SimCity 409: Solving the Water Crisis

Water does return to the water table when it rains or if you are near a river. However, the rate at which the water table replenishes is nowhere near the rate at which your people drink/bathe in it. So what you need to do is to create a closed loop system that keeps water flowing in your city forever.

The way that you do that is you build a sewage treatment plant -- which will pour dirty water back into the ground after "treating" it. You then plop a water treatment plant right next to it with a tank that cleans the water directly next to the sewage plant. This cleaning tank will suck the dirty water back out of the ground, clean it, then distribute healthy, clean water back to your Sims perpetually.

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 242: Water Ploppables

Supplying your citizens with water isn't very complicated. To begin, you're going to want to use the very inexpensive water towers which simply suck up water from the water table and then use gravity to pump it out to all of your Sims. However, later on you're going to want to upgrade to a water treatment facility to save space and produce more water.

Water Tower

A water tower is simply a tall water storage container that sucks water up and holds it until it's needed. These are the inexpensive water units, but they use up vast amounts of valuable real estate when you try to supply a city of 25,000 or more. At that threshold, you'll need to start planning to buy a water treatment facility.

Water Treatment Facility

The water treatment facility is the preferred method of watering your Sims. Firstly, it can suck up large quantities of ground water and takes up little room on your map. But more importantly, it also has the ability to clean water -- with the right modules -- so it can also use dirty ground water without getting people sick.

In the image above you can see a fully upgraded water treatment facility with it's maximum six pumps -- five regular pumps and one treatment pump (left).

The Water Table

At the beginning of the game, it may seem that you have tons of water on your map. However, the truth is that as you plop down various water units they change the water table as they suck up the water. Over time, each unit will be able to suck up less and less water until they run dry. So you'll need to make plans and changes over time to accommodate the changing water table.

SimCity 132: Water

Managing water in SimCity 5 is much, much simpler than in previous versions of the game. You don't have to lay any pipe. Instead, your focus is on reading the water table and then strategically placing water towers on those areas that have lots of water to then distribute to the rest of your city.

Mousing over the information button on the water department HUD will give you the following tips on keeping your citizens hydrated:

• Place water towers to provide water
• RCI buildings that don't get enough water will go abandoned
• If a ploppable doesn't get water, it will stop functioning
• Dark blue areas of the water map hold the most water
• Rain will replenish the water table
• Excess water can be sold to neighbors
• Purchase water from neighbors
• Rivers and lakes supply unlimited water
• Water towers on polluted ground will make many Sims sick

Water Towers

Making a simulation game easy to play is important to keeping it fun the for highest number of people. Water towers symbolize the full breadth of the modern water distribution system in our modern cities.

The Water Table

When you go to put any water structure in your city, you are then presented with a view of your water table. This water table is very important in determining where the best locations for placing water towers, sewage output pipes, garbage dumps, and industrial zones.

Clean Water

Providing your Sims with clean water is paramount. Therefore, you must avoid placing industrial zones and sewage pipes near your water tables so that you don't inadvertently poison your citizenry. Examining the water table and then mapping out where your sewer pipes are going to go based on where the water isn't is one of the first steps to planning a successful city.

In the image above, I deliberately placed industrial zones over an aquifer (at right) to show how easily you can pollute ground water. However, because the drinking water comes from the aquifer on the other side of the map (far left), the pollution doesn't affect my citizens.

Supply

Demand is obvious -- everyone needs water. Period.

However, according to the information provided by the game, there's the possibility that the aquifers that you tap into during the game could run dry. The beta games cap at one hour of play, so we couldn't play long enough to actually put a dent in an aquifer. However, if it is the case that you can drink the place dry, then water tower access to rivers and bays should be a very important part of your long-term strategy. I'll have more on this after the game launches.