Caledaux - my first decent project

[Mottoth]

Hello, I'm fairly new to the game (bought it just before Christmas), and this is my 3rd city:
- The first one had no interest except learning game mechanics
- The 2nd had reached the 100 000 inhabitant milestone but was not aesthetic nor fully functionnal. I've started heavy modding and downloaded tons of assets on that one.
- With now a clearer view of the game mechanics and possibilities I started this project which is IHMO my first decent one.

Today's just a short introduction as I took some random screenshots today during my last game session.

Caledaux is made upon MrMiyagi's wonderfull New Caledonia map, hence the name.
I'm still trying some LUT so futures updates may show a different mood.

Currently Caledaux is a modest 50 000 inhabitant town, spreading on only a few tiles. Here's a nightshot of the whole thing.
On the bottom right is the new neibourhood of Anse aux Perroquets (Parrot's Cove), a high density low-wealth settlement intended for industry workers, mainly using Russian tennements.
Above Anse aux Perroquets and spreading on almost the right half of the picture are the different industry districts and port (2 oil districts, 1 ore, 1 timber and 2 general). I have a very strong industry with lots of exports, we'll see this later.
On a large left half I have all residential / commercial and office districts. I don't specialize too much and try to always put at least some residential and commercial in the mix, which is IMHO more realistic and prevent the cims of shoppings too far away from home.

We're getting close to the city center, with at the moment 2 skyscrapers.

Daytime view of the center. On the left the cityhall can be spotted. At the bottom right is the main hospital. Behind the Cathedral is the bus hub, and the rest of the district is zoned 100% commercial, high density.
The green skyscraper is almost the starting point of the game, and this disctrict was once 100% generic industries. When the money started to flow I moved away the industries, depolluted this district and re-drawed it enterily:

As we zoom out we discover the green 'lung' of the city at the bottom left, an agricultural district that remains here from the start and that I dont intend to move it:

Zomming out again, we discover one of the sunken highway. And in the foreground is la 'Combe de Molen', my first district with office presence.

Another view, from here we have a partial view of the sunken highway that route most of the traffic out of residential districts.

Another nightime view of downtown, an astronomic dish can be spotted at the top of the hill in the distance (sorry I have yet to set the depth of field properly).

One top down view of the port area, coupled with an external cargo train station visible on the left. As you can see in the stats this is currently used for massive exports, since my strong and diversified industries provide all necessary goods and supplys.

If you look closely at the numbers you'll notice the high L3 unemployement: I realised this actually while doing this screenshot and fixed it with new offices zone, 15 minutes later that number had lowered from 25% to 7%. I had misinterpreted the high Industry demand as an actual demand for more industry, but it was actually an office demand.

This is it for now, as the remaining screenshots were lost during tranfer to my USB key... This was actually just a preview, I will go more in-depht next time.

 

[Mottoth]

A few more pics tonight, I haven't got the time to make any progress so here are the pics I had lost friday.
This is a map showing all districts.
Vieille Ville and Centre Ville are the oldest ones, located on the starting tile. Sous Namoué and Combe de Molen came after, when the city expanded beyond the freeway.
Central Station was in industrial district and is now the new city center shown in the opener, gathering biggest commercial buildings, main transportatin hubs and main touristic places if interest.
Industrial districts are Agricola (Agri), Petroleum I and II (Oil), Les Mines (Ore), la Zone Forestière (Forest), ZI des Cocotiers & Combe Amarillo (General Industry). They are linked to outside world by the mass transportation hub in Le Port (rail & boat).
Poulevin & Anse aux Perroquets are my current developping districts, while La Plata has recently started to offer leisure & entertainment.
Campus Universitaire has room for a future whole University complex, with the main water treatement facilities just south of it.

At the bottom of this pic is the universitary campus as we look towards the center.

Here's a view from the forest district:

Downtown, with the cityhall in the foreground:

I told you that I have a solid industry, here's an overview of all oil/ore/general districts. They produce a constant stream of trucks that are funneled by a complex network of highspeed ramps along the main highway.

We finish with a traffic overview. Lot of red near industry district, but no 'bad red': traffic is heavy but still flows. We'll see this aspect more in-depth at the next update.

That's it for tonight, cheers !

 

[Mottoth]

Hello,

Here are a few pics of yerderday's game session.
This is the district map I posted before for reference:
- I made a new district north of La Plata, will most likely be named Port Lambic.
- Poulevin was extended to the north, beyond a small hill
- Highway and rails between Poulevin and Port Lambis were sunken.
- 3 tunnels were carved south of Combe Amarillo for new road and train outside connections, and a new cargo train station was set at the southern tip of Zone Forestière.

First an overview of the city.
From Naoué hill:

From Poulevin hill, with the newest extension of Poulevin district on the right. The road layout of the soon to be Port Lambic district can be seen on the left.

Poulevin's latest changes, and sunken infrastructures:

In the foreground: First facilities are laid out in Port Lambic. The 3rd recycling center of the city has just opened, in the meantime I'm emptying the landfills to get rid of them - I will only keep one spare near the industrial districts.

A few hours (months) later a whole new district is emerging at Port Lambic.

The nightlife of La Plata. This entertainment district runs along the shoreline, and is squeezed between 2 of my 4 wind farms. I rely primarily on nuclear power plant and secondary on the steady flow of tradewinds. I kept a fuel plant running idle as backup and for further expansion.

More ramdom shots:
Poulevin

Downtown

The old town with beach houses. I have yet to figure how to visually improve this district.

Another busy day is kicking off at the industrial port.

Anse aux Perroquets:

(not to self: fix that steep road at the foreground)


That's it for today. The city has now 72000 inhabitants.

 

[Mottoth]

A small update to show yesterday's progress.

This is a view of my oldest district, where I'm slowly adding trees and beautification. As you can see it's quiet thanks to the intra-muros policy.

In the evening haze the new district of Port Lambic is expanding, with a brand new passenger port and a secondary city center being shaped.

Under bright sunshine first cruise ships are stopping by the new facilities.

Still a lot of work to do to finish this area. I had to draw a new highway to service it... poor planning but I'm OK with that, I try to find a realistic balance between planning and anarchy, square grid and organic spreading.

View from another angle. I'll try to keep this secondary city-center not to cramped, despite adding another skycraper or two.

In the meantime another forest industry district was set up, as wood became my main import. Connection to the main highway was made difficult due to its slope towards inner highlands, hence those bits of roadporn:

This last view is from the main highway descending from those aforementioned highlands.

Next steps:
- complete the WIP in Port Lambic, expand beyond on the next beach to set my first tourist resort (this is where the new highway ends).
- set an agricultural district farther on the highlands (imported too much food lately)
- planning an airport on the other side of the main island, where connexion is already made trough tunnels and where I found a sandy island large enough to accomodate a runway. With now almost 80 000 citizens it's about time to think of air connection.

 

[Starr_Man]

WOW. Not only is the city beautiful, but so are your graphics. Do you mind me asking what your set-up is, or do you use something like Dynamic Resolution for screen shots? The LOD in some of those shots is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

 

[deadbeaver]

That cruise ship harbour is pretty cool. I think I'm going to steal.. to do something similar when I get the chance. Nice one!

 

[muttonnoir]

Nice job especially considering that you're a relative novice!

 

[Mottoth]

Hello, and thanks for your feedback
@Starr_Man: I run the game on a 1680*1050 screen, with an "average" rig (AMD 4-core @ 3.1Ghz, GeForce 750 2Gb, 12Gb of RAM). Screenshots are all ultra high res (Shift+F12, 4x times bigger than in-game resolution) which have been resized at 1600*1000 (close to the in-game res) with bits of sharpening.
Not sure about the LUT (I tried several), could be Rockeckplant's Warm after Dark with Daylight Classic mod by Bloody Penguin.

I didn't make any progress during the last game sessions since I experimented a lot with the new Rush Hour mod, trying to figure out how to to adapt buses and metros to the new fluctuating demand. I found the time to build my first airport, it's opened and operating but still WIP so you won't see it today.

Instead here are a few more pics of the city. Pop is now stable at 87 000.
Slowly dressing the new city-center near the passenger port:

An overview of the current expansion. The aiport is hidden, it's way out of frame on the far-right.

Another overview, from the industrial disctricts. A new highway connection to the outside world is seen at the foreground... it required two 2km tunnels under the mountains.

Some closer shots to the industrial districts and the maze of highway ramps.

That's it for today. Next time will hopefully show new expansion.

 

[Mottoth]

January 27, 2016: A new airport.

Hello,

I took a copter to make some sunrise pictures from above. This is the view from the industrial disctrict at south-west corner:

More sightseeing, above the radio antenna landmark, looking east. But, wait a minute... what's on this island at the distance ?

I borrowed another copter from the main hospital later in the day, here 's a global view of the city center and... that new airport on the island in the distance !

Getting closer to this thing... 2 impressive bridges have been built to allow ships to go under road and train traffic. The airport itself features one 2400m runway and 3 gates and is capable of handling all short/medium haul aircrafts, up to B767s (in game units the runway is actually 1600m long since it appears that a 1:1.5 ratio has to be applied to match the real world sizes).
The approach can be tricky due to terrain and easterly tradewinds bringing some crosswind. The approach pattern starts on the left of the picture, with a visual right turn to the runway over the bay (ever heard of the Canarsie approach in JFK ? It's the same). No low-visibility procedures but thanksfully this tropical climate seldom sees fog or low ceiling.

(note to self: re-draw those railways over the water with the no-pillar mode on as it was meant to be).

Fast and most reliable connection to downtown is the Airport Express (the new Chirpy Express asset). I made it as expensive as the airport-connection robbery going on in our real world, with a ticket almost 6 times more expensive than regular buses and metro (10.50 vs 1.80). Hence that line is a cash-cow bringing some relief in my heavily loss-making transit system.

The area is not finished yet. There's also a 2nd passenger port so this island is kind of a transportation hub. I plan to add an exhibition center - which makes senses near external connection since events that will take place there are not intended only for locals. And maybe I'll add some leisure things such as the zoo... that way my citizens will bring me more cash using my overpriced Airport Express !

It's only been recently opened and already 80+ pax are boarding this Airport Express train:

Here are a few more 'artistic' shots to end this update.
Playing with backlight and looking east in the morning haze:

2 last shots taken during morning:

I really like the mood on this one:

That's it for today, thanks for reading !

 

[Mottoth]

January 30th, 2016: First beach resort, Farming on the Highlands, Planning further expansion.

I have been very busy lately, adjusting my transit system to the new gameplay introduced with Rush Hour mod. I eventually re-started it from scrach after reading in the CSL wiki that metro station have to be oriented towards the direction they serve - i.e. the less turns in your line the better the Cims AI will find that the line suits their needs.
I scheduled less bus line but did some fine tunings on the capacity, using Citaros busses from DANZ | D3S DESIGN (60 to 115-seteers) and a 24-seater minibus.
Here's a view of public transportation lines, as you can see metro lines are mostly going straight and it worked: I have now twice more pasenger than with the old network. The Yellow line terminus in Anse aux Perroquets never had a single pax before, now several hundreds of Cims are queuing in the morning rush to take it.

It's now really hard to fill the demand during the rush hours, and I realised that Industry too loves busses and metro and it's precisely where I have the largest peaks in demand.
Beside the Rush Hour mod, I'm also using the followig mods that change the gameplay rebalancing the game:
- Realistic Pop and Consumption
- Resident Travel Rebalance
- Randomize Age Cims Move in (randomizes education level too).

In the meantime a new district was founded, "la Crique aux Singe", and turism specialization made it my first beach resort.

I colonized the northen Highlands too, made a farming district and to small villages to support it (750 inhabitants in total):

Back to the city, which a few random shots:

The Universitary Campus:

And the water treatment facilities next to it:

These facilities will be eventually moved out of town, and freed space will be used for a passenger multi-track train station that will serve south and east coasts, beyond the mountains.
I had been thinking about future expansion over there, and it was time to plan the whole transportation scheme. This future train station will be a key part of the passenger travel to those new territories, with train radials from downtown to remote districts.
As for cargo trains, they won't go radial but circular: an internal circular line will loop around the 25 tiles with a few (3) hubs connecting with external lines.
Here's the southwestern cargo hub, the first operating one:

Planning... Drawing this circular highway around the south-est part of the map took be 2 hours. The circular cargo line was added later and takes more or less the same route. As you can see plenty of new districts to seed

All these investments hurted my budget, but the rising pop (now 119K) has now brought the balance to even after several cycles of loss (train stations are expensve to operate)... My money shrinked from over 6 millions down to 4.2 million.

Thanks for reading, stay tuned !

 

[Mottoth]

February 3rd, 2016. More oil industry, and 3 new satellite towns. Pop: 134K cims.

Since the last update the southern shores of the island have been almost completely colonized, with one new oil district and 3 new settlements: Petroleum III, Foulnieux, St Salomain and Rebouncourt.

Each new settlement is connected to the circular highway, the circular internal train cargo line, and a new circular metro. Another metro connection runs from Foulnieux to downtown (Sous Naoué), and passenger trains from Reboncourt to the universitary campus.

As planned, all water treatment facilities south of the campus have been moved away. Some reclaimed land over water near the industrial port now host those facilities and a new EPR power plant. A prison was also bult in this area.

The new train station south of the campus. Lots of offices popped in this district now serviced by train and metro.

Trains soon got packed since this is one of the two most direct links to the southern shores, and i quickly upgraded capacity to 450 seaters double trains.

Despite the new metro service my campus bus-stops still get insanely packed during the late afternoon after class rush and my 115-seaters Citaro-G still can't cope

Lets' get back to the new settlement. Here's the new oil industry area at the bottom, conveniently located near the southwestern cargo hub:

Foulnieux:

Far left: circular metro station. Center right, next to Paradox plaza: metro station to downtown. Lots of commuters here on this late afternoon scene:

St Salomain and St Salomain Plage, the beach resort sub-district (turism specialisation).

Reboncourt (on the right). Mainly a business/office district, well serviced by circular metro line and direct train to downtown. The main landmark here is the Opera.

Quiet at night:

Morning rush hour:

I can't complain anymore about my public transport system being under-used and loss-making. Passenger train, metro and bus are now all profitable even after accounting stations and bus depot weekly upkeep.

That's it for today, thanks for reading.

 

[Mottoth]

February 13th, 2016: A new golf resort, cargo network completed and port re-done. Pop: 158K cims.

Some aerial view to start.
Downtown as of Feb 4th:

At the bottom: the new golf resort located in town La Louvette. Here on Feb 4th:

And on Feb 11th, with a new settlement behind the hill

The southern shores with all 4 satellite towns and 1 industrial yard:

A closer look to La Louvette. It's mostly an office district (right of highway) and a tourist / entertainment zone (left of the highway):

La Louvette Plage at night:

Nightlife and special events brought by the Rush Hour mod:

A special bus line was chartered for this one:

In the meantime I expanded in the north.
Before: the isolated northern cargo hub and the 2 small highland villages :

Nowadays: A new town has popped up. The circular cargo railway is now completed too.

With fast rail connection to downtown:

In the process of re-shaping the whole cargo network the port was upgraded with rail. The whole area was actually reworked, with less roadporn and more trees:

That's it for today. Actually much more was done since the last update: I have one new cargo hub (train/seaport) coupled with a new industrial yard on a island in the east, and 2 new satellite towns (one of them is visible in the 3rd aerial shot), so stay tuned !
Thanks for reading.

 

[Mottoth]

A small update: I was away for almost 3 weeks and couldn't try Snowfall update until today (not the DLC but the free update). All used mods are compatibles except Slow Citizen Aging, hence my city actually loads with v1.3.2 but my citizens now live and DIE at normal rate, i.e. I'm suffering a large deathwave, hearses can't cope (they never really did anyway) then building abandonnements kick in, etc etc... Lost 20% pop in less than 15' gametime, with my budget getting abyssal losses.
So I'm afraid I'll have to wait for a fix. Or accept to lose a significant pop percentage (30% ?) and see if my economy can get over this.

 

[Mottoth]

March 17th, 2016: First pics after-snowfall, economical and population crisis.

After a one-month break I eventually got the time this week to get back to C:SL, and to address all post-snowfall issues.
I haven't bought the DLC but the free updates combined with updated mods have brought some important changes in economical and pop balance, which simulated the first major crisis in Caledaux's history. Historians will probably write something as:
By the 2080's a streak of harsh winters disrupted western-Europe economy and transportation, to the point that the depression spreaded well beyond Europe and especcially to French overseas territories such as New Caledonia. The city of Caledaux went through a major crisis due to disrupted supply lines and subsidiaries cuts from metropolitan France. In a few year the population declined from 158K to 125K. Local incentives to restart economy led to an unwelcomed side effect: factories were quick ready to get back to business with upgraded facilities but got plagued by a huge lack of working force.

The main after-snowfall issue that remains today is the lack of workers, despite having succesfully raised the population well above the pre-sowfall level: currently 180K. We will see by the end of this update how I managed to get such a fast population increase.

This is a map of the 25 tiles I'm using. Some gliches can be seen in stitching but still one can get a good picture of the whole thing here.

I'm still extending toward east and south-east: 2 new satellite towns were set at Carménaron and Grosbourg, and a new industrial yard on the island l'Ile des Pins. Since I took this picture the last available space in the south-east corner was also built and the place is now called Bougainvillier.
To the north the town of Chichigneux is extending too, and I have still plenty of space for future plans.

So, cloudy skies were brought along with snowfall free stuff. Here at Macarena aiport:

Downtown:

Tropical rainshower at Combe Chardonnay:

The northern plateau:

The sun can still shine, here at La Louvette low residential district:

A new town: Grosbourg.

View from Grosbourg's outskirt. Ile des Pin's industrial complex is visible in the distance on the left.

L'ile des Pins:

To fix the urgent population demand I experimented yesterday with the RICO mod. I plopped some ugly suburbs to home the needed workforce for my industries. Here are my experiments at Chichigneux:

And a preview of the latest satelitte town, Bougainvillier, primarily built upon plopabble RICOs and already counting 9000 inhabitants:

You'll see more of this at the next update. Thanks for reading !

 

[deadbeaver]

Cool city, good work.

 

[Mottoth]

March 18th, 2016: More RICO stuff, new, post-snowfall balance reached. Pop: 202K.

After Snowfall it took 2 long games sessions before I eventually came to a new balance. CO staff and modders did a good work IMHO to quick get back to the same compatibility level than before Snowfall.
In yesterday's update I still missed lots of workers while at 180K pop. In this game session I just let the game running and filling all houses without drawaing any new district, until it reached the maximum which is apperently around 202K.
The only significant change i made was a lift in highrise ban in Port Lambic district - which was part of the plan to quickly gain additionnal pop. Here's the new look of this dictrict, where high-rise level 5 residential buildings quickly appeared:

Some more views of Grosbourg, which has now reached its maximum expansion:

With 202K pop all job positions are now fullfilled. I even have some significant unemployement (12% in highly educated) and the Industry/Office demand is now rising high. As a consequence the new industrial yard at l'Ile des Pins has growed significantely since last update.

This is the lastest satelitte town, Bougainvilliers. Lots of ploppable RICO housing, used as core for this district which houses now 12000 inhabitants.

Another view of this district, with all facilities (recycling center, crematorium) and shops regrouped around the train station. Very functionnal IMHO, with a train link to downtown and bus lines from the train station serving largest clusters of tennements.

That's it for today, thanks for reading.

 

[Mottoth]

March 21st, 2016. A few aerial views. Pop 207K.

Hi, just a view views of the whole thing as of last night. Here from the east, a view of the eastern districts. From left to right: Bougainvilliers, Bougainvilliers Nord new CBD - 13000 office jobs seeded yesterday -, Carménaron, Grosborg and the industrial island l'Ile des Pins. With that new office district in Bougainvillliers Nord the whole southern half of the 25 tiles is now completed. Further extensions will from now all take place in the northen half of the map.

View from the south-east. At the low-center is the RICO-based residential district of Bougainvilliers. On the left side we can spot the 5 settlements of the southern shore.

The southern shore. From left to right: Petroleum III, Foulnieux, St Salomain, Reboncourt and La Louvette.

Downtown, viewed from south-west:

And a view from the north, with the town of Chichigneux in the foreground. As you can see I have room for exansion here:

That's it for this small overview as of March 21st. Thanks for reading.

 

[Mottoth]

March 25th, 2016. A new resort island, first big Event at Expo Center. Pop 229K.

Hello, I had a few troubles with the latest patch (v1.4.0) but all things quickly settled.

First here are a few pics of (now) older districts of Port Lambic.

I consider this district "completed", with latest beautification added:

Completed also, the industrial yard of l'Ile des Pins:

And Bougainvilliers North office district, where I experimented one of the latest addition of v1.4: Quays.

Also tested on further and latest expansion of Grobourg:

In the meantime, I had a huge Rush Hour event at the Expo Center, in the airport district.
Lots of people walking from train station, and lots of cars gathering towards the Expo Center:

"Prepare your roads", the Rush Hour author said.... Here we go:

And this is l'Ile aux Crocodiles, a small Island I almost forgotten near La Louvette Golf Club:

That's it for today, thanks for reading !

 

[DeadliestBatman]

You have a great city man keep it up

 

[Builder1337]

Dude, this is super cool! Only thing I would change is the crazy building heights architecturally speaking, but that's just me