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Tips of the Week
For April 17, 1997
Tips of the Week Index
View last weeks tips of the week: Military Bases
This weeks Tips of the Week
Part One, Starting Off a City: The Groundbreaking
This week will begin a special edition of "Tips of the Week", this
session will last a few weeks actually. It will give you step-by-step
help on starting a solid-budget city. This is for those of you who started
a city and it went bankrupt in 10 years (hey, I used to do that, so don't
worry about it!). Check in next week for the next episode (I'm not sure
what it's going to be).
Terrain:
Ah, now that you've decided to become a mayor, your first job is where
to put your soon to be metropolis. If your not much in to raising mountains,
lowering valleys, or filling up rivers, then go ahead and use Maxis' boring
auto-landscape generator. But if you want to custom your terrain, here are
some good ideas:
- Customize the terrain to match your hometown
- Build a landscape of your dreams (i.e. an island city, a huge mountain, etc.)
- To get the most population, flat cities are the best for that work
- Just make your city neat, with some pattern or design to it
So, click on Edit New Map on the main menu screen, and customize your terrain (see
the manual for info on the terrain editor)
When you have your perfect terrain, click DONE at the bottom of the Terrain
toolbar. Your terrain will appear and the Name City dialog will come up. Name
your city any cute name you want, pick any year you want too. For this tutorial
it's best (and I'm assuming that you do this) to have the "Easy-$20,000" object
selected. When everythings set, click Done. The newspaper will appear, announcing
the groundbreaking. Click the close button in the upper-left corner.
Build, build, for goodness sake!:
Now, finally, get to work!! Pick a nice spot to build your city, usually pretty
flat and near water (if you have any). First, every Sim needs a power plant. Click
the Power icon (the lightning bolt) on the Toolbar and hold it down. Choose Power
Plants from the menu which appears. Depending on what year it is, several power plants
will appear. For now, choose the Oil Power Plant. Drag it to anywhere near your soon
to be city center, and place it. An ugly gray and black building should appear, but hey,
you just built your first city building!! Give yourself a pat on the back :-).
Now, for the actual zones. I like to build a road box 2 x 2 blocks, each block with 6 x 6
squares. Here's how to do it:
- Build some roads using the Road tool. Build a straight line until the cost reaches $140,
then release the mouse button.
- Create a square out of the $140 lines of road. Build $140's sideways out from the original
line, connect those together.
- Cut the square in half each way, so you get fourths.
Now, zone one square Dense Residential, another Light Residential, one Light Industrial, and
one Light Commercial. Run power from the power plant to each of the zones.
Well, as soon as you got those power lines in the Sims came pouring in too, huh? Now, just
wait until your population reaches 2,000. You will earn yourself a mayors mansion, just one
of many Rewards you can win in SC2000.
Next week, we'll work on expansion and some city issues.
And overall, be creative.
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