Sim City Classic PC - Still a Favourite

In the late 1980's, Will Wright was designing random maps for a video game and was inspired to use that style of mapping to make a game where the player could build a city from scratch. This idea became the world famous Sim City, soon to be followed by many newer versions.

The classic Sim City had pre-made zones, roads, rails, power lines, two kinds of power plants, parks, and a few other necessary buildings. Each game would start with a desired amount of money to build the city, and for every zone or other structure placed or bulldozed, the player would pay a certain amount. Taxes would earn the player, known as the 'mayor' some revenue, and maintenance fees for transportation, police, and fire departments would be deducted each fiscal year.

If the taxes were low, the city would attract more sims, but the revenue would also be low. High taxes would earn more revenue initially, but would also chase away the citizens. It's a trade-off and the correct approach would be looking for a happy medium.

Crime and polution are also something to think about in Sim City. Police stations were needed in order to lower crime, and industrial zones needed to be spread out to prevent the concentration of pollution. Roads had to be planned out carefully to prevent traffic and make sure the sims were able to get to work and shop, and to prevent noise pollution. The seaport and airport, as well as the stadium, had to be placed carefully because of crime, pollution and noise.

Land value is another problem - low values would mean high crime, but too many high value lots and the sims would complain about housing costs. Again, there had to be a happy medium. I prefer to put my residential zones around water and trees, raising the land value.

Fire departments were needed if the disasters(earthquake, fire, flood, tornado, monster, plane crash and a few others) were enabled, to prevent the fires from spreading. They would especially be needed if the city had any nuclear power plants, because in Sim City, nuclear plants sometimes had meltdowns.

With power plants, there was also a trade-off - Coal plants gave off a lot of pollution, and less power, while nuclear plants gave off more power and less pollution, but would sometimes explode and contaminate the area with nuclear waste that took years to dissapate. The mayor would have to choose between economical, clean and dangerous or safe but toxic. With nuclear power plants, disabling disasters is recommended. Both types of plants are best placed on the edges of the map to minimize pollution and contaminants.

Stadiums, Airports and Seaports are all required when the residential, commercial and industrial populations reach a certain level. Unless the structures are built and powered like the rest of the city, those three zones will not develop any further.

There are even scenarios, little games with different win conditions and time limits - if the mayor is able to meet all conditions before the time is up, then he/she wins the game. If not, the sims get mad and boot the mayor out.

There are several versions of Sim City for the PC, and now you can find them in the Maxis or Electronic Arts collections. Search for them on google or shop for this and other great classic titles at places like Target, Walmart, Bestbuy and Fry's. There are also versions of Sim City and its successors for consoles such as the Super Nintendo. And if you are into older consoles like the Coleco, I would recommend looking up Fortune Builder, an early city-building game that came before Sim City but has many of its features and plays like one of the Sim City scenarios, Dullsville. The map is always the same but the game is still very fun.

If you haven't tried those games, check them out!