SimCity Societies/Assembly Required: Difference between revisions

Assembly Required is a good scenario to try the new challenges that bring the maintenance costs to the game as many the budget strains will force you to expand methodically and avoid expensive overhead daily costs . starting up the city maybe a little tricky but often once it starts rolling it becomes a cakewalk as industry kicks up the budget. as many SCS scenarios one can win this scenario with different city plans and building mixes however they'll look pretty similar as the industrial filter is on. important thing to keep in check in this scenario are

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The Industrial Revolution is upon us, and with it a new decade of building power and industry on the sweat of working Sims. Unfortunately, this power comes at a price. As if having to worry about labor unions, strikes, and labor costs wasn't enough,  crime is on the rise and day seems like night with the smog choking the air. Bearing these burdens, lead this city -- and SimNation -- into a glorious new age of history.

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Scenario Introduction Text

so here we are, most probably due the settings the landscape will have a good amount of water and it'll have some little rough hills,this would make a fine port city after all, sadly the docks aren't enabled but that doesn't matters anyways, also, don't expect to fit the whole city in one huge block, look for good spots for the hoods in the city.

so what we do first? put a power plant of course, and which power plant? well,the only one we can! and because it's SCS you can plant it anywhere you want and it'll be fine and functional. normally i would recommend the farthest corner in the map, however as this is an industrial city it can be placed in the workers quarter, it won't matter and it'll add some "flavor" to the place. but why put it there? because most probably (and how this wlakthrough will do) the whole city will be an eyesore. and thats the secret.

== Mr. Slumlord or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Eyesores ==

usually, eyesores are ugly thing that lower surrounding buildings's happiness, however that doesn't happens between eyesores, for example: our coal plant lowers the the happiness of the cute strip mall from +3 to +1 if it's in the influence area, however a little butcher shop, in the same place doesn't get the penalty. the same goes to all building with the shanty icon in the building card. this is mean that eyesore housing can be placed aside eyesore venues aside eyesore workplaces and everything will work fine as normal. this eases a lot the space and traffic problems as neighbourhoods can be compact and at walk distance of everything just as real victorian slums!!! casually also many eyesores have low manteinance costs,very good buildings for the a bustling city indeed.

== Poor but honest: why slums aren't so good  ==

so the first objective is to skip slum housing, why would skip that? Slum Housing:

* it's an eyesore that is also good

but it makes CRIME, crime is the true cancer of the cities in SCS, crime means pickpockets and that lowers the happiness, maybe pickpocketing a normal sim isn't a big deal, but a sim, which has a 7-days work week and hasn't blown off some steam and has flu because the roof of the room leaked while he was sleeping AND he doesn't find a clinic in the town, a pickpocket can be the trigger of this sim going <s>commie</s> rogue and shutting down a factory, often sims can handle a few downers without going rogue but putting them all together is asking for it.

also trying to fight crime by force is expensive, those policeman won't pay their upkeep with the money which they get doing paperwork or who knows what they do in the station. and the riot police from jails are even more expensive guys, they don't even do paperwork money!! so be smart and cut in costs by keeping honest law-abiding working masses (at least by now that it's an small boomtown)

after discarding the slums we have the next housing options for our workers:

* Trailer parks: a bit ugly but healthy tin cans of people (i guess they come with tap water or something), good overhead cost but a bit too big for too few people, and suffer eyesore penalty.

* Row Houses: cute and soundly built, average-sized houses that need authority to work (council housing i guess?), they are too good for your workers, highest overhead cost of early options and suffer eyesore penalty too.

the next ones aren't readily avalible but are easy to get:

* Housing Project: high-density housing, healthy (comes with indoor plumbing!) and a bit ugly, but suffer eyesore penalty, a shame, also make easier to spawn hooligans (i'm pretty sure this ones are council blocks).

* Victorian Home: Comfortable upscale victorian homes for victorian barons, good for making an "uptown" but uptowns are absolutely useless in this city and no one sells house improvements in the city, just for flavor, if you ask me the true fat cats are smart enough to live out of this forsaken city.

* Tenements: medium-density slums, ugly, unhealthy and an eyesore, but pack a good bunch of workers for a good price (12 sims for the same daily cost as row houses and trailer parks!) and more important, they don't attract crime (they are close-knitted people, after all the folks who live here are at only a cardboard of distance from the others tenants)

the last ones the workers barracks, have a HUGE build and maintenance costs, and are far away from start options, also they pack a lot of workers but few people (a lot of single people, maybe like in mining towns) anyways, in strategic mode are a very bad housing option, too expensive in many ways.

== founding industries: a new Cottonopolis ==

there are many options of industries to start, sawmills, breweries, gas stations (old-fashioned ones) after some experience the best option are textile mills. first than nothing, they have a 7-day workweek, so overhead/profit balance is evenly distributed over all the weekdays so there are not weekend deficits as in 5-days workweeks, also the textile mill has the production drive action, which gives lump sums of cash almost every week, pretty cool buildings. however for the worker welfare they're not too good, the 7-day week means no weekends at all and power looms have the nasty habit to snap fingers and legs of worker sims. but as said an english king, we have reserves!

as for the entertainment of the masses there is nothing like booze and gambling, however it's better to keep it nice and legal, as the first option which comes to mind are dive bars, ahh nothing like local beer and a football match on the tv, however this working man venues have the same problem as slum apts., they attract crime, and crime, people is "usually" bad for business, at least for us it's quite bad. so search more established ways to wet the thirsty workers throats, a liquor store will do it well but need some small requirements like a established population and some productivity already running. horse track betting will provide some higher leisure to the masses and will shelter some drunks in the cold nights of your city.

File:founding neighbourhood.jpg|in the corner was a butcher shop now there is the booze shop.

== to give or not to give: if healthcare and salvation are needed ==

it's perfectly possible to run this scenario without healthcare facilities however it adds a bit of extra difficulty as injured and sick sims are more cranky than healthy sims. in the industrial cities soon or later some people started to care about the bleak lives of the working people and began to set up charities, free clinics and other things to lighten their lives, a good charity combo are parochial schools+clinics+churches, in this childless city (unless you make victorian homes)the parochial school are a relatively cheap source of knowledge and spirtuallity,two schools give enough to run two clinics and a church, believe it or not,that meager facilities liven up many as 60 or more sims easily (of course counting the standard booze and gamble venues as existent) in fact the thanks to this "missions" the mood of the sims can stay very high. even with the rampant sickness and bleak housing. as the parochial schools often won't find any visitors (they'll be too busy drinking and gambling) in this layout tend to look more like "charity offices" rather than religious schools, it's wise to put them between the slums and the mission perimeter to save up space.

File:worker haven.jpg| some charity in a misery town

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