SimIsle - FAQ
last revision 19/10/95
The format of this faq/strategy guide is at the moment very
flexible. The layout presented will be to divide it into sections,
covering background and general points,
bugs noted and workarounds,
Cheats and editors,
overall strategies and the
industries in detail.
Finally there will be a section covering
tables and analysis of costs and profits.
Acknowledgements
Major thanks must go to Simon Parkinson, for the provision of inside
information.
Thanks to those people who have sent in comments or followed up my
early posts on the net.
Simisle is a CDROM game produced by Intelligent Games and Maxis, my own is the PC - DOS
version though therewill be a Mac version (currently at Alpha) , and a Win 95 version ,and
it is assumed that the mechanics of all are the same
A full review
(by myself) is available from the GD
Review
All copyrights and intelluctual rights of the authors are acknowledged.
Save game files are approx 2-300Kb
The files are sisleX.si
X being 0-9
There are 8 save game slots each of which is numbered and it is
possible to swap these files. Person A's save game 3 transferred to
person B's computer will go to slot 3 unless renamed.
Additionally there is an insurance slot sislse99.si which is updated once per month and is
used in cases of a crash to offer the restore game option. This file is deleted in a clean
shutdown
Disasters acn occur randomly within the game, some can be remedied fairly easily, others much less so. A full list of the disasters are :-
At this early stage the game seems to be fairly robust.
Minor bugs noted are
1) When reloading a saved game when the music was 'off' it will still play the fix is to
open up the options menu and switch the music on and then off again.
2) 'Net reports of no visitors at all going to tourist attractions, further information of
the exact circumstances this occurs would be appreciated.
There is a program to edit the funds called islehex available from
WWW http://www.vcnet.com/jmoore/simstuff.htm
The page is mainatined by Jerry Moore - but I'm not sure who wrote
the program as I have not personally downloaded it yet.
Whilst not a cheat per se, merely an exploitable feature, it is possible to send an
explorer into the jungle and send a construction agent to them by selecting move and then
clicking on the explorers face. Then it is possible to open up the location of the
constcution site and build any small buildings eg. sawmill or logging camp.
Cheat codes - these should be entered at the save game dialogue box and then the game
saved :-
ragschocolatestash
deesextrapixel
marksanchovypizza
iaintestedtico
soggybiscuit
cheatingnotme
3527490
This is a tricky section to deal with as what is right on one island may not necessarily
be so on another, furthermore within each island scenario there is a degree of randomness
about the numbers, types and placement of discoveries.
One of the first strategies therefore must be to explore thoroughly the island and let the discoveries mould your general ideas.
As an example of this I will relate the twice that I won scenario 2 before moving on to new challanges.
The first time my discoveries where mainly pots of cash, but with 2 burial caves and also a rare animal/nature reserve. Using the money from the discoveries I pursued a city based strategy, build population and keep them happy to provide skilled workers and large amounts of taxes. The towns were converted into cities and the 'bonus' skilled workers at the transition used to expand the parks wardens and drill for oil. Cash almost ran out (it dipped negative at one point) but the increased revenue from the oil and the selling of the animals to zoos reversed this decline and I mined ore for steel (exported) and the game was won with time to spare.
The second time my discoveries included a golf course and the Dr Turnip landing
site both of which reduce the productivity of the villages whilst affecting happpiness
(the UFO reduces village and increases city). The other significant discovery was a pile
of pixels 'SimIsle II - The Next Plantation' which increased tourist happiness to
100% and kept it there. My workforce became limited to those present initially 20
unskilled (+10 mining coal) and 6 skilled. The skilled produced oil for export, heavy
industry was built to produce (and buy) heavy machinery, some of which was used to change
over the cities from coal to wind power freeing up more workers. Main cash export was
steel ( 10 doubled ore miners, 18 steel plant workers, 2 in heavy industry) and oil ( 5
skilled oil for export and my first rig reduced to 1 worker for the home market). The
cites were producing a small but steady income due to the high happiness, but the bulk of
the economy was tourism. Small Hotels and beach resorts were the order of the day
eventaully producing upwards of 5000/month income at which point there was no doubt of
winning.
Anyone with other general points or 'Tales from the Jungle' i.e how they won a scenario
are welcome :- feel free to contribute.
Labour costs are unskilled 1EMU/worker/day
skilled 2EMU/worker/day
Labour that is not being used does not cost in wages
Within villages the mechanics of the batch train are that the vilage is run through five
succesive train cycles, but if the efficency of the village is higher than the skill of
the ecologist then only one point is added. ergo it is beneficial to have as high a skill
level as possible for the ecologist.
Money earnt form exporting everything is dependant upon the level of world opinion. All export revenues quoted later are from a very popular island that was used as a test bed. Further information about the way that the prices vary will hopefully be included in the next revision.
Industires will search for upto 25 grid squares (including diagonal) for materials that
are needed except for oil and minerals (ore) where the distance is 100 grid squares.
Warehouses look a much longer distance (not exactly known yet) for both accepting and
distributing all the items.
Whilst not being an industry per se this seems to be the best section for it to
fit into. The 'range' of an explorer starts off at 5 squares from the point he/she is sent
to each train then adds a single square to this range. Discoveries and Effects
Pot of Cash Money :-) Hidden Village A new village Rare Animal Game Park can be built Burial Cave Tourist Attraction Ancient City Tourist Attraction Ancient Temple Tourist Attraction Ancient Fort Earn double for exported wood Crashed UFO Earn Double for all exported cars Golf Course Village Happiness + Food Production - UFO - Doctor Turnip City Happiness + Food Production - Captain Sprout Secret Agent (99 for everything) Also eliminates effects of Dr.Turnip Hidden pit with Tourism + ) Healing Properties ) These may increase ) -- tourist happiness Pile of:- ) to 100% Oldcastle Brown Tourism + ) Ale Bottles Pixels :- Tourist happiness 100% :-)) SimIsle 2
There is a large degree of randomness to the discoveries available within each
scenario, however the very last item generated each time is 'converted' to being Captain
Sprout. If you have not found him then the island is not completely explored. Back to Industries List
Tourism is a very useful industry to build up in many scenarios, as it uses no labour (except the game park) and it has only minimal pollution (that from the vehicles).
Tourists seacrh 25 squares from the point of entry for a hotel room and then 25 squares from the hotel for attractions, they do tend to prefer to go to nearer attrcations, though a particularly high excitement will draw them further afield. What is the downside then, and in a nutshell it is cost. Tourists are demanding souls requiring places to stay and excitment, the way that the industry starts from scratch is an initial pulse of tourists whom you MUST have the space to accomodate, then a fall off and if they are happy enough a subsequent climb.
Small caravan parks are the best way to deal with the inital pulse, as when the fall off occurs hopefully they will still draw in enough people to remain open. A large hotel even with a 20 rating can close down in this second stage as I have found often to my cost. :-(
However there still is a need ,if the third stage of climbing is to occur ,for the
tourists to be happy. The necessary investment in the industry, once there are enough
rooms for all, needs to be in attractions. In particular beach attractions are both
popular and profitable,as well as being free to set up, as many of the simtourists are
actually simsunseekers.
One plan is to make the beach resorts big enough to cope with the daily demand and then focus on one or two for a major investment. Build up a stock of materials (wood) and then send your team to the resort. The team needs Construction, Local Ecology and Local Culture to allow both resort extension and excitement increase. The trick then is to juggle an increase in excitment and the size of the resort such that it is being fully utilised at the peak of the day ,with few or no spare spaces. A useful rule of thumb seems to be having the size at twice the excitment.
A size 40 excitment 20 beach resort that is regularly full brings in money hand over fist due to the number of visitors, the same sims leave and come back several times during their stay, each time giving you some profit.
Once the resorts are working well then comes the time to invest in the quality of the hotels, whilst keeping them as small as possible to cope with peak demand to minimise the risk of closures. If rivals have hotels of high quality and size it is a better investment to focus on attractions still at this stage, until the funds are available for a major blitz on hotel quality to 'steal' , or rather intice away;-) , the rivals clients.
For points of entry into the tourist paradise, ferry ports seem to be the preferable
option, small airports create rival hotels and attractions and do not seem to bring in the
same number of tourists.
There have been reports on the net of tourists just not visiting attractions and I have
now seen a game where this has happened. Despite being fairly exciting (10) and with space
to spare (size 17), and having the necessary road connections, no-one visited an
attraction over the course of three game years. In this case I had discovered the 'Pile
of Pixels: SimIsle II' which may or may not have had any bearing. Competitor
attractions also had no visitors at all.
Costs at Hotels
Improvements 100 (Local Culture+50 wood) Extend 125 (Construction +75 wood) Deconstruct 700 (Construction)
Tourist Attractions/ Beach
Incr. Excitement 50 (Local Culture + Local Ecology + 50 wood) Extend 200 (Construction + 100 wood) Deconstruct 700 (Construction)
Burial Caves
Incr. Excitment 150 (Construction + 100 wood) Extend 50 (Construction + 300 wood)
Back to Industries List
When posting my tables of manufacturing costs to the Usenet some ideas on forestry
which included were only partially right. The forestry industry like all industries works
on the system of 'cells' of approximately the same size as those for oil/ore etc.
Within the cell there is no advantage to having more than one logging camp which when considered with the pollution from the log trucks is another reason to keep them fairly well seperated. Use of the method noted in the cheats section to build logging camps in deep jungle is particularly useful here.
The type of forestry affects the damage to the ecology of the cell, slash and burn removes all the trees, sustainable 'harvests' every other gid square with the cell and the trees grow back the quickest. In addition the ratio of wood to wood waste is the opposite of this, sustainable produces relatively more wood, slash and burn produces more wood waste. The amount of trees usefully harvested depends upon the method of forestry. In an experiment on a known cell, slash and burn harvested only about 100 trees in clearing the cell, whilst both sustainable and non-sustainable harvested over 2000 (exact numbers were not recorded)
'Trees' from camps doing different methods are not necessarily the same. One possible
trick that occurs is to build up a large stock at a non-sustainable camp then convert it
to slash and burn to see if this then leads to an increase in the production of woodwaste.
Labour and Costs Slash and Burn 5/tree/day Non-sustainable 1/tree/day Sustainable 2/tree/day Produces Wood Wood Waste Slash and Burn 0.85/tree 2.35/tree Non-sustainable 0.85/tree 1.1/tree Sustainable 0.4/tree 0.1/tree
The profitablity of forestry is due to the use of the wood waste, as wood sells for
1/unit. The best return therefore is -0.15EMU/worker/day (non-sustainable), however there
is a saving in non-sustainable (only) when compared to the costs of importing wood.
Costs at camp Change to Slash+burn 50 (Flora+Forestry) Non-sustainable 150 (Flora+Forestry) Sustainable 200 (Flora+Forestry) Hire Labour 40 (Employment) Fire Labour 10 (Employment + Negotiation) Deconstruct 700 (Construction) Costs at Sawmill Export/Internal 0 (Negotiation) Import Materials (100 wood) 200 (Negotiation) Deconstruct 700 (Construction)
Back to Industries List
There are two useful ways of sending construction agent onto the oil field (or any other
mineral resource)
1) Give a move order directly on the 2D map
2) Right click on the resource on the 2D map which autocentres the isometric map on the
resource and then send the agent to the centre of the display
Oil Rigs produce :
Exporting Oil earns 9EMU/unit
Profits from exporting oil are therefore
At a Chemical Plant
Costs at Oil Rig Normal/Double 0 (Industry) Hire Worker 40 (Employment) Fire Worker 20 (Employment+Negotiation) Extra Tanker 700 (Construction) Deconstruct 1000 (Construction) Oil Pump Station Import/Export 0 (Negotiation) Buy Oil 900/50 (Negotiation) Deconstruct 700 (Construction) Chemical Plant Switch Jobs 150 (Industry) Hire Worker 80 (Employment) Fire Worker 20 (Employment+Negotiation) Deconstruct 700 (Constuction)
Back to Industries List
Coal mines produce
Power Stations need, at 0 degradation, 1 coal/1000 city population
Wind Farms require 1 Windmill/1000 city population
Nuclear plants require 1 Uranium/ 1000 city population
Exporting coal earns 1EMU/unit
Profit from exports are therefore
Costs at Mine Export/Internal use 0 (Negotiation) Normal/Double 0 (Industry) Hire Labour 80 (Employment) Fire Labour 20 (Employment+Negotiation) Deconstruct 700 (Construction) Costs at Power Stations Deconstruct Power Station 900 (Construction) Add Uranium 100 (Construction) Deconstruct Nuclear Power 20000 (Construction) Add Windmill to Wind Farm 800 (Construction + 200 wood) Deconstruct Wind farm 900 (Construction)
Back to Industries List
Ore mines produce as coal
Steel mills convert 1 ore to steel/unskilled/day
Exporting ore earns 1EMU/unit therefore profits are as coal
Exporting steel earns 5/unit
Therefore maximum profits are
Transport costs between ore mine and steel mill and any idle time at the steel mill will reduce these profits from the maximum.
Costs at ore mine are as at coal mine
Costs at steel mill Hire Worker 40 (Employment) Fire worker 10 (Employment+Negotiation) Deconstruct 700 (Construction)
Back to Industries List
Heavy Industry can be used to produce heavy machinery or cheap cars
Requirements are :
Total Labour costs for
Heavy Machinery (assuming extraction is doubled) 35 skilled days for oil 70 50 unskilled days for ore 50 50 unskilled days to produce 50 TOTAL 170 EMU Assuming 100% efficency at plant at 75% costs become 186.67 EMU 50% 220 EMU 25% 320 EMU
Industries may go on strike at low efficencies. The assuption of efficency was to
account for the proportion of time that the workers were standing idle waiting for item X
needed to continue production. Happiness of the cities may contribute as well.
Importing machinery costs 6000/10 i.e. 600EMU per unit so production is cheaper than
importing
Selling machinery produces 300EMU/unit a profit of 130 EMU at 100% efficency, becoming a
loss of 20EMU/unit at 25% efficency
However for a true comparison the loss of income from the oil and the ore needs to be
taken into account
Therefore exporting machinery results in a net loss, when compared to exporting the raw materials, of 290/unit. (Deliberate design policy within the game)
Cheap Cars (assuming non-sustainable forestry) 437.5 skilled days for oil 875 EMU 50 unskilled days for ore 50 30 unskilled days for ore - steel 30 198 unskilled days for wood/woodwaste 198 437.5 skilled days for plastic 875 ?? skilled days for cheap manu goods ?? ??? unskilled days for production ??? TOTAL 2028 ++
Importing cheap cars costs 40000\10 i.e 4000\unit therefore it seems that production
will be cheaper than importing.
The oil alone would sell for 7875EMU, compared to the export of the car at 2000EMU/unit,
so production of cars for export produces a net loss to the economy
Cheap cars made at a hi-tech plant do, I have been assured make a profit, the calculations will follow in the appropriate section when done.
Costs at Heavy Industry Change Job 50 (Industry) Hire Unskilled 150 (Employment) Fire Unskilled 250 (Employment+Negotiation) Import Heavy Machinery 6000/10 (Negotiation) Import Cheap Cars 40000/10 (Negotiation) Deconstruct 700 (Construction)
Back to Industries List
A detailed study of the manufacturing processes at these is yet to be done Costs Change Job 50 (Industry) Hire 150 (Employment) Fire 250 (Employment+Negotiation) Deconstruct 700 (Construction) Import Cost per 10 (All Negotiation) Cheap Cars 40000 Cheap Furniture 2000 Cheap Consumer Goods 4000 Cheap Manu. Goods 4800 Quality Cars 80000 Quality Furniture 9000 Quality Consumer Goods 20000 Quality Manu. Goods 4800
Back to Industries List
Manufacturing Requirements Type Oil Plastic Ore Steel Wood W.Waste Ch MG Q MG H Mach 70 100 Ch CG 18 8 Ch Furn 20 4 Ch MG 8 8 4 Ch Cars 1 4 70 20 12 Ch Cars 2 7 30 21 Q CG 6 2 Q Furn 20 4 Q MG 6 12 30 Q Cars 6 50 12 8 Cheap Cars 1 in Hi-tech 2 in Heavy Industry Raw Material Requirements 1 ore to 1 Steel 5 oil to 1 Plastic Type Oil Ore Wood W.Waste H Mach 70 100 Ch CG 90 8 Ch Furn 20 4 Ch MG 40 8 4 Ch Cars 1 500 20 96 48 Ch Cars 2 875 100 168 84 Q CG 90 24 60 Q Furn 20 4 Q MG 30 12 30 Purchase Costs Wood 200/100 (2/unit) Oil 900/50 (18/unit) Heavy Machinery 6000/10 Cheap Cars 40000/10 Cheap Furniture 2000/10 Cheap Consumer Goods 4000/10 Cheap Manu. Goods 4800/10 Quality Cars 80000/10 Quality Furniture 9000/10 Quality Consumer Goods 20000/10 Quality Manu. Goods 4800/10 Selling Price Profit Normal Doubled Wood 1 NA Coal/Ore 1 0 0.5 Steel 5 3 3.5 Oil 9 7 16 Others 50% purchase price
Scenario H Mach Wood UnSk Sk Cash(x1000) Buy Out 13 1000 20 6 20 Big Ideas 0 2000 60 0 20 Megatropolis 0 1000 0 6 20 Money Spinner 10 1000 0 0 20 Motor City 80 300 15 12 25 Tourist Haven 25 1000 20 0 20 Industrialisation 0 100 5 12 50 Drug it up 10 100 25 24 50 Happy Tourist 0 1000 15 0 20 Tourism 0 1000 50 4 40 The Development State 8 1000 0 0 10 * Ripe for Tourists 8 1000 20 16 50 Deforestation 50 1000 20 4 25 Underdev. Villages 50 1000 15 8 35 Mystic Lines 0 1000 25 12 30 City Blues 0 2500 50 16 25 Bigger + Brighter 50 1000 0 0 35 Up for Sale 8 0 12 10 15 Good ol' Boys 8 0 25 10 40 Baby Boom 50 1000 14 18 25 Goods a Gogo 50 1000 4 0 35 Land Romp 50 1000 50 10 40 Pollution City 50 760 50 32 35
* In the Development State you begin with only one agent - Cap'n Sprout Back to Industries List Back to document top Any suggestions revisions corrections or additions should be sent to meRJAbbott@its.dundee.ac.uk
Accreditation will be given to any submissions.