SimCity 2000 - Strategy

General Tips

• Start building your new city with on a basis of Industry. Commerce will strenghen later.
• Keep all zones within 3 tiles of a road to develop
• When traffic gets heavy, build a highway. They can carry 4 times the cars roads can.
• Always try to build a reinforced highway bridge over a standard one. Reinforced bridges allow ships to pass beneath.
• To increase an area's land value build a massive block of parks. Gradually budoze the parks and insert dense commercial zones. They will usually obtain the game's highest available land value, $256,000 an acre.
• Place water pumps alongside a source of fresh water. This will triple it's pumping capabilities.

Building for a large population

• Edit your land form to all flat land with no water except for one small corner with a seaport. This maximizes building space.
• Use only high density zones.
• Concentrate commercial in the city center and industrial on the edges.
• Sprinkle your one zone type large areas with a few 1x1 tiles of the other two zone types.
• Keep your roads separated by 6 tiles and limit the number of intersections. These generate traffic/pollution and limit growth. A single road in the form of a spiral works good.
• Clump all your services that don't require road connections towards the edges of the map where land values are lower. This includes hospitals, schools, universities, libraries, museums, parks, marinas, etc.
• Keep crime under control by placing police stations all over the map in an even pattern about 20 tiles apart.
• Build slowly from the center out. Keep I+C=R. Zone more I than C when city is small, reverse this ratio as city gets larger.
• Don't add more services until the sims ask for them.
  Keep schools and hospitals at high ratings by adding more as needed. This will build your EQ and LE.
• As city stabilizes, start phasing out high pollution industries by raising tax rate.

Airports

Keep in mind when building an airport that it needs space for a runway, or it will not build. The minimum usable airport space is 2 x 6 tiles. Your best bet is to build the airport in 4 x 6 tile increments. And make sure no tall buildings are nearby; SimCity 2000 pilots are not known for their building-avoidance skills! In addition, make sure that your airport is blanketed with power lines. Airports may not initially build unless they are receiving power to certain tiles. Also, don't get carried away, they can be very expensive.

Seaports

Sometimes your SimCitizens demande a seaport, you built one, and it fills up with just warehouses and the Sims are still demanding a seapor. This happens when you have placed a seaport in an area where the water isn't deep enough. Two tiles out from the shoreline the water must be at least two altitude levels lower than the shoreline. To fix this, first save your city to disk in case you mess things up. Then click on the bulldozer tool and select the lower terrain option. Click the mouse two tiles out from the shore and while holding the left mouse button down, SLOWLY drag the mouse towards you. This will adjust the terrain and allow docks to be built and ships to sail into your new seaport.

Water Management

Water pumps do not provide a consistent amount of water and pressure all year due to droughts. Your city has all the water it needs at one point, other times the city is completely without water. If this is a common occurance, re-think your water strategy.

Oceans, lakes, rivers
Use these bodies of water as your city's water supply. From the ocean you can convert salt water to fresh with a desalination plant. I think this is the most effective source. Build water pumps near lakes and rivers. This will let them pump three times as much water at once.

Pressure
Various parts of your city may require independent sources of water. Try not sending your water up hills and mountains. Doing so lowers the pressure of water of not just that area, but the entire city. Try spreading out the trunk line pipes as much as possible. You can save a lot of water by reducing redundant water lines, which will require less pumps and pipes. This in turn will help your financial status.

Ways to Lower Pollution

• Raise taxes in industrial zones. Will drive out the worst offenders and drain much pollution.
• Lower traffic (using mass transit, less cars, less pollution).
• Use clean sources of power (i.e. Nuclear, Microwave, Fusion).
• Zone mostly light industrial. Less industry, less pollution.

Ways to Balance the Budget

• Raising revenues is the easy way - just raise your taxes. Try raising your tax rates a bit and see how the demand bars react. If the demand falls to zero or below, then lower the taxes. But as long as you've got growth, push the limit. Go to the Ordinances window and select income tax, sales tax, gambling and parking fines. All four of these bring in money.
• Never cut transportation. Bulldoze excess railroad and roadsto save on maintainence, but don't lower funding. Doing so will make them just rot away and turn to rubble.
• Don't build wasted connections to other cities.
• Cut the schools and hospital funding as far as your citizens can take it without leaving.
• DON'T even get started with bonds. They will help you in the short term, but kill you in the long run.