SIM CITY Hard Disk Installation: Copy the contents of the Simcity Disk to a subdirectory on your hard disk. Be sure the Scenario file is in the same subdirectory as the Simcity Program. When you start the program from the hard disk, you will be asked to insert the original Simcity disk. It will be checked, and the program will finish loading. Once the program has been loaded, you may remove the floppy. INTRODUCTION FOREWORD: Enter Simcity and take control. Be the undisputed ruler of a sophisticated real-time City simulation. Become the master of existing cities such as San Francisco, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro, or create your own dream city (or dream slum) from the ground up. Whether you take over an existing city or build your own, you are the Mayor and City Planner with complete authority. Your city is populated by Sims - Simulated citizens. Like their human counterparts, they build houses, condos, churches, stores and factories. And, also like humans, they complain about things like taxes, mayors, taxes, city planners, and taxes. If they get too unhappy, they move out; you collect less taxes, the city deteriorates. The next few sections will explain the overall concept of simcity and give information that will help you win Scenarios and design and build better cities. ABOUT SYSTEM SIMULATIONS: Simcity is the first of a new type of entertainment/education software, called SYSTEM SIMULATIONS. We provide you with a set of RULES and TOOLS that describe, create and control a system. In the case of Simcity, the system is a city. The challenge of playing a SYSTEM SIMULATION game is to figure out how the system works and take control of it. As master of the game, you are free to use the TOOLS to create and control an unlimited number of systems (in this case, cities) within the framework and limits provided by the RULES. In Simcity, the RULES to learn are based on city planning and management, including: Human factors - residential space and amenities, availability of jobs, and quality of life; Economic factors - land value, industrial and commercial space, unemployment, internal and external markets, electric power, taxation, and funding for city services; Survival factors - strategies for dealing with disasters, crime, and pollution; Political factors - public opinion, zoning, and keeping residents and businesses satisfied with your city and your performance; The TOOLS provide you with the ability to plan, layout, zone, build, bulldoze, rezone, and manage a city. Plan - Mapping systems give physical and demographic overviews of the entire city. Layout - Design living and working areas, road and transit systems, and recreational areas. Zone - Set zoning boundaries for parks, residential, commercial and industrial areas. Build - Place roads, rails, airports, sea ports, fire and police stations, sports stadiums, and power plants. Bulldoze - Clear forests for city growth, build landfill along waterways, clear and rezone developed areas. Manage - Using the mapping and graphing systems, gather up-to-date information on traffic density, population trends, power grid status, pollution, crime, land value, police and fire department efficiency, and cash flow. Set the tax rate and funding levels for city services. But the most important TOOL of all is the simulator itself. Test your plans and ideas as you watch the city grow or shrink through the immigration and emigration of industrious Simulated Citizens. Sims will move in and build homes, hospitals, churches, stores and factories in the zones you provide, or move out in search of jobs or a better life elsewhere. The success of the city is based on the quality of the city you design and manage. THE GOALS OF SIMCITY: There are many goals to be pursued and reached in Simcity. SCENARIOS: Each of the eight included secnarios is actually a game in itself, with an unlimited number of ways to win - or lose. Each Scenario is a city which is either the victim of horrible planning or about to be the victim of a natural disaster. After you load in a Scenario, you will have a limited amount of time to correct or repair the problems. If you are successful you will be given the key to the city. If not you may be ridden out of town on a rail. If one strategy doesn't work, try another. And another. There are a million stories in each city, and you write them. YOUR DREAM CITY: Perhaps the main goal of Simcity is for you to design, manage and maintain the city of your dreams. Your ideal place to live may be a bustling megapolis, lots of people, lots of cars, tall buildings; high energy, high density living. Or it may be a small rural community, or a linked group of small communities providing slow paced country living. As long as your city can provide places for people to live, work, shop, and play, it will attract residents. And as long as traffic, pollution, overcrowding, crime or taxes don't drive them away, your city will live. GETTING STARTED SIMULATOR REACTION TIME: The simulator is a very complex multi-tasking piece of software. It is constantly performing many checks, calculations, and updates, as well as keeping watch on the mouse and keyboard to respond to your demands. When you load in a city, give the simulator a few minutes to compile its data and update the maps, graphs, population levels, etc. Some of the other times when the simulator lags behind you are: powering zones and updating the city services after installing police and fire stations. TUTORIAL - A WALK THROUGH YOUR CITY NOTE: In Simcity, use the LEFT mouse button, unless otherwise noted. The RIGHT button is used primarily to activate and select menu items from the title bar. The RIGHT button activates the BULLDOZER function while in the Editor Window, so don't press it unless you mean it. After a few seconds, the "Welcome to Simcity" road sign will appear. It displays the following options: START A NEW CITY, LOAD A CITY, and SELECT A SCENARIO. Click START NEW CITY. The Workbench will reappear, and the program will continue to load. You will soon see a small notice window that informs you that the program is terraforming a new city. A map of undeveloped land will be generated and displayed. You are given a choice of Game Play Level. Click EASY. You will now be asked to name your city. Go ahead and name it, or accept the default name SOMEWHERE. You are given a choice: GENERATE A NEW TERRAIN or USE THIS MAP. Click USE THIS MAP. Click the OK box when you are done. You will be shown the MAPS/GRAPHS WINDOW. On the left side of the window is the map; an overall view of your entire terrain, approximately 10 miles by 10 miles in area. The icons below the map are buttons to activate and display different demographic views of your city. We'll play with them later. On the right side of the screen you can view time-based graphs of various city data. We'll come back to these later, too. The rectangle located somewhere on the map indicates the portion of the terrain that will be visible in the EDITOR WINDOW - your main work area. Click the left mouse button where you want the box, or click and drag the box around the map, choosing the area you wish to work on, then click the "RETURN TO EDITOR" button in the lower right-hand corner of the screen to leave the MAPS/GRAPHS WINDOW and go to the EDITOR WINDOW to begin building your city. NOTE: The BUDGET WINDOW will pop up once a year in city time. When it does, just click the GO WITH THESE FIGURES box at the bottom. You are now in the EDIT WINDOW, looking at a close-up view of the box on the map. Note the icons on the right. They are buttons that work just like icons in various draw and paint programs. At the top of the EDITOR WINDOW is the title bar. This displays the name of the city, the date, and your available city funds. There are also the usual Amiga gadgets to move the window to the top or bottom of the stack. Note: You can click and drag the title bar to move the editor window, but the window must be all the way to the top of the screen for terrain scrolling to function properly. Move the mouse pointer to the title bar, and press and hold the RIGHT button. This will show you the various menus available in Simcity. Without choosing any menu items, slide the mouse pointer across the screen and take a look at the available menus. To scroll the terrain under the editor window, move the pointer to the top, bottom, side or corners of the screen. Cursor keys can also be used to scroll. Your available land is made of three types of territory. The brown areas are clear land, the green areas are forests and shrubs, and the blue areas are water. You can build only on clear land. You can clear forest and extend coastlines with your bulldozer. You can run roads, rails and power across water. To clear the terrain, click the Bulldozer icon. Move the pointer over to land. The "pointer" is a small square, outlining the area that will be bulldozed every time you click the left mouse button. Move your bulldozer pointer over some forest land and click. The forest section under your pointer slowly across the forest. Mass destruction. Clear a large area of land to prepare for building. To begin a city we need three things: places for Sims to live, places for Sims to work, and power. Click the Residential icon then move back to your terrain. Your pointer is now a larger square outline. This outline indicates how much clear space you will need to create a residential zone - a place for sims to live. Clicking the left mouse button in clear terrain "zones" the land. The "R" in the center of the zone indicates that it is a residential zone. The flashing lightning symbol indicates that the zone has no power. Place a few more residential zones adjacent to the first one. If you have trouble placing a zone, make sure it is on open land. You cannot zone on water, trees or over other zones. Now decide where to position a power plant in your city. Point to the power plant icon and click the mouse button. A small menu will appear, giving you the option of choosing a coal or nuclear plant. For now, click on the coal power plant. The outline for a power plant is even larger than for the residential zone. Place the power plant in some open space near your residential zones. If your power plant is not directly adjacent to a residential zone, you will need to run a power line from your power plant to the residential zone. To do this, click the power line icon. Using your mouse pointer and button, lay power lines from your power plant to your residential zones. Adjacent power line sections will automatically connect to each other. Roadways and transit lines connect in the same manner. In a moment, the flashing symbols in the residential zones will disappear, indicating that your zones have been powered. Any zones that are adjacent to a powered zone do not need separate power lines run to them. Soon you will see small houses start to appear. The Sims have started to move in. When you zone land, you designate where building is allowed. It is the Sims who actually build. Now that you have a few residential zones, you're ready for commercial and industrial areas; places for the sims to work, shop, and transact business. Select the commercial icon and place a few commercial zones near your residential ones. Then select the industrial icon and place some industrial zones. Connect all necessary power lines. Note: There is a delay between the time you connect the power to a zone and the time the flashing lightning symbol disappears. This delay gets longer as your city gets larger. Notice that as you select different icons, the icon's description and its associated cost will be displayed in the box just above the icons. The message bar across the top of the edit window displays your total funds available. If you do not have enough money in your treasury to pay for a certain function, that icon will be ghosted, on your screen and is unavailable for use. Now, click the road icon and add roads from your residential housing to the commercial and industrial areas to allow the sims to commute to work. Road sections connect themselves like power line sections. Once you have roads, traffic will be generated. Now, move the mouse pointer to the title bar, press and hold the RIGHT mouse button, slide the pointer to the window menu, and select the budget window. This is where you set the level of funding for your fire, police, and transportation departments. Click the up or down arrows to change the funding level. You can also adjust the current property tax rate. If you have no police or fire departments, you can't fund them. You cannot fund more than 100%. Click the GO WITH THESE FIGURES box when you are done. Now select MAP & GRAPH from the windows menu to return to the maps/graphs window. By clicking on the icons along the lower left, you can see different demographic views of your city. You will need this information to build and adjust conditions in your city. For example, you can pinpoint the areas with the highest crime to determine locations for new police stations. Additional information can be gained through the available graphs. Unlike the maps, which only show the current state of your city, the graphs give you a record of the past so you can gauge trends and cycles. This is all the basic information you need to run simcity, but we suggest reading on. The user reference explains in detail how to use each program function. Inside simcity explains the inner workings of the simulator, and gives some hints & tips for using it. There is also an essay on the History of Cities and City Planning, and a Bibliography for serious City Planners. USER REFERENCE MENUS Simcity Menus follow the standard Amiga interface.Use the RIGHT mouse button to activate and select menu items. FILE MENU ABOUT brings up a screen giving fascinating and vital information about Simcity and Maxis. START NEW CITY generates a new,empty terrain.Clears existing city (if any) from memory.You will be asked if you wish to "GENERATE A NEW GROUND MAP AND LOSE THE CURRENT ONE?" and gives the option to go ahead or cancel.You will next be given a chance to set the GAME PLAY LEVEL,and then name your city. PICK SCENARIO brings up a new menu of available SCENARIOS to load and run. LOAD CITY brings up the standard Amiga "File Loading Screen",allowing you to load a previously saved city. SAVE CITY brings up the standard Amiga "File Saving Screen" allowing you to save the scenario or city in progress for later use.Once you have loaded a scenario,it can be saved and reloaded,like any city,without the impending disaster. PRINT CITY brings up a window giving you the choice of printing out your city on a single page,or on a multi-page poster.You may also cancel the print function. QUIT OUT! ends SimCity. EDIT MENU UNDO cancels the last operation you performed. OPTIONS MENU The options set in this window stay with the simulation,not the city. AUTO BUDGET keeps your budget at the same percentage settings without asking for approval every year. AUTO BULLDOZER allows you to place zones,roadways,etc.,directly on top of trees and shoreline without manually bulldozing first.You will be charged the same as for manual bulldozing. AUTO GOTO EVENT automatically transports you to the scene of a disaster or major event. SOUNDS ON toggles the city sounds on and off.Defaults to the "on" position. The simulation runs slightly faster with the sound off. GAME SPEED brings up a sub-menu allowing you to set the simulation speed. FAST sets city time to maximum speed.Medium is the default setting,about three times slower than FAST.SLOW is seven times slower than FAST.PAUSED stops time.Zoning and building are possible in paused time. POWER BOLTS toggles on and off the presence of the flashing power sign in unpowered zones. DISASTERS MENU: The disasters menu allows you to set natural disasters loose in your city. Use these disasters to test your ability to deal with emergencies in your city or just to release some aggression. More information on disasters, their causes, and dealing with them is presented later. **WARNING** It is a good idea to save your city to disk before you set a disaster loose (just in case) FIRE starts a fire somewhere within the city limits. FLOODING causes a flood to occur near the water. AIR DISASTER causes a plane to crash. If there are no planes in the air, one will be generated. TORNADO causes a tornado to appear within the city limits. EARTHQUAKE causes a MAJOR earthquake. MONSTER sets a monster loose in your city. WINDOWS MENU: BUDGET brings up the budget window on the screen. EVAL brings up the evaluation window. MAP & GRAPH brings up the map/graph window. WORKBENCH allows you to bring up the WORKBENCH WINDOW, or close it to free up another 30K of memory for Simcity. THE EDITOR WINDOW: This is where all actual zoning and building takes place. TERRAIN: There are three types of terrain in the EDITOR WINDOW. The brown area is open land, where you can zone and build. The green areas are trees and forests. You cannot zone or build on green areas. You may BULLDOZE trees and forests to turn it into clear land. While some bulldozing is necessary, clearing away too much green area will result in lower property values. The blue area is water. You cannot zone or build on water. You must bulldoze coastlines to create landfills before you can build or zone there. Roads and power lines can be laid across water, with no turns or intersections. EDITOR WINDOW GADGETS Title bar displays the city name, the date, and available funds. Clicking and dragging the title bar allows you to relocate the editor window. Note: The editor window must be all the way to the top of the screen for the scrolling to work properly. At the right of the title bar are the standard amiga gadgets for moving the window to the top and bottom of the stack. Behind the title bar is the menu bar. The message bar, located directly below the title bar displays status messages to you from the simulator and demand messages from the sims themselves. GOTO BUTTON takes you to the scene of a disaster or major event mentioned in the message bar. ICONS along the right side of the window are for the editing functions. The ICON TITLE BOX, located just above the icons gives the name and cost of the selected icon. EDITOR WINDOW CONTROLS: The MOUSE is used to activate icons. Moving the mouse pointer to the sides or corners of the screen causes the terrain to scroll below the EDITOR WINDOW. The LEFT mouse button is used to select icons, and place items. The RIGHT mouse button performs the Bulldozer function, regardless of the active icon. THE CURSOR KEYS will also cause scrolling. Z and X cycle active icons in opposite directions. Q (Query) Hold down the "Q" key while clicking the mouse on parts of your city to bring up a status box identifying the spot (zone, road, terrain, etc.), and giving information on Population Density, Land Value, Crime Rate, Pollution, and Growth. B,R,T and P are shortcut keys. No matter which icon is selected, if you push and hold down the "B" key, you will be in active Bulldozer mode. Release the "B" key to return control to the selected icon. The "R" key activates Roadbuilding mode in the same way. The "T" key activates Transmit line building, and the "P" key puts you in Powerline mode. EDITOR WINDOW ICONS Active icons are highlighted. Ghosted icons are unavailable due to lack of funds. When an icon is selected a rectangle will accompany the pointer to indicate the size and area of land that will be affected. BULLDOZER clears trees and forests, creates landfill aling the water, levels developed, existing zones and clears rubble caused by disasters. The Auto- Bulldozer option works on natural terrain, power lines, roads and rails, but not on zones. Note: Bulldozing the center of a zone will destroy the whole zone. Bulldozing one section of land costs $1. ROADS connect developed areas. Intersections and turns are automatically created. Lay continuous roads by clicking and draggig your pointer. Be careful - if you accidentally lay a road in the wrong place, you will have to pay for bulldozing and rebuilding. Roads may not be placed over zoned areas. They may be placed over trees, shrubbery, and shoreline only after bulldozing or activating the Auto- Bulldozer function from the Options menu. Roads can cross over power lines and rails only at right angles. Laying roads across water creates a bridge. Bridges can only be built in a straight line - no curves, turns or intersections. Shorelines must be bulldozed prior to building a bridge. Roadways are maintained by the transit budget, and wear out if there is a lack of funding. The amount of yearly fundig requested by the transportation department is $1 for each section of the road, $4 for each section of bridge. It costs $10 to lay one section of road and $50 to lay one section of bridging. TRANSIT LINES create a railway system for intra-city mass transit. Place tracks in heavily trafficked areas to help alleviate congestion. Intersections and turns are created automatically. Lay continuous transit lines by clicking and dragging your pointer. Tracks laid under rivers will appear as dashed lines. These are underwater tunnels, and must be vertical or horizontal - no turns, curves or intersections. Transit lines are maintained by the transit budget. The level of funding affects the efficiency of the system. The amount of yearly funding requested by the transportation department is $4 for each section of rail, and $10 for each section of tunnel. It costs $20 per section of track laid on land, $100 per section underwater. POWER LINES carry power from power plants to zoned land and between zones. All developed land needs power to function. Power lines cannot cross zoned land. They can be built over trees, shrubbery and shoreline only after bulldozing, or activating the Auto-Bulldozer function from the Options Menu. Power is conducted through adjacent zones. Unpowered zones display the flashing power symbol. There is a delay between the time you connect power to a zone and when the flashing symbol disappears. The delay grows longer as the city grows larger. Junctions and corners are automatically created. Lay continuous power lines by clicking and dragging your pointer. Power lines across water must be horizontal or vertical - no turns, curves or intersections. Shorelines must be bulldozed before placing power lines. Power lines consume some power due to transmission inefficiencies. It costs $5 to lay one section of power line on land, $25 on water. PARKS can be placed on clear land. Parks, like forests and water, raise land value of the surrounding zones. Parks can be bulldozed as fire breaks or reserve space for later mass transit expansion. It costs $10 to zone one park. RESIDENTIAL ZONES are where the sims build houses, apartments and community facilities such as schools, hospitals and churches. Residential zones develop into one of four values: slums, lower middle class, upper middle class, and upper class. They can range in population density from single-family homes to high-rise apartments and condominiums. Factors influencing residential value and growth are pollution, traffic density, population density, surrounding terrain, roadway access, parks and utilities. It costs $100 to zone one plot of land as residential. Residential zones are bordered in green to aid in distinguishing them from other zones. COMMERCIAL ZONES are used for many things, including retail stores, office buildings, parking garages, and gas stations. There are four values for commercial property, and five levels of growth, from the small general store to tall skyscrapers. Factors influencing the value and growth of commercial areas include internal markets, pollution, traffic density, residential access, labor supply, airports, crime rates, transit access and utilities. It costs $100 to zone one plot of land as commercial. Commercial zones are bordered in blue to aid in distinguishing them from other zones. INDUSTRIAL ZONES are for heavy manufacturing and industrial services. There are four levels of industrial growth, from small pumping stations and warehouses to large factories. Factors influencing industrial growth are external markets, sea ports, transit access, residential access, labor supply, and utilities. It costs $100 to zone one plot of land as industrial. Industrial zones are bordered in yellow to aid in distinguishing them from other zones. FIRE DEPARTMENTS make surrounding areas less susceptible to fires. When fires do occur, they are put out sooner and do less damage if a station is near. The effectiveness of fire containment depends on the level of fire department funding. It costs $1000 to build a fire station. Full yearly maintenance of each Fire station is $100. POLICE DEPARTMENTS lower the crime rate in the surrounding areas. This in turn raises property values. Place these in high-density crime areas as defined by your crime rate map. The efficiency of a station depends on the level of police department funding. It costs $1000 to build a police station. Full yearly maintenance of each Police station is $100. POWER PLANTS can be coal or nuclear, chosen from a sub-menu provided when you activate the Power Plant icon. The nuclear plant is more powerful but carries a slight risk of meltdown. The coal plant is less expensive, but less powerful and it pollutes. All zoned land needs power to develop and grow. When developed land loses power, it will degenerate to barren ground unless power is restored. Connecting too many zones to a power plant causes brownouts. Coal power plants cost $3000 to build, and supply enough energy for about 50 zones. Nuclear plants cost $5000 and supply electricity for about 150 zones. STADIUMS encourage residential growth, once a city has become fairly large. You may build a stadium in a smaller city without negative (or positive) effect. Stadiums indirectly generate a lot of revenue, but create a lot of traffic. Properly maintaining a stadium requires a good road and transit network. It costs $3000 to build a stadium. AIRPORTS increase the growth potential of your commercial markets. Once a city starts getting large, commercial growth will level off without an Airport. Airports are large and expensive and should not be built unless your city can afford one. Position airports to keep flight paths over water whenever possible, lessening the impact of air disasters. Once you build an airport you will see planes flying above your city to and from the airport. There is also a traffic helicopter which alerts you to heavy traffic areas. It costs $10000 to zone land for use as an airport. SEA PORTS increase the potential for industrial growth. They have little effect in a small city, but contribute a lot to industrialization in a large city. Sea ports should be placed on the shoreline. The shoreline must be bulldozed prior to zoning a Sea port. Once the port is operational you may see ships in the water. It costs $5000 to zone land for use as a Sea port. THE BUDGET WINDOW When your first taxes are collected in a new city, and each year after, the BUDGET WINDOW will appear (unless you select the Auto-Budget function). You will be asked to set the funding levels for the fire, police, and transportation departments, and to set the property tax rate. You can raise and lower budget levels by clicking on the little arrows that correspond to each category. A percentage indicator will display the level of funding that will be maintained if you turn on the Auto-Budget function. You may adjust your tax rate by clicking on the arrows next to the tax rate indicator. Click on "GO WITH THESE FIGURES" to exit the BUDGET WINDOW. TAX RATE The maximum tax rate you can set is 20% The minimum tax rate you can set is 0% The optimum tax rate for fast growth is between 5% and 7% To slow city growth without actually shrinking set the tax rate to 9% The taxes collected from each zone is based on the following formula. Tax = Population * Land Value * Tax Rate * a scaling constant. The scaling constant changes with the difficulty level of the game. FUNDING LEVELS The amount of yearly funding requested for the fire and police department is $100 per station that you have placed. Until you actually build fire or police stations, you cannot fund them. You cannot allocate more than 100% of the requested funding for fire and police departments - simcity police officers and fire inspectors are honest and will not accept your bribes. Allocating less than the requested amount will decrease the effectiveness coverage of the police or fire station. The amount of yearly funding requested for the transportation department is $1 for each section of road, $4 for each section of bridge (roads over water),$4 for each section of rail, and $10 for each section of tunnel (underwater rails). You cannot allocate more than 100% of the requested funds. Transportation maintenance funding slightly below 100% will cause slow, minor deterioration of the transit system - an occasional pothole or bad track section. Funding between 90 and 75% will cause noticeable damage - many sections of the road and rail will be unusable. Funding below 75% will cause rapid deterioration of your transit system. CASH FLOW Cash Flow = Taxes collected - Total Allocated Funds. It will be a negative number if your yearly maintenance costs are greater than your yearly tax intake. A major difference between Simcity and a real city is that Simcity does not allow budget deficits. If you don't have the money, you can't spend it. Try not to let your city run with a negative cash flow. An hourglass icon is displayed at the top left of the budget icon. It indicates the time remaining to enter the budget information. When the hourglass empties, the budget that is set is accepted. If you need more time, click in the BUDGET WINDOW to reset the hourglass. MAPS/GRAPHS WINDOW The MAPS/GRAPHS WINDOW supplies the city planner with vital information on his city. Click on the "RETURN TO EDITOR" button when you wish to leave the MAPS/GRAPHS WINDOW and return to the EDITOR WINDOW. MAPS The left side of the MAP/GRAPH WINDOW supplies you with maps showing various overviews of your city. On the map is a red box, indicating the area of the map that will be visible in the edit window. The box can be moved around the map by placing the pointer where you want the center of the box and clicking the left mouse button. You can also hold down the button and drag the box around the map. For demographic maps that show density, rate or comparative levels, a Color Key will also be shown to the left of the map. You may also notice yellow letters on the map. These are markers to let you know where moveable objects are. An "S" marks the location of a ship. An "R" marks the location of a railroad train. An "H" marks the location of a helicopter. An "A" marks the location of an airplane. An "M" marks the location of a Monster, and a "T" marks the location of a Tornado. The CITY FORM MAP shows the physical shape of your city, demarking developed and non-developed areas. Zones are shown in dark grey, roads in black, and rails in light grey. Use this map to plan city expansion. The POWER GRID MAP shows you the power network of your city. Powered zones are shown with a yellow dot in their middle. Unpowered zones have a black dot. Power lines on land are shown in black. Power lines over water are shown in yellow. Use this map to locate unpowered zones and breaks in the power lines. The TRANSIT MAP is a road and rail map of the city. Roads are shown in grey. Rails are shown in black. Use this map to examine traffic access to all parts of the city and plan further expansion of the network. The ZONES MAP shows and distinguishes all zones and developed areas in the city. Residential zones are shown in green. Commercial zones are blue. Industrial zones are yellow. Other developed areas, such as power plants, airports, and sea ports are shown in black. The POPULATION DENSITY MAP displays the average number of people occupying an area each day. Use this map to locate under-utilized areas and over- populated areas. The TRAFFIC DENSITY MAP shows the amount of traffic on the roads. Spot traffic problems and determine where new roadways are needed. The CRIME RATE MAP shows the level and location of crime in your city. Crime is calculated from population density, land value, and proximity of police stations. The POLLUTION INDEX MAP shows levels of pollution throughout the city. Pollution is generated primarily by industry, traffic, and coal power plants. The LAND VALUE MAP shows the relative value of land within the city limits. Land values are used to establish the amount of revenue generated by taxes. The GROWTH RATE MAP shows the most recent growth (positive or negative) of your city, and where it is occuring. The FIRE PROTECTION MAP displays the effective radius of Fire Stations based on their location, power, and funding levels. The POLICE INFLUENCE MAP displays the effective radius of Police Stations based on their location, power and funding levels. USING THE MAPS The MAP WINDOW should be constantly referred to in all stages of city planning, building and managing. BEFORE YOU BUILD: Use the map before beginning a new city to plan: where you want your city center, where you want the high class waterfront residential areas, where you will cross water with bridges, power lines and tunnels, where to place power plants, where to place large industrial sections away from the residential sections, the generl layout of the city. Printing the map and sketching in your plan with a pencil or pen will save a lot of bulldozing and re-zoning and rebuilding. DURING CITY GROWTH: Use the map to guide your city's growth around forest areas, to preserve the trees and improve property values. Use the transportation map along with the traffic density map to plan traffic control and expansion. Use the city maps to make sure that you have the proper ratio of residential to commercial to industrial zones. Use the pollution map to detect problem areas, and disperse the industrial zones and/or replace roads with rails. Printing out the map in various stages of development and doing some preliminary planning with a pencil can be useful. Printouts can also be used for city historical records. DURING CITY MAINTENANCE: Coal power plants will only supply approximately 50 zones with power and nuclear plants will supply about 150. Overloading power plants can cause brownouts and blackouts. Use the power grid to locate zones that have lost power. Use the city services maps to evaluate the effective coverage of your police and fire departments. Use the crime rate map to locate problem areas that need more police protection. Use the pollution map to locate problem areas. Use the transportation and traffic density map to determine where to replace roads with rails. Use the land value map to locate depressed areas for improvement or replacement. Use the city maps to maintain the proper ratio of residential to commercial to industrial zones. GRAPHS: The right side of the MAPS/GRAPHS WINDOW gives you time-based graphs of various city data. You may view graphs for time periods of either the last ten years or the last 120 years by clicking on the "10 / 120 year" button. The RESIDENTIAL POPULATION GRAPH shows the total population in residential zones. The COMMERCIAL POPULATION GRAPH shows the total population in commercial zones. The INDUSTRIAL POPULATION GRAPH shows the total population in industrial zones. The CRIME RATE GRAPH shows the overall crime rate of the entire city. The POPULATION GRAPH displays the change, positive or negative, of the overall population. The POLLUTION GRAPH shows the overall average pollution reading of the entire city. USING THE GRAPHS: The graphs give information on many of the same factors as the maps, but show the information over time. Graphs are for locating trends in city life that won't be noticeable in a map. If you look at a map, for example the crime rate map, every year, a very slight rise in crime will not be noticeable. But on a graph, you would easily locate the upward trend in crime because you will be viewing the levels for a number of years at the same time. Residential, commercial and industrial population growth and/or decline can be tracked and displayed. If you notice a downward trend in any of these, refer to the User Reference Card to locate potential problems and solutions. Crime rate can be displayed, revealing slight but consistent upward or downward trends. Use the cash flow graph to track your city's efficiency as it grows. If your maintenance costs are higher than your tax revenues, you will have a negative cash flow. Use the pollution graph to catch rising levels of pollution before they reach a problem level. THE EVALUATION WINDOW The EVALUATION WINDOW gives you a performance rating. You can access it through the WINDOWS MENU. PUBLIC OPINION is presented in poll form, rating your overall job as mayor and listing what the public regards as the city's most pressing problems. You are advised to keep your residents happy or they might migrate away, and you will be left with a "ghost town". In general, if more than 55% of the populace thinks you are doing a good job as mayor, then you can feel secure of keeping your job. If 10% or less of the people think that something is a problem, then it's not too bad. These are the problems that citizen's complain about, and how to correct them: Traffic - Replace dense sections of roads with rails. Crime - Add police stations and/or raise property values. Pollution - Replace roads with rails, disperse industrial zones. Housing - Zone more residences. House Cost - Zone more residences in low property value areas. Fires - Build more fire departments. Taxes - Lower taxes (if you can) Unemployment - Zone more commercial and industrial areas. STATISTICS ON POPULATION, NET MIGRATION, and ASSESSED VALUE are displayed, along with the city's GAME LEVEL and the OVERALL CITY SCORE. This data is calculated once a year at budget time. POPULATION is the number of residents in your city. The NET MIGRATION statistic provides a rating of the desirability of your city. If people are leaving in droves, then you know something is rotten in Simcity. The ASSESSED VALUE is the combined value of all city-owned property: roads, rails, power plants, police and fire stations, airports, sea ports, parks, etc. Does not include residential, commercial and industrial zones. The CATEGORIES are defined by population as follows: Village 0 to 1,999 Town 2,000 to 9,999 City 10,000 to 49,999 Capital 50,000 to 99,999 Metropolis 100,000 to 249,999 Megalopolis 250,000 and above. The OVERALL CITY SCORE is a composite score based on the following factors (some positive, some negative): MAJOR FACTORS - Crime, pollution, housing costs, taxes, traffic, unemployment, fire protection, unpowered zones, city growth rate. MINOR FACTORS - Stadium needed (but not built), sea port needed (but not built), airport needed (but not built), road funding, police funding, fire department funding, and fires. A large population is not necessarily a sign of a successful city. Population size does not affect the overall city score, since low population could indicate a new or growing city. Since city growth rate does affect the overall city score, a city in which growth has been intentionally stopped for environmental or aesthetic reasons will have a slightly lower score. DISASTERS: Disasters will randomly occur as you play Simcity. At higher levels the disasters will happen more often. Most disasters can be activated from the DISASTERS MENU. FIRES can start anywhere in the city. Fires spread fairly rapidly through forests and buildings, somewhat slower over roadways. Fire will not cross water or clear land. The effectiveness of the fire department (which can be reviewed in the MAPS/ GRAPHS WINDOW) is based on how close it is to the fire, and its funding levels. Fires inside this effective radius will be put out automatically. If you have no operational fire departments in the area you can try to control the fire yourself. Since fire will not spread across clear terrain, you can build fire breaks with the bulldozer. Just surround the fire with clear areas and it will stop spreading and eventually burn itself out. Note: you cannot directly bulldoze a fire. FLOODING occurs near the water. Floods gradually spread and destroy buildings and utilities. After a while, the flood waters recede, leaving behind cleared terrain. AIR CRASHES can happen anywhere in the city if a airport is operational. This happens whenever aircraft collide with things, such as tornados or another aircraft. When a crash occurs, a fire will start, unless the crash is on the water.A good strategy is to locate the airport away from the central city to minimize the fire damage. TORNADOS can occur anywhere on the map at any time. Very fast and unpredictable, they can appear and disappear at a moment's notice. Tornados destroy everything in their path, and can cause planes, helicopters, trains and ships to crash. EARTHQUAKES are the most devastating disaster. This is a MAJOR Earthquake - between 8.0 and 9.0 o the Richter scale. It will destroy buildings and start fires. The initital damage will vary with the severity of the earthquake, and the eventual fire damage depends on your fire control efforts. When an earthquake occurs, you will see the editor window shake for a while. When it stops you will have to take charge and control the scattered fires. Use the bulldozer to contain the largest fires first and work your way down to the smaller ones. MONSTER ATTACKS are provoked by high levels of pollution. A monster destroys everything in its path, starts fires, and causes planes, helicopters, trains, and ships to crash. MELTDOWNS are only possible if you are using a nuclear power plant. If a meltdown occurs, your nuclear plant will explode into flames. The surrounding area will be unusable for the remainder of the simulation due to radioactive contamination. Meltdowns are not available on the DISASTERS MENU. SHIPWRECKS can occur once you have an operating seaport. They can cause fires where the ship crashes into a shore or bridge. Shipwrecks are not available on the DISASTERS MENU. SCENARIOS The Scenarios provide both real and hypothetical situations for you to deal with in seven famous (and one not so famous) events. They present various levels of difficulty. Some problems are in the form of disasters which will occur some time after you start. Other problems are more long-term, such as crime. Your task is to deal with the problem at hand as well as possible under the circumstances. After a certain amount of time the city residents will rate your performance in a special election. If you do very well you may be given the key to the city. However, if you do poorly, they might just run you out of town. Note: To avoid the disaster which is tied to a scenario, save it to disk and reload the city from the saved file. GAME PLAY LEVEL When you first start a new city you must pick a difficulty level. Once a city is started you cannot change the game play level; it remains at your initial setting for the life of the city. The game level setting is displayed in the evaluation window. This level - Easy, Medium or Hard - adjusts the simulation to your current abilities by altering several factors. A harder setting will increase the chance of disasters, make residents more intolerant of taxation, cause maintenace costs to grow,etc. GROWING A CITY While growing a city, refer often to the USER REFERENCE CARD. It provides a chart of city dynamics; how all factors of city life and growth are related. The main points to keep in mind while growing a city are: Grow slow. Watch your money. All zones must be powered to develop. Zones must be developed to generate tax money. Roads or rails must provide access to and from each zone for it to fully develop. There is a yearly maintenance cost for each section of road, rail, bridge and tunnel. This can add up. Don't build too many roads and rails and generate high maintenance costs before your city can generate enough tax revenues to cover them. Extra power plants and redundant power lines are expensive, but can keep zones from losing power during a disaster or emergency and deteriorating. Rails can carry much more traffic than roads. While building and zoning an area that you predict will generate heavy traffic, install rails instead of roads in the early stages of development. If you get a lot of heavy traffic warnings, replace roads with rails. You can even build an entire roadless city. Grouping zones together, 4 or 5 in a row touching each other, can eliminate a lot of power line segments. Airports, sea ports and stadiums won't help a small city grow - so save your money until the city gets larger. The sims will tell you when they need these things. Place zones,roads,etc.carefully - they cannot be moved, and you will have to pay to bulldoze them and rebuild. As a rule of thumb, the number of residential zones should approximately equal to the sum of commercial and industrial zones. When your city is small, you will need more industrial zones than commercial, and when your city gets larger, you will need more commercial zones than industrial. Separate the residential areas from the industrial areas. Proximity to forest, parks, and water increases land value, which increases the taxes collected. Don't bulldoze any more forest than you must. Also natural shoreline increases property values more than landfill shoreline. Keep in mind that proximity to downtown raises property values. The simulator defines the downtown as "the center of mass of the population density". It calculates the average geographical center of the population. A bigger, more populous city is not necessarily better. Having a self supporting, profitable city with pleasant surroundings is better than a huge city that is always broke and has no forest or shoreline. Use the various maps and graphs to plan city growth, locate problems, and track your progress. Look for areas that need police and fire coverage as you go, so you don't have to go back and bulldoze developed zones to make room for police and fire stations. Save your city to disk before trying any major new policy so you can go back if your plan doesn't work. Print out your city in different stages of evolution to track and plan growth. Check the EVALUATION WINDOW often. The sims will let you know how you are doing. Also the statistics can be useful; if your population is shrinking, don't go zoning new areas that may never develop, look for problems in the existing zoned areas, and spend your time and money solving them. SAVE YOUR CITY TO DISK OFTEN!!! The User Reference Card Included in the box is the user reference card (later on in this printout) ZONE EVOLUTION CHART On one side of the user reference card is the zone evolution chart. It shows the various levels of development and decline of residential, commercial and industrial zones. The levels of development depends on the land value and population density. Use this chart along with the Qery function to identify, and gather info on, individual zones. CITY DYNAMICS CHART The other side of the card is the City Dynamics chart. This chart lists the factors of city life and growth and shows how they inter-relate. Use this chart to guide you in designing your city. It will help you find solutions to the sim's complaints, and to problems you discover from the maps & graphs. KEYBOARD REFERENCE CHART GENERAL KEYBOARD COMMANDS The Amiga-shift key refers to the key marked with an "A" just to the right of the space bar. Amiga-Shift B - Brings up the BUDGET WINDOW Amiga-Shift E - Brings up the EVALUATION WINDOW Amiga-Shift G - Brings up the MAPS/GRAPHS WINDOW Amiga-Shift L - Loads a city Amiga-Shift P - Brings up the PICK SCENARIO MENU Amiga-Shift Q - activates the UNDO command Amiga-Shift S - Saves a city SPECIAL EDITOR WINDOW KEYOBARD COMMANDS X and Z - Cycle through and activate icon functions. Q - (Query) - Point to a zone or object in the EDITOR WINDOW, hold down "Q" while clicking the left mouse button to bring up information about the zone or object. B activates the Bulldozer while depressed, overriding active icon. R activates Road laying while depressed, overriding active icon. T activates Transit line laying while depressed, overriding active icon. P activates Power line laying while depressed, overriding active icon. CURSOR KEYS scroll the terrain under the EDITOR WINDOW.