How Do You Imagine Simnation?

[beanstalk_sims]

I've been thinking, since I'm going to be using the maxis neighbourhoods in my legacy at some point in the future, about the geography of simnation. I ended up drawing out my thoughts about locations and things in paint:



Now for the "I put this there because..." and I'm warning you, I've put quite a bit of thought into this, so it's kind of long xD

The first irritating thing I found was the fact that most of the 'hoods were by water/coastlines, which mean very few in-land neighbourhoods. Not much of a problem, but it definitely made me think more about the layout of things.

As for where things were placed, I thought about it in terms of the weather here in the UK - there's generally more rain and more hills in the west, and the east is flat and dryer (that's a generalisation, but you get the idea).

So using that idea, Riverblossom Hills was put on the left, what would be west. And in the hills (clue's in the name there, really). I also imagined Three Lakes would be somewhere around that area, but couldn't fit in where Takemizu or Twikkii would be, so I left them out.

Belladonna Cove, in my mind, is a large town/small city, so I placed that near Sim City. (Sim City being the Downtown area). Belladonna is a place of business and rich families. Celebrities are likely to live in the rich part of Belladonna.

Pleasantview, even though it's an everyone-knows-everyone suburb in my mind, is still fairly close to Sim City. It's also connected to Bluewater Village (which is an island because it water on both sides of it), because I imagine Cassandra Goth and Gilbert Jacquet being friends. That's literally my only reason for placing Bluewater Village there.

Veronaville is in-land, because it has a river not a coastline. It was nice to be able to add variety. Looking at the map I've drawn, it's pretty close to Sim City, but I still imagine it being a longer trip from Sim City to Veronaville than from Sim City to Pleasantview. Maybe the roads are bad or something. Also, Veronaville has less rain, but higher temperatures than the places on the coast - Monty's Ranch was a reason for that decision.

Strangetown is really far on the right, because I needed a desert area, and I had fun trying to work out how that would work with the others. Plus, I imagine the Road to Nowhere is pretty long, so anyone driving from the other neighbours to Strangetown is going to have a seriously long journey.

Desiderata has a summer-y feel to it, so while it ended up in the North, it was put nearer to Strangetown in order to feel some of its weather effects - though Desiderata Valley would definitely see more rain - it's a valley, afterall, and valleys make me think of the rainy hills in Wales. So Desiderata is close to Riverblossom and the hills for that reason. I also picture Desiderata as one of those places that *was* a tourist-filled beach town, which is no longer popular like it used to be.

With the universities, Academie Le Tour is connected to Veronaville (I've always connected it that way), and while Riverblossom Hills has a direct route to Sim State, I imagine the people from Riverblossom would choose ALT because it's quieter. Then again, they might choose Sim State just to be opposite.

Sim State university takes on Pleasantview and Belladonna, mainly. It's close to Sim City, because it just sounds like it would be - plus I get the image in my head that Sim State is more of a city-based uni than a campus based one. Not sure why, but that's what springs to mind.

La Fiesta Tech is for Desiderata Valley and Strangetown. I know that Desiderata is technically closer to ALT, but it's *too* close, y'know? The people in Desiderata would choose LFT for the opportunity of having independence from their families.


So that's how I would arrange the neighbourhoods, but what about you guys? I've put a lot of thought into this, so I thought I'd share my ideas.