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   1 From: skaven@carson.u.washington.edu (Willilam Gilliland)
   2 Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
   3 Subject: Micropolis Strategies for Success
   4 Summary: How to build a better burg.
   5 Date: 24 Oct 92 20:15:41 GMT
   6 Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
   7
   8 What follows is the general strategy I use whenever I play
   9 Micropolis.  With it I have been able to build a self-sustaining
  10 city of 270,000 on Medium without resorting to cheats such as
  11 F-U-N-D or banzai taxation or the 'no disaster' setting.
  12 This strategy was based on a few ideas given to me by Kevin
  13 Ames (kja5@po.CWRU.edu) who has had a city last 1000 years,
  14 long enough that two nuclear meltdowns have occured and the
  15 radiation has decayed.
  16
  17 Note, however, that this strategy will not let you keep
  18 growth going indefinately.  In about 250 years (at least the
  19 way I play) the screen is filled and the zones are at
  20 operating capacity.  While population will fluctuate due to
  21 the world economy (+/- about 10000 people) it will not grow
  22 significantly beyond that level.
  23
  24 This strategy is based on two principles in the game.
  25
  26 P1. Zones are affected greatest by the 1-thick row of spaces
  27 surrounding them.
  28
  29 P2. The life or death of a city is based on cash flow.
  30
  31 Therefore, the strategy revolves around maximizing your
  32 income by affecting the spaces around every zone and at the
  33 same time minimizing your expenses.  To do this you should
  34 follow these guidelines.
  35
  36 1. MAXIMIZE zone contact with parks, forests, and shoreline.
  37 Since the important contact is the one space around them, to
  38 maximize your profit you should space zones one space apart,
  39 leaving a strip of forest between them.  Since I prefer maps
  40 with a river running down the middle, I will put zones in
  41 small blocks of 3 or 4 to increase density at the city
  42 center.  Any empty spaces should be filled with parks.
  43
  44 Since natural forests and shoreline are worth more than parks
  45 and bulldozed shoreline, you should always strive to preserve
  46 as much as you can while getting the most use out of them.
  47
  48 2. MINIMIZE the amount of rails, roads and power lines you
  49 have.  A good way to do this is to have a long straight road
  50 with zones along both sides of it.  Do NOT surround zones
  51 with roads like city blocks in real life -- this increases
  52 expenses for road maintenance, increases pollution, and
  53 lowers property values by reducing contact with forest/parks.
  54 Besides, only one contact space is necessary.  Since you can
  55 send power lines (perpendicularly) over road sections you
  56 should do this whenever possible, as it increases the space
  57 available for parks/forests.
  58
  59 Since roads are cheaper to build and maintain than rails you
  60 should keep them in the low-usage areas and keep the rails
  61 for the high usage areas.  Another way to reduce your rails
  62 is to have small 'buds' of zones connected by roads to a main
  63 rail strip.
  64
  65 An example of a 'long strip' is below.
  66
  67   #########################################################
  68   #rrr#rrr#ccc#rrr#rrr#ccc#rrr#rrr#ccc#rrr#rrr#ccc#rrr#rrr#
  69   -rrr#rrr-ccc#rrr-rrr#ccc-rrr#rrr-ccc#rrr-rrr#ccc-rrr#rrr#
  70   #rrr#rrr#ccc#rrr#rrr#ccc#rrr#rrr#ccc#rrr#rrr#ccc#rrr#rrr#
  71   ==+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+==+###
  72   #rrr#rrr#ccc#rrr#rrr#ccc#rrr#rrr#ccc#rrr#rrr#ccc#rrr#rrr#
  73   #rrr-rrr#ccc-rrr#rrr-ccc#rrr-rrr#ccc-rrr#rrr-ccc#rrr-rrr#
  74   #rrr#rrr#ccc#rrr#rrr#ccc#rrr#rrr#ccc#rrr#rrr#ccc#rrr#rrr#
  75   #########################################################
  76
  77 #      forest or park        - power line
  78 =      rail                  + power line crossing rail
  79 r      r-zone
  80 c      c-zone
  81
  82 3. MINIMIZE pollution near R and C zones.  The easiest way to
  83 do this is to bunch all your I-zones together at the
  84 periphery of the map, to leave the city center for the more
  85 valuable R and C zones.  You should also leave a 1-wide strip
  86 of parks between the zones to decrease the severity of the
  87 pollution.  Remember, roads add to pollution too, so if you
  88 have a lot of traffic put in rails.
  89
  90 4. MINIMIZE the number of police and fire stations while you
  91 MAXIMIZE coverage area.  The spacing takes practice to figure
  92 out, but on my screen the ideal spacing is to have the police
  93 stations in a triangular pattern that just fits on the
  94 screen.  In other words, I have two stations in the bottom
  95 corners of the window and one at the top in the center (or
  96 vice versa).  Concentrated police coverage is much more
  97 important than concentrated fire coverage, and I use a wider
  98 triangular pattern for fire departments.
  99
 100 While there are a number of tips to improve game play, these guidelines
 101 are general patterns that, if followed, will let you build cities that have
 102 a positive cash flow with a low tax level.  And that is all you need to have
 103 cities last indefinately.
 104
 105 ===============================================================================
 106    __                                                                    ____
 107   |  |                    The Missionary of Montlake                    /    \
 108   |~~|              Bill Gilliland, skaven@u.washington.edu             |    |
 109  /    \                    Expatriate Member, SUDS                      |    |
 110  |    |                                                                 |    |
 111  |    |                        IN VINO VERITAS                          |    |
 112  |    |                                                                 \    /
 113  |    |                    "In Wine there is Truth"                      |  |
 114  \____/                                                                  |__|