Nicaumenee

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Nicaumenee - A pearl on Lake Michigan

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Hey, @Inan, just some comments on your truly fair review: You're right, the Greek church looks incompatible. But we don't have that many different churches in the game, especially not smaller ones, and I did not want to use the big ones all the time (like St. Paul's Cathedral, that would have been out of place). So I had to go for a compromise there.

And I think you mean some of the elites' mansions in the suburbs that look out of place, not? Once again, that was a necessary compromise -.-

Concerning the parks, I have to say that I went for the more realistic approach there. You know me, you know how I love to build nice gardens and parks; but when I looked at the cities like Milwaukee, or Madison, I did not find pretty gardens anywhere near the downtown area :/ The closest you get is in Madison, where you have the Olbrich Botanical Garden about two kilometres away. The same holds true for other smaller cities in the area. I think Chicago with its Grant Park is quite the exception here. From what I read, I think that the areas close to the lakefront are oftentimes also impacted by floodings or storms, so I think that most cities just use boring greenery as flood protection areas along their shorelines. And sometimes, it just does not make sense to build a nice park.

Also, you did a fantastic update for Ohpo, it really "rocks"

 

kipate updated Nicaumenee with a new update entry:

Inner suburbs

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kipate updated Nicaumenee with a new update entry:

Downtown and Bridgend

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kipate updated Nicaumenee with a new update entry:

Southern Lakeside - famous hotels and mansions

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Hey, @Project_Oz I really appreciate that you took your time for this detailed review! I think that most of your points are fair and well-balanced. I will try to explain some of the ideas behind the evolution of the city, maybe that clarifies most of your confusions

So first and foremost, keep in mind that my main objective has been to give a realistic image of a mid-sized American city with about 400,000 inhabitants. A city that grew over time, and that did not lose a high percentage of its population due to people moving into the suburbs. Given this objective, the first dilemma arose: I oftentimes had to decide between grandeur and pomp on the one side, and function-orientated design and fiscal austerity on the other side. This is part of the reason why some of the structures, as well as some of the park areas look rather boring. Yes, Millennium Park in Chicago looks awesome, but it has cost the city a fortune (here a link to the financial situation concerning the park). In turn, this has lead to a lack of funding for other important municipal services, worsening the already strained financial conditions of the city and the state. So yes, I would have loved to create more playful gardens throughout the city, and I would have loved to design pompous transportation hubs (as in Chicago, or New York City), but this would simply not have reflected the reality of most American cities.

So, you're absolutely right, the Barren Hill BRT Hub looks quite function-centric. And some parts of the Downtown shorelines look quite boring. Maybe I will upgrade the hub in the future, but not that soon And you are right about the water purification plant as well. But have you seen the purification plants in Chicago, or Milwaukee? They look much worse than mine, I'd say

Let's go through your points

Yeah, the cemetery is not the nicest one. Maybe I will add some plants there. I had created some nice small graveyards elsewhere, though

Spoiler: Custom-made graveyard

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And no, the roads are not too wide for an American city. If that's what you are thinking, you need to update your image of the USA You may not like it, but it's totally realistic for American cities to have those wide roads even in the suburbs.

Spoiler: Real-life examples

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Also, I don't think that the roads in Barren Hill are too wide. I mean, the only 30m road running right through the disctrict's center has several medium-sized buildings nearby.

Spoiler: Barren Hill

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Once again, I think that just reflects the American way I collected some examples from some mid-sized Midwestern American cities.

Spoiler: Highways cutting through the suburbs

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First of all, it's not a forest It actually has some small natural paths, which, I admit, are hard to see.


You also have a restroom there. So it's truly not a forest And I did surely not run out of ideas there I get your argument. One would expect another park, another garden-like structure. And probably even some more residential houses instead of a park. My argument is the following: The current isolated position of the area on the island does not make it attractive for houses or offices to be built there, without first having to revamp the whole area.

You see that there is only nice connection to the existing street network (close to the parking lots), so I think that one would need to change the area before establishing some new real estate. Concerning the look of the park area: Well, I don't see a problem there. You have Stanley Park next to Downtown Vancouver, which _is_ a forest. You have lots of cities that have natural reserve areas adjacent to the downtown area, e.g. in Green Bay:
Once again, I get your point, one may expect something different. But that's just not always the case in reality

Yes, some images of Kent inspired me Have you used the Power Lines? I get your criticism, but it's just due to the way the mod is designed. It's a bridge, with pillars coming up every now and then. So you take this into account, which makes it sometimes impossible to place it in a really nice manner. I tried, trust me -.-

The railways at the edge of Sherman Park were built this way in full intent Have a look:

The lefternmost railways stop just before the highway bridge. There is a service stop right before the bridge, which played a more important role before the demolition of the railroad network in the 1960s. Furtheremore, I narrowed the lines even further in front of the railroad bridge to create a 'pain point'. In the US, the railroads are mostly owned by the freight railroad companies, and they give their own trains a right-of-track over e.g. Amtrak trains also using the railways. As the modern freight trains have become longer and longer, this can lead to long waiting periods for passenger trains operated by other companies. Hence, as there are only two railways running below the railroad bridge, Amtrak trains may need to wait. And this may also influence plans to revive local commuter trains using those tracks Why would I want to have such a 'pain point' in my city? Well, to reflect on reality, of course. Have a look at the commuter lines operating in the US. Many commuter companies are suffering from these problems :/


Concerning the ports for pleasure boats: Well, there are two marinas for sailing yachts in Downtown, there is a lift for yachts. There is another large marina just outside Bridgend. I think that's sufficient. I mean, if you look at Milwaukee, for example, then you can see that there are mid-sized marinas that are located far outside the downtown area (where the rich people live ).


Thank you once again for your in-depth review And have a happy new year yourself as well!!!

 

Hmmh... I understand where you are coming from - if the city is vast enough, you gloss over the small roads, or barely notice them. But I have to object to parts of your criticism. I mean, in the end, once Nicaumenee is finished, you may not recognize every single small road any longer. You will rather gloss over it, as you do when you look at Google Maps. But it will take some time for me to gradually finish the rest. And it also depends on the perspective Also, as you may be right concerning other cities where half the map is covered by a vastly oversized airport, I did not put any megastructures onto the map so far. Yes, there will be a large marshalling yard, but it's nothing compared to an airport. And I also did not place some oversized harbour there. There will be a large bulk terminal, but there will not be any huge container terminal Furthermore, concerning the highway exist or interchanges in Nicaumenee - I think they are quite compact. Where I thought I would make sense, I made them wider.
And, on a side note, I find your general criticism concerning "players putting oversized megastructures on regular maps" a bit insincere, given that you yourself just lately placed a huge volcano, as well as a wide dam structure on one map And wasn't there a military basis as well? [Don't get me wrong though, every single structure you have shown looks fantastic! I love the volcano, and the dam is gorgeous ]

About the power lines - well, in the end, I can just demolish them and say they are running underground. I mean, when it comes to power lines, no mod will come close to reflecting reality. So all I can do here is give an impression. Furthermore, the mod is difficult to handle, especially when you want to place longer running lines. It mostly takes me 15 minutes and 3 trials to construct longer lines. And sometimes it's really impossible to build it where you want to. But I don't want to abstain from the lines, they are still central to the image of the suburbs.

Of course it would have looked better But not realistic concerning the way I imagined the traffic pouring into the downtown and harbour area

Well, about the transition between Downtown and Bridgend - there is simply no role model city that I could have looked at. There is no US city with its downtown located on a small island which is separated from the mainland only by an insignificant stretch of water. So I had to look at similar patterns - e.g. a creek separating downtown from the rest of the city on one side. Here you can see the situation in Cleveland. It's a bit similar, the road bridges are place quite high above the waters. Similar patterns can be found in Portland, Seattle, or Vancouver. And, to a smaller degree, even in Milwaukee. Given that any larger American city has interstates leading directly to the downtown area, I found it reasonable to place the interstates close to downtown, and to add complex exit structures there.


Edit: One thing that I personally dislike is the vast space that the southern bridge (with the bus bridge in between) takes away. But it was planned to look this ugly. I wanted to create a functional monstrosity there. And I actually like how realistically monstrous it looks, compared to what you can find in US cities But it was also initially planned to later changed it to a modest level, demolishing some of the overkill parts. But that plan was then put aside due to time constraints, and because such a revamp demands a lot of planning. But maybe I can get back to that

About the other point: If Downtown had not existed, Bridgend would surely not have looked like the way it does. It would have a harbour along the shoreline, and a whole warehouses row right next to said harbour. Furthermore, the street grid would look quite regular, compared to how it looks now. All the important structures that are placed in Downtown (bus terminal, central station, stadium, and so on) had instead to be placed in Bridgend, which would have changed Bridgend's morphology in a drastic, and probably negative manner. So I think that the apparent 'beauty' of Bridgend heavily relies on the existence of the Downtown area

That being said, I once again thank you for your reasonable arguments and your input! I meanwhile changed parts of the Downtown 'park' to make it look like a real park

Spoiler: New Park

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I did not do anything, I just used the Bus Mod by DrazicDesign

Thank you for your kind words! It really means a lot to me Actually, I did plan ahead a lot of the districts. But I have to admit that I started building the map in a rather discontinuous manner. I built a bit on the downtown island, then I worked on parts of the marshalling yard, added some highways. I bet you can comprehend that I built the structures once I was sure about their look from a local and global, as well as a societal perspective. So, for example, I built the southern parts of the harbour once I was sure how to connect it to the city's highways and freeways, and once I was further sure on the harbour itself could look like. What kind of goods could be stored where, how to place the railroads, and so on. And I took me a while to figure everything out from the local and the global perspective, and then even from the societal perspective.
To be more precise: On a local level, I had to figure out how to place e.g. the grain silos, how to actually construct the whole complex with its railways and so on. On a global level, I had to figure out e.g. how to connect the harbour to the city's road network, and vice versa (they rely on each other). You don't see everything yet on the images, but the harbour is actually quite well-connected to the interstate network, even though there is no direct access.

Spoiler: Sneaky Preview ;)

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From a societal perspective, I had to figure out if it made sense to place e.g. a grain silo there. Yes, Wisconsin is a grain exporter, but there are only a few harbours along the Great Lakes that actually export grain. And as a counterexample, a large container terminal would not have made any sense there; you simply don't have something like this along the Great Lakes. For you building in a fictional country, it may be easier to justify surprising structures. But setting up a new city and figuring out how the rest of the state/the nation would have changed or not changed was kind of hard

Yes, the mods by @Drazicdesign helped a lot, they are magical! Concerning the hospital: I would also liked it differently, but I don't think it would have been realistic if you have a single structure containing everything the hospital needs. I mean, if you look at today's clinics, they have all grown over time, including new facilities and the like. E.g. the university hospital at Madison, Wisconsin:

You clearly see how it developed around the medium-sized complex in the center. And the styles are also differing a bit. In the center, you have this function-centric complex, at the sides, you have e.g. the American Family Children's Hospital with its glassy facades at its sides.

Thank you once again! And concerning your Maglev line: I would make make it into a real update, otherwise people won't notice you added something to the CJ of South Point

 

kipate updated Nicaumenee with a new update entry:

Big Update

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kipate updated Nicaumenee with a new update entry:

New Photos & Culture and Entertainment Spots

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kipate updated Nicaumenee with a new update entry:

Full Map

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kipate updated Nicaumenee with a new update entry:

Last Update - Part 1

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