»SimCity 4
»Harrisburg PA
»Negishi
»Wataru
»Wuphons Reach
»Atashi
»Bayview
»Blue Bottle
»Blye
»Dartmoore
»Dee Five
»Diesto
»Doogiezop
»Eaton Gorge
»Faven
»Greenleaf
»Jenza
»Kebsun
»Kirkenes
»Montessa
»North Bend
»Oestrang
»Ollissary
»Orange Seven
»Ossia
»Oyster Bay
»Patrilii
»Reikishi
»River Bend
»Saotome
»Scelle
»Shinobu
»Slade Canyon
»Socksville
»South Bend
»Tulinick
»Weedzuck
»Westview
Wuphons Reach - River Bend
River Bend is located in the southeast corner of the region, and is connected to Slade Canyon (west) and Dartmoore (north). While not the first city that I started in the region, it is indeed the one that I plan on focusing on first (along with the rest of the river valley and some forays up into the mountains).Terrain Development
A very early version of this city tile, just after the initial setting of base altitudes and use of the Reconcile Edges tool.
Finished view of River Bend terrain prior to checking feasibility of road and rail connectors. The yellow lines are terrain level markings, turned on and off by Ctrl-Shift-C.
Close-up view of the river valley that connects to Slade Canyon.
First step is to use the terrain tools to make a level area around the middle of the mountain to connect both of the neighboring tiles. A channel was also dug into the side of the mountain in order to bring the rail down to the riverfront."
Pre-planning rails/roads
One of the first things that I do in a city tile is to create a temporary city so that I can layout the key rail lines and roads and fix any terrain issues before starting into the city for real. The goal isn't necessarily to completely fix the terrain, but only to determine what routes are possible and where large-scale terraforming is required. I then take a screenshot for reference (see below) and then use the Obliterate City command in order to clear out the terrain.
I wasn't completely happy with the first attempt at laying out the rail lines, plus I wanted to save the terrain changes that I found necessary while laying out the rail lines. I also tried out some bridges.
Starting the city to Apr '03
Starting the layout of River Bend wasn't actually too difficult since I went with a pretty standard starting layout. Laying out the rail lines and the bridge cost a few thousand simoleans, but gives me connections to the two city tiles next to me. After that, I took it slow, making sure zoned areas (I only zoned medium density) stayed even with demand. Taxes are up between 8.5% and 9.0% and growth is slow and steady. Middle of '03 and I have a balanced budget, about 37k left, and a population of 5,500. In fact, I was prompted that it was time to start the next city so that River Bend would have somewhere to ship its goods.
Trouble looms in Apr '03
The next few rounds of city building in River Bend have not gone as planned... I'm now running a $400-$650/mo deficit and there is only $20k in the bank. Adding the hospital may not have been the best choice (I was attempting to fix a strike at the clinic... finally gave in and demolished/rebuilt the clinic to break the strike). Then there is the traffic problems, wide-scale gridlock. I tried placing a few bus stops, but either I don't have enough of them, or they're not located in the proper spots. Worse is that the sims are pestering for a water treatment plant, which costs around $15k. I've gotta think about this and figure out what to do (pop is around 6,500 now).
Jun '04 - Will River Bend balance it's books?
The population is a heady 11,139, monthly expense are $3,094 but income is only $2,386. Dartmoore has half the population and produces income of $3,000 or so (and also runs a surplus). With only $14,000 left in the bank, the city has only 18-20 months before it goes bankrupt. Okay, time to triage the books and figure out where and how I can save $700-$1000 per month. Looking over the expenditures:- Power: I'm producing 8,200MWh, but only consuming 3,000MWh. However, I'm spending $800/month or $0.0976/MWh. Killing off the 11 wind power plants will drop my costs to $250 and capacity to 6,000MWh (at a rate of $0.0417).
- Health & Education: Currently, this line item is 55% of my expenses. Surely there is some room to cut costs here. I'm going to ditch the 2nd clinic, but leave the hospital. (Of course, shortly thereafter, the clinic workers went on strike so I had to rebuild the 2nd clinic in a better location and ended up ditching the hospital in order to balance the budget.)
Destruction
Once I chose to destroy Dartmoore, destroying and restarting here in River Bend made a good bit of sense as well. So here are two last screenshots before this city tile is reborn as South Bend.
