OpenGeofiction
So Luciano’s current monthly challenge, ‘oops’, challenges us to fix any previous mistakes and, seeing there are probably many mistakes with my progress so far, I though I could try attempting Luciano’s challenge. So, here I am, slightly over 3 months after starting work on Tengappei, looking over my country, seeing what needs to be changed, and I thought that your feedback could be very useful, especially seeing the feedback to other player’s countries.
Whole country
So my country, Tengappei, has only some basic planning as well as a few, fairly detailed coasts and rivers. I tried following the wikis advice on how wide to make rivers and such but I feel as though I have ended up with some really narrow rivers with a perhaps too big delta. It is meant to be a tide and wave focused delta, but I might have made the rivers impact too strong. But the thing I have been focusing on is the capital city, Oniko.
Oniko
I’ve really only been doing the main roads, railways and tram lines, but recently, I’ve added some more details in the city centre with various buildings. I still need to add some more buildings as well as tag everything but I am fairly happy with the detail so far. The city is meant to be very much a commuter focused city, with a massive pedestrianized area in the center. Is this too unrealistic? I haven’t written the history of the city yet (I plan to write it this Christmas- this is the wiki so far: http://wiki.opengeofiction.net/wiki/index.php/Tengappei ) but I have some ideas for reasons behind it. The main thing I think I made an ‘oops’ with is the tram network. I’m just not very sure how close to make the lines and stations in a pedestrianized area like Oniko’s. I plan to make the population of the whole city (the grey area) 3.5-5million, but that will take a long time. Anyway, thank you for listening to my rambling. Any feedback would be appreciated!
Discussion
Comment from Portopolis on 10 December 2016 at 18:27
I like the city so far. We share a similar language and their are about 4-7 countries around the world based off of Japan. I think you need to add a few major roads to the pedestrian areas. Think about a local grocery store. How do the goods get there in the first place? The pedestrian area is nice but for an area that large you need to at least account for large grocery stores, were likely trucks will need to move things to and from that store. I feel like leaving the majority like it is but adding a few major streets will significantly increase realism.
Comment from Thunderbird on 10 December 2016 at 19:36
I agree with @Portopolis, I would make a few major roads non pedestrian. Considering the amount of shops, there is no reason for goods to be transported 2000 feet on foot or on carts. The ports have no road access!
Also, the idea of having a motorway directly to a carpark doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Let’s assume this lot has 10000 parking spaces. Does it really need an entire motorway just to that one lot? Considering people come and go at different times, I think most of the traffic would peter out getting closer to the city.
Those seem like minor changes to me. You could fix them easily. Don’t take them personally, the layout of the city is nice, I like the location of it as well.
Comment from Aces California on 10 December 2016 at 20:20
Looking great, don’t worry about the delta too much, I’ve been getting advice on my delta right now and it seems you’ve got it a lot more realistically first time around. I’m liking the city so far, but I agree with Thunderbird and Portopolis in that the pedestrianized area needs some major roads for deliveries and for the ports. Don’t see much else I can suggest from my end.
Comment from Luciano on 10 December 2016 at 20:49
Actually, I hadn’t seen this progress before. I think you’re doing remarkably well, and I like to finally see a city that isn’t so “motorway-centric”! I think it looks very authentically Japanese in layout, especially the river and the somewhat offset “new” downtown with the railroad station.
I agree that even in a city with a pedestrianized center, like this, you need some major thoroughfares that allow vehicles - especially to port and industrial areas, but definitely even to support shops’ supplies and such. One thought - you could go in the direction of cities like Chicago or Seattle, with “two level” streets in some central areas, but different from those cities in that the bottom level is for delivery vehicles and the top level is pedestrianized. I have always thought that that concept could be so interesting if it were combined with a “car-free” zone concept. Seoul suburbs have a few areas like that, where the major streets are “roofed” with pedestrian malls.
I’m looking forward to seeing more detail.
Comment from Leowezy on 11 December 2016 at 02:32
I really like your progress so far as well. To leave the urban geography aside for a second, and relating to Portopolis’ comment above, have you thought of any concrete historical background? As you might be aware there are quite a number of countries that relate to Nihonish (our equivalent of Japanese) in one way or the other, Kojo for example in a slightly more indirect way as it was influenced by Hoppon, not Tengappei directly. This is not ment to put any pressure on you, if you don’t feel like language is a big issue for your project right now I’d suggest we just leave it aside, and when you get to the point where you want to shape Tengappei’s linguistic history, I’m sure there are many other community members eager to engage in the conversation :)