Looking for help on SimCity Classic Dullsville scenario

[trar 336]

So I've been playing through the scenarios in the very first SimCity, and I did not expect the Dullsville scenario to be so hard. Grow a city to 100,000 in 30 years, with only $5,000 to start with? That's a tall order in ANY SimCity, let alone Classic.

What's worse is that there's practically no help online, no tips, no walkthroughs, nothing but a Let's Play video in German. I'm asking you folks...do you know anything about beating Dullsville?

All I've gathered so far is that you need a power plant soon, a stadium soon after, and you need to be cheap in more sense than one to pay for them: set fire dept. funding to 0 since with disasters off it won't matter, and demolish most of your roads since the city will still function with only a weird patchwork, like in the SimCity SNES guides.

[CorinaMarie 29,934]

Oh, whew! It's been ages since I played that one, but I'm certain I solved it. If I recall correctly you need to take out a loan and then zone a bunch in the 2:1:1 (Res:Comm:Industry) ratio and then let it all grow.

[trar 336]

I'm so unfamiliar with Classic that I didn't even know you could take out loans. I'll have to at least look more closely.

[CorinaMarie 29,934]

I've had a quick glance thru The Official SimCity Planning Commission Handbook and I'm not seeing anything about taking out a loan. Might be I was remembering SC2000? I did find the trick to Embezzle $10,000 at a time tho. (Ofc, that'd be cheating to use it.)

I'll dig into it more tonight after work. (Or let me know if you've figured it out by then.)

[rsc204 21,869]

Before you can take out a loan, you must meet the requirements to build a bank, which is a gift item. Be wary of loans though, all too quickly you might find your monthly income decimated by them. It's much better to try and build up the cash during play. You need to keep a surplus sufficient to replace essential services, which is usually just your power plants, as soon as you have the money to set aside. Other than that, invest in as much zoning as the demands allow for and try not to spend money on beautification and optional things until you've a decent monthly surplus. Sims complain about Police/Fire coverage and lack of other things, but you can build without them successfully. You only need these options when you want more higher wealth sims, which in turn will generate more taxes. Looking at the scale of the task at hand, I think you will find it much easier to reach 100k population if you don't worry about richer sims.

All this is based off the SNES release, but I don't think there were many major differences between that and the original.

[trar 336]

Yeah, I don't remember Classic having gift buildings... good to know I can skimp on police too though.

[rsc204 21,869]

From Wikipedia:

Quote

The Super NES port also features special buildings the player may receive as rewards, such as casinos, large parks, amusement parks, and expo centers; some of which would be incorporated into SimCity 2000. A bank can be built which will allow a loan of $10,000 to be taken, but it must be paid back before another loan can be taken out. The game includes schools and hospitals, though they cannot be placed by the player; instead, the game will sometimes turn an empty residential lot into one.

So perhaps this is a SNES-only feature after all? The only other version of the original I played was on a Psion Series 5 organiser, but I can't remember if it had a loan system or not.

[trar 336]

Can confirm I cannot take out loans.

[trar 336]

And for that matter, I'm beginning to think this is unfeasible. There's just no way to snowball fast enough and KEEP that momentum going. I usually stall out halfway at 50k, with less than a decade left - I'm not making enough to put down a seaport or airport without waiting so long I'd lose anyway. Given the other titles on my backlog I can't find a way to justify spending an indefinite amount of time trying to beat what is frankly a badly designed scenario.

[CorinaMarie 29,934]

While I don't have answer, I feel the scenarios were prolly tested and they are doable.

[trar 336]

Maybe I'm missing the magic juice, but 50k seems like it would have been a much more reasonable goal.

The video I mentioned earlier might be useful, but the only internet access I have at the moment is a dinky phone's data...not going to squint at it while all my data disappears at once.

[catty-cb 4,413]

SimCity 2000 Scenario Guide by Andy007 - Sorry I can't do the link to the guide on my phone so will be back later to add a link

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/198648-SimCity-2000/faqs/7283

  Edited March 22, 2019 by catty-cb  
added a link

[CorinaMarie 29,934]

3 minutes ago, catty-cb said:

SimCity 2000 scenario guide from GameFAQS

Err, uhm, well @biff is looking for SC Classic and not 2000.

[catty-cb 4,413]

Sorry as far as I was aware the Dullsville scenario was first available in SimCity 2000, didn't realize it went back to the original game

[CorinaMarie 29,934]

3 hours ago, biff said:

The video I mentioned earlier might be useful, but the only internet access I have at the moment is a dinky phone's data...not going to squint at it while all my data disappears at once.

I've watched and it seems the key points are to bulldoze any unnecessary roads and use rail line instead. Turn off disasters. Then defund the fire department down to $1. Pause while you are building and as you zone, add parks around each new residential and commercial bulldozing trees to make room. Be sure each has a power connection either by touching along a side or by adding wires. Zoning along the water's edge for residential looks like a good idea. When new power is needed add nuclear. Don't skimp on police stations as that makes the Sims happy and they procreate a lot more when they feel safe.

Here's sort of a collage I made from taking snapshots during the end of the scenario after it was won:

^ You may want to download the image so you can zoom in to see more detail than is visible here.

[trar 336]

Good info, thank you. Seems police are important after all, and at least I got the "use rail" part right. I'll give this strategy a shot later - currently playing the Detroit scenario, which is a bit easier.

[trar 336]

Update: Detroit is NOT easier. I improve the city and they still kick me out because it's not good enough, every time.

[CorinaMarie 29,934]

16 minutes ago, biff said:

Update: Detroit is NOT easier. I improve the city and they still kick me out because it's not good enough, every time.

Well, at least it's a challenge then.

[trar 336]

4 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Well, at least it's a challenge then.

While you're not wrong, I beat it literally 15 minutes after I posted about it. It was counterintuitive - Detroit's gonna crash hard in a year - but hey, a win's a win.

[Ork from Pluto 4]

It can be beaten, but I lose more than 90% of the time.  These comments refer to Original SimCity, PC version.

1. Leave taxes at 7% for the entire game.  Turn off disasters and defund the fire station.  A single disaster in the game will kill your chances.

2. Year one, build a stadium.  Create a bridge to the island in the south and begin building an affordable housing tract community.  I will always have 3 complete tracts and get started on a fourth by the end. Build all industry on the mainland to the east.  At the end, you will probably want to build some more on the islands to the north or east.  Begin replacing road with light rail.

3.  Do the following in subsequent years in this order: build a nuke (about 1904, as soon as brownouts begin), build a seaport in the east asap, begin building residential units on the west and north coast to create a wealthy tax base asap, another nuke and then destroy the coal plant (ca. 1920), airport (ca.1927).  When they start bitching about pollution in the 1920s, start to destroy the 5 western most industries and build a park buffer.

4.  If you get to 1910 and don't have 25,000, or 1920 without 50,000, give it up and try again.  If you lose population in any of the first ten years, you are almost certainly doomed.  A small pop loss in a later year while saving for the big ticket items can sometimes be weathered.  Be extra careful about failing to give power to any units; even a few months without power in a given area will cause a population loss and probably kill you.

5. Be very stingy about building new police stations.  I wait until at least 15% crime complaint.  You need that money for continuously building infrastructure.  Ignore altogether complaints about affordable housing.  Complaints about unemployment mean you have entered a recession and will almost certainly lose.  Sometimes, you just get screwed.  Also ignore scroll messages about more roads or inadequate rails.

6.  There is no loan feature in this version; there is a cheat code that will give you $10,000.  Something like ctrl+FUND, but I don't remember.  A free $10,000 makes the scenario easy.

7.  Occasionally, I have won without an airport by splurging on extra industries instead.  I have won before as quickly as 1928.  When I lose, I generally get to 100,000 within two more years.  My record for population growth in one year is 15,000.

[trar 336]

On 3/21/2019 at 6:24 PM, trar said:

Maybe I'm missing the magic juice, but 50k seems like it would have been a much more reasonable goal.

The video I mentioned earlier might be useful, but the only internet access I have at the moment is a dinky phone's data...not going to squint at it while all my data disappears at once.

It looks like this video is now private, that sucks.

I've been trying this scenario again and I'm still struggling bad, I'm lucky if I can get to 50k by 1920. I'm starting to think using the FUND cheat may be the ONLY way to win this. The tips from @Ork from Pluto helped, but it's still not enough without using FUND. I'm just about ready to use it on my next try and be done with Dullsville for good. I guess I can make it a bit fairer by keeping fire department funding up at 100%.

[trar 336]

Update: it was indeed easier with FUND, and I was able to finally win. I'm not sure what the guys at Maxis were thinking when they originally made this scenario, but at least they seem to have recognized how difficult it was and toned it down for the SC2K version.

I hope the German Let's Player puts their videos back up, because there's a dearth of advice or even videos/discussion period for the original scenarios. To be fair, while Classic is undeniably charming, SC2K is definitely a better game.