Shilka's SimCity 4 blog

Teaser

2011-04-07T11:38:00.000+02:00

Though activity on the blog seems low, I've done lots of work on the region.
here's a teaser shot of Innit Landing. New residential areas have been added, as well as more industry. To allow more growth the riverside has been improved with seawalls, and a long park, 'Division Park', is now seperating industry from the rest of the city.

Latest Traffic View

2011-01-28T15:09:00.000+01:00

Here's a (partial) traffic view of my region as it currently is.
I've been working on the 3 growthcores; Poacher marshes, (New and Old) Gorb, and Innit Landing. The first two ones are nearly finished (for this stage), Innit Landing I still need to work on. I think my next update will be about these 3 current cores of growth as well, but there's still lots to be done, both expanding, as well as story-wise. Anyway, I hope you'll like the picture, click for a large version :)

Update 6: Companies of Quynneth

2010-10-22T19:11:00.002+02:00

Welcome back in the Quynneth region. In this update I'd like to showcase some large companies in the region. It's all companies that have had, or will, or will continue to have a heavy influence on the regions development. As some of you know, I'm trying to develop the region according to the natural growth principle, where I interpret natural growth on several levels and in several ways. Meaning I want to keep all city tiles self sufficient (unless theres a roleplaying reason not to be), and am using both roleplay elements as well as logic to make decisions in the development of the region. This means I have no clue how my region might look in 5 more updates, which makes it pretty much an adventure, hopefully just as much for you as for me :) Anyway, onto the company showcases!

Gonway Mining co. is a company that has been responsible for triggering the first developments in the region, and continues to be of large influence. It's the largest company in the region, in workforce, profit, investment in the region as well as physical influence on the region. Without Gonway Mining co. this region probably would still consist of endless forests today.

Gonway Mining co. is a company that up until now exclusively focuses on mining browncoal. The company already was exploiting a browncoal mine outside the region, and has further expanded in Quynneth after intensive prospecting. Currently several consessions are being mined, and with the arrival of the bucket wheel excavator mining is proceeding so fast that current concessions are near to being depleted, and Gonway is on the brink of moving on to a new concession. Right next to the mine, at Gonway Industrial, three browncoal powered plants serve as additional income for the company, by providing power to both the region as well as a southern neighbouring region.

Gonway Mining co. is also responsible for the creation of the first railroad. This has led to the explosive growth of Innit Industrial, the industrialized harbour area where Gonway is unloading their trains of browncoal onto barges for transport over river, then sea. Gonway's working force largely lived in initially The Sheds, a workers town near the mine, but lately more and more workers have been moving to Fishenflies, causing the town to grow so fast it currently is agglomerating with Landing, and only has a thin strip of trees separating it from the ever expanding Innit Industrial.

Dunce Farming Cooperative got founded by the son and eleven grand children of Bill Dunce. Bill Dunce was the first farmer in the region, and there's no need saying that farming runs in the family. Though Bill only had one son, his son had eleven children, and all of 'm became farmers. At first Bills son expanded the farm to five farmfields, but with all grandchildren now unified in the cooperative, Dunce Farming now possesses a total of 72 farm fields. Being in a cooperative they are able to buy and share large machinery, causing even larger profits and enabling them to pay off their SimNational bank loans within a few years.

All Bills grandchildren decided on living in the same town. Although the town initially was called Two Snails, the towns name officially got changed to Duncewood two years ago. The town is entirely surrounded by farmfields owned by Dunce Farming Cooperative, and in this particular picture you can still see Bills old house at the lake in the top right corner.

Though Bill Dunce himself is not with us anymore, his name lives on at the Market square in Landing, still referred to by Landings inhabitants as 'Bills market'. The marketsquare, as well as 3 rural grocery stores are co-owned by Dunce Farming Cooperative and worked by franchisers. The successful cooperation causes food prices to remain low in the region, which helps to attract even more people to settle in the region.

SimNational Bank is one of the large investors in the region. Together with Gonway Mining co. they have set up an extensive advertising campaign to attract settlers to the region, which has turned out to be very effective over the years. SimNational Bank's cheap loans helped starters in a great way in the early development of the region.

Though it has been a bit of a gamble for SimNational Bank to invest so heavily in the area, the excellent results of the advertising campaign, and the successrate of Quynneths companies have more then paid off for the bank. The banks headquarters in Quynneth is currently the tallest building in the region, and the marble and hardwood themed offices are a display of SimNational Banks achievements in the region.

Simcoast Lumber co. is one of the early players too. Next to Gonway Mining co. it is the #2 job provider of the region. Quynneth is heavily covered with forest. Every field, lot, or road needs clearing of trees, as well as the mining concessions. No need to say that Simcoast has made a small fortune by now.

The tell tale red buildings of the lumber company stand out near the waters edge of Sawdust. Both Sawdust as well as Landing have owed large part of their growth to Simcoast Lumber co. The company does not only need people at the sawmill, but there's hundreds of operators, loggers, and truckers out there in the forests clearing room for every single expansion of the regions developments.

By now a second sawmill has been built at Old Gorb. Due to the success of the first mill it's a near to exact copy of the mill at Sawdust. Old Gorb has seen similar growth as Sawdust due to the vicinity of the sawmill, which has led to the existence of New Gorb at the northern river bank. With developments expanding to the west the new mill has been doing well, and Old and New Gorb are expected to experience explosive growth due to it in the near future.

CJ's Waste Management & Eco Technology is one of the more recent players in Quynneths economy. All garbage used to be shipped out of the region (or illegally discarded in the forest), but the region is seeing such growth that this has fast become too expensive. CJ's has jumped into this gap, and successfully so.

With every town now reachable over road, CJ's Waste management has chosen a not so central, but very cheap location for one of their latest innovations, a cyclic garbage dump at Wilson's Ridge. The dump consists of several separate sections. Only one section at a time will be connected by road. Once full, it will be closed off and the next section will be opened. This way the first section can have a headstart at decomposing. By the time the last section is in use the first section will have fully decomposed again and will be ready for reuse, and the cycle can start all over.

Though larger in surface then a large dump in one piece, the advantage is that the decomposition is a continuous process. Next to that CJ's has fitted the section with up to date technology like watertight underlayers, sturdy containment walls, waste water filtering and recirculation systems, and for the stuff they really don't know what to do with, a large incinerator.

Although CJ's Waste Management is currently just making enough money to pay the rent on their loans, there's no other parties interested in garbage, and their future might look brighter then expected.

That's it for this update, I hope you've enjoyed it. For your convenience I've marked all screenshot locations on the above map to give you a sense of where in the region the companies are active. Looking forward to any comments and criticism!

As usual I'll leave you with the traffic view. As you can see here's been quite some growth compared to the last one...

Photo Credits: Piper Super Cub by Answar Walk, Ontario farm by Stan Shebs, Cattle yard by Derek Balsley, Combine harvester by Hinrich, Bank vault by Jonathunder, Money by Twid, Logging scene by Alindon, Landfill by Michelle Arseneault.

Another Logo

2010-10-16T12:33:00.000+02:00

This time a logo of the company that has jumped into the regions void of waste handling.

Roadmap Innit Landing area, from start till current

2010-10-03T20:31:00.000+02:00

Here's all the traffic view maps from when I started the region untill how far I got today. It shows the main area around Innit Landing, so remote areas like Poacher Marshes are not depicted. It shows the growth so far pretty well. I opted for the roadmap because the last screenshot also shows rural areas that haven't been featured in an update yet. Enjoy!

Intermezzo 1

2010-09-30T15:05:00.000+02:00

It has turned out that the creation of the Gonway Mines - Innit Industrial railroad has been suffering from some poor planning in its initial stages. Several problems have arisen around the Fishenflies overpass, where especially the less experienced train drivers have trouble passing the overpass at the required safe speeds.
After quite some hold ups and near accidents, and with the help of RickD Railroad Consultancy, this chokepoint in the brown coal delivery structure has now been handled as followed;

Update 5, Trains and Peat

2010-09-28T16:33:00.000+02:00

It has been quite a while since the last big update, but I'm proud to present you a new update for Quynneth!
Events triggered by the kidnapping of Melinda Gonway (see update 4) have led to quit some growth in several areas in the region.

With the arrival of the bucketwheel excavator, Gonway Mining co. has vastly improved their production rate, and in no way were the trucks on the narrow road to Innit Landing able to keep up with the amount of brown coal being mined. It didn't take long for John Gonway to decide on building a railroad track, going west from Gonway Mine, passing the main road at Fishenflies with an overpass.

The newly created railroad ends in the harbor area of Innit Industrial, an industrial area that just keeps expanding, and which is currently only separated from Fishenflies by just a narrow strip of trees. The browncoal is unloaded by cranes and conveyor belt systems onto the brown coal docks, awaiting further transportation by ship.

The capacity of the brown coal docks have more then doubled, but business prognosis shows that a direct rail connection with neighbouring regions might be necessary in the future. For now a continuous stream of brown coal hauling trains runs back and forth from Gonway Mine to Innit Industrial, and John Gonway's business is flourishing like never before.

Original photo by Callum Black

However, it's not only the area around Gonway Mines that is flourishing, well to the west of Innit Landing, the once secret settlement of Poacher Marshes has expanded too. After its discovery the illegal homes have been legalized, and the area has been connected by a long and winding road.

Not only the town itself has expanded, because of the legalisation of the fishing and hunting activities of its original occupants a small harbor has been built too, forming the safe haven of a small fishing fleet.

However, Poacher Marshes was having one major problem. Despite of its road and sea connection to Innit Landing, John Gonway refused to provide the regions most used energy source, brown coal. Because of the history with Melinda Gonway's kidnapping, John Gonway didn't want anything to do with this remote town.

Fortunately, the inhabitants of Poacher Marshes are inventive by nature, and they solved the problem by starting to mine peat in the marshy areas surrounding the settlement. The brown coal fired heaters and generators that were commonly used in the region had no problem burning peat instead, and thanks to the business sense of the early inhabitants, peat even became a reliable source of income for the town, selling off peat for garden ornamentation and soil enrichment on the side.

Soon the peat mining area became very large, and a canal was dug alongside the excavation area to be able to haul the large quantities of peat out by barge. This first large peat excavation area got named 'Whiney Slices', because of the slices cut out of the landscape due to John Gonway's 'whining'.
Later, a smaller second excavation area got created named 'Phat Ducks', after a particularly large type of ducks settling in the area.

The large water features created by the peat mining activities turned out to be a natural surrounding very well suited for many species of waterloving wildlife, especially large amounts of ducks. With their poaching history, a welcomed side effect for the inhabitants of Poacher Marshes, who could add the reapings of the legalized hunt to their income as well. So thanks to the inhabitants inventiveness, and despite (or even also thanks to) John Gonway the area continues to flourish.

This is where I'll end this update. I know it has been a while, but I hope to be able to once again have some more time for my SC4 projects in the near future. I hope you enjoyed it, and I will leave you with this regional overview.

Peat extracting area

2010-09-19T16:35:00.000+02:00

I've been working on this peat extracting area, and I think I got to make it look decently finally. So time for a bit of a teaser or two.

Semi close up

Partial Overview

I hope you like it, and yeah, about time for some activity here!

Gonway car skin

2010-08-10T00:10:00.000+02:00

With no update to be expected soon I'd thought it's time for some action around this place.
Here's 2 screenshots I made of a Gonway Mining co. car skin I made on my xbox360 in Forza 3.
Hey, at least it's something...

Dunce Farming Cooperative logo

2010-04-20T00:47:00.000+02:00

And another logo, this time for the Dunce Farming Cooperative. These are descendants from Bill Dunce, featured in Update 2. After Bill Dunce died his estate got inherited by a cousin, who grew the farm business considerably. The cousin had a total of 11 children, who further developed farming in Innit Landing, and forming the Dunce Farming Cooperative.

Update 4, the Kidnapping of Melinda Gonway

2010-04-15T16:49:00.001+02:00

John Gonway is a busy man. As owner of Gonway Mining co. he spends most of his waking time on leading his company. He lives mining, he breathes mining, he dreams mining. Despite of his occupation, John Gonway has a family, a wife and daughter. After Gonway Mining started to invest in the Quynneth region John and his wife moved to Fishenflies, so John was close to the major section of his company. Their daughter Melinda stayed at their old home in Emmerton, outside of Quynneth region, in order to finish her study.

After not having seen his daughter for at least 4 months, John decided to invite his daughter over for, of course, a small tour of his mining emporium. Melinda never had been to Quynneth yet, and John figured a tour of the new quarry would make for a nice excuse to invite her over. As a matter of fact he arranged for one of the browncoal barges to give her a ride to Innit industrial.

This only illustrated the poor relationship between John and his daughter. Melinda dreaded the thought of the slow trip overseas, and if it hadn't been for that cute deckhand she would have probably ended up bored out of her mind by the trip alone. Eventually she arrived by barge at Innit Industrial. As you may have noticed it has grown quite considerably since our last visit to the Quynneth region.

At the harbor her dad had a van waiting to take her to Gonway mines. The trip was fast and rough, with a miner at the wheel. As Melinda looked outside, a bored expression on her face, she saw how they passed Fishenflies. The town looked unattractive to her. A lot of the houses looked like they were in dear need of a new paintjob, and there was lots of rubbish in the untended gardens.

A bit later they passed Dunce farms, which already looked a bit more attractive to her. Though Bill Dunce passed away a while ago, a cousin inherited the estate, and clearly had a good feel for farming. The farmlands had increased in area by a factor 5, and the fields of crops looked lush and well cared for. As the van passed, Melinda caught a glimpse of at least 7 children playing in the garden of the farm estate, and she couldn't help wondering how different her life would have been with so many brothers and sisters living on a farm, instead of being the sole child of a large company owner.

The van continued driving through the forest, and just as she was starting to enjoy the sight of a couple of deer grazing near the roadside she started to notice the smell of burnt browncoal, a smell she was oh so familiar with. Soon the narrow clearing around the road opened up to her fathers emporium. A sight of two large browncoal powered powerplants greeted her from afar. The sky was yellowish brown with soot, and the van turned right alongside a large open browncoalpit, leaving the industrial area behind them.

When they arrived at the mine entrance, she got word that her father couldn't join her for the small tour he had planned, he was engaged otherwise.

Melinda didn't mind at all, perhaps she was even relieved not to be obliged to hear her father boast about his accomplishments while ignoring the lack of accomplishments in his personal life, especially concerning their father - daughter relationship.

A miner showed her around, but she already saw those earth moving machines a million times before, to her this mine looked like any other her father had realized before, there was nothing there that interested her. Luckily for her the miner was quick to notice, and they both opted for drinking a beer in one of the workersheds instead of finishing the tour.

Not much later Melinda was back in the van, making her way through the forest again, heading towards her parents home in Fishenflies to meet up with her mom.

It was nice to see her mom again, though she seemed a bit stressed, and the house and garden looked slightly neglected. In an attempt to ignore the sad state of their family relations, Melinda passed some time with swimming in the shabby pool, wandering around the house, and scavenging for snacks in the kitchen. At dinner she finally saw her father, but as usual there was only mindless meaningless chit chat being exchanged. When she went to bed in the guestroom she couldn't even recall what she'd talked about. The boredom of the day had been exhausting, and the thought of leaving again the next morning was only one more reason to fall asleep quickly.

The next morning her dad was already off to the office. After a silent breakfast with her mom, Melinda was quick to say goodbye, and walked head down to the waiting van again, saddened by the continued lack of love by her parents. The van had the same driver again, and as if it was agreed upon beforehand, they only said goodmorning before the silence resumed and Melinda turned her head towards the side window again, watching Fishenflies glide by her window.

It was only a short drive to Landing, but the road was busy with commuters, and Melinda was actually a bit surprised when she realised that just a few years back this area was nothing but lush forests yet. When the van arrived at the pontoon north of landing, she quickly jumped out, mumbling a quick bye at the driver. Melinda walked up the pontoon to the very end, and welcomed the fresh breeze coming across the river, refreshing her mind like a cool morning shower.

Then suddenly things went very fast. Bystanders looked on as a small speedboat moored at the pontoon, and a large bald man stepped out on the pontoon. He quickly looked around, then decisively walked towards Melinda Gonway. Suddenly he grabbed her arms from the back, and before she realized what was going on he had pushed her into the speedboat, where she fell face first behind the two chairs, her hands slipping on the wet deck. Before she could regain her footing the man put the speedboat's throttle at full, and with a sharp turn they went downriver. The other people at the pontoon watched the tragedy in amazement, and saw the speedboat disappear with the bald man shouting commands at Melinda.

The van driver, who had been rolling a cigarette before planning on driving off again, had seen it all too. He immediately called John Gonway.
When John heard of what had happend to his daughter, he immediately ran to the communication office nextdoor to his own, and radioed out to every browncoal barge on the river and beyond. Though the large browncoal barges were much too slow and cumbersome to manoeuvre to stop the speedboat, they quickly started relaying sightings of where the speedboat was.

Meanwhile John contacted the pilot of Gonway Mining co's prospecting plane. Unfortunately , the plane was at least half an hour of flying away, and it needed to refuel first before being able to conduct any search. John shouted commands at the pilot as he felt an increasing panic creep down his throat and attempting to occupy his body. The pilot however remained professional and calm, as he hurried to fill up the plane before talking off, heading towards the large bay in Quynneth.

Photo of Piper PA-18-150 “Super Cub” taken by Ansgar Walk.

When the plane finally arrived at Quynneth, John Gonway was able to provide its pilot with a last location and heading of the speedboat, making it relatively easy for the pilot to start searching. Half an hour into the search, the pilot radioed back to John Gonway how he's found the speedboat moored at a hidden settlement. John commanded the pilot to land and investigate, but the pilot calmly refused. The bay was pretty narrow, and the pilot was hesitant to investigate on his own, and managed to convince john that the time had come to inform the authorities.

With no police in Quynneth itself, John Gonway had to seek for aid outside the region. That same day an investigative police force arrived at the hidden settlement, and they were soon to find out that most of it's inhabitants consisted of poachers and fishermen, trying to make a living by selling game and fish to the new inhabitants of Quynneth. At first they found the inhabitants to be far from cooperative, but with a little pressure applied on one of the poachers, the police managed to identify the house of the bald man early the next day.

With Melinda Gonway's life possibly in danger, authorities decided on flying in a SWAT team for tactical entry of the suspects house. A plan of attack was made, and after nightfall the SWAT team moved in.

After picking the lock of the backdoor and opting for a quiet entry the top floors were quickly cleared and found empty. All was left to search was the basement. When checking out the last door in the basement with a mirror, a professional optical device to check through door openings and around corners, the suspect was spotted in a basement bedroom. After blowing the door open with C4 and further shocking the suspect with a sting grenade, the armed suspect was arrested. In the back of the room a tied up girl was found on a mattress, but it turned out this was not Melinda Gonway, but another missing girl from a neighbouring region.

Then an entrance to an underground tunnel was found, with at the end a room that had Melinda Gonway locked in. Both girls were alive and as later turned out, physically unharmed, but both were suffering from shock of the constant fear they had been in. What plans the suspect had with the girls remains unclear for now.

After receiving medical attention Melinda Gonway was reunited with her parents. For the first time in years Melinda found her father giving her an intense hug, and both cried realizing how much they had missed that level of personal contact, and they spent the whole night talking about the event, and also about the years leading up to it. With a renewed bond with her parents, Melinda left Quynneth region, never to return to it again.

These events didn't leave John Gonway untouched. It effected him deeply, and led him to the realization that you only live once, and things can change forever in a just a heartbeat. As a result, a few weeks later, he took one of the boldest business decisions ever in his life.

Research was done, offers were made, and eventually John Gonway signed a multi million simolean contract.
Six months later the first of many ship convoys entered Quynneth region, bringing in thousands of tons of materials.

For months on end, trucks and special transports hauled all those tons of material from Innit Industrial to Gonway Mines, where all the materials were assembled, tested, adapted, tested further, and finally, it was done. The largest piece of mobile machinery in Simworld had been created.

At the hands of just 5 operators, the large bucket wheel started its motion, scraping away at the mine walls at the same rate as 40,000 men with shovels would. Who'd ever thought the arrival of a bored teen on a barge would lead up to this...

Slowely getting there

2010-04-14T11:11:00.000+02:00

I'm finally done growin the existing stuff and adding new farms to my region. Now it's just a matter of making screens and working on the update storyline itself :)

Here's traffic view of the new growth:

Custom Content Links Fail

2010-04-05T15:10:00.001+02:00

Due to a large overhaul at SimPeg, all custom content links pointing to the SimPeg downloads (PLEX) have become redundant. I'll try to fix the links when I have the time!

Edit: All links should be fixed now. If you come across a disfunctional link please let me know so I can fix it!

Must ....... play ....... SC4!

2010-03-31T19:29:00.001+02:00

Arrgh, no updates in over a week on my blog.
I must admit I only got to play 2 hours of SC4 since my last major update.
One of the reasons is that I have been busy at CSGforums, a new forum for SC4.
I'd like to invite any readers of this blog to have a look there. Afterall having a new forum for a game that's already over 7 years old just proves how popular this game still is!
Meanwhile I'm really going to spend some time on further developing my region, I promise!

Ooh, look what I found!

2010-03-21T21:54:00.000+01:00

This should make a nice addition to Gonway Mining co.'s surfacemining operation, once the hole is big enough, lol. I could barely fit the thing in one of the existing concessions. I plan on joining 5 concession up to make a big enough place for this thing to stand.... Took me a while to find the thing too!

Update 3, Logging and Farming.

2010-03-20T17:44:00.007+01:00

A few years have passed, and there has been quite a bit of new development at Quynneth.

First of all, Gonway Mining co. together with $im National Bank have found a large logging company prepared to settle in the region; Simcoast Lumber co.

Simcoast Lumber co. already owns 5 large sawmills in surrounding regions, and is one of the biggest players on the lumber market. Since Quynneth is a heavy forested area, with large amounts of development predicted, Simcoast Lumber co. has shown heavy interest in building a sawmill in the region.

With $im National Bank offering cheap loans for farmers willing to settle in the region, large patches of land need to be cleared of trees, next to the areas suitable for mining ofcourse. Any aditional development only ads to the equation. This promises good profitability for a new sawmill, provided it is built in the right location.

After thorough research by Simcoast Lumber co. a sawmill location has been planned just east of Landing, on the northside of a river. To the north and northeast lots of fertile land is to be found, very suitable for farming, while to the east the mining operations need regular clearing of moderately forested areas.

Logs from the north will be transported directly to the sawmill, while logs from the northeast and east will be dropped into the river at drop off points, enabling the logs to float downstream to the mill, causing a considerable saving on transport costs.

The location for the sawmill needs quite a bit of work. A large section of ground near the riverbed needs lowering for the sawmill to sit as close to the river as possible. The river itself needs widening at the mill location to create a mill pond where logs floating to the mill can be collected and sorted in the water.

Just downstream of the mill a bridge needs to be constructed, which needs a construction below it to prevent any logs from floating past the mill, where they could be a danger to shipping. The bridge will also provide an alternative drop off point for logs that can't be directly delivered at the mill. Plans are soon made and submitted for approval;

The plans are approved, and work started on preparing the sawmill location. Luckily Gonway Mining co. has enough groundmoving equipment to spare to make quick work of the preparations. Within a matter of months the new sawmill is built and operational.

Traditionally constructed out of wood, with the typical red paintjob, and providing hundreds of jobs, the mill has grown to be one of the industrial icons of the region. With thousands of acres of wood ready to be cut, the sawmill provides a huge boost to the regions economy, and quickly is becoming the favored source of employment, even surpassing Gonway Mining co. The sawmill itself even has become a favorite under local artists, as this artistic impression of the sawmill shows;

With logging operations at full strength, developments to the northern fertile regions are now just a matter of time, while the regular deforestation at the mining sites continue as usual. Acre after acre of land is cleared of trees, and the produced lumber is a welcomed and cheap building material in these first stages of Quynneth's development.

However, in this region of miners and loggers, farmers are hard to find. This is why $im National Bank is offering cheap, low interest loans to any farmer willing to set up operations in the region. Together with Gonway Mining co. they have set up a widespread advertising campaign in order to lure farmers to the region. This ofcourse all being part of the grand scheme of lowering costs for Gonway Mining co. and Simcoast Lumber co., since the local production of food will stimulate their workers to settle in the area, instead of the companies having to pay for them to travel to and from the area by ship on a weekly or daily basis.

With the advertising campaign in full motion, fertile lands being precleared and ready for development, and cheap loans for farmers that want to take the big step, it doesn't take long for the area north of Gonway Mines to turn into a serene combo of a river, farmlands and local streams. On the left of this particular picture you can also see one of the log drop off points, allowing logging trucks to unload straight into the river.

With word spreading fast about the 'promised lands' of Quynneth, an even larger area of farms is created north of the sawmill, and soon the need for advertising is diminishing. Farmers are flocking to quynneth in large numbers.

With so many new people settling at Quynneth, there's not only growth of the existing settlements. Several new rural villages have popped up; 'Marish', 'Hammond' and 'Flint'. Next to that a workers village has developed north of the sawmill, appropriatedly called 'Sawdust'.

With the explosive growth of the past few years, many realize there is some need for guidance other then just CE-O's of large companies deciding on the regions future. After several meetings of the important, the wealthy and the influential amongst the inhabitants of Quynneth, a decision is made about the creation of municipalities.

Each municipality will have some form of self government, while decisions of regional importance will be agreed on by a municipality collective. The current developed areas have been divided into the following municipalities;

- Innit Landing (Landing, Fishenflies, Sawdust, including Innit industrial)

- Gonway Mines (The sheds, incuding Gonway mining co.'s surface mining operations)

- Hammond (Hammond, including surrounding farmlands)

- Flint (Flint, including surrounding farmlands)

- Marish Valley (Marish, including surrounding farmlands)

For good measure, Gonway Mining co. has ordered a population survey, which results can be viewed in the following graph;

As you might be able to tell from the graph, there's still quite a few workers that have to come in by ship, so there's still a lot more growth to be expected. And with more people coming in, more shops and businesses are needed, more farmers to feed them, which will need more people yet again.

However, this is still in the future, for now I'll leave you with an overview of the area featured in this update.

I hope you've enjoyed it, see you at the next update!

Progress is slow but steady

2010-03-14T15:24:00.000+01:00

I'm only slowely progressing on my next update. Especially in these early beginnings of the region I'm looking for valid reasons to start initial developments in new areas. It's fun, but not as 'easy' as expanding existing developments.
I'm about 70% done on the next update (including pictures and storyline), but I need to do some more building for the remaining 30%. Next to that I also want to do some normal growth on the already existing villages, industrial areas and the browncoal mining, eventhough it won't be included in the next update.
For now I'll give you this teaser;

After this coming update I might leave this initial area of development for a while to a whole other part of the region. I already got some ideas for it, but it needs some more solo brainstorming.
Hopefully the next blog entry will be a full size region update again :)

Sim National Bank

2010-03-11T16:57:00.003+01:00

Being another big player in my region, currently offering cheap loans for any farmers willing to settle in Quynthen, it needed its own logo too ofcourse.
This time I went for a very clean businesslike approach;

I'm sure in time, when Quynneth has been developing for a while this bank will be building an office or two in the region....

Farmers adverts

2010-03-11T13:50:00.001+01:00

Simcoast Lumber co.

2010-03-10T14:10:00.002+01:00

I'm pretty busy again at the moment, but found myself a spare hour to create a logo for the next big company that is about to start a bussines in Quynneth, Simcoast Lumber co.;

I hope it's noticable that it's supposed to be an interlocking sawblade / tree combo, it's actually a lot of fun thinking up logo's for the big companies, although my design abilities and software are limited.

Next big update should be all about simcoast Lumber co. making it's appearance into the region, should be a good one. Stay tuned!

Update 2, The First Inhabitants

2010-03-08T13:37:00.004+01:00

It wasn't that long ago that Quynneth was an untouched region, but the arrival of Gonway Mining co. has changed that. After the construction of the first surface mine Gonway has further invested in the region.

Dirt roads have been upgraded to concrete roads, building materials have been shipped in, contracters have been contracted and construction of several projects have started.

One of the first things Gonway has invested in, after upgrading the existing dirtroad from the shipping area to the mine, is creating an industrial area near their first concession lot 457.38722 BL. A garage and workshops have been built, as well as some storage facilities for equipment and spare parts.

Next to that a main pumping station was built. At first all groundwater pumped from the mining area was released into the nearby forests, but the amounts of pumped up water have increased so much that a special designed spillway had to be created to ensure the water wouldn't just flow back into the mine through the soil.

Once the surface mining endeavor was well supported, construction was started on a brown coal powered power plant, which has been completed by now. Work is still commencing on constructing powerlines heading south to hook up neighbouring regions. This is all part of a grand scheme to reduce costs, since once the powergrid will be completed, the transport of electricity will be a lot cheaper then transporting the browncoal itself, and in the shape of electricity the energy will be easier to sell as well.

At the same time work had started on creating a workers community to the south-east of concession lot 457.38722 BL. Main reason for creating the settlement was giving the surface mine workers an opportunity to stay over during weekdays, drasticly cutting cost for transportation of personell.
The miners quickly realized the advantages of staying over during weekdays as well, being able to start on their 'after-shift-beer' hours earlier then if they had to travel home first. This caused an explosive growth of the workers settlement, which eventually would hold near to all miners during weekdays. This even caused so much strain on the concrete access road that it had to be upgraded to a wider asphalt road, and the settlement had its diesel powered generators replaced by being hooked up to the powergrid stretching south.
Although the workers settlement never has been officially named by Gonway Mining co., amongst the workers it quickly became known as 'The Sheds', which was actually a pretty accurate description of the general housing quality at the settlement.

Ofcourse work on the mine itself continued too, and with a large workforce at hand work has also started at the second concession lot 564.42856 CD. Within months the outlines of the new mine were clearly visible;

With the increased winning of browncoal there was also a much needed upgrade for the shipping location. What once was not much more then a sandy flattened riverbank, had now turned to a sturdy concrete construction allowing several browncoal hauling barges to moor simultaneously. Right next to it Gonway Mining co. had constructed some supporting facilities, a concrete mixing tower that is being extensively used for the roadworks going on, warehouses for storing building materials and some workshops providing maintenance and repair facilities for the barges and other equipment used in the shipping area. Which had been named Innit Industrial by this time.
With shipping facilities nearby, lots of work to be done and landprices as low as they can get, more bussinesses decided to build at Innit Industrial. Carpenters, roadworkers and even a browncoal powered metal workshop flocked to the region of opportunity.

Since Innit Industrial was now bustling with activity, its harbor continuously facilitating browncoal barges, Gonway Mining co. decided on constructing a seperate passenger ferry pontoon well to the north of Innit Industrial, so passenger and freight ships wouldn't interfere with eachother. With this new beachhead created, connected by road, some workers decided to buy a small plot of land near the ferry pontoon, and had their girlfriends / wifes come over. If you are going to stay here all weekdays, you might as well stay all together. Next to that, land was so cheap here (except for the browncoal concessions), that now workers were able to buy some land at a fraction of the cost outside of this region. More and more workers had their families move over, and a small village called 'Landing' sprung to life.

With lot's of women residing in the village, two of them, Thelma Frunnik and Louise Glibber decided on starting their own bussiness to batlle the inevitable boredom amongst the women. Thelma started a shop in hobby materials, such as beads, paper, paint and all sorts of other crafting materials, whereas Louise started a lapdance school. Both concepts turned out to be highly succesful, resulting in the first commercial development of the region.

One of the surface mine workers, Bill Dunce, didn't have a wife, nor a girlfriend. Nearing retirement, and no one to spend money on, he had aquired quite some money. Not being the kind of man to live in a town full of women, Bill decided to buy quite a large patch of land along the road from Innit Industrial to the mines. He set up a home near a small pond, that turned out to be full of fish. After retiring, he also cleared some land and began a second career as a hobby farmer, not able to sit still after a life of mining. And so he spent his time, fishing a bit, farming a bit and generally being happily retired.

Bill Dunce, being a likable man, was regularly visited by his former coworkers. Whenever visiting they noticed Bills happyness, enjoyed fishing with him, and getting some free vegetables to take home with them as well. The workers quickly started longing for a similar place, with some peace and quiet, a nice place to fish, and away from hobby materials. Lapdances were ok though.
Coincidentally, not far from Bill Dunce's house there was a much larger pond, you might even call it a small lake, and it was filled with fish, eager to be cought. It didn't take long for the first workers to buy some land there, and soon several houses had been built at the waterside.
Unfortunately this didn't go unnoticed by the rest of the workers. The plots of land near the lake quickly sold out, and within a year or two the whole lake was surrounded with housing. Next to fish, the lake was also swarming with flies, leading to the name of this new settlement; Fishenflies.

So, in a few years time, where we'd expect only to find a scabby workers settlement next to a mine, a lot more had come to existance. New settlements, not only occupied by miners, but also by carpenters, car mechanics, road workers, lumberjacks, barmen and others. With each house being built, each bussiness being erected, more people were needed to maintain and supply for them.

Ofcourse gonway Mining co. had a big influence on developments. As we speak, Gonway is having talks with SNB (Sim National Bank) to arrange cheap loans for any farmers, lumber companies or other supporting parties willing to settle in the region. All part of the bigger scheme of reducing costs for Gonway Mining co., and SNB being a large investor of the company.
With any new development in the region having a great chance of profitability, and increasing profitability of the ones already there, SNB is very willing to supply funds to any interested parties. With acre upon acre of land to be made profitable, there are huge amounts of money to be made by any bank prepared to take some risk.

As we await new developments, I'll leave you with an overview of the current area being worked upon. I hope you've enjoyed the update, and will tune in for the ones still to come!

Developing a bit

2010-03-02T22:07:00.001+01:00

I think I want to do a bit of developing without directly adding it to an official (forum-) posted update. I will post some pictures here though, since I want the blog to offer something more then a CJ / MD topic on the forums.

I've done some initial development, but it's hardly screenshot worthy material, although the upgraded shipping location looks nice. I used the CDK3 garbage dock as a stand in for a browncaol shipping location, and I think it looks good. Downside is that it IS a garbage dock, so it's costing me money. I think I can handle that though siince I'm planning another town in the same city tile (the more permanent version of the miners settlement, which is supposed to be a weekday only inhabited settlement).

I'll just do a bit of step by step growth here and there and see where it goes...

Update 1, Welcome to Quynneth

2010-03-01T16:44:00.010+01:00

Yes, here it finally is, the first update of my region journal. I decided to call my region Quynneth, an unusual name, but I like it. So I welcome you to the virtually untouched region of Quynneth!

As you have read in earlier blog entries, Gonway Mining co. has shown interest in this region, for its suspicion to have some rich browncoal deposits. Water analyses of several rivers in the area have shown traces of browncoal, and Gonway Mining co. has decided on further investigation, especially as their browncoal surface mine in another region, Gonway mine, is nearing depletion.

Having acquired quite some riches with their first surface mine, Gonway Mining company is in the luxurious position to invest heavily in this still untouched region to get new mining operations on the way.

As a first step there will be some reconnaissance from the air to check out the most promising locations. A small plane with geological experts has scouted the region from the air, interpreting landscaping features for their likelyhood of containing browncoal. The following area has shown to be of particular interest;

After establishing this area of interest, Gonway Mining co. has sent in a scouting expedition to conduct research on the ground. Within 2 months some rich browncoal surface deposits were found, and 3 main dig sites were proposed. With the browncoal positions discovered, research has also shown a good possible shipping location, since initially any mined browncoal will be shipped out to neighbouring regions. Unfortunately the nearest possible shipping location is quite a distance away, since the riverbanks on rivers closer by were classified too steep for proper development.

With the initial research and planning stage behind us, it is finally time for the first developments in our region.

Gonway Mining co. has sent out a ship with equipment to prepare a makeshift shipping location, and to start constructing a temporary road towards the first concession at dig site #01, concession lot 457.38722 BL.

Soon the dirt road is stretching far inland, as workers get closer and closer to dig site #01. At some points the workers had to deviate from the planned route, because of swampy grounds, and later on rocky outcrops being in the way of the roads development.

When the first concession at dig site #01 is reached, heavy machinery is making a quick start on removing the top soil. Many trees are cut down and shipped out to neighbouring regions. Waterpumps are installed for lowering groundwater levels enabling Gonway to start mining deeper.

And then, finally the first browncoal is mined. For months on end diggers dig, and trucks run down the makeshift road towards the shipping area, delivering one upon another truckload of browncoal to waiting ships. After a while concession lot 457.38722 BL is very well on its way of being developed.

Though mining operations are running now, profit levels are still low. All personell and equipment has to be shipped in, and equipment breakdowns are hard to fix with spareparts having to come from far away regions. Dispite the start up problems the area looks very promising, so Gonway Mining co. is very much prepared to invest further in the region. Investment plans include a makeshift workers settlement, upgrading roads and shipping location, as well as constructing supporting buildings like a garage and a spare parts depot.

These are still future events though, for now I leave you with the results of first human interference in Quynneth, a large scar on it's surface....

Bleh

2010-02-28T22:04:00.000+01:00

I managed to place a corrupt custom lot in the city tile where I had been working on my browncoal mine.
It plopped down fine, worked fine, but when I tried reloading the city tile it would crash sc4 right away, quickly flashing a message about not being able to find a certain mod? I had to replace the city tile with a backup, lots of hours of minebuilding gone down the drain :(
I guess I'll try to rebuild the mine this evening, and hopefully have time tomorrow for a first update, if I'm lucky.

I guess I'll have to stresstest any new downloads in a test city first from now on. I had bad downloads before, but at least I could just buldoze those and then get rid of the download. Never had before that a plopped lot would crash a city upon loading, leaving me no chance to delete it...Oh well....

Sparking Development

2010-02-24T16:06:00.005+01:00

I've been thinking about how to spark the initional development of my still to name region, and I've decided to reintroduce Gonway Mining co. , a browncoal surface mining company that I used in my Quynthas CJ, before it disappeared in a PC crash I had. Meanwhile the company has grown considerably, and with the surface mine in Quynthas nearing depletion it is searching for new plots to mine....

I'm not having a lot of free time available this week, but I managed to find some time to design a logo for the company to use in future updates;

Gonway Mining co will soon been doing some prospecting in the region, looking for browncoal deposits, and I'm pretty sure there's some to be found ;) Here's the planned time schedule released by the Gonway Mining co.;

Stage 1 Development:

initial prospecting from the air
in depth prospecting on the ground at promising areas
mapping of deposits
deposit extraction planning

Stage 2 Development:

planning and preparing coastal / river area for initial equipment shipping
preparing a temporary road from shipping area to first deposit area
initial ground clearing at first deposit area
upgrading road for heavy equipment
building a small workers community for weekday inhabitation

Stage 3 Development:

preparing a spillway (small canal) for expelling pumped up groundwater, connect to nearest coast / river
prepare shipping location for bulk transport loading
transporting and installing surface mining equipment
start of deposit extraction
browncoal transportation over road to shipping location

Stage 4 Development:

construction of a browncoal powered powerplant at a strategic location near deposit locations
connecting powerplant to electricity transport network of neighbouring regions
upgrading workers community to permanent settlement
possibilty of building a rail network to shipping location and/or to neighbouring regions
connect to and start work on secondary deposit areas
make lots of money

I guess these development plans should provide more then enough spark to start of my region!

Some 'Natural growth' considerations to go with this idea:
I will have to balance this idea carefully so I won't start off with a negative income spiral. I like the idea but it looks like the mining area will have to 'live' on neighbour deals at least initially. I don't want to plan too much ahead in order not to violate the 'natural growth' concept though. I will just have to keep an extra careful eye on finances.

Almost ready to start building

2010-02-23T16:24:00.007+01:00

Yesterday evening / night I spent over 5 hours, tweaking and plopping trees in each of the 72 tiles of my region. The region is 6 x 7 large tiles in size, but it has some medium sized tiles too. The tweaking consisted mainly of smoothing any flat areas at low elevation and 'repairing' some shallows in the rivers. I also added a few small isles. I did no smoothing at all at the flatlands at medium elevation nor in the mountains.

For the tree plopping I quickly found myself following a system; fullblown forests in low elevation flat areas, medium forest cover for rough flatlands at medium elevations. In the mountainous areas I plopped small aglomerations of trees at places where there would be a natural downflow of water (in the 'creases' and valleys), and an overall light general tree cover. Though the job seemed tedious when I had just began it was actually quite enjoyable, especially in the mountains. And I must say I'm very pleased with the results.

I also downloaded some more mods and buildings, and as far as I know I have got my starting set all together now. Check out the list in the right menu, they are all linked, I'm sure you might find some very useful (and sometimes yet very simple) downloads to use yourself.

Last but not least I have added a new 'pages' section to my blog (top right menu), where I want to store any general Sim City 4 info, or any other stuff that would justify having its own page. Currently it holds one page with info on demand cap relief, which should come in handy when you (or I) have problems with development stagnation.

I think I want to give my region a once over just to check for any problems, check if the forests nicely connect from citytile to the next citytile, and I might add some more isles. I also still need a good name for the region, and think of a storyline to spark the first developments.
After that I should be ready to plop the first road!

Picked a Map

2010-02-21T17:17:00.002+01:00

I spent the majority of the day looking for a nice map to use for my upcoming project, and i think I found a decent one.

The region is originally called 'Macedon' and can be downloaded over here. It measures 6 by 7 large tiles, which should be more then enough for a 'natural growth' style project, and hopefully not too large for my PC to handle. I slightly modified the map by smoothing the greyscale and redrawing the rivers. I also turned the peninsula in the north into an island and did some more minor tweaks.

Next step in the process will be loading each city tile, do more tweaking where needed and add forests.

I'm still thinking about if I should just put forest across the whole map to start with, or make more isolated patches. I'll probably leave some clearings on each tile, but I want to have a large amount of forest to start with I think. Once the whole region has had a once over I'll be finally ready to start developing.

Once I can think of a good name. Currently I'm considering 'New Quynthas', not sure yet though....

Anyway, lots to do... and time for my first back-up ;)

Adding Custom Content.

2010-02-19T13:16:00.000+01:00

Today I'm busy adding the basic custom content to my Sim City 4 that I want to be installed before I even zone the first residential zones for my upcoming project. (Next to that I don't even have picked a map yet).

It's quite a tiresome job, sometimes it takes a while to find what I'm looking for, then install, update my blog, and check ingame if it all works accordingly and I haven't forgotten any dependencies. Luckily in the past I always prefered downloads that either had no dependencies at all, or sets that use the same basic dependencies set (like the BSC stuff).

So far it has been good going, as soon as I have finished getting all basic custom content together I will be making a post or two which will explain each mod / addition a bit more indepth.
In case you haven't noticed yet, I've listed all custom content I've downloaded so far in the right menu. Every item listed is a clickable link that will take you straight to the download location of that item. You might have to register first, but I assume any diehard SC4 players that might visit this blog will be already signed up at the respective sites.

Test image

2010-02-18T21:20:00.001+01:00

This post will contain a test image:

Work in progress...

2010-02-18T20:59:00.007+01:00

This blog is currently being worked on.