Aeronwen River Valley

Welcome to the Aeronwen River Valley: rugged and serene, mysterious and yet familiar. Farm on the rich riverside plains, mine ore in the hills, harvest logs from the thick forests, or drill for oil near the river mouth. You’ll find this map good for all the DLC you have.

Many thanks to BonBonB and the BonBon Buddies for inspiration and excellent tutelage on map-making. You’re the best!

Links

Aeronwen One-Click Collection – The big list of assets. See note on trees, below, if you’re inclined.
Suggested (but generally essential) Mods One Click List

Required mods, DLC:
Mass Transit

Unlimited Trees Mod v1.11
Prop and Tree Anarchy
Network Extensions 2

Required Theme: (This is important to get the cliff and sand textures right):
Realistic V1.5.5 Temperate

The Satellite LUT is my preference, as it is less saturated and tends toward blues, which is good for a temperate summer–on my monitor, anyhow. YMMV due to the variation in monitors, video cards, and eyes.

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Artist’s Notes

I based Aeronwyn River Valley on a landscape I generated with World Machine,[www.world-machine.com] a sophisticated terrain generation program that has the ability to model all types of erosion–wind, heat, and water–and various types of rock as well. World-building game authors use World Machine as one of their primary tools, so you might like to play with this, too! (No, I’m not getting paid for this fangirl gushing.) I use these height/erosion/flow/etc. maps in Vue Infinite to create still renders of places I could only imagine.

So that’s how the height map got started. Once in the map editor, I realized that this landscape reminded me of photos I’ve seen of the Green River Valley in Wyoming. I’ve never been there, specifically, but I have driven across the American West. Thus I decided to try to take cues from the vegetation and look of that region. But this is not a "real place" map. Aeronwen River Valley takes artistic liberties with the aim of creating a certain natural aesthetic in Cities: Skylines game experience.

Attention! Custom Assets Liberally Used

I strongly recommend the Unlimited Trees mod. You will really need it to have the forests looking as they should.

I designed Aeronwen River Valley as a very playable map, good with the all the DLCs (but no snow, sorry) and includes plenty of resources so that Industries works well in it. That said, this is NOT a "vanilla" map. It’s full of custom trees and props from the Workshop, and relies heavily upon ParkLife vegetation and rocks.

If you open all 81 tiles, you’ll be able to discover some little surprises I have tucked in out-of-the-way corners. I love stories, and I write novels, too, so I have left some stories waiting for you to discover. Were there some survivalist groups here once? Who lived up in the hills near the old mines and the secret lakes? Can you find the old graveyard and the apple orchard?

But most of all, enjoy. 🙂

Notes on Trees

Below is a long list of the trees that live in Wyoming. I’ve made do with what’s available in the Workshop and picked from a list from an official forest survey site (in case you are a vegetation nut, as I am):

Aspen
Bur oak
Spruce/fir
Douglas fir
Lodgepole pine
Whitebark pine
Limber pine
Ponderosa pin
Juniper

Riparian (riverside) trees

Sequoia sempervirens – Coast Redwood
Thuja plicata – Western Redcedar
Abies grandis – Grand Fir
Picea sitchensis – Sitka Spruce
Chamaecyparis lawsoniana – Port Orford-cedar
Taxus brevifolia – Pacific Yew
Populus fremontii – Fremont Cottonwood (use live oak for cottonwood)
Populus trichocarpa – Black Cottonwood
Platanus racemosa – California Sycamore
Alnus rhombifolia – White Alder
Alnus rubra – Red Alder
Acer macrophyllum – Big-leaf Maple
Fraxinus latifolia – Oregon ash
Prunus emarginata – Bitter Cherry
Salix lasiolepis – Arroyo Willow
Salix lucida – Pacific Willow
Quercus agrifolia – Coast live oak
Quercus garryana – Garry oak
Populus tremuloides – Quaking Aspen
Umbellularia californica – California Bay Laurel (use little split-trunk tree)
Cornus nuttallii – Pacific Dogwood

Riparian shrubs:

Acer circinatum – Vine Maple
Ribes spp. – Gooseberies and Currants
Rosa pisocarpa – Swamp Rose or Cluster Rose
Symphoricarpos albus – Snowberry
Spiraea douglasii – Douglas spirea
Rubus spp. – Blackberries, Raspberries, Thimbleberry, Salmonberry
Rhododendron occidentale – Western Azalea
Oplopanax horridus – Devil’s Club
Oemleria cerasiformis – Indian Plum, Osoberry
Lonicera involucrata – Twinberry
Cornus stolonifera – Red-osier Dogwood
Salix spp. – Willows