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Las Bajas

One of the highest concrete dams in the world has just been completed in a canyon near a huge swath of empty desert.

A large lake was created -- most of which is across the border, and not accessible to you. You do have direct control of the zoning of the desert basin, though.

There's not really any water here -- just a small brackish pond at the base of the escarpment, where what little rain that does fall percolates through the rock.

There is no farmland whatsoever, and the mineral content consists of some toxic heavy metals and radioactive compounds -- valuable, yes, but the environmentalists will make a clamor as soon as you try to extract any of it, and where would you dump the waste?

No, this is not the place for a city of industry, but there IS a highway crossroads and a rail junction that could be exploited.

You can make it an important distribution hub -- with a cargo airport and rail yard serving the entire region, and beyond!

Oh, and since the climate is always guaranteed to be hot, dry, and sunny, why not create an oasis out of this largely desolate desert? Just add hotels and golf courses, some pretty landscaping, fountains, an international airport, and, of course, lobby the government to allow gambling and encourage casinos.

After all -- what else is there to do in this bone-dry basin?


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This was inspired by Las Vegas, of course. I did not use any height map, just made something from scratch that would have a low, flat desert basin surrounded by higher desert scrubland.

Vegas itself is surrounded by quite sandy ground, but ringing the city are hills and mountains that are covered in scrub brush, which is what I tried to emulate here.

I used Arrowhead Valley theme.
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=768219242

(Originally I had used Owl's Tropicity/Desert theme, but it was far too grey and cloudy for Vegas).

I created the lake area with a lot of water sources, but it is not meant to fish -- it is to make sure the lake appears full because water in Cities Skylines is haphazard, at best. I also had to use another water source on the other side of the dam, because otherwise the river wouldn't stay flowing.

I guess you could try to fit a fishing dock in one corner of the playable map, if you had to, but I intentionally designed the map to be without water almost entirely. I only wanted the dam to make this map like Vegas, with nearby Hoover Dam. I made a couple on/off ramps at the dam and put it within a playable square (without using a mod for extra tiles) so you can make the dam a tourist attraction, if you want.

I added the small lake within the playable area in case you want to create any artificial bodies of water without using a mod.

The screenshot showing the Strip and Casinos does not exist on this map -- it is from the city I made on this map. I included it here only for inspiration.

I used the following trees:

(links to follow)

Robusta Palm Set

Short Pine

Aloe Vera

Agave Plant

Desert Plant 01

Black Pine

I also used vanilla large and small shrubs.