Sim City 3000 Tips and stratagies

Here's a few simple tips you might want to try.

To save money, don't bother building any fire stations when you start a city (make sure disasters are disabled beforehand). They will complain a little bit at first, but it really won't harm you in any way. Later, when you have a budget surplus, start putting in fire stations, especially around heavy industry. Each fire station will increase aura in the buildings around it.

Police stations only seem to be really necessary near dense zones. If you have the Neighborhood Watch ordinance turned on, you can space police stations out really far from each other in large low density areas, like light residential suburban areas and farms.

As in 2000, the light commercial zone doesn't seem to be worth doing, unless you're trying to duplicate a real city or something like that. Go ahead and zone medium or dense anywhere you want commercial.

Highways are quite useful in 3000. You can have most of your residential zones halfway across the map from a big industrial area, and as long as a well-connected highway runs between the two, the sims will be able to drive to work. They also provide invaluable connections to other cities. Leave plenty of room to connect highways to roads and to each other with off ramps.

To build farms, first turn on the Farmer's Market ordinance, then build a road out to the middle of nowhere. Find a nice flat area far from any other buildings and zone a big rectangular area (at least 10 squares wide) light industrial. Now supply it with power, either from windmills or a nice long power line. Don't connect it to the water grid. Hopefully, a farm will pop up.