Things Every New(and Old) Mayor Should Know

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@Arcadia0426 wrote:

Cool post; thank you!

You are much further ahead than I am. What is your take on entertainment? I have not built that HQ as yet.

I probably have too many schools. I struggle with understanding how to maximize space for building while maintaining fire/police/health/park coverage.  I've used the "loop within a loop" outline for my first 3 residential areas, since it's predictable and I can plan on how much to spend on services and how many residences they can support. I guess I figured that after the first 3 I might branch out more. Then again, I never seem to be able to hold onto too much money - busy buying those pricey storage items!

I did buy some sim cash, and will probably buy more when a good deal comes around. I did this primarily to ease the frustration when I can't get that last storage or land expansion item. Even if I end up not using the sim cash, it has a psychological benefit for me.

I do hope you post more thoughts; very interesting and helpful.

Thanks for the positive feedback.

I actually postponed using entertainment buildings for a while primarily because all the worthwhile buildings have HUGE footprints that can be difficult to fit into city plans. They are also fairly costly compared to Gambling which I extensively deployed with the Luxury Casino Towers being the building of choice great population boost for the buck (16x16 influence area, easy to deploy 4x4 footprint, 60% pop. boost, only 12 Gold Keys) only drawback being is they are only 2 Epic pt. buildings but they are so cheap you can deploy many of them. My city currently has 10 of these towers and they average over 21,000 pop. boost you won't find a better deal than that for 12 Keys.

What I did do was plan for the large Entertainment buildings in my next expansion and now have the Sydney Opera House, a Stadium and 3 Ferris Wheels. If you look closely at my image above you can see how I had to get creative with my streets to fit some extra Ferris Wheels in, so I traded some symmetry in my streets for 30-40k in population boost each and more 3 Epic pt. buildings a compromise I would make any day so look for opportunities like these to fit in larger buildings. Just don't build anymore 1 Epic pt buildings than you must focus on 3pt. Buildings with some 2 pt. buildings. If you haven't already you will curse every 1pt. Building when you undertake an Epic Project.

What I see many people do is make the mistake of putting these Huge expensive buildings on the fringes of the city because that is where they fit easiest. Doing this means a substantial portion of the benefits these buildings offer is lost because the influence area is measured from the center of the footprint and radiates in all directions equally but if the only thing they cover is empty ground or non-residential buildings you get no benefit. So place these key buildings in densely populated areas to max out there potential.

I hope this helps

Arcadia0426

I thought I might offer some insights on a couple of your other comments in your reply so here goes.

Starting with your difficulties in providing balanced Essential Services(Fire, Police, Health) if you are trying to use advanced buildings to provide these services you will likely continually experience these problems. This is due to the fact that many buildings have the same area of influence yet most maps only provide 1 sweet spot for placing building meaning that since EA does not let us stack buildings 3-dimensionally some buildings will always be less than ideally placed. You said you started using what you called a "loop within a loop" but stopped why? I assume by loop within a loop you meant something like my layout was it exactly like mine notice my "loops" aren't square this is intentional because with careful orientation I cover 12 residences with only 3 basic essential service buildings. By careful orientation, I mean since basic fire and police buildings have rectangular areas of influence it requires that those buildings be turned just right in order to perfectly cover my ring of residences without a single wasted square. My entire city is protected by nothing except basic essential service buildings with 2 exceptions for hospitals needed to cover my back row not seen in the image. I make no apologies for this since there is no benefit to using the larger more costly service buildings and if a design works don't change just for change sake do change if it offers a better solution.

You also mentioned you are not opposed to buying Sim Cash if so I would consider buying a Maxis Manor this provides all 3 services in one building but its biggest benefit is it will let you buy Vu Tokens which have been rare lately.

Lastly you said you think you have too many schools. The answer to that is if you have more than 1 High School you have too many. By the way what level are you? Have you unlocked the Epic Tower yet? If not let me provide a heads up on choosing your Specialty Buildings build mostly 3 Epic pt. buildings and 2 pt buildings when you must but try not to build to build anymore than the minimum required 1pt buildings. You will thank me when you complete your first Gold Epic Tower Upgrade a task that is impossible if you have a large number of 1pt. Buildings. My Education line at one time consisted of 13 Libraries and 1 High School along with the HQ all 1 Epic pt. buildings and my first Epic Project went very very badly achieving only copper level after many many hours of effort. Hey I never said I didn't learn some things the hard way, since then I build only 2 & 3 pt buildings and can complete most Gold level towers in 2-5 hours. I have replaced most of my libraries with Universities while maintaining 100% Education coverage. While you can bulldoze buildings bought with Gold Keys you will get no refund so you are better off saving more and building better options upfront than replacing poor buildings later. Another option for lower grade building is to move them into areas of new expansion while placing stronger buildings in more developed areas to provide more benefit. This will not eliminate the Epic Challenge penalty that theses 1pt. buildings suffer from but does offer an alternative to destruction albeit temporary.