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Contributor/author(s): Wren Weburg

Here is a good technique which should increase the efficiency of power and water output of a SimCity 2000 city. It combines the use of the cost-effective hydro power plant and the water pump.

How it's structured
A one-width strip of raised land is placed across the screen, at any length (this will actually turn out to be a 3 width strip since the sides of each raised tile are sloped). Then, an identical strip of land is placed parallel to the previous strip, one tile length away (see picture below).

On each strip, water is placed on each sloped tile on the strips of land to form a waterfall. Then, a hydro plant is placed on each waterfall tile. Lastly, a strip of water pumps is placed on the remaining 1 width strip between all the strips of hydro plants. When finished, it should look like the picture below.

Even with a hydro plant on top of each waterfall, the water pumps will still use it as though it was a fresh water tile. The main principle here is that each water tile gets two uses: one for hydro power, and the other to improve the pumps' efficiency. The end result is that you use less land to water and power the city than you would by placing water tiles, pumps, and hydro dams separately. It may not be realistic, but it gets the job done quite well. An 8x12 grid of this pattern will water about 2600 tiles, and power about 1800 tiles.

See also
Power for less
Building an efficient Water System

Knowledge Tree
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