South West London 2 - From queues to Kew
After my adventures with TFL detailed in the last blog I was faced with a problem; money was now falling for the first time. My response was to tweak the taxes. Lowering residential tax to encourage more migration into the city and raising the industrial tax to offset it seemed like such a good idea. I was so, so wrong. As I was fiddling with the finer details of my parks I didn't notice the massive downward spiral I'd kicked off. My losses became worse and worse and my population started falling again, was this another death wave? What was happening... a quick check on Brentford nearly gave me a heart attack. It was all gone! The taxes were too high and all the industry had left. With no jobs, there was less incentive for people to move to the city. I adjusted tax rate again but industry returned in trickles. It seems the huge mills and factories I'd developed over decades in-game weren't coming back overnight and my taxes were suffering because of it. The commercial revenue of White City and Oxford Street were keeping me afloat but my huge parks and glut of massive historic buildings left a hefty maintenance bill.
Despite my economic woes I still had 1 million in the bank. It was a far cry from the 4 million I had had only a couple of hours ago when money felt endless. The economy would need careful balancing from now on. Tough lesson learnt I returned to what had distracted me in the first place: Kew Gardens...
 |
| Kew Gardens as seen from the river |
The famous botanical attraction had been right on my doorstep from the start, lying just south of Brentford but I knew I couldn't do it justice until now. With a range of buildings unlocked including a massive glass pyramid and high-level park buildings unlocked from Hyde Parks increasing visitor count, I set about doing my own creative spin on a London landmark I'd visited a few times over the years. I fenced off the gardens making it an admissions only park but buildings were designed to be roadside. My initial attempt to stick a dirt track that was connected to nothing proved successful until the game punished me for having roads without any police or fire bridge patrolling them... a classic limitation of any city simulator I should have seen coming. I eventually solved it via a creative solution. A relatively hidden underpass coming up in the center of the park connecting it to an off-site police and fire station, itself then connected to waste disposal and other emergency services fixed the issue. There was something amusingly ironic about Kew Gardens being the center of London crime, but it being littered with dead bodies due to no ambulances or morgues was definitely a step too far.
 |
| The main entrance to Kew |
In the end, I was pretty proud of my interpretation of Kew Gardens and the whole Kew area benefited from me spending an extended time this close to the ground. I added Kew retail park and tried to marry up the street layouts as best I could. Lots of Premier Inns appeared which actually looks really cool: another mod I think but I'm not sure which as I've installed so many now!
 |
| A very large Premier Inn as part of Kew Retail Park |
Before I finished up I explored a bit further south. As I'd put in Richmond train and underground stations it seemed a shame not to zone it up to give a chance to grow. I'm having a new issue with the city demanding commercial zones but then those areas collapsing through lack of workers. Hopefully it balances out, maybe I need to add more bus routes to enable commuters to get to work? Either way, it didn't stop me building up Richmond high street into a classy shopping/tourist center with the help of the Victorian housing mod again and an old looking European street asset plonked in the middle. Again, a stylistic interpretation of Richmond but one I'm satisfied with.
 |
| Richmond highstreet |
South West London is definitely on the build. All I can do now is tamper with public transport, tweak taxes and hope it builds itself up naturally. It's time to turn my attention to central London. Am I up for the task? Find out next time...
 |
Central London beckons...
(plus an optimistic interpretation of the BT tower!)
|
No comments:
Post a Comment