Stories 2022-08-17 Lavender Lake Game-play
2022-08-17T19:01:00Z Started savegame on Lavender Lake, all outside connections, suitable area for building 75%, base theme: boreal.
Goal is to reach population 100k today as quick as possible while still enjoying the game.
Addons used: BrokenNodeDetector, CargoHoldFix, CitiesHarmony, CSLShowMoreLimits, ExtendedGameOptions, FirstPersonCamera_Updated, Harmony, LifecycleRebalanceRevisited, RealPopRevisited, RoundaboutBuilder, ShowIt, TMPE, TransferManagerCE.
This is my starter setup, industrial on far, commercial in the middle, then comes big residential areas. Residential of course will expand a lot on all sides except north where pollution is, but this will get us started.
First save game for Lavender_Lake_1 file name.
2022-08-17T19:09:00Z Unpaused game, lets begin 
Switched TMPE vehicle de-spawning OFF. We do realistic vehicles here heh.
2022-08-17T19:15:00Z Little Hamlet population 420.
Okay lets turn taxes on and start making some money so we can build this city 
2022-08-17T19:21:00Z Worthy Village population 850.
2022-08-17T19:26:00Z Tiny Town population 1.3k.
Switched to use two lane asphalt roads now, no more dirt roads which are annoying to upgrade later if you have many of those.
And now we wait until city grows on its own, not much more I can do right now. In a way I should have used the fast 2 x 2 unit square fakery method, but nah not again, just regular old zoning without such hacks. This looks good instead of the midget houses and it actually takes a lot of time to zone those 2 x 2 units, huge amount of time.
2022-08-17T19:38:00Z Boom Town population 2.4k.
Cemetery and bus depot became available in this milestone, cemetery is essential for life heh.
Saved game for Lavender_Lake_2 file name.
Created collector road here, its perhaps a bit too far and close to the body of water beyond the forest patch, but well its there now, lets not make a huge grid road network of only two lane roads.
Expanding beyond collector road, waiting for electric to connect heh.
In this savegame I want to focus on traffic, I am so sick and tired of ruining my cities because poor road design, now it will be arterial, collector and local roads with serious planning going to logistics zoning, you don't zone heavy vehicle traffic through residential etc, all the obvious stuff (which I have ignored before haha).
2022-08-17T20:05:00Z Busy Town population 5k.
My writing was interrupted by milestone announcement
So I was writing that also I want to try industrial as specialized industry or "zoned industry", farming, forestry, oil and ore. However I wont be going crazy with these but just play kiddie stuff like playing with barbies, I mean really just few 4 x 4 unit zone blocks for each and see how traffic, import and export handles with those.
Also I want to have good warehouse capacity to buffer zoned industry and goods. Maybe we could reduce any issues and perhaps even traffic, not sure, but will be interesting to play house with those
This is small scale stuff, just a hobbyist industry to create some raw materials for generic industry
Warehouses placed, west is raw materials for farming and forestry, central above industry area is commercial goods and east is raw materials for oil and ore.
Electricity, walk with me...
This is so cute, farming and forestry
Oil and ore has not started to build yet, maybe because they didn't have electricity.
2022-08-17T20:28:00Z Oil and ore is up too now. They of course require quite educated workers, hopefully we don't get any not enough educated workers issue as few of those buildings required highly educated worker which I have exactly 0% in our city
Aww man, I spoke too soon 
Oh well what can you do, I'll write this down now so I wont be making the same mistake again. Zoned industry needs EDUCATED workers, some even highly educated.
And while I was playing with barbie dolls aka industry big boss man, our residential capacity got full.
Okay lets create more roads and zone in some residential then.
2022-08-17T20:37:00Z Dunno why but I'm kind of excited about this small scale specialized industry stuff (zoned industry, not the industries main building DLC thing).
Saved game for Lavender_Lake_3 file name.
2022-08-17T20:50:00Z Saved game for Lavender_Lake_4 file name which is the last of four rotating file names.
Dunno why but after finishing last terrain savegame I now feel extremely enthusiastic about this small scale specialized industry, I want to learn how much of it you need to do with warehouses so its "locally produced" raw materials.
These specialized industry buildings are hanging by the thread here in beginning of a new city with lack of any level educated workers.
Hopefully we can pull through, I believe the cut off for the not enough workers icon to appear is 50% of jobs available, this current zinc products factory is just on the threshold, one more job opening comes and we are in trouble heh.
Fire department response time is slightly too long, need to build another fire house. Or dunno maybe I'll just start using fire stations (the bigger building), I mean why not, its just matter of size, I like the 25 fire engines better, dunno what drawbacks the bigger building might have, of course more expensive and takes more space, but ... fires need to be fought, what's the price for burned down house or even neighborhood, its not cheap that's for sure...
Well guess we have our answer for how much raw materials does even barbie girl alike small scale setup produce, my zoning is FOUR 4 x 4 grids but one 2 x 4 (dunno why it went like that instead of five four by fours) and that already has generated enough raw material for this warehouse to become full and its now exporting that stuff therefore causing vehicle traffic.
But its also extremely cool, so few specialized industry will supply my generic industry all their raw materials removing the need to import them. Locally produced stuff.
Current imports 685 and exports 308. And check this out, this is cool, all exports are buffered through warehouses now
2022-08-17T21:00:00Z Its my lunch break, I'm hungry, will let game run in normal time, hopefully wont trigger next milestone while eating heh.
2022-08-17T21:27:00Z Feeding time is over, back to our barbie girl specialized industry and warehouses playground
2022-08-17T21:55:00Z Big Town population 7.5k.
High density zones, metro, incineration plant and university are now available.
2022-08-17T22:35:00Z Had to do a quick chore but now we are back building this city.
Purchased a large warehouse for commercial goods storage.
Export stats, looks like we are exporting farming, forestry, oil and ore but not goods. Warehouses for exports are fluctuating somewhere around 75% full, basically looks like exporting begins when warehouse hits 75% or perhaps technically 76% full, if its below they do nothing. If its MUCH below, then they go out to import the goods, for example this happens when you initially purchase a warehouse. They import either from local industry or from outside connections.
This is good, I now have much better understanding how warehouses and basic industry works. Previously I have been spamming industry like a crazy person which generated that just silly excess that got exported and that causes traffic jams then. Why produce more stuff than your commercial zones actually use, right now for me it makes no sense. Its been said you cannot completely eliminate import / export even how much you try to balance industry and commercial, but yeah as long as its low numbers I'm good with that.
I still don't understand why is it that lets say farming industry is importing farming products, eh?
Anyways current import 927 and export 506.
Basics of warehouses: industry zone building vehicles deliver raw materials or goods to them. Warehouses have their own box trucks and vans which deliver goods to commercial zone buildings.
Warehouse KiNG
These are for farming and forestry stuff, probably overkill but I wanted to have a GOOD buffer.
New foundations for our first high density residential district
New folks arrive to PMC Residential 3 district, welcome everyone
Put a pedestrian walking path from low density commercial zone to this new high density residential district through that hilltop "rural" area, interesting to see if people start to use it.
High density residential buildings are coming up nicely, but so is the need for jobs, industrial demand is quite high, hmm. I am afraid to add more generic industry because the crazy traffic it generates, not to mention high education required by specialized industry.
2022-08-17T23:44:00Z Small City population 11k.
This milestone gives us cargo train station and two good policies. Activated small business enthusiast and big business benefactor policies.
Purchased a large warehouse for commercial zone goods. Lets give great buffer for those as we do have to start growing that generic industry real soon otherwise folks get mad for not having a job.
2022-08-17T23:50:00Z Okay going to start creating generic industrial zoning one 4 x 4 unit square setup at time, seeing how it changes the traffic balance and warehouses etc. Unemployment 36% now so we have to get jobs for these folks.
We had a fire and fire trucks were caught behind private car, they had to come all the way around PMC Residential 3 district, so they didn't make it and one building burnt down, aww man.
So I build a medium industry road from the district into this oil / ore district, now they got the power of fire station with 25 fire engines good to go at moments notice.
The new industry 4 x 4 unit square zoning I did has building with still 3 jobs available. Its 16 uneducated and 2 well educated are filled but still have educated jobs available. Residential demand RCI info bar is 95% full now, so gotta do more generic industry.
This location begs for some commercial buildings, close to metro and big residential area people could just walk for shopping... however as we all know, commercial zone gets delivery vehicles traffic.
Dunno maybe I'm living in a fantasy world trying to avoid such delivery vehicles driving around the town.
Added one more block of industrial zoning to get some jobs, previous one did not change our warehouse export status at all, we are not exporting any commercial goods.
Going to do experiment, people in forums say that trees are good cover for noise pollution, and yes it makes sense in real life if you have a thick forest patch between noise and you, it will not sound that loud. So lets see if trees push back noise pollution.
Warehouses are behind the trees, can hardly spot them
Well I cant tell, would need to compare screenshots to see if the red "flame" was pushed back (Later Edit: unfortunately I cant see any difference in red pollution marker area in the before and after screenshots. So my experience now is that trees DO NOT reduce noise pollution).
Created few commercial zones just to see how much traffic will that cause.
2022-08-18T01:29:00Z Big City population 17k.
Crematorium, large water tower and advanced inland water treatment plant are now available. Placed some crematoriums strategically so should avoid death waves, although that one addon life cycle something should already prevent that for the most part.
2022-08-18T02:31:00Z Way too tired, in zombi mode, was reading about specialized industry that it actually DOES require the natural resource even though I previously read/understood from somewhere that it doesn't, so now I'm confused and way way too tired to think straight, its time for bed. Saved game and shutdown Cities Skylines, tomorrow we continue for sure.
2022-08-18T08:42:00Z New Cities Skylines building day has started, I actually spent a moment googling my last nights issue; zoned special industry does need natural resources otherwise EXTRACTOR buildings are not created, only the processor buildings are. This is extremely confusing without any documentation.
In short; now all my existing PMC Farming 1, PMC Forestry 1, PMC Oil 1 and PMC Ore 1 districts do NOT have natural resource underneath them so only processor buildings are created and stuff gets imported.
Todays goal is to relocate these districts into natural resources to fix this issue.
However that is another can of worms with the traffic, these locations were now nice along the industry and highway connection, but if I have to move them to natural resources then all that goes out the window, for example a very LUXURiOUS oil resource is under the new residential district heh.
2022-08-18T08:46:00Z Game with latest savegame loaded up, lets see what we can do
Here I de-zoned PMC Forestry 1 district, then planted trees manually.
Next I zoned it back and only one processor building appeared where all the rest were extractor buildings, meaning those "forest objects". So yes, specialized industry aka zoned industry does require natural resource!
We do have plenty of farming natural resources in our terrain grid tiles, even some oil in the south side of PMC Residential 3, but as said if we chase these natural resources then our road network and traffic goes to hell, for sure.
I need to think about this, but probably going to set farming and oil at least because forestry can be manually done with tree planting.
2022-08-18T08:53:00Z Now its time to eat days first meal, I'm starvin'...
2022-08-18T09:19:00Z Feeding time is over, back to specialized industry.
PMC Oil 1 district relocated to on top of actual oil natural resources.
PMC Farming 1 and PMC Ore 1 districts relocated.
That farming district and natural resource is huge, no way I'm ever going to use all of it heh. Also ore is kind of weak, but hopefully it provides enough resources.
2022-08-18T09:55:00Z Grand City population 22k.
Now PMC Farming 1 district has actual farm fields and animals too, like it should be. OK lesson learned: specialized industry aka zoned industry still needs natural resources, gotcha.
PMC Ore 1 district has those big grindy things now to get them ores off the ground. Nice.
PMC Oil 1 district is all about oil wells now, excellent. The smaller warehouse is already 99% full and big one is filling as we speak. Things and rolling nicely.
But I can already see the increased number of semi-trucks and other heavy vehicles rolling by too... so yeah, this is not the "barbie girl play house small scale nice stuff" anymore, now we broke into the big boy stuff hehe.
Oh well, be careful what you wish for, you might get traffic jams!
Created PMC Industry 2 district, already got the road grid, power lines connected and we needed the jobs, so why not.
Final upgrade to PMC Forestry 1 district so we got some processor buildings too. Oh man, look at that traffic already
2022-08-18T10:56:00Z Created new cloverleaf intersection to a new terrain grid tile I bought just north of the starting location, now got to save game, shutdown Cities Skylines and reload it back up for the intersection to actually work.
First cargo train terminal done by the farming district.
Hmm I don't think PMC Ore 1 district has strong enough natural resources underneath it because it only creates few of those extractor buildings, assuming I know how to recognize them. Where oil is so black and strong natural resource that it basically only creates oil pumps.
Grow city, grow!
2022-08-18T12:19:00Z Capital City population 36k.
Cargo harbor is now available.
Sumbitch! My forestry industry burnt down! 
Big fire again, but fire department is on it.
Garbage service is running good, from left to right we got incinerator plant, landfill, recycling center times two and right most is second incinerator plant. Odd that recycling centers run either 0 or 1-2 trucks but incinerator plants blast off like 10+ every time I check, sometimes even over 20.
Don't ask my why this four lane collector road has houses built right up to it on north side and have this nice buffer empty space in south side
I like those kinds of boots on the ground long distance road views through the city. I spend way too little time checking stuff out which is mostly because I'm afraid that something goes wrong outside my view and while I'm fooling around with some useless visuals nonsense my stuff burns down or something else. I wish there was addon for creating notification icon on top right of the screen when power / water goes out or similar stuff which requires your input. Who knows maybe steamshitshop has such addon but no idea what its name might be.
2022-08-18T13:17:00Z Colossal City population 48k.
This milestone gives nuclear power plant and cargo hub (ship + train terminal).
Keeping busy at the cargo train terminal
2022-08-18T14:31:00Z And with that, its my lunch time.
2022-08-18T14:47:00Z Feeding time over, back to the city.
This cargo train terminal is so busy I need to create another one with "southern" arterial road connection.
And done. Not sure if this eases off the traffic from that one cargo train terminal, but hopefully it does.
2022-08-18T15:32:00Z Metropolis population 70k.
2022-08-18T15:49:00Z Traffic issues again, added few more generic industry to the original starting location line and now that road and even the collector road through the whole city is clogged, put a traffic light to the main intersection, but dunno if this keeps going on and on...
Yeap this looks depressing, going to do radical step; relocate as much of the generic industry from this area to the NW area near cargo train terminals where we have plenty of empty space. Yes we still have issue of industry to commercial traffic, but at least the traffic would be cut in half I hope.
Traffic has now detected this new location heh, ouch.
Relocated big warehouses to this plateau middle ground, away from the city almost center.
Now I'm hoping this gridlock will clear in time.
2022-08-18T17:29:00Z Traffic frustrates me. Now I honestly feel like okay I'm ready to reach savegames goal and move on. Its funny how this was so cool in the beginning with little stuff, but now, somehow, dunno how it got so out of hand that such traffic jam issues came along. Hmph.
2022-08-18T17:44:00Z Megalopolis population 90k.
Okay this was the last milestone, now I get to buy the whole terrain grid tiles.
Crazy new high density commercial zone connected with two metro lines looping through it. Oddly enough not more traffic.
Sitting here waiting for this traffic to eventually clear, honesty dunno where these guys are going for as there are NO commercial zones south from this intersection.
Well finally the traffic cleared, its pretty good actually. We got a busy city so some traffic is to be expected.
This is actually pretty nice terrain for a city, I like it.
2022-08-18T18:00:00Z Aayeah! We have achieved our goal, 100k population, whohoo! 
And not a moment too soon, was thinking about taking a break because this feels so exhausted right now. So nice to be able to chill and relax a bit next, gotta watch some TV or something to get my mind off from Cities Skylines, or I might read some tutorials etc who knows heh.
2022-08-18T18:02:00Z Saved game and shutdown Cities Skylines, we are done with this terrains savegame for a while now