----------------------------------------------------------------- | SSSSSS CCCC | | S I C C I | | S C T | | SSSSS I MM MM C I TTTTT Y Y | | S I M M M C I T Y Y | | S I M M M C I T T Y Y | | SSSSSS I M M M CCCC I TT YY | | Y | | YY | | 222 00 00 00 | | 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 | | 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 | | 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 | | 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 | | 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 | | 222222 00 00 00 | ------------------------------------------------------------------ SimCity 2000: VinnyVideo's FAQ/Strategy Guide ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ Table of Contents ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ [INTR] Introduction [WALK] Walkthrough [TOWN] Scenario Cities [NOTE] Notes, Tips, and Strategies [BUIL] Buildings List [VERS] Version History [COPY] Copyright [CONT] Contact Information Navigation tip: Use the Find feature (Ctrl-F) to help you find what you're looking for. For example, search for [COPY] to jump to the Copyright/Contact Information section. ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ Introduction [INTR] ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ Back in December 2007, when I was just beginning my walkthrough-writing career, I wrote a guide for SimCity 3000. That was my third guide; this is my thirty- third! This guide covers SimCity 2000 for the Game Boy Advance, a great game that, until now, didn't have a walkthrough available, and that's a real pity! SimCity 2000 should be considered an adaption of the PC SimCity games. If portability doesn't matter, I'd recommend buying SimCity 3000 or 4000 for your computer. The Game Boy Advance just doesn't have the processing and graphical power to play SimCity to its full potential. That said, the game designers have done a good job of making SimCity run on the Game Boy. The interface and design resembles the older SimCity 2000 for the Super NES, although the graphics are generally better. There's not much in the way of sound effects or music. Like all SimCity games, there's tremendous replay value, needless to say. One major fault with the game is there's no way to keep tabs on crucial statistics such as the current population or unemployment rate. However, the biggest problem with this game is that it tends to run very slowly. You can change the game simulation speed to make the months pass a little quicker, and emulator players with fast systems may be able to change speed settings, but there's really not much else you can do to make the game run more quickly. ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ Walkthrough [WALK] ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ Constructing a city in SimCity 2000 is plenty of fun, but it can also be pretty tough. Here's one effective way to run a city. ---------------------------------------- Step 1: Know the Controls ---------------------------------------- A: Place current tile on map Select zone from Buildings Menu or other menus B: View properties on a tile L: Toggle between buildings menu and main map R: Pulls up Zoom menu START: Pauses game Choose Options to change game speed, save game, or cause the disaster of your choice to occur (press NEXT or BACK to scroll through the various submenus) SELECT: Brings up Special Maps dialog box; if Zoom menu is open, makes buildings menu disappear Remember that to save your game, you must pause your game and select Options. Choose "Next" twice, mark the check box next to your city's name, and select "Save." My most important tip: Save often - especially before you make a major expenditure of money. ---------------------------------------- Step 2: Begin your city ---------------------------------------- From the opening screen, select "New Game." After you select your city's landscape, you'll be prompted to give your city a name using the on-screen keyboard. Every city needs a name. That's obvious. You'll also want to give your mayor a name (probably your own name). Lastly, decide on the difficulty level. On the Easy setting, you have $20,000 to work with, which will still disappear surprisingly quickly. The Medium setting, which supplies $10,000 to your treasury, is uncomfortably low. The Hard level starts you off with a $10,000 bond - nearly impossible to succeed with. You can start the game in the years of 1900, 1950, 2000, or 2050. Some buildings - like the nuclear power plant - won't be invented yet in the earlier years. However, I prefer to start in 1900. This way, I'll be earning enough revenue by the later years to be able to afford the newer, more expensive power plants. ---------------------------------------- Step 3: Plan ahead ---------------------------------------- Most mayors now want to start building (and spending). But first, formulate a plan for everything, especially transportation. At some point in your mayoral career, you'll want to build at least one road connection AND a rail connection to each neighboring city. At first, though, one road connection to a neighbor should be sufficient. Think about where you'll put these connections, even though you don't need to build them yet. Especially important: Decide how you're going to get cars and trains across any rivers your town has. Think about where you want any seaports and airports in the future. Also keep in mind that dense commercial areas are best near your central district - that's where land values are the highest. Dense residential areas are also good in the middle of town - maybe along a river and near the dense commercial zones. Locate industrial zones near the city limits to help contain the pollution. Plus, industrial zones develop best where land values are low. Since land values are low at first, it's probably best to focus most of your development near the edge of the map for now. ---------------------------------------- Step 4: Start building! ---------------------------------------- I will assume you are on the "Easy" difficulty level. If you're on a harder setting, you'll have to be even more cautious in your spending. Set the game speed to "Paused" for now, and press R and zoom out so you can see the map better. First build a long "Main Street" that connects your city to a neighbor. Near that connection point, construct a power plant - either coal or oil. Coal produces nearly as much power as oil and costs much less. Oil generates slightly less pollution, but I'd probably go with coal for now. If you start in a later year, you'll have more power plant options to choose from. Always position power plants, especially nuclear ones, in industrial areas near the edge of town. Now you can start zoning! Near your power plant, place a few industrial zones. Build a few power lines down "Main Street" - maybe 20 spaces. At this point build a small commercial zone - probably just 6-12 spaces. Lastly, build a generous light residential area. Zone a 6x15 residential area, and surround it with a road. This is a very effective way to design a town - several 6x15 boxes of a particular kind of zone. That's how I design my cities, although I sometimes make these boxes a little smaller if water is nearby. Remember: If a zone isn't within three spaces of a road, it won't develop. Once you've built a few zones, turn the simulator on a fast speed and let it go for a few months. Nothing will happen for a month or two, but soon buildings will start appearing. Keep a close eye on the R-C-I (residential-commercial- industrial) bar graph found at the top of the screen. For example, if the residential graph is high, you need more of that zone. If it's flat or low, you don't need to zone any more of that for now. If commercial and industrial zones start disappearing, you probably need more residential zones, or vice versa. When a decent number of buildings have been completed, I like to add a Large Park in a residential area. At this point, add more zones - especially residential zones, which will probably be needed. If a zone isn't developing, use the "Query" feature (press B) to confirm the square has power. Also make sure that there's a road nearby (my system works well). At the end of the year, the Budget screen will appear. You'll probably end up losing a bit of money, but make sure that you're breaking even by Year 3 or so and earning a $500 profit by Year 5. Your original funds should cushion you from these early losses. At this point, I recommend that you raise taxes to 8% or probably 9%. You'll need to lower them when your city is bigger, though. I also recommend that you reduce funding by a notch or two to every sector (education, police, etc.) except for roads. At some point, probably around the start of the second year, you'll need to construct a fire station, which will be most effective if you build it in a central location. Keep adding R-C-I zones. Around the start of Year 3, crime could be a problem. Build a police station in a central location and add more zones. Check the crime and fire maps (press SELECT) occasionally to see if you need to build more police and fire stations to cover an uncovered area. Keep in mind that you can increase the range of police and fire stations by increasing their budgets. At Year 4, build a hospital if possible. No matter how big your city gets, you shouldn't ever have to build more than one. Check your hospital's status (press B while highlighting it with the pointer) to see how many patients it holds - a good way to determine your town's relative population. It's also probably time to build a school. I like to use schools to separate commercial and residential zones, and later on I usually place the library nearby. Within about five years, you'll need to build a new power plant - probably coal. Yes, power plants in this game don't produce much power (and most have to be replaced every 50 years!). If you're playing on the Easy difficulty, try to keep a $4,000-$5,000 cushion so you can build a power plant when the original one reaches about 95% capacity. It's a fact: Citizens will move away in flocks if they don't have electricity. By now, you've probably exhausted your original funds, so you really need to be earning about $500 more than you spend in a year now. What's more, don't go around building too many zones or especially public buildings, since you'll probably need to build another power plant surprisingly soon. Once your town is well established you'll want to add a library, seaport, college, marina, and museum, probably but not necessarily in that order. I'd also pass one or two generally helpful ordinances, like Neighborhood Watch or Homeless Shelter. Whenever you get a message telling you about a new peak in population, you know you'll be able to access a new goodie from the Rewards menu - like the Mayor's House, City Hall, and Statue. Your house should go in a nice residential area, while City Hall should be placed near the center of your city in a dense residential area. The Military Base appears a little later. It can add revenue and stimulate growth, but it often attracts crime and creates pollution in the form of noise. The game chooses its location for you - usually in prime waterfront real estate that you might prefer to use for something else. You don't have to add the military base if you don't want to. Watch out around Year 48, as this is when your original power plants will start dying. Make sure to save up some money to replace them - and don't let the allure of free money seduce you into taking out a bond to pay for them (I explain this later). Try to save up enough cash to replace them with equal coal plants, although you can add gas plants, which generate little power per dollar, as a less expensive quick fix. This is a good time to enact the Energy Conservation ordinance. Starting in 1970, windmills are very useful power generators, especially since they never wear out. Unlike in SimCity 3000, they generate the same amount of power regardless of where you place them, so they're a great way to cover zones that are far from roads or that otherwise wouldn't be useful for development. In later years, you'll keep on adding zones (obviously). In addition, you should expand your seaport and build a few more police and fire stations to cover uncovered zones. Ideally, you'll build one road and one rail connection to every neighboring city. When you're making $1,000 per year, you can start saving up to build a zoo, airport, stadium, and prison. Keep expanding your airport until it's fairly big - maybe 8x8. Surround it by a road and build commercial zones nearby. Eventually, you'll run out of room to develop new things. Boo-hoo... When this happens, all you can do is tear stuff down and replace it with a dense zone. You can also try to boost growth by cutting property taxes to 7% and enacting ordinances that improve your city's quality of life. Really, though, once you've covered every buildable square and added one of every kind of building, you can say you've beaten the game. I reached this stage around the year 2017 with perfect play. ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ Scenario Cities [TOWN] ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ While the specific circumstances of these scenarios will vary, each one has the same main objective: Extinguish any fires that break out, and stop the rioters before they set more fires. Begin repairing any damage once everything's back under control. You'll probably want to change the zoom as soon as the situation begins. To stop riots, simply surround the crowd on each side with police. If successful, they'll soon disperse. Fires are a different story. Because your fire department is helpless in stopping fires of any size, the solution is to bulldoze the entire fiery area. Select the bulldozer option and hold A so you can select a wide section of land. Tear down the area a little past the fire, and all the buildings will turn to rubble. Then bulldoze this area a second time, eliminating the rubble. The flames should die down, since they won't have anything to burn. If any active flames are within a tile or two of a building, bulldoze that, too. You'll suffer some loss, but you'll contain the fire before it spreads. Yet there is something perversely delightful, in a Nero-esque kind of way, in watching your entire city burn down. ---------------------------------------- Alien Invasion ---------------------------------------- Here, a UFO has attacked Paris, causing numerous fires to form. Focus on the biggest fires at first, and when they're under control you can turn your attention to the smaller blazes. When the fires are gone, try to rebuild to 45,000 residents in a five-year timeframe. My guides usually include a Zelda reference or two, and my SimCity guides usually mention Majora's Mask. So here goes: At least Romani isn't around. ---------------------------------------- Mass Riots ---------------------------------------- Computer programmers and graphic artists are rioting in Washington, D.C. Stop the riots and put out any fires to win. ---------------------------------------- Earthquake ---------------------------------------- Los Angeles - Stop the looting mobs, put out the fires, and rebuild to a population of 90,000 within 5 years. This is a lot like the Mass Riots scenario. ---------------------------------------- Nuclear Meltdown ---------------------------------------- Or, in the words of the great George W. Bush himself, a nucular meltdown. This scenario, which takes place in London, requires you to put out any fires and restore the population to 80,000 in 10 years. It's similar to Alien Invasion, although it's a little easier. ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ Notes, Tips, and Strategies [NOTE] ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ ---------------------------------------- The Budget Screen ---------------------------------------- Every January, the Budget Screen will appear. This is where you make the important budget decisions and pass ordinances. From the first screen, select Funding to adjust the property tax rate or change allocated funds to police, fire, health/welfare, education, and transit. Select Next to move to the second screen, which shows your city's projected earnings. From this second screen, select Funding to pass ordinances or issue/repay a bond. ---------------------------------------- Underfunding ---------------------------------------- When your city is new, you won't have enough revenue to spend much on services, so you'll have to set funding for police, education, and other services below 100% of the funding they request. Increase these gradually as your city gets bigger. Remember that the more money a service gets, the more effective it will be. For example, a well-funded fire department will have a wider range than one that is underfunded. In a large city, you'll want to allocate the full 100% of the requested funds. But NEVER touch the "Transit" slider, as decreasing funds will cause many potholes and other defects to form, forcing you to spend even more money to fix them. ---------------------------------------- Bonds: Shackles for Your City ---------------------------------------- I can't stress this enough: DO NOT issue a bond. I repeat: Do not. Never. In most SimCity games, you could get loans, which you would repay (both principal and interest) in a certain number of annual installments, usually 10. Bonds are not loans. With bonds, you only pay interest annually. But you pay interest forever or until you come up with the full $10,000 to pay the original principal! With hundreds of your dollars going every year to enrich the bank, there's no way you'll be able to make any kind of decent profit to expand your city or pay off the principal. When you get a bond, you instantly receive $10,000. Your annual fee will be $100 times the interest rate. If the current rate was 5%, you'll be spending $500 every year just paying bond interest, so you'll be breaking even at best. You can't refinance by taking out another bond to repay the old one, because the more bonds you have, the worse the interest rates will be, and the more you'll have to pay every month. Also, the number of bonds you can issue is determined by your credit score, but there's no way you can check your credit report. If you mess with bonds, I am sure you will want to pick up your GBA and heave it at the wall while emitting animal-like noises and random curse words. Raise taxes, cut spending, legalize gambling - do what it takes, but don't issue bonds, even if it's necessary for constructing a power plant. ---------------------------------------- Traffic ---------------------------------------- Traffic is a difficult problem to deal with. However, there are some things you can do. First, build bus stops. Usually you want to place bus stops in residential zones and near popular destinations, like your stadium or library. Trains should also factor into your transit plan. Build a few train stations along your railroads, especially near residential and industrial areas. Lastly, make sure all your roads are well-designed (my system is fairly effective), and feel free to take inspiration from the transportation systems of the scenario cities. ---------------------------------------- Crime ---------------------------------------- In SimCity 2000, stopping crime isn't as big a priority as keeping the lights on. The best way to keep crime down is to build plenty of police stations. Every police station covers a certain circular area, and they're most effective near the center of that circle. Therefore, placement is everything. Ideally, you could cover every inch of the map without overlapping or covering an area outside the city limits. Practically, this is impossible to do. There will always be uncovered areas, especially early on in the game, and that's not necessarily bad. People always want more police than they need, so don't increase police funding or build new stations just because "Citizens Demand Police" appears on the upper news crawl. There are three other things you can to do to deal with crime. First, enact the Neighborhood Watch ordinance. Second, you can increase funding for police (especially in later years). Third, you can construct a jail. Of all the buildings in the game, the prison is probably the last one you should add. Even though they don't come with an annual maintenance fee, jails are still expensive to build, and they don't do much to fix crime problems. You'd be wisest to place your pokey in an industrial area. ---------------------------------------- Airports ---------------------------------------- You need to construct an airport once you've covered most of the map with buildings and you're turning an annual profit of about $1,000. Airports won't develop unless they have power and nearby transportation. They also need to be big - at least 1x4, and preferably larger. Airports are not cheap - every airport tile costs $250. You can reduce the need for airport expansion by building sufficient road and rail connections to other cities. Airports generate a lot of air pollution in the form of noise, so keep them far away from residential zones. Commercial zones often do well near airports, though. ---------------------------------------- To Spread or Not to Spread? ---------------------------------------- When your city is just getting off the ground, you'll need to decide whether you want to build in a tight cluster or in a more spread-out manner. If you choose the first option, make sure to at least position your power plant (if it pollutes a lot) and dense industrial zones a reasonable distance from commercial and especially residential areas. Keeping traffic under control can be tough. If you choose the latter method, keep in mind that you'll initially be spending more on roads and electrical lines. ---------------------------------------- The Population Cap ---------------------------------------- Are you having a hard time making your city bigger? Is R-C-I demand high? Are there plenty of undeveloped zones? Are there no glaring problems with your city like high pollution or crime? If you answered yes to most or all of these questions, you've probably reached your Population Cap. Try adding a few parks and reward buildings to increase your Population Cap, and you'll probably get a surge of new residents and development. ---------------------------------------- Feel the Power! ---------------------------------------- The most important factor in getting zones to develop is supplying electricity. If a zone doesn't have power, it won't develop, even if there's adequate transportation and no crime or pollution. If a lightning bolt symbol appears over a building for more than a month or two, you know that zone isn't powered. You can also press the B button to check the power status of buildings. Electricity can be transmitted through power lines, zones, and buildings, but not through roads or rails. Usually it's best to use power lines that are two segments long to cross roads and rails (one-space long power lines often don't work right). It's OK to zone over power lines, and when a building is erected on the site, the power line will disappear without causing any kind of electrical disruption. ---------------------------------------- Power Plants: They Don't Live Forever ---------------------------------------- The Buildings List section includes a table showing the pros and cons of each type of power plant. The main disadvantage of nuclear power is the risk (albeit a low one) of nuclear meltdown. This is rare unless the plant is overworked. Microwave facilities can also be the cause of disasters. Power plants (except for windmills) don't last forever; they stop working after 50 years. You'll get a message warning you of their impending demise two years beforehand, and another a year before their expiration date. When a coal power plant dies, it harmlessly explodes, leaving a pile of rubble you can bulldoze or build over. When a gas plant reaches the end of its life, it'll be replaced automatically - for a cost of $2,000. If you don't want this to happen, just bulldoze it right before the change would occur. ---------------------------------------- Disasters ---------------------------------------- If a disaster occurs, bulldoze any buildings near the fire to keep it from spreading, and send out police to stop rioters. Both are explained in more detail in the Scenario Cities section. There's very little you can do to prevent random disasters unless you uncheck the "Disasters" box under "Options" on the pause menu. Maintaining good fire coverage could help a little. In SimCity games, nobody actually dies during disasters, although the population will drop if residential buildings are destroyed. ---------------------------------------- Ordinances ---------------------------------------- The only place you can pass or repeal ordinances is from the budget screen, which should appear every year (if it doesn't, un-check Auto-Budget from Options on the pause menu). From the budget screen, select Next, Funding, and then Ordinances. Here you can choose the ordinances you want. In contrast with SimCity 3000, there are no real "must-have" ordinances like Tire Recycling in SimCity 2000, although there are many that are helpful under certain conditions. The best ordinance is Energy Conservation, which definitely helps reduce power consumption. Reduced power use means you won't have to build as many expensive, pollution-emitting power plants. ---------------------------------------- Notes on the Query Feature ---------------------------------------- * The game doesn't show current population figures, but you can press B to check the status of a hospital. The number of patients is a rough indicator of population growth. * In SimCity 2000, using Query on a zoned building only shows whether it's a Building, Construction Site, or Abandoned Building. In SimCity 3000, every building had its own name. * If you Query over the Mayor's House building, you can see your current approval rating. Regardless of your performance, expect this number to be low, especially in earlier years. Mine never exceeded 33% at any point. * When you check a building's status (press B), don't pay attention to whether it has water service or not; you don't have any control over that. If a building is occupied, it'll have water. * Stats that can be checked using the Query feature are updated at the start of every year. Don't rely on them too much; for example, if power plants are supposed to be running at 90% capacity, but you see lightning bolt symbols popping up all over town, it's time to build a new power plant, since the earlier figures have probably changed. * Checking the status of police stations, schools, colleges, bus stops, or train stations is useless, as you will usually receive nonsensical numbers. There will usually be far more teachers than students, the police will somehow generate negative numbers, and no one will ever use the bus stops. This, I think, was a programming glitch. ---------------------------------------- Miscellaneous Stuff ---------------------------------------- * If you ever have a negative amount of money, you won't be allowed to add Reward Buildings, even though they wouldn't normally cost anything. * Reward Buildings that appeared in SimCity 3000 but don't appear in this game include the County Courthouse, Theme Park, Medical Institute, Defense Contractor, Performing Arts Center, Country Club, Stock Exchange, Geyser Park, University, Science Center, and Spaceport. * Dense buildings generate more population growth and property taxes than lower-density zones, but the pollution and crime may be worse. In practice, there isn't a huge difference between light and dense development. * If you place a dense zone over a light zone, you'll still have to pay full price for the dense zone. * The highest land value I've seen is $255,000 per acre. This appeared at my seaport for a short time before dropping to something much more normal. * You probably know this, but this game doesn't have "real-time events;" there's no Great Depression or anything like that. * As far as I know, there are no secret codes or cheats. * Maybe if more people played this game, there wouldn't be such a federal budget deficit, and maybe people wouldn't owe tens of thousands on their credit cards! ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ Buildings List [BUIL] ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ This section includes a list of every building, zone, and transportation device you can add to the game. I include each item's price and the earliest year in which you can use it. Not all buildings are available in all years, and the exact date will often vary by a year or two. I also include other information relevant to a specific type of building, such as annual costs and performance ratings. ------------------------------------------------------------ *Reward Buildings Cost Year How to get it? ------------------------------------------------------------ Mayor's House Free 1900 5,000 residents City Hall Free 1900 20,000 residents Statue Free 1900 35,000 residents Military Base Free 1900 80,000 residents ------------------------------------------------------------ *Ports Cost Year ------------------------------------------------------------ Seaport $150 1900 Airport $250 1920 ------------------------------------------------------------ *Trains Cost Year ------------------------------------------------------------ Railroad tracks $25 1900 Train stations $500 1900 ------------------------------------------------------------ *Education Cost Year Annual Cost* ------------------------------------------------------------ School $250 1900 $25 College $1,000 1900 $100 Library $500 1900 $0 Museum $1,000 1900 $0 ------------------------------------------------------------ *Public Buildings Cost Year Annual Cost* ------------------------------------------------------------ Police Station $500 1900 $100 Fire Station $500 1900 $100 Hospital $500 1900 $50 Prison $3,000 1900 $0 ------------------------------------------------------------ *Recreation Cost Year ------------------------------------------------------------ Small Park $20 1900 Big Park $150 1900 Zoo $3,000 1900 Stadium $5,000 1900 Marina $1,000 1900 ------------------------------------------------------------ *Destructive Cost Year ------------------------------------------------------------ Bulldoze $1 1900 De-Zone $1 1900 ------------------------------------------------------------ *Power lines Cost Year ------------------------------------------------------------ *Power lines $2 1900 ------------------------------------------------------------ *Transportation Cost Year Annual Cost ------------------------------------------------------------ Roads $10 1900 $0.1 Bus Station $250 1910 $0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Light Zones Cost Year Examples of possible developments ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Residential $5 1900 Single-family houses Commercial $5 1900 Small businesses like gas stations Industrial $5 1900 Small factories, sheds ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Dense Zones Cost Year Examples of possible developments ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Residential $10 1900 Apartments, high-rise condos Commercial $10 1900 Skyscrapers Industrial $10 1900 Large factories and warehouses ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Power plants Cost Year Megawatts Per Megawatt Life Pollution ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oil $6,600 1900 220MW 30 50y High Coal $4,000 1900 200MW 20 50y Very high Nuclear $15,000 1953 500MW 30 50y Low Solar $1,300 1980 50MW 26 50y None Gas $2,000 1940 50MW 40 50y Medium Wind $100 1970 4MW 25 - None Microwave $28,000 2023 1600MW 17.5 50y None Fusion $40,000 2060 2500MW 16 50y None Notes: The annual costs of buildings assumes 100% allocation of funds; reduced funding will lower the annual maintenance fee. Building a road connection to a neighboring city costs $1,000; rail connections cost $1,500 each. Windmills last forever. ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ Version History [VERS] ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ Not necessarily the most exciting section of my guides, but it's "a tradition unlike any other," just like The Masters - or well, maybe not. Date | Version | Size | ---------|---------|------|----------------------------------------------------- 6-25-08 | 0.1 | 28KB | Began guide. 6-30-08 | 0.15 | 27KB | Did a little. 7- 1-08 | 0.2 | 24KB | Did a little. 7- 4-08 | 0.35 | 24KB | Made some progress. 7- 8-08 | 0.5 | 29KB | Completed Bonds, most of Buildings List, and more. 7- 9-08 | 0.8 | 35KB | Made decent progress. 7-10-08 | 1.0 | 36KB | Finished guide. 11- 7-15 | 1.1 | 35KB | Made a few formatting improvements. ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ Copyright [COPY] ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ (c) 2008-2015 VinnyVideo. All rights reserved. All trademarks mentioned in this guide are property of their respective holders. You can post this guide on your Web site as long as you give proper credit to VinnyVideo and you don't change anything I wrote. The latest version of this guide will always be available at GameFAQs and Neoseeker, but don't count on there being frequent (if any) updates. ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ Contact Information [CONT] ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ If you have any questions or comments about this guide, send an e-mail to VHamilton002@gmail.com. That's zero-zero-two, by the way. Remember that not all e-mails will be accepted. Please follow these guidelines: * Do include "SimCity 2000" in the subject line. * Do send polite suggestions for ways to make this walkthrough better, including any errors or omissions you find. * Do send information about any glitches, tricks, or codes you find. * Do ask any questions you have about SimCity 2000 gameplay. I will respond to them eventually if you follow all of these rules. * Do make a reasonable effort to use decent spelling, grammar, usage, punctuation, and capitalization so I can understand what you're trying to say. * Do use patience. I check my messages quite sporadically. * Do not send spam, pornography, chain letters, "flaming," or anything containing profanity or vulgarity. Be nice. ******************************************************************************* Check out the full list of VinnyVideo FAQs here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/users/VinnyVideo/contributions/faqs