SimCity 401: Tracing the Water Table

So, the most basic and fundamental advanced strategy I use is the water table tracing I do at the start of every level. What does this mean exactly? Well basically, I take a look at the water map and -- while it is displayed on the screen -- I add roads to my community making extra careful to keep the roads on the driest (read: lightest blue) portions of the water table.

The advantages to having your water table traced in streets is a) you can see where your water table is without having to bring up your water map, and b) you can zone areas that you know for sure to be light blue with industrial and other polluting ploppables -- thereby minimizing the amount of pollution you'll have to deal with later in the game

Once you can visually see where your water table is via roads, the next step is to close the water table data layer and begin broadly zoning the sections you traced out. Any section that you know has no water table underneath of it is a location you want to dedicate to garbage, sewage, mining, and industry. Anywhere that you know has water -- especially deep water -- you want to zone commercial and residential or install clean ploppables like parks, government buildings, and schools. Also, obviously, your water towers will go here.

Episode 5: Tracing the Water Table

Posted March 11, 2013

In this video, I cover the basics on how and why to trace your water table using roads. If you regularly have problems with water pollution, then this video may be for you.

The Water Table From Above

You never really get a shot to see the water table from directly above (or at a distance) in SimCity 5. However, I put together this composite image tracing to show you what a water table looks like. This particular map -- Corsair Coast (region: Sunrunner Bay) -- is a well balanced water table by my estimation. You can clearly see that there are plenty of dry spaces for industry and polluting ploppables as well as an even number of watering holes above which go residential, commercial, and, of course, water towers.

Most maps are more complex than this one and some are almost completely covered by water table. Cinder (region: Reflection Atoll) is a good example of this

Now, I'll be the first to admit that you can't lay your roads solely via the water table on most maps. For instance, the elevation changes in this map make the upper right corner impossible to follow 1-for-1. In that case, simply cut the road short in the dry area to make sure ground pollution remains sequestered.

The more mindful you are of your water table, the better for the long-term health of your city.

Benefits

This is a huge preventative benefit that keeps major pollution problems from creeping up on you as your city begins to expand and grow. These pollution problems usually will stop and even reverse the growth of your city as people get sick and die and can consume huge amounts of time and money later on that are better spent on expansion. The key to maximizing your fun in this game is to think now -- at the start -- about where you want to store your ground pollution.

Disadvantages

It's sometimes ugly, difficult to draw the roads, and can be limiting from a design aspect. Take the city in the photo above: Trinity Point. The industrial zones (yellow) follow exactly the path of the dry bedrock beneath. Esthetically, this isn't very pleasing.

More importantly, the squirrely nature of the water table makes the roads themselves a pain to draw. In other city sites these aren't really issues, but for this site the problems are more evident. Sadly, I agree with each of these criticisms, but in the long run I know that this strategy is saving me from future headaches and that makes it worth the sacrifice.

Leaderboard

In terms of ascending to the top of the leaderboard, I consider this strategy to be indispensable.

SimCity 102: Returning Students

So, if you've been playing SimCity since the original (also known as "Fun with Squares"), then there may be a few features that you haven't seen in any of the beta videos on YouTube and a few that you've noticed that are different. I've tried to compile a list of changes for this version of SimCity and hopefully as I get to play the game I'll update this list.

Firstly, the size of the playing area is slightly different. While each individual city space is smaller than a traditional game of SimCity, because there are sixteen different maps to play with within each region, the overall size of the game is larger in scale. The result is a game that focuses more on the relationships between each map and less on the success or failure of any one location. With careful planning, you can hedge bets by using the strengths of one area to cover the weaknesses of another area.

Next up is the missing game mechanics. Terraforming, agriculture, subways (replaced by streetcars), water pipes, and power lines are all features that have appeared in previous versions of the game but now have been removed for various reasons. The overall consensus is that these changes were done to remove some of the more boring micromanagement in favor of more systemic options that color in localized areas of the map to denote "coverage".

In the new game, you can upgrade individual buildings with unique modules -- additions that boost the stats of the original lot. For instance, you can build a police station and then add a helicopter pad or a detective wing (if you have enough room) to expand the police coverage and effectiveness.

The most notable and exciting feature of the new game is the re-imagined version of roadways. Not only are there different flavors of road that can accommodate varying levels of traffic, but you can build curved road systems and traffic circles that add character to your little town. The curved roads are tricky because most of the buildings that can be erected are square, so wanton disregard for convention could leave you with a lot of unused land. But visually, it adds a lot of depth to the game.

Finally, one last thing I'd like to mention is the disaster system -- which is tricky to say the least. Unlike in previous versions where you could turn off disasters to save yourself the hassle of being wiped out by a dinosaur, this version offers you no such respite. And because the save games are cloud based, there's no way to revert back to a previous version of the city should a tsunami obliterate your beachfront. It remains to be seen how devastating or rage-quit-inducing this feature is going to be, but I for one am looking forward to the challenge.