Originally posted by: jaqie
oh lord... that is engenious! Do you sell power to adjacent cities to get a population in them?
Yup. I also keep a single wind turbine in the city, partly to act as a buffer, and also so that I can adjust my Power budget to the maximum, to prevent any decay in the system.
Since it's coal, it's super-cheap even with the small markup that comes from selling between cities, so I don't have to spend oodles of money on hydrogen, solar, or wind power plants. Hydrogen is especially expensive, as the power plants need to be replaced frequently, and the monthly upkeep is also crazy.
I also run all my power plants at maximum capacity. The extra funding supposedly prolongs their lifespans, and it gives a little boost in energy output.
In my "clean" cities, I have the tax rate set to 20% for Dirty Industry and Manufacturing, allowing in only the High-Tech industry. I also give a slight tax break to encourage high-wealth commerce to come in.
SC4 uses "demand caps," which limit growth in certain sectors. Special structures, such as stadiums, parks, plazas, airports, and others, give demand cap relief for certain wealth levels of different zone types.
If you do play SC4 seriously, 1) Get the Deluxe version, or the Rush Hour expansion pack. 2) Get Prima's guide to the game. The documentation that comes with the game is horrendously lacking, given the game's high level of complexity.
Oh, and backup your games now and then, as in ZIP them to another folder. I've had the game freeze up a few times
during a save, which corrupts the file. If you load it afterwards, zooming in on certain regions of the city will crash the game. A big :thumbsup: to EA. They take perfectly good franchises and screw them up.
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