Synoecism

[gorbag]

Reply

Looks good!  Nice little farms there. 

Thanks Battlecat.



Entry 11: I've got a brand new steam powered combination harvester...



(Councillor Bob Crotchet) Hello, hello. Welcome everybody. Do settle down. We're all here to witness the opening of the Oak River Patents Office here in St. Raphael. It's a wonderful day for the region.

...mumbles from the crowd...

I understand that it's raining Mrs. Sullivan, I meant wonderful in, well, not in the weather sense.

It's taken us months to, well, just get councillors from all the villages together in one place. Anyway, we were all locked up in a room a weren't allowed to leave until we came to an agreement. The result of the agreement is this - the Patents Office. We can now rest assured that people can live in peace that their inventions will not be stolen. Here to tell you more is newly appointed Patents Officer Mr. Willy Prudhoe.

(Willy Prudhoe) Thank you councillor.

(shout from crowd) GERROFF MY LAND!

(Willy Prudhoe) It's not your land Alderman Harris. We're all very grateful that you discovered this place, but you can't claim all of it.

The patents office is designed to protect your intellectual property and looking around them room I se... hmm. well, maybe not your intellectual property. Anyway, if you invent something, submit it to the Patents Office and we'll keep a record of it. Then if anyone wants to use your design they have to pay you shiny discs, which are now being called `money' or `Simoeleons' as I understand it.

mumble from crowd

No, Mr Bryden, you can't patent your discs. Why? Because we believe that you didn't invent them and anyway a law was passed saying they were unpatentable because they're too useful.

Gosh. You've turned the air blue Mr. Bryden.

Anyway, I'm pleased to announce the first invention to be patented. It was invented by me. I'm calling it the steam engine. Essentially, you heat the water and steam rises, which can do something useful. I'm not entirely sure what yet and I'm sure it can be improved.

Thank you everybody. Have a good day.

--------------


Some time later, the steam engine was modified and various inventions started to appear. These were the steam donkey used in logging ...



Or the steam tractors and combine harvesters that greatly increased the area of land that one family could farm.



Image of steam donkey from wikipedia. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0


Image of steam tractor from wikipedia. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0

[gorbag]

Entry 12: Service required!

On the 15th July 1917, John Harris, first settler and Alderman of Oak River died. Alderman Harris was much loved by his community and very powerful, locally and he was also a traditionalist resisting all forms organisation beyond the village level. He saw no need for the villages to interfere with one another.

However, once he had passed on, the council members from the other villages found it far easier to impose their will on a leaderless Oak River population. The problem for the villages was somewhat uncontrolled growth and a complete lack of services.

On 17th October 1917 the communities organised a vote on the topic of government. Three options were put forth. The first was to remain as is, practicing government on an ad hoc basis. The second was to keep village government but have local `Townships' that would rule over a number of villages in the area. The third choice was to have a regional government overseeing everything.

The villages voted separately with 44% of the populace voting for option one, 53% for option 2 and a measly 3% for option three. At a meeting on the 4th November, the townships of Oak River, Dart River, Sarah's Cove, Pelargir, Anduin, Revis Island, Dartmouth, Broadoak and Widdershins Bay were officially founded.

The townships were set out on a rigid square grid as shown below. Some of the townships ended up a bit bizarre it terms of geography, but for fairness it was decided that each township should occupy the same amount of space.



The townships were given legal powers to set their own laws. As the year drew to a close, the townships passed laws enabling them to collect taxes - previously everything was subsidised by the villagers themselves.

However, the councilmen knew that they had to provide more services once they started collecting money. On 27th December 1917 the Township of Dart River called the inhabitants together for a meeting so they could suggest a use for all the revenue.

Let's look in to the meeting to see what is happening.

-------------------------------------------------

Thank you, everybody. As you are aware, we've had a voluntary contribution for the upkeep of the power generators and streets for some time now. You're also aware that from now on everyone will have to contribute to the township financially. It's called tax.

Anyway, we have over $226,000 already, most of which dates back to the founding of the villages. What you may not know is that it only cost $407 to pay for power and roads and we're collecting in $1524 under this new tax arrangement.

So, the question is how can we put that money to use to make all of our lives better? We've come up with some ideas ourselves. A school, perhaps? What about a professional fire fighting unit? We've been doing it ourselves until now. Organised policing? What about a centralised water system so that we can get cleaner water or maybe we could look after our health.

What's most important to you? What do you want to see in our town?

[RickD]

Interesting developments in your region. Nobody likes taxes, though. 
I think a school is the most needed thing for a young town. And if there is still money left, the second service should be fire fighters.

[Battlecat]

Neat looking development pattern you've got there!  The region is looking great.

[gorbag]

Replies

RickD: A school followed by fire seems to be the popular choice on other sites too. Thanks for checking in.

Battlecat: Thanks for reading.



Entry 13: Making Tracks

Sheila Burnham, like many other business owners in the Dart River Industrial area, had a problem. Sheila had a problem shifting goods. Sheila owned a company that made small bolts. She had some business in the Oak River area but most of the goods went over seas.

Originally, the bolts were transported by road to Sarah's Cove, but that took a long time, and the road was unreliable. Sometimes the cargo and drivers would go missing without a trace. When Bob Ribblesand first starting shipping goods by barge to Dartmouth all was well. The service was cheap and efficient and no goods ever went missing.

Unfortunately for his customers he had no competition and so was able to ratchet up the price for his services. A box of bolts that sells abroad for $5 costs $4 to ship on the barge. That's not a lot of room for profit once other costs are taken into account.

Jim Steinbach knew of the problem and had an idea. He knew some people in the steam business and had an idea. He would transport goods quicker and cheaper than the barges and he would do so by train.

However, this was a big undertaking and required a lot of financial backing. Jim decided that speed was of the essence and planned on a line that ran from Dart River in the west through Dartacre and up to Sarah's Cove.



The local councils were reactionary. Since there was no other railway line, he knew that there were no railway laws and decided to use this to his advantage by planning an almost straight route without diverting via Oak River.

Part of the plan was to build a little community by the source of the River Folsense. They would collect rent from the people who lived there, thus supplementing the railway income.

Work started in earnest in Dart River where the ground was quite flat. Trees were torn down and the ground smoothed and a rough track was laid out.



Passenger stations at Dart River and Dartacre were constructed as well as a freight station in Dart River.



However, there were many miles to go and it would be some time before trains would be seen on this track.

[Lowkee33]

Nice Start.  One limitation of SC4 is that there is no reason for a city to exist in the first place.  You are doing a wonderful job of making that up.  I really like how the woods are logged before they are farmed.  Perhaps that wood can be used to make houses faster...

[gorbag]

Reply

Nice Start.  One limitation of SC4 is that there is no reason for a city to exist in the first place.  You are doing a wonderful job of making that up.  I really like how the woods are logged before they are farmed.  Perhaps that wood can be used to make houses faster...

Thanks, Lowkee33. I try to have a good reason for doing everything.



Entry 14: We don't need no education



And so it was, that due to the will of the people, that the spare tax money was spent on setting up schools. Unfortunately, schools could not be set up everywhere. Whilst cash was plentiful, teachers were not. Luckily for everyone there were some members of society who had received some schooling before coming across the ocean. They were now in their early 50s. They were selected to be the teachers for the time being.

The council found a map of the Township. They only have enough teachers for two small schools. They decided to place them in Westfield (in the NW) and North Oak River (NE) since they had the highest concentration of houses.



They selected sites and the built the schools. The first bewildered pupils started learning the alphabet soon after. At night the schools were open as adult education centres, further enhancing the overall education of the community as well as being used to train more teachers. The picture below is of Westfield Primary School.

[scott1964]

Interesting. 

[jmyers2043]

It's a rainy Sunday morning and it started out with a good chuckle when I read the 'meeting minutes'.  Thank you very much. .

- Jim

[canyonjumper]

Cool, I'm in the minutes! Thanks gorbag! Great update!

             -Jordan

EDIT: 800^th post!

[gorbag]

Replies

scott1964: Thanks

jmyers2043: It's my pleasure

canyonjumper: No problem. Congrats on the 800th post.



Entry 15: Chugging along

And so it was, in the Summer of 1920 that Jim Steinbach finally completed his railway at almost ruinous cost. The route stretched from Dart River to Sarah's Cove and primarily conveyed freight. Unfortunately, due to the enormous cost of the project his services weren't that cheap, but they were cheap enough for large businesses to transport bulky goods.

For smaller businesses the railway was not yet cheap enough to use, so they had to stick with Bob Ribblesand's barge company. Luckily for them though, Mr Ribblesand had lost all of the large business and was forced to reduce his prices to encourage the smaller businesses to use his services more.

Jim Steinbach's railway operated this type of steam train for both freight and passengers. It was a Norman B20.



The picture of the train was taken during testing before they decided on a right hand drive for the tracks. Below is the train in action.



Let's take a look over the new track. It starts out at Dart River where there are separate passenger and freight terminals before a short trip to Dartacre.



The track moves on the new village of Twin Tracks. This village is owned entirely by the railway company as a major source of income from rent to help offset some of the costs of building.



The tracks travel through the outskirts of Sarah's Cove before ending up at the port at Fisher. This is where most of the expense was. The earthworks for the raised track and bridge were very costly for the company.



Jim Steinbach hopes that his company will make a long-term profit. Only time will tell.

[Kevin1a]

Very interesting start.  I have never been good with small towns, and my personal Mayor Diary started with a city already beginning to grow, but you make it look good.  The region looks very good.  I also like the railroad.  I can't wait to see it grow over time and see towns and cities??? grow up around it.  I think your forests could benefit from some custom foliage though, they look very monotonous.  I will make sure to stop by from time to time, and if I don't, make sure to send angry PMs to my inbox

[gorbag]

Reply

Very interesting start.  I have never been good with small towns, and my personal Mayor Diary started with a city already beginning to grow, but you make it look good.  The region looks very good.  I also like the railroad.  I can't wait to see it grow over time and see towns and cities??? grow up around it.  I think your forests could benefit from some custom foliage though, they look very monotonous.  I will make sure to stop by from time to time, and if I don't, make sure to send angry PMs to my inbox

Thanks Kevin. I agree about the forests. I do have some CC trees, but I haven't learnt how to make good looking scenes yet. I'm a bit wary of having too much CC to keep the game running smoothly though. The region is huge.



Entry 16: Will you start the taps, please

Despite being separated politically into Townships, the individual villages still had some degree of autonomy.

Early in 1921, local councillors in Dartacre were pondering fire protection. Up until now, residents put out fires using bucket chains from the river. As the village grew, the fire risk became greater and so the local council decided to think about investing in a fire service. Unfortunately they discovered that fighting fires would be impossible without water.

They discussed all this with the other villages within the townships, but the cost was too much for the others. As a larger settlement however, Dartacre was able to raise the extra revenue to build a water distribution service that would only encompass itself.



Dartacre's groundwater was heavily polluted however from agricultural chemicals and so they had to build the pumping station out of town.





The local residents of this unaffiliated neighbourhood did not mind since the got a free water supply in turn.

[RickD]

Uh oh that is some heavy pollution there. Good for the people that the pumping station wasn't built there. Bad for the town's budget that they had to build longer pipes. 

[canyonjumper]

Cool stuff, gorbag! Your story is great!

               -Jordan

[Kevin1a]

Interesting update.  The story is just as important as the construction itself.  I wonder how the primary roads in Dartacre will turn out, since the roads are so random.  It should produce some very European looking traffic setups with circles and such.  I'm keeping an eye out 

[gorbag]

Replies

Rick_D: Quite! I'm working on lotting a particular solution to that.

Canyonjumper: Thanks!

kevin1a: It will be interesting. At the moment it's the southernmost road, because of the neighbour connection, but as more of those go in we may see a change in pattern.



Entry 17 - What a load of rubbish

Every Sunday morning, faithful citizens in the Oak River region meet at the Church of St. Raphael. Every Sunday morning they read the hymns and readings from printed sheets of paper and every Sunday morning they throw the pieces of paper in the bin. Apparently, the doctrine of stewardship hasn't quite made it to this church.



Unfortunately, there was no-one to empty the bins and so the local area became strewn with litter and what was once a desirable place to live became infested with rats, ants, cockroaches and other unwelcome neighbours.

Since this was not the only place in the area to have rubbish problems the council decided to do something about it. The council members were not very imaginative however and decided that the best solution would be to move it away from civilization. The only suitable place was in an area of `The Hand ', a region shaped a bit like a pointing hand. A landfill was constructed and soon started to fill up.



This was clearly only a temporary measure, so the council better start thinking of new ways to deal with the unwanted side-affects of daily life.

[marsh]

I cant belive the church didnt clean all that up

[Kevin1a]

I guess this church hasn't heard of "creation care," of course who can blame them since the people in your region only recently invented the steam engine?  I like the idea of promoting recycling in Dartacre since it is the most populated town.  Of course, they could also pay Mr. Steinbach or Mr. Ribbelsand to take it out of town on the railroad or on the barges and pay some distant city to incinerate it.  A public composting collective would be cool too.  Farmers drop off bio waste at a central spot where it could be fermented and used to power a methane power plant and then spread on the fields as fertaliser.  Apparently bio-gas is common in Germany, I have seen various shows about it on their TV stations.  Whatever it is, it's probably best funded through taxes.  I don't want to see your city develop an illegal dumping problem because some scofflaws don't want to pay a small fee.

[gorbag]

I guess this church hasn't heard of "creation care," of course who can blame them since the people in your region only recently invented the steam engine?  I like the idea of promoting recycling in Dartacre since it is the most populated town.  Of course, they could also pay Mr. Steinbach or Mr. Ribbelsand to take it out of town on the railroad or on the barges and pay some distant city to incinerate it.  A public composting collective would be cool too.  Farmers drop off bio waste at a central spot where it could be fermented and used to power a methane power plant and then spread on the fields as fertaliser.  Apparently bio-gas is common in Germany, I have seen various shows about it on their TV stations.  Whatever it is, it's probably best funded through taxes.  I don't want to see your city develop an illegal dumping problem because some scofflaws don't want to pay a small fee.

All good ideas Kevin. I'll keep those in mind. There's an incinerator I might use, once the problem becomes much larger.



Entry 18: On the Grid

The inhabitants of Revis Island are a pragmatic bunch.



The northern end of Revis Island is a farming region and in order to make the most use of the narrow stretch of land they had to find some way of organising their plots of land.

It was Morten Andersen, one of the original farmers, who came up with the idea of a grid system. A system completely unknown in any other part of the Oak River region.

Morten, a pumpkin farmer, who was 48-years old at the time, was looking at his stone-worked kitchen floor one day and noticed how pleasing the rectangular shapes were to look at and how well they fitted together.

The following day when the new settlers on the island were dividing up the land, he suggested the radical approach. His grid was greeted as innovative by some, but was not welcomed with universal acclaim. As settlers in a new land, the people had shaken off the rigidity of the rules and regulations of their former homes. This new grid reminded them of such rigidity and yet they could not deny how useful this system would be.



Eventually they settled on a compromise. They would keep the grid system but it would not be completely rigid. Each farmer could take a parcel of land as long as it was rectangular, but they could be of varying sizes.