[pierreh]

This is my last post in this City Journal.

First and for the record, the total population of the region is now higher than 19 Mio Sims :

All cities have continued to grow. One city (Marlande) has shown episodes of regression with some abandonment of residences. I traced it to saturated means of transportation, and applied remedial measures, after which the city resumed a slow rythm of growth.

Reaching 20 Mio Sims in the region would not be difficult, given that a good half of the 15 cities involved have room for further zonal expansion. However this is no longer a goal of mine.

I set out to exercise regional playing, fully aware of the limitations of that form of playing because of its insufficiently developed functionality. The shortcomings of regional playing have become constantly more evident with the increase in population of the various cities. In particular, inaccurate and/or improper handling of inter-city flows by the traffic simulator, reported in earlier posts, has been a source of problems.

The large, probably abnormal, amount of inter-city traffic has obliged me to resort to extreme measures, including implementing way too many subway links. Also, enormous traffic on some ‘corridors’ in cities also meant applying unrealistic measures to contain it. It has worked until now, but containing that traffic has ceased to be interesting. (It has also come to my attention that using subways in the game is considered by some people to be a form of cheating ; I think that this opinion is a load of horse manure, nevertheless it does play a part in my decision to stop).

Therefore the two clusters in the region will not be further developed. I may play one of the cities occasionally, but the exercise as a whole is terminated. My next project will be a self-contained city, without any regional connections, in which I’ll try out some techniques that I did not use in the two existing clusters. That new city will be in the same region because it still has a number of interesting city tiles. There will be no city journal for that new project.

Thanks to those who followed this city journal, and farewell.