____ _ ____ _ _ _ _ ____ _
/ ___|(_)_ __ ___ / ___(_) |_ _ _ | || | | _ \ _ _ ___| |__
\___ \| | '_ ` _ \| | | | __| | | | | || |_ _____ | |_) | | | / __| '_ \
___) | | | | | | | |___| | |_| |_| | |__ _| |_____| | _ <| |_| \__ \ | | |
|____/|_|_| |_| |_|\____|_|\__|\__, | |_| |_| \_\\__,_|___/_| |_|
|___/
_ _
| | | | ___ _ _ _ __
| |_| |/ _ \| | | | '__|
| _ | (_) | |_| | |
|_| |_|\___/ \__,_|_|
Author: Warfreak
Version: 0.6
Date Started: 31/10/07
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
[1] Introduction, Rigged for Life
[1.01] Introduction
[1.02] Version History
[2] Transportation
[2.01] One Way Roads
[2.02] Avenues
[2.03] Ground Level Highways
[2.04] Monorail
[2.05] Grand Railroad Station
[2.06] Elevated Rail
[2.07] Public Parking Garage
[2.08] Toll Booths
[2.09] Ferry Terminals
[3] Graphs and Data
[3.01] Congestion v Volume Maps
[3.02] Traffic Volume
[4] Taxes
[4.01] Agriculture
[5] MySims
[5.01] Microphone
[5.02] U-Drive-It
[5.03] MySims Transport
[6] Purely Pointless
[6.01] Signs and Labels
[6.02] Building Style Control
[6.03] Disasters
[6.04] Transportation Map
[7] Not So Pointless
[7.01] Route Query
[8] Strategies
[8.01] Movement
[8.02] Region Play
[8.03] Utilities
[8.04] Civics
[9] Closeup
[9.01] Power
[9.02] Water
[9.03] Garbage
[9.04] Education
[9.05] Healthcare
[9.06] Rewards
[9.07] Ordinances
[9.08] Transit
[10] City Building
[10.01] Small Town
[10.02] Medium Village
[10.03] Large Suburb
[10.04] Massive Metropolis
[A] Contact Information
[B] Webmaster Information
[C] Credits
[D] Sites FAQ is on
[E] Copyright
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1.01] Introduction
Well, given the lack of guides on Rush Hour, I've decided to make one on the
new features in Rush Hour, despite the game being released 3 years ago. It
doesn't matter, I love this game. Anyway, lets start the guide on the features
new to Rush Hour.
As a note to those who haven't already, go to Simtropolis and download the
latest NAM (Network Addon Mod). Why? Because it makes your Sims that much
smarter in terms of pathfinding. They won't use cars all the time when the
local subway system is faster. And for those who also haven't already, please
read thy451's guide. It is a must read as it will help you understand the
concepts. And forgive the obsession with the Subway, the best public
transportation system on earth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1.02] Version History
Version 0.1 [31/10/07]
Finished my Sims 2 Pets Guide, starting a pet project. It should finish in
about 2 to 5 updates. And I need to get the ASCII up there. Chapter 2 is done
and that is the biggest area. The other chapters are relatively moot and
easier to finish. 2 to 5 updates is certainly doable.
Version 0.2 [1/11/07]
ASCII art added. The guide is basically complete. I hope this helps for those
playing Rush Hour and gives some tips on the new content.
Version 0.3 [30/6/08]
Felt like it needed an update. Moved it into an FAQ instead of an in-depth
guide.
Version 0.4 [1/7/08]
Update, finishing this as an FAQ. 6 parts of Chapter 9 and Chapter 10 need to
be finished for completion.
Version 0.5 [2/7/08]
Chapter 9 Complete. Now Chapter 10 needs to be finished.
Version 0.6 [3/7/08]
Completed Guide. I hope this helps people.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2.01] One Way Roads
Well, these roads do as they imply. They are one way roads, where traffic
flows in one way, the way you decide it flow. Because it only travels in one
direction, the road's capacity is doubled. It will make it far easier on
intersections as there is no need for turning, and given the amount of turns
and intersections in my city, there is a need for these. However, these do
bring a problem. By foring traffic to flow in one direction, you should have
a second one way road, in the other direction, to force traffic in another
direction.
Needless to say, the zoning for these areas should be commercial, given the
desirability of the area, there will be a lot of traffic. In terms of
commercial zoning, more traffic means more customers, a bonus for the
Commercial Zones, which would thrive. The reason why it is not as good for
Residential Zones, and some might disagree over its impact, is that traffic
noise will be hell. Also, there will be problems over pollution. Given that
if you have placed the roads properly, there will be a large number of cars
given that the roads are forcing the flowing of a large number of cars. This
large volume will produce large amounts of pollution, and this isn't too
good for any zone.
My opinion is that these shouldn't be used too often. I normally use a
large public transportation system to ease traffic. However, if you are a
keen motorist, you probably will need these in the heart of your traffic
flows to ensure that traffic flows, and not create traffic jams. Let me show
you an example of how these should be used.
|->->->->->->->->->|
|CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC|
|CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC|
|CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC|
|CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC|
|CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC|
|CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC|
|<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-|
Let the little arrows point show the one way roads and their direction. You
can see that for every one way road, there should be another one nearby in
the other direction.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2.02] Avenues
These are the most wonderful additions to Rush Hour. Although you can build 2
roads next to each other, the avenue has benefits over dual roads. First of
all, traffic flows in one direction. Let me provide you an example of the
two examples, one of dual roads, the other of an avenue.
Dual Roads
===========================
->->->->->->->->->->->->->-
<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<
===========================
->->->->->->->->->->->->->-
<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<
===========================
Avenues
===========================
->->->->->->->->->->->->->-
->->->->->->->->->->->->->-
=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=
<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<
<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-<
===========================
The key is that the arrows point in a direction indicate the traffic direction
and the lane direction on the roads and the avenue.
As you can see, the avenue is far superior to dual roads. The traffic flows in
two lanes, rather than one, unlike the dual roads where it is still one
lane. As such, there is a higher speed limit on the avenue, making it faster
and better for relieving your conjested roads. Roads simply cannot cope with
the amount of traffic, while the avenue can handle is so much better.
Where should you place these. Obviously, in your highly conjested areas. Of
course, you will need to demolish some buildings if your city has no room for
improvement, like mine. However, when you are planning new residential zones,
especially the high density zones, you will need avenues to replace the roads,
and the streets if you use auto streets, because high density will produce a
lot of traffic, even if you have public transport.
However, don't be too liberal with avenues. They do cost a fair amount to
maintain if you have a lot, but, the amount of happiness your Sims will
gain, and the improvements on commute time will be paid for in taxes. Let me
show you a method to plan your residential areas, well, this is how I now
plan them anyway.
===============================
=CCCCCCCCC=CCCCCCCCC=CCCCCCCCC=
=CCCCCCCCC=CCCCCCCCC=CCCCCCCCC=
=CCCCCCCCC=CCCCCCCCC=CCCCCCCCC= Key
=RRRRRRRRR=RRRRRRRRR=RRRRRRRRR= = means Road
=RRRRRRRRR=RRRRRRRRR=RRRRRRRRR= + means Avenue
=RRRRRRRRR=RRRRRRRRR=RRRRRRRRR= C means Commercial Zoning
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ R means Residential Zoning
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
=RRRRRRRRR=RRRRRRRRR=RRRRRRRRR=
=RRRRRRRRR=RRRRRRRRR=RRRRRRRRR=
=RRRRRRRRR=RRRRRRRRR=RRRRRRRRR=
=CCCCCCCCC=CCCCCCCCC=CCCCCCCCC=
=CCCCCCCCC=CCCCCCCCC=CCCCCCCCC=
=CCCCCCCCC=CCCCCCCCC=CCCCCCCCC=
===============================
Well, this doesn't include anything such as police, education, and such, nor
does it include public transport. However, the main theory behind this is that
the residential lots face the road. By doing so, all traffic from the
residential zones flow onto the avenue. By doing so, this will relieve the
conjestion from the roads. Also, the reason for the Commercial Zones is that
is will provide close jobs, that will relieve pressure on the avenue as it
will be conjested as the area becomes High Density and more cars come along.
Anyway, this is a basic plan. You can use it, not use it, take some ideas, or
laugh at it. If you do use it, place public transport and the other anemities
needed to make it a better place.
While I am at it, public transportation is best with a little mod off
Simtropolis. It is a mod, the name escapes me, where you can place a bus/
subway station on a road, avenue and street. This makes it easier as it does
save space and allows for two transportation system in one, with little
maintenance cost. With this mod, I spend about �3000 in maintenance of the
stations and subway, making about �8000 in fares. Who says public transport
sucks?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2.03] Ground Level Highways
I am not a big fan of Ground Level Highways. I will admit this straight off
the bat. However, I am not a fan of Highways altogether. The only impressive
thing about Highways is that its massive commercial buster effect. Anyway,
let me talk about Ground Level Highways.
The Ground Level Highways are most cost effective, therefore, cheaper to
build and maintain than their Elevated counterparts. However, unlike the
Elevated Highway, the Ground Level Highway cannot build roads or streets
unleath it. This is a problem as the Ground Highway requires you to build
overpasses to allow traffic to cross over the Highway. This serves as its
own problem as it is expensive to maintain a lot of overpasses.
Well, the beneficial part of overpasses is that they also serve as entry
points of the highway. This is important as it also acts as a U turn for
the highway. That is, traffic can entry through the Side Onramps, which
allow traffic to join the Highway on a parallel road, and reverse their
direction on the overpass. Like the elevated Highway, there are three
lanes. Unlike the avenue, there are problems with Highway use altogether
that I find problematic and don't like.
The first and first, is intersections. Whereas on roads and avenues, the
intersections can act as turning points as well as U turn areas. The
Highway has no way for that to work without the use of T junctions and
the Cloverleaf, both consume large amounts of space. The Cloverleaf is
the worst by far. It sucks up large amounts of valuable real estate that
can be better used to build up your economy. It is also expensive to
maintain. The second intersection is the T junction. This, unlike the
Cloverleaf which combines 2 Highways, combines 1 with another, meeting
at a perpendicular junction. This also sucks up large amounts of space as
well.
The second problem are the lanes. There are 3 lanes, as usual, but there
is no real method to change from one direction to another. The use of
overpasses need to be common because that is the only method to change
lanes from side on ramps. This is a problem not common with the elevated
Highway system as you can have roads underneath the highway to another
Side ramp.
Therefore, the only use I can find for Highways is the Commercial buster
of 100,000. For more information, consult thy451's guide available freely
on GameFAQs. Other than that, it is a waste of space that can be easily
fixed with clever use of roads, avenues and a public transport system.
However, sooner or later in the game, your Avenues are not going to be able
to keep up with all the extra residents who want to use their car instead of
public transport. This means that you are going to have to replace the Avenue
with Highways. The problem is, both Highways need some onramps and offramps
that require you to do some demolishing. I really don't like demolishing,
since there are jobs and people living there.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2.04] Monorail
The monorail is a fast moving public transport system that you can use in your
city. Indeed, the monorail is a fast system, look at the speed of the
monorail unit. I have use these systems before, and there are some pros and
cons that I wish to discuss with you.
Lets start with the benefits first. The first benefit is the speed. The units
are fast, reducing the commute time of those who use the monorail. This will
be great for your city as lower commute time increases the desirability of an
area, making you more in taxes.
Another benefit is that doesn't interfere with your road system. Don't get
too carried away. You cannot actually build on the roads, you can pass over
them with your monorail. This is great, because, unlike trains, this will
not hold up your impatient Sim drivers below.
The third, and most pointless benefit is because it looks much better than its
Elevated Rail counterpart. Again, pointless point.
However, there are several disadvantages of a monorail system. The first is
that the rails are inflexible. Unlike the Subway, where you can have the
rails bend in any way, shape and form, the monorail is rather like the train
system. You need to have a curve to turn the monorail, taking up valuable
space below. Of course, you can place this over a road, but it will need
slightly more space than that.
The second arises from the first. Because the system is inflexible, there
will not be many stops. Again, unlike the Subway system, where you can
have a stop anywhere, you can only have a stop, logically one would
assume, on monorail tracks only. To have full coverage of a city, even on
the smallest map, your monorail system will be in criss crosses everywhere
to provide full coverage. And for those who ask, my monorail city was a
failure. It didn't provide the fast commute I was hoping for.
The third disadvantage is that it still consumes land. Although roads can be
built beneath it, just as a crossing mind you, most of the monorail will
consume the land beneath it. Nothing can be built beneath it, making it
rather annoying, and a waste of space. No Zoning, no buildings, nothing. For
the last time, let me compare this with the Subway. Although the Subway system
has a very high initial setup cost, it doesn't not waste as much space, only
land for the stations.
Therefore, my final verdict? Fail. I won't use it, but that doesn't mean that
you shouldn't, or try at least. If you want an above ground rail, use the
Elevated Rail instead. Much better than the monorail.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2.05] Grand Railroad Station
Well, the Grand Railroad Station is actually a reward. It is model on
Grand Central Station of New York. Anyway, if you are a railroad user, which
I am not, you can place this in the heart of your Commercial district. This
is for the reason that it will increase the desirability of the nearby
Commercial zones as well as serve as a railway station. This railway station
has the capacity of several train stations, so it would be wise to place it
in the heart of Downtown. Again, I prefer to use Subway, better and faster.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2.06] Elevated Rail
I would give the same comment as the monorail, rather pointless. However,
unlike the monorail, there is a standout difference. The Elevated Rail is the
overhead extension of the Subway system. Through the construction of a Subway-
Elevated Rail Transfer, you can link the two systems into one rapid transit
system.
Still, the problem of Elevated Rail remains. It drains up the valuable space
above the ground as well as not being able to provide full coverage without
the backup of the subway system. Still, if you do use the monorail, I suggest
that the Elevated Rail system replace it for several reason.
In case of inflexibility, there is the option to revert to the Subway system
to provide full coverage of your city, in lieu of the hapless monorail system.
This is an added benefit, as if the Subway costs get to expensive, in more
open areas, with room to spare such as large distances, the Elevated Rail
System, still connected to the Subway system, will be able to appear, without
the need to build transfer points.
Besides the cost savings, if you decide, for some reason or another, to use
the Elevated Rail, you can have the option to service areas that are too
steep or hard, such as mountains, in which Elevated Rail cannot service.
Again, this is more on a supporting system of the Subway.
However, I belive that Subways, and to a smaller extent, Buses, play the
most important role in public transportation. The Elevated Rail plays the
role of a cheaper, more open form of the Subway. However, when your city
does develop, the large open spaces will disappear and soon, your Elevated
Rail will perform a full retreat underground. Therefore, stick with the
Subway and the Buses, they are the main players, with the Elevated Rail
playing a support role if need be. For the love of God, don't use the
monorail. It is hopeless. With a capital H, but you get the idea.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2.07] Public Parking Garage
These, for me, don't have much purpose in the game. The supposed use of the
parking garage is that it provides a place for Sim, who like to drive, a place
to park their little cars, and then board a form of public transport. These
should be placed in the residential areas for the following reasons.
The commute time will be quicker, hopefully. This is because most Sims will
drive up to the garages and park there, and ride public transport. With more
cars off the streets, your Sims who remain driving will have an easier
commute while the Sims who parked will hopefully have a faster commute.
Also, Sims only have a car. They don't have two cars, one in a residential
area and another in a Commercial car park. Therefore, RESIDENTIAL AREAS ONLY.
Let me explain the theory begin the parking garage. You can build less
public transport stations in residential areas with the parking garage as
your Sim can drive to the garage, walk to the station, and catch public
transport. This public transport will then serve all areas in the commercial
and industrial areas where they work. Therefore, less stations in the
residential area, more in commercial. Once there and out of the station, they
walk to their workplace.
However, there is a good argument against. If you have a decent public
transport system, you will be able to service all areas, residential,
commercial and industrial, therefore, the need for these garages is moot.
Also, if there a large demand for the garage, this will place a lot of strain
on your public transport system, pushing it into overcapacity, and that will
lead to slower commute times, instead of faster commute times.
Again, however, a reason for is that you can force your Sims to use public
transport to go to other citys, if they have jobs, and make money off them.
With the addition of the Network Addon Mod, the usefulness of these Garages
is near none. Again, it all depends on your public transportation network,
because afterall, you might just find a use for these little critters.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2.08] Toll Booths
If you really want to make money off your roads, you can now do so. If you
have a conjested road, playing a toll booth will force your Sims to pay for
use of the road. A few of these can force Sims to pay for entry to one
location.
You can place tolls on streets, roads, avenues and straight segments of
highways. Of course, say if there was only one travel route to an area with a
lot of jobs. By placing a toll there, you force all Sims travelling by car
to pay you money to get to their end location. And what is to stop you from
placing more than one? The more the merrier. You can have 10 tolls on a
straight segment of highway from A to B, making you tons in profits. However,
is it too good to be true?
Point one, the tolls do nothing to relieve the conjestion on the roads. All
it does it force Sims to find another, toll-free route to work, creating
conjestion on other roads. Certainly not relieving the conjestion.
The second point is that the tolls actually increase the commute time. These
are not your cashless scanners, these are ones where you stop, dig out some
coins and pay the person in the booth. This, therefore, increases the
commute time. Not good.
The third point is that your Sim do not like paying tolls. No one will want
to pay for something that was previously free do they? This will cause for
a drop in your mayor rating, which can make the difference between that
elusive reward that you've got your eyes on.
A final point, which is minor, is that there will be no road access to
the zones that face the toll booth. These serve as buildings, therefore,
zones will have the no car zot over it. Use these areas to place parks.
My opinion? Don't use tolls. There are many other methods to raise money
rather than tolls. If you do so, you enjoy the money you make, which will make
you, in a way, dependent on toll money. Much like fares from mass transit, it
can move up and down, in an unpredictable manner and therefore, an
unreliable source of money. You make more from taxes if you play it right.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2.09] Ferry Terminals
Well, this is mainly for those with islands on the map, or water. These come
in two flavours. Passenger Ferries and Car & Passenger Ferries. This is done
to an alternative to a bridge. Bridges are relatively expensive and this is a
cheaper alternative to cross the water.
You place the terminals on the edge of the water, rotating it and mucking
around until you get the terminal right. This has to be done for both your
entry and exit point. These need to be connected to a road to passengers and
cars can access the terminals.
The passenger ferry only takes pedestrians while the car ferry can transport
both pedestrians and cars. The two ferries cannot dock at each other's docks,
they can only dock on their own type. If you are on the same body of water
as another city, you can make travel to other cities with ferry terminals on
both sides.
However, the problem with ferries is their speed. You commute is likely to
suffer until you build the bridges or you pay for the public transport such
as buses (with the bridges of course) and the subway, which can bypass water,
making it fun. Therefore, ferries, for me anyway, are a no go. Seriously, do
not rely on the ferries if you want quick commute. In fact, don't rely on
them at all, build mass transit such as Subways and proper use of roads,
avenues, and in the rare case, the Highway.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[3.01] Congestion v Volume Maps
One of the most useful additions to Rush Hour without a doubt, if you want
to manage your city properly. The first part of the map is the conjestion
map.
The conjestion map will show you the conjestion of your city's infrastructure,
or to be more accurate, transportation infrastructure. It will show you the
road, street, avenue or highway in several different shades of blue. The
first will be white. This means it is hardly conjested and is handling rather
well. From the white onwards, the shades of blue will progressively get
darker. Light blue means it is ok, handling rather well. However, if you get
full blue, as in a nice, dark shade of blue, it means the road is heavily
conjested and it would be wise for you to upgrade the road. This map basically
gives you a general idea the areas that will need improvement, and where the
traffic actually flows.
The second is that you can change from conjestion to volume. Volume shows you
the actual amount of traffic that flows on any specific piece of transport
infrastructure. Unlike the conjestion map, the volume graph can, as well as
show you the amount of cars on the roads, it will show the amount of people
using public transport, such as monorail, subway, rail, etc, as well as the
volume of freight trucks around the cities, ferries and pedestrians. This
shows you where the most cars are, better if you want to make a successful
tollroad.
There are two parts to the volume map. These is the morning commute and the
evening commute. You must realise that Sims don't always travel the same
way to and from work. This will show the effectiveness of your one way
roads if you have any as this will have a significant impact on volume. Again,
like the conjestion graph, there are 5 shades of volume. Green means that
there is little traffic, while yellow means a fair amount. Red basically
means that you need some serious improvement.
If it is red for a road system, it can be easily replaced by avenues. However,
if the avenue is red, that will cause you some problems as only the Highway
can outdo the avenue, and placing a brand new highway in downtown can cause
some serious problems. Therefore, you are going to have to relieve those red
areas with public transport, either buses or subway, depending on your
preference.
Let me remind you that you can also check the volume of your public transport
system. This will show you the areas that you can remove to save some money
because no one is using it, and show you the areas that you need to back up
with more infrastructure. Do not forget that you should be careful with using
buses to relieve your conjested road system. The problem is, because you are
using buses, a road vehicle, it will add to conjestion. It should remove the
volume of cars, but will still conjest the roads as it will increase the
volume of buses. In case you don't understand, by using buses, you will be
increasing conjestion on the roads because buses are still road vehicles.
The reason I have titled it Conjestion v Volume is because there is a
difference between volume and conjestion. Conjestion means how much the
road is over capacity. Volume shows the amount of users of a specific
transport infrastructure system. For example, you can have a Highway that
is not conjested, ie, white, whereas the volume is high. This is because
the highway can handle large amounts of traffic. The other extreme is a
street. It can be heavily conjested, ie, a deep shade of blue, while its
volume is relatively low. This is because it is far overcapacity, because
the street cannot handle large amounts of traffic, where the volume might not
actually be that large. This is easily demonstrated by the fact that a
Highway can hold 4 times the traffic of a road which in turn, holds 10 times
more traffic than a street. Check thy451 guide for more about the capacity of
roads, streets and highways.
Therefore, remember the difference. Conjestion is how much a road is over
its base capacity and volume is the amount of users of a specific transport
mode, be it cars, buses, freight trucks to rail.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[3.02] Traffic Volume
The new form of graph data available to you as mayor. This basically shows
you the composition of all traffic used. But with this graph, you must
remember that some Sims may "double dip" so to speak. This is because they
may walk towards a subway system to get to work, making that Sim's travel
show up twice. This is easily demonstrated in a large city. You can use the
graph and add up all the traffic volumes, and that will easily exceed your
population. Therefore, this double dipping system is true to an extent.
Anyway, if you have public transport, as Mayor, your concern is to have a
large volume of public transport travel over cars. You do not want cars to
dominate traffic for several reasons.
1. It will jack up pollution faster than a fighter jet at top speed. Even with
the Automobile Emissions Reduction Act, pollution will be terrible.
2. It will not be good for commute time. The more cars on the road, the more
people who will block the flow of traffic.
3. It isn't a difficult task to have a road system compared to a efficient
public transport system.
Ergo, you should use the traffic volume to see where your city is heading. And
try to keep cars as low as possible, since you don't want commute time up
to your neck.
Why am I so towards a shorter commute? Well, commute time will be a big
factor in desiribility, and that means taxes. Shorter commute will lead to
more Sims wanting to desire to be there, leading to ��� Sims, making you
more money. This is the reason for short commute. And mass transit can provide
this. Proof of this is my Metropolis, which is a city on the LARGEST POSSIBLE
MAP. Guess the Commute Time. 60 minutes. The maximum possible is 150. So it
isn't too bad, but could be better.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[4.01] Agriculture
Whereas in SimCity 4, agriculture was there for the farmers market, to
pollute your water and to look pretty, in Rush Hour, they are a tad more
useful, providing some money to your city's coffers. Don't get carried away
with this however. They do not provide a lot of money. In fact, I have built
some cities, where it is just farmland, no residents, no shops, no anything
except for farms. The taxes are enough to maintain the wind turbines and
the roads with a little profit of �100 at most. Therefore, do not rely on
farms for taxes.
You are better off rezoning your light density industrial land to medium or
high, as you make more in taxes from dirty, manufacturing and high tech. Of
course, you will rely on high tech in the end if you want a sprawling
metropolis. How your Sims get their manufactured goods from firms that wheel
and deal in Tiberium beats me. Actually, it does make sense, because Tiberium
is basically a crystal that sucks in minerals. Guess Kane isn't all that
crazy after all, nuking GDI's orbital command. Anyway, Agriculture taxes isn't
too great, and is really, a last resort for you.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[5.01] Microphone
MySims, which has become a game on Wii and DS, has been expended in Rush
Hour. The first big improvement is your Microphone tool. Really, it is vox
popping a random Sim on the street. Anyway, there are two colours from your
Sims thought bubbles, red and green. Red obviously means you're doing a crap
job here in their opinion whilst green means you're doing fine.
The icons they use are symbolic of what they think. The scales for example,
means law and justice, the little snake on the staff (I seriously cannot
remember the name of that thing), represents health, cars means traffic and
commute time whilst the graduation hat means education. Sometimes, you might
get the sun, which probably means pollution, but can be pointless.
To use the microphone tool, click on the MySims panel and click on the
Microphone tool. Zoom down to street level, and click on a random Sim with the
Microphone tool. If you are allowed to vox pop them, you will see the mike
change colour. Click on them to see their opinion. Everytime I try, they seem
to disappear. Guess they don't like me interrupting their morning walk but
they interrupt me with pointless banter, and yes, I'm talking to you Bob
Newbie.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[5.02] U-Drive-It
One of the most highlighted features of the Rush Hour expansion pack. A basic
summary of u-Drive-It is that you get control of a random vehicle and drive
it around your city. Actually, it has many, many uses. There are missions that
you can drive around with, test out your city's roads and earn some nifty
rewards. Part 1, the vehicles that you can drive, sail or fly.
The first lot of vehicles are cars that you can drive around the city, on your
road network. Below I will list the cars available and the buildings that are
needed to unlock them. These cars are available for use anytime you want with
your catalog, provided that the buildings required still exist.
* Car = Police Car * Unlocked By = Police Station
* Car = Police Van * Unlocked By = Deluxe Police Station
* Car = Fire Truck * Unlocked By = Fire Station
* Car = School Bus * Unlocked By = Elementary School
* Car = Garbage Truck * Unlocked By = Landfill or Waste to Energy
Plant
* Car = Ambulance * Unlocked By = Hospital
* Car = Mayor Limousine * Unlocked By = Mayor's House
* Car = City Bus * Unlocked By = Bus Station
* Car = Army Tank * Unlocked By = Army Base Business Deal
* Car = Army Truck * Unlocked By = Army Base Business Deal
* Car = Hearse * Unlocked By = Cementery
* Car = Taxi Cab * Unlocked By = Small Landing Strip
* Car = News Van * Unlocked By = TV Station
* Car = Toxic Waste Truck * Unlocked By = Toxic Waste Dump Business Deal
* Car = Ice Cream Truck * Unlocked By = 2 Elementary Schools
* Car = � MySim Car * Unlocked By = � Wealth MySim
* Car = �� MySim Car * Unlocked By = �� Wealth MySim
* Car = ��� MySim Car * Unlocked By = ��� Wealth MySim
The second batch of vehicles are the trains. These trains can only be driven
provided that you have the rails that they run on. It is actually quite fun
to drive these.
* Train = Passenger Train * Unlocked By = 2 Stations and 20 Tiles of Rail
* Train = Steam Train * Unlocked By = 2 Stations and 20 Tiles of Rail
* Train = Freight Train * Unlocked By = 1 Freight Station and 20 Tiles
of Rail
* Train = Monorail * Unlocked By = 2 Monorail Stations and 20 Tiles
of Monorail Track
The third lot of vehicles are airplanes. Yes, you can actually fly planes as
Mayor, including UFOs and Military Fighters. Nothing much when your Police
Chief asks you to use a Fighter Jet to demolish a lot downtown, nothing much
at all.
* Plane = Medical Helicopter * Unlocked By = Hospital
* Plane = Attack Jet * Unlocked By = Area 5.1
* Plane = Attack Helicopter * Unlocked By = Army Base (Air Force Base)
* Plane = News Helicopter * Unlocked By = TV Station
* Plane = Police Helicopter * Unlocked By = Deluxe Police Station
* Plane = Fire Plane * Unlocked By = Fire Department Landing Strip
* Plane = Sky Writing Plane * Unlocked By = Small Landing Strip
* Plane = Crop Dusting Plane * Unlocked By = Small Landing Strip
* Plane = Sky Diving Plant * Unlocked By = Small Landing Strip
NB: The last three planes are only available from a Landing Strip, not an
Airport. Therefore, if you want these planes, you will need the landing
strip.
The final batch of vehicles need some water to play on. Yes, these vehicles
are boats. They are relatively fun to muck around with, smashing a fishing
boat into an ocean liner, nothing much.
* Boat = Ferry Boat * Unlocked By = Car Ferry
* Boat = Speed Boat * Unlocked By = Marina
* Boat = Fishing Boat * Unlocked By = Marina
* Boat = Motor Boat * Unlocked By = Marina
* Boat = Cigar Boat * Unlocked By = Marina
* Boat = Tug Boat * Unlocked By = Marina
* Boat = Yacht * Unlocked By = Marina
NB: I have missed a boat, I'm not telling which. Guess who.
To drive a vehicle, it is relatively simple. All you need to do is to follow
the instructions on the status bar. However, there are missions that you can
do in these vehicles. I will list down the vehicle, mission, requirements and
of course, the rewards. By unlocking rewards, you bypass the requirements that
one would normally need to undertake before that can use that reward. For
example, you would need a certain population to get a radio station, but that
can be bypassed with some of these missions. Evil missions are listed as Evil.
NOTE: All missions are either good or evil. Good missions will give you an
increase in Mayor's Rating while Evil missions, which are marked so,
will decrease Mayor's Rating. I'm noting this now so I don't have to do
more typing later on.
CAR MISSIONS
Mission : On the Trail
Car : Police Car
Requirements : Police Station, >100 Commercial Lots, >50 Residential Lots
Reward : Complete 4 Police Missions to unlock the Deluxe Police Station
Mission : Disturbance Reported
Car : Police Car
Requirements : Police Station, >50 Residential Lots
Reward : Complete 4 Police Missions to unlock the Deluxe Police Station
Mission : Catch the Robbers
Car : Police Car
Requirements : Police Station, >50 Commercial Lots
Reward : Complete 4 Police Missions to unlock the Deluxe Police Station
Mission : Nab the Car-Jacker
Car : Police Car
Requirements : Police Station
Reward : Complete 4 Police Missions to unlock the Deluxe Police Station
(Any of the above 4 missions will do, these are the "Good" missions)
Mission : Shakedown (Evil)
Car : Police Car
Requirements : Police Station, >100 Commercial Services � Lots
Reward : ���
Mission : Cop Gone Bad
Car : Police Van
Requirements : Deluxe Police Station, >100 Commercial Services � Lots
Reward : Mayor Rating
Mission : Freedom of Expression (Evil)
Car : Civilian Car
Requirements : Police Station, >50 Commercial Lots
Reward : ���
Mission : Escape with the Loot
Car : Get Away Van
Requirements : Deluxe Police Station, >50 Commercial Lots
Reward : ���
Mission : Fire!
Car : Fire Truck
Requirements : Fire Station, Raging Fire
Reward : Complete this 3 times to unlock Fire Department Landing Strip,
Mission : Hose Down the Cats (Evil)
Car : Fire Truck
Requirements : Fire Station, >500 Residential Lots
Reward : ���
Mission : Help the Cats
Car : Fire Truck
Requirements : Fire Station, >500 Residential Lots
Reward : None
Mission : Get Little Binghamton to School
Car : School Bus
Requirements : Elementary School, >50 Residential Lots
Reward : Private School
Mission : Study for Profit (Evil)
Car : School Bus
Requirements : >1 Elementary School, High School, >50 Commercial Lots
Reward : Nuclear Power Plant
Mission : Uncle Vinnie Asks a Favor
Car : Garbage Truck
Requirements : Police Station, 1 Residential Lot, Landfill Capacity
Reward : Federal Prison
Mission : A Special Load of Garbage (Evil)
Car : Garbage Truck
Requirements : Police Station, 1 Commercial Lot, Landfill Capacity
Reward : Toxic Waste Dump
Mission : Slipped on Llama Dung
Car : Ambulance
Requirements : Hospital, >50 Commercial Lots
Reward : Disease Research Centre
Mission : Shady Ambulance Driver (Evil)
Car : Ambulance
Requirements : Hospital, >50 Commercial Services � Lots, >50 Commercial
Services �� Lots
Reward : Court House
Mission : You CAN Throw Money At It
Car : Mayor's Limousine
Requirements : Mayor's House, >50 Commercial Lots
Reward : City Hall
Mission : High Roller in Town (Evil)
Car : Mayor's Limousine
Requirements : Mayor's House
Reward : Casino
Mission : Mayor [Name] Visits Landmark
Car : Mayor's Limousine
Requirements : Mayor's House, >0 Landmarks
Reward : None
Mission : Ribbon Cutting for [Mayor Name]
Car : Mayor's Limousine
Requirements : Mayor's House, >200 Commercial Lots
Reward : None
Mission : Sick Bus Driver
Car : City Bus
Requirements : >3 Bus Stations
Reward : Convention Centre
Mission : Dr. Vu Steals a Bus (Evil)
Car : City Bus
Requirements : >1 Bus Station, >50 Residential Lots
Reward : ���
Mission : Launch Time
Car : Army Truck
Requirements : Missile Testing Range, Army Base
Reward : None
Mission : Steal a Warhead (Evil)
Car : Army Truck
Requirements : Army Base, Deluxe Police Station
Reward : ���
Mission : New Missile Testing
Car : Tank
Requirements : Army Base
Reward : Missile Testing Range
Mission : Tank Joy Ride (Evil)
Car : Tank
Requirements : Deluxe Police Station, Army Base
Reward : ���
Mission : Teach Those Strikers a Lesson (Evil)
Car : Tank
Requirements : Army Base, >0 Commercial Lots
Reward : ���
Mission : Dr. Vu Gets a Tank
Car : Tank
Requirements : Army Base, Mayor's House, >50 Residential Lots, Police Station
Reward : Movie Studio
Mission : Get the Deceased to The Funeral
Car : Hearse
Requirements : Cemetery, >50 Residential Lots
Reward : House of Worship
Mission : Sinlent Orange (Evil)
Car : Hearse
Requirements : Cemetery, >50 Commercial Lots
Reward : Army Base
Mission : Scientist Late for Flight
Car : Taxi Cab
Requirements : Small Landing Strip, >50 Residential Lots
Reward : Opera House
Mission : Insane Taxi!!!
Car : Taxi Cab
Requirements : Small Landing Strip, >50 Residential Lots
Reward : ���
Mission : Mayor's Got New Socks!
Car : News Van
Requirements : Mayor's House, TV Station
Reward : The Bureau of Bureaucracy
Mission : Paparazzi (Evil)
Car : News Van
Requirements : Mayor's House, TV Station
Reward : ���
Mission : Goo for the Masses (Evil)
Car : Toxic Waste Truck
Requirements : Toxic Waste Dump, >100 Residential Lots
Reward : Cemetery
Mission : Ice Cream Delivery
Car : Ice Cream Truck
Requirements : >2 Elementary Schools
Reward : State Fair
Mission : Pure Evil Ice Cream (Evil)
Car : Ice Cream Truck
Requirements : >2 Elementary Schools
Reward : Part of Area 5.1
Mission : Run Some Errands
Car : � MySim Vehicle
Requirements : >50 Commercial Services � Lots, � MySim
Reward : None
Mission : Knock Over [Target] (Evil)
Car : � MySim Vehicle
Requirements : Police Station, >1 Residential Lot, >2 Commercial Services �
Lots, � MySim
Reward : ���
Mission : [MySim] Goes Shopping
Car : �� MySim Vehicle
Requirements : >100 Residential Lots, >2 Commercial Services �� Lots, �� MySim
Reward : None
Mission : White Collar Crime (Evil)
Car : �� MySim Vehicle
Requirements : >1 Residential Lots, >0 Commercial Services �� Lots, �� MySim
Reward : ���
Mission : Take a Break at the Casino
Car : ��� MySim Vehicle
Requirements : Casino, >1 Residential Lot, ��� MySim
Reward : None
Mission : [MySim] Goes Gift Shopping (Evil)
Car : ��� MySim Vehicle
Requirements : >500 Residential Lots, >2 Commercial Services ��� Lots,
��� MySim
Reward : None
Mission : Take the Casino For a Bundle
Car : ��� MySim Vehicle
Requirements : Casino, >1 Residential Lot, ��� MySim
Reward : None
Mission : [MySim] Wants to See [Landmark]
Car : Any MySim Vehicle
Requirements : >1 Residential Lot, Landmark, MySim
Reward : None
TRAIN MISSIONS
Mission : Whistle Stop Tour
Train : Passenger Train
Requirements : >3 Passenger Train Stations, >20 Rail Tiles
Reward : Tourist Trap
Mission : Hijack the Train (Evil)
Train : Passenger Train
Requirements : Passenger Train Station, Deluxe Police Station, >20 Rail Tiles
Reward : ���
Mission : Train Ride for Rocket Formula
Train : Steam Train
Requirements : Freight Train Station, >20 Rail Tiles
Reward : Part of Space Port
Mission : Sell Secret Rocket Formula
Train : Steam Train
Requirements : Freight Train Station, Deluxe Police STation, >20 Rail Tiles
Reward : Part of Area 5.1
Mission : Super Seatbelt Fabric for Space Ships!
Train : Freight Train
Requirements : >1 Freight Train Station, >20 Rail Tiles
Reward : Part of Space Port
Mission : Train Station Tour
Train : Passenger Train
Requirements : >3 Passenger Train Stations, >20 Rail Tiles
Reward : Grand Railroad Station
Mission : Monorail Ride
Train : Monorail
Requirements : >2 Monorail Stations, >20 Monorail Tiles
Reward : Solar Power Plant
AIR VEHICLE MISSIONS
Mission : Give Jenny a Hand, and a Heart
Plane : Medical Helicopter
Requirements : Hospital, >50 Residential Lots
Reward : None
Mission : Organs for Profit (Evil)
Plane : Medical Helicopter
Requirements : Hospital, >50 Industrial Lots
Reward : University
Mission : Cripple [City Name] Industrial Complex (Evil)
Plane : Attack Jet
Requirements : Area 5.1, >100 Industrial Lots, Power Plant
Reward : Hydrogen Power Plant
Mission : Take Out Dr. Vu's "Secret" Lair
Plane : Attack Helicopter
Requirements : Army Base, >100 Industrial Lots
Reward : Advanced Research Centre
Mission : Raid on [City Name] (Evil)
Plane : Attack Helicopter
Requirements : Army Base, Train Staion, Water Source, Mayor's House
Reward : ���
Mission : Cover the Hostage Crisis
Plane : News Helicopter
Requirements : >50 Residential Lots, >50 Commercial Lots, TV Station
Reward : Radio Station
Mission : Get the Perp's Story (Evil)
Plane : News Helicopter
Requirements : TV Station, >50 Commercial Lots
Reward : ���
Mission : Catch the Crook From the Air
Plane : Police Helicopter
Requirements : >50 Commercial Lots, Deluxe Police Station
Reward : TV Studio
Mission : Disturbing the Peace (Evil)
Plane : Police Helicopter
Requirements : >100 Low Density Residential Tiles, Deluxe Police Station
Reward : ���
Mission : Water Drop for Fire
Plane : Fire Plane
Requirements : Fire Department Landing Strip, Fire
Reward : City Zoo
Mission : Let It Burn! (Evil)
Plane : Fire Plane
Requirements : Fire Department Landing Strip, Fire
Reward : ���
Mission : Who Loves You, Baby?
Plane : Sky Writing Plane
Requirements : Small Landing Strip
Reward : Major League Stadium
Mission : Secret Sky Code (Evil)
Plane : Sky Writing Plane
Requirements : Small Landing Strip
Reward : ���
Mission : Farmer's Get Vermin
Plane : Crop Duster
Requirements : Small Landing Strip, >50 Farm Tiles
Reward : Farmers Market
Mission : Spread Zombie Dust (Evil)
Plane : Crop Duster
Requirements : Small Landing Strip, Cemetery
Reward : Part of Area 5.1
Mission : Infiltrate Vu's Secret Meeting
Plane : Sky Diving Plane
Requirements : Small Landing Strip, >50 Industrial Lots
Reward : None
Mission : Skydiving Show at [Target]
Plane : Sky Diving Plane
Requirements : Small Landing Strip, Landmark
Reward : None
WATER VEHICLE MISSIONS
Mission : Whale Watching Tour
Boat : Ferry Boat
Requirements : Car Ferry
Reward : Marina
Mission : Ferry of Evil (Evil)
Boat : Ferry Boat
Requirements : Car Ferry
Reward : ���
Mission : Rx Pick-Up and Delivery
Boat : Speed Boat
Requirements : Marina, Seaport
Reward : Resort Hotel
Mission : Water-Proof Mind Control Device (Evil)
Boat : Speed Boat
Requirements : Marina, Seaport
Reward : Cruise Ship Building
Mission : Here Fishy, Fishy, Fishy
Boat : Fishing Boat
Requirements : Marina
Reward : Lighthouse
Mission : Mmm ... Endangered Dinner (Evil)
Boat : Fishing Boat
Requirements : Marina
Reward : Stock Exchange
Mission : Water Escape
Boat : Motor Boat
Requirements : Deluxe Police Station, Marina
Reward : None
Mission : Jet Ski Fiesta
Boat : Cigar Boat
Requirements : Marina
Reward : None
Mission : SOS
Boat : Tug Boat
Requirements : Marina
Reward : Major Art Museum
Mission : Rare Fish Viewing
Boat : Yacht
Requirements : Marina
Reward : Country Club
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[5.03] MySims Transport
You can now organise the transport of your MySim as they drive around the
city as well as drive their vehicles. This is accessed from the MySim panel
with the little car symbol. There are several tools that you can use to get
a closer feel of your city.
You can first Dispatch your Sim to a location. This is useful as feedback, as
they point out what they like and don't like. They can point out healthcare,
pollution, and most important, the traffic. This will give you a down to
earth analysis of the problems of your cirt. After all, just because your
facilities aren't on strike, doesn't mean the job done is a good one.
Second is the ability to commandeer their vehicle, or hijack their parked car,
a la Grand Theft Auto. This will also allow you to do some missions, mentioned
above, if the conditions are right. And of course, you can wreck their cars.
You can also choose the car that they drive. When you are only � Wealth, their
will be only � Wealth cars available to you. As you progress to the �� Wealth
Level, more cars will be unlocked, same goes for the ��� Level. As well as the
car that they drive, you can also control the way they walk as a pedestrian.
Whether they walk punk style, or on a bike, it is up to you.
The final two tools involve a shake up of the Sims life. The first is that
you can change the residence of the Sim, provided that it is on the same
Wealth level that they are currently at. The second is changing their job. Of
course, their wealth level will have a say on their job. A worker with the �
Wealth Level may work as a clerk at a hospital while a ��� Worker will be the
CEO of the hospital, or whatever industry they work at. Quite fun really, to
mess around with their lives.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[6.01] Signs and Labels
If you really want maps, you can now place signs and labels on your streets
and tourist attractions. These are found in the God Mode tools by the way.
Anyway, signs can be posted anywhere just to remind you of something, like
Bob lived here or Santa visited here. Labels are what you apply, generally
speaking, on roads, calling a road 1st Avenue, Wall Street, whatever, it
doesn't really matter much.
With Labels, you can drag the label, stretching the words a bit. Imprint your
Ego all over the place. Anyway, you can bulldoze the signs and labels when
you get tired of seeing your name all over the place. Or you could just remove
them from view. I personally don't bother with them, they are a waste of time.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[6.02] Building Style Control
With Rush Hour, there are 4 building styles that you can force your buildings
to adopt. This really doesn't have an impact on the game, it is there to make
it look good. However, some buildings are dependent on some styles, so beware.
As Mayor, you can set the city to rotate building styles every X number of
years, so really, it is to make your city look good. You can also have
several of them so you don't miss out. Really, a pointless addition.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[6.03] Disasters
With Rush Hour, there are several new disasters that you can befall on your
unsuspecting citizens. These are the Autosaurus Wreck, which is a bunch of
cars welded together to crush down the buildings in your city.
The second is the UFO mothership. Basically, a massive UFO using plasma storms
to destroy your city. And it doesn't even do a good job. You suck UFO.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[6.04] Transportation Map
Another semi pointless map. This basically, on region view, allows you to see
the transportation side of the region. It shows where the regions seaports
and airports are, the Highway systems, the roads, the avenues, everything that
has something to do with transport. This can be switched with your normal
map from the Region Options button.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[7.01] Route Query
An extremely useful tool that comes along with Rush Hour. Given the whole
transportation theme, guess what Route Query does. There are several uses for
the Route Query.
1. The first use is clicking on a residential building. As long as there are
people living in the building, you can use the route query, and by clicking
on it, you can see all the working Sims in that building and how they get
to work. There is a legend showing how each Sim gets to work.
2. The second use is by clicking on any building that provides work for your
citizens. It shows how the Sims working there get to work and shows the
routes undertaken to get to their workplace. The opposite of the
residential query, as one is to, the other is from.
3. By holding the query over a residential building, it shows the amount of
Sims working and holding an job from that building.
4. By holding the query over a commercial, industrial or government building,
it shows the amount of Sims who are employed and their methods of travel.
5. By holding it over a piece of transport infrastructure, such as a road,
street, piece of a subway network, monorail, etc, it should the amount
of users on that specific tile.
6. By clicking a piece of transport infrastructure, is will show the routes
of the Sims to get to that certain tile, their destination and where they
are based from.
Again, there is a colour coded legend for the routes as well as queries for
the morning commute as well as the evening commute. Important as it will
effect the use of your one-way roads.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[8.01] Movement
With the NAM, it makes it easier for the Sims to do some pathfinding. The
problem without the pathfinding is that Sims are too stupid to use the public
transport next to them and use the car, which means a lot of conjestion, which
in turn leads to higher commute time, and that will force residents away.
With the Avenues, it will replace a dual road and makes it more appealing.
After the Avenue is the Highway, which is even higher capacity. However, bear
in mind that the car does do a lot of pollution, and given that you may have
3000+ cars on a road PER COMMUTE, that does means that there is going to be a
lot of pollution.
The only solution to fix this is public transport. The problem with that
solution is that it costs money, and depending on your transport, it might
cost a lot.
Buses are okay because they can carry decent amounts of population and they
only need to be placed next to the places where passengers will get on, not
at their destinations. Subways are more expensive initially, but can carry
far more people than the buses can.
Head to Simtropolis.com and download a mod that will allow you to place
transit stations on the roads, streets and avenues. These stations will allow
you to place bus and/or subway stations on the roads. This is a significant
mod because that will reduce the space taking by the transit system as well
as reducing building maintenance. You might think that 5 Simoleons to be
small change, but in my cities, my building maintenance is greater than 4000
Simoleons.
Although the transport costs may be high, a subway/bus system is a very
quick way to get around. Ensuring that there is a stop near every workplace
will make sure that people have a means of getting around other than the
car. An extensive subway and roads network will ensure that the subway
trains and the buses have plenty of room to move around.
This may seem like a lot of work just for transport, but there are benefits
for this. Transport, first of all, are one of the biggest factors for
development for high-rise buildings. A short to medium commute time is one
of the biggest desirability factors for high rise.
Also, a long commute for high-rise tenants, which will be medium to high
wealth residents, will force them to look for closer jobs, and when they
are all taken, that means they have no jobs, and you will have people
abandoning the area like a plague will.
Remember that the graph of commute time is JUST AN AVERAGE. It doesn't show
that some areas might have a high commute and some might have a low commute
and that may skew the results somewhat. For example, my cities have a commute
time of 50 minutes, not bad, but some areas have LONG commutes and they leave
so be sure that transport is a priority.
When you plan your city, make sure that your residential areas have roads but
have room to upgrade to avenues, and for larger areas, you need room for the
highways when the time comes. Elevated highways are pretty good if you want
some roads underneath, but ground highways have overpasses.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[8.02] Region Play
Region play is going to be a big factor in playing this game. Unlike the
previous SimCity installments, indeed future installments, region play will
make a big difference. With regions, you can do several things.
First of all, demand is shared between connected neighbours. That means that
the RCI demand that you will see in one city will be the same with the RCI
demand on the other connected city. This makes demand busting much easier.
You can bust demand and that will boost damand in the other.
Regional play is important in unlocking several rewards. Rewards such as the
Tourist Trap need connected cities in order to be unlocked. Neighbour deals,
where you can sell off water, electricity and garbage to your neighbours
is quite useful. If you find that it is more cost efficient for a large water
pump, but can't use all the water, sell it off. If you can't afford to pay
for a water pump, buy the water.
Region play also ensures that you have certain cities for certain purposes.
For example, you don't want your residential cities having massive areas of
dirty and manufacturing industries which pollute like crazy. Therefore, you
can have an entire city devoted to pollution, whilst you have a clean city
with high tech manufacturing.
Jobs in one city can be used to employ citizens of another city. This makes
it worthwile to have a manufacturing city to employ the dumber citizens
but you need to bear in mind that the commute time will instantly be classed
as long.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[8.03] Utilities
There are utilities that you need to provide for your people. You need to
provide electricity to power the city, water to make sure people don't
shrivel up like a prune, and relieve garbage to make sure people don't
live in their own filth.
Electricity is one of the more important factors. There are two ways that you
can power your city, the dirty, but cheap way, or the clean, yet more
expensive way.
There are 8 ways to power your city. The dirty was is the Coal, Natural Gas,
Oil and Waste of Energy power plants. They are more efficient, but they
pollute, and that isn't really good for your town, while the Nuclear, Wind,
Solar and Hydrogen plants are cleaner, but less efficient. If you have a
start up city, a coal fired or a natural gas plant is going to be a wise
choice, but when your city expands and pollution is less tolerable, you are
going to choose Nuclear or Hydrogen plants.
The water is going to be required after energy. You see, you need electricity
to start a city, but not water. Water is required to bring in the high
wealth residents and the richer commercial tenants into town. You will want
to start low, using water towers to start off, and after 5 water towers,
you are going to move up to Water Pumps, and then, Large Water Pumps.
The final thing is garbage. You need to take care of the garbage. You need
to build landfills, with some road access, to make sure that the trash will
be taken care of. Denying road access will stop the trash entering the
landfill. This is useful when the landfill is full. When it is full, it will
degrade at the rate of 7% or 15 tons a month. Also, the Recycling plant will
help remove up to 20% of your city's trash, which from a big city, is quite
a lot. The Waste to Energy plant is a big polluter, provides electdicity and
removes trash.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[8.04] Civics
You will need to provide some infrastructure to develop your city. The first
need is for law. You need to provide some police stations to make sure
that there are no crime waves. You have the option of the police kiosks,
police stations, large police stations and the deluxe police station, as well
as the jail.
The kiosk is just like a police station, except that it cannot hold any
prisoners, and that they will need to be transferred to another police
station or the prison. The police stations have cells, and the larger they
are, the bigger radius of protection they will provide.
Police stations are important for the game, because it keeps crime in check.
Crime is generated by two factors, the wealth and the education of your
Sims. Lower wealth makes people more likely to turn to crime to better
themselves, and lower education will also turn people to a life of crime as
well. When you have population, you will always have crime, it is not
possible to have a crime free city, but it is possible to control crime so
that you don't need a prison. Improve your education, and try to make
people richer, at the expense of others.
The second thing is fire protection. You are going to need to have some
fire stations and maybe a landing strip or two to make sure that fires don't
break out. A small fire station is good for a small area, but in a bigger
city, the larger fire stations and landing strips are going to be necessary
to control fires. You don't need fire stations, but if you don't have one
in the area, it might take a long time to make sure that blaze is taken care
of.
The next important thing, and one of the two most important to your Sims is
education. There are many facilities to make sure education is on the top.
Elementary schools teach younger kids, High Schools teaches the teens and
your colleges will teach those young adults. For the Elementarty and High
schools, there is an important factor, bus funding. It seems that increasing
the funding doesn't do anything, but decreasing the funding will lower the
radius for the schools, so don't touch that.
Libraries will sustain the education for the adults during their lives by
giving them books to read, while the museums will be there to help the
aging Sims who have retired. Education will decay if Libraries and Museums
aren't there. Libraries are cheap, and have a good radius, while the Meseums
have no radius, they have a city-wide radius.
The next factor, and the second important thing for the Sims is their
health. You can build small clinics or large hospitals. The ambulance funding
serves as the radius for the city. Unlike education, Healthcare is used by
those who are sick, and as your city grows, your clinics aren't going to be
able to handle all those Sims. You are going to need to leave some room to
have Hospitals, their large capacity is perfect for high-density areas, while
clinics are better for the lower density areas.
Also, Clinics with their small radius aren't going to match up to a hospital.
The capacity of a clinic is relatively small, while the capacity of a
hospital is more than large, and is more efficient. You can easily build
hospitals at the start, but is an unnecessary strain on your budget.
The next civic function is the landmarks. They basically pretty up the
surrounding area for commercial buildings, generating heavy traffic since
people want to visit the landmark, making it very desirable to have an
office there. With internet mods, you can make these buildings provide some
jobs, and the higher end landmarks can provide upwards of 8000 jobs.
The next function are your rewards. When your cities meets some certain
conditions, such as Education Quotient, population or some other condition,
you will get a reward that can allow you to boost demand in your city. The
business deals are only listed here if you are in dire straits and need some
money.
The final function is parks and recreation. This are important for your
cities because they make the surrounding area more desirable and boosts
demand for your RCI. Although they won't remove pollution, it makes the place
more desirable and increase land value.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[9.01] Power
Like I mentioned before, there are 8 sets of powers that you can choose
from. I'll list them below, their output, cost, requirements, and anything
that you might need to know.
--==Coal Fired Power Plant==--
Build Cost = �10000
Monthly Cost = �250
Energy Output = 6000 MegaWatts per Hour
Energy per Dollar = 24 MWH per Simoleon
Life Span = 75 Years
Pollution = Worst than Anything Else
Requirements = None
--==Oil Fired Power Plant==--
Build Cost = �17000
Monthly Cost = �600
Energy Output = 7000 MegaWatts per Hour
Energy per Dollar = 11.6 MWH per Simoleon
Life Span = 75 Years
Pollution = Heavy
Requirements = None
--==Natural Gas Power Plant==--
Build Cost = �9000
Monthly Cost = �400
Energy Output = 3000 MegaWatts per Hour
Energy per Dollar = 7.5 MWH per Simoleon
Life Span = 60 Years
Pollution = Medium
Requirements = None
--==Waste to Energy Power Plant==--
Build Cost = �25000
Monthly Cost = �1000
Energy Output = 5000 MegaWatts per Hour
Energy per Dollar = 5 MWH per Simoleon
Life Span = 80 Years
Pollution = Heavy
Requirements = Trash to Burn
--==Wind Turbine==--
Build Cost = �500
Monthly Cost = �50
Energy Output = 200 MegaWatts per Hour
Energy per Dollar = 4 MWH per Simoleon
Life Span = 100 Years
Pollution = Clean as a Whistle
Requirements = None
--==Solar Power Plant==--
Build Cost = �30000
Monthly Cost = �1000
Energy Output = 5000 MegaWatts per Hour
Energy per Dollar = 5 MWH per Simoleon
Life Span = 100 Years
Pollution = Clean as a Whistle
Requirements = 3000 High Wealth Residents
Mayor Rating of 55
--==Nuclear Power Plant==--
Build Cost = �40000
Monthly Cost = �3000
Energy Output = 16000 MegaWatts per Hour
Energy per Dollar = 5.3 MWH per Simoleon
Life Span = 60 Years
Pollution = Change of a Meltdown, which means Radiation, but Clean
Requirements = Population of 85000
Energy Demand of 25000 MWH
--==Hydrogen Power Plant==--
Build Cost = �100000
Monthly Cost = �10000
Energy Output = 50000 MegaWatts per Hour
Energy per Dollar = 5 MWH per Simoleon
Life Span = 50 Years
Pollution = Clean as a Whistle
Requirements = 4000 High Tech Industrial Jobs
Energy Demand of 30000 MWH
The Coal fired plant is the most efficient, but the most efficient polluter
as well. The most efficient clean power is going to be the Nuclear Power
Plant but it has a chance of a meltdown if you set it on fire and it actually
burns down, and the radiation goes everywhere. It is a nice explosion though
so make good use of that.
Hydrogen is going to be the choice for large, clean cities since they are
clean, but not efficient. For dirty cities, a Coal fired plant won't really
matter, since they are dirty. Aim for Coal, then Oil, then Natural Gas,
then Nuclear, and finally end up with Hydrogen. Stop along the way when it
suits you.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[9.02] Water
Where are water providing structures as well, so don't forget these.
--==Water Tower==--
Build Cost = �150
Monthly Cost = �50
Water Output = 2400 Cubic Meters
Water per Dollar = 48 Cubic Meters per Simoleon
--==Water Pump==--
Build Cost = �1400
Monthly Cost = �350
Water Output = 20000 Cubic Meters
Water per Dollar = 57.14 Cubic Meters per Simoleon
--==Large Water Pump==--
Build Cost = �15400
Monthly Cost = �3150
Water Output = 200000 Cubic Meters
Water per Dollar = 63.49 Cubic Meters per Simoleon
--==Water Treatment Plant==--
Build Cost = �15000
Monthly Cost = �350
Water Output = Treats 2400 Cubic Meters
Water per Dollar = 6.85 Treated Cubic Meters per Simoleon
You will need to start of water towers, they are going to be the basis of
your water supply in the start. When you move up to 7 Water Towers, you are
going to need to build a Water Pump and demolish the Water Towers to make
sure that it is efficient. You get an extra 3200 Cubic Meters of Water this
way.
Once you end up with about 5 to 9 Water Pumps, it will be time to upgrade into
a Large Water Pump. Even when you wait for 9 Water Pumps, you will end up
with a saving of 20000 Cubic Meters of water, thats a fair bit of water.
Also, the Water Treatment Plant is relatively important for larger cities and
cities with industrial manufacturing. They will pollute the water and that
needs some clearing. Your Water Treatment Plant will treat the water so that
there won't be too much pollution because pollution will shut down the water
system if the water in unacceptable and polluted.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[9.03] Garbage
Garbage disposal is important to your city, you need to take care of the
trash, or your Sims are going to be living in their own filth, and that will
drive hem off faster than the Black Death.
--==Landfill==--
Build Cost = �50 per Tile
Monthly Cost = �10 per Tile
Notes = A Landfill needs to be at least 4 tiles in size
--==Recycling Centre==--
Build Cost = �5000
Monthly Cost = �350
Notes = Reduces 20% of the Trash generated by 20000 People
--==Waste to Energy Power Plant==--
Build Cost = �25000
Monthly Cost = �1000
Notes = Incinerates your trash to provide power and pollutes
The Landfill is going to be the place where you dump most of your trash.
However, you don't want it stacking up, so when your city is getting larger
and larger, you are going to need more landfills. When a landfill is full,
that is when it can carry no more trash and it is totally full, you need
to discommission it and let it rot.
Block off all road access to decommission a landfill and let the trash rot
by itself. Trash rots, like I mentioned above, at the rate of either 15
Tons a Month or 7%. The 15 Ton limit means that even if 7% of the landfill
is higher than 15 Tons, only 15 Tons of trash is going to be degraded a
month, 7% if it is lower than that.
Remember that one tile can hold up to 300 tons in trash. A minimum landfill
of 4 tiles holds 1200 tons of trash, and that takes up to 14 and a half
years to take care of. So you either are going to have a trash problem or
going to have to find another solution. What is it? Export it to another
city, which has many Waste of Energy plants. That takes care of plenty of
things.
That are some myths that will apparently say that a decommissioned landfill
will decommission faster. Waste to Energy plants only take down trash that
is freshly generated, it will not touch trash in decommissioned landfills
that lie around. Placing road access to the landfill WILL remove the trash,
but it is no longer decommissioned. And secondly, trees have no effect. Who
the heck made that up? How do trees help things rot faster?
Recycling centres work on a population basis. One centre will only serve
20000 people, which is a lot or little depending on your city. It will
reduce the trash created by those people by 20%, which is quite a fair
bit, but the effects don't stack up if you have 2 Centres for 20000 people,
there is only so much you can recycle.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[9.04] Education
Like mentioned above, Education is one of the major factors that lure Sims
to your cities. People want to learn and you need to proide the opportunities
to do so. There are many educational facilities, and you need to know
which is which.
--==Elementary School==--
Build Cost : �300
Monthly Cost : �400
Bus Funding : �100
Coverage : 23 Tiles
Capacity : 500 Students
Requirements : None
--==Large Elementary School==--
Build Cost : �2100
Monthly Cost : �1500
Bus Funding : �500
Coverage : 39 Tiles
Capacity : 3000 Students
Requirements : Population of 4000
--==High School==--
Build Cost : �1050
Monthly Cost : �750
Bus Funding : �100
Coverage : 30 Tiles
Capacity : 750 Students
Requirements : None
--==Large High School==--
Build Cost : �7350
Monthly Cost : �3250
Bus Funding : �500
Coverage : 47 Tiles
Capacity : 4500 Students
Requirements : Population of 6000
--==City College==--
Build Cost : �3000
Monthly Cost : �1000
Bus Funding : �0
Coverage : Citywide
Capacity : 7000 Students
Requirements : None
--==Local Branch Library==--
Build Cost : �1000
Monthly Cost : �250
Bus Funding : �0
Coverage : 30 Tiles
Capacity : 30000 Books
Requirements : None
--==City Museum==--
Build Cost : �1500
Monthly Cost : �450
Bus Funding : �0
Coverage : Citywide
Capacity : 30 Exhibits
Requirements : None
There are larger versions of the Schools because they are built for cost
savings. They take up less space, have a larger radius and can hold more
students than their normal counterpart. Consider building these in high
density areas since their capacity is needed.
Don't muck with the Bus Funding, lower it will lower the radius of the school
in question, which means their area if effect, lower the amount of funding if
need be. Increasing bus funding doesn't seem to do anything however, but maybe
those buses actually arrive on time.
Your Elementary schools teach the younger kids, the High Schools teach your
teens and the Colleges will teach the graduates of high school. Note that the
students will progressive get lower as they head down the chain, people will
drop out of elementry, then high and then colleges. Just because you have 5000
Elementary School Students, it doesn't mean you'll have a future 5000 college
students.
Libraries and your Museum will make sure that the knowledge of your older
citizens, the adults and the elders, will retain and even gain some knowledge
in their older life. Those will unlock rewards based on those buildings.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[9.05] Healthcare
You only have two options for healthcare, the smaller clinic or the larger
hospital. Of course, you can only guess which holds more patients.
--==Small Clinic==--
Build Cost : �400
Monthly Cost : �300
Ambulance Funding : �100
Coverage : 23 Tiles
Capacity : 500 Patients
Requirements : None
--==Large Hospital==--
Build Cost : �1100
Monthly Cost : �1000
Ambulance Funding : �200
Coverage : 34 Tiles
Capacity : 3000 Patients
Requirements : None
The Small Clinic is going to be the cost effective measure for your city for
the time when it is small, but when it gets larger, you are going to need the
hospital. Although it can carry more patients, it is much larger, but it is
more cost efficient. I guess a few dollars in tax is worth it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[9.06] Rewards
Your rewards are going to be gained when you do something good for your city
and reach some milestone. These are used to boost demand for your city, and
later on in the game, this is going to be invaluable.
--==Advanced Research Centre==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Negative Residential Effect, Positive Industrial Effect
Mayor Rating : 54
Requirements : 2000 Industrial High Tech Jobs
University
--==Air Force Base==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Negative Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 0
Requirements : Population of 15000
Educational Quotient greater than 60
Downloaded off the Internet
--==Bureau of Bureaucracy==--
Build Cost : �46000
Monthly Cost : �320
Effects : Negative Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 30
Requirements : Population of 39000
Well Funded Education and Healthcare System
--==Cemetery #1==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Positive Residential Effect
Mayor Rating : 42
Requirements : Population of 2000
--==Cemetery #2==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Positive Residential Effect
Mayor Rating : 46
Requirements : Population of 15000
--==Cemetery #3==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Positive Residential Effect
Mayor Rating : 50
Requirements : Population of 60000
--==City Hall==--
Build Cost : �40000
Monthly Cost : �280
Effects : Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 20
Requirements : Population of 12500
--==City Zoo==--
Build Cost : �37000
Monthly Cost : �260
Effects : Positive Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 68
Requirements : 25 Parks
--==Colossal Mayor Statue==--
Build Cost : �57000
Monthly Cost : �400
Effects : Positive Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 60
Requirements : Population of 120000
--==Convention Centre==--
Build Cost : �32000
Monthly Cost : �220
Effects : Negative Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 40
Requirements : 25000 Commercial Jobs
Airport
--==Country Club==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Positive Residential Effect
Mayor Rating : 55
Requirements : 2000 High Wealth Residents
--==County CourtHouse==--
Build Cost : �44000
Monthly Cost : �310
Effects : Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 33
Requirements : Population of 40000
City Hall
--==Disease Research Laboratory==--
Build Cost : �26000
Monthly Cost : �180
Effects : Positive Industrial Effect
Mayor Rating : 45
Requirements : Population of 56000
3 Hospitals
--==Farmer's Market==--
Build Cost : �4900
Monthly Cost : �30
Effects : Positive Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect,
Positive Industrial Effect
Mayor Rating : 34
Requirements : 600 Farming Jobs
Population of 3000
--==House of Worship #1==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Positive Residential Effect
Mayor Rating : 40
Requirements : Population of 1000
--==House of Worship #2==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Positive Residential Effect
Mayor Rating : 44
Requirements : Population of 5000
--==House of Worship #3==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Positive Residential Effect
Mayor Rating : 48
Requirements : Population of 3000
--==House of Worship #4==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Positive Residential Effect
Mayor Rating : 52
Requirements : Population of 120000
--==Impressive Mayor Statue==--
Build Cost : �6400
Monthly Cost : �40
Effects : Positive Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 60
Requirements : Population of 30000
--==Magnificant Mayor Statue==--
Build Cost : �22000
Monthly Cost : �150
Effects : Positive Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 60
Requirements : Population of 60000
--==Main Library==--
Build Cost : �19000
Monthly Cost : �130
Effects : Positive Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 37
Requirements : Population of 34000
5 Functional Libraries
--==Major Art Museum==--
Build Cost : �13000
Monthly Cost : �90
Effects : Positive Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 45
Requirements : 12000 Medium and High Wealth Citizens
4 Functional Museums
--==Major League Stadium==--
Build Cost : �48000
Monthly Cost : �340
Effects : Negative Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 30
Requirements : Population of 85000
Minor League Stadium
--==Mayor's House==--
Build Cost : �1800
Monthly Cost : �10
Effects : Positive Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 20
Requirements : Population of 500
--==Mayor's Statue==--
Build Cost : �3700
Monthly Cost : �30
Effects : Positive Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 60
Requirements : Population of 5000
--==Minor League Stadium==--
Build Cost : �17000
Monthly Cost : �120
Effects : Negative Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 20
Requirements : Population of 22500
16 Parks or Recreation Facilities
--==Movie Studio==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 52
Requirements : Population of 110000
Television Studio
--==Opera House==--
Build Cost : �28000
Monthly Cost : �200
Effects : Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 52
Requirements : 48000 Medium and High Wealth Residents
Major Art Museum
--==Private School #1==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Positive Residential Effect
Mayor Rating : 0
Requirements : 750 High Wealth Residents
Education Quotient less than 85
--==Private School #2==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Positive Residential Effect
Mayor Rating : 0
Requirements : 3750 High Wealth Residents
Education Quotient less than 85
--==Private School #3==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Positive Residential Effect
Mayor Rating : 0
Requirements : 7500 High Wealth Residents
Education Quotient less than 85
--==Radio Station==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 30
Requirements : Population of 18000
--==Resort Hotel==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 52
Requirements : 50000 Medium and High Wealth Citizens in Region
4 Cities
Low Pollution
--==State Fair==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Negative Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 48
Requirements : Population of 3500
1200 Farming Jobs
--==Stock Exchange==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 45
Requirements : 25000 Commercial Jobs
--==Television Studio==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Cost : �0
Effects : Negative Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 50
Requirements : Population of 65000
Radio Station
--==Tourist Trap==--
Build Cost : �10000
Monthly Cost : �210
Effects : Negative Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 0
Requirements : Regional Population of 40000
6 Cities in Region
4 Connected Cities
--==University==--
Build Cost : �12000
Monthly Cost : �1500
Effects : Positive Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Mayor Rating : 42
Requirements : Population of 15000
****************
*Business Deals*
****************
--==Army Base==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Gain : �350
Effects : Negative Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Notes : Population Requirement
--==Casino==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Gain : �300
Effects : Negative Residential Effect, Positive Commercial Effect
Notes : Increases Crime
--==Federal Prison==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Gain : �250
Effects : Negative Residential Effect, Negative Commercial Effect
Notes : Holds your city's Inmates as well
--==Missile Range==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Gain : �450
Effects : Negative Residential Effect, Negative Commercial Effect
Notes : Chance of Accidential Misfire, requires Army Base
--==Toxic Waste Dump==--
Build Cost : �0
Monthly Gain : �400
Effects : Negative Residential Effect, Negative Commercial Effect
Notes : Creates Radiation Contamination, Creates Water Pollution
The rewards are best used to relieve the demand caps on your city. For more
on that, read the thy451 guide on Simtropolis or Gamefaqs.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[9.07] Ordinances
There are several laws that you can enact in your city to make it more
efficient, but a positive effect here will more likely lead to a negative
effect somewhere.
--==Community CPR Training Program==--
Increases the health of your Sims, and will lead to an increase in the Health
Quotient. This trains all your Sims in CRP, which is a life-saving tool.
Cost : �50 + �1 per 200 Sims
--==Water Conversation Program==--
Decreases the amount of water used by your Sims but leads to a decrease in
Industrial Demand. It forces all Sims to save water, but industry likes
wasting water.
Cost : �50
--==Paper Waste Reduction Program==--
Decreases the amount of waste generated by your commercial offices, but leads
to a drop in demand in Commerce. You know that Commercial offices like their
filing papers and all.
Cost : �20 + �1 per 200 Sims
--==Free Clinic Program==--
Increases the health of your Sims since this provides care for your most
disadvantaged Sims. This creates free healthcare with volunteer doctors and
nurses for socio-disadvantaged Sims.
Cost : �50
--==Smoke Detector Program==--
Decreases the change of fire starting out in the city with working smoke
detectors everywhere. This leads to a decrease in the chances of fire outbreak
and with Fire Stations, fire is more or less insignificant.
Cost : �1 per 1000 Sims
--==Tourism Promotion Program==--
Advertises your nation to other regions, luring more tourists to your city,
which in turn leads to more commercial demand in the city to deal with all
the tourists.
Cost : �50
--==Power Conservation Act==--
It reduces the powered used by your Sims by making them turn off lights when
they aren't using it. It will prolong the life of your Power Plants and reduce
power comsumption, but decrease industry demand. Reduces your Mayor Rating.
Cost : �1 per 100 Sims
--==Carpool Incentive Program==--
It forces your Sims to carpool with each other to ensure that less cars are
on the road. Reduces pollution and traffic by cars with less traffic. Reduces
traffic significantly.
Cost : �50 + �1 per 100 Sims
--==Commuter Shuttle Service==--
It is meant to force your Sims to use public transport, but in reality, this
actually doesn't work at all, pathfinding mods will fix this all up. Useless
in the short and long term.
Cost : �20
--==Clean Air Act==--
Reduces the pollution by your dirty and manufacturing industries, but has a
negative result in the demand of dirty industries.
Cost : �20
--==Youth Curfew Act==--
Forces your younger Sims to be home by a certain time. It has a reducing
effect on the crime in your city, but creates some discontent in the city.
Reduces your Mayor Rating.
Cost : �40 + �1 per 500 Sims
--==Auto-Mobile Emission Reduction Act==--
Reduces the amount of pollution created by the automobiles that are on your
road by forcing manufacturers to do something about it. Reduces pollution
generated by cars. Reduces your Mayor Rating.
Cost : �20
--==Tire Recycling Program==--
Recycles the tires that are too worn to be used anymore. This will reduce
the amount of waste that your city will generate.
Cost : �20 + �1 per 1000 Sims
--==Nuclear Free Zone==--
This will stop you from using any form of Nuclear Power Stations and existing
ones will be shut down and decommissioned. This will increase your Mayor
Rating however.
Cost : �50 + �1 per 500 Sims
--==Pro-Reading Campaign==--
This will encourage your Sims to go to their local library to go and read some
books. This will increase your Education Quotient.
Cost : �50 + �1 per Library
--==Neighbourhood Watch Program==--
Reduces crime since the neighbourhood will be more alert and report any dodgy
activity to the police. You need a police station for this to work, otherwise,
you won't be watching anymore.
Cost : �10 + �1 per 1000 Sims
--==Junior Sports Program==--
Reduces Crime since the kids are too busy playing sport than to be robbing
banks and commiting murders. You need a park or recreation facility to make
this work, otherwise, they can't play.
Cost : �100
--==Landfill Gas Recovery Program==--
This requires a Natural Gas Power Plant and a Landfill. This uses your
landfill to collect methane gas that is generated by your landfill and be
burnt by the Gas Power Plant. Increases capacity of the Power Plant and
decreases air pollution around the landfill.
Cost : �20 + �30 per Landfill
--==Trash Pre-Sort Requirement Program==--
You need a Recycling Centre for this. It forces your Sims to sort out
their recycling trash out to make it easier. Reduces the trash from your
Sims and increases capacity of the Recycling Centre.
Cost : �20 + �1 per Recycling Centre
--==Legalised Gambling==--
Allows the Casino to come into town, and will leave once this is removed
and is not enacted. It will however, increase the crime in your city. You
do get a slice of the profits however.
Gain : �100 per month
There is only one that you want to exact, and that is the Carpool one. That
will reduce traffic like crazy. And the Automobile Emission can't hurt
either. CPR, Free Clinic, Smoke Detector, Tourism and Pro Reading are also
good to enact if you have the money.
If you have the requirements, the Neighbourhood Watch, Junior Sports,
Landfill Gas and Trash Presort are also good choices as well.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[9.08] Transit
There are many transport options that you have at your disposal. You have
roads and public transport.
*******************
*Private Transport*
*******************
--==Streets==--
Build Cost : �5 per section
Maintenace : �0.05 per section per month
Capacity : 100%
--==Roads==--
Build Cost : �10 per section
Maintenace : �0.1 per section per month
Capacity : 10X Street Capacity
--==One Way Road==--
Build Cost : �10 per section
Maintenace : �0.1 per section per month
Capacity : 20X Street Capacity (But in One Direction)
--==Avenue==--
Build Cost : �60 per section
Maintenace : �1 per section per month
Capacity : 40X Street Capacity
--==Highway==--
Build Cost : �600 per section
Maintenace : �1 per section per month
Capacity : 40X Street Capcity
As you can see, your avenues are going to be the best option to replace the
Highway, but there are no traffic lights or intersections on the Highway
and that will significantly boost the capacity of the highway over the
avenue. Note that one way roads have high capacity, but they allow traffic in
one direction.
******************
*Public Transport*
******************
--==Buses==--
Build Cost : �150
Maintenace : �5
Requires : Roads
Passengers : 1000
--==Subway==--
Build Cost : �500
Maintenace : �20
Requires : Subway Tracks, Underground
Passengers : 2000
--==Train==--
Build Cost : �100
Maintenace : �10
Requires : Train Tracks, Above Ground
Passengers : 2000
--==Monorail==--
Build Cost : �500
Maintenace : �20
Requires : Monorail, Above Ground
Passengers : 2000
--==Elevated Rail==--
Build Cost : �500
Maintenace : �20
Requires : Subway, Below Ground, Elevated Rail Tracks, Above Ground
Passengers : 2000
--==Passenger Ferry==--
Build Cost : �150
Maintenace : �10
Requires : Water
Passengers : 1000
--==Car and Passenger Ferry==--
Build Cost : �300
Maintenace : �20
Requires : Water
Passengers : 1000
Note that the ferries can only have 16 stations in a city. The public
transport that you should take is up to you. Train is cheap and easy
maintenance, as well as buses. Subways and Elevated rail are expensive
but work together and have good capacity. Monorail is expensive but
quick. Take a pick.
**********
*Airports*
**********
--==Small Air Strip==--
Build Cost : �20000
Maintenace : �700
Passengers : 10200
--==Medium Air Strip==--
Build Cost : �5700
Maintenace : �900
Passengers : 13100
--==Large Air Strip==--
Build Cost : �5700
Maintenace : �1100
Passengers : 16000
--==Small Municipal Airport==--
Build Cost : �35000
Maintenace : �900
Passengers : 28800
--==Medium Municipal Airport==--
Build Cost : �6400
Maintenace : �1450
Passengers : 34100
--==Large Municipal Airport==--
Build Cost : �7200
Maintenace : �1700
Passengers : 40000
--==Small International Airport==--
Build Cost : �50000
Maintenace : �1225
Passengers : 70000
--==Medium International Airport==--
Build Cost : �6400
Maintenace : �1450
Passengers : 80000
--==Large International Airport==--
Build Cost : �7200
Maintenace : �1700
Passengers : 90000
The reason why Medium and Large Airports are cheap is because you aren't
really building a new airport, it is upgrading the existing airport from
small or medium to medium or large respectively. The reason to build an
airport is because of the massive commercial boost that it gives your city
and that is certainly a good thing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[10.01] Small Town
You need to start some town building, and first of all, you are going to need
some power. You should build a Coal Power Plant at the far end of the map,
using the power lines to connect it to the other side of the city. Have the
landfill there as well, connecting the road to it.
Build some low density zones for each, but keep industry far away since the
pollution isn't going to be all that pleasent. Let the city build and have
the citizens walk into your city to start up a new town. However, around
your residential areas, have the roads connect the residents from their
homes to their jobs ready for upgrade to avenues. This is done later, but
make sure that there is room for it.
Now, you need some facilties. You need a police station and a fire station to
cover all your buildings, to make sure they don't burn down to the ground.
Your worst fire hazard is industry, they are the most likely area where fire
is going to start. Also, place on near the power plant if you can, don't if
you already have it covered. You don't want that investment blowing up.
Now, you need to look at the budget. This time of the game, you are most
likely making a loss. Well, we are going to have to fix this. First, build
some more zones that are under the cover of your existing police stations
and fire stations to avoid building a new station.
Move your city along, and since you still have a fair amount of money from
the start, you need to attract some more, high wealth customers into your
city. You also need to improve the lives of your Sims, so these two steps
are going to be interchangable.
You are going to need some water to get some people into your city. Start
off small with a water tower, using pipes to link all the commercial and
residential zones, but not the industrial zones. There is going to be some
dirty industry and they pollute, so don't connect them. They don't need it
anyway.
The second step is to provide some reason for your Sims to come into the
area. You need an elementary school to educate your Sims and a Healthcare
Clinic to cover your Resdiential areas only. This will increase the
desirability of your city, and that makes it more desirable for some of the
wealthier Sims to move in.
Now, this is where it gets tricky. You are going to need to balance that
budget, or your city isn't going to last that much longer. This bill is
calculated monthly, so the pressure is up on you to make sure it balances,
because what you lose in one year is twelve times the losses on the budget
screen that you see.
You cannot afford to go overboard right now. You need to squeeze every single
dollar that you can. For Schools and Healthcare, wind back the service
funding so that the total capacity of your centre is the amount of patients
that you have at the moment. Make sure that all the zones that are under the
cover of the police and fire stations are used. Use the RCI bar to see what
is currently being demand and build up accordingly. However, like I said
earlier, you need some room around the main transit corridors in your city
so it has room to expand. Short-sightedness how will lead to serious problems
later on in the game.
Do not raise taxes at all, leave them as they are. If you cannot balance the
budget, but get close, you can build some new zones, place a new fire station
or a police station to ensure that you can expand a little, but again, leave
some room for your expansion. With the expansion, you should be able to
balance the budget.
Demolish the Clinic, seriously demolish it and instead, place down a
hospital. The ambulance cost isn't that bad, and it is far more cost
efficient than the Clinic. Don't forget, once you have more healthcare, it
is better for your Sims, more people move in, and that means more money.
Once you have a population of 5000 and a positive budget, we can move onto
the next stage.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[10.02] Medium Village
When the small town behind us, you need to make sure that we get a larger
population and more people. You are going to need to make sure that the
city gets off the ground. You need some more revenue to make sure that your
city is going to work.
First of all, check the water supply of your city. If you needed several Water
Towers, once you reach 5, place down a Water Pump and demolish the Tower to
save money for extra water. Now, check your Elementary School. Look at it.
Look at the capacity of the school. Raise the capacity if need be. You still
have a small population, but that will soon change.
You now need to expand a bit more if you haven't done so already. Build the
zones, police stations, fire stations, elementary schools and hospitals with
water connection and access to the landfill to make sure they are happy.
But if you have expanded a fair bit, you need to start moving to the skies.
Zone your zones denser. You've been previously zoning them on low, try
medium or even high if you have the guts to do so. Rezone the residential,
commercial and the industrial areas, but just place the zone over it, don't
demolish, since rezoning doesn't demolish anyway.
Zone Residential, Commercial and Industrial to High if you have the money.
This will lead to a period of rapid, and I mean, rapid growth for your
Commercial and Residential Zones. Commercial Zones means that you need to
supply more water, electricity and take back more trash. Consider an upgrade
to a landfill, or a neighbour connection. Residential Zones are going to be
more demanding on your services.
High Density Residential Zones means that a 4X2 Building can hold up to 3000
High Wealth residents. You need to seriously expand your services without
blowing a hole in the budget. The rapid expansion in your city is going to
get you a lot of money in taxes, and that means, providing more services.
Your Elementary schools are going to be bursting at the seams. You need to
upgrade to the Large Elementary School, since it can hold more people and
is more cost efficient. Consider building a Large High School, enough to
cover the entire residential areas. Your next mission is to check the
healthcare of the city.
Your Hospitals should be coping, but you need to place more in the newer
areas, and the recently expanded areas to ensure that you have enough supply
to keep up with the demand. New hospitals will relieve the demand on the
current hospitals, and stop them going on strike.
Now, you need some new services. You will need a city college to make
sure that your new entrants, the high wealth commercial offices, have some
people to hire.
I might have rushed those steps, but make sure that you take your time so
that your budget doesn't burst through the seems. Make sure that you take
this step by step so that the budget is in either a small loss, balanced
or at a gain. A surplus is what you want.
Also, by this stage, you should be getting access to some rewards. It is
up do you, by place them if you want some more demand. These effective
bust demand caps, that is, the limits on demand. By busting demand, you get
more to play around with, and that certainly is good for a city that is
starting to get off the ground.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[10.03] Large Suburb
Now, your city is getting larger. You need to decorate your city more, place
some recreational facilities to make sure that the area is desirable. Also,
you need to play some new services, and replace some older ones.
By now, rezone all the land into High Density. That is your first problem
done. The second problem is going to be transport. You need to solve a
transport problem before it decides to get out of hand. If you downloaded
the mod that allows transit stations to be built on roads, good, if not, do
so. It allows you to build subway and bus stations on the roads and streets,
which is important for your city.
If you have not, and don't want to search Simtropolis, build a mass transit
system, either Buses or Subways, or both, because they are simply the most
efficient, and is possible to make a profit off it. Transit is going to be a
nightmare when you become a metropolis.
Also, start upgrading your roads. Your heaviest transit corridors, using the
traffic data mode, will have to be replaced with Highways, the heavy corridors
with avenues, roads for normal use, the little use will be done with streets.
Your next problem is going to be Fire and Police. You need to upgrade those
small stations with Larger varients. Fire will need to be done with Fire
Landing Strips and Large Fire Stations. Police need to be replaced with Large
and Deluxe Police Stations. You shouldn't need a jail at all.
Now, Education. you should have upgraded before, large Elementary Schools and
Large High Schools should relieve the demand, but build more if that need be
the case. Now, you need to add the final two parts of Education, the Library
and the Museum. These will improve the knowledge of your Sims over time,
when they pass College and beyond. This is useful to ensure that your Sims can
get the best of the jobs, the companies come on knocking.
Healthcare should be taken care of if you have been building enough hospitals
to keep up with the demand that I've told you about. Now, your utilities are
going to need an upgrade.
You need more power. If you have access to the Nuclear Power Plant, that is
going to be a good option for you. A few more Water Pumps is going to be
required as well to make sure you have enough supply to keep up with demand.
And finally, the garbage. You should build a neighbour to take care of that
for you, a landfill city if you will. Thats that taken care of.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[10.04] Massive Metropolis
How, you need to make some more changes to make sure your city works out
fine. First of all, you need to kick out the dirty and manufacturing
industries to ensure that you only get the High Tech industries walking into
your city. These industries take water, but are clean and provide jobs. To
kick out the dirty industries, jack up the tax for those industries all the
way to the max, 20%. This will make no one gets in, and demolish those that
are in the city. That will cause a problem for a while.
But high tech will soon move in, and that is the thing you want. They provide
jobs, and don't pollute.
You also want to keep an eye on transport. You want a massive mass transport
system to keep your Sims happy and off the road. Enact the ordinances that
are listed above to boost demand and make sure your city will function.
Remember that there are things zones want. All want low pollution, crime,
power and water. Residential zones want good healthcare and education, with
a low commute and low traffic noise. Commercial Zones want high traffic (which
means customers). Industry wants low freight trips, which means close to the
border.
For a Metropolis, add some Seaports if you have access to water to boost the
demand for industry. By now, add an Airport, an International one if you can
afford it and the maintenance, to give a MASSIVE BOOST to your Commercial
demand.
Also, neighbour connections. They boost commercial demand and allow for jobs
to be placed around cities. This is important because you need to be able
to give away some extra resources, and get resources if you are lacking.
At this stage, there really is nothing I can do to make your city a success.
You need to address all the problems of your cities so that you know what you
are doing. I cannot do anything, only you can. This is just a general pointer
on how to start building a city, thy451's guide has a bigger and better and
detailed version, but does not take account changes in Rush Hour, so keep
that in mind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[A] Contact Information
APPEARS IN g,a,m,e,f,a,q,s.c,o,m always. Remove the commas.
Hey, what do you know, it looks just like my previous legal things, cause I'm
too lazy to make another one. That block button is mighty fun to use.
******************************************************************************
Before you E-Mail me, read the guide first. If the answer is not in here, then
E-Mail me. If it is, don't bother as I won't reply.
******************************************************************************
To contact me, e-mail me at
hillsdragon13 [at] hotmail [dot] com
Replace at with @ and dot with .
Don't add me to MSN Messenger List because if I don't know you, I won't accept
you, simple as that.
E-Mail me (and anyone else you want to e-mail) with courtesy and respect as
we are living people like you. Have a title of what you are sending so I know
what is going on. If you try to send attachments, I won't open them so stick
the information in the E-Mail.
Please write in English or anything close to it. It can't understand foreign
languages so please don't give me a page long quote in Mexican or Antarctic
penguin language cause I don't understand.
Don't write in sloppy English. I mean, who the hell would understand "Hwo Od
Yoi Di Tjih Ni Smi Cty?" Don' be too formal, a question is not a freakin
business agreement so don't say "Dear Sir, In accordance to your Walkthrough
to the PC Game, Simcity 4, ..." it makes me wonder if I'm talking to a freak,
the President of the United States of America or Bill Gates or Donald Trump.
I will credit you if your send me information about this game that is not in
the FAQ. I will also be grateful if you see this FAQ somewhere else other than
Gamefaqs or a site which has my permission. If you do, tell me so I can kick
their ass to Pluto and make them bounce off to the other side of the Universe.
I will not respond to:
* Spam
* Bill Gate's Spam (He gets spam of up to 4 million per day)
* Something not related with the SimCity 4 - Rush Hour
* Something already covered
* Illegal stuff, like CD-Keys and Pirated Versions
* Technical Problems
Technical Problems will not be answered as they should be sent to Maxis not
me.
I didn't design the game so I shouldn't know what's wrong with it, its your
game not MINE.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[B] Webmaster Information
ONLY GAMEFAQS WILL HOST THIS FAQ UNTIL OTHERWISE STATED BELOW
GAMESFAQ WILL ALWAYS HAVE THE LATEST VERSIONS
YOU CANNOT HOST THIS DOCUMENT WITHOUT ASKING. SIMPLE AS THAT.
YOU CANNOT MAKE A PROFIT FROM THIS DOCUMENT LIKE SELLING IT.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[C] Credits
This section is where you see your name. It will be long. The names are either
Board Names from the Boards or your e-mail so if your name is Bob Rob and
another Bob Rob posted the message, the First Bob Rob will not be credited so
in short, someone around the world who shares the same name as you will not
be credited for your work.
CJayC, Thanks for the Memories
SBAllen for the job of administration GameFAQs
Maxis and EA for developing the game
Thy451 for making the best SimCity 4 Guide EVER
Me for making it
Hotmail for giving me the e-mail account
http://www.rootsecure.net/index.php?p=ascii_generator for the ascii art
You for reading it
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[D] Sites FAQ is on
Current FAQ is On
www.gamefaqs.com will always have the latest versions
May be outdated
www.neoseeker.com
www.supercheats.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[E] Copyright
This game is Copyright 2003 Maxis and Electronic Arts. All Rights Reserved
This document is copyrighted by US and Canadian and Australian Laws. This FAQ
is for personal use only. This is not to be used for commercial or personal
gain. Websites publishing this guide without permission will face punishment
under the law. All sites except GAMEFAQS are not allow to host this FAQ
without my permission.
This document is protected by the copyright laws that were founded in the
Bernes Copyright Convention in 1968. It states that:
The expression �literary and artistic works� shall include every production
in the literary, scientific and artistic domain, whatever may be the mode or
form of its expression, such as books, pamphlets and other writings; lectures,
addresses, sermons and other works of the same nature; dramatic or
dramatico-musical works; choreographic works and entertainments in dumb show;
musical compositions with or without words; cinematographic works to which
are assimilated works expressed by a process analogous to cinematography;
works of drawing, painting, architecture, sculpture, engraving and
lithography; photographic works to which are assimilated works expressed by a
process analogous to photography; works of applied art; illustrations, maps,
plans, sketches and three-dimensional works relative to geography,
topography, architecture or science.
If you fail to follow the law, you will be indited for fraud and is a criminal
offense and result in a criminal record. You will find it extremely hard to
find a job if you have a criminal record. Do not sell this document or claim
it as your own or you will be punishable under the law. If you wish to know
more about this law as you don't believe that you are breaking copyright,
feel free to do a google search on the Bernes Copyright Convention.
You are not to sell this piece of work, claim it as your own, make any
finanical gain out of this guide, or any other illegal activity. You are
allowed to print this guide out and use it for personal uses but that is the
only thing you can do with this guide.
Please abide with the terms. If not, you will be facing a lawsuit you cannot
win.
This document is copyright 2008. All Rights are on a taxpayer funded vacation.
© Web Media Network Limited, 1999 - 2024 This site is not affiliated in any way with Microsoft, Sony, Sega, Nintendo or any video game publishers.
Privacy Policy | Terms of Service.
Super Cheats is an unofficial resource with submissions provided by members of the public. These are not usually tested by us (because there are so many), so please use them at your own risk.
