- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - SIM CITY - Super Nintendo (SNES) An FAQ Written by Wayalla (Aaron Baker) Contact: Wayalla1(at)yahoo.com.au 1.0, First version of the document (complete) http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/recognition/24572.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - *********************************************************************** 1. TABLE OF CONTENTS *********************************************************************** TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- 1. Table of Contents 2. Controls 3. Menu Commands 4. Game Modes 5. Options 6. Terms 7. Rci Grpah 8. Items and Tools 9. Population Levels 10. Building 11. City Problems 12. Gifts 13. Miscellaneous 14. Basic Guide Stuff *********************************************************************** 2. CONTROLS *********************************************************************** B BUTTON -------- * Select an icon Go to one of the side menus and press the B button to open it up. * Place something on the map Choose an object and then place it on the map using B A BUTTON -------- * Move around the map Press and hold down and use the directional buttons to move around the map. Y BUTTON -------- * Move around the map Press and hold down and use the directional buttons to move around the map. X BUTTON -------- * Get rid of the menus Press this while on the map to make the menus dissapear. Press again to return. START BUTTON ------------ * Go to menu Press and the cursor will take you staright to the top menu SELECT BUTTON ------------- * Go to items Press and the cursor will take you straight to the top menu *********************************************************************** 3. MENU COMMANDS *********************************************************************** B BUTTON -------- * Select something Highlight what you want to select and then press B X BUTTON -------- * Go Back to the last screen Press the X button to take you back (only available on some screens) *********************************************************************** 4. GAME MODES *********************************************************************** PRACTISE -------- Here you can learn the basics of Sim City by getting help from that guy. Click here if you are new to Sim City to learn some new skills and how to actually play the game. I used it when I first played the game, and it helped me out alot. START NEW CITY -------------- Create yor own new city, on your own map that you can pick from the map select screen that I will mention in just awhile. There are alot of maps to choose from. You get no help to start off with, so you are on your own. SELECT SCENARIO --------------- There are some scenarios set around the world and you have to do the certain objective each one says in the set amount of time (which is usally a long time.) RESUME SAVED CITY ----------------- If you already have a save file on Sim City, then you can select this and load that previous city that you have made. You will use this very often, no doubt. *********************************************************************** 5. OPTIONS *********************************************************************** INTRODUCTION ------------ Some of the options in the game have little icons that you may not understand. This will just explain them abit. THe options are the icon second from the left on the main map screen. AUTO BULLDOZE ------------- This is the little icon to the left most of the options. If you choose yes, then when you put a residential over a forest, it will automatically bulldoze the trees in the way. If you select no, then you will have to bulldoze them yourself. AUTO BUDGET ----------- This sybmol is the second one to the left. Auto budget means that if this is on, it will automatically do the budget for you, so that screen never shows the actual budget, it just takes/gives you money at the end of the year. AUTO GOTO --------- BGM --- This is the one on the right. BGM is basically the music. Select on (light) and it will play the music. Select off, and then it wont play the music. *********************************************************************** 6. TERMS *********************************************************************** R -> Residential -> Hosuing Place C -> Commercial -> Buisnesses I -> Industrial -> Factories *********************************************************************** 7. THE RCI GRAPH *********************************************************************** INTRODUCTION ------------ The RCI Grpah helps you determine what things you need to put into your city. It will have three things; Resdential Bar, Commerical Bar, and the Industrial bar. WHERE IS IT? ------------ Look in the top right hand corner on the top menu. It will be there, it is a little graph with lines either going up or going down and with the corresponding colours to what it is when placed on the map. THE LETTERS ----------- In case you are dumb: R - Residential C - Commercial I - Industrial LOOK LIKE --------- _ | | _ | || | |¯¯¯¯¯¯¯| | R C I | |_______| | | |_| (Sorry, I'm, not good at drawing things) WHAT IT MEANS ------------- If the bar is above the middle section, that means there is a really big demand for that type of thing. Looking in the little graph I drawed above, that is showing that there is a big demand for residential, and also commercial, but commercial demand is not as big as residential. If the bar is below the middle, then there is plenty of that type to go around, and there is no longer any demand for that sort of thing. So, try to put in the ones that are really high, otherwise if you put no residential in, there will be no one moving to your town. Use the graph to your advantage. In game, Dr Wright will tell you about it. Listen to what he will say about it. He basically says the same as I just listed above. *********************************************************************** 8. ITEMS AND TOOLS *********************************************************************** INTRODUCTION ------------ Of course, to even start your own city, you need to use all of the tools (items) you have to your advantage.ing roads will let people get to places, and houses will let people live in your city. BULLDOZER Sometimes you can make a mistake when you play, such as put in something big but you accidently put it in the wrong place. You can use the bulldozer to get rid of this thing. It only costs 1 dollar per bit you bulldoze, but if you place something really big and decide to bulldoze, then it will cost more because you are bulldozing more land. The bulldozer is a handy thing to have, you would be nowhere without it, since mistakes in the game happen all the time. It will be needed in some of those challenges also, and you might need to replace some things in the game as they get really old (like the nuclear powerplant.) Just don't accidently bulldoze something that you are not meant to. If you do, then you don't get all of the money back for the thing you just bulldoze. In fact, it costs you money to buy another one of these things. After bulldozing, there will be a mark on the ground. You can keep on bulldozing that and get the land back to what it normally looks like. I have notcied that on the houses with the white parts taking up parts of it that you can just delete them section, thus allowing you to build something better there. Deleting the costlines with the bulldozer is handy as well, because it can prevent some floods that are coming your way. POWERLINES Whats a city without power? The answer to that question is "A Place where no one wants to live." Just think, would you want to live without no power, how bad would that be? So, you must give the people in your town some power. Give Power to the people! These powerlines are one bit long, and cost a measly 5 dollars to build. You will be putting a fair amount of them in, but there are alot of ways you can cut back on using and spending money on these things. You must connect at least one of your powerlines up to your power plant that you put in. Then from this powerline, you can make a chain link by putting in houses that touch this powerline, and then put in houses that touch that house so they can now have power. Just make easy chain reaction links like this to give the power to the people. Sometimes you can accidently miss houses that haven't got power. Sometimes when you first place in a house, it will flash at you. This is because it has just been put in and is new. It means nothing at the start, but it will go on until you put in a powerline to it, and it is connected up to power some way, shape or form. Try putting a road to it as well. Powerlines can be put across roads and train tracks. ROADS Another real nessecity. Could you imagine no roads? That would be disasterous. Roads are what people use to get around the city. Roads only cost a measly 10 dollars, but you will be putting in a heck of a lot of them to make your city grow. You will probably use more of these than any other thing in the game. Just choose the spot where you want to place the road, and put it down. Just go along putting the roads next to thehouses / commercials / industrials. People never walk around in this city, so it needs roads. If you don't build any roads, no one is going to visit your city, so they are a nessecity to have in your city. The one bad thing about the roads is that they cost some money to keep funded, and also they cause alot of traffic, which people always complain about and it causes alot of pollution RESIDENTIAL Of course, epeople need to actually live in your city, thats why you need to put some of these things in. In case you are dumb, these are basically houses what people live in, like you and me. You will need to put alot of these zones in your city or whatever class your city is so that people will actually come to live there. They come in the Upper 4 class and the Lower 3 class and all that sort of stuff like the comercials do. The Residentials do not like going next to pollution infested parts, such as the Industrials and the Nuclear and the Coal Powerplants. Avoid putting the residentials next to those places, or no one will want to live there. Always build some residentials next to the waterfront, prefferably right next to each other so that they can go up to the highest level, and then they will turn into a rooftop. The rooftop is where the two of the residnetials combine to make one big house with alot of people in it and it looks like a hotel type of thing. These are the biggest level that two residnetials can get up to, and being by the water is what helped them. Some residentails R-Tops can be found in the middle of the city, but only sometimes. COMMERCIAL Shops, shops, your city needs shops. Shops are places that you go into and by certain things such as: Food, Drinks, Clothes and all the other nessecities for life so that you don't die. Your town needs some of these as well. This is where some people in your town will work, so you may need alot of these. The commercials really prfer anywhere, I have found at. They don't really take a shine to the waterfront, because it is not a house, it's just a shop and they don't really care about the great view, whcih is the water out the front. Commercials can combine into a big C-Top, like the residentials can. You can put the commercials next to the Industrial, and they still will grow. They grow faster than the residnetials if they were put there. So, if you need to, you can place these commercials next to the Industrials. When putting commercials into blcoks, put them next to the residnetials. This way the houses really don't have far to go to work. INDUSTRIAL This is where genuine things are made. Things made at these sort of places are things like: Plastics, Coal and things that create alot of pollution and Plastics and alot of metals. Your town needs some (actually alot) of these Industrials. Industrials will be where some people in your town work at. That is why you need to put some in, and also to make your city advance up in the technology department. Industrials can go anywhere in the level and will take over the section, growing very quickly, but the things around it wont like the Indsutrials being there. It's kind of like takes over everything. Industrials should also be zoned for the full affect of them. But, make sure that you only put Indsutrails in the whole zone, otherwise the one thing or the the two things in the same zone will make it look bad by not growing up, and they will just sit there. Try to avoid putting the Industrials near the hosuing sections, because of the massive amounts of pollution that they cause. If you create an Indsutrial zone, make sure at least the nearest residnetial sector is at least four little squares away, otherwise the pollution will get to these houses and they will all move out of the town because of the pollution that is surrounding them. When you do the 4 square thing, then place some trees in those 4 square sections, that is if nothing else is in those 4 squares. RAILWAY Railway isn't really a nessecity in the city, as you have roads. But, the mass transit system can help you along the way with afew problems that may occur in your city. When using this, you will create railway lines around your city, and you also get afew rains to go on these track, because whats the railway tracks without a train? The best thing about the Railway system is that it reduces all of the traffic in your city. Always plan your mass transit system at the beggining of making the town, because then you can plan where you want it to go, and then you can build things around it instead of the other way around which is usually the cause and then you can never get the railway line next to the road; so, plan it first. You can also make a whole new city just using the mass transit system. You do not have to always use roads. I have made a whole city full of train tracks and never even put in one road. It saves pollution from the traffic (because there will be no traffic) and solve the traffic dilema then. The bad thing about the railway line is that it costs twice as much as the roads. This costs $20 to put in, and as you know, the roads cost only $10. The train lines don't harm your city in any way at all, but they do harm yourself, the mayor. They cost alot of money to keep on going (look at the budget and you will see). Roads would cost alot less, but to lose yourself money and make yor town happy, then stick with the mass transit system. PARKS (TREES) No, these are not the parks that little children play in, they are actually trees as you can see in the brackets just above. They cost 5 dollars to put in one tree, and each tree takes up 1 little square on your town. Trees help the fight against pollution and disasters. When there are Industries near houses, but there are afew blank squares just between the two, then this is where you can put some trees to stop the pollution getting to all of your houses. Also, it helps to put trees next to the roads if you can, because once again this will stop alot of the pollution from the traffic if they are next to the problem, which is of course the traffic; Whcih causes the Polltion. There are two types of trees; There is the normal kind, and then there is the bush type. You can put both of these types in, but they are rnadom when they do come. Both styles do not make any real difference in the game, so it really doesn't matter about them. Another good thing about the trees is that it can stop some of the disatsers. For example, placing some trees next to fire can actually low the fire down so the fire crew can get there quickly or whatever. It also works with floods, the trees can stop the flooding. FIRE DEPARTMENT This sounds like a nessecity, but it really isn't until you actually need it. Fire departments are there to protect people if a fire occurs somewhere in the city. Fire dpearments cost the same as the polic statsion ($500). You really do not need hardly any of thesse. If you do put alot in, then you are really just wasting your money. When a fire does occur, weather it be an earthquake or just a plane crash, then this is the time to finally put in a fire station. It may be good to put one or two in the city, but none to many. Bulldoze something near the fire if it is in the urban section and then put in the Fire Station. The closer the fire station is to the fire, the quicker it will be put out. As I said, you really don't need too many fire stations. The reason being that the only fires that happen will come in a disatser section. Every year you have one of these fire stations in, it will cost you money to keep it going. SO, I guess it can be a waste of many to put alot in for something that only happens once every long time period. POLICE DEP. I had to abbreviate "Dpeartment" as it would run into this text section. The Police Department really is a nessecity for your town. You will need to put alot of these in for various reasons. The Police Dpeartment costs the same amount of money as the Fire Department, which is $500. So, they are the same amount as the Fire Station, and you will need to use them in your town way more often than the Fire Department. What you need to use the police dpeartment for is to restore some Law and Order to your town. You need to have set rules, and thats what the police are trying to make your city better by reducing the crime rate. If you put in Police Dpeartments, then the crime rate will go done because you have some people in your city who will arrest them. You can check the crime rate in the map section so then you can decide where to put in your police departments. Put them in the areas with the high crime rate. I hard somewhere that the Industrials cause more crime, if that is true, then you should place them in the industrials section. Just make sure you do spread them out, because having alot of police departments can lead you broke at the end of year budger. At the end of the year, you will need to pay 100 dollars for every single police station you have in your city. This is why it is not good to have way too many in your city. Just keep them in certain areas, and then place some more in the places with the high crime rates. POWER PLANTS There are two types of Power Plants that you can put in in the game. These two power plants are the Coal Power Plant, and the Nuclaear Power Plant. They are different in some different ways. The Coal power plant is very cheaper than the nuclear power plant to put in. The Coal Power plant costs $3000 to put in. The Nuclear power plant costs a big $5,000 to put in your city. But, the Nuclear power plant gives out alot more power to thwe people. It gives alot more power out than the Coal Power Plant. Both of the power plants cause some pollution, but the Coal power plant causes more than just about anything else in the gane. Put alot of trees around it to stop the smog spreading. I always put in the Nuclear power plant. I just think that it is better than the Coal power plant. It doesn't really make any difference which one you put into your city. STADIUM The Stadium is a place where the people in your city go just for enjoyment, so it is not really a nessecity until people start wanting a stadium and then will leave if you don't give them one. You don't really get to see the actual inside of the stadium, all you can see is little dots running up and down the stadium. Later on in the game when you are a city, then the residents will start demanding the stadium. Listen to them, and put it in, otherwise you might have people that will leave your city. There is actually two types of stadiums that you can put in your city. There is the normal stadium, and then there is the domed stadium. If you want the normal stadium, then put it in during Summer, or spring. If you want the domed stadium, then put the stadium in in the Winter time, and sometime the autum time it makes it domed, but other times it doesn't. A problem that the stadium will cause is massive amounts of traffic. Make sure that you put in massive mass transit system by it, to stop the traffic and also the pollution that will be a result of all the traffic going to the stadium. It's all pretty good if you have your whole town using the mass transit systems instead of the roads. If you have that, then there are no troubles with the trafic or the stadium. SEAPORT These, once again are not really a nessesity for your city/town/village. The popultation for those three will be very low, so they will not demand a seaport and the commercials will not be big enough as well to need to import and export. Later on in the game, near when you are about to become a capital, then the commerce will come up saying that they need a seaport. So, that is when you can put it in. Just wait to they say you need to put it in, not before as you mgith need the money for somethng else then. You can put the seaport anywhere in the city or whatever level it may be at, and there will always be a ship in the ocean for you. So, you do not need to put it next to the water at all. Once you put the seaport in, thats all you will need to do with it. You do not need to pay any 100 dollar thing on it each year. After awhile, they might demand another seaport, so thats when you give it to them. Seaports do look really cool next to the sea though, it just gives it that extra real looking feeling, but they don't have to be there. AIRPORT Once again, this is not really a nessecity until later on in the game. When you are just starting off, the twon will nto be big enough to require an aiport. So, just wait to you get to a capital and then you can go around placing one of these in your city. The airports cost a very lot of money. In fact, they cost the most amount of money in the game to put in to your capital. It costs $10,000 to put in; Which is alot of money. But whenyou reach a capital, you should have alot more than that amount of money to spend. The problem coming from the airport is that there will be some plane crashes. There is two ways to avoid these. The first one is to place the airport on it's own little island. I'm not sure how that works, but the instruction booklet says it, so I'm saying it. The other one is to place it in the corner of the land. If you do decide to put in more airports, then put them in the corner. You have four corner on the map, so you can place in 4. *********************************************************************** 9. POPULATION LEVELS *********************************************************************** VILLAGE 0 - 2,000 TOWN 2,000 - 10,000 CITY 10,000 - 50,000 CAPITAL 50,000 - 100,000 METROPLOIS 100,000 - 500,000 MEGALOPOLIS 500,000 + In case you don't know, the above figures are how many people you need to get in your city before it becomes what it becomes. *********************************************************************** 10 BUILDING YOUR TOWN *********************************************************************** You will need to know where to place things in your city/town/village or whatever the heck it is. This section will describe the best ways to put things. - If you want people to live in your city, then the best way to go is by doing blocks. Find a 9 X 9 sqaure, and then place whatever you want around the outside of them so you levae a 3 X 3 in the middle. Keep doing zones like this and put roads around them. - Use train lines instead of the roads. This solves the traffic and half of the pollution problems, and it seems to amekt he city grow faster, so, if you want, use train tracks. - Always place hosuing by the water. Don't waste the site with commercials or the Industrial, houses on the shore will rise up quickly. - Put gifts next to places that need them. For example, a gift that boosts residentail areas should be put in near residential places. - People don't like living next to certain things. Industrials don't like going next to residentials and vice versa, and residential don't like going next to things like the power plants. *********************************************************************** 11. CITY PROBLEMS *********************************************************************** CRIME Crime is when people are stealing from other people, or are just commiting bad things around the city. To stop the income of crime, you need to put police stations near zones so that they can catch the people around committing these crimes. You will need to put alot of police stations in, and they can cost some money. Check the map to see if all places on the map are covered by police protection. If they are not, then go around and place some police statsions in those area that have got none in them. Once you have placed police stations in all ofthese places, then the crime rate will usually go down. POLLUTION There are two ways that the pollution in a city is caused. THe first one is traffic, and the second one is the Industrials and the Power Plant which are causing all of this pollution. Lets start with the solution to the traffic. Traffic is caused when alot of people are driving cars on the road. So, you need to get people off of the road. The way to do this is to put transit sysytems around, but make sure that they are near the road. Always plan your mass transit system as you start the city. Or, here is another way: Don't even put in roads. Just put in all mass transit systems. it works as well, but may cost a little bit more money. And the Industrial pollution problem, well, here is the sollution: Zone them far away out. Not too far, but at least 4 squares away from the houses. This way the pollution wont harm the houses as much. In those 4 or whatever squares, but some tress to stop the polution coming. If you did do zoning like I mentoned in the building your town section, then put trees in the spare square in the middle of the block. TAXES This one really speaks for itself. Taxes are what people pay you at the end of the year for expenses so that they can actually live in your town. Everyone pays taxes, and there are no cheats or anything like that. Taxes can be a big problem, and if it is too high, people will leave your town. If the taxes in your town are the biggest problem on the voice list, then you better put it down. Citizens think 7% is a good enough tax rate, but if you want more people coming to your town, then you may want to lower it just abit. When you are a Village, Town and a City, this tax rate will be quite okay and people wont complain. But when you transform into a capital and metropolis, then you might want to lower that tax rate down abit to maybe 4% or something so more people will come into your city. TRAFFIC This can be a serious problem in your city, and also causes something else bad to happen to your city. If you are having trouble with traffic, then the soltuion is to put in some mass transit system by the roads. When you do this, the traffic will go away. Make sure that you plan the mass transit system before you start building all the things like houses, commercials and the Industrials. Place the mass transit then start bulding around it. Makesure that you place the transit by the roads. If you want no traffic hasstles at all, then why not make all of your city just mass transit? You will never have any problems with the traffic this way. The bad thing about traffic is the pollution. Try to put some trees around the roads that have alot of traffic near them. *********************************************************************** 12. GIFTS *********************************************************************** INTRODUCTION ------------ In the game, it gives you gifts that you can use. Experiment by doing things like placing 6 Police departments, cmakinjg airports and just getting alot of people. Just mess around and find out the ways to get them *********************************************************************** 13. MISCELLANEOUS TIPS *********************************************************************** MISCELLAENOUS TIPS ------------------ • Always go to the Dr Wright for help. He will give you some tips on how to improve your city and make it better. • If a disatser happens to occur, if it is a fire, try putting some trees around it to stop the flow. • It can be fun to make a fake city, and then trash it. Try doing this with one then totally destroy it. *********************************************************************** 14. BASIC GUIDE STUFF *********************************************************************** COPYRIGHT --------- This Document Copyright Aaron Baker 2003. This Document Copyright Wayalla, (c) 2003. It may be used for Personal and private use only, and can't be put in a magazine, put on a site that you need to pay money to access this FAQ or just generally sold. This guide is sole property of Aaron Baker. Only authorized websites can have this FAQ, but must not alter the copyright notice at all. This guide is available free of cost from sites, and I am taking time out of my busy life to write this, so be thankful that I am helping you. Do not rip off this guide in Part or Whole, that is illegal and the appropriate steps will be taken if necessary. I didn't write this guide so that someone could just come and rip it off. This guide can only be found at the sites that I have listed below: http://www.gamefaqs.com http://www.gamers-realm.com http://faqs.ign.com _ _ _ That's it, no one else, unless I decide otherwise. This must be stated specifically in the FAQ if I am allowing anyone else to use this guide. Anywhere else will have to e-mail me first. I have the right to deny your website use of the guide because it is mine. Aaron Baker wrote all of the contents in this file, unless stated otherwise in the credits section at the end of the guide. Cheat Code Central is forbidden to use this guide. If any websites are using this guide without my permission, the appropriate steps will be taken to get the guide off the site. _ _ _ The author of this document can be contacted via e-mail, which is: Wayalla1(at)yahoo.com.au! Most questions will be answered unless the question is answered in the guide, the title doesn't include the games title or something like that, and also no Spam and stupid e-mails. You are allowed to download this file onto your hard drive, that's the whole point of the FAQ really, to print it because I doubt many people have the console and computer in the same room and no one will want to stay at the computer playing the game. EMAIL POLICY ------------ Feel free to contact me at Wayalla1(at)yahoo.com.au if you have any alternative tips, strategies or anything like that. Make sure you put Timesplitters in the subject; otherwise it may be deleted and will never be read. WEBSITES -------- Only www.gamefaqs.com and http://faqs.ign.com are allowed to host this document. The latest updates will always be found at www.gamefaqs.com, the original home of this FAQ.