Things Every New(and Old) Mayor Should Know
I know there are other threads addressing this subject, but they are a bit dated, have drifted off topic, or are so many pages in that my ideas would not be seen by many and sometimes I just don’t agree with some of the advice given so please allow me to start anew.
I do not intend to be so arrogant as to imply that my ideas are the best or the only right ones, in fact one of the great things about SimCity is there is no right or wrong. If you are happy with your choices by all means carry on and enjoy, if on the other hand you, like me, what to know if there might be a better more productive path I hope I can help.
My city after a couple false starts and significant revamping has achieved a population on the cusp of 1.5M at level 45 maintaining 100% approval while not building any more than 2 and 4 lane roads. My next goal will be too achieve a population of 2M before I reach level 51 which should easily place me in the top 5% of cities based on population to level ratio. I have achieved this building mostly standard residences, my current city has only 3 partially updated Paris residences and 3 Tokyo Residences, built simply to satisfy Mayor’s Contest assignments. See the attached screen shot for validation. Oh! And by the way did I mention I play for free!(Sorry EA)
There is so much to share that I couldn’t possibly put it all in a single post, but if I get enough interest I will try and post more detailed ideas about specific topics later, if you have specific questions please ask and I will do my best to share with you my ideas. So here are some basic points I feel are important to grow a successful SimCity.
Make a plan. Every city needs a plan and that plan needs to include places for residences, Essential Services(Fire, Police, Health), Utilities(power, water, sewage, waste), Stores, Factories, Government Buildings, and last but absolutely not least Specialty Buildings. Specialty Buildings require a post all by themselves and may be the most misunderstood and neglected element of SimCity. If I had to guess right now over 500,000 of my population is directly attributed to my Specialty features not to mention their contribution to my approval rating and subsequently my revenue. If your plan is to throw up buildings and roads haphazardly your city will never reach its potential.
We have all seen the thousands of cities that use the oft recommended system of endless parallel roads regardless of small variations they all have one thing in common huge expensive expanses of 6 lane road upgrades. This is because buildings usually can only face one direction. I also started this way and quickly realized that it wasn’t going to work if I wanted to keep my credit card in my wallet so I started looking outside the box for a better way and after a couple of moderately successful attempts came upon the grid I am currently using. I am not advocating everyone copy and use my design, in fact I’m not sure how I would feel about that, I sort of like my uniqueness, what I’m saying is think outside the box don’t limit yourself by thinking that just because everybody else is doing it a certain way it is the best way. I came across what I felt was a very intriguing design in my tours through the Trade Market, Tamicity I believe, It had an even more original grid than mine that I thought about testing but decided I was too far along and didn’t have enough open land to properly test it so let it go. Do take time to explore neighboring cities when trading for ideas, you are looking for those Blue Gift Tokens aren’t you, also read the messages that pop up when you claim a Mayors Gift you will be surprised how many are negative towards that mayor if so you might not want to copy them too much.
A good plan should allow for flexibility as your city grows but still provide a solid foundation for your city. Individual road segments should be kept as short as possible so if an upgrade is needed the cost is reasonable. Almost every residential building in my city can face at least 2 streets sometimes 3. It is my ability to rotate my residences that keeps me from spending huge sums of money on road upgrades, and if you want to play for free every semolion is precious. If I get a Red Traffic warning that would require a 6 lane road upgrade I simply look at my buildings, see where traffic enters from and rotate the entrance to another street alleviating the problem (Tip: Study the building BEFORE selecting it. I have found that many times buildings seem to auto rotate to the best possible orientation so if you select it before taking note of its current facing it could auto-rotate and you may then be returning it to the original problematic direction. If you’re not sure just click the red X and the building will return to its original position and you can start again. This can take considerable time 15-20 mins to correct itself but it will, but I have also found if I move the troublesome building to a new temporary location, click the green checkmark, and then immediately move it back with the new facing the problem clears instantly). At this point in time I am confident enough in my basic design grid to know that I should never need to buy a 6 lane road unless I choose to, they are pretty after all.
Storage, Storage, Storage, repeat after me “I will never have enough Storage”. Storage is what makes this game either challenging or very easy. Having sufficient storage capacity will make the seemingly impossible Epic Projects possible (Yes I have completed Gold Epic Projects in under 3hrs without a credit card it’s not just Internet BS); mean the difference between success and failure in the Mayors Contest and overall just make the game much more enjoyable. So collect every Camera, Lock and funny looking Storage Bars you see at every opportunity. Keep in mind as you collect these tokens they are acting like a parasite on your available storage space i.e. I’m currently about to expand my storage from 490 to 500 to do this I must collect 35 of each of the 3 tokens or a total of 105 storage slots dedicated to these tokens leaving me with only 385 slots for other items. I failed to realize this until too late and am just now getting ahead of the curve. You will find as you level up you will unlock more and more items which will need to be stored so get ahead early and stay there by constantly upgrading your storage it is more important early on than any other expansion, including land. Oh, and consider them targets of opportunity when in the Trade Market you see one you buy it. You will not be able to collect tokens from Balloons fast enough so be prepared to buy! A rule of thumb I have seen and won’t disagree with is keep your storage 10-15 times your current level, meaning if you are level 20 your storage capacity should be a minimum of 200 but preferably closer to 300 or more.
One last topic and I will put an end to this monster. Don’t let the game decide what you want to do with your city. By this I mean the game tries to steer you into what are IMHO bad decisions. It would have you develop the Beach area early on yet if you look at what value the Beach improvements offer to your population they are some of the worst returns in the game you are better off developing the Mountain and other Specialty Lines before the Beach. Same goes for the Airport 80,000 Semolions can be put too much better use early on than opening the Airport. I didn’t open the Airport until my Population was over 1M and then only because I had to for the Mayors Contest. The only thing the Airport offers is the opportunity to build higher density houses in different architectural styles, Paris, London, and Tokyo. While this does grow your population faster it also demands greater investment in both Semolions and Real-estate for Utilities. Building these structures also requires at least 1 of 3 Special Tokens for each zone so you are looking at additional 10-40 storage slots just to keep these tokens on hand and they are expensive to buy or require cargo plane shipments where you must give away valuable items for pennies on the dollar to receive one token. If you simply love these other building styles by all means ignore me and open the Airport at least you will have some idea of what to expect. Before I opened it I always wondered what I might be missing and for me it was nothing but you might feel differently.
The two areas I do recommend you develop ASAP are the Shipyard and Vu Tower these are you best and most reliable source of Gold Keys and Gold Keys are the currency of most Specialty Structures which are possibly the single most important buildings in the game. I delayed developing the Vu Tower over reluctance to willingly destroy my beautiful city but it gets easier after the first Meteor Shower and the damage is easy to repair while the resulting Keys have made my city a better place.
Wow! This took on a life of its own sorry but there is sooo much more to say. Again If I get enough positive response or request for insights on specific topics I will try to make more shorter posts. If you have other ideas or think I’m an idiot please let me know why I too am still learning the intricacies of this game. For those still awake thank you for reading.
