Key Information and Updates

• Decide on your terrain, using the TERRAIN EDITOR before you start playing.  Make sure you leave a few flat spots to develop as it gets expensive to modify the terrain while playing the game.  It'll cost you nothing while in the terrain editor.

• Start your design in the Year 2000 at the "EASY" level.  Why make the game harder than it has to be!

• Make sure you turn the DISASTERS off!  You only have a limited amount of time and you don't want to spend it rebuilding or fighting disasters.

• Use AUTOBUDGET.  If you build it right, you won't have to worry about the budget.  Every couple of years, pause the game and check the budget to make sure your city is making money.

• NOW YOUR READY TO START!

• POWER UP!  Keep the game paused and look for a location to place a power plant.  Select a power plant (Recommend starting with an oil power plant).  Locate the power plant near the edge of your city.  You may want to supply excess power to your neighbors at some point.  Eventually when your city grows larger you should try to replace your power plant with a power plant that is more efficient and pollutes less.

• ZONE THE LAND!  Start with INDUSTRIAL (the place Sims work) and RESIDENTIAL Zones (the place Sims live).  Begin with a 1:1 ratio of INDUSTRIAL to RESIDENTIAL .  Leave room for roads, rail, commercial zones, fire and police stations.  You'll need to put these in later when your city begins to grow.  In the beginning, don't zone more than one or two areas and keep your zones fairly close to each other.  Sims don't like to travel too far to work!  Zone three or four areas to begin with then see how things develop after adding roads and power.

• ADD ROADS!  Connect and surround zones with roads.  Only build as much as you need for the Sims to develop  (The FOUR TILE RULE - Sims will only develop four tiles away from roads, rail or subways).  Plan for future rail, bus stations and subway connections as necessary.  You'll build these later when you have more money and the Sims demand it!

• POWER TO THE MASSES!  Power up the zones by placing power lines between the power plan and the zones.  Connect the closet zone first.  If the zones are within four tiles of each other you only need to add power lines to the first zone and then the Sims will power the rest.

• START BUILDING!  Start the game and watch the Sims go.  You should see evidence of the Sims work almost right away, if you got it right!.

• CHECK YOUR PROGRESS!  How did the Sims like your initial design?  Any zones not develop?  You may need to add more roads or power up zones.  Us the "QUERY" tool to find out the status of zones and/or existing buildings.

• IMPORTANT TIP!  Check RCI DEMAND INDICATOR near the bottom of the screen.  Follow this closely and you'll almost guarantee success.  If the bar is on top the Sims demand more of this zone, on the bottom means less.  Don't zone too quickly or you may run out of money!

• IMPORTANT TIP!  Follow the SCROLLING TICKER Near the bottom of the screen.  It offers important advice, identifies rewards, neighbor deals, water shortages and other events.  Learn to ignore non-essential requests.  Sims tend to complain before they really need things (just like in real life!).  Most of the time they'll wait, but don't make them wait too long!.

• IMPORTANT TIP!  SAVE OFTEN!  You may want to save the file as a different file each time you save so that you can go back to the previous file if things go bad!

• REPEAT ABOVE (except the power plant).  Grow slowly and skimp on services (i.e., police, fire, hospitals, schools, etc...) in the beginning.  Only provide the bare minimums.  Just remember, you WILL need to add them eventually.

• JUDGE YOURSELF!  Using the score sheets found in the teacher/mentor handbook, score your city to see where you excel and where you need improvement.

• ASK FOR HELP!  If the Sims just don't seem to cooperate, and you can't get your city to grow or you're broke and stuck with too many loans, don't give up.  Get help instead!  Ask your teacher, mentor or contact your regional coordinator at r.griffith@cedar-rapids.org.

• IMPORTANT TIP!  Get more tips or pose questions on the online forum at  www.futurecity.org or search the knowledge neighborhood at www.sc3000.com.

• DEADLINE!  JAN 7TH

• More info soon...
   

• DEADLINE!  JAN 7TH