Sim City 4 tips

I know a lot of people are pissed off at this game because it seems impossible to actually make a profit. The starting phase really is hard, because it seems like your city MUST have this and that.

I want more people to play and enjoy this game, so to do that a tips thread might do some good.

1. Planning can do a world of good. Figuring out whether you'd like to make a farming community before you start laying heavy industry is smart.. It's also worth to keep in mind that as the city grows bigger it WILL need better roads, so don't ruin it for yourself by screwing up the road structure.

2. Don't over-do it, just because you got 100k to start with. The money will go away fast enough. Start with low density zoning and add the cheapest police stations etc.

3. Be patient! It takes time for a city to evolve.

4. Plant parks and nice things to raise the desirability. People want to move in if they have a school nearby and maybe a basketball court (or whatever) to use.

5. Build several cities close to each other, and be sure to connect them properly.

Shouldn't this be in Hellp?

Good call, but I doubt as many will read the thread there

Nevertheless, it was good tips. Very useful because i overdid everything and tried to build everything at once which is not that good.

is there any building in sc4 that will bring in a profit in stead of raising taxes? i play for about 30 minutes and end up broke.

1. when your funds get right down or go into the red, you will usually be offered either a missile base, toxic plant or military base which all give u money to be in your city.
2. also don't be scared to cut the funding to health and education or your power plants either. in regards to health and education, you can get away with only funding them at just above 50%. it is just enough for the employees not to strike. It's the same with the power plants, fund them just enough so that you dont have brown or black outs.
3. you can get away with taxing each zone type at around 9% too. and it is always good to tax industry at around 11% and it can still be in demand.

Also, if you want to attract high-wealth people then you can just set their tax really low. For instance, if you have absolutely no rich people living in your city then you won't loose anything by setting the tax to like 3%, because when it's that low they're likely to move in. You should always try to get high-wealth people, because they're basically the key to the bigger, really cool buildings.

Just got the game tonight, and have spent some time with it. Good tips guys, thanks for the help

Got a question here,

Is it possible to build these seperate communities as specialized regions?
i.e. Have a commercial/industrial city, with adjacent being residential to house the workers?

Haven't had the chance to try this out, anybody else given it a go?

As someone who has a city of 120,000. (in a small square, no cheats/tricks). I'll put my .02 in:

1. Use the prison and military base:
Realistically, you need the military base and the prison, I PERSONALLY wouldnt put the missle testing facility in. These 2 items both reduce the land value around them. But, they dont need power or water or roads either, so stick them in the furthest possible region.

2. MicroManagement: Or, as I call it, CrisisManagement: When you first build a hospital/school drop its funding to about 10%, and increase its Bus/ambulance funding to the max. Then, when your city outgrows this, there will be a strike, up it another 10%. Dont worry, they'll dtop striking. Use this for Water/Hydro as well, drop them to 10% and wait for the warning indicators, then up it 10% more.

3. I disagree with the low density rule: I build almost exclusively medium density. The reason for this is: the ONLY time in this game when you can make a solid profit, is when you have apartment buildings. And remember, medium density just means they can upgrade later, they will still build low density buildings originally.

4. And perhaps the toughest rule to follow: Don't expand too fast! Group your gov't buildings together in a tight circle, and then build out to the outer reaches. Use medium density so that they can upgrade to small apartment buldings, even with just your original cirlce of houses, you can be pulling a reasonable $1000 a month profit (at about 8% tax).

5. Only build residental zones inside your cirlces (and a few small commercial), put the industrial and agricultural outside the circle. Agriculture needs no real facilities to function.

Anyway, thats about it. have fun and be patient, it takes about 3 years for a community (or a new suburb) to reap the benefits.

oh, one more thing:

6. (advanced) Once you use up all your available ground, Start re-zoning all your zones into High density, do NOT demolish the existing buildings, they will upgrade on their own.


VandaL.

email me if you have any questions at: BlairWendell@hotmail.com