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SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
HTML / MS Doc Versions

Check out the Simtropolis site, for the HTML version
with pictures. Also this guide is in MS Doc version over
there. I hope to improve upon the MS Doc version
overtime by making it more user friendly.
www.simtropolis.com
www.simcity-4.net

SECTION A: ONLINE MANUAL
If you are new to the game. I advice you to go to the
strategy section and start playing your first city a bit
then return here to read. It will be easier to read if
you are somewhat familiar with the game. Perhaps a
short glance at PART 2, General Gameplay Concept,
should be done. However, there are also some very
extensive and intensive discussions and debate in this
area that you might not truly appreciate until you are
more familiar with the game. These can mostly be
found in those topics marked with the little star (*).
This Online Manual (OM) was created because the
one provided seems to be quite inadequate, at least in
comparison with the previous SimCity series.

You can also find me and a whole bunch of other
people who are truly experts at the game, at the
Simtropolis Site. It is the best SimCity site and also the
best, most active and friendly forum around with
several thousand members and still growing by the PART 1: BASIC GAME MECHANICS
day.
There is less strategies in PART 1, so if you are clear on
Version 2: Additions in this update
how the game works, you can simply proceed on to
Well, pretty much the entire guide is changed, added the later sections in the guide. I will be dealing with
and improved. So to list the additions and changes the basic game play issues at this section. They will
here would be futile as that would mean listing the mostly relate to options available, technical game
entire guide. But briefly:
data and generally how things operate in the game.
2.00: Additions:
1) Expanded the Strategies to get you city into the
millions and beyond.
2) Expanded Online Manual.
3) Improved the advanced tutorials to take you
step by step to obtain your first skyscrapers in
16 years.
4) Whole host of game and other information
added.
5) Huge format change.
6) Added quotes at the start of each part, much
like the old SimCity manuals
NOTE: For complete version history look at the
conclusion, under End 2.
BRIEF TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Section A : Online Manual
Section B : Strategy Guide
PART 1 : General Strategies
PART 2 : Layouts
PART 3 : 0 - 40,000 (1st City + Dirty)
PART 4 : 0 - 40,000 (2nd City + Manufacturing)
PART 5 : 0 - 40,000 (Subsequent + High Tech)
PART 6 : 40,000 - 100,000
PART 7 : 80,000 - Millions and beyond
PART 8 : Specialised City, Multi million and Farms
Section C : Advanced Tutorials (To Skyscrapers)
Section D : Cheats and Loopholes
Section E : Handy Reference Guides, Fun Stuff &
Building Catalogue
Conclusion: [Wave], Bye Bye
SimCity 4: FAQ by thy451
Version: 2.00 | Last Updated: 2003-06-19
SIM CITY 4 GUIDE: VERSION 2, by thy451

SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

A1.01: Basics and Technical Issues
A1.01.1: Query the Hottest Keys
The query option is one of the most important tools in
the game. Use it to determine a whole host of
information. You can also use it to click on any
building and then change the name of it. Although
that does not make the building historical or
unalterable. It can still be destroyed by the computer
when redeveloping. And if you want to follow a
MySims or a car or change the traffic lights, simply do
this:
[Query]
object]

+

[shift]

+

[click

on

You can check out the list of hot keys at the back of
the provided manual although most of them seem
quite useless and superfluous to me and seems only
to appear there to fill up the back of the manual. For
example there is a hot key of obliterating the city. I do
not know how you play your city but this is not C&C,
there is little violence and you would definitely not
need a hot key for obliteration.
The following are the more useful hot keys, the
hottest of the hot.
1) [Home or End], Turn the building around for
placement.
2) [Shift], Turns off auto roads. Simply press shift
after dragging the zone but before releasing the
mouse button. Make sure that you have the
patch installed.
3) [Alt], Switch the layout of the zoning before
laying it.
4) [Esc], Undo, sort of. Cancels zones, roads, etc,
1
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
only if you have not released the mouse button.
5) [G], Shows the grid. This is great for counting
and planning.
6) [/], Query. Use it with bulldoze to prevent
accidental demolition.
7) [B], Bulldoze / Demolish.
8) [Control] [F], Dispatch fire fighters.
9) [Control] [P], Dispatch police.
10) [Control] + [Shift] + [S], Takes a picture of
your city as it is appearing on the screen at this
moment. This is a very useful hot key as it
allows pictures which may not be possible if you
went through the clicking on all picture button
process.
11) [Spacebar], Centre on Cursor.
12) [Control] + [Shift] + [C], Toggle terrain
contours.
13) [Control] + [S], Save City.
14) [F12], Exit
15) [Control] + [Shift] + [Alt] + [R], This is to
record a clip of your city.
16) [Control] + [Shift] + [O], Just in case you are
wondering, this is the obliterate hotkey.

For City Music:
SimCity 4> Radio > Stations > Mayor
> Music
Then when you play the game open up the Audio
Option and select the custom tunes.
2) Animation
Simply hit [Control] + [Shift] + [O] to begin. Enter in
the various information such as file name, rate, time,
output and frame count. The clip will be stored in your
Recorded Animation folder.
A1.01.4: Technical Issues
Firstly, I should state that I am NOT a technical expert
or even a technical person at all. However, these
problems occurred frequent enough for me to pick
some things up.

1) Game Requirements:
You can easily check the requirements on the box
although the game really requires a lot of power such
that even if you are above the recommended your
cities if they are huge may encounter lag.
A1.01.2: Multiple City Save Games and file locations
There is a good test program to test your computer
systems vis-a-vis the game requirements. It is found in
1) Save Games
For those of you who complain about the lack of save the game folder itself:
games slots, you could always just copy the region to
SimCity4
>
Support
>
SimCity
another folder. Go to:
4_EZ.exe
MyDocuments > SimCity 4 > Regions
2) GDriverWindow--DirectX Error (1)
This is also the place to put any cities you download. This is one of the most common problems I see. The
You have to place the city in the region in want it to error you will most probably see is "The configuration
file (Graphics Rules.sgr) cannot be parsed using builtbe.
in rules." There are two plugin folders. The one I am
2) File locations
a) Album: MyDocuments > SimCity 4 > talking about is the one in your MyDocuments folder.
Album
b) Bug Report: MyDocuments > SimCity
4 > Exception Reports
c) Recorded Animation: MyDocuments >
SimCity 4 > Recorded Animation
d) Original Regions: C:(or wherever
you
installed
the
game)
SimCity 4 > Regions
This is for if you messed up the original regions and
want the original back.
e) Music for the game / Custom Tunes:
SimCity 4> Radio > Stations > Region
> Music
SimCity 4> Radio > Stations > Mayor
> Music

MyDocuments > SimCity 4 > Plugins
Do not place any of the downloaded things into this
folder if not the game will not start. I suggest that
after installation of the game and the patch you go
and check this folder out to see what should remain in
there. Nothing. The reason why an uninstall does not
work is because the game does not delete the SimCity
4 folder under MyDocuments unless you actively
specify it. Delete what ever you have placed there.

3) GDriverWindow--DirectX Error (2)
However, there is another more drastic method. Since
I am not well-versed in computers, I am unsure as to
whether is this message a generic type for multiple
A1.01.3: Custom Tunes & Animation
problems or not. If above solution does not work then
you may attempt to try this but do it at your own risk
1) Tunes
and discretion.
You can play your own music simply by placing the
a) Uninstall SimCity 4 including the SimCity 4
music (MP3) into this folder:
folder in MyDocuments.
For Region Music:
b) Reinstall:
SimCity 4> Radio > Stations > Region After that do the following:
> Music
SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

2
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
1. Double-click on My Computer.
2. Double-click on C: drive (also labelled
local disk)
3. Double-click on Program Files.
4. Double-click on Maxis.
5. Double-click on Sim City 4.
6. Double-click on Apps.
c) Open SimCity 4.ini file
1. Right-click on the SimCity 4.ini file and a
menu will appear. Select "open" and leftclick to open the file. The found is found
in:

5) EA Technical help
If you have problem operating the game simply send
them a message. It is under their technical support,
Ask a question tab. You do not need actually need to
know their address. This is their main support site.
http://techsupport.ea.com

Although it should be noted that, often your first reply
will be an automated one but do not despair and
persist. I did once think of sending in multiple mails
just to determine the various sets of automated
response and trigger words but I think that sort of
C:(or wherever you installed the would be frowned upon.
game) > Apps
6) Permanent Green Highlight Bug
If, you see your hospitals or education highlighted as
2. You will now see notepad open the file green even if they are not selected, do not worry.
up. It will look similar to this:
Simply go to the data view, and select the respective
health, education, etc view. Then after selected, click
[Directories]
on the all off. They will no longer have the green glow.
Data=..
PlugIn=..Plugins
A1.01.5: Registration
[Graphics Drivers]
OpenGL =SimGLRef.dll, C4554841
Software=SimGLSoft.dll, 7ACA35C6
D3D7 =SimGLDx7.dll, BADB6906

The registration process I recalled was quite
complicated. If I remember itcorrectly, this is the
process:
1) Register once on your computer by filling up the
form after installation, which will then send a
[Current Graphics Driver]
signal to the main site. Or go to the Support
;Driver = C4554841 ;OpenGL Hardware
folder and click on SimCity 4_eReg.exe to
;Driver = 7ACA35C6 ;GRPoly Software
Driver = BADB6906 ;DX7 Hardware
register.
2) Then you have to register a second time also
d) Editing
with the same key, which is at the back of your
You will need to make edits to the [Graphics Drivers]
CD case at their official site.
and [Current Graphics Driver] sections so that they
3) Failure to do the first registration before the
appear as follows:
second will give you a error or invalid key
[Directories]
message
Data=..
4) Enter your email correctly and make sure it
PlugIn=..Plugins
does not get directed to your junk folder. Click
on the activation and you are done.
[Graphics Drivers]
Again if you have problems send an message to them.
;OpenGL =SimGLRef.dll, C4554841
They solved, my problem within hours.
Software=SimGLSoft.dll, 7ACA35C6
;D3D7 =SimGLDx7.dll, BADB6906
http://techsupport.ea.com
[Current Graphics Driver]
;Driver = C4554841 ;OpenGL Hardware
Driver = 7ACA35C6 ;GRPoly Software
;Driver = BADB6906 ;DX7 Hardware
e) Hopefully that will help you but I make no
promises.

This I must say is one of the most complicated
registration process ever. However, it is a good effort
against piracy. So if you see anyone or if anyone asks
you for your key, do NOT give away your key. And also
report all piracy regarding the game to this EA email
address:

4) Graphics options
As usual there is a trade-off between speed of the piracy@ea.com
game and quality of it. Patch 2 will automatically set
the options rather low, at least in my opinion. So if the For online piracy email contact:
graphics look bad, simply change the quality and
piracy2@ea.com
determine if you can stand the lag in the game.

SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

3
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
A1.01.6: Updates
1) Check all files updated
The patch update is problematic. Whether you patch
automatically or do it manually, make sure you check
that all the relevant files are indeed updated. The list
of files can be found on the patch page. Although, I
personally seem to have a problem with the
'dbghelp.dll' file as it not only did not take the 2003
stamp date but it seems to have taken a 2001 stamp
date.
2) Patch Log
You will have a patch log called:
sc4_patchlog.txt
It is found in the same folder as the patch file you
downloaded if you used the automatic patch. Not too
sure where it would be if it was done automatically.
This lists what files were patched and whether was it
successful at the patch.
3) Region Identification
The second problem is for those who has problem
with the automatic patch and have to do it manually.
Make sure your region is correct. The problematic is
the Asian edition. Just because, you live in Asia and
bought the game there does not mean that the game
is an Asian edition one. If it is English, there is a high
chance that your edition could be the North America
one. I do not think there is a way to actually
determine your region by looking at the files or game
itself.
The things that could your is an American edition are:
(i) Right hand drive and (ii) American spelling.
However with regards to American spelling, I am
unsure whether is it similar for all the English games.
If it is not then look for words such as "harbor" v
"harbour" or "color" v "colour." The spelling without
the "u" is the American spelling. These words will
sometimes appear as park of the message in the news
ticker.
4) Failed patch
Finally, if you game did not patch properly as in the
files were not fully updated, the only way to resolve it
is to reinstall everything.
A1.01.7: Online Play: SimCityScape
You can find more information at the site but this is a
brief overview. This online gameplay is available at
the official website:
http://simcity.ea.com/scape/
http://simcity.ea.com/
1) Requirements
a. Microsoft's Internet Explorer version 6 or
better.
b. ActiveX
c. Java
d. Registered user
e. Game updated with Patch 2
SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

2) 9 Regions Available
a. Amarica (Large City size: 20 Cities).
Discovered in 2003, Amarica is the new
world.
b. Griffinland (Large City size: 42 Cities). In a
world where water reigns, Griffinland
springs to life.
c. Dan's Grove (Small City Size: 43 Cities).
Farmer Dan ran a pistachio orchard on this
soil, until approached by a developer. The
region has been growing ever since.
d. Emlee Valley (Medium City Size: 18 Cities).
Pioneered by Maxoids, additional settlers
have been moving in ever since.
e. Molon Island (Small City Size: 47 Cities).
Islands rise from the oceans forming this
vast archipelago.
f. Sea Shaw (Medium City Size: 47 Cities). With
recent development interest, Sea Shaw
promises to undergo a real estate boom.
g. Lake Lucky (Medium City Size: 41 Cities).
Formed by a giant asteroid 3 million years
ago, Lake Lucky is now a vacation haven.
h. Big Ben Basi (Medium City Size: 47 Cities).
The lands have been shifting beneath these
shallow waters, making it prime realestate
for developers.
i. Wee Burg (Small City Size: 45 Cities). In the
wee county of Wee Burg, little cities
populate the quaint countryside.
j. Cook County (Large City Size: 24 Cities). The
wind sweeps across vast stretches of plains,
as if whispering “develop me.”
k. Templinton (Medium City Size: 18 Cities).
Civilizations have always grown from the
fertile river valleys, Templinton is no
exception.
l. Annarondacks (Large City Size: 15 Cities).
Lakes, forests, and numerous winter sports
resorts, attract many tourists, and was once
the site of the 1964 Winter SimOlympics.
m. Spider Mountain (Medium City Size: 38
Cities). Once inhabited by a spider so large,
no one dared move into the area.
Nowadays the spider has taken up a career in a
travelling sideshow act, leaving the region spider free.
3) Game Play concept
It is quite simple. You get to pick one region and you
have up to 48 hours to play with it and to end your
turn. You may upload it and make as many changes as
you want. But after 48 hours or if you choose to end
your turn early your turn is up then another person
can take over. You may not play the same city
consecutively although you may play a city multiple
times. After certain amount of time, Maxis will reset
the region and the good ones I suppose will get into
their hall of fame.

4
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
4) Download Region
You can download their "premade region
configuration folder" and place it at My
DocumentsSimCity 4Regions to extract
and create your city. It is a 2k zip file. Yes, 2k I did not
have a typing error. It is small. This is not required for
playing the online game and download it only if you
want to duplicate their region for your own play.
A1.01.8: Simtropolis Patch
This is not an official patch at all. It is put together by
fans of the game. It is located at the Simtropolis site:
Www.simtropolis.com
The following is one of the official words by Maxis on
it:
'Users install, run and download those "mods" from
Simtropolis completely at their own risk. Maxis is NOT
responsible for ANY errors, crashes, problems or any
other issue that you may have if you have
downloaded and applied any unofficially supported
mod files to your game. Nor is Maxis required to help
anyone who has altered their game with any
patches/mods/downloads that are not from Maxis
themself. Players should also expect that any future
patches and/or expansion packs and SimCityscape
"may" NOT function properly with the game if you
have downloaded any unofficial mods/patches/files
and applied them to your game.'
A1.01.9: City Size
There are three city size that you can select. And each
tile is 16 by 16 metres.
a. Small: 64 by 64 tiles = 1024
metres / 1Km
b. Medium: 128 by 128 tiles = 2048
metres / 2Km
c. Large: 256 by 256 tiles = 4096
metres / 4km
A1.02: God Mode
A1.02.1: Terraform
1) Automatic Reconcile:
I recommend that you turn off the reconcile option.
Use it only in a city that has yet to build anything,
unless you wish to lose your buildings at the edge.
2) Map Creation:
Personally, I prefer creating maps one by one rather
than doing the entire region. Firstly, it is so much
easier and you get to start playing the game faster.
Gives you greater flexibility to get the terrain to suit
the cities that are sprouting up. Of course even if you
do the entire region you can still change the
landscape of the city. But from my experience, you
would be extremely reluctant to do so. And
furthermore if the changes are huge it may impact
SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

other maps. Even if that is not so, you will have
wasted time altering the map twice.
3) Size and intensity of terra forming:
Shift F1 - F10: Intensity from less (F1) to most (F10)
Shift 1 > 2 > ... > 9 > 0: Size of brush from small (1) to
large (0). The size of the circle remains the same
whatever zoom you are at. So zoom in to the
maximum zoom if you wish to have a smaller effect.
4) Reconcile
Once in a while I hear people complain bitterly that
the reconcile destroys their city. The answer is simple.
If it destroys your city then just do not hit the
reconcile button. Go to the options and turn it off.
A1.02.2: Changing region & city size
a) Introduction to Items:
Program: MS Paint
I used this but believe that any graphics program can
be used.
File: Config.bmp
Location: My DocumentsSimCity4Regions(Any
original region. Such as Berlin or Maxisland)
Note: I mentioned the file so for you to get an idea
about it. It does NOT mean that you use this files for
your map. Please create a new bitmap.
b) Region Size:
The pixels of the bitmap determine the size of the
region. For Example Maxisland is 16 x 16 pixels
c) City Size Colour Coding:
1x1: Red : Small city.
2x2: Green: Medium city.
4x4: Blue : Large city.
The colour's value must be 255. And in the event that
you are unfamiliar with MS paint, here is a step-bystep guide.
1) Select "Colours" then "Edit Colours."
2) Press "Define Custom Colours."
3) Make sure the value of the colour is 255.
 Colour Red : Red 255 / Green 0 / Blue 0
 Colour Green: Red 0 / Green 255 / Blue
0
 Colour Blue : Red 0 / Green 0 / Blue
255
d) Steps:
1) Create new region. (In the game, obviously
but just in case)
2) Create bitmap in MS Paint. (Out of the
game) For those who do not know:
 Ctrl E / Or Under "Image", Select
"Attributes..."
 Set the width and height. Units are to be
in Pixels. Select Colours.
 Remember create a new picture do not
use any of the pictures that are provided
in the other regions
3) Based on the colour coding as stated above,
create your desired region.
 Do a maximum zoom for easier viewing.
4) Save as Config.bmp and place it in the folder
of the new region that you created in step
5
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
(1).
5) Congratulations, you now have your very
own map.
e) Further Illustration
If you wish to make a 6 x 4 small region here is an
example. Each letter, S, M, or L represents one pixel.
Diagram A1.02.2
S: Small
M: Medium
L: Large
1234
1MMSS
2MMSS
3LLLL
4LLLL
5LLLL
6LLLL
Therefore in this map you will have 1 large city, 1
medium city and 4 small cities. If for example your bit
map is only 4 x 4 and you attempt this
1234
1MMSS
2MMSS
3LLLL
4LLLL
Then it will result in only the medium and small city
appearing.
A1.02.3: Obliterate, Animals, Disasters and Trees
1) Obliterate
Using obliterate auto-saves thus there is no reload.
2) Disappearing Animals
They need forest cover to survive and further, it is
more of a gimmick than anything. Do not be too
perturbed by the mass suicides.
3) Disasters
Fire disaster cannot be turned off. The rest of the
disasters do not occur randomly and requires you to
actively use them. The only exception is the riot
disaster which occurs under certain circumstances.
REFER: A1.06.3 for how to create a riot
These are the list of disasters.
a) Tornado
b) Earthquake
c) Fire
d) Lightning
e) Servo the Robot Attack. From the Sims.
4) Trees type and growth
Each tree costs $3.
How fast the trees grow depends on whether is it
suitable for the climate. Climate is determined by the
height of the city. It should be noted that the trees
even of the same type planted in the same location do
not have the same growth rate although their growth
rate in general is similar.

its maximum size within 2 years while the longer ones
took up to 3 over years.
------------------------| Tree Type
| GR |
------------------------| Blue Spruce Pine | 3 |
| Noble Fir Pine
| 1 |
| Maple
| 1 |
| Palm
| 4 |
| Oak
| 2 |
------------------------A1.02.4: * Treatise on God & Natural Trees and
Pollution
There is a debate as to whether is there a difference
with respect to effect on pollution between natural
trees, those planted after the city was founded and
God mode trees, those planted before the city was
founded.
Let me deal with the easy part. Both type of trees do
actually remove pollution. An experiment that you
could try is this.
a) Simply start a new city with thickly planted God
mode trees.
b) Then build a coal power plant in the midst of
the trees.
c) Observe the level of pollution through the data
map.
d) Start demolishing the trees and you would see
the pollution expanding
Therefore one can conclude that God mode tree do
also remove pollution.
However, pollution can seep through if the pollution
itself is very strong and that the tree cover is not thick
enough. An experiment which I tried and which shows
that there is no difference at least after Patch 2 is this:
a) Start a city and plant God Mode trees
b) Establish the City and plant Natural trees
c) Wait for the natural trees to mature
d) Place a coal power plant in each of the different
forests, making sure that they line up
e) Start demolishing roll by roll of trees and see in
which area the pollution first seeps through.
It is my conclusion that they both seep through at
around the same area. Therefore at least with Patch 2,
there is no difference between God mode trees and
Natural trees. And even if there is a difference it is
minute and insignificant.
A1.03: Zones
A1.03.1: Options: Zone Types
The cost is similar for the zones with the same type of
density. Also agriculture is low density industry.
Commerce incorporates both services and offices thus
there is no way to actively just select one for
construction. You can select from residential,
commercial and industrial zoning.

Table A1.02.3
GR: This is the growth rate rankings based on the
default ground level. The earliest two started reaching
SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

6
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
Table A1.03.1: Zones and costs
---------------------Density |Low|Med|High|
---------------------Cost
|$10|$20|$50 |
---------------------A1.03.2: Density v Wealth

A1.03.3: Zoning desirability

The following table simply reflects what is required for
construction of the various zones. I have not included
all the factors. I have heard that the gradient of the
land, location with relation to other zones also play a
part but personally I find actually using them in the
game to be quite difficult unless of course you have in
Density is separate and distinct from the wealth and your mind the layout of the entire city right at the
type of zones. In other words low density housing start.
does not mean low wealth residence. The only
exception, to a certain extent is low density industry,
which should really be called agriculture. The
following table gives an explanation of density and
types wealth levels since this is the part that some are
confused about.
Table A1.03.2
L: Low density zoning
M: Medium Density zoning
H: HIgh density zoning
The key is the abbreviation used by the games
in the game charts.
----------------------------------------------Residential / Key
| Tax
| Zone Density |
----------------------------------------------Poor (R$)
| $
| L / M / H
|
Middle Class (R$$)
| $$
| L / M / H
|
Rich (R$$$)
| $$$
| L / M / H
|
----------------------------------------------Commercial
|
|
----------------------------------------------Services (Cs$/$$/$$$) |$/$$/$$$| L / M / H
|
Offices (Co$$/$$$)
|$$/$$$ | L / M / H
|
----------------------------------------------Industrial
|
|
----------------------------------------------Farms (I-Ag
| No Tax | L
|
Dirty (I-D)
| $
| M / H
|
Manufacturing (I-M)
| $$
| M / H
|
High Tech (I-HT)
| $$$
| M / H
|
----------------------------------------------Changing density:
Even after buildings are constructed, you can zone a
denser zone without destroying the buildings that are
built. If you are zoning a lower density zone than the
building, then a smaller density building will soon take
the place of its former higher density counterpart.
There should be no use of the demolition button
when changing zone density.
It is only when the demand is satisfied after the
denser zoning that the new denser buildings will
appear. Thus you may have to wait quite a bit before
seeing the effects of the denser zoning.

SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

7
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
Table A1.03.3

2) Transitional lack of connection
Sometimes when the area is being
R : Residential
redeveloped, a no road zot will appear. It
CO : Commercial Offices
should usually disappear within a few
CS : Commercial Services
months if not you may for to de-zone and
IA : Agriculture
rezone those affected tiles.
ID : Dirty Industry
3) Flood filling
IM : Manufacturing
To flood-fill, create the roads surrounding
IH : High-tech Industry
the zones, select the desired zone then
----------------------click and hold it at one tile and the zone
H : High
will fill up. Best used for irregular shaped
A : Average
zones. But because of the problem in (1), I
L : Low / Short
not really recommend flood filling an area.
--------------------------------------------After all you can easily fill up an irregular
Factors
| R | CO| CS| IA| ID| IM| IH|
shaped area by doing it over different
--------------------------------------------phases.
Air pollution
| L | L | L | L |
|
| L |
4) Undeveloped interior
Crime
| L | L | L | L | L | L | L |
Sometimes even with auto roads on the
Garbage
| L | L | L | L | L | L | L |
interior does not get developed. This is
Land Value
|
|
|
| L | L | A | H |
especially so for industry which can easily
--------------------------------------------zone up to 7x7 without auto-roads
Specific
|
|
appearing. The reason for it being
--------------------------------------------undeveloped is that the tiles touching the
Commute
| L |
|
|
|
|
|
|
road develops small-single tile buildings
Education
| H |
|
|
|
|
|
|
leaving the interior without roads.
Health
| H |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Freight
|
|
|
| L | L | L | L |
The interior will only develop later in the
Traffic Noise
| L |
|
|
|
|
|
|
game when either (i) huge multi-tile
Customer #
|
| H | H |
|
|
|
|
buildings appear or (2) when the single--------------------------------------------tile industry expands into the interior.
I do not really recommend huge zones especially for
Radiation:
industries. While everything might work out in the
long run, as John Maynard Keynes once said, "In the
Radiation is not tolerated by anything. While I have yet long run we are all dead."
to experience a meltdown, I did try using the toxic waste
dump and the area that was irradiated was quickly A1.03.5: Agriculture
abandoned.
1) Amount of jobs
Customer and Traffic Volume:
Even if you see that the barn stating that there is only
#: If you view the building you will see on information two jobs, that is under-reflective of the amount of
called customer. This translates to traffic volume or jobs at that farm. I believe that is per tile. This is
traffic congestion. Looking at the data map, I realised because I got a farmers market with only two large
that the areas of commercial with red traffic has high farms.
customers.
After creating a large farm, pause your game and wait
until about 5pm then you will see many cars leaving
However, customers are also created by having more the farm and going home. Therefore logically the farm
Sims in your city and region and also in having rich Sims. must employ more than just those few persons at the
This is simply because the richer they are the more they barn.
can purchase.
2) No farming taxes
Farms only bring in jobs and do not add to your
A1.03.4: Road Zots and Flood Filling
taxes.By the way if you are wandering why agriculture
does not produce taxes, think of the EU's Common
1) Actual Lack of connections
Agricultural Policy, CAP, and also countries like the US,
Each building needs to have road access. Thus make sure Canada or Japan. You should be happy that the farms
that the arrows (<) in the lots face the roads, if not you in your city do not demand massive subsidies from
will get the no connection sign. If a particular lot is not you or create inter-regional tensions by asking you to
facing the road then you should zone in parts rather than tax other farm goods to protect them.
zoning the entire area with one click and drag, thus 3) Connections required
making sure all of the (<) also face the roads.
Only roads and electricity is needed. Water is not
Alternatively, you could hit the [alt] key to change the needed. You should not even connect your pipes even
layout of the lots.
if you wanted too unless you do not mind your Sims
suffering from the indignity of drinking kiwi chocolate
SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

8
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
colour looking water.
4) Agriculture and pollution.
While agriculture abhors pollution air pollution, it is
nonchalant with regards to water pollution since they
too produces water pollution.
Of course this is not realistic as there are many types of
water pollution. I mean I would not want to eat
vegetables coming from a farm next to a LED factory that
dumps its arsenic waste into the water table.
5) Reasons for agriculture
There are several reasons for although I do not find them
convincing in terms of actual benefits.
a) It is more for atmosphere rather than a means to
make money.
b) It generates jobs, which bring in people and the
demand for agriculture unlike other sectors is
usually very high. But I prefer using nonagricultural industries to generate jobs at the
start.
c) However, while agriculture does pollute the water
it does have less air pollution as compared to the
dirty industry.
d) The best argument from a beneficial point of view
is so as to be able to build the farmer's market.
However, since keeping them around is not
necessary after you get the farm this means that
agriculture is only good at the start of the game
and should not be a permanent feature of the city
unless you wish to keep the 'farming look' in your
city.
6) Unable to convert land back to farms.
Once the city begins getting quite developed, it is very
unlikely that farms will be rebuilt on previously zoned
land even if there is no pollution. One reason is because
of the negative demand cap. This is since the more
industries you have the demand cap of the farm
becomes lower.
REFER: A2.02: Demand Caps
A1.03.6 : Industrial Pollution
1) Industrial pollution
The following table is a ROUGH guide to the length of
the extension of the pollution. With the exception of the
farms, which relates to water pollution the rest refers to
air pollution. The figures refer to the total number of
tiles the pollution extends. The level of pollution
decreases as you move further. But I have included all
level of pollution into the one figure. All these figures
operate on the assumption that you have no trees or
anything reducing pollution.
Table A1.03.6
---------------------------Industry
| Air | Water|
---------------------------Farms
| 0 | 12 |
Dirty
| 22 | 27 |
Manufacturing | 8 | 14 |
Hi-tech
| 0 | 0
|
----------------------------

SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

3) Abandoned buildings
These still produce pollution and on top of that attract
crime and are prone to fires. Therefore even if your
entire dirty industry is abandoned and all the buildings
lie vacant, the air pollution will still be as bad as ever.
A1.04: Transportation
A1.04.1: Options: Transport Types
1) Road Vehicle Transport: Streets, Road and
Highway
This is the most basic form of transportation around.
Streets have a very much smaller capacity about a
tenth than roads while highway offers about four
times more capacity than a road. They too have
differing speeds with the streets being the lowest and
the highway being the highest. Even buses add to the
traffic of the roads.
You can build diagonal roads but no diagonal streets. I
have simply no idea why this is so.
Because of the possibility of potholes you have the
ability to repair it by building roads on top of it. But if
you do lay a road over an existing one and even if the
road is in perfect condition it will cost money. So do
not waste money by laying roads over existing roads
when you are happy dragging the road tool. Also if
what the MySims state is correct, people do not like
to live next to one of them.
2) Train Transport: Trains and Subway
Both rails and subway have about the same capacity,
the difference being that one operates underground
and the other do not. The less obvious difference is
that rails have the capacity for transporting factory
goods.
3) Ports: Airport and Seaport
These are primarily demand cap busters. The seaport
serves the industry while the airport serves the
commercial areas. It is often asked as to whether are
the effects of an airport city wide or region wide. Its
effect is only city wide. However, there is an indirect
effect on the region. This is because after placement it
will improve the demand, growth and economy of
that city and as a result of that, the better city will
have a stronger positive effect on neighbouring cities
and such.
Remember, these ports must be connected to the
thing they serve, commercial areas for airports and
industry for ports.
And with relation to the airport, they can be
upgraded. When your usage is close to the maximum,
an offer of an upgrade will be made. An upgraded
airport still takes up the small amount of space.
REFER: A2.02: Demand Caps

9
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
4) Cost and Capacity
Table A1.04.2: Transport
$C: Cost to build / In the case of
medium and large airports, this figure
represents the upgrade cost.
$M: Monthly maintenance cost
CA: Capacity
P: Passenger
G: Goods in tons
%: Treat this as a percentage when
contrasted
with
the
rest
in
that
category
-------------------------------------Structure
| $C | $M | CA
|
-------------------------------------Cars
|
|
-------------------------------------Roads
| 10 | 0.10|100% |
Streets
| 5
| 0.05|1000% |
Bus Stops
| 150 | 5
|1000P |
High way
| 600 | 1
|4000% |
Cloverleaf
| 3000| 26 |4000% |
-------------------------------------Trains
|
|
-------------------------------------Railway track
| 8
| 0.03|3000% |
Passenger Sta.
| 100 | 10 |2000P |
Freight Sta.
| 100 | 10 |2000G |
Subway
| 156 | 0.30|3000% |
Subway Sta.
| 500 | 20 |2000P |
-------------------------------------Airports
|
|
-------------------------------------Small Strip
|20000| 700 |10200P|
Med. Strip
| 5700| 900 |13100P|
Large Strip
| 5700| 1100|16000P|
-------------------------------------Small Municipal
|35000| 900 |28800P|
Med. Municipal
| 6400| 1450|34100P|
Large Municipal
| 7200| 1700|40000P|
-------------------------------------Small Int.
|50000| 1225|70000P|
Med. Int.
| 6400| 1450|80000P|
Large Int.
| 7200| 1700|90000P|
-------------------------------------Seaports
|
|
-------------------------------------Ports
|10000| 500 |4000G |
-------------------------------------A1.04.2: Highway, Cloverleaf and On ramps
There are two methods of creating a cloverleaf. The first is
when you drag the highway across another highway. The
other is by placing a cloverleaf on an ALREADY EXISTING
highway crossing. While diagonal highways are possible
diagonal highways cannot create cloverleaf or even cross
each other.
The following is a diagram of a cloverleaf and on ramp.
Please note the minimum length required for its
placements

SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

Cloverleaf Requirements:
a) Excluding the middle intersection there must
at least be 6 tiles. Therefore the total length of
each side must at least be 14 tiles.
b) When using the cloverleaf option instead of
the auto cloverleaf, there must already be an
existing highway that satisfies requirement
(A).
Onramp Requirements
a) Length of the on ramp is 6 tiles. Thus the
highway must have 6 free tiles.
b) If there is a intersection whether do you have
a cloverleaf built there or not, you need to
have at least a minimum distance of 6 tiles.
c) The on ramp cannot be placed at the last tile
of a highway. There must be at least one tile
of highway free at the end of the highway that
will not be used when you place the on ramp.
Diagram A1.04.2
C:
M:
O:
H:

Cloverleaf
Middle of the cloverleaf
On ramp
Normal highway

1
2
12345678901234567890123
1
HH
2
CC
3
CC
4
CC
5
CC
6
CC
7
CC
8HCCCCCCMMCCCCCCHOOOOOOH
9HCCCCCCMMCCCCCCHOOOOOOH
10
CC
1
CC
2
CC
3
CC
4
CC
5
CC
6
HH
A1.04.3: Tunnels and Underwater tunnels
1) Tunnels
To create a tunnel simply drag the transport tool, be
it a road, highway or rail across the hill. If it is
possible the tunnel option will appear. Often for
smaller size hills, it is the gradient that determines
whether a tunnel option will appear. The steeper it
is at the point of entry and exit the higher the
chance of getting the tunnel option.
2) Underwater tunnels
This seems to be a bug of sorts. The cost of building
an underwater tunnel far outweighs any actual
benefit if any. The steps are:
a) Take a piece of land without water.
b) Build a tunnel across. If the land to too flat,
either raise all the land or just lower the
10
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
entrance and exit.
c) Now lower the land in between the entrance
and the exit.
d) Hey presto, the tunnel is still there yet there is
nothing in between. A physical matter
teleportation device?
This also means that you can have a tunnel functioning
even if the hill is removed and there is only land that is
lower in between.
A1.04.4: Bridges: Roads, Highways and Rails
1) Construction
Just simply select the road or highway option and drag it
across the water or if you have a steep chasm a bridge is
also possible. Just drag until the bridge appears. If a
bridge still does not appear try to move the starting
point a bit further back away from the gap. If it still does
not appear, then you may have to do some terrain
adjustment at either the start or end point. It is
impossible to build a bridge where the start and end
points are very steep.
2) Golden Gate
This appears if you use the highway as the basis of the
bridge.

stations are somewhat like a transfer or transit point
like a Sim walking to a subway and then taking the
subway to work. There are two methods of sending
goods out on track:
a) Direct: If your train track runs through an
industrial zone, it will automatically pick up
goods even if there is no station
b) Indirect: Freight station is used where goods
are send by road to the station who then
take it away.
Therefore if all your industry already has a short
freight trip there is no need to construct a freight
station. Other than being superfluous the trucks going
to your freight station will add to the road traffic.
3) No trains: Low passenger usage
Personally I prefer using rails for inter rather than
intra city travel. But that is just my preference and
that rails can perfectly well be used for intra city
travel.

If you are unable to see the train it means that either
you have a bad rail line which is not properly linked
up. Or that since the trains like the cars are a mere
representation of the usage of the transport, the
usage could be so low that trains do not even appear.
If you see a train, just follow it and if the usage is not
A1.04.5: Trains, Turnings and Freight
too high it will disappear somewhere along the line.
You can see trains appearing out of nowhere like a
1) Rail Turnings
ghost train. Like a road, just because you do not see
The tracks cannot turn 90 degrees and must be turned cars there does not mean that the road is faulty.
gradually over three tiles. The following diagram Furthermore, this reflects the usage on the tracks not
illustrates a 4 way crossing. You cannot place a road the station. It measures track congestion and usage.
through any gradual railway turns.
4) Rail-Station placement
Diagram A1.04.5i
It has been suggested that you should place the track
at the back of the train station. However, I do have
R: Railway tracks. No road placement
success in placing the tracks at the side of the train
C: Railway tracks. Only at these areas station. Make sure that there a road linking to it also.
can you build a road across like a
rail crossing.
Diagram A1.04.5ii
1234567
1
C
2
R
3 RRR
4CRRRRRC
5 RRR
6
R
7
C

>: Train Station and direction of
the arrow. Thus it is point away to
the back of the station.
=: Rail
-: Road

=>>>=>>>-

===
>>>
>>>
--(ii)

-->>>
>>>
===
(iii)

->>>=
->>>=

2) Freight Stations
Freight trains serve one purpose, that is to send
(i)
(iv)
industrial goods out of the city. Since they only send
industrial goods, there is no need to connect rails that I have had success with all of the above formations. As
have only freight stations and are not transporting long as the road also touches the station it is perfectly
passengers to either a residential area or a commercial fine to put it on any side.
area.
Secondly you need to connect the train tracks to a
connection. Think of freight as a different kind of Sim.
Instead of going from residential to his work, freight
goes from industrial to a neighbour connection. Freight
SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

11
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
A1.04.6: Junctions, Roundabouts, Diagonal and Subway
---S----S----S---Sbug
1) Junctions and traffic
---S----S----S---STraffic increases at each junction not simply because
more people arrive there but also because the amount
of cars it can take is much less than normal roads. So try
---S----S----S---Snot to build too much junctions
2) Streets are not Solution
Therefore do not create junctions under your
A street is not a solution to heavy traffic. Using a street subway stations.
to resolve traffic jams is somewhat like a person stating
that the way to reduce traffic is to narrow the road. And A1.04.7: Maintenance, Income and Distress
then stating it is a success because there are less cars on
that road now. Of course there are less cars, since one
1) Potholes
had reduce the capacity of the road. But that does not You have reduced your funding for the roads, which
mean that the traffic situation had improved.
you should not have done. You have to replace the
One may claim that as a result of it the junction is
question is now green thus stating that it is a success.
But the reason it is green is because all the traffic is stuck
behind the street. The street acts as a filter allowing
some to pass but all needs to pass. Hence a green
junction does not necessarily mean that your experiment
with streets is working.
Therefore do not build a street on the tile leading up to a
junction so that the traffic lights will not appear. Traffic
lights are not prima facie bad. Also if your roundabout is
based on this street design it will not work to ease
traffic.
3) Roundabouts
One may not create a proper roundabout without any
traffic unless one goes through a whole host of building
and demolishing or using a street. The effect is that a
proper roundabout cannot be created. Thus they are
merely eye candy and do not really serve to ease your
traffic. Note that my definition of a roundabout is a road
junctions type that has no traffic lights.
4) Diagonal Roads and highway
As stated earlier, there is no diagonal streets. For the
most part diagonal construction just add to the variety of
your city. It however does have several detriments:
a) Diagonal highways cannot have cloverleaf
b) It waste space.
c) It constricts the buildings around it.
5) Subway infinite loop bug
Patch 2 resolved this problem. But for those without the
patch for some reason or other. this here is the problem.
Setting up a subway network as in the diagram simply
loops the passengers through each station without
actually sending them anywhere. Therefore while it may
be profitable the subway system is not working.
Diagram A1.04.6
-: Subway Tracks
S: Subway Station

SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

roads rather than raising funding and waiting for
repairs which will not be done automatically. Make
sure you do not build roads on roads that are in
good condition as that will cost you money too.
2) Income
You can make money from your mass transit. The
best case scenario would be for it not just to fund
itself but also provide you with an income. You can
check your income under the budget.
3) Ports under distress
Often I hear of people complaining that their ports
seem to be distressed even if they had a full
maintenance. This I believe was resolved in Patch 2.
It is stated in the fix list that they have "Addressed
issue for airports and seaports initially showing up
distressed."
A1.04.8: * Coverage and Travelling Time
1) Station "Coverage"
It was stated in an official Sim City 4 article, 'Tips &
Tricks - Transportation' that "your Sims are
USUALLY only willing to walk about 6 to 8 tiles to
and from bus stops." I have added to capitalization
by myself. Therefore what many people as the
“range” or “coverage” of a station commonly
actually refers to the distance that people can walk
and travel before the time runs out.
Before interpreting that sentence it is best to
clearly define and explain some basic concepts and
terms
1. Trip, The basis of calculation. The time
one takes to go from one's residence to
one's place of work.
2. Walking Time, This refers to the time one
takes to walk to and from the mass
transit.
3. Mass Travel Time, This refers to the time
taken to move by mass transit from one
place to another.
4. Transfer Time, The time taken to change
modes of transport
REFER: A1.04.9: Transit Mode
12
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
5. Total Trip Time = Walking + Mass + Transfer
6. Maximum Trip Time > Total Trip Time,
Themaximum trip time I believe is 150 minutes.
This is the time one must reach one's work
place.
7. Actual maximum trip time
It is my opinion that while 150 minutes is the cut off, not
all class of residence will have 150 minutes. As commute
time is a huge part of determining desirability, it means
that for the richer Sims they do not like a high commute.
Thus they may move out of their house even before
reaching 150 minutes. The effect is thus that the house
will be downgraded. Thus 150 minutes is the time limit
for poor ($) Sims but not the richer Sims.
a) Restrictive Interpretation
This interpretation operates restrictively downwards
such that 8 tiles is the maximum range one would walk.
It means that Sims will only use the mass transit if it is in
within an 8 tile radius. The basis of this is that walking, as
compared to other modes of transport takes a lot of
time. Therefore people who walked 8 tiles to the station
will have less time left in his total trip time hence they
will not be able to walk another 8 tiles to their
workplace.
Therefore the result of this interpretation means that
you should not space out your stations too much if you
want an effective mass transit system. In fact the
proponents of this interpretation believe that 6 tiles is
the optimum range.
b) Liberal Interpretation
This interpretation operates liberally upwards such that
6 to 8 is just the mean range. And as such you can travel
more than 8 tiles to and from a station and there is no
cap on the distance one is from a station. All that
matters is that the total trip time is less than the
maximum trip time.
The basis of this is based on the later part of the
sentence "... 8 tiles to and from bus stops." That suggests
that people can walk further than 8 tiles but that
generally they only walk 8 tiles to a station. In other
words like the restrictive interpretation it focuses on the
total trip time but gives a more liberal interpretation
such that one could perhaps walk 12 tiles to the station
and then walk another 1 tile after alighting to reach the
office.
Therefore the result of this interpretation means that
you can space your stations further apart although
placing more closer together would still always be a
boost.
c) Combined Interpretation
This interpretation takes into account the fact that
walking do indeed take a large part of the travelling time
but it also acknowledges that there is no cap on the
number of tiles one would walk.

transit time will become longer thereby reducing
the amount of time remaining for the walking time.
In other words while the liberal approach is right
theoretically, practically one must adopt the closer
station placement supported by the restrictive
approach.
2) Single maximum trip time theory
Central to the discussion relating to station
coverage is the assumption that people can indeed
walk more than 8 tiles and that all that matters is
that the total trip time does not exceed the
maximum trip time.There are multiple experiments
you can do to test this out. One of them is:
a) Start a new city.
b) Build a Residential and an Industrial zone
separated from each other without any
road connections between them.
c) Build a subway station in each of the
zones and connect them up but make no
road connections.
d) Make the distance from your residential
area to the subway more than 8 tiles and
make the subway directly in the midst of
the industrial zone.
e) The length of the subway should be short,
one tile.
f) As long as ANY one of the people reaches
work it will show that people can walk
more than 8 tiles in general and in using a
mass transit
I stated ANY because even if only one building has
work it is proof that people can transfer. Because if
it is impossible all will have no work. The rest of the
people without work can thus be attributed to this
particular bad transport network and not the
impossibility of Sims being able to transfer to
stations side by side. The conclusion is that people
can indeed walk more than 8 tiles.
3) Travelling Time and the Heuristic coefficient
Somebody called "the7trumpets" at Simtropolis
found out and determined how travel time is
actually specifically calculated taking into account
traffic and other things. But it is really complicated
and extremely mathematical with the use of the
Heuristic coefficient. Suffice to say I am not posting
it here as this is a SimCity 4 FAQ not a mathematical
text. If you are interested simply go to the site and
search for it.
A1.04.9: Transit Mode
People can change their mode of transportation
such as from walking to bus. But not all types of
transportation are mutually compatible with
another.

Therefore the result of this interpretation is that while
you can space the stations further apart as your city
expands and there is more strain on traffic, the mass
SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

13
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
Table A1.04.9
W
: Walking. This is only on roads
and streets. No walking allowed on
highway and tunnels.
B
: Bus. This building has negative
residential effect.
T : Trains / Railway
S : Subway
Y/N: Yes / No
WA : This means that connection to
this mode of transport is possible but
it is done indirectly through the use
of walking again. Thus for example a
bus passenger connects to a train by
walking out of the bus station and
into the train station.
------------------------Type of |Connects To: |
Movement |W |C |B |T |S |
------------------------Walking |--|N |Y |Y |Y |
Car
|N |--|N |Y |N |
Bus
|Y |N |--|WA|WA|
Trains
|Y |Y |WA|--|WA|
Subway
|Y |N |WA|WA|--|
------------------------For indirect walking connection, simply place both the
stations side by side. Take note that walking takes up the
longest time so try not to have that many connections.
A1.04.10: * Transit Station
The big debate in this is whether does one need to leave
a tile in between two stations for the Sims to switch
transport mode. Thus it means having a bus stop beside
a train station. This is because in the Prima Guide it is
stated that "To change transportation modes, there
must be at least one tile of road between the stations."
However, if you look at the official Sim City site under
the 'About > Inside Scope' you will see an article call
"Building a better Transit System" by Alex Peck, Software
Engineer. Look at the second page of the article:
http://simcity.ea.com/about/inside_
scoop/transit2.php
Figure 4 shows a Train station connected to a Bus
station. This thus means that there is a conflicting
reports from two official sources. It is my opinion that
the latter argument at the website is the correct one. It
should be noted that the Prima Guide was done months
before the release of the game and there are multiple
errors in it that have been confirmed. But I will prove it
to you with an experiment.
1) Experiment
This experiment is done in a similar fashion to the Single
maximum trip time theory experiment in (A1.04.8).
a) Simply create a residential and a work place in
a new city that is only connected by rail or
subway.

SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

b) Stop the rail or subway before the work
zone and place another station such as
the bus stop right next to the rail/subway.
See if they manage to get to work.
c) Make sure that you place a tunnel
between the station and the work place
because Sims cannot walk into a tunnel.
This is to prevent people from walking to
work. Thus their only option is to take the
bus.
d) As long as ANY one of the people reaches
work it will show that people can transfer
even if the stations are beside each other.
I stated ANY because even if only one building has
work it is proof that people can transfer. Because if
it is impossible all will have no work. The rest of the
people without work can thus be attributed to this
particular bad transport network and not the
impossibility of Sims being able to transfer to
stations side by side.
1) Graphics and Tunnel
Central to this argument is the one that Sims
cannot walk through a tunnel. It was stated by the
makers that the graphics are mere representation
of the simulation and are not exactly accurate. If
you look closely at the tunnel you may see people
walking into or out of the tunnel. However, it is my
opinion that this is just a graphic. It does not
actually represent people moving in and out of the
tunnel. Think of the situation where we put in one
reward type building in a city with 0 population
(Industrial cities) yet there are people cheering it.
Alternatively you can see people walking about in a
large plaza and yet there is no people in the city.
If you are not convinced, you could perhaps
lengthen the distance between the bus station and
the industrial zone.
2) Combination Argument
It is possible that both arguments are correct. Let
us at the prima guide statement again. "To change
transportation modes, there must be at least one
tile of road BETWEEN the stations." (My emphasis)
To interpret this, we have to give a liberal reading
to the word 'between.' Between does not simply
mean sandwiched and in the middle. The prima
guide could simply be stating that there must be a
road leading from one station to the other. The
idea they are trying to convey is that while the
stations may be built side by side, unlike actual
transit hubs they are not linked internally and thus
the people have to exit it and walk on the roads and
then re-enter the other station.
3) Directional explanations
Since Sims travel in the direction to their
destination and would not deviate too much to take
advantage of a mass transit or a less congested
road the reason for the seeming failure of these
transit stations, if you do have a failure, can be
attributed to them.
This is because, If the Sim exit the station and his
14
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
work place is to the south but the bus station is to the
north, then he will not use the bus station as moving
there means moving further away from his
destination.
4) Entrance / Exit explanations
Prior to placement you can see the (<) of the station.
Make sure that it faces the road and also the road
that the other station faces. If they are pointing in
opposite directions, it may account for the failure of
these transit stations, if you do have a failure.

station efficiency and capacity when you query the
station.
-I will quote an email Chris McFadyen sent me for it
explains the capacity of tracks excellently. I have
changed edited some of the wording and the
illustration but the words are still his:

A1.04.11: Choice of Transportation

A >>>>> B >>>>> C >>>>> D >>>>> E

While everyone in your city has the ability to take all
the types of transportation, whether do they actually
take it is dependant on how rich they are. Classified
broadly there are three means people get around the
city. They are, public, private or flexible. Flexible
means that the people will have no qualms about
using either public mass transit or private cars to get
around as long as they reach their destination in the
shortest possible time.

If we have a 1000 people each at A, B, C and D that
want to get to E. Train leaves Station 'A' with 1000
passengers, gets to 'B' and picks up another 1000, gets
to 'C', etc... When they get to E they would be
dropping off 4000 passengers. Adding more subway
stops between, such as:

Table A1.04.11
LW :
MW :
HW :
PR :
PU :
FS :
* :
** :
***:

Low wealth residents
Medium wealth residents
High wealth residents
Private
Public
Flexible short approach
Least desire
Moderate desire
Greatest desire

--------------------Type | PR | FS | PU |
--------------------HW
|*** |*
|*
|
MW
|*
|*** |** |
LW
|** |*
|*** |
--------------------What this means is that even if you have the best
mass transit system any mayor can offer if the rich
populate your city then very few people will use the
mass transit. This is even if taking their cars to work
will be longer or even to the extent that they cannot
reach their work place.

Traffic at stations are cumulative. Say we have 5
stations:

A >>>>> B >>>>> C >> F >> D >>>>> E
Station 'F' would not increase the capacity of the
tracks if nobody got off at 'F'. Therefore all 'F' does is
to add to the capacity if nobody or if less people got
off then those who got on.
End Quote. Thanks to Chris McFadyen.
-You should note that just because when you place
station 'F' the usage of C and D falls, it does not mean
that this does not hold true. Usage at the station is
different from usage at the tracks. An analogy may
help you to better understand. Let us say there is a
huge train station which can handle hundreds of
trains at any given time. But if there is only one single
track leading out of that station, it means that all
hundred of trains will have to use that one single line.
Therefore the solution is not to build bigger train
stations but to build more lines.
1) Effect
The effect of overcapacity is simple. You will have a
jam and the speed will slow down. You can slow down
up to 70% of the optimum travelling speed in the tiles
that are overcapacity.
2) Distinguishing Track and Station overcapacity
As stated above these track and station have different
overcapacity levels. However the method to
determine track overcapacity is useful only for rails.
Track Overcapacity: Look at the rail line. The longer or
the more number of train the more congested the
line. Station Overcapacity: Query the station, to see its
usage.

Therefore the only means to deal with them is to do
build your road network such that it forces them to
use the type of transport you want them to use. This
is especially so when building a highway since Sims
always use the "shortest" possible route to work even
if that route is completely congested.
A1.05: Utilities
A1.05.1: Options: Utilities Type
REFER: B7.08.3: Paternalistic Approach to traffic
A1.04.12: Overcapacity
1) Electricity
1) Theory
They obviously produce electricity for your city,
The effect of overcapacity is simple. It reduces speed. without which the city will not grow and Yogi bear and
Overcapacity does not only apply to roads but also to Keiko the whale from Free willy will roam the area in
subway tracks and train tracks. This is different from
peace.
SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

15
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
a) Wind Power: Very clean but very pathetic.
The most inefficient of all power.
b) Natural Gas: It does pollute but it is quite
little and you can easily use this for your
clean city.
c) Coal: The most efficient of the lot but
generates the most pollution.
d) Oil: In between a natural gas and a coal
plant.
e) Solar: Clean and expensive.
f) Nuclear: Clean with the possibility of a
catastrophic disaster.
g) Hydrogen: Generates the most power but is
actually quite inefficient.
2) Water
Very important but your city can still grow without it
but not much. It is just that they will be very dirty and
flammable. But do not worry their collective body
odour will not contribute to air pollution. A water
pump is so much more efficient than a water tower.
3) Waste disposals
Unless you like living in your filth, this becomes very
necessary. Landfill requires there to be at least some
population for it to be effective. Waste to energy is
your best bet but it generates copious amount of
pollution.
Table A1.05.1: Utilities
$C: Cost to build
$M: Monthly maintenance cost
E : Efficiency rate. The amount of power $1 generates
MW: Power capacity in MWh per month
LS: Life span of the plant
P : Pollution description
AP: Air pollution extent in tiles. The number in (bracket) represents the extent of
the strongest pollution.
WP: Water pollution extent in tiles. The number in (bracket) represents the extent
of the strongest pollution.
P : Population. If not further clarified it means city size
HW: High wealth residence
IH: Hi tech industrial population
ED: Energy demands including deals. It is in the 1000s (K)
CU: Water capacity in Cu m in one month
The figures for pollution assume that there are no surrounding trees or anything
that can help reduce pollution.
Power
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Structure | $C | $M | E | MWH |LS |
P
| AP | WP | P
|MR| ED|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Power Line | 2
| 0.10|
|
|
|
| 0
| 0
|
| |
|
Wind
| 500 | 50 | 4 | 200 |100| Clean | 0
| 0
|
| |
|
Nat. Gas
| 9000 | 400 | 7.5| 3000 | 60|Moderate| 0
| 0
|
| |
|
Coal
| 10000| 250 |24 | 6000 | 75|Heaviest|22(13)|18(6) |
| |
|
Oil
| 17000| 600 |11.6| 7000 | 75| Heavy |16(6) |8 Min.|
| |
|
Solar
| 30000| 1000| 5 | 5000 |100| Clean | 0
| 0
|3000HW|55|
|
Nuclear
| 40000| 3000| 5.3|16000 | 60|Meltdown| 0
| 0
|85000 | |25K|
Hydrogen
|100000|10000| 5 |50000 | 50| Clean | 0
| 0
|4000IH| |30K|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Waste
| 25000| 1000| 5 | 5000 | 80| Heavy |29(19)|25(15)|
| |
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

16
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
Note: For oil power plant while there is water
pollution it is quite little. Unlike the rest of the
polluters it does not have any dark yellow pollution
Water
--------------------------------------Structure
| $C | $M | CU
|
--------------------------------------Pipes
| 11 | 0.10|
|
Water Tower | 150 | 50 | 2400
|
Water Pump | 1400 | 250 | 20000
|
Treat. Plt. | 15000| 350 | 2400 Treats|
--------------------------------------Waste
--------------------------------------------------------------------Structure
| $C | $M | Notes
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------Landfill
| 50 | 10 | Min zone is 4 tiles
|
Recycling
| 5000 | 350 | 1) Reduce garbage 20% 2) Serve 20000 pop |
Waste power | 25000| 1000| 1) 5000MHz
2) Heavy Pollution |
--------------------------------------------------------------------Note: For waste to power plant look at the table on
3) Sparking Poles
power structured for more a detailed information.
Changing the individual power station funding affects
the global funding. Therefore it might be impossible to
A1.05.2: Optimum Coverage
prevent sparking lines short of keeping funding full,
which I do not recommend. Furthermore if too much
Both water and electricity can extend past their pipes power is channelled through one line, it too will spark.
and poles respectively. The water coverage extends 6 Hence try to arrange you city such that you do not
tiles. So you should have 12 tiles between pipes and 6 need that much electricity lines. Since electricity can
to the edge of the map. Electrical coverage extends to be transferred four tiles, you can zone one tile every
4 tiles.
four tiles to prevent the use of poles.
A1.05.3: Maintenance, Decay and Overcapacity

Sometimes for some odd reason, the electricity does
not travel 4 tiles in one area. To search for the break
If your pipes are leaking, your poles are sparking then in the chain, simply place the query button over the
your funding is too low. Raise them and replace the tiles to see which one has power or not. Just place
broken pipes.
another zone in between the area of the break.
1) Life span
Even if you fully fund your utilities, after a certain Diagram: A1.05.3
amount of years they will be moribund. Also as your
utility reaches its end life, its capacity falls drastically P: Power Plant
such that it is more cost efficient to replace the utility Z: Zones. It can be residential,
commercial or industrial
in question.
.: Empty tiles
2) Rate of decay
The rate of decay or deterioration increases both
P....Z....Z....Z
when you are operating close to capacity. Therefore
Because deterioration occurs much faster when global
keep it at 70% capacity for the power plants. But leave
funding is below 50%, I recommend that you should
the water funding alone as lowering it does not save
not build a new power plant until the present one is
that much and it will cause even greater problems
close to full capacity.
with burst pipes and damaged property. However I
recommend reduce power as you can save quite a bit
A1.05.4: Negative Environmental Degradation (NED)
of money and can avoid sparking poles which increase
the probability of fire.
Yes, I do know I am using a double negative in this
title. But NED sounds good to me.
The rate of decay also increase when you lower
1) Water Pollution
funding from the 100%. And it increase greatly if
This has the effect if it is high enough to cause a shut
funding is below 50%.
down of your water pumping system. To reduce that
probability simply build the pumps and towers away
from polluted water areas. And also to refrain from
SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

17
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
making connections to landfills or agricultural areas.
probability simply build the pumps and towers away
from polluted water areas. And also to refrain from
making connections to landfills or agricultural areas.
2) Water treatment
By right you should not need to use this building. This
is required if the water pollution is so bad that your
water pumps cannot work. Place at the source of the
water although there is an argument out there that
one should place it at the source of the pollution. As
long as your water pump does not stop for reason of
pollution, I do not think this is needed even if your
"city is full of filth" and that your Sims are drinking
chocolate kiwi coloured water.
3) Landfill Connection Bug
All landfill requires connection even if you new landfill
is connected to your old landfill that has road
connections. There is a bug that has yet to be
completely resolved by Patch 2. It is stated in the
patch that they:
"Addressed landfills to combine easier if drawn
adjacent to each other. Still problematical if drawn
between two landfills, so try adding them one at a
time."
Remember that the roads must not only just touch
one point of the landfill but must at least cover the
entire one side of a landfill.
4) Recycling Centre
The 20% is not cumulative. This due to its costs can
only have a limited impact on garbage disposal.
A1.05.5: * Bio degradable landfills

A)
Base - 215
Time 1 = __________
15
Base: Current amount of waste in the landfill
B)
log (Y / Base)
Time 2 = ______________
log 0.93
Y: Amount waste must decompose to for all to
disappear Base: Current amount of waste left in the
landfill (215) log 0.93: Rate of decay at 7%
C)
Amount of time to decompose in
months = Time 1 + Time 2
The landfill total is simply calculated by counting the
number of tiles in that landfill and multiplying it with
the capacity of each tile, which is 300 tons.
Alternatively, you could cut off road access and then
check the garbage chart to see how much total
capacity has fallen. That amount would thus be that
landfill's capacity. Obviously this operates on the
assumption that the landfill is filled to capacity.
Generally a 4x3 landfill will take 10 years 11 months to
decay. A 2x2 landfill will take 14 years 4 months.
3) Rate of decay cannot be increased
Until I did the experiment on landfills, I was operating
under the notion that a waste to power plant,
exporting or trees help increase the rate of
decomposition. There is a belief that if you have a
road connected from your landfill to your waste to
power plant, the garbage will be transferred to the
waste to power plant. Therefore increasing the rate of
decay. A similar argument is also made when you
have a neighbour deal. Also there is a belief albeit
held less widely that planting trees around a landfill
will increase the rate of decay.

Landfills decompose over time in this game. Of course
this does not make much sense unless everything in
SimWorld is bio degradable.
1) Decommission
Let me show that after an experiment, all the above
Only if you actually removed road access can it be hypothesis no longer holds true. This is the
possible to determine whether is a landfill actually experiment:
decommissioned. A landfill not connected would
a) Build three landfills of equal sizes apart from
display a no road zot sign. Also if you look at the
each other.
garbage chart you will see a drop in the total garbage
b) Wait for all of them to fill up. Check your
capacity.
garbage chart to make sure that total
2) Rate of decay
garbage exceeds total garbage capacity such
The formula for the rate of decay is simple. Trash
that the Sims are wallowing in there own
degrades at 7% a month, however, the upper limit is
filth.
set at 15 tons. Thus even if 7% of your total trash is
c) Pause the game.
more than 15 tons, only 15 tons will decay that
d) Build a waste to power plant beside one
month. There are thus two time frame of decay. the
landfill.
(1) being the time when 15 tons are being degraded
e) Demolish the roads leading to the other two
each month. The (2) is when less than 15 tons are
landfills.
degraded each month.
f) Select one landfill without the road
connections and surround it completely and
In my opinion the turning point occurs when you have
utterly with trees.
about 215 tons of trash left. It is because after that,
g) Make sure that the waste to power plant can
the 7% rate would only yield less than 15 tons.
sufficiently handle all the trash in your city.
Therefore to calculate the rate of decay of the first
h) Take note of the date, unpause and wait for
phase, all you have to do is this:
the landfill to be cleared.
SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

18
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
i) Take note of the date, unpause and wait for
the landfill to be cleared.
The conclusion is that both those landfills without
road connections was cleared at the same time.
Hence trees have no effect. Secondly, the landfill that
was connected took a bit longer, about a month.
Therefore a waste to power plant does help increase
the rate of decay. You can try the same experiment
with an export deal.
However, because the difference between the
decommissioned landfill and the one that is still linked
up to the road, I believe that there really is no need to
demolish the road leading up to it. By the way if you
are interested it took 14 years 4 months to clear a 4
tile landfill.
A1.06: Public Service Commission
A1.06.1: Options: Public Service Types
1) Police
Without any superheroes, you need them to reduce
crime and suppress the Sims as you rig the elections
to become Mayor for life. There is also a city jail if the
cells in your police station is overwhelmed. But hold
off on it until you at least witness a jail break. It is
quite a sight.
2) Fire
Not everything is as indestructible as garbage. Build
these to prevent and stop fires.
3) Education
Unless you want your Sims to be flipping burgers for
life, build some education facilities. A high school is
not a larger version of an elementary school thus it is
not a counterpart to the smaller-larger police and fire
stations. The library and museum ensures that your
Sims do not loss too much education as they grow
older.
4) Health
Good wealth is good health. Build them to raise life
expectancy from third world average of 40.
5) PSC list

Table A1.06.1: Civil Buildings
$C
$MT
MTM
$MC
MCM
$MF
MFM
CV
CV0
CVM
CA
CAM

:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:

Cost to build
Monthly total maintenance cost.
Monthly max funding total maintenance cost
Monthly coverage cost (bus / ambulance cost)
Monthly max funding coverage
Monthly service cost
Monthly max funding service cost (excluding bus / ambulance cost)
Default Coverage in tiles
Zero funding coverage
Max funding coverage
Default capacity
Max funding capacity

SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

19
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Structure
| $C | $MT|MTM |$MC|MCM| $MF| MFM|CV|CVO|CVM| CA | CAM |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Police
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Small Police
| 250| 125| 150|
|
|
|
|23| 0 | 26| 2 Cars
|
Large Police
| 800| 250| 300|
|
|
|
|34| 0 | 38| 4 Cars
|
City Jail
|2500| 450|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|1000 Inmate|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Fire
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Small Fire
| 250| 125| 150|
|
|
|
|24| 0 | 26| 1 Engine |
Large Fire
| 800| 450| 300|
|
|
|
|35| 0 | 38| 2 Engines|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Education
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Elementary
| 300| 400| 480|100|120| 300| 360|23| 10| 25| 500 | 550 |
Library
|1000| 250| 300|
|
|
|
|30|
|
|30000|33000|
High School
|1050| 750| 900|100|120| 650| 780|30| 14| 33| 750 | 825 |
City Museum
|1500| 450| 540|
|
|
|
| |
|
| 30 | 33 |
City college
|3000|1000|1200|
|
|
|
| |
|
| 7000| 7700|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Health
|
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Small clinic
| 400| 400| 480|100|120| 300| 360|23| 11| 23| 500 | 550 |
Large Medical |1100|1200|1440|200|240|1000|1200|34| 17| 34| 3000| 3300|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------A1.06.2: Dispatch: Police and Fire
A1.06.3: Crime, Riots and Fire
Simply click on the disaster button and send them to
the location. There is no automatic dispatch.
1) Redeploy
To redeploy when the vehicles are already out, simply
click on the circle sign to pick it up and replace it in
the new location.
2) Fire fighters standing around
If upon arriving at the site, the fire fighters are not
deploying even if you are certain that it has full
funding, you may have to redeploy. Perhaps a bit
further down the road or on the opposite side of the
road. Sometimes it gets a little irritating as they refuse
to get into action.
3) Pause for return
I suggest that upon the successful containment of the
fire, you pause the game and allow the fire trucks to
return. If your city has a very high incidence of fire,
another fire could breakout while your fire truck is on
the way back. You can always redeploy but it may be
that your fire station is placed at a central location
and that the current fire truck position is very far
away from the fire. Thus delaying arrival.
4) Crime
You can deploy police if you see a crime being
committed. But it is more of a graphics than anything.
You will see the criminal being taken away. However
there is minute benefit as you will see your safety
rating move up for a while. The effect is not
permanent.
SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

1) List of Crimes
The following is a list of crimes that can be committed
in your city. They are listed in according to the
seriousness of the crime with the most serious being
bank robbery.
a) Tping
b) Graffiti
c) Pie Throwing
d) Flashing
e) Solicitation
f) Purse Snatching
g) Fighting
h) Car Theft
i) Drugs
j) Stick Up
k) Assault
l) Arson
m) Bank Robbery
2) Crime near police station
No explanation except perhaps, corruption of the cops
or really dumb criminals committing crime the
moment they leave the station? Furthermore since
crime does not disappear the moment you have
coverage, perhaps it is just a statistical luck of the
draw thing that there is crime over there.
3) Riots
You need to cut them off with police blocking all the
routes. Try pushing them into a dead-end.
4) How to start a riot
This oddly enough appears on the forum quite a bit.
20
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
Most probably because the person have not seen a
riot. To get one simply trash the city. First cut off the
water supply, then reducing power funding so that
you have rolling blackouts. Then create a few
disasters. You will note that the Sims are on edge at
this point. Then set a few fire in the neighbourhood
and pretty soon the whole block will go crazy. I do not
need to tell you not to save over this city unless.
5) Sources of Crime
These generally are caused by:
a) Unemployment
I believe unemployment in this sense refers not to
that no job zot. Because if it is unemployment would
not contribute much as the criminals would have left
town within a few months. I believe it refers to a
smaller percentage of people that cannot find a job
and not enough to actually cause a building to display
that no job zot.
b) Low education
The lower the education the higher the probability of
committing a crime.
c) Wealth Level
The lower the wealth level, the high the probability
one would be a criminal.
d) External Factors
These relates to sources that can be easily removed
such as legalised gambling and some other business
deals buildings.
6) Crime generators v Attractors
It is in my opinion that there are two types of building
that seemingly is a den of crime. The first is one that
actually generates crime such as the state fair or the
army base. The second are those that attract criminals
to the area but does not actually create crime such as
the country club. It does not make sense that getting
together and playing golf would turn one into a
criminal. What makes more sense is that as this is a
place where the rich congregates, it makes sense for
the criminals to travel here and commit economic
crime. Notice the crime relates a lot to car theft?
7) City, city burning bright
Fire occurs based on a probability. It is recalculated
each month. And are not affected by the previous
month's calculation. Therefore even if you have a very
low fire incidence rate, you may get a few consecutive
fires in a roll due to bad rolls of the dice.
These are the following reasons that increase the rate
of fire.
a) No fire-coverage. (Fire Station)
b) No smoke alarm ordinance. (Actually this
reduces probability of fire occurring rather
than increase the probability of fire.)
c) No water.
d) Abandon buildings.
e) Industrial areas are more prone to fire.
Especially
dirty
and
manufacturing
industries.
f) No Patch 2 installed. They reduce the rate of
fire.

SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

A1.06.4: Maintenance: Striking Incompetence
The effect of lowering maintenance below usage level
means that you will have strikes and incompetence.
1) Clearing strikes and effects
Upon the occurrence of a strike, rise funding to about
90% or even to its maximum. It should take a month
for the strike to break-up. However, after that there
are still the after effects of a strike that will last for
another month. In the recovery period you may
reduce funding to the normal level. Normal being the
level where capacity exceeds demand slightly not the
previous strike level funding.
Also do not question why police only clears rioters not
strikers. There are laws against breaking a strike in
most countries. However, I feel that there should be
an option to pass legislation to prevent strikes by key
sectors of the civil service much like in the real world.
Well at least on the bright side, your fire-crew would
not ask for a 40% pay rise.
Alternatively, do something that is illegal in most
countries but the Sims are fine with it. Sack the bunch
by demolishing that building. Of course this is not a
very good solution.
2) Incompetence
Reducing funding for police and fire fighters mean
that when you dispatch them they may not handle the
riot or put out the fire.
A1.06.5: Overlap and Optimal Coverage
1) City wide coverage
The museum and the college operates on a city wide
basis. Therefore you can place them anywhere.
2) Rule against multiple coverage
This rule simply provides that overlapping the
coverage in an area will not increase the effectiveness
of that service in that area. This relates to all services,
fire, police, education and health. Although
overlapping coverage for education and health will
allow the students or patients in that overlap area to
spread between the two schools or two health
buildings.
However, health facilities may be the exception to this
rule. Although it is in my opinion that there is an
additional condition when calculating this coverage
that makes it look like an exception when it is not.
REFER: A1.06.6: Hospital, Clinics and low health for
this exception
3) Optimum coverage
Therefore as a result of the rule against multiple
coverage, for the other buildings which are not
restraint by numeric demand, its coverage is best
optimised by reducing as much overlap as possible.
This is to save as much money as possible. To be
extremely effective you should blanket the entire city
with police coverage in a systematic method.
21
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
A1.06.6: * Hospital, Clinics and low health
1) Points of Confusion
There is a common complaint that health levels are
bad at the edge of the hospital coverage even though
the area in question is within the coverage circle of
the hospital. Obviously, for ease in this discussion, we
are assuming that the hospital is not suffering from
over capacity and that capacity is greater than usage.
This complaint is often coupled with the belief that
you need both clinics and hospitals to improve health.
Clinics and hospitals serve the same purpose. In other
words a hospital is merely a larger version of a clinic
much like a small-large fire or police station rather
than like an elementary-High school. As stated by
doctorvu, one of the SimCity 4 designers at one of
those chat events, "Clinics and hospitals serve the
same purpose.
2) Raising ambulance funding argument
If you notice when you raise the ambulance funding
from its default $200 the coverage does not increase.
But when you reduce funding, it falls. Therefore the
question is whether increasing funding past the
default is a waste of money. This is obviously
assuming that this is not a bug.
Taking the fact that there is low health at the edge of
the hospital despite being within coverage and couple
it with the coverage not increasing after you increase
the default ambulance funding, several hypothesis can
be formulated:
a) An increase in funding must have an effect.
The increase cannot simply be a case of
superfluous funding.
b) An increase in funding should have the
effect
of
increasing
efficiency
or
effectiveness.
c) The only thing that is currently lacking in
effectiveness is the coverage of the people
living.
d) Therefore the conclusion is that coverage at
the edge is linked to ambulance funding.
The logic behind this is that speed is of the essence for
medical treatments and if one is sent late to a hospital
then your chances of recovery is less. And the further
you are from a medical facility the longer it will take
to get to the hospital from treatment. Therefore, the
increase in funding simply improves the
transportation speed of the ambulance from the edge
of the coverage to the hospital. And as such improves
health at the edge.
3) Health facilities overlap coverage
There is an argument by some that often when people
place a clinic within the hospital coverage, the health
at the edge improves. It is my opinion that you could
be dealing with an exception to the rule that overlap
do not improve services provided.
REFER: A1.06.5: Overlap and Optimal Coverage

hospital and a clinic both serve different purposes,
then logic will dictate that placing a clinic will have no
effect on the usage of the hospital. For example,
placing an elementary school will not affect the usage
of the high school. But placing another elementary
school in the coverage of the first school will result in
a fall of usage in the first elementary school.
Therefore in comparison, it suggests that both clinics
and hospitals serve the same purposes.
The improvement that you see is due to placing two
medical facilities in that same area. You can get the
same effect even if you place two hospitals rather
than one hospital and a clinic. Therefore if this is true,
it means that the improvement is due to overlap
rather than clinics being a necessary component of
the health system.
If the reason is due to overlap, then does this not
bring the rule against multiple coverage into question
vis-a-vis the other services? My opinion is that this is
confined only to health facilities because of the Dual
Coverage effect.
4) Dual coverage effect
Hospitals as compared to other services have a special
characteristics where there are different health
effects in one single coverage. It is submitted that for
practical purposes, there are two coverage for a
hospital. I will call them the inner circle and the outer
circle. However, the game only shows you the wider
coverage. If you look at your health data map you can
almost make out the inner circle.
It is thus further submitted that good coverage occurs
only when there is an overlap of two circles of
coverage. And that the rule against multiple coverage
is still applicable, simply because having three or more
circles of coverage will not further increase the
effectiveness of the coverage.
Therefore to get good coverage you can either make
sure that the edge of the coverage overlaps or that
you could reduce ambulance funding such that the
coverage is not that wide. I believe that reducing
coverage will affect the radius of the outer circle more
so than the inner circle.
Finally, because of the above explanation, I am
compelled to discard the possible suggestion that I
had in my previous edition where clinics serve the
poor while hospitals the rich.
A1.06.7: HQ and LE: Health Quotient and Life

1) HQ: Health Quotient
This is a component to aid in the determination of LE,
life expectancy and it indirectly also affects EQ,
education quotient. Simply put, the higher the
number you have for this the better it is. A HQ as such
The amount of patients in a hospital will drop when is merely part of the calculation of LE, hence by itself
you place a clinic within the hospital's coverage. If the it has no direct effect on your city unlike LE which will
SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

22
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
obviously determine the Sims life spans. It is
calculated by taking into account several factors. Let
me give you the formula first:
HQ = Base + Genetics + Health care +
Sports - Aging - Pollution
a) Base: This depends on the wealth level, ($)
that one is. The poor will have the lowest
base, the rich the highest and the middle
class the an average base.
b) Genetics: Sims get 80% of their parents' final
HQ. Therefore if you end up with a positive
HQ, your city will overtime become more
and more healthy as they pass on their good
health to the next generation.
c) Health care: This refers to the effects of
medical facilities, including the disease
research lab reward. And because health
care also means healthy eating, it also
includes the small benefit from the farmer's
market reward.
d) Sports: It is submitted although it has not
really been adequately proved that certain
recreational facilities improve health. These
are the sports based one such as the soccer
field. If this sports effect is true, then I
wonder whether does adding a country club
also improves health as the rich play golf.
e) Aging: The effect of aging applies to all
uniformly regardless of age or wealth level.
Thus every month your Sims will lose part of
their HQ.
f) Pollution: This refers to actually living in the
midst of the smog and chocolate kiwi
coloured polluted water. And obviously, the
more the pollution, the greater loss there is
to your HQ. I stated being in the midst
because if parts of your city is very polluted
but your Sims do not stay there then they
will not be affected by that pollution. I do
believe that pollution only matters in the
residential areas and not the workplace.
Therefore working in a dirty industry would
not affect your health. Although logically
that does not seem to be the case.
2) LE: Life Expectancy
This refers to the life span of your Sims and unless you
have the second Patch installed there is a very high
probability that your life span will fall drastically over
time. This shows what is the current effect of your
health system as a result of past policies. Contrasted
to this the HQ shows the possible future trends of
your Life Expectancy.
A1.06.8: EQ: Educational (Emotional) Quotient
The refers to one's education level. Again the higher it
is the better it is for your city. That is unless you want
a city of dirty and farming industries and in that case it
means that having a high EQ will most probably
destroy the dirty and farming industries. I wonder why
they call it EQ, perhaps some of the developers really
SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

like the book "Emotional Intelligence"by Daniel
Goldman. Obviously EQ does not mean IQ because of
the ease to get to 200 points.
1) Calculation
It is calculated by taking into account several factors.
Let me give you the formula first:
EQ = Base + Genetics + Education a) Base: This depends on the wealth level, ($)
that one is. The poor will have the lowest
base, the rich the highest and the middle
class the an average base.
b) Genetics: Sims get 80% of their parents' final
EQ. Therefore if you end up with a positive
EQ, your city will overtime become more
and more educated as they pass on their
good education to the next generation.
c) Education: This refers to the effects of
educational facilities. It also includes the
educational rewards such as main city
library, major art museum, university and
opera house although their effect differs
according to age.
d) Declining Brain Capacity: The effect of aging
applies to all uniformly regardless of age or
wealth level. Thus every month as some of
your Sims brain cells expire perhaps because
just like us, Sims levels of GABA, a
neurotransmitter, decreases with aging. The
result is that they will lose part of their EQ.
2) Education Effects
All educational buildings are effective only for a
certain Sims of a certain age. Also within the range
there are differences in the effects of that educational
facility on the Sims. The age is quite obvious with the
lower education spectrum the elementary school
having the greatest effect. Also for those art and
culture type buildings like museums or opera houses,
they affect the older age Sims. The building that has
the widest effects would I suppose be the library.
Hence it may be possible to have full EQ reached over
time with only a library.
REFER: B6.06.1: Education: Public, Private or
Libraries
3) Road access
There is short debate as to whether is road access
necessary for education. It seems that even if you cut
off access to that education facility, the surrounding
residential area still states that the education level is
high and that there is no fall in desirability.
Furthermore the schools are still being used.
However, it is in my opinion that you let them have
road access. There are several reasons for it:
a) Facilities provide jobs for your Sims. If you
have no roads they cannot take up the job
offer. The amount offered however is small.
b) Fire Prevention. If the facility caught fire,
how would your fire fighters have access to
the building without roads.
c) The benefits of saving on one measly tile
does not come close to the disadvantages of
having no road connections.
23
SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK
A1.07: Landmarks, Rewards and Recreation

A1.07.2: Options: Reward and Business Deal Types

A1.07.1: Options: Landmark Types
These are famous buildings from around the globe.
They only have a effect on commercial and not on
residential development. Remember to save before
each placement in case you made a mistake in the
placement. Thus you can reload and would not have
wasted a huge amount of money.

1) Rewards
These are given after you fulfil a certain requirement.
Mostly their effects are good but there are some with
a negative effect. Take note of those that have a
negative impact on residential areas. Some of these
buildings have a negative impact on mayor rating.
Mayor rating and residential and commercial impact
are different matters. One can have a positive mayor
Also like all many buildings in the game, these too rating and yet still have a negative residential impact.
produce pollution but obviously not on the scale of Once placed these rewards can still be moved.
your dirty industries or polluting power plants. I would However you have to pay for the demolition and
not really worry too much about it.
reconstruction which costs quite a bit.
It should be noted that Alcatraz (the prison) is the only
landmark that generates a negative mayor rating
when placed. The rest are all positive. However, the
Alcatraz still performs like every other landmark, that
of being an aid to commerce. The only negative is the
mayor rating, nothing else.

There is only one downloaded reward here. It is the
one that came with the transportation bonus. I
believe this is the same one as those who preordered. You can get this transportation download at
the official Simcity 4 site.

On every Tuesday, the SimCity 4 official site might
release a new landmark.
Table A1.07.1: Landmarks
$C: Cost to build. The figure is in '000s.
$M: Monthly Cost
CE: Commercial Effect
CR: Commercial Radius
------------------------------------------Structure
| $C | $M | CE | CR |
------------------------------------------Alamo
| 65 | 130| 40 | 20 |
Alcatraz
| 50 | 100| 10 | 24 |
Amalienborg
| 70 | 120| 30 | 18 |
Bank of America
| 110| 210| 80 | 28 |
Bank of China Tower
| 180| 300| 10 | 48 |
Big Ben
| 75 | 150| 40 | 20 |
California Plaza
| 50 | 100| 30 | 18 |
Chrysler Building
| 170| 330| 100| 48 |
CN Tower
| 225| 440| 80 | 28 |
Coit Tower
| 55 | 110| 30 | 18 |
Empire State Building | 240| 470| 100| 48 |
Faneuil Hall
| 50 | 100| 20 | 16 |
Fernsehturn
| 85 | 170| 50 | 22 |
Gateway Arch
| 90 | 180| 50 | 22 |
Great Pyramid
| 160| 310| 70 | 26 |
Guggenheim Museum
| 95 | 180| 70 | 26 |
Hagia Sofia
| 80 | 160| 40 | 20 |
Hollywood Sign
| 30 | 60 | 20 | 16 |
Independence Hall
| 60 | 120| 30 | 18 |
Jefferson Memorial
| 80 | 160| 50 | 22 |
John Hancock Centre
| 165| 320| 90 | 30 |
Lincoln Memorial
| 85 | 170| 50 | 22 |
Living Mall
| 55 | 110| 80 | 20 |
Palace of Fine Arts
| 90 | 180| 30 | 18 |
Palacio Real
| 65 | 130| 30 | 18 |
Rotes Rathaus
| 65 | 130| 30 | 18 |
Smith Tower
| 55 | 110| 40 | 20 |
Sphinx
| 50 | 100| 20 | 16 |
St. Basil's
| 90 | 180| 60 | 24 |
Statue of Liberty
| 85 | 170| 60 | 24 |
SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS

Table A1.07.2i:
Business Deals

Rewards

and

E
: Effects
R
/
r:
Structure
has
residential effects
B
/
b:
Structure
has
commercial or business effects
$C
: Cost to build
$M
: Monthly Cost or in the
case
of
budget
deficit
rewards, monthly income
Pop : Population requirement.
Unless
stated
otherwise
it
refers to city size
RP
: This refers to regional
population as opposed to city
population
IH
: High Tech industrial
population
HW
: High wealth residential
population
MHW
: Medium and High wealth
residential population
Cm
: Commercial population
F
: Farm population
Re
: Residential population
Rg
: Regional population
MR
: Mayor rating
If I use a lower case letter (r/b) with a capital
letter then it means that the effect
represented by the capital letter has a
stronger effect. Also for those structure with
detrimental effect I will place an (!) in front.
Thus if there is detriment to residence but
positive effect on commercial it will be (!R B).
Look at the handy guide at the back for a
more detailed effect listing.
24
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Sim compile section a v01

  • 1. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK HTML / MS Doc Versions Check out the Simtropolis site, for the HTML version with pictures. Also this guide is in MS Doc version over there. I hope to improve upon the MS Doc version overtime by making it more user friendly. www.simtropolis.com www.simcity-4.net SECTION A: ONLINE MANUAL If you are new to the game. I advice you to go to the strategy section and start playing your first city a bit then return here to read. It will be easier to read if you are somewhat familiar with the game. Perhaps a short glance at PART 2, General Gameplay Concept, should be done. However, there are also some very extensive and intensive discussions and debate in this area that you might not truly appreciate until you are more familiar with the game. These can mostly be found in those topics marked with the little star (*). This Online Manual (OM) was created because the one provided seems to be quite inadequate, at least in comparison with the previous SimCity series. You can also find me and a whole bunch of other people who are truly experts at the game, at the Simtropolis Site. It is the best SimCity site and also the best, most active and friendly forum around with several thousand members and still growing by the PART 1: BASIC GAME MECHANICS day. There is less strategies in PART 1, so if you are clear on Version 2: Additions in this update how the game works, you can simply proceed on to Well, pretty much the entire guide is changed, added the later sections in the guide. I will be dealing with and improved. So to list the additions and changes the basic game play issues at this section. They will here would be futile as that would mean listing the mostly relate to options available, technical game entire guide. But briefly: data and generally how things operate in the game. 2.00: Additions: 1) Expanded the Strategies to get you city into the millions and beyond. 2) Expanded Online Manual. 3) Improved the advanced tutorials to take you step by step to obtain your first skyscrapers in 16 years. 4) Whole host of game and other information added. 5) Huge format change. 6) Added quotes at the start of each part, much like the old SimCity manuals NOTE: For complete version history look at the conclusion, under End 2. BRIEF TABLE OF CONTENTS: Section A : Online Manual Section B : Strategy Guide PART 1 : General Strategies PART 2 : Layouts PART 3 : 0 - 40,000 (1st City + Dirty) PART 4 : 0 - 40,000 (2nd City + Manufacturing) PART 5 : 0 - 40,000 (Subsequent + High Tech) PART 6 : 40,000 - 100,000 PART 7 : 80,000 - Millions and beyond PART 8 : Specialised City, Multi million and Farms Section C : Advanced Tutorials (To Skyscrapers) Section D : Cheats and Loopholes Section E : Handy Reference Guides, Fun Stuff & Building Catalogue Conclusion: [Wave], Bye Bye SimCity 4: FAQ by thy451 Version: 2.00 | Last Updated: 2003-06-19 SIM CITY 4 GUIDE: VERSION 2, by thy451 SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS A1.01: Basics and Technical Issues A1.01.1: Query the Hottest Keys The query option is one of the most important tools in the game. Use it to determine a whole host of information. You can also use it to click on any building and then change the name of it. Although that does not make the building historical or unalterable. It can still be destroyed by the computer when redeveloping. And if you want to follow a MySims or a car or change the traffic lights, simply do this: [Query] object] + [shift] + [click on You can check out the list of hot keys at the back of the provided manual although most of them seem quite useless and superfluous to me and seems only to appear there to fill up the back of the manual. For example there is a hot key of obliterating the city. I do not know how you play your city but this is not C&C, there is little violence and you would definitely not need a hot key for obliteration. The following are the more useful hot keys, the hottest of the hot. 1) [Home or End], Turn the building around for placement. 2) [Shift], Turns off auto roads. Simply press shift after dragging the zone but before releasing the mouse button. Make sure that you have the patch installed. 3) [Alt], Switch the layout of the zoning before laying it. 4) [Esc], Undo, sort of. Cancels zones, roads, etc, 1
  • 2. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK only if you have not released the mouse button. 5) [G], Shows the grid. This is great for counting and planning. 6) [/], Query. Use it with bulldoze to prevent accidental demolition. 7) [B], Bulldoze / Demolish. 8) [Control] [F], Dispatch fire fighters. 9) [Control] [P], Dispatch police. 10) [Control] + [Shift] + [S], Takes a picture of your city as it is appearing on the screen at this moment. This is a very useful hot key as it allows pictures which may not be possible if you went through the clicking on all picture button process. 11) [Spacebar], Centre on Cursor. 12) [Control] + [Shift] + [C], Toggle terrain contours. 13) [Control] + [S], Save City. 14) [F12], Exit 15) [Control] + [Shift] + [Alt] + [R], This is to record a clip of your city. 16) [Control] + [Shift] + [O], Just in case you are wondering, this is the obliterate hotkey. For City Music: SimCity 4> Radio > Stations > Mayor > Music Then when you play the game open up the Audio Option and select the custom tunes. 2) Animation Simply hit [Control] + [Shift] + [O] to begin. Enter in the various information such as file name, rate, time, output and frame count. The clip will be stored in your Recorded Animation folder. A1.01.4: Technical Issues Firstly, I should state that I am NOT a technical expert or even a technical person at all. However, these problems occurred frequent enough for me to pick some things up. 1) Game Requirements: You can easily check the requirements on the box although the game really requires a lot of power such that even if you are above the recommended your cities if they are huge may encounter lag. A1.01.2: Multiple City Save Games and file locations There is a good test program to test your computer systems vis-a-vis the game requirements. It is found in 1) Save Games For those of you who complain about the lack of save the game folder itself: games slots, you could always just copy the region to SimCity4 > Support > SimCity another folder. Go to: 4_EZ.exe MyDocuments > SimCity 4 > Regions 2) GDriverWindow--DirectX Error (1) This is also the place to put any cities you download. This is one of the most common problems I see. The You have to place the city in the region in want it to error you will most probably see is "The configuration file (Graphics Rules.sgr) cannot be parsed using builtbe. in rules." There are two plugin folders. The one I am 2) File locations a) Album: MyDocuments > SimCity 4 > talking about is the one in your MyDocuments folder. Album b) Bug Report: MyDocuments > SimCity 4 > Exception Reports c) Recorded Animation: MyDocuments > SimCity 4 > Recorded Animation d) Original Regions: C:(or wherever you installed the game) SimCity 4 > Regions This is for if you messed up the original regions and want the original back. e) Music for the game / Custom Tunes: SimCity 4> Radio > Stations > Region > Music SimCity 4> Radio > Stations > Mayor > Music MyDocuments > SimCity 4 > Plugins Do not place any of the downloaded things into this folder if not the game will not start. I suggest that after installation of the game and the patch you go and check this folder out to see what should remain in there. Nothing. The reason why an uninstall does not work is because the game does not delete the SimCity 4 folder under MyDocuments unless you actively specify it. Delete what ever you have placed there. 3) GDriverWindow--DirectX Error (2) However, there is another more drastic method. Since I am not well-versed in computers, I am unsure as to whether is this message a generic type for multiple A1.01.3: Custom Tunes & Animation problems or not. If above solution does not work then you may attempt to try this but do it at your own risk 1) Tunes and discretion. You can play your own music simply by placing the a) Uninstall SimCity 4 including the SimCity 4 music (MP3) into this folder: folder in MyDocuments. For Region Music: b) Reinstall: SimCity 4> Radio > Stations > Region After that do the following: > Music SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS 2
  • 3. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK 1. Double-click on My Computer. 2. Double-click on C: drive (also labelled local disk) 3. Double-click on Program Files. 4. Double-click on Maxis. 5. Double-click on Sim City 4. 6. Double-click on Apps. c) Open SimCity 4.ini file 1. Right-click on the SimCity 4.ini file and a menu will appear. Select "open" and leftclick to open the file. The found is found in: 5) EA Technical help If you have problem operating the game simply send them a message. It is under their technical support, Ask a question tab. You do not need actually need to know their address. This is their main support site. http://techsupport.ea.com Although it should be noted that, often your first reply will be an automated one but do not despair and persist. I did once think of sending in multiple mails just to determine the various sets of automated response and trigger words but I think that sort of C:(or wherever you installed the would be frowned upon. game) > Apps 6) Permanent Green Highlight Bug If, you see your hospitals or education highlighted as 2. You will now see notepad open the file green even if they are not selected, do not worry. up. It will look similar to this: Simply go to the data view, and select the respective health, education, etc view. Then after selected, click [Directories] on the all off. They will no longer have the green glow. Data=.. PlugIn=..Plugins A1.01.5: Registration [Graphics Drivers] OpenGL =SimGLRef.dll, C4554841 Software=SimGLSoft.dll, 7ACA35C6 D3D7 =SimGLDx7.dll, BADB6906 The registration process I recalled was quite complicated. If I remember itcorrectly, this is the process: 1) Register once on your computer by filling up the form after installation, which will then send a [Current Graphics Driver] signal to the main site. Or go to the Support ;Driver = C4554841 ;OpenGL Hardware folder and click on SimCity 4_eReg.exe to ;Driver = 7ACA35C6 ;GRPoly Software Driver = BADB6906 ;DX7 Hardware register. 2) Then you have to register a second time also d) Editing with the same key, which is at the back of your You will need to make edits to the [Graphics Drivers] CD case at their official site. and [Current Graphics Driver] sections so that they 3) Failure to do the first registration before the appear as follows: second will give you a error or invalid key [Directories] message Data=.. 4) Enter your email correctly and make sure it PlugIn=..Plugins does not get directed to your junk folder. Click on the activation and you are done. [Graphics Drivers] Again if you have problems send an message to them. ;OpenGL =SimGLRef.dll, C4554841 They solved, my problem within hours. Software=SimGLSoft.dll, 7ACA35C6 ;D3D7 =SimGLDx7.dll, BADB6906 http://techsupport.ea.com [Current Graphics Driver] ;Driver = C4554841 ;OpenGL Hardware Driver = 7ACA35C6 ;GRPoly Software ;Driver = BADB6906 ;DX7 Hardware e) Hopefully that will help you but I make no promises. This I must say is one of the most complicated registration process ever. However, it is a good effort against piracy. So if you see anyone or if anyone asks you for your key, do NOT give away your key. And also report all piracy regarding the game to this EA email address: 4) Graphics options As usual there is a trade-off between speed of the piracy@ea.com game and quality of it. Patch 2 will automatically set the options rather low, at least in my opinion. So if the For online piracy email contact: graphics look bad, simply change the quality and piracy2@ea.com determine if you can stand the lag in the game. SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS 3
  • 4. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK A1.01.6: Updates 1) Check all files updated The patch update is problematic. Whether you patch automatically or do it manually, make sure you check that all the relevant files are indeed updated. The list of files can be found on the patch page. Although, I personally seem to have a problem with the 'dbghelp.dll' file as it not only did not take the 2003 stamp date but it seems to have taken a 2001 stamp date. 2) Patch Log You will have a patch log called: sc4_patchlog.txt It is found in the same folder as the patch file you downloaded if you used the automatic patch. Not too sure where it would be if it was done automatically. This lists what files were patched and whether was it successful at the patch. 3) Region Identification The second problem is for those who has problem with the automatic patch and have to do it manually. Make sure your region is correct. The problematic is the Asian edition. Just because, you live in Asia and bought the game there does not mean that the game is an Asian edition one. If it is English, there is a high chance that your edition could be the North America one. I do not think there is a way to actually determine your region by looking at the files or game itself. The things that could your is an American edition are: (i) Right hand drive and (ii) American spelling. However with regards to American spelling, I am unsure whether is it similar for all the English games. If it is not then look for words such as "harbor" v "harbour" or "color" v "colour." The spelling without the "u" is the American spelling. These words will sometimes appear as park of the message in the news ticker. 4) Failed patch Finally, if you game did not patch properly as in the files were not fully updated, the only way to resolve it is to reinstall everything. A1.01.7: Online Play: SimCityScape You can find more information at the site but this is a brief overview. This online gameplay is available at the official website: http://simcity.ea.com/scape/ http://simcity.ea.com/ 1) Requirements a. Microsoft's Internet Explorer version 6 or better. b. ActiveX c. Java d. Registered user e. Game updated with Patch 2 SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS 2) 9 Regions Available a. Amarica (Large City size: 20 Cities). Discovered in 2003, Amarica is the new world. b. Griffinland (Large City size: 42 Cities). In a world where water reigns, Griffinland springs to life. c. Dan's Grove (Small City Size: 43 Cities). Farmer Dan ran a pistachio orchard on this soil, until approached by a developer. The region has been growing ever since. d. Emlee Valley (Medium City Size: 18 Cities). Pioneered by Maxoids, additional settlers have been moving in ever since. e. Molon Island (Small City Size: 47 Cities). Islands rise from the oceans forming this vast archipelago. f. Sea Shaw (Medium City Size: 47 Cities). With recent development interest, Sea Shaw promises to undergo a real estate boom. g. Lake Lucky (Medium City Size: 41 Cities). Formed by a giant asteroid 3 million years ago, Lake Lucky is now a vacation haven. h. Big Ben Basi (Medium City Size: 47 Cities). The lands have been shifting beneath these shallow waters, making it prime realestate for developers. i. Wee Burg (Small City Size: 45 Cities). In the wee county of Wee Burg, little cities populate the quaint countryside. j. Cook County (Large City Size: 24 Cities). The wind sweeps across vast stretches of plains, as if whispering “develop me.” k. Templinton (Medium City Size: 18 Cities). Civilizations have always grown from the fertile river valleys, Templinton is no exception. l. Annarondacks (Large City Size: 15 Cities). Lakes, forests, and numerous winter sports resorts, attract many tourists, and was once the site of the 1964 Winter SimOlympics. m. Spider Mountain (Medium City Size: 38 Cities). Once inhabited by a spider so large, no one dared move into the area. Nowadays the spider has taken up a career in a travelling sideshow act, leaving the region spider free. 3) Game Play concept It is quite simple. You get to pick one region and you have up to 48 hours to play with it and to end your turn. You may upload it and make as many changes as you want. But after 48 hours or if you choose to end your turn early your turn is up then another person can take over. You may not play the same city consecutively although you may play a city multiple times. After certain amount of time, Maxis will reset the region and the good ones I suppose will get into their hall of fame. 4
  • 5. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK 4) Download Region You can download their "premade region configuration folder" and place it at My DocumentsSimCity 4Regions to extract and create your city. It is a 2k zip file. Yes, 2k I did not have a typing error. It is small. This is not required for playing the online game and download it only if you want to duplicate their region for your own play. A1.01.8: Simtropolis Patch This is not an official patch at all. It is put together by fans of the game. It is located at the Simtropolis site: Www.simtropolis.com The following is one of the official words by Maxis on it: 'Users install, run and download those "mods" from Simtropolis completely at their own risk. Maxis is NOT responsible for ANY errors, crashes, problems or any other issue that you may have if you have downloaded and applied any unofficially supported mod files to your game. Nor is Maxis required to help anyone who has altered their game with any patches/mods/downloads that are not from Maxis themself. Players should also expect that any future patches and/or expansion packs and SimCityscape "may" NOT function properly with the game if you have downloaded any unofficial mods/patches/files and applied them to your game.' A1.01.9: City Size There are three city size that you can select. And each tile is 16 by 16 metres. a. Small: 64 by 64 tiles = 1024 metres / 1Km b. Medium: 128 by 128 tiles = 2048 metres / 2Km c. Large: 256 by 256 tiles = 4096 metres / 4km A1.02: God Mode A1.02.1: Terraform 1) Automatic Reconcile: I recommend that you turn off the reconcile option. Use it only in a city that has yet to build anything, unless you wish to lose your buildings at the edge. 2) Map Creation: Personally, I prefer creating maps one by one rather than doing the entire region. Firstly, it is so much easier and you get to start playing the game faster. Gives you greater flexibility to get the terrain to suit the cities that are sprouting up. Of course even if you do the entire region you can still change the landscape of the city. But from my experience, you would be extremely reluctant to do so. And furthermore if the changes are huge it may impact SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS other maps. Even if that is not so, you will have wasted time altering the map twice. 3) Size and intensity of terra forming: Shift F1 - F10: Intensity from less (F1) to most (F10) Shift 1 > 2 > ... > 9 > 0: Size of brush from small (1) to large (0). The size of the circle remains the same whatever zoom you are at. So zoom in to the maximum zoom if you wish to have a smaller effect. 4) Reconcile Once in a while I hear people complain bitterly that the reconcile destroys their city. The answer is simple. If it destroys your city then just do not hit the reconcile button. Go to the options and turn it off. A1.02.2: Changing region & city size a) Introduction to Items: Program: MS Paint I used this but believe that any graphics program can be used. File: Config.bmp Location: My DocumentsSimCity4Regions(Any original region. Such as Berlin or Maxisland) Note: I mentioned the file so for you to get an idea about it. It does NOT mean that you use this files for your map. Please create a new bitmap. b) Region Size: The pixels of the bitmap determine the size of the region. For Example Maxisland is 16 x 16 pixels c) City Size Colour Coding: 1x1: Red : Small city. 2x2: Green: Medium city. 4x4: Blue : Large city. The colour's value must be 255. And in the event that you are unfamiliar with MS paint, here is a step-bystep guide. 1) Select "Colours" then "Edit Colours." 2) Press "Define Custom Colours." 3) Make sure the value of the colour is 255.  Colour Red : Red 255 / Green 0 / Blue 0  Colour Green: Red 0 / Green 255 / Blue 0  Colour Blue : Red 0 / Green 0 / Blue 255 d) Steps: 1) Create new region. (In the game, obviously but just in case) 2) Create bitmap in MS Paint. (Out of the game) For those who do not know:  Ctrl E / Or Under "Image", Select "Attributes..."  Set the width and height. Units are to be in Pixels. Select Colours.  Remember create a new picture do not use any of the pictures that are provided in the other regions 3) Based on the colour coding as stated above, create your desired region.  Do a maximum zoom for easier viewing. 4) Save as Config.bmp and place it in the folder of the new region that you created in step 5
  • 6. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK (1). 5) Congratulations, you now have your very own map. e) Further Illustration If you wish to make a 6 x 4 small region here is an example. Each letter, S, M, or L represents one pixel. Diagram A1.02.2 S: Small M: Medium L: Large 1234 1MMSS 2MMSS 3LLLL 4LLLL 5LLLL 6LLLL Therefore in this map you will have 1 large city, 1 medium city and 4 small cities. If for example your bit map is only 4 x 4 and you attempt this 1234 1MMSS 2MMSS 3LLLL 4LLLL Then it will result in only the medium and small city appearing. A1.02.3: Obliterate, Animals, Disasters and Trees 1) Obliterate Using obliterate auto-saves thus there is no reload. 2) Disappearing Animals They need forest cover to survive and further, it is more of a gimmick than anything. Do not be too perturbed by the mass suicides. 3) Disasters Fire disaster cannot be turned off. The rest of the disasters do not occur randomly and requires you to actively use them. The only exception is the riot disaster which occurs under certain circumstances. REFER: A1.06.3 for how to create a riot These are the list of disasters. a) Tornado b) Earthquake c) Fire d) Lightning e) Servo the Robot Attack. From the Sims. 4) Trees type and growth Each tree costs $3. How fast the trees grow depends on whether is it suitable for the climate. Climate is determined by the height of the city. It should be noted that the trees even of the same type planted in the same location do not have the same growth rate although their growth rate in general is similar. its maximum size within 2 years while the longer ones took up to 3 over years. ------------------------| Tree Type | GR | ------------------------| Blue Spruce Pine | 3 | | Noble Fir Pine | 1 | | Maple | 1 | | Palm | 4 | | Oak | 2 | ------------------------A1.02.4: * Treatise on God & Natural Trees and Pollution There is a debate as to whether is there a difference with respect to effect on pollution between natural trees, those planted after the city was founded and God mode trees, those planted before the city was founded. Let me deal with the easy part. Both type of trees do actually remove pollution. An experiment that you could try is this. a) Simply start a new city with thickly planted God mode trees. b) Then build a coal power plant in the midst of the trees. c) Observe the level of pollution through the data map. d) Start demolishing the trees and you would see the pollution expanding Therefore one can conclude that God mode tree do also remove pollution. However, pollution can seep through if the pollution itself is very strong and that the tree cover is not thick enough. An experiment which I tried and which shows that there is no difference at least after Patch 2 is this: a) Start a city and plant God Mode trees b) Establish the City and plant Natural trees c) Wait for the natural trees to mature d) Place a coal power plant in each of the different forests, making sure that they line up e) Start demolishing roll by roll of trees and see in which area the pollution first seeps through. It is my conclusion that they both seep through at around the same area. Therefore at least with Patch 2, there is no difference between God mode trees and Natural trees. And even if there is a difference it is minute and insignificant. A1.03: Zones A1.03.1: Options: Zone Types The cost is similar for the zones with the same type of density. Also agriculture is low density industry. Commerce incorporates both services and offices thus there is no way to actively just select one for construction. You can select from residential, commercial and industrial zoning. Table A1.02.3 GR: This is the growth rate rankings based on the default ground level. The earliest two started reaching SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS 6
  • 7. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK Table A1.03.1: Zones and costs ---------------------Density |Low|Med|High| ---------------------Cost |$10|$20|$50 | ---------------------A1.03.2: Density v Wealth A1.03.3: Zoning desirability The following table simply reflects what is required for construction of the various zones. I have not included all the factors. I have heard that the gradient of the land, location with relation to other zones also play a part but personally I find actually using them in the game to be quite difficult unless of course you have in Density is separate and distinct from the wealth and your mind the layout of the entire city right at the type of zones. In other words low density housing start. does not mean low wealth residence. The only exception, to a certain extent is low density industry, which should really be called agriculture. The following table gives an explanation of density and types wealth levels since this is the part that some are confused about. Table A1.03.2 L: Low density zoning M: Medium Density zoning H: HIgh density zoning The key is the abbreviation used by the games in the game charts. ----------------------------------------------Residential / Key | Tax | Zone Density | ----------------------------------------------Poor (R$) | $ | L / M / H | Middle Class (R$$) | $$ | L / M / H | Rich (R$$$) | $$$ | L / M / H | ----------------------------------------------Commercial | | ----------------------------------------------Services (Cs$/$$/$$$) |$/$$/$$$| L / M / H | Offices (Co$$/$$$) |$$/$$$ | L / M / H | ----------------------------------------------Industrial | | ----------------------------------------------Farms (I-Ag | No Tax | L | Dirty (I-D) | $ | M / H | Manufacturing (I-M) | $$ | M / H | High Tech (I-HT) | $$$ | M / H | ----------------------------------------------Changing density: Even after buildings are constructed, you can zone a denser zone without destroying the buildings that are built. If you are zoning a lower density zone than the building, then a smaller density building will soon take the place of its former higher density counterpart. There should be no use of the demolition button when changing zone density. It is only when the demand is satisfied after the denser zoning that the new denser buildings will appear. Thus you may have to wait quite a bit before seeing the effects of the denser zoning. SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS 7
  • 8. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK Table A1.03.3 2) Transitional lack of connection Sometimes when the area is being R : Residential redeveloped, a no road zot will appear. It CO : Commercial Offices should usually disappear within a few CS : Commercial Services months if not you may for to de-zone and IA : Agriculture rezone those affected tiles. ID : Dirty Industry 3) Flood filling IM : Manufacturing To flood-fill, create the roads surrounding IH : High-tech Industry the zones, select the desired zone then ----------------------click and hold it at one tile and the zone H : High will fill up. Best used for irregular shaped A : Average zones. But because of the problem in (1), I L : Low / Short not really recommend flood filling an area. --------------------------------------------After all you can easily fill up an irregular Factors | R | CO| CS| IA| ID| IM| IH| shaped area by doing it over different --------------------------------------------phases. Air pollution | L | L | L | L | | | L | 4) Undeveloped interior Crime | L | L | L | L | L | L | L | Sometimes even with auto roads on the Garbage | L | L | L | L | L | L | L | interior does not get developed. This is Land Value | | | | L | L | A | H | especially so for industry which can easily --------------------------------------------zone up to 7x7 without auto-roads Specific | | appearing. The reason for it being --------------------------------------------undeveloped is that the tiles touching the Commute | L | | | | | | | road develops small-single tile buildings Education | H | | | | | | | leaving the interior without roads. Health | H | | | | | | | Freight | | | | L | L | L | L | The interior will only develop later in the Traffic Noise | L | | | | | | | game when either (i) huge multi-tile Customer # | | H | H | | | | | buildings appear or (2) when the single--------------------------------------------tile industry expands into the interior. I do not really recommend huge zones especially for Radiation: industries. While everything might work out in the long run, as John Maynard Keynes once said, "In the Radiation is not tolerated by anything. While I have yet long run we are all dead." to experience a meltdown, I did try using the toxic waste dump and the area that was irradiated was quickly A1.03.5: Agriculture abandoned. 1) Amount of jobs Customer and Traffic Volume: Even if you see that the barn stating that there is only #: If you view the building you will see on information two jobs, that is under-reflective of the amount of called customer. This translates to traffic volume or jobs at that farm. I believe that is per tile. This is traffic congestion. Looking at the data map, I realised because I got a farmers market with only two large that the areas of commercial with red traffic has high farms. customers. After creating a large farm, pause your game and wait until about 5pm then you will see many cars leaving However, customers are also created by having more the farm and going home. Therefore logically the farm Sims in your city and region and also in having rich Sims. must employ more than just those few persons at the This is simply because the richer they are the more they barn. can purchase. 2) No farming taxes Farms only bring in jobs and do not add to your A1.03.4: Road Zots and Flood Filling taxes.By the way if you are wandering why agriculture does not produce taxes, think of the EU's Common 1) Actual Lack of connections Agricultural Policy, CAP, and also countries like the US, Each building needs to have road access. Thus make sure Canada or Japan. You should be happy that the farms that the arrows (<) in the lots face the roads, if not you in your city do not demand massive subsidies from will get the no connection sign. If a particular lot is not you or create inter-regional tensions by asking you to facing the road then you should zone in parts rather than tax other farm goods to protect them. zoning the entire area with one click and drag, thus 3) Connections required making sure all of the (<) also face the roads. Only roads and electricity is needed. Water is not Alternatively, you could hit the [alt] key to change the needed. You should not even connect your pipes even layout of the lots. if you wanted too unless you do not mind your Sims suffering from the indignity of drinking kiwi chocolate SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS 8
  • 9. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK colour looking water. 4) Agriculture and pollution. While agriculture abhors pollution air pollution, it is nonchalant with regards to water pollution since they too produces water pollution. Of course this is not realistic as there are many types of water pollution. I mean I would not want to eat vegetables coming from a farm next to a LED factory that dumps its arsenic waste into the water table. 5) Reasons for agriculture There are several reasons for although I do not find them convincing in terms of actual benefits. a) It is more for atmosphere rather than a means to make money. b) It generates jobs, which bring in people and the demand for agriculture unlike other sectors is usually very high. But I prefer using nonagricultural industries to generate jobs at the start. c) However, while agriculture does pollute the water it does have less air pollution as compared to the dirty industry. d) The best argument from a beneficial point of view is so as to be able to build the farmer's market. However, since keeping them around is not necessary after you get the farm this means that agriculture is only good at the start of the game and should not be a permanent feature of the city unless you wish to keep the 'farming look' in your city. 6) Unable to convert land back to farms. Once the city begins getting quite developed, it is very unlikely that farms will be rebuilt on previously zoned land even if there is no pollution. One reason is because of the negative demand cap. This is since the more industries you have the demand cap of the farm becomes lower. REFER: A2.02: Demand Caps A1.03.6 : Industrial Pollution 1) Industrial pollution The following table is a ROUGH guide to the length of the extension of the pollution. With the exception of the farms, which relates to water pollution the rest refers to air pollution. The figures refer to the total number of tiles the pollution extends. The level of pollution decreases as you move further. But I have included all level of pollution into the one figure. All these figures operate on the assumption that you have no trees or anything reducing pollution. Table A1.03.6 ---------------------------Industry | Air | Water| ---------------------------Farms | 0 | 12 | Dirty | 22 | 27 | Manufacturing | 8 | 14 | Hi-tech | 0 | 0 | ---------------------------- SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS 3) Abandoned buildings These still produce pollution and on top of that attract crime and are prone to fires. Therefore even if your entire dirty industry is abandoned and all the buildings lie vacant, the air pollution will still be as bad as ever. A1.04: Transportation A1.04.1: Options: Transport Types 1) Road Vehicle Transport: Streets, Road and Highway This is the most basic form of transportation around. Streets have a very much smaller capacity about a tenth than roads while highway offers about four times more capacity than a road. They too have differing speeds with the streets being the lowest and the highway being the highest. Even buses add to the traffic of the roads. You can build diagonal roads but no diagonal streets. I have simply no idea why this is so. Because of the possibility of potholes you have the ability to repair it by building roads on top of it. But if you do lay a road over an existing one and even if the road is in perfect condition it will cost money. So do not waste money by laying roads over existing roads when you are happy dragging the road tool. Also if what the MySims state is correct, people do not like to live next to one of them. 2) Train Transport: Trains and Subway Both rails and subway have about the same capacity, the difference being that one operates underground and the other do not. The less obvious difference is that rails have the capacity for transporting factory goods. 3) Ports: Airport and Seaport These are primarily demand cap busters. The seaport serves the industry while the airport serves the commercial areas. It is often asked as to whether are the effects of an airport city wide or region wide. Its effect is only city wide. However, there is an indirect effect on the region. This is because after placement it will improve the demand, growth and economy of that city and as a result of that, the better city will have a stronger positive effect on neighbouring cities and such. Remember, these ports must be connected to the thing they serve, commercial areas for airports and industry for ports. And with relation to the airport, they can be upgraded. When your usage is close to the maximum, an offer of an upgrade will be made. An upgraded airport still takes up the small amount of space. REFER: A2.02: Demand Caps 9
  • 10. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK 4) Cost and Capacity Table A1.04.2: Transport $C: Cost to build / In the case of medium and large airports, this figure represents the upgrade cost. $M: Monthly maintenance cost CA: Capacity P: Passenger G: Goods in tons %: Treat this as a percentage when contrasted with the rest in that category -------------------------------------Structure | $C | $M | CA | -------------------------------------Cars | | -------------------------------------Roads | 10 | 0.10|100% | Streets | 5 | 0.05|1000% | Bus Stops | 150 | 5 |1000P | High way | 600 | 1 |4000% | Cloverleaf | 3000| 26 |4000% | -------------------------------------Trains | | -------------------------------------Railway track | 8 | 0.03|3000% | Passenger Sta. | 100 | 10 |2000P | Freight Sta. | 100 | 10 |2000G | Subway | 156 | 0.30|3000% | Subway Sta. | 500 | 20 |2000P | -------------------------------------Airports | | -------------------------------------Small Strip |20000| 700 |10200P| Med. Strip | 5700| 900 |13100P| Large Strip | 5700| 1100|16000P| -------------------------------------Small Municipal |35000| 900 |28800P| Med. Municipal | 6400| 1450|34100P| Large Municipal | 7200| 1700|40000P| -------------------------------------Small Int. |50000| 1225|70000P| Med. Int. | 6400| 1450|80000P| Large Int. | 7200| 1700|90000P| -------------------------------------Seaports | | -------------------------------------Ports |10000| 500 |4000G | -------------------------------------A1.04.2: Highway, Cloverleaf and On ramps There are two methods of creating a cloverleaf. The first is when you drag the highway across another highway. The other is by placing a cloverleaf on an ALREADY EXISTING highway crossing. While diagonal highways are possible diagonal highways cannot create cloverleaf or even cross each other. The following is a diagram of a cloverleaf and on ramp. Please note the minimum length required for its placements SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS Cloverleaf Requirements: a) Excluding the middle intersection there must at least be 6 tiles. Therefore the total length of each side must at least be 14 tiles. b) When using the cloverleaf option instead of the auto cloverleaf, there must already be an existing highway that satisfies requirement (A). Onramp Requirements a) Length of the on ramp is 6 tiles. Thus the highway must have 6 free tiles. b) If there is a intersection whether do you have a cloverleaf built there or not, you need to have at least a minimum distance of 6 tiles. c) The on ramp cannot be placed at the last tile of a highway. There must be at least one tile of highway free at the end of the highway that will not be used when you place the on ramp. Diagram A1.04.2 C: M: O: H: Cloverleaf Middle of the cloverleaf On ramp Normal highway 1 2 12345678901234567890123 1 HH 2 CC 3 CC 4 CC 5 CC 6 CC 7 CC 8HCCCCCCMMCCCCCCHOOOOOOH 9HCCCCCCMMCCCCCCHOOOOOOH 10 CC 1 CC 2 CC 3 CC 4 CC 5 CC 6 HH A1.04.3: Tunnels and Underwater tunnels 1) Tunnels To create a tunnel simply drag the transport tool, be it a road, highway or rail across the hill. If it is possible the tunnel option will appear. Often for smaller size hills, it is the gradient that determines whether a tunnel option will appear. The steeper it is at the point of entry and exit the higher the chance of getting the tunnel option. 2) Underwater tunnels This seems to be a bug of sorts. The cost of building an underwater tunnel far outweighs any actual benefit if any. The steps are: a) Take a piece of land without water. b) Build a tunnel across. If the land to too flat, either raise all the land or just lower the 10
  • 11. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK entrance and exit. c) Now lower the land in between the entrance and the exit. d) Hey presto, the tunnel is still there yet there is nothing in between. A physical matter teleportation device? This also means that you can have a tunnel functioning even if the hill is removed and there is only land that is lower in between. A1.04.4: Bridges: Roads, Highways and Rails 1) Construction Just simply select the road or highway option and drag it across the water or if you have a steep chasm a bridge is also possible. Just drag until the bridge appears. If a bridge still does not appear try to move the starting point a bit further back away from the gap. If it still does not appear, then you may have to do some terrain adjustment at either the start or end point. It is impossible to build a bridge where the start and end points are very steep. 2) Golden Gate This appears if you use the highway as the basis of the bridge. stations are somewhat like a transfer or transit point like a Sim walking to a subway and then taking the subway to work. There are two methods of sending goods out on track: a) Direct: If your train track runs through an industrial zone, it will automatically pick up goods even if there is no station b) Indirect: Freight station is used where goods are send by road to the station who then take it away. Therefore if all your industry already has a short freight trip there is no need to construct a freight station. Other than being superfluous the trucks going to your freight station will add to the road traffic. 3) No trains: Low passenger usage Personally I prefer using rails for inter rather than intra city travel. But that is just my preference and that rails can perfectly well be used for intra city travel. If you are unable to see the train it means that either you have a bad rail line which is not properly linked up. Or that since the trains like the cars are a mere representation of the usage of the transport, the usage could be so low that trains do not even appear. If you see a train, just follow it and if the usage is not A1.04.5: Trains, Turnings and Freight too high it will disappear somewhere along the line. You can see trains appearing out of nowhere like a 1) Rail Turnings ghost train. Like a road, just because you do not see The tracks cannot turn 90 degrees and must be turned cars there does not mean that the road is faulty. gradually over three tiles. The following diagram Furthermore, this reflects the usage on the tracks not illustrates a 4 way crossing. You cannot place a road the station. It measures track congestion and usage. through any gradual railway turns. 4) Rail-Station placement Diagram A1.04.5i It has been suggested that you should place the track at the back of the train station. However, I do have R: Railway tracks. No road placement success in placing the tracks at the side of the train C: Railway tracks. Only at these areas station. Make sure that there a road linking to it also. can you build a road across like a rail crossing. Diagram A1.04.5ii 1234567 1 C 2 R 3 RRR 4CRRRRRC 5 RRR 6 R 7 C >: Train Station and direction of the arrow. Thus it is point away to the back of the station. =: Rail -: Road =>>>=>>>- === >>> >>> --(ii) -->>> >>> === (iii) ->>>= ->>>= 2) Freight Stations Freight trains serve one purpose, that is to send (i) (iv) industrial goods out of the city. Since they only send industrial goods, there is no need to connect rails that I have had success with all of the above formations. As have only freight stations and are not transporting long as the road also touches the station it is perfectly passengers to either a residential area or a commercial fine to put it on any side. area. Secondly you need to connect the train tracks to a connection. Think of freight as a different kind of Sim. Instead of going from residential to his work, freight goes from industrial to a neighbour connection. Freight SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS 11
  • 12. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK A1.04.6: Junctions, Roundabouts, Diagonal and Subway ---S----S----S---Sbug 1) Junctions and traffic ---S----S----S---STraffic increases at each junction not simply because more people arrive there but also because the amount of cars it can take is much less than normal roads. So try ---S----S----S---Snot to build too much junctions 2) Streets are not Solution Therefore do not create junctions under your A street is not a solution to heavy traffic. Using a street subway stations. to resolve traffic jams is somewhat like a person stating that the way to reduce traffic is to narrow the road. And A1.04.7: Maintenance, Income and Distress then stating it is a success because there are less cars on that road now. Of course there are less cars, since one 1) Potholes had reduce the capacity of the road. But that does not You have reduced your funding for the roads, which mean that the traffic situation had improved. you should not have done. You have to replace the One may claim that as a result of it the junction is question is now green thus stating that it is a success. But the reason it is green is because all the traffic is stuck behind the street. The street acts as a filter allowing some to pass but all needs to pass. Hence a green junction does not necessarily mean that your experiment with streets is working. Therefore do not build a street on the tile leading up to a junction so that the traffic lights will not appear. Traffic lights are not prima facie bad. Also if your roundabout is based on this street design it will not work to ease traffic. 3) Roundabouts One may not create a proper roundabout without any traffic unless one goes through a whole host of building and demolishing or using a street. The effect is that a proper roundabout cannot be created. Thus they are merely eye candy and do not really serve to ease your traffic. Note that my definition of a roundabout is a road junctions type that has no traffic lights. 4) Diagonal Roads and highway As stated earlier, there is no diagonal streets. For the most part diagonal construction just add to the variety of your city. It however does have several detriments: a) Diagonal highways cannot have cloverleaf b) It waste space. c) It constricts the buildings around it. 5) Subway infinite loop bug Patch 2 resolved this problem. But for those without the patch for some reason or other. this here is the problem. Setting up a subway network as in the diagram simply loops the passengers through each station without actually sending them anywhere. Therefore while it may be profitable the subway system is not working. Diagram A1.04.6 -: Subway Tracks S: Subway Station SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS roads rather than raising funding and waiting for repairs which will not be done automatically. Make sure you do not build roads on roads that are in good condition as that will cost you money too. 2) Income You can make money from your mass transit. The best case scenario would be for it not just to fund itself but also provide you with an income. You can check your income under the budget. 3) Ports under distress Often I hear of people complaining that their ports seem to be distressed even if they had a full maintenance. This I believe was resolved in Patch 2. It is stated in the fix list that they have "Addressed issue for airports and seaports initially showing up distressed." A1.04.8: * Coverage and Travelling Time 1) Station "Coverage" It was stated in an official Sim City 4 article, 'Tips & Tricks - Transportation' that "your Sims are USUALLY only willing to walk about 6 to 8 tiles to and from bus stops." I have added to capitalization by myself. Therefore what many people as the “range” or “coverage” of a station commonly actually refers to the distance that people can walk and travel before the time runs out. Before interpreting that sentence it is best to clearly define and explain some basic concepts and terms 1. Trip, The basis of calculation. The time one takes to go from one's residence to one's place of work. 2. Walking Time, This refers to the time one takes to walk to and from the mass transit. 3. Mass Travel Time, This refers to the time taken to move by mass transit from one place to another. 4. Transfer Time, The time taken to change modes of transport REFER: A1.04.9: Transit Mode 12
  • 13. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK 5. Total Trip Time = Walking + Mass + Transfer 6. Maximum Trip Time > Total Trip Time, Themaximum trip time I believe is 150 minutes. This is the time one must reach one's work place. 7. Actual maximum trip time It is my opinion that while 150 minutes is the cut off, not all class of residence will have 150 minutes. As commute time is a huge part of determining desirability, it means that for the richer Sims they do not like a high commute. Thus they may move out of their house even before reaching 150 minutes. The effect is thus that the house will be downgraded. Thus 150 minutes is the time limit for poor ($) Sims but not the richer Sims. a) Restrictive Interpretation This interpretation operates restrictively downwards such that 8 tiles is the maximum range one would walk. It means that Sims will only use the mass transit if it is in within an 8 tile radius. The basis of this is that walking, as compared to other modes of transport takes a lot of time. Therefore people who walked 8 tiles to the station will have less time left in his total trip time hence they will not be able to walk another 8 tiles to their workplace. Therefore the result of this interpretation means that you should not space out your stations too much if you want an effective mass transit system. In fact the proponents of this interpretation believe that 6 tiles is the optimum range. b) Liberal Interpretation This interpretation operates liberally upwards such that 6 to 8 is just the mean range. And as such you can travel more than 8 tiles to and from a station and there is no cap on the distance one is from a station. All that matters is that the total trip time is less than the maximum trip time. The basis of this is based on the later part of the sentence "... 8 tiles to and from bus stops." That suggests that people can walk further than 8 tiles but that generally they only walk 8 tiles to a station. In other words like the restrictive interpretation it focuses on the total trip time but gives a more liberal interpretation such that one could perhaps walk 12 tiles to the station and then walk another 1 tile after alighting to reach the office. Therefore the result of this interpretation means that you can space your stations further apart although placing more closer together would still always be a boost. c) Combined Interpretation This interpretation takes into account the fact that walking do indeed take a large part of the travelling time but it also acknowledges that there is no cap on the number of tiles one would walk. transit time will become longer thereby reducing the amount of time remaining for the walking time. In other words while the liberal approach is right theoretically, practically one must adopt the closer station placement supported by the restrictive approach. 2) Single maximum trip time theory Central to the discussion relating to station coverage is the assumption that people can indeed walk more than 8 tiles and that all that matters is that the total trip time does not exceed the maximum trip time.There are multiple experiments you can do to test this out. One of them is: a) Start a new city. b) Build a Residential and an Industrial zone separated from each other without any road connections between them. c) Build a subway station in each of the zones and connect them up but make no road connections. d) Make the distance from your residential area to the subway more than 8 tiles and make the subway directly in the midst of the industrial zone. e) The length of the subway should be short, one tile. f) As long as ANY one of the people reaches work it will show that people can walk more than 8 tiles in general and in using a mass transit I stated ANY because even if only one building has work it is proof that people can transfer. Because if it is impossible all will have no work. The rest of the people without work can thus be attributed to this particular bad transport network and not the impossibility of Sims being able to transfer to stations side by side. The conclusion is that people can indeed walk more than 8 tiles. 3) Travelling Time and the Heuristic coefficient Somebody called "the7trumpets" at Simtropolis found out and determined how travel time is actually specifically calculated taking into account traffic and other things. But it is really complicated and extremely mathematical with the use of the Heuristic coefficient. Suffice to say I am not posting it here as this is a SimCity 4 FAQ not a mathematical text. If you are interested simply go to the site and search for it. A1.04.9: Transit Mode People can change their mode of transportation such as from walking to bus. But not all types of transportation are mutually compatible with another. Therefore the result of this interpretation is that while you can space the stations further apart as your city expands and there is more strain on traffic, the mass SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS 13
  • 14. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK Table A1.04.9 W : Walking. This is only on roads and streets. No walking allowed on highway and tunnels. B : Bus. This building has negative residential effect. T : Trains / Railway S : Subway Y/N: Yes / No WA : This means that connection to this mode of transport is possible but it is done indirectly through the use of walking again. Thus for example a bus passenger connects to a train by walking out of the bus station and into the train station. ------------------------Type of |Connects To: | Movement |W |C |B |T |S | ------------------------Walking |--|N |Y |Y |Y | Car |N |--|N |Y |N | Bus |Y |N |--|WA|WA| Trains |Y |Y |WA|--|WA| Subway |Y |N |WA|WA|--| ------------------------For indirect walking connection, simply place both the stations side by side. Take note that walking takes up the longest time so try not to have that many connections. A1.04.10: * Transit Station The big debate in this is whether does one need to leave a tile in between two stations for the Sims to switch transport mode. Thus it means having a bus stop beside a train station. This is because in the Prima Guide it is stated that "To change transportation modes, there must be at least one tile of road between the stations." However, if you look at the official Sim City site under the 'About > Inside Scope' you will see an article call "Building a better Transit System" by Alex Peck, Software Engineer. Look at the second page of the article: http://simcity.ea.com/about/inside_ scoop/transit2.php Figure 4 shows a Train station connected to a Bus station. This thus means that there is a conflicting reports from two official sources. It is my opinion that the latter argument at the website is the correct one. It should be noted that the Prima Guide was done months before the release of the game and there are multiple errors in it that have been confirmed. But I will prove it to you with an experiment. 1) Experiment This experiment is done in a similar fashion to the Single maximum trip time theory experiment in (A1.04.8). a) Simply create a residential and a work place in a new city that is only connected by rail or subway. SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS b) Stop the rail or subway before the work zone and place another station such as the bus stop right next to the rail/subway. See if they manage to get to work. c) Make sure that you place a tunnel between the station and the work place because Sims cannot walk into a tunnel. This is to prevent people from walking to work. Thus their only option is to take the bus. d) As long as ANY one of the people reaches work it will show that people can transfer even if the stations are beside each other. I stated ANY because even if only one building has work it is proof that people can transfer. Because if it is impossible all will have no work. The rest of the people without work can thus be attributed to this particular bad transport network and not the impossibility of Sims being able to transfer to stations side by side. 1) Graphics and Tunnel Central to this argument is the one that Sims cannot walk through a tunnel. It was stated by the makers that the graphics are mere representation of the simulation and are not exactly accurate. If you look closely at the tunnel you may see people walking into or out of the tunnel. However, it is my opinion that this is just a graphic. It does not actually represent people moving in and out of the tunnel. Think of the situation where we put in one reward type building in a city with 0 population (Industrial cities) yet there are people cheering it. Alternatively you can see people walking about in a large plaza and yet there is no people in the city. If you are not convinced, you could perhaps lengthen the distance between the bus station and the industrial zone. 2) Combination Argument It is possible that both arguments are correct. Let us at the prima guide statement again. "To change transportation modes, there must be at least one tile of road BETWEEN the stations." (My emphasis) To interpret this, we have to give a liberal reading to the word 'between.' Between does not simply mean sandwiched and in the middle. The prima guide could simply be stating that there must be a road leading from one station to the other. The idea they are trying to convey is that while the stations may be built side by side, unlike actual transit hubs they are not linked internally and thus the people have to exit it and walk on the roads and then re-enter the other station. 3) Directional explanations Since Sims travel in the direction to their destination and would not deviate too much to take advantage of a mass transit or a less congested road the reason for the seeming failure of these transit stations, if you do have a failure, can be attributed to them. This is because, If the Sim exit the station and his 14
  • 15. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK work place is to the south but the bus station is to the north, then he will not use the bus station as moving there means moving further away from his destination. 4) Entrance / Exit explanations Prior to placement you can see the (<) of the station. Make sure that it faces the road and also the road that the other station faces. If they are pointing in opposite directions, it may account for the failure of these transit stations, if you do have a failure. station efficiency and capacity when you query the station. -I will quote an email Chris McFadyen sent me for it explains the capacity of tracks excellently. I have changed edited some of the wording and the illustration but the words are still his: A1.04.11: Choice of Transportation A >>>>> B >>>>> C >>>>> D >>>>> E While everyone in your city has the ability to take all the types of transportation, whether do they actually take it is dependant on how rich they are. Classified broadly there are three means people get around the city. They are, public, private or flexible. Flexible means that the people will have no qualms about using either public mass transit or private cars to get around as long as they reach their destination in the shortest possible time. If we have a 1000 people each at A, B, C and D that want to get to E. Train leaves Station 'A' with 1000 passengers, gets to 'B' and picks up another 1000, gets to 'C', etc... When they get to E they would be dropping off 4000 passengers. Adding more subway stops between, such as: Table A1.04.11 LW : MW : HW : PR : PU : FS : * : ** : ***: Low wealth residents Medium wealth residents High wealth residents Private Public Flexible short approach Least desire Moderate desire Greatest desire --------------------Type | PR | FS | PU | --------------------HW |*** |* |* | MW |* |*** |** | LW |** |* |*** | --------------------What this means is that even if you have the best mass transit system any mayor can offer if the rich populate your city then very few people will use the mass transit. This is even if taking their cars to work will be longer or even to the extent that they cannot reach their work place. Traffic at stations are cumulative. Say we have 5 stations: A >>>>> B >>>>> C >> F >> D >>>>> E Station 'F' would not increase the capacity of the tracks if nobody got off at 'F'. Therefore all 'F' does is to add to the capacity if nobody or if less people got off then those who got on. End Quote. Thanks to Chris McFadyen. -You should note that just because when you place station 'F' the usage of C and D falls, it does not mean that this does not hold true. Usage at the station is different from usage at the tracks. An analogy may help you to better understand. Let us say there is a huge train station which can handle hundreds of trains at any given time. But if there is only one single track leading out of that station, it means that all hundred of trains will have to use that one single line. Therefore the solution is not to build bigger train stations but to build more lines. 1) Effect The effect of overcapacity is simple. You will have a jam and the speed will slow down. You can slow down up to 70% of the optimum travelling speed in the tiles that are overcapacity. 2) Distinguishing Track and Station overcapacity As stated above these track and station have different overcapacity levels. However the method to determine track overcapacity is useful only for rails. Track Overcapacity: Look at the rail line. The longer or the more number of train the more congested the line. Station Overcapacity: Query the station, to see its usage. Therefore the only means to deal with them is to do build your road network such that it forces them to use the type of transport you want them to use. This is especially so when building a highway since Sims always use the "shortest" possible route to work even if that route is completely congested. A1.05: Utilities A1.05.1: Options: Utilities Type REFER: B7.08.3: Paternalistic Approach to traffic A1.04.12: Overcapacity 1) Electricity 1) Theory They obviously produce electricity for your city, The effect of overcapacity is simple. It reduces speed. without which the city will not grow and Yogi bear and Overcapacity does not only apply to roads but also to Keiko the whale from Free willy will roam the area in subway tracks and train tracks. This is different from peace. SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS 15
  • 16. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK a) Wind Power: Very clean but very pathetic. The most inefficient of all power. b) Natural Gas: It does pollute but it is quite little and you can easily use this for your clean city. c) Coal: The most efficient of the lot but generates the most pollution. d) Oil: In between a natural gas and a coal plant. e) Solar: Clean and expensive. f) Nuclear: Clean with the possibility of a catastrophic disaster. g) Hydrogen: Generates the most power but is actually quite inefficient. 2) Water Very important but your city can still grow without it but not much. It is just that they will be very dirty and flammable. But do not worry their collective body odour will not contribute to air pollution. A water pump is so much more efficient than a water tower. 3) Waste disposals Unless you like living in your filth, this becomes very necessary. Landfill requires there to be at least some population for it to be effective. Waste to energy is your best bet but it generates copious amount of pollution. Table A1.05.1: Utilities $C: Cost to build $M: Monthly maintenance cost E : Efficiency rate. The amount of power $1 generates MW: Power capacity in MWh per month LS: Life span of the plant P : Pollution description AP: Air pollution extent in tiles. The number in (bracket) represents the extent of the strongest pollution. WP: Water pollution extent in tiles. The number in (bracket) represents the extent of the strongest pollution. P : Population. If not further clarified it means city size HW: High wealth residence IH: Hi tech industrial population ED: Energy demands including deals. It is in the 1000s (K) CU: Water capacity in Cu m in one month The figures for pollution assume that there are no surrounding trees or anything that can help reduce pollution. Power -----------------------------------------------------------------------------Structure | $C | $M | E | MWH |LS | P | AP | WP | P |MR| ED| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------Power Line | 2 | 0.10| | | | | 0 | 0 | | | | Wind | 500 | 50 | 4 | 200 |100| Clean | 0 | 0 | | | | Nat. Gas | 9000 | 400 | 7.5| 3000 | 60|Moderate| 0 | 0 | | | | Coal | 10000| 250 |24 | 6000 | 75|Heaviest|22(13)|18(6) | | | | Oil | 17000| 600 |11.6| 7000 | 75| Heavy |16(6) |8 Min.| | | | Solar | 30000| 1000| 5 | 5000 |100| Clean | 0 | 0 |3000HW|55| | Nuclear | 40000| 3000| 5.3|16000 | 60|Meltdown| 0 | 0 |85000 | |25K| Hydrogen |100000|10000| 5 |50000 | 50| Clean | 0 | 0 |4000IH| |30K| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------Waste | 25000| 1000| 5 | 5000 | 80| Heavy |29(19)|25(15)| | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS 16
  • 17. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK Note: For oil power plant while there is water pollution it is quite little. Unlike the rest of the polluters it does not have any dark yellow pollution Water --------------------------------------Structure | $C | $M | CU | --------------------------------------Pipes | 11 | 0.10| | Water Tower | 150 | 50 | 2400 | Water Pump | 1400 | 250 | 20000 | Treat. Plt. | 15000| 350 | 2400 Treats| --------------------------------------Waste --------------------------------------------------------------------Structure | $C | $M | Notes | --------------------------------------------------------------------Landfill | 50 | 10 | Min zone is 4 tiles | Recycling | 5000 | 350 | 1) Reduce garbage 20% 2) Serve 20000 pop | Waste power | 25000| 1000| 1) 5000MHz 2) Heavy Pollution | --------------------------------------------------------------------Note: For waste to power plant look at the table on 3) Sparking Poles power structured for more a detailed information. Changing the individual power station funding affects the global funding. Therefore it might be impossible to A1.05.2: Optimum Coverage prevent sparking lines short of keeping funding full, which I do not recommend. Furthermore if too much Both water and electricity can extend past their pipes power is channelled through one line, it too will spark. and poles respectively. The water coverage extends 6 Hence try to arrange you city such that you do not tiles. So you should have 12 tiles between pipes and 6 need that much electricity lines. Since electricity can to the edge of the map. Electrical coverage extends to be transferred four tiles, you can zone one tile every 4 tiles. four tiles to prevent the use of poles. A1.05.3: Maintenance, Decay and Overcapacity Sometimes for some odd reason, the electricity does not travel 4 tiles in one area. To search for the break If your pipes are leaking, your poles are sparking then in the chain, simply place the query button over the your funding is too low. Raise them and replace the tiles to see which one has power or not. Just place broken pipes. another zone in between the area of the break. 1) Life span Even if you fully fund your utilities, after a certain Diagram: A1.05.3 amount of years they will be moribund. Also as your utility reaches its end life, its capacity falls drastically P: Power Plant such that it is more cost efficient to replace the utility Z: Zones. It can be residential, commercial or industrial in question. .: Empty tiles 2) Rate of decay The rate of decay or deterioration increases both P....Z....Z....Z when you are operating close to capacity. Therefore Because deterioration occurs much faster when global keep it at 70% capacity for the power plants. But leave funding is below 50%, I recommend that you should the water funding alone as lowering it does not save not build a new power plant until the present one is that much and it will cause even greater problems close to full capacity. with burst pipes and damaged property. However I recommend reduce power as you can save quite a bit A1.05.4: Negative Environmental Degradation (NED) of money and can avoid sparking poles which increase the probability of fire. Yes, I do know I am using a double negative in this title. But NED sounds good to me. The rate of decay also increase when you lower 1) Water Pollution funding from the 100%. And it increase greatly if This has the effect if it is high enough to cause a shut funding is below 50%. down of your water pumping system. To reduce that probability simply build the pumps and towers away from polluted water areas. And also to refrain from SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS 17
  • 18. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK making connections to landfills or agricultural areas. probability simply build the pumps and towers away from polluted water areas. And also to refrain from making connections to landfills or agricultural areas. 2) Water treatment By right you should not need to use this building. This is required if the water pollution is so bad that your water pumps cannot work. Place at the source of the water although there is an argument out there that one should place it at the source of the pollution. As long as your water pump does not stop for reason of pollution, I do not think this is needed even if your "city is full of filth" and that your Sims are drinking chocolate kiwi coloured water. 3) Landfill Connection Bug All landfill requires connection even if you new landfill is connected to your old landfill that has road connections. There is a bug that has yet to be completely resolved by Patch 2. It is stated in the patch that they: "Addressed landfills to combine easier if drawn adjacent to each other. Still problematical if drawn between two landfills, so try adding them one at a time." Remember that the roads must not only just touch one point of the landfill but must at least cover the entire one side of a landfill. 4) Recycling Centre The 20% is not cumulative. This due to its costs can only have a limited impact on garbage disposal. A1.05.5: * Bio degradable landfills A) Base - 215 Time 1 = __________ 15 Base: Current amount of waste in the landfill B) log (Y / Base) Time 2 = ______________ log 0.93 Y: Amount waste must decompose to for all to disappear Base: Current amount of waste left in the landfill (215) log 0.93: Rate of decay at 7% C) Amount of time to decompose in months = Time 1 + Time 2 The landfill total is simply calculated by counting the number of tiles in that landfill and multiplying it with the capacity of each tile, which is 300 tons. Alternatively, you could cut off road access and then check the garbage chart to see how much total capacity has fallen. That amount would thus be that landfill's capacity. Obviously this operates on the assumption that the landfill is filled to capacity. Generally a 4x3 landfill will take 10 years 11 months to decay. A 2x2 landfill will take 14 years 4 months. 3) Rate of decay cannot be increased Until I did the experiment on landfills, I was operating under the notion that a waste to power plant, exporting or trees help increase the rate of decomposition. There is a belief that if you have a road connected from your landfill to your waste to power plant, the garbage will be transferred to the waste to power plant. Therefore increasing the rate of decay. A similar argument is also made when you have a neighbour deal. Also there is a belief albeit held less widely that planting trees around a landfill will increase the rate of decay. Landfills decompose over time in this game. Of course this does not make much sense unless everything in SimWorld is bio degradable. 1) Decommission Let me show that after an experiment, all the above Only if you actually removed road access can it be hypothesis no longer holds true. This is the possible to determine whether is a landfill actually experiment: decommissioned. A landfill not connected would a) Build three landfills of equal sizes apart from display a no road zot sign. Also if you look at the each other. garbage chart you will see a drop in the total garbage b) Wait for all of them to fill up. Check your capacity. garbage chart to make sure that total 2) Rate of decay garbage exceeds total garbage capacity such The formula for the rate of decay is simple. Trash that the Sims are wallowing in there own degrades at 7% a month, however, the upper limit is filth. set at 15 tons. Thus even if 7% of your total trash is c) Pause the game. more than 15 tons, only 15 tons will decay that d) Build a waste to power plant beside one month. There are thus two time frame of decay. the landfill. (1) being the time when 15 tons are being degraded e) Demolish the roads leading to the other two each month. The (2) is when less than 15 tons are landfills. degraded each month. f) Select one landfill without the road connections and surround it completely and In my opinion the turning point occurs when you have utterly with trees. about 215 tons of trash left. It is because after that, g) Make sure that the waste to power plant can the 7% rate would only yield less than 15 tons. sufficiently handle all the trash in your city. Therefore to calculate the rate of decay of the first h) Take note of the date, unpause and wait for phase, all you have to do is this: the landfill to be cleared. SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS 18
  • 19. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK i) Take note of the date, unpause and wait for the landfill to be cleared. The conclusion is that both those landfills without road connections was cleared at the same time. Hence trees have no effect. Secondly, the landfill that was connected took a bit longer, about a month. Therefore a waste to power plant does help increase the rate of decay. You can try the same experiment with an export deal. However, because the difference between the decommissioned landfill and the one that is still linked up to the road, I believe that there really is no need to demolish the road leading up to it. By the way if you are interested it took 14 years 4 months to clear a 4 tile landfill. A1.06: Public Service Commission A1.06.1: Options: Public Service Types 1) Police Without any superheroes, you need them to reduce crime and suppress the Sims as you rig the elections to become Mayor for life. There is also a city jail if the cells in your police station is overwhelmed. But hold off on it until you at least witness a jail break. It is quite a sight. 2) Fire Not everything is as indestructible as garbage. Build these to prevent and stop fires. 3) Education Unless you want your Sims to be flipping burgers for life, build some education facilities. A high school is not a larger version of an elementary school thus it is not a counterpart to the smaller-larger police and fire stations. The library and museum ensures that your Sims do not loss too much education as they grow older. 4) Health Good wealth is good health. Build them to raise life expectancy from third world average of 40. 5) PSC list Table A1.06.1: Civil Buildings $C $MT MTM $MC MCM $MF MFM CV CV0 CVM CA CAM : : : : : : : : : : : : Cost to build Monthly total maintenance cost. Monthly max funding total maintenance cost Monthly coverage cost (bus / ambulance cost) Monthly max funding coverage Monthly service cost Monthly max funding service cost (excluding bus / ambulance cost) Default Coverage in tiles Zero funding coverage Max funding coverage Default capacity Max funding capacity SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS 19
  • 20. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK -----------------------------------------------------------------------Structure | $C | $MT|MTM |$MC|MCM| $MF| MFM|CV|CVO|CVM| CA | CAM | -----------------------------------------------------------------------Police | | -----------------------------------------------------------------------Small Police | 250| 125| 150| | | | |23| 0 | 26| 2 Cars | Large Police | 800| 250| 300| | | | |34| 0 | 38| 4 Cars | City Jail |2500| 450| | | | | | | | |1000 Inmate| -----------------------------------------------------------------------Fire | | -----------------------------------------------------------------------Small Fire | 250| 125| 150| | | | |24| 0 | 26| 1 Engine | Large Fire | 800| 450| 300| | | | |35| 0 | 38| 2 Engines| -----------------------------------------------------------------------Education | | -----------------------------------------------------------------------Elementary | 300| 400| 480|100|120| 300| 360|23| 10| 25| 500 | 550 | Library |1000| 250| 300| | | | |30| | |30000|33000| High School |1050| 750| 900|100|120| 650| 780|30| 14| 33| 750 | 825 | City Museum |1500| 450| 540| | | | | | | | 30 | 33 | City college |3000|1000|1200| | | | | | | | 7000| 7700| -----------------------------------------------------------------------Health | | -----------------------------------------------------------------------Small clinic | 400| 400| 480|100|120| 300| 360|23| 11| 23| 500 | 550 | Large Medical |1100|1200|1440|200|240|1000|1200|34| 17| 34| 3000| 3300| -----------------------------------------------------------------------A1.06.2: Dispatch: Police and Fire A1.06.3: Crime, Riots and Fire Simply click on the disaster button and send them to the location. There is no automatic dispatch. 1) Redeploy To redeploy when the vehicles are already out, simply click on the circle sign to pick it up and replace it in the new location. 2) Fire fighters standing around If upon arriving at the site, the fire fighters are not deploying even if you are certain that it has full funding, you may have to redeploy. Perhaps a bit further down the road or on the opposite side of the road. Sometimes it gets a little irritating as they refuse to get into action. 3) Pause for return I suggest that upon the successful containment of the fire, you pause the game and allow the fire trucks to return. If your city has a very high incidence of fire, another fire could breakout while your fire truck is on the way back. You can always redeploy but it may be that your fire station is placed at a central location and that the current fire truck position is very far away from the fire. Thus delaying arrival. 4) Crime You can deploy police if you see a crime being committed. But it is more of a graphics than anything. You will see the criminal being taken away. However there is minute benefit as you will see your safety rating move up for a while. The effect is not permanent. SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS 1) List of Crimes The following is a list of crimes that can be committed in your city. They are listed in according to the seriousness of the crime with the most serious being bank robbery. a) Tping b) Graffiti c) Pie Throwing d) Flashing e) Solicitation f) Purse Snatching g) Fighting h) Car Theft i) Drugs j) Stick Up k) Assault l) Arson m) Bank Robbery 2) Crime near police station No explanation except perhaps, corruption of the cops or really dumb criminals committing crime the moment they leave the station? Furthermore since crime does not disappear the moment you have coverage, perhaps it is just a statistical luck of the draw thing that there is crime over there. 3) Riots You need to cut them off with police blocking all the routes. Try pushing them into a dead-end. 4) How to start a riot This oddly enough appears on the forum quite a bit. 20
  • 21. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK Most probably because the person have not seen a riot. To get one simply trash the city. First cut off the water supply, then reducing power funding so that you have rolling blackouts. Then create a few disasters. You will note that the Sims are on edge at this point. Then set a few fire in the neighbourhood and pretty soon the whole block will go crazy. I do not need to tell you not to save over this city unless. 5) Sources of Crime These generally are caused by: a) Unemployment I believe unemployment in this sense refers not to that no job zot. Because if it is unemployment would not contribute much as the criminals would have left town within a few months. I believe it refers to a smaller percentage of people that cannot find a job and not enough to actually cause a building to display that no job zot. b) Low education The lower the education the higher the probability of committing a crime. c) Wealth Level The lower the wealth level, the high the probability one would be a criminal. d) External Factors These relates to sources that can be easily removed such as legalised gambling and some other business deals buildings. 6) Crime generators v Attractors It is in my opinion that there are two types of building that seemingly is a den of crime. The first is one that actually generates crime such as the state fair or the army base. The second are those that attract criminals to the area but does not actually create crime such as the country club. It does not make sense that getting together and playing golf would turn one into a criminal. What makes more sense is that as this is a place where the rich congregates, it makes sense for the criminals to travel here and commit economic crime. Notice the crime relates a lot to car theft? 7) City, city burning bright Fire occurs based on a probability. It is recalculated each month. And are not affected by the previous month's calculation. Therefore even if you have a very low fire incidence rate, you may get a few consecutive fires in a roll due to bad rolls of the dice. These are the following reasons that increase the rate of fire. a) No fire-coverage. (Fire Station) b) No smoke alarm ordinance. (Actually this reduces probability of fire occurring rather than increase the probability of fire.) c) No water. d) Abandon buildings. e) Industrial areas are more prone to fire. Especially dirty and manufacturing industries. f) No Patch 2 installed. They reduce the rate of fire. SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS A1.06.4: Maintenance: Striking Incompetence The effect of lowering maintenance below usage level means that you will have strikes and incompetence. 1) Clearing strikes and effects Upon the occurrence of a strike, rise funding to about 90% or even to its maximum. It should take a month for the strike to break-up. However, after that there are still the after effects of a strike that will last for another month. In the recovery period you may reduce funding to the normal level. Normal being the level where capacity exceeds demand slightly not the previous strike level funding. Also do not question why police only clears rioters not strikers. There are laws against breaking a strike in most countries. However, I feel that there should be an option to pass legislation to prevent strikes by key sectors of the civil service much like in the real world. Well at least on the bright side, your fire-crew would not ask for a 40% pay rise. Alternatively, do something that is illegal in most countries but the Sims are fine with it. Sack the bunch by demolishing that building. Of course this is not a very good solution. 2) Incompetence Reducing funding for police and fire fighters mean that when you dispatch them they may not handle the riot or put out the fire. A1.06.5: Overlap and Optimal Coverage 1) City wide coverage The museum and the college operates on a city wide basis. Therefore you can place them anywhere. 2) Rule against multiple coverage This rule simply provides that overlapping the coverage in an area will not increase the effectiveness of that service in that area. This relates to all services, fire, police, education and health. Although overlapping coverage for education and health will allow the students or patients in that overlap area to spread between the two schools or two health buildings. However, health facilities may be the exception to this rule. Although it is in my opinion that there is an additional condition when calculating this coverage that makes it look like an exception when it is not. REFER: A1.06.6: Hospital, Clinics and low health for this exception 3) Optimum coverage Therefore as a result of the rule against multiple coverage, for the other buildings which are not restraint by numeric demand, its coverage is best optimised by reducing as much overlap as possible. This is to save as much money as possible. To be extremely effective you should blanket the entire city with police coverage in a systematic method. 21
  • 22. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK A1.06.6: * Hospital, Clinics and low health 1) Points of Confusion There is a common complaint that health levels are bad at the edge of the hospital coverage even though the area in question is within the coverage circle of the hospital. Obviously, for ease in this discussion, we are assuming that the hospital is not suffering from over capacity and that capacity is greater than usage. This complaint is often coupled with the belief that you need both clinics and hospitals to improve health. Clinics and hospitals serve the same purpose. In other words a hospital is merely a larger version of a clinic much like a small-large fire or police station rather than like an elementary-High school. As stated by doctorvu, one of the SimCity 4 designers at one of those chat events, "Clinics and hospitals serve the same purpose. 2) Raising ambulance funding argument If you notice when you raise the ambulance funding from its default $200 the coverage does not increase. But when you reduce funding, it falls. Therefore the question is whether increasing funding past the default is a waste of money. This is obviously assuming that this is not a bug. Taking the fact that there is low health at the edge of the hospital despite being within coverage and couple it with the coverage not increasing after you increase the default ambulance funding, several hypothesis can be formulated: a) An increase in funding must have an effect. The increase cannot simply be a case of superfluous funding. b) An increase in funding should have the effect of increasing efficiency or effectiveness. c) The only thing that is currently lacking in effectiveness is the coverage of the people living. d) Therefore the conclusion is that coverage at the edge is linked to ambulance funding. The logic behind this is that speed is of the essence for medical treatments and if one is sent late to a hospital then your chances of recovery is less. And the further you are from a medical facility the longer it will take to get to the hospital from treatment. Therefore, the increase in funding simply improves the transportation speed of the ambulance from the edge of the coverage to the hospital. And as such improves health at the edge. 3) Health facilities overlap coverage There is an argument by some that often when people place a clinic within the hospital coverage, the health at the edge improves. It is my opinion that you could be dealing with an exception to the rule that overlap do not improve services provided. REFER: A1.06.5: Overlap and Optimal Coverage hospital and a clinic both serve different purposes, then logic will dictate that placing a clinic will have no effect on the usage of the hospital. For example, placing an elementary school will not affect the usage of the high school. But placing another elementary school in the coverage of the first school will result in a fall of usage in the first elementary school. Therefore in comparison, it suggests that both clinics and hospitals serve the same purposes. The improvement that you see is due to placing two medical facilities in that same area. You can get the same effect even if you place two hospitals rather than one hospital and a clinic. Therefore if this is true, it means that the improvement is due to overlap rather than clinics being a necessary component of the health system. If the reason is due to overlap, then does this not bring the rule against multiple coverage into question vis-a-vis the other services? My opinion is that this is confined only to health facilities because of the Dual Coverage effect. 4) Dual coverage effect Hospitals as compared to other services have a special characteristics where there are different health effects in one single coverage. It is submitted that for practical purposes, there are two coverage for a hospital. I will call them the inner circle and the outer circle. However, the game only shows you the wider coverage. If you look at your health data map you can almost make out the inner circle. It is thus further submitted that good coverage occurs only when there is an overlap of two circles of coverage. And that the rule against multiple coverage is still applicable, simply because having three or more circles of coverage will not further increase the effectiveness of the coverage. Therefore to get good coverage you can either make sure that the edge of the coverage overlaps or that you could reduce ambulance funding such that the coverage is not that wide. I believe that reducing coverage will affect the radius of the outer circle more so than the inner circle. Finally, because of the above explanation, I am compelled to discard the possible suggestion that I had in my previous edition where clinics serve the poor while hospitals the rich. A1.06.7: HQ and LE: Health Quotient and Life 1) HQ: Health Quotient This is a component to aid in the determination of LE, life expectancy and it indirectly also affects EQ, education quotient. Simply put, the higher the number you have for this the better it is. A HQ as such The amount of patients in a hospital will drop when is merely part of the calculation of LE, hence by itself you place a clinic within the hospital's coverage. If the it has no direct effect on your city unlike LE which will SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS 22
  • 23. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK obviously determine the Sims life spans. It is calculated by taking into account several factors. Let me give you the formula first: HQ = Base + Genetics + Health care + Sports - Aging - Pollution a) Base: This depends on the wealth level, ($) that one is. The poor will have the lowest base, the rich the highest and the middle class the an average base. b) Genetics: Sims get 80% of their parents' final HQ. Therefore if you end up with a positive HQ, your city will overtime become more and more healthy as they pass on their good health to the next generation. c) Health care: This refers to the effects of medical facilities, including the disease research lab reward. And because health care also means healthy eating, it also includes the small benefit from the farmer's market reward. d) Sports: It is submitted although it has not really been adequately proved that certain recreational facilities improve health. These are the sports based one such as the soccer field. If this sports effect is true, then I wonder whether does adding a country club also improves health as the rich play golf. e) Aging: The effect of aging applies to all uniformly regardless of age or wealth level. Thus every month your Sims will lose part of their HQ. f) Pollution: This refers to actually living in the midst of the smog and chocolate kiwi coloured polluted water. And obviously, the more the pollution, the greater loss there is to your HQ. I stated being in the midst because if parts of your city is very polluted but your Sims do not stay there then they will not be affected by that pollution. I do believe that pollution only matters in the residential areas and not the workplace. Therefore working in a dirty industry would not affect your health. Although logically that does not seem to be the case. 2) LE: Life Expectancy This refers to the life span of your Sims and unless you have the second Patch installed there is a very high probability that your life span will fall drastically over time. This shows what is the current effect of your health system as a result of past policies. Contrasted to this the HQ shows the possible future trends of your Life Expectancy. A1.06.8: EQ: Educational (Emotional) Quotient The refers to one's education level. Again the higher it is the better it is for your city. That is unless you want a city of dirty and farming industries and in that case it means that having a high EQ will most probably destroy the dirty and farming industries. I wonder why they call it EQ, perhaps some of the developers really SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS like the book "Emotional Intelligence"by Daniel Goldman. Obviously EQ does not mean IQ because of the ease to get to 200 points. 1) Calculation It is calculated by taking into account several factors. Let me give you the formula first: EQ = Base + Genetics + Education a) Base: This depends on the wealth level, ($) that one is. The poor will have the lowest base, the rich the highest and the middle class the an average base. b) Genetics: Sims get 80% of their parents' final EQ. Therefore if you end up with a positive EQ, your city will overtime become more and more educated as they pass on their good education to the next generation. c) Education: This refers to the effects of educational facilities. It also includes the educational rewards such as main city library, major art museum, university and opera house although their effect differs according to age. d) Declining Brain Capacity: The effect of aging applies to all uniformly regardless of age or wealth level. Thus every month as some of your Sims brain cells expire perhaps because just like us, Sims levels of GABA, a neurotransmitter, decreases with aging. The result is that they will lose part of their EQ. 2) Education Effects All educational buildings are effective only for a certain Sims of a certain age. Also within the range there are differences in the effects of that educational facility on the Sims. The age is quite obvious with the lower education spectrum the elementary school having the greatest effect. Also for those art and culture type buildings like museums or opera houses, they affect the older age Sims. The building that has the widest effects would I suppose be the library. Hence it may be possible to have full EQ reached over time with only a library. REFER: B6.06.1: Education: Public, Private or Libraries 3) Road access There is short debate as to whether is road access necessary for education. It seems that even if you cut off access to that education facility, the surrounding residential area still states that the education level is high and that there is no fall in desirability. Furthermore the schools are still being used. However, it is in my opinion that you let them have road access. There are several reasons for it: a) Facilities provide jobs for your Sims. If you have no roads they cannot take up the job offer. The amount offered however is small. b) Fire Prevention. If the facility caught fire, how would your fire fighters have access to the building without roads. c) The benefits of saving on one measly tile does not come close to the disadvantages of having no road connections. 23
  • 24. SIMCITY4 MANUAL AND WALKTHROUGH BOOK A1.07: Landmarks, Rewards and Recreation A1.07.2: Options: Reward and Business Deal Types A1.07.1: Options: Landmark Types These are famous buildings from around the globe. They only have a effect on commercial and not on residential development. Remember to save before each placement in case you made a mistake in the placement. Thus you can reload and would not have wasted a huge amount of money. 1) Rewards These are given after you fulfil a certain requirement. Mostly their effects are good but there are some with a negative effect. Take note of those that have a negative impact on residential areas. Some of these buildings have a negative impact on mayor rating. Mayor rating and residential and commercial impact are different matters. One can have a positive mayor Also like all many buildings in the game, these too rating and yet still have a negative residential impact. produce pollution but obviously not on the scale of Once placed these rewards can still be moved. your dirty industries or polluting power plants. I would However you have to pay for the demolition and not really worry too much about it. reconstruction which costs quite a bit. It should be noted that Alcatraz (the prison) is the only landmark that generates a negative mayor rating when placed. The rest are all positive. However, the Alcatraz still performs like every other landmark, that of being an aid to commerce. The only negative is the mayor rating, nothing else. There is only one downloaded reward here. It is the one that came with the transportation bonus. I believe this is the same one as those who preordered. You can get this transportation download at the official Simcity 4 site. On every Tuesday, the SimCity 4 official site might release a new landmark. Table A1.07.1: Landmarks $C: Cost to build. The figure is in '000s. $M: Monthly Cost CE: Commercial Effect CR: Commercial Radius ------------------------------------------Structure | $C | $M | CE | CR | ------------------------------------------Alamo | 65 | 130| 40 | 20 | Alcatraz | 50 | 100| 10 | 24 | Amalienborg | 70 | 120| 30 | 18 | Bank of America | 110| 210| 80 | 28 | Bank of China Tower | 180| 300| 10 | 48 | Big Ben | 75 | 150| 40 | 20 | California Plaza | 50 | 100| 30 | 18 | Chrysler Building | 170| 330| 100| 48 | CN Tower | 225| 440| 80 | 28 | Coit Tower | 55 | 110| 30 | 18 | Empire State Building | 240| 470| 100| 48 | Faneuil Hall | 50 | 100| 20 | 16 | Fernsehturn | 85 | 170| 50 | 22 | Gateway Arch | 90 | 180| 50 | 22 | Great Pyramid | 160| 310| 70 | 26 | Guggenheim Museum | 95 | 180| 70 | 26 | Hagia Sofia | 80 | 160| 40 | 20 | Hollywood Sign | 30 | 60 | 20 | 16 | Independence Hall | 60 | 120| 30 | 18 | Jefferson Memorial | 80 | 160| 50 | 22 | John Hancock Centre | 165| 320| 90 | 30 | Lincoln Memorial | 85 | 170| 50 | 22 | Living Mall | 55 | 110| 80 | 20 | Palace of Fine Arts | 90 | 180| 30 | 18 | Palacio Real | 65 | 130| 30 | 18 | Rotes Rathaus | 65 | 130| 30 | 18 | Smith Tower | 55 | 110| 40 | 20 | Sphinx | 50 | 100| 20 | 16 | St. Basil's | 90 | 180| 60 | 24 | Statue of Liberty | 85 | 170| 60 | 24 | SECTION A PART 1 BASIC GAME MECHANICS Table A1.07.2i: Business Deals Rewards and E : Effects R / r: Structure has residential effects B / b: Structure has commercial or business effects $C : Cost to build $M : Monthly Cost or in the case of budget deficit rewards, monthly income Pop : Population requirement. Unless stated otherwise it refers to city size RP : This refers to regional population as opposed to city population IH : High Tech industrial population HW : High wealth residential population MHW : Medium and High wealth residential population Cm : Commercial population F : Farm population Re : Residential population Rg : Regional population MR : Mayor rating If I use a lower case letter (r/b) with a capital letter then it means that the effect represented by the capital letter has a stronger effect. Also for those structure with detrimental effect I will place an (!) in front. Thus if there is detriment to residence but positive effect on commercial it will be (!R B). Look at the handy guide at the back for a more detailed effect listing. 24