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Contributor/author(s): Sudheer Tivare

So everyone has now moved on to SC4K and I am still on 3K. Not having built a single city with more than 100K population, I still consider myself to be a beginner. Here are some pointers for the beginner.

Read the four articles by Kyle about economy, land value, pollution and crime (in the Reference branch of this Knowledge Tree). If you can crunch the numbers, then it’s even better. If necessary, print them and put the numbers on the wall. You can make a great city. However if you can’t crunch the numbers, or don’t want to, read on.

Cash is king. You start with some funds. Your job is to use those funds and some loans to build a city which is self-sustainable. One of the ways to do that is to build a city which brings in more mullah than it gives out.

First let’s think about the costs.

1. Building costs — These are one time costs that you cannot change. You can choose to build more or less, but buildings are going to have same costs.
2. Monthly adjustable costs — By changing these costs you can change the level of services a particular building provides to its neighborhood.

One thing becomes clear from above discussion and that is the costs are independent of population. It's better to have these costs distributed over a larger population than smaller.

Now let’s think about the revenues. There are three sources of revenues—taxes, special buildings (like maximum security prison), and neighbor deals. Let’s deal with them one at a time.

1. Taxes — Tax revenue for any tile depends upon three factors—tax rate for the particular type of the tile, the land value of the tile, and the distance of the tile from the center of the map. (Read the "Land value specifics" article in the Reference section of this Knowledge Tree.)

   As you go away from the center the land values drop (map center effect). However the drop is more significant for commercial zones than residential and much more than industrial zones. So it makes sense to zone residential zones in the center of the map when your population and demand for commercial zones are very low. As both of these things grow you may want to de-zone the residential areas in the center and convert them into commercial, while keeping all infrastructures intact.

   Secondly land value is affected by some buildings, crime rate, and pollution. One of the best ways to check the pollution is to designate some tiles for the trees. Crime rate can be reduced by having adequate police station coverage. Before you start building, try to figure out how much crime and pollution you will have and plan accordingly. For example one 120% funded police station placed at the center of four 14x14 high density residential blocks should keep the crime very close to zero.

   I don’t want to comment about tax rates. I tend to keep them at 7%.

2. Revenues from special buildings — These buildings usually have a negative effect on land values in every zoned tile on the map but they give a constant stream of money. They are valuable when your zones are small. Once you have large city with lot of zones, you should get rid of them to boost your land value. Of course do some math before doing this.
3. Neighbor deals — Don’t take deals for electricity and water. They are not economical. They usually require you to add more power plants and do not give adequate rate of returns on your investment. For example if you receive a deal for 2000 KWh of power for §24 per month and if you have to take out a loan of §5000 to build this plant then your monthly payment is going to be §50 and this deal will be closed before your loan is paid off anyways. However take the garbage deal. Zone the landfill in a corner and connect the roads to the neighbors. This is good money.

Plan on reaching a population of about 60000 in first couple of years. Take out loans if necessary. Loans, contrary to the popular belief, are quite cheap. You pay a total of 20% in interest over a period of 10 years. Your city should be making positive cash in about one more year. Sit back and wait till almost half the loans are paid off then take some more and expand. I can make a city of about 100,000 in about 15 years. And my cities make some good money.

This is a broad strategy which will help you in building big cities in the beginning without loosing interest in the game.

Enjoy Simming... :)

See also
Build large high-value cities quickly without cheating

Knowledge Tree
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