Amarillo.

[Mottoth]

June 2nd, 2016: A Fresh start. Pop 80K.

Hello everybody, I already moved onto something else after deciding that Caledaux was over.
I made some cleaning in my asset collection (so Caledaux is gone for real as I got rid of many...), and started a new project on a rather flat map: Delta. It's a very fictionnal town, so fictionnal that I havent decided on which continent it is...

I'm playing the normal milestone progression system, so here are the first days of play from the start till reaching 80K pop and unlocking the whole 25 tiles, which just happened tonight. Before that I had only a vague idea of the playable area.

Starting small, here with a few hundreds inhabitants:

Some moments later, with 2500 pop I can afford my first tenements:

First cargo station (15000 pop ?), and first high density blocs in the distance.
I set some standards for network infrastructures:
- Train cargo network will be sunken at -10m
- Passenger train at +12m
- Freeways/Expressways/Highways at +10m.

Another part of the cargo network, later on:

When I was around 30K pop, I moved farther east to set my downtown district. Here is the cityhall. Behind the elevated freeway is the central train station (8 platforms).

First commuter trains are firing up:

First bits of a skyline, first landmarks:

I aim to make this city the most pleasant for pedestrians and bikes.
Here's the newest addition from the NeXT roads: during the rush hour it's crowded with bikes.

I intend to add a lot of green to the urban mix: lots of trees, large parks.

First farming district:

At 70K pop, I have now one large industrial district with its cargo hub (2 ports, 3 train stations). Lots of oil industry in the mix:

I was almost at 80K pop when I took those 2 last screenshots: the junction between downtown and the starting district has been made, and the latter has been transformed: here is the transition area from 'dirt' industries to high density residential areas:

Lots of RICO assets used to get a realistic transition:

That's it for now, and it's only the beginning... now I have full control on the 25 tiles and have exciting projects for what's next. Stay tuned, thanks for reading !

 

[metacritical]

how do you get the road underneath the rail line?

 

[Rodwen]

Wonderful !!!

 

[muttonnoir]

Great start- the RICO assets add so much variety to the game.

 

[Mottoth]

June 16th, 2016: New airport, floodings, and first remote village. Pop 143K.

Hello, those last 2 weeks I have been tweaking a lot capacities of RICO assets (and some non-RICO too) and education balance of the Realistic Pop and Consumption mod. Hence the growth went slow and it took time until this update.

Highways and sunken cargo network are being planned in advance before expansion:

In the meantime I experienced coastal floodings. I din't mess with canals, dams or terraforming so I was very puzzled by this event. It happened again later, must be a map issue.

I also had that strange issue on one of the external rail connexion which I couldn't investigate... I haf to disable the 'no despawn' option to get rid of this gridlock:

In this area I set the first remote settlement, supporting my first forestry district:

Downtown is 5.5kms away:

Some views of downtown area:

Surburbs next to downtown:

The airport was built 3kms north of dowtown, with one 2400m runway oriented east/west. It's a turism district with a few attraction, like the Expo Center.

First Rush Hour event at the Expo Center:

Between the aiport and downtown a large shopping area was set:

That's it for today, thanks for reading !

 

[Mottoth]

June 21st, 2016: Golf Club (WIP), and first entertainment distrcict. Pop: 157K.

Hello, not much progress those last days, things are going at a really slow pace. I lost some time troubleshooting the recent double-track cargo station. It is not working fully as intended but I managed to make one most-of-the time functionnal cargo-hub with the southwestern external link:

Now let's take a closer look to downtown: there's a lot of open space, with large parks in each block and a lot of pedestrian connections thru blocks and between buildings. The city is aimed to favor pedestrians and to give some air to breathe between skyscrapers.

In less dense areas the same scheme is repeated with parks inside each block:

Near the aiport an Arena was built, then bars and discos popped out:

Farther on another island hers'a new satellite town and it's golf club:

Still WIP, lots of trees yet to come:

That's it for today, thanks for reading !

 

[muttonnoir]

Impressive work thanks for sharing

 

[Mottoth]

June 23rd, 2016: Nothing special, pop 152K.

Hello, again things went slowly those last two days, with slow pop adjustements as people grow older and more educated. I had hard time providing jobs to everyone, now things are set and next session we'll get back to expansion.
So I spent basically the last 2 game sessions to add beautification to what's already built, and to tweak public transportation capacity.

I showed you 2 days ago how much space is decicated to pedestrians in town, today we carry on with underground ped networks around metro stations: I made good use of modular stuff to offer several entrance/exit point for each station, as you often get to see IRL. People now typically have the choice between 4 or 5 distinct entrances to a random station, and underground pedestrian connections are also used for local transit beneath streets or a whole block. You can walk as much as 300 or 400m underground that way. It is really flexible, many entrances were placed in anarchy mode on plain concrete surface belonging to other assets (highschools, supermarkets...), it's OK as long as it's along a road. While it add options for pedestrians and increase metro's catchment area, there's however one drawback: additionnal noise pollution comes with each subway entrance.
Here's an example, at the University Campus:

Airport (the built-in metro station inside the aiport terminal is reserved for future use):

Here underground pedestrian links not only serve metro but also offer a link between highschools right of the expressway and housing block on the left:

Some more stuff... on the right you can spot an office plaza offering 10000 jobs (2500 in each tower).

Here again, underground links are used not only by metro customers but also by pedestrians just transiting from one side of the expressway to another:

Here's the first area view of this journal, from the northwest corner:

Industrial, western port aera:

Farming:

(this billboard in the middle of this district is a bit odd)

2 last shots of the golf club, more trees have been planted:

That's it for today, thanks for reading !

 

[Mottoth]

July 2nd, 2016: Slow but methodical growth. Pop 193K.

No new district, no new landmark... These days I have been filling the parts already laid out with more and more stuff: most of the space between downtown and the airport is now filled, and the remote towns of La Louvette and Reboncourt (next to the Golf Club) have seen large expansion.

Here's Reboncourt:

Getting nearer to the Golf, we reach seamlessly the town of La Louvette and its Golf Club:

Bits of downtown skyline can be seen from here:

"On the other side of the track"... well things are not so bad, it's a quiet neighbourhood in the middle of large pines:

Back to downtown. Middle-sized tenements have spreaded everywhere, here along a cargo track:

Same track farther downtown:

Higher density downtown district:

Middle density:

Getting lower and more commercial to the west:

That's it for today, thanks for reading !