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Hello there. Been a bit, huh? Well, we're back. The patches after the release of the last DLC have ceased, and there is no longer a torrent of mod updates. Also I have found my muse to continue. So everything's coming up Milhouse!
Unfortunately, we have to start a fresh game. Bailville was lost to mod updates. Turns out one of the mods I was happily using created a save dependency. And then the creator went and declared the mod to be end of life and told people to use something else, because that happens a lot in Cities: Skylines. So here we are, having to start over again. Because this is scaled down a lot, let me just zoom and enhance...
We're playing on the Windblown Coast map, which is one of only a small handful of desert maps in the game. Naturally this place is "tropical" which means its temperatures are even higher than Bailville's used to be.
Loading is nice and smooth for once. This game is hilariously unoptimized, and I'm sure stuffing dozens of mods on top is not helping matters any. There's no need for a game from 2015 to be using over 20GB of RAM. Counting the garbage that loading throws into Standby Memory, the game was actually "using" over 34GB total!
Anyway, this update is going to be largely out of character. I have a narrative reason for the restart, but I'm really only interested in getting the city quickly back to where it was.
In general, resources are abundant and everywhere. Appropriately enough, fertile land and forestry assets are more scarce here in the literal desert, but there are a few oases. Also we can just make forestry resources by mass planting trees. But judging by the sheer hilarious amount of oil on the map, this place is going to make us so fucking rich. The mountains have rich ore deposits, but those are trickier to get at as you might expect.
Have some mood music while we poke around and look at the map.
The view from the road into town is pretty bleak. Miles and miles of empty desert and the distant peek of the bay on the horizon.
Farther down the coast, there's a pretty fertile oasis and then more empty miles of dunes. It may not look like much from so high up in the air, but...
This lighthouse wasn't even visible from how high up we were, and we all know how much taller lighthouses are than people...
The far eastern side of the map, on the other side of the mountain range, is even more empty desert. The land is decently flat, only a few dune ridges here and there.
If you couldn't tell from earlier updates, I am a huge fan of scenery porn.
The map also has some cute unique features, ones I am eager to build on. I'm sure you all will be just as eager to exploit them as I am.
Fish shaped islands!
And one island I've already dubbed Fishbone Reef. They're not big enough for large scale development. But for some cute tourism attractions, or high dollar houses, they're perfect.
This big island is ripe for some tourism attractions, buuut...
It's rich in oil.
So are the outlying barrier islands.
Although the oil and ore deposits just north of the city limits will be a lot easier to reach.
Building starts much in the same way. One way roads in and out of town...
A main drag down the center of the tile...
Using this handy little doohickey, we can turn on and off a bunch of things. Most pertinent here are Contour Lines (Option F)
Like I said, the land is generally flat, but it's also sloping downhill toward the ocean. Knowing exactly where the land slopes will be such a big help in the future.
Water structures go in. And here we can see more of that gentle sloping going on. Also I've used the 81 Tiles Mod to change a few options regarding power and water transmission. Namely...
Power networks are transmitted by roads, which we can easily hand wave/RP away as "the power cables are buried under the road." And water transmission is still automatic, but I'm willing to declare that water pipes are automatically laid beneath roads as well. Makes sense, right?
Speaking of power... We can see some dark colors on the screen here. So this low-lying shore-side area is an ideal spot for wind farms. 8MW is, I'm pretty sure, the maximum they can generate. So we'll be doing this city entirely off clean energy.
Five wind farms are over twice as expensive as coal power, but we don't need to import fossil fuels. The energy is 100% clean, readily available, and looks damn nice as part of a skyline.
Moving on, cities live and die by the grid. I'm still a fan of this 11x20 grid. The rectangular blocks look damn attractive. Like I discussed in a previous update, I'll try and do my best to give each different neighborhood a different, distinct, grid shape. I want the shape to be easily drawable and repeatable, but there's no reason we can't have Old Town with rectangle grids, while Dune City (for example) uses a large square broken up by angular smaller streets.
Industry goes a little closer to the city entrance and exit, to give the trucks less of a trip to the highway.
One of my mods adds this little pedestrian road with zoning.
So the town's citizens can easily walk from home to work and back again. I am absolutely going to line this path with benches and palms as soon as I get access to those. Anyway, let's fix my zoning.
This little icon is "new" with the patch from back in late May. It's the vanilla toggle zoning tool. It has four states. This first state is "zones on both sides of the road."
This is "zones on the left side of the road" as the picture implies. It's opposite is "zones on the right"
Finally the stick means "no zones on either side of the road" which is the option I want here.
Now all the houses will develop on the long inner streets instead of along the shorter access roads. Just like the mod tool, this also disables building anything on the streets you mark as "no zoning." So be aware!
Dear Bailville Planning Council,
It is I, your former mayor. I know I've been gone for the better part of six months after "resigning in disgrace," and I wanted to set the record straight regarding what really happened.
When I returned from the opening ceremonies at Hooterville's glass-top plaza, I found a man in a sharp black suit waiting in my office. He told me, among efflusive praise, that the Capital was pleased with the success I'd had with Bailville. But he was there to "offer" me an exciting opportunity overseeing a recently founded settlement in the arctic. I was confused, but thanked him for the opportunity. I also told him that I would prefer to stick with Bailville.
That was when he told me outright that I did not have a choice, and that someone else would be taking my place effective immediately. The Capital had received a disturbing report regarding corruption in my office from "several concerned citizens." When pressed, he was unable to name specific offenses, but that these were "very grave charges." That if I wanted to save face and not have my name dragged through the mud, I'd take the offer.
I'm not too proud to admit, I gave him a black eye, which caused him to leave in a huff. While trying to calm down and relax from that confrontation, I looked at the reports that had piled up on my desk from the past several days. While most were fairly standard reports regarding the budget and public policy, I also found a geology report I had asked some surveyors to conduct regarding the large hill across the Desire Path.
Gold. Gold had been discovered beneath the mountain. And before even I had heard of it, someone had told the Capital. I surmised that's why I was being forced out of my own city. Someone in the state government wanted access to those gold reserves for themselves and came up with some trumped up corruption charges.
Unfortunately, even with that knowledge, I couldn't stop what came next. I'm sure you all remember the day the state police marched in and handcuffed me in my office. Once I was out of jail, I threatened to go public with the gold discovery. Ogdenville offered a deal where they would find me a small out of the way parcel of land to develop a city in. In exchange, I'd have to publicly take the fall for the corruption charges. That was the same deal as before, but with even worse terms. So I quit instead.
I know how it looked. And by quitting, I lost my ability to defend myself from the charges and accusations. I still have the newspapers. "Corruption and bribery scandal". "Mayor resigns in shame". I didn't realize until it was too late that there was actual corruption in my office, and they pinned me as the fall guy.
I'm now part of the private sector. I was hired by a fairly large tech company to develop a town for their workers and their families way out west. While part of me doesn't relish the idea of recreating the company towns of old, the pay is too good to pass up. In addition, I get whatever resources I need for the city. In exchange, they get all the profits. I also made sure to cover my ass, because I only report directly to the CEO. I am, in no way, beholden to the Board of Directors, other executives, or petty middle managers with ambitions.
The town hasn't been without its challenges. For starters, the location is in an actual desert. I remember commiserating with most of you all about how humid it was in Bailville. I swear the dry heat is worse. And the sand. Don't get me started on the sand. It's coarse, and rough, and irritating, and it gets everywhere.
On the upside, this town is something of an optics experiment for the company. They want to be as clean as possible. There's mandatory recycling programs, clean energy initiatives, and so much more.
So I would like to close out this letter by officially inviting you all to come and visit. While I doubt I will be able to convince most of you to up and move in, it would be nice to see some familiar faces in this place so far away.
Yours,
Mayor of Shady Sands
And that's where we stand as of now. The city has reached the first population threshold, it has recycling, it has a clinic, and it has its elementary school.
I really like that our pedestrian path with zones is already getting foot traffic. Though I did have to go in and block everything but emergency vehicles from using it. Some assholes were driving on it as a shortcut.
As such. Naturally it was some asshole in a sports car.
Anyway, see you all next time! We'll get this LP back on track one way or another!