Part 09: The Middle Stage (Level 14)

Around the start of this mid-way part of the two levels you will notice the arrival of iconic semi-regular character of mafia boss Tony, who arrives in Springfield on the lam from the Feds.

This starts the new quest chain “Wanted: Stereotypical Crime Boss” which begins with a simple and brief quest in which Tony grabs the things that he needs to be comfortable hiding out, and then you place him in the Brown House as his hideout.

In addition to adding this new character to your crew, Tony completes the “Wise Guy” character set for a little extra XP and Money.

After you place Tony in the Brown House – flagging and engaging Wanted: Stereotypical Crime Boss Pt. 2, Homer gets a “!” over his head and when you click on him this flags and starts Wanted: Stereotypical Crime Boss Pt. 3, in which you are prompted to have him break into the Brown House to watch TV, at which point he has his encounter with Tony that is part of this chain.

At this point you should now have completed the Building phase to restore all three of the primary Buildings for the Springfield Nuke Plant, and you should have completed the Wanted: Stereotypical Crime Boss chain through Pt. 3.

This will now move forward the quest chain for Willie, which will have him rake leaves, and also trigger Wanted: Stereotypical Crime Boss Pt. 4 which has Homer hiding Tony in the basement of the Simpson House, which is a 5h quest for Tony.

Managing Space Issues

Your focus should now switch to Time-banditry in the extreme, with most of your effort being devoted to scheduled play so that you maximize your Income.

By this point you will have placed around x20 Brown Houses, and that is about what the average gamer can handle without really getting tired of dealing with them every 5 minutes, so if you are considering placing additional Income Buildings you may want to focus on adding more restaurants or the higher-income houses (which have longer timers), but I chose to add more businesses, including a second Kwik E Mart, a second Krusty Burger, and a second Gulp, but not at the expense of the event mind you...

Shortly after getting Tony in the basement (note I have not been stressing assigning tasks to your crew) Mr. Burns will get a “!” and that flags the continuation of his specific quest-line, It's Pronounced Nu-cular Pt. 4 – which sends Homer to the Plant for a 16h shift!

If you have Hans Moleman handy you should keep him working, and get the rest of your crew assigned to tasks that match your time-banditry schedule for now – going on the 1-hour scheme is the most profitable if you have the time to play, otherwise the 6 or 12 hour schemes will work too provided that you are regularly logging in to harvest the Buildings as well...

Eventually as you complete the chains above you will trigger a chat scene with Millhouse and Lisa in which Milhouse suggests he may know where Bart is – they have to spend the day at school for the shared 6h task first, but once they do Milhouse suggest Bart's Tree House, and that finally triggers the quest Bart Crusoe Pt. 2 which has you build and place the Tree House.

That will cost you $25k so hopefully and with any luck you are in the process of saving up the Money for this! Once you have it, after you place the Tree House (it is an instant build) you get Bart added to your crew!

Progress for the Sake of Progress

You have come a long way mates, and about now it should feel like you are looking at a very nearly fully reconstructed Springfield.

Sure there are some gaps in the downtown area, but you now have a good handle on the infrastructure and the residential construction, and the quests system will help you to flesh out areas like government services and employment to be sure.

You may have noticed some odd behavior on the part of the Conform-O-Meter, and since that is the yardstick by which the basic effectiveness of Game Play is measured, it is about time that we took a look at it!

The Conform-O-Meter

You may have noticed that sections where you had full – or nearly full – stars on the meter now show no stars at all?! Don't worry, your game is not broken or bugged, what has happened here is that the Meter has changed to include all of the additions that you have made to the city as you played and expanded it.

It will help if we take a look at the different actions that can impact and effect the Meter, so first let's examine the Meter to review what it depicts and measures:

(1) A cumulative status of your progress and the Conformity Bonus

(2) Indolence: is altered by the residential housing you have available.

(3) Consumerism: is altered by the number of Stores you have available vs. population.

(4) Tree Hugging: is altered by the trees, bushes, and pollution you have in your city.

(5) Vanity: is altered by the Decorations and special Buildings/objects in your city.

(6) Obedience: is altered by the government and public services available vs. population.

(7) Gluttony: is altered by the number of restaurants you have vs. population.

(8) Righteousness: is altered by a combination of criminal population AND moral behavior.

(9) Socialism: is altered by the number of Origin friends you have and your visiting frequency.

Some of the issues that have direct impact on your Meter include:

City Size: when you expand your city but fail to build Buildings on the open spaces that can have a negative impact upon Consumerism and Obedience, causing them to drop, but it also can cause Tree-Hugging and Righteousness to improve!

Housing Balance: While the ratio is not public information the imbalance in housing types does have an impact on several of the elements, including Obedience, Socialism, Righteousness, and Consumerism.

If you have significantly more of the lower class of housing (Brown Houses) and an absence or disproportionate amount of the more affluent types of housing (Purple, Pink, Blue, White, and Orange – the named houses and the farm are not a factor in this equation) this can be easily felt in the changes to the meter.

Morality: It may sound odd but morality is taken into account for the Meter, and especially the moral behavior of civic officials.

That is to say if the Mayor or the Police Chief participate in questionable or morally ambiguous actions or tasks, the results are a lowering of their authority and subsequently an increase in the effects of crime.

Placing Items that deduct from vandalism can help, but refraining from having your civic leaders participate in questionable activities will really make a difference.

The Meter is sensitive to changes in the city environment, so placing a lot of pollution-producing Buildings or objects, or allowing pollution to remain in the environment when you could clean it up has a decided impact upon the Meter.

Keeping the visible population (your crew) employed regularly has a decidedly positive impact on the meter, as does responding to the task requests by the system in a timely fashion, that latter being something you will want to work on obtaining consistency with.

That pretty much explains the issues that can impact your Meter and score – obviously placing additional objects/Buildings that impact the specific areas of the Meter will also help – as does bearing in mind that the meter is an amalgamation of all eight measurements. Any two that are not in proportion to the rest can (and will) lower the over-all meter results.

Back on Track

Once you place Bart's Tree House and do a few quests with him, Milhouse, and Lisa, you will unlock the Library and once that is placed, gain the character of Martin, who immediately gives you a quest called My Glorious Return, in which you need to buy and place some Snapdragons and Smell like Roses – so get those started straight away.

The placement of the Library will also trigger a rash of other quests to flag, including The Dungeon Keeper Pt. 1 (that leads to the Comic Shop) and will trigger the Release the Hounds quest for Burns.

Ultimately and at the risk of repeating myself again, you really need to work on gathering Money as you still have a lot to buy!