/--[ THE NEWBIE GUIDE ]--\
As much as that FAQ is helpful, a guide is undoubtly the most helpful you
can get! I'm going to assume you've installed the game, atleast played
the TWO tutorials and is still totally clueless on what to do. That's ok,
I can work with that.
First, lets make a new region. When you first load the game, you are
looking at the Maxisland region. That's a nice region, but it's hilly
and filled with water, nice later in the game when you can work with these
setbacks, but for now, we need a FLAT surface. The fast way to get one is
to make a new region! At the top of the region display is 3 buttons. Click
the first one. Then the first one of the new choices. A window will show
up on your screen. Type in the name of the region... such as Flat Plains
or Green Grasslands. Leave it checked on "plains". The region will start
to be created.
When it's done, it's time to start a city! For this, I recommend getting
a small/medium square. Just click on the square you want. Click the
PLAY button. The city will load. Skip terraforming for now, we want
a flat land city. Click the Mayor Mode button (the second large button on
the panel in the lower left corner). A window will appear prompting you
to name the city and name the mayor. Name the city whatever you like and
name the mayor whatever as well. For this guide, I'll be using Newbtown for
the name of the city and Newton Newguy for the mayors name. Lets get
started!
First we need a power plant. Hmm... this isn't a hard decision. We'll
using the least non-polluting one that is also affordable. It's the natural
gas one! While Wind Power is a great choice too, the Natural Gas one is
more cost effective. Place it anywhere on the map. After it's place, we
better lower the budget, or we're paying 400 bucks for enough power to last
us a LONG time! Using the query tool, open up the status of the natural
gas plant. Lower the budget to 25-50 simoleons.
Now we need some houses. At first only poor people who are looking for a
better life move into your small village. They won't have any education,
not even a 1st grade education, and can barely work on farms. We need to
provide homes for this homeless brave adventurers and get them some jobs.
First the homes. Since they are poor, they don't care what homese, even
if it's a trailer. Most of these poor style homes are built in dirty parts
of your city. So build some light residential near your power plant (not
very far, or the power won't reach the zone). Though farms is the only
job available to your sims, do not provide it. It pollutes your water
and they pay little to no taxes. Instead, build a small patch of commercial
nearby your residential. Now build a school so we can get them smart enough
to work at a factory. The school should be in the center of your small
neighborhood. Like the natural gas plant, we need to lower the budget.
Lower the bus to have the small greenish yellow ring only surrond your
neighborhood. It only needs to cover the houses, not commercial or the
natural gas plant. Then lower the teacher budget so you only have one
teacher and basically paying to have enough room for 50 or so students.
You will be losing money, but this is normal. To increase it, we need more
taxes. Open up the budget panel in mayor mode. Click the budget to get
a more detailed view. You should see taxes at the top in income. Click
the eye next to this choice. You can now set your taxes here. Raise them
all to 9% or so. You might be making some money now. If not, build so
more light residential/commercial. Raise the bus budget as you get more
houses in your neighborhood. You might need to raise the power budget soon.
Continue to build more zones until you're making money. Once you're making
money, stop, and leave it this way. Wait about 15 game years. Your
population should have a new workforce to handle factories now. Factories
pay much more taxes than "Bob's Greasy Pits" and "Grey Cottages". They
also need a workforce with atleast Elementary Education. To get some
factories, we need to zone them. Build some light industrial by your
neighborhood, but not to close since they will make your neighborhood dirty.
Next to this new industrial zone build a small trash landfill (it's in
the utilities section). Make sure it has street/road access. The landfill
will hurt your income quite a bit when it starts to get used. Hopefully
the demand for factories is large and many will be built. Again, zoning
more residential will increase your income a bit. Your city might even
be awarded a mayors house by now! Before we move, take a look around your
city. It's fun to just watch it work the way it does. When you're ready
to move one, come back here and we'll continue.
So far your city is a dirty factory landfill with meager education. Now
it's time to pretty your city up. It's very undesiarable at the moment.
Lets find our "problem areas". Using the map tool in the mayor mode, look
into mayor approval. Your residential areas will light up. The green
ones mean they like you, brownish/yellowish means they think you're ok, and
red means they dislike you. If it's not green, it means we got a bad
problem. It's probably pollution/crime! Go ahead and check the crime
and pollution around these zones by just clicking the approriate checkbox.
I'm guessing pollution is near red from the factories, and crime is pretty
high as well. You might be lucky and have very little crime, but that's if
you're lucky. The easiest way to fix pollution is to enact some anti
polluting ordiances! To do so, we need to go back to our budget window in
Mayor Mode. Go to expanded view in budget, then click the eye next to
ordiances. The ordiances we will be making will cost money monthly, so we
should balance this out with a money making one. Legalize Casinos and you
will be making money to cover these ordiances. Now select all the
ordiances that sound like the remove pollution. I recommend ones that go
after AIR pollution. Don't check to many ordiances, or you might start to
lose money.
Your city is on it's way. By now you probably have the 3rd reward and
possibly a business deal. If you don't, it's not that important yet. You
will get them soon enough. Now it's time to get some real money! The
best way it to get rich people! Now, they don't like crime or pollution,
and we just fixed one of them. They also like to be surronded by happy
and expansive things. But all these expansive things will pay off, since
the money you'll make from them really helps! Now, solving crime options
is optional, but if you choose to do so, just place a police station in
the location you wish to our soon to be rich people neighborhood. Make
sure it's far away from the polluting factories. Now surrond this little
police station with light density zones. I recommend leaving the game
on paused so no one moves in while you're perfecting your rich people
neighborhood. Make a road/street to the rest of your town, and powerlines
if needed. Now scatter small parks/gardens/recreational sites around this
neighborhood. Now, rich people won't settle for a well in their backyards
for plumbing, so it's time to get water. Don't get worried about the
cost though, as soon as the rich people move in, they are basically paying
it through taxes. Place one water tower in the center of your neighborhood.
Now go into pipe laying mode. First created a pipe connected to the water
tower. Now build more pipes so it surronds your neighborhood. Unpause the
game for a second to see if the neighborhood is getting water. Pause the
game again and build pipes in areas that don't have water. Be sure all
your pipes are connected to the tower. To go back to above ground view,
just click the lay road button.
Now, schools, clinic, and museum are optional. While they help attract
rich people, they can really destroy your income. I suggest building them
after a few rich people move it. Now set the game's speed to rhino (two
play buttons). Wait a while. You should mostly 2 story houses and
Victorian houses, if not, you'll need to slowly add more of those benefits
listed in beginning of this paragraph. If you want to see if it's a rich
house, use the query tool and investigate one of the houses. If it's $$
or $$$ for wealth, it means it's average-wealthy household. If you see only
$ in wealth, it's a redneck poor people house. Try bulldozing these and
seeing if nicer houses are built.
From this point on, it's pretty much rinse and repeat. All you have to do
is build more zones, make them poor/rich neighborhoods, give them jobs
with factories, make sure you're making money, lower/raise budgets when
needed, and slowly rezone your land into higher densities so you'll one day
have skyscrappers! Good luck, and if you need more ideas on what to do,
look at my other sections. Oh, here's a review of what your end result
should be like:
1. A functional power plant.
2. One poor neighboorhod, one rich neighborhood, factories, and mild amounts
of commercial.
3. Got a small education system working and possibly a small anti-crime one
too.
4. Enacted Legalize Casinos and anti-pollution ordiances to increase income
while decreasing pollution.
5. Your city will have a population around 15,000-25,000 by now. Unless you
zone very little residential that is. Remember the last paragraph of
the guide, rinse and repeat! You need to continue making more zones to
get more people!
6. Successfully kept budget atleast of 1$ income.
Källa: http://gamesurf.tiscali.de/spielewiese/loesungen/simcity4.shtml
