Turtle plays GRV II

[turtle]

Hello,

This will be my main thread where I will show my progress in the Grand River Valley II challenge: Bordertown.

Challenge index:
Challenge Nr 1: Route 10 and main railroad
Challenge Nr 2: Basic Infrastructure - Power and Water
Challenge Nr 3: Rise of the South
Challenge Nr 4: I was just following orders, sir...(!)
Challenge Nr 5: Tension
Challenge Nr 6: Reconciliation
Challenge Nr 6A: Intermezzo

Update index:
Update II
Update III
Update IV

First of I want to say that I'm by no means an all time player. The last year I've been enjoying following different mayor diaries more than actually playing the game myself. I'm hoping that participating will teach me a lot about playing the game. I must admit that seeing what everybody have posted so far, I'm a bit intimidated to post whatever I build, but that should not stand in the way of having a little fun.

Anyways, welcome to turtles' Bordertown. You are most welcome to leave any comments you may have, criticism, suggestions or aknowledgement.

First of is my initial setup, with and without trees:

1.1 without trees


1.2 with trees


The mods I use so far are:
CPT No6 Missouri Breaks Terrain Controller
with the cliff and rock mod that comes with it and
Olympic beach mod.
For water I use [url=http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=7066.0]peg[/url]'s brigantine, and I'm still contemplating wether to use Gizmos watermod as well. I don't really like the extreme watertransparency as I feel it also calls for extreme detailling work. Maybe one of you know a way to make it less transparent?
For trees I used the CPT No7a Italia Coast TreeController (for the first time, and I think it looks pretty good).

oh, I also named the tiles:
1.3 names


I hate naming tiles, I can never come up with anything interesting.

Well, that's it for now. Thank you for reading.

turtle

edit: picture 1.3 is now actually pic 1.3

[beutelschlurf]

moin turtle,

i think it's a good start and the tile_names are easy to remember, so it's nothing wrong about it
keep it up 

b_schlurf

[soulchaser]

Don't worry, I don't think there are bonus points for tile names. 

Looks good, though.

[Splime]

That's some really neat tree placement.   Can't wait to see how you destroy it...  

[Ennedi]

Hello turtle, your region looks very good! 
The tree placement is really well done and gives a nice look to the landscape.

For water I use [url=http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=7066.0][url=http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=7066.0]peg[/url][/url]'s brigantine, and I'm still contemplating wether to use Gizmos watermod as well. I don't really like the extreme watertransparency as I feel it also calls for extreme detailling work. Maybe one of you know a way to make it less transparent?

Move your Terrain Mod subfolder to the end of game loading order. You can simply add "zzz" at its name beginning. For example I have "zzzCPT_TerrainMod" in my plugins. Your folder can be named "zzzCPT_MissouriBreaksTerrainMod" or similar.
This way your terrain mod will be loaded after Gizmo's Water Flora (even if you will call its folder "Water Flora" or "Water"  ) and your water will have a normal transparency without any harm for great Gizmo's water plants.

Adam

PS: In Cycledogg terrain mods water become opaque at 38 m depth. If you want to decrease this value, you can contact with me and request a special mod.

[mrbisonm]

Glad to see you. Nice choice of terrainmods and nicely planted forests. Keep it up, I'll be around.

Fred

[Pat]

very nice turtle and I am impressed!!

[turtle]

(small) Update II

Hi again!
Thank you for your nice comments. It's really encouraging 

Thanks to Ennedi and his very friendly post, I can now use Gizmo's watermod, without the lake looking like a bathtub on tile B:

2.1 Coldlake before


I then changed the name of the terrainmod folder to have zzz in front (thus making it load after gizmos mod):

2.2 Coldlake


Then I could use the flora from gizmos mod. I tried different things and couldn't really get started, but then I realised that the CTR-SHIFT-C contourlines also appear under water, so I did this:

2.3 Coldlake contourlines


It would have looked like this:

2.4 Coldlake with gizmos mod loading after the terrain mod


But now it looks like this

2.5 Coldlake


It's the first time I've done something like this where I actually liked it. There's probably still room for improvement, but I hope that will come when I start to develop a town here in Coldlake. So a big thanks to Ennedi for helping me out!

Thank you for reading
turtle

Edit: Is there a resize tag to make the pictures conforming to the forum standard?
Edit: fixed?

[beutelschlurf]

moin turtle,

if you use imageshack you can resize the pics to a smaller size ...
your pics look great, can't wait to see more! 

b_schlurf

[turtle]

@ beutelschlurf: Thank you for your nice comment. I tried letting imageshack resize the pictures this time.

Update III

Hello again,

While waiting for the next challenge, I started building on tile B: Cold Lake.
Spurring off Route 10 and it's proximity to the railroad, a small town of 4174 souls developed here in Cold Lake. It is still in its young years so I hope more development will take place here soon. Here are some pictures of the initial development:

3.1 Cold Lake - Station


3.2 Cold Lake - Elementary school


3.3 Cold Lake - Industries on the outskirts


3.4 Cold Lake - Sustainable energy


3.5 Cold Lake - Town overview


3.6 Cold Lake - Rural street bridge


3.7 Cold Lake - Overview from the mountain


3.8 Cold Lake - The entire quad


Ok, so there's a couple of things I'd like to say. First off, I'm generally pretty satisfied with this town so far, but, as you can see, I'm not fantastic at making realistic towns, so if you have any suggestions or comments on how to improve this area, please do say so. I'd appreciate any help and inspirations. I play on hard setting and there's a small surplus in the budget (for the time being  ).

Secondly, a couple of things I plan on changing: The farms do not look very good, and if they are to stay, I will have to do something about them. Regardless they will not stay the way they are. Also, I will try to install the Street Addon Mod for dirt roads, as I saw dedgren did some fantastic with new curves for these. This will not only help the farms but also improve the street going up the mountain to a ranger lookout. On a side note, I actually build the street to put a missile base up there, but I had doubts to wether we are allowed to build such a thing or not. I also feel like I need to improve on the commercial center near the station and remove the messy industry close by.

Ok, thats it for this time, thank you for stopping by.
Till the next
turtle

[mightygoose]

that looks great my friend, love the overall feel of the pictures, although the farms are abit squared and im not a fan of the underwater flora (the red one) but other than that i love them

[turtle]

@ Mightygoose: Thank you for your nice comment. I did round the farms in Cold Lake (tile B), added one more, and used the peg dirtroad from the SAM to give it a bit more feel. Sadly, I forgot to make pictures for it for this update. As for the red underwaterflora, I like how it turned out this time, but I will try not to go overboard in the future This is the first time I have detailed anything so extensively.

Update IV

Hey folks,

ok, so this be a small update. I just want to show you how bordertown looks before starting challenge 3. As you can see, I've only built on the north side in Upland Mountain (tile C) and Riverside (tile F). The coal mine has been built on the location in Upland Mountain I indicated in challenge 2, and a small workers village has risen close by. To connect Upland mountain to Route 10 I've build a road going southward to Riverside, where a small village grew at the junction. Here are some pictures:

4.1 Bordentown regionview


4.2 Bordertown trafficview


4.3 Riverside (tile F)


4.4 Upland Mountain (tile C)


The residents of the north have now overthrown mayor turtle and kicked him in the river yelling that surely someone else (Anybody else) can do a better job at getting this community moving. Luckily, the residents of the south helped him out of the water, dried him up, and reassured him that the ca. 100 residents of the south still had faith in his abilities as a mayor.

I hope you like it

Thomas