Copyright: Mega Metro Copyright® 1995 CDR Publishing


INTRO
Mega Metro's SimCity 2000 Tips

This file list is all the known tips and cheats collected and distributed by CDR Publishing, However CDR publishing does not claim any legal rights to the materials contained herein.

 General Information

 Building Tips, Advice, Etc.

 Cheat codes, Easter Eggs, Etc.


GENERALINFO
General Information

 Coal Power

 Hydro Electric

 Oil Power

 Gas Power

 Nuclear Power

 Wind Power

 Solar Power

 Microwave Reciever Dish

 Fusion Power

 Plymouth Arco

 Forest Arco

 DARCO

 Launch Arcos

 Bulldozer

 Landscape

 Dispatch

 Power

 Water

 City Bonus

 Roads

 Tunnel

 Onramp

 Bus Depot

 Rail

 Subway

 Rail Depot

 Sub Station

 Sub<--->Rail

 Ports

 Aiport

 Residential Zoning

 Commercial Zoning

 Industrial Zoning

 Education Zones

 Health and Safety Zones

 Fire Station

 Recreation Zones

 Sign Posts

 Stadium

 Marina

 Query Tool

 Center Display

 Zoom Out

 Zoom In


COAL
COAL POWER - Coal plants generate large amounts of vile black smoke
that will cover your buildings in soot.  Your citizens may start complaining
when they have to repaint their buildings every two years.


HYDROELECTRIC
HYDRO ELECTRIC - Water generators are very clean and efficient, but require a large investment of capital.  They require only minimal maintenance.


OILPOWER
OIL POWER - The use of oil power fluctuates with the cost of petroleum.
It is marginally cleaner than coal power.


GASPOWER
GAS POWER - natural gas is much cleaner than coal, but very expensive.
Many cities save their gas plants for reserve power due to their
cost.


NUCLEARPOWER
NUCLEAR POWER - Nuclear power is clean, efficient and relatively cheap.
Unfortunately, there is always the risk of a deadly meltdown.


WINDPOWER
WIND POWER - very clean and relatively reliable, wind power is less
cost-effective than solar power.


SOLAR POWER
SOLAR POWER - solar power is clean and
cheap but unreliable.  Cloudy seasons will leave your citizens shivering
without light.


MICROWAVERECIEVER
MICROWAVE RECEIVER DISH - Launch a satellite to collect solar power, then beam it down to Earth. Microwave power is very efficient, clean and reliable. Unfortunately, the effects of a mis-targeted beam are as yet unknown.


FUSIONPOWER
FUSION POWER - Fusion energy is clean, reliable, efficient, and expensive. Accidents may destroy the plant but will not spread radioactive havoc.


PLYMOUTHARCO
PLYMOUTH ARCO - The Plymouth Arco is 'Solid as a Rock', or so claims
Plymouth Arcologies, Inc. It is known that they have stood through several
earthquakes, notably in the NeoRepublic of Mexico and the Taiwan CoProsperity
Region.  Plymouth Arcologies are designed primarily to support heavy
industries, as witness Greenland Motors, maker of the Narwhal 3000.
This might not be such a good choice if you are overly concerned about
pollution. Plymouth Arcos cost $100,000 and can attract up to 55,000
residents.


FORESTARCO
FOREST ARCO - The Forest Arcology is named for its attractive forest
setting on the top level.  Throughout the structure, citizens utilize
recycling, operate ecologically sound industries, and maintain a rich verbal
heritage that replaces television and radio.  Unfortunately, the youth of
Forest Arcos are bored silly and roam out into your city where they stare
mindlessly at soap operas and sports programs displayed in the electronics, department at local malls.Building a Forest Arcology costs $120,000 and may attreact up to 30,000 people.


DARCO
DARCO - 'Darco' is slang for 'De-Urbanized Arcological Construct'.
Originally designed by the twisted genius of Dante McCallavre, the
artist/architect proclaimed it a reactionary response to the rigid,
archetypal Arcologies of his day.  No one really knows what this means,
and many engineers are frankly baffled at how the thing stays standing.
Inside, the ill-lit corridors twist into odd, meandering corkscrews that
mysteriously turn back on themselves.  There are rumors that a strange
sub-species of man inhabits the air ducts.Darcos cost $150,000 and can
attract up to 45,000 brave souls.


LAUNCHARCOS
LAUNCH ARCOS - 'Launch' Arcologies were nicknamed for their resemblance to modern orbital launchers.  The resemblance is not entirely coincidental, as sophisticated methods of biological support were necessary to oxygenate and feed the thousands of inhabitants. While never tested, the manufacturers claim the occupants could stay self-contained for up to two decades. The sides of the Arcology are equipped with vernier jets to stabilize the structure during storms and earthquakes.  A small nuclear facility independently powers the building; spare energy is stored by electrolyzing water into two tanks for oxygen and hydrogen.The 'Launch Arco' is the largest, costing $200,000 and holding 65,000 inhabitants.  Build enough of these and you may discover the final secret of SimEarth.


BULLDOZER
BULLDOZER Demolish/Clear - This will destroy buildings, roads, trees, and decorative water, and will remove rubble.Level Terrain - This tool will
level terrain to the same altitude as the first location you click on.
It will also clear terrain by removing trees, roads, powerlines,
and buildings.Raise Terrain - This raises the terrain.Lower Terrain- This
lowers the terrain.De-zone - This will remove the zone from an area.


LANDSCAPE
LANDSCAPE Trees - This tool adds trees to the terrain.Water - This will put down small streams and decorative ponds.  It can be used to create waterfalls for the Hydro electric power plant.


DISPATCH
DISPATCH This tool is only available during emergencies.  It allows you to
direct your police and firefighters to suppress problems.Dispatch Police -
Police are useful for suppressing riots and resisting floods. Dispatch
Firefighters- Firefighters suppress fire and resist floods and toxic clouds.
Dispatch Military - Military units may be available to your city after
the military has constructed a base. Military units are highly trained
and are effective against a variety of disasters.


POWER
POWER Power Lines - Build these from your power plants to your
zoned areas so they can start to build. These can cross roads and rails
only at right angles. There is a slight transmission loss of power through
these lines, so try to minimize the distance they have to traverse.
Power Plants - This will bring up a list of the currently available power
plants that you may build. This list will grow as time passes and technology progresses.


WATER
WATER Pipes - These transmit water and carry away sewage.
You need powered water pumps to generate water.Water Pump - Powered pumpswill generate water for your city.  The amount they produce is increased by placing them next to standing water.  It also has a seasonal variance depending on rainfall. Water Tower - Water towers store water to combat seasonal variation.Treatment - Adding a treatment plant reduces your city-wide pollution levels.Desalinization - Water pumps will not pump
sea water.  A desalinization plant will take sea water and produce pure
water for your city.


CITYBONUS
CITY BONUS - As your city grows in size, the city council will vote to
reward you.Mayor's House - You will be given a residence at 2000 population. City Hall - The council will vote to build a City Hall at 10000 population. Statue - This will occur after the City Hall, but before Arcologies or the other rewards.


ROADS
ROADS - This is your primary method of transport.  Roads connect zones,
allowing them to grow.Highway - Highways are faster and more efficient than roads. Commuters will move from road to onramps, then to highways, back to onramps, then on to roads again.  Without the roads and on-ramps, highway are useless.


TUNNEL
TUNNEL - Tunnels dig through a mountain rather than going over it.
One advantage to tunnels is that zones can be built over tunneled areas,
improving land usage.


ONRAMP
ONRAMP - These are necessary for highways to function.  They can only be placed at a highway/road juncture.


BUSDEPOT
BUS DEPOT - Depots provide rapid, low traffic transport. Up to half of
your city's commuters will use these depots if they are well placed.


RAIL
RAIL - This transport method is efficient and traffic free.  You must
carefully place your rail depots, or else the rail will go unused.


SUBWAY
SUBWAY - These are underground railways.  They operate like rail, except
that subways need subway stations to operate.


RAILDEPOT
RAIL DEPOT - This is where commuters enter and exit the rail system.


SUBSTATION
SUB STATION - This is where commuters enter and exit the subway system.


SUBTORAIL
SUB<-->RAIL - This allows you to connect your above-ground rail with your
below-ground subway. You must place this next to an existing rail line.


PORTS
PORTS Seaport - This provides vital external transport for your city's
industries.  It will not be necessary until your city hits 10,000
people or so.


AIRPORT
AIRPORT - This provides inter-city transport for your city's commerce.
It will not be needed until your city hits 15,000 people or so.


RESIDENTIALZONING
RESIDENTIAL ZONING - Residential zones are where the people live.
Low density zoning will only allow single family homes in an area.
High density zoning will allow homes as well as high-rise apartments
and condominiums.


COMMERCIALZONING
COMMERCIAL ZONING - Commercial areas provide services to your local
population.  This includes grocery stores, motels, entertainment,
maintenance and more.  High density zoning includes banking, real estate,
and financial services.


INDUSTRIALZONING
INDUSTRIAL ZONING - Industry is the backbone of your city.
Initially, new residents are moving in to work with your industry.
Meanwhile, industry is growing to meet external demands.


EDUCATIONZONES
EDUCATION ZONES - These special zones increase the 'EQ' or education
quotient of your residents over time. The EQ of your city will influence
many factors including crime, productivity, and which industries prosper.
Each type of zone affects different age groups and has a maintenance cost
associated with it.School - This represents primary and secondary education (from kindergarden to 12th grade). This will increase the EQ of the 5- to 20-year olds in your city. Of all education zones, these should be
the most numerous in your city.College - This represents higher education-
universities, junior colleges and vocational schools. This zone increases
the EQ of the 15- to 25-year-olds primarily, and the older residents as well,
though to a lesser degree.Library - This increases the EQ for all ages but to a lesser degree than the schools and colleges.Museum - Like the library this zone increases the EQ for all ages. But the effect is more and so is the cost.


HEALTHANDSAFETY
HEALTH AND SAFETY ZONES - These zones include essential city services to protect your residents.Police - Police stations help manage the crime in your city.


FIRESTATION
FIRE STATION - Fire stations attempt to prevent and extinguish any fire
s in your city. They also help during any sort of emergency.Hospital -
This will have an beneficial effect on the health of your citizens.Prison -
This will improve police performance if there is a lot of crime in your city.


RECREATIONZONES
RECREATION ZONES - These special zones have a positive effect on residential growth and generally make your city a nicer place to live.Parks - Small and big parks both have a positive effect on local land values.Zoo - Zoos improve your city's desirability for residents, and improves its tourist
value.


Sign Posts

PLACE SIGN - This tool is used to place signs (labels) in your city. To use it just click on the city location where you want it placed and then enter the text for it. These can be used to name streets, subdivisions, lakes, etc. Or you may use this for jotting down notes to yourself about future plans for each area. These signs can be toggled on and off with the layer control button near the bottom of the City toolbar. To erase a sign, click on the base with the sign tool to open the record, then hit the delete key.


STADIUM
STADIUM - Your citizens are more enthusiastic and loyal if they have a local team to rally behind.


MARINA
MARINA - These can only be placed down by the water.


QUERYTOOL
QUERY TOOL - This tool will give you detailed information on anything in
your city.  Most areas only tell you about land value, local traffic,
power and water supply.  Special buildings such as fire departments, zoos,
museums, et al., will have a specific micro-simulation you can examine.


CENTERDISPLAY
CENTER DISPLAY - This is the centering tool. It is used to scroll around
your city. When you click in the window the scene will re-center on the place you clicked. If you click near the center of the window and hold the mouse button down, you can then smoothly scroll around by moving the mouse to adjust direction and speed.


ZOOMOUT
ZOOM OUT - There are three scales your city can be viewed at.  This button allows you to increase the scale of your display.  The tiles grow smaller and the area displayed grows.


ZOOMIN
ZOOM IN - Ther


BUILDINGTIPSADVICEETC
Building Tips, Advice, Etc.

 General Advice

 General Advice 2

 Building Tips

 What is the Church Virus?

 How to read the credits and see the joke.

 How to get the kind monster.

 Do Launch Arcos really launch?

 How to convert IBM to MAC and Vice Versa.

 The names of all the possible items and objects.

 Everything you ever wanted to know about population.

 Some SimPhilosophy.

 Find Your Skill Level.

 How to Trap an Airplane with Arcologies.

 Differences between versions.

 How to build a girder bridge.

 Do Highways really need On-ramps?

 Q And A by Club Illusion


General Advice

ClubOpolis: SimCity 2000 Advice

Twenty SimCity 2000 Tips from Jamingnic@aol.com

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Do not make zones too far from roads and powerlines.
Water is not nescessary, but if you want a dense population it is essential.
Do not use solar, hydroelectric, or wind power plants as your main source of energy.
When your population gets over 50,000 make highways.
A highway is useless without an onramp.
Alwars make connections to your nieghbors.
Arcologies bring in a lot of crime.
You only need a few fire stations if you put it on no disasters.
Build lots of schools near resedential areas to help keep crime down.
Use some form of public transit like busses, subways, or rairoads to keep pollution down.
Once you have enough money lower taxes to help the population grow.
Promotional ordinances help bring people to town.
Once you have enough money by a fusion power plant if they are invented.
Your zoning should consist of 1\2 residential, 1\4 industrial and commercial.
Read the newspapers regularly.
In areas with high crime build lots of parks.
Whenever one of the gifts become available build it, it's free and it helps the city.
Build an airport to make even more sims move in your city.
When zoning, use dense for more population but more pollution or light for less of both.
To avoid airplane crashes do not put tall buildings near the airport.

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General Advice 2

ClubOpolis: SimCity 2000 Advice

Twenty SimCity 2000 Tips from Jamingnic@aol.com

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Do not make zones too far from roads and powerlines.
Water is not nescessary, but if you want a dense population it is essential.
Do not use solar, hydroelectric, or wind power plants as your main source of energy.
When your population gets over 50,000 make highways.
A highway is useless without an onramp.
Alwars make connections to your nieghbors.
Arcologies bring in a lot of crime.
You only need a few fire stations if you put it on no disasters.
Build lots of schools near resedential areas to help keep crime down.
Use some form of public transit like busses, subways, or rairoads to keep pollution down.
Once you have enough money lower taxes to help the population grow.
Promotional ordinances help bring people to town.
Once you have enough money by a fusion power plant if they are invented.
Your zoning should consist of 1\2 residential, 1\4 industrial and commercial.
Read the newspapers regularly.
In areas with high crime build lots of parks.
Whenever one of the gifts become available build it, it's free and it helps the city.
Build an airport to make even more sims move in your city.
When zoning, use dense for more population but more pollution or light for less of both.
To avoid airplane crashes do not put tall buildings near the airport.

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Building Tips

SC2K BUILDING TIPS AND TECHNIQUES

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.

SEAPORTS
Have your SimCitizens demanded a seaport, you built one, it fills up with just warehouses and the Sims are still demanding a seaport? 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.

MAGIC ERASER
One of the undocumented features of Sim City 2000 is the ability to "erase" a structure that you have built and then be able to re-use that land space while still retaining the population values from the original structure.  I have been able to use this technique to "erase" 140 Launch Arcos and rebuild over the reclaimed land space.  When to use the query tool, the sim still tells you it "sees" an arco.  Here's how you do it:

Make a backup copy of your city in case you mess up
Click on the water/tree icon
Select trees
Hold down the shift key and the left mouse button
Slowly drag the mouse cursor over the tiles you want to erase while continuing to hold down the shift key and depressing the mouse button.  You will see your structures "disappear".
Make frequent use of the rotate view tool to make sure you only erase the tiles you have selected
If you release the shift key or mouse button by mistake, go back to step 2 and start over

BUILDING TIPS FOR LARGE POPULATIONS

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.


CHURCHVIRUS
The Church Virus

ClubOpolis: The Church Virus

The Church Virus

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Question:What is the Church-Virus?

Answer:It's when most of the buildings in your residential zones start turning into churches.

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Question:How do I get it?

Answer:If you type darn, heck or damn too many times.

Note: Since the codes "darn, heck and damn" only have an effect in SimCity 2000 for Dos,
you can only get the church virus from using SimCity 2000 for Dos.</I>

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Question:How do I get rid of it?

Answer:

 pause and save your city
 completely exit SimCity 2000
 restart SimCity 2000
 load your city

You have now rid yourself of the Church-Virus. Just bulldoze all of the churches in pause-mode.
Since the church de-zones the tiles it appears on, re-zone those tiles.
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Credits and Joke

ClubOpolis: Credits and Joke

Credits and Joke

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How to see the Credits and a Joke

Click on About in the File menu to view the credits.
If you have SimCity 2000 for Dos, you can read a joke about three strings at the end of the credits.

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KINDMONSTER
The Kind Monster

ClubOpolis: The Kind Monster

The Kind Monster

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About the Kind Monster:

Usually when the monster attacks your city, he leaves a trail of flaming destruction. Once in awhile the monster is nice and decides to leave a path of trees, water or wind-mills.
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How to get a Kind Monster:

Load up a city and select Monster from the disaster window and wait.
If the monster is nice, great.  If not, try again.  After a few attempts, you should have a kind monster.
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LAUNCHARCOSLAUNCH
Do Launch Arcos Launch?

ClubOpolis: Do Launch Arco really launch?

Do Launch Arcos really launch?
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Question:Does the Launch Arco get launched into the space?
According to the book Simcity 2000 Power, Politics and Planning,
the Launch Arco does not get launched into the space.
Can someone please clarify this for me?"

Answer by Jerry Moore (Geraldalan@aol.com):
While trying to squeeze a few more Sims into my largest city, I tried
using the magic eraser trick to "rub" out all  the arcologies, rezone the
space, and see if I could add more Residential and Commercial zones while retaining the arco population.  Everything seemed to be working, I could no longer see the arcos, my population was still over 9.3 million and growing. Then I get a message on the screen that says "The exodus has begun!".

I click on this window and shortly thereafter another window pops up with a
message that says "Your launch arcos have departed into space to found
new worlds. You have been compensated for their construction."

Since I've erased the arcos I can't see any change, but then my available
funds go "UP" by 14 million dollars. I guess I was compensated. Boy I love
this game; always new surprises.

On another Windows city, I was able to see all of the arcos launch into
space. The don't really take off, it's just as if you hit them with the
bulldozer tool and they disintegrate.

The sim seems to remember the sequence
in which the arcos were placed since they start to launch in this same
sequence.  As best as I can figure out, the arcos launch in DOS version 1.1 and Windows. They do not launch in DOS versions 1.0 and 1.01.

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Converting Files

This describes how to convert SimCity 2000 files:

  1. from IBM to Mac
  2. from Mac to IBM

************************************************************
                    IBM -> MAC
************************************************************

1. Copy file to disk
2. Eject disk
3. Start up whatever MS-DOS transfer utility you have.
   (Apple File Exhange will work)
4. Insert the disk containing the city
5. Copy or transfer the file to your SimCity folder
6. Start the ResEdit program on your Mac
7. Pull down the File menu in ResEdit and select the Open Command
8. Open the city file by clicking on it's name in the Open File dialog box
9. You will get the message "The file 'MyCity.sc2' has no resource fork.
   Opening it will add one.  Do you wish to open it?"
   Click the OK button.
10. Pull down the File menu and select Get Info for MyCity.sc2
11. In the Get Info dialog box that next appears, type in CITY for the
    Type and SCDH for the Creator.
12. Pull down the File menu and select Close
13. The next dialog box will ask "Save MyCity.sc2 before closing?'
    Click Yes.
14. Exit ResEdit
15. Start SimCity 2000 for the Mac and Load the city.  It should work.

You can use other IBM-to-MAC utilities.
FileBuddy is Public-Domain ShareWare and is described below:

Drag the PC City file onto FileBuddy.
It'll launch with the PC city file open.
Pull down the File menu and select Info.
Set the Type to CITY and the Creator to SCDH, then save.
It will write over the PC city file with a Mac version.

************************************************************
                    MAC -> IBM
************************************************************

1. Copy the city file to a DOS disk using the Apple File Exchange Utility
   or some other DOS file exhange program that allows you to read
   MS-DOS disks on the Mac.
2. Rename the file with a name that can include up to 8 characters
   followed by a period and the characters SC2 (for example MYCITY.SC2).
   No spaces area allowed between characters.
3. Once you have copied the file to an MS-DOS diskette, you can now
   carry it over to your IBM, insert the disk and copy the file to your
   SimCity sub-directory.
4. Start SimCity 2000 for the IBM and Load the city.  It should work.

HOW TO import an IBM SC2 file into a Mac using FileBuddy.
FileBuddy is public-domain shareware.


NAMESOFSTUFF
Names of Everything

Names of objects:
Extracted from SimCity 2000 for Windows SC2000W.WAD file Using TEXTGET.EXE.

Names of Neighbors:

Oak Creek	   Denmont	   Fort Verdegris	Schwinton
Mill Valley	   Petaluma	   PortVille	Ashland
Eubanks 	   Aurac	   Tent Pegs	Cherryton
Blake	   Pioneers	   Fortune	Phippsville
Jeromi	   Harpersville    Washers Grove	Stars County
Villa	   Serviland	   Newton	Avon
Dexter	   Sinistrel	   Jenna	Yestonia
New Boots	   Hoek Creek	   Stimpleton	Little Rouge
Krighton	   Cats Corner	   Rimmer	Lister

Names of Industries:

Howard Industries  Genenco	   Boxacon	Texxon
Roxie Enterprises  Cypress Industrial	   Slash & Bournes	Max Products
Wonderco	   Katzenjammers

Names of objects:

Rubble
Radioactive
waste
Park
Railway
Tunnel entrance
Suspension bridge
Bridge
Highway entrance
Highway bridge
Subway to Rail
Lower-class homes
Middle-class homes
Luxury homes
Gas station
Bed & Breakfast
Inn
Convenience store
Small office building
Office building
Warehouse
Cassidy's Toy Store
Chemical storage
Industrial substation
Construction
Abandoned building
Cheap apartments
Apartments
Nice apartments
Condominium
Shopping center
Grocery store
Resort hotel
Office / Retail
Chemical processing Factory
Large apartment building
Office park
Office tower
Mini-mall
Theatre Square
Drive-in
theater
Parking lot
Historic office building
Corporate headquarters
Large factory
Industrial thingamajig
Large warehouse
Hydroelectric power
Wind power
Natural gas
power plant
Oil power plant
Nuclear power plant
Solar power plant
Microwave power receiver
Fusion power plant
Coal power plant
Police station
Fire station
Water pump
Runway
Pier
Crane
Control tower
BuildingTarmac
F-15b
Hanger
Subway station
Radar
Water tower
Bus station
Rail station
Loading bay
Top secret
Cargo yard
man
Water treatment plant
Hangar
Church
Missle silo
Desalinization plant
Plymouth Arcology
Forest Arcology
Darco Arcology
Launch Arcology
Braun Llama-dome
Subway entrance
Clear terrain
Fresh water
Salt water
First Light (Capt J.Scirica)
Residential
Commercial
Industrial
Military


WONDERPOPULATION
The Wonders of Population

ClubOpolis: Population

Everything you ever wanted to know about Population

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Your population can be determined by examining the Neighbor window. The
Graphs window also gives the population (City Size) but it is rounded to the
nearest 1000th.

If you have Mac 1.1 or Windows 1.0, you can get populations exceeding 10
million.  If you have Mac 1.0, Dos 1.0 or Dos 1.1 you will find it really
hard to approach that 10 million ceiling.

All versions of SimCity 2000 have 150 Microsims.  What is a Microsim? Think
of it as the two words "micro sims" meaning small simulations.  They are
localized simulations that track local statistics.  They are updated once a
year in January and exist for the structures listed below. The
information they keep can be accessed by using the query tool.

 Unique structures like:

 the Mayor's House
 City Hall
 the Statue
 the Llama dome

Each instance of these buildings:

 hospital
 police department
 fire department
 school
 stadium
 prison
 college
 zoo
 treatment plant
 desalinization plant
 arcology
 power plant

There is one microsim for all combined:

 wind turbines
 hydroelectric plants
 bus stations
 rail stations
 subway stations
 parks
 museums
 libraries
 marinas

Examples of info gotten from queries:

 Llama Dome: Weddings, Visitors, Llama Sightings, Complaints, Bungee Jumps
 Arcology: Design Capacity, Residents, Built in, Conditions
 Stadium: Capacity, Attendance, Local Team, WLT Record
 Power Plant: Max Output, Running capacity, Age
 City Hall: analysis includes Acres and % of city for such things as
           Transportation, Power, Water and more.

Once you reach 150 microsims, the next structure you build will not get a
microsim.  You can build the structure and it will have a global effect but
the simulator won't track or display local statistic. Arcologies are the
exception.  If you are out of microsims and you build an Arcology, it will
steal the microsim from the first structure you built.  It won't steal a
microsim from the combo-microsims like hydroelectric power, wind turbines,
subway stations, rail depots, etc. Those 10 are sacred.  That leaves 140 for
the Arcos to steal.  Once all 140 spare microsims have been stolen by the
Arcos, the 141st Arco doesn't get a microsim.

You can tell that a building no longer has a microsim when you query it and
it displays the generic "Altitude, Land Value, Crime, Pollution, Power,
Watered" info.  What you are actually getting is info about that tile you
clicked on.

Another way to tell that a building no longer has a microsim is when you can
no longer rename it.

Why did MAXIS stop at 150 Microsims?  Why not make it have 1000 or 10,000?
Because it would take up too much memory.  MAXIS wanted to have one
simulation model for many different operating systems (Mac, Dos, Windows,
Amiga) as well as many different types of machines (386, 486, Pentium, and
various Mac hardware platforms) and beyond.

The newer versions of SimCity 2000 that allow populations of over 10 million
still have only 150 microsims.  So then how do they get higher populations?
Every Arcology beyond 140 gets the average population of the first 140
Arcologies.

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
Q.What is the largest population?

A.No one really knows what the highest population is, but mathematically it is
something like 9.72 million. However, using the Magic Eraser, people have been
able to get over 11 million, with a possible of about 15 million.
<!-- ******************************************************************** -->


SimPhilosophy

ClubOpolis: Ruminate

Ruminate:

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
Webster's dictionary defines ruminate as "to go over in the mind repeatedly
and often casually or slowly".

In the Windows version of Sim City 2000 and Mac ver 1.1,
select the query tool and click on one of your libraries and a window will
pop up with statistics.  At the bottom of this window you will see a button
labeled RUMINATE. Click on that and you will see the following essay on cities.

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
Cities are not people. But, like people, cities have their own personalities:
in some cases one city has many different personalities -- there are a dozen
Londons, a crowd of different New Yorks.

A city is a collection of lives and buildings, and it has identity and
personality. Cities exist in location, and in time.

There are good cities -- the ones that welcome you, that seem to care
about you, that seem pleased you're in them. There are indifferent cities --
the ones that honestly don't care if you're there or not; cities with their
own agendas, the ones that ignore people. There are cities gone bad, and there
are places in otherwise healthy cities as rotten and maggotty as windfall
apples. There are even cities that seem lost -- some, lacking a centre, feel
like they would be happier being elsewhere, somewhere smaller, somewhere easier
to understand.

Some cities spread, like cancers or B-movie slime monsters, devouring all in
their way, absorbing towns and villages, swallowing boroughs and hamlets,
transmuting into boundless conurbations. Other cities shrink -- once
prosperous areas empty and fail: buildings empty, windows are boarded up,
people leave, and sometimes they cannot even tell you why.

Occasionally I idle time away by wondering what cities would be like, were
they people. Manhattan is, in my head, fast-talking, untrusting, well-dressed
but unshaven. London is huge and confused. Paris is elegant and attractive,
older than she looks. San Francisco is crazy, but harmless, and very friendly.

It's a foolish game: cities aren't people.

Cities exist in location, and they exist in time. Cities accumulate their
personalities as time goes by. Manhattan remembers when it was unfashionable
farmland. Athens remembers the days when there were those who considered
themselves Athenians. There are cities that remember being villages. Other
cities -- currently bland, devoid of personality -- are prepared to wait
until they have history. Few cities are proud: they know that it's all too
often a happy accident, a mere geographical fluke that they exist at all --
a wide harbour, a mountain pass, the confluence of two rivers.

At present, cities stay where they are.

For now cities sleep.

But there are rumblings. Things change. And what if, tommorrow cities wake,
and go walking?  If Tokyo engulfed your town? If Vienna came striding over
the hill toword you? If the city you inhabit today just upped and left,
and you woke tommorrow wrapped in a thin blanket on an empty plain, where
Detroit once stood, or Sydney, or Moscow?

Don't ever take a city for granted.

After all, it is bigger than you are; it is older; and it has learned
how to wait...

- Neil Gaiman
<!-- ******************************************************************** -->


SKILLLEVEL
Find Your Skill Level

Questionnaire: What is your skill level?

Description of levels:

Answer the following questions to determine what your skill level is rated:

How many times have you played SimCity 2000?
   Beginner : played around 5 times
   Novice   : played around 20 times
   Average  : played around 50 times
   Expert   : played around 100 times
   Pro      : played so many times I can't keep track anymore

What's the highest population you've reached:
   Beginner : don't know.  How do I find that out?
   Novice   : about 10 thousand, I think.
   Average  : about 100 thousand
   Expert   : about 1 million
   Pro      : about 10 million

What type of power station do you use?
   Beginner : coal
   Novice   : coal, gas, oil and hydro
   Average  : wind, solar, microwave
   Expert   : Fusion, nuclear
   Pro      : It depends on what my goals are

What types of population-rewards have you gotten?
   Beginner : what's a reward?
   Novice   : Mayor's House, City-Hall, Statue
   Average  : Military Base, Braun Llama dome
   Expert   : Arcos
   Pro      : Whatever ...

Beginner - you are new to SimCity 2000.  You have built a few small cities.
           You usually use Coal Power.  You can't seem to get beyond that
           small city.  You keep running out of money and get thrown
           you out of office.
Novice   - You've started to get rewards like a Mayor's House, City Hall and
           a statue.  You've finally started to figured out the Budget
           window and have adjusted taxes to stimulate growth.
Average  - You've gotten a Llama dome and a Military as well as a few
           Arcologies.  You've built air-ports, sea-ports, and have played
           with the Terrain Editor extensively to create some cool terrains.
           You're just starting to learn the different ways you can cheat
           to get money.
Expert   - You've gotten cities with populations in the millions, covered
           with Launch Arcos.  You know alot of ways to cheat.
           You have played SimCity for 5 hours straight sometimes.
           It takes you a couple of days to put together a cool city.
Pro      - You're sick of Arcos.  You're sick of trying to get the highest
           population.  You've been there, done that.
           You've read every book on SimCity 2000 and frequent SimCity BB's
           on various on-line services.  You have entered SimCity 2000
           contests and done well.  You can create a great city in less
           than 10 hours which you do in one sitting.  You know all about
           easter eggs, magic-erasers and phantom-water pumps.  You're
           getting bored and looking for a real challenge.

Scoring chart - Try to answer the questions below.  Give yourself 1 point
for each question you think you can answer "yes" to.  Each line that
starts with the characters ">>" is worth 1 point.  Check the answer files
for the answer.

Beginner    0 - 25
Novice     25 - 50
Average    50 - 75
Expert     75 - 100
Pro        over 100

* DO YOU KNOW ...
  * WHAT ...
    >> what color a sim car is?
    >> what is playing at the sim drive-in?
    >> what an Arcology is?
    >> what a Llama dome is?
    >> what the MAXIS mascot is?
    >> what auto-budget does?
    >> what a Cellular Automata is?
    >> what the HEX numbers 00 02 4E 20 stand for?
    >> what is the minimum tile-size for an airport?
    >> what a desalinization plant does?
    >> what a water towers does?
    >> what an industrial thingamagig is?
    >> what a microsim is?
    >> what disasters are not in the disasters window?
    >> What the most expensive Arcology is?
    >> what a church does to a zone?
    >> what EQ stands for?
    >> what monster sticks its head out of the water?
    >> what Nessie eats?
    >> what the different types of Military bases there are?
    >> what super-sim is?
    >> what the highest value for health is?
    >> what the maximum number of microsims is?
    >> what the maximum number of arcologies that count towards population is?
    >> what the highest value for education is?
    >> what a phantom water pumps is?
    >> what an easter eggs is?
    >> what the magic eraser is?
    >> what the cheat cass stands for?
    >> what does an airport help nurture?
    >> what does a seaport help nurture?
    >> what rewards become available?
    >> what building takes up 5x5 tiles?
    * what bridges let ships pass? (1 point each)
      >> highway bridge
      >> highway reinformced girder bridge
      >> raising bridges
      >> suspension bridges
      >> causeway
    * what disaster happens to a ...  (1 point each)
      >> Nuclear Plant?
      >> Microwave Plant?
      >> Fusion Plant?
      >> Hydro Plant?
    * what year these become available?  (1 point each)
      >> Coal Plant
      >> Hydro Plant
      >> Bus Depot
      >> Fusion Plant
      >> Wind Power
      >> Highway
      >> Subway
      >> Military Base
      >> Arcologies
    * what population these become available?  (1 point each)
      >> Arcologies
      >> Military
      >> City Hall
      >> Statue
      >> Llama Dome
  * WHEN ...
    >> when ordinances get passed automatically?
    >> when your power plants will blow up?
  * HOW ....
    >> how to make a subway neighbor connection?
    >> how to set ordinaces?
    >> how to float a bond?
    >> how to find out your citizen approval rating?
    >> how to get the key to the city?
    >> how to embezzle money?
    >> how to make the launch arco launch?
    >> how to hear the call of the Bull Moose?
    >> how to put out a fire?
    >> how to create a sign?
    >> how to build a Military Base?
    >> how to choose where a Military Base goes?
    >> how to find out what percentage of your city is residential?
    >> how to make a helicopter crash?
    >> how to adjust taxes for each industry?
    >> how to set your funding?
    >> how to make a water pump pump more water?
    >> how to find out how many passengers are riding your subway each day?
    >> how many different types of Arcologies are there?
    >> how many tiles does an Arcology take up?
    >> how many different types of military bases there are?
    >> how many tiles the largest building takes up in a high density zone?
    >> how many tiles the largest building takes up in a low density zone?
    >> how many tiles the largest building takes up?
    >> how many military bases you can have?
    >> how many different kinds of disasters there are?
    >> how much a Military Base costs?
    >> how much a reward costs?
    >> how salt water affects a water pump?
    * how far a sim can travel by ...   (1 point each)
      >> a road
      >> a highway
      >> a rail road
      >> a subway
      >> walking
    * how to build ...   (1 point each)
      >> highway on-ramps
      >> Military base
      >> Llama dome
      >> Sydney Opera House
      >> Neighbor connections
      >> subway
  * IF ...
    >> if you can build a connection to your neighbor across an ocean?
    >> if the textile industry prefers light or dense zones?
    >> if the automotive industry is light or heavy polluting?
    >> if the finance industry requires high or low EQ?
    >> if you need police stations with disasters off?
    >> if you need fire stations with disasters off?
    >> if 9% tax will stifle or stimulate your economies growth?
    >> if it's OK to take out 10 bonds?
    >> if you need roads connecting your ports?
    * if the following will increase or decrease land value (1 point each)
      >> park
      >> zoo
      >> marina
      >> prison
      >> stadium
    * if it matters where your ...  (1 point each)
      >> police stations go?
      >> fire stations go?
      >> hospitals go?
      >> colleges go?
    * if the following things are built by you, sims or don't exist (1 point each)
      >> Police Station
      >> Parking Garage
      >> Circus Tent
      >> Historical Building
      >> Velodrome
      >> Hospital
      >> Parking Lot
      >> Drive-In Theatre
      >> Golf Course
      >> Library
      >> Industrial Thing-a-majig
      >> Satellite dish
      >> dirt road
      >> forest

**************************************************
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS:

* DO YOU KNOW ...
  * WHAT ...
    >> what color a sim car is?
       blue
    >> what is playing at the sim drive-in?
       SimAnt, another simulation game from MAXIS
    >> what an Arcology is?
       Is the largest Residential building there is.
    >> what a Llama dome is?
       A large tower you get when you get 80,000 population.
    >> what the MAXIS mascot is?  the Llama
    >> what auto-budget does?
       Prevents the Budget window from popping up each year.
    >> what a Cellular Automata is?
       A method of computation for simulations.
       Each tile contains many CA's.  One for each variable.  These variables
       are affected by the variables of the neighboring tiles.
       Examples of variables are crime, population, pollution and value.
       The effects for all tiles are calcuated for each time cycle.
    >> what the HEX numbers 00 02 4E 20 stand for?
       This is how $20,000 is stored in the SC2 file.  If you used a
       Binary HEX editor to edit a city with $20,000, you would find these
       four HEX numbers.
    >> what is the minimum tile-size for an airport?
       2x5 although 2x6 is recommended
    >> what a desalinization plant does?
       pumps water from salty water while removing the salt.
    >> what a water towers does?
       stores water to be used during a drought
    >> what an industrial thingamagig is?
       one of the many buildings in an industrial zone.
    >> what a microsim is?
       little simulations.  they track local statistics.
    >> what disasters are not in the disasters window?
       Nuclear Meltdown, Chemical Spill, Pollution Disaster, Microwave
       Beam Disasters, Volcanoes, Helicopter crash, Major Flood, Mass riots,
       Firestorm.
    >> What the most expensive Arcology is?
       Launch Arco.
    >> what a church does to a zone?
       De-zones
    >> what EQ stands for?
       Educational Quotient.
    >> what monster sticks its head out of the water?
       The Loch Ness Monster
    >> what Nessie (Loch Ness Monster) eats?
       Boats from Marinas.
    >> what the different types of Military bases there are?
       Navy, Airforce, Army, Missle-Silo
    >> what super-sim is?
       A super-hero that will help you fight disasters if you don't have
       military base to help you.  super-sim appears randomly and rarely.
    >> what the highest value for health is?
       150
    >> what the maximum number of microsims is?
       120
    >> what the maximum number of arcologies that count towards population is?
       120
    >> what the highest value for education is?
       150
    >> what a phantom water pumps is?
       A water pump that is the only pump in your city.  It is powered,
       but has not pipes connected to it.  It tricks the graph-window
       into thinking there is 100% water.  There is some controversy
       whether it actually fools the simulation or not.
    >> what an easter eggs is?
       An un-documented hidden feature put in the program by the programmer
       for their own amusement.  Example: while playing SimCity 2000 1.0
       DOS/IBM and you type FUND, you get a $10,000 bond at 25% interest.
       while playing SimCity 2000 on the Mac, typing PORNTIPSGUZZARDO
       gives you $500,000 and all of the rewards become available.
    >> what the magic eraser is?
       An un-documented hidden feature in the trees/landscape tool which
       allows you to erase buildings but not their effects (like population).
       Erasing an Arcology will still yield the population of an Arcology,
       but the Arcology will be gone.  Select the tree-tool, hold down the
       mouse, then hold down the shift key.  Now you can erase buildings.
    >> what the cheat cass stands for?
       "cass" is short for Cassandra which is is the name of Will Wright's
       daughter.  Will Wright is the guy who invented SimCity.
    >> what does an airport help nurture?
       Commerce
    >> what does a seaport help nurture?
       Industry
    >> what rewards become available?
       Mayor's House, City-Hall, Statue, Llama dome, Arcologies, Military
    >> what building takes up 5x5 tiles?
       There are no buildings that large.  The largest is 4x4 like a prison,
       Llama dome, or Fusion Plant.
    * what bridges let ships pass? (1 point each)
      >> highway bridge                        no
      >> highway reinformced girder bridge     yes
      >> raising bridges                       yes
      >> suspension bridges                    yes
      >> causeway                              no
    * what disaster happens to a ...  (1 point each)
      >> Nuclear Plant?      melt down
      >> Microwave Plant?    microwave fire
      >> Fusion Plant?       none
      >> Hydro Plant?        none
    * what year these become available?  (1 point each)
      >> Coal Plant      1900
      >> Hydro Plant     1900
      >> Bus Depot       1920
      >> Fusion Plant    2050
      >> Wind Power      1980
      >> Highway         1930
      >> Subway          1910
      >> Military Base   1900
      >> Arcologies
         Plymouth        2000
         Forest          2050
         Darco           2100
         Launch          2150
    * what population these become available?  (1 point each)
      >> Arcologies   120,000
      >> Military      60,000
      >> City Hall     10,000
      >> Statue        30,000
      >> Llama Dome    80,000
  * WHEN ...
    >> when ordinances get passed automatically?
       when Disasters is on.
    >> when your power plants will blow up?
       Certain power plants need to get replaced every 50 years.
       If you don't have enough funds to replace the plant, it blows up.
       Hydro and Wind powered plants never need to be replaced.
  * HOW ....
    >> how to make a subway neighbor connection?
       you can't.  You can only make neighbor connections with road,
       rail or highway.  You can't make a tunnel-neighbor connection either.
    >> how to set ordinaces?
       To bring up the ordinance window, click on the book-icon in the
       budget window for ordinaces.
    >> how to float a bond?
       Select the "issue Bond" button in the Bonds-window.
       This Bonds-window can be accessed by pressing the book-icon in
       the budget window for Bond Payments.
    >> how to find out your citizen approval rating?
       From the one of the Newspapers.
    >> how to get the key to the city?
       Complete the goal of a scenerio.
    >> how to embezzle money?
       In short, there are many ways:
       1. use an easter egg
       2. use a binary editor to edit the SC2 file
       3. use an embezzle cheat program
    >> how to make the launch arco launch?
       it doesn't launch if you have version 1.0 of DOS.  The newer versions
       have Launch Arcos that launch when the population reaches a certain
       level.  You are compensated well for each Arco launched.
    >> how to hear the call of the Bull Moose?
       Use the bulldozer to plow down a lot of trees.
       If you keep on doing it the citizens will complain a few times and
       then you will be asked if you'd like to thear the call of the Bull Moose.
    >> how to put out a fire?
       When there is a fire, the Emergency button (upper right)
       gets un-ghosted in the city tool-bar.
       Holding it down will get you two buttons:
         "dispatch police"           (if you have police stations)
         "dispatch firefighters"     (if you have fire stations)
         "dispatch military"         (if you have a military)
       Select one.  Clicking on a tile that is right next to a tile-on-fire
       will diplay a pole with either a "fire hydrant", "police badge" or
       "tank" depending on what you selected.  These poles will help
       extinguish the fire.  The more poles surrounding a tile-on-fire,
       the faster the fire will go out.
    >> how to create a sign?
       Select the sign-button in the city-toolbar, click on a tile,
       enter text for sign.
    >> how to build a Military Base?
       You don't.  The military builds it.  They ask you for permission
       when your population reaches 60,000.
    >> how to choose where a Military Base goes?
       You don't.  The military decides.
    >> how to find out what percentage of your city is residential?
       Use the query tool on the city hall.
    >> how to make a helicopter crash?
       Click on it with the centering tool
    >> how to adjust taxes for each industry?
    >> how to set your funding?
    >> how to make a water pump pump more water?
       Surround the pump with water on 1 or more sides.
       The more sides are water, the more water it pumps.
    >> how to find out how many passengers are riding your subway each day?
       Query tool
    >> how many different types of Arcologies are there?
       four
    >> how many tiles does an Arcology take up?
       Sixteen (4x4)
    >> how many different types of military bases there are?
       four
    >> how many tiles the largest building takes up in a high density zone?
       sixteen (4x4)
    >> how many tiles the largest building takes up in a low density zone?
       one (1x1)
    >> how many tiles the largest building takes up?
       sixteen (4x4)
    >> how many military bases you can have?
       one
    >> how many different kinds of disasters there are?
       fifteen
    >> how much a Military Base costs?
       nothing.  It's free IF you want it, and you reach 60,000 in population,
       and the Military can find a location to build it.
    >> how much a reward costs?
       nothing.  Rewards are free.
    >> how salt water affects a water pump?
       Salt water reduces the amount of water a water pump can pump.
    * how far a sim can travel by ...   (1 point each)
      >> a road         33 tiles
      >> a highway      50 tiles
      >> a rail road    50 tiles
      >> a subway       50 tiles
      >> walking         3 tiles
    * how to build ...   (1 point each)
      >> highway on-ramps
         The year must be atleast 1930.
         There must be a road running perpendicular to the highway.
         The on-ramps must go on a tile next to the road and next to the
         highway.  They won't appear if you click on the road or the highway.
      >> Military base
         you don't build this.  The military asks you if they can build
         it when your population reaches 60,000.
      >> Llama dome
         This is a reward that appears when your population reaches 80,000.
      >> Sydney Opera House
         You can't, unless you own the Austrailian version of SimCity 2000.
         Select from the rewards-button menu on the city toolbar.
      >> Neighbor connections
         Click on an empty tile next to a neighbor with either the road-tool,
         the rail-tool or the highway-tool
      >> subway
         The year must be atleast 1910.
         Select the rails button menu in the city toolbar.
         The view will be switched to the under-ground view.
         Laying sub-way tubes is tricky because the tubes are under a tile.
         You must click on the tile you want it to be under, not the
         location you want the tube.  Subway stations should be next to
         the tube, not on top of it.
  * IF ...
    >> if you can build a connection to your neighbor across an ocean?
       Yes. Although there is no neighbor there, a neighbor sign will
       appear with the name "ocean" for the city.
    >> if the textile industry prefers light or dense zones?      dense
    >> if the automotive industry is light or heavy polluting?     heavy
    >> if the finance industry requires high or low EQ?            high
    >> if you need police stations with disasters off?             yes
    >> if you need fire stations with disasters off?               no
    >> if 9% tax will stifle or stimulate your economies growth?   stifle
    >> if it's OK to take out 10 bonds?
       no.  It would be impossible to pay-off the interest.
       It's a good idea to float no more than 2 bonds at a time.
       The interest is a killer!
    >> if you need roads connecting your ports?
       no.  Your ports will develop and nurture your industrial zones
       even though they are not connected to anything by any mode of
       transportation.  The simulation just checks to see if they exist,
       and what size they are.  A larger industry demands a larger
       sea-port.  A larger commerce demands a large air-port.
    * if the following will increase or decrease land value (1 point each)
      >> park      increase
      >> zoo       decrease
      >> marina    increase
      >> prison    decrease
      >> stadium   decrease
    * if it matters where your ...  (1 point each)
      >> police stations go?  yes
      >> fire stations go?    no
      >> hospitals go?        no
      >> colleges go?         no
    * if the following things are built by you, sims, don't exist or other (1 point each)
      >> Police Station            you
      >> Parking Garage            sims
      >> Circus Tent               does not exist
      >> Historical Building       sims
      >> Velodrome                 does not exist
      >> Hospital                  you
      >> Parking Lot               does not exist
      >> Drive-In Theatre          sims
      >> Golf Course               does not exist
      >> Library                   you
      >> Industrial Thing-a-majig  sims
      >> Satellite dish            does not exist
      >> dirt road                 does not exist
      >> forest                    you and other: trees grow by them selves too.


TRAPAIRPLANE
How to trap an Airplane

ClubOpolis: How to trap an airplane between Arcos

How to trap an airplane between Arcos:
<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
You can't plan this.  It just happens.

It helps to place a wall of Arcos along the border of your city.
You can increase the chance of trapping a plane if you place your airport near this wall of Arcos.

Warning! Make sure disasters are off or else you'll lose some of your Arcos when planes crash into them!
It is possible to catch planes with any type of Arco (Plymoth, Darco, Forest, Launch).
It is also possible to trap all of your planes so none can land.

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->


Version Differences

ClubOpolis: Version Differences

Difference between different Versions and Platforms (Mac,Dos,Win) of SimCity 2000.
<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
From Chris Weiss at Maxis (global!cweiss@maxis.com)

The Windows version does have several nice additions over the DOS
version. Since it supports Windows Multimedia, there's much wider sound
support. wit the extended resolution, you can fit more on the screen at
once. The windows version also has a 4th zoom level, so you can get   even tighter in on things - It basically just doubles the size of the  pixels,
but at high resolutions, even the 3rd zoom level is too tiny to  work in).
It also runs in the background, so you can crank on Excel or  whatever
while your sims are running around in the background. It also does fix a
lot of the DOS (and even some Mac) bugs.

As for going with the DOS or Windows version, that's a tough call. The
DOS version may be difficult to get running under 4 megs (most people
have to make a boot disk), but the Windows version may be too slow on a
386-25. I'd say stick with the DOS version, for speed reasons.

Windows and Mac versions of the Urban Renewal Kit and CD-Collections  are in the works for early '95.
I don't want to start a widespread exodus from DOS, but to be honest,  the

SimCity 2000 DOS code is so damn messy, we hate trying to touch it  (we've
pretty much given up on a decent 1.1 patch - the 1.1 patch  floating
around online will probably never be officially offered to  customers, it
seems to break more things than it fixes). There is a definite push from
just about everyone to move our focus from DOS to Windows, it's just
easier to let Microsoft deal with the millions of hardware configurations
around than to try and do it ourselves (it was  much easier when there was
just the 8088, 286, and 386 chips,  Soundblasters, one kind of bus,
non-accelerated video cards, two brands  of Mice, and 2 main versions of
MS-DOS). We used to be able to spend  %80 of the coding/testing/debugging time dealing the actual program,  and just %20 testing for hardware conflicts. Now it's easily a 50/50  situation, if not worse. That may be one reason why we still do a lot  of first-run development on the Mac. Even though the sales aren't  nearly as high, it allows us to spend more time developing and less  time debugging (or it could just be that Will Wright is just a Mac head :).

      Is the DOS version the same as the MAC version or are there
      different features in the DOS version that are not in the MAC's
      or vice versa?  I don't want them to be disappointed if the
      look and feel of the DOS version is different than the MAC's.M

I can say that the DOS versions looks EXACTLY like the Mac version,
including pull down menus and it's even got that macintrash font :) I
think there are only a couple features missing, but you'll never notice
those. (i.e. arcologies don't blast off in the dos version, there are a
couple small bugs in the dos version, etc.)

 Does the WINDOWS version have any new features over the DOS verson?

Not that I'm aware of, no.

The kids liked the graphics on the MAC version.  Does the DOS
      version have the same graphics and is the resolution just as good,
      if not better?

Everything for dos is better, graphics and resolution are just the                 same.

How does the graphics on the WINDOWS version compare to the               DOS version?

I haven't actually seen the windoze version, but I can say from                   other programs that generally DOS graphics programs are better
              if the programmers have successfully designed a good GUI for it.               I'm speaking out of my ignorance here, but I would say that the               DOS version would be better.

If I exchanged the DOS version for the WINDOWS version it would
      be running on a 386-25, 4MB, ATI Wonder SVGA video card.  is this
      hardware sufficient for the WINDOWS version?

Well, 4megs of RAM under DOS is just enough to cut it. As for you're
processor, that's fine and the graphics card is perfect for it. Probably
it would be slower under Windoze.

I just joined this list so i've read about some of the problems
      with the DOS version (i think one has to do something with a
      bulldozer, can't remember any others offhand).  does the WINDOWS
      version fix these problems?

Wouldn't know 'bout that..

Can the Great Disasters add-on be used under the WINDOWS version?
      if not, is there any plans to bring out a WINDOWS add-on?

Ditto..

    The bottom line is, should i exchange the DOS version for the WINDOWS
    version?  please don't recommend the DOS version if you are a WINDOWS
    hater or vice versa!!  i need to know based on gameplay, graphics,
    ease of playing based on their ages, etc.

Go for the DOS version!

Another factor here: If you're aware of the urban renewal kit, I can tell
you that Maxis doesn't have any plans to do a Windows version of it.
(Correct me if I'm wrong there...) So, as your kids slowly vegetate and
become Simheads, they'll want to be able to get all the add ons they can--
and the DOS version will support those add ons.

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
From Jerry Moore (Geraldalan@aol.com)

When Maxis released the version 1.1 software patch for the Mac platform, one
of the major changes was the ability to go beyond the previous limit of 140
arcos and have these additional structures included in the total city
population count. This did not appear to be the case with the DOS version
1.1 upgrade patch.  It now appears that once you run SimCity 2000 Windows on
a hardware platform with enough RAM and a huge Windows swap file, that the
140 arco limit of the DOS software does not exist. When adding a large
number of arcologies the "microsims" still seem to go into the reduced
memory mode where the amount of data returned when using the query tool is
reduced, but additional arcos beyond 140 do get counted towards the overall
city population.  What is the largest population that others have been able
to obtain with the Mac 1.1 and/or Windows software?

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
From Pat Coston (rmnc12a@prodigy.com)

When you age your city past the year 9999, it still goes to 0000 and continues,
but when you reach Dec 11900, in 1.0 the date would be Jan 11901, but in 1.1
the date is Jan 11900.  In 1.1 you can't age past Dec 11900.  The months will
continue to go Jan, Feb, Mar ... and so on.  Note that your city is still
aging.  If you were to load up your city in 1.0 after hitting the Dec 11900
barrier for a few years, you would see the actual date.  Note that the actual
date is only shown in the Budget window.

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
From Jerry Moore (Geraldalan@aol.com)

How do you know what version you have? If you have SimCity 2000 for Dos or Mac, you
just type 'ver' and a version window will pop up.  Unfortunately this is not the case
with the Windows version. One way to know what version you have is the date of
your SC2000W.EXE file.

ver 1.0  date 10/30/?
ver 1.1  date unknown
ver 1.2  date 3/10/95

You can also look for the version number in the debug window.
Type oivaizmir after you hilight the toolbox and the debug option should appear
as one of the menus at the top of your window.  Open the debug menu and select
Show Version Info.

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
From Patrick Coston (rmnc12a@prodigy.com)

There's one thing I really hate about SimCity 2000 for Windows.
When you select File/Open, it always defaults to the directory you installed it in.
In my case that's c:\sc2k4win.

It's a HUGE pain if I want to look at 10 cities in
c:\games\cities\contest\here\.
Every time I go to load a city I have to navigate back to where I just was.
SimCity 2000 for DOS always remembers the last directory you were in.

The working directory in the Properties window in Windows 3.1 is usually
used to specify the default directory for such things as File/Load.

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->


GIRDERBRIDGE
How to build a Girder Bridge

Club Illusion: Girder Bridge

How To Build A Reinforced Highway Girder Bridge
<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
This is a bit tricky!!!

Do not drag the highway across the river. Simply click. If you drag, you will only be offered a standard highway bridge.Make sure both shores are straight. No jagged shoreline! Make sure the highway pointer is
halfway in the water and halfway on land on both sides of the shore.
This ensures that the bridge will meet the other side just right.
Make sure there is nothing blocking the path of the bridge three tiles deep
and two tiles wide on both sides of the shore.The bridge needs room to build it's huge cement supports on both sides.

When you set it up just right you should be offered a
Select Bridge menu offering you the choice to build a
Highway bridge or a Reinforced bridge.  Choose Reinforced and
you will have your Reinforced Highway Girder Bridge.
<!-- ******************************************************************** -->


HIWAYSNONRAMPS
Highways and On-ramps: Yes or No

ClubOpolis: On-Ramps

Do Highways really need On-Ramps?
<!-- ******************************************************************** -->

Matt Daniels (n9248086@henson.cc.wwu.edu) wrote:
When I build highways, I no longer provide on-ramps, and the sims still travel on the highway. In fact, the traffic is often extremely dense on those highways that have no on-ramps.

Chris Weiss (six@emf.net) from Maxis wrote: That's sort of a false indicator. The problem is we only have one layer to indicate how
heavy traffic is. If you've got a really busy road and plop a highway on top of it, the highway will show the same traffic as the busy road. Try using the query tool on a stretch of that particular highway that is not above any road and see what the results say.

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->


QNA
Questions and Answers

ClubIllusion: Questions and Answers>

Questions and Answers:

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->

This is ClubIllusion's Question and answer Collection.

The purpose of this is so different people don't ask the same
question over and over again. If you have an add on to a Q tell ClubIllusion.

Some of these answers might not be correct.
If there is anything incorrect in here please write to
Club Illusion. If you have any other questions or
an add on ask Club Illusion and It will put your
question in here and will put the answer in here and also
E-Mail the answer toyou as soon as possible. None of this
info has codes.

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
Q: How many different kinds of arcos are there?
A: 4

Q: What is an arcology?
A: An arco is self-contained city in a building that has its own police stations, schools etc. Each arco can
hold up to 65,000 people. There is more than one kind of Arcology.

Q:What kinds of arcos are there?
A: There are four kinds of Arcologies called Plymouth Arco, Forest Arco, Darco, and Launch Arco.
Before the game was created they had 5 and 4 made it into the game. The Lost (Crystal) Arco did not
make it. There is no code to get it. The only way you could get it is if you have SCURK.

Q: What are the populations of each kind of arco?
A:Here is a chart with the populations of each kind of arco and what kind of arco.

Plymouth Arco             55,000
Forest Arco                  30,000
Darco                           45,000
Launch Arco                  65,000

Q:> What year do they become available?
A: Here is a chart with the year that each arco becomes available and the kind of arco

Plymouth  Arco        2000
Forest Arco              2050
Darco                       2100
Launch Arco             2150

Q: What are the costs of each arco?
A: Here is a chart with the cost of each arco.

Plymouth Arco             100,000
Forest Arco                  120,000
Darco                          150,000
Launch Arco                 200,000

Q: What rewards are there?
A: Mayor's House, City Hall, Statue, Military Base, Llama Dome, Arcologies.

Q: At what population do you get them?
A: Here is a chart that shows what population you get them at and the award.

Mayor's House                2,000
City Hall                        10,000
Statue                           30,000
Military Base                  60,000
Llama Dome                   90,000
Arcologies                     120,000

Q:Why should I care about the Weather?
A: The Weather causes the likeliness of Roits and fires, it affects the output of
   water pumps, Solar and Wind Power plants.

Q:What color is a Sim-Car?
A: Blue

Q: How many kinds of Power Plants are there?
A: 9

Q:What kinds of Power Plants are there?
A: Coal, Hydroelectric, Oil, Gas, Nuclear, Wind, Solar, Microwave, and Fusion.

Q: What year do they become available?
A: Here is a chart with the year they become avialable.

     Coal                                     1900
     Hydroelectric                         1900
     Oil                                        1900
     Gas                                      1950
     Nuclear                                 1955
     Wind                                     1980
     Solar                                     1990
     Microwave                              2020
     Fusion                                   2050

Q: How much do they cost?
A: Here's a chart with how much they cost.

       Coal                            $4,000
       Hydroelectric                $400
       Oil                              $6,600
       Gas                            $2,000
       Nuclear                      $15,000
       Wind                          $100
       Solar                          $1,300
       Microwave                   $28,000
       Fusion                        $40,000

Q: What's the cost per MW?
A: Here is a chart with the cost per MW.

    Coal                          $20
    Hydroelectric              $20
    Oil                             $30
    Gas                           $40
    Nuclear                      $30
    Wind                          $25
    Solar                          $26
    Microwave                   $17.5
    Fusion                        $16

Q: How many MWs does each power plant put out?
A: Here is a chart showing how many MWs they put out

     Coal                               200
     Hyrdoelectric                    20
     Oil                                  220
     Gas                                 50
     Nuclear                            500
     Wind                                 4
     Solar                               50
     Microwave                       1600
     Fusion                             2500

Q: When are those other things invented?
A:Here is a chart that shows what year they are invented.

   Subway systems               1910
   Buses $ Bus Depots          1920
   Highways                          1930
   Water treatment plants       1935
   Desalinization plants          1990

Q: What's the best Water Pump design?
A: I think theres two ways that are pretty good. One is to have a 2x2 area with water pumps on it
surrounded by 1 tile of water on the sides and corners. Then have 1 water pump around each tile of water.
Ok now to the 2nd one. Put a dot of water and surround it by water pumps.

Q: How many Military bases are there?
A: 4

Q: What military bases are there?
A: Army, Airforce, Navy, Missile-Silo

Q: What's the best military base from greatest to least for fighting monsters?
A: Army, Navy, Airforce, Missile-Silo Missle silos blow up your city more than the monster.

Q: Is a military base worth building?
A: Not really all they do is help get rid of disasters which you don't need if you have disasters off, they
create crime and other than that they waste space. If I were you I wouldn't get a base or unless you thought
you'd get an army or navel base.

Q: What is playing at the Sim drive-in?
A:Simant, another simulation game from MAXIS.

Q: What is a Llama Dome?
A: A tower where your citizens get married, Bungee jump, and have fun. You also get it at 90,000 people

Q: What does the auto-budget do?
A: It prevents the budget window from popping up each year.

Q: What is the minumum tile-size for an airport?
A: 2x6

Q: What does a desalinization plant do?
A: It pumps salt water while removing the salt.

Q: What is an industrial thingamagig?
A: One of the many buildings in an industrial zone.

Q: What is a microsim?
A: Little simulations that track local statistics.

Q: What disasters aren't in the disasters windows?
A: Nuclear Meltdown, Chemical Spill, Pollution Disaster, Microwave Beam Disasters,
Volcanoes, Helicopter crash, Major Flood, Mass riots, Firestorm.

Q: What does EQ stand for?
A: Educational Quotiant

Q: What is super-sim?
A: A hero that helps you fight disasters.

Q: What bridges let ships pass?
A: highway reinforced girder bridge, raising bridges, suspension bridges.

Q: How do you set ordinances?
A: To bring up the ordinance window, click on the book icon in the budget window
for ordinances.

Q: How do you find out your citizen approval rating?
A: From one of the newspapers or from the Mayor's House.

Q: How many different kinds of disasters are there?
A: 16

Q: How do you build a neighbor connection?
A: Click on an empty tile next to a neighbor
with either the road tool, the rail tool or the highway tool.

Q: Do you need fire stations with disasters off?
A: no, or unless the citizens demand a fire department.

Q: Is it ok to take more thann bonds at a time?
A: no. It would be impossible to pay off the interest.

Q: Do you need roads connecting to you're ports?
A: no. Your ports will develop and nurture your industrial zones even though
they are not connected to any mode of transportation. The simulation just
checks to see if they exist, and what size they are. A larger industry
demands a larger sea-port. A larger commerce demands a larger airport.

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->


CHEATSEASTEREGGSETC
Cheats, Easter Eggs, Etc.

 Cheats for Dos

 A Whole Bunch of Cheats

 How to "Hex" your SimCity file.

 The Phantom Water Pump.

 How to use Debug to get lots of $$$MONEY$$$!

 How to Crash a Traffic Helicopter.

 The Incredible Magic Eraser!!!

 How to Make a Raised Tile.


Cheats For DOS

Cheats etc. for SimCity 2000 for Dos versions 1.0 and 1.1

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
Easter Egg:A Pre-programmed, hidden and undocumented feature
inserted by the programmer for their own enjoyment.

cass - gives $$$ in $250 increments

damn, darn, heck - sign on screen appears, says "Same to you, buddy!",
        if used too many times, the Church Virus is launched!

fund - gives $10K bond at 25% interest. see below for double
        fund trick used with this Easter Egg!

memy - shows available memory in current disk drive (doesn't work well with Pentiums)

porn - if sound card available, listen to your speaker!
        Note: This is unavailable in version 1.1

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->

Double Fund Trick:

Above is described the Fund code, that gives you a $10K bond at 25% interest.
But, that's a yukky old 25% bond! Let's make those numbers mean something to us.

NOTE: You MUST not build ANYTHING before this, or the code will not work.

Do the following:

 type fund
 press ENTER to accept the bond
 accept another 25% bond
 go into the Budget window (the one with taxes, funding and bond information)
 Click on the  book icon under 'Bond Payments'. It will bring up a screen
 that shows your current fund ratings.
 Click on 'Repay Bond', and repay one of your bonds. Take a look at
 your interest rate. It should say .% . That's what you want.
 Exit the Budget window
 turn the speed on Cheetah, and each year, you should rack up another $1.5Mil each year!

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->

Mega Cheat:

The following gives you $500,000 and makes all rewards available.  It may seem like
an insane combination of things to press and click, but it actually works!

It's recommended that you:

 pause your city before starting this sequence.
 You don't want to be interrupted by some event
 like a newspaper popping up.
 change your mouse to the centering tool.
 note your funds and awards before you start this sequence.
 That way you can confirm that it works.

Do the following:

 Press control-F3 (hold down the Ctrl button and press the F3 button)
 Click on the rotate counter-clockwise button (left rotate button)
 Click on resize button (lower right of window)
 Click on Status Window (weather icon)
 Click on Population Icon (toolbar button with three people)
 Click anywhere inside the city window
 Click on the line between Riots and No Disasters in the disasters menu.

There do not seem to be penalties for doing this, and there seem to be no limits on the number of times.
It does not seem to interfere with the bonds cheat either.

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->


BUNCHCHEATS
Buncha' Cheats

The Cheats

Type porntipsguzzardo

SimCity 2000 Windows 1.0 & 1.2

Make sure the Toolbar is active (click on the blue bar above the bulldozer, water, and dispatch icons)
type buddamus

Joke
For All Platforms
Type joke for a lovely joke written specifically by the programmer. They don't get out much.

Fund
For All Platforms
Type fund to be offered a bond at %25 interest. Of course, you could always go to the budget window and take out a bond at just %5.

"Damn", "Heck", and "Darn"
For All Platforms
Typing any of those will incur the wrath of God (or whatever diety) and populate all your residential  zones with churches.

Gilmartin
Windows - All Versions
Type gilmartin to get a military base. Mike Gilmartin is one of our Q/A
people who's a Marine Reservist and takes his reservedness very seriously
(fortunately, Mike also has a good sense of humor, because we don't take
his reservedness quite so seriously and he would kill us with a twig
if he needed to).

Noah
Windows - All Versions
Type noah to cause the water level on your world to raise by one tile. (One of the SimCity 2000 Windows programmers has a very religeous sense of humor.)

"Moses"
Windows - All Versions
Typing moses should lower the water level on your world by one tile.

Oivaizmir
Windows - All Versions?
Typing oivaizmir (play with the spelling on that one) will enable the Windows Debug mode, giving you an extra menu item with lots of goodies.

A Scurk Cheat?
Yes, we even had to put an easter egg in SCURK for Windows. Type vaudeville for a good time.

Written by Chris Weiss


HOWTOHEX
How to Hex your File

The following describes how to use a Hex-Editor to get money and change options. You will need a Binary-Editor (sometimes called a Hex-Editor) like
Norton Utilities DiskEdit, HexEd or PC-Tools.  Any Binary-Editor will work.
If you don't have a Binary-Editor, ClubOpolis can send one to you.  Just ask!

An ordinary text editor like DOS's EDIT or WORD will not work!

IMPORTANT: Always make a backup-copy of your city BEFORE you use
           a Binary-Editor on it.  It's easy to make a mistake and
           screw up your city file so it won't work!

Once you have gotten your SimCity 2000 city into the Binary-Editor you
should see a lot of two-digit numbers and letters.  It will look something
like this:

00000000   46 4F 52 4D 00 00 EF FC - 53 43 44 48 4D 49 53 43
00000010   00 23 7F 20 1C 00 00 20 - 55 F7 40 00 00 10 09 01
00000020   CC D1 02 08 D1 71 F3 EF - 01 00 02 08 D6 3D 1D FF

  and so on ...

If you're city has $20,000, search for: 00 02 4E 20
                      Changing this to: 7F 02 4E 20

Gives you over $2 billion!

4E 20 in Hex is 20,000 in Decimal.

You can change any of the digits to 0 thru 9, or A thru F.

Do NOT change the 02.  This will screw up your city file.

IF your city does not have exactly $20,000 then you'll have to search for
the fourth 02.  Once you find it, you can change the the two digits two
the left of it and the four digits to the right.

00 02 00 00   <-- only change where I've put zeros (you won't have zeros)

The bytes in order (lowest address to highest):

b0 = highest order byte ($billions) ranging from 00 to 7F hex.
b1 = Flag byte; always contains 02 hex.  Don't change it.
b2 = middle byte of budget (multiples of $256)
b3 = lowest byte of budget ($0 - $256)

If b0 goes above 7F, the money goes negative.  That's because 7F in hex
is 01111111 in binary.  Add 1 to 7F and you get 80 hex which is
10000000 binary.  The 1 is a sign-bit.  0=positive  1=negative.

Remember we're in Hex now, which is base 16, not base 10 so if you change
"00 02 00 00" to "00 02 10 00" you don't have $1000.  You have $4096.

To do Hex Arithmetic, either find a calculator that has Hex <--> Decimal
conversion (there's one in DiskEdit), or figure it out on paper.

First of all, A=10, B=11, C=12, D=13, E=14, F=15

Now, say you wanted to know how ED7B was:

Convert letters to numbers (column ONE).
Mutliply each one by a power of 16, starting with 0 (right to left)
show in columns TWO and THREE.

    ONE           TWO              THREE

|  B  = 11  |  16^0=    1  | 11  x    1 =     11  |
|  7  =  7  |  16^1=   16  |  7  x   16 =    112  |
|  D  = 13  |  16^2=  256  | 13  x  256 =   3328  |
|  E  = 14  |  16^3= 4096  | 14  x 4096 =  57344  |

Add those numbers up and you get 60795.

That's how you convert from Hex to Decimal (Base 16 to Base 10).


PHANTOMWATERPUMP
The Phantom Water Pump

ClubOpolis: How to use the Phantom Water Pump

How to use the Phantom Water Pump

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
Question: What is a Phantom Water Pump?

Answer: It's a single water-pump that supplies enough water to
water your entire city.  If you look in the graph window, you should
see your water level at 100% at all times.

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
Question: How do I get a Phantom Water Pump?

Answer: Place one water-pump that is:

Not next to any buildings. Make sure that no buildings will be built
next to it by creating a de-zoned area 3x3 tiles in size.  Place the
pump in the center tile. Not connected by any underground water-pipes. Powered.

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->

Controversy: Some believe in the Phantom Water Pump and some don't.
Some believe that just because the graph window shows 100% water
doesn't mean your city is 100% watered.  They believe the graph doesn't
show how much your city is watered, it shows how much water is not being used.  If you have a single water pump not connected by any pipes, then 100% of it's water is not being used.

Phantom vs Watered: A watered-tile is nearly double the value of a
dry tile. That's the only difference.  Now the question you
have to ask yourself is "does land-value really matter?"  Should you
waste valuable land to build water-pumps or use that land instead
to build other things?

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
Jerry Moore (Geraldalan@aol.com) wrote:

Over the weekend I ran some additional tests on the SC2K water model.  I
"pre-zoned" a city 64 tiles wide by 64 tiles high and pre-placed all the
essential services.  The zoning was roughly 50% residential, 30% commercial
and 20% industrial.  The first scenario was with no water pumps or pipes.  I
then let the city run for 20 years, placed it on pause and measured all the
essential values.  I ran a 2nd scenario for the same time period with the
phantom water pump, a 3rd scenario with 1 tile pumps surrounded by water outside of this 64 x 64 tile grid and a 4th scenario with 1 tile water
surrounded by pumps.  In all 4 scenarios, population growth and annual tax
revenue generated was essentially the same, with the only variable showing any significant change being land value.  The phantom pump and no pump produced the lowest land values, water surrounded by pumps was next and
pumps surrounded by water was highest.  I initially ran these tests on the
DOS version 1.01 software.  Subsequent tests on DOS version 1.0, version 1.1
and Windows produced very similar results.  The only conclusion I can draw
from this is that water has no impact on population growth or revenue and
that using available building space for more zones instead of pumps allows
for larger populations.

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
Michael Weburg (wmweburg@ix.netcom.com) wrote:

I concluded much the same. I did notice that the phantom pump is no
different than no pump at all, because it's not connected to the water
grid. All the phantom pump does is show the water % in the graph as 100.
This is because the water model shows this data as the amount of water  NOT
being used. If it says 100, then 100% of the pumps' water is not  being
used. If it goes to 80, then 80% of the pumps' output is not being  used.
When it hits 0, then none of it is being unused; all of it is  eaten up by
the grid.

Secondly, as you mention, value seems to be the only affected variable.  On
average, value increases by up to 70% if a tile or city is  fully-watered.
So, if you plug in a water system to a dry city with a  value of 60, you'll
end up with a city value of about 102. Unfortunatly,  city value seems to
have little effect on growth, density, or revenue.   I'd say it's a flaw in
the design, although it doesn't really hurt the  game any.
<!-- ******************************************************************* -->


DEBUG4CASH
How to use Debug

ClubOpolis: How to use DOS Debug

How to use DOS Debug

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
DEBUG is a DOS program located in C:\DOS.  You can use it in place of
a Hex-Editor to change certain bytes in the city files.

In all of the examples below, type "DEBUG YOURCITY.SC2" to load
your city into the DEBUG command-line editor (substitute your city name
for YOURCITY.SC@).  Your dos prompt will change from "C:" to "-".
To exit without making changes type "Q" quit.
To exit with changes type "W" to write the changes, then "Q" to quit.

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
Getting 2 Billion Dollars:

The following edits to your city file with DEBUG can only be done on
a new city!  If you attempt to do this edit after you have started to
build on your city, you're just asking for trouble!  Note that it doesn't
matter which difficulty your new city start on (Easy, Medium, Hard) or
which year you start in  (1900, 1950, 2000, 2050).  After this edit you
will have $2,139,049,504 to spend!

C:\SC2000\DEBUG YOURCITY.SC2
-e 127 7f
-w
-q

"-e 127 7f" change the bytes that store the money
"-w" write changes to disk
"-q" quits Debug

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->


CRASHCHOPPER
How to Crash the Chopper.

ClubOpolis: How to make the Helicopter Crash

How to make the Helicopter Crash
<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
Click on it with the Centering-tool.  If you have disasters on
be prepared to put out the fire.

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->


MAGICERASER
The Magic Eraser

ClubOpolis: Magic Eraser

Magic Eraser:
<!-- ******************************************************************** -->

An un-documented hidden feature in the trees/landscape tool which
allows you to erase buildings but not their effects (like population and pollution). To use the Magic Eraser:

 Select the tree-tool
 Start painting some trees
 Hold down the shift key while painting trees
 Erase stuff

Erasing an Arcology will still yield the population of an Arcology,
but the Arcology will be gone along with it's pollution and crime.

Erasing half of a power-plant would cut it's pollution in half, but
it would also cut it's power-output in half.

Michael Weburg used the Magic Eraser trick to win the
ClubOpolis Population Contest. Taking a clue from erasing Arcologies, he erased a 2x3 area of a 3x3 building. He then overlapped the erased section of building with a new 3x3 building. The tiles left over in the 1x3 building still added up to the population in a 3x3 building. Continuting to do this for his entire city, he ended up with hundreds of 1x3 buildings each with the population of a 3x3 building.

If he had the patience and time, he could have reduced each 3x3 building to a 1x1 building thus giving him almost 6 million sims not counting Arcos. Throw in and he could have a potential population of nearly 15 million.
His winning city was 11.2+ million (the contest limited cities to 140 Arcos).

<!-- ******************************************************************** -->


RAISEDTILE
Making A Raised Tile

ClubOpolis: How to make a Raised Tile in SimCity 2000

How to make a Raised Tile in SimCity 2000:
<!-- ******************************************************************** -->
This info has been provided by Michael Paul (jspm82c@prodigy.com)

There's a glitch in SimCity 2000 which allows you to create a raised tile.

Here's how you do it:

Create an L using the water tool.
Create a raised power cable with the powerline tool.
Start on the tile labeled A and drag to tile labeled B.
The Raised Wires dialog box should pop up.
Accept the Raised Wires.
Bulldoze everything and you should have a raised tile.

Note: This has not been tested on all versions of SimCity 2000.
It was tested on SC2K4DOS 1.0 and SC2K4WIN 1.0.
If it doesn't work for you, please let us know!

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SOLARPOWER
SOLAR POWER - solar power is clean and
cheap but unreliable.  Cloudy seasons will leave your citizens shivering
without light.