sim city 4

Soldato
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i got this game yesterday and its brilliant so far, even though i suck at trying to make even a small village

Anybody got any tips on how make some money/get started/be a good mayer?

after about 15minutes i end up with no money :(
 
Soldato
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Just start off small and don't expand too quickly. Don't build any schools or hospitals until they really start moaning (which may be a while) because they really suck your funds dry. I like to start with just lots of farms instead of heavy industry - it's a good money maker and your city will be happier and healthier. Then once you get the money rolling in switch to factories - with the long term goal of progressing to hi-tech industry - that's when you know you've got a good city ;)

Grrrrr....now I wanna go spend the whole weekend playing it again....thanks a bunch :p
 
Soldato
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grrr i just tried to make a tiny village, 20minutes later its there is nobody living there and all the houses etc turned black/unused

why :(?
 
Soldato
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Andr3w said:
grrr i just tried to make a tiny village, 20minutes later its there is nobody living there and all the houses etc turned black/unused

why :(?

Did you have water and power? Also enough jobs (probably industrial) for the people with properly linked roads etc?
 
Soldato
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ok i started again,was doing ok, now im earning less than im spending, this is my current city

Any advice? Why is the blue bit (think thats industry?) building so slow? Any everything in there seems to be bobs grease pit lol

citymediumca2.jpg
 
Soldato
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grr now everybody needs jobs so i just closed the game in anger:(

edit: i heard i can make money from farms etc, how?
 
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Soldato
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The blue bits are commercial not industrial, you'll need industrial first (as with other sim city games). Its probably not developing because it is too close to that power plant, the pollution will put the businesses off. I tend to build the power plant right in the corner of the map away from anything as it always lowers land value. Or just build wind farms instead, especially for a small town.

You need to build roads over your streets, (roads are black, streets light grey) this will allow sims to travel further for work, it will also reduce congestion. Putting in a bus network early on can also help but as your strapped for cash perhaps not the best idea.

Farms will only make a bit of money, however their benefit is they can hold quite a lot of jobs and do not pollute the air ( they do pollute the water though) as youalready have light industry id stick with that. Move it a bit more away from the residential areas and build roads. You should see the land value, and therefore tax revenue increase. Anything else ask away, hope that helps a bit.

edit...joining neighbourhoods, just build a road up to the edge of the map and it will ask if you want to make a connection.
 
Soldato
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Wigan
a good way of starting,

build a cross roads, place a primary school high school large hospital and police and fire.

box them in with road. then build medium housing all around them with a few blocks of shops in between. place ** power far far away from ** town( i start with a coal plant )
make a road leading off to insudstry.( place high and medium industry because ** sims start of dumb). hit fast forward for 30 secs or so.
then pause and use the question mark and click the schools and hospital and turn the funding down to match how many people u have. then slowly place more houseing. make sure u have power and water and keep ** industry away from ** houses, but not to far that they wont comute.

jus expand slowly there after, and when u got the funding place a college and at 35k popoulation look at placing high industry close to ** houseing to get hitec industry and phase out ** dirty stuff
 
Soldato
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27 Oct 2005
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Netherlands
http://www.simtropolis.com/


Site with huge amounts of downloads, has faq's and walkthrough's.

I definitely recommend you get the network add-on mod ( NAM ), this mod adds more intersections, adds roundabouts, elevated stuff and fixes the stupid tracking of sims for their way to work...


As for hints, zone big areas and adjust budgets for schools etc. for size, dotn let a power plant run on 100% for 1000 people...


EDIT: Oh, and remember, it takes a lot of time and patience to get something like this:






This is a good guide for the game for making money, growing and to do that without cheating:
http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=146&threadid=78505&enterthread=y



EDIT 2:
I think the reason why your buildings are abandoned is due to commute time, last, on you pictures i see you only have streets, they are slow and have a very low capacity, consider upgrading them to roads, avenues or highways, and prevent situations where a lot sims have to get through a small street but build more access roads...
 
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Soldato
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Wigan
pick one of the larger squares then u got more space to work with


another good way of geting people in quick is to make small cities around ** main one, ie make a cross road dump in school hospital etc zone a large area of houses hit triple speed link a road off to your are then save the city

u should get an increase of people to your town
 
Soldato
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woah that city up there ^^ is amazing, how the hell did you manage that :eek:

No matter what i do it always seems to go downhill lol :(

Let's have more talk about this game people!
 
Soldato
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Sometimes when you find RCI is falling for no reason you need to build a neighbour city to stimulate it. That might help but it normally happened much later on to me than it is for you. Other than that im not sure sorry.
 
Soldato
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Brit in the USA
Andr3w said:
woah that city up there ^^ is amazing, how the hell did you manage that :eek:

No matter what i do it always seems to go downhill lol :(

Let's have more talk about this game people!

There is always a certain element of randomness I've found - the RCI bars can go up and down for, what appears to be, no reason at all. They crave Commercial and then don't use it, etc, etc. But in the long term it usually works out - try not to get hell-bent on following the RCI bars, just use them as a guide.

One thing the Sims really don't like it not being able to get to work. Make sure you have a good road system. I always have a grid network in the residential, and then once the city grows I make a one-way system to keep traffic flowing nicely. And of course public transport is important - and probably my fave part of the game to build.

Do you have the Rush Hour expansion? That really adds a lot to the game.

Oh, and I think I actually prefer SimCity 3000 - you could just choose a huge map and go wild.....I always feel penned in with SimCity4.
 
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