Bosmonde

[grasblazer]

Hi everyone! I would like to show you my first big city playing Cities skylines after dark: Bosmonde. This city is based on a map of Boston. I am planning to post regular screenshots, and tell you more about the city as this journal grows. For now, enjoy the first picture:

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Off course, any tips and suggestions are very welcome as I am quite new here. Comments are always appreciated

Edit: added 2 aerial (night) images of Bosmonde, including the spots where the images were shot for you convenience.

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Cheers!

 

[grasblazer]

As promised, a few more pictures of Bosmonde. Not based on a theme, but more like eye-candy

With many thanks to the modders who make beautifull custom buildings as such, which enhance the game even further!

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Here we see the old city hall along the Bosmonde river, sided with a double avenue, one of many which connects north to south. Most riverbanks in Bosmonde are occupied by spacious park, not only providing air to the dense city, but also a good buffer in case the water level fluctuates.

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This avenue also connects the north with the south. In the back, you can see the financial district, with many banks, insurance companies and lawyer offices. More prominent in this picture, one of the many churches in Bosmonde. Bosmonde has a wide variety of religions, attracted to the open and tolerant spirit of Bosmonde.

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More towards the eastern outskirt we find the first of the three airports, of which this one is the oldest. Although it sits between agricultural fields, the edge of the city is very close.

I hope to show you more tomorrow. In the meantime any tips, comments, suggestions or recommendations are appreciated as always. Please tell me what your specific interests are, and I will try to meet them. Cheers!

 

[esteboatan]

Nice work mate, I like seeing pictures of other people cities to give myself ideas. Can you show us your industrial area?

 

[grasblazer]

Hi Esetboan, thanks for replying and following my city journal for Bosmonde so far. I try to see and read 1 or 2 everyday, it helps bringing up inspiration. I will look into the industrial area's later today.

As I have written before, Bosmonde is based on the Boston map. This next picture shows the actual position of the center of Boston from above, which also happens to be the center of Bosmonde. Bosmonde's name is derrived from the Dutch word for forrest (Bos), of which Bosmonde used to have plenty of, and monde, which is derrived from the Dutch word for mouth (mond), which reffers to Bosmonde's location at the mouth of several rivers. Bridges go in all directions, and form real bottlenecks for daily traffic. Next to these bridges, I have also constructed 2 or 3 tunnels, providing extra connections with the surrounding suburbs.

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This is one of the intersections I feel unhappy about. They don't really do right to the European atmosphere, and even if they relieve traffic a little, they are still a problem.

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If you have any ideas on how to tackle this I would like to hear. Thanks for looking in any case!

 

[esteboatan]

How about a raised roundabout with optional side roads so that not all traffic has to take the roundabout? That would fit more with the euro style.

 

[grasblazer]

That might not be such a bad idea, I'll download a few and see for it works out! I did prepare an update on the industrial area. I try to combine the practical, logical, with an esthetical approach, having a functional industrial area with parks on the edges, symbolical architecture, and infrastrcture with green structuring spaces.

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This is the same area, but as seen from a different direction. This is one of the first bigger industrial areas of Bosmonde, initially designed to provide work for at least the next 50 years in the primary mining industry. After resources were gone, the area transformed to a more secundary, production industry.

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Despite being a quite polluting area, it's still eye candy of a sort, isn't it?

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All these chemicals in the air make a beautifull sunset

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Thanks for checking out my Journal! I'll show more of Bosmonde tomorrow

 

[grasblazer]

I tried to apply your suggestion to change the intersection to a roundabout, and so far the results are satisfactory on all levels. Aesthetically I think it looks very good, much better than before. And as you can see, I celebrated this redo with a nice monument, originally designed for Berlin. For traffic, the first results look good, but I am careful to make a definitive opinion about it.

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Next there is Hamilton park, which originally was a medieval cemetery just outside the city. The reason they used to keep it outside was to prevent any diseases from the corpses. As of today, such risk is gone, and now the area also serves as a local park.

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Close to Hamilton Park we can find Weideweg avenue, the adres to find local culture. To your right, you can see the national museum, home to quite a few masterpieces in art. In the far distance in the line of sight of the avenue the Vivaldi opera, hosting venue's since 1799, the year the first operahouse was opened in Bosmonde. Even further away in the distance, one of our transmitter towers, which covered the cities antenna transmissions since the early 50's. With the digital age, the need for hardware space in the tower has decreased, so there's a lot of space is available. Developers are currently researching if the remaining space can be refurbished to host an observation platform for tourists.

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Thanks for stopping by, and as always, comments are appreciated!

 

[Zed68]

I like how your city looks, very natural.

However I really really must advise you to use this mod, it fixes the yellow tint and the oversaturated tone of the game during the day : http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=530871278

And you can add this LUT for a bit more color correction : http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=544955282 (but the game is bugged and sometimes the settings change back to no lut for no reason when you load a city, so from time to time you'll have to re-enable it)

Good job, waiting to see more.

 

[esteboatan]

The roundabout looks much better than the previous intersection, definitely a more euro look now you have the statue in there too. I like the way you changed industry when the resources were gone (I actually use a mod to stop the resources from going away so i can base areas on specific industry for the life of the city).
Good job your doing with the city, its giving me lots of useful ideas for my next creation. I'm just waiting for the next major update to Traffic++ (TAM mod with all the extra roads and options its brings before starting).
The LUT and mod recommended by Zed68 above is one I use for a more realistic look and gives great pictures.

 

[grasblazer]

Hi Zed68, thanks for the good advice on the lighting mod. I installed it, and the color is better now indeed. This is how it looks now; it's the Vivaldi Opera shown before, now during nighttime after last night's premiere. Somehow the lights of the Transmitter tower were shut of, does it have something to do with the mod?

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@ Esteboan: I use that resource mod now as well, but Bosmonde has been a long project. When I started this city I did not have that mod installed yet. It's a pitty, because if I would have used the mod sooner, I would'nt be so out of resources yet. Now the city relies on regular resources such as forrestry and farming, the more processing industries and services such as offices, tourism, etc. I think it explains why traffic is so high, a lot of oil and ore needs to be imported. In the meantime, I'll show you one of Bosmonde's earliest suburbs, Manor Hills. Strategically located close to the industrial area as well to downtown, close to the water and plenty of space it's a popular area to settle down.

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[Zed68]

Hi Zed68, thanks for the good advice on the lighting mod. I installed it, and the color is better now indeed. This is how it looks now; it's the Vivaldi Opera shown before, now during nighttime after last night's premiere. Somehow the lights of the Transmitter tower were shut of, does it have something to do with the mod?

All the variable lights can be completely off at some point during the night... but I'm not sure it is the case here.

Maybe a quick electricity shortage ?

It can't be the mod, the mod only changes the general light settings of the game.

 

[esteboatan]

Looking much better grasblazer, that LUT and mod makes the game much more pleasant to look at

I notice the lights on the tower are on in that second picture, maybe a freak night with no power there as Zed68 says, damn kids in the neighbourhood messing around

 

[grasblazer]

Hi everyone! Thanks for the nice replies! I hope everyone had a nice weekend. I'd like to start this post with the view of Vivaldi opera again, but in the other direction. Right, there's also a transmitter tower in the far distance here. There's 2 of them in the city, which can explain why you first saw one without lights, and the second one with lights on. You have been looking at two different ones

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This is the one we have seen before, the one that stays dark during night. It is also located close to the old airfield, at the edge of the city. In the far, far distance you can see one of the newer area's of the city still under construction, which will position this 'edge city' in a much more central way. It already makes me think about redevelopping this part...

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And this is the second transmitter tower. It is much more closer to the old city center, on a former dockyard, redevelopped into a public park. It is widely recognized as a city landmark, unlike the first tower, which can be seen in the far background. In both pictures you can also see a ferris wheel, of which I will write more tomorrow. So please stay tuned!

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Thanks for dropping by!

 

[grasblazer]

For now, here's the Ferris wheel I promised. It's origin's ly at the beginning of the 20th century, when a small merry go round was built in the Duke's garden. Allthough the palace of the Duke is gone, the orangerie, with views of the river, is still there. The original palace was situated right at the river, to provide fresh water for the duke. He owned a lot of land around it, which he lent to farmers and such, to gain a profit. As the duke went bankrupt, the land was divided, and much of it was urbanized in the 19th century. The remaining part was transformed into a park by an industrial filantropist. In order to improve profits to cover the expenses a bit, he first built the merry go round, but as soon as it went out of date causing profits to drop, he built a ferris wheel around the 1920's to improve profits again. As in the 80's, when the society changed from a industrial economy to a service economy, the park is now owned by the city, with the orangerie functioning as an art gallery.

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Thanks for stopping by!

 

[grasblazer]

Hi everyone! For today, the images are all hosted on Simtropolis, so they should both be visible to everyone

I really like the deepness of this image. In the front, you see a small piece of the old harbour, with the university (faculty of mobility and transport on the right. Halfway trough, there's a statue for all the lost fisherman at sea, and in the back we see the highrises of the central business district.

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This is the old front of the harbour. As you can see, the docks are gone, and many of the buildings have been upgraded and redevelopped into housing and shops. The highway that used to connect the docks to the rest of the city have been downgraded to a tree-lined avenue. On the corner you can still see the church of our-lady-at-sea, which was built to protect anyone who sailed out at harbour.

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Thanks for stopping by!

 

[Lord Morpheus]

Great pictures. It's one of the good cities in here. I like the mixture of old european buildings and modern (higher) buildings.

But especially I like the level of detail. Most Cities are missing that but only this can make a city beautiful. Keep up the good work and show us more pictures

 

[esteboatan]

Are you using the themes mod for districts? or just an european map?

 

[grasblazer]

Thanks for the comments and compliments so far! Bosmonde is built on a European map, I like my cities the best with these buildings. I still have to find out how to use these theme mods for districts.

 

[grasblazer]

Some more eye-candy, in honour of the developpers who built this game and the support of the community...

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This is one of the many entertainment districts from up close. For me it looks like a redlight district

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Enjoy!

 

[grasblazer]

Hi everyone! For this update I prepared an aerial, top down view of the whole city of Bosmonde. As you can see, it has grown a lot. Absolutely vital for the city are it's many bridges, for cars as well for the trains to redistribute all the goods being produced in one of it's many industrial centers. If anyone's interested, I can make a second map pointing out where the previous pictures have been taken?