Neloxia v. The World (FM16/Cities Skylines)

[Young Drachma]

Past Neloxia Dynasties:
The Progeny of Neloxia: A FM/Sim City 4 Dynasty

Franchise FC: Welcoming the 23rd Club (FM10/SC4)

To The Future...To Laurinca (FM11)

Neloxia 2100 (FM10/Sim City 4)l

Return to Neloxia

I was able to create the most extensive Neloxian league I've made since FM2010.

Here's the setup of the leagues:

Ligapremier (16 teams)
Ligaexcel (11 teams)
Series A (10 teams)
Series B (11 teams)
Series C (11 teams)
Series D (13 teams)
Series E (13 teams)
Series SE (14 teams)
Neloxian Football Alliance Premier (12 teams)
NFA League One (11 teams)
NFA League Two (8 teams)
Hometown Football League Division 1 (9 teams)
HFL Division 2 (8 teams)
HFL Division 3 (10 teams)
HFL Division 4 (11 teams)
HFL Division 5 (12 teams)
HFL Division 6 (17 teams)
Sunday Football Association League One (12 teams)
SFA Division 2 (15 teams)

So there are 19 divisions now.

Not sure exactly what the punchline of this story will be, other than recapping the stories and reintroducing the teams of Neloxia, some that are familiar and with some newer stories.

[Young Drachma]

I might have to start again anyway, the game is crashing now because I mistakenly went down to the one of the lower divisions to try to attempt to play and there's a bug in one of those leagues that I can't quite diagnose. It's fine, I'll go back and restart from earlier but I'll make Neloxia better from the start so we don't have to wait 30 years before the country is good at international football.

Not that anyone is paying attention or anything, but I just keep the embers of this thread going so I can eventually come in and spam everyone with lots of Neloxia-centric sportsball.

[Critch]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

Not that anyone is paying attention or anything, but I just keep the embers of this thread going so I can eventually come in and spam everyone with lots of Neloxia-centric sportsball.

I'll be reading, I've been in awe of your extreme level of sim-sports dorkiness on here for years. You raise/lower the bar for all of us.

[Young Drachma]

I've updated this database (well rebuilt it) for FM16. The database is available in the Steam workshop.

For people not using Steam, the DB is uploaded to Mediafire.

There are 17 tiers of playable leagues with a total of 218 clubs across them. One known issue is that you should only play to the Series D (9th division), though. The other clubs will still operate, play games and participate in the Cups.

There's just a problem that I can't find with one of the lower division regional leagues, but it seems not making the league playable solves the problem.

[Young Drachma]

I've simmed to 2032 in my current save. Let's start to take a look at Neloxian football starting with the national team.



The team is currently ranked #1 in the world and recently won the Euro 2032 Championship for the first time ever. It's quite a time for Neloxian football!

Neloxia qualified for the World Cup for the first time ever in 2026, finishing 4th in their Group. In 2030, the team fared much better, finishing 4th in the entire tournament after losing to Russia in the 3rd place game.

High hopes abound heading towards the 2034 World Cup in China.

Here's the current world rankings:



LEAGUE CHAMPS
The LigaPremier is Neloxia's top division:
Champions through 2031-32. The Top 4 teams qualify for the playoffs each year to crown a winner rather than relying on who has the most points.



The most dominant teams over the past few decades have been Cerise and Alzate Capital, both longtime dominant clubs. Holdsworth Steel has shown up in recent times to be a formidable foe during playoff time, as well.

As for FA Cup winners, there are no minnows claiming anything.

[Young Drachma]

Here are the World Cup champions through 2032:

[Young Drachma]

I've just been simming. It's 2040 at the moment. Neloxia won the 2034 World Cup, but lost in the 2nd round of the 2036 World Cup in Canada. The next World Cup is in Portugal, who also won the last edition of the tournament.

I'm thinking I might do something like take over a team in a traditional league (USA or England or something) and then use that as an inroads into talking about Neloxia again.

I'm not sure yet though, all I've been doing is simming up to now though. I've got leagues active all over the world on most continents, thanks to some great files I found with a deep bench of countries that aren't normally in the game. I like it because it means I can add a lot more African and Asian and even South American players through their playable leagues in-game than we normally get to see.

I'm semi-fascinated by the idea of trying to propel the USA to a Top 3 finish at a World Cup, I'd figure by now that they're be better on the world stage and they're not.

[bbgunn]

Romania finished freakin' 2nd at the 2022 World Cup? Wow...

[Young Drachma]

Only the top six divisions are active for this save (down to the Series D) but I'm going to go through and talk about the major players, upstarts and give you a sense of the landscape of Neloxian football as it exists right now.

First off, the Neloxia national team has been a rising power for a while and solidified the nation as one of football's leaders with an improbable World Cup victory in 2034. The nation has also won the Euro 2032, the UEFA Nations League once and two under-20 World Cup victories in recent memory.

High hopes are on tap for the upcoming World Cup in 2046, where Neloxia hopes to claim its second victory ever, after faltering in the two previous editions of the tournament.

But before we go there, we'll cover the national leagues and give you a who's who:

LIGAPREMIER
The 16-team Ligapremier awards 5 points per win, which makes matches a lot more competitive because wins are so valuable all the way to the end of the season. Teams play each other three times (45 games) and the top four teams qualify for the post-season single-elimination playoffs. The two worst teams in the Ligapremier are relegated to the 11 team LigaExcel.*

TOP TEAMS
Cerise has won more LP titles than any other team with 15, though their last title came eight years ago. Based in the capital city Marisa, they have an extensive fanbase and are the preferred team of politicians & elites, but also have a historically strong supporter base of migrants who are relatively new to Neloxia and only saw Cerise games on TV, giving them national reach. They've been to the Champions League final twice in their history. Their main color is Maroon.

The gold standard of Neloxian football however belongs to a club called Alzate Capital. They are often jokingly referred to outsiders as "Real Neloxia", owning to the Spanish heritage of the club. They were founded by a bank and have branched out into a variety of industries over the years, but the corporate priority has always been about owning the most globally significant Neloxian football team. The Red and White is an institution.*Alzate has won 13 LP titles and has been the runner up 13 times. They've also won the Champions League twice.*

Holdsworth Steel are probably the third most successful club in the modern era. They've won 10 LP titles, have been runner up 8 times and outside of the Alzate/Cerise derby manage to be a dominant club despite really only drawing their fanbase from the rural areas around Holdsworth, an old industrial city where the team is based. They've won the Galatic League twice, a tournament where many of the best teams in the world participate (and is held in Neloxia annually) and have also won the Europa League twice in recent history. Their colors are Yellow and Black.

Anthracite Taxi are another regional club with an outsized success rate, winning all five of their LP titles since 2016. The club has won the most titles of any team not named Cerise or Alzate since that time. Their fanbase has grown substantially and as a suburban Marisa team, they're able to draw fans from the capital & surrounding area. In 2040, they were the UEFA Champions League finalist. They wear checkercab colored uniforms.

Kings Avenue is another Marisa-based club that has only had recent success, winning the LP three times in their history and being runners up five times -- all in the last 20 years. Champions League runners up in 2044, they didn't win promotion from the LigaExcel until 2018, making their improbable run of 4 FA Cup titles since then even more impressive. If you're looking for a club on the rise, Kings Avenue is probably the one you'll pick simply because they're an elite team you can root for without feeling like a bandwagoner, mostly because fans of other old teams are entrenched in their fandom.

Black Tambourine is a major beer brand that backs a club that still sports a large fanbase despite their lack of relative success over the last 25 years. The Brewers have won 5 LP titles in their history, but the last came over 26 years ago. They even managed to get relegated to the LigaExcel for a year, a blow their fans still haven't recovered from despite winning the LE (2036-37) and coming back to the top division. They've made just three playoff appearances in the past 25 years and obviously not winning in any of them. Black Tam wears Gold and Black.

Neloxian Dairy were the runners up for the LP title in 2016-17, but have not appeared in the Top 2 since and managed to get relegated last year for the first time in over 35 seasons. They still sport a solid fanbase, but have seen better times.

Prima Alzate is the other major club hailing from Alzate, with a much smaller fanbase and footprint. The derby between the two clubs (Alzate Capital and Prima) is fierce. They won their only LP title in 2009 and these days have been relegated all the way down to the Series A. This has taken a toll on their fanbase. Prima wears a baby blue color.

Embassy of Football has been in the LigaPremier since 2015-16, without ever winning it. They've only made one playoff appearance ever, but they've won an FA Cup and somehow have managed to not get relegated.*

There are some other clubs in the LigaPremier at present worth noting, so we'll just cover the rest of them as of (2045-46):

Endersby City is a story of epic proportions. Playing out of the hamlet of Endersby City, in the far northern part of Neloxia with a population of less than 30,000 people, this club playing in the Football Alliance Championship (9th division) in 2015-16. By 2042-43, through a variety of promotions, they'd made it to the Ligapremier for the first time, bounced back down a level and are back again this year. It's an impressive story, even if they don't manage to stick around.

San Carlos 1999 are based in the city of Figueroa and were a Series A that rose through the ranks to reach the LigaPremier for the first time in the 20s and have been back 6 times since then. They've never stuck around more than a year during any of their stints.*

Sporting Mapouras are a big city team from the city of Mapouras, but they've never claimed the Ligapremier title and their only FA Cup win was in 1934. Still, they've been an active member of the Ligapremier every year since 2015-16. Over that time, they've never made the playoffs. Still their fanbase is loyal, tortured and yearning for a breakthrough.

The Family are based in Figueroa and have been a recent upstart winning the FA Cup twice and twice appearing the Ligapremier playoff final. They've made six straight playoff appearances and were only promoted to the Ligapremier in the early 20s.*

Watchmen are a club based in the medium sized city of Decleyre and have had swig of success winning the Ligapremier twice, most recently in 2043. They also have a Galactic League title in their satchel of late and among small fan base teams, they're one that draw from all over Neloxia due to an aggresive marketing campaign.

East Hellsbath A.C. are an upstart who earned promotion and hail from the Hellsbath metropolitan area, having worked their way up from the Series B in 2015 to make three appearances in the Ligapremier never lasting more than a year. They have a much smaller fanbase than the dominant Hellsbath area team - Hellsbath Wanderers - but have been able to slowly cut into that lately, through their promotions.

Boldmouth Robins are one of the oldest continiously professional clubs in Neloxia. They won 7 FA Cups during the early days all before 1933. The club worked up from Series B to the LigaPremier for the first time 12 seasons ago and have made five appearances since then. This is their first back to back set of seasons in the LP, but they've secured relegation meaning they're headed back down again.

Other clubs worth mentioning:

AFC Swenton United (LigaExcel, worked their way up from the 7th division over past few decades)

Swenton City (LigaExcel, Swenton is one of the largest cities in Neloxia but does not currently have a team in the LigaPremier.)

Broadcast Network of Neloxia (BNN) (LigaExcel, their highwater mark came in '25 when they were runners up for the FA Cup. A large fanbase due to an outsized tv deal.)

Five Cities Insurance (FCI) (LigaExcel, a traditional Neloxian power who are not really powerful anymore. Won the LP in 1969.)

Enclave are a North Marisa club playing in the LigaExcel, they won two LP titles in the 60s and 70s. That was a long time ago.

Vampire Lake (Series A) Won 5 FA Cups, the last in 2020. Vampire Lake is the largest city in the mostly rural Northwestern part of Neloxia. People in this area largely root for Marisa-based clubs, but there is a devoted, passionate fan base who'll root for the Bloodsuckers, especially if they are winning.

[Young Drachma]

Updated World Cup results through the upcoming 2044 World Cup.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by bbgunn

Romania finished freakin' 2nd at the 2022 World Cup? Wow...

Weird, right? I don't even have their league active.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

[i]
Vampire Lake (Series A) Won 5 FA Cups, the last in 2020. Vampire Lake is the largest city in the mostly rural Northwestern part of Neloxia. People in this area largely root for Marisa-based clubs, but there is a devoted, passionate fan base who'll root for the Bloodsuckers, especially if they are winning.

Neolexian joke: "I'm so goth, I clap morosely for Vampire Lake."

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Izulde

Neolexian joke: "I'm so goth, I clap morosely for Vampire Lake."

LOL

First game of the World Cup 2046 and Neloxia drew with Senegal 2-2. Here are both of our goals.

[Young Drachma]

I kinda felt bad as Neloxia beat the USA 3-1 to inch closer to a spot in the 2nd round of the World Cup. Standing in our way is Italy. If they win or draw against Italy or if Senegal loses, we qualify. Otherwise, it'll come down to goal differential.

[Young Drachma]

We win the group, taking out Italy 3-1 after two own goals (??!)



Worth noting that I'm just watching these games, I don't have a manager in this save and never have.

[Young Drachma]

The game was simming unbeknowist to me. Luckily, when I went to see what happened, Neloxia kept winning.

Beat France 5-1 (?!?) to advance to the World Cup Semi-Final.

[Young Drachma]

Took me a few days to get around to watching the World Cup Semis (2046) and seeing Neloxia take Austria behind the woodshed. Neloxia faces England in the World Cup Final. I like their chances, but man...

[Young Drachma]

World Cup Final. Neloxia beats Italy, it's the 2nd WC title in history.

[Greyfriars Bobby]

The Neloxian juggernaut made short work of the World Cup. They scored some beautiful goals along the way, too.

[Young Drachma]

I'm back in Cities Skylines finally after a long absence. I've redeveloped a city into Siadan, a coastal city that I always envisioned as Neloxia's "cultural capital." It's home the world famous dish Chicken Siadan.

Here's what I wrote about it a few years ago. The only thing that's changed is the location. Well and the fact that Siadan is not going to become the capital of Neloxia ever.

Anyway, Siadan these days has over a million people. It's booming, though population has stabilized some. The biggest thing is, they're not home to any major football clubs. Siadan is mostly basketball country, so what I'm kicking around is creating some HS recruits from some of the city's high schools (once I name them all) and then follow their careers in FBCB/Pro.

The village was targeted by the national government for the capital expansion project (CEP) that will move the national capital from central Neloxia to the north. Whether Siadan would become capital or a neighboring city, this project transformed a once sleepy village into Neloxia’s culture capital. Home to museums, bistros and universities, Siadan has becomes synonymous with Neloxia’s 21st century imagination as a modern nation.

Still, this dish owes to a chef living in Upton Park who hailed from there and named it after his hometown. Neloxian culture is a polygot, but whereas American culture is influenced heavily by immigration from Italy, England and South America, Neloxian culture is influenced heavily by subcontinent immigration and its Mediterranean origins creating wildly unique dishes that are played up by ambitious chefs.

Recipe

1 cup quinoa
1 cup white wine
1 cup of roasted olive oil
Spices added: Crushed red pepper, sea salt to taste

4 large chicken breasts
Seasoned and covered in yogurt, cardamon and ginger. Broil for 7-8 minutes on each side, depending on oven strength. Preferably on a open rack for better cooking.

3 tbs of pesto
21/2-3 cups of tomato sauce
2 medium potatoes chopped
¼th cup of peanuts
2 tbs of butter
1 cup of olive oil
Season with brown sugar, cinnamon, paprika, sea salt and pepper to taste.

Once chicken is done, mix with pot of other ingredients on medium heat. Add 1 cup of spinach leaves and stir occasionally. Allow to simmer and serve.

[Young Drachma]

Here's your flyover of Saidan.

[Young Drachma]

I've started working on another town, West Alzate that's a mountain town I always envisioned on the other side of Alzate but had never built before now. Another place without a team of its own in football, but intrigued to get these communities involved somehow, a potential fork in my DB that moves two teams to Siadan & West Alzate.

[Young Drachma]

I think Endersby City is a good target team for either of these cities to take on with regard to a new stadium. That town is too small to really support a team and if they stay there -- as a LP club -- you'd argue it'd be too hard for them to draw. Fans from the other cities are fans, but it's hard to get to Endersby City.

I could also draw a scenario where Endersby is a bedroom community of one of these two cities to make the move easier to pull off. (Green Bay & Milwaukee if Milwaukee were closer, essentially.)

Lemme think on it.

FCI - Five Cities Insurance isn't anywhere near the top division anymore, but they're another team that could use a big market to play in. There are surely others, but I'd need to load the game to figure it out. I'll probably release a new version of the file with a specific scenario centered around Saidan and West Alzate, with a storyline that somehow binds the two major teams in those markets probably a Derby of some kind.

[Young Drachma]

East Alzate-New Cromwell



There are some legacy teams over from this area, which makes my task a bit easier. The fun(ny) thing about canon and writing a story is trying to make each iteration fit or at least, being able to explain away the stuff you did before.

A view towards downtown New Cromwell on a rainy day.

[Young Drachma]

I figured out what I'm going to do next. Siadan is an area that I haven't written about in years and besides the backstory of it being the cultural capital of the country, I honestly had not really fleshed much more of it. I especially didn't make it part of the footballing universe ever.

But now that I have a whole map that encompasses the city and its suburbs, I wanted to go further.

So as a result of the area being over 2 million people and growing, the Football Alliance decided to essentially expand. There were 31 teams in the HFL Division 6 (Step 15 on the Neloxian Football Pyramid) and that was mostly because I had to consolidate the four leagues at that level into one.

TL;DR: We're adding a Series E and a Series SE to go at the 7th and 8th step of the Neloxian football pyramid. The Series SE will start with teams entirely from Siadan and West Alzate, since those areas aren't represented.

I'll focus mostly on the Siadan area teams because it's all on a cohesive map. More to come.

[Young Drachma]

I just a did test sim of my league that is now 19 levels. For some reason, I can't actually take over a team at the bottom level, I have to start at the 8th level (Series SE) but that's okay for the purposes of what I'm attempting here.

Here's Siadan with actual place names, though that'll change as the place expands.



I'm also a big fan of looking at the major area of the city from the suburbs to see the contrast. I'm starting to build on the outer parts of Siadan away from the main areas and islands and into the interior.

Here's some views. I'll start outlining the different neighborhoods and communities in a future post and yes, there are teams to correspond with many of these places.




This is an early drive on the SE Island Parkway heading back into Saidan. With no traffic, it's maybe a 20 minute drive? There's not much out there, so the traffic isn't too bad yet.

[Young Drachma]

In my most recent reboot of the Neloxian pyramid, I changed the top division rules a bit.

It's still 5 points for a win. But instead of playoffs to decide the title, it's a single table with no playoffs to decide the champion. Instead, the worst two teams (15-16) get relegated. Teams in 11th through 14th play in a relegation playoff and one of them gets relegated at the end of it. I figure it makes it easier to determine who had the best season and it might increase the diversity of champions rather than the playoff model I was using, while making the top division more competitive at the bottom.

Meanwhile, the Series E and SE (Step 7-8 on the Neloxian pyramid) are mostly comprised of teams from Siadan, as advertised.

Here are some photos of Siadan:

From Bayside, the first town on the SE Island Parkway, north of Cape Vanilla, about 30 minutes from downtown without traffic.


Hazel Island is a bedroom community to mainland Siadan. Increasingly overrun with hipsters.


Bootswife is one of the oldest communities in Siadan and was until recently the only area to have a soccer team anywhere outside of the semi-pro divisions.


Downtown Siadan, on the East Side just got more interesting with the completion of Red Tambourine Stadium, a baseball stadium. It's across the street from the NBA/NHL-sized arena.



Here's the landscape. I'll get into more detail about individual teams later, but here's the current standings in the Series E & Series SE. I'm going to take over a team in the SE at some point and attempt to get them promoted, once I can confirm that the file actually will sim a while since I made changes, I just want to make sure.

[Young Drachma]

I kept Estudiantes West Alzate, winners of the 1925 Neloxian FA Cup as an "always amateur" team, but to compensate, they have a huge endowment, the result of memberships sold to former students, but really from a bequest left by a former student who ended up being a billionaire. So they're (at the moment) the 10th richest club in the world but they're fully amateur and started at the 8th level of the Neloxian football pyramid. Now they're at the 6th and favored for another promotion.

I wanted to see how far a team without any pros could get in my current system.

To my surprise, not only have they not been relegated yet, they've been promoted twice. I'm curious about taking them over and seeing how far they can go, tbh. But at this stage, I'm just going to keep simming and peering in. I'm just super confused by and intrigued by their success and why guys would play for them.



My reading about amateur teams is that the biggest struggle is money, so in this case, if money isn't the issue, then it's just a matter of sourcing talent sustainably over time. I'll be intrigued to see how they are able to rise and how that works.

[Young Drachma]

Neloxia won the 2026 World Cup in my most recent reboot. I also worked on trying to bring Haiti's football program back to prominence slowly but surely and they qualified for the most recent World Cup, but didn't make it to the 2nd round.

But looking more closely at the Neloxian pyramid, it was a trip to me how hard it is to get out of the Series (Level 3-6) because after you leave the Series E, you have to win the league to get to the next level, there are no playoffs out of Series A-D.

This was deliberate, because when the Neloxian Ligapremier and LigaExcel were created, the idea was to make sure that the falls weren't necessarily punitive and intended to slow the flow of teams coming up from the bottom ranks, but I'll be able to look at history to see whether or not that's worked.

[Young Drachma]

My current obsession is going through the entire city of Siadan, as well as the suburbs and essentially taking on some urban renewal projects, some gentrification and expanding the exurbs to have more of the dense residential that I've relocated out of most of the core inner city areas.

I haven't named the various neighborhoods yet, having redrawn the borders of the neighborhoods and need to figure out what's where. I've even gone down and drawn street boundaries in various parts of the city to give myself a sense of where everything is.

Game is being finicky so I'm not running it in online mode, but will eventually upload screenshots. Then I'll also get back to football.

[Young Drachma]

Much like older cities I've inherited, these days, I've been more interested in rebuilding the mass transit lines (I removed all of them and rebuilt all of the bus & subway lines) and then looking around the city at the infrastructure and seeing what I can modify in terms of the original setup.

When I'm done, what I end up with is a very different city than what I stated with.

For starters, the skyline is a lot less dense than it was when we started.

[Young Drachma]

Steam sucks and so, for some reason I'm not at the moment able to load the Siadan map. We'll figure that out later.

I've moved onto another map for the city of Vampire Lake. In the past, I've actually talked about that city without every doing much of a runthrough of the place, but with their team's prominence, I thought it'd be a good place to profile.



Here's the new stadium for Vampire Lake. It's not downtown, but probably 20-30 minutes away (I haven't done a traffic runthrough yet) but there's a subway line built specifically for getting people to and from the stadium, as well as a bus line that goes that way.

It's very Meadowlands/Giants Stadium-y

[Young Drachma]

I've been in a mass transit mood, but before I could get there, I wanted to get a sense of the communities, name some streets and really know where Vampire Lake was.

For our purposes, the city of Vampire Lake & suburbs have a centralized government, but as I grow the city, there will be other cities on this map that won't be part of Vampire Lake at all just logistically because of distance/geographical separation or whatever.

The last census population was 1.08 million people. Vampire Lake has always been the largest city in the Northwest part of Neloxia. I'm going to probably do breakdowns of the various neighborhoods in subsequent posts, including describing what mass transit connection exist and doing NY Times style neighborhood profiles once I get around to it.

Here's a breakdown of the existing neighborhoods.

VAMPIRE LAKE NEIGHBORHOODS
Downtown
Southwest of Downtown (ShaDOW)
Glovemaker District
Broadway Square
Bridgeport
Old Settlement (Old Town)
Neuwewaard
Cathedral Square
Oldenzach
Lower West Side
East Village
Lakeside Heights
Winslet
River Park
23rd & Main
Upper West Side
West Side Mills
Far North Side
Haiden Park
Wolf Harbour

OFF-ISLAND NEIGHBORHOODS
Tillcoultry
Mirefield
Easthaven
Due South
Lane Park
Woodbine
Near Bridge
Collegetown
Lower Park Square

Basil Point (Bazar Island)
East Lake (East Island)

Here's a shot of downtown. The second shot is from the ShaDOW (SW of Downtown) neighborhood.





Here's the map of the various neighborhoods. You can't see the names as well, but it'll at least spatially help you orient yourself. East Island is east, the Airport/SW of Downtown is west. South is Vampire Lake.

[Young Drachma]

We've got a major traffic problem which is really just the fault of the way the city is designed. Mass transit is helping presumably, but not like it should.

I'm considering dropping all of our bus lines except the suburban ones and seeing if it increases Metro use.

[Young Drachma]

Watching real life Swansea City piss away a match win today and instead losing 3 points by sucking made me want to steal away into Neloxia football and see what's going on here and in the rest of the world.

First thing:

I only put one team in Vampire Lake. Which makes sense given the area was always meant to be less than populated relative to other parts of the country.

Going back to Neloxia 2100 dynasty, the area was described as anchored by Vampire Lake and metropolitan areas of Teela City/North Teela & South Teela.

Perhaps our next experiment on this map is to build those cities. Unlike Vampire City, there will be no skycrapers or anything in Teela and the surrounding areas, just entirely residential with some commercial area and that's it.

Also I just looked and it turns out, there aren't anything other than amateur sides in Teela. Which means there will have to be another city in the area with a major team (I think Englesman & Krikstan City perhaps) to give this region more than just one big league team.

To show you how far we've come, here's how the old map of Vampire Lake and Teela were envisioned:

[Young Drachma]

Did a census of all of the high schools in the Vampire Lake area right now.

North Teela
Teela City
Chamberlain (Englesman)
Woodland Mills
CityView Alternative
Teela South
Woodbine
Alice Lehrer (Woodbine)
University
East Lake Island
Basil Point East
Basil Point West
Vampire Lake HS East
VLHS West
VLHS South
VLHS North
City Park
St. John The Baptist (Cathedral Square)
Vocational (Lower West Side)
Mountain View (Upper West Side)
River Park
Midtown

[Young Drachma]

In my reboot, Neloxia lost the 2030 World Cup to Colombia. I didn't see any of the action, but was pleased a non-power country managed to win the whole thing. We'll be back in 2034 to see if we can follow up 2026 with a 2nd World Cup title.

My next idea before I do that is to try to see if having a 2nd anchor city that's not really connected to the Vampire Lake metro in the Northeast & Northwest of the region (which are currently unoccupied but do have highway access) would be able to solve some of my traffic congestion problems.

Right now, if people want to get to work, they have to take the highway and essentially go work in the western part of the map or to the downtown core. Or to some random suburb. So it's very spread out and you've just got people going in a ton of different directions which I'm sure doesn't help. Couple that with the way the suburbs were built with winding roads all on the outskirts of town and you just get really bad congestion and I'm not sure -- short of putting subway stations in every neighborhoods -- what would really solve the issue.

The subway idea is a worthwhile one to consider down the road just to see if it works, but like a real-life city, I'd rather let things get really bad for a while.

Plus having a second city might make it a more viable from a purely financial perspective. Let's get to work.

[Young Drachma]

We've got 22 bus lines and just 10 metro lines. I think all of them need to be rebuilt, but I'm not going to do that until after I figure out the satellite city thing.

[Young Drachma]

Here's the Group setup for the 2034 World Cup in Japan.

| Pos      | Team     | P        | W        | D        | L        | GD       | Pts      | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 1st      | Italy    | 3        | 2        | 1        | 0        | 2        | 7        | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd      | Mexico   | 3        | 1        | 2        | 0        | 3        | 5        | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd      | Japan    | 3        | 1        | 0        | 2        | -3       | 3        | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th      | Senegal  | 3        | 0        | 1        | 2        | -2       | 1        | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 







| Pos      | Team        | P        | W        | D        | L        | GD       | Pts      | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 1st      | France      | 3        | 3        | 0        | 0        | 6        | 9        | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd      | Haiti       | 3        | 2        | 0        | 1        | 6        | 6        | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd      | Greece      | 3        | 1        | 0        | 2        | -3       | 3        | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th      | New Zealand | 3        | 0        | 0        | 3        | -9       | 0        | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 







| Pos      | Team         | P        | W        | D        | L        | GD       | Pts      | 
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 1st      | Brazil       | 3        | 2        | 1        | 0        | 7        | 7        | 
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd      | Switzerland  | 3        | 2        | 1        | 0        | 4        | 7        | 
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd      | Algeria      | 3        | 1        | 0        | 2        | -2       | 3        | 
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th      | Saudi Arabia | 3        | 0        | 0        | 3        | -9       | 0        | 
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 







| Pos      | Team        | P        | W        | D        | L        | GD       | Pts      | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 1st      | Portugal    | 3        | 3        | 0        | 0        | 6        | 9        | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd      | Ukraine     | 3        | 2        | 0        | 1        | 1        | 6        | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd      | Colombia    | 3        | 1        | 0        | 2        | -1       | 3        | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th      | North Korea | 3        | 0        | 0        | 3        | -6       | 0        | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 







| Pos      | Team           | P        | W        | D        | L        | GD       | Pts      | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 1st      | Germany        | 3        | 3        | 0        | 0        | 4        | 9        | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd      | Czech Republic | 3        | 2        | 0        | 1        | 1        | 6        | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd      | Chile          | 3        | 0        | 1        | 2        | -2       | 1        | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th      | U.S.A.         | 3        | 0        | 1        | 2        | -3       | 1        | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 







| Pos      | Team        | P        | W        | D        | L        | GD       | Pts      | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 1st      | Neloxia     | 3        | 3        | 0        | 0        | 5        | 9        | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd      | Sweden      | 3        | 2        | 0        | 1        | 2        | 6        | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd      | Egypt       | 3        | 1        | 0        | 2        | -3       | 3        | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th      | South Korea | 3        | 0        | 0        | 3        | -4       | 0        | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 







| Pos      | Team     | P        | W        | D        | L        | GD       | Pts      | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 1st      | Spain    | 3        | 2        | 1        | 0        | 4        | 7        | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd      | Argentina| 3        | 2        | 1        | 0        | 4        | 7        | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd      | Australia| 3        | 0        | 1        | 2        | -3       | 1        | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th      | DR Congo | 3        | 0        | 1        | 2        | -5       | 1        | 
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 







| Pos      | Team        | P        | W        | D        | L        | GD       | Pts      | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 1st      | Belgium     | 3        | 1        | 2        | 0        | 1        | 5        | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd      | Costa Rica  | 3        | 1        | 2        | 0        | 1        | 5        | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd      | Holland     | 3        | 1        | 0        | 2        | -1       | 3        | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th      | Ivory Coast | 3        | 0        | 2        | 1        | -1       | 2        | 
| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 

[Young Drachma]

2034 World Cup Final was by no means pretty. But...Neloxia wins its 2nd World Cup in our third straight appearance in the WC Final.

[Young Drachma]

Meanwhile in Vampire Lake, the bedroom community of Cathopolis has grown substantially as people from around the Northern areas of Neloxia move to the city for access to jobs in Vampire Lake, as well as a quiet place to raise a family.



One of the things I did do with mass transit was delete all of the subway lines I inherited because I felt like I could do a better job rebuilding the infrastructure. The design of the city made it easier than some of my more metropolitan maps to create several "core lines" and then having sub-lines that extend off of them.

[Young Drachma]

In recent years, we've seen massive growth to communities far from the city including the second largest city in the Northwest Neloxia region, Cathopolis and Blake City, another town that boasts its own commercial district.

What I'd like to do is rather than geek out on highways and street tunnels, doing flyovers of the entire map or anything else, I'd like to borrow a page from the Living In section of the New York Times that profiles different neighborhoods in the New York City area.

It profiles real estate, but also things to do in these communities as if they're appealing to people who are looking for places to live. So to humanize my particular city, but also to get more familiar with the various areas that are cropping up through a 40% increase in population in the Vampire Lake Metropolitan Area (VLMA) over the past 5 years. People are moving here in droves, but why?

We'll explore the hot neighborhoods, the hidden gems & examine what makes Vampire Lake such a great place to live.

[Young Drachma]

Neloxia and Italy tied at 4-4 in the 2038 World Cup before Neloxia won 9-8 on penalties. Sabatino Granzotto of Italy scored 4 goals (?!?) and was player of the match. Andrew Jackson of Neloxia had a hat trick of his own.

Granzotto's performance blew my mind. I only watched the highlights of this, I didn't watch it live, but what's crazy is Neloxia was up 3-0 before Italy stormed back with Granzotto putting the entire team on his back and scoring 4 straight goals. Neloxia only scored the equalizer in the 90TH MINUTE to force the game to extra time and then penalties.

If there was ever a match that was crueler to end in penalties, I haven't seen it.

[Young Drachma]

LIVING IN: FIREFLY RIDGE

The 32nd and newest official neighborhood in Vampire Lake is Firefly Ridge. Nested along the Firefly Mountain ridge in an area that is rapidly changing from a former lumber mill was purchased by a land consortium and converted to a residential complex.

Many people said that no one would want to live in the area, because of its industrial roots and anticipated the project would fail. What they could not imagine was an area that would boast some of the best views of the region.*

The residents who have descended on the area are young families who were attracted to Vampire Lake by its high quality of life, without having to sacrifice much of the city amenities they'd grown accustomed to in other parts of the city or from more metropolitan cities like Swenton, Maporuas or the capital city region of Marisa.

"My family thought I was crazy when I said I was moving to Vampire Lake," said Raylee Bush, 31, an administrator at a health clinic. Last month she and her husband, Tanner, 39, a registered nurse, and their son, aged 5 years old, moved to Vampire Lake from a two-bedroom rental in Upton Park, where even after six years they felt overwhelmed by the swelling of the capital region.*

"We just felt like it wasn't a place to raise a family," Ms. Bush said.

Besides, Ms. Bush said that in Vampire Lake, they were able to get a brand new condo for the price than anything they'd be able to afford in the Marisa-area and with salaries in Vampire Lake mostly par with other cities in the country, being in the Northwest of Neloxia allowed the family to get more space for more money.

Today she and her family share a semideatched house with three bedrooms, two bathrooms and exquisite views of Vampire Lake, for $212,500.*

What Firefly Ridge offers is unmatched in any other neighborhood in the city, maybe because it's the first master planned community in Vampire Lake. While new developments have cropped up in suburban communities like Cathopolis - a growing city in its own right - or Blake City in the southeast section of the metro area, Firefly Ridge is firmly in the city limits of Vampire Lake and offers easy access to downtown amenities, activities and city schools.



WHAT YOU'LL FIND

Nestled atop the hills, Firefly Ridge boasts a population of about 27,724. Bordered by the Trans-Island Expressway (TIE) and the former Westside Mills Lumber Yard, the closest residential neighborhood is the Lower West Side, but its closest real neighborhood is the Vampire Lake Regional Airport, a deterrent that many real estate agents cite is a problem for some would-be residents and what keeps prices among the lowest in the area so far, but that's changing quickly.

Narrow, winding streets are a staple of the region owing to the lumber yard vestiges. All of the residential properties are new and were built in the last 5 years and there is a diverse stock from co-op to condomimums. Single-family homes are rare, but Phase II of the community plan for the Westside Mills complex involves a separate neighborhood of single-family dwellings.


WHAT TO DO

One of the side effects of building a new community from scratch are also building commercial and event spaces to entertain the people living there. Right now, none of that exists in Firefly Ridge. The closest commercial amenities are available in the Lower West Side neighborhoods.*

There are a number of parks in the community and many of the residents cite this as an aspect of the community they like. "We feel like we know the faces, because here you see them often. It's almost easy to forget you live in a big city up here. I don't feel that way anywhere else in town," said Janet Garrison, 48, an artist & museum curator whose lived in different areas of Vampire Lake for 20 years.

THE SCHOOLS

Another logistical issue with the Firefly Ridge area is the lack of schools. The VLMA already has a surplus on seats at public non-high schools, so the city school authority did not deem the area worthy of adding an additional school.*

The closest K-8 school, Seaside Ridge Elementary (P.S. 5) is physically located in the nearby neighborhood*of Seaside Park (which depending on who you speak to is often considered part of Shadow district),*nestled on the shores of Vampire Lake, due west of SW Downtown (Shadow) district. There are five other elementary schools in the Upper West Side that are also relatively nearby.

The closest high school is Vampire Lake HS in the Shadow district.

THE COMMUTE
Firefly Ridge does have a VSTOP station -- both the Green line (East) and Blue line (North) have stops here which will take you into downtown or connections to the suburbs.*

There is currently no bus access to Firefly Ridge.

[Young Drachma]

LIVING IN: Niuewewaard (The Dutch District)

Originally settled as a community for repatriated Afrikaners, coloured and blacks from apartheid South Africa who wanted to live together in a unified community, the Nieuwewaard was a colony that evolved into a hot spot for artists new to the VLMA.*

That's what attracted Silvia Bencomo to the area over 30 years ago. She remains despite the flurry of changes in the neighborhoods around her. "It's kind of a forgotten part of the city. Doesn't have the hustle and bustle of the other parts. We have shops, places to eat and I like it."

Most locals call it "the German district."*

Vistas along many of the streets are similar, with views towards the skyscrapers of downtown or peering looks towards the north and the Bay area. There are a few detached single-family homes, but primarily condos and co-ops predominate the neighborhood that is bounded on the east side by Sorel Avenue and on the west by Henke Boulevard and West Arcade on the north.

Tight inventory is elevating prices. Town house sales have ranged from the $400,000 to $1 million in the last year, said Dick Grout of Vampire Estates Realtors, with the "largest majority" from $615,000 to $2 million."

A recent internet search found 31 residential properties for sale and 81 for rent; most two-bedroom rentals ranged from $1900 to $4300 a month.

WHAT TO DO

The area boasts a number of restaurants including highly rated seafood shops and is home to the city's best ethnic fare including Thai, Italian, Indonesian and American.*

In addition, the area borders the Lake City Zoo*
at the corner of Arcade and Sorel Avenue. Tourists seeking a more "authentic" Vampire Lake experience often travel to the area to visit the historic German church or to shop at the Macy's. The Hyatt Place hotel also built its downtown flagship in the Niuewewaard, as well.



THE SCHOOLS

Options include Public School 14 on Arcade and 2nd Street, which teaches through Grade 8.

THE COMMUTE
The South End station at Niuewewaard has access to most major train lines including Green (South), Purple (Southeast), Orange (SW) and Gold (North) line trains that can take commuters to all points through the VLMA. Several bus lines also dot the neighborhood along Henke, Arcade and Sorel Ave.*

[Young Drachma]

Here's an alpha of my rent/home price calculator for Cities Skylines. The basic idea is taking the average price per square meter for districts that the game generates and using that to come up with a price per square foot number to determine rent.

Home price uses that, along with a prestige factor for the various neighborhoods that I decided not to use with rent in my alpha example, but could be added to the formula pretty easily.

Cities Skylines Rent/Mortgage Calculator - Google Sheets

[Young Drachma]

Haiti won the 2042 World Cup over Germany. Neloxia beat Italy for 3rd place.

[Young Drachma]

Here's the Ligapremier results the past few years. I keep wanting to wait a year before diving in and trying to get some team besides one of the Big 3 teams into the title race. I'm also intrigued by trying to see if I can get Estudiantes West Alzate out of the Series B and into the Ligapremier despite being an amateur team.

[Young Drachma]

Given we're spending so much time talking about Vampire Lake the city, seems like getting their team to be better in this dimension of the story would be ideal.

[Young Drachma]

Traffic in Vampire Lake, Neloxia

I've had some massive traffic issues -- that is, when I could even get the game loaded -- and so much of my current preoccupation has been looking at the ways that traffic flows around the city and cutting out many of the multiple pathways that the city has and trying to make it more consistent.

The original city roadmap was designed with lots of winding streets in residential neighborhoods which is really turning out to be a problem, but there's no way we're going to be able to raze entire neighborhoods to right the wrongs. *Instead, I've converted a number of main thoroughfares into one-way roads to attempt to flow traffic out of the city center and onto highways or to the places they live if that's where they want to go.

We just had a massive deathwave too that caused some issues because of course, there were massive bottlenecks of emergency vehicles trying to get around the city and the mods I'd use to fix that problem weren't installing for whatever reason, so I just had to go without. I solved that problem though, but our traffic problem has rerouted to other parts of the city. I'm going to continue to tackle that gradually.


The original airport in Vampire Lake, BHA has been replaced by Vampire Lake-Cathopolis International Airport which was recently completed outside of the city limits in suburban Bernstein. After some resistance, city officials are considering closing BHA and converting the street into a one-way road that traffic can use to enter the city to control the massive bottlenecks occurring at present.