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Here is a great SIMCITY FAQ for all you players out there who wanted to know
about how to play the MAXIS game called SIMCITY. I know that some of you out
there have been having trouble with building a good size city. Well, part of
the trick is knowing what to build, when to build it, and how it should look
when you are done. In this FAQ, you will learn some great money saving tips
on how to make the best looking city in this game. Hopefully by the time you
are done reading this, you will me a SIMCITY MASTER. I would also like to
point out that these strategies will work for either the PC, MAC, or SNES
version of this game. Hope this helps. Enjoy!
###################
# #
# SIMCITY #
# FAQ VERSION 2.1 #
#February 03, 1999#
# PC/SNES/MAC #
# #
###################
INTRO
=====
SIMCITY first came out on PC back around the late '80's, early '90's when PC's
were nearly ready for the SVGA monitors. Later, they came out with a bigger,
better version called SIMCITY 2000. Then, when the SNES first hit the shelves,
it came out for SNES as one of the first games to be released to the public
to show off what the SNES could do. Then, came the hit SIMCITY CLASSIC which
was SIMCITY, but with video animation and some nice video clips of crime,
polution, and other neato stuff the original SIMCITY didn't do. They also
remade SIMCITY for WINDOWS 3.1 and 95 for those of you who know about the game
but missed your chance at getting it the first time. Well, since they redid
the game, better hurry to your favorite pc gaming store and buy SIMCITY for
WINDOWS. From what I can tell, the windows version is like only $15.00 so that
is a farely good deal for a good game. The SIMCITY for windows also includes
some other freebe stuff like a terrain editor which lets you edit the terrain
of a city. You can create a new city, or load a city you were using and add
more features to make your city become more realistic. If for some reason you
can't get the terrain editor to work properly, it's because of the pentium
computers. The terrain editor is a DOS application so it may not run properly
if you are using a pentium system. This terrain editor will run on a 286 SX
with 580K of conventional memory needed. The terrain editor will also work for
the DOS version of SIMCITY as well. The SIMCITY for WINDOWS also comes with
some free demos to some of the games they will be coming out with. Well,
that's enough about that, lets get on with this FAQ shall we?
HELPERS OF THIS FAQ GUIDE
=========================
When I showed the first FAQ guide to the public, I got some responces from
people. This section is dedicated to the people who helped me out with the
making of this FAQ guide. Without the help of these people, this guide would
not be complete. This is just a section that shows that I support, as well as
appreciate, the work they have done on their part to make this FAQ possible
for people like you to read.
Special thanks to Fetters at cfetters@willinet.net for helping me get the
SNES cheat figured out. Since I was doing a FAQ guide which is for many
systems, I figured I might as well go all out and do a FAQ for people who
own these systems as well as this game. Thanks Fetters.
A SUPER thanks goes to WadeAHeath for helping me with the MAC info that I
needed. It's good to know that there are people out there who still own
classical systems such as the MAC, AMIGA, TANDY, C64, and more. Thanks a
bunch.
MENTAL NOTES
============
In case you are wondering, STREETS OF SIMCITY is not the same thing. This is
a game where you drive a car with weapons and DESTROY things in a SIMCITY
setting. I just wanted to clear that up. Also, just in case you need to know,
if you happen to have SIMCITY 2000, you can transfer your SIMCITY saved games
to SIMCITY 2000 by simply changing the extention of the SIMCITY file to .SC2.
This also applies for the game STREETS OF SIMCITY. No, they did not make a
STREETS OF SIMCITY for SNES, sorry about that.
(E.G. If your SIMCITY saved file is called NEWCITY.CTY, just rename it so it
says NEWCITY.SC2 and then copy it to the SIMCITY 2000 directory and then load
the game as you normally would. It will ask if you want to make the transfer,
just say YES and it will automatically reformat the saved city to work for
SIMCITY 2000.)
For those of you who need to know about the memory requirements for the PC,
here is a little memory info for you if you want to play this game for
WINDOWS 3.1 or DOS. (For those of you who are not aware of this, anything that
runs on WINDOWS 3.1 will work for WINDOWS 95, I just wanted to clear that
up.)...
DOS VERSION OF SIMCITY
======================
REQUIRED:286 SX / 580K RAM / DOS 3.0+ / MOUSE
RECOMMENDED:386 SX / DOS 6.0
WINDOWS 3.1 VERSION OF SIMCITY
==============================
REQUIRED:286 SX / 2MB RAM / WINDOWS 3.1 / MOUSE
RECOMMENDED:486 SX / 4MB RAM / 8-bit Sound Blaster
MAC VERSION OF SIMCITY
======================
REQUIRED:16 color, low resolution / Might also work for Monochrome monitors
RECOMMENDED:16 color, high resolution
Another thing I want to point out is that the requirements are not quite the
same as the box might say, especially for thie WINDOWS requirements. Reason
being is that WINDOWS has a way of using what ever memory you have as well as
what ever color or palette setting you use and finds a way to make the
programs work, regardless of memory. Although there are some programs that DO
require 4 megs of ram, I know for a fact that SIMCITY will work for a 286 SX
with that much ram as mentioned.
One more bit of datail, although I am sure that some of the tips that are
mentioned here will work, not ALL the tips will work for SIMCITY 2000. This
game has a lot more features to offer than SIMCITY. So please bare this in
mind when you read this.
WHAT IS SIMCITY? (Obvious first question)
=========================================
SIMCITY is a city manager game where you control where to build things like
comercial, residential, industrial, police & fire stations, roads, power lines
and power supply, airports, and harbers. Plus, depending on what you do, you
can also control the crime, population, frequient fires, and more. This is a
game which is basically teaching you what it's like to be a mayor of a city.
1.) HOW DO I GET STARTED?
=========================
Well, that is rather easy. Type the command in to start the SIMCITY game and
then from the menu screen, use your mouse to click on START NEW CITY, then
click on what difficulty setting you want. When you start a new game, you get
a map of some terrain with water, trees, and brown colored dirt. Now you can
start your game.
2.) WHAT SHOULD I DO FIRST?
===========================
Hmmm, good question. Well, usually the first thing to do is to set your game
options the way you want it so nothing goes wrong. Once you have set the
proper options you want, get an idea of how you want your first city to look
like. Usually the best thing to do first is to have the residential,
commercial, and industrial stuff built first. Plus, also make sure you build
enough police stations so you won't have citizens complaining about the crime
rate in this city. You want to start with an idea of how the first city should
look before you build your power plant and set power to your city areas.When
you think you have a good idea of how you want your first city to look, then
build your power plant somewhere away from the city and set power lines as
needed to power your city up. Also, please make sure you build roads and they
do need to connect to almost all builds you have made. It's also usually best
if you have the game on PAUSE mode until you are done with building stuff.
3.) HOW CAN I DO THAT, YOU DON'T START OUT WITH A LOT OF MONEY?
===============================================================
I realize that, your just gonna have to use your head. Just start small, the
game will play itself out when you have given your city areas power and roads
to do things. I know that starting small is not a great way to start out, but
like all strategy games, you always have to start out small and then build up
gradually to get the bigger, better things you want later in the game. Of
course if you want to read further down, you can find some info on how to
start out with more money than usual.
4.) CAN YOU GIVE ME A SMALL EXAMPLE OF HOW A FIRST CITY SHOULD LOOK?
====================================================================
Hmmm, I guess that is a good idea. I'll show you a small example of how you
should build a starting city and I'll let you work from that. Keep in mind
that this is only an example, nothing more, this may or may not work out with
the starting money you get, but I will exaplain in more detail later on why
you would need to do this...
R = Residential Area
C = Commercial Area
I = Industrial Area
F = Fire Dept.
P = Police Dept.
E = Energy Plant
T = Power lines
= = Roads/Rails
S = Stadium
===============================================================
|| --- --- --- || --- --- --- || || --- --- --- ||
||| | | |||| | | ||| ||| | | |||
||| R | R | R |||| R | R | R ||| ||| I | I | I |||
||| | | |||| | | ||| ||| | | |||
|| --- --- --- || --- --- --- || || --- --- --- ||
||| | | |||| | | ||| ||| | | |||
||| R | P | R |||| R | P | R ||| ||| I | P | I |||
||| | | |||| | | ||| ||| | | |||
|| --- --- --- || --- --- --- || || --- --- --- ||
||| | | |||| | | ||| ||| | | |||
||| R | R | R |||| R | R | R ||| ||| I | I | I |||
||| | | |||| | | ||| ||| | | |||
|| --- --- --- || --- --- --- || || --- --- --- ||
===============================================================
|| --- --- --- || ---- ----
||| | | |||| | | |
||| C | C | C |||| S | | E |
||| | | |||| | | |
|| --- --- --- ||| | | |
||| | | ||| ---- ----
||| C | P | C |||
||| | | |||
|| --- --- --- ||
||| | | |||
||| C | C | C |||
||| | | |||
|| --- --- --- ||
=================
As you can see, this a very good way for you to build your cities in this form
and nature. Notice how everything is nice and neat. (One thing I do want to
point out is that the reason I did not use a Fire Dept. in any area is because
I am assuming you turned off the disasters in the options menu. Personally,
by doing that, you will save yourself a ton of money so you don't have to pay
for fundings for the Fire Dept.) Plus, as you can see, the police dept. are
very close to each other and to the buildings so you shouldn't have much of a
crime rate by making the city look something like this.
5.) WHY DO YOU HAVE INDUSTRIAL AREAS SO FAR FROM THE OTHER AREAS?
=================================================================
Well, do you want to live next to polution making buildings? This is also the
same reason I have the Energy Plant so far away as well. By keeping such stuff
away from your residential and commercial, the people will not complain about
polution so much. To put it more mildly, industrial and Energy Plants produce
polution, and by keeping them away from clean areas, the people of the city
will not complain so much.
6.) OKAY, SO EXPLAIN TO ME HOW I CAN GET PEOPLE TO COME INTO MY CITY?
=====================================================================
Okay, this is easily accomplished when you have the number of residential that
is EQUAL to the total number of commercial and industrial zones that you have.
By doing this, you will create enough jobs for the people to work at and have
the right amount of living areas (residential) so people can live and work at
the same time. If you look at question 4 above, you will see that I have 16
residential, 8 commercial, and 8 industrial zones. Basically, an EVEN amount
of residential & commercial/industrial. One thing I must point out now before
I say anymore. Any city you build will generate a population, but only by
properly creating a well balanced city with enough police stations, an
airport, a ship port, and some stadiums in the right place, will people REALLY
thrive off your land that you create. The perfect example is question 4.
Notice how nice and neat I did everything. Plus, as you can see, I kepted jobs
rather close to the residential, including the industrial areas, but kept it
so that the polution is at a safe level for the city to handle it.
7.) HOW COME I DO THAT AND THEY STILL SEEM TO NOT STAY AND LIVE?
================================================================
Well, part of the trick is the jobs (commercial & industrial) have to be
fairly close to living areas (residential). Plus, making sure you have roads
that connect to every building so people can get to and from work. If you look
at the example in question 4, you will see that I have the living area close
to job areas. Also remember that people will not live next to places that give
off polution, so keep industrial areas away from commercial and residential
areas, but close enough so people will work for them as well.
8.) WHAT IF I DO ALL THIS RIGHT, BUT THEY STILL ARE NOT COMING TO THE CITY?
===========================================================================
Then attact them with something, like a stadium. This can be a major helper
if a certain part of the city is not growing. People get bored real fast if
there is nothing near the city to excite them. Building a stadium near an area
where residential or commercial is low will greatly improve that area for
sure. So try building a stadium and that will help improve the locals in the
city. For those of you who own the SNES version, you will sometimes get some
special gifts like land fills, expos, parks, and more. Use these in the proper
places can be a major helper for you.
9.) OKAY, I DID THAT, BUT PEOPLE ARE STILL NOT COMING IN, WHY?
==============================================================
Well, maybe you should check your status screen and see what the people are
complaining about. If it's the crime, build more police departments where they
are needed, if it's the polution, either stop building roads, or build the
polution creating buildings away from the residential, if it's the taxes, set
the tax to about 8%, that's the best you can do for taxes, if it's the housing
costs, build a few more jobs for the people. Another factor is where you have
your residential, commercial, and industrial located. The following is just
general tips for getting more people to come to your city. Please excuse any-
thing I might repeat, but I'm doing this as like a checklist for you so you
will know what the trouble is...
A.) Try to keep jobs close to the residential areas, people don't like to
travel long distances to work.
B.) Try to keep polution making buildings away from residential. Nobody likes
to live near polution, or breathe it for that matter. Just think of the NIMBY
system. (NIMBY = Not In My Back Yard)
C.) Make sure you build a police station somewhere near or around each other.
Crime can happen anywhere at anytime, so be prepared. It's best to build
police stations no farther than 2-3 blocks or 4-5 buildings away from each
other for best results.
D.) Do not build more roads, rails, fire stations, or police stations than you
have to. Please remember that YOU are paying for these to be in good shape and
the more you build, the more you PAY for them. So only build them if you have
no other choice.
E.) Sometimes you can get much better quality buildings if you build them near
trees, water, or by building a stadium nearby. This can be a contributing
factor of 20-50 people or more.
F.) Roads are a major problem and a hassle sometimes. Not just from traffic,
but also the polution. That's why you sometimes hear people say "BUILD RAILS
INSTEAD OF ROADS". In a way, although not realistic, that is the best solution
to this problem. Sure, it sounds funny, but at least they can't complain about
traffic problems or about the polution for that matter.
G.) Don't build COAL power plants, they create polution and don't create
enough electricity for the public, on the other hand, if you create a NUCLEAR
power plant, you run the risk of having a meltdown, as well as spreading
nuclear waiste around the surrounding lands, but at least you can power more
areas than a COAL power plant. Plus, nuclear power plants are a little more
cleaner.
H.) Sometimes, when your residential status bar fluctuates, creating 1-2 more
jobs will fix this a lot of times. I know that there will be an uneven number
of residential versus commercial/industrial jobs, but realisticaly, people can
own 2 buildings at one time. So try this if you have trouble with residential
going up and down a lot, regardless if you have an even number of jobs vs.
living areas.
I.) When you are building your city, people will ask you for airports or ship
ports. Do not build these until the game says that the people want these some-
where on your map. Plus, although you don't have to, it's best to build a
shipyard next to water to make it look good and try to build the airport, as
well as the shipport about 5-7 squares away from the other buildings. Main
reason for the airport is polution, and have you ever seen what happens to a
plane trying to take off, but doesn't have enough power to make it over tall
buildings?
J.) Keep your city together and close when your making your city. Reason is,
if you try to make 2 different areas of the city and don't keep it close to
each other, the people for some reason will not help the city grow. In fact,
they will actually move away and you will be left with a lousey city for doing
so. So when you make your city, keep most of the city together and not try to
separate the buildings from each other.
K.) When you are making your first city, it's usually best to make more
industrial areas than commercial areas at first. The main reason why you would
do this is because if your starting a new city, how is your people going to
make things if you don't have factories to build tools, supplies, and other
stuff. Also, in reality, where would your community be without factories?
Factories are what makes tools and supplies, such as paper, pencils, pens, and
other useful stuff. But one thing to remember, as your city grows, you will
soon need to build more commercial areas than industrial areas. If you want to
think of it another way, just ask someone for real about how supply and demand
works in reality.
L.) Try to keep your tax pretty low. People don't like to pay a lot of taxes
in this game so remember that. The best number to use without people of the
city complaining so much is 8%. Anything higher will cause your citizens to
leave your city and find something elsewhere.
M.) Unless you want to play a game of risk, you should turn off the disasters
option so you don't have to pay extra money for fire departments, and so you
don't have to waist your money on destroyed buildings.
N.) If your one of those who wants to build roads than railways, you might
want to make some extra room for the roads for future reference. I'm serious.
As your city grows, so does the traffic, so you should plan ahead for more
roads incase 2 or more areas get high traffic.
O.) Just so you know, people will not come to live in your city until you make
jobs for them. I mean, what's a city without a little business on the side?
P.) Another thing to rememebr is if you build something like residential, and
it does nothing for your city, then get rid of it. Reason being, if a certain
area like residential is not building anything, they add to YOUR costs and
expenses. So if something like that is not doing anything but sitting there,
remove it and try something else.
Q.) As you know, residential and commercial areas build certain other types of
buildings that can't generate people or much money for you. A perfect example
is hospitals. (Only residential areas can have hospitals.) It's okay to have
a few of them, but if for some reason you have like 10-15 or more, or if you
see a lot of hospitals in one area, remove a few and rebuild a residential
area to see if it will change. (For those of you who are not really sure,
hospitals will look like buildings shaped like a cross with a RED CROSS on top
of the building. Schools are commercial buildings and have a sorta U shape to
them and a lot of them will be a green colored building.) Another thing to
look for is churches which only a residential area can build. One more thing,
DO NOT REMOVE ALL THE HOSPITALS, SCHOOLS, OR CHURCHES FROM YOUR CITY! Doing
so will cause your people to move out and/or dezone your areas.
R.) It is very good to follow the example in question 4. Main reason being, it
keeps the city neat, organized, and people will quickly come into your city
and help build a population because your smart way of showing how neat your
city is. Plus, it's rather easy to commute to one place to another using this
system.
10.) I NOTICED YOU DIDN'T BUILD A FIRE DEPARTMENT IN QUESTION 4, WHY?
=====================================================================
Okay, 2 reasons why I didn't do that...
1.) Just like the Police Department, they require funds, and you are the only
person they will take the funds from. So by not building them, you will get
more money by doing so.
2.) By disabling the disasters in the options menu, then you won't need a Fire
Department at all, and by doing so, will save you lots of money.
Okay, that's why I didn't put Fire Departments in my city example in question
4. Part of the trick to SIMCITY is to spend less and to give as little as
possible to the public so you can get more money back from the people at the
same time.
11.) I DISABLED THE DISASTERS, BUT PEOPLE ARE STILL DEMANDING A FIRE DEPT.?
===========================================================================
That's people for you. People will complain about anything if they don't get
what they want. Well, if you did disable the disasters, and they still ask for
a Fire Dept., then just build ONE somewhere and that's it. Like I said, they
require funds, and your the only person they will get the funds from. Please
remember this, this is SIMCITY, and this is based on being a mayor, so you
have to realize that people will complain about something, no matter what.
12.) HOW COME YOU DIDN'T BUILD A SHIPYARD OR AIRPORT IN QUESTION 4?
===================================================================
That's because those buildings are not needed that early in the game yet. As
mentioned earlier, the game itself will let you know when you need to build a
harber or airport. When you start out with a small town, people require little
things for their business or life style. One thing to point out, please make
sure you don't build an airport or shipyard next to residential or commercial,
these are polution making buildings. Please remember that.
13.) HOW COME YOU HAVE 1 POLICE STATION IN EACH AREA LIKE IN QUESTION 4?
========================================================================
Well, there are a few reaons why...
A.) If 1 police is in every section, like in the example, it will be able
to to get to any of the crime areas quickly since the police is located right
next door to every building.
B.) Since you can't control the flow of crime with anything else, you have to
use police stations to control it. Police stations are the only things that
will control crime.
C.) Although they are costly each year, they will quickly keep the crime rate
at a minimum. That's why it's best to put 1 police station in the center of
each area that you create. Plus, as mentioned, it keeps the city looking neat
and not scattered.
14.) I JUST CAN'T SEEM TO PLEASE THESE PEOPLE, WHY?
===================================================
Hey, even in reality, you can't please everyone. I'll explain in further
detail about what people complain about in SIM CITY, and the way people
complain in reality. If you want to find out what your people are really
cmplaining about, just click on the WINDOWS, then click on the EVALUATION to
see what people think about your idea of the city and more...
SIM CITY = People complain about taxes being too high, regardless if you have
the tax rate at a very decent setting. (This is, in fact, the most
common problem in this game when you see your evaluation. Keep in
mind of course that I say this only if your city is maturing, but
you still have a few other things people want you to fix.)
REALITY = People ALWAYS complain about taxes, and what's worse, nobody wants
to pay for taxes in reality, but we have it and we complain about
it, so don't worry about it.
SIM CITY = People complain about the housing costs.
REALITY = People ALWAYS complain about how high their rent or housing costs
are so don't worry about it.
SIM CITY = People complain that the crime is a problem.
REALITY = People ALWAYS complain about the problems with crime or gangs so
don't worry about it.
SIM CITY = People are complaining about the polution being so high.
REALITY = We have lots of people complaining about that, and none of us can
do much about it, so don't worry about it. (The only solution for
this is to try to keep your industrial away from your other areas
so there won't be too many complaints. Another solution is to build
park areas all over so there is more oxygen and this sometimes
helps to. Keep in mind of course that having high traffic will also
cause polution on the highways, and to fix that, replace roads with
rails.)
SIM CITY = People are complaining about the high traffic rate of the city.
(Although this problem can be solved by creating rail roads instead
of highways. Although not realistic, it saves you from a complaint
or 2.)
REALITY = Hey, have you ever seen NEW YORK, BOSTON, DETROIT, L.A., CHICAGO,
DALLAS, HOUSTON, or any other city style place with lots of roads?
If you have, then you would know about this complain, especially
during rush hour and holidays. People don't like high traffic
either, but since there is little we can do in reality, your just
gonna have to deal with it.
15.) WHY DID YOU MAKE EACH AREA SQUARE SHAPED IN QUESTION 4?
============================================================
Again, as mentioned, it makes the city look neat and it also makes it compact.
Making a huge city takes lots of space. This is another reason why you want to
make the city look like question 4. It makes the city have more buildings, and
have a lot more people in your city. You see, that's the whole point to
SIMCITY, having people come into your city, and make money from the people who
live there. Of course if you want to just form a city the way you want to,
then go ahead, I'd like to see how well you do. Making the city look different
might be nice, but are you sure the people will be happy with the city you
made? Trust me on this, making the city look something like question 4 will
make the city neat, compact, and you will be able to control crime very easily
this way.
16.) COULD YOU GIVE ME A BETTER EXAMPLE OF HOW YOU WOULD DO QUESTION 4?
=======================================================================
Okay, this is a more compact version of question 4, but I'll add more to it
to show you just how you would make your city look. Please keep in mind that
this is not made to scale, remember that some buildings are bigger than
others, so I cannot garantee that this will look the exact same way as the
game might show it. You will just have to use your own judgement about placing
buildings. Here is a much better example of how to make the best SIMCITY...
ROADS/RAILS = --| |---|---|---|---|---|
POLICE = P |RRR|RRR| |III|E E|
RESIDENTIAL = R |RPR|RPR| |IPI|-P-|
COMMERCIAL = C |RRR|RRR| F |III| E |
INDUSTRIAL = I |---|---|---|---|-|-----|
ELECTRIC CO. = E |CCC|SRRR| |III| P A|
STADIUM = S |CPC|P PR| |IPI| |
FIRE STATION = F |CCC| RRR| |III| |
AIR PORT = A |---|---|---|---|-|-|---|---|---|---|---|
WATER PORT = W |CCC|RRR|RRR| |III|III| |RRR|RRR|CCC|
|CPC|RPR|RPR| |IPI|IPI| |RPR|RPR|CPC|
|CCC|RRR|RRR| |III|III| |RRR|RRR|CCC|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|CCC|RRR|RRR| |III|III| |RRR|RRR|CCC|
|CPC|RPR|RPR| |IPI|IPI| |RPR|RPR|CPC|
|CCC|RRR|RRR| |III|III| |RRR|RRR|CCC|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Notice how everything is nice and neat for you to see as well as the jobs
being close enough to home, but just far enough from industrial so there is
little polution to bother the city. Plus. the police are just around the
corner in each area so little crime can happen in that city.
17.) WHAT IS THE STATUS BAR USED FOR, THE ONE WITH THE 3 DIFFERENT BARS?
========================================================================
You must be talking about the status bar that shows C R I on it with a bar
that moves either above or below the line. Well, that bar represents what you
need and what you don't need in the city. Let me explain more. Lets just say
that you look at the bar and you notice that the R is high, but the C an I is
low. (Incase you are wondering, R = Residential, C = Commercial, and the
I = Industrial. Understand now) Well, what that means is that the R is in HIGH
demand and the C and I are in low demand. This would basically mean, you need
to build more Residential areas in your city and that should start to level
out the other 2. To put it another way, that bar tells you wether you need
more of something to make the others build back up, and/or you may need to
fix your city so that all 3 of the bars are up. There are only 4 things that
would cause the color bar to get HIGH or LOW, they are as follows...
A.) If your R is starting to get low, building more jobs will help you out.
B.) If your C is getting low, either build more residential, or more
industrial to fix it.
C.) If your I is getting low, then only build more Residential to fix this.
D.) If both your C and I are moving back and forth, then definitely build more
Residential. This would basically mean you have plenty of jobs, but not enough
living area to support the workers. This is usually the most common problem.
18.) HOW CAN I FIND OUT HOW MUCH POLUTION OR POPULATION I HAVE IN AN AREA?
==========================================================================
Okay, under your WINDOWS menu, there is one called MAP. Click on it with your
mouse and you can get all sorts of info about your city. This map basically
shows you a birds eye view of the city and options to see certain things, such
as population density or growth, polution, see how much of an area the police
are covering, and a lot more.
19.) WHAT IS THE REAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ROADS AND RAILS?
=========================================================
Okay, I'll give a good side and a bad side to each type of transportation so
you can easily see the real differences...
ROADS = The only good I can say about roads is that you get to watch people
drive on the roads and you also get to watch traffic jams and see some rush
hour traffic at the same time. The bad thing about roads is that they can
create a lot of polution, they can cause a lot of traffic jams, also leading
to people being late for work and trouble for you too, and finally, there are
only 2 ways to fix high traffic, make double lane highways, also leading to
higher costs to raods, or replace certain highways with rails.
RAILS = I can tell you a lot of good things about rails. They cause NO
polution, there is never any traffic jams, no rush hour to worry about, and
you don't have to make double lanes to keep traffic going. Although there is
not much that is bad about it, the only pet peeve I have about this is that
you can't build a train station. Personally, that's a very stupid thing to do.
I mean, how can you have a train, but no train station for the train to stop
at? That's about as bad as making roads, but although there are cars driving
on the roads, who sells the cars?
20.) WHAT IS THE REASON FOR USING TREES OR MAKING PARK AREAS?
=============================================================
Well, by keeping trees and by making park areas, you can reduce the polution
in the air. It's usually best to build park areas around industrial areas, or
in areas that has a high amount of polution. It's also a good idea to cover
any area that is not being used with park areas. This not only reduces the
polution level, but it will also raise the land value so you can attract more
people into your city.
21.) CAN I HAVE A MIX OF ROADS AND RAILS FOR MY CITY?
=====================================================
Well, go ahead if you feel like it. The main problem you would have by doing
so is the funds. This would cost you a lot more than just having one or the
other. I know that this sounds weird, but even I have run into costing trouble
by doing so. Mostly because I wasn't sure what part of the city should have
roads, and what part should have rails. All I will say is this, just use your
best judgement and make your own ideas, but you will soon learn fast that you
will only be left with only making one form of transportation for the city to
use.
22.) CAN I CROSS-LINK ROADS AND RAILS TOGETHER LIKE AN INTERSECTION?
====================================================================
Yes you most certainly can. You can cross-link roads and rails just as if you
have a rail section crossing over a road like you see in the real world.
23.) WHAT ABOUT CROSS-LINKING POWER LINES AND ROADS/RAILS?
==========================================================
Yes, you can cross-link power lines on roads and rails so you save money and
space to get to the buildings that need power.
24.) CAN I SET MY POLICE, FIRE, AND ROAD/RAIL FUNDS AROUND?
===========================================================
Yes, you can, but it's not a good idea to do such a thing. Main reason being
is that police and fire departments needs all the funding they can get to make
sure they will do their job right. The higher the funding, the better job they
will do for the city. Same goes for roads/rails. If the funds drop lower than
100%, the condition of roads/rails will start to go bad and you will often
have to look around your city to find broken or cut off raods/rails and
repair them. One more thing to note, if you have to pay to fix roads/rails,
then you're paying MORE to fix roads/rails than if you were to keep the funds
at 100%. So the best advice is to set the funds to 100% for the 3 types of
funds.
25.) SHOULD I TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE PAUSE ABILITY?
==================================================
Yes, please do. In fact, that is why they made the PAUSE option available to
you. It's mostly ment for when you want to make modifications to the city, but
you don't want to worry about the other things going on while your making your
changes. Sometimes the other things that happen can be annoying while your in
the middle of reconstruction of your city. So please, take full advantage of
the PAUSE option. That's what it's there for.
26.) WHAT IF I RAN OUT OF ROOM AND COVERED THE LAND WITH A "HUGE" CITY?
=======================================================================
Well, that means either 2 things happened. 1, you had so much money you
decided to waiste all the money on building a city, or 2, your just too darn
good to play this game and you should go and run for mayor for real. (Kidding
of course.)
27.) ARE THERE ANY CHEATS FOR THIS GAME?
========================================
Yes, there is, and for all 3 systems. It can be a helper, but not much help.
So if you want to enjoy these games to the fullest, stop reading this right
now and go play the game and see what you can do. If you really don't care
about the game value, then read on.
PC VERSION
==========
This first cheat will work for either the DOS or WINDOWS version. In order for
this cheat to work, you have to be in the game, and you must hold down a SHIFT
key while you do this. During gameplay, while holding a SHIFT key, type in
this word...
FUND
This will add $10,000 to your current stock of money. You can do this a few
times to build up your money.
CAUTION:Although this cheat is a helper, there is a catch to it. After you
have typed in the code 3 times, the 4th time you put it in, you will get an
earthquake disaster and your city will be be damaged by it. Another thing
about this cheat is that you can only do this cheat 6 times. That is why I
said a FEW times instead of a lot of times. If you really want to do a serious
cheat, start a new city, but BEFORE you build anything, use the FUND cheat all
6 times and you will have an increase of $80,000 to your stock, and you didn't
lose a building by doing so.
SNES VERSION
============
This first cheat is a money cheat. There is in fact 2 ways to do this cheat.
I will try to explain the 2 ways for you so you know how to do them. This
first cheat is just a PASSWORD trick to start out with infinite money. The
password is...
7E0B9E4E
Just input the password and you will be able to build all you want with all
the money you want. The second way is told in a step by step process.
1.) Start a new game and spend all your money on anything
2.) Before you spend all your money, buy something that needs funds (ROADS)
3.) Go to BUDGET screen and set all funds and tax to 0% before year is over
4.) After the year is up and the BUDGET screen is up, hold the "L" button
5.) Keep holding the "L" button for the rest of this procedure
6.) Close the BUDGET screen, then press the X button twice to let time pass
7.) Now, go back to the BUDGET screen again
8.) While in that screen, set all funds to 100%, but keep tax at 0%
9.) Exit the BUDGET screen and you can now release the "L" button
10.) You should now have $999,999 for your cash, enjoy
Alternatively, you can spend it all on police stations, fire stations, and
roads and the trick would still work. Just so you know, you can replace the
(ROADS) in step 2 for a police station or a fire station, and the trick will
still work just as well.
The second cheat is a hidden landfills cheat. This basically gives you an
additional 999 more lands to choose from. First, start a game but don't build
anything at all. Wait for about 20 seconds into the game, then go to the
LOAD/SAVE screen and select the "GO TO MENU" option without saving your game.
Start a new game again and this time you will have 999 more lands to choose
from, all completely different. Hope this helps you out.
MAC VERSION
===========
Cheats that work for the PC will work for the Mac as well. There is some
understanding that the Mac version has another cheat. during gameplat, hold
the SHIFT key and type...
SADDAM
This will drop a bomb on the city. Since I do not have a Mac version, I don't
know exactly how it will look, but hey, it's worth a look. It obviously
doesn't help build your city, but it will give you something to look at.
INFO ABOUT FAQ
==============
Info provided by CooperTeam.
If for some reason you are having a hard time trying to figure out how to make
the city work the way I showed you, E-mail me and I'll send you an example
saved city that I did that lets you gain about $500-$1,000 each year with a
VERY big city to start with. One thing though, as mentioned, only SOME of the
info in this FAQ guide will work for SIMCITY 2000, but not ALL of it. So if
you do want the saved city, only use it for the SIMCITY CLASSIC or regular
SIMCITY game. I have personally tried to use this saved city for SIMCITY 2000
and for some reason, it just doesn't work the same way. As mentioned, their
are other factors that you need to use in SIMCITY 2000 which require a lot
more thinking and strategy to help maintain the city.
None of this info may be copied or reproduced without proper permission from
the writer of this FAQ. You may only use this for your own personal/private
use and only for helping you play this game, nothing more. Please do not
rewrite, display, or redistribute this info without my expressed concent. If
I am missing any info you feel needs to be cleared up, please E-mail me at...
cooperteam@hotmail.com
If your info does need to be added to this, I'll give you the proper credit
for doing so. Please, only true and factual info, no bogus stuff. Please do
not send me useless or bogus stuff, only true and actual info on this game. I
want to make this as simple, clear, real, and complete as possible. When you
send your info, please put the subject as...
COOPERTEAM/SIMCITY
so I will know what your E-mailing me about. Also, please inform me if you
want your name in the next update and if you want me to add your E-mail to it
as well. If you do not inform me, I will automatically assume you want your
name and E-mail posted. (Personally, it's best to give me a codename, nick,
callsign, or special name you like to be called on the net like chat sites or
something like that.) I MIGHT DO AN UPDATE SOON FOR THIS GAME, BUT I DON'T
KNOW YET. If you are interested in my other solutions, just check out the
following solutions with my name on them...
DARKSUN:SHATTERED LANDS = Solution = PC
DEATH RALLY = FAQ = PC
STRONGHOLD = FAQ = PC
DARKRIFT = Strategy = N64
WARGODS = Strategy = Multi-Platform
X-MEN VS. STREET FIGHTER = Strategy = Arcade
DARKSUN:WAKE OF THE RAVAGER = Solution = PC (COMING SOON)
SYNDICATE PLUS = Strategy = PC (COMING SOON)
SYNDICATE WARS = Strategy = PC (COMING SOON)
about how to play the MAXIS game called SIMCITY. I know that some of you out
there have been having trouble with building a good size city. Well, part of
the trick is knowing what to build, when to build it, and how it should look
when you are done. In this FAQ, you will learn some great money saving tips
on how to make the best looking city in this game. Hopefully by the time you
are done reading this, you will me a SIMCITY MASTER. I would also like to
point out that these strategies will work for either the PC, MAC, or SNES
version of this game. Hope this helps. Enjoy!
###################
# #
# SIMCITY #
# FAQ VERSION 2.1 #
#February 03, 1999#
# PC/SNES/MAC #
# #
###################
INTRO
=====
SIMCITY first came out on PC back around the late '80's, early '90's when PC's
were nearly ready for the SVGA monitors. Later, they came out with a bigger,
better version called SIMCITY 2000. Then, when the SNES first hit the shelves,
it came out for SNES as one of the first games to be released to the public
to show off what the SNES could do. Then, came the hit SIMCITY CLASSIC which
was SIMCITY, but with video animation and some nice video clips of crime,
polution, and other neato stuff the original SIMCITY didn't do. They also
remade SIMCITY for WINDOWS 3.1 and 95 for those of you who know about the game
but missed your chance at getting it the first time. Well, since they redid
the game, better hurry to your favorite pc gaming store and buy SIMCITY for
WINDOWS. From what I can tell, the windows version is like only $15.00 so that
is a farely good deal for a good game. The SIMCITY for windows also includes
some other freebe stuff like a terrain editor which lets you edit the terrain
of a city. You can create a new city, or load a city you were using and add
more features to make your city become more realistic. If for some reason you
can't get the terrain editor to work properly, it's because of the pentium
computers. The terrain editor is a DOS application so it may not run properly
if you are using a pentium system. This terrain editor will run on a 286 SX
with 580K of conventional memory needed. The terrain editor will also work for
the DOS version of SIMCITY as well. The SIMCITY for WINDOWS also comes with
some free demos to some of the games they will be coming out with. Well,
that's enough about that, lets get on with this FAQ shall we?
HELPERS OF THIS FAQ GUIDE
=========================
When I showed the first FAQ guide to the public, I got some responces from
people. This section is dedicated to the people who helped me out with the
making of this FAQ guide. Without the help of these people, this guide would
not be complete. This is just a section that shows that I support, as well as
appreciate, the work they have done on their part to make this FAQ possible
for people like you to read.
Special thanks to Fetters at cfetters@willinet.net for helping me get the
SNES cheat figured out. Since I was doing a FAQ guide which is for many
systems, I figured I might as well go all out and do a FAQ for people who
own these systems as well as this game. Thanks Fetters.
A SUPER thanks goes to WadeAHeath for helping me with the MAC info that I
needed. It's good to know that there are people out there who still own
classical systems such as the MAC, AMIGA, TANDY, C64, and more. Thanks a
bunch.
MENTAL NOTES
============
In case you are wondering, STREETS OF SIMCITY is not the same thing. This is
a game where you drive a car with weapons and DESTROY things in a SIMCITY
setting. I just wanted to clear that up. Also, just in case you need to know,
if you happen to have SIMCITY 2000, you can transfer your SIMCITY saved games
to SIMCITY 2000 by simply changing the extention of the SIMCITY file to .SC2.
This also applies for the game STREETS OF SIMCITY. No, they did not make a
STREETS OF SIMCITY for SNES, sorry about that.
(E.G. If your SIMCITY saved file is called NEWCITY.CTY, just rename it so it
says NEWCITY.SC2 and then copy it to the SIMCITY 2000 directory and then load
the game as you normally would. It will ask if you want to make the transfer,
just say YES and it will automatically reformat the saved city to work for
SIMCITY 2000.)
For those of you who need to know about the memory requirements for the PC,
here is a little memory info for you if you want to play this game for
WINDOWS 3.1 or DOS. (For those of you who are not aware of this, anything that
runs on WINDOWS 3.1 will work for WINDOWS 95, I just wanted to clear that
up.)...
DOS VERSION OF SIMCITY
======================
REQUIRED:286 SX / 580K RAM / DOS 3.0+ / MOUSE
RECOMMENDED:386 SX / DOS 6.0
WINDOWS 3.1 VERSION OF SIMCITY
==============================
REQUIRED:286 SX / 2MB RAM / WINDOWS 3.1 / MOUSE
RECOMMENDED:486 SX / 4MB RAM / 8-bit Sound Blaster
MAC VERSION OF SIMCITY
======================
REQUIRED:16 color, low resolution / Might also work for Monochrome monitors
RECOMMENDED:16 color, high resolution
Another thing I want to point out is that the requirements are not quite the
same as the box might say, especially for thie WINDOWS requirements. Reason
being is that WINDOWS has a way of using what ever memory you have as well as
what ever color or palette setting you use and finds a way to make the
programs work, regardless of memory. Although there are some programs that DO
require 4 megs of ram, I know for a fact that SIMCITY will work for a 286 SX
with that much ram as mentioned.
One more bit of datail, although I am sure that some of the tips that are
mentioned here will work, not ALL the tips will work for SIMCITY 2000. This
game has a lot more features to offer than SIMCITY. So please bare this in
mind when you read this.
WHAT IS SIMCITY? (Obvious first question)
=========================================
SIMCITY is a city manager game where you control where to build things like
comercial, residential, industrial, police & fire stations, roads, power lines
and power supply, airports, and harbers. Plus, depending on what you do, you
can also control the crime, population, frequient fires, and more. This is a
game which is basically teaching you what it's like to be a mayor of a city.
1.) HOW DO I GET STARTED?
=========================
Well, that is rather easy. Type the command in to start the SIMCITY game and
then from the menu screen, use your mouse to click on START NEW CITY, then
click on what difficulty setting you want. When you start a new game, you get
a map of some terrain with water, trees, and brown colored dirt. Now you can
start your game.
2.) WHAT SHOULD I DO FIRST?
===========================
Hmmm, good question. Well, usually the first thing to do is to set your game
options the way you want it so nothing goes wrong. Once you have set the
proper options you want, get an idea of how you want your first city to look
like. Usually the best thing to do first is to have the residential,
commercial, and industrial stuff built first. Plus, also make sure you build
enough police stations so you won't have citizens complaining about the crime
rate in this city. You want to start with an idea of how the first city should
look before you build your power plant and set power to your city areas.When
you think you have a good idea of how you want your first city to look, then
build your power plant somewhere away from the city and set power lines as
needed to power your city up. Also, please make sure you build roads and they
do need to connect to almost all builds you have made. It's also usually best
if you have the game on PAUSE mode until you are done with building stuff.
3.) HOW CAN I DO THAT, YOU DON'T START OUT WITH A LOT OF MONEY?
===============================================================
I realize that, your just gonna have to use your head. Just start small, the
game will play itself out when you have given your city areas power and roads
to do things. I know that starting small is not a great way to start out, but
like all strategy games, you always have to start out small and then build up
gradually to get the bigger, better things you want later in the game. Of
course if you want to read further down, you can find some info on how to
start out with more money than usual.
4.) CAN YOU GIVE ME A SMALL EXAMPLE OF HOW A FIRST CITY SHOULD LOOK?
====================================================================
Hmmm, I guess that is a good idea. I'll show you a small example of how you
should build a starting city and I'll let you work from that. Keep in mind
that this is only an example, nothing more, this may or may not work out with
the starting money you get, but I will exaplain in more detail later on why
you would need to do this...
R = Residential Area
C = Commercial Area
I = Industrial Area
F = Fire Dept.
P = Police Dept.
E = Energy Plant
T = Power lines
= = Roads/Rails
S = Stadium
===============================================================
|| --- --- --- || --- --- --- || || --- --- --- ||
||| | | |||| | | ||| ||| | | |||
||| R | R | R |||| R | R | R ||| ||| I | I | I |||
||| | | |||| | | ||| ||| | | |||
|| --- --- --- || --- --- --- || || --- --- --- ||
||| | | |||| | | ||| ||| | | |||
||| R | P | R |||| R | P | R ||| ||| I | P | I |||
||| | | |||| | | ||| ||| | | |||
|| --- --- --- || --- --- --- || || --- --- --- ||
||| | | |||| | | ||| ||| | | |||
||| R | R | R |||| R | R | R ||| ||| I | I | I |||
||| | | |||| | | ||| ||| | | |||
|| --- --- --- || --- --- --- || || --- --- --- ||
===============================================================
|| --- --- --- || ---- ----
||| | | |||| | | |
||| C | C | C |||| S | | E |
||| | | |||| | | |
|| --- --- --- ||| | | |
||| | | ||| ---- ----
||| C | P | C |||
||| | | |||
|| --- --- --- ||
||| | | |||
||| C | C | C |||
||| | | |||
|| --- --- --- ||
=================
As you can see, this a very good way for you to build your cities in this form
and nature. Notice how everything is nice and neat. (One thing I do want to
point out is that the reason I did not use a Fire Dept. in any area is because
I am assuming you turned off the disasters in the options menu. Personally,
by doing that, you will save yourself a ton of money so you don't have to pay
for fundings for the Fire Dept.) Plus, as you can see, the police dept. are
very close to each other and to the buildings so you shouldn't have much of a
crime rate by making the city look something like this.
5.) WHY DO YOU HAVE INDUSTRIAL AREAS SO FAR FROM THE OTHER AREAS?
=================================================================
Well, do you want to live next to polution making buildings? This is also the
same reason I have the Energy Plant so far away as well. By keeping such stuff
away from your residential and commercial, the people will not complain about
polution so much. To put it more mildly, industrial and Energy Plants produce
polution, and by keeping them away from clean areas, the people of the city
will not complain so much.
6.) OKAY, SO EXPLAIN TO ME HOW I CAN GET PEOPLE TO COME INTO MY CITY?
=====================================================================
Okay, this is easily accomplished when you have the number of residential that
is EQUAL to the total number of commercial and industrial zones that you have.
By doing this, you will create enough jobs for the people to work at and have
the right amount of living areas (residential) so people can live and work at
the same time. If you look at question 4 above, you will see that I have 16
residential, 8 commercial, and 8 industrial zones. Basically, an EVEN amount
of residential & commercial/industrial. One thing I must point out now before
I say anymore. Any city you build will generate a population, but only by
properly creating a well balanced city with enough police stations, an
airport, a ship port, and some stadiums in the right place, will people REALLY
thrive off your land that you create. The perfect example is question 4.
Notice how nice and neat I did everything. Plus, as you can see, I kepted jobs
rather close to the residential, including the industrial areas, but kept it
so that the polution is at a safe level for the city to handle it.
7.) HOW COME I DO THAT AND THEY STILL SEEM TO NOT STAY AND LIVE?
================================================================
Well, part of the trick is the jobs (commercial & industrial) have to be
fairly close to living areas (residential). Plus, making sure you have roads
that connect to every building so people can get to and from work. If you look
at the example in question 4, you will see that I have the living area close
to job areas. Also remember that people will not live next to places that give
off polution, so keep industrial areas away from commercial and residential
areas, but close enough so people will work for them as well.
8.) WHAT IF I DO ALL THIS RIGHT, BUT THEY STILL ARE NOT COMING TO THE CITY?
===========================================================================
Then attact them with something, like a stadium. This can be a major helper
if a certain part of the city is not growing. People get bored real fast if
there is nothing near the city to excite them. Building a stadium near an area
where residential or commercial is low will greatly improve that area for
sure. So try building a stadium and that will help improve the locals in the
city. For those of you who own the SNES version, you will sometimes get some
special gifts like land fills, expos, parks, and more. Use these in the proper
places can be a major helper for you.
9.) OKAY, I DID THAT, BUT PEOPLE ARE STILL NOT COMING IN, WHY?
==============================================================
Well, maybe you should check your status screen and see what the people are
complaining about. If it's the crime, build more police departments where they
are needed, if it's the polution, either stop building roads, or build the
polution creating buildings away from the residential, if it's the taxes, set
the tax to about 8%, that's the best you can do for taxes, if it's the housing
costs, build a few more jobs for the people. Another factor is where you have
your residential, commercial, and industrial located. The following is just
general tips for getting more people to come to your city. Please excuse any-
thing I might repeat, but I'm doing this as like a checklist for you so you
will know what the trouble is...
A.) Try to keep jobs close to the residential areas, people don't like to
travel long distances to work.
B.) Try to keep polution making buildings away from residential. Nobody likes
to live near polution, or breathe it for that matter. Just think of the NIMBY
system. (NIMBY = Not In My Back Yard)
C.) Make sure you build a police station somewhere near or around each other.
Crime can happen anywhere at anytime, so be prepared. It's best to build
police stations no farther than 2-3 blocks or 4-5 buildings away from each
other for best results.
D.) Do not build more roads, rails, fire stations, or police stations than you
have to. Please remember that YOU are paying for these to be in good shape and
the more you build, the more you PAY for them. So only build them if you have
no other choice.
E.) Sometimes you can get much better quality buildings if you build them near
trees, water, or by building a stadium nearby. This can be a contributing
factor of 20-50 people or more.
F.) Roads are a major problem and a hassle sometimes. Not just from traffic,
but also the polution. That's why you sometimes hear people say "BUILD RAILS
INSTEAD OF ROADS". In a way, although not realistic, that is the best solution
to this problem. Sure, it sounds funny, but at least they can't complain about
traffic problems or about the polution for that matter.
G.) Don't build COAL power plants, they create polution and don't create
enough electricity for the public, on the other hand, if you create a NUCLEAR
power plant, you run the risk of having a meltdown, as well as spreading
nuclear waiste around the surrounding lands, but at least you can power more
areas than a COAL power plant. Plus, nuclear power plants are a little more
cleaner.
H.) Sometimes, when your residential status bar fluctuates, creating 1-2 more
jobs will fix this a lot of times. I know that there will be an uneven number
of residential versus commercial/industrial jobs, but realisticaly, people can
own 2 buildings at one time. So try this if you have trouble with residential
going up and down a lot, regardless if you have an even number of jobs vs.
living areas.
I.) When you are building your city, people will ask you for airports or ship
ports. Do not build these until the game says that the people want these some-
where on your map. Plus, although you don't have to, it's best to build a
shipyard next to water to make it look good and try to build the airport, as
well as the shipport about 5-7 squares away from the other buildings. Main
reason for the airport is polution, and have you ever seen what happens to a
plane trying to take off, but doesn't have enough power to make it over tall
buildings?
J.) Keep your city together and close when your making your city. Reason is,
if you try to make 2 different areas of the city and don't keep it close to
each other, the people for some reason will not help the city grow. In fact,
they will actually move away and you will be left with a lousey city for doing
so. So when you make your city, keep most of the city together and not try to
separate the buildings from each other.
K.) When you are making your first city, it's usually best to make more
industrial areas than commercial areas at first. The main reason why you would
do this is because if your starting a new city, how is your people going to
make things if you don't have factories to build tools, supplies, and other
stuff. Also, in reality, where would your community be without factories?
Factories are what makes tools and supplies, such as paper, pencils, pens, and
other useful stuff. But one thing to remember, as your city grows, you will
soon need to build more commercial areas than industrial areas. If you want to
think of it another way, just ask someone for real about how supply and demand
works in reality.
L.) Try to keep your tax pretty low. People don't like to pay a lot of taxes
in this game so remember that. The best number to use without people of the
city complaining so much is 8%. Anything higher will cause your citizens to
leave your city and find something elsewhere.
M.) Unless you want to play a game of risk, you should turn off the disasters
option so you don't have to pay extra money for fire departments, and so you
don't have to waist your money on destroyed buildings.
N.) If your one of those who wants to build roads than railways, you might
want to make some extra room for the roads for future reference. I'm serious.
As your city grows, so does the traffic, so you should plan ahead for more
roads incase 2 or more areas get high traffic.
O.) Just so you know, people will not come to live in your city until you make
jobs for them. I mean, what's a city without a little business on the side?
P.) Another thing to rememebr is if you build something like residential, and
it does nothing for your city, then get rid of it. Reason being, if a certain
area like residential is not building anything, they add to YOUR costs and
expenses. So if something like that is not doing anything but sitting there,
remove it and try something else.
Q.) As you know, residential and commercial areas build certain other types of
buildings that can't generate people or much money for you. A perfect example
is hospitals. (Only residential areas can have hospitals.) It's okay to have
a few of them, but if for some reason you have like 10-15 or more, or if you
see a lot of hospitals in one area, remove a few and rebuild a residential
area to see if it will change. (For those of you who are not really sure,
hospitals will look like buildings shaped like a cross with a RED CROSS on top
of the building. Schools are commercial buildings and have a sorta U shape to
them and a lot of them will be a green colored building.) Another thing to
look for is churches which only a residential area can build. One more thing,
DO NOT REMOVE ALL THE HOSPITALS, SCHOOLS, OR CHURCHES FROM YOUR CITY! Doing
so will cause your people to move out and/or dezone your areas.
R.) It is very good to follow the example in question 4. Main reason being, it
keeps the city neat, organized, and people will quickly come into your city
and help build a population because your smart way of showing how neat your
city is. Plus, it's rather easy to commute to one place to another using this
system.
10.) I NOTICED YOU DIDN'T BUILD A FIRE DEPARTMENT IN QUESTION 4, WHY?
=====================================================================
Okay, 2 reasons why I didn't do that...
1.) Just like the Police Department, they require funds, and you are the only
person they will take the funds from. So by not building them, you will get
more money by doing so.
2.) By disabling the disasters in the options menu, then you won't need a Fire
Department at all, and by doing so, will save you lots of money.
Okay, that's why I didn't put Fire Departments in my city example in question
4. Part of the trick to SIMCITY is to spend less and to give as little as
possible to the public so you can get more money back from the people at the
same time.
11.) I DISABLED THE DISASTERS, BUT PEOPLE ARE STILL DEMANDING A FIRE DEPT.?
===========================================================================
That's people for you. People will complain about anything if they don't get
what they want. Well, if you did disable the disasters, and they still ask for
a Fire Dept., then just build ONE somewhere and that's it. Like I said, they
require funds, and your the only person they will get the funds from. Please
remember this, this is SIMCITY, and this is based on being a mayor, so you
have to realize that people will complain about something, no matter what.
12.) HOW COME YOU DIDN'T BUILD A SHIPYARD OR AIRPORT IN QUESTION 4?
===================================================================
That's because those buildings are not needed that early in the game yet. As
mentioned earlier, the game itself will let you know when you need to build a
harber or airport. When you start out with a small town, people require little
things for their business or life style. One thing to point out, please make
sure you don't build an airport or shipyard next to residential or commercial,
these are polution making buildings. Please remember that.
13.) HOW COME YOU HAVE 1 POLICE STATION IN EACH AREA LIKE IN QUESTION 4?
========================================================================
Well, there are a few reaons why...
A.) If 1 police is in every section, like in the example, it will be able
to to get to any of the crime areas quickly since the police is located right
next door to every building.
B.) Since you can't control the flow of crime with anything else, you have to
use police stations to control it. Police stations are the only things that
will control crime.
C.) Although they are costly each year, they will quickly keep the crime rate
at a minimum. That's why it's best to put 1 police station in the center of
each area that you create. Plus, as mentioned, it keeps the city looking neat
and not scattered.
14.) I JUST CAN'T SEEM TO PLEASE THESE PEOPLE, WHY?
===================================================
Hey, even in reality, you can't please everyone. I'll explain in further
detail about what people complain about in SIM CITY, and the way people
complain in reality. If you want to find out what your people are really
cmplaining about, just click on the WINDOWS, then click on the EVALUATION to
see what people think about your idea of the city and more...
SIM CITY = People complain about taxes being too high, regardless if you have
the tax rate at a very decent setting. (This is, in fact, the most
common problem in this game when you see your evaluation. Keep in
mind of course that I say this only if your city is maturing, but
you still have a few other things people want you to fix.)
REALITY = People ALWAYS complain about taxes, and what's worse, nobody wants
to pay for taxes in reality, but we have it and we complain about
it, so don't worry about it.
SIM CITY = People complain about the housing costs.
REALITY = People ALWAYS complain about how high their rent or housing costs
are so don't worry about it.
SIM CITY = People complain that the crime is a problem.
REALITY = People ALWAYS complain about the problems with crime or gangs so
don't worry about it.
SIM CITY = People are complaining about the polution being so high.
REALITY = We have lots of people complaining about that, and none of us can
do much about it, so don't worry about it. (The only solution for
this is to try to keep your industrial away from your other areas
so there won't be too many complaints. Another solution is to build
park areas all over so there is more oxygen and this sometimes
helps to. Keep in mind of course that having high traffic will also
cause polution on the highways, and to fix that, replace roads with
rails.)
SIM CITY = People are complaining about the high traffic rate of the city.
(Although this problem can be solved by creating rail roads instead
of highways. Although not realistic, it saves you from a complaint
or 2.)
REALITY = Hey, have you ever seen NEW YORK, BOSTON, DETROIT, L.A., CHICAGO,
DALLAS, HOUSTON, or any other city style place with lots of roads?
If you have, then you would know about this complain, especially
during rush hour and holidays. People don't like high traffic
either, but since there is little we can do in reality, your just
gonna have to deal with it.
15.) WHY DID YOU MAKE EACH AREA SQUARE SHAPED IN QUESTION 4?
============================================================
Again, as mentioned, it makes the city look neat and it also makes it compact.
Making a huge city takes lots of space. This is another reason why you want to
make the city look like question 4. It makes the city have more buildings, and
have a lot more people in your city. You see, that's the whole point to
SIMCITY, having people come into your city, and make money from the people who
live there. Of course if you want to just form a city the way you want to,
then go ahead, I'd like to see how well you do. Making the city look different
might be nice, but are you sure the people will be happy with the city you
made? Trust me on this, making the city look something like question 4 will
make the city neat, compact, and you will be able to control crime very easily
this way.
16.) COULD YOU GIVE ME A BETTER EXAMPLE OF HOW YOU WOULD DO QUESTION 4?
=======================================================================
Okay, this is a more compact version of question 4, but I'll add more to it
to show you just how you would make your city look. Please keep in mind that
this is not made to scale, remember that some buildings are bigger than
others, so I cannot garantee that this will look the exact same way as the
game might show it. You will just have to use your own judgement about placing
buildings. Here is a much better example of how to make the best SIMCITY...
ROADS/RAILS = --| |---|---|---|---|---|
POLICE = P |RRR|RRR| |III|E E|
RESIDENTIAL = R |RPR|RPR| |IPI|-P-|
COMMERCIAL = C |RRR|RRR| F |III| E |
INDUSTRIAL = I |---|---|---|---|-|-----|
ELECTRIC CO. = E |CCC|SRRR| |III| P A|
STADIUM = S |CPC|P PR| |IPI| |
FIRE STATION = F |CCC| RRR| |III| |
AIR PORT = A |---|---|---|---|-|-|---|---|---|---|---|
WATER PORT = W |CCC|RRR|RRR| |III|III| |RRR|RRR|CCC|
|CPC|RPR|RPR| |IPI|IPI| |RPR|RPR|CPC|
|CCC|RRR|RRR| |III|III| |RRR|RRR|CCC|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|CCC|RRR|RRR| |III|III| |RRR|RRR|CCC|
|CPC|RPR|RPR| |IPI|IPI| |RPR|RPR|CPC|
|CCC|RRR|RRR| |III|III| |RRR|RRR|CCC|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Notice how everything is nice and neat for you to see as well as the jobs
being close enough to home, but just far enough from industrial so there is
little polution to bother the city. Plus. the police are just around the
corner in each area so little crime can happen in that city.
17.) WHAT IS THE STATUS BAR USED FOR, THE ONE WITH THE 3 DIFFERENT BARS?
========================================================================
You must be talking about the status bar that shows C R I on it with a bar
that moves either above or below the line. Well, that bar represents what you
need and what you don't need in the city. Let me explain more. Lets just say
that you look at the bar and you notice that the R is high, but the C an I is
low. (Incase you are wondering, R = Residential, C = Commercial, and the
I = Industrial. Understand now) Well, what that means is that the R is in HIGH
demand and the C and I are in low demand. This would basically mean, you need
to build more Residential areas in your city and that should start to level
out the other 2. To put it another way, that bar tells you wether you need
more of something to make the others build back up, and/or you may need to
fix your city so that all 3 of the bars are up. There are only 4 things that
would cause the color bar to get HIGH or LOW, they are as follows...
A.) If your R is starting to get low, building more jobs will help you out.
B.) If your C is getting low, either build more residential, or more
industrial to fix it.
C.) If your I is getting low, then only build more Residential to fix this.
D.) If both your C and I are moving back and forth, then definitely build more
Residential. This would basically mean you have plenty of jobs, but not enough
living area to support the workers. This is usually the most common problem.
18.) HOW CAN I FIND OUT HOW MUCH POLUTION OR POPULATION I HAVE IN AN AREA?
==========================================================================
Okay, under your WINDOWS menu, there is one called MAP. Click on it with your
mouse and you can get all sorts of info about your city. This map basically
shows you a birds eye view of the city and options to see certain things, such
as population density or growth, polution, see how much of an area the police
are covering, and a lot more.
19.) WHAT IS THE REAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ROADS AND RAILS?
=========================================================
Okay, I'll give a good side and a bad side to each type of transportation so
you can easily see the real differences...
ROADS = The only good I can say about roads is that you get to watch people
drive on the roads and you also get to watch traffic jams and see some rush
hour traffic at the same time. The bad thing about roads is that they can
create a lot of polution, they can cause a lot of traffic jams, also leading
to people being late for work and trouble for you too, and finally, there are
only 2 ways to fix high traffic, make double lane highways, also leading to
higher costs to raods, or replace certain highways with rails.
RAILS = I can tell you a lot of good things about rails. They cause NO
polution, there is never any traffic jams, no rush hour to worry about, and
you don't have to make double lanes to keep traffic going. Although there is
not much that is bad about it, the only pet peeve I have about this is that
you can't build a train station. Personally, that's a very stupid thing to do.
I mean, how can you have a train, but no train station for the train to stop
at? That's about as bad as making roads, but although there are cars driving
on the roads, who sells the cars?
20.) WHAT IS THE REASON FOR USING TREES OR MAKING PARK AREAS?
=============================================================
Well, by keeping trees and by making park areas, you can reduce the polution
in the air. It's usually best to build park areas around industrial areas, or
in areas that has a high amount of polution. It's also a good idea to cover
any area that is not being used with park areas. This not only reduces the
polution level, but it will also raise the land value so you can attract more
people into your city.
21.) CAN I HAVE A MIX OF ROADS AND RAILS FOR MY CITY?
=====================================================
Well, go ahead if you feel like it. The main problem you would have by doing
so is the funds. This would cost you a lot more than just having one or the
other. I know that this sounds weird, but even I have run into costing trouble
by doing so. Mostly because I wasn't sure what part of the city should have
roads, and what part should have rails. All I will say is this, just use your
best judgement and make your own ideas, but you will soon learn fast that you
will only be left with only making one form of transportation for the city to
use.
22.) CAN I CROSS-LINK ROADS AND RAILS TOGETHER LIKE AN INTERSECTION?
====================================================================
Yes you most certainly can. You can cross-link roads and rails just as if you
have a rail section crossing over a road like you see in the real world.
23.) WHAT ABOUT CROSS-LINKING POWER LINES AND ROADS/RAILS?
==========================================================
Yes, you can cross-link power lines on roads and rails so you save money and
space to get to the buildings that need power.
24.) CAN I SET MY POLICE, FIRE, AND ROAD/RAIL FUNDS AROUND?
===========================================================
Yes, you can, but it's not a good idea to do such a thing. Main reason being
is that police and fire departments needs all the funding they can get to make
sure they will do their job right. The higher the funding, the better job they
will do for the city. Same goes for roads/rails. If the funds drop lower than
100%, the condition of roads/rails will start to go bad and you will often
have to look around your city to find broken or cut off raods/rails and
repair them. One more thing to note, if you have to pay to fix roads/rails,
then you're paying MORE to fix roads/rails than if you were to keep the funds
at 100%. So the best advice is to set the funds to 100% for the 3 types of
funds.
25.) SHOULD I TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE PAUSE ABILITY?
==================================================
Yes, please do. In fact, that is why they made the PAUSE option available to
you. It's mostly ment for when you want to make modifications to the city, but
you don't want to worry about the other things going on while your making your
changes. Sometimes the other things that happen can be annoying while your in
the middle of reconstruction of your city. So please, take full advantage of
the PAUSE option. That's what it's there for.
26.) WHAT IF I RAN OUT OF ROOM AND COVERED THE LAND WITH A "HUGE" CITY?
=======================================================================
Well, that means either 2 things happened. 1, you had so much money you
decided to waiste all the money on building a city, or 2, your just too darn
good to play this game and you should go and run for mayor for real. (Kidding
of course.)
27.) ARE THERE ANY CHEATS FOR THIS GAME?
========================================
Yes, there is, and for all 3 systems. It can be a helper, but not much help.
So if you want to enjoy these games to the fullest, stop reading this right
now and go play the game and see what you can do. If you really don't care
about the game value, then read on.
PC VERSION
==========
This first cheat will work for either the DOS or WINDOWS version. In order for
this cheat to work, you have to be in the game, and you must hold down a SHIFT
key while you do this. During gameplay, while holding a SHIFT key, type in
this word...
FUND
This will add $10,000 to your current stock of money. You can do this a few
times to build up your money.
CAUTION:Although this cheat is a helper, there is a catch to it. After you
have typed in the code 3 times, the 4th time you put it in, you will get an
earthquake disaster and your city will be be damaged by it. Another thing
about this cheat is that you can only do this cheat 6 times. That is why I
said a FEW times instead of a lot of times. If you really want to do a serious
cheat, start a new city, but BEFORE you build anything, use the FUND cheat all
6 times and you will have an increase of $80,000 to your stock, and you didn't
lose a building by doing so.
SNES VERSION
============
This first cheat is a money cheat. There is in fact 2 ways to do this cheat.
I will try to explain the 2 ways for you so you know how to do them. This
first cheat is just a PASSWORD trick to start out with infinite money. The
password is...
7E0B9E4E
Just input the password and you will be able to build all you want with all
the money you want. The second way is told in a step by step process.
1.) Start a new game and spend all your money on anything
2.) Before you spend all your money, buy something that needs funds (ROADS)
3.) Go to BUDGET screen and set all funds and tax to 0% before year is over
4.) After the year is up and the BUDGET screen is up, hold the "L" button
5.) Keep holding the "L" button for the rest of this procedure
6.) Close the BUDGET screen, then press the X button twice to let time pass
7.) Now, go back to the BUDGET screen again
8.) While in that screen, set all funds to 100%, but keep tax at 0%
9.) Exit the BUDGET screen and you can now release the "L" button
10.) You should now have $999,999 for your cash, enjoy
Alternatively, you can spend it all on police stations, fire stations, and
roads and the trick would still work. Just so you know, you can replace the
(ROADS) in step 2 for a police station or a fire station, and the trick will
still work just as well.
The second cheat is a hidden landfills cheat. This basically gives you an
additional 999 more lands to choose from. First, start a game but don't build
anything at all. Wait for about 20 seconds into the game, then go to the
LOAD/SAVE screen and select the "GO TO MENU" option without saving your game.
Start a new game again and this time you will have 999 more lands to choose
from, all completely different. Hope this helps you out.
MAC VERSION
===========
Cheats that work for the PC will work for the Mac as well. There is some
understanding that the Mac version has another cheat. during gameplat, hold
the SHIFT key and type...
SADDAM
This will drop a bomb on the city. Since I do not have a Mac version, I don't
know exactly how it will look, but hey, it's worth a look. It obviously
doesn't help build your city, but it will give you something to look at.
INFO ABOUT FAQ
==============
Info provided by CooperTeam.
If for some reason you are having a hard time trying to figure out how to make
the city work the way I showed you, E-mail me and I'll send you an example
saved city that I did that lets you gain about $500-$1,000 each year with a
VERY big city to start with. One thing though, as mentioned, only SOME of the
info in this FAQ guide will work for SIMCITY 2000, but not ALL of it. So if
you do want the saved city, only use it for the SIMCITY CLASSIC or regular
SIMCITY game. I have personally tried to use this saved city for SIMCITY 2000
and for some reason, it just doesn't work the same way. As mentioned, their
are other factors that you need to use in SIMCITY 2000 which require a lot
more thinking and strategy to help maintain the city.
None of this info may be copied or reproduced without proper permission from
the writer of this FAQ. You may only use this for your own personal/private
use and only for helping you play this game, nothing more. Please do not
rewrite, display, or redistribute this info without my expressed concent. If
I am missing any info you feel needs to be cleared up, please E-mail me at...
cooperteam@hotmail.com
If your info does need to be added to this, I'll give you the proper credit
for doing so. Please, only true and factual info, no bogus stuff. Please do
not send me useless or bogus stuff, only true and actual info on this game. I
want to make this as simple, clear, real, and complete as possible. When you
send your info, please put the subject as...
COOPERTEAM/SIMCITY
so I will know what your E-mailing me about. Also, please inform me if you
want your name in the next update and if you want me to add your E-mail to it
as well. If you do not inform me, I will automatically assume you want your
name and E-mail posted. (Personally, it's best to give me a codename, nick,
callsign, or special name you like to be called on the net like chat sites or
something like that.) I MIGHT DO AN UPDATE SOON FOR THIS GAME, BUT I DON'T
KNOW YET. If you are interested in my other solutions, just check out the
following solutions with my name on them...
DARKSUN:SHATTERED LANDS = Solution = PC
DEATH RALLY = FAQ = PC
STRONGHOLD = FAQ = PC
DARKRIFT = Strategy = N64
WARGODS = Strategy = Multi-Platform
X-MEN VS. STREET FIGHTER = Strategy = Arcade
DARKSUN:WAKE OF THE RAVAGER = Solution = PC (COMING SOON)
SYNDICATE PLUS = Strategy = PC (COMING SOON)
SYNDICATE WARS = Strategy = PC (COMING SOON)