Adventures in trade

[specializedguy 193]

A reclaimed beginning

 

This is Adventures in Trade, a blog that tells the story of my SimCity 2013 trade city. I suppose you could call this work a combination of a let's play, tips, tricks, helpful hints, and everything in between.

This city is inspired by the recent Trade City Tips blog article, posted by Ross Treys (Maxis team). After seeing that such a city could be made and be successful, I set out to create one of my own. Whether or not this city will be a success has yet to be determined.

So how did it all start? Ross talked up Viridian Woods as a great region to create a trade empire, but I chose to go with Edgewater Bay:



I am already playing a gambling city in Viridian Woods with some fun people I met over on the SimCity forums. As I have done in the past, I did a filtered search for maps that contained abandoned cities (maybe you have done this as well). I enjoy playing with others, so this gave me a chance to partner with other mayors. I found a region, and some open cities! To my surprise, someone had abandoned McKenzie Point (that's the one to the bottom left on the map). This city is perfect for trade because it offers a rail connection, water connection, and it's very flat.

You never know what you're going to get when you claim an abandoned city. This one was wasn't doing too bad financially - only a few hundred in the red. However, the city did not have an ideal layout and I decided I was going to start with a clean slate. I tweaked some buildings, bulldozed others, and reached $200K before I created a blank canvas:





If you know this city, then you know that the spur is not original. I extended the line from the existing connection and placed the spur line on the water's edge. This will allow me to set trade ports the entire length of the rail (and I hope to squeeze a bunch of them in).

You'll also notice some trees clumps here and there. The previous owner had some ground pollution that I'm sure won't take long to clean up. In SC2013, trees are the fastest way to clean up ground pollution.

The final thing I'll point out is the long avenue down the middle. Trade heavily depends on traffic (for import/export trucks). While the region supplies the trucks, I need to supply them with clean (that is, low-traffic) routes to and from the trade port. One of the best things you can do to help traffic in a city, is have a long avenue running through the heart of it.

The city is all set, I've got about 200K to start with, and tomorrow I hope to place my first trade port. Having said all of that, I don't yet have a name for the city. If you do, let me know.

[specializedguy 193]

Getting started

 

Welcome back to Adventures in Trade. Today, I start with a clean slate in Edgewater Bay:

Before getting started I set up my taxes. Since I'm starting out, I like to keep my taxes as high as possible without having a negative effect. Someone else in the region has the department of finance added to their city hall. This allows me to set my low wealth taxes to 11, medium to 10, and high wealth to 9.

Another good thing to do is use the region chat to see if others can offer services (police, fire, garbage, etc.) to help you get started. There is no loss for the sending city (they don't lose coverage in their own city by sending vehicles to yours).

Let's look at something else that's important: the entrance. This new SimCity offers a variety of entrances to your city. Why is this helpful or challenging? Well, if you have a city where the highway runs through it, you have a full six lanes running through your city. This means more traffic can pass through your city without slowing down (unless of course they stop to gamble at a casino or want to check out the Maxis Man park). With this entrance, 6 lanes are reduced to 4 and this can be a challenge as trade heavily depends on having a good flow of traffic:

So how do I take this challenge on? By offering as many open lanes as possible. As you soon as you come off the highway, you come to a four-way intersection. Straight goes through the city, right to the trade ports, and left to the services area.

If you're in a region where there are lots of services, it's better to buy services from another city (so your trade city can focus solely on trading). Since the other players in this region don't have an abundance of services, I will have to section off a portion for garbage, water, and sewage. I will probably not go with recycling in this city, because it will only add more trucks to the road. I want my import/export trucks to move as a fast as possible in and out of the city.

I'm all set. I start the simulation and people start moving in, businesses get set up, and factories start making noise:

You may notice the avenue bends at the corner. This is intentional. I used the square road tool to draw the avenue in, but then bulldozed the corner. By holding shift and using the arced roads tool, I drew in the corner you see now. This will help my trade trucks from slowing down to make the turn (they will still have to slow down a little bit though - unless I'm driving, then according to my wife, we'll just take the turn on 2 wheels). The other avenues will help with traffic going across the city.

I'm probably going to build the city out a bit as this blog is going to focus on the trade aspect, and not getting the city established. I want to start trading on the Global Market as soon as possible. The city is growing fast so I need to figure out what I want to import quickly. Anyone know what's low on the market right now?

[specializedguy 193]

Specializing in Trade

 

I'm really enjoying the specializations in the new SimCity. Technically, you can only specialize in 5 areas (Trading is one of them). Culture is under the specialization menu, but you cannot specialize in it. Trading has been a different feel for me - it's slower, controlled, strategic, and fun.

As I mentioned last time, I wanted to get to trading as soon as possible. I've built out the city, but there's still more room to expand if I'd like (I think the new filters are awesome - in this picture I'm using the desaturated filter):



My population is a little over 20K. Because I don't have too many people, I haven't plopped a sewage or water plant. However, that has to change if I want to be able to support my sims and expand the city. I also am making almost $10K an hour. DinosGG once said in his electronics tutorial, "slow and controlled growth is the way to go." I couldn't agree more!

So after I got the city expanded, I had the funds to start expanding out into trade. I plopped down some trade depots and let them start hiring workers. I clicked the Guide Me button under the trade specialization. My sims are now going to ask me to complete missions as my trade empire grows. You can also change your specialization at any time. Some times you'll have to. If you're specializing in oil for example, your supply is going to eventually run out. When it does, you can abandon the city, or choose a different specialization. Once I specialized in trade, it wasn't long after when I received my first mission: trade 72K on the global market and plop a Trade HQ.

I decided to go with fuel, coal, and oil. Coal is the cheapest resource that sells on the Global Market (the one at the bottom in yellow, yeah that's coal):



These resources are going to allow me to stock up without going broke (the most expensive being fuel at 26K, oil in the middle at around 8K, and coal being around 4K). I set all of the depots to import and when I had money, I simply turned them on and kept an eye on funds (I love how you can turn buildings off and on in this game).

It was the midnight run that got me all stocked up to the top:



You and see here how my trade ports will eventually line up on the avenue (but we're not there yet). For now, my depots are going to get me what I need next: a Trade HQ. The Trade HQ is going to unlock the Trade Port, which will allow me to import in bulk, and then sell at a higher price later on. Here we are the next day:



You can see the Trade HQ is unlocked and ready to be plopped (to get the Trade HQ, you have to spend 72K on the market - I reached the goal by buying the goods). I'm probably going to put it near the water but I haven't decided yet. That's it for now.

[specializedguy 193]

Setting up Trade Ports

 

Hey guys, this blog is moving full speed ahead. We'll pick up where we left off. This is the morning after I got everything stocked up:

 

 

 

Once everything was stocked up, everything was sold. The best way to achieve trade missions is to stock up, and once midnight hits the next day, switch to exports and turn all trade ports on. Once everything was sold off, I started laying down ports:

 

 

At this point, I'm making almost 15K an hour. The city is happy, crime is low, and we have 0 buildings burning down a day. I guess I should mention that when I sold everything off, I was able to hit the money needed to lay down a Metals HQ:

 

 

These buildings look awesome at night. Anyway...With Ore taking a nose dive on the global market, I started to import immediately:

 

 

And here we are at the end of the day:

 

[Benedict 3,119]

Great start. I like seeing some of the 'chart' screenshots as well as the cityscape ones.

[Xr3iracer 5]

Really enjoyed this blog so far. Kepp it up! Always good to see how other people approach the game!

[specializedguy 193]

Great start. I like seeing some of the 'chart' screenshots as well as the cityscape ones.

 

Really enjoyed this blog so far. Kepp it up! Always good to see how other people approach the game!

 

Hey guys, thanks for your feedback!

 

I am hoping to get back to this one soon. Some mayors in the region abandoned their cities. I was able to claim the one right next to me, but it had a nuclear fallout, and some outstanding debts.

 

I'm working on clearing out the debts, getting a little cushion, and letting the game play so the fallout goes away. I'll start fresh and build up so this city can help me fund the trade city, so I can purchase goods. This is the city I was buying power from, so I'll need to probably install an oil plant in the other city (trade city).

[Benedict 3,119]

Congratulations, your CJ is number one on Ben's Top Ten this week.

 

I hope that you get you region issues sorted out so we can see more updates.

[specializedguy 193]

A screen shot from tonight:

 

[Benedict 3,119]

I always like the eeriness of this filter.

[reReticulated Spline 69]

Interesting read so far. I'm very curious to see how much profit you'll be able to make and if you can do the trick they mentioned where buying a lot of goods will affect the global price.

[specializedguy 193]

Interesting read so far. I'm very curious to see how much profit you'll be able to make and if you can do the trick they mentioned where buying a lot of goods will affect the global price.

 

To affect the Global Market, you need to have an entire region focused on trade. However, the city hasn't been played in a bit, but maybe I'll get to it towards the weekend.

[reReticulated Spline 69]

Which server did you create the game on? I think the less players there are on a server, the more you can affect the economy. But one entire row of trade ports isn't enough to make a dent in the global prices? Trade seems to be the least profitable specialization, but those ports look so nice, I'd like to try it sometime too.

[Benedict 3,119]

Congratulations, your CJ is back at number one on Ben's Top Ten.

 

Edit (Jan 2014):

 

Congratulations!

 

[Sodeka 2]

Very nice !