Nyhaven: Views From Within (Nuclear City - 5/8)

[djvandrake]

A beautiful showcase update!  And a very big congratulations on your second appearance in OSITM.     

[io_bg]

Congrats! And great last update, I really like the downtown shots and the marina. The only flaw, IMO, is the W2W buildings - they don't look that good on diagonals You can use diagonal W2W ones (they are fewer but they still look better). Looking forward to the next update!

[Haljackey]

I don't think I have commented on your MD yet, even though I have viewed it many times. What better time is to comment than during your OSITM and after an awesome update???

Excellent work, keep it up! 

[woodb3kmaster]

metarvo: Thank you, my friend, both for your congratulations and your kind words!
nedalezz: Thanks! Yes, we'll take a look at the wedding preparations soon. I appreciate the compliments on the pictures - I'm happy you like them so much!
Chris (GreekMan): Thank you, Chris!
Matt (threestooges): Thanks, Matt! The succession of day and night shots wasn't a conscious decision on my part, but you're certainly right that they do well at portraying the passage of time, which is important to this update since it's basically a summary of a three-year period. To be honest, much of Astoria is still a WIP, including Pacifica State University. That undeveloped patch you saw is intended to be the future home of the university's elite Fusion Power Research Institute, which will simply be my attempt to cleverly incorporate a Maxis power plant into the city in an aesthetically pleasing way. The streetcar system is something I made sure to include in Astoria as early as possible, inspired in part by San Francisco (similar to the university's Berkeleyan influences) and in part by the light rail systems that Daniel (emgmod) has been building in his non-U-Build-It cities. Thanks a bunch for your very kind words on everything, as well as your congratulations, and I hope to see more of you around here, as time permits! Take care!
Dryan (976): Thank you!
djvandrake: Thanks a lot, my friend!
Ioan (io_bg): Thank you, Ioan! The lack of diagonal W2W buildings is really my preference for function over form winning out in this area. I know that diagonal growables aren't really practical, and also that residential ploppables don't work, and I wanted that neighborhood to be residential (and functional), so as much as I might have wanted to dress the area up with pretty diagonal BATs, it wouldn't be the best option for me, I think. Hope that explains my thought process well enough!
Haljackey: I think you're right, so welcome to Nyhaven, and thanks for your compliments! It's a pleasure to have such a disinguished MDer as yourself post such encouraging words in my own MD.

Well, work continues behind the scenes in preparation for our next update. This week's special is simply a little teaser for what you'll see in that update:


This is the Église du Sacré-Cœur and the adjacent Place Sacré-Cœur in the historic core of Astoria. This church is the second version of the city's very first church, which was consecrated in 1566, one year after the city was founded (in the alternate universe in which Nyhaven is located, anyway). Astoria eventually outgrew the original structure, so the present church was built and consecrated in 1689. As a popular tourist attraction and local gathering place, the church and square have their own decidated stop on the streetcar line that passes by the church. You'll get to see more of Astoria next week!

I might as well mention that, later today, I will finish my undergraduate studies and receive my B.A. in Linguistics here at UCLA. I'm so glad I made it through the last five years!

[danielcote]

I love the church with the plaza in front of it!

[canyonjumper]

Great shot Zack! Looking forward to your update!

             -Jordan

[Nanami]

Great update!

[RickD]

Nice shot. And congrats on receiving your B.A.  Well done!

[woodb3kmaster]

Daniel (danielcote): Thank you!
Jordan (canyonjumper): Thanks, Jordan! Glad you liked the picture!
Dryan (976): Thanks!
Raphael (RickD): Thank you, Raphael!



Life was great in mid-1974. With my ring on Jane's hand, I was truly a happy man. As a result, I put more effort into my work than before, and Mayor Lundgren took notice. He saw how much I was working and decided to reward me by letting me take a vacation. After two and a half months of working at top speed, it was a welcome break.


All the same, I decided not to go vacationing in the far-off mountains of Upper Columbia, but instead, I chose to spend a week in Astoria. On July 6, I took the MetroRail to Nyhaven Central Station to board my train.


It was more than 20 miles from Nyhaven to Astoria by rail, but it was a nice trip, even if it was short. Before long, I was passing through Kendall.


Eventually, the train left the capital's suburbs behind and entered the countryside. It was nice seeing some open fields and dense forests outside my window.


At last, the train arrived at the Astor Square Station, next to Astoria's central business district. As I stepped outside the station with my bags, I saw cars and streetcars passing by along Charter Avenue and people milling about across the street, in Astor Square. I hailed a taxi and set out for my hotel.


Astoria was an old city and had lots of historical sites, so I checked them out first. My first stop was Fort Astoria, at the top of the hill overlooking the city's old harbor.


Just across the street was Astoria's civic center. The city was the state capital of Pacifica, the state that contained Nyhaven and Kendall, so I was able to visit both the City Hall and the State House pretty easily. There was plenty else to see at the civic center, too.


In the oldest part of Astoria, I saw the Église du Sacré-Cœur and its associated square. All these sights were easy to visit because of the city's extensive streetcar network.


Next, I headed over to the waterfront to check out the sports venues. I knew that Astoria had recently finished transforming a former warehouse area into a series of stadiums, arenas and luxury condos, so I had to take a look.


I was impressed. The new stadiums were both beautfiul and functional, and they were well-served by the streetcars.


Not far from the stadiums was the other part of that urban renewal project - the waterfront. The old docks had been replaced with a big cruise ship terminal, and there was also a picturesque wooden boardwalk close by. They had sure done a good job on turning this area around.


On my last full day in Astoria, I headed into the suburbs to visit Adventure Forest, the local amusement park. It was quite a park! Its main-street-style shopping area reminded me of the trips I had made to Disneyland while I was in Los Angeles for college.




There were plenty of rides in this park, too. I had a blast going on each of the park's eight rollercoasters. It was a great way to end my vacation.

[djvandrake]

WOW!  What an update!  I love your waterfront and Astor square station is awesome.  Such a fantastic city you have here.       

[woodb3kmaster]

djvandrake: Thank you very much, my friend! I'm glad you like Astoria so much. We'll have to go back some day...

Well, it seems that I haven't been able to follow through on my OSITM ambitions, since I've only posted updates about as often as normally. However, I have a couple of specials ready now, so I can at least make up for it for the rest of the month! Here's the latest region view of Nyhaven (click for full resolution):



The population of metropolitan Nyhaven is now up to 3,242,587, but at the rate that the area is growing, I don't think it will be long before Nyhaven and Kendall merge into a single conurbation, which will really increase the metro area's total population! If you're wondering why I haven't provided a full region view, it's simply because I don't think the whole region is quite ready for primetime - there are still a lot of quads that need to be resaved with the new terrain and water mods (so showing the whole region would create a kind of two-tone effect with the water), and I still have a lot of suburb-building to do to make Kendall and Astoria look right. Don't worry, though; I'm working on fixing both issues so hopefully, a new full region view isn't that far into the future!

[kbieniu7]

What the... That huge developed region looks impressive! 

[planetechef]

Superbe  this region view is fantastic, love also your last update, your train station is awesome and your rail traffic really realistic, great joj again   

[RickD]

Wow, that region view is impressive! Really great work. 
I only wish there were diagonal bridges available. 

[woodb3kmaster]

kbieniu7: Thank you very much!
planetechef: Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the trip to Astoria. I haven't put nearly as much work into Astoria as I have into Nyhaven, but judging from your kind words, it's still a high-quality city. I appreciate the compliments!
Raphael (RickD): Thank you, Raphael! It really is too bad about the lack of diagonal bridges I suppose one could BAT a diagonal bridge and chop it into puzzle pieces, but you'd have to do that for each bridge you wanted to build - more work than it's worth, IMHO.

Continuing with my extra specials for OSITM, here's something I haven't shown in this MD before:


This is Du Loup Square, in the inner city of Kendall. Previously, only my AIN allies had seen it, but now I'm sharing it with all of you. The square is named after the family of the first king of Lower Columbia, the nation that Kendall is the capital of (and where Nyhaven is located).

[canyonjumper]

Very nice Zack! That square one of yours?

                 Your friend,
                                Jordan

[i_love_lamp]

wow! If only my region looked that good, now it looks more like god took a bunch of random chunks out of cities and threw them onto a map

[woodb3kmaster]

Jordan (canyonjumper): Thanks, Jordan! Du Loup Square is indeed one of my custom lots.
i_love_lamp: Thank you! I'm sure your regions will look better as you get better at building cities; all it takes is a willingness to learn from other players and a little creativity!

Last month's release of RHW 4.0 (and its subsequent patches) has allowed me to finally upgrade some of the highways I built in previous updates to the width I had originally meant them to be, now that it's possible to build diagonal RHW-6Cs. One of those highways is the R-148, Nyhaven's outer beltway. I originally built this highway as a RHW-4 with a one-cell median, but now, I'm busily upgrading it to a RHW-6C. Here's one stretch of the highway as it passes through the suburb of Wilshire Valley, which I recently expanded:










This is only the beginning of the fun I'll have with the RHW 4.x series of releases, I'm sure. Knowing what the NAM Team plans to release down the road (pardon the pun), I'm certain I'll be spending plenty more time playing around with the RHW mod in the coming months!

[RickD]

Great use of the new RHW. I am in a similar situation as you. I could not build wider RHWs because crucial puzzle pieces were not available. But now I can finally build things like I intended them to be.

[djvandrake]

Very creative.

I see a lot of traffic on the road in the upper left.  Are the sims using it as a shortcut?