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A FAQ/Strategy Guide
(c) 2004-2009 Benjermin Ochsner Version 2.13
Benjer AT gmail DOT com September 26, 2009
==========================
About this document...
==========================
This document was created with the Vim text editor, using the commands ":set
tw=79" ":set fo=tcq" and ":set spell." Local font setting was 10 pt
"Monospace," 79 characters per line. This document is best viewed using Mozilla
Firefox 3.0 or later, with a screen resolution setting of at least 800 x 600
pixels. If you are experiencing difficulties in viewing this document, try
adjusting your screen settings for better results.
SimCity 2000 has been released for several platforms. While I try to include
information that I know about all releases, it is best to consider this
document to be applicable only to the version released for Windows.
I created this document to help others who are in need of assistance with
Simcity 2000.
====================
About E-mails...
====================
If you have any questions that have gone unanswered here, you may e-mail me at
the address above (Benjer AT gmail DOT com).
Please place "SC2K" in the title of the e-mail to ensure that it isn't deleted.
Also, let me know if there are any major factual errors in the guide (ignore
spelling and grammar errata), or if someone has posted this guided outside the
websites listed in the legal section (L G L).
========================
Table of Contents...
========================
HOW TO USE: Following each section listing will be a code whose letters are
separated by spaces EX: (L G L). To go immediately to a particular section,
press Ctrl + F to bring up the Find Window. Enter the code without parentheses
or spaces (but retain the upper-case letters) to go to that section. Make sure
that search options for case-sensitive and whole-word-only are selected. These
codes will also appear throughout the document to provide convenient access to
related material.
---Note---
Not all subsections (3.2, 4.4, etc.) are listed in the Table of Contents. I
have omitted those I feel do not warrant inclusion.
I have tried to make the document's style as consistent as possible throughout.
Nonetheless, some inconsistencies will appear. I apologize.
=============================================================================
1 About SimCity 2000 (A B T)
2 The Gameplay (G P Y)
2.1 What You'll See
2.2 File Menu
2.3 Speed Menu
2.4 Options Menu
2.5 Disasters Menu
2.6 Windows Menu
2.7 Newspapers Menu
2.8 Help Menu
2.9 City Toolbar (C T B)
2.10 Terrain Editor (T R E)
3 The Tools (T L S)
3.1 Terrain and Landscaping
3.2 Emergency Dispatch
3.3 Power
3.4 Water
3.5 Rewards
3.6 Transportation
3.7 Zoning
3.8 Civics
4 The Disasters (D S S)
5 The Windows (W N S)
5.1 Budget Window (B G T)
5.2 Ordinances Window (O D N)
5.3 Population Window (P L N)
5.4 Industry Window (I N Y)
5.5 Graphs Window (G R P)
5.6 Neighbors Window (N G H)
5.7 Maps Window (M P A)
6 Behind the Software (S F T)
7 Strategies (S T Y)
7.1 Starting and Designing (S R T)
7.2 Maintaining the City (M T N)
7.3 Dealing with Scenarios (S C S)
8 Tricks and Cheats (T T C)
8.1 Tricks (T R K)
8.2 Cheats (C H T)
8.3 Easter Eggs (E A G)
8.4 The Debug Menu
8.5 The Fund Trick
8.6 The "Floating Mountain" Trick
9 Links and Resources (L N K)
9.1 Online Resources
9.2 Printed Resources
10 Legal Disclaimer (L G L)
11 Document History (H S T)
12 Acknowledgments (A N W)
=============================================================================
If you are curious, each of the sections of the document will cover information
as described below.
Section 1 introduces you to the game and what it does.
Section 2 will list the controls/functions etc. for SimCity 2000 (hereafter
referred to as "SC2K"). Whatever can be done in the simulator and where you can
do it will be briefly described here.
Section 3 helps you figure out how to use all the tools available to build and
maintain your city in a functional manner.
Section 4 describes all of the disasters and the methods for dealing with them.
Section 5 explains each window in SC2K and the meaning of the information they
present.
Section 6 covers the "under the hood" aspect of SC2K. The information you find
here isn't necessarily relevant to the actual gameplay, but might satiate any
curiosity you had about the game.
Section 7 is where you'll find all of the strategies for playing SC2K; things
like how to design your city, dealing with negative factors like crime or
pollution, and so on. All the skills you need to be a successful mayor can be
found here.
Section 8 contains an assortment of tricks, Easter eggs, and several cheats for
all systems.
Section 9 is full of links and a list of available printed resources that will
assist you with SC2K. Together, they contain a wealth of knowledge over a wide
range of subjects.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = =ABT= =
= =
= SECTION 1: About SimCity 2000 =
= =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
SimCity 2000 is a creation of Maxis (under Electronic Arts) and individually,
the brainchild of Will Wright. Mr. Wright has achieved such fame within the
Maxis world that he cameos in several post-SC2K releases, including SimCity
3000 and The Sims.
SC2K was originally released for the Macintosh in 1993 then later released for
DOS and Windows. At the time, SC2K pushed the processing power of computers to
the max, which by today's standards are pretty paltry.
SC2K was later released for the SNES followed by releases for the PlayStation,
Saturn, OS/2 and Pocket PC (there are probably other versions I have failed to
mention). In 2003, SC2K was also released for the GameBoy Advance, a testament
to the game's enduring popularity.
As the sequel to SimCity Classic, SC2K presented a huge departure from its
predecessor. It remains a compelling and popular game to this day, some 16
years since its release.
System Requirements
=======================
For curiosity's sake, here are the system requirements, as listed on the back
of the "SimCity 2000 Special Edition" CD-ROM case. There may be some folks who
actually need to make sure their machines can run the game, but for the rest of
you it serves as a reminder of what was considered "top-of-the-line" more than
15 years ago.
DOS, IBM or 100% Compatible, 486 or above REQUIRES: MS-DOS 5.0 & above; 8MB
free RAM, mouse, hard disk, SVGA card (with 512k video RAM); double-speed
CD-ROM drive. SUPPORTS: Most popular sound cards or printers.
DOS, IBM or 100% Compatible, 486 or above REQUIRES: Windows 3.1; 8MB RAM
(requires Virtual Memory). Other requirements same as for DOS. SUPPORTS: All
Windows-compatible sound cards and printers.
WINDOWS 95 IBM or 100% Compatible, 486 or Above, 66 MHz or Above. REQUIRES:
Windows 95. Other requirements same as for Windows. SUPPORTS: All Windows-
compatible sound cards and printers.
---Note---
Printers? Huh? The Special Edition CD-ROM include additional software that
makes use of the printer. The actual game itself never needs a printer.
The Philosophy of the Game
==============================
SC2K presents an opportunity to explore everything you wanted to know about
running a city. This game will give you a chance to exert God-like powers over
a society of Sims, allowing you to do whatever you wish with whatever kind of
city you want to manage. It can be a pre-made city, a scenario, or something of
your own design. You can fulfil your own visions of heaven or hell, your own
paradise or despot, or anything in between. These things are what make SC2K so
amazing.
Perhaps you want to build the largest city possible? People have attained
populations of over 11 million Sims. Or you can attempt to make a city that is
more focused on scenery and nature than population goals. Try your hand at any
of the challenging scenarios provided with the game, or cause a few disasters
your own. You can watch your city prosper as you grow it more and more, or you
can watch it collapse and decay as you drive your city into the ground with
inept city management. Take a shot at recreating your hometown, SimCity style,
or design a city that's out of this world. The possibilities are endless.
= = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = =GPY= =
= =
= SECTION 2: The Gameplay =
= =
= = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = =
================================
Section 2.1: What You'll See
================================
When you start SC2K, you'll be presented with a small "in-flight move" (that
is, assuming you have the disc in the drive). After that you come to the main
screen with this options window on top*:
+-----------------+
|+---------------+|
||Load Saved City||
|+---------------+|
|+---------------+|
||Start New City ||
|+---------------+|
|+---------------+|
|| Edit New Map ||
|+---------------+|
|+---------------+|
|| Load Scenario ||
|+---------------+|
|+---------------+|
|| Quit ||
|+---------------+|
+-----------------+
*There are other options that might appear depending on what additional
software you have installed, like SCURK.
The first two options take you directly to the city simulator, with the latter
prompting you for some information first.
The third option takes you to the terrain editor.
The fourth option opens a menu that lets you choose which scenario you'd like
to play.
The last will close the program.
ALL of these options have equivalent functions in the FILE MENU, discussed in
detail in section 2.2.
---
When you're in the simulator window, you're going to see a few objects of
interest. Below is a poorly-rendered ASCII representation.
---Note---
Anything in between ">>" and "<<" (EX: >>1<<) does not appear in-game.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|X SimCity 2000 - [Mmm YYYY <City Name> $$,$$$] >>1<< -OX|
|X File Speed Options Disasters Windows Newspapers >>2<< Help -OX|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| |^|
| |-|
| | |
| +-------+ | |
| | | >>4<< | |
| | | | |
| | >>3<< | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| +-------+ | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| |-|
| |V|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|<| |>| |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| >>5<< | >>6<< | >>7<< | | Goto |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
>>1<< Title Bar
====================
At the far left of this is the game's program icon followed by the program
name. Next to the right is some basic information regarding your city, as
indicated in the poorly-rendered ASCII representation. An example of a real
city might be:
[Jan 2441 <Ceres Garden City> $24,397]
This information will still appear if the program has been minimized to the
task bar. If a disaster has occurred, the task will flash.
At the far right are the normal Windows buttons for minimizing, resizing and
closing the program.
>>2<< Menu Bar
===================
At the far left of this bar is the icon for the city simulator, which is
identical to the icon for saved game files (*.SC2). Next to the right are the
menu bar items: File, Speed, Options, Disasters, Windows and Newspapers. These
are all discussed in depth in sections 2.2 through 2.7 (further below). Further
to the right is the Help menu, further discussed in 2.8. At the far right are
more buttons for closing (supposedly) ONLY the simulator window, and not the
whole program. These will still close out the entire program, however.
>>3<< City Toolbar
=======================
This starts out floating to the left of the screen, but it can be dragged
anywhere. Everything you need to work on your city can be found in this
toolbar, along with many buttons that perform the same tasks as some of the
options in the menu bar. A discussion of the City Toolbar and what it does can
be found in section 2.9 (C T B).
>>4<< Simulator Window
===========================
This is the main feature of the program - the actual city. The landscape is
presented in an aerial isometric view that provides a pseudo-3D effect. This is
also where you'll actually do your work on the city. The view is displayed in
real time and can be viewed from four different angles in several degrees of
zoom. Additionally, a variety of filters and varying views can be applied, all
of which are discussed in either 2.9, City Toolbar (C T B) or 5.7, Maps Window
(M P A).
>>5<< Current Tool
=======================
This area simply displays the current/last tool or function you used working on
the city. If applicable, it also displays the cost of that tool or function.
>>6<< Citizens' Gripe
==========================
This area displays the current complaint du jour that is most pressing among
your Sims. Any sort of complaint that you can think of regarding a city can
appear here. Sometimes they want more schools, sometimes they want lower taxes,
sometimes you just don't care but there will be something there anyway. It's
more convenient than reading the newspapers, anyway.
Additionally, this area will indicate if the game is paused.
>>7<< Current Weather
==========================
Displays the current weather of the city with a descriptive word or two. "Hot,"
"Rain" and "Snow" are an indication of what you can expect. Sometimes the
current weather can be a precursor to an impending disaster like a tornado or
hurricane.
---SNES Note---
This version of SC2K will actually show the visual effects of the weather (you
can see rain and clouds, etc).
---DOS & Macintosh Note---
Areas 5, 6 and 7 as indicated in the poorly-rendered ASCII representation will
instead be indicated with a small floating "Status Box." This box will show the
current/last tool or function at the top in large, bold text. Below that in
smaller text will be the current citizens' gripe. To the left will be a visual
icon indicating the current weather.
==============================
Section 2.2: The File Menu
==============================
Here is where you'll find all your typical file menu operations.
Load City
=============
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+L
DOS Shortcut: Alt-L
This does exactly what it says it does. Selecting this option will open a small
window where you can browse and choose any available *.SC2 file for opening.
Also, you can select a *.CTY file (SimCity Classic) to be converted to a SC2K
file. This feature is discussed in more detail in Section 8.1 (T R K).
New City
============
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+E
DOS Shortcut: Alt-E
This selection will open up the SC2K Terrain Editor. Here, you can select
various options with which you can edit your terrain before starting a new city
on it. This feature is discussed more fully in Section 2.10 (T R E).
Load Scenario
=================
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+Z
DOS Shortcut: Alt-Z
This selection opens up a menu from where you can select from a variety of
different cities which you can start up. Unlike regular SC2K files, these
cities have built-in scenarios which you must complete in order to receive the
key to the city (which lets you play it forever). Fail the specified win
conditions and you'll be booted. More info in Section 7 (S T Y).
Save City
=============
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+S
DOS Shortcut: Alt-S
One of the more important commands, it's imperative that you save your city
frequently. Failing to do so can lead to many problems, especially in the rare
circumstance that SC2K glitches and sends your city to electronic oblivion. In
any case, it's easy enough to save, so be sure to do so often. When you save
for the first time on any given city, you'll be asked to name the file and to
decide its location (usually there is a default folder location). Afterward,
each save will result in a pop-up that tells you that your city has been saved
and the location it has been saved to.
---PlayStation Note---
I felt it necessary to mention that saving a city in the PlayStation version of
this game is quite a time-consuming process.
Save City As...
===================
Shortcuts: None
This is the same as the previous command, except that you must also always
specify a file name and a directory in which to save. This is useful for
creating back-up copies of cities.
---Note---
Loading, saving, and saving-as can all be performed on scenarios and unfinished
terrain edits as well.
Exit ("Quit" in DOS)
========
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+X
DOS Shortcut: Alt-Q
This command will exit the SC2K program. When doing so you will always be
prompted to save your city, even if you have just saved and haven't made any
changes since.
===============================
Section 2.3: The Speed Menu
===============================
This menu lets you control the rate at which time passes in the simulator.
Pause
=========
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+P
DOS Shortcut: Alt-P
This command will pause the simulator (and thus, the city). This is useful for
when you are constructing, demolishing, zoning etc. and don't want to be
distracted or disrupted by the goings-on of the city. It is also handy for when
disasters occur and you want a moment to get your bearings before moving
forward.
Turtle
==========
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+1
DOS Shortcut: Alt-2
This is the slowest speed setting available for SC2K. At this speed, time will
pass at a rate of about 1 month per 20 seconds or so in the Windows version,
and a few seconds faster in the DOS Version.
Llama
=========
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+2
DOS Shortcut: Alt-2
This is the next fastest speed available in SC2K. The city will progress at a
rate of 1 month/10 seconds (1 month/5 seconds in DOS).
Cheetah
===========
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+3
DOS Shortcut: Alt-3
This is the next fastest speed in SC2K as well as being the fastest speed
available in the DOS version. Time will pass at a rate of about 1 month/5
seconds (1 month/2.5 seconds in DOS).
African Swallow (available only in the Windows version)
===================
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+4
DOS Shortcut: N/A
This is the fastest setting available in the Windows version of SC2K. Unlike
the previously mentioned speed settings, this one is limited only by your
computer's processing power. Consequently the rate will vary considerably on
different computers. On my Dell Dimension 2100 with a P3 and 256mb RAM, the
fastest speed I've seen is about 6 months/second. When the window is minimized,
however, that skyrockets to 1 century every 13 seconds. With the Windows
version it is not at all unrealistic to hit 5 or 6-digit years (how I tested
radiation decay, actually).
=================================
Section 2.4: The Options Menu
=================================
This menu contains a few options that let you adjust certain behaviors of the
simulator.
There are no shortcuts for items in this menu.
Auto-Budget
===============
This is an option you can select to have the simulator automatically make the
necessary deposits/withdrawals from your budget fund. When this is unselected,
the Budget Window will pop up once a year so you can keep tabs on your
spending.
---Note---
This option is not available if your current budget is in red ink (you owe
money). Additionally, if your budget becomes insolvent this option, if
previously turned on, will be turned off.
Auto-Goto
=============
Select this option if you want the window to automatically center on an
important event. For example, if a certain building catches fire, having this
option selected with cause the simulator window to center on that building
immediately. This is generally pretty useful. However there are some instances
when disaster-related effects are happening all over your city that can cause
this feature to throw the simulator window all over the place before you have a
chance to really see what's happening. Earthquakes are very prone to causing
this phenomenon. In such circumstances you may wish to deactivate this feature.
Sound Effects
=================
This enables you to turn the sound effects on or off. On some old DOS machines,
this may actually result in a noticeable improvement in performance.
Music
=========
This option lets you determine whether or not you want to hear that classic and
catchy SC2K music. It's okay to turn it off, though. You aren't going to hurt
anyone's feelings if you do.
===================================
Section 2.5: The Disasters Menu
===================================
This is where you can choose what kind of disaster you'd like to subject your
unfortunate Sims to. You may choose from one of the following:
- Fire
- Flood
- Air Crash
- Tornado
- Earthquake
- Monster
- Hurricane
- Rioters
At the bottom, there is an option (No Disasters) for turning disasters on or
off. Selecting this option will not allow disasters to occur randomly in your
city (you can still cause them yourself, though). For a more complete
explanation of disasters, their effects and how to clean them up, go to Section
4 (D S S).
=================================
Section 2.6: The Windows Menu
=================================
This menu lets you open a variety of windows that display various data from the
simulator.
These windows are explained in much more depth in Section 5 (W N S). There are
no DOS shortcuts for the options in this menu.
Budget
==========
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+B
Opens the Budget Window, where you can control the various aspects of your
budget such as expenditures, taxes, etc.
Ordinances
==============
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+O
Opens the Ordinances Window. Here you can select or deselect various ordinances
which have a variety of effects on your city. You can also view how much each
ordinance costs (some of them will give you money, actually).
Population
==============
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+C
Opens the Population Window. This is where you can view information regarding
the work force, average intelligence and some other demographic data.
Industry
============
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+I
Opens the Industry Window, where you can control the tax rates for specific
industries, as well as seeing each industry's supply and demand information
(i.e. Textiles, Food, Media, etc.)
Graphs
==========
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+G
Opens the Graphs Window. Here you can view a variety of city information in
graphical form. The information is displayed as a line graph, with the data
value on the X axis, and time on the Y axis. Time can be set to one of three
different time spans.
Neighbors
=============
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+H
Opens the Neighbors Window. This is where you can look at the population of
your neighbors in comparison with the population of your own city.
Maps
========
Windows Hotkey: Ctrl+M
Opens the Maps Window. This window will display information about your city
superimposed over a city map. In many cases this information can be filtered
right on to the actual city itself.
====================================
Section 2.7: The Newspapers Menu
====================================
Here you can do one of three things. First you can choose a paper you'd like to
read (choosing any given paper also sets it as the paper you receive for
Subscription or Extra! service). Second you can toggle subscription service.
Third and last you can toggle Extra! service.
If you have subscription enabled, you'll receive a paper of your choice
automatically once every six months. It will pop up on screen for your viewing
pleasure. If you have Extra! service a newspaper will pop up every time a
disaster occurs or something else newsworthy happens.
As your city's population increases, the number of available newspapers grows
from 1 to 6. More information on newspapers is available in Section 6 (S F T).
==============================
Section 2.8: The Help Menu
==============================
Provides access to Windows Help regarding SC2K. Instructions for every function
can be found here along with basic guidelines. In many cases on newer
computers, you receive a message saying a different help program is being run
because of compatibility issues. You should see some sort of SC2K help window,
though.
=======================================
Section 2.9: The City Toolbar CTB
=======================================
The City Toolbar has all the tools you need to do work in the simulator. Some
of the functions can also be accessed from the menu bar or with hot keys.
Functions have been listed from left to right, top to bottom. In some cases,
the buttons have several functions available in a drop-down menu. These are
accessed by holding down the mouse button until it appears (a big thanks to
Derick Lee for reminding me to clear that up). Once the drop-down menu appears
you can access the various options available. A complete description of what
many of these tools can do and how to apply them can be found in Section 3 (T L
S).
Bulldozer
-------------
Here you can access several tools for altering the terrain of your city. These
tools have the tendency to become very expensive and also very destructive to
your city if you don't use them carefully.
Landscape Tool
------------------
Here you can select tools to improve or beautify the natural landscape of your
city. You can build trees or ponds.
Emergency
-------------
This is for dispatching emergency units during a disaster.
Power System
----------------
Here is where you'll find all power-related tools. You can place power lines
and power plants from here.
Water System
----------------
This button provides access to all the functions related to water systems. You
place water pipes and water-related structures from here.
Rewards
-----------
Here you can select buildings that your city's Sims have rewarded to you for
your hard work. There is no cost to build these, with the exception of
arcologies.
Roads
---------
This is where you go in order to build the primary foundations of your
transportation network: roads and highways. Without these it is difficult and
costly to build and grow a city.
Rails
---------
Under here you'll find all of the tools required for constructing a
fully-functional rail and subway system.
Ports
---------
With this button you can zone land for airports and seaports.
Residential, Commercial and Industrial Zones
------------------------------------------------
Here is where you can zone land for residential, commercial or industrial use.
There are two density levels available for each zone.
Education
-------------
This is where you go to build educational facilities for your Sims of all ages,
such as schools, colleges, libraries and museums.
City Services
-----------------
Here you'll be able to construct all of those buildings every city needs to
keep its Sims safe and healthy. You can build police stations, fire stations,
hospitals or prisons.
Recreation
--------------
This is where you'll go to provide Sims with happiness and recreational
opportunities. You can build small or large parks, marinas, stadiums or zoos.
Signs
---------
This button is for placing signs in your city. They are not really part of the
city, as they have no effect on the city itself and they have no costs. To
place a sign, click on the sign button, then click on the tile over which you'd
like your sign to be (there are some instances in which you can't select a
particular tile for your sign). A window pops up and then you can type in the
text that you want the sign to display. When you're done, click the DONE button
and voila, you have a sign.
You can also delete and edit signs by clicking on the sign button and then
clicking on the tile under the sign you built. In the window that pops up, you
can edit the sign text or delete altogether.
If you want to put in special characters like letters with accents or
upside-down question marks or exclamations, you can use alt combinations like
Alt+0191 for an upside-down question mark. These codes only work in Windows
(they are a functionality of Windows, not SC2K) and other operating systems may
have different methods of typing such symbols.
---PlayStation Note---
You cannot place signs in the PlayStation version.
Query
---------
This button is perhaps the most useful and essential tool in SC2K and you'll be
sure to make heavy use of it. To use it, you can do one of two things:
- Click on the query button, then click on the building or tile you want to
query.
- Hold down <Shift> then click on the building or tile you want to query.
The advantage of the 2nd method is that whatever tool you were using before you
queried will still be active once you're done. Depending on the building you
queried, you can actually rename that building. If you can't rename the
building, just click anywhere inside the query window, or press <Esc> to exit
that window. If you can rename the building, you'll have to decide whether you
want to rename it or not, in which case you'll choose between "Rename" and
"DONE." There is no cost for querying.
---PlayStation Note---
You cannot rename buildings in the PlayStation version.
Rotate Clockwise and Rotate Counter-Clockwise
-------------------------------------------------
These two buttons are used to rotate the view of your city clockwise or
counter-clockwise one quarter turn, for which there is no cost. You'll find
that this feature is most useful when various buildings or landforms impede
your view. A quicker method of rotating the view is to press <Delete> to rotate
counter-clockwise or <Page Down> to rotate clockwise on a PC keyboard.
Zoom In and Zoom Out
------------------------
This pair of buttons does exactly what the name implies. You'll notice that
when you zoom out that the trains disappear and the buildings seem a little
different. This is because each zoom level (save for the two closest in the
Windows version) uses a different set of drawings for each zoom. You can
imagine the time it took to draw each building in three different zoom levels.
There is no cost to zoom in or out. A quicker method would be to press <Home>
to zoom in or <End> to zoom out.
---PlayStation Note---
There are only two zoom levels in the PlayStation version.
Center
----------
This tool is for centering the city map on the spot that you click on. To use
it, simply click on the center button, and then click on the spot that you want
to appear in the center of your viewing window. There are a couple of quicker
ways to do this:
- Right-click on the spot you want centered and select "Center" from the drop-
down menu that appears.
- When you use this tool, hold down the mouse button to scroll around your
city.
There is a nefarious use for this tool found in Section 8.3 (E A G).
--PlayStation Note---
The omnipresent mouse pointer serves as a centering device.
---
The next 6 buttons open up most of the various windows previously
described in Section 2.6. A complete discussion of them is in Section 5 (W N
S).
Show Buildings
------------------
Clicking this button will toggle the display of all the buildings in your city.
Show Signs
--------------
This button toggles the display of all the signs in your city. This includes
signs you made and signs generated by neighbor connections.
Show Infrastructure
-----------------------
This button toggles the display of your city's infrastructure. This includes
all transportation systems, power lines and trees.
Show Zones
--------------
Thus button toggles the display of all zoned buildings. This does not include
any structures that you built, nor does it include churches.
Show Underground
--------------------
This button toggles the display of your city's underground, in which you can
view your subways, water pipes and road tunnels. A necessity if you actually
want to construct said systems.
Help
--------
This button displays the help contents for SC2K, previously described in
Section 2.8.
Demand Indicator
--------------------
While this is not a button, it is useful nonetheless. Here is where you can see
the magnitude of demand for specific zones in your city. If the bar for a
particular zone is pointing upward toward the + sign, then demand is positive
and that zone will develop further. If the bar is pointing downward toward the
- sign then that zone has negative demand. Buildings will become abandoned and
empty zones will not develop. This tool is useful as guidance on which sort of
zoning you should apply to an empty area of land you want to develop.
---DOS note---
Clicking on the Demand Indicator actually does something in the DOS version!
Click on it and you'll receive a pop-up with a brief explanation of what the
Demand Indicator does. Absolutely amazing.
==========================================
Section 2.10: The Terrain Editor TRE
==========================================
Since we're on the subject of terrain editing, here are some basic facts about
SC2K terrains:
- Terrains are square pieces of land with 128 tiles to a side. Each tile
approximates to a single acre, about 200 x 200 feet. The total area is about
25 square miles. You may think that's a lot, but most real cities are much,
much larger than that.
- There are 2 types of water in SC2K: fresh water and salt water. Fresh water
will usually be found in any ponds or rivers on your terrain, while salt
water will be found along the coast. Of course, you can end up editing the
terrain to such a point that the above would no longer apply, but that is
how most terrains will start out.
Coast
---------
This button lets you choose whether or not you'd like to have a coast in your
city. Coasts are useful for creating high land values and also for seaports,
which can be used to help encourage industrial growth.
River
---------
This button lets you choose whether or not you'd like to have a river in your
city. Rivers provide lots of shoreline and they also make it easy to construct
seaports. In most cases rivers generated this way will zig-zag wildly, but
sometimes they can be rather straight.
Mountain, Water, and Tree Sliders
=====================================
These sliders allow you to adjust how mountainous, watery, or forested you want
your city to be.
Mountains
-------------
When this slider is maxed out, your city will literally be uninhabitable
because of a lack of flat terrain available; the terrain will consist entirely
of impossible-to-develop canyons, valleys and mountain ridges. If this slider
is minimized or zeroed out, then your city will be almost entirely flat save
for a few small hills and pits.
Water
---------
When this slider is maxed out, your city will be covered in water if it's
relatively flat. If it's very mountainous, only a few mountain peaks will poke
out of the water. If the slider is zeroed out, you will have no water at all
unless you opted for a river or coast in your city.
Trees
---------
When this slider is maxed out, your city will be covered with trees. It's nice
for creating that forest ambiance that some mayors like. If this slider is
zeroed out, there will be no trees in your city. Starting out with trees
covering every tile can sometimes make it inconvenient to develop land, since
the trees have the tendency to obscure small features like pits or hills.
---Note---
Over time, trees will begin to grow regardless of how desolate the landscape
started out as. Given enough time, any given city's undeveloped land will be
totally covered in trees.
Make
--------
This button generates a new terrain for you based on your selected criteria.
You can generate a terrain as many times as you want. If the current terrain
presented to you doesn't suit your needs, try again until something more
fitting is created. Listen for the voice as the terrain is generated.
"Reticulating splines."
Raise Terrain
-----------------
This button is supposed to lower the highlighted tile one elevation level,
along with the appropriate elevation changes to adjacent tiles.
Lower Terrain
-----------------
This button is supposed to raise the highlighted tile one elevation level,
along with the appropriate elevation changes to adjacent tiles.
---Note---
The previous two buttons are glitched in the PC and DOS versions, it seems.
The terrain does not raise or lower correctly. If you really need detailed
terrain editing, I suggest doing what you can in the terrain editor, then doing
the rest in a city with a money cheat. After that, go to the file menu and
select "Edit New Map," to, once again, see your now completed terrain in the
terrain editor (we do this to remove any negative effects of the money cheat,
and to start fair and square). Select "Done" on the Terrain Toolbar to finally
create your city.
Stretch Terrain
-------------------
This button allows you to pick any tile on the map, and then to raise or lower
it as you see fit. Simply click and hold on a tile and move the pointer up or
down to raise or lower the tile. It's the quickest way to make mountains.
However, it seems to glitch semi-frequently and will cause the entire program
to crash. Use with caution.
Raise Sea Level
-------------------
This button increases the sea level by 100 ft (one elevation level). Any trees
or ponds that are covered up will be destroyed.
Lower Sea Level
-------------------
This button decreases the sea level by 100 ft. You can completely eliminate any
navigable water with this tool.
There is a neat trick you can do with this tool. Any waterfalls on the terrain
that were previously covered up using the Raise Sea Level tool will yield
interesting glitches when the water is lowered below where the waterfalls were.
There are some neat things you can do with this glitch. More information can be
found in Section 8.6 (T T C).
Place Water
---------------
This button lets you create ponds or small streams by "waterizing" any tile you
click on. This is useful for creating areas especially suited for water pumps.
Place Stream
----------------
This button lets you create streams of water that are actually composed of the
ponds mentioned above. One click and a stream sprouts forth, generally flowing
at least a dozen tiles in any given direction, but will typically flow downhill
if it's placed on a slope. With this tool it's pretty easy to cover large
swaths of land with shallow water.
Place Tree
--------------
This button lets you plant one tree with each click. You can fill up tiles with
several trees by clicking on a tile over and over (6 or 7 times should do the
trick).
If you want to remove trees without having to right click or select the
bulldozer tool simply hold down <Shift> while clicking with the tree tool. This
will remove all trees from the tile with a single click.
Place Forest
----------------
This button lets you create forests of any size or density. It behaves a lot
like the spray paint tool found in most picture editing programs.
If you'd like to remove whole forests in similar fashion to removing trees via
the shift-click method, then simply hold down <Shift> while clicking with the
tool. This basically reverses the process of planting forests.
Zoom In & Zoom Out
----------------------
Behaves exactly as in the City Toolbar.
Rotate Clockwise & Rotate Counter-Clockwise
-----------------------------------------------
Behaves exactly as in the City Toolbar.
Center
----------
Behaves exactly as in the City Toolbar.
Help
--------
Behaves exactly as in the City Toolbar.
Done
--------
This is the button you click when you're done editing your terrain. From here,
you'll be prompted to name your city and decide which year and difficulty level
you'd like to use.
= = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = =TLS= =
= =
= SECTION 3: The Tools =
= =
= = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = =
========================================
Section 3.1: Terrain and Landscaping
========================================
Bulldozer Tools
===================
The bulldozing tools provide you with everything you need to tear down, clean
up, and shape your city. With enough money, and a heart made of blackened ice,
you can reduce your city to the ground whence it came.
Demolish/Clear
------------------
With this function you can tear down any man-made object (except for military
buildings), trees, man made ponds/lakes, and rubble.
Cost: $1 per tile.
---Note about those environmental Sims---
If you start bulldozing the forests in your city, you'll eventually receive a
pop-up indicating that your Sims are not happy with your actions and would like
you to cease and desist.
Level Terrain
-----------------
Use this to pick any tile at any elevation, then click and hold down the mouse
button to make the surrounding tiles the same elevation by moving the pointer
over them. This tool can become very expensive (each pointer movement can
potentially affect dozens of tiles), so be careful when using it. Also, if you
level over terrain that has buildings or trees on it, those things will be
destroyed. If you feel you must do extensive landscaping early on, you might
consider doing it in the Terrain Editor beforehand to save on money.
If your city is well-developed and quite a ways along, make sure you'll have
the money to cover the costs of extensive landscape work.
Cost: $25 per tile.
Raise Terrain
-----------------
This tool raises the elevation of the tile you selected by one elevation level
at a time (100 ft) to a maximum of 3050 ft. This number may actually vary by
approximately 50 ft depending on your city, but that is the maximum that I've
seen.
The surrounding tiles will also elevate accordingly to create a smooth slope.
The costs of that is also coming out of your pocket. Holding down on the mouse
button lets you quickly create mountain ranges when you move the pointer
around. Like other landscaping tools, this is an expensive feature.
Cost: $25 per tile.
Lower Terrain
-----------------
This tool lowers the terrain one elevation level at a time, usually to a
minimum of 50 ft. If you go below sea level, the hole you've created will fill
with either fresh water or salt water, depending on the proximity of the land
to any oceans in your terrain. Similarly to the Raise Terrain tool, you can use
this to create holes and valleys. Or, you can use it to create canals or
waterways in your city for shipping or scenery. As a landscaping tool, this can
also become very expensive to use.
Cost: $25 per tile.
De-Zone
-----------
This feature is for removing zoning from a given area. It's useful if you
discover that you didn't really want to zone a particularly scenic area. It's
also useful for quick rubble clean-up. Simply zone one tile in the affected
area, then de-zone that area (always making sure to include the one zoned
tile). The rubble disappears! Not only that, you've only paid $6 for the single
low-density tile and the cost to de-zone it! Compare this to the $1 per tile
you pay to clean rubble with a bulldozer. Also, you don't have to go over each
tile individually.
Cost: $1 per tile.
Landscape Tools
===================
Mother Nature has provided man with landscapes so beautiful, words cannot
describe their appearance, or their emotional impact. But when even her work is
insufficient, there's always landscaping! In SC2K, this consists mostly of
planting lots of trees and digging ponds.
Tree Tool
-------------
This will place a tree on a single tile with one click. Repeated clicking on a
particular tile will result in more and more trees being placed (up to 6) until
there is a patch of forest on that tile. Be careful with the clicking, however.
Repeated clicking on a tile already filled with trees will be ineffective, but
you'll still be charged for it. This tool will allow you to blow all your money
on a single tile. Way to go, slick.
Cost: $3 per click.
Water Tool
--------------
Use this to cover a tile with water. You can cover any unoccupied, dry title
with water and clicking on sloped tiles of any sort will create waterfalls.
It's also a nice way to create scenic water-scapes within the city.
If you use the water tool to create channels of water intended for shipping,
you will find that ships will not sail on them, nor will seaports develop along
the shores of such bodies of water. This is because water you place is
essentially a bunch of ponds, which have little depth and cannot support
shipping.
Cost: $100 per tile.
===================================
Section 3.2: Emergency Dispatch
===================================
Sometimes, you need to dispatch emergency units during a disaster. If there is
no disaster occurring, this option will be unavailable to you. You have the
option of dispatching firefighters, police, or the military, if there is a
military base in your city. If there is no fire department in your city, a
bucket brigade will rise to action. If there is no police station, the National
Guard will come to your rescue. If there is no military base, then you're out
of luck.
The number of units you can dispatch is dependant on the number of police and
fire stations you have in your city (military dispatch is always limited to a
small, set number). The simulator imposes an upper bound, however, preventing
you from dispatching hundreds of emergency units if only because your city was
filled with nothing but fire stations and police departments. Sorry but the
world doesn't work that way.
There is no cost to dispatch.
======================
Section 3.3: Power
======================
A functioning power system is -required- for -all- cities. Period. Point.
Blank. Go ahead, try and build a city without one. And when you get bored
playing with your ghost town, you come back and tell me how it went. I promise
I won't judge. Out loud.
A power system consists of a power plant and power lines. In order to work, the
power plant -must- be connected to your city, either by power lines or by
direct contact.
Power Lines
===============
Power lines are what you'll use to provide your Sims with electricity. It is a
rubber-banding tool, which means you click once and hold to start one end of
the line, and then release the button after positioning the other end of the
line where you'd like it to be built. You'll see a dollar value where you
clicked, indicating the projected cost of the length of power line you wish to
build. If at some point you wish to cancel the action altogether, hold down
<Shift> before releasing the mouse button.
Power lines can cross over any length of flat terrain, and also over water (a
dialog box informing you of the cost of crossing that body of water will appear
asking if you want to proceed). On slopes, power lines can go straight up or
down but cannot be rubber-banded across them. You may, however, place a power
line on adjacent individual tiles along a hillside and the simulator will treat
it as a continuous line. The resulting visual is less-than-satisfying, however.
---Note---
Power lines can apparently be strung across mountains covered with water falls
the same way you'd build power lines across a river. See Section 8 (T T C) for
more information.
You can also cross streets, railroads and highways with power lines. You will
need to make sure that ALL your Sims are receiving power to have a successful
city.
When power lines aren't connected to a power plant, flashing lightning bolts
will appear on each tile of power line, letting you know what's going on. Once
connected, these disappear at the end of the month in the simulator.
Cost: $2 per tile over land, $10 per tile over water.
Power Plants
================
Necessary for a successful power system, power plants are accessed from the
City Toolbar. From there, you can access a window with the available power
plants along with information about each type of plant. As time progresses,
more and more types of power plants will become available until they've all
been invented. Hydroelectric and wind power plants are 1x1 tiles apiece, while
all other plants are 4x4 tiles.
With the exception of hydroelectric and wind power, all power plants have a
50-year lifespan. At the end of this span, a power plant will cease to function
and will self-demolish immediately. You must replace it if that power plant was
an integral part of your power supply. If you have disasters disabled, the
power plants will automatically be replaced, and the funds deducted from your
city coffers. Otherwise, they will simply crumble and you must replace them
yourself (the newspapers will make you more than aware of the impending
collapse if you have the "Extra!" option in the Newspapers Menu checked).
If your city does not have enough power, parts of it will experience blackouts.
If the situation is not dealt with in a timely manner, those area will soon
become so many blocks of abandoned buildings. Your city NEEDS to be powered,
ALL the time.
Power Plant Information
---------------------------
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Type | Invention | Megawatts | Life | Cost($) | Cost per |
| | Year* | | Span | | Megawatt($)@ |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|-------|---------|---------------|
| Coal | 1900 | 200 | 50yr | 4,000 | 20 |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|-------|---------|---------------|
| Hydro- | 1900 | 20 | N/A | 400 | 20 |
| electric | | | | | |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|-------|---------|---------------|
| Oil | 1900 | 220 | 50yr | 6,600 | 30 |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|-------|---------|---------------|
| Gas | 1950 | 50 | 50yr | 2,000 | 40 |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|-------|---------|---------------|
| Nuclear | 1955 | 500 | 50yr | 15,000 | 30 |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|-------|---------|---------------|
| Wind | 1980 | 4 | N/A | 100 | 25 |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|-------|---------|---------------|
| Solar | 1990 | 50 | 50yr | 1,300 | 26 |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|-------|---------|---------------|
| Microwave | 2020 | 1600 | 50yr | 28,000 | 17.50 |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|-------|---------|---------------|
| Fusion | 2050 | 2500 | 50yr | 40,000 | 16 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
* These are approximate dates listed in the game's manual. All inventions will
occur usually within 10 years of these dates.
@ "Cost per Megawatt" really refers to the cost per unit of the total capacity
of the plant. When it comes to total "watt-hours" (usually kWh in the United
States), a measurement of how much actual power is ever produced by the plant,
the hydroelectric and wind plants will ultimately win out. This is because the
other plants can only produce so much power in their 50-year lifespans. Then
they are destroyed and replaced. Hydroelectric and wind plants last forever,
meaning the "watt-hour" unit cost for these plants gets smaller and smaller as
time passes, eventually reaching near zero. The more you know!
Coal
--------
The dirtiest and grimiest of them all. It's also fairly cheap, making it a good
choice for a new city. Later, however, as your city grows in size, coal will
become too insubstantial. You'll want to replace them with more efficient and
powerful facilities.
Hydroelectric
-----------------
The big advantage here is that these things last forever. Another big plus is
that they generate no pollution, and they typically occupy tiles that otherwise
are of limited utility for your city. However, you'll have to build lots of
them to power a medium-sized facility, and the same bonus that made them useful
for otherwise useless tiles also limits them to being built on only those kind
of tiles. If you're an aesthetics-minded person, hydroelectric dams may not
please your eye.
Oil
-------
Although expensive for a starting power plant, these are fairly reliable
workhorses. Oil has a somewhat high unit cost, but generates only roughly half
the pollution coal plants do. If your city becomes very large you'll have to
build a large number of these to keep up but they're good for smaller to
mid-size cities.
Gas
-------
Gas is much cleaner than either coal or oil, but produces very little power.
Additionally, it has a very high unit cost. I would recommend these only for
reserve or short-term emergency power if your other plants go bust.
Nuclear
-----------
These plants generate much more power than coal or oil (or both combined) and
they also emit very little pollution. With only a moderately high unit cost
they might initially strike you as a very wise choice. However, these plants
have the very undesirable tendency to explode in spectacular fashion when
they're overloaded. Unlike other plants, nuclear plants will pepper your city
with radiation, fire and clouds of toxic gas if they explode. The fires and
toxic gas are a wash but the radiation will essentially be permanent. It
supposedly wears off after several eons...
If you're timid you may choose to turn disasters off and you'll never have to
worry about irradiated cities.
Wind
--------
Like hydroelectric dams, these things last forever, occupy one tile apiece and
don't generate pollution. Unfortunately they don't generate much power either
so you'll find it takes hundreds of them to supply even a moderately-sized
city. This results in the familiar wind farms seen in Southern California and
other Southwestern states. The capacities of these little* guys are dependent
on weather and elevation. The higher they are, the more power you'll typically
get out of them.
*I jokingly say "little" but the reality is that the typical wind turbine is in
fact very large, usually several hundred feet tall.
Solar
---------
Solar receivers are rather cheap to build and they're very environmentally
friendly. The receivers produce little power so it's unwise to try and make
your city totally dependent on them. In addition to all the space it'd take up,
cloudy weather would effectively shut these down and send your Sims into
darkness. I recommend these only for backup or emergency power.
Microwave
-------------
In SC2K, microwave power plants work by constructing large receiving dishes on
the ground (what the power plant you see is). These dishes collect
pollution-free microwave beams from orbiting satellites that have gathered the
energy from the Sun's solar rays. At 1600 MW, these things are loaded for bear.
The only danger here is the slight chance that the beam received from the
orbiting satellite will miss and light a nearby structure on fire, resulting in
the casual death and destruction only a microwave power plant can provide. A
work-around for this is to build such plants in the middle of nowhere, away
from your city. Another option is to turn off disasters. Go ahead, be that kind
of person.
Fusion
----------
The biggest of them all, these things generate a whopping 2500 MW apiece, with
little pollution and no rare-but-catastrophic caveat. In fact, you'll likely
never need to build more than four to power a city (unless you're going crazy
with the magic eraser and stuff (T R K)). Fusion power plants have the lowest
unit cost and provide the most efficient means of powering a city that would
otherwise require hundreds of hydroelectric dams or wind plants, or half a
dozen (or more) other kinds of plants. Just make sure you have the funds to pay
for these when the time comes to replace them.
======================
Section 3.4: Water
======================
If you've ever gone a day or two without water, or even just -hot- water, then
you know it is a tremendous inconvenience to endure. In SC2K, as in real life,
tools are provided to prevent these events from occurring. Unlike in real life,
however, these tools don't seem to be as critical to the success of your city
as they ought to be. Nonetheless, you should have a functioning water system.
Do it. For the children.
Pipes
=========
This function automatically places you in the underground view of your city,
where you can see your layout of pipes, subways and tunnels. Laying pipe works
just like laying power lines. While in the underground view, you'll see that
many of the buildings already have small water lines under each of their tiles.
Connecting these to the water system with pipes will make those buildings part
of the water system. When you successfully connect a pipe to a water source
such as a water pump, water tower, or desalinization plant, the pipe will turn
a light, flashing blue color, indicating that water is flowing through the
line. Any water pipe, whether laid by you or created by a building, will
exhibit this behavior. Water pipes can be laid anywhere you wish, even under
bodies of water and tall mountains. Water pipes can also cross subway lines and
tunnels perpendicularly, but cannot run parallel to those structures along the
same row of tiles.
Cost: $3 per tile.
Water Pump
==============
Water pumps supply your city with water, and can do so from any tile you place
them on. Their capacity is determined by the amount of fresh water they are
surrounded by, although they still produce some water when there is no nearby
water available. You'll have to construct several of these in order to supply a
modest-to-large city with enough water. Water pumps occupy one tile apiece, so
they are typically very easy to find room for. I prefer to keep my pumps
together in one spot so that I can keep track of how many there are, but there
is no harm to scattering them throughout a city. Water pumps generate a small
amount of pollution.
A water pump requires electricity to function, and a connection to your city's
water system to provide water. If your city lacks an adequate water supply,
you'll receive several messages informing you of this fact. Regardless, your
city will go on even if it has no water.
Placing a pump next to salt water does not increase its output.
Below is a small list showing how much water a pump will produce depending on
the surrounding landscape:
- Land-locked................................15,000 gallons/month
- One side with fresh water..................36,000 gallons/month
- Two sides with fresh water.................48,000 gallons/month
- Three sides with fresh water...............54,000 gallons/month
- Four sides with fresh water (surrounded)...62,000 gallons/month
Cost: $100 per pump.
Size: 1x1
Water Tower
===============
These structures are used for storing excess water for later usage. They each
have a capacity of 40,000 gallons. Any excess water not used by the city will
be stored in the water tower for usage during a water shortage during drier
months. It has been said that looking at the number of tiles underneath the
water tower with running water in the pipes indicates how much water is left,
with each tile corresponding roughly to 10,000 gallons. Water towers must be
powered and connected to the water system to be of any use.
Cost: $250 per tower.
Size: 2x2
Treatment Plant
===================
These buildings help to reduce the overall pollution in your city. The plant
must be provided with electricity and connected to a water system to benefit
your city. If your city has no water system, you can still reap the benefits of
this structure by building only it and nothing else. Once you do build a water
system, however, you will need to connect the plant to it. Treatment plants
generate a modest amount of pollution.
Treatment plants are not available until around 1935.
Cost: $500 per plant.
Size: 2x2
Desalinization Plant
========================
These act similarly to water pumps, but instead operate from saltwater sources,
not freshwater sources. Like water pumps, the more sides that are surrounded,
the more water that can be produced, up to a maximum of 105,000 gallons per
month. They must be provided with electricity and connected to your city's
water system in order to provide water. They are typically not available until
around 1990. They also do not generate pollution, despite what the visible
smokestacks would have you believe.
Their cost and low capacity relative to water pumps make them undesirable
unless you have few other options for water.
Cost: $1,000 per plant.
Size: 4x4
---What's the deal with water anyway?---
It seems to be quite easy to fool the simulator into thinking you have an
adequate water supply. Also, the negative effects of not having water appear to
be barely noticeable. This leads some to argue that quite frankly, there's
simply no reason to provide any water system at all. For those bothered by the
constant nagging messages, just build a phantom water pump (Section 8.1, T R
K). On the other hand, how realistic is a city without a water supply? Not
very, if you want my opinion.
========================
Section 3.5: Rewards
========================
There is nothing more satisfying to a mayor than being congratulated and
rewarded by the citizens of his city. Especially when they're not being forced
to do so, haha! Like all gifts should be, the ones given to you are, for the
most part, free of charge. The one exception are the arcologies, discussed
further below. I very much recommend building all rewards that are available.
After all, you've earned them. Kudos!
Here's a chart showing the rewards and their population requirements.
- Mayor's Mansion.........2,000 people
- City Hall...............10,000 people
- Statue..................30,000 people
- Military Base...........60,000 people
- Braun Llama Dome........90,000 people
- Arcologies*.............120,000 people
*Regardless of when your city reaches 120,000 people, arcologies will not
become available until they've been invented. Arcologies will be explained
further below.
Mayor's House
=================
This will be the first reward you receive. A building that resembles a large
mansion, querying it will result in either cheers or boos depending on your
current approval rating, which will be displayed in the query window. Also,
you'll see a "built-in" date, the number of employees, and the number of
doorstops. The built-in date is the year the building was constructed. The
number of employees is a randomly determined number, which decrements by one
per year until it reaches zero. The number of doorstops starts at zero and
increments by one per year until the number of employees reaches zero. This
building requires power and water.
Size: 2x2
City Hall
=============
After reaching a population of 10,000 you are rewarded with the City Hall. This
building, when queried, provides interesting statistics on land usage. One that
is particularly important is the percentage of land used for transportation
(roads, rails, etc). Try hard to keep this number low, around 25% or so. This
building requires power and water.
Size: 3x3
The Statue
==============
Does little or nothing for your city, as far as I can tell. You may place yours
upon a large mountain for all to see, sending your Sims into their homes
huddled in fear of the almighty mayor... or you may place it in a park or
something... I don't know. Query it and you'll find out how tall it is (always
65 ft) what it's made from (bronze) and how many pigeons sit upon the statue's
shoulders (varies)... yay... I guess. It doesn't need to be powered, but the
bronze statue apparently requires water for who knows what reason.
Size: 1x1
Military Base
=================
Military bases come in a variety of styles (discussed further below) and are
awarded differently from other rewards. When your population reaches 60,000 you
are presented with a dialog box that indicates the military is requesting to
install a base in your city. If you say no, you will never hear from them
again. If you approve, you -might- get a military base if undeveloped land is
available. If not, then you will be informed that the base could not be built,
and you'll never hear from them again. One way to improve your chances of
getting a base (if you so desire) is to save your city just prior to when you
expect to hit the population goal. You can then reload your city if the
resulting military base does not suit your tastes.
There are four types of bases that can appear (only one type will appear in any
given city):
Air Force
-------------
This kind of military base is, in my experience, the most frequently occurring
type. An 8x8 patch of land will be zoned for military use, specifically for an
Air Force base. This type of base typically contains runways, control towers,
etc. It provides military support available for use as emergency dispatch.
However, it also tends to increase pollution and crime levels. Sometimes this
base will be zoned onto uneven terrain, rendering some of the property unusable
for all practical purposes.
Army
--------
This one develops the same way as an Air Force base, but is more likely to
appear when there is lots of hilly terrain. It will have four roads dividing it
(a la tic-tac-toe) and will come with hangars and parking lots. I don't see
this very often at all.
Navy
--------
This one requires coastline and has a different method of development from the
previously mentioned bases. A strip of land along a coastline is chosen,
spanning 10 tiles. For each of these tiles, an additional three tiles inland is
also zoned for Naval base development, resulting in the development of about 40
tiles. Confused? Below is a poorly-rendered ASCII representation.
W W W W W W W W W W W W
W W W W W W % % W W W W
L % W W % % % % % % % L
L % % % % % % % % % % L
L % % % % % % % % % % L
L % % % % % L L % % % L
L L % % L L L L L L L L
L L L L L L L L L L L L
W = Water L = Land % = Base
Missile Silo
----------------
These are definitely the most unique of all the military bases available in
SC2K. Instead of a single, large base, your city is peppered with several
(about six or so) Missile Silos. Unlike the other bases, these silos provide no
emergency dispatches, but they still pollute and increase criminal activity.
They are not frequently rewarded, however. Their status as a rare sight might
make you feel endeared toward them as a result. Also, it's hard to deny that
they look pretty spiffy.
Size: 4x4
---Note about Air Force bases---
There seems to a be an occasional glitch which causes a new Air Force base to
develop improperly. This typically consists of only a single runway being built
in the 8x8 patch, instead of the entire base developing. The only way I know of
to mitigate this is to make sure you have saved your city prior to attaining a
population of 60,000. If you experience this glitch, simply reload the city.
If at some point you decide that it's time to get rid of the base, you'll find
it's rather difficult to demolish with the normal tools. Instead, you'll have
to use the Lower Terrain tool adjacent to the base, thereby destroying it.
Braun Llama Dome
====================
This reward is named in honor of Jeff Braun, then CEO of Maxis. Considering
Maxis' obsession with llamas, the rest of the name is totally unsurprising (you
can thank Will Wright for that). The building itself looks really cool. It
seems to be a cross between two intersecting Gateway Arches from St. Louis, the
Seattle Space Needle and the Eiffel Tower.
Querying the Llama Dome will reveal to you the following statistics (all
completely random):
- Weddings
- Visitors
- Llama Sightings
- Complaints
- Bungee Jumps
Not much else to this building.
Size: 4x4
Arcologies
==============
These definitely prove to be the most useful of all the rewards you are given.
They're also extremely useful for obtaining large populations not available
otherwise.
There are four kinds of arcologies:
Plymouth Arco
-----------------
Available in or around 2000, these have a capacity of 50,000 (although all
arcologies can become overcrowded). These are partial to industry and thus
produce a lot of crime.
Cost: $100,000
Size: 4x4
Forest Arco
---------------
Available around 2050, these are polar opposites of Plymouth arcos. They look
more clean and sleek, and do not produce as much pollution and crime. They also
have a capacity of only 30,000 or so Sims. Despite their reduced capacity, they
cost more than Plymouth arcos.
Cost: $120,000
Size: 4x4
Darco
---------
Available around 2100, these are essentially the bad-asses of the various
arcologies. If a skyscraper could melt, this is what it'd probably look like.
Rumored to produce mutants and have meandering, twisting hallways, each one
also sports a small fleet of jet aircraft (to no benefit of you, however). They
have a capacity of 45,000 Sims.
Cost: $150,000
Size: 4x4
Launch Arco
---------------
The best and biggest of them all, these are the shining glory of any large
city. Capable of supporting 60,000 Sims, these things can cause pollution and
crime to skyrocket. In fact, if you recklessly build these all over your city,
you'll likely cause a chemical spill disaster. Make sure to surround these
arcos with lots of police protection and parks to help curb their negative side
effects.
One of the big features of Launch arcos is their ability to "launch." In the
DOS version (1.0) there is no such ability. The arcos will "launch" in the
Macintosh version 1.1, Windows version 1.0, and Dos version 1.1. When you reach
the critical threshold of 349 Launch arcos, a pop-up will appear, stating, "The
Exodus has begun." What follows is the immediate destruction, one by one, of
each Launch arco in your city. This turns out to be a rather time consuming
process so you may wish to make a trip to the bathroom during its progress.
When complete, another pop-up appears:
"Your launch arcos have departed into space to found new worlds. You have
been compensated for their construction."
Indeed, your are compensated handsomely; so don't feel too bad when your city
is completely and utterly ruined...
Cost: $200,000
Size: 4x4
---The Arcology Limit---
In the original version of SC2K on both the Mac and DOS, there was a 140-arco-
per-city limit. This limit was removed in later versions. The original reason
for the limit was because of the overall 150 microsim limit. Microsims are used
for gathering local information within a city for a specific building. For
example, police stations, hospitals, schools, etc. all require one microsim.
When more than 150 such buildings are constructed, the information queried from
those buildings last constructed will contain the basic query information found
in Sim-built zoned buildings. Because of this, Maxis decided to cap the arco
limit at 140, reserving the other 10 microsims for more important functions. In
later versions, newly constructed arcos were also given the basic query
information.
It seems that if you build enough arcos, even City Hall will lose its microsim,
with its precious land-use data. Beware.
===============================
Section 3.6: Transportation
===============================
One of the critical components of any successful city is a functioning
transportation network. Without one, you can expect your city to go nowhere,
both literally and figuratively.
Roads
=========
In conjunction with rails and subways, roads and highways will allow your Sims
to go anywhere they need in order to do the things they need to do.
Road Tools Information
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Type | Invention | Construction | Maintenance Cost |
| | Year | Cost ($) | Per Year ($) |
|-------------|-----------|---------------|----------------------------|
| Road | 1900 | 10 per tile | 0.10 per tile |
|-------------|-----------|---------------|----------------------------|
| Causeway | 1900 | 25 per tile | 0.25 per tile |
| Bridge | | | 0.10 for each end ramp |
|-------------|-----------|---------------|----------------------------|
| Raising | 1900 | 50 per tile | 0.25 per tile |
| Bridge | | | 0.10 for each end ramp |
|-------------|-----------|---------------|----------------------------|
| Suspension | 1900 | 75 per tile | 0.25 per tile |
| Bridge | | | 0.10 for each end ramp |
|-------------|-----------|---------------|----------------------------|
| Highway | 1930 | 100 per | 0.80 per section |
| | | section | |
|-------------|-----------|---------------|----------------------------|
| Highway | 1930 | 25 per ramp | 0.10 per ramp |
| Ramp | | | |
|-------------|-----------|---------------|----------------------------|
| Highway | 1930 | 200 per | 1.80 per section |
| Bridge | | section | 0.80 for each end ramp |
|-------------|-----------|---------------|----------------------------|
| Girder | 1930 | 300 per | 1.80 per section |
| Bridge | | section | 0.80 for each end ramp |
|-------------|-----------|---------------|----------------------------|
| Tunnel | 1900 | 150 per tile | 0.20 per tile |
|-------------|-----------|---------------|----------------------------|
| Bus | 1920 | 250 per Bus | 2 per Bus Depot per month |
| Depot | | Depot | ($24 per year) |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Road
--------
Roads are perhaps the most important form of transportation in SC2K. While it
is possible to build a city without using roads at all (refer to Section 7 (S T
Y)) it's both expensive to build and expensive to maintain (in some
circumstances only, once again, refer to Section 7). To construct a road,
simply click and drag from starting point to ending point. When the highlighted
area represents what you want built, release the mouse button and you're all
set. Like other rubber-banding tools, you'll see a dollar amount showing you
how much the proposed road will cost. When you build a road up to a shoreline,
you'll be asked whether or not you'd like to build a bridge.
If you can build one, you may choose from a selection of available proposed
bridge types, discussed in detail below.
- CAUSEWAY BRIDGE: This is the cheapest type of bridge you can build. It can
cover any distance, short or long, but it will not allow ships to pass
underneath. These bridges are suitable for lakes or large ponds, but don't
build them between your seaports and those ports' only access in and out of
the body of water in which they operate. Doing so will render them
ineffective.
- RAISING BRIDGE: This is a good bridge for covering shorter distances,
between 5 and 12 tiles. Its big selling point is that it allows ships to
pass underneath. You'll actually see the middle section rise as the ship
sails underneath.
- SUSPENSION BRIDGE: This is the most expensive bridge available for roads,
and it may only bridge distances 7 tiles and longer. It has no maximum
length, however, offering the only solution for crossing long spans that
must allow shipping traffic.
As you can see, there are several options for building bridges available.
Bridges cannot intersect each other, nor can they be built diagonally. It's
supposed to be impossible for bridges to have varying elevation levels, but
alas it is not. See Section 8 (T T C) for more details about that.
When two roads intersect, a traffic light is built. When a T-intersection is
made, the butting road has a stop sign. If you build a road to the edge of your
map, you'll be asked whether or not you'd like to build a connection to your
neighboring city for $1,000. These are important for allowing your industry to
grow, although not as important as highway and railroad connections.
---PlayStation Note---
In the PlayStation version, the bridge you built was randomly determined, so
long as there was more than one bridge option available in any given
application. I fondly recall trying to build a bridge over and over until I got
the kind I wanted. Fun times.
Highway
-----------
Although similar to roads in manner of construction, highways build in 2x2
sections instead of single tiles. This is because of their increased width and
traffic load, and also because of certain simulator restrictions. Highways can
cover any length, and actually require roads to be of any use, since they are
the only way Sims in your city can get onto and off of highways. When building
on slopes, highways can only handle one elevation increase for every two tiles
traversed. If the slope is steeper than this, the highway cannot be built. When
two highways intersect, a cloverleaf type intersection is formed. This also
holds true for T-intersections. When building a bridge, the technique differs
from that of building road bridges. Instead of rubber-banding right off of the
shore, you must click once on the shore with the highway tool. Some slight
editing of the shoreline might make this process easier.
This will bring up a dialog box asking if you'd like to build a bridge, of
which there are two types:
- HIGHWAY BRIDGE: This is the standard highway bridge. It doesn't require any
special earthwork done, but it does not allow ships to pass through. It can
cross any length.
- REINFORCED GIRDER BRIDGE: This bridge is more expensive and it requires each
end to be built up with small hills, marring the land around them. However,
these kind of bridges resist earthquake damage and allow ships to pass
under.
---PlayStation Note---
Once again, this is different for the PlayStation version. In this case, you
would not be able to get the reinforced bridge unless the 2x2 highlighted area
was half water and half land, and even then it was a hard sell. It is possible
nonetheless.
Onramp
----------
This tool is used for connecting highways to roads. Any road that is running
perpendicular up to the highway can be connected with an onramp. Also, any road
whose end is adjacent to any part of the highway can be connected as well. You
will have to build four ramps for each road-highway intersection in order to
allow for full inter-modal travel between the two. In fact, onramps are
necessary if you build highways, because without them there is no way for Sims
in your city to use the highway.
Tunnel
----------
Use this tool to tunnel roads through large mountains or other such barriers.
It has no real merit unless the mountain it tunnels through is otherwise
impassable. If you make a tunnel that is very long, the Sims won't use it
because Sims can only travel so far between zones in order to make a successful
trip, as per the simulator. If a tunnel is longer than this distance, the Sims
will fail every attempted trip via this tunnel, and will stop using it.
Tunnels cannot be built diagonally, nor can they intersect, even if the two
tunnels are at different elevation levels. Tunnels aren't supposed to be able
to have elevation changes within them, but I have been shown otherwise by
IcthyoidMecha:
"It is possible to build a tunnel across water stretches, which I didn't see
mentioned in your FAQ. The catch is, first you need to build a hill across the
waterway, and build a tunnel through it. Then you must lower the terrain in the
middle, making sure you don't lower it too far and destroy the two "stub hills"
the tunnel entrances are on. The resulting tunnel will be used by the Sims for
transport as if it were a normal tunnel, and if you look underground, you'll
see the tunnel tiles are still there."
He also mentions that these tunnels still remain operative even if they're
loaded into Streets of SimCity. Additionally, he provided a series of images
describing the above procedure:
<
http://webpages.charter.net/benjer/tunnel1.PNG>
<
http://webpages.charter.net/benjer/tunnel2.PNG>
<
http://webpages.charter.net/benjer/tunnel3.PNG>
Thanks, IcthyoidMecha!
Bus Depot
-------------
Bus depots differ from most of the other tools in this section on account of
them being actual buildings as opposed to modular viaducts. Bus depots should
be constructed next to a road (an intersection, ideally). You must supply water
and electricity to the depots. Bus depots help to reduce traffic, which in turn
helps reduce pollution. Come to think of it, this is the only Roads tool that
actually serves to reduce pollution, rather than increase it. Of all the public
transportation options around, buses help the most toward decreasing traffic.
Bus depots have a radius of effect, which decreases as the distance from the
depot increases. Sims must go to the depot to get on a bus, but they can get
off anywhere. It is suggested that you try placing bus depots at intersections
with very heavy traffic. The effect is certainly noticeable in these
circumstances.
Size: 2x2
Rails
=========
In addition to roads and highways, railroads, subways and their accompanying
buildings provide a vital system of transportation to your city. It's even
possible to build a city using only rails and subways. While it's not too
difficult to build a successful city without rail and subway, you'd be doing
your city a big disservice if you did that.
Rail System Information
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Type | Invention | Construction | Maintenance Cost |
| | Year | Cost ($) | Per Year ($) |
|-------------|-----------|---------------|--------------------------|
| Rail | 1900 | 25 per tile | 0.40 per tile |
|-------------|-----------|---------------|--------------------------|
| Rail | 1900 | 75 per tile | 0.25 per tile |
| Bridge | | | |
|-------------|-----------|---------------|--------------------------|
| Rail | 1900 | 500 per | 1.50 per Depot |
| Depot | | Depot | |
|-------------|-----------|---------------|--------------------------|
| Subway Line | 1910 | 100 per tile | 0.40 per tile* |
|-------------|-----------|---------------|--------------------------|
| Subway | 1910 | 250 per | 0.80 per Station* |
| Station | | Station | |
|-------------|-----------|---------------|--------------------------|
| Rail/Subway | 1910 | 250 per | 0.80 per Junction* |
| Junction | | Junction | |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
*Although these items do cost money to maintain, they suffer no ill effects if
transportation funding is removed.
From IcthyoidMecha:
"In the Windows 95 version, nothing bad happens to subways if you remove
funding. They will still function properly at 0% funding without loss of track,
unlike roads or rails."
Rails
---------
Available from the get-go, rails are the basic mode of rail transport. You
build them just like you would roads. The only difference between roads and
rails (besides the fact that rails require depots to operate properly), is that
rails cannot handle as steep a slope as roads. Rails can only move up one
elevation level for every two tiles traversed. Rails can cross water, and there
is only one type of bridge available. The same restrictions apply to rail
bridges that apply to road bridges. When connecting to a neighbor, the cost is
$1,500.
Rail Depot
--------------
These are buildings that you build next to your railroads in order to complete
your rail system. Sims can only get on or off of a train at depots, so be sure
to place one in each type of zone. Sims will build houses next to a rail depot
only if it will take them to rail depots in other zones. Having a complete rail
system in your city will serve to reduce traffic on the roads, which -when in
excess- can lead to pollution, Depots must be build on level ground and
supplied with electricity. When you build one, a small train appears out front
and begins to make the rounds. The maximum number of trains you will see is
five. Make sure to place your rail depots next to the rail, or else they won't
function properly.
Size: 2x2
Subway Line
---------------
After its invention in 1910, subways should become a major factor in your
city's transit system if the city becomes very large. It will be difficult to
construct a very useful subway system in a small city because of the huge
expenses associated with subways. When you select this tool, you'll
automatically be take to the underground view, where you can view your city's
subways, water mains, road tunnels, and Rail<-->Subway junctions (to be
discussed further below). When laying out subway, try your best to keep the
lengths as short as you can manage. At $100 per tile, subways can become
frighteningly expensive if you don't build carefully.
You cannot build subways along a line of tiles that is already by a water
main, although subways can cross underneath them. One of the great advantages
of subways is that the system as a whole takes up very little real estate.
When you compare a subway system to a similar highway/roads system, the
difference in land usage is astounding. This makes subways a good choice for
developed areas you don't want to demolish large chunks of in order to make
room for roads. Remember that a subway system is incomplete until the
stations have been placed. Also, subways cannot be connected to neighboring
cities.
Subway Station
------------------
You'll need these in order to complete a subway system. They're only 1x1 so
they have rather small footprints. They must be placed on or next to a subway
line in order to function. The must also be connected to a power source. If you
build a subway station in a particular zone, a patch surrounding the station
will develop so long as the subway line to which that station is connected also
has stations in other types of zones. It's actually possible to build a city
with nothing but subways, albeit extremely costly. It might be something to
consider, though.
Size: 1x1
Subway to Rail Junction
---------------------------
With these, you can link your rail and subway systems to provide a more
complete form of mass transit. You can only build them next to a rail line or a
subway line. You can't just build them out in the middle of nowhere. You'll
will actually see trains enter the tunnels... possibly never to return...
Size: 1x1
=======================
Section 3.7: Zoning
=======================
Zones are a critical component of any city. Without them, your city will not
sustain a population.
Ports
=========
Cities do not exist in bubbles all by themselves. They require interaction with
other cities, and airports/seaports are an excellent way of facilitating that
interaction. Additionally, ports go a long way toward encouraging the
development of your city.
Seaport
-----------
The main purpose of seaports is to increase the demand for industry. Rather,
you will have to construct one sooner or later as your city reaches a certain
size (around 10,000 Sims). They must be constructed on a coast with navigable
waters, and they must be hooked up to your city's electrical system. The
minimum size for a seaport is 1x3 tiles. If the seaport is smaller than this,
it will not develop properly. When zoning the seaport, make sure there is
plenty of waterfront space (the most valuable portion of a seaport anyway), and
also make sure there is plenty of space inland for warehouses and the like. If
you notice that demand for industry has diminished, check your seaport to see
if it is fully developed. If it's not, you may need to zone more space.
Cost: $150 per tile.
Airport
-----------
Airports, more than anything, serve to increase the demand for commerce. There
are a lot more restrictions with regards to airports when it comes to how you
zone them. First of all, the size restriction is a minimum of 2x6 tiles. Not 12
tiles total, but 2x6. In other words, if you were looking at a rectangle, one
side must be at least two tiles wide, and the other side must be six tiles
long. If your airport doesn't meet these dimensions, there will be little
development because runways need a certain amount of space before they can be
built. In fact, if you demolish a single runway tile, every single runway tile
it was connected to will also be destroyed.
Secondly, airports must be powered and watered, both are very important.
Finally, it's unwise to zone for dense commercial property immediately next to
airports, since airplanes run the risk of crashing into the tall buildings that
typically develop in those type of zones. While usually minor, such crashes
have the potential of developing into serious problems like massive fires...
all because you just -had- to zone for those skyscrapers... for shame!
After an airport successfully develops, you'll see planes take off and head to
other cities while other planes come in for a landing. Additionally, a
helicopter will appear and let you know if there's heavy automobile traffic.
This helicopter will -never- go away. Well, almost...
Cost: $250
---Note---
Next I'll explain the other types of zones (residential, commercial,
industrial), but here are some general rules to keep in mind:
- All three zones must be supplied with power.
- All three zones should be supplied with water. While not strictly necessary,
the presence of water provides for a more developed city (and adds realism,
in my opinion).
- All three zones must be within three tiles of transportation that is also
connected to the other two zone types. Now this gets a little fuzzy.
Technically, if a 2x2 or 3x3 building develops, only one corner of it
actually has to be within three tiles of viable transportation. It's fairly
logical, I know. But visually, it can be confusing if you don't understand
what's actually going on.
- The basic difference between light and dense zones is that light zones can
only support 1x1 buildings while dense zones support all types of buildings
sizes. However, light zones will generally result in higher land values and
lower population density (high population density in and of itself can lead
lead to things like pollution, traffic, crime and all that bad stuff).
- Make sure that your city has all three zone types. Think about it, a city
can't exist if it's nothing but residents without jobs, commerce without
shoppers, or industry without workers. You can probably cite real life
examples of "bedroom cities" that support larger cities nearby. In SC2K,
this type of intercity complexity just doesn't exist. If you make your city
nothing but residential zones, another city will not take up your slack.
However, you can split your city into separate sectors, each a different
zone, that has the appearance of being distinct cities (provided the Sims
in each section can make successful trips to all three types of zones).
These different sections would all be considered to be a single city by the
simulator, however.
- Zones will develop successfully when trips from that zone can be made within
a certain number of "steps." This refers to the distance a Sim can travel to
other zones before giving up and abandoning the trip. If you build a section
of residential, commercial and industrial zones at the opposite ends of the
map from each other, they will not develop even if connected by highway
because they're too far apart from one another. It takes too many "steps"
for the Sims to be able to complete such a trip. This is why it's a good
idea to keep an even sprinkling of zones throughout the city, instead of,
say, three super-blocks of zones for each zone type.
Residential Zones
=====================
Residential zones are where your Sims live. Without residential zones, your
city will have nobody to support industry and commerce. There are two types of
residential zones: light and dense.
Light Residential
---------------------
This is a low-density form of residential zoning that only supports single-acre
homes. Depending on the land value, you'll see tracts of lower-class homes, or
acres of mansions. This type of zoning can support up to 10 Sims per acre.
Cost: $5 per tile.
Dense Residential
---------------------
This particular type of residential zone allows for high-density buildings.
Large plots of this type of zone will be filled with a hodgepodge of various
skyscrapers and the like. Development of these zones typically started out with
small single-acre homes, leading to larger apartments and tenement buildings,
ending with very large condos and apartments. Because of the high density, be
wary of crime and land value effects. Each acre can support approximately 40
Sims.
Cost: $10 per tile.
---Churches---
One of the things you'll notice is that as your residential zones develop, 2x2
churches will be periodically constructed in your zoned land. However, churches
aren't considered residential buildings, and do not contribute to the
residential population. If they bother you and you start trying to demolish
them, you'll notice that new churches pop up elsewhere. Bottom line: Churches
are here to stay, so live with it. In the DOS version, typing in a few uncouth
words may reward you with even more churches. Head to Section 8 for info on
that (T T C).
Commercial Zones
====================
Commercial zones are where your Sims go shopping, conduct business, and do
other Acts and Things of commerce. If there are no commercial zones, there will
be no place for your Sims to buy stuff with the money they make, and your city
will falter.
Light Commercial
--------------------
With this zone type, only 1x1 buildings will be constructed. A variety of gas
stations, mini-marts, toy stores, boutiques and other stores will sprout. This
zones supports about 10 Sims per acre.
Cost: $5 per tile.
Dense Commercial
--------------------
This zone type will reward you with huge skyscrapers, mini-malls, theaters and
other large edifices. Make sure you have a large demand for commerce, though.
Otherwise, these large buildings won't develop.
Cost: $10 per tile.
Industrial Zones
====================
Industry is absolutely vital to any city in SC2K. Without a strong industrial
sector, your city will have a hard time getting by. Consequently, industry is
probably the easiest zone to develop, at least in my experience.
Light Industrial
--------------------
This zone type will result in acres of squat 1x1 buildings, which resemble some
sort of industrial-looking thing. In any case, it's low density. However, the
very nature of industry pretty much eliminates the advantages typically
associated with low-density zones. In other words, you'll still get low land
values and lots of pollution.
Cost: $5 per tile.
Dense Industrial
--------------------
This type of industry will ultimately result in large 3x3 factories wherever
you make room for them, which belch out the pollution like it's going out of
style. Most of the buildings resemble vague, industrial-looking buildings
(heck, one of them is even called "Industrial Thingamajig"). Be careful with
this type of zone. If you have no pollution controls and leave these things to
go unchecked, there's a good chance that a chemical spill will result.
Cost $10 per tile.
=======================
Section 3.8: Civics
=======================
While not strictly necessary for a city to sustain a population, ask yourself
this question: Would I live in a city with no police, firemen, schools,
doctors, attractions, or any city provided service at all? If you answered yes
to that question, then, uh... good for you.
Education
=============
Without education, your Sims will be unable to get high-paying jobs in
technical fields. As a result, your industrial sector will remain mired in the
lower-tier, high-polluting industry bracket. In SC2K, the overall educational
level if your Sims is measured as an "education quotient" or EQ. The higher the
EQ of your city, the smarter your Sims are. EQ takes a very long time to
develop, as in a generation or two. This is because EQ is a lifelong process,
as children go to school, then college, then libraries and museums. The quality
of your education buildings are rated, appropriately, by a letter grade. A+ is
the best, F is the worst.
School
----------
These buildings serve to increase the education of Sims between the ages of 5
and 15. They will increase EQ to a maximum of 90. You will need to build a
school for approximately every 15,000 Sims (each school can hold 1,500 students
and requires 60 teachers).
Cost: $250 per school.
Mn't: $25/year per school.
Size: 3x3
College
-----------
These are for Sims between the ages of 15 and 25. They'll boost EQ to a maximum
of 140. For every 50,000 Sims your city has, you should build one college. Each
one can hold 5,000 students and requires 210 teachers at max capacity.
Cost: $1,000 per college.
Mn't: $100/year per college.
Size: 4x4
Library
-----------
These rotund buildings don't actually increase EQ, but merely serve to keep it
from deteriorating over time. This keeps your work force smart and bright,
which is good for the technical industries. These buildings should be built
once for every 20,000 Sims or so.
Make sure to click on the "Ruminate" button to check out some Neil Gaiman
writings. Interesting...
Cost: $500 per library.
Size: 2x2
Museum
----------
These serve the same purposes as libraries, although they're twice as
effective. You should place one of these buildings for every 40,000 Sims.
Cost: $1,000 per museum.
Size: 3x3
City Services
=================
City services are so vital to the success and well-being of a city, that it's
very unwise to skimp on them in order to save a little money. Doing so will
only hurt you and your city in the long run. City services are essential to
keeping your Sims safe and healthy.
Police Station
------------------
Police stations help to keep the streets of your city safe. Without them, crime
would increase significantly and your Sims would be unhappy. As a result, they
would eventually leave (and we can never have that). Police stations are easily
recognized by their bright blue coloring and the large shield emblem on each
side of the building. The crime-reducing effect of police stations is most
significant at the station itself, tapering off slowly as you move further and
further away from it, until the effect disappears completely. As seen from the
map, this area of effect is circular. For these reasons, it's generally unwise
to build police stations (or any city service buildings, for that matter) near
the edge of your city's map. If you do this, a portion of the area of effect of
the building will fall off the map, reducing the overall effect of the
building. This does not come with a corresponding reduction in costs.
Additionally, it's a good idea to try and pattern the construction of these and
other similar buildings so that you get an even coverage throughout your city.
Since crime has a negative effect on land values, police stations are essential
to maintaining high land values. You'll find that Sims readily build next to
these structures.
Cost: $500 per police station.
Mn't: $100/year per police station.
Size: 3x3
Fire Station
----------------
Fire stations are essential for keeping your Sims safe in the event of a fire.
Obviously, if you have disasters disabled, fire stations are basically useless,
but your Sims will still complain if you don't have any. Just like police
stations, fire stations have an area of effect, which diminishes until it
tapers off completely. Also like police stations, you can view the total fire
coverage of your various stations in the City Map Window, which is explained in
section 5.7 (M P A).
Cost: $500 per fire station.
Mn't: $100/year per fire station.
Size: 3x3
Hospital
------------
These edifices help to increase the overall life expectancy (LE) of your Sims.
Unlike police and fire stations, the effectiveness of hospitals is based on the
number of Sims that can be treated, rather than the area in which it is placed.
This means you can place all your hospitals at one end of the city, and they'll
serve the population just fine. You'll want to construct a hospital for every
25,000 Sims or so. If your hospitals become overcrowded, they will not perform
as well and the life expectancy of your Sims will deteriorate as a result.
Cost: $500 per hospital.
Mn't: $50/year per hospital.
Size: 3x3
Prison
----------
Rather stately in appearance, these buildings are used to house the criminals
your police stations capture. They operate similarly to hospitals, in that they
have a maximum capacity rather than an area of effect. As such, each prison can
hold up to 10,000 inmates. They can actually hold more, but at that point, the
prisoners will begin to escape.
The inmates are not held forever. Each year, 25% of the prison population is
paroled to make room for new prisoners (we're assuming they're reformed
citizens, or have at least gotten tired of drinking prison pruno). So, if your
prison currently has 5,000 inmates, 1,250 will be released. If your police
stations arrest more than 1,250 suspects per year, your prison will slowly fill
up. Once it does, crime will increase.
As can be expected, prisons have a rather negative effect on local land values
and your Sims will not appreciate it if you construct one across the street
from their homes. Because of this, it's generally a good idea to keep prisons
isolated from your city if possible. There are many creative ways to achieve
this, such as an Alcatraz-style island prison, or perhaps just stick it in the
middle of an empty plot of land, and surround it with a moat of water. Be
creative.
Prisons have no maintenance fees, but do have very high construction costs.
---About Prisons---
I've almost NEVER gotten a prison to fill up completely, regardless of my
city's population. You can expect never to build more than one in a given city,
but keep an eye out nonetheless.
Cost: $3,000 per prison.
Size: 4x4
Recreation
==============
Recreation services provide your Sims with happiness. Recreation is a great way
to boost land values and approval ratings while also lowering pollution and
crime. Be sure to always keep recreation services in the back of your mind as
you build and design your city. I'm sure some of you know what it's like to
live in a dull, boring city with nothing to do, so imagine putting your Sims
through that.
Small Park
--------------
These parks help to increase residential growth, and of course they have a
positive impact on land values. They don't require power (nor do they conduct
it), but they do need water. Their small size and low cost make them ideal for
random smatterings of small parks throughout your city. Something you can do
with these after your city is fully developed is to simply go around and plop
parks down wherever you see empty land.
Cost: $20 per small park.
Size: 1x1
Large Park
--------------
These parks have a much more substantial effect on land values and residential
growth. They have a much larger footprint than small parks so they're not as
easy to fit into your city. Like small parks, they don't require power, but
they should be watered.
Cost: $150 per large park.
Size: 3x3
Zoo
-------
Zoos, along with all the benefits provides by parks, also boost your tourism
industry. These buildings also have a neat sound effect, which to me sounds
like a lion's roar. The information you'll find in the zoo's query window is
meaningless. Make sure all your zoos have power and water.
Cost: $3,000 per zoo.
Mn't: $50/year per zoo.
Size: 4x4
Stadium
-----------
Stadiums have pretty much the same effect as zoos, but will also increase your
popularity as a mayor. Whenever you construct a stadium, you'll be asked to
choose a team and a name for it. Note the default names that come with each
type of team. Stadiums are fairly distinctive and are easy to spot in your
city. Make sure each stadium has power and water.
---PlayStation Note---
You cannot choose the sport that a particular stadium features in the
PlayStation version.
Cost: $5,000 per stadium.
Size: 4x4
Marina
----------
Like all recreation buildings, marinas serve to boost residential growth, along
with the tourism industry. Because of the nature of marinas, it's essential
that each one have at least one tile over water. Once powered, a small sailboat
appears and begins to sail about. Technically, you could place a marina over a
single tile of water and it would function. However, it would aesthetically
displeasing, since there'd be no sailboat. What's a marina without a sailboat?
If you're -really- lucky, you may just catch Nessie the Loch Ness monster
swimming to and fro amidst your marina (for more info on this, go to section 8
(T T C)).
Cost: $1,000 per marina.
Size: 3x3
= = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = =DSS= =
= =
= SECTION 4: The Disasters =
= =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = =
One of the perils of SC2K is the risk of disaster to your city. Not all
disasters can occur randomly; some will only be found in various scenarios. All
of the disasters can be selected either through the Disasters menu, or through
a Debug menu, which is explained in section 8 (T T C). Of course, no disasters
will occur randomly if you've disabled them in the Disasters menu.
Fire
========
A fire in SC2K is any instance where one or more tiles in your city are "on
fire." These are easily recognized because the tile(s) in question will
literally be on fire, with red and yellow flames licking about. A tile will
remain on fire until the fuel source within that tile (trees, buildings, etc.)
is exhausted, at which point the fire extinguishes itself leaving behind a pile
of rubble. By this point, the fire has usually spread to adjacent tiles, and so
on and so forth. Left unchecked, fires can (and most likely will) destroy an
entire city. Fires are generally a random occurrence, but their likelihood will
increase under the following circumstances:
- No fire departments.
- Lots of trees and rubble.
- High temperatures.
- The presence of rioters.
- Poorly located airports (don't exactly cause fires, but they do increase
air crashes, which in turn can sometimes lead to fires).
If you make sure these circumstances are not prevalent in your city, then you
shouldn't have much to worry about. In the case a fire does break out, it's
important to have a plan of action.
Pause the game and demolish all buildings, trees, roads and rubble surround a
fire. For small one or two-tile fires, surround them with fire dispatches. You
have one dispatch available for each fire station, and there is an upper limit
of 33 dispatches available. When you have placed all of your dispatches,
placing a new one will remove the very first dispatch you placed and put it in
the spot you clicked.
After you feel you have every fire contained, set the simulator speed to Turtle
and make sure you don't see any fires spreading. If you keep hearing explosion
sounds a long time after containing your fires, then one of them is still
spreading.
You'll know when all the fires are gone when new music plays and a newspaper
comes up telling you about the event. Go ahead and reconstruct the destroyed
roads and power lines. Zones should still be intact regardless if the buildings
on them were destroyed.
---PlayStation Note---
In the PlayStation version, it was possible to plop ponds on active fires that
have already destroyed everything in the occupied tile, effectively eliminating
them.
Flood
=========
Floods are indicated by blue water sloshing around on previously dry tiles.
They are peculiar in that they only destroy buildings. Roads and trees will
remain intact. In fact, I used to think trees protected against floods but
testing has proved otherwise. Generally a random occurrence, floods can be
precipitated by wet weather along with the presence of rivers and oceans. Ponds
can also cause floods. A city with no water whatsoever will not randomly flood,
although you can still cause them if you so wish.
The best way to defend yourself against floods is to construct dikes along your
shores. These are simply lengths of raised terrain along your coasts. One level
is all it takes, and those floods will find themselves buffeted by your
ingenuity. If you have seaports, which must always be at sea level, then they
will always be at risks for floods.
If you don't have dikes built, you can use firemen and police to barrier
against the impending water. However, unless you have a lot of these, you'll
only be able to preserve a few choice buildings, not reduce the damage as a
whole.
Cleaning up the damage isn't too bad. After the flood has run its course,
simply rebuild your power lines, along with any buildings you constructed, and
the zones should pick themselves right up.
Air Crash
=============
Air crashes are instances of flying aircraft hitting the ground or tall
buildings. When they crash there is a small chance of a fire occurring. It's a
very small chance, though, so I find air crashes to be one of the most
insignificant disasters in the game. These will not randomly occur if you city
has no airport, but you can still cause them through the Disasters menu.
Assuming a crash does occur, check out the crash scene for any possible damage,
and clean up any fires that might have occurred as well.
Tornado
===========
Tornadoes are easily recognizable as brown vortices of dust and debris
traversing the cityscape. Their path is randomly determined, although they
generally follow a straight line. Tornadoes will randomly appear anywhere in
your city (even over water), then move in any direction, typically disappearing
off the edge of the map into electronic oblivion. They destroy everything in
their path, and can sometimes disperse pretty quickly if they've destroyed a
great deal of property. There is apparently a threat of fire, although I've
never seen one occur, so I'd place the risk of a fire at small to nil. They are
definitely more prevalent on flat terrain.
When tornadoes have done their business, simply reconstruct your roads and
power lines, along with any civic buildings that were destroyed.
Earthquake
==============
An earthquake is the only disaster that is not influenced by city conditions;
all cities are fair game. You'll know an earthquake by a brief period of
shaking followed by random fires and destruction throughout your city.
It's imperative that you contain all fires immediately (previously discussed)
and it's also important to make sure that you've contained every single fire.
Once that's done, you'll likely have a lot of damage to repair. Good luck with
these.
Monster
===========
Monsters are easily recognized as floating, black, rotund, Cyclopean legged
creatures that move about your city doing their business. What their "business"
is can very depending on which version of SC2K you're running. While they
mostly zap your city with fires, they can sometimes plant trees, place water,
or build wind generators. Mostly it's fires, so it's wise to treat them as a
moderate threat.
They tend to move around the city and cause destruction, before calming down
and floating serenely off of the map. It's a good idea to follow them with
firefighters to take care of any fires they start, and try to see if you can
shoo them off with police or military dispatches.
I've noticed that the leg movements the monster exhibits seem to indicate what
the monster is doing.
If the legs are randomly moving about, the monster is currently looking for
stuff to destroy, or it's currently destroying stuff.
If the legs are behaving in a jellyfish-like manner (all legs moving in
synchronized fashion) then the monster is either trying to avoid something,
change its course of direction, or getting ready to leave.
If the legs are still with just their tips moving, then the monster is leaving.
It will no longer destroy stuff.
Hurricane
=============
Hurricanes are marked by the presence of howling winds and extreme flooding
along the cost. If your city has no coast, hurricanes will not occur randomly,
although you can still cause them if you wish. In that case, the flooding will
occur along a random edge of the map (looks kind of hokey but whatever).
The high winds can knock down buildings anywhere in your city, while the
flooding will destroy all the buildings along the coast, assuming they're at
sea level.
After hurricanes run their course, clean up the mess and reconstruct your power
lines and buildings.
Rioters
===========
Rioters appear as a group of Sims (this is the only instance in the game where
you actually see the Sims) carrying signs and traveling about on roads, booing
and generally being a nuisance. They occur randomly, although any number of
factors, from hot weather to high taxes can hasten their arrival. As they move
about, they multiply into additional groups, sometimes causing fires during
their carousing. Although rioters are generally limited to roads, they can
sometimes leave the roads, in which case they know no bounds, multiplying like
crazy until the entire city is covered (having seen it myself, I can tell you
that the image is quite intimidating).
Squelch the rioters with police, and use fire dispatches to put out any fires
they start.
---The following disasters cannot be activated via the Disasters menu---
Melt Down
=============
Melt downs are primarily associated with nuclear power plants that have been
overloaded beyond their capacity. This can happen if your city consumes more
power than your nuclear power plant generates (provided there aren't any other
power plants in addition to your nuclear power plant), or if your power plant
has exceeded its 50 year life span. Assuming the latter is the case, a melt
down will only occur if you have disasters enabled.
When a melt down occurs, the entire nuclear power plant will be destroyed,
while fires and radiation sprinkle the radius of ground zero. In other words,
there will be more occurrences of radiation closer to the explosion than there
will be farther away. Clean up the fires, then rebuild as best as you can with
the radiation present. You will not be able to construct anything on an
irradiated tile (you'll see a flashing radiation symbol). If one of them is in
the way of a road you're trying to build, you'll have to build around it.
Querying radiation will show that it pollutes quite a lot, so much so that you
can see the effect on the pollution map. Radiation is pretty much permanent,
although it gradually wears off after enough time. It will start wearing off
around 10-20 thousands years in, and takes a few hundred thousand years to wear
off completely (yeah, I actually verified this). Radiation isn't terribly
significant as a threatening presence in your city. Looks kind of cool,
actually...
Microwave
=============
Microwave disasters occur when the orbiting satellite beaming the microwaves
back to your microwave power plant misses and hits something else instead. This
disaster can occur randomly, but not if your city doesn't have a microwave
power plant, even if you select it from the Debug menu. You'll know this
disaster has occurred when you see a large fire directly next to your power
plant. If you're lucky, you'll manage to save the power plant before the fire
consumes it, so I would suggest that be your first priority. If you lose the
power plant, don't despair. Go ahead and clean up the rest of the fire before
it grows out of control.
Volcano
===========
Volcanoes are highly visual disasters that cause a LOT of destruction. They
never occur randomly, and can only be activated through the Debug menu. The
Portland scenario features a volcano, but that's it. Volcanoes are simply too
traumatic and disastrous, and allowing them to occur randomly would've pissed
off many a player.
Volcanoes can be spotted as a growing hill upon which toxic clouds and fires
sprout. The toxic clouds will flow downhill from the volcano into your city,
causing the buildings they pass to become abandoned. Volcanoes can vary in
size, from very small to the highest the simulator will allow ground to go. If
your computer is slow, volcanoes might take a while to finish.
When volcanoes have run their course, make sure to clean up the fires and
rebuild as best as you can. They will leave you with a huge hill as an
everlasting reminder of its presence. You'll probably want to level it out,
however, as it takes up a lot of real estate. Be prepared to pay for it,
though.
Fire Storm
==============
Fire storms are not unlike fires, except that they start out as 8x8 patches of
fire which can spread very quickly. They don't occur randomly, and only various
scenarios will feature them.
Controlling a fire storm is fairly straightforward. Pause the simulator, and
then demolish all of the buildings along its perimeter. It will take a while
for the fire to die down on its own, but you can speed up its departure by
dispatching fire crews to the scene.
Mass Riots
==============
Mass rights are similar to regular riots, except that they start out with
several groups of rioters as opposed to just one group. They'll grow out of
hand very quickly unless you act immediately. As with regular riots, stop the
riots with police, and the fires with firemen. If you have a military presence,
they can also contribute.
Major Flood
===============
Basically the same as regular floods, major floods are simply larger. However,
they are still confounded by simple dikes, so if you're protected against
floods, don't let major floods worry you too much.
Toxic Spill
===============
Toxic spills can occur randomly, but their presence is even more likely if
there are a lot of polluting industries and power plants in your city. They
tend to flow downhill, but follow a randomly determined path on level terrain.
From my experience, police dispatches seem particularly effective at putting an
end to these things. They look like gray clouds, floating around where they see
fit. Any building they touch will become abandoned. They're not hard to deal
with, but you'll want to fix their cause lest they come around again sometime
in the future.
= = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = =WNS= =
= =
= SECTION 5: The Windows =
= =
= = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = =
One of the most important aspects of being an SC2K mayor is responding to the
conditions of your city. One of the best ways to do that is to collect
information from the various windows available to you in this game.
All of these windows can be opened either through the Windows menu, the City
Toolbar, or their respective shortcuts (Windows only).
========================================
Section 5.1: The Budget Window BGT
========================================
Windows Shortcut: Ctrl+B
The Budget Window is one of the most important aspects of SC2K. Sure, there's
an "Auto-Budget" feature, but sooner or later you'll be coming around here to
tinker with this or that.
To access the Budget window, you can open the "Windows" menu in the top menu
bar, and select the budget window, or you can click on the budget window button
(the green dollar sign $) in the city toolbar. Once open, you'll see several
pieces of important information.
In the upper left-hand corner you'll see your city's name and the year and
month you opened this particular instance of the Budget window. Below that,
you'll see the names of the various departments over which you have financial
control, which I'll explain later. To the right you'll see various numerical
data showing how much each department has cost/profited you, and how much that
department is expected to cost/profit you by year's end. To the furthest right
you'll see two columns of buttons (books and query bubbles). Clicking on the
book icon of a department allows you to "open the books" and see detailed
information on that department or it allows you to make changes to that
department. Clicking the query icon allows you to see whatever comments the
advisors for the departments have. Most of them are pretty sane. The TA advisor
though...
The Departments
===================
Property Taxes
------------------
Displays the tax percentage you have selected.
Property taxes are a direct tax on your Sims. You can tax the Sims anywhere
from 0% to 20%, based on your needs and/or sadistic desires. Every time you
lower taxes, you'll hear cheers, and every time you raise taxes, you'll hear
raucous boos from your ever vocal Sims. The tax itself is a basic formula.
Suffice it to say, the higher the tax, the more money you get. This always
holds true, until your Sims get pissed off at your ridiculous taxes and decide
to pack up and leave for another place. The revenue accrued from taxes is also
dependent on your city's land value. A high land value results in more money
for you. An appropriate tax rate depends on the kind of city you have. A large
population with high land value can afford lower taxes, while smaller cities,
even with high taxes, will still be scrambling to save up money for growth.
If you set your taxes to 0%, your Sims will undoubtedly be happy about this,
but your city will go broke unless you have some other source of money...like
cheating...or something...
Opening the books on taxes allows you to set taxes for specific zones.
City Ordinances
-------------------
Displays the costs and profits resulting from the various ordinances you have
enacted.
Opening the books on ordinances will open the Ordinances Window (which can also
be opened from the Windows Menu in the menu bar (Windows shortcut Ctrl+O)
City ordinances are further explained below (O D N).
Bond Payments
-----------------
Before I get started here, allow me to state that in my honest opinion, bonds
are the worst thing that can happen to your city. If you must absolutely take a
bond out on your city, be aware that paying it back is going to require
tenacity and determination. This is especially true for smaller cities. In
fact, if the interest rates are high, you'll literally find yourself consumed
by rampant and unforgiving loan sharks. Forget this, and you'll see your city
crumble, earning you a mayoral booting.
When you open the Bonds window, you'll see any current interest payments you
are making, any current bonds that you have floated, and the interest rates.
The interest rate you pay is determined by the federal interest rate, which
changes by a percent or two every few months, as can be seen in the Graphs
Window. Your bank will choose an interest rate above that, with the difference
being determined by your loan rating. The better your loan rating, the smaller
the difference between the federal rate and your bank's rate will be (in other
words, it'll be cheaper). Obviously, if you're going to take out a bond, it's
preferable to have low interest rates.
In the bonds window you'll see four buttons: "Show Bonds," "Issue Bonds,"
"Repay Bonds," and "Done." To take out a bond, click on the "Issue Bond" button
and a message window will pop up informing you of the current interest rate and
asking if you really want to take a bond out. To view information on your
bonds, select the "Show Bonds" button to see the relevant information. In this
window you'll see the outstanding bonds that you have, your loan rating (AAA to
F), the total value of all your bonds, and the interest rate of your next bond.
The City Value is the value of your city's buildings and infrastructure, but
not the zoned buildings that have been built by your Sims. The City Value
determines how many bonds you can take out, since your city is used as
collateral. To pay a bond back, click on the "Repay Bond" button to repay your
oldest outstanding bond. You must pay your bonds in the order that you issued
them.
Opening the books on bonds allows you to manage your bonds.
Police Department
---------------------
Displays the percentage of funding you are providing for the police department
(0-100%).
When determining how much to fund your police department, keep in mind that
crime will rise when you lower the funding. Only lower it if your city is
dangerously close to red ink.
Opening the books on the police department allows you to view finance
information regarding the police for the past year.
Fire Department
-------------------
Displays the percentage of funding you are providing for the fire department
(0-100%).
When determining how much to fund your fire department, keep in mind that the
likelihood of a fire increases when funding is lowered. This is a non-issue if
you have disasters enabled, in which case you might not have any fire stations
at all.
Opening the books on the fire department allows you to view finance information
regarding the fire department for the past year.
Health and Welfare
----------------------
Displays the percentage of funding you are providing for hospitals (0-100%).
When determining how much to fund your hospitals, keep in mind that lowering
the funding will result in lower LE (Life Expectancy).
Opening the books on health and welfare allows you to view finance information
regarding your hospitals for the past year.
Education
-------------
Displays the percentage of funding you are providing for education facilities
(0-100%).
When determining how much to fund your education buildings, keep in mind that
lower the funding will result in lower EQ (Education Quotient).
Opening the books on education allows you to set specific, separate funding
levels for both colleges and schools.
Transit Authority
---------------------
Displays the percentage of funding you are providing for transportation
facilities (0-100%).
When determining how much to fund the TA, keep in mind that funding anything
less than 100% results in an enraged TA advisor screaming at you "YOU CAN'T CUT
BACK ON FUNDING! YOU WILL REGRET THIS!" Seriously, I don't know what his
problem is, but that's what he'll say if you're not funding the TA 100%. More
importantly, if you're not funding 100% you'll soon notice your roads, rails,
bridges, etc. beginning to crumble. Let this continue, and there will be no
transportation in your city at all. Now you know why the TA has an aneurysm
when you don't fund him...
Opening the books on the TA will allow you to set funding for specific
transportation elements like roads, bridges, subways, etc.
From IcthyoidMecha:
"In the Windows 95 version, nothing bad happens to subways if you remove
funding. They will still function properly at 0% funding without loss of track,
unlike roads or rails."
So, if you open the books on the Transportation Authority, you can set subway
funding to 0% with no adverse affects, apparently.
---
At the bottom of the budget window you'll see all of your costs and credits
tallied up, showing you if your budget is going to increase or decrease that
year.
Well, that's the budget window of SC2K. Use it carefully, for just as it can be
a tool for fun and profit, it can be used for doom and gloom... whichever you
prefer...
============================================
Section 5.2: The Ordinances Window ODN
============================================
Windows shortcut: Ctrl+O
This window displays all of the ordinances available, showing you which ones
you've enacted, their costs or profits, the total YTD (year-to-date)
cost/profit, and the total estimated year-end cost/profit. There are five kinds
of ordinances.
Be careful not to have more ordinances enacted than your coffers can afford. If
you find that you must cut down on city services in order to stay out of the
red, deselect the most expensive ones first.
---Note---
The profit/cost of each ordinance was determined by running three test cities,
then comparing the cost of -each- ordinance in -each- city with -each- the
residential, commercial, industrial and total populations of -each- city. This
took approximately two hours to run. The costs are approximate, and almost
certainly do not represent actual in-game values, but they are serviceable
guidelines nonetheless. The actual value I chose to put in was the profit/cost
of each ordinance per 1,000 relevant Sims (some ordinances don't affect the
-total- population, per se, but only one sector of it).
Finance Ordinances
======================
These ordinances provide your city with extra cash, and most of them are simply
additional taxes or other form of fines. For the most part, these ordinances
will perturb your Sims, but not too much.
1% Sales Tax
----------------
This ordinance taxes the Sims in your commercial sector. While it brings in
money, it does have a slight negative effect on your city's commerce. The
amount of money this ordinance provides is somewhat substantial, so it does
have its uses. However, it's not your best choice every time.
Profit: Approx. $13 per 1,000 commercial Sims
1% Income Tax
-----------------
This ordinance taxes Sims in your residential sector. While it does bring in a
hefty sum, it also has a moderate negative impact on the growth of your
residential zones. Definitely the biggest money-maker in the game, this
ordinance can give you that much-needed money for a new stadium or bridge, but
can also be used to counteract a costly ordinance. Whether or not you implement
it is a personal choice.
Profit: Approx. $13 per 1,000 residential Sims
Legalized Gambling
----------------------
This ordinance will bring in money from your commercial sector. It's not like a
tax, so it won't necessarily harm your commerce, at least not directly. What it
does do is increase crime throughout your city. This can be a good idea, but
only for the short term. If you allow this ordinance to be in effect for too
long crime in your city can grow out of control. Be careful with it.
Profit: Approx. $27 per 1,000 commercial Sims
Parking Fines
-----------------
This ordinance brings in money from the residential sector. Interestingly
enough, the negative impact of this ordinance falls not on the residential
zones but the commercial zones. It also reduces traffic, which bugs the Sims,
but not you (at least I hope not). This particular ordinance does not bring in
a whole lot of money, and I only recommend it if you need some quick cash.
Otherwise, let it be.
Profit: Approx. $6.50 per 1,000 residential Sims
Education Ordinances
========================
These ordinances all cost money, and they all serve to benefit the overall
education of your Sims.
Pro-Reading Campaign
------------------------
This ordinance serves to increase the education quotient of your Sims after
they leave school. It's not terribly expensive, and it certainly pays off when
those high-tech industries start moving into your city.
Cost: Approx. $2 per 1,000 residential Sims
Anti-Drug Campaign
----------------------
This ordinance helps to reduce crime in your city. If you decide to legalize
gambling, be sure to enact this ordinance as well to help counteract the
negative effects.
Cost: Approx. $1 per 1,000 Sims
CPR Training
----------------
This ordinance helps to increase the life expectancy of your Sims. It costs
about the same as the Anti-Drug Campaign.
Cost: Approx. $1 per 1,000 Sims
Neighborhood Watch
----------------------
This ordinance helps to reduce crime in your city. Once again, be sure to enact
this if you legalize gambling.
Cost: Approx. $4 per 1,000 residential Sims
Safety & Health Ordinances
==============================
These ordinances all cost money, and they all benefit the well-being and
livelihood of your Sims.
Volunteer Fire Department
-----------------------------
This ordinance sets up a volunteer fire crew that helps with putting out fires.
While especially useful in smaller cities, its effect noticeably decreases as
your city grows. In fact, I'd recommend quitting it once your city reaches a
moderate size.
Cost: Approx. $4 per 1,000 residential Sims
Public Smoking Ban
----------------------
This ordinance will help increase the overall life expectancy of your Sims,
although it will have a slightly negative impact on your commercial sector.
Enacting this ordinance is really more of a personal life choice, since going
one way or the other doesn't have a remarkable impact.
Cost: Approx. $2 per 1,000 commercial Sims
Free Clinics
----------------
This ordinance helps increase the overall life expectancy of your Sims. There's
no negative impact on anything, so the only reason you wouldn't want to do it
is because of its costs, which are a bit on the higher end.
Cost: Approx. $6.50 per 1,000 residential Sims
Junior Sports
-----------------
This double-duty ordinance increases life expectancy AND reduces crime. Since
it's not particularly expensive, I'd say go for it.
Cost: Approx. $3 per 1,000 residential Sims.
Promotional Ordinances
==========================
These ordinances, all of which cost money, increase the amount of tourism your
city receives. This helps boost the commercial sector of your city.
Tourist Advertising
-----------------------
This ordinance increases the amount of activity in your tourism industry. Other
than that...I don't know. If you do enact it, make sure there's something in
your city worth seeing, although that really doesn't matter all too much.
Cost: Approx. $13 per 1,000 commercial Sims
Business Advertising
------------------------
This ordinance helps increase industrial growth in your city. If you enact it,
make sure your city's infrastructure can accommodate the growth.
Cost: Approx. $13 per 1,000 industrial Sims
City Beautification
-----------------------
This ordinance will increase residential growth and overall land value.
Cost: Approx. $3 per 1,000 residential Sims
Annual Carnival
-------------------
This ordinance will boost your tourism industry and it will also serve to
increase commercial growth. I've noticed that the impact of this ordinance is
almost nonexistent in small cities. I'd wait until you have a larger city
before thinking about this one.
Cost: Approx. $4 per 1,000 commercial Sims
Other Ordinances
====================
These ordinances are basically miscellaneous services that make your city a
better place. One of them, Nuclear Free Zone, is free of charge, and it
prevents you from placing any nuclear power plants in your city. It's more of a
political thing then anything else.
Energy Conservation
-----------------------
This ordinance takes a while to become noticeable, but it is worth enacting if
you find yourself struggling to meet the ever-increasing power demands of your
city. If you can afford the really expensive power plants (microwave, fusion)
then it's not necessarily important.
Cost: Approx. $13 per 1,000 Sims.
Nuclear-Free Zone
---------------------
This is the only ordinance that neither costs, nor gives any money. It's most
noticeable effect is that you can no longer construct nuclear power plants.
Also, any pre-existing nuclear power plants will not be replaced when they burn
out. There is also a small boost for your residential sector. This ordinance is
really nothing more than a way for you to make a personal statement about how
you feel in regards to nuclear energy. Do note, however, that even with this
ordinance enabled, the military can still construct missile silos in your city
if you let them.
Cost: N/A
Homeless Shelters
---------------------
This ordinance helps reduce the unemployment rate, and it also increases the
overall land value. You probably didn't even realize there were homeless people
in your city. Well, now you know.
Cost: Approx. $6.50 per 1,000 residential Sims
Pollution Controls
----------------------
This ordinance will help reduce overall pollution from automobiles and
industry. Obviously, it also has a slight negative effect on industry as well.
Indirectly, this ordinance will also increase your Sims' life expectancy since
LE is influenced by pollution. If you're worried about your industry faltering,
you can takes steps to increase educational services in your city that will
attract high-tech, non-polluting industries.
Cost: Approx. $13 per 1,000 industrial Sims
========================================
Section 5.3: Population Window PLN
========================================
Windows shortcut: Ctrl+C
The Population Window provides statistical data on the demographics of your
city's Sims. There are three kinds of data that can be viewed in this window by
selecting the appropriate radio button (regular buttons in the DOS version).
The buttons are labeled Population, Health, and Education.
Population
==============
When you have this button selected, the window will display a bar graph showing
the distribution of Sims among the various ages as a percentage. On the y-axis
(vertical) you will see a scale of percentages, while the x-axis (horizontal,
labeled "Resident Age") shows a scale of ages. The height of the bar over a
given age range indicates the percentage of Sims that fall under that age
range. If the heights of all the bars were added up, they'd total out at 100%.
You'll also see a bracket from the age of 20 to 55, indicating the ages during
which Sims can be employed. The label for this bracket ("Work Force % = x")
indicates the percentage of Sims that can be employed.
Health
==========
This button will display the life expectancy (LE) of Sims based on their age.
Naturally, younger Sims who have access to more advanced medical care will have
a longer life expectancy than older Sims who had to deal with less-advanced
health care. The y-axis will display the LE in years, while the x-axis remains
the same as the one in the previous setting. The bracket indicating the work
force indicates the average LE of Sims in the work force. LE is affected by the
presence of hospitals and other life-affecting variables like pollution.
Education
=============
This button displays the education quotient (EQ) of the Sims in your city based
on their age. The y-axis displays the EQ (0-150) while the x-axis displays the
age range, just like in the other two windows. As you can see, very young Sims
have a low EQ, which rises sharply as they progress through school and college.
Afterward, their EQ will deteriorate unless it is bolstered by the presence of
libraries and museums, which adult Sims frequent. Usually, this graph will have
the appearance of rising sharply, then slowly tapering downward as the Sims
age. The work force bracket indicates the average EQ of the employable Sims.
The higher the EQ of these Sims, the more high-tech industry will want to
develop in your city. This, in turn, will result in lower pollution, which
makes everyone happy. EQ takes a very long time to fully develop, as it
requires one or two generations to fully come around.
==========================================
Section 5.4: The Industry Window INY
==========================================
Windows shortcut: Ctrl+I
The Industry Window is a handy tool that lets you micromanage the industries in
your city, of which there are 11 types:
- Steel/Mining
- Textiles
- Petrochemical
- Food
- Construction
- Automotive
- Aerospace
- Finance
- Media
- Electronics
- Tourism
These various industrial sectors differ in regards to their benefits/costs to
your city. Some of them pollute a lot, while others require a high EQ for
development. Like the Population Window, there are three selections you can
make to view various data related to industry.
Ratios
==========
This selection will show you the rate at which the various industries are being
produced. Industries that produce a lot will have the highest ratios. These
industries also tend to be in higher demand (which is why so much is being
produced to begin with), and they also tend to bring in more money when it
comes to taxes. If your city was some how communist/socialist, you'd be able to
specify just how much each industry produced... we all have our dreams...
Tax Rates
=============
Here you can specify how much each industry will be taxed (0-20%). The vertical
dotted line represents the average tax rate of all the industries together. You
can set the individual tax rates by clicking and holding on one of the bars and
moving it back and forth for the desired tax rate. Consequently, you'll notice
the appropriate industry begin to falter or grow. If you have a particular
dislike for certain industries, you may max out their tax rates accordingly.
Demand
==========
This selection simply shows the demand for each industry. It's usually pretty
similar to the Ratios since it directly affects them.
========================================
Section 5.5: The Graphs Window GRP
========================================
Windows shortcut: Ctrl+G
This is probably one of the more useful windows in SC2K, since it provides
numerical data on several aspects of your city. When you open this window, you
will see a graph that shows the data you've checked versus time. There are 16
kinds of data you can view, and three time scales you can select from (1 year,
10 years, or 100 years).
- City Size (C or S): Checking this will display the total population of your
city.
- Residents (R): This will display the total residential population of your
city.
- Commerce (C): This will display the total commercial population of your
city.
- Industry (I): This will display the total industrial population of your
city.
- Traffic (T): This will display the average traffic of your city.
- Pollution (P): This will display the average pollution of your city.
- Value (V): This will display the average land value of your city.
- Crime (C or X): This will display the average crime rate of your city.
- Power % (p): This will display the percentage of power available from all of
your power plants.
- Water % (w): This will display the percentage of water available from all of
your pumps.
- Health (h): This will display the average LE of your Sims.
- Education (e): This will display the average EQ of your Sims.
- Unemployment (u): This will display the unemployment rate of your city.
- GNF (g): This will display the Gross National Product of SimNation
(sometimes shown as GNP).
- Nat'n Pop. (n): This will display the total population of SimNation.
- Fed Rate (%): This will display the federal interest rate set by SimNation's
Fed, which in turns determines the interest rates of the loans you take out.
You can display any combination of those data on your graph, or all of them
(although they'll be hard to discern at that point). The graph displays real-
time information, so you can leave the window open to see current trends in
your city.
===========================================
Section 5.6: The Neighbors Window NGH
===========================================
Windows shortcut: Ctrl+H
This window will display a small picture showing your city in relation with
your four neighboring cities. If your city has a coast, one of your neighbors
will simply be a blue ocean labeled "Ocean." The names of your neighbors are
randomly determined (more details in Section 5 (S F T)). The sizes of your
neighbors are related to how well your city is doing. However, they will never
grow larger than about 5 million apiece. At that point, their populations
fluctuate between 5 million and 4.9 million. Also displayed in this window is
the population of SimNation, which never grows larger than about 5 billion.
Depending on how large your city is, the graphic which represents it will show
anything from a few buildings and roads to a sprawling metropolis. This window
displays real-time information, so you can leave it open as your city runs.
=====================================
Section 5.7: The Map Window MPA
=====================================
Windows shortcut: Ctrl+M
This window is also one of the more useful ones in SC2K, as it has a lot of
handy features. When you open it, you will see a map of your city where brown
indicates undeveloped land, green indicates forested land, blue indicates
water, black indicates developed land that you've built on, and yellow
indicates rubble. Depending on the particular map you've selected, this basic
map will be covered with other kinds of data. At the bottom of the window is a
check box reading "Show City in Window." This check box lets you filter the
data on the map directly onto the city, helping you pinpoint exactly where
various effects are occurring (everything in your city will be blank to make
this data more clear). In the DOS version, this check box is represented by a
icon with blue tiles on it. There are 9 types of data that can be viewed, and
each of these types may also have a few options. Not all types of data can be
filtered directly on to the city.
Structures
==============
This map simply indicates what land has been developed, as described in the
opening paragraph on the Map Window.
This map cannot be filtered.
Zones
=========
This map is the same as the above, except zones are also color-coded. The
colors are the same as for those you would see in undeveloped zones.
This map cannot be filtered.
Roads
=========
This map indicates all the roads and highways in your city with white lines.
This map cannot be filtered.
Rails
=========
This map indicates all the railroads in your city with white lines.
This map cannot be filtered.
Traffic
===========
This map indicates the amount of traffic on your roads and rails in shades of
gray. The darker the gray, the more traffic there is.
Filtering this map produces similar results in shades of blue. Blank tiles have
no traffic.
Power
=========
This map shows your city's power grid along with which sections are receiving
electricity. Sections in yellow are powered, sections in red are not. White
lines indicate the power lines you have constructed. In some cases, it can be
difficult to see very small sections that are not powered, so look carefully.
When filtered, Green tiles represent powered areas, while red tiles represent
areas lacking power. Blank tiles indicate areas that do not have power supply
systems in place. It's much easier using this filter to discern un-powered
zones and areas.
Water Supply
================
This map is identical to the above except that it represents the water system.
White lines indicate water mains you have built. When there is a low water
supply, you will see a diamond pattern in the center of your city representing
watered sections, regardless of where your water pumps are. The size of this
diamond depends on the deficit your water supply has.
When filtered, Green tiles represent watered areas, while red tiles represent
areas lacking water. Blank tiles indicate areas that do not have water systems
in place.
Density
===========
This map indicates the population density of your city in varying shades of
gray, with darker shades indicating heavier densities. Blank areas have no
population.
When filtered, the density will be indicated with shades of blue. Blank tiles
have no population.
Rate of Growth
==================
This map indicates the population change in all parts of the city. Green areas
indicate growing population, red areas indicate decreasing population, and
blank areas indicate no significant population change.
When filtered, growing populations are shown by green tiles with plus signs (+)
and shrinking populations are shown by red tiles with minus signs (-). Blank
areas have no significant population changes.
Crime Rate
==============
This map shows you what the crime rate in your city is with varying shades of
gray. The darker the gray, the heavier the crime is. Blank areas have no crime.
Filtering this map produces similar results in shades of blue, with blank tiles
indicating little or no crime.
Police Power
================
This map will show the area of effect for each police station in your city. The
circular areas are darker in the center where the police station is, getting
lighter at the edges. Cities with good transportation systems and well-funded
police departments will find light-gray lines following the roads outside the
areas of effect, indicating that some police stations are able to patrol
outside their area of effect. One can see that this map is closely related to
the Crime Rate map.
Filtering this map produces similar results in shades of blue, with blank tiles
indicating a total lack of police coverage.
Police Departments
======================
This map will show the locations of all your police departments with white
dots.
This map cannot be filtered.
Pollution
=============
This map indicates any pollution in your city, along with the severity in any
given area. A lighter gray color indicates light pollution, while a darker gray
indicates heavy pollution.
Filtering this map will display pollution levels in shades of blue in a similar
fashion as in the map. Blank tiles do not have pollution.
Land Value
==============
This map indicates land values in your city in shades of gray. A dark gray
color indicates a high land value. Blank areas represent undeveloped land.
When filtered, this map will display similar results in shades of blue, with
blank tiles indicating undeveloped land.
Fire Power
==============
This map is identical to the Police Power map, showing the effect of fire
departments.
Fire Departments
====================
This map is identical to the Police Departments map, showing the location of
fire departments.
Schools
===========
This map shows the location of all your schools with white dots.
This map cannot be filtered.
Colleges
============
This map shows the location of all your colleges with white dots.
This map cannot be filtered.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = =SFT= =
= =
= SECTION 6: Behind The Software =
= =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
The Neighboring Cities
==========================
While you may not pay a lot of attention to those neighboring cities of yours,
it's important to realize that without them, you're just a burg in the middle
of nowhere. As fanciful as that might sound, it's also impractical.
When it comes to the simulator, the neighbors are there to provide a means of
connection between you and SimNation. They will develop along with your city
(although no self-respecting SimMayor should have any problem outpacing their
neighbors' growth). You can connect to all four of your neighbors or none at
all. Their names are randomly selected from this list of 36:
Ashland Fort Verdegris Mill Valley Schwinton
Aurac Fortune New Boots Serviland
Avon Harpersville Newton Sinistrel
Blake Hoek Creek Oak Creek Stars County
Cats Corner Jenna Petaluma Stimpleton
Cherryton Jeromi Phippsville Tent Pegs
Denmont Krighton Pioneers Villa
Dexter Lister PortVille Washers Grove
Eubanks Little Rouge Rimmer Yestonia
I'm sure many of those names may seem a little "country" for you, but as a
resident of So. Oregon myself, I think they're perfect (no, really, there is a
city named Ashland here). It's not all uncommon for two or more of your
neighboring cities to receive the same name. I recall feeling somewhat
apprehensive when I saw that all four of my neighbors were named Stars County.
If, when creating your city in the terrain editor, you selected an ocean, then
one of your neighbors will be named "Ocean" but it will not have a population.
However, you can still build connections to "Ocean" assuming there is a land
bridge across the ocean.
When you build connections to your neighbors, a sign will appear indicating the
name of the neighbor along with a number which I believe designates the
distance (this number is always 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9, and it increments as you go
along the edge of your city, tile by tile). Beyond that, there isn't much else
to say about neighbors.
The Newspapers
==================
The main purpose of the papers in SC2K is to inform you of what's happening in
your city and the world in general. Important articles will usually tell you
what problems your city has, what kind of disaster has recently occurred, and
what inventions have recently been made. Thrown in with these are befuddling
human interest stories that quite frankly would never see the light of day in a
real paper. With headlines like "Capitalist Running Dog Lackeys Infiltrate
Embassy" one isn't sure just what to make of the article within. The actual
articles are really just a computer-generated form of Madlibs that make a
little bit more sense. This is to prevent the articles from getting too old too
fast. Your city can have a maximum of six papers (Times, Chronicle, Courier,
Picayune, Herald and Journal), some of which include photos. It doesn't take
long to learn that giving an interesting name to a city will result in some
strange articles.
You can choose to receive the subscription, which comes twice a year, the
Extra! editions, which come when inventions and city milestones have occurred,
or neither. However, you'll still receive papers after disasters have occurred.
If you read lots of papers, you're likely to receive a pop-up indicating that
your citizens have thrown a parade in your honor.
---PlayStation Note---
In the PlayStation version, you can only look at article headlines, not the
articles themselves. =/
The City Council
====================
While you may think that the city council has no mind of its own, you should
know otherwise. There are occasions when the city council will pass an
ordinance or two on its own without even alerting you. It's really no big deal
because it doesn't happen too often. All you need to do is open the Ordinances
window and turn off the newly-enacted ordinance. You usually find out this
happened in the first place because of the newspaper.
"What's it called?" or Names of Buildings (and teams)
=========================================================
There are some things in SC2K that have interesting names. Here we will see
just what they are, and where some of them come from.
First Light (Capt. J. Scirica)
----------------------------------
This is the name given to every small boat you see in SC2K. It's named after
Joe Scirica, who at the time was (and perhaps still is) the V.P. of Maxis
product development. Whether or not Mr. Scirica was really that fond of sailing
is beyond me.
Industrial thingamajig
--------------------------
This name is given to one of the 3x3 industrial buildings. I guess the
developers didn't think it looked enough like a factory to warrant that name.
Maybe they were trying to be funny...what the hell am I talking about? In this
game they're always trying to be funny.
Braun Llama Dome
--------------------
This is one of the rewards you get in SC2K (after reaching a population of
80,000). It's named after Jeff Braun, who was the CEO of Maxis.
Stadium
-----------
There are a total of five different sports you can choose from (Football,
Baseball, Soccer, Cricket and Rugby). Depending on which one you select, a
certain name will appear.
Football - Llamas
Baseball - Alpacas
Soccer - Camels
Cricket - Dromedaries
Rugby - Army Ants
Now, you're not stuck with these names. You can always choose your own if you
wish (but once you make a choice you're stuck with it).
Viewing the Version Info (Windows 95 only)
==============================================
If you take a look at the properties of SC2K (find the directory the program is
stored in, then right-click and select "Properties" in the context menu) you
will see something interesting. Click on the "Version" tab and take a look at
the comment.
. .
(for those of you lacking the game or are too lazy to go about this task, here
is the phrase in question):
"He tried to kill me with a forklift!"
I don't know what's going on there, but that's how it is. Maybe it's a poor
soul's cry for help...
I received this e-mail from Nicholas Fairfield:
"Well, you may have received numerous emails on this same subject, so I hope
it's not too much trouble that I'm pointing out that the quote is from Mystery
Science Theater 3000; specifically, from Episode 310, featuring the movie
Fugitive Alien. There's a scene where one guy (Rocky) attempts to squish
another guy (Ken, the titular alien), with a forklift. This fails, there's a
brief chase and fight scene, the music gets bombastic and Joel and the Bots
sing along with, This is the song/written for the train chase/this is the
chase, Rocky and Ken/He tried to kill me with a forklift/Ole!" Apparently,
someone at Maxis was a fan of the show.
This seems to be the case, Mr. Fairfield. Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode
number 310 does indeed feature this line.
"About SimCity 2000..."
===========================
Click on the Help menu in the menu bar and select "About SimCity 2000..." for
an interesting read.
In the DOS version, select "About" under "File" in the menu bar. Those who have
both versions will notice there are slight variations (there are also
variations between the Win95 and Win3.1 versions as well).
If you're wondering about that "Spooty Struct," info on that can be found in
Section 9 (L N K).
= = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = =STY= =
= =
= SECTION 7: Strategies =
= =
= = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = =
=======================================================
Section 7.1: Starting And Designing Your City SRT
=======================================================
There are many ways to go about designing your city. You could flatten the
terrain and go for an efficient, Borg-style plan that maximizes the return on
all available resources. Social services are minimal, and the Sims are regarded
as simply more mouths to feed. Emphasis is placed on simply squeezing as many
people as you can into the same small space, then squeezing as much money as
you can out of those Sims. Alternatively, you could build your city in a
mountainous setting with waterways flowing, trees growing, and Sims
glowing... with happiness! Here, you take care to make sure plenty of
recreational opportunities are provided. Also, you place a strong emphasis on
providing the best services for your Sims; plenty of health care, police, and
fire protection. Population isn't even a concern here, it's just a statistic.
You spend almost all your money making Sims happy, and are barely operating in
the black.
And of course, there are dozens of in-betweens I could discuss at length as
well, but just know that there are other options.
Starting the City
=====================
Editing the Terrain
-----------------------
Starting a city is simple enough. You either choose to start a new city with a
randomly-generated terrain, or you edit the terrain to your liking before
starting it.
The first option usually works out fairly well. You're not likely to be given a
terrain that is impossible to develop, and each terrain generated by the
terrain editor has its own unique quirks. See if you can't take advantage of
some of the unique landscape features that appear in the terrain. Random
terrains are also well-suited for beginners because they generally expose you
several of the terrains that appear in SC2K. You'll find coasts, rivers,
mountains, valleys, plains, forests, etc. The beginning SC2K mayor can become
accustomed to these terrain features and learn how to use them best
accordingly.
If you decide, instead, to design and create a terrain of your own, there are
some things you want to keep in mind. First of all, it's unwise to create
terrains that have maxed out water sliders and minimized mountain sliders.
You'll just end up with entirely flooded terrains that are un-developable
unless you lower the sea level. If you're attempting to build a megalopolis
with a skyrocketing population, you probably want to design your terrain such
that all the necessary geographic features are there (i.e. a place for seaports
and water pumps). Otherwise, shape your terrain in a manner you think will be
best for your city and your personal tastes. You can create all sorts of
terrain styles; a ring of land (atoll), geometric shapes, archipelagos or other
odd-ball landscapes.
Time and Money
------------------
When you're finally ready to actually found your city, you'll be presented with
an opportunity to choose a name for your city, the year it will be founded, and
the amount of money you'll start with. If you start in the year 1900, you'll
only have limited technological resources available to you. As your city grows
and time passes on, you'll need to update certain aspects of your city, like
power plants, transportation systems, etc. If you start out in 2050, you'll
have most all of the technology available to you. You can start building a
completely pre-planned city with all the amenities right from the get-go.
When it comes to money, this choice is merely a matter of how difficult you
want your mayoral experience to be. Starting with $20,000 is, of course, the
easiest route. You'll have almost no problem at all building any kind of city
from the ground up with this select. If you instead opt for $10,000 or the
bond, be prepared for some rough times ahead. Be particularly careful with the
bond, because its interest payments will soon eat up a small city. You'll want
to develop the city as quickly as possible so you can muster the financial
strength to pay the bond off.
Where to build the city
---------------------------
Now that you've started the city in your new terrain, it's time to decide where
you want to first start constructing your city. My recommendation is that you
start construction in a corner, preferably a corner with a nearby water source
that allows shipping. Starting in the corner makes it easier for you to see
where you want your city to go in the future. Also, it makes it easier to build
any connections to your neighbors without costly lengths of road or rail.
When it comes to actually starting the city, try these steps:
- Build your power plant a good distance away from where you want to lay the
first sections of road. This will keep the plant's pollution away from your
Sims. Also, be sure NOT to build the plant near your water source, as it
will pollute the water, which in turns lowers the life expectancy of your
city's inhabitants. Besides, power lines are cheap enough, it shouldn't bug
you too much to keep the plant at a distance.
- When it comes to proper proportioning of your zones, I recommend that 50% of
your zones be residential, with 25% as industry and 25% as commercial. As
time goes on, you'll want to even those out to 33% apiece, with slightly
emphasis on industrial and residential. When your city has reached a very
large size, at least 90,000, you should begin placing more influence on
commercial as opposed to industrial.
- Start your water supply small, and add to it as needed. There's no need to
build a huge waterworks that can supply a bustling metropolis if all you've
got is a one-horse-town. Besides, there's no harm in starting out too small
with the water, then adding to it later as needed.
Keep those things in mind, and you should have no difficulty building a
successful city.
Other methods
-----------------
One of the popular techniques in SC2K is the concept of the "Chia-city." True
to their name, these cities are completely pre-built with all the necessary
utilities and services. Transportation, power, water, public services, etc. are
all pre-constructed. The land is already zoned and all that needs to happen is
for you to start the game. If the layout was well-designed, your city will turn
out quite nicely. There may be periods of spotty growth, as you probably laid
the city out in a manner that best fits a large metropolis. When a city is
still growing, the layout isn't quite compatible. I wouldn't worry, the city
will survive nonetheless.
Arcology Cities
-------------------
Another viable method of creating a city is to compose it almost entirely of
arcologies. There are many reasons one might choose to do this, the chief one
probably being that of obtaining the most populated city possible. Another
motivator for creating a city like this is that one of the Easter eggs
available involves building several hundred arcologies.
A city such as this has an entirely different set of problems from a normal
city. Transportation, zone balancing, and city layout become totally irrelevant
and issues like pollution and crime become the two primary concerns.
As far as crime goes, your skyrocketing population is going to send crime
through the roof unless you place a police station for every 2-3 arcologies
that you build. No, I'm not kidding it. You're going to need that kind of
police force in order to keep the crime rate at a reasonable level.
Pollution, on the other hand, will be mostly curbed by the presence of parks,
lots of them. You will want to build a large park for every 2-3 arcologies you
build. Inevitably you will end up with lots of little empty plots of land, so
go ahead and fill those up with small parks.
Transportation is a simple issue for cities such as these. All you need to do
is make sure each arcology has a road running by it. Power and water can be
taken care of in the normal fashion.
You may wish to build an airport and seaport to take care of industrial and
commercial needs, and also remember to build connections to your neighboring
cities.
The end result is a city that's really not much to look at. It looks the same
in one spot as it does in all others, and it really doesn't do much of anything
except generate crime, pollution and money (that you can spend on filling your
mayor's house with crap as a metaphor for filling the emptiness in your cold
heart).
Transportation for Small Cities
===================================
One of the most important aspects to consider is how you develop your
transportation system. There are many ways to go about it, and it'd behoove you
to consider an option that best serves YOUR city.
For small cities built entirely within a natural terrain, it's best to use the
branch method, as I will describe with water systems (scroll down to see it
anyway). You won't need any highways, subways, or probably even any railways.
You can build bus stations if you'd like, but traffic isn't likely to be an
issue with the low population. When developing land on hills, build your roads
so that they go up and down the hill, not along with the crest of the hill.
This is the best utilization of build-able space. Otherwise, try to be as
sparse with your roads as possible. Since you aren't too concerned in this
situation will developing every possible tile, don't try too hard to ruin a
beautiful setting with lots of roadwork just to reach an out-of-the-way tile.
Try to avoid building grids on hills and mountains because it's simply
impractical and it's also not very aesthetic. Instead, build meandering roads
with small pieces of property here and there. You know, like a REAL country
road would be.
Transportation for Big Cities
=================================
There are lots of options to consider when building a large city, mostly
concerning the layout of your roads. However, you also want to consider how to
implement subways and railways effectively; you'll need these systems to avoid
serious traffic problems (I'll discuss these after dealing with roads).
One of the biggest questions here is how exactly to lay out the roads. There
are many methods; some good, others... not so great.
---Note---
For the following:
R = One tile of road
( ) = Land (In other words, a blank space is a tile of land)
3x3 Grid
------------
This is easily the most road-heavy layout there is, without simply entering
into the realm of absurdity.
R R
R R
R R R R R R R R R
R R
R R
R R
R R R R R R R R R
R R
R R
The advantage is the huge reduction in traffic and any zone deterioration that
would result from it. Unfortunately, this is more than offset by the fact that
nearly 50% of your land is used up by roads. Also, you cannot fit anything
larger than 3x3 into one of those blocks, forcing you adjust accordingly. A
better method would be removing several of the roads in one direction. This
leaves you with rows of roads separated by three titles, with the occasional
cross-street to provide access among the roads. However, you still end wasting
a lot of space, not to mention creating traffic problems. End result? You have
a poorly-designed road system that ought not to be used. I include it only
because I seem to see it in a lot of cities (i.e. the Chicago scenario).
4x4 Grid
------------
R R
R R
R R R R R R R R R R
R R
R R
R R
R R
R R R R R R R R R R
R R
R R
A more practical variation of the method above, this design still uses almost
40% of your real estate. Traffic can become a problem here, and you'll want to
begin implementing subways, buses, and highways. Also, you'll be able to fit
any building into one of these blocks. Once again, a better method would be to
prune down some cross streets.
6x6 Grid
------------
R R
R R
R R R R R R R R R R R R
R R
R R
R R
R R
R R
R R
R R R R R R R R R R R R
R R
R R
This is the most efficient implementation of a standard square grid in SC2K.
This time, you're only using 28% of your land for roads. Moreover, these
squares are as big as they can get without leaving empty spaces in the middle,
where no zones would develop. As with the other two, it would be even more
efficient to prune some cross-streets. Also, you'll face serious traffic issues
if you don't construct alternative forms of transportation.
9x9 Grid
------------
U = Un-developable land.
R R
R R
R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
R R
R R
R R
R U U U R
R U U U R
R U U U R
R R
R R
R R
R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
R R
R R
Unlike the previous grid patterns, it would not serve to your benefit to prune
the cross-streets. You're already building a grid that's too big, but here's
the upside: The middle portion is used for civic and public structures like
schools, police stations, and parks. Traffic will become an issue, so you'll
have to deal with that. Building highways can be kind of awkward too. Also,
since you're committed to this pattern, it becomes annoying thinking that
you're obligated to construct what may seem to you to be too many public
building on your part. If that gets you down, just try to think about all the
Sims that you're benefiting with this.
6x13 Patterns
-----------------
R R R R
R R R R
R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
R R R R
R R R R
R R R R
R R R R
R R R R
R R R R
R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
R R R R
R R R R
R R R R
R R R R
R R R R
R R R R
R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
R R R R
R R R R
This particular pattern of the 6x13 blocks is only one variation of the
possibilities out there. You can also pattern them like bricks, in a herring
bone pattern, or as simply stacked upon on another. I like this design,
however, both because of its aesthetic value, and because of the way it sort of
has major and minor roads. The major roads are in 13x13 blocks, and span as
long as the city itself. Meanwhile, there are shorter roads within the large
blocks that serve to provide access. I feel this replicates real-life cities
more realistically, since they are built like that, with major and minor
thoroughfares.
You can also arrange the 6x13 blocks with 6x6 blocks to create huge patterns
that are both aesthetic and practical.
R R
R R
R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
R R R
R R R
R R R
R R R
R R R
R R R
R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
R R R R
R R R R
R R R R
R R R R
R R R R
R R R R
R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
R R R
R R R
R R R
R R R
R R R
R R R
R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
R R
R R
This is a very efficient use of roads here, which means lots of traffic issues.
Make sure to build viable and complete subways and highways to keep traffic at
bay.
Other Patterns
------------------
There are other variations on what I've already shown. The most popular of
those would be the spiral, one of the most efficient uses of roads there are.
Basically, you just build a spiraling roadway with even spacing to end up with
a giant spiral. The problem here is that it's not realistic. No real city would
survive if people were forced to drive who knows how many miles just to go
somewhere only a short distance away because it's on a different loop of the
spiral. Another issue is traffic, so deal with it accordingly.
(...) R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
R R R
R R R
R R R
R R R
R R R
R R R
R R R R R R R R R R R
R R
R R
R R
R R
R R
R R
R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
Another popular pattern is simply to build one road after another, space 6
tiles apart, with no connection in between. This is simply the most efficient
use of roads available, albeit highly unrealistic looking. Imagine having to
literally travel to another city just to get one block over. Also, you're going
to have serious traffic issues to wrestle with. But hey, how can you say no to
a road land-use of 14%?
(...)R R R R R R R R R R R R R R(...)
(...)R R R R R R R R R R R R R R(...)
(...)R R R R R R R R R R R R R R(...)
Other Transportation Methods
================================
It is wholly possible to build your city without a single tile of road. Albeit
expensive, it still looks neat.
One of the important things to remember is how zones will develop around
stations. This way, you can use an efficient pattern in order to lay them out
without building too many stations, or having blank plots of land.
Keep in mind that it's VERY EXPENSIVE to implement these systems.
D = Border of developable land
S = Subway or rail station
R = Railway
Subway station:
D
D D D
D D D D D
D D D S D D D
D D D D D
D D D
D
Subway station pattern:
S D S D S
D D D D
D D D D
D S D S D
D D D D
D D D D
S D S D S
Obviously, there is some overlap, but this is the only consistent pattern that
will result in no empty spaces. It's a rather space-efficient method, if I do
say so myself. Also, if you consider the suggestion from IcthyoidMecha (do a
Ctrl+F for that name to see for yourself) then a transportation system composed
entirely of subways might be lucrative to you.
I received this e-mail tip from Dan:
"I thought you might like to know that there IS a way to use subways only
without overlap or emptiness. It repeats on quite a large scale, so please
forgive me:
S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 S 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S 1
"S" = subway station
"1" = zoned
" " = zoned also (for contrast)
Using this pattern it's possible to create very large, seamless expanses of
zoned land. However, fitting public structures between the subway stations can
be somewhat tricky - it can be best to just miss a station."
This is without a doubt one of the most impressive things I've ever seen.
Seriously Dan are you some kind of genius?! He must be, and yet he graciously
takes the time to suggest improvements to this humble document.
Rail station:
D D
D D D D
D D D D D D
D D D S S D D D
D D D S S D D D
D D D D D D
D D D D
D D
Rail station pattern:
S D D S S D D S
D D D D
D D D D
R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
D S S D D S S D
D S S D D S S D
D D D D
D D D D
R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
S D D S S D D S
The big problem with making an entirely rail-dependent city is the amount of
land it takes for all those 2x2 stations and the track that goes with it. In
the end, there are simply no non-aesthetic reasons to go with a rail-dependent
city.
============================================
Section 7.2: Maintaining Your City MTN
============================================
These are all the things you need to keep your eye on as an SC2K mayor in order
to ensure that your city is in top-notch shape.
Dealing with traffic
========================
Each form of transportation has a capacity limit. But Sims need transportation
to move from one zone to another. If you exceed the limit, traffic jams can
form, lowering the capacity. If this happens all the time, the affected zones
will begin to deteriorate. Try to avoid this by having a complete inter modal
transportation system. Don't go overboard, though. If you do, you'll be making
it hard on yourself by taking potentially developable land and wasting it on
unnecessary transportation (not to mention all the money you'll be wasting by
spending it all on maintenance). Make sure to always keep the transit authority
fully-funded, and try to exercise good design when it comes to laying out your
roads (as previously discussed).
Highways
------------
When it comes to highways, there are several routes to take.
- SPIDERWEB METHOD: In this case, which is better suited for larger
cities with a major downtown center, you'll basically have one highway
intersection in the middle of your city, with all the highways radiating
outward from that one point. Try not to build more than 5 or 6 highways,
though. More than that is somewhat excessive. Build about 4, with one
highway going towards an edge of the map, connecting you to you're your
neighbors via highway.
Additionally, if you have fewer highways, you can build a single length of
highway circling the center of your city. This is common in many large
cities in the Eastern US.
- HIGHWAY GRID: The method here is not unlike building roads.
Except in this case, you're building a grid of highways. Quite prominent in
Los Angeles, it's fairly simple to build a light grid of highways, perhaps 2
running in each direction. You'll end up with a square in the middle
surround by 8 partial squares. This results in roughly the same affect as
the method above, but is a little more rigid.
- HIGHWAY SPUR: This method works best for moderately sized cities, and
is also probably the most realistic in terms of having a city with nowhere
else to go. Basically, you build one highway running across the city from
neighbor to neighbor, with a cross-highway intersecting it. This other
highway does not quite stretch from neighbor to neighbor, and it also turns
accordingly wherever it might best be used.
- DOWNTOWN HIGHWAY: This is best suited for cities that may very well not
deserve a highway. What you do is take a pre-existing main thoroughfare
through your city and turn it into a highway that runs the length of the
populated area of your city. As your city grows you may choose to increase
the length of this highway.
Railroads
-------------
For railroads, you can pursue a couple of courses of action. One is to build a
very light grid (about four lines in all, perhaps) to serve your city.
Alternatively, you can build a single line that either runs straight through
your city or meanders through it to provide rail access to many parts of the
city. The most important function of railways, though, is to provide a means of
neighbor connections for industry. Other than that, just make sure to build
train stations in all your zones to keep it functional.
Subways
-----------
The great convenience with subways is the small amount of above-ground real
estate the systems take up. Unfortunately, SC2K lacks the complexity for main
subway terminals with small stations surrounding it. My preferred method is
sort of a combo loop-branch deal. I build a single line that meanders
throughout much of the city, without too many out-of-the-way detours, so that I
end up with a single loop. Then I add short branches where necessary in order
to get a roughly even coverage of the city. You might find it easier to build
your stations where you feel they are necessary first, then add the subway
lines. Then it's basically like connect-the-dots.
Bus Stations
----------------
Bus Stations have a HUGE affect on the road traffic. What I usually end up
doing with them is placing them at particularly busy intersections. Sims must
get on the bus at the station, but they can disembark anywhere. So if you do
what I described, you should end up with a light peppering of stations
throughout your city, each one serving its local propinquity.
Dealing with power
======================
Power Plants
----------------
Your cities will need power, no matter what. It is simply impossible to develop
a city in SC2K without a power source. Solution? Build a power plant.
But maybe it's not so simple after all.
All the power plants have their pros and cons. You always want to make sure
that the new plant is going to satisfy your Sims' demands. Also, you want to
make sure you can actually afford the new plant, and that its little drawbacks
fit within your tolerances.
As your city grows larger, you'll want to update coal and oil plants with newer
microwave and fusion plants or else they become insubstantial. Gas and solar
will always be little more than novelties for big cities, and nuclear is simply
a loose cannon. You'll find that if you try to keep your very large cities
powered with coal and oil, not are you taking up valuable real estate with 10
or so plants, but 10 or so such plants produce a LOT of pollution. You're also
paying more to replace 10 of these than you are to replace a single microwave
plant, which doesn't pollute.
Consult the Graph Window to make sure you have plenty of power. If the Map
Window still shows areas that are red, then make sure everything is connected
properly.
The Power Grid
------------------
When building your city, try to make sure that your power grid is well-built
and that parts of it are not at the mercy of a single power line (wherever
possible, obviously). This is particularly true for large, flat cities with
nothing but a grid of roads. Ideally, each city block should be connected to
four other city blocks. This way, if you ever have to do work on a few blocks,
you don't have to worry about cutting off power to half your city accidentally
(I know, you probably paused the game, but it's easy to forget).
Dealing with water
======================
I've heard a lot of different things about water. Some claim water has no
effect on the city. Not true. Some claim you can build a "phantom" water pump
that provides all the water your city needs, without even being near a water
source, or being connected to your city at all! This is merely a bug that fools
the simulator into thinking that your city has water.
I did some research and found that most of the experiments done with this sort
of thing found that land value is the only thing affected by water. One such
experiment shows that population is also affected. I don't know what to make of
this.
Water Source
----------------
If you want to provide your city with water, then go about as you would for
power.
Construct large numbers of water pumps along fresh-water shores, or dedicate
tracts of land for water pumps. Here, you can place ponds in certain patterns
for maximum pump usage. When it comes to actually laying out your pumps, it
depends on the circumstances. If you have a large tract of land devoted to
pumps, it's simply more efficient to cover the entire thing with pumps. This
will produce the most water as opposed to other configurations that have ponds.
If your city is built in a more natural setting, than you will want to utilize
available water to the best of your ability.
Examples:
W = Water
P = Pump
W W W W W W W W W
W P W P W P W P W
W W W W W W W W W
or...
W W W W W W W W W
P P P P P P P P P
W W W W W W W W W
or...
P P P P P P P P P
P W P W P W P W P
P P P P P P P P P
In the first example, you'll have to build power lines in the water, which may
look funny, but works nonetheless.
If your water supply tends to fluctuate wildly (huge surpluses some of the
time, massive droughts in between), then construct water towers to even out the
supply. Water towers store water surplus, then dispense it when there is a
shortage.
It's always good to build at least one water-treatment plant. Also, you don't
need to make sure that all water passes through the plant before it reaches
your Sims. Just make sure it's connected to the water system.
Water System
----------------
Water systems are probably one of the most difficult things to maintain in the
game. Demolished buildings leave their old plumbing behind and it can be
difficult at times to discern where a possible broken connection is, due to the
nature of how water is doled out in SC2K.
Basically, all the water produced is dispersed through some center point in
your city, then it expands outward in a diamond shape until the capacity has
been reached. Generally, this diamond should be larger than your city, such
that everything is receiving an adequate supply. Even if you build a pump
directly next to an un-watered building, it is still dispersed through the
center of your city.
When it comes to laying out the pipes, there are two methods.
- GRID METHOD: This is basically like laying out power lines. You lay out a
grid of water pipes so that every city block is watered. However, it's
generally wiser to lay out your pipes in only one direction as opposed to
both directions like a real grid would be. Also, since water pipes can be
built under roads, you can lay them out such that each pipe waters two rows
of blocks, which is far more cost-effective. I know this seems like the
opposite of what I said about power lines, but since water systems are not
prone to being accidentally deleted, and since temporary loss of water is
not nearly as critical as loss of power, I feel it's safe enough to apply
this technique.
This method is best suited for large, flat cities with acres of grid-like
city blocks.
- TREE METHOD: This technique is better for cities that are built among
mountains and valleys. In these instances, it's usually impractical to have
your entire city drinking from a single water supply. Also, you probably
don't have the space available for building huge water pumping grounds from
which the entire city is watered. You'll generally have one or more smaller
watering areas that each water a small part of the nearby city. Basically
you build a main line from the water source to the section of city (the
trunk) then build smaller lines that branch off of the main into the rest of
the city section, so that all of it is watered. Each water source will have
its own main line, each feeding into a different part of the city.
The Graph window displays the percentage of water not being used by your Sims.
The simulator uses this information to determine the state of the water supply.
Phantom water pumps are discussed in section 8.1 (T R K).
Dealing with education
==========================
Education influences a lot of things in your city. As such, it's important to
make sure to keep your Sims book smart. Build schools and colleges for the
growing Sims. These are the buildings that will actually serve to increase
education as your Sims grow. Make sure to build enough so that their capacity
isn't breached.
Build museums and libraries for your adult Sims. These buildings will help
prevent the decay of EQ over time. Since your work force is primarily made up
of adults, these buildings can also help ensure that high-tech industry
develops in your city. This in turn will reduce pollution. A happier and
healthier SimCity for all.
The grades of schools and colleges are determined by the student-teacher ratio.
The closer this ratio is to 1:1, the better the grade will be. Use the query
information you get from schools and colleges to make sure that you have built
enough to serve the entire population.
Dealing with health
=======================
When it comes to health, the only building you have to worry about providing is
the hospital. Hospitals operate on a capacity method, as opposed to the area of
effect that police and fire stations use. Depending on your computer, hospitals
will either have 600 or 1000 beds. The grades of your hospitals are determined
by the patient-doctor ratio. The closer this ratio is to 1:1, the better your
hospitals' grades will be.
Dealing with land value
===========================
Land value is determined by a multitude of factor (Water supply, crime,
pollution, etc.). To have a good land value, try to make sure your Sims have
the following:
- Adequate power and water.
- Adequate police and fire coverage.
- Enough hospitals.
- Enough education facilities.
- Lots of recreation facilities.
- Low pollution levels.
- Lots of landscaping (i.e. water, hills, trees).
- Low traffic.
As you can see, the land value is sort of a culmination of all your efforts as
a mayor. If you have a really high land value, this is a sign that you've
constructed an overall good city.
High land values should be well above 270 or so. $256,000 is the highest land
value a queried tile can have. See if you can get a dense industrial tile to
have that kind of land value.
Dealing with crime
======================
Crime is basically the absence of police protection. Crime lowers land value
and it can incite riots. To keep this negative aspect of city life at bay, make
sure you have plenty of police stations evenly distributed across the map.
Each police station has a radius of effect. You can use this to your advantage
by patterning them out so that your entire city is fully protected by the
police. Try to avoid building police stations on the edge of the map. This will
reduce their effectiveness without reducing the cost. A good way to deal with
high crime is to open the Map Window and check out the crime rate there. That
way, you can build police stations right in the middle of the problem area,
nullifying the local crime.
As the population gets denser, the crime will become more difficult to deal
with, particularly when there are lots of arcologies present. Make sure to stay
on top of it by building a police station next to ALL your arcologies.
Neighbor connections
========================
There was a time when I though that neighbor connections were useless. Then I
got the ominous "Industry needs connections" message and I learned otherwise.
It turns out that building highway and rail connections provide a boost for
industry and building road connections helps Commerce. I've learned that the
simulator is set so that you want to develop your industrial sector before you
really get in with the commerce. As time goes on, the importance of Commerce
will soon take precedence over your industry.
=============================================
Section 7.3: Dealing With Scenarios SCS
=============================================
There are a few different kinds of scenarios. Some of them have high crime,
high unemployment, or low populations. Most of them actually have physical
disasters with which you must contend (hurricanes, earthquakes, etc).
Some of these scenarios will have certain conditions which you must obey. (i.e.
no arcologies, etc.) Otherwise, you're pretty much allowed to do whatever you
choose in the time span given you to complete the scenario. What you actually
do will be determined by what you do with the city AFTER the scenario is
completed. You may choose to keep it as a trophy of your success, or toss it
aside and move on to the next one. In the former case, you'll want to make sure
that the city isn't buried in loans, never to resurface. In the latter case,
you really don't care _what_ happens to the city, so long as it'll stay afloat
for the duration of the scenario period.
After you choose a scenario, pay attention to the window that pops up after the
city loads. It will tell you everything you need to know to complete the
scenario successfully. Generally, you'll have to get the population to a
certain amount, maybe even with some money in the bank to go along with it. If
a disaster occurs, you'll have to prioritize them in order of urgency. Fires
always take precedence, so deal with them first. After that, and perhaps along
with fires, take care of any rioters that are about.
When it comes to financing repair costs, the methods depend on the goal. If you
don't want to save the scenario for future play, then take out all the loans
you want. Otherwise, try to make sure you'll be able to bring the city back at
some point in the future.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = =TTC= =
= =
= SECTION 8: Tricks And Cheats =
= =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
=============================
Section 8.1: Tricks TRK
=============================
Here is where you're gonna find stuff that may or may not have anything to do
with the gameplay, and may or may not be considered cheating. It all depends on
what your goals are. If you plan to "succeed" in SC2K through less-than-
scrupulous means then it might be considered cheating. Otherwise, we like to
think of it as "gaining an edge." Also, stuff that can't really be learned is
placed here as well.
Importing SimCity Classic (*.CTY) files
===========================================
This is a somewhat complicated process, I'm afraid. According to Maxis, you
should be able to rename the file with a *.SC2 extension, then open it with
SC2K and voila... NOT!
This method does not work as prescribed, at least not for me. Apparently, one
should be able to import cities directly through SCURK as well, but that is not
the case.
There is a method that DOES work, but it requires that you have both SC2K and
SimCity Classic (SCC) installed (which is probably the case anyway, if you've
got *.CTY files lying around the old hard drive). Here's how you do it.
Open up SCC and select whichever *.CTY file you want. Then open the File Menu
and select "Save City as..."
Simply change the extension from *.CTY to *.SC2. Save the new file, then close
SCC.
Open SC2K and select "Load Saved City." Browse to the directory where you saved
your new *.SC2 file and open it. You initially receive an error. Click "OK" and
then you will be asked if you want to convert this SimCity "1.0" file, select
"Yes."
You should now see your *.CTY file in *.SC2 format! Save a new copy in the
directory where you keep all your *.SC2 files.
---Things to be aware of after conversion---
Unfortunately, your new city will not come with mountains or valleys. It will
be completely flat terrain. All water will be 100 ft deep, except on the edges
of the map. Be sure to make the necessary changes to keep the city viable. In
SCC, it was possible to have rail systems without train stations, while in SC2K
it is not. Make sure to get a water system going too. There will be blank land
surrounding your city because SCC cities are smaller than SC2K cities. Also,
there was a method of "overlapping" zones in SCC to save space. Such overlaps
will appear as brown boxes in SC2K that ought to be deleted.
Turning scenario files into regular files
=============================================
Maybe you don't feel like taking care of that volcano in order to enjoy
Portland. Is that San Francisco earthquake too much for you? No problem.
Make copies of any scenario files (*.SCN) you want to convert and paste them to
your *.SC2 directory. Simply change the extensions from *.SCN to *.SC2, then
open the file in SC2K. There you have it, all the glory of these great cities,
without the little nuisance of having to save them. =P
"This music sucks!" or...Using your own MIDI files (Windows only)
=====================================================================
I must admit that the music of SC2K is something else. While most people today
would simply turn it off and run iTunes in the background, I know there are
some who would prefer more "interactive" music. In other words, music that
actually responds to what happens in the game. There is a very simple way to
accomplish this small feat.
Go to the directory where you have SC2K installed. Once there, open the
"Sounds" folder ("SOUNDS" in Win3.1). There are two groups of files. MIDI and
wave files. The wave files are the game's sound effects. The MIDI files are the
game's music. Make back-up copies of the MIDI files in another directory (i.e.
"Backup Sounds").
Now you can move your preferred MIDIs into the Sounds directory, and rename
them to replace the existing MIDIs. When all is said and done, start up SC2K
and you'll be hearing your new music.
The above will also work for .WAV files. Just make sure you're making
replacements with the correct file type.
The "Phantom" Water Pump
==================================
What does the phantom water pump do? It basically tricks the simulator into
thinking your city has a full water supply (although not really, it's just bad
design on the simulator's part).
All you have to do is build a water pump and make sure it's powered. Also make
sure that it's not connected to the water system in any way, shape, or form.
While you will miss out on the benefits of having a real water system, the
phantom pump makes it possible to get the really high populations, without
taking up all that space with water pumps.
The Magic Eraser
====================
The Magic Eraser is a neat little trick that lets you build more than one thing
on the same tile! Select the Tree tool then start plopping trees near the stuff
you want to erase. Then, hold down <Shift> and "erase" the desired tiles.
Voila! You can use this trick to make single-lane highways, one tile power
plants, and smaller arcos. Note that with power plants, pollution AND power
production will both be reduced. However, with arcos, the population remains
unchanged.
Viewing the tile coordinates
================================
This is a cool feature that lets you view the X and Y coordinates of any tile!
Simply select the query tool then hold down the <Alt> key when you query a
tile. You will see the X and Y coordinates in the bottom of the query window.
Tiles are numbered 0-127.
Un-sticking those stuck trains
==================================
Occasionally, while you make your city better and better, you will come upon a
stuck train. Basically, it's just sitting there for no apparent reason. I don't
know why this happens, but it seems to occur more frequently in larger cities,
particularly when near an intersection or rail<-->subway junction.
To remove this hideous eyesore, you will have to delete each section of train
(there are usually three, although sometimes two or more trains can become
stuck to each other). You'll know that the offending train has been removed
when you see (not hear, see) a small explosion.
When that has been taken care of, re-build the destroyed track and any
destroyed roads or power lines. The train will re-appear at a random train
station and move about its business once more.
Don't freak out when you see a stuck train, it happens quite frequently.
Letting the game run unattended
===================================
Fortunately for you, SC2K does not require your full attention each second it's
running. You can set it so that it will run on its own for as long as your
computer is on.
Make sure you have made the following selections:
- Auto-Budget ON
- Sound Effects OFF
- Music OFF (these two probably make little difference, but we'll do it
anyway)
- No Disasters SELECTED
- Newspaper "Subscription" and "Extra!" both turned OFF
Then, make sure that your city is generating more money than it is costing by a
fair margin. Otherwise when your budget hits the red, Auto-Budget will turn off
and that'll ruin the whole thing. Also, make sure that your city will be able
to afford new power plants every 50 years.
Zoom all the way out, then scroll the sliders all the way to one side (i.e.
top-left, top-right, bottom-left, bottom-right).
Select the highest speed before minimize the City window, then the actual
simulator window.
Let this run for as long as you see fit. This is the method I used to find out
just how long it takes to get rid of that nasty radioactive pollution.
Building power lines and bridges in ways not intended (by IcthyoidMecha)
=========================================================
When building a bridge or power line across the water in a normal fashion, i.e.
the way it's done in real life just doesn't cut it, then you can resort to
extreme measures.
"It is possible to have bridges for road, rail, highway, and power that start
and end at different elevations. They can even travel over hills provided you
have a continuous path of water for them. As long as they have one tile of flat
land water to start off of, they can end anywhere."
And as always, a screenshot was provided:
<
http://webpages.charter.net/benjer/bridges.png>
Sir, the things you are discovering in this game are beginning to scare me.
=============================
Section 8.2: Cheats CHT
=============================
Here is where you'll find all the known cheats that serve to alter the gameplay
to your advantage (most of the time...) in manners that aren't exactly
scrupulous. I've included here as many relevant cheats as I could find,
organized by system. Enjoy.
The following cheats appear across several platform versions
================================================================
cass (Mac, DOS, Win3.1, Win95)
--------
This will deposit $250 into your city's coffers. However, if used too
frequently, it will result in a fire storm (only with disasters enabled).
vers (Mac, DOS)
--------
This will tell you the version number (with a small explanation).
fund (Mac, DOS, Win3.1, Win95)
--------
A pop-up will appear asking if you'd like to take out a bond at 25% interest.
Yeah, right. (This cheat is quite handy in the DOS version, to be explained
further below)
porntipsguzzardo (Mac)
--------------------
or...
buddamus (Win3.1)
------------
or...
imacheat (Win95, Pocket PC)
------------
This will give you $500,000 along with all inventions and gifts. =O
joke (Mac, Win3.1, Win95)
--------
A pop-up appears with either one of two images, depending on your copy of SC2K.
In some versions, you'll see a poorly-rendered dead fish with an arm and its
tongue sticking out, amidst the following phrase:
"THE PIRATE SQUID CLUB WANTS YOU!"
Refer to Section 9 (L N K) for more info on the Pirate Squid Club.
In other versions, you will see a variation of the SimCity Classic splash
screen in a Win3.1-style window. The title is "SimCity Two Cows In Windows." I
think it's supposed to rhyme with SimCity 2000 Windows, but I'm not sure.
Windows Cheats (either 3.1 or 95)
==================
noah
--------
This cheat will cause a major flood, whether or not disasters are enabled.
moses (Win95 only)
---------
This will stop the aforementioned flood.
gilmartin
-------------
This will prompt the military to request a base in your city, regardless of
population. May or may not actually result in a base being built.
Bases built in this manner tend to glitch, or not develop at all.
priscilla (oivaismir in Win3.1)
-------------
Opens the "Debug" menu. Full description of that is at the end of this section.
mrsoleary (Win3.1 only)
-------------
Starts a firestorm. The name of this cheat is based off the urban legend that
states Mrs. O'Leary's cow started the Great Chicago Fire. Not true.
DOS Cheats
==============
heck, damn, or darn
-----------------------
Entering any of these three words will result in a pop-up saying "Hey! Same to
you buddy!"
Immediately afterward, the "church virus" starts. Literally ALL of your
residential zones will fill up with churches, anywhere they can fit. It really
is something else.
To rid your city of this plague (without losing progress), save it and exit out
of the program. Reload the city and bulldoze all the churches, then rezone the
land as you see fit.
porn (DOS 1.0 only)
--------
If you have a sound card, you will hear the phrase "I can't get enough."
Version 1.1 for DOS does not have this.
memy
--------
This will perform a memory check. Also, it will display whether or not SFX and
music are enabled.
test
--------
Displays a pop-up that will say something like "TEST 1.10BH 10 - 12 - 94."
That's it.
torg (DOS 1.1 only)
--------
Type this in and you will see the following pop-up:
"Congratulations! You have found
the special Grot Box feature!
- Chris 'What is this spooty thing?' B."
After this, you will receive $500,000 and all rewards (sans mil. base). Typing
it again will merely result in another $500,000.
Macintosh Cheats (v1.1 only)
====================
Open the Map window and click inside of it. Type "pirn," then click inside the
Status window. Afterwards, type in "topsguzzardo."
What this does is identical to "porntipsguzzardo" in the Macintosh 1.0 version.
PlayStation Cheats
======================
0% Interest on Bonds
------------------------
Open the Budget Window and hold down the Triangle button, then enter the
following combo:
L1, L2, L1, L2, R2, R1, R2, R1
This will give you 0% interest on bonds. Be careful, however. It may result in
a $100,000 fine.
$1,000,000
--------------
Open the Budget Window and perform the following:
Hold down the R1 button and press X, Circle, Triangle, Square.
Hold down the L1 button and press X, Circle, Triangle, Square.
Hold down the R2 button and press X, Circle, Triangle, Square.
Hold down the L2 button and press X, Circle, Triangle, Square.
Do this correctly and you will have $1,000,000!
Maximum dispatch allowed
----------------------------
Select the dispatch tool then cancel it. Mouse over the status bar (the
scrolling bar at the top of the screen) and enter the following combo:
Left, Right, Left, Right, Circle, X
This will allow you dispatch the maximum amount of police, firemen, and
military allowed in the game, regardless of how many stations you have.
No cost for using most tools
--------------------------------
Select the Tree tool then cancel it. Mouse over the status bar and enter the
following combo:
Up, Down, Right, Left, Up, X
This will make most tools in the game free of charge!
---The following codes will only work in 3D mode---
Day and Night
-----------------
Enter the following combo:
Down, Up, Down, Up, Down, L2, R2.
The sky will fade in and out of daylight.
To pause it:
Left, Left, Left, Left, Left, Left, L2, R2.
To un-pause it:
Right, Right, Right, Right, Right, Right, L2, R2.
To leave it:
Down, Down, Up, up, Down, Down, L2, R2.
HUD map
-----------
Enter the following combo:
R1, R2, R1, R2, R1, R2, R1, R2
A translucent map appears, showing your location!
To disable the map:
L1, L2, L1, L2, L1, L2, L1, L2
Enable helicopter mode
--------------------------
Enter the following combo:
Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, L2, R2, Start, Start
or...
Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, L2, R2, X, X
When entered correctly, you will be able to fly around your city!
These are the controls:
R1: Altitude up
R2: Altitude down
L1: Forward
L2: Backward
Up: Look up
Down: Look down
Left: Turn left
Right: Turn right
Press Start to return to regular 3D view.
Increase city funds via Gold Nuggets
----------------------------------------
This one is REALLY complicated, but I've gotten it to work myself.
Enable helicopter mode SEVEN times, then enter the following sequence:
R2, L2, R2, L2, R2, L2, L2, R1, L2, R1, L2, R1, L2, R1.
When done correctly, all the streets in your city will be covered with gold
nuggets. A timer appears counting the seconds down. Collect as many nuggets as
you can before the time runs out. Have fun.
Buried treasure
-------------------
Now, you may be skeptical about this one because I haven't seen it mentioned
anywhere online. In fact, it's only happened to me once.
Build a city like you normally would, make sure there is a coast (a river might
work, but I'm not sure).
When you've built your city as best as you can, just let it run. That's all I
can tell you. If you're REALLY lucky, you'll get a pop-up saying that
archaeologists have found a treasure map.
Open the Map Window and take a look at this new map. You'll see a compass rose,
and a red X. Go to this spot in your city and use the lower terrain tool
(you'll probably lose some buildings, but oh well).
You will find buried treasure. I kid you not. This treasure (which apparently
consists of gold-plated pantaloons, if I remember correctly) will be auctioned
off, and the money raised will be given to you (your current funds are
doubled).
I know it sounds messed up, but it IS true. Trust me on this one.
Saturn Cheats
=================
Infinite money
------------------
Pause the game and enter the following combo:
A, Z, X, Y
You will now have infinite money. Yay.
The slot machine
--------------------
Construct a marina and hook it up with power and water. Open the Budget Window
and enact the Legalized Gambling ordinance. Mouse over the resulting sailboat
(make sure the sailboat tile is highlighted) and press L. A slot machine
appears 1/4 of the time.
To use the slot machine you must pay $10. Also, the slot machine will behave
differently depending on whether or not you have disasters enabled. If
disasters are enabled, lots of different things might happen. Otherwise, only a
few different things may occur. Good luck with this thing, you'll need it.
Nintendo 64 Cheats
======================
Extra map with $5,000,000
-----------------------------
When you're at the main screen, enter the following combo:
C-Up(2), C-Down, C-Left(2), C-Right(2), C-Up, C-Right, C-Left, C-Down, Start
Super Nintendo Cheats
=========================
Just so you know, the SNES version is the WORST. VERSION. EVER.
Start with $1,000,000
-------------------------
At the main screen select "Free Map" then select "Land of Freedom."
Name the city "New York" (choose any mayor name you want) and you'll be
starting with $1,000,000.
==================================
Section 8.3: Easter Eggs EAG
==================================
The Bull Moose (DOS only)
==================
You already know what happens when you bulldoze a lot of trees in SC2K. Keep
doing it, however, and you'll receive a pop-up stating the following:
"Citizens are protesting your destruction of the forest, which is the native
home of the Bull Moose.
"Would you like to hear the call of the Bull Moose?"
Click "YES" and you will hear the Bull Moose, which is a unique sound. I
imagine it's not unlike the sound of a real bull moose, but I do not know what
a bull moose sounds like so I cannot say.
Nessie
==========
Nessie is the sea monster that appears near your city's marinas. She doesn't
drop by very often but if you're fast you'll catch a glimpse of her. She only
appears when you have marinas, and makes a sound like a lion. If you're antsy
to see her, simply build as many marinas as you care to and be ready to pause
the game as soon as you hear the sound. You'll see that Nessie is green and not
unlike the famous Loch Ness Monster.
Captain Hero
================
Sometimes called Super Sim or Maxis Man (although his creator, Fred Haslam,
called him Captain Hero), this little fellow will occasionally show up when a
disaster occurs, whereupon he valiantly fights it off (and he *always*
succeeds, we just love the little guy, don't we?). He'll show up for almost any
kind of disaster except fires. He will not show up if you've constructed a
military base, or if you haven't been asked to construct a military base. If
you accepted a military base but one was not built anyway, he'll show up.
Crashing the Helicopter
===========================
"This is SimCopter 6 reporting hea-" yeah yeah yeah we all get it, the city is
eternally mired in traffic jams. Sometimes, a person has had enough of the
traffic updates and there's only one thing left to do. Take the centering tool
and click on the helicopter repeatedly. This will cause it to crash! Finally!
Some peace and relaxation at last.
===============================
Section 8.4: The Debug Menu
===============================
This is what the various functions in the Debug Menu do. This menu will remain
open so long as you keep SC2K open, regardless of what city you opened it in.
The Debug Menu will appear in the menu bar like any of the other menus. When
you click on it, you will have to go through a useless branch titled "Debug >"
for reasons unknown to me.
Show Version Info...
------------------------
Brings up a pop-up that tells you the version info.
More Money
--------------
Adds $500,000 to your coffers. w00t!
Add All Gifts
-----------------
Makes all population gifts AND inventions available to you, regardless of
population and/or date.
Add All Inventions
----------------------
Brings up SimCity 2000 Help. Must be some kind of glitch.
The following seven options are all disasters. Go to Section 4 (D S S) for more
information.
Graph Kludge
----------------
I have no clue what this does. I've tried it with all the various windows open
to see if it fudges up the data, but I can't tell any difference. Fortunately
for us, we have the always helpful IcthyoidMecha to clear things up:
"What the graph kludge does, is it resets how certain data shows up in the
graphs window. For example, if you built a city up to 500,000, then destroyed
half of it, the City Size line would stay in the middle of the chart forever,
however, you can do the Graph Kludge to put the City Size line back on top.
Also, if you had any stat go really high for a while then come back down,
besides health/education/power/water/GNF/National Population, and Fed Rate,
you can hit graph kludge to recalibrate its scale on the graphs section.
I have attached three screenshots showing the process for graph kludge. I
started with a random city on my hard drive and noted its population. This is
the first screenshot. I then destroyed a ton of the city to lower population,
and took a screenshot of that, that is the second screenshot. I then activated
graph kludge, which the third screenshot shows, bumped the City Size line up to
the top."
His words ring true, as the following screenshots indicate:
<
http://webpages.charter.net/benjer/kimage1.PNG>
<
http://webpages.charter.net/benjer/kimage2.PNG>
<
http://webpages.charter.net/benjer/kimage3.PNG>
As always, thanks again IcthyoidMecha.
===============================
Section 8.5: The Fund Trick
===============================
Even though this a glitch and not a real cheat, I put it here so that it's
within the context of what the "fund" cheat does.
This trick only works in DOS, but it's insanely useful.
Go about starting a city as you normally would. It could either be in the
Terrain Editor or simply starting a new city with a randomized terrain.
Before doing ANYTHING, type in "fund" and accept the bond. Type it in again and
accept a second bond.
Open up the Budget Window and then open the books on bonds. Issue a third bond.
Pay off the first two bonds. If you go back to the Budget Window, you will see
that you're now collecting negative interest on the bond you still have (which
means the bank is PAYING you to keep the bond). This will net you approximately
$1.5 million a year, which should take care of any possible money woes.
This fount of wealth will eventually dry up because of a simulator-imposed
money limit. When that happens, simply pay back the bond.
==============================================
Section 8.6: The "Floating Mountain" Trick
==============================================
I could not begin to describe this glitch in any sensible manner, so I'll leave
the work up to this web page:
<
http://webpages.charter.net/benjer/glitch.htm>
This step-by-step walkthrough will tell you everything you need to know about
this interesting terrain glitch. There are even a couple of downloadable
cities; one with figures to go along with the walkthrough, and another that
shows just how crazy you can get with this glitch. Enjoy.
---Note (about this page)---
This is a recovered archive of a web page that is no longer available online.
I'm currently hosting it on web space I have with Charter Communications, and I
will try to keep it up as long as I can.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = =LNK= =
= =
= SECTION 9: Links & Resources =
= =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Here is where you'll find everything you could ever need in order to become an
SC2K master. I've included comments where I can.
=================================
Section 9.1: Online Resources (all working as of 09/26/09)
=================================
SC3000.COM's SimCity 2000 Resource Page:
----------------------------------------
<
http://www.sc3000.com/sc2000/>
COMMENTS: This site has been around for several years now, and I feel that it's
of top-notch quality. I've downloaded several files from it without fail. I
should also mention that the SCURK section is very useful, probably the most
useful on the Internet right now. The fact that these guys also have SimCity
3000 and SimCity 4 pages should also show that they take themselves seriously.
SimCity 2000 Center:
--------------------
<
http://www.cnwcentral.com/simcity-2000/>
COMMENTS: A rather recent addition to the plethora of SC2K web pages out there,
this site has all the basics. You can't really learn a whole lot, but it's
certainly enough to get you started.
ZealGames - SimCity 2000:
-------------------------
<
http://www.angelfire.com/games2/zealgames/simcity2000/>
COMMENTS: Here you'll find links to lots of useful downloads, including the
SC2K demo, editors/debuggers, tile-sets and cities. Enjoy.
Acorn Arcade forums Sim City 2000 FAQ:
--------------------------------------
<
http://www.acornarcade.com/forums/viewthread.php?newsid=1022>
COMMENTS: The SC2K FAQ! This isn't just any FAQ; this is THE original SC2K FAQ,
with input from the actual game developers. Heck, it's still has the original
FAQ format...the entire thing is written in questions and answers! I must warn
you, though... parts of it are a little out of date, and other parts are just
plain wrong. Oh well. This is a historical document you're looking at, though.
Because of recent website volatility, I'm hosting the FAQ as well:
<
http://webpages.charter.net/benjer/ofaq.txt>
ClubOpolis:
-----------
<
http://patcoston.com/co/>
COMMENTS: What can I say about Clubopolis...for a site that hasn't been updated
for almost a decade now, it's still alive. This site has more CONTENT than any
of the other sites I listed. There are over 850 cities available for download.
You'll find just about everything I talked about in this FAQ at that website.
This is the site where you can learn about the Spooty Struct, the Pirate Squid
Club, and lots of other useless SC2K info.
You know, every time I update this document, I'm always so sure that this link
will finally have died. Yet, it keeps persisting.
Simcity 2000 Castle:
--------------------
<
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/7785/sc2000/index.htm>
COMMENTS: This site has been around for some time, and it's actually how I
first came to know of the "floating mountain" glitch (see link below for
complete info). Here you'll find tips, tricks, cheats, cities, scenarios,
various FAQs (even specialty ones that explain how to make your own scenarios).
SimCity 2000 FTP Server:
------------------------
<
ftp://ftp.ea.com/pub/maxis/patches/SC2000/>
COMMENTS: Available here are several patches released by Maxis for the game, in
addition to a huge assortment of SC2K cities available for download. I'm unsure
as to why Electronic Arts continues to maintain this server but for the time
being it is up, and so I suggest you partake of it while you still can.
SimCity:
--------
<
http://simcity3000unlimited.ea.com/us/guide/>
COMMENTS: Maxis may not care for SC2K anymore, and this website is as close as
you can get to an official SC2K website. If you check out their history of the
game, you'll actually here the SC2K theme music playing, as per your browser
settings.
==================================
Section 9.2: Printed Resources
==================================
COMMENTS: What you'll mostly find here is a LIST of books that can help you
out. I say list because I've only read one of them, so I can't comment on the
others. Because of this, I will also post this page from the Clubopolis site,
run by Patrick Coston.
<
http://patcoston.com/co/books.aspx>
"SimCity 2000 - Power, Politics, and Planning" - Nick Dargahi & Michael Bremer:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At around 450 pages, this guide includes every nook and cranny of SC2K.
Additionally, it has in-depth walkthroughs for each scenario, along with entire
sections devoted to spotlight cities and interviews with the game's developers.
To be quite frank, there's literally nothing that goes uncovered.
The SimCity 2000 Manual - Michael Bremer:
-----------------------------------------
As far as manuals go, this one tops them all. Along with thoroughly explaining
every little detail, it even goes so far to have an entire section filled with
city-related art! I'm talking paintings, poems, essays. The whole manual is
interspersed with relevant quotes as well.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = =LGL= =
= =
= SECTION 10: Legal Disclaimer =
= =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = =
This document may not be reproduced under any circumstances except for
personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web sites other than the
following:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/
http://www.neoseeker.com/
http://dlh.net/
http://www.supercheats.com/
..or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of
this document on any other web site or as a part of any public display is
strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright.
All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their
respective trademark and copyright holders.
The ASCII title of this document, representing the SimCity 2000 logo, is a
creation of Masamune3 from the GameFAQs message board. Thank you for your
contribution.
All other poorly-rendered ASCII graphic representations (not the things they
represent) are copyrighted to Benjermin Ochsner.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = =HST= =
= =
= SECTION 11: Document History =
= =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
09/26/2009 - Version 2.13
- Rewritten, revised and expanded throughout
- Reorganized the sections.
- Added a new section (rather, split an old one).
- Updated the format to be less cluttered.
- Added suggestions from alert readers.
- Updated the Online Resources section.
- Various minor corrections.
- Various minor errors due to re-write, I'm sure
- It's been three years since I updated this?
- Yikes!
11/01/2006 - Version 2.03
- Added suggestion from alert reader.
- Added website to legal section.
- Various minor corrections.
10/28/2006 - Version 2.02
- Updated the Online Resources section.
- Added material about arcology cities.
- Added suggestion from alert reader.
- Various minor corrections.
03/25/2005 - Version 2.01
- Added really nifty ASCII title.
- Redid tables. (for better or worse, I guess)
- Various minor corrections.
03/10/2005 - Version 2.00
- Revised and expanded throughout:
- Updated the format. Made the ToC easier to read. (I hope...)
- Reorganized the sections.
- Added a section about scenarios.
- Added a whole new section devoted to gameplay strategy.
- Added tidbits throughout the document.
- Other various minor corrections.
11/29/2004 - Version 1.01
- Updated legal section.
11/21/2004 - Version 1.00
- First published version.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = =ANW= =
= =
= SECTION 12: Acknowledgments =
= =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = = = = = =
I'd like to thank Maxis and Will Wright for creating this great game. Their
product has been the source of countless hours of fun and joy on my part. I
shall always be eternally grateful for their great work. Keep it up.
I'd like to thank Nick Dargahi & Michael Bremer for their book "SimCity 2000 -
Power, Politics, and Planning." I used this book for the hard data in this FAQ
(costs, etc). Mr. Bremer, who is also the writer of the SC2K manual, has set a
standard for game manuals that has not been reached since. I think I speak for
a lot of people when I say that manuals have simply gotten worse and worse over
time; heck, strategy guides too. While this FAQ and others may not have a
reason for existing if manuals didn't decline, I for one, mourn this state of
affairs. *gets off of the soapbox*
I'd also like to thank YOU, reader, for taking the time to use this FAQ. I have
thoroughly enjoyed writing this FAQ, and I certainly hope that you thoroughly
enjoyed reading it. It is because of you that FAQs exist in the first place.
And finally, I'd like to thank the following people (reasons described):
Masamune3 - For the most excellent and exquisite ASCII title. Thumbs up!
headbanger - For at least acknowledging the existence of my FAQ.
metallicaeg - Because he insisted that I place his name here.
IcthyiodMecha - For his tips on:
- Subways and maintenance costs
- The art of manipulating bridges and tunnels
- The Graph Kludge
Nicholas Fairfield - For shedding light on the obscure forklift quote.
Dan, aka df231 - For his subway-only transportation design. Very ingenious.
The fine folks at FC General at GameFAQs.com for their always helpful and
insightful comments.
---
Outside, the Five sounds like the ocean.
