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.