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Postcards from a Mattb325 Test Region

Started by mattb325, March 16, 2019, 11:57:21 PM

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mattb325

It's been a while since I've posted an MD.

In fact the last time was when the BSC played the Schozolosa Map. That was 12 years ago. So I think some new MD posts are more than a little overdue  :D

In terms of playing the game, the life a batter/modder/lotter can be vexed. If you are serious about releasing content which doesn't cause problems for others, then every region is a test region and you end up having multiple test regions for different scenarios.

The luxury of having a region just for its own sake is often elusive.

This region, is, like so many others on my PC, a region that is purely for Testing.



The testing in this case was making Bats that over time, helped undo broken demand due to playing style.

Many players often use ploppable lots with jobs to get the desired look and feel of their cities: be it Commercial or Industrial (Residential really don't work, even though you can plop  in them in such a way that they won't abandon). Others use radical demand mods to continually tell the simulator to max out demand in every category.

Now I'm not criticizing that practice, but plopping a skyscraper district, or an industrial port without sufficient region-wide demand to support the jobs leads to inevitable problems such as demand tanking. Most of the Reward and Transit Bats that I have been releasing over the last couple of years are designed to help fix these problems while also enabling the user who doesn't need any help in their region to maintain balanced growth.

*************************************************************

So when I started this region, I deliberately plopped lots of commercial areas in the middle of the map, and a port on the eastern side of the bay.

Now it is important to note I was zoning residential all the while and making sure that there were neighbor connections, but predictably I tanked my CO$$, CO$$$ and I-M demand by the second tile played and it has taken until the above image to play out to a point where demand is back to normal. To get my demand back, I placed all the rewards that were offered in game, as well as the rewards that I have been making.

Each tile is different in terms of rewards placed, and also crucially, I used my multifunction stations to really push growth and development higher.

That isn't the point of these postcards, they are just pictures to show the sort of work that goes on in a test region. Today, I'm showing images in the tile marked with the red arrow: the first tile where demand has returned to normal after plopping CO and IM districts.

Now that regional demand is normalised, here are some random pictures from around town. I'll keep posting from each tile as I do further testing. Even though they are just test regions, the point is to still make them look nice.  :)

Enjoy  :popcorn:































:satisfied:

tomvsotis

This looks ace, Matt! Your BATs are always lovely, so I guess it shouldn't be any surprise that your region is just as elegant :)

And I'd def be interested in hearing more about the interplay between plopped commercial/industrial lots and demand!

art128

Great to see you doing some MD entries! The pictures you posted are seriously cool.  &apls &apls
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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bladeberkman

Great getting to see you play with your own toys, as it were.  &apls And if I'm not mistaken, I think I've spotted some unreleased content.  ::) Very nice balance of densities and civics.

Tarkus

A Matt B. MD? :o  This is going to very quickly become appointment reading here. :thumbsup:  The region you have looks really quite amazing--puts my "test region" to shame.

-Alex

Silur

#5
I see fuzzy and twisted buildings-it's so unusual... I'm just enjoying it!!!  &apls :thumbsup: &apls

Alan_Waters

The city looks amazing. Everything is smooth, balanced. Immediately it seems that Sims are happy in it.  :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Kitsune

.. thats a test region? Really ? gezz ... like Tarkus said that puts our test regions to shame. Also ... I tend to do the plop jobs thing .. except I mod a park to do jobs and manually set the demand graphs. Sandbox mode if you will.
~ NAM Team Member

evarburg

ooooh, a Mattb 's MD ! ("All regions are test regions", God yes ! Even when one is not a batlotmodder. Some of us just want to test the new stuff they find "to test before using it in my new region" ; alas, many of my test tiles always seem to run away from me and end up being a city or a town...)

This incipient MD is very enlightening. I itch to begin a new region just seeing your stuff thus displayed. I'm always thinking one can build a whole map with your creations : obviously, it IS feasible.

BTW : I (think I) get why the pics are fuzzy but I must confess I am frustrated...  ;)

89James89

Oh right so the images are meant to be fuzzy (or are we just meant to figure out how to not make them fuzzy lol  ;) ).

Either way they all look amazing, even for a test region, love the mix of densities and the huge amount of variety in the stuff there and am eagerly awaiting more!

fantozzi

Can it be I see some buildings I don't know about? I need to study those postcards more.   :squirrel:

noahclem

What an exciting development  :bnn:  I've long been curious about how you play, having seen occasional in-game pics but never seeing them in regional context with details of your thoughts on playing. Seems we may get to better understand the uses of your plethora of custom-modded content--but perhaps more importantly, see some outstanding-looking cities! Really impressive shots you have; one would never imagine they're "just" testing cities ;)  Looking forward to more  :popcorn:

metarvo

Nice start to this MD Matt!  I don't recall ever seeing a test-region MD before, but of course I would've never guessed this was testing had you not said so.  How innovative!  :thumbsup:  The residential neighborhood honestly looks like one I might build; I see plenty of familiar houses that develop in my cities a lot.  I fully anticipated some grid-busting, so this MD introduction did not disappoint.  Also, is that HSR I see?  I don't see that too often; nice!

&apls
Find my power line BAT thread here.
Check out the Noro Cooperative.  What are you waiting for?  It even has electricity.
Want more? Try here.  For even more electrical goodies, look here.
Here are some rural power lines.

PaPa-J

This is very interesting.  It looks really far and balanced.  I, to, am wondering about what looks like new material.  Are we going to get flooded with new releases?  I hope so!  HEHEHE.
Lighten up, just enjoy life,
smile more, laugh more,
and don't get so worked up
about things.

mattb325

Thank you all for the lovely welcome to the MD section.  ()stsfd()



Replies:

tomvsotis: thankyou! the whole aim of this test region is to reveal ways that I have gleaned over the years to play-out negative demand effects, hopefully I'll be able to give some insight to others
art128: thankyou! glad you like the pictures; photoshop effects can be polarising, but I hope to give this MD its own 'feeling' by doing it.
bladeberkman: thankyou! You won't believe it, but I have seen in those pictures some more old gmax stuff that I forgot to release from the vault...as if 50 or so last year wasn't enough. lol
Tarkus: thankyou! I have only a couple of 'real' regions on my PC (schozalosa being one and the challenge with mrbisom being another) - all the rest end up being tests with broken or corrupted tiles from modding experiments gone awry. Thankfully its only pixels on a screen and no sims are actually harmed in the process
Silur: thankyou! Fuzzy and twisted is my reality....that's when I do my finest work  ;)
Alan_Waters thankyou! The sims are happy in this one; demand and employment seem to be back under control and I'll hopefully show ways to achieve that
Kitsune: thankyou! I have a couple of those parks, too. Not quite so radical, but to help keep R$$ demand high. I use them when all else fails  :D
evarburg: thankyou! There's heaps of my bats, obviously, but I hope to showcase many other creators here as well. My plugins is approx 5gb
89James89: thankyou! I like to try and keep it varied, but even with 5gb, it's amazing how often the same things grow...such as wren insurance  :D
fantozzi: thankyou! There'll be some content in here that I haven't yet released, but if see something specific, let me know  ;)
noahclem: thankyou!  Hopefully this will show my process and why I make some of the bats. I'm hoping that by playing out this region in public, it will give a bit of inspiration for new bats/mods to help deal with issues that arise
metarvo: thankyou! It is HSR. I really enjoy it, and seeing I made all those multifunction bats, it would be a shame not to use them
PaPa-J: thankyou! There will definitely be new bats, probably no flood, more a steady flow  :D





So, I have a few busy days ahead in RL, but I want to post some more pictures.

This is one of the first cities I plopped commercial buildings (CO$$$) in. It is very obvious which ones I plopped. I knew that plopping these treasures too early on would lead to demand issues, but I had to have these beauties in my region, anyway.   ;)

We are here:


So in the following pictures, you will see both plopped and grown towers, as the purpose of this region is to see what happens when you throw the simulator out of whack. This tile did have awful unemployment/abandonment, but after getting the demand back to balance, everything seems quite OK. I didn't plop too many towers, maybe only six or so, but that was enough for supply to outstrip demand. The eagle eyed amongst you will see which of my bats I'm using to correct the demand....I'll discuss the technical stuff a bit later, but for now, here's some pretty pictures showing some of the work of the finest batters in the community who have given us towers of beauty.

Enjoy....  :popcorn:

























:satisfied:

luvs2draw

Hello Matt,

Love the pic's, looking GRAND. I have learned by looking at yours and other creators the I don't need to cover my regions with everything. I have been leaving sections open and building with more of a flow to my cities.

c.p.

That's way more advanced (and beautiful) than my test regions.  I'm looking forward to seeing what insights you come up with. :popcorn:

mattb325

#17
Replies:

luvs2draw: thankyou! It does take take some discipline to know when to leave some undeveloped space on the map. Thankfully, the task is made easier with all of the wonderful MMP items we have these days
cp: thankyou! it's a huge map...sometimes I just get tired looking at it :D




If there is one small insight I can give is to be very careful with the type of map you use. I always look for maps with a mix of small, medium and large tiles. Maps with only large tiles can cause you to inadvertently create the commuter bug when making neighbour connections unless you are certain to only run the connection in the centre of each tile. Eternal commuters cause havoc with demand.

So today we're off to the other side of the map.



This, like much of the coastline on this map, has been squared off by the map-maker and just screams industrial port placement.

Each of these docks are I-M ploppables.















But, as this is still very early on in the region, I will need some residential and commercial to support the industry. A charming commercial area surrounded by piers and wharves:





And a residential area takes off in between the industrial port on the sea-ward side and the commercial piers on the bay-side:



Those plopped wharves have caused my I-M to tank, but industry all looks so pretty at night....





I'll have to start correcting demand soon  :P





Alan_Waters

Great!  :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Everything seems so simple, but looking closer we see that everything is extremely realistic and natural.
Bravo!  &apls &apls &apls

AsimPika3172

Awesome!!!  :thumbsup:  &apls  &apls  &apls  Keep moving forward!  :D
I loves Sim City forever!