ploppables in your previous update.  That's something I've never seen before.

Looks like your villages are off to a good start :thumbsup:

11241036




Responsa


c.p.: Thank you very much! It's in fact easier to plan my city by visualizing content such as rivers, main roads, etc.


Progressio


In this update, I decided to further develop suburban areas. My main reason were in-game restrictions: To develop mid-rise residentals, I first need to let my population grow, and so I expanded the suburbs. This means more low-residentials, but even they help increasing the population a bit until my city reaches a stage where it facilitates growing mid-rises. Anyway, I need to deveop the suburban areas sometime, so - two birds with one stone.

And again, I forgot to make screenshots of the farming area :-[ Someone please remind me to buy a new brain somewhere. New to me, today's pictures have been made during fall.

But first, a picture of Lamira, the suburbs on the eastern hills. It has been improved a bit by the use of MMP trees.


#1; Click to enlarge

A little further to the northeast, the first farming area is nearly finished, as well as the "Money Cauldron", as I like to call it - a more modern part of Mithrax, containing an office complex, a mall, and a cinema. The latter is an example of "multi-level commercial areas", as I call them, albeit an easy one. If it weren't for the grid restriction in Sim City 4, I'd nearly only build on slopes, it's much more fun ;D. The former is an example of how I'm dealing with forests: Smaller patches such as the area where the road is splitting are made with MMP's, the small gaps between farm fields (with a width of 1 tile) are being made with ploppabe forests as it is too troublesome for me to use MMP's.


#2; Click to enlarge

And a close-up (unfortunately a summer picture):


#3; Click to enlarge

The first industrial area (squeezed in between Lamira and Staricum) is also nearing completion, although I might remove the dirty industrials later. My plans with industrials so far are: Growing manufacturing and high-tech industrials in some of my cities (mainly at the outskirts of the settlements to make sure that the lowest amount of people suffers from the pollution) and restricting dirty industry to a few cities and to areas remote from any settlement.


#4; Click to enlarge

Next, I'll finally get to the next suburban area - developed at the southern hillside, where the Via Vellae (the AVE-4 being converted into an AVE-2; I've dragged this road this way to make sure that the traffic doesn't travel right through the suburbs since this via is seeing much traffic) climbs the hills to connect Mithrax with Tyrsalis. At this place, I've tried to grow a little more mid-rises (especially close to the main roads and to the river), but I had little luck. Due to its large size, I had to make 2 screenshots.


#5; Click to enlarge


#6; Click to enlarge

I should mention that due to the increasing interest of the Calidorian population in religions other than Christianity - in this case Asian religions - , it was only a matter of time until the mayor's office received a request to grant permission to build a temple. Temples like these will most likely be limited to the larger cities only, but I guess Mithrax will become my Simperium's second-largest city. I surely hope I got this temple right.


#7; Click to enlarge

That's all for today. Hope you liked it.

art128

Great updates, I like how the suburbs is developing nicely. The apartments along the main road and the river are excellent, love them!
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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romualdillo

The new developments look very natural and realistic. I think your bigger cities will look great when finished, just as the smaller ones do! Keep the good work!! :thumbsup:

belfastsocrates

Nice work so far, I like the planning you're doing in regard to the river and so on.
A unique nation fusing technological prowess and unparalleled grandeur

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination" - Oscar Wilde