Anatomy of an Awesome City - A SimCity 4 Guide Anthony Fiti Las Vegas Future City Competition

Anatomy of an
Awesome City
      A SimCity 4 Guide
           Anthony Fiti
Las Vegas Future City® Competition

The Beginning is a Very Delicate Time
 Download the required
  predefined regions from
  the national website
  (medium suggested)

 Copy the region file into
  the SimCity 4\Regions
  directory (p.77)

 Select the city tile in the
  middle of the other
  cities

Defining Your City
 Begin terraforming your
  city
 Select “God Mode”
 Use the options to adjust
  terrain up or down
 Make sure there is water
  access for a seaport
 Generally flat with few
  mountains
 When finished, reconcile
  edges with adjacent cities

Defining Your City
 Begin terraforming your
  city
 Select “God Mode”
 Use the options to adjust
  terrain up or down
 Make sure there is water
  access for a seaport
 Generally flat with few
  mountains
 When finished, reconcile
  edges with adjacent cities

Defining Your City
 Begin terraforming your
  city
 Select “God Mode”
 Use the options to adjust
  terrain up or down
 Make sure there is water
  access for a seaport
 Generally flat with few
  mountains
 When finished, reconcile
  edges with adjacent cities

Defining Your City
 Begin terraforming your
  city
 Select “God Mode”
 Use the options to adjust
  terrain up or down
 Make sure there is water
  access for a seaport
 Generally flat with few
  mountains
 When finished, reconcile
  edges with adjacent cities

Starting to Build
 First, Pause the game
 Build one power plant
   Plus a transmission line (you don’t want to live next to the dirty
     coal plant do you?)

 Residential, Commercial and Industrial zones
   Only use Low Density zones at first – build out then up
   For each Residential zoned square, add 1/2 Industrial and 1/3
    Commercial
   Use RCI graph after initial city development
 Single Elementary School in/near Residential area
 Roads to connect them all!
 Unpause the game and go from there

Expand Slowly
 Listen to your Sims!
 Only add other facilities after being requested by
  the Sims
   More Schools
   Water distribution (pumps/pipes, required for
    Medium and High density zoned areas)
   Police and Fire Dept
 Follow the RCI graph to Victory!

RCI
   (Residential Commercial Industrial)
 Residential
 Commercial
   Service
   Office Space
 Industrial
     Agriculture
     Dirty
     Manufacturing
     High Tech

Budgeting
 Absolutely must run at a
  surplus

 Reduce expenses
   Right-size, downsize or
    eliminate unnecessary
    spending

 Increase taxes
   Will have a negative
    impact

Tips and Tricks
 Micro-managing resources
   Facilities don’t often need
    100% of their output
    capacity, so turn funding
    down to save money – but
    be careful, as you expand,
    you have to turn the
    funding back up to 100%
    manually
   Be sure to watch the
    efficiency or quality scale at
    the top!

Tips and Tricks
 Edging
   The practice of putting high pollution items at the edge
    of the map so only a fraction of their pollution is in
    your city
     Power plants, land fills, airports, etc
   Also consider “power islands” and “garbage islands”
    with one road connection and any other necessary
    connections

 Cramming
   The practice of waiting until just before you turn your
    city in to add certain items to get a higher score

Tips and Tricks
 Only add “Rewards” at the end
   Rewards cost money, and you
    can add them all at the end
    without negatively impacting
    your score (as long as your
    budget stays positive)

 Use desirability meter to help
  figure out where to improve
  your city

Tips and Tricks
 Listen to advisors
   When the background
    behind the advisor is
    red, they want your
    attention because of an
    important issue

 Query Problems
   Use the query tool to
    find out about stuff

The Judging Criteria
 Judging criteria has been revised this year!
   SimCity is 84 points instead of 80
 Self Assessment has changed as well!
   8 questions instead of 10 (16 points instead of 20)
 Land Values
   Green!

 Police and Fire Station coverage
   No populated areas left uncovered

The Judging Criteria
 Manufacturing Factories
   I-M on the RCI and Desirability charts
 High-Tech Factories
   I-HT on the RCI and Desirability charts
   Require very high educational rates and in high value
    neighborhoods

 Agricultural areas
   I-Ag on the RCI and Desirability charts
   Specific Agricultural zone under “Industrial”

The Judging Criteria
 Garbage and Recycling
   Three forms of garbage disposal
   If you don’t have 5 recycling centers, you will lose out
    on 3 easy points

 Life Expectancy
   Affected by medical facilities
 Education Level
   Affected by number of schools and colleges

The Judging Criteria
 Energy and Water
   All areas must have water and power
     Including low density areas – save them for last
   Water Pollution is easy to control with water
    treatment facilities (build in areas with water
    pollution)
   Air Pollution a bit more difficult to control
     Clean energy
     Mass transit options

The Judging Criteria
 Transportation
   Five different forms of transportation
     Bus, Subway, Monorail, Passenger train, Ferry
   Sims must use the transportation type for it to count
   Bus, train or subway should cover 50% of city

 Commute times
 Freight Truck & Train
   Sims must be using either system for it to count
 Seaport and Airport
   Need to have water to have a Seaport!

The Judging Criteria
 Recreation
   Fifteen or more parks, basketball/tennis courts, soccer
    fields, etc
   Build as-needed or at the end
 Rewards
   Again, add rewards at end to reduce budgetary impact

       “Good City” between 55-64 pts
       “Great City” between 65-74 pts
     “Awesome City” between 75-84 pts

Need More Help?
 Follow the built-in tutorials
    That’s where I got a lot of the information on these slides
    Address certain problems: Getting Started, Making Money,
     Building Up
    Go slow, be patient and read every bit of information
     presented in the tutorials

 Build out, then up
    Just like Vegas, minus the catastrophic economic collapse
 Don’t assume anything
 Talk to other teachers
 One last tip…

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