SimCity 4 and Good Financing

[MrFun]

discuss, enlighten others, mock others, advise . . . . . .

[Ninot]

I find the key is to provide housing for all and early. This raises tax revenues and puts your city in a good position for more industrial growth, which spurs more residential growth.

But importantly, don't build certain services unless you are in dire need of them, or can afford them. A clinic is unneccesary untill it fits the budget. Same for high school and so on.

[Spaced Cowboy]

build a toll booth ringer as shown on the sim city threads here.

[DrSpike]

Good financing is not spending money on SimCity 4.

/me runs.

[Nikolai]

Unfortunately, you do have a point Spikie... I love the SC games, but the last good one was SC3000. SC4 just have lost "it", the thing that made the game fun to play time after time. And it has become too difficult to balance the budget, get the city to grow and have fun at the same time. A pity really...

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Ninot
I find the key is to provide housing for all and early. This raises tax revenues and puts your city in a good position for more industrial growth, which spurs more residential growth.

But importantly, don't build certain services unless you are in dire need of them, or can afford them. A clinic is unneccesary untill it fits the budget. Same for high school and so on.

Which brings up another question. I have always tried the regional strategy of making an exclusive-industrial city adjoining another region in which I have a mixture of residential and commercial. Do you employ this strategy as well? If so, what has proven the most effective approach in using this strategy?


Oh, and good point about the clinics and high schools. I built them in my initial setup of my city -- my bad.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Good financing is not spending money on SimCity 4.

* DrSpike runs.

Well, I like it!!



Anyway, I didn't buy Simcity 4 until much later after its first release. I bought mine for $20.

[Japher]

I haven't played it in some time, but had the same problem when I did

building and joining cities within the county helps

that is all I know

[duke o' york]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=147335

Ask some of the experts here!
They seem to know how to play the game. From what you've told us, then this doesn't seem to be a SC4 problem, but a basic SC problem, and you need to refine your strategy. Just don't ask me how - I haven't played since the very first one, and I wasn't wonderful at that.

[Blake]

Here are three GREAT tricks that will have your economy rocking in no time:

1) Toll Booths, funnel traffic from the res -> jobs through a tool booth (or two, if yer evil) and rake in the $$$'s.
2) Fund School Busses and Ambulances at 0%, Sims can still walk to school/hospitals. Build more to compensate.
3) Build more high schools, colleges and hospitals and fund them at very low (the minimum needed for the attendance), these buildings create many jobs - quite high paying jobs, this attracts wealthier sims who attract wealthier commerce/industry and a very positive cycle starts.

Combine 2 and 3 and you'll have a very strong economy.

And NEVER neglect early education, just fund them appropriately . Works so much better.

[Blake]

Also some more ways to cut costs:
1) Always use Coal Power.
2) To dispose of garbage, build a Waste to Energy plant, and dial down the funding to 0. It generates no power, but still burns the full amount of garbage while costing nothing to run.
3) To deal with early fires, don't build a fire station. Instead just build a small fire station next to each fire to put it out, then bulldoze the fire station. Works out cheaper.

[Grumbold]

Toll booths? Is that from the xpack?

I usually did okay getting a city running but I got fed up seeing my nicely balanced city services get thrown off balance every time I load up again. Once the city is large, rebalancing school and hospital coverage became a huge pain.

[Blake]

Yeah, booths are xpack.

The other thing about 0% bus funding, later in the game population densities are so high that even at 0% funding there will STILL be enough population in radius to nearly overload the capacity. It makes A LOT of sense to start off with the dense school/health coverage rather than having to demolish other buildings to fit in additional services.

[Grumbold]

Thanks, I thought I couldn't miss something that useful

[Ninot]

Originally posted by Blake
Also some more ways to cut costs:
...
2) To dispose of garbage, build a Waste to Energy plant, and dial down the funding to 0. It generates no power, but still burns the full amount of garbage while costing nothing to run.
3) To deal with early fires, don't build a fire station. Instead just build a small fire station next to each fire to put it out, then bulldoze the fire station. Works out cheaper.

These seem like cheats to me more than anything. Your other tips I've used though.

To answer your questions Mr. Fun...

I tend to use the large or huge map sizes. What I tend to find is that it makes the most sense to make mixed cities. I'll have a bit of everything in every city, however I will go heavier on certain things. I'll be very heavy on residential in 1, and then right on the border have the downtown to my next city. but in that same city i'll have a huge swath of industrial on the other side of town, as the comute time is just too long for people to always want to drive to the next city.

That seems like confusing english, but I hope it helped.