It's been so long since i played this one, so here are a few questions:

1.: The maximum distance to the next street for a tile to grow seems to be 3 for all three tile types (residential, commercial, industrial). Is this correct? I'm sure in SC3k they had different max distances...

2.: Do bonds pay off automatically when i let them run long enough or do i have to pay the interest rate forever until i pay them off manually as a whole?

3.: How do bus stops work in this game. They're bus depots here and they are huge (2x2 tiles). I suppose i don't have to place them on every street corner like in SC3k?

4.: How do water towers work? I know they don't produce water, they just save it somehow. But how do i know how many of them i need? Do i even need them at all?

That's everything for now, but prepare for more as i continue playing. ;)

Thanks in advance,
Grombart

Yes, that is correct. You pay the interest rate forever until you pay them off manually.


I'm not sure on the other questions.

Damn, this means my first city is doomed! Needed to take two loans but it really seems i shouldn't have done it. :D

Well, was a training run then... ;)

And thanks for the answers anyway! :)

Anyone got ideas about the other two questions?

- Grombart

Bonds can actually be quite powerful, particularly if you can get the nice 2-3% rates.

Understand that you never need to pay them back, as long as you can spend that 10k to generate an annual return that exceeds the annual interest payment. You might pay $400/yr for having a loan, but if you can place e.g. 750 zoned lots, you can be earning quite a bit more... say $600/yr gross. You could put that $200/yr net to paying off the loan, but this is not necessarily desirable if you can instead use it to generate a similar return.

Generally you take out a loan at a low interest rate, with speed=turtle, and immediately spend all of it on development. Continue taking out loans as you need money to maintain a rapid rate of growth. You can make e.g. state capitol by 1910 in this way.

I haven't done a careful study of the way the interest rate is computed, but I haven't seen any obvious penalties for holding such massive liabilities.

This isn't without its difficulties. Often the rate of growth means you're zoning blind, making it difficult to balance zone demand demand and proximity to one another. It also takes discipline to avoid out-pacing your services during this rapid expansion phase. The first city I used this technique on hit a wall about 15 years in due to a perfect storm of pollution, crime, poor healthcare and poor education, contributing to sharply lowered demand for all zones.

Hello Grombart, SimCity 2000 is one of my favorite games so I have some answers for you mayhap. :)
3: No you don't have to place bus depots on every street corner to be effective...I generally place them on about every corner about, I don't know, 18 squars apart on the horizontal and vertical, or so (see I use the 9x9 plot size for residential especially, and put a big park in the inaccessible 3x3 region to increase values). You will have to fiddle a bit to find the right mix that is right for you, I always find it best to plan the depots ahead of time, don't zone certain 2x2 corners if it is quite far away from another depot....Further I leave a 1x1 square open in every 9x9 plot for the installation of a subway system later if ness..or I want to...I never mess with highways or railways, takes up too much room to me. I hope I didn't confuse you more! My advice is, it's your city, go for what you feel it needs where it needs it. :)

4: I usually don't use water towers, maybe I have a few in a larger city, but, to me they are often a waste...They are the most useful when you have enough water pumps to produce water for your city in all seasons except when it is the hottest...then the city will tap into the tower reserves...Again, I usually don't waste my time with too many of these, they are cool looking though I think. =D

Have fun with your city! :-)

EDIT *SPOILER* Picture attached with a little cheat code if you didn't want to restart your city due to financial woes

Thanks for the answers! It's too long ago and i was too young back then to remember how everything worked, but now i seem to be mostly up-to-date again. :)

As for the bond: I managed to pay off the more expensive bond with a cheaper one, savin 2% interest rate which took me back into the black numbers. But then my first power plant pulverized due to it's age and i had to take a third bond which ultimately killed me off. I managed to get back to positive income, but this certainly won't be enough until the second plant blows up too, so i abandoned the city for now and started another one. I don't like cheating so i just take it how it goes and maybe try to rescue my first city when i'm more into the game again. ;)

Again many thanks for your answers and additional tips! SC2k is a great game (in some aspects even greater than SC3k, which is my favourite of the series) and it's great to have it back. :)

3.: How do bus stops work in this game. They're bus depots here and they are huge (2x2 tiles). I suppose i don't have to place them on every street corner like in SC3k?

I generally just place them near intersections where there appears to be a lot of traffic. Seems to work pretty well, although I can see how certain people who demand uniformity would be turned off by an ad-hoc solution such as this.

4.: How do water towers work? I know they don't produce water, they just save it somehow. But how do i know how many of them i need? Do i even need them at all?

On the "Graph" screen, one of the options is "Water". It's generally a number between 100 (complete coverage) and 0 (water shortages). Water towers allow you to save some of the water from the wet seasons into the dry ones, saving a little bit of money ($250 for a water tower over 4 $100 water pumps). Would it make more sense to build 4 land-locked water pumps? I don't know, I haven't tested it. I generally try to make sure there's at least 1 square of water next to my pumps since they're so much more efficient that way, and put the water towers next door on the landlocked area that I don't plan on developing. I have read that if you look at the pipes under the water tower you can see how much they're saving by what % of them are dry (i.e. if 3 of the 4 squares underneath the tower look like they have water running through them, the tower is 75% full). I haven't tested/experimented with this, but it makes sense.