Man-Made Archipelago

Here's another experiment of mine, this time attempting to blend organic shapes with geometric ones. I was inspired by cities such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi - ridiculously wealthy, ultra-modern and with a penchant for extreme and unconventional architecture. Basically, the real-world equivalent of playing Sim City with all the cheats on.

Anyway, this map features a long, thin strip of hilly coastline with an esplanade, perfect for houses along the beach and then stores or restaurants further inland. The focal point, though, is the artificial island which is designed to look like a man-made land reclamation project. It is connected to the esplanade by three bridges, as well as to a smaller island on the opposite shore, which would be perfect for a large, unique building like a performing arts center or stadium.

As always, I recommend you use a camera hack to get the full benefit out of the map but it still works without it.

To install, extract the files to your Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/SC4Terrains folder.

Any comments and constructive criticism are welcome!




*** OPTIONAL AESTHETIC ENHANCEMENTS ***
When you first load up this map in game, you may notice that the diagonal sections are jagged and ugly. To smooth them out so that it looks like what's shown in my pictures, you'll need to use the modifyneighborhoodterrain on cheat. Highlight just the outermost corner of each 'tooth' as seen in this image:

...and then hold down the ] key (right square bracket) to lower the terrain until the wall is vertical. Repeat for all the teeth. Alternatively, if you don't want to bother with this method, you can download Criquette's Modest Embankment neighborhood deco set and just cover up the eyesores.