Obviously, by the game name, you should have guessed this has something to building cities. There are many, many different things to do.
Gameplay is controlled by the mouse, and the graphics are pre-rendered on an isometric grid that can be zoomed in and out.
Objectives
The objective of SimCity, as the name of the game suggests, is to build and design a city, without specific goals to achieve (except in the scenarios, which typically require the player to achieve a certain population or bank balance in a given period of time). The player can mark land as being zoned as commercial, industrial, or residential, add buildings, change the tax rate, build a power grid, build transportation systems and many other actions, in order to enhance the city. Also, the player can face disasters: flooding, tornadoes, fires, riots, earthquakes, etc. Later disasters included lightning strikes, volcanoes, meteors and attack by extra-terrestrial craft. In the Nintendo and later versions one can also build rewards when they are given to them, like the mayor's mansion and the casino for gambling Sims.
Basic SimCity concepts
In SimCity, there are various concepts to learn.
- Population: How many Sims are in a city
- Simoleans: Your money. You spend this whenever you do something.
- Taxes: Simoleans taken from your Sims on a yearly basis to replenish your City's Simoleans
- Ordinances: Various laws that can be enacted/repealed at anytime. Some give you money ("Legalized Gambling" allows gambling, however, all casinos have to pay you), others take money. They also have different effects on your population, and will make some happy and others mad.
- Tile: The basic unit of measure in SimCity. Also refers to the isometric "squares" in the game.
- Zone: This is where Sims will build. The three main types are Residential, Commercial, and Industrial. Each Zone has different effects: placing Dense Industrial next to a Light Residential will probably get some Sims angry about the intense dust.
- Transportation: A tile that allows Sims to get from one place to another. They are obviously connected to each other. People will only build a certain amount of Tiles from a transportation tile.