wow, alota maxxis and maxis highways...... but it looks better than normal very maxis style influenced cities.

bben- Thank you, I tried to make sure some custom content was shown, considering the fact that I'm working with maxis highways for this part of the project.

Hello everyone, I've been playing MLB the Show today, when I realised I hadn't put out an update in a while. So I decided I would show and tell you all about the local baseball league around the Quad Cities.



Besides having two SLB teams and one SLB AAA team, in the region; the Quad Cities is also home to many local low level teams that make up what is known as Intercity League Baseball. This local league is very popular and many fans come out to the various ballparks around the region to watch local players, and possibly future Green Sox, and Beavers stars play. The league is an independent league with no affiliations to the SLB. The Intercity League teams are usually in the A-level range skill wise. Stadiums are usually small, seating about 10,000 to 15,000 people. Below are the teams and a little about them:



Team Logos

From Left to right: St. Frédéric Foreurs, New Chatham Crosscutters, Carson City K9s, Bel-Guarde Batters, White Water Whirl, Apple Grove Apple Sox, Waupaum Rattlers, Renior Riverhawks, Blue Mountain Bears, Siles Mountain Sting, Port Charlotte Jays, and the Kane River Cougars.

The Renior Riverhawks came into the league last year, and had immediate success. They had a record of 43-37 at the end of season and were the league leaders in home runs with 48. Two Riverhawks players found thier way to SLB AAA rosters, after being scouted by SLB scouts in town for a Green Sox game. The Riverhawks also got publicity at an international level when thier stadium was listed as one of the top ten stadiums in North America.

The other storied franchise in the league are the Crosscutters. Many thought they would be moved to the SLB having been in the ILB for 30 years now, but the move was never made after owner and manager Terry Edwards died of a brain hemorage in 2009. The Beavers jumped at the opportuninty to go to the SLB, leaving the Crosscutters in the dust. Without an owner, and a new SLB franchise just a couple blocks away the Crosscutters faced the possibility of folding. The franchise was saved when a local businessman bought the team last year and renovated the stadium. The Crosscutters continue to draw 12,000 fans into the New Chatham City Park.

more soon please comment

I love the updates mayorm!
I like the logos for all the teams being shown, it must have took a while to make them Great work

yoda87- Thank You, however I didn't make any of the logos, I just simply copied and pasted them into paint from google, logoserver, and a couple other logo sites.



Hello everyone, today we will continue with the ILB. Over the course of the Intercity League season, I'll be giving you scores standings and updates on each team. Today we take a look at the Intercity League Opening Day games.

Later today four teams will be squaring off against each other, we will take a look at where they will be playing.



First up we have the Kane River Cougars visiting the Blue Mountain Bears. The Bears are new to the league this year and are looking to start out on the right foot, The new High Hills Ballpark which has a seating capacity of 15,000, plenty of parking and can be used for both football and baseball, will be thier home. High Hills Ballpark will also be the home stadium for the Kennedy Richards High School football team in the winter. Kane River is looking to revenge last year's championship series loss, and get back into the ILB Championship.



The St. Frederic Foreurs will be visiting the Bel-Guarde Batters today. The game will take place at Industrial Park which seats 8,250 people. The Batters have made some changes over the offseason, after firing thier GM, they signed former Beavers player Barry Didicker as a free agent, Didicker drove in 13 home runs in 2009 before being injured. The Batters expect to be a fierce competitor also making some trades over the offseason. And St. Frederic marks thier tenth season in league with their game tonight, and hopes to carry their anniverssary season to the league championship. With great pitching the Foreurs have allowed the fewest runs in the entire league for the past two years.

stay tuned for more updates.

great stadiums, I love how you personalize them with your unique facts about them.

yoda87- Thank you, I try to think of clever names for each one, especially since I use them in different cities.



Well everyone I have exams coming up this week so I don't have time to make a full in depth update, so we will preview some more ILB matchups.



Today the ILB is in full swing with only two teams not playing today. We are going to take a look at two of these games. But for now lets focus on the Carson City K9s visiting the Renior Riverhawks. All 15,000 seats at Renior Riverside Park will be filled for the Riverhawks home opener. The Riverhawks came out strong this season taking two of three games in thier series with Port Charlotte this week, and hope to have another great series at home. The Riverhawks currently have the biggest win this season in the league, after defeating teh Jays 5-1 on Thursday night. And Carson City is playing thier first game of the season this year, and hope to make thier mark in the league. Last year first basemen Jimmy Talaevet was named league MVP. The K9s also are trying to avoid the bad start they had last year when they went 6-14 at the begining of the seasin last year.



The Siles Mountain Sting and the Apple Grove Apple Sox will square off at Betty Saxton Stadium in Apple Grove today. The Apple Sox enter a new era in thier history after the new owners changed the team name from the A's to the Apple Sox. Apple Grove has started out a little rocky with a 1-3 record and thier catcher going down with a leg injury, but they are looking to turn it around against their West Division rivals. Siles Mountain comes into this series after sweeping thier series with Waupaum. The Sting signed free agent Devon Kilger over the offseason and he has proved to be a success hitting a grand slam last night and a home run on Thursday.


stay tuned for more updates, I promise I'll get one out after exams

Great work on the baseball fields! It looks great!

great update, the stadiums look great

alota baseball

Samerton- Thank you, I'm glad scba has made them available on the STEX
yoda87- Thank you, I'm glad you like them
Skimbo- Yes, I agree with that. I'm happy to say I can get some regular updates out.



Today we're getting away from baseball, and we are going to take a look around the town of Siles Mountain. Located just to the west of Renior, Siles Mountain has slowly been changing into a more urban environment, and in 2009 the town passed a new zoning law to allow developers to start building skyscrapers for residential areas east of the Renior beltway.



A picture of the residential areas around Dearborn University

The city is also home to Dearborn University. The university was founded by General George Siles in 1874, since then the school has been a leader in their medical, business, and criminal justice schools. The school built the General George Centre in 2006 which has served as the home for the school's ice hockey, basketball, and figure skating programs. The school is surround by tall apartments because of location east of the beltway.


A typical residential neighborhood

Many typical suburban neighborhoods can still be found west of the beltway, but are slowly being re-zoned to allow taller residential buildings. Driving the growth of new urban residential is the industrial core. Siles Mountain is known for having a large high tech industrial area, in fact it is one of the largest in the metro area. These high tech industrial jobs are growing and many new residents are moving in from all over the Quad Cities and other cities from around the world.


High tech industries and warehouses make Siles Mountain an industrial leader

Siles Mountain is also home to the Siles Mountain Sting, who play in the Intercity League. The Sting have been a great entertainment source during the summer for residents who usually don't want to battle the traffic to get to Beavers or Green Sox games. The Sting play at Miner Memorial Field which is dedicated to all Miner Family who contributed a large amount of money toward the construction of the stadium.


Miner Memorial Filed is home to the Siles Mountain Sting

And finally a shot of city hall and the police station.

did you make that police station, I would really like to download it

yoda87- no I didn't make it, I don't have the talent, and I found it on the STEX, search city hall police station and it may come up.



Yesterday I was working on Renior, and I moved past an area in the city I haven't worked on in a while and noticed a very bad scene, a lot of abandonment, and buildings showing the no jobs symbol. I knew a lot of work needed to be done, so I set out to work on it. (Note for those of you who like realism, you will see zoning/ no job symbols.)

Here is what the area looked like before I worked on it:


Lots of abandonment


Many buildings not yet abandoned were being shown as having no jobs

First I dezoned the area and removed most of the roads and metro lines running through the area. I'm very glad I did so because the infrastructure was terrible, which I think is mostly responsible for the problems in the area.


The area without most roads and elevated rail lines

After rebuilding the road network and making some improvements to the new one, I then zoned the area, and added more blocks of comercial and high tech industrial areas.


The area after being zoned and the new road network

I'm proud to say that after doing all of this the area is looking much better showing no signs of having no jobs, or abandonment, and I'm happy to say that I was able to fix some RHW errors with this project.


The area being rebuilt with new high rise condos and apartments

Now I will leave you with a teaser for the update I was working on before doing all of this:

Yikes! That road layout looked terrible! I look forward to seeing the finished product

Outstanding update !
For sure this has been my favorite one so far.
A great analysis through both the written word and pics of solving
a city's issues. really to me, what the game is about

Thanks, Brian

Nice job. The area looks a whole lot better. I should try something like that on some of my own cities.

Great update!

Great job mayorm! however, one issue that might need to be addressed is the road layout you're using, but it looks great otherwise

K50- Yes it was awful, I literally don't know what I was thinking when I first built up the area.
bben- Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I agree with you, this is exactly what Simcity is about.
blakesterville- Thank you, it is much better, and whenevr you work on your cities you are doing the same thing.
Cheeseguy- Yes, I re routed roads in the area to help cut down the local commute times.



Sorry the teaser last time was sort of misleading, the suburbs around the mall are not quite polished enough to be shown off.

Anyway, I have been looking at a section of RHW that has been overcrowded for some time now. So I would like to show the work I've done on it.

I decided to take the simplest way to improve the highway since the highway is squeezed into a tight area. In fact I had to move the country club across the city to a new suburb. The easiest thing to do was to add another lane or two, so I added a third lane in each direction.


The transition from two to three lanes

I was able to cram in some exits however they are not as nice as the original two lane ones, most ussually only have either one offramp for one direction and an onramp for the other.


An example of the crazy exits

Now for some before and after shots:

Here is the exit for Waterford Rd. before:



and now the same exit after:



I was glad to redo this exit because the original road was way over capacity, and this gave me a chance to make into avenue. however to redo it I did have to move the country club.

And finally I found a clever way (if I say so myself) to get rid of the third lane, and add an exit where one never exisited previously.


The new exit, and end of the third lane

I think I'm going to continue the third lane past its current end because of the two lanes getting crowded further on. Other than that I have been seeing good results and traffic on the highway is moving fine. Although I might try to improve the exits a little more, any suggestions or critques would help.

Nice work on the interchange. It looks like it should have a higher capacity now. That's some very interesting work that you have there.

Nice upgrades! I definitely think that the Sims will be a lot happier now they have bigger highways.

blakesterville- Thank you, yes the higher capacity is a big help in cutting down congestion on that section of the highway.
samerton- Thank you, well I am happy with it, so I'm sure the residents of the Quad Cities are too.



The Quad Cities is booming right now, commercial jobs and high tech industrial jobs are growing all across the metro area. This growth in jobs has sparked another population boom, and in just a couple weeks the population has skyrocketed from 1.5 million to almost 2 million. This growth has caused areas around the metro are to become more urban as new zoning laws are passed allowing residential buildings to grow taller and taller, however suburban areas are also growing around the metro area, especially to the east. Apple Grove has seen many new neighborhoods pop up, and the new suburbs of Apple Hill and Hielman Forest of have sprung up recently. Today we will look at some of these areas.


Picture of Renior Pavillion Mall

First up is the new area of Renior Greens, this new area has many suburban neighborhoods and some low rise apartments. The area is named after the new country club built in the area, which allows many people in the community to join for a discounted price. The area is also home to Renior Pavillion Mall which is home to over 250 stores, 15 resturants, and 1 movie theatre. The area is also served by QCTA Bus and Amtrak commuter rail service. To the south of the area is the new extension of Highway 420.

Next we will take a look at Apple Hill. Apple Hill is a new suburban community located east of the metro area, the community is fairly new, and has recently grown from having a popluation of 100, to a population of 2,500 people. The area is served by QCTA Bus Service, and the Ralph Pondrey Parkway. The area is home to a new shopping plaza, and is home to one of two Food Lion Supermarkets in the metro area.


A suburban neighborhood in Apple Hill


Apple Plaza is a new shopping plaza with a new Food Lion supermarket


The Ralph Pondrey Parkway quick transportation to Apple Hill

Hielman Forest is another new community home to about 3,000 people. The community is also a green community and is built around the protected Hielman Forest for which the town is named after. The town is served by QCTA's Forest Loop which has 4 stations and is the turn around point for trains on the Port Charlotte Corridor.


A small clean industrial area in Hielman Forest


Downtown Hielman Forest


The Forest Loop winds its way through some neighborhoods


The Blue Mountain Bears stadium is also located within Hielman Forest city limits

I will have a special update soon when the region hits the 2 million mark for population.
Please comment/ Critique

great update Mayorm! Your suburbs look so realistic and the baseball stadium for the Blue Mountain Bears has really been built around

Nice work! It looks quite realistic, has nice neighborhoods, a good use of space, and a midwestern-like style. (I live in Indianapolis for quite some time and loved it up there.)

yoda87- Thank you, I tried to leave more space and strategically place commercial areas for better, more plausible suburbs.
blakesterville- Thank you, I did take a look at midwestern suburbs for inspiration, which wasn't hard considering I live in the midwest But yes I did notice space is left within the suburbs.

Here is a news article for you to read:

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Today we are going to preview two of tonights ILB games while I work on the next update.



The New Chatham Crosscutters will be visiting the Blue Mountain Bears tonight for the third game of thier series. The Crosscutters look to sweep the Bears after winning by a score of 10-9 in 13 innings last night after a walk off home run by New Chatham center feilder Julius Gregory. Blue Mountain will be making some lineup changes from last night since they are without thier second baseman Chris Santana out with a pulled hamstring, as well as also going with left handed pitcher Lewis Calval instead of Jeff Lowert.



Also the Renior Riverhawks will open thier 6 game homestand against White Water tonight. This is the first series between the two teams since late April when White Water swept the Riverhawks. The Riverhawks lead the league in hits with two players leading the league in home runs. Tyler Adams with 18 and Rolf Federman with 16, Federman also leads the league in RBIs with 50 thus far and provided the winning run for the West Division All-Stars. White Water comes into this series struggleing at the bottom of the league, with a record of 15-25. The Whirl have only managed to scrape across 10 runs in their last 12 games, and have stranded 26 baserunners at the same time.

Nice!