Enlarge Your Update By 2 Pictures Today!

Threw in a few shots that I thought were shit but I need to clear out my HD so here they are. Dunno if I posted any pictures of Ecorse...it's a new town to the south of Ostrop (look back at the region shot). The town was setup 1950-ish ORT and was primarily made up of natural born, middle class, white collar workers wishing to escape the hustle and bustle of the city (mostly the immigrants though) and get their own homes. In Ostrop housing is very limited and there aren't many good apartments that ordinary people can afford so they decided to start their own town a good distance from all the dirt and dust. Thye traveled south along Highway #3 (the highway that runs north/south in Path through Ostrop and others) and soon found that the highway soon became a 4 lane road and crossed the water to the other side and continued as a road. Soon after they found it they established the town as it was a very nice place with hills rolling up from the nice sandy beaches and nice cliffes to the east that would make nice perches later. After the sims settled more came until they became a real town with business and such and they named their new town Ecorse.

Since all these people are semi-wealthly suburbanites the second thing they setup was this soccer field and park complex. Every Saturday you can catch a game of bratty spoiled little preps kicking a ball arond with no effort. As mayor I plan to stop this sometime in the future.

This is a little island of the shore which has a really nice Redwood forest. This island was technically established 10 years before the actual founding of Ecorse but it was never claimed to have been separate from Ostrop so it conformed with the people of Ostrop.
Years ago people from the small sub town of Ostrop (Balmer) climbed in their ships and headed south. They came across this island and established a outpost here to warn ships. After this outpost was hit multiple times between 1940 and 1943 they finally built the lighthouse seen here. When Ecorse was founded they petitioned to make the park a national one and they were sucessful witht the SimNation government establishing 2 ranger stations/outposts. The island is rarley visited anymore as it very hard to get there especially when the island is most beautiful in spring when the tidewaters are so violent any small ship will be sunk.

This block of apartments was established only 2 years after the foundin of Ecorse. For years before Ecorse and even Path Engsims passed by this straight for trade with the Spansims but never landed there. Once Ecorse was founded wealthy engsims found it very desirable setting up several financial companies downtown (or as Willy the Groundskeeper would say doontoon) and building Tudor style homes here near the crest of hill that continues up from the beaches. They live with out discrimination as share a language and many common customs they also have a little money whice makes anyone attractive.


Nothing in this shot really. Just to illustrate that Ecorse is the San Fransico of Path.

More Stuff From Ostrop

While the archeologists try to figure out how to make money I have some more pictures for my limited auidience!
This is the New Center project in Ostrop. Although the area will develop it is in its early stages and the workers tenements are still here. At one end is the brand new Ostropia campus of Path State University and at the other is the Ostropia Museum of Natural History. The reflecting pond here was actually a real pond but was sized down to fit between the new roads and the two learning centers. A ripple effect is being felt all through out Ostrop. There have been a growing number of smaller single family homes to the west because many apartment dwellers have been finally able to sell their apartments to newcomers looking for work.
Ah an interesting piece of arcetcture here! This building is The Left Boot Shoe Shop and was originally planned to be a regular building but City Council was able to convince and later finance the owner's contstruction of the boot. I'm not really supposed to tell you about it but it was more of a grab for tourists than anything as Ostrop isn't very attractive to tourists besides its 2 museums (the Natural History and the Simworld War I museum [sevveral battles were actually fought in the surrounding countryside]).


This small neighborhood (ghetto if you will) was constructed in the late 1950's as a last dieing hope of the CCC (Cims Cilling Chimees [Chimees is a slur against foreigners]) to isolate the jewsims. At this time in 1952 the City Council was controlled by several men who were members of the CCC and "elected" with the help of the Ostrop Politcal Machine. They sucessfully passed the Jewsim Exclusion Act which allowed for the alotment of 2 city blocks every 5 years for a jewsim ghetto. A clause in this act which was inserted by more liberal politicians would stop construction and extraction for another 5 years (1957). 2 years later (1954) Blue Party sims came to power and made liberal and progressive movements and repealed the 1952 act. Although they repealed that the corllary remained in place and in 1957 the jewsims were rounded up and placed in this area. The original act stated they were to stay permanetly but City Council had found a clause in the original act that stated if it was repealed the jewsims must stay for a minimum of 2 years. Ostropians being loyal, law-abiding citizens followed this faithfully for 2 years and in 1959 most of the jewsims re-assimilated into society but some remained and thusly this neighborhood remains.

Something Different

An amazing discovery has been made! Archeologists that have been digging in an area along the Dutch Cliffs have discovered a strange piece of paper as shown below

This is believed to be an early copy of Path's monetary unit of a Donare (Don-arr-eh). The drawing is crude and portrait spot empty but was supposed to be filled with the portrait of the explorer and founder William Dutch. This was apparently made by a young chinsim in sweatshop in early Ostrop around 1699.

Well what does this mean for regular Pathisims? Well the currency being currently used is a white piece of 1 1/2" x 3" paper. That is fairly easy to counterfeit so they figure a new bill is in order and it is to be based off the one found here.

Here's Johnny! (watch for the axe)

Well it's time for another update after that little break of mine...I'm sure your all suffering from withdrawl.

A nice one here. This is the beginning of a new public complex in Ostrop. This center here is meant to be an extension of the Path State University campus. Allthough not seen in this shot on the other end of the reflection pond is a new museum. The tenements you can see off to the left are temporary workers homes. Although not showing now this is supposed to be part of the New Center project which would shift the center of city from the north end of the yet to be named freeway (the goverment is probably going to go with Intercorporation Highway #3 (don't want to look like it was our first freeway now do we?)) to the area just south of the Maganama(Mag-ah-nah-maw) mountains. The area is expected to have mostly skyscrapers and buisness plazas and is scheduled for completion in 1960 (the museum, pond, and campus center) and development to end in 1990.

This new campus though is being built entirely by the city as the original founders were...well (Ron Regan)...er uh (JFK)...waiiwhhahwhhaaa?(Edward, inside joke) caught....with....uh how should I put this...mommy's worst enemy(s, yes I know its not spelled that way) uh...dancing...yeah dancing...*quietly to self* that oughta hold the little bastards (doubt anyone knows the reference there ha!).

Ahhh the west end...the less than affluent end of the city. Although not quite pictured here I think it is worth the details (I promise a photo later) to tell you about it. This end of the city was built during the Second Simworld War when masses of immigrants poured into the city. Since they had lost all their possessions in the war they had nothing to bring (which means nothing to pawn off later) so the housing builders took advantage of this and build a few huge tenemants (1 is seen here and 4 or 5 below). This wave prompted quite a few sims to pack up their racist bags and move south along Highway #3 (the other way ends about 6 miles into Shankar). This led up to the founding of the Commonwealth of Ecorse (more on this later).
In this photo we see the startup department store of Roscoe's and Associates. They started here in O.R.T 1925 when the west end was still a small Russim district. They originally started off as small general store but when most of the butchers went under in the Great Meat Scare of '27 they were still the only one in town to offer pick your cow butcher services so they thrived. After this the needed a larger building to store their goods which is the larger one seen here the smaller one next to it is the original building now Dearborn Music*.
They are still prospering in O.R.T 1947 and they probably will as City Council passed the Local Headquarters Tax which will give a tax credit to all businesses who employ over 1,000 sims and have at least 1 out of city branch with their HQ in Ostrop.

This is the New Center Project in its early stages. This area is also known as the Middle East side which is another immigrant district. This was a huge project so there was factories constructed nearby (as shown) to make materials and housing for the workers (as shown). The sims here are mostly displaced from SWWII but a few are just down on their luck farmers from neighboring towns. Sadly these tenements are scheduled for demolition for more modern art-deco apartments in 1949 (about 4 years from this shot).

*Dearborn Music is an actual music store in Dearborn MI, not far from where I live. It sells new CD/DVDs, used CD/DVDs, old LPs and 45's, and even instruments. It does look quite a bit like the building here (except for the fact the real one is about 4 different colors as it was 4 different stores at one time) so that's where the name came from.

Just 1 More....

This is the first region shot of Path. Sorry it took so long but I was spending quite awhile making at least this part of the region presentable. As you can see (hopefully I'm not offending blind people...wait they cant read this either so I'm OK) there are undeveloped areas in the region as I do not need them at the moment and well it takes time to terraform and I would rather be building the citites.
This area is fairly flat but it does have its slopes. The canyon you can seen in Ostop, Erbil, and Shankar is the Stagg River. The larger body of water is the Specific Ocean. The southern shore is actually a large island that was not named by Path but rather the neighboring area so no one in Path knows what it is.

Little short on pictures lately as there hasn't been any really interesting developments in any of my cities. P.S. I promise a partial region shot next update.
The hallowed halls of education...theres just something about a big library filled with old books. This is the Path State University the first in the region (only the second in SimNation). This particular university was built with the help from a local industry captain Humphrey Wright. At this time a few business magnates were following the Gospel of Wealth which stated that even though rich people were naturally better than poor people they had an obligation to help them. This was deeply flawed as they only invested money in their own interest or things poor people had neither the time nor the money for (things like opera houses and private schools). Desipte being built around 1940 ORT (see below post) it takes its design cues from 1800's American arcitecture (which stole a bit from European designs). Just to prevent any "politcal dissentment" during the upcoming SimNation presidential election (Nixsim vs. Silverwater) there is a S.W.A.T team just right up the boulvard ;).


This is a new town to the north of Ostrop called Shankar. Like Erbil to the west (or weast if ye prefer it) it is a small farming town but this one has small rowhouses that were built as tenements to house the original farmers but were later converted to townhouses and rowhouses when the wealthier businesses moved in. This is a relatively simple town but since they live so close to Ostrop they live in relative affluence (damn used "relative" twice, shit now thrice!). Nothing else much to say...differnent views below...and yes I do know that there is a damn cardboard box on some of the stuff...

I'm Ready For Something To Happen So I'm Going To Make It Happen By Posting This Post As Soon as I Finish Typing This Execruiatingly Long Title

Well its been about 1 post since we've seen anything about our beloved regional capital so thusly I bring you more pictures with more random made up backstories!

This is a new farm in Ostrop it was built in 1939 in response to failure of the local soy beans(they caught a nasty disease that turned them all inside out). This farm harvests lettuce heads and has contributed greatly to the local health as lettuce absorbs many nutrients found only in Path's soil. At first the local alfalfa farmer scoffed at this farmer's attempt to grow a non-familiar crop but who's laughing now? The farmer that started this now owns 45% of the farms in the area (compared with the average 8%). and over 450,000 acres in the neighboring region of Timbuktu.

Another interesting farm specimen! This is Jolly John's Chirstmas Tree farm. This is an incredibly profitable venture as no other farm does it and there is a great demand for these things. No one knows exactly when Jolly John first started; it may have been when he illegally chopped a pine tree down near his house in Erbil and passerby caught him an asked him how much or it may be when he became angry at what his family had bought him for christmas (Jesism socks and matching underwear) and sold it to a local man but noneless he is now so rich he could afford his home in Erbil and a local house here in Ostrop.

This picture was taken in 1939 when hard times hit Ostrop. These used to majestic building filled with young managers and purchasing agents but now they are filled with unemployed techies, druggies, and the ocassional chinsim. These were built in 1923 when times were good and the average income was about $70,000 a year but prices on little electronic trinkets crashed and the town hit a depression. These will bound back soon with the opening of several new job centers and accounting firm.

The dutch....the first immigrants to Balmer. After finding no relatives in the Dutch District (see below posts) they continued southward until they reached the relatively new town of Balmer. Here they built their homes in the traditional sense since they knew no other way. These people were rich enough in the Netherlands but they weren't here and held jobs at the local post office.

Something Just A Little Bit Different

This is NOT Ostrop now its in a new corporation (its a unit in cities that is smaller than a county but larger than a city. The major city acts as the whole though. I believe Toledo OH uses this system) called Erbil. Erbil is the city (I hate typing corporation so I'll use city from now on) directly to the west of Ostrop. It is on the north side of the Stagg River/Canyon like the farmers in Ostrop. They chose those areas as it has incredibly rich soil deposited long ago when a large mudslide came through. The mudslide was a strange phenomena it sort of rolled along with minimal speed as it came from only a 100ft tall hill but it went for several miles.

Ahhhh the peacefulness of an evening in a small town. This town was built around 1940 (Ostrop Relative Time or ORT) and the design reeks of 1940's American small town. These shops include (in order from botton left to top right) a salvation Army Post (hasn't been to sucessful the sims here don't have much to give away and there aren't any poor people really), a cinema (currently showing The Blues Brothers 2000), Herton's Music (poor Herton still doesnt know what a LP is; his son does most of the work [Mr. Herton Sr. is ancient due the health care in Ostrop]), the local inn (despite the unecessity of it Mrs. Heidinger finds it necessary to serve all food in a bread bowl), and the local jewlers (emphasis on "jew").

Ahhh the town hall...courthouse, jail, police station, civic office. The sims in Erbil didn't even have close to enough money to build this town hall so they negoitiated with Bob Gurschwin (a local dirt farmer), OPEC (Ostrop Power and Energy Company), and themselves to allow OPEC to build a wind power plant on their slopes. In exchange OPEC would fund the town hall (or at least what the villagers couldn't pay for themselves). OPEC though would play a larger role...in Ostrop the company has limited power because the city has enough money they can't be bribed or reminded of "favors" but in Erbil OPEC has an iron fist over it. They have had an OPEC member as mayor for the past 10 years (Erbil's charter states that they must elect a new mayor every 2 years) and they own more farmland than anyone else and they pretty much own the rest of the undeveloped corporation. The villagers try to strike back though when city council (OK its just 5 guys in Joe's garage)approved the contstruction of a rail bridge across the Stagg, miles of highways through the undeveloped land, a tunnel in the nearby mountain, and 7 differnt beaches. Well where did the money come from? In a loophole in the contract that gave OPEC control of the undeveloped land south of the Stagg River they also agreed to pay for any non-structural development (i.e. roads, parks). Well they paid for it and ran; OPEC sold the land back for $4 billion simelons (2 times the annual profits), they also donated the power plant to the city. So the sims get free power (as long as they pay their taxes) and OPEC was thorougly run into the ground in Erbil (they aren't doing great in Ostrop either the city just built their own power plant cutting OPECs profits in 2).

These are the shops on the other side of the tracks. These shops are just various shops such as a clothes store, a bank (robbery free 1900-1927, 1928-1941), and a local grocer (ask for the mystery meat its only 1cent a pound and it tingles all the way down). The local bar (on the end and yes I do know its backwards) serves the stiffest drinks anywhere and the bartender gets drunk sometimes and dances on stools.

And The Beat Goes On....

More stuff from Ostrop. The city hasn't grown much because I started a small town off to the SE called Balmer. This is connected with the Pinewoods Highway but there will be more on that town later.
These are a few apartment buildings constructed in different eras. The one on the left was built about 1920 in the Art-Deco revival that Ostrop was expirencing. At one time it was a square building (with none of the balconies seen here) that was specifically meant to house workers who were building this part of town in the mid-20's. The one on the right is a rather recent addition built approxmately in 1936. Here we see high wealth people with a desire to live in the city but want out of the low wealth slums that are slowly spreading away from the factories. This has yet to be explained and controlled as the town is slowly getting poorer but the businesses seem to be getting wealthier. The current mayor is a progressive though and is looking into some trust-busting. He evicted (he can, the mayor is very powerful in SimNation as the federal government is weak) and demolished old polluting factories that were run by wealthy plutocrats and divided the land for smaller start up factories to begin.

Ah the simple life...the sims seem to yearn for this. This small town in the NW farming district was built about 1930 when the city's population peaked at 56,000 sims. As the city became crowded a few hundred sims moved west and set up their own farms. There was land availble due to the farm crops prices fallout in the late 20's. This nameless town provided peace and relaxtion for many sims and they plan to live their lives here. But in the 1940's the town became a sort of retirment villa as the farms had bought each other and had formed several conglomerates. The owners of these conglomerate got wealthy and moved to the coastal fishing town of Balmer.

These are several of the small town shops along the beaches in the SE town of Balmer. These are of much simpler design than the Art-Deco Revival towers of Ostrop because the owners are starters and built much of it with their own hands. These 2 were built around 1910 when the first sims finally treked their way to the coast and found it full of fish and setup this little town. The one on the right is a saloon and has a few small specialty shops (one is Fondue Fondler and they have the best fondue shit around! The other is Pants By Marge whose slogan is "With Marge's hands on your pants you feel gooooooood") and upstairs is a premo lounge/inn. The next door was built literally the day after the other and originally had shops and apartments but was later transformed into a insurance agency. The clock tower was only added in 1932 when the insurance agency became sucessful. The agency's HQ is no longer here (they moved into the larger Ben Tower in Ostrop) but they still maintain it as a branch.

See 2nd photo. These shops were buil here to save the local residents the trip to Ostrop for all their goods. The local grocer only carries food from the local farms so its always fresh, the jewler's products are all handmade, the music store has everything from classical Ludwig Von Beetovsim to the punk band Sim Sins, the local bartender will pretty much know your name if you've ever been there, the innkeeper will always have a room for you, the theater is always putting on a classic, blockbuster, or any decent film or play from anyone.

Woot Woot! More Shit!

Alright more stuff from Ostrop!
This is the Tamanany Tunnel. This tunnel was built in 1926 under the Bulwark's Beans Stadium. This tunnel was constructed as the stadium was planned to be built over a street but since there was development in the area the tunnel was built. This tunnel was mainly built by chinsims who lived in the local neighborhood (at the time it was a poor neighborhood so the chinsims were pushed in there). Sadly over 50 sims died during the construction. This was mainly due to 2 collapses. 1 happened when the tunnel collapsed before the construction of the stadium and the other occured when the field gave way in 1927 (after heavy rains) when they were constructing the underground parking garage. Later on they would be honored with a memorial at the top of each tunnel entrance.

Ah an interesting one. This is the Pinewoods Highway which runs to the SE in Ostrop. The high way gets its name from the large pine forest it runs through. Where does it run though? Well to a new renegade town on the SE shores. So far it is a small town but more later.
The first big box complex in Ostrop. Built on the outskirts of the richer east side. This was a major blessing as at the time the city was in a minor depression after a lot of factories left (high tect factories bought up the land and employed robots and humans slashing the jobs availble) and the construction provided much needed jobs plus the 500 jobs in the center. This is causing major traffic issues and many of the higher wealth residents are being scared away and the neighborhood is being degraded.

To Please the Masses We Politely Bring You A New Update

Alright! Back because of no popular demand an update has arrived and showed up on Path's doorstep!

This district formed on the outskirts of town is actually quite wealthy. It is made up of immigrants from the Netherlands. The other sims rejected them and their silly accents (fadja!!!!) despite their wealth.


This mall was setup soon after some local sims banded together and founded the Ostrop Better Business Bureau. They soon negotiated with the mayor (moi) to construct a new pedestrian bridge from the residential neighborhood across the freeway.

Remember the Dutsims (dutch sims) above well the discrimination of the other sims, sadly, worked and dutsims have been driven to poverty. Hopefully they will recover.

New Update! (Im fast ain't I?)

After a bit more playtime I was able to make minimal gains as most of my time was monitoring school budgets and planning for new neighborhoods that might be or might not be in this update (seriously I have no idea as I dont keep track of how many shots I took and where.

This is a new pedestrian mall near the freeway. This new pedestrian mall includes hip new stores such as Pottery Barn, Knives! Knives! Knives!, Everything but Water, The Jesus Store, and coming soon a Hooters! (seriously)

A neighborhood along the Dutch Cliffs (see last post) although near the Dutch Cliffs this neighborhood is known as Joulelle. The name comes from a woman who grew up here and became a famous doctor in a neighboring region. Despite appearing impoverished this neighborhoods is wealthy but is inhabitied by a Sims that are in sect of Simeism (sim-MAY-ism) that encourages thrift and modesty.

Remember those 4 houses earlier? Well the familes had to sell around 1923 because of local depression in which many people lost their jobs to the huge influx of Chinsims(Chinesesims) who worked for low pay. Soon the wealthy factory managers (the got wealthy as they had to pay the chinsims less) found this little out look over the Dutch Cliffs and bought it up and built these new homes. Well what happened to the other sims? 2 families moved to the western side of the Stagg River and started a farm. The name? Jez-Knight Acres. One of the other familes moved into the slums where they slowly faded into obscurity. Another got a job at a distant insurance firm but moved back around 1942 when they started their own insurance agency. The name? Vu.

New Update!

These pictures are of 1) The first high tech development and 2) The slums that send workers to the local factories. I do have a backstory for the slums here historically and from in game. First the historical connection. These slums are in the 'barbell' style that was extremely popular in New York City and other American cities around the turn of the century. They are about 3 stories tall (as in game) and hold about 4 familes a floor with about 6 people a family (including extended family that just arrived in America). They were terribly cramped and only the front (and somtimes the back) had windows. In the tiny spaces (they are classified as "airshafts" for no reason as they do not provide any air at all) garbage filled it and it reeked all year round.

The backstory in game is that there was a fresh batch of Jewsim immigrants in sim year 1914 and they only could get jobs at the local box factory (partially visible in the upper right corner of the first shot). They had come with the hopes of buying a house on the west side of the highway but many were just caught in the machine of capitalism and were stuck in the slums. Their fourtunes may change though...

First Update! Wewt!

OK Development has been going smoothly in Ostrop (typo in earlier post). Had some trouble with making money for awhile but that is corrected and I am now making a profit of about $1000 monthly (profits and debts really pile up on a monthly scale rather than yearly). There has been some low density, low wealth population for a long time but once some medium desity was zoned on the wrong side of the freeway the wealthier people moved on in. Now for the pictures!

This is the first office development in Ostrop...Im so proud *sniffles* . Notice the spotlight advertising the Grand Opening at Starkey Office Furniture and Supplies

This is some cliff top houses with the seasonal trees I planted. These were started by three families around 1900 to gain the great view of the Stagg River and the farms on the other side.

This is just some houses in the northern most neighborhood that is called the Dutch District. Really has nothing do with the ethnicity of the people rather that the cliffs to the west are name Dutch Cliffs after a explorer named Will Dutch discovered and climbed them in 1678.


This is the first apartment development in Ostrop. At this point there were already about 2,000 people here. Although the apartments are quite shabby these were just temporary until more medium wealth homes were put up over some poorer homes. After these residents poorer people would move here.

Another post later I think I reached photo limit. Remember we will be on this town for awhile as it is the designated national capital of Path and I want decent development here before wer move onto another town.

The Region of Path

Welcome to Path people! This is a new blog I have started to post items in relation to a Sim City 4 region I'm currently working on. To stop all further questions...yes I am a nerd but I dont really give a fuck so stew some fu (STFU N00Bs!!!!!!!!). I plan to upload some pictures of the region and maybe some seckzi videos too if I bother.

First off some technical items. 1) Im using Rush Hour expansion here so there may be some unfamilar stuff in there 2) I have a ton of Dl'ed plugins from either the exchange on the SimCity website () or the Simtropolis Exchange[ST-Ex] ( ). If you ask nicely I may be able to send specific files if you want them.;)

Onwards and forward to the region. To be honest there is nothing here to start with. I made a config.bmp (the file that determines specific things about the region) that gave me 6 large cities by 6 large cities. All the cities are flat at the lowest level possible with out water. Today I started a city by raising up the land 2 levels (found under pre-incorporated god tools, brown button, the button with the up-arrow) and formed various things. For example in the NW corner there is a canyon river separating a part of the city. Elsewhere in the NE corner there is some mountains (very old ones at that they have been heavily eroded). In the SE corner there is a lake/ocean. At this point it could be either; I will find out as I expand. The rest of the land is flat, except about 3/4 the way south there is a dip to a lower elevation.

The Development: Not much to start. I incorporated the city under the name "Ostrog" (part of a name of eastern Russian town) and the mayor as "Hanog" (a goofy name to match Ostrog). First I layed a long section of sunken ground highway (want to know how? ask me!) with funds "appropriated" by the "federal government" (i.e. weaknesspays). At the north end I established the town with the residential on the west side and industry and business on the easter side. So far the highway is useless as it only has 1 exit in 1 town. The end.

Screenies tomorrow (or when ever).