features Put our 25 tips in your political platform and you'll run SimCity 2000 successfully for a long time to come. By Daniel A. Tauber and Brenda Kienan Topics: Introduction Tips on Zoning Tips on Utilities Tips on Money and Growth Tips on Transportation Tips on Info Tools Tips on Disasters How to join the national conference of SimCity mayors There you were, the Teflon Mayor. Crime was down, employment up and you looked like a genius. The outlook from City Hall was sunny, with no end in sight. But now it hasn't rained in four months, and you're under a cloud; everyone awaits your answer to the water supply crisis. This job sure would be a pain if you didn't love it so much... Legions of SimCity 2000 players can't wait to get to their desks at City Hall after a hard day's work--or (ssshhh) sometimes even during it--to take up such urban challenges. SimCity 2000, an urban-planning simulation game from Maxis, lets you be the kind of political boss any city machine would envy. You manage the budget, enact zoning rules, build schools, pave roads, keep a lid on crime, and see to it that your town runs so smoothly that your citizens, known as Sims, love living there as much as you do. If all goes well, Sims flock to your city, which grows from vacant lot to thriving metropolis. But watch out for the potholes that line the road to any dream city. One moment you may be glowing as luxury apartments and office buildings spring up, the next minute panic sets in when you notice a cluster of abandoned buildings. And as much as you want to declare "No new taxes" to your SimCitizens, you need revenue. No money, no services, no Sims; you're suddenly the lonely founder of a ghost town. But you can't tax too much, either, or you'll drive away business--and Sims' jobs. There's no surefire way to ensure your Sims' life, liberty and happiness, but whether you play the DOS, Windows or Macintosh version of the game, the following tips will help you build and maintain your Shangri-la. ZONING In SimCity, the earth is flat. New cities thrive on level terrain. If the map for your town features pesky hills where you want to build, flatten them before you begin the game. It won't cost a cent to modify your landscape before you start, but if you wait until you begin play, bulldozing these areas will cost you $25 per tile. (In SimCity, land and water are divided into square tiles.) To level your site, go to the File menu and choose Edit New Map, then go to the Terrain toolbar and click on the Level Terrain icon. Drag your cursor over the tiles you want to be smooth. Sims love nothing more than convenience. Don't make your Sims walk. They prefer to live, shop and work in the same general area, so your city will develop faster if you make sure residential, commercial and industrial areas are convenient to each other. Every tile within any zone you create must be within three tiles of a transportation source, such as a road. To zone an area, go to the City toolbar, click on and hold the Residential, Commercial or Industrial Zone icon, then select Light or Dense development. Use your mouse to highlight the tiles you want in a particular zone. Give industry room to grow. At the start of the game, your city's economy relies on industry. While there's no hard-and- fast rule for the best balance between industrial and residential zones, consider a 3-to-1 ratio in favor of industry as a good rule of thumb. UTILITIES Don't centralize your power. Build your power plant on the outskirts of the areas you want to develop, preferably near the edge of your map. And, unless it's a non-polluting hydroelectric plant, keep it a safe distance from the water supply. This strategic placement lets you string power lines for maximum efficiency and reduces the negative impact of the plant on quality of life--Sims are very touchy about pollution and will leave town if levels get too high. To build your power plant, go to the City toolbar, click on and hold the Power icon, select Power Plant and click on the type of power source you want. Then find a suitable location and click on the map to drop it in place. Upgrade your power plant from time to time. SimCity 2000 lets you choose the year in which you want to begin building your city. The kinds of power plants you can build--coal, oil, nuclear and so on--reflect that year; you have the fewest choices if you start play in 1900 and the most if you begin in 2050. With the exception of wind or hydroelectric power plants, which, barring disaster, last forever, a plant must be replaced after 50 years. When the time comes, you can choose a new power source from among several options. For a small city with ecologically safe power, start with a hydroelectric plant, then add a wind-powered plant, then solar power. For a large city, it's economical to start with coal, then nuclear, then fusion. Water, water everywhere... Water pumps move fresh water from rivers and lakes to your thirsty Sims. Place your pumps on tiles of land that touch two or more tiles of water. Islands and long jetties that jut into the water are also good locations for water pumps. If you don't see a jetty or an island on your map, you can create one. Go to the City toolbar, click on and hold the Bulldozer icon and select Raise Terrain. To build a long jetty, click on one water tile after another until your jetty appears; to drop in an island, click once in the water on the spot where you want it to be. Then go to the City toolbar, click on and hold the Water icon, select Water Pump and click your pumps into place on the jetty or island. MONEY AND GROWTH Everyone supports a tax cut. To attract Sims to your community, lower the personal tax rates. Go to the City toolbar, click on the Budget icon and then click on the Books icon under Property Taxes; from here, you can decrease the Residential property tax. This tax starts at 7 percent when the game begins, and you can usually cut it to 6 percent or even 5 percent without pinching your budget too badly. You can raise the industrial property tax to 8 percent or 9 percent for a brief period to compensate, but remember that doing so will discourage business growth. Let's make a sweetheart deal. To encourage the growth of a specific industry--automotive or electronics, for instance--legislate a tax break. In the City toolbar, click on the Industry Window icon and select Tax Rate to see the City Industry tax rates graph. Go to the bar representing the industry you want to promote; to lower taxes, click on that bar and drag it to the left. The tax rate is 7 percent when you begin play; to boost an industry, drag the bar to 0 percent. Make sure you offer these incentives at the right time, though--lowering taxes on the electronics industry in the early 1900s, for example, won't do any good. Sneak in a tax hike. Taxes are collected retroactively for the entire year in December, and you can squeeze some extra income from the Sims and cover it up before they know what hit them. To raise taxes, go to the City toolbar and click on the Budget icon. Go to the Property Taxes line and jack up the rate in December to 20 percent. Then, when the Budget window appears at the end of December, accept the budget--and the tax increase--by clicking on Done. In January, click on the Budget icon and change the rate back to a more palatable 7 percent or any other level you'd like. Maximize property values. High land values mean you can tax at a lower rate and end up with more revenue. (A 7 percent tax on land worth $200,000 adds $14,000 to city coffers, for example, while a 10 percent tax on land worth $100,000 brings in just $10,000.) To raise land values, place water, trees or parks near a residential zone or build cultural institutions such as museums and libraries. Go to the City toolbar, click on and hold the Landscape, Recreation or Education icon, choose the structure or property you want to add and click on the appropriate site on your map. You can further maximize your revenue by saving your choice waterfront property for desirable residential or commercial zones, which will have very high land values. Get tough on crime. Low crime rates raise property values and attract citizens. To nip lawlessness in the bud, go to the City toolbar, click on the Budget icon and then click on the Advisor icon under Police. If the chief informs you that crime exceeds or just matches the national average, you need to build more police stations. To figure out where to put them, click on the Map icon under the City toolbar. Then click on and hold the Crime icon and choose Crime Rate to see which areas pose the biggest problems. Be a gracious host. Visitors to your city spend money and feed your city coffers. To attract their business, pass ordinances to advertise for tourists, sponsor an Annual Carnival and beautify the city. Go to the City toolbar, click on the Budget icon, then click on the Books icon under City Ordinances. Select the ordinances you want to pass by clicking on them. Keep public attractions out of residential neighborhoods. Your SimCitizens love to visit stadiums, zoos and other attractions, but they don't want to live near them. Stadiums bring outsiders, traffic and noise into the neighborhood, and zoos...well, they smell. Both attractions can drive down land values in their immediate vicinity, sometimes by as much as 20 percent, so keep them away from your Sims' homes. Buffer your zoo with parks or a greenbelt, and build the stadium downtown, not in a residential area. To build either attraction, go to the City toolbar, click on and hold the Recreation icon and select Zoo or Stadium. Click the appropriate spot on your city's map to put the attraction in its place. Make money while you sleep. Once you've got things running smoothly--that is, you have a positive cash flow and no signs of physical decay, such as potholes--beef up the treasury. First, prepare the city to run on its own. Go to the Disasters menu andselect No Disasters, then to the Options menu and select Auto-Budget. Go to the Newspapers menu and suspend delivery by turning off the Subscription and Extra!!! options. Go to the Speed menu, select Cheetah (the fastest) and let the game run by itself overnight. When you wake up, several years will have passed in SimCity and you'll have more money in your treasury from taxes. TRANSPORTATION Become a roads scholar. Sims love their cars. You need an efficient system of roads and highways for any development to occur. To build roads, go to the City toolbar and click on and hold the Road icon; then select Road and click your mouse and drag it over the map horizontally or vertically to lay down the asphalt. Avoid creating diagonal roads--it's an inefficient use of land. Pile on the buses. As your city grows and becomes more crowded, you're bound to face a transportation crisis. Building more roads just means more Sims in cars, more pollution and more space taken from ventures that produce revenue. The secret is to add a bus system, which will help your Sims get around town without increasing pollution significantly. To get the buses rolling around your town, go to the City toolbar, click on and hold the Road icon and select Bus Depot. Create the bus stops by clicking at the busiest intersections. There's something about a train that's magic. Railroads are useful because they carry Sims and freight. Build rail depots in industrial, as well as residential and commercial, zones to help industry development. Go to the City toolbar, click on and hold the Rails icon and select Rail Depot. Then click on the spot on your map where you want to build the station. To encourage Sims to ride the rails, build lots of depots and drop railroad tracks everywhere. Meet the neighbors. There's a whole SimNation that exists just beyond the border of your screen, and commerce with these neighboring towns makes sense--it stimulates trade and tourism. Hook up with your sister cities by running roads, highways or railways right to the edge of your city's land mass. Or build seaports, which encourage industrial growth, and airports, which stimulate commercial growth. Just click on and hold the Ports icon and choose whichever depot you prefer. Then click and drag the mouse over the tiles covering the proposed site. Don't let anyone sell you a bridge. SimEngineers and SimContractors may build bridges along the route of least resistance, and that can upset your grand design. To make them adhere to your plan, go to the City toolbar, click on and hold the Bulldozer icon and choose Raise Terrain. Then click on the tiles on either side of the tile from which you want your bridge to originate to raise that land. Do the same on the opposite shore. Make sure water touches only the side of the specific tile you want your bridge to extend from or reach. INFO TOOLS Exercise your right to know. When you want to learn more about a specific item on your map--a building, school, tile of land, anything--hold down the Shift key and click on the item--an information box will pop up to tell you all about it. You can see what kind of building Sims have constructed, and whether that part of your city has a crime and/or pollution problem. To get this same information, you can also choose to go to the City toolbar, click on the Query icon and then click on the item you want to know about. Listen to the will of the people--sometimes. Watch for messages in the Status bar at the bottom of the screen in the Windows version, or in the Info box at the top of the screen in the DOS or Macintosh version, that keep you in touch with the will of the people. Read the daily papers, too--go to the Newspaper menu and select Subscribe for regular delivery. And periodically consult with your aides by going to the City toolbar, clicking on the Budget icon and then on the Advisor icon for each category, such as Fire or Police. Consider building what the Sims demand, but don't give them everything they want. Sometimes they don't know what's good for them. For example, they may demand roads when you plan to implement a public transit system that will reduce pollution. Let your city grow naturally. Look at the Demand Indicator on the City toolbar to see if your city needs more residential, commercial or industrial zones. When you see a request for one particular new zone, heed the demand. DISASTERS Stop the madness. When the floodwaters rise, a fire breaks out or pollution engulfs your city, halt the game by going to theSpeed menu and selecting Pause. This will postpone the disaster long enough to let you send in your equivalent of the National Guard. Resume play by going back to the Speed menu and selecting the speed you prefer. Fight fire with firepower. Whatever the emergency--plane crash, riots, industrial accident--a fire usually ensues. To douse the flames, go to the City toolbar, click on and hold the Emergency icon and choose Dispatch Firefighters. (Of course, this assumes you've built and funded fire stations.) Then position firefighters in a line between the fire and your city or in a circle around the blaze. If that doesn't contain the flames, go to the City toolbar, click on and hold the Bulldozer icon and select Demolish/Clear. Then click on the tiles you want to use to create a fire break--they'll fill with rubble, which will stop the fire from spreading. Save the game, then let loose a surprise--or two. Just for fun, give your traffic helicopter pilot a jolt. In the City toolbar, click on the Centering icon, then click once on the helicopter. (Make sure you've built a fire department before you do this.) Or type noah in the Windows version, darn in DOS or joke on the Mac. Be sure to save your game before you play around, though; we won't say what's going to happen, but the pilot won't be the only one in for big surprises. Daniel A. Tauber and Brenda Kienan are the authors of SimCity 2000 Strategies and Secrets, Special Edition and eight other computer books, all published by Sybex. How to join the national conference of SimCity mayors By Daniel A. Tauber and Brenda Kienan America Online, CompuServe, Prodigy and the Internet all host areas where SimCity players can hang out and compare notes. On America Online, use the keyword Industry Connection, click on Games and select Maxis (see screen above). You'll have access to an area listing the 10 questions most frequently asked of SimCity tech support; you can also peruse software libraries full of cities and strategy tips to download (copy to your hard disk). CompuServe offers several areas where you can trade SimCity 2000 information, post (upload) city files you have created for others to see, or copy city files others have posted. Try the Maxis sections in the Game Publishers B forum or the Games sections in the Sybex forum. On Prodigy, SimCity fans mingle at the Games bulletin board. Select Jump, type in Games BBS and hit the Enter key. Prodigy doesn't provide an area for players to upload or download city files, but you can use the Mail Manager to swap tips and city files by electronic mail. Most Internet service providers let you access discussion groups about SimCity 2000. Try comp. sys.ibm.pc.games; comp. sys.ibm.pc.games.strategy; or comp.sys.mac. games. To upload and download SimCity 2000 files, it helps to have FTP (file transfer protocol) capability; the FTP site called the /pub/thx directory at ftp.netcom.com specializes in SimCity 2000 files. --D.T. and B.K. Return to April '95 Table of Contents Curator: Bill Mallon Last Updated: Wednesday, April 26, 1995