Wildernis

[Hannodb]

BACKGROUND
When C:SL first came out, I journaled one of my very first cities here, called "Drievallestad". You can actually still find it by googling its name. Now that the sun is setting on C:SL, and we're all anticipating C:SL 2, I thought I'd journal my last, heavily modded C:SL 1 game. Over the years I've learned so much from so many great content creators, and I'm really proud of this city.

What I've learned is that you shouldn't be starting your city with any kind of grand plan and preconceived ideas. Real cities isn't build in one day and neither should yours be. Building your city should be a project over many months. Every day adding just a little bit here and there, while allowing your mind time to come up with new and novel ideas.

So, with this game, I've numbered my saves every time I added something new. This now allows me to go back to the beginning, and journal how my city evolved over time.

PS. Please do not be shy to comment on this thread. I'd love to hear your feedback.

CHAPTER 1

This map reminded me of a small village of South Africa's southern coast in the Western Cape called "Wildernis" With the lovely beaches, the lagoon, the lush forests and the mountains in the background, I could not resist giving it the same name.

The beginning of a city is always awkward for me. Especially being forced to deal with a 6 lane highway in a tiny village. Most attempts at starting a city failed for me. But then there is also the pressure of making your town unique, always second guessing your initial moves. Is this really the best most interesting approach? Creativity seems to be at a premium when starting a city, but in this case, I was quite pleased with my start. For starters, not having to connect directly to the highway, but rather having a 2 lane highway to connect with helped a lot.

I had to start the town purchasing a new tile immediately, because I wanted my town to be focused on the lagoon, rather than the ocean, and there was a lovely little bay that could serve as a good fishing harbor. And since there is a forest close by, I though this would make for an ideal secondary industry. I plopped down some dirt roads that would one day become the access roads to a thriving timber industry.

Every town start for a reason for its existence, and this one began as a sleepy fishing town, and a small industrial area supporting it. The harbor separates the industries from the residential area. The X axis of the Residential roads follow the shoreline, while 3 Y axis roads span in a roughly 45 degree angle outwards setting the tone for expansion. The small hill in the foreground will be a landmark feature for this tiny community, so it is left undeveloped as a green area. On the hills in the back ground, a dirt road was laid out in anticipation of a forestry industry that was planned for that area.

A top down view gives a better perspective.

The entrance to the town is nothing spectacular. Just an ordinary road, with a T junction on the 2 lane highway that is still leading nowhere.

You drive through a valley in the hills and then straight into the harbout of the small town. The Church building in the right dominate the rural skyline. The town has a nice view over the lagoon, and the mountains in the distance.

If you are a fisherman in this town, this is what you would see as you sail out of the harbor, looking back at your home town. A tiny village, with only the harbor, the familiar hill and the church tower as its distinctive features. Then there is a lovely waterfront as well, with commercial right next to the water where citizens can relax.

The view from the ocean. Nothing much to see here yet, as it is still well outside the town limits.

I thought I was done with this post, but then I thought these two views from the mountains will help with giving additional context of the surroundings:

This is really an inspirational map! I tried to find out what the name of the map is. If anyone knows how one can retrospectively see the map name of a saved game, please let me know.

 

[Hannodb]

CHAPTER 2

It seems that right off the bat, I needed room to expand. I bought several tiles as to not restrict the possibilities of my town:

Lets dive in an see what changed from last time.

The first thing we notice is that the residential area more than doubled. It now completely encircle Cooper Hill. Inland, the residential area expanded all the way to the uncompleted highway. This is where questions begin to be asked: How should the town integrate with the existing development in the area? And ofcause, with the coast coming closer, one has to consider how to best utilize that area, not allowing the suburban sprawl continue indefinitely.

Zooming in closer,we see Cooper hill was turned into a nature reserve. Now citizens can safely climb to the top and spend the night.

Who wouldn't want to pay for such a majestic view over the town?

Another development of note is the inland shopping district. With the residential area expanding so far from the original town, you don't want to go all the way to the waterfront for your shopping needs.

Also, I'm trying to keep my residential areas off the hills in the background, because this is where the forrestry industry needs to go. That dirt road is a useful reminder for me.

The town is growing larger, so the city council approved the conversion of existing roads into a 4 lane main road. It provides easy access throughout the entire town.

With the development of Mainstreet, you can now quickly and easily get anywhere in town! And it has some wonderful views along the way as well.

Speaking of industry, that didn't stand still either. A second row of blocks were added to the industry. Something I failed to mention was the water treatment plant. Notice how its next to the shoreline. These facilities needs to be as low as possible as sewage run down hill, so next to the waterline is a close as you can get. And no one will mind with it being right next to industry anyway. The city also already requires a second powerplant.

As you can see, the town is now really getting close to the coastline. With such an inviting beach, the city council need to start considering the opportunities this present. You can't waste it with unchecked suburban sprawl.

Another development to point out is the growing waterfront. It now goes all the way around Cooper hill.

It's a really nice promenade with a lovely view over the lagoon and the mountains in the distance.

Everything isn't just smooth sailing, however. Expansion brings oppertunities, but also challenges. The simple intersection of the uncompleted 2 way highway with the national highway just wasn't good enough anymore: It caused serious traffic problems and so the town council had to dig deep in its coffers to redevelop the interchange is something that runs more smoothly.

However, more works needs to be done, as the town is creating an insane amount of traffic on the national highway. Not much that can be done about this now, however, as it still falls outside the jurisdiction of the Wildernis town council.

 

[Hannodb]

CHAPTER 3

And so it happened. I experienced a Mayor's block. I had no idea how to expand my city further. One of my weaknesses is that I tend to stick to one city and expand it like a blob. But I've noticed in one game that you can do so much more and have so much better traffic infrastructure when you have a bunch of smaller towns growing toward one another instead. Its so much easier to anticipate the problems while you still have the room to add infrastructure before urban sprawl devours it all. However, this doesn't come naturally to me, I need to make an active decision to do so. So, since I didn't know what else to do, I thought this would be a good time to create a sperate town: Sterling square.

Sterling Square is not a big place. It's basically just a little holiday village for the people of Wildernis, to break away from the hustle and bustle and just relax for a while.

There is quite a lot to do at the beach. There is a marina and a pier restaurant. Then, I found this absolutely wonderful beach asset that makes your beaches come alive. People park next to the beach, there are umbrellas, and people walk in and out of the water. Best beach asset out there! And I also found that wonderful waterslide in the background. Ofcause, the road next to the beach is lined with commercial, to really give that holiday vibe.

Behind the beach, you get the village center. A lovely fountain makes the town square an appealing place to hang out, and next to the town square, the local church. Next to the church is the commercial zones completing the town center. All of this is in the lowest bit of the town, so almost every house has a view over the town center.

Here, we see the residential areas overlooking the town center. The slope is quite steep, so that was turned into a large park, rather than attempting to develop it. At this stage, its actually just a green promanade.

Moving on, here you see uptown. Brown street is the entrance to the town. It takes you directly into town, past the beach and then meander up the hill to the residential area.

Its quite a view from up here!

Thanks to the park, most houses on the hill have access to this view.

And that's Sterling Square. Conveniently close to Wilderness, which is visible in the back ground. But all is not well in paradise. Look at all that traffic on Brown street entering the town.

Here is a closer look at Brown street at the entrance of the town. The traffic might look mild here, but....

Just look at where Brown street begin on the highway. I already had to create a slip way to improve traffic between Wildernis and Sterling Square. (And ofcause, that is an excuse to play with the road marking tool. I love playing with the road marking tool. Of all the mods I'm going to miss in Cities:Skylines 2, I think this one I will miss the most. It seems that intersection road markings will now be procedurally generated, so I'm not sure if there's going to be any room for this mod anymore. And its a really shame, because the road markings plays a big role to make your city feel closer to home. It's a real powerful tool.)

We see the traffic is also picking up on the entrance road to Wildernis.

However, the real traffic mess is on the highways outside the municipal boundaries. Things are getting really bad out here, but on the other hand, the narrow highways into town makes that a provincial problem, while keeping traffic in the town itself manageable.

In Wilderness itself, not much has changed. I notice I needed a third powerplant, and a second water purification plant was added.

And then there are these road markings on Main street, because why not? (Did I mention I enjoyed customizing intersection road markings? )

That is the end of this chapter. In case you're wondering, I have 26 saved games, so this journal has a lot of catching up to do!

 

[Hannodb]

CHAPTER 4

The time for the council to take drastic measures has arrived. The traffic at the town entrances were horrible, and it was time to do something about it. The access roads of Wildernis and Sterling square was rebuild into one continuous avenue called Aspin Dixon avenue. Wilderness itself also expanded.

Brown street - now Aspen Dixon street in Sterling Square. Here we see the start of the avenue.

The avenue no longer directly connects to the highway. Instead a bridge was build for it to go straight through under the highway. The old access roads to Wildernis and Sterling Square are now slipway roads connection the highway and the avenue. This had a remarkable improvement on traffic: People moving from Wildernis to Sterling Square no longer have to turn on and off the highway, but simply drive straight through.

The avenue runs all the way to the harbor, terminating in Main street.

The uncompleted highway was also redeveloped to run more neatly next to the suburban area. Main street was extended to connect with the highway to allow yet another access point and dilute traffic

As was mentioned in the beginning, Rome wasn't build in one day. And over time, plans change. The need for more residential cause the suburban sprawl to enter into the area designated for the forest industry. Lets see what was added:

Some existing houses was expropriated to expand the commercial district. Not to be out done by its smaller neighbour, Wilderness also added a town square with _four_ fountains. Take that, Sterling Square.

A new entrance was also added to Aspin Dixon Avenue so that the people in the new neighborhood does not have to drive all the way down to the harbor to leave town. Notice how the entire town is easily accessible from this entrance: Ashton road runs straight through to the other side of town. And the first junction off Ashton road is Winston street that will take you straight to the commercial center of the town, right past the town square. Ofcause, there is more than enough sporting amenities available to make Wildernis a pleasant place to live.

Hunter street, one of the original streets that fanned out from the harbor, is now also becoming an an increasingly important street, connecting the new residential areas directly with Main street, which in turn takes them to the industiral area. The little slip way at the end of Hunter street is probably not really necesery, but it does add a nice touch.

Mean while, in the industrial area, the town council finally invested in a decent new powerplant to keep up with demand. (That large building with the red and white stacks) It produces about 120MW, rather than the 40 MW of the smaller stations. This will keep us well supplied for a long time.

Lastly, I provide this overview of Wilderness for easy comparison, keeping track with the evolution of the town.

 

[Hannodb]

CHAPTER 5

Chapter 5 and 6 are actually 2 parts of the some development.

A new City council was elected, and they decided to pull out all the stops. There was an amazing beach nearby with lots of potential for the town, and it was time to fast tracked development and put Wildernis on the map.

A grid was layed out, and high density zones was layed out in anticipation of the high demand this area would attract. Another swimming beach was sanctioned.

Grids can become very boring if you're not careful, so I like to smash grids in different angles into one another and see what shenanigans ensures. The council decided to go with a relatively small grid size: 8x8. This ofcause increases the risk of grid lock, so to mitigate the risk, all the roads are one way. That is now except for the 4 lane Campbell street that runs next to the beach, and Florence street that connects Campbell street with the other side of the grid.

The grid is not completed yet. once done, it will connect the suburban sprawl with the grid. Some minor redevelopment was needed to help with the integration of the grid.

Another major development was the upgrade of Main Street. It was widened into an avenue, lined with commercial zoning.

The clumsy, temporary connection between Main Street and the highway was also redeveloped. Some houses had to be dispossessed to allow for this smooth curve.

It was decided that the unfinished highway will terminate in Main Street. In order to spread traffic a bit more and reduce the pressure on the junction with Main Street, an additional entrance and exist was added to the high density grid. (Two roads, as both are one way) The council decided against adding an early entrance to the suburban side, for two reason: To avoid through traffic in the suburbs, and to encourage people who go to this area to use the Aspin Dixon avenue instead. This should help spreading traffic out a bit.

Finally, Mainstreet was extended across the mouth of the lagoon in anticipation of further development later on. A key wall was also added to protect the city against erosion in the mouth of the lagoon.

It does look like the traffic is evenly split between the highway (Now called Woodland road) and Aspin Dixon Avenue. However....

Traffic outside the city is becoming a major problem.

I'll conclude with this lovely panorama over Wilderness. In the distance, you can see the hill that was declared a nature reserve, and on the right, the high density development is clearly visible.

 

[Hannodb]

CHAPTER 6

This is more like part 2 of the previous chapter. The high density area was expanded, and the loose ends of the previous chapter was tidied up.

To get a better view on what was changed, here is a closeup of the high density area. There is much to tell, and I'm not sure where to begin, so lets begin from one side:

The beach have become a really popular tourist attraction. On your right, you see new tourist hotels in an antique style.

Moving along with Campbell street, we see the main beach is quite popular. Lots of shops lining Campbell street to really complete the touristy vibe.

The peninsula splitting the two beaches was developed into the main tourist attraction. An antique village of tourist hotels and leisure facilities, and a mall. Lots of palm trees lining the narrow roads, and a pedestrian walkway that can take you into town without the need for vehicles.

Here is another view of Campbell road with the new hotels and beach, and then there is Florence road connecting with it and crossing main street all the way to the island on the other side, opening up development opportunities there as well

Woodland road, that used to be the uncompleted highway, was redeveloped yet again. The council decided to sink this busy road and line it with trees and shrubs. This way, the heavy traffic on this road does not affect the sleepy suburban area to the right. It also allowed me to lower the bridge on the left, as the access roads are now below ground level.

I'm not great with detailing, but here and there I've added some green space in awkward corners of the high density city, to give it a little character. This park is just before Florence street ends in Campbell street.

Another green corner where the angle is to sharp for developement.

On the other side of Mainstreet, we find the office district. The suburban freestyle roads gracefully merge into the grid. The nature reserve hill is to the right.

Then, another great redevelopment, is Hunter street, now renamed Ocean side street. It's been upgraded to a four lane road. The reason being.....

...there was a need to create another suburban connection with the high density area, to elevate some of the pressure from main street, and also not interfering with the already busy traffic on Woodlands avenue. The only trouble is, the one way way roads on the opposite side of ocean view drive was the wrong way around, so I had
to create this fly over to make it work. Ocean side road goes all the way into the tourist village, and then come backs to reconnect with itself. In between, you have the pedestrian walkway for easy walkable access throughout the city.

Here is the flyover from closer by. Man, I love the mods that allow us to seamlessly split a road like this, and then also make it pretty with road markings.

Here is a closer view of the pedestrian road linking the suburban area with the tourist town.

Speaking of which, the town square also got a face lift. The shops around the square is now high densirty, and the shopping district itself was expanded to now also include Ocean side drive.

Our industry is not expanding much, but a trained eye will notice that another 120MW power plant was needed. The sewage treatment plants are expanding, and we now also have a garbage processing facility, that allows us to better manage garbage collection throughout the city.

It was also time to start adding public transit. With bus lanes connecting the entire city from the tourist town in the right, to deep in the industry district in the left, it should be easy for citizens to find their way around the city.

I leave you with this panorama of my growing city. No longer the sleepy fishing village it used to be, the people of Wilderness can be proud to have their city now finally placed on the map.

 

[Hannodb]

CHAPTER 7

This is going to be a short one, I'm afraid. It seems that the only change here was to round off the high density zones towards the entrance of the City next to Woodlands Avenue. In this corner, a stadium was placed near Woodlands avenue for easy access. A couple of city services was placed here, and then to elevate congested traffic further down Woodlands Avenue, a new entrance into the high density area was created.

Now people can seamlessly enter and exit the city from here without any hassle.

 

[Hannodb]

CHAPTER 8

The council's plans to massively expand the town into a city has paid off, and allowed it to invest is some much needed infrastructure improvement projects.

The first improvement was to turn the City entrance into a double carriage highway. Also the intersection between the Highway and Aspin Dixon Avenue also needed an upgrade. The original intersection was still the leftovers of the two T junctions to Wildernis and Sterling Square that was no longer fit for purpose.

In Chapter 2 there's a picture of what this intersection used to look like. No slipways, causing a massive traffic jam all the way to the edge of the map. Now, there is none of that. Traffic is slowly clearing up.

A new Service interchange was created near the industrial area, so that industrial traffic no longer has to drive the massive detour through the residential areas. Speaking of industrial area....

Deposits of iron ore was discovered, and now a mining industry is providing Wildernis with an additional economic injection.

The ore is taken directly to the industrial area, where massive specialized industries has popped up to take advantage of the mining operations.

The area left of the harbour was also redeveloped. The main street running past the harbour now continues directly into the waterfront road so traffic can more more smoothly around town. In case its difficult to notice what changed.....

Red is how the mainstreet used to go, blue is the new direction of the main street leading to industry. The resulting little triangle next to the harbor provides room for some light industry.

Another sorely needed improvement was where Woodland Road (Now Walnut Boulevard) terminated into Mainstreet (Now Lafayette Avenue) In order to improve traffic flow, Lafayette Avenue was sunk to reduce the number intersections near this important junction. Florence Street no longer crosses Lafayette Avenue, but rather bridges over it.

Same with Windston street on the other side of Walnut Boulevard. It now splits into Amity Street, providing the low residential areas easy access to the office district.

The two streets then recombine again on the other side of the office area, to then meander nest to the coastline of the lagoon.

Lafayette Avenue was extended beyond the bridge over the lagoon mouth to encourage further development.

All and all, here is a map of all the main roads of Wilderness. There are two main entrances:
Aspen Dixon Avenue above, and Walnut Boulevard below.
Connecting the two through the city, is Lafayette Avenue running from top to bottom. The colored lines indicate narrow 4 lane roads that serves as main arteries through the city.
Red is Greenaway Street, connecting the Industry area to the main shopping district.
Blue is Windston Street, running throughout the enire city. There is a saying in Wildernis that all streets lead to Windston street. If you're lost, just drive on until you find it, and you'll be on your way.
Yellow is Oceanside Avenue, connecting the harbour with the main tourist town on the otherside of the city
Purple is Florence street, that will be the connection to the development on the island,
Green is Beach Avenue, also a popular way for tourists.
Pink is Harris street, connecting the high density residential with the town exist.

Then there are also some new low density residential expansion, The low density residential expanded now along the entire foot of the hills. This complicates further development in this direction.

Another suburb was laid out on the other side of Aspen Dixon Avenue. This neighborhood has the school's out policy to provide some additional housing for my industries, as I'm struggling to generate industrial demand. Also, the connection of Prospect street with Aspen Dixon Avenue was demolished in favor of Greenaway street, that provides a more direct route to both the industries and the shopping district.

Finally, I thought I'd close with a view ground level views. Here are the four majestic fountains on the town square in the shopping district.

The view of the city from the nature reserve.

And from the nature reserve over the harbor.

Masson Street that becomes Beach street. This is near the town exist. We're lucky, there is a game on at the stadium.

Walnut Boulevard. With trees and shrubs arround you, you can hardly tell you're driving into the heart of a city.

The split of Windston street into the office district. This is quite a landmark entrance. The City Hospital is visible in the background.