\SimTower: The Phantom Horror/
Made by Mental.Man@excite.com (Now known as IcePotato)
Version 1.6 Finished 9/20/00
0. What's New!
1. Introduction
2. Facilities and What They Do
3. Walkthrough
4. Emergencies and Special Events
5. The Non-Existent Cheats
6. Notes and Stuff
7. Credits
What's New!
This version has:
Corrected my E-Mail
Made some extremely minor changes in section 7 and 3
Introduction
SimTower is a very good, addictive game (at least, until you get to 4
stars). It is also frustrating, hard and confusing. This walkthrough
will get you through the worst and best of this game (mainly worst).
However, this is not supposed to be used as an alternative help guide.
In fact, before you start the game, I recommend reading the /entire\
help file. This explains a lot, but not everything… Also, try fooling
around with the game before you read this, because I am NOT going to go
into detail over every little thing…
This is my first walkthrough. I chose an easy, stupid game that no one
has done before because this is my first walkthrough. So now you know
why this is so bad.
Facilities and What They Do
Lobby- Costs $5,000 per section plus maintenance. This is the
foundation of your building. It can be placed every 15 floors, and it
is the only place where your residents will change elevators. Offices
and fast food places need to be close to here.
Empty Floor- Costs $500 per section. Lets you put in an empty floor.
If you put a facility on a section without an empty floor, you will be
charged for constructing an empty floor
Stairs- Costs $5,000 each. Can be used instead of elevator, but
residents will only use up to four sets of them. Best if connected to
Lobby.
Standard Elevators- Cost$200,000 a shaft, $80,000 a car, plus
maintenance. Basic method of transportation. Can cover up to 30 floors.
Only takes residents, visitors and workers.
Office- Costs $40,000 each. Brings in population on weekdays, income,
and stress. Very useful in the beginning. Can adjust rent.
Fast Food Place- Causes very little stress, brings in very little
population, makes very little money. Only useful in the beginning.
Condo- Costs $80,000 each. Major source of population, brings in a
little money at first. Must be near elevator.
Service Elevator- Used by housekeeping. Must be used if housekeeping
is not on same floor as hotel rooms, or if there is a recycling center.
Single Hotel Room- Costs $20,000 each. Brings in money and one person.
Very useful during two-star period.
Security- Costs $100,000 plus maintenance. Finds bombs and fights
fires. Required for three stars.
Housekeeping- Costs $50,000 plus maintenance. Keeps hotel rooms and
suites clean.
Escalator- Costs $20,000 plus maintenance. Used more than stairs. Can
only be placed in empty floors or commercial spaces. Residents will
only use seven of these to get to a site.
Express Elevator- Costs $400,000 shaft, $150,000 car plus maintenance.
Goes to every 15 floors plus all underground floors.
Restaurant- Costs $200,000 each. Brings in some population and money.
Mainly used during dinner hours
Retail Shop- Costs $100,000 each. Rent is adjustable. Brings in some
population and money.
Movie Theater- Costs $500,000 each plus movie changes. Brings in some
money and population.
Party Hall- Costs $100,000 each. Brings in population and money.
Twin Hotel Room- Costs $50,000 each. Brings in money and two people.
Better than one room because it brings in more money and people for
less cleaning
Hotel Suite- Costs $100,000 each. Holds two people and must have one
parking space per suite. VIP's only stay in suite. Required for four
stars.
Medical Center- Costs $500,000 each. Used by office workers. Necessary
for four stars.
Recycling Center- Costs $500,000 plus maintenance. Necessary for four
stars
Parking Spot- Costs $3,000 each. Needs Parking Ramp. Office and Hotel
Suits need these.
Parking Ramp/Gate- Costs $50,000 each plus maintenance. Needed for
parking spaces.
Metro Station- Costs $1,000,000 plus maintenance. Needed for five
stars. Brings people to your tower.
Cathedral- Can only be put on a 100-story, five star building. Needed
for "Tower" rating.
Walkthrough
Starting out: How to construct, double your funds, and get a decent
population!
Doubling Your Funds: When you first start out, you have money, one
star and a really fast clock. Slow down the clock by clicking on
"Options" then "Fast Mode". Now, go to the absolute bottom-left of the
screen. Click on the "Lobby" button on your toolbar, and try to build a
lobby. Your funds automatically double!
Now, build a lobby by clicking on a spot on the ground. Once you have
done this, go and build a minimum of one underground fast food place,
and at least one story of offices. Use stairs to connect your offices,
lobby, and fast food place. Remember, your occupants only want to climb
FOUR sets of stairs to get to their destination. This means that you
should only start out with one basement level, one lobby, and a maximum
of 2 stories of offices (which, by the way, are your major sources of
income… and stress for the first star). If you leave the tower
minimized, it still runs. This means that you can start up your
computer, load your tower, and leave it minimized the rest of the day
while you work! Since no one has heard of overtime in SimTower, no Sim
works on the weekends (signified by the red WE in the info bar… You
know, the one with the star on it!), which means that on a rainy
weekday, more people come to your café than on a sunny weekend! You can
alter this by adding a floor of condos, which means you have to add an
elevator, which costs money every quarter, not to mention the
construction costs! (Note: People only get mildly stressed when they
take the stairs, but it normally doesn't get out of hand…)
Getting Your Stars: How to Get More Facilities!
To get two stars, you need a population of 300 people. Easy, right?
Nope. It is a complicated thing, and you do NOT get two stars just by
slapping on another 15 floors with condos (which are your major source
of population, but don't get you any money after someone buys them).
Instead, you need to go through a long and rigorous process involving
elevators, floors, and the fast mode function.
First, you need to get your first four floors established. Then, you
need to get your elevator system working by fooling around in the
control panel, working towards eliminating stress. After this is done,
you need to add floor by floor of condos ONLY! Mixing condos, offices,
and fast food places on the same floor is generally a bad idea because
everyone complains about the noise level unless you have lots of space
between them. Also, try not to get your tower 30 stories high before
you even get two stars, because it is better to build out instead of
up, even though it means more elevators, because it generally reduces
stress.
Once you get to a lot of floors of condos and offices that are all
near the lobby, and an elevator shaft, you may find people are getting
stressed (turning pink or red), or your elevators have big fats "F"s on
them most of the time (they are full). This means that you should add
another car in your shaft. Before you add that last condo to get a
population of 300, remember that your population ebbs and flows. This
may make that last condo unnecessary.
Two Stars! What Now? (To Get Three Stars)
Well, by now you should have 300 population, a couple floors of
offices, a fast food place, two or more elevator cars, and lots of
condos. Now, you can add security, service elevators, a single hotel
room, and housekeeping. Start off by adding one security on the bottom,
middle, and top floors of your building. Now, put in housekeeping and a
bunch of hotel rooms. If the last two are not on the same floor,
connect them with a service elevator. Add a separate shaft so guests
don't have to use a busy elevator. When the rooms are finally bringing
in cash, check the finance window to make sure that they make more
money than Housekeeping spends! Remember, Housekeeping can support up
to 6 floors of hotels, as long as the hotels are fairly close to
Housekeeping.
Once again, if people are stressed out waiting for the "lift" (as they
call it in Great Britain), add a new car or shaft. Keep on expanding!
To get to the big three, you need at least two security offices, and a
population of 1,000. Ouch! Don't worry, though: just add lots of condos
and hotels. It will bring up your population. Still, your tower is
going to go through some drastic changes…
Get all of your elevators and make them go up to your highest level.
Add shafts if necessary. Add as many condos as you can, but don't get
another cluster of hotel rooms just yet. Also, don't worry about
evaluation unless it is red. Then, you wait until they move out and
lower the price on the condo.
When terrorists loom, you generally want to find the bomb. Yes, the
bomb can explode, but the ransom is much larger than the repair costs
(probably). If your tower is the maximum width, you probably want to
pay him, though, because unless the bomb is on the right side of the
tower, your security will never get there on time.
If your population is around 600-800, it is time for another cluster
of hotels! Place the hotels on the 3rd through 8th floors so you can
use stairs to get to some of them, and place the Housekeeping on the 2nd
with some more offices and stairs. Make sure the offices are not on the
same floor as condos or hotels!
Three Stars = Trouble!
Three Stars: The messiest, most unrefined part of the game. One star
was easy. Two stars were challenging. Three is a complete disaster. By
now, all of your space has run out. You people are unhappy, and your
elevator/escalator strategy is horrible. Whatever you do, don't blame
me! To get 4 stars you need a population of 5000, medical and recycling
needs met, and a favorable VIP rating.
First, you should get one hotel suite on the second floor. Give it its
own elevator and housekeeping. Add at least one parking spot per suite.
When the VIP comes, watch his evaluation very carefully. If it is
yellow or red, lower the price of his room. That takes care of one
requirement for 4 stars (favorable VIP rating). (Note: If your other
single hotel rooms have a good elevator system, and they are clean when
the guests arrive [HA!!!], you do not need to isolate your suite). Now,
all you need to do is add on about 2,500 condos (seriously) and have at
least two medical and recycling centers. This may sound easy, but it
isn't. All your tenants get PO'ed at you and move out. After they move,
lower the price so others can move in.
Add about two movie theaters and one party hall.
And here's one final tip: Screw money. You are going to lose so much
it won't be funny. So forget about it!
4 Stars = Run Away Screaming
4 stars should not happen. Your entire hotel is shunned, but people
still stay. This is pretty hard. Add a metro station (Yes, it costs
money but it brings tons of people to your tower. And you need it to
get 5 stars.) Get 10,000 people. You will need every square pixel of
space for this physical improbability, but it isn't really worth it.
This is where the game becomes a nightmare, because of the billions of
screaming tenants and unhappy residents. Just ignore them.
5 Stars=Shoot me now.
This is it. No, it's not the end of the game. Maxis wants to brainwash
you into playing a decent game like SimCity 3000 by addicting you to a
horrible, old game. Unfortunately, if you are playing this, you cannot
walk away from this for more than a day, so get 15,000 people and a
Cathedral. Than you get a rating of "Tower". Whoopee.
Emergencies and Special Events
Fires: The most dangerous thing in existence. Fires eat away at your
facilities, and there are only two ways to stop them: The quick,
expensive way or the slow, cheap way. The quick way is to call in the
copter for $500000. It works, but it doesn't get there in time to save
the first two buildings that burn down. The slow way is to wait until
Security comes. It works, but it probably won't save the floor that is
burning.
Bombs: Psychopathic terrorists like to call you up and ask for 2-30000
bucks. The catch? If you don't pay them, they will nicely start up a
timed bomb. Your Security will try to find the bomb. If you have a huge
tower that is the maximum length and width and stuff, you will probably
want to shove the money down their throats. Otherwise, your Security
will probably find the bomb in time. It helps, though, if your security
is spread out so you don't have 5 rent-a-cops going along the same
floor.
VIP Visits: See the 3 Stars Section
Santa Clause: As far as I can tell, this does nothing. Santa shows up.
Whoopee. Maybe he takes all those grumpy tenants and throws them out
the window?
The Non-Existent Cheats
What has Maxis done!?!? Contrary to almost all of their games, there
are no decent cheats for this game! There is only one, and it lets you
start out with 400000 instead of 200000 bucks. See the Walkthrough
section
Notes and Stuff
Bulldozing is free. When condos are bulldozed or the residents move
out, the money you have made is subtracted from your account. Stay on
one or two stars or a while to build up money. Don't put all of your
security on the same floor. Don't be afraid to start over. Try
everything!
Limits and Restrictions: 24 elevator shafts per tower, 8 cars per
shaft; 64 total stairs and escalators; 512 parking spaces, restaurants,
shops, fast food places; 10 medical centers and security; 16 theaters
and party halls, one metro station and cathedral. Note: Don't try to
max out everything until much later in the game
Credits
Written by me( mental.man). Maxis made SimTower. GameFaqs.com and some
other people posted it. Whoopee.
My e-mail is IcePotato85@hotmail.com. If you hate this, let me know. If
you have anything that I didn't mention, let me know. If you like this
game or you work for Maxis, don't let me know.
This document copyright Ice Potato Corp.- Better Than The Ones You Find
in the Grocery Store! Don't reproduce any part of this without my
permission- This Means YOU!!!
