Welcome to my guide on Simcity 4! This will be a very basic guide for you who are new to the game and want to understand how it works.
The city i will be showing pictures of is one with a set difficulty of easy. I am using 1 mod which is purely an esteticly improving mod and will not change the game mechanics in any way. (The mod i am using is the; Realism mod.)

This is my very first guide, and i will happily take any constructive critisism to improve my writing and missing coverage in the guide, so please tell me what you think and if it helped you in any way! :)

With that said, put some nice music on and get reading!

First Start of with a coal or a Natural GasPowerplant since they are both quite cheap and put out a good amount of power
The difference between the two is that the gas plant has moderate pollution and the coal plant has the heaviest pollution. But then it is a bit cheaper a month and generates more electricety

Remember that your first citizens don't need too much power nor water. so start small and work your way up as the demands rises (More about demands on the "Demand section)

Even though your sims are asking for it putting in schools an libraries will only make you lose more money than you earn. And keeping a profit is more of a priority at this stage in the game, than educating your sims.
This goes for Fire stations, Police stations and Hospitals as well.

At the very beginning of the game, going crazy with the best roads and parks is not a good idea since they will start to cost you a lot of money a month when your town is getting larger.
Choosing only the most basic roads and parks at the beginning of the game is a wise and sensible decision to make. but when your sims are beginning to complain about traffic jams then you should probably start looking into the more expesive roadwork (if you can afford it, of course)

In this section I will be walking you through a good way to starting a city.

The first thing you are going to want to do is putting down a strip of road along with a power plant. I tend to select a coal or a GasPowerplant since they are both quite cheap and put out a good amount of power something to note though is that the coal plant is cheaper a month but also produces a LOT more pollution. example picture to the left
The next step is to start "zoning": To start small is key here you only want to zone so much that you have control over it, when you get more experienced you can go a bit more crazy with this. I suggest you start off like shown on the right picture. (Tips: Sims in your town won't build anything on a zone/plot, unless there is a road within 3 tiles of the it .)

Next up is
Water is important to any city as commercial and industrial zones have trouble developing when lacking water. Also lack of water makes all structures more flammable, and we don't want that ;). When setting up your first water system go simple and cheap cause your Sims won't be needing that much water Early-Game. this is an example (OBS: The underground view i have here opens when you are placing pipes for your water supply example: Water tower.) Remember to expand the piping system underground as your town grows larger!










This has Been part 1 of 2, Move on to Demands and Funding before progressing to part 2.

One of the most important aspects of the game is demand and supply management and if you don't get this right you will go bankrupt quite early on in the game. There are two main demands that needs to be looked at, the first one being:

Also called
When clicked it will display a window which tells you what your city needs in terms of buildings. And here is the explanation for all of the abbreviations (word shortenings)

• R§: Residential low-wealth
  
• R§§: Residential medium-wealth
  
• R§§§: Residential high-wealth
  
• Cs§: Commercial Service low-wealth
  
• Cs§§: Commercial Service medium-wealth
  
• Cs§§§: Commercial Service high-wealth
  
• Co§§: Commercial Office medium-wealth
  
• Co§§§: Commercial Office high-wealth
  
• ID: Industry Dirty
  
• IM: Industrial Manufacturing
  
• IA: Industrial Agriculture
  
• IHT: Industrial High Tech

Make sure to follow the directions given by this list. If you were to build things that are not "demanded" on this list (mostly in large quantities) they will not be built but stay as coloured zones: Because your people don't have any use for it.

When just started a city there will be no visible demands on the list, simply because there are no people in your city.[/b] how to build a good start to the game i will explain in the section Your First City)

Funding is how much money you give to keep power, water, education and Emergency agencies up and running. So, give them too little money they will not work properly and you are less likely to have middle and high class citizens to move into your town. Give them too much money and you will lose your profit paying more than earning.

. The first think you want to do after you place your power plant is to open the Graphs panel as shown below: As you can see here i am paying for waay to much power than i am actually using. So The next step is to open the budget panel. (NOTE, Everything i am doing here shall also be applied to all the other stuff like water, police, hospitals etc)

When you've selected utilities where power and water production is there will be a number of sliders. Like so
Click power and There will be a second slider (this is the master power budget-tab) adjust them so that the funding fits the demand

Now when you have learnt how to manage your funds and demands we can move on with your shiny new city!


By now you should have picked and placed a power plant, water tower done your piping, zoning and placed your roads it should look something like this:
(Click to enlarge.)
And with the funding sorted out you should now be making a profit. Now it is time to look at your demands again. (remember to always check funding and income/expenses to see if you need to make new adjustments.) and expand your city.

This should be easy as you are doing the same things; Zoning piping and roadwork as before. just expand your city about 2-3 times the original size. And when you have expanded your city there will be more people to provide electricity and water for. Open the funding tab and start to adjust the sliders so that they match the demand once again.

Parks are very important for your city's development as you wont get any bigger nor better houses in your city without them. To know where to put your park you are going to want to open the data views-panel and press desirability:
(Click to enlarge.)









Now this is all green that's because you have R§ selected. to see what the middle class think of moving into your town, click the R§§ circle and it is going to look more like this : Middle class citizens have higher standards than low class citizens, there for i suggest you put down park somewhat like this. (Not to close to save money and not to far away from each other so that some houses won't develop.) You should now start to see improvements/a greener picture and also a lot of buildings "upgrading".


Mass transit is another key element to city improvements the most basic one is bus stations which you are going to place on about every neighbour hood "block" This will up your land value and make your city more attractive to the middleclass. (Land value can be seen on t data views panel.)

Education, Health an Emergency agencies are all very important for later in the game. When you feel that you have a nice and steady income you can start placing these buildings down. Just follow the funding plan as i wrote earlier and you will hopefully succeed.

The circle around the building you are placing shows where the building has effect on your city.


For reading my review. I hope you appreciate it and that it helps you.

Kind Regards.
mrcus