Sim City 4 FAQ and Guide - Guide for SimCity 4

Sim City 4
Maxis TM
EA TM
© 2003 Windows XP
By: J.R.210 

Table of Contest
I.	FAQ’s
II.	Game play hints
III.	Landmark
IV.	Bugs and Know issues
V.	Contact and Suggested Websites

FAQ’s
General Questions 
1.	How do I connect my road/rail/subway/water pipe/power line to a neighboring 
city?
2.	Why does it take so long for trees to grow?
3.	What are ZOTS? 
4.	Where are my screen-captures saved?
5.	Why is the starting date 00? 
6.	What does the RCI graph mean? 
7.	What is Demand Cap?
8.	I am a SimCity guru; will I dominate SimCity 4?
9.	Why do sections of my city have the no work ZOT above their buildings when 
sections right next to it have work? 
10.	Is it possible to import SimCity 3000 cities into SimCity 4? 
Terraforming 
1.	Is there an easy way to reconcile edges on a map without messing everything 
you’ve already done up?
2.	Do trees grow into forests?
Region Related
1.	I’ve been hearing the term “regional play”. What does this mean?
2.	What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using regions?
3.	Do I have to use regional play? 
4.	Should I put all RCI in one city or spread RCI across different cities? What 
works best?
5.	My neighboring connections aren’t letting me start neighbor deals! Why?
6.	Do I have to use my entire region to be successful?
7.	If I have 2 cities in my region and I am working on one of them, is the 
other one still growing?
8.	Why do sections of my city have the no work ZOT above their buildings when 
sections right next to it have work? 
9.	How does RCI demand work in a region? 
10.	If my sim commutes to another city to work, how does it determine commute 
times?

Business Deals
1.	What are business deals? 
2.	Should I accept every business deal that comes along? 
3.	How do I get the Casino business deal? 
4.	Do I need to run roads, water pipes and power lines to these buildings in 
order for me to get the money? 
5.	What effects on my city do business deals have

Transit Systems
1.	No one is using my bus stops and/or subways! What am I doing wrong? 
2.	My train tracks won’t turn, why not? 
3.	How do you get a highway cloverleaf to work? 
4.	My traffic is horrible and I have nothing but roads, how can I lighten 
traffic? 
5.	How do I build onramps to the highway? 
6.	When should I consider adding highways and/or subways?
Services
1.	What is a service?
2.	Where should I put a water treatment plant?
3.	Where should I put water pumps?
4.	What are the parks good for?
5.	Elementary school or high school?
6.	Some of my services have no range of affect. Why is this?
7.	I have a ton of wind power plants, when is it too many?
8.	Should I put water funding down when my pump is not running at full capacity?
9.	Do I really need to cover every square inch of the map with fire and police 
stations?
10.	My services workers are striking! Why?
11.	How can I tell if I am using all of my power/water/garbage?
12.	Do power plants ever die like they did in previous versions of SimCity?
13.	Should I start off with large or small fire/police stations, and clinics or 
hospitals? 
14.	Where is the best place to put an airport?

Zoning
1.	What good are farms?
2.	What do the different types of zones (Co, Cs, etc) mean?
3.	Can landfills be de-zoned, rezoned or demolished?
4.	Sometimes when I re-zone areas, it doesn’t change all the zones. Is there a 
way to change them all easily?
5.	How can I get high-wealth citizens to move in?
6.	How far will people travel to get to work?
7.	How much beautification do I need in my city?
8.	If my zoned area is full of buildings, should I zone more?
9.	Why are there no big buildings in my city even though I’ve zoned high-
density?
10.	After my city runs for a few years, my industry seems to be abandoned. What 
is causing this? 
11.	Should I use auto-streets or lay my own roads when I zone? 
12.	Some of the zones I have created are empty. What is causing this? 
13.	How do I determine how long a freight trip will be from an industrial zone? 
14.	Will low density hold only low class, or will they hold others as well? 
15.	Why are my high-wealth buildings being taken over by low-wealth sims? 
Budget
1.	In my budget, I see §, §§ and §§§. What do they mean?
2.	What should I set my taxes to?
3.	What are the effects of over funding? 
4.	What are the effects of under funding?
 
General Questions 
Q: How do I connect my road/rail/subway/water pipe/power line to a neighboring city?
A: Just drag the line to the edge of the screen. It will ask you if you wish to make 
a connection to the neighbor, simply click yes. 

Power, water pipe, road, rail, highway and subway connections to neighbor.
Q: Why does it take so long for trees to grow?
A: Trees, just like in real life, take a while to reach their full height and size. 
Depending on the location of the trees, they will either create more trees as time 
goes on, or will die off. Each type of tree can live in different locations. 
Depending on the amount of water they get, the height they are placed at and the 
wind direction in the city, you will get different trees.
If you wish, you can place some trees at the terraforming stage, speed up time and 
watch a ’natural’ forest begin to flourish and expand.
Q: What are ZOTS?
A: ZOTS are the icons that appear above people’s houses when there is a problem.
: Where are my screen-captures saved?
A: The screenshots you take go into you’re My Documents folder under your C: drive. 
The full path for the pictures varies based upon what version of windows you are 
using. For example for people using windows 98:
C:\My Documents\SimCity 4\Albums\
In this folder you will see folders with the names of regions on them. To view a 
picture from a specific region, go to that regions folder and all the pictures will 
be in it. All the screenshots are in .png form. To be able to view these, you will 
either need to open SimCity 4 and view them in your photo album there, or you can 
change them to a .gif or .jpg format. A freeware program that can do this for you is 
called pic2pic. You can get it for free here.
Q: Why is the starting date 00? Is there a way to change the starting date of your 
new city? 
A: The game starts with the current date, as this is the day you took over as mayor. 
Each year after that is only a chronological marker as to how many years you have 
been mayor. When you are terraforming, time will also pass, unless you have it 
paused.
With the architecture, it has been designed to show the development of your city. It 
was based on a turn-of-the-century Chicago style, a 1950s New York City style and a 
2000 ultramodern Houston look. All 3 types can exist at once (as the city develops). 
These were the styles included in the game, as the designers feel these are 
significant examples of architecture. The design doesn’t want to be tied into a 
specific era. This way every city can have a unique look and feel about them. This 
is just as true I believe with the different forms of transport/vehicles that come 
on a bonus CD from certain distributors. As it can take some time for your city to 
develop, a certain style of car or plane would be obsolete if you restricted it to 
our ’real world’ time frame. 
Q: What does the RCI graph mean?
A: The RCI graph represents an average for demands on Residential, Commercial and 
Industrial zones in your city. The higher the RCI bar is, the higher the need for 
those types of zones. This is an average however and doesn’t tell you exactly what 
the break down is. Sometimes one of the bars will be down, but you still have high 
desirability for that zone in your city. To find out what types of specific zones 
you need, click on the RCI bar to see an expanded version. Check this expanded graph 
quite often, as it is the true level of demand in your city for zones. 
Q: What is Demand Cap?
A: Demand cap stands for demand capacity. A city starts off being able to hold a 
certain number of people as well as places to work. Through things like city 
beautification, rewards and connections to other cities, you can raise this number. 
If your city is no longer growing, but has all the services it needs, this generally 
means you have hit your demand cap.
Q: I am a SimCity guru; will I dominate SimCity 4?
A: SimCity 4 is drastically different from the previous versions of SimCity. You 
will definitely have a leg up on many of the newer players, but there is still a lot 
to get used to in the latest version.
Q: Why do sections of my city have the no work ZOT above their buildings when 
sections right next to it have work?
A: Possibly the EQ (education quotient) of the workers in the lot is different than 
the EQ required by the job. You can try to zone new areas for them to work in, or 
wait until their education level rises. It’s a question of whether you have enough 
money to support new zoning and if you would like to have these lower education jobs 
in your city. They normally pollute and may cause more damage to your city than 
having workers without jobs.
Q: Is it possible to import SimCity 3000 cities into SimCity 4?
A: At this point in time it is not possible. There may be a program that will be 
released at some point that will allow for this. Right now however, there is no such 
thing.
Terraforming
Q: Is there an easy way to reconcile edges on a map without messing everything 
you’ve already done up?
A: The only “easy” way to reconcile edges on a map is to start in one city, change 
the terrain the way you like it and do not reconcile edges. Save it and go to your 
next city. Immediately reconcile edges on that map. This will leave your original 
city alone, but make the current city up-to-date. This will at a bare minimum keep 
you from having to go back and reconcile edges on cities you have already completed. 
Q: Do trees grow into forests?
A: Yes. If you place a clump of trees and fast-forward time (say 30-50 years) you 
will see the clump grow out and become a forest. Trees grow faster if they have 
adequate moisture and are on reasonable altitude. Density also affects how fast (or 
if at all) a clump of trees will grow. The denser they are, the more chance they 
have at propagating. Less dense clumps of trees will die over time.
Region Play
Q: I’ve been hearing the term “regional play”. What does this mean?
A: Regional play refers to using many different cities for separate goals. For 
instance, make one city dedicated to industry and commerce, and make a neighboring 
city just for residential. Connect them so they have road access to each other and 
your Sims in your residential city will begin to look for work in the 
industrial/commercial city, and commute back. Jump back and forth between your two 
cities as you develop them. A more thorough analysis of neighboring city dynamics 
will be covered in a later article.
Q: Do I have to use regional play?
A: No. You are free to choose your own style of play, be it consolidating everything 
you need into one city, using regional play to specialize cities, or a mix of both.
Q: What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using regions?
A: Regional play does have its advantages and disadvantages. The advantages, to name 
a few, are that you can isolate pollution as well as have areas designed to provide 
specific types of businesses or housing. You can also choose to provide specific 
services, such as trash removal, power and water through neighbor deals. The 
drawbacks, to name a few, are that you have to work out neighbor deals if you want 
to have things like water in one location, power in another and garbage in yet 
another. You also have to switch between the cities in your region if you want them 
to truly grow. It’s not like being in a self-contained city where everything grows 
when it wants to. You actually have to keep an eye on things.
Q: Should I put all RCI in one city or spread RCI across different cities? What 
works best? What works best?
A: The game is designed to work either way. It’s really just a matter of personal 
preference as to which you should do. Regional play has its advantages and 
disadvantages so play the way you like; this always produces the best results.
Q: My neighboring connections aren’t letting me start neighbor deals! Why?
A: All of the neighboring deals have a set of requirements that must be filled in 
order for the deal to show up. The requirements are -
Trash deals
Must have a road or highway from the area with trash zones in it to the place you 
want to remove trash from. You must have enough excess space zoned out for trash so 
it can take not only the cities trash where the landfill is located, but also for 
the neighboring city who’s importing trash. (Meaning build a decent sized landfill 
or incinerator, whichever you prefer) 
NOTE: You must have enough money to cover a 1-year supply of the service or the 
option for the deal will not be presented. 
Power Deals
Must have power lines to the city that will need power. You have to have enough 
extra power to support both cities simultaneously. You must have enough money to 
cover a 1-year supply for the service.

Water Deals
Must have pipes to the city that requires water. You must have enough extra water to 
support both cities simultaneously. You must have enough money to cover a 1-year 
supply for the service.
Q: Do I have to use my entire region to be successful?
A: No! You can have one city that contains everything you need to be successful. 
Regional play is meant to be an option for use in the game. There are many drawbacks 
and advantages to using regional play.
Q: If I have 2 cities in my region and I am working on one of them, is the other one 
still growing? 
A: While you are working on one city, the game uses “extrapolation” to simulate 
growth in the city you are not working on. This does not mean buildings are being 
built while you are gone, rather it means that it will assume the buildings will be 
built because of the increased demand next time you visit that city. When you leave 
one city to work on another, all information from your city is saved before you 
leave, and the simulation uses that saved information to extrapolate how demand 
might be satisfied in your currently active city.
Q: Why do sections of my city have the no work ZOT above their buildings when 
sections right next to it have work?
A: Possibly the EQ (education quotient) of the workers in the lot is different than 
the EQ required by the job. You can try to zone new areas for them to work in, or 
wait until their education level rises. It’s a question of whether you have enough 
money to support new zoning and if you would like to have these lower education jobs 
in your city. They normally pollute and may cause more damage to your city than 
having workers without jobs.
Q: How does RCI demand work in a region?
A: In region play, RCI demand is shared across all your cities. For example, if you 
have one city that has started demand for IHT (high tech industry), you can start a 
new neighboring city, zone industrial, make a road connection to your first city and 
high-tech will start to pop up in your new city, satisfying the demand of the city 
that it is connected to. Using this concept you can create ’bedroom communities’: 
wait for your residential demand to climb in one city, then start a neighboring 
city, connect with to your first city by road, and zone residential and watch as 
your sims move in to live in your new city and commute to the other city to work.
Q: If my sim commutes to another city to work, how does it determine commute times?
A: When you create a connection to another city, say, by road, and you do not 
immediately go to the other city to connect the remaining ’stub’ to that city’s road 
structure, the simulation will attempt to estimate the commute time to the work 
place in the other city and add it on the exiting commute time. This estimate will 
often by inordinately high, giving you the result of long commute times. To remedy 
this, make sure that the connection ’stub’ in your other city is connected to the 
road structure. The simulator will then be able to recall more accurately the 
average commute times.
Business Deals 
Q: What are business deals?
A: Business deals are offered to you when you are financially in the red for 
extended periods of time. Aside from providing a fairly lucrative monthly income, 
business deals may also have the following effects, mostly negative: contribute to 
air and water pollution, radiation and garbage, increase commercial demand as well 
as crime rate, affects desirability for all sectors, and decreases your mayor rating.
Q: Should I accept every business deal that comes along?
A: No, you should carefully pick and choose which business deals you will take. Any 
business deal that is in red is a negative deal, meaning in general that it will 
give you money, but has a negative affect on surrounding areas as well as your mayor 
rating. 
Q: How do I get the Casino business deal?
A: The casino business deal requires that you have enacted the Legalize Gambling 
ordinance. Warning: If you repeal the ordinance, your casino will be automatically 
demolished. (If you want, save yourself the cost of bulldozing the casino (§15,000) 
by repealing the legalize gambling ordinance).
Q: Do I need to run roads, water pipes and power lines to these buildings in order 
for me to get the money?
A: No. Once you place any of the business deal buildings, you start getting money 
right away. However, in order for these buildings to help supply your city with 
jobs, you need roads connected to them. Providing water to them will reduce the 
structure’s flammability (roads also ensure that fire trucks can get there if 
needed).
Q: What effects on my city do business deals have?
A: The following chart details the available business deals, what they provide, and 
their impact on your city:
Business DealSize, income	Pre-requisites	Positive Effects	Negative 
Effects
Army Base(12x12)§350/month	1.	your funds are less than §7000 2.
	Funds less than 40% less than three previous years 3.	dedicated expenses 
greater than income 4.	population greater than 2000	Jobs for R§ sims, Increase 
Commercial desirability	Lowers Mayor Rating, lowers residential and high-tech 
desirability, adds to water and air pollution, increases crime. 
Casino(6x3)§300/month	1.	Legalize Gambling Ordinance enacted 2.	total 
population greater than 24,000	Creates commercial demand and adds commercial 
desirability	Lowers Mayor Rating, lowers residential and high-tech desirability, 
increases crime. Drains power.
Federal Prison(4x4)§250/month	1.	funds less than §7000 2.	funds 
dropped by half in last 2 years 3.	expenses greater than income 4.	population 
greater than 5000	provides jobs for R§ sims	Lowers Mayor Rating, lowers 
residential, commercial and high-tech desirability, increases crime.
Missile Range(4x4)§450/month	1.	funds less than §1000 2.	funds 
dropped by at least 20% in last 6 months 3.	expenses greater than income 4.
	population greater than 500	none	Lowers Mayor Rating, lowers 
residential, commercial and high-tech desirability, high air and water pollution, 
chance of Missile Misfire Disaster (not good)
Toxic Waste Dump(4x4)§400/month	1.	funds less than -§1000 2.	expenses 
greater than income	none	Lowers Mayor Rating, lowers residential, commercial 
and high-tech desirability, high radiation, lowers air and water pollution, very 
flammable. Even dirty industries don’t want to be near it!
 
 
Transit 
Q: No one is using my bus stops and/or subways! What am I doing wrong?
A: In order for busses and trains- and even subways for that matter – to work, you 
need to place them in locations that are congested with traffic. In general, it is a 
wise decision to place these mass-transit buildings on major roads that lead from 
residential to commercial or industrial districts. Remember, Sims riding on these 
will have to walk after they leave the station. Place them so they don’t have to 
walk too far, or they will not get used.
Q: My train tracks won’t turn, why not?
A: The train tracks are unable to turn on a dime. In order for you to make a turn, 
the turn must be gradual. There are two ways of doing this. 
1.	Make the tracks go where you want them to end up on each side of the turn. 
Then, from one of the ends of the track, click and drag a new track to the end of 
the other, this will create a turn.
2.	Make gradual turns as you go, click and drag to a 45-degree angle and let 
go. Do this twice and you have a turn.
Q: How do you get a highway cloverleaf to work?
A: A simple way to get a highway cloverleaf to work is by deciding where you would 
like the two highways to intersect. Make one of the two highways go entirely 
through. (Fig. 1) To complete the cloverleaf, start building the second highway over 
the first. If you have not gone far enough on one side or the other, it will show up 
red. (Fig. 2) Make sure you get enough of the highway so it will turn blue. (Fig. 3) 
After you release, it will ask if you want a cloverleaf. (Fig. 4) 

Q: My traffic is horrible and I have nothing but roads, how can I lighten traffic?
A: The only way to lighten traffic at this point is by placing mass transit services 
in your city. These include highways, subways, trains and busses. To use these 
effectively, you must place them in highly congested areas. People that take a bus 
for instance, will be walking on foot after they get off the bus. As a result, be 
sure to place all mass transit items in locations people will not have to walk far 
from to get where they want to go.
Q: How do I build onramps to the highway?
A: There are two ways of going about this. One is to simply place the onramp next to 
a highway in your city. When the ramp turns green, you are able to place it. The 
other way, which may be easier, is to make a road that goes under the highway where 
you would like the onramp to go. Once it is created, it will ask you if you want to 
add onramps. Click on accept and the onramps will be placed for you.
Q: When should I consider adding highways and/or subways?
A: These are great ways of lowering the traffic in your city. The drawback to these 
is that both of them cost a lot. Once you have a large surplus of funds in your 
city, these are certainly viable options to lowering the traffic. As a result, the 
best time to place these is later on in your city’s lifetime. When you have quite a 
few residents (no less than 100,000 normally) it might be a good idea to start 
adding these forms of transportation. Highways should be in highly used areas as a 
main connection. Normally it’s best to have these span your city to give access to 
central locations. Highways should also be used to connect your cities across your 
region.
The subway, on the other hand, can be placed throughout the city in many locations. 
It is a lot easier to place the subway, as only one square above ground needs to be 
used to place a stop, while the rest of the track goes underground. As a result, if 
you can afford it, subway is a great alternative to connecting neighbors as well as 
providing transportation within your city.
City Services
Q: What is a service?
A: A city service is anything from an elementary school to a landfill to a power 
plant. These are all things your city needs in order to function and thrive. Each of 
these services cost money, be careful what you put in. Be sure you have enough cash 
to cover the expenses before taking any action. When placing services, especially at 
the start of your game, immediately adjust the funding slider (use the query tool) 
so you are not wasting money on unnecessary resources.
Q: Where should I put a water treatment plant?
A: Water treatment plants should be used when your water pollution starts to get out 
of control, or if you just want to clean up. Put them anywhere where there is high 
water pollution and near water towers and pumps, as this structure acts as a water 
purifier and has a very large radius. With enough water treatment plants placed 
throughout your city, you can clean up all your water pollution. 
Q: Where should I put water pumps?
A: The further away from pollution they are, the more efficient they are. If they 
are kept away from pollution entirely, they will last longer and produce more. 
Q: What are the parks good for?
A: Parks, as well as other city beautification items are good for quite a few 
things. They are able to increase your population limits as well as add desirability 
to your surrounding zones. Parks are also able to reduce pollution in surrounding 
areas. It is not a bad idea to place them near dirty industries, as this can 
increase the desirability since pollution is lower.
Q: Elementary school or high school?
A: You do need both high schools as well as elementary schools. Once people leave 
elementary, some choose to continue their education in high school. You’ll also need 
colleges eventually. In order to get high-tech industry as well as better 
jobs/higher class citizens in your city, you’ll eventually need all forms of 
education. (Library, museum, college, high school, elementary school, even the 
university when you get the chance.) Education is very important if you want to 
eventually develop clean high tech industry.
Q: Some of my services have no range of affect. Why is this?
A: Museums, colleges and universities have no real range. They affect the entire 
city. The same goes for main library, major art museums and opera houses. 
Q: I have a ton of wind power plants, when is it too many?
A: After 5 windmills, you will be spending more a month than a fully funded coal 
power plant would cost, and will not be producing as much power. As a result, if you 
get to this point, it is a good idea to blow them up and put in a more cost-
efficient way to power your city. Of course, a coal power plant produces far more 
pollution.
Q: Should I put water funding down when my pump is not running at full capacity? 
A: You should never lower water funding as a rule as you’ll tend to suffer more than 
you’ll save. When you reduce the spending on water services, you are reducing the 
spending on pipe maintenance. This will lead to water pipes bursting all over your 
city and reduce the effectiveness of the pipes providing water to buildings. It’s 
best to keep your water funding at 100% all the time, regardless of the amount of 
water used.
Q: Do I really need to cover every square inch of the map with fire and police 
stations? 
A: It is definitely not necessary to cover every part of your map with fire and 
police coverage. You may not even have any. This will lead to problems though, and 
quickly. At the bare minimum you will want a fire station in a central location. 
Fires will break out in your city quite often and without proper protection, you 
will get burned. It’s a good idea to wait until your first fire breaks out in your 
city to place a fire station. This way you are not paying a monthly fee for 
something your city doesn’t need yet. Eventually crime levels and lack of fire 
protection will halt the growth of your city. Put them in only when you can afford 
them, i.e. not when you first start your city.
Q: My service workers are striking! Why?
A: If people are going on strike in your city, it is because you have not provided 
enough funding to support the need. Query the building on strike and increase 
funding to stop the strike. For example, doctors will strike if there are more 
patients than their funding will allow them to handle. Increase funding so that the 
maximum number of patients is a bit more than the current amount of patience, and 
eventually, they’ll quite down.
Q: How can I tell if I am using all of my power/water/garbage?
A: If you click on the graph button, you will be able to click on power, water and 
garbage to see how much capacity you have at the moment, as well as how much of the 
service you are using. If you click on the power button to see how much power you 
are using and the usage is very close to the capacity, it’s either time to increase 
funding on power, or time to add a new power plant. 
Q: Do power plants ever die like they did in previous versions of SimCity?
A: Power plants can blow up just like they did in the previous versions of SimCity. 
They blow up for different reasons in SimCity 4 though. As time goes on, the 
effectiveness of buildings such as power, water and garbage disposal will decrease. 
The better funded the building is, the longer it will take for the effectiveness to 
go down. If the effectiveness gets very low, you are spending a lot of money on 
something that is not doing a lot of good for you. It’s best to blow it up and build 
a new one that will produce more for the same monthly cost. If your buildings ever 
catch on fire, they may explode, and in the case of the nuclear power plant, this 
will lead to a city-ending event. A bad thing. 
Q: Should I start off with large or small fire/police stations, and clinics or 
hospitals?
A: Some people think small is the way to start off, and later advance to large. 
Others think that starting off with large will save you in the long run. Well, the 
truth to the matter is that both do work. Depending on how you zone your city in the 
start should determine if you should start with large or small services. If you have 
zoned large areas of low-density, it’s probably going to be most cost-effective to 
cover it all with one large service instead of a few smaller ones. On the other 
hand, if you start of with smaller zones, it is most beneficial to build small 
services. Be sure to use the radius of the service to the max. Avoid placing a 
service where its radius isn’t being used (i.e. at the edge of the map), as this 
lowers its cost-effectiveness.
Q: Where is the best place to put an airport?
A: Airports help increase your commercial demand cap, as well as increase traffic in 
surrounding areas. Since you would like for your commercial zones to have traffic, 
it’s a wise idea to place the airport relatively close to commercial zones, or 
easily accessible by road. Keep in mind that airports generate pollution, so you 
might want to surround it with trees or some parks here and there to keep the 
pollution down. 
Zoning
Q: What good are farms?
A: Farms create food for the simcitizens, jobs, cargo to ship off to neighbor cities 
for money, and yes the flip side is they pollute the water, lower the land value and 
there is no tax bracket for them. A good idea might be to make a neighboring city on 
a small map mostly farms. You will get a farmer’s market after a while, which will 
provide increased health for your Sims, as they eat natural food.
Q: What do the different types of zones mean? I keep seeing CO and ID, but I have no 
clue what they mean.
A: Here’s a breakdown of the terminology:
IA – Industry Agriculture (low wealth industry)
ID – Industry Dirty (low wealth industry)
IM – Industry Manufacturing (middle wealth industry)
IT – Industry High-Tech (high wealth industry)
Co– Commercial Office (medium and high wealth commercial)
Cs– Commercial Service (low, medium and high wealth commercial)
R§ - Low Wealth Housing
R§§ - Medium Wealth Housing
R§§§ - High Wealth Housing
Q: Can landfills be de-zoned, rezoned or demolished?
A: In order to de-zone, re-zone a landfill area, you must wait for garbage to 
disappear (decompose). A quick way to get them empty is to erase the road leading to 
them. If there is no way to get to the landfill, they can’t put trash there. You are 
unable to demolish landfills while they are full. 
Q: Sometimes when I re-zone areas, it doesn’t change all the zones. Is there a way 
to change them all easily?
A: If you change to your zone overlay, you can easily re-zone areas. It will show 
you exactly where you are re-zoning as well as give you a good idea of what types of 
zones you already have. 
Q: How can I get high-wealth citizens to move in?
A: In order for high-wealth citizens to want to move to your city, you need to have 
high levels of education as well as health, which creates demand for higher wealth 
citizens. In SimCity 4, there is a direct correlation between wealth and education - 
essentially, the lower wealth citizens begin their lives with lower education 
quotient, than wealthier Sims. (However, low-wealth Sims can still become highly 
educated, but takes more time.) You will also need places for them to work. To be 
sure you can satisfy their work requirements, zone new areas for them as demand for 
high-wealth commerce and industry rises. Be sure to zone them in the most desirable 
places. Check your overlays to see desirable areas.
Q: How far will people travel to get to work?
A: They will travel quite a ways to get to work. The further away they have to 
travel though, the less desirable the area is to live in however, and eventually 
they will not want to live there at all if the commute gets too bad. To check the 
commute time, query any residential building. The shorter, the more desirable. 
Commuter trains may help alleviate long commute areas.
Q: How much beautification do I need in my city?
A: This is something that is left up to the mayor. A general rule-of-thumb though is 
that you don’t need it until later. City beautification increases the desirability 
of areas and increases your demand cap for your city. Each time you add a park, 
playground, plaza or any other type of city beautification, you are spending money 
that could be used on more zoning. As a result, be careful when placing these items. 
Make sure you have enough money and enough demand to justify the cost of building 
the item, as well as the monthly maintenance. Beautification will be very necessary 
to attract commercial office and high-tech industries later on.
Q: If my zoned area is full of buildings, should I zone more?
A: In general, it is a good idea to expand your city with more zones. If your city 
is already fairly large, then maybe it is a better idea to get more use out of your 
current zones. Re-zone the areas from low to medium density to get more money out of 
the same amount of space. Be sure to have a lot of your map covered by low-density 
before changing to medium density, as low density makes the most money per person, 
giving you the biggest taxes possible. Always zone low-density everything when you 
start. For example, there is absolutely no benefit to zoning high density 
industrial, until your industrial population (jobs) reaches 2447.
Q: Why are there no big buildings in my city even though I’ve zoned high-density?
A: Just because an area is zoned for high density does not mean the demand for 
larger buildings is there. Your city will take quite some time to need high-density 
zones in it and as a result, it’s best to start with low-density and gradually 
increase as your city grows. Even a medium-density zone can hold large skyscrapers 
holding upwards of 2,000 people in it. Before you start zoning for high-density, be 
sure your city needs it and your services are well funded. 
Q: After my city runs for a few years, my industry seems to be abandoned. What is 
causing this?
A: In many cases, your industry is being abandoned because your citizens EQ (or 
Education Quotient) has risen. As a result they will want to move up to a higher-
wealth job (manufacturing or high-tech), which could leave much of your dirty 
industries abandoned. If you can afford it, it will benefit you to demolish these 
buildings as it will not only free up space for the new industries, but also create 
new demand for that area.
Q: Should I use auto-streets or lay my own roads when I zone?
A: There are benefits and drawbacks to doing this. If you lay out your streets at 
first and then place zones, you are able to set the size of your zones as well as 
keep traffic problems down somewhat. (Since you can avoid the unnecessary 
intersections occasionally created by auto-streets). The drawback is that it takes a 
lot of time and effort to plan correctly. You’ll also have to ensure that each lot 
is within reach of a road. 
When laying the zone, be sure to watch how it’s zoning. Sometimes you will need to 
change the area you start/finish at to make all the areas of the new zone touch the 
road. If you zoom in to one of the closest two views, it is much easier to see how 
your zones are being laid out and pick exactly how big or small you want the zones 
to be. 
Q: Some of the zones I have created are empty. What is causing this?
A: The desirability of the zone is low, and as a result no one wants to build there. 
Check to ensure the zone has proper service coverage. If it does, try adding in a 
few things like parks to the area. This will increase the desirability of the area 
and new people should start moving in shortly afterwards. 
Q: How do I determine how long a freight trip will be from an industrial zone?
A: Industrial zones have to freight their cargos to one of the following – neighbor 
connection, freight train station, seaports and in some cases airports. The closer 
the industry is to one of these types of connections to the outside world, the 
shorter the freight trip. 
Q: Will low density hold only low class, or will they hold others as well?
A: Low density, just as any other density, can hold all classes. Low, medium and 
upper class citizens will move into and work in low, medium and high-density zones.
Q: Why are my high-wealth buildings being taken over by low-wealth Sims?
A: The most probably cause is reduction in desirability. Buildings tend to degrade 
when desirability decreases, rich Sims move out, low-wealth Sims move in. (low-
wealth sims will live anywhere). Check your desirability and make sure your Nimbus 
are far away from your affluent neighborhoods. Add amenities to increase 
desirability, check for things like commute time, or traffic noise, which also 
reduces desirability.
Budget
Q: In my budget, I see §, §§ and §§§. What do they mean?
A:
§ = Low-wealth citizens
§§ = Medium-wealth citizens
§§§ = High-wealth citizens
Q: What should I set my taxes to?
A: You can set your taxes as high as 9% without lowering demand for your zones. As 
your city gets larger, this number decreases. Any number higher than this will 
decrease demand, while and number lower will increase demand. The more drastic the 
change, the more drastic the demand change. Use taxes to make money, but remember, 
they have a minimum effect of 3 game months even if you change your mind immediately 
after. So don’t expect to be able to make some quick cash, and then reduce tax rates 
without hurting demand. 
Q: What are the effects of over funding?
A: Over funding is when your funding slider bar is beyond the white mark. Be 
cautious what you over fund as it may just end up being a waste of money. For most 
buildings, over funding will slightly increase effectiveness by about 10% (police 
stations, fire stations) or provide increased capacity (schools, health clinics).
Q: What are the effects of under funding?
A: Under funding is when your funding slider is before the white mark. In most 
cases, under-funding will cause no harm if the structure’s usage does not exceed its 
capacity (example, under funding a power plant will save you money but decrease its 
lifespan). For other buildings (schools, police stations, fire stations) that have a 
radius effect, under funding will decrease the size of the radius. If an under 
funded building begins to have more volume than the funding capacity will allow, 
strikes will break and your workers will stop working until you’ve rectified the 
problem.

Game play Hints 
1.	Help! I can’t make a profit in my city, what’s wrong? 
2.	Are there any hints for a new player just starting out his city? 
3.	Is there anything that can reduce pollution in my city?
4.	Is there any way to change the name of a region? 
5.	I’ve gotten pretty far in the game and I would really like to get rid of all 
polluting industries. How can I go about doing this? 
6.	All my buildings are being abandoned, what is causing this? 
7.	I have a huge empty map...where should I start? 
8.	What is the best way to get rid of pollution? 
9.	Should I put animals on my map, if so, how many? 
10.	I hate having to pay to demolish buildings, is there another way to get rid 
of them?
11.	What are the Hotkeys? 
12.	Does altitude of buildings do anything to affect the desirability of a zone? 
13.	What is the best speed to play the game at? 
14.	How long does it take to see skyscrapers in your city? 
15.	Is there an easy way to find out how my population is divided up in terms of 
§, §§ and §§§? 
Q: Help! I can’t make a profit in my city, what’s wrong?
A: There are many factors determining the profit or loss of your city. One of the 
main causes of people going into the red (or negative) is because they spend too 
much on services either too quickly or when they don’t need them. Reduce spending on 
services to barely above what is needed. Spending more than that will certainly 
place your city into hard times.
Q: Are there any hints for a new player just starting out his city? 
A: There are no guarantees that your city will do well. Only one person is able to 
make your city profitable, you! These hints may or may not work for your playing 
style, as everyone is different. This being said, here are a couple of hints to get 
you started.
Start off slow. Low-density buildings bring in more taxes per-person than medium or 
high-density buildings do. As a result, you will bring in more tax dollars for less 
initial capital by using low-density zones for nearly everything. After your city is 
larger and making a decent amount of money consider re-zoning to medium-density. 
There is no benefit from zoning anything but low density when you first start, you 
will be spending more money than you need to for the higher density zones.
Many people think wind power is the way to go. This, however, is a common 
misconception. After placing 5 windmills, it is cheaper to have 1 coal power plant. 
Not only is it cheaper, it is able to produce a much larger amount of energy. This 
will end up saving you money in the long run.
Another way to cut down on spending is to place a waste -> power incinerator. While 
the initial cost of these is quite large, the money it will save you from month to 
month will eventually pay it off. Not only does it get rid of garbage, it turns it 
into power! 
Q: Is there anything that can reduce pollution in my city?
A: First and foremost, remember that almost all of these solutions cost money. Be 
sure you can afford them before taking any action.
The only “free” way of reducing pollution is to keep polluting areas small. When you 
zone an industrial area, don’t make a huge one. This will eventually lead to 
horrible pollution. If you keep your industry away from residential and commercial 
areas, pollution is not as large of a factor.
There are several ways of reducing pollution that cost money. Placing things such as 
parks and trees will reduce the pollution in your city. The more of these you have, 
the less pollution you have. In addition to this, you can enact several ordinances 
that have a direct impact on pollution to get cleaner air. The ordinances that 
reduce pollution are:
Automobile Emission Reduction Act
Clean Air Act
Commuter Shuttle Service
Landfill Gas Recovery Program 
Q: Is there any way to change the name of a region? 
A: Yes, you can change the name of the region. Go to the folder where your region is 
saved. If it was the region "San Francisco" that came with the game you will find it 
here:
MyDocuments/SimCity4/Regions/San Francisco
In this folder you find a file called region.ini, which you will need to open. It 
will look like this:
-----
Name = San Francisco
Terrain type = 0
Water Min = 60
Water Max = 100
-----
Simply change “Name = San Francisco” to “Name = New Desired Name”.
Q: I’ve gotten pretty far in the game and I would really like to get rid of all 
polluting industries. How can I go about doing this? 
A: To ensure that you are only using High-tech industry, there are a few conditions 
that must be met. Low pollution, High education, and low freight times are a must. 
Inter-city connectivity and a high population are also helpful. Keep in mind there 
are no real easy or cheap ways to do this unless you wait for a very long time.
First, make sure you have at least 100-200 thousand simoleons in the bank and a high 
education level in at least 80% of your city. In general, these next steps are made 
easier while the game is on pause. This will allow you to carefully work on your 
plan without being distracted or interrupted. First, raise the taxes on § and §§ 
industry to 20%, and lower your §§§ Industry to below 7%. This ensures that you will 
never see development of polluting industry again. Depending on if you are looking 
for instant pollution reduction or if you don’t mind waiting it out, you have two 
choices you can make.
One choice would be to let the game run. This doesn’t reduce pollution very quickly, 
but the manufacturing plants and dirty industry will eventually leave due to high 
taxes. This will leave you with fresh air for all your high-tech industries. This 
will take a long time, but will end up saving lots of money.
Another choice would be to carefully I demolish every dirty and manufacturing 
industry building on my map. This will take a while, but will be essential in order 
to lower pollution. For the first 10 years or so you will have a large loss in tax 
revenue. This loss is why you will need the extra money on hand. After the zones 
start to fill back up, you will begin to make more money and increase the 
desirability citywide for high-wealth buildings. This will leave your city almost 
completely pollution-free, and demand will be drastically higher in the high-wealth 
brackets.
Q: All my buildings are being abandoned, what is causing this? 
A: There are many possible reasons for abandonment of a building. These include, but 
are not limited to – tax rates, pollution, lack of services, long commutes, long 
freights and a whole slew of other potential problems. In general it is in your best 
interest to check the coverage of your services and make sure things are adequately 
funded. If your taxes are high (above 8-9%), try lowering them some. Also, it helps 
if you demolish abandoned buildings as they reduce desirability of an area. 
Q: I have a huge empty map - where should I start? 
A: In general it is a good idea to start in a corner of the map. This gives you easy 
access to at least two other neighboring cities, which will increase demand in your 
city across the board. This tactic also allows you to place a power plant in the 
adjacent corner, keeping it close, but at the same time allowing ¾ of your pollution 
to go off of your map.
Q: What is the best way to get rid of pollution? 
A: The best way to get rid of pollution is by planting trees using rewards you get 
such as the country club, or using parks. Each of these will reduce pollution in 
your city. An even better way of reducing pollution in your city is by zoning small 
areas of industry all over the city instead of one huge patch. This will keep 
pollution down without having to spend cash monthly on pollution reducers.
Q: Should I put animals on my map, if so, how many? 
A: It never hurts to have animals on your map. People living there will be happy 
since they see animals about and as a result, your environmental rating will be up. 
As a result, be sure to place at least a few patches of animals on your maps while 
in god mode before starting a new city.
Q: I hate having to pay to demolish buildings, is there another way to get rid of 
them? 
A: You could demolish them with your bulldozer utility, but this costs money. A much 
more efficient way to get rid of unwanted buildings is by starting a fire on them. 
This way the building is demolished, but you didn’t have to pay a cent for it.
Q: What are the hotkeys?
F1 (God Mode)
F2 (Mayor Mode)
F3 (My Sim Mode)
F4(Options Panel)
 
Ctrl+`(Pause)
Ctrl+1(Turtle Speed)
Ctrl+2(Rhino Speed)
Ctrl+3(Cheetah Speed)
 
+ (Zoom in one level)
- (Zoom out one level)
Press numbers 1 to 5 (Zoom levels 1 - farthest from city to 5 - closest to city)
Page Up (Rotate counter-clockwise)
Page Down (Rotate Clockwise)
Home (Rotate Building Clockwise)
End (Rotate Building Counter-Clockwise
Left Arrow / Right Arrow (Scroll Left/Right)
Ctrl+ Left Arrow/Ctrl+ Right Arrow(Scroll Left/Right Once)
Ctrl+Up Arrow/Ctrl+Down Arrow (Scroll up/down once)
Up Arrow/Down Arrow (Scroll Up/Down)
Spacebar (Center on Cursor)
 
Esc (Close Open Window/Release Tool)
/ (Query Tool)
Q (Zone Low D. Residential)
W (Zone Medium D. Residential)
E (Zone High D. Residential)
A (Zone Low D. Commercial)
S (Zone Medium D. Commercial)
D (Zone High D. Commercial)
Z (Zone Agriculture)
X (Zone Medium D. Industrial)
C (Zone Heavy D. Industrial)
Y (Zone Landfill)
V (De-Zone)
B (Demolish)
 
Ctrl+F (Dispatch Fire)
Ctrl+P (Dispatch Police)
R (Road Tool)
Alt+R (Street Tool)
Shift+R (Highway Tool)
Ctrl+Shift+R (Build Bus Stop)
T (Rail Tool)
Ctrl+Shift+T (Passenger Depot)
Ctrl+Alt+T (Freight Depot)
Shift+T (Subway Tool)
Shift+Alt+T (Subway Station)
L (Power Lines Tool)
I (Pipes Tool)
P (Build Small Police Station)
Alt+P (Build Large Police Station)
Shift+P (Build Jail)
F (Build Small Fire Station)
Alt+F (Build Large Fire Station)
H (Build Clinic)
Alt+H (Build Hospital)
K (Build Elementary School)
Alt+K (Build High School)
Shift+K (Build City College)
 
F5 (Day Only)
F6 (Night Only)
F7 (Night & Day)
 
F11 (Open Play Options Dialog)
F9 (Open Graphics Options Dialog)
F10 (Open Audio Options Dialog)
Ctrl+S (Save City)
F8 (Exit To Region)
F12 (Quit SimCity 4)
 
Num Lock (Hide/Show UI)
Ctrl+Shift+A (Open Photo Album)
Ctrl+Shift+S (Take Snapshots)
Ctrl+Shift+Alt+F (Full Screen Refresh)
Ctrl+X (Open Cheat Code Dialog)
Ctrl+Shift+C (Toggle Display of Terrain Contours)
Ctrl+Shift+O (Open Obliterate City Dialog)
Q: Does altitude of buildings do anything to affect the desirability of a zone?
A: Yes. Residential and especially commercial buildings love high altitudes. If you 
build a mesa in your city, this is where you will want to place commercial or 
residential zones. The demand for them is much higher there; you will get larger 
buildings faster in those locations. It’s never a bad idea to add at least one mesa 
to your city as it could greatly boost desirability in that area.
Q: What is the best speed to play the game at?
A: Normally rhino speed is perfect. It is not too fast that you are unable to get to 
problems fast enough, but it’s not so slow you are sitting there waiting for things 
to happen either. Cheetah is a little too fast and should normally only be used if 
you have everything under complete control. Normal speed is a little too slow, but 
it, as well as paused, are good for making changes to your city.
Q: How long does it take to see skyscrapers in your city?
A: This depends. If your city grows fast, it will take less time. It’s really a 
matter of how you zone your city and how fast it is growing. In general you will 
start seeing larger office buildings when your city is around 100,000 citizens or 
larger. This is not a set standard, but rather a generalization of when you will 
start to see them.
Q: Is there an easy way to find out how my population is divided up in terms of §, 
§§ and §§§?
A: If you go to your budget screen and expand your taxes, it will show you how much 
money you are making from each of your residential zones. It will show you the money 
you make from §, §§ and §§§, and as a result, will give you a general feel for which 
class makes up the majority of your population. Keep in mind that if your taxes are 
higher on one class than another, it may be that that class doesn’t have more people 
living in your city, it’s just that they are being taxed heavier. To get a more 
specific view of your population, go to the graphs page and look there. It’s hard to 
tell exact numbers on the sheet as a few of the lines look the same color, but it 
should at least give a general idea.
Landmarks
Landmarks do more than just looking pretty, they provide desirability boosts to 
certain parts of your city. When your city has matured (100K+ residential pop.) you 
may want to start thinking about putting in a few landmarks in key locations. Be 
mindful where you place them to get the most for your money (and watch those monthly 
costs). 
For example, putting a landmark that benefits Commercial offices in your industrial 
section would make no sense. Instead, place it among the potential office locations 
and it will provide a boost in development which will mean increased tax dollars 
which will help offset the cost. 
    	Alamo
        San Antonio, USA
	Cost: §65,000
	Monthly: §130
	Commercial YIMBY: 40
	Radius: 20
	Tile size: 2x3

        Alcatraz
        San Francisco, USA
	Cost: §50,000
	Monthly: §100
	Commercial YIMBY: 10
	Radius: 24
	Tile size: 5x10

 	Amalienborg 
        Copenhagen, Denmark
	Cost: §70,000
	Monthly: §140
	Commercial YIMBY: 30
	Radius: 18
	Tile size: 12x12

 	Arc de Triomphe
        Paris, France
	Cost: §55,000
	Monthly: §coming soon
	Commercial YIMBY: coming soon
	Radius: coming soon
	Tile size: 3x3

        Bank of America
        San Francisco, USA
	Cost: §110,000
	Monthly: §210
	Commercial YIMBY: 80
	Radius: 28
	Tile size: 5x3

        Bank of China Tower
        Hong Kong, China
	Cost: §180,000
	Monthly: §300
	Commercial YIMBY: 100
	Radius: 48
	Tile size: 4x4

 	Big Ben 
        London, England
	Cost: §75,000
	Monthly: §150
	Commercial YIMBY: 40
	Radius: 20
	Tile size: 1x1

 	California Plaza
        Walnut Creek, USA
	Cost: §50,000
	Monthly: §100
	Commercial YIMBY: 30
	Radius: 18
	Tile size: 6x8

 	Capitol Records Building
        Los Angeles, USA
	Cost: §50,000
	Monthly: §coming soon
	Commercial YIMBY: coming soon
	Radius: coming soon
	Tile size: 5x5

        Chrysler Building
        New York City, USA
	Cost: §170,000
	Monthly: §330
	Commercial YIMBY: 100
	Radius: 48
	Tile size: 4x4

        CN Tower
        Toronto, Canada
	Cost: §225,000
	Monthly: §440
	Commercial YIMBY: 80
	Radius: 28
	Tile size: 6x7

	Coit Tower
        San Francisco, USA
	Cost: §55,000
	Monthly: §100
	Commercial YIMBY: 30
	Radius: 18
	Tile size: 3x3

        Empire State Building
        New York City, USA
	Cost: §240,000
	Monthly: §470
	Commercial YIMBY: 100
	Radius: 48
	Tile size: 8x4

 	Faneiul Hall
        Boston, USA
	Cost: §50,000
	Monthly: §100
	Commercial YIMBY: 20
	Radius: 16
	Tile size: 2x2

	Fernseturm
        Berlin, Germany
	Cost: §85,000
	Monthly: §170
	Commercial YIMBY: 50
	Radius: 22
	Tile size: 3x3

 	Gateway Arch
        St. Louis, USA
	Cost: §90,000
	Monthly: §180
	Commercial YIMBY: 50
	Radius: 22
	Tile size: 2x10

 	Globe Arena
        Stockholm, Sweden
	Cost: §70,000
	Monthly: §coming soon
	Commercial YIMBY: coming soon
	Radius: coming soon
	Tile size: 11x8

 	Grand Central
        New York City, USA
	Cost: §110,000
	Monthly: §coming soon
	Commercial YIMBY: coming soon
	Radius: coming soon
	Tile size: 7x8

       	Great Pyramid
        Giza, Egypt
	Cost: §160,000
	Monthly: §310
	Commercial YIMBY: 70
	Radius: 26
	Tile size: 8x8

 	Guggenheim Museum
        New York City, USA
	Cost: §95,000
	Monthly: §180
	Commercial YIMBY: 70
	Radius: 26
	Tile size: 4x6

 	Hagia Sophia
        Istanbul, Turkey
	Cost: §80,000
	Monthly: §160
	Commercial YIMBY: 40
	Radius: 20
	Tile size: 6x6

 	Hollywood Sign
        Los Angeles, USA
	Cost: §30,000
	Monthly: §60
	Commercial YIMBY: 20
	Radius: 16
	Tile size: 7x1

        Independence Hall
        Philadelphia, USA
	Cost: §60,000
	Monthly: §120
	Commercial YIMBY: 30
	Radius: 18
	Tile size: 2x2

 	Jefferson Memorial
        Washington D.C., USA
	Cost: §80,000
	Monthly: §170
	Commercial YIMBY: 50
	Radius: 22
	Tile size: 6x6

        John Hancock Center
        Chicago, USA
	Cost: §165,000
	Monthly: §320
	Commercial YIMBY: 90
	Radius: 30
	Tile size: 6x4

 	Lincoln Memorial
        Washington D.C., USA
	Cost: §85,000
	Monthly: §170
	Commercial YIMBY: 50
	Radius: 22
	Tile size: 5x4

 	Palace of Fine Arts
        San Francisco, USA
	Cost: §90,000
	Monthly: §180
	Commercial YIMBY: 30
	Radius: 18
	Tile size: 11x11

 	Palicio Real
        Madrid, Spain
	Cost: §65,000
	Monthly: §130
	Commercial YIMBY: 30
	Radius: 18
	Tile size: 6x6

 	Rotes Rathaus
        Berlin, Germany
	Cost: §65,000
	Monthly: §130
	Commercial YIMBY: 30
	Radius: 18
	Tile size: 4x4

 	Seoul City Hall
        Seoul, Korea
	Cost: §65,000
	Monthly: §coming soon
	Commercial YIMBY: coming soon
	Radius: coming soon
	Tile size: 5x6

 	Smith Tower
        Seattle, USA
	Cost: §55,000
	Monthly: §110
	Commercial YIMBY: 40
	Radius: 20
	Tile size: 3x3

      	Sphinx
        Giza, Egypt
	Cost: §50,000
	Monthly: §100
	Commercial YIMBY: 20
	Radius: 16
	Tile size: 2x4

 	St. Basil's
        Moscow, Russia
	Cost: §90,000
	Monthly: §180
	Commercial YIMBY: 60
	Radius: 24
	Tile size: 4x4

 	Statue of Liberty
        New York City, USA
	Cost: §85,000
	Monthly: §170
	Commercial YIMBY: 60
	Radius: 24
	Tile size: 4x4

 	Sungrye-mun
        Seoul, Korea
	Cost: §65,000
	Monthly: §coming soon
	Commercial YIMBY: coming soon
	Radius: coming soon
	Tile size: 4x4

 	Taj Mahal
        Agra, Ultar Pradesh, India
	Cost: §105,000
	Monthly: §200
	Commercial YIMBY: 60
	Radius: 24
	Tile size: 6x6

 	The Living Mall
        Taipei, Taiwan
	Cost: §55,000
	Monthly: §110
	Commercial YIMBY: 80
	Radius: 20
	Tile size: 6x6

        Tokyo Tower
        Tokyo, Japan
	Cost: §175,000
	Monthly: §340
	Commercial YIMBY: 80
	Radius: 28
	Tile size: 6x6

 	Tower of London
        London, England
	Cost: §55,000
	Monthly: §90
	Commercial YIMBY: 30
	Radius: 18
	Tile size: 3x3

 	US Capital Building
        Washington D.C. , USA
	Cost: §135,000
	Monthly: §160
	Commercial YIMBY: 80
	Radius: 28
	Tile size: 6x6

 	Washington Monument
        Washington D.C., USA
	Cost: §70,000
	Monthly: §140
	Commercial YIMBY: 40
	Radius: 20
	Tile size: 3x3

 	White House
        Washington D.C., USA
	Cost: §70,000
	Monthly: §140
	Commercial YIMBY: 40
	Radius: 20
	Tile size: 6x6

Cheats 
In order to get cheats to work, you need to press escape a few times. This will 
clear out any previous actions you were going to do. i.e. If you are zoning a 
residential area, and want to cheat, pressing escape a couple times will bring your 
cursor back to the circle icon. After you have cleared your commands with the escape 
key, press CTRL+X at the same time. This will bring up the cheat box.
Once the cheat has been activated, CTRL+X again and hit the Up Arrow and Enter to 
activate your last cheat without having to type it again.
List of known cheats are:
Stopwatch: This will pause and resume the 24-hour clock.
Whattimeizit 1-24: This will allow you to set the time of day. (In military time)
Tastyzots: Toggles ZOTS on and off.
Hellomynameis new name: This will change your mayor name.
Sizeof 1-1000: This will change the magnification.
Whererufrom new name: This will change the name of your city.
You don’t deserve it: All rewards available.
Zoneria: Hides all empty zones.
Howdryiam: Removes water requirements from all structures.
Weaknesspays: Adds §1000 to your balance.
Fightthepower: Removes power requirements for buildings.
 
Bugs and Known Issues
Known Issues 
1.	What is the list of known issues?
2.	Is there a patch for SimCity 4?
3.	SimCity 4 starts up, but then does nothing. I just see the cursor and that’s 
it. What’s up?
4.	SimCity 4 seems to run poorly on my machine. Is there anything I can do to 
remedy this problem?
Known Issues
This is a re-post of a post by MaxisDevinoch on the official site.
Author: Maxis Devinoch 
Date: Jan-21-03 01:36 PM PST 
Subject: Technical FAQ 
Disappearing Buildings When Scrolling 
Many cards (including the ATI Radeons) lack support for a backing store, which 
SimCity 4 utilizes. For those cards, SimCity 4 is forced to disable the rendering of 
many of the view objects (like buildings) during scroll. This is intentional to 
ensure responsiveness while scrolling. You can enable the rendering of all objects 
by editing your "Graphics Rules.sgr" which is found in the Sim City 4 directory 
installed to your hard drive. With any text editor go into this file and change the 
following property from true to false: property noPartialBackingStoreCopies false 
Note, however, that doing so can adversely effect scrolling speeds. 
Performance Problems
If this problem is occurring for brief periods, this is to be expected. If these 
pauses occur for longer than several seconds, the likely reason is that you have run 
out of RAM. The larger the city, the more RAM the game requires. In this case, you 
have several options short of purchasing more RAM. First, play on smaller cities 
(64x64 tile cities). Secondly, play with City Detail turned to medium or low. City 
Detail can be found in the Graphics options and reduces the number of objects 
rendered in the world (such as trees, street lights, stop signs, etc). After 
changing this setting, you must exit your city and re-enter it to take effect. 
Third, have few or no other applications running simultaneously with the game. A 
combination of these three options should improve performance. 
Game Crash
The crash with MySim is related to the bonus CD. If you have installed the bonus CD 
and have moved a MySim into your city, crashes are likely. We will have a patch 
available soon that fixes this issue. Deleting the file called 
Plugin_007_AirForceBase.dat from the Plugins directory found in Program 
Files\Maxis\SimCity 4\Plugins is a quick way to avoid the crash. 
Turning Off The Auto-Street Laying Function When Zoning
Currently the auto-street laying function, as part of the zone tool cannot be turned 
off. If, however, you draw roads and then zone an area, you can avoid having streets 
automatically drawn. 
Editing Terrain With Fine Detail
You can change the size and speed of all terrain brushes by using the shift key in 
combination with the number keys for size, and the shift key in combination with the 
F1 though F10 keys for speed. So, after selecting a brush to use, you can make the 
brush smaller by clicking on Shift-1, large by clicking of Shift-0, and everything 
in between using Shift-2 though Shift-9. Similarly, you can slow the rate of terrain 
change for the same brush by clicking on Shift-F1; increase the rate by clicking on 
Shift-F10, and everything in between by using Shift-F2 though Shift-F9.
Custom Music 
By placing your own music files (MP3''s) in the proper directory, you can have 
custom tunes play while you enjoy the game. The first step is to place the music 
files in one of two directories. For music to be played while in region mode place 
your custom tunes here: 
C:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4\Radio\Stations\Region\Music 
And for music to be played while editing your cities:
C:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4\Radio\Stations\Mayor\Music 
Once your music is in place, start the game up and go into the sound options. In 
sound options is a check box called Custom Tunes. Checking that box will enable the 
playback of the music files you placed in the two directories.
Anti-Aliasing problems
We’ve tested the game with full-screen anti-aliasing on a variety of cards. We found 
that beyond some graphics glitches (streaking) the game runs fine. If, however, if 
you have over clocked your card or have beta drivers, a crash might result. 
Flood Fill Zoning 
After selecting a zone tool, by click holding in an area, the tool will flood fill 
the zone in the area bounded by roads. This can be useful for zoning non-rectangular 
areas.
Q: Every now and then, one of my buildings is blue. What’s that mean?
A: Actually, this is a visual bug in the game. It doesn’t mean anything besides for 
the building is temporarily blue! It should change back soon.
Q: Is there a patch for SimCity 4?
A: There are no patches out as of yet. If your game is not running correctly, try 
upgrading your drivers to the most current ones available. This will fix problems on 
occasion.
Q: SimCity 4 starts up, but then does nothing. I just see the cursor and that’s it. 
What’s up?
A: This is a common problem for people with no hardware rendering. The "Solution" 
(at least temporarily) is to run in software video mode. Unfortunately, you can’t 
get into the game to set it to software, so manually edit your SimCity 4.ini in the 
\Apps folder so that it looks like this:
Graphics Drivers]
;OpenGL =SimGLRef.dll, C4554841
Software=SimGLSoft.dll,7ACA35C6
;D3D7 =SimGLDx7.dll, BADB6906
The key being that semi-colons are in front of any options other than Software.
Q: SimCity 4 seems to run poorly on my machine. Is there anything I can do to remedy 
this problem?
A: Upgrade your system of course! If you aren’t looking to spend a lot of money 
though, here is another suggestion. Run scandisk on your computer. When it finishes, 
proceed to run defrag on your computer. Restart and your performance should be 
improved slightly.
Contact and suggested websites:
 I hope you had fun playing the game and found this guide helpful! Some suggested 
sites are www.ea.com and www.maxis.com and www.simcity.com 
and www.cheatcodes.com.  Good Luck with your cities!!! 

Check out my other FAQ’s and Guides for

Starship Titanic – PC
The Crystal Key – PC
The Simpson’s: Road Rage – XBOX 
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring - XBOX