Drievallestad (Three falls City)

[Hannodb]

Moarrrrr!

Thanks for the motivation. I'm currently practicing for our performance of the Weihnacht Oratorium in November, and I'm really stressed that I don't have enough time - so I've been slipping up on this for a while. (So hard to strike a balance in life) But since there is a demand, I'll make a point in continuing this soon. I'm currently at Saved Game 15, so there still is plenty more to come

 

[Hannodb]

So, last night, I actually dreamed posting this post... so here it is:

Saved Game 11

Since it's been a week or two since I played - and even more since I saved this game, I had to refresh my memory a bit about what these changes was all about:

Sorry for the orientation change, but this is actually the correct angle, as I regard the river to be South of my city. It would just be easier to explain things from this side. Now that My North Eastern corner is sorted out, is was time to expand to the South West.

This is the most important change: The little stub of a grid in the SW is now completely developed all the way to the dam wall. (Sorry if that sound weird. In Afrikaans, a "lake" is exclusively a natural occurring body of water, while a dam is an artificial body of water. So, instead of saying "The lake is contained by the dam", we would say "the dam is contained by the dam wall")

Things to note:
1) The main road for this grid was extended to the highway, to create a new entrance. (Though, it isn't very widely used)
2) A New axis running Northward was added. This is to give the people from this side easy access to the industrial area, and to help limit the traffic on the main road on the right. (This is the road all the trucks use to get to the industrial area, and is already overcrowded.
3) They have their own railway station, and provision is made to extend the line across the river.
4) The 180 degree curve in the north spanning 2 city blocks is not me getting artisitc. It was a creative solution to the very difficult ground elevation in this area. By now, you know I like to use 90 degree curves to solve problems in my grids.
5) The public transport office tower makes a nice landmark in this area.

This section is to the North of the part we just looked at, and I'm less proud of this. Frankly, it's a horrendous mess. I have 4 arteries running toward the highway, and I can't connect them all directly to it. I need some elegant solution where they come together before taking you to the highway. To the right is the main road that forms the boundary of the industrial area. It stands to reason that this road should take you directly to the highway (Even though the trucks still prefer the shorter route with traffic lights and all)

The road in the middle left is the Water front road, in in the middle right goes to my round about. The one running across the screen from left to right is the new artery, connecting my new extension to the Industrial zones. It connects to an existing road in the industrial grid, which I broadened to make room for additional traffic.

Speaking of the Industrial are, there are some minor changes here as well. You can see the new artery, forming the top of the upside down triangle. But then, I've also changed some of the industrial blocks so the road would curve away from the main road. This is to limit the number of intersections, and improve traffic flow. I used the Traffic mod to remove the traffic lights on the remaining T junctions, and made sure the main road has right of way.

That pretty much covers the changes for today. The rest is just eye candy:

A Panorama shot taken from my dam wall:

And the traditional locations for every post. Not much has changed here. Even the same buildings from the previous post

The Waterfront view changed quite significantly, as you can see the entire new extensions from this angle.

The same lowly office buildings from my round about. I'm not going to zone any more office zones. These zones need to "Grow up"

Again, the Round about looking directly Westward.

From the top of the hill. Here you can also see the new extention clearly.

The East-West main artery of the new extention. If that dam wall burst, this is the first avenue what will get hit.If you look carefully, you can see both damwalls from this position. The traffic light is the crossing with main truck entrance. (I love putting the water pumps right next to the dam wall. It makes it look as if its all part of the dam installation.

 

[Hannodb]

Saved Game 12

In this game, I resolved the issues created in the previous one. I also introduced some nice new mods.

There were 3 main arteries going to the highway, but only one may connect with it.

The road on the left (The water front road), I resolved by taking it over the highway, to an exclusive new neighborhood, nestled in the mountains. This means it no longer makes an awkward curve towards the industrial road that connects to the highway. This allows for a cleaner grid. However, I'm still not quite happy with the middle road (Leading to the round about.) It unceremoniously terminate in a very unimportant road. This is not acceptable.

You can also see one of my new mods: The land based water treatment plants right next to the dam wall (If you thought a bridge in the dam would've been bad previously )
Anyway, these water treatment plants look call and all, but they are also a bit buggy. I replaced all of my existing standard treatment plants with these, and soon after I had to struggle fighting a death wave. The entire city got sick and died, and I couldn't figure out why. The indicators said that I had sufficient treatment plant. Eventually, it was the chirper that alerted me to the fact that the water is polluted after all. (Take that, all you chirper haters out there! The blue bird is useful after all!) I continue to use the new treatment plants, because they look more realistic and causes zero pollution, but I keep one or two of the standard type to make sure the job gets done.

Here are some nice views of the exclusive neighborhood. In the first picture you can see how steep the slope is in this area, making the layout very difficult. But, that's where the interesting things happen.

The new water treatment plant.

Also one of the new mods: Those water towers are very similar to what we have in Pretoria. The design is very common, and having these around immediately makes me feel a little bit more at home in my city. ...and they work. Thanks to whomever it is that designed them, it's very much appreciated.

Here you can see major rework on my external rail lines. I rerouted the cargo tracks so they no longer have to go around the hill. This significantly reduces its travel time. Then, I also introduced a new intercity passenger terminal - also a modded train station. The station mod is really great, and you can extend the number of lines coming in as much as you like. However...

It's a real shame the designer did not put a little bit more effort into designing its foundations. Now I have these floating buildings. But it's ok. Most of the time, you don't see it, and I love the look of this station so much, that I'm willing to overlook this over sight.

Another place that got redesigned, is this little triangle. (For orientation, see the round about at the bottom left)

Previously, the grid inside the triangle aligned with the grid on the top left. Now it aligns with the grid on the right. You might ask "Why did you do this? The previous layout seemed a lot more elegant?" And I would agree.

However... there is a big picture here. Remember how I said I like following roads to see where I end up?

This picture explains it all. The red lines show the previous layout. The bright red line is one of the roads running past Church square - one of the landmarks of my city. If you follow it's original layout, it takes you straight into the industrial area. This is just not acceptable. Imagine if following the main axis of Paris (Starting from the Louvre - going through the Arc de Triomf) took you straight into the Industrial area of Paris! You'll have a lot of unhappy tourists ending up in the not-so-nice part of town. The new layout takes into the neighborhood that's climbing up the hill in the North East. This provide the neighborhood with easy access to the office area, while taking them right past church square. There is also still enough roads providing access to the industrial area for the North Eastern and South Eastern neighborhoods.

This is that area in the Eastern Neighborhood with the train station which is to the grid. Something is quietly going on here which I only discovered much much later: Look at all those fancy high rises appearing. This is become quite a desirable area.

When two main arteries meet, it's always a good excuse for a plaza or something special. This is industrial square, with an equally fitting statue.

And now, for the traditional locations:

You can see the new Industrial plaza from my round about. Is it just me, or does that statue appear to be extremely North Korea? Oh well. I like big impressive monuments.

And the new water tower on top of the hill...

 

[Hannodb]

Saved Game 13

In this game, I made the final changes to the Western part of the City, and made a new expansion towards the East.

The most important change in the East is that I finally found a nice solution for the middle main road (which goes to the round about) By diagonally connecting to the main road on the left, you can now easily get to both the CBD and the industrial area from this offramp.

Another addition is this overpass straight through the Industrial area. The main road forming the boundary of the Industrial area is already heavily congested, and the idea of this overpass was to at least get the rubbish trucks off this road. Using this overpass, they can avoid heavy traffic and many traffic lights. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have payed off. In this city, people enjoy being stuck in traffic

An exciting new development is the suburb on top of the hill in the East. This is the first major suburb which I do not intent to make high density. The people here really have a beautiful view over the city. If I lived anywhere in this city, this is where I would want to live.

Although this will remain a low density neighborhood, I like to have isolated blocks of flats here and there. You know. Just for effect.

Also in the South East, is this extension. The Waterfront avenue is extended eastward toward the hill, where it joins the avenue that goes to the round about. I got this *normal* looking stadium from steam. I'm not at all a fan of the default stadium in this game. It looks like an Olympic Games - over-the-top stadium, rather than an regular stadium. This one is much better.

Another look at the neighborhood near the skew rail station. This is really becoming the upper class porch area of the city.

The main truck entrance. In order to improve traffic flow, I've now removed all connections to this road, including the avenue in the middle. You can see that, even where it splits into two one way roads into the industrial area, I had to broaden the road to accommodate more traffic.

From another angle. Here you can see how busy this road have become. But that's ok, I like it. A big city should have traffic, it makes the place look alive.

And now, for the traditional angles again:

Look at the buildings behind the church. That is the area that is slowly becoming the hi rise porch area of the city, and you can see how the hill in the background is slowly disappearing from the skyline. This is exactly why I keep posting the same area's over over again. When you go to my earlier posts, this area had such a lovely rural area, with the church towering over everything else. Now, the church is quickly becoming one of the smaller buildings in this increasingly urban setting. I love how the character of a place evolves.

LOOK! Another water tower. I love those towers!

Church square from a slightly different angle. In the background you can see the upperclass hi rises, and behind those, the suburb on top of the hill.

It seems like limiting the amount of office space is paying off. I'm getting some taller office buildings.

From the top of the hill. For the first time, this is now actually part of the city.

The view of the city from the suburb on the hill top. Man, what a lovely place to live.

One of the things I've learned from my previous city is to separate the external cargo line and the external passenger line as far as possible. This helps reduce congestion later on.

 

[General Gnu]

I'm absolutely psyched about your work and am using it as an inspiration for my current project.

But I strongly disagree about the uselessness of districts. You can pretty cool micromanage your city with them. For example raise taxes in high value areas and lowering them in the slums. You also may chose to push industry or commercials in a certain district. But a pretty cool thing I realized yesterday: if you have a given problem in an area (in my case it was a low health because of noise pollution) you can chose the suiting policy to adress the task (I just put an smoking ban on that district and it not only solved the problem, but indeed increased happiness instead of lowering it as the tooltipp says). The heavy-traffic ban and high-tech housing have a great performance, too.
You just have to play around with them a little.

Hope I could help and give some inspiration back!

 

[Hannodb]

hi General Gnu. Thank you for your post, I'm truly honored that you find my city inspirational.

If you look carefully, I've already divided my city up in districts at this point, though I still have to get to the naming of certain areas. Regarding policies, I guess I still need to figure out what they do - I don't think I've had a big enough city before to really justify using it. But in my latest game (Not yet posted) I have increased the taxes around Church square. I'm not exactly sure what to expect from it, but it just felt right that the most prominent parts of town should be more expensive.

I've also been thinking of using the heavy traffic ban to force the trucks to use the highway side entrance to my industrial area. However, at this stage, my truck entrance is pretty well designed, and I think it might actually worsen the traffic if I close this route.

O, and while I'm here, I might as well also reveal something I discovered yesterday. I've been experiencing another sick/death wave - which is weird as I have enough water treatment plants and hospitals. I finally discovered what's going on: The pollution from the industrial area is creeping into the pipes and flowing to the residential areas. So in my latest game (Saved Game 17) I separated the water network of my industrial area with the rest of my city. This did the trick. No more sick waves in my city. (Sorry for my accusation of a bug in the water treatment plants mod. )

 

[Hannodb]

Saved Game 14

Again, the main - if not only - area of development is in the East.(North of the train station. I used the avenue to the South (Right next to the river) as the base for this new grid, just because the uniformity here in the east was becoming boring. In my mind, this will for the maximum extend of the grid areas, which will all be available for upgrade to high density. From here on, I'm planning to do more free form suburban roads.

A close up of the new eastern neighborhood. The area to the left is the new neighborhood from the previous post, but is mostly empty, because I recently upgraded it to high density. (I wish there was a way of doing that without abruptly getting rid of all the low density buildings. They should remain until they are replaced with high density) You may be excused for thinking this area is flat and boring. But I'd like to draw to your attention....

..As you can see, the slope is *very* steep. I had quite a tough time getting the avenue and the railroad where I wanted them.

Another view of the new neighborhood (To the right, on the far side of the station)

...to the left of the station.

Something I neglected to show in a previous post. I absolutely refuse to make junctions that is more than four way junctions. (Not counting one way roads going out of the junction, with another one going in. In such cases I don't mind.) I also hate making dead ends, but in this case, I judged it to be the lesser of two evils. Fortunately, CSL is the most awesome city builder ever produced, because I could gloss over this ugliness by joining the dead end road to the junction with pedestrian roads. It's really a satisfying solution to an otherwise ugly problem.

The neighborhood around the skew train station. I would never have thought this area would become so popular! Just look at all those upper class glass towers. I could hardly recognize this place when I first saw this.

Here is a nice view from the West, looking East. The Dam wall is 90 degrees to your right.

And finally, A look at our traditional vantage points:

The offices in my CDB is comming along nicely.

It's now quite tough to get the view from on top of the hill, as the elevated rail is spoiling the view from ground level.