So I have just began/restarted making cities again, cause the ones I made back then were planning disasters. This time I will be developing a small city tile, and probably work on it for the next few months ;D.
PLANNING
"Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail"
My concept is to have a few permanent pieces of infrastructure in the city. The city will have a canal running through it, and several "main" avenues. I will probably use some el-rail later on but right now the issue is trying to divide the areas into residential, commercial, and government, as I put industry and other stuff in the next town. :)
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1177.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx354%2Funit2981%2FDSCN0008.jpg&hash=8521923d84f6679c57320199472777cd94fd9733)
Roads will be following the canal all the way through town.
Planning is definitely a great way to start.
A canal city should be very interesting, I look forward to more.
Robin :thumbsup:
I like your approach. It is always good to have a plan (and maybe a Plan B ::) )
Since this is more of a development/construction journal than a straight up diary, I like to have opinions, lots and lots of opinions ;D
So here is the park area, I personally think it needs a bit of work on the upperleft edge. But due to the lack of a context, I have no idea what I should be doing with it.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1177.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx354%2Funit2981%2FTestcity-Nov13011324676913.png&hash=66dc4a9bbe9e8b7db56532824fe5011b80bd0b4d)
Here is the overview of the city, road planning... I was picking between gridding or semi-random patterns.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1177.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx354%2Funit2981%2FTestcity-Nov13011324677907.png&hash=bcc63e3c03ec7aee6164917d161af76c91b66b18)
Here is a zoom of the same area, I wonder if I should try and move the preschool around a bit.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1177.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx354%2Funit2981%2FTestcity-Nov13011324677928.png&hash=8037c7aa9150fa43962dcf2b75b6f61807b97a0b)
So if you have any opinions or thoughts feel free to post them below :)
Looks very good, keep it up :)
This is a great idea! :thumbsup: I thought of following this method too, but I was too lazy to go and get myself a ream of graph paper. :P
Replies:
Risu: glad you liked my planning, but after a certain point, planning is all done on the city itself :P
Terring7: thank you :)
I had a great vacation, but didn't get to use the computer very often.
So when making the city, I have to save every 3 minutes because simcity crashes all the time. I don't know whether it's a conflicting plugin file or whatever, too lazy to figure it out.
So my "suburbs" are almost done, but if you look on google earth at a Japanese suburb, it is more than 1km2. Now what fun would that be if I made it all residential?
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1177.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx354%2Funit2981%2FTestcity-Jun19081325900876.png&hash=44073224cfdd10b561a08a8c9ed6a654485c74f2)
I must say that ML and Kei houses really mix well with each other. Something about it that bugs me is that I know that Japanese suburbs have streets less than 16 meters wide, and primary use alleyways/secondary streets of some sort.
Posting another view of the same area.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1177.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx354%2Funit2981%2FTestcity-Jun14081325900843.png&hash=4b021798840ca73cf1e3e0c6ec04b34d6b234996)
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1177.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx354%2Funit2981%2FTestcity-Jun26081325900912.png&hash=fb602a4bd541ce389cd07bea1d0d23c637c76ff8)
That is what I spent a good 3 hours on, not counting the countless hours of lost data and frustration.
Here is my next project area, I was thinking about another residential neighborhood because the canal would act as a very good transition.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1177.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx354%2Funit2981%2FTestcity-Jul2081325900960.png&hash=c53bcf5130f402039ea8d5bb3472fa336b94e616)
So any suggestions, criticism, hints, tips, hate mail, compliments, etc would be greatly appreciated
Very nice development, and in a style a really like, what else ?
Though, on the second pic from the bottom, was it really necessary to put two college side by side ?
Art128: Japan is known for having little crime(or as far as I know :P), in this game people love to streak $%#Ninj2. In order to minimize the amount of crime, I've had to plant schools, businesses, police stations, and hospitals very densely. Not to mention that that is a preschool and a library :P
So today I've been working on the new area, and saving every three minutes >.>
But something is bugging me, uki's plots are somehow conflicting with one another. I can't place one type of lot without compromising the other.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1177.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx354%2Funit2981%2FTestcity-Nov2091326078860.png&hash=c59bd8600c81b06532f938753221f5c0872aa945)
So here was my original plan, very formal type.
But hey, I don't like formal so it goes out the window, I want festivities ;D
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1177.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx354%2Funit2981%2FTestcity-Apr19111326080291.png&hash=ca8556d476cffc8f8db6b8b3aab11da99666a0ae)
Gates.... a symbol of privacy and privilege. Privacy in a festival?, almost like saying that I am a unicorn on a train.
Gates were used to separate what is outside from what is inside, hence the street from the interior. But I want to bring the street into the festival, to make it public.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1177.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx354%2Funit2981%2FTestcity-Jun4101326079451.png&hash=73b70e9a7258d0eb16119d6ce2932d651e6be563)
I'd love to post a night pic but.....
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I don't seem to have the right night lights for those lots, it would be greatly appreciated if someone could tell me what am I missing.
It really would help me out if more people left comments, it lets me know that I'm not talking to a wall sometimes ;).
Do you have the night lighting patch installed? (http://kurier.simcityplaza.de/details.php?file=307 sorry, don't have an english link)
You're not talking to a wall ;D. You're doing some very nice work here actually, has an excellent small town look.
The nightlighting update can be found here (in English) at http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?page=6 (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?page=6), click to Accept the license agreement, then click on the BAT tools, and you'll find the nightlighting update under Recommended Downloads (2nd on the page).
Capturing the essence, not the look
I have come across an impasse trying to figure out what I want to do with the area that contains the nightmarket.
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My goal in this city is to capture the essence of a small Japanese town, or suburb for that matter. I believe that I have not managed to capture that essence. I have been to Japan a few times, but all those times I was too young to observe and take notes. My only research is google earth and image search.
Observing the image below, Japanese streets are NARROW, and probably couldn't fit most American SUVs side by side.
I know that is a game limitation, streets must be 16 meters wide. Using Somy's, Kei's or ML's houses has managed to solve most of the problem, but they seem to lack something important. It really bugs me that we can't have "shared streets", as most Asian cities use shared streets.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F_9Wu_fv0DMXQ%2FTEbl50ufCTI%2FAAAAAAAAAbA%2FeIms7MzA8QI%2Fs1600%2FFukuoka%2Bsuburb%2Bnear%2Bairport%2Band%2Bsubway%2Bwith%2Bcommuters%2B150%2Bcolour%2Bjpeg.jpg&hash=945fb887613da5e65d083761923b38390866599e)
Some other issues I come across is the lack of randomness, as Simcity is a very liney game. But I can't whine about game limitations :'(
There are a slew of problems that I could address with my city, the lack of updates is often due to me doing "research" or just being lazy.
Along with trying to figure out which plug-in is making me quit the game every few minutes.
So I had one picture to show today, after the game quit on me again.
The area for the night market is certainly looking quite nice! Hope you managed to sort out the night lighting! Looking forward to seeing more!
I hear you when it comes to those game limitations, I've worked very hard to get around them, but the grid always remains a limitation of the game. There is something to be said for the design philosophy: Limitations provoke creativity. You're certainly starting to capture the feel of a Japanese city quite nicely!
I wish I had suggestions for the crashes, I have issues with that on occasion as well. All I've found that I can do so far is save frequently and make back up copies of the region on occasion as well.
This is a nice start, i like the pictures and seems i´m not the only one using graph paper for planning... ;D
Keep it on,
greetz, Carl
Last Update With This Small City
Sorry for not updating the journal in over a month, I feel that I did not live up to expectations nor the desires of my readers to fully continue this CJ. Anyways this will be the last update with this small city, I'll soon be moving to a whole new region to fully develop a "province". I still haven't yet fixed the issue with automatically quitting, and didn't try out the nightlighting.
I've noticed a great difference among BATs from different people, especially the residential ones. This doesn't occur among the zyakko's though. Somy's houses, are close quarters and rather colourful, giving a city a more cheery look. Kori's houses are rather sophisticated looking, fitting more into a wealthy suburb. Kei's houses look rather down to earth, and lower classed. Correct me if I'm wrong on this one. I don't understand, is it because the designers come from different parts of Japan or is it that how each artist perceives a Japanese house is different?
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1177.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx354%2Funit2981%2FTestcity-May2441328405716.png&hash=a811753e11e4ff8c7416d9edac4335116f2ebd6d)
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1177.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx354%2Funit2981%2FTestcity-May2441328405960.png&hash=0a30a6a5803372dbb9197ef38888b4105695ce49)
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1177.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx354%2Funit2981%2FTestcity-May2441328405915.png&hash=7994dcbcebcee47e40b2bb1b6683f77af0020429)
So I have a new region ready to go, about 3x3 large tiles, made using landscape designer, (which possible uses fractals) The problem with that type of generator is that natural rivers don't occur, so I will have to go in and put some in where I feel there should be. I will be going back to do some research on the countryside in Japan, and the switch between city and suburb, which I feel needs a bit more work.
By the way, why is Simcity Kamurai (Japanese Simtropolis equivolent) not working, I can't go search up stuff that I need.
Fantastic looking city. I have never tried this style but you make me want to. I love how all the houses are so crowded together.
Please remember to post your pictures as jpg.
Robin :thumbsup: