Cities XL Manual

[soltangris 42]

I'm starting this thread hoping to create an alternative and more detailed manual than the one available online. I plan to adress basic game mechanics in a consise and clear way, together with tips for some advanced gameplay. Please feel free to post additions! And moderators, If you feel like you could sticky this thread.

As a start, I'm gonna copy my post about busses from 'the Mass transit discussion thread'.

[soltangris 42]

Well, irony aside, I thought of posting some info that's gonna actually contribute to the relevance of the thread; namely, bus mechanics info. Most of you probably know all this already, but still....

1. Busses are found under roads/mass transport. The bus Headquarters is ALSO there, so don't look for it in other menus.

2. To set up working busses in your city, you first need to reach 50 000 population. Then, place the Headquarters (it costs about 2500/month to maintain). After that, terminals become available: small one (handles up to3 lines, 1000/month maintenance cost) and large one (up to 12 lines, 5000/mo)

3. To set up a line, you just need to place a terminal. After you've placed one, a line automatically starts and you can place the stops. You need to literally 'trace' the line over the road network, and place manually each stop. Bus lines can go on every type of road (including expressways and fast lanes), but you can't place stops on expressways and fast lanes, only on roads and avenues. Each consecutive stop is numbered, so you can keep track of them. Each line can have up to 40 stops (I've never reached that number yet, but that's what Mathew says). The stops are placed on the side of the road, and don't take up any additional space. During placement, you can see the area each stop could affect (a blue aura) - try to place the stops so that maximum number of buildings can use them. However, the fact that the stop had highlighted the area during placement doesn't mean that ALL the buildings there will actually use the bus line - this depends on many factors, including the full trajectory of the completed line. To end and validate the line, you need to trace it back to the original terminal (another one won't work), then just click on it.

4. To add additional lines to the same terminal, select a terminal from the menu and just place it over the existing one - another line will start and add to the lines already starting from this terminal.

5. You can select which type of busses will be used on each line - use the bus info screen and just click on one of the three bus types: minibus, normal bus and double-decker. Obviously, each bus has different capacity, with double deckers having the most space (and cost).

6. Each line costs your city money, an expense that is added to the maintenance cost of the terminal. The price depends on the type of bus used and number of stops per line. Currently, a line using normal busses with about 20 stops costs about 10 000. 

7. Bus info: they've added a new mass-transport tab on the top of the screen (right next to the resources tab) where you can find detailed info about the busses (and probably later about other mass transport as well). The panel shows number of terminals, all the lines, cost per line, line usage, and so on. It also lets you choose the type of bus to be used on each line. There's also a new mass-transport layer that shows you bus lines and bus traffic. 

8. Bus usage: the most important think to figure out, obviously. Busses cost you a LOT of money, but they can really relieve traffic on your streets! In order to achieve maximum efficiency, though, you have to place lines and stops carefully. Several thinks to consider:

- Unqualified and qualified workers tend to use busses the most. This means that they'll willingly walk some distance from home to get a bus, and also from the stop to their work. Executives will use the lines if the stops are close to home/work. Elites never use busses (according to my observations, and Mathew confirmed that).   

- The more people use a line, the more crowded it gets. You can keep track  of that in the bus info panel, and adjust the type of bus to be used accordingly. If a line reaches 100% capacity, you need to switch to a bigger bus for that line. On the other hand, if a line has about 20 - 30% usage, you can safely switch to a smaller bus. If you get less than 10% usage, you can as well rework that line, because it's almost useless.

- According to my observations, the most effective way to use busses is to create a line connecting residential districts with heavy/manufacturing industry. Those use a great deal of unqualified/qualified workers, and the line will jump to 100% usage in no time, relieving the traffic on the streets in the same time. Offices and high-tech use qualified and above, so it's not so beneficial to create lines exclusively going to office districts. If so, try to pass the line through as many residential areas as you can to get maximum coverage.

- The main benefit of busses is traffic relieve, so if you don't have many traffic problems, it's useless to place bus lines. Again, busses tend to be incredibly effective in cities with industry, and less effective in spread-out agricultural/office/holliday cities.

You can find out the exact buildings (residential or whatever) that use each line: just click on the terminal and select one of the lines (in the middle of the info panel). The line will light up and also the buildigns that are currently using the line. You'll notice that many times the actual usage doesn't have anything to do with the auras that you saw during stop placement, so don't be overconfident! Practice and you'll learn

This is just a starting list of observations. I've played with busses only about 3 hours, so feel free to correct/add to the list above. Thank you.

[soltangris 42]

Actually Stef, it's the other way around: if the usage is low the dot is green, if it's high it's red. Meaning that the line is cramped... The tutorial says that if the bus is too full, people might decide to use their cars instead, so the best think to do I guess is maintain line usage around 60 - 70 %.

I also wanted to add the following points:

- Deleting a line - you can do that from the bus info screen. On the right side there's a delete button. Also, demolishing the terminal will obviously delete all associated lines.

- Automathically retracing a line: if you have two specific areas to connect and don't want to go through placing all stops for the return trip, you could do a circle at some point, click on a bus stop from the same line and then confirm. The back trip will be calculated automatically along the same line.

- Combining lines: you can 'cross' two different bus lines. To do that just place a stop close to the stop of another line (the cursor will highlight it automatically when it's close enough). The people using those lines will now be able to switch lines at this point. You can, for example, cross lines from two or more terminals, creating a neat network. This will also improve your other lines' usage.

- Line usage dynamics: once you've created a line, wait for couple of minutes to actually see it's efficiency. The engine doesn't calculate it immediately; it takes some time. So, when creating a line and seeing that the usage is 0%, don't be too ready to delete it! Wait a bit...

Also, line usage might rise or drop in time according to the development of your city. Keep an eye on the situation and act accordingly.

[soltangris 42]

Road system

CXL's road system is quite complex, and maybe one of the most admirable of its features so far. First of all, it's grid-free (The entire map is actually grid-free), which means you can do virtually whatever you want when drawing the roads. It also has a neat system of controlling lanes in the existing roads Of course, there are limitations

1. 'Drawing' roads. Roads, in all their variations, are found in the 'Transportation' tab. The subtabs that appear include Roads, Fast lanes (highways), Bridges/tunnels, and also mass transport and inter-city links (harbors and airports).

The Roads subtab include all roads that give your buildings access to the road network, and are the ones that you're gonna be building most of the time. 

You 'draw' roads by tracing waypoints; once you click to start the road appears as a blueprint; drag to trace the trajectory; each additional click will place a waypoint. You use the waypoints to create curves and turns. If the blueprint remains blue, or green, you're fine; if it turns red, you're doing something wrong. On the right-hand side of the screen you'll usually see a message telling you what's wrong (usually slope too steep, or angle too sharp, not enough room or something of the sort);  also along the trajectory at the problem points will appear some little icons helping you to identify the problem.  When you're done, just click on the last waypoint to confirm the road.  

-drawing tools: there are three tools which let you design the forms of the roads, and can be used with all of them. They appear rught from the tabs, and are: 

- Straight road tool. It'll draw a straight line from point to point, but it could be pointed in any direction. 

- 8 directional tool. Straight line again, only it snaps to one of eight directions from the point. Neat if you want a geomethrically correct grid. 

- Curved road tool. This allows you to make curves. Place points to change the direction of the curves. Experiment, it's cool! 

2. Going up/downhill. There are quite some hills on the maps, so you'll be doing that a lot. You can go down/uphill to a certain extend, but not if the inclination is too extreme. In such case, you could either try to find a suitable curve along the slope, or simply use bridge/tunnel. 

Placing roads on hills involves a certain amount of automatic terraforming, so don't be surprised if the slope changed a bit after you place the road. Also, don't be surprised if you try to make a junction in the middle of the slope and it turns impossible - after all a junction needs level space, and this might be impossible. Still, you might try to move the intersection up or down, mostly you'll find a suitable connection spot.   

3 Junctions. The joining of roads is handled pretty well, considering the grid-free system; you could make not only regular crossroads, but also junctions of 5 - 6 different roads, and in somewhat sharp angles. Can't do too sharp angles, though - if you have to try to use the curved tool close to the desired joining point, until you get a green intersection.  

4. Going around existing structures. When you wanna trace a road right next to existing structures/fields, you'll have some problems, mainly due to the grid-free system. You want, of course, to place the road adjacent to the existing stuff, not too far away, and this is especially an issue when you're replacing old roads with bigger ones. However, the game will tell you there's no space for this road, and it'll always look like the road is just too big. Calm down, and do the following: click on the desired road, select either the straight tool (works better usually) or the curved one, then hover right next to one of the existing buildings (the red entry point would do well) -  the mouse pointer will snap automatically at the correct distance for the new road. Click to start drawing, then little by little trace the road, first to the edge of this building, then to the edge of the next one, etc. The engine will usually snap the roads to the buildings, unless you're doing something wrong. The straight tool and moving slowly shoud do the trick. When you've almost reached the road where you're gonna connect (like the last building before the crossroad), click and confirm the road.  

The problem comes, however, when you try to join the new road to an old one, and there's a building at the corner. Currently, the engine just tries to center the two roads, and the new one inevitably runs into the corner building, ignoring the space on the other side. The only possible solution (for now, until MC decide to improve the junctions handling) is to destroy the building at the corner. That's why I told you earlier to confirm the road BEFORE you try to reach the crossroad. If you didn't there's no way to finish, and you'll lose all the carfull tracing you've done so far.  

5. Upgrading roads. Unfortunately, but quite realistically, in CXL it's not possible to build larger capacity roads over existing ones. You have to first destroy the old ones, than make sure there's enough space for the larger road. Usually that includes destroying a row of buildings on one side of the road (no use doing it on both sides). 

7. Road types. We have the following sizes in increasing importance and width:

- Small farm road. Only for farms, obviously; two lanes, very low car speed. Can be upgraded to small road.

- Medium farm road. Somewhat better than the small one, again two lanes but faster speed. You could use it in the middle of your farm fields, but it's almost exclusively for aestethic reasons. Can be upgraded to dimple road.

- Small road. Two lanes, 20 cars/min. This is your neighborhood street. 

- Simpe road. Two lanes, 40 cars/min. A more serious road, good for reaching major roads, and later in the game become one-way connection inside your neighborhoods.  

- Small avenue. Four lanes, 60 cars/min. The first serious road. Use it lavishly, especially in industrial and downtown areas. Not a central road, however. 

- Large avenue. Four + one lanes. 80 cars/min. This is your major road arthery, capable of supporting traffic on a large scale. It has some trees in the middle that can be replaced with an additional lane.

- Large luxurious avenue - honestly, don't know what's the difference between this one and a large avenue. Someone said it has more trees, and thus increases nearby environmental satisfaction.  

-  Expressway. Six lanes, 160 cars/min. This is the largest road giving your buildings road access. Use it in heavily populated downtowns, industrial blocks and so on. Can't controll lanes here, though. 

All of the above types of roads are freely interconnectable, i.e. you can make intersections with each one of them, and also freely convert one into another.  

8.  Fast lanes (highway). The largest road currently, 8 lanes, 320 cars/min. It doesn't give your buildings road access! Also, you can't make normal intersections with it, you need to use one of the set pieces to connect it to the rest of the network. Other roads can't cross with it on the same level, you need to build bridges/tunnels. Currently, you have the following connection options: 

- Simple interchange: a piece that converts highway into expressway in the same vector. The most versatile connection currently.

- Road interchange: a large avenue passes over the highway. The biggest and most cumbersome interchange.

- Large interchange: a T-shaped connection to a large avenue.

- Very large interchange: a T-shaped connection to another highway.

- Cloverleaf: Allows crossing two highways.

Obviously, highways are the way to go when connecting two remote areas on the map. They're also good to run around your populated ares. If you want to run them in the middle of the city, however, they're a pain in the ass, because the connections require huge space. The easiest way to go around that is to convert temporarily the highway into an expressway, make a crossroad, and then convert back to a highway. This creates bottlenecks, of course, but it is the only viable option currently, untill MC does something.

Note: you can only draw highways with the curved tool for some reason.

Second note: The highway-bridge-to-highway connection seems to be bugged currently. It gives you 'Invalid junction' message for no apparent reason.

6. Lanes management. Here comes the micromanagement fun: almost every road, excluding expressways and highways, can have its lanes adjusted. To do that just click on the road - a panel will open with upgrade options. Warning, you'll be selecting only a secion of the road (from one crossroad to the next one), so you have to make the adjustments segment by segment.  Depending on the road type, you'll have:

- two lanes one way (or the other), for small and simple roads

- four lanes one way (for avenues)

- four lanes one way with trees (for large avenues). This maintains the trees.  

- two lanes one way, three lanes the other way (for large avenues). This excludes the trees.  

- five lanes one-way (for large avenues). Also excludes trees.

With these adjustments you can really direct the traffic flow in the city. If your downtown area is suffering, make two paralel avenues one way! 

It's also a good alternative to the expressway to built two large avenues next to each other, and turn each one one-way. 

According to MC, we'll have more lane management options in the future, such as special bus lanes. Nice!  

7. Bridges and tunnels. Another greatly implemented feature, although there's still some glitches and problems. 

To build a bridge or tunnel, you need to select it first from the bridge subtab and the list of bridges in the lower section. The drawing tools are also there, so you can build curved bridges! 

Once you've selected the appropriate bridge (there's one for each road width, with simple road and large avenue getting two options), you can start building, either from an existing road, or from a freely chosen point in space. When you hold the 'shift' button and move the mouse, you can change the depth/height of the blueprint. According to the relative position you can get either a bridge (if it's high above ground) or a tunnel (it it falls bellow ground). Start tracing the same way you would a road, using the additional options of height/depth change. Each waypoint can be used not only as a directional change point, but also as a height change point.

To finish building you have to bring the blueprint back to ground level, and/or connect it to existing road. Sometimes the second option is easier, and the engine usually handles it well. If you've made a somewhat crazy construction, though, you'll have to suffer through all your mad fantasies untill you manage a green blueprint that can be finalised.

Bridges are somewhat easier to build, according to my experience. Start preferebly from an existing road, then just drag across the chasm to the other end and try to bring it to ground level.

If you're trying to build an overpass with the bridge tool, you have to be more carefull, though. You have to start some distance before the other road; don't try to raise the height too abruptly; once you're past the other rad and the blueprint turns green click a waypoint and start lowering. With some practice you'll find the almost perfect proportions and manage not to lose lots of space. Still, a special overpass tool is to be desired because the height of the so-built bridges is usually not realistic at all. Let's hope MC will hear our prayers!

Tunnels are by far the most dificult to build, especially if you try to pass them under existing structures. Again, you need to start some distance away and try to bring the depth down as fast as possible (without it turning red). You have to gauge the perfect inclination so you don't make the tunnel too long, too steep, or to affect the structures above. Good news is: if the tunnel is deep enough, you can build on the ground above it! Also, if the bridge is high enough, you can not only pass other roads beneath. you can also build structures underneath.

Finally, you can use the bridge tool to go smoothly up/downhill. Just keep the blueprint close to the ground of the slope and you'll get something that doesn't look like a bridge, or a tunnel, but simply a road that compensates for the natural gaps in the inclination. What kind of car you should have to go up that, I wonder....

Closing comments: although there's still stuff to be improved, the road system is sophisticated and complex enoughto  let you create some great road netwroks. Once they fix the highways and some other issues, we'll have a truly amasing road building experience!  

[jmcdaid 0]

Is there a keyboard shortcust list somewhere?  Or is this game just point and click for the most part?

[soltangris 42]

Zoning and ploping

Creating buildings in the game is done in two ways: 'ploping' (you place the lot or blueprint yourself) and 'zoning'. The latter needs some explanation, since it's a little different from the Sim City series. 

A note on terminology: 'a 'lot' means the area where an actual building will be errected; 'zone' includes several buildings (lots) organised in a neighborhood.

There are currently three types of zones in CXL: square zone, free zone and linear zone.

- Square zone. It has a defined form and size, 2X3 lots, outlined by a road (a small road for low and medium density,  simple road for high). When you click and drag, the engine will create one or multiple of those fixed-form zones, with the appropriate square road grid. The basic advantage of this zone is that it fits neatly as many lots as possible into as few space as possible. It's also handy for creating grid cities.  

- Free zone. This one works differently: when you click you actually start tracing the road outlining the zone. Do this the same way you would trace a normal road: clicking creates waypoints that define the form of the zone. The zoning engine uses straight roads, but if you click on an existing curved road it will be included as a boundary in the free zone. Technically, you could first draw a circular road, and then use the  free zone tool on it, it'll create a circular zone!

You'll need to be carefull when attaching the zone to existing buildings/zones - sometimes the manner you draw will create too sharp angles between the boundary roads. I've found that the best way to go is clicking the waypoints on existing crossroads - this way you not only facilitate your work, but also create organised street systems which you could later modify.

The zone tries to fit again as many lots as possible; it would also try to fill in the center of the zone, if there's enough space, creating an internal road. If not, the lots are placed facing the outlining road, and all the rest is filled with grass (residential) , plazas (Commercial) or some industrially-looking stuff for the industry. To finish just try to 'close' the zone one way or another, and when it  turns green, click to confirm.

Using the free zoning lets you build blocks of whatever forms you could dream of, and also lets you make smaller (or larger) zones than the square zone tool. The auto-filling feature is neat and creates some nicely looking internal parks.

- Linear zone. This tool lets you draw a road and places lots along it. You could make as long a zone you wish, and also curve it - the lots will bend appropriately. Handy if you're tired of planning one block at a time and want to think big. Also handy when you're building in tigh areas. Later, just demolish a building here and there to create an intersection.  

- Lastly, you can plop individual lots. The difference between real plopable buildings and plopable zoning lots is that the first kind will appear immediately, while the second kind are subject to demand. 

You're able to choose the size of the roads that participate in the zone - just right-click on the relevant zone button and a menu will appear with several choices. For example, for the free zone you can choose the size of the outlying road, as well as any road created inside the zone.

Warning! In order for each building to be functional, it has to be connected to a road (and not a highway)! Zoning does this automatically, but when you plop make sure you do it near a road. The building will snap to it. If you insist on ploping in the middle of nowhere for some reason, pay attention to the red dot that will appear on the building once it's there: that's where you need to connect a road. The red dot appears also in case you destroy the road that gives access to a building. 

The zonable lots also have something that looks like an entrance, although you have to zoom in and look carefully to find it. 

Finally, you have to connect each building not only to a road, but to the road network. If not, an icon will hover over a building that it's not connected to the city hall.

For each zone there are three density levels: light, medium and high density. Be aware that light and medium density have lots of the same size, while high density has considerably larger lots. 

- Farms zoning. This is handled a little differently that other zones. Farms don't have lots, they have fields that fill in the whole zone with the exception of a couple of small buildings. The zone also has minimum and maximum size. To build a farm, just trace as you would a free zone; while you do so you'll see a percentage counter on the right that will show how close to the optimal size the zone is. If you overdo it, it'll say 'zone too large' .

Warning! Farms productivity depend on their size; the maximum productivity is achieved only at 100% zone size. So, always try to reach that, but not do it too large.  

 

Buildings in the game subject to zoning: 

- Residences (all 4 types) 

- Retail commercial 

- Industry (all 4 types) 

- Offices   

- Some utilities (oil and waste). Those create zones in much the same way as farms do.  

There are also the decorations areas (Decorations tab, Areas), but they're handled differently: There you need to create independently a road outlining the area where you intend to put the decoration. Then, click on the appropriate thing (park, plaza, etc) and hover over the area: when the outline turns green, click. You could also use any area that is enclosed by roads, specifically or not intended for parks. For example, if you reworked one of your zones and had to delete the neat grass in the middle, you can replace it with that tool.

[soltangris 42]

Citizens and satisfaction

Your citizens are the lifeblood of your city, not only because they're the very reason for its existence, but also because they are its working force. Without enough workers, your businesses quickly go bankrupt. And , of course, many special buildings are keyed to reaching certain population (unless you've unlocked expert mode).

To attract citizens, you need to build residential zones. Once assigned, the zones will fill with residential buildings of the appropriate size, unless general satisfaction for the appropriate citizen class has dropped under 50%. I've never gotten to this point, but according to the info, citizens will stop coming to the city at this point (the new residential zones will remain empty, and/or existing buildings will start emptying) and you'll need to do something to improve living conditions in the city. We'll talk about that later.   

There are four types, or social groups, of citizens,  each one with their own levels of expectations and their usefulness in different areas of the city infrastructure and businesses. Also, each different level pays different taxes - the upper the level , the more the taxes! The exact relation is double the taxes for each successive level, so for example if a high density unqualified house pays 75c, then qualified will pay 150, execs 300 and elites 600c.

1. Unskilled workers. The 'low orders', your general workers. They do all sorts of jobs in the city, but their main occupation is in farming, heavy industry, retail and hotels, basic city services. You'll need lots of them in the beginning stage of every city, and later if you specialise in farming, heavy industry or utilities production. Unqualified workers are very easy to satisfy - they need only the bare minimum of services and a normal environment. They pay very little taxes, though.

2. Skilled workers. What we would call lower-middle class. They're literally everywhere - from industry through commercial to city services. Actually, the only place you won't find them is farms. Qualified  workers are somewhat more difficult to please, but still relatively easy.

3. Executives. The 'high order' - they are specialised workers that occupy most of the posts in offices, manufacturing and high-tech industry, high-leveled city services. You'll need lots of them if your city is specialising in one of those. Executives are difficult to please - they want good levels of services and leisure, clean environment and diversion. But their high-rises are impressive and a good addition to a downtown skyscraper area.

4. Elites. Greedy, whiny, never-satisfied bastards. The top of the social pyramid, those people occupy the top posts in the hierarcy of manufacturying and high-tech industry, offices and special buildings. You'll never need many of them, though, not as much as executives (which are used in almost the same fields). Elites are very diffivult to please, almost impossible in fact. They want maximum services coverage, lots of leisure options and squeacky clean environment - I'm yet to satisfy even one house to the maximum level! However, their vilas and appartment complexes look great, with pools and everything. AND, they pay huge taxes! A single luxurious appartment complex pays as much taxes as a big office building.

What do your citizens require to be happy? Many things, starting with jobs and ending with the environment nearby. You can check citizen satisfaction from the population tab, satisfaction and services/environment subtabs. There you'll see general satisfaction levels, in %, broken down per wealth level and type of service.

There are series of buttons in the upper-right part of the screen that also show citizen satisfaction (one button per each wealth level). Clicking on them will give you immediate feedback for the citizen class in question, and also inform you of problems. Colour-code is: bright green - everything is topsy-turvy; dull green - some problems, nothing serious; yellow - problems requiring attention; red - you get the idea.

You can also click on individual homes to check their satisfaction: the colour dot gives you general info, and underneath you'll find more specific info about what you need to improve. The more red the colour of the info, the more you need to improve it.

1. Jobs. An unemployed man is an unhappy man. Good think that your city has so many ways to employ people! When you create a residential zone, always think if you'll have jobs for the relative type of citizens. If you won't, it's advisable to create some. Once you have a business somewhere in town to employ your new citizens, they'll find it automatically. Be carefull to create the right business, though - look in the info panels of the businesses to find what types of workers, and how many approximately they need, then select the appropriate business (according to your city strategy, of course).

If you click on a home, you'll see a colour line coming out of it and connecting it to a business somewhere in the city - this shows where the guys from that building work and is also handy to trace their way to work (which is important when solving traffic problems). If there's no line, then people in that building are unemployed - there's also gonna be a red warning inscription to that end.

You can find general info on jobs and employment in the Population tab in the upper center part of the screen (between the resource and money tabs). Here, in the 'Statistics' part you'll find your overall population, available jobs, the relative percentage of the different types of citizens, and the unemployment rate (and also some other irrelevant info).

I like to keep a 1 - 2 % unemployment rate for each citizen type - this guarantees me that some new buildings that I erect will have workers right away, wihthout me having to worry about them. Creating large residential zones, especially in the early stages of a city, will create large unemployment rates, although you could create jobs just as fast . Don't get scared when you see 50% unemployment! With 5000 population you can turn that around with a single industrial zone.

In later stages of the game you can create citizen tokens by zoning for more citizens of a type than your city needs. You can than use those tokens to trade, or in megastructure projects. But be carefull - lots of unemployed citizens that have nothing to do create problems!

- Note: houses containing unemployed citizens DON'T pay taxes! So, if you see a message 'Employment satisfaction is low', expect to see a reduction in the taxes the house pays, relative to the number of unemployed citizens there.

2. Services. Those include retail, education, health, police (security) and fire protection. Of those only retail will generate income for the city, the rest are expenses! All services have limited range, even those that state that the  range is 'city' (i.e. then entire city). However, the range isn't a fixed circle as in SC4; instead, it travels through the road network, and is thus subject to traffic. In short, if the streets around the service-providing building are congested, it's effective range diminishes. The tool where you could controll service coverage is the 'Services' layout on the right side of the page. Here you'll find all types of services, and clicking on a particular service will light up the buildings that provide it, and the road network delivering access to it. Generally speaking, the greener the network - the more service coverage in that area. Bright yellow means middle coverage, faint yellow - low coverage.

Also, when your city grows, your citizens seem to require more and more quality services, that is - bigger service buildings. You'll be forced to use more advanced buildings where before the basic ones did the job.

- Retail. Created with the retail zones from the commerce tab. It includes shops, malls, restaurants. You have three densities, as usual, and each higher density provides more coverage. Be carefull - retail is a resource that has demand/supply ratio, and you can easily go over the line and create oversupply! This is dangerous for the prosperity of retail, since there's currently no way to sell it outside the city (it doesn't create tokens as other thinks). Look in the Resource tab (right from Population), freight subtab, in the bottom - there you can see retail demand/supply. Try to keep it in the middle. 

What you need to do is build few shops, and spread them out in your residential areas. Retail isn't affected by freight or passengers, so you need not worry about putting a shop in the middle of the block on a small street. As your city grows and you start creating high density residential areas, you can create some malls and retail zones, but still, spread them out to create a network. Think of it in means of coverage - the satisfaction overlay will help you with that (right-hand side of the screen, satisfaction-shops). When the streets light up in green, your coverage is perfect. Less green, goiing towards yellow - you need more shops there. Again, currently ONLY residents need retail. 

- Health. Found under City services - Health. You need ot provide your residential neighborhoods with health coverage, using one or more of the buildings here. We have the Health center, Clinic,  Medical institute and Hospital complex in order of increasing effect and coverage. Maintenance costs are respectively: 1000/mo, 2000, 3000 and 5000. The health center and Clinic have somewhat limited coverage area, and thus are suitable for use only in the beggining stage, or to cover a remote area far from your city center. I've found that couple of Medical institutes and a hospital are more than enough to cover the entire map and turn up almost maximum health satisfation. Of course, try to build them in different parts of the city. Again, an overlay will help you identify the coverage: Satisfaction - Health, with dark green showing perfect coverage, and faint yellow the least effect. You can try experimenting to see what the effect of a new health center would be: click on the building, then hover with it over an area: as soon as it touches a road, the future coverage area will light up in the respective colour, showing you what effect the building will have.

- Security. Here we have sheriff's office (1000/mo), police station (2000/mo), and Police Headquarters (5000/mo). We also have the Los Angeles Courthouse, which is a Landmark, but also provides a 10% boost to overal security satisfaction. Again as in Health, bigger is better. Same technique to provide coverage.  

- Fire services. Here we have Fire station (small - 1000/mo), Fire controll center (2000/mo) and Fire station (large - 5000/mo). Same thing here.

- Education. Found under City services - Education. This one is tricky, because unlike other services, the effects of the different buildings are cumulative, not overlapping. What this means is that you'll need different types of schools, not only bigger ones. We have Elementary school (1000/mo), Middle school (20000/mo), High school (5000) and Private school (10 000/mo). Different schools have again different coverage areas, with Elementary having the smallest, and High - the largest. Private school provides very good quality, but relatively small coverage. My advice here is to place a full network of Elementary schools, then alternate Middle and High schools throughout the rest of the city. Use private schools in those High-nosed Elites neighborhoods only. You'll end up spending much more money than with health, security and fire protection, but that's the only way of providing full coverage.

In this tab you'll also find the various specialized educational buildings, unlocked through creating a lot of something in the city, like particular type of industry, or offices, or something else. Think of it as an specialised institute. Placing those will yield not only a vast increase of production in the relative sector, but also a 5% overall boost to education. So, it's money well spend. My advice is to use those whenever you can affor them. 

- Multipurpose stations. These babies provide all 4 services at the same time, but for an insane price. The Multipurpose station has small coverage and costs 50000/mo (that's right, fifty grand), and the Multipurpose Center - 100000/mo, with bigger coverage. I guess you could use those if you're bathing in money and don't want to be  bothered with the different coverages stuff. Otherwise, it's pure waste.

3. Leisure. The next requirement of your citizens is someplace to have fun. Providing the necessary coverage is some work, since you have many types of leisure buildings with all sorts of effects and coverage areas. Again, as with Education, bigger is not always better here; you'll need to combine several kinds of leisure activities to satisfy your citizens. And of course, Eliter will require much more variety than Unqualified workers. And again, Leisure is city-funded, so you'll be spending a lot of money here.

We have two general types of leisure, found under the Commerce/Leisure tabs.

- Sports. We have (in increasing level of effectiveness and price) the Basketball court, Bowling alley. Go karting, Swimming pool, Paintball, Hellipad, Skatepark and Tennis courts. The first one costs 500/mo and the last one - 13000/mo. We also have the Footbal Patch, which is a special building and provides a boost to Health satisfaction.

- Cultural. Here we have the Ferris wheel (don't ask what cultural satisfaction you'll find here), Sports museum, Multiplex, Science museum, Panoramic restaurant (impressive, by the way), and several Landmarks: Large modern opera, Bolshoi theatre, Library of the Hague, Palais Garnier and Nationalgalerie. Those last ones have very nice effects, but are unlocked late in the game.

Providing good leisure satisfaction will require a lot of play with combinations. Keep in mind that even the largest establishments (the tennis courts and the restaurant) don't have city-wide coverage; so be mindfull where you place everything. Use the Satisfaction/Leisure overlay to gauge effectiveness.

4. Environment. This includes the quality of air, how pleasant the neighborhood is, is there noise, etc. It is also know as 'Quality of life' and ,overall, it's the most difficult satisfaction category to provide, especially if your city is not a clean holliday-oriented paradise. You can check the status of the environment drom the 'Environment' layout . The following things influence environmental satisfaction:

- Air pollution - the ugly brown cloud over your industries will ruin not only this area, but also the quality of air in the entire city. There are 2 types of air pollution: direct (the said brown cloud), and indirect, which is a thin smog spreading over your entire map. The smog gets worse the more polluting agents you have, and bad news is that currently there's no way of cleaning it. you can only try to counter it.

- Noise pollution - not so dangerous, and currently it's not very clear where and how it affects you (the corresponding layout isn't very helpfull). However, it seems traffic is directly producing noise pollution - you can see through the 'Environment/environment' layout that the areas around busy roads have lower quality of life satisfaction. All-too-realistic, also. 

- Parks and plazas. Here I mean the 'Big parks' (City services>Environment), the park- and plaza areas don't seem to help a lot (although they DO have an effect since a recent patch). The Big parks cost your city 3000/month, but they work relatively well to increase environmental satisfaction. 

- Landmarks. Those special buildings also increase quality-of-life satisfaction. They have a circular area-of-effect (as well as the Avatar parks), so place them carefully in order to maximise their positive effect. Executives and Elites neighborhoods come to mind.

Cultural leisure buildings also provide lesser landmark effect .

- Waste treatment. This also seems to affect environmental satisfaction, although it seems it's currently inactive (the relative line in the 'Satisfaction' tab always stays at 0%, even if you have waste treatment problems). Maybe it is another feature to be added in the future.

How to deal with environment? Well, the easiest thing to do is EVADE pollution. Don't build heavy and manufacturing industry. no power plants either. Your city will then have little problems with environment, and your parks and landmarks will provide the necessary boost to maximise this satisfaction type.

If you DO have industry, however, all you could do is to plan carefully your residential neighborhoods. Build them away from busy roads, build lots of parks and landmarks. It's interesting also that placing residences right next to farms works very well with this kind of satisfaction ('Ohhh, the pastoral view of cattle chewing grass on the other side of the fence ). Amd, we could hope FH will provide us with more tools to counter it in the future.

5. Tourism. This is represented in the game by the holliday tokens. As your city and population grows, you'll find that your citizens need hollidays. Think of it as 'a nice place to spend the vacation'. If your city has holliday capabilities, you only need to construct holliday hotels to satisfy this need. Otherwise, you'll need to import holliday tokens. Lacking those will result in a negative bonus to all your citizen's satisfaction, a bonus that you can't counter. Currently, the negative bonus is -3 (if you keep the holliday deficit orange), or -6 (if it becomes red). Positive tourism bonus is possible, but to achieve it you need to have overproduction to at least oeange level.

6. Resources. Your population consumes resources directly  as well as indirectly. This includes the 4 types of utilities (energy, water, waste and fuel), and also food, manufacturing and high tech industry. So, you'll need some amounts of those even if nothing else in the city consumes them. Of course, the level of consumption is nothing near what industries and other things will consume. Just don't be surprised when you see your food resource indicator going negative even though you haven't build more retail (the only other thing that consumes food).

A good way to keep an eye on your citizen's resource needs is the Population - Cost/Job panel. Here you can see if some of the resources needed is so needed in the city that generates dissatisfaction. If everything's OK, you shouldn't see any negative numbers here. Again, if you're overproducing enough, you could receive positive bonuses.

7. Special bonuses. Those are provided by some special buildings, such as Landmarks and Megastructures. Look for the '+X satisfaction ' in their info tab. Once built, they'll add a permanent positive bonus to the relative wealth group's general satisfaction.  

Closing comments: The most important aspect of your citizen's satisfaction remains employment. If you keep not more than 2 - 3 % unemployment rate, and a reasonable amount of services and leisure (somewhere around 60% general satisfaction), you shoudn't have problems, and you could concentrate on building up your city and making it profitable. Of course, you could make a point of providing maximum satisfaction for your citizens - it's fun! A little difficult when you reach a million, though.

[soltangris 42]

Utilities

The basic resources of every city are the utilities. There are four: energy, water, waste and fuel. You'll need all of them for every city, but some cities specialized in certain businesses (like industry) will need much more of certain utilities.

Utility networks are done away with in Cities XL (no power lines or pipes), as long as you connect the relative production building to the road network it'll automatically distribute the utility to the whole city. I guess the inference is that the roads have built-in utility networks. So basically, all you'll need to worry about is production. There are some tricks and twists, however - energy and waste can be produced on any map, but water and oil are found into ground deposits and require specific maps. When choosing a map for your city, pay attention to its resources - if it has stars in oil and water you'll be able to produce them in the city, if not - you'll need to import.

Utilities are a valid trading comodity - they form tokens that can be exported or imported, so your city could make a living out of overproducing  certain utilities and selling them on the market. You'll need to use the freight connections to trade utilities.

- Building chains. The designers have decided to develop something that I'd call 'building chains', not only for utilities, but also for some other businesses in the city. These chains start with a basic building (for water rpoduction this is the water tower, for example); when you've built a certain amount of these basic buildings you unlock a more advanced building. Then another, even more advanced, and so on. What this means is simply that you'll be able to 'specialise' in the relative aspect, gaining access to more 'advanced' and effective buildings to maximise production of the particular comodity. Eventually, you'll end up producing so many tokens of it that you'll be able to flood the market.

All utilities production buildings cost your city money - the smallest ones cost 5000/mo, and the most advanced ones can go up to 60000/mo. You'll really want to sell your overproduction to cover your costs at least , but most of the time you'll be able to make very nice profits.

- Utility center. This is an unique building that you're able to place only once, at the start of a city (and you HAVE to place it, together with the City hall, or you won't be able to proceed ). It produces enough of each utility to get you started. Don't destroy it afterwards, though - it still provides some 1 - 2 tokens of each utility at a much lower price, and that without the mess of the real utility buildings.

So, let's have a breakdown of the utilities:

1. Water.

This one is map-dependend, so look for a map with stars in 'water' if you wanna produce it.

When you open the 'Resource>Ground Waters' layout you'll be able to see all regions on the map where you can pump out water. Your basic building that does this is:

- Water tower (cost: 5000/mo).  You have to place it WITHIN the ground waters area, and when it's activated, it will 'eat up' part of it (a buble centered on the tower).  Which means, you can place only so many towers. Hint: the area covered by the tower doesn't seem to affect it's production; that means that the smaller part of the resource area it chopps off, the better - you'll be able to place more towers before exausting the supply. So, don't place it far into the buble, place it as near to the edge as possible - this way it'll 'eat up' a semi-circle, not a complete one. Hope it makes sence. 

- Water storage (5000/mo). You can place this building once per every 3 towers. The storage DOES NOT need be placed in the ground water area; so it produces water without actually diminishing the resource! Place it as soon as available, instead of a tower. Also, when more become available, cluster them together, you'll see why.

- Water treatment (12000/mo). This is an advanced building which improves water storage. It's available once per 2 storages, and you have to place it near one. It adds a great bonus to your water production, again without diminishing your resource area, so it's a must. It functions best if placed near many water storages, not only one, so that's why I told you to cluster those earlier.

Note: the tower, storage and treatment buildings consume additional electricity, so this is an added cost.

- Water Inc. (20000/mo). This is the special 'water office', it becomes available once you reach a certain amount of water production, and it's found under 'Offices/special' (as well as all similar buildings). The building isn't a normal office (i.e., doesn't produce office services or pay taxes), instead it helps manage your water production, boosting it by 30%. A must for a city specialising in water production, and also the only way of enhancing water production once you'fe exausted the resource areas.

- Institute of water (40000/mo). The special water/education building. Again, available once you reach certain huge amount of water production. Boosts it by 40%, and also boosts your city education by 5%.

- Water research lab (or something like that, 60000/mo) - the uber water building. You have to REEEEEALY specialise in water, and also build the office and institute to unlock it, but it boosts further production by 40%. Nice!

2. Electricity.

This resource can be produced in any city by means of power stations. It's production dynamics are more simple than water - once you have access to all the power stations, you can build them anywhere and as you wish, there's no relationship as in the water production chain. There are three types of stations:

- Small power plant (5000/mo)

- Power plant (10000/mo)

- Large power plant (20000/mo)

All the stations produce air polution and consume fuel. There is also:

- Wind engine (500/mo). Currently the only type of clean energy (MC is thinking of adding more, like solar plant), it produces a small amount of energy, but consumes no fuel and emmits noise pollution, instead of air. You'll have to place a LOT of them to produce a token (around 20, I think), so if you decide to go that way, reserve a wide space on the map! This is recommended for 'clean' cities, along with import of energy. An already 'dirty' city will be better off dealing with the power plants.

And there are the special buildings:

- Energy Inc.

- Institute of energy

- Energy research labs

Same price as above, same effect, only related to electricity.

3. Waste treatment.

This utility is ugly. But necessary. Its basic buildings are actually zones:

- Junkyard and

- Waste dump. Both cost 5000/mo, and are build the same way as a farm. Their maximum size is much smaller than a farm's though, and their effectiveness doesn't seem to be affected by size at all. Every single zone, no matter how big is, gives you the same amount of waste recycling capabilities, and costs the same money. Both types have the same effect - I don't know if MC intends to change that in the future, but for now there's no difference between a Junkyard and a Dump, besides the name. They even look the same.

- Waste burying site (5000/mo). This is a single advanced building, not a zone, and you can build one per 3 dump zones (the same chain mechanics as with water). Again it's best to build those clustered.

- Incinerator (11750/mo). Improves the functioning of waste burying sites, has to be built next to them. You can build one Incinerator per 2 burying sites.  

All those buildings consume water and produce air polution, so keep them away from your citizens.

There are also the special buildings that boost production without the bad effects:  

- Shell building (the special waste office, +35%) 

- Recycling training center (special education, +40%, +5% education)

- Recycling labs (+45%)

4. Fuel.

The 'new' utility (if you compare with SC4). It is map-dependent like water, so you need a special map with fuel deposits. It's mechanics are similar to the water mechanics as well:

- Fuel field (5000/mo). This is a neat-looking (it has animated pumps ) zone, like the dumps, and needs to be placed IN the oil resource field (look it up with the layers). Again as the waste zones, it doesn't matter how big you make it - the price and effect is the same. It also will 'eat up' part of your oil reserves, so place it on their edge.

- Refinery (5000/mo). Available once per 3 extraction fields. Like the water storage, it doesn't eat up your oil area. Cluster them the same way you do with the storage and the waste burying sites.

- Oil processing factory (18000/mo). Advanced building, place it next to the refineries to get a big boost to fuel production. One per every two refineries.

All ofuel buildings consume waste, but they DON'T emmit pollution, so you can place them even in the middle of your city. Good thing, also, since your oil reserves are located at specific spots on the map....

And we have all the special buildings, with the same prices and effects:

- Fuel cartel

- Institute of petrochemicals

- Chemical research lab.

[DazzaDazza 29]

Gate work there soltangris, your knowledge about a game that has only been out for some time is outstanding, this should have a sticky thing by now!

[soltangris 42]

Businesses and resources 

In this cathegory I include all types of buildings that make you money (or pay taxes, if you want) and create the so-called 'resources'. In the place of Sim City's system where industry and commerce only produced jobs and demand for one or the other, CXL creates a very tangible and comprehensive system of products that your city produces and needs, with many inner relationships (utilities being only some of them). Most of them you could also trade with other players via the token trade system, thus earning additional profits for your city.

What do I mean by 'product relationships"? Well, simply that every building/business type in your city produces some product and needs another product(s). For example, heavy industry produces this product (heavy industry), but it needs fuel and office services. Offices produce office services, but need business hotels and high-tech industry, and so on. You can see details about that in the info panel of every business - in the bottom part it'll say: resources bought (needed) and resources sold (produced). So, be aware that almost everything you build in the city will create demand for something else, while also producing the relevant resource.

- Over/underproduction. This means the balance between offer and demand of a certain product in the city. When you keep building a certain type of businesses in the city you'll eventually start producing much more of this resource than you need. This is called 'overproduction', and it's usually a good thing, since you can sell excess products on the market. Unless, we're talking about retail which you (currently) can't sell and then you're in trouble . On the other hand, if you keep NOT building certain types of businesses, you'll eventually reach a point when the city demand for the relevant resource is not met -  underproduction.

Anyway, just open the 'Resource' tab in the upper center-left part of the screen - here you can keep track of the offer/demand ratio of all resources. The tab is divided into three subtabs: freight (resources moved through freight transport), passenger (moved through passenger transport) and transport (more about that later). The graph shows a list of all resources, with a colour indicator for each one, and  a bunch of numbers showing the token balance of the relevant resource. In the right part of the screen the compartments show how many tokens your city is consuming or producing, how many are currently being traded, and how many are assigned to Megastructures. (when your city is both producing AND consuming certain resource, the internal balance is kept without showing in the graph - only the amount of over/underproduction is shown). The total token balance is shown in the first number next to the graph. If this number is negative, you need more of the resource (the indicator also is inclined to the left - the demand part); if it's positive - you're overpoducing (inclination to the right). If the graph indicator is green and towards the middle, you're fine (even if you're actually over/underproducing). But If you're over/underproducing too much, the colour of the graph indicator changes to orange, and then to red. This means that you've reached a critical demand/offer problem point, and you need to take immediate action, or your city will suffer.

- Warning! For each city the point of critical over/underproduction is relative to its population. For example, a city with 100 000 population might reach critical balance at a -2 tokens, while a 1,5 million city could easily go to - 7 before going critical.  Always pay attention to the balance, and also keep a look at the color tabs in the right-upper part of the screen - resource problems will be announced there as well.  

- What to do in cases of overproduction? Well, go on the market and sell your excesses, of course.

- What to do in case of underproduction? Here you have two choices: 1. Start producing the relevant resource by building the necessary buildings, or 2. Go on the market and buy it. You need excess cash (a positive cash flow) for that, though.

- Freight and passenger services.

This is a crucial part of your economic climate. The terms 'freight' and 'passengers' mean actually the cargo and passenger transport capabilities of your city. All businesses (with very few exceptions) use those, and they're maybe the most important factor of their success. After all, if they can't move their goods, how are they gonna sell them?

Freight and passenger services are 'produced' by your road city-links, and also by harbours (freight) and airports (passengers). Obviously, MC intends to include trains as an important alternative to roads (at least for freight), but that is yet to come in the (let's hope) near future. For now, your most important freight and passenger providers are the road city-links (it's no wonder that the first thing the game requires you to do is place a city-link). To build a city-link, just start building a road near the edge of the map - the areas suitalbe for a city-link will light up purple. Drag the road to such an area, and when the signs at the edge appear, click to confirm. Each city-link will consume part of the purple area, so you can't build two links right next to each other.

- Freight and passenger services distribution. Every city-link is a source of those (and also the harbours and airports), and from it the services 'spread' into your road network. Here are some detailed observations (valid for both freight and passengers), courtesy to morriswalters:

The bigger the street the better the freight.

One way streets transfer freight better than two way streets.

Intersections introduce congestion and reduce freight.

Intersections transfer freight to the intersecting roads, and they transfer freight at the value of the road when intersected.  For instance if the freight value of the road is at 50 percent an intersecting road would start off with freight at 50 percent.

Keep intersections on expressways to a minimum, and as far apart as is possible.  Run buffer roads along next to your Expressways and after collecting enough traffic connect them using large roads.  Use these roads as a buffer to reduce traffic noise.

If your budget can stand it use City Links and Highways where you have long stretches of Expreesssway with no intersections.  This will improve both freight and traffic.

To keep track of the quality of freight and passenger services, open the 'Economy > freight/passenger' overlay. The greener the colour, the better. 

- Trade capabilities. Besides simply being a source of freight/passengers, city links, harbours and airports also allot your city a certain amount of freight/passenger trade capabilities. You need one unit of the relative trade capability for every token you want to trade. If you use up all your trade capabilities, you won't be able to make new contracts, until you either cancel a contract (thus freeing up part of your trade capabilities), or creating a new city-link, harbour or airport to increase your maximum trade capacity. You can easily keep track on your general capacity/used capacity both in the resource tab (transportation subtab) and on the trade screen. These are the trade capacities of the different road types:

- All road types, excluding highway: 20 freight, 20 passengers. Note that each city link you create with one of those road types costs 100/month to maintain. 

- Highway city-links : 100 freight, 100 passengers. Maintenance cost: 100000/mo (that's not an error, its hundred THOUSAND credits per month). It's simply not worth it, so create an expressway city-link and then convert it into a highway close to the link point.   

And here is a list of which type of transportation is used by which type of business:

- Freight transportation: Utilities (all four types), Industries (all of them), 

- Passenger transportation: Offices, Hollidays, Business hotels, Citizens (all 4 types)  

- Profit and taxes.

The profit is the practical expression of the businesses' success. Each business, no matter its type, has to make a certain amount of profit. The term is representative of the vague 'success' in the Sim City series, which determined wether or not a business is developing, or is soon gonna crash and abandon the building.

The amount of taxes each production building pays is directly based on its profits - the better the profits, the mor taxes the building pays. You can controll the tax rates (from the Budget tab, Taxes subtab upper left corner of the screen) - they'll influence directly the company's profits, as well as your city's gains. To check the current profitability of the company, look at its info tab - if the dot next to 'profitability' is green, you've no problems, if it's orange or red, you need to do something immediately, or the company's gonna go bankrupt. Additional info as per the specific problem(s) can usually be found in the lower part of the info tab. When a business goes bankrupt, it stops functioning - it simply dissapears (the building stays there, however). It can become active again in time, if you improve the business climate (in other words, fix the problems that made it go bankrupt).  

Company profits are influenced by many things:

1. Workers. Every different business, and also the different density levels of the same business require a different mixture of workers. Generally, the low density buildings require lower class workers (unqualified/qualified) while higher density requires higher classes. Many business types require all four classes. When you're about to build/zone, pay attention to the pop-up info that appears when you hover the mouse over the relevant build icon - it'll say what types and approximately how many workers will be needed. Of course, the larger zone you make, the more workers you'll need, because more buildings will appear.

If the business is understaffed at any moment, its level of activity (and thus its profits) will drop immediately, and it will quickly go bankrupt. So, pay attnetion! You can open the 'Economy > vacant jobs' overlay to see which buildings need more workers; the info tab of the building will also tell you what type and how many workers are needed (again colours - green OK, yellow - some workers missing, red - NO workers; there are also percentages when you hover over the dot).

2. Resource demand/offer ratio. If there's overproduction of the produced resource in the city, the company's profits are gonna suffer. Try to sell on the market to fix the problem. Also, it the resources the company needs are 'hard to find', or expensive to use a better word (there's underproduction of them in the city), profits AND production might suffer (it means that this branch will not only start paying less taxes due to diminished profits, but also produce less of its product). Try to import, or produce more of the lacking resource.

3. Freight/passenger capabilities nearby. Very important - check if they're green, if not - try to fix the situation.

4. Traffic. If the roads going to the business are congested, workers will not only have problems getting to work, but also freoght/passenger capabilities will suffer. This also affects overall profits. Try to fix the situation by improving transport to/from the business.

5. Tax rates. Higher taxes generally cut company profits. Lower taxes increase them. It's not advisable to lower taxes bellow the default level, though (25%), unless this is the only way to counteract other factors harming it: air pollution, for example. Also, since currently there is no tax division between different business branches, you'll end up losing much more money that you could gain by fixing only one problematic branch. Hoping for the promised tax brake-down in the future!

6. Additional factors. Some other factors usually influence the company's performance, but they differ from business to business. One common factor is air pollution - it affects negatively farming industry, high-tech industry, offices and hotels. Try to keep those as far from the worse pollution area as possible. Know that if there's any serious pollution in the city, you won't be able to escape the 'general' smog - it spreads everywhere, even to the opposite corner of the map.

Generally speaking, the most important factors to take care of are workers and freight/passenger services. As long as you keep those in line, the companies should be able to survive despite other problems. Try to imporve the road access to the companies, better traffic immediately reflects in higher profits. Keep offices, farms, high-tech and all hotels far from pollution. And keep in mind that sometimes 'investing' in imporvements won't necessarily hurt the city income - an improvement in a company's profits means that they'll pay more taxes, and you'll receive more money from them. I've had stupendous jumps in income after a simple addition of another city-link nearby, or a reworked road network in the area. It's definitely worth the work!  

Follows a breakdown of the different businesses and the factors affecting their performance.

[soltangris 42]

Industry

In most cases, this is where the money is. You can built some type of industry in any kind of city, clean, dirty, holliday, etc. Industry is also the biggest economic booster of a city.

- Note: Unlike the Sim City series, where your industry was zoned with no distinctions, and the type that actually appeared and developed depended on the conditions of the city/region, here you zone each type of industry separately.

1. Farms

- Produces: food industry

- Consumes: water

- Affected by: taxes, air pollution, silos, fertilizers

- Negative effects: none

Very differently implemented than in SC4, farms finally have a purpose and a clear place in the economy. They are the only industry that requires a specific map, though - they need  fertile land areas, so look for them when choosing a map for your city.

Farms are the only industry that has only one density. As mentioned before, they are also constructed in a different way than the normal zones. To build a farm, choose one of the types displayed under Industry > Food industry. Then draw a zone into an arable area (it appears highlighted), aiming to reach 100% size. Confirm. The resulting farm zone comes bordered  with small farm roads.

-Note: you can controll where the buildins of the farm appear: they are between the first and  the last point you click. So, if you want your buildings, say, on the right side of the field, start at the top right corner, then click to the left, and then down and back right. Why this is important, you'll see later.

Every zone you draw becomes a single farm, with a large field and some buildings in one end of it. The type of farm is irrelevant, they all produce the same and require the same resources and conditions. The only difference I've found is that some types of farms need some more space than others.  

All farms employ unqualified workers ONLY. So, if you're making a farm city, you'll need  lots of those and little of the other classes.

- Silos and fertilizers: those are special builfings for the farm industry that work on the 'chain' principle: you need to build 10 farms to unlock one silo, and 5 silo for a fertilizer. Every one of those boosts the production of the farms nearby. Where you place them has the utmost importance: every silo and fertilizer has limited range of effect, and the effect lessens the farther the sylo/fertilizer. Also, keep in mind that they affect the BUILDINGS of the farm, not the field, so if the farm buildings are on the far side of the field, they'll get less benefit!

Silos and fertilizers also employ qualified and executives; they also benefit from freight services (unlike farms). Placement:  it's much more important to place the sylo/fertilizer in the perfect spot so as to affect as many farms as possible, than to place it on a road with good freight. In the first case you'll gain more than 100% boost from taxes from EVERY farm affected (since a farm normally pays around 60 - 80c, this means it could reach 200c, multiplied by 5 - 8 for each farm benefited), in the second case only the sylo/fertilizer gets a boost in taxes, and that would be not more than 100 - 200c total. So, plan carefully and leave some small spaces for sylo/fertilizer placement. Also, draw your farms in such a way that their buildings are as close to the sylo/fertilizer as possible.

- Special buildings. Here we also have the 'reward buildings' : Institute of Agriculture (+40% farms production, +5% education; 40000/mo) and 'Nutrition labs' (+45% farms production, 60000/mo). Handy when you run out of arable land. 

- Comments: Positioning your farms, sylos and fertilizers is the most important aspect of succesfull farming. Not only you need to pay attention to the arable fields (you can't build farms outside those), you also need to place strategically the sylos and fertilizers. Good planning is the key here: also, don't be afraid to restructure later. And, you'll need lots of water (for irrigation ). 

2. Heavy industry  

- Produces: heavy industry

- Consumes: fuel, office services

- Affected by: taxes, freight

- Negative effect: TONS of air pollution

- Low density: employs only unqualified workers (medium amount)

- Medium density: employs unqualified and qualified workers (medium)

- High density: employs unqualified, qualified and executives (medium)  

Each successive density produces more resources, consumes more, and has a bigger impact on the environment (where aplicable); also it pays more taxes. This is valid for all zoned businesses.  

Heavy industry is comprised by the most dirty factories and instalations in your city. Metal processing, refineries, steel mills, cement industries, etc. They are very good to start a city, since they are not picky at all - the only thing they need is fuel and some offices, and unqualified workers. Problem is, they don't pay a lot of taxes (around 200 - 300C for every large building), and they are huge polluters. If you develop this kind of industry, you'll get general air quality bellow 60% in no time (that's not counting the central cloud of pollution!). But, not many cities concentrate on this exactly because of the pollution, so you'll have good market for your excesses.  

There's nothing special to be told about how to build heavy industry: just take care of the freight and you'll be fine. Oh, and put the industrial sector veeeeeeery far from the residential one. And build the biggest roads possible between the two, connected with bus lines also.

- Special buildings: Here we have the 'Steel Company' (special office, +35% heavy i. production, 20000/mo), Institute of industry (+40% H.I. production, +5% education, 40000/mo) and a Research lab (+45% H.I. production, 60000/mo). A great way to increase production without the air pollution resulting from actually placing more buildings.

3. Manufacturing industry

- Produces: manufacturing industry

- Consumes: heavy industry, electricity, office services

- Affected by: taxes, freight

- Negative effect: air pollution

- Low density: employs qunqualified, qualified (low amount)

- Medium density: unqualified (low), qualified (medium), executives (low)

- High density: unqualified, qualified, executives (meidum all of them), elites (low)

Manufacturing industry is comprised primarily of factories, but those produce finished goods, ready for the market (that's why your citizens require it). It could be your biggest cash cow, but also a most difficult to manage. A single high density factory could earn your city over 1100c in taxes! In the same time, it'll need good freight, power (they're energy eaters), and most importantly - the pesky heavy industry. It also requires many workers of all types. So, if you want to develop manuf. I.  in your city, you'll either end up building heavy I. also (and thus making a dirty city), or you'll need to come up with a budget that allows you to import LOTS of heavy Ind., which as I mentioned above, is one of the most expensive comodities on the market.  

Environmentally, manuf. I. is not that bad as Heavy I., but it still pollutes. Keeping that in mind, you could go two ways: 

1 - Build a self-sufficient city, producing both energy AND heavy I. to support the manuf. one. This one will be a real money-earning beast.

2 - Build a cleaner city, with only manuf. I., and import most of the energy and (almost) all Heavy i. This is possible, but it'll take carefull financial planning. 

- Special buildings. Here we have the Products storage (+30% man. production, 10000/mo), Institute of Technology (+40% man. production, +5% education, 40000/mo), and a Lab (+45% man. production, 60000/mo).   

4. High-tech industry

- Produces: high-tech

- Consumes: manufacturing, waste, office services

- Affected by: taxes, freight, air pollution

- Negative effect: none

- Low density: qualified (low), executives (low)

- Medium density: qualified (low), executives (medium), elites (low)

- High density: qualified, executives, elites (all medium)

High-tech is the cleanest industry, and, obviously, the highest level industry. Its factories produce end market products like cosmetics, pharmaceutics and electronics, and are thus needed by your citizens also. High tech pays very good taxes (around 600-800c for a big factory), and has no negative effect, unlike other zoneable industries.

However, high tech employs the highest classes, and if you are to develop it, you'll need lots of executives and elites in your city. It also develops quite late, compared to other industries (in the non-expert mode, of course). 

But the biggest problem with high tech is its air pollution sensitivity. It seems like high tech is even more sensible to pollution than farms (although that's a little unrealistic) - even the smallest drop in air quality means diminished profits. So, if you want to go high tech, you'll need to plan carefully where you're putting it - the farther away from pollution, the better! Also, be carefull about freight - it is a big factor in its profits, unlike farms. 

Keep in mind that high-tech industry is the only clean industry that can be developed, if the map doesn't have arable land for farms.

- Speecial buildings: Technology storage (+30% high tech production, 10000/mo), Institute of engineering (+40% high tech, +5% education), a Lab (+45% high tech)

Industry has a special button in the upper right corner, the way the 4 classes of residents have a color button to give you a general idea of their situation. Green colour- everything's fine. Yellow - there's something urgent requiring attention. Red - you're screwed! Clicking on the button will give you some more specific info, about what's fine, what's problematic.

[soltangris 42]

Commerce

This is the second big division of business. Commerce means, generally speaking, the companies which work in the sferes of services, accounting, financing, and also in business and holliday travelling. All these are usually present in every city, regardless of infrastructure, physical features or the vision of the mayor - the only exception are holliday hotels which have some restrictions.

Commerce doesn't provide so much tax income as industry, but it also doesn't come with industry's negative effects. Most of commerce is, so to speak, a no-brainer - you can safely build it anytime and (almost) anywhere for some additional income and jobs.

1. Offices

- Produces: office services

- Consumes: business hotels, high-tech industry (only medium and high density)

- Affected by: tax rates, air pollution, passenger services

- Negative effect: none

- Low density: employs qualified workers (medium). Does NOT consume high tech!  

- Medium density: qualified and executives (medium) 

- High density: qualified (low), executives, elites (medium) 

 

The first big type of commerce is found, strangely enough, under the "Industry' tab, not under the 'Commerce' one. This has to do maybe with the fact that industry is the major consumer of offices's production. Still, a little strange for me.... 

Office buildings include a wide variety of companies that you can find in those tall, modern-looking buildings: banks, recording studios, financial companies, trade unions and so on.

Offices are the companion of any industry type, except farms. As you increase industry, you'll start needing offices. Or, you could rely on offices for trading! But keep in mind that this is not a very good source of income - the biggest scyscrapers pay not more than 600 - 700c in taxes, and their price is maybe the lowest on the market. Still, they're easy to build and maintain, although they require high classes; all the Megastructures require them, so you can always hope to sell to somebody building the next Eifel tower. But my advice is  not to relly solely on offices for your income.

The offices are the source of your city's largest scyscrapers, so you can freely use them, together with the executive's scysrapers, to build that Manhattan-like skyline. However, keep in mind that offices are sensitive to pollution, and depend on passenger services!  

Again, there's a button that helps you keep an eye on the situation, upper-right corner.

- Special buildings: even here we have some, the big Wallstreet skyrise, the MBA (+40% office production, +5% education, 40000/mo) and the uber Institute of communications (+45% offices, 60000/mo)

2. Retail

- Produces: retail goods

- Consumes: food industry

- Affected by: tax rates

- Negative effect: none

- Low density: unqualified (medium)

- Medium density: ) unqualified, qualified (medium)

- High density:  unqualified, qualified, executives (medium)

Retail means shops - you'll find it under this name in other places in the game. Retail includes all sorts off restaurants, grocery stores, as well as malls and department stores. It has a somewhat special place in the game (I could also say somewhat limited and stunted): retail not only provides your city with tax income, but also satisfies a basic need of your citizens. On the other hand, retail is not tradeable, so be  carefull not to overproduce - there's no way to get rid of the excess amount! 

The best way to go with retail is as if you were placing a serivce. Spread it out in your residential neighborhoods. Reserve large malls for high density blocks, smaller shops for the rest. Don't put too many, a zone of 3 - 4 is usually enough. If not, you risk overproduction before you can cover all your residential zones. Be very carefull in the beginning of the city! You could easily go over the limit.

Keep in mind that retail provides jobs and income, but very limited - a large mall pays as few as 120c taxes. So, use it with caution and don't rely on it for economic growth. As I said, use it the way you would provide a service for your citizens. And hope that MC will add some more sophistication to this aspect of the game in the future.

Another button to keep an eye on shops, the usual place.

- Special buildings: Those work differently than the chain rewards in other resources. They are mostly in-game advertising, and linked to achieving a certain population. They work as shops usually, and don't require maintenance; instead they earn your city money. Some of them: The Ford Dealership, Bullocks Wilshire.  

3. Hotels

One of my favorite additions to commerce! Hotels are plopable, not zonable (meaning that you place each one separately), and are a separate part of commerce, unlike in SC4. They also have their special place in the resource chains.

- Business hotels.

- Produces: business hotels

- Consumes: none

- Affected by: tax rates, ari pollution, passengers

- Negative effect: none

Those are practically an extension of the offices in the city, meaning that their product is consumed only by offices, and their requirements are the same as offices. We have several buildings, among them motels, two-star hotels, and some Luxurious high-rises. Most require unqualified and qualified workers, but the big ones also require executives.  Place them in the same areas as the offices, they benefit and suffer from the same stuff. They don't have are of effect, thoug, so technically you can squeese all of them in a single area and still reach the desired effect (In the city of Brasilia they did exactly this - a hotels district! it's very funny 

- Note: take care not to overproduce! Business hotels are not tradeable, so you can't get rid of the excess production.

Hotels also have a special controll button.

-  Special buildings: We have some Landmark-like buildings here, such as the Hong-Kong novotel Citygate (+1% Exec and Elites satisfaction), and the awesome Peace Hotel (+5% Office production). Let's hope more will come!

- Holiday hotels

- Produces: hollidays

- Consumes: suitable area

- Affected by: tax rates, quality of life nearby

- Negative effect: none

Holiday hotels normally require a specific map with the 'Holidays' resource. However, you can actually make a small area suitable for Hol. hotels on every map - you just need to keep overall air polution reeeely low (at least 90% air p. satisfaction), and build something with a Landmark effect - an Avatar Park, a Landmark or a Megastructure. It's kinda difficult, though.

When you build hol. hotels, they consume some of the 'holiday' resource - this means that if you build too many close to each other you'll notice that the area suitable for hotels there vanishes, the same way as a Water tower 'consumes' its water resource. This is to balance the game, of course, since the Holidays are one of the most rare and expensive resources.

Those hotels are affected not by freight or passengers, but by the 'Quality of life' - that is, environment. If you want them to function at max capacity, keep the neighborhood clean, keep them away from noisy boulevards, and close to parks and Landmarks. If you succeed, you'll have a most powerfull economic tool in your hands - every city needs Holidays, and only some can produce them! On top of that, they pay very good taxes - a 1000c for a 5-star hotel!

The holiday aspect of the game will probably be enhanced later with the promised Ski resort and Beach GEMs. Mmmmm, can't wait to start building ski-lifts

- Special buildings: We have here some real-world hotels, like the famous Copacabana Palace and San Francisco Grand Hotel (each provides +1 holliday token).

[soltangris 42]

Tokens and Trading

When thinking about resources, you need a way of counting each - will it be Mw/h for energy, or whatever else. And since we have many resources here, each one with different countables, MC has decided to ease our job of memorising (at the price of inventing something completely unrealistic) by unifying all resource countables with the term:

- Token.

In CXL, there is no 400 Mw/h of energy, 300 Tons of Heavy Ind. production, or 250 Business passengers/day - there are instead 5 energy tokens, 3 Heavy Ind. tokens and 2 Office tokens (numbers are figurative). Yes, EVERYTHING is counted in tokens, including weird stuff like workers and hollidays production. But having in mind the need to count  and trade in easily understandable quantities, this approach is welcome. So, all resource-related numbers in the game are given in tokens. You'll open the resource tab and you'll see that you are 3 tokens of energy short, or that you have 5 tokens surplus of offices. Only the production buildings speak in somewhat vague terms - few, lots, etc. I personally would like to see some more precise info on production and consumption, even only for my information....   

Still, according to my experience, all basic utilities buildings produce 1 token of the respective resource. With the zones, it's much more complex, so I won't try going there  You'll learn for yourself playing. A short list of which buildings produce what token type, and the biggest consumers of each:

Freight - users:

- Electricity - produced by the power plants, Wind mills and the relevant special buildings. Consumed by citizens, water buildings, manufacturing ind.    

- Oil (fuel) - produced by Oil fields, Refineries, etc. Requires a map with this resource. Consumed by citizens, electricity buildings, heavy ind.

- Waste - produced by dumps, Incinerators and such. Consumed by citizens, fuel buildings, high tech ind.

- Water - produced by water towers, water treatment plants and such. Requires a map with this resource. Consumed by citizens, waste buildings

- Agriculture (food industry) - produced by farms. Requires a map with arable lands. Consumed by citizens, retail

- Heavy industry - produced by heavy industry buildings. Consumed by manufacturing ind.

- Manufacturing - produced by manufacturing industry buildings. Consumed by citizens, high-tech ind.

- High - tech - produced by High-tech industry buildings. Consumed by citizens, offices

Passenger-users:

- Unqualified - produced when you have a surplus (unemployed) of unqualified workers.

- Qualified - the same, only with qualified workers

- Executives - yeah

- Elites -you get it, right?

- Offices - produced by office buildings. Consumed by all types of industry except farms.  

- Holidays - produced by holiday hotels. Requires a map with this resource, or certain work on your part. Consumed by citizens.

 

There are two more non-tradeable resources:

- Retail - produced by shops, consumed by citizens 

- Business hotels - produced by... but you can guess, right? Consumed by offices.

- Trading.

As in real world, trading means swapping resources and money. Trading is paramount in CXL, because the entire game economy is designed around the need to swap resources - it's impossible for a city to be completely self-sufficient. So, basically, trading means that you sell your excess production (that your city doesn't need) and buy the resources that your city needs.

So, what do you need to trade? The following:

1. Trade capacity.

This means available freight and passenger capacity from your city links/airports/seaports. Every token you want to trade uses up part of this capacity (one unit per each token), with the exclusion of electricity, which you currently trade for free. Note that the in-city freight and passenger services quality doesn't have anything to do with external trading - it affects other aspects of the economy, as explained before.

2. Cash tokens.

Technically these represent the money flow used in trading. You'll basically use cash tokens in every transaction with Omnicorp, wether giving them to buy stuff, or receiving them when you sell your production. Each cash token=100 cash, BUT - only your cash flow is used in determining that, not the entire city budget! In other words, if you want cash tokens, you need to maintain POSITIVE cash flow. 

When trading between cities, you don't need cash tokens (you could give or receive other resources even if your cash flow is negative). But you could also make 'financial transactions' between the cities - swap cash tokens. In this case, of course, the city that gives needs to have a positive flow, which turnes into cash tokens.

4. Selling. 

In order to sell, or export, you first need at least one positive token of the resource (that is, overproduction that your city doesn't need). To sell your excess, go to the trade screen (which I like calling 'the market' - a leftover from the Planet offer, I guess), select the city you wanna trade with, and move the slider of the relevant resource towards that city. If you trade with Omnicorp, you'll sell for real, and receive cash tokens in return. In the case of your cities, you just use up greight/passenger capacity.

5. Buying 

The opposite of selling. Works the same way, only you'll move the slider towards the original city. If you're buying from Omnicorp, you'll need cash tokens to buy stuff, and a lot of them!  

 

After the end of the Planet Offer, trading becomes more of a single empire management - a single city won't be self-sufficient, but several cities will complement each other with resources. But this task is far from simple - you have to think of the freight/passenger trade capacity of each city; developing different resources across your 'empire'; selling to Omnicorp when you need cash; transfering cash from more succesfull cities to others.

Doing all this, across several cities is quite a challenge. Managing the shortages in each with the surplusses of the others, while IN THE SAME TIME selling to Omnicorp for cash. Anybody that thinks this is easy.... think again. Especially when you start building Megastructures.

I personally find it very entertaining so far.

[soltangris 42]

Megastructures (Blueprints) 

Blueprints, or Megastructures, are basically mega-Landmarks; a feature that allows you to place in your city a major real-life building, such as the Eifel Tower, The Statue of Liberty, St Basil Cathedral and so on. But unlike SC4, where you could simply select such a building and plop it in the city for free, here you have to work for it. It's a whole experience that requires a lot of work and resources.

You can find them in the Packs menu, divided among the three packs. The list of buildings to select is big, and includes many different styles and cultures - there are even buildings from the Far East such as the Meiji Shrine, or the pyramid Chichen Itza.There are even two resource buildings - the Nuclear power plant and the Offshore Oil rig!

And those Megastructures not only look good in the city, they have huge beneficial effects. Those differ from building to building, but generally include a big area of Landmark effect (Quality of life improvement), plus some general Satisfaction factor improvement, like Education or Leisure, or several of those. All in all, it's a satisfying experience (in my opinion), that gives you this feeling of excitement to watch your structure grow with time, while you're labouring to maintain the resources needed for the building process. If you've played Pharaoh, you'll know what I'm talking about.   

The building process consists of several stages, usually three (but there are also some with only two). Each stage requires a different mix of resources. Once you place the BP, you'll start paying its maintenance fee. The amount of this depends on:

1. The BP itself - there are more and less expensive ones.

2. The construction stage - in the very beggining you'll be paying only a part of the final maintenance fee, say 1/4. As you progress with the building, it'll say that you have 'Reached the next stage' - you'll see a visual change in the construction site, AND the maintenance will jump up. When you 'Reach the last stage' the Megastructure is complete - you'll start paying the full fee, and enjoying the benefits of the structure. 

Building phases and resources needed.

In order to actually build the BP, you'll need to allocate resources. For example, the 1st phase almost always requires 50 offices and some Executive workers. So, to start the process, you'll need a surplus of offices and Execs in your city. NOTE THAT YOU DON"T NEED ALL 50 OF THE OFFICES (or whatever is there)!!!!! This is a common mistake that could really scare you off - 50 offices is a LOT, and even more, 30 Heavy ind. or Electricity. You only need SOME surplus offices (or whatever), a minimum of 1. Besides, the game doesn't let you allocate more than a part of the total resources required (usually 1/3, or 1/2).   

So, once you have the necessary resources, click on the construction site (or on the XL button>Blueprints), then 'Manage Blueprint'. A window will appear: in the upper part you'll see the Phases of the project, which one you're currently in, and what's the progress. In the lower left part you'll see the resources you have available according to the current phase. In the lower right part you can see how many resources max you can allocate per day (this means that if you have 15 max, yoy can't allocate 20). Move your available tokens from the left section to the central section of the window. You'll have to move at least one token of each required resource. Click on 'Allocate' underneath. Pronto - the project will now say 'Under counstruction', rather than 'Stopped'. 

It takes a loooooot of time to construct a BP - at least several days real time. The more tokens you allocate at once for the construction, the faster it'll progress. In the same time, with the progress you'll need less and less of each resource, as they get 'incorporated' in the structure. Note that you DON'T lose the resources in this process! Think of it rather as you having assigned a portion of your city's resources to work on the building. With time and the progress of the building, less and less resources will be required at a time for the work. 

When you look at the aforementioned panel, in the upper part you'll see progress bars next to each resource. They'll show you how much of each resource has done its work on the project. When the bar reaches 100% it turns green - its part is done, and you won't need this resource anymore on the project (yay, I can stop buying this Heavy ind. at those insane prices!). When ALL relevant progress bars reach 100%, the current phase is finished, and the BP will progress to the next phase, where you'll need a different set of resources. When you finish all stages, the Structure is ready! 

- Note: the building PHASES are different from the Stages - sometimes you'll get the message that 'A new stage is reached' while you're in the middle of a Phase - the maintenaces will increase, but you still need to work on this STAGE.

- Note: sometimes the progress will stop - usually because conditions in your city have changed and you no longer can afford the number of tokens you've currently allocated. In this case, you need to relocate you resources and start the process again. 

Final comments: at first, Megastructure building could be a little scary. looking at those big amounts of resources. But once you get into it, the process is mostly fun, if a little slow. Well, it's that much more satisfying when the building is finally ready, right? And the huge Landmark bubble   

Serously: the Megastructures could be a big boon to the city: choose well how to place them. The positive Environmental effect has a much bigger area, and is stronger than a normal Landmark; so place many Exec and Elite residences nearby. Along with some parks, it works wonders on Environmental satisfaction AND it could allow you to build holiday hotels! (note that if you have too much air polution you still won't be able to build Holiday hotels, even right next to the Megastructure).

Lastly, they look really cool. 

[rudman3000 0]

 Help1 how do I place  Harbors? I have been trying for ages, my city has a coast & shaded areas when I select to build a Harbor but it wont let me do it?

[rsd6000 8]

you need rotate the harbours to go in shallow waters - simllar to simcity 4 habours

[Linrox 0]

great manual, but i think you missed one topic - Off/On ramps??

Any tutorials on creating standard off/on ramps would be appreaciated, or a clover leaf version would also be cool.

Thanks

[Yoxo 0]

 I had the same problem myself. The thing what I was doing is that as soon as I've get on the map I would pause and then try to build it, but it wouldn't work. Same goes with farms, the area wont appear if its the first time you see it, it only shows up if the game isn't paused, which is kinda awkward. Try finding the sea city link from the menu on your right.

[bpq666 0]

awesome manual, helped me out alot, i was wondering why my high-tech wasnt working out, too close to dirty air!!

[soltangris 42]

Glad to know people still find it useful I plan on updating it soon, when CXL 2011 comes out.

[bpq666 0]

i cant wait till it comes out, also thanx for the info on how one industry feeds off the other, the supply and demand section was very helpful!! :-)

[jamescullen12 0]

I need some assistance...... how do i get blueprints?!?!

[Ocram's Razr 963]

Blueprints will be released officially in Cities XL 2011 but you can get them unlocked in Unlocker Mod but this voids the warranty and everything else.

[bpq666 0]

if im using freight when i trade, does that mean my whole city is losing freight to buisnessnes and industry, because it seems when my city gets really big and i have alot of trades and used pretty much all my freight, new buisnesses fail and lack of freight is the main reason

[bpq666 0]

@ jamescullen12

see soltangris' section on Megastructures, it describes in depth what it takes for blueprints. basically you need to spend tokens for each phase of building

[Ocram's Razr 963]

You want your token balance to be neutral. Businesses do well if there are no surpluses for what they are selling (small deficits increase income) and satisfaction goes up when you have a surplus of holiday tokens (though this can bankrupt hotels, thus lowering token production).

[soltangris 42]

Get ready for the upgraded Manual! Now for the CXL 2011 version!

- Zoning and plopping updated

- Megastructures updated

- Citizens and Satisfaction updated.

Also take a look at the Omnibus!

[Hotshift 0]

Originally posted by: soltangris

- Automathically retracing a line: if you have two specific areas to connect and don't want to go through placing all stops for the return trip, you could do a circle at some point, click on a bus stop from the same line and then confirm. The back trip will be calculated automatically along the same line.

quote>

I do not get the "do a circle" thingy...

what is the first step? select the broken line and click on the last buss stop before the problem?

Anyway, the guide is really of great help, even for players with a few hours on cities XL, thanks !

[soltangris 42]

I don't think you could use this technique to repair a broken line, Hotshift. The 'circle thingy' is used to automatically calculate the return path of a new line. It works like this:

- You start the line, go all the way where you need to go

- You then want to return the same way, 'retrace' the same line back to the terminal 

- To do this just click on a stop you've already placed - I think the game informs you something like this 'The return path was calculated automatically'

- Confirm

[Dargor 17]

Thanks for the all the good work, soltangris!

I only got the game this weekend (never played CXL before), and I was wondering about a couple of things. Right now I am having a hard time making a profit, but that is a common problem with these games It's hard to figure out why certain industrial, commercial or manufacturial zones won't develop even when both skilled and unskilled workers ask for jobs (for instance).

The possibility to lay out roads like in real is a treat!