Starter industries

I've come to a point in the game where I want to seed a few more hubs, but I need roleplay reasons to do so.

I decided to start new industries with unscrupulous corporations tearing up the landscape. The forestry industry was easy, but I also wanted mining and something else.

The mines are hard to find. I'm going to stick with the Newman mine v3 I reviewed just because it's in my plugins already. A was not satisfied with the other mines I found. One was a 1x1 ploppable with 9 overhang tiles. One was growable! (I don't want mines randomly growing in my city). One needed a coal power plant to be able to plop (For me, the mine would have to come first) and Pegasus' Mine played a song for about a minute if you clicked on it.

Oak River page updated

I've been lax updating this page.

I've included the latest three entries, and updated the top 10 lists. I've also updated the current game year and pop stats as well as the satellite and transport shots.

State of play - 1920

It's now 1920. Above is the population change. Below is the wealth change. Full stats are available. I'm just waiting to find a good way of pasting them in.

Entry 14: We don't need no education

And so it was, that due to the will of the people, that the spare tax money was spent on setting up schools. Unfortunately, schools could not be set up everywhere. Whilst cash was plentiful, teachers were not. Luckily for everyone there were some members of society who had received some schooling before coming across the ocean. They were now in their early 50s. They were selected to be the teachers for the time being.

The council found a map of the Township. They only have enough teachers for two small schools. They decided to place them in Westfield (in the NW) and North Oak River (NE) since they had the highest concentration of houses.

They selected sites and the built the schools. The first bewildered pupils started learning the alphabet soon after. At night the schools were open as adult education centres, further enhancing the overall education of the community as well as being used to train more teachers. The picture below is of Westfield Primary School.

Entry 13: Making tracks

Sheila Burnham, like many other business owners in the Dart River Industrial area, had a problem. Sheila had a problem shifting goods. Sheila owned a company that made small bolts. She had some business in the Oak River area but most of the goods went over seas.

Originally, the bolts were transported by road to Sarah's Cove, but that took a long time, and the road was unreliable. Sometimes the cargo and drivers would go missing without a trace. When Bob Ribblesand first starting shipping goods by barge to Dartmouth all was well. The service was cheap and efficient and no goods ever went missing.

Unfortunately for his customers he had no competition and so was able to ratchet up the price for his services. A box of bolts that sells abroad for $5 costs $4 to ship on the barge. That's not a lot of room for profit once other costs are taken into account.

Jim Steinbach knew of the problem and had an idea. He knew some people in the steam business and had an idea. He would transport goods quicker and cheaper than the barges and he would do so by train.

However, this was a big undertaking and required a lot of financial backing. Jim decided that speed was of the essence and planned on a line that ran from Dart River in the west through Dartacre and up to Sarah's Cove.

The local councils were reactionary. Since there was no other railway line, he knew that there were no railway laws and decided to use this to his advantage by planning an almost straight route without diverting via Oak River.

Part of the plan was to build a little community by the source of the River Folsense. They would collect rent from the people who lived there, thus supplementing the railway income.

Work started in earnest in Dart River where the ground was quite flat. Trees were torn down and the ground smoothed and a rough track was laid out.

Passenger stations at Dart River and Dartacre were constructed as well as a freight station in Dart River.

However, there were many miles to go and it would be some time before trains would be seen on this track.

Review - Hole Digging Lots

Here is my latest custom content review.

Entry 12: Service required!

On the 15th July 1917, John Harris, first settler and Alderman of Oak River died. Alderman Harris was much loved by his community and very powerful, locally and he was also a traditionalist resisting all forms organisation beyond the village level. He saw no need for the villages to interfere with one another.

However, once he had passed on, the council members from the other villages found it far easier to impose their will on a leaderless Oak River population. The problem for the villages was somewhat uncontrolled growth and a complete lack of services.

 On 17th October 1917 the communities organised a vote on the topic of government. Three options were put forth. The first was to remain as is, practicing government on an ad hoc basis. The second was to keep village government but have local `Townships' that would rule over a number of villages in the area. The third choice was to have a regional government overseeing everything.

The villages voted separately with 44% of the populace voting for option one, 53% for option 2 and a measly 3% for option three. At a meeting on the 4th November, the townships of Oak River, Dart River, Sarah's Cove, Pelargir, Anduin, Revis Island, Dartmouth, Broadoak and Widdershins Bay were officially founded.

The townships were set out on a rigid square grid as shown below. Some of the townships ended up a bit bizarre it terms of geography, but for fairness it was decided that each township should occupy the same amount of space.

The townships were given legal powers to set their own laws. As the year drew to a close, the townships passed laws enabling them to collect taxes - previously everything was subsidised by the villagers themselves.

However, the councilmen knew that they had to provide more services once they started collecting money. On 27th December 1917 the Township of Dart River called the inhabitants together for a meeting so they could suggest a use for all the revenue.

Let's look in to the meeting to see what is happening.

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Thank you, everybody. As you are aware, we've had a voluntary contribution for the upkeep of the power generators and streets for some time now. You're also aware that from now on everyone will have to contribute to the township financially. It's called tax.

Anyway, we have over $226,000 already, most of which dates back to the founding of the villages. What you may not know is that it only cost $407 to pay for power and roads and we're collecting in $1524 under this new tax arrangement.

So, the question is how can we put that money to use to make all of our lives better? We've come up with some ideas ourselves. A school, perhaps? What about a professional fire fighting unit? We've been doing it ourselves until now. Organised policing? What about a centralised water system so that we can get cleaner water or maybe we could look after our health.

What's most important to you? What do you want to see in our town?