Im new in the game

[play-dead]

well i am new to the game Sim City 4 - till now i just played Sims 2 but Sim City 4 is fun - well I just have some questions:
1) how to make it with money - i didn't understood how can i make money in the game and they always finish early - and i always have to take loans to go on the game - but Im sure there is other way

Thank you in advance

[jeronij]

Do you mean you want to earn money playing the official way, or cheating ?¿

[play-dead]

Im asking the official way! how can I balance the income and expenses so the income to rise a bit more then expences and so I don't have problems with money after I have 3k people for example? - I dont like using cheats in games
and also what is needed for commercials to grow up - I build there and for long time they remain unoccupied only half of them grow up...
I would like to make my buildings grow up too from houses to blocks then from blocks to higher buildings - do i need plug ins to install?
and how can I see what is needed for the house to develop? I see the statistics there in the table but not else - I have played similar game before Ceaser 3 where for every house it told you what is needed to grow more - is there such thing in Sim City 4?

[Diggis]

The best thing to do is either turn off or ignore the advisors.  They have their own agendas and it costs you to listen to them all.  Only build what you need in terms of services.  Build a primary school and wait till it's full to build another.  Forget high schools till you have some serious dosh.

Police and Fire can wait. build a clinic or two, but don't go over board.

Basic rule is if you can't afford the monthly cost, don't build it till you can.

[wouanagaine]

And another basic rule, tweak the funding of your civics building to match their usage
No need to have a full funded college when only 30 students go to it

[jeronij]

Basically you have to provide your sims what they need to develop, and always in a measured way if you dont want to go out of funds. There is not a magic rule to develop your cities the right way.

If you want low wealth sims give them agricultural jobs and no health or education or landmarks or parks
If you want med wealth sims, give them manufacturing and CO/CS areas, and only basic school education and small medical centers or a small hospital. Just a few parks and no landmarks
If you want hight wealth sims, give them plenty of HT industry and CS/CO areas, plenty health and education coverage, including Major Schools and universities, full of parks and landmarks...

Well,I hope you get the idea.


If you want res low density areas to develop , use mainly low density industrial and commercial zoning
If you want res med density areas to develop , use med density jobs areas
If you want res hihg density areas to develop , give your sims high density jobs areas

You must carefully look at the RCI bar. It will tell you what type of areas are needed in every moment.

As the game runs, some available landmarks will increase the population and jobs capacities ( like the stadium increases the R$$ capacity in several thousands of sims). There are way too many tricks to be included in a single post  

This information is not technically accurated, but I hope it can give you an idea about the way to go  

[High5Tower]

The game is designed to be played on a regional level. So spread out. Go forth and start up 5 or 6 or more cities and get little things going on. This also stops you from just looking at 2 or 3 cities and impatiently seeking growth results. By doing many small improvements to a lot of cities that small improvement in each city adds to the regional growth count and that is what really drives simcity to develop well.

[play-dead]

thanks for the advises - well I see some players make their buildings grow to skyscrapers - I cant grow more then block - how can I make my buildings grow that much? is it needed lot of time and patience?

[rooker1]

play-dead, all of this info here is great stuff.
I just noticed where you were from and I think you should check out this thread and sign yourself in here [LINKIE]. 
You will be the first from Bulgaria.     And you'll give Dustin (thundercrack83) some more work. 

Robin