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SimTower FAQ/Walkthrough for PC
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Author: Kiwizoid
First Print Date: 2/25/04
Latest Update Date: 3/4/05
You are reading Version 2.02
This FAQ should only be on:
Gamefaqs.com (most recent version always available here)
DLH.net
neoseeker.com
If you see this FAQ on any other website than the ones listed above, please
notify me at kiwizoid-san@japan.com.
Contents*:
1) Intro(SNES)
2) Version History(DMCT)
3) Getting Started(NINT)
4) Transportation(WIDW)
5) Buildings(PSX)
6) Events(ATRI)
7) Walkthrough(FEB)
7a) 1 Star(MAR)
7b) 2 Star(APR)
7c) 3 Star(JUN)
7d) 4 Star(JUL)
73) 5 Star(AUG)
8) Semi-Cheats(PS2)
9) FAQ(JAN)
10) Credits(SEGA)
11) Copyright(SONY)
*The words in parentheses are shortcuts to the section before it. For example,
SNES is the shortcut to Intro. To get there, hit Ctrl-F on your keyboard and
type in SNES. Hit Enter, and it should lead you straight to the Intro section.
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1. Intro SNES
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Wow, my first FAQ, and I have NO idea what to say.
SimTower is probably the best Sim game I have played in a long time. It has a
sort of...nostalgic value to it. It is the game you play when you have one of
those days where you want to play a game from your past (Super Mario RPG for me)
that you loved but don't have the old system anymore. It's a game that has a
simple foundation, but gives you the most difficult time trying to achieve the
goals. You start playing and can't get off of it. The game gets to you through
pure addiction. Starting at the beginning is simple and people underestimate
the game. "No problem. At this rate, Tower rating will be mine by the end of
the day!" By the end of the day, however, you're at a three star rating and
are close to pulling out your hair trying to keep your tenants happy. You're
either going to love this game for that difficulty or you're going to hate it.
Any questions, comments, or suggestions can be sent to kiwizoid-san@japan.com
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2. Version History DMCT
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Version 2.02 - 3/4/05
-------------
I couldn't figure out the new log-in system for GameFAQs for a little bit, but
I finally upgraded my account, so I can submit the files again. That's really
all this update is to say.
Version 2.01 - 2/3/05
------------
Well, it would seem I should never say never. I received an e-mail a couple
of weeks ago with a person asking a question about SimTower. What does this
mean? I have a question for the FAQ! Hurray! I've added the question in there.
This also means that there is no section left blank in the guide, so I'm very
pleased about that as well. I also received an e-mail from another person who
mentioned a "Yoot Tower", a simulator similar to SimTower and, as a matter
of fact, is also made by the same guy (The title screen to SimTower has a
poster to the right of the glass doors stating that the game was created by
Yoot Saito; Yoot Tower is named after him), so I suppose it is more of a
sequel. Anyways, he suggested that I should play it and give a comparison of
the two. I believe that being able to try many games of the same genre would be
a very enticing addition to this guide. The only problem is that the source
given to me by the e-mail was through Home of the Underdogs, a website
that archives old games. Yoot Tower was around 50 MB in size. I, unfortunately,
appear to be one of the last people in the world with dial-up. Until I have
a broadband connection, I doubt I will have the time or patience to download
this file. However, I will try to look for other possible ways of obtaining it.
The one year anniversary of this document is coming in a couple of weeks.
I might write another update soon to make a reflection or something.
But I guess that's it for now.
Version 2.00 - 11/23/04
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There. It's finally over. I have acheived TOWER status for the second time in
my life. The walkthrough is done, the FAQ will probably never come in, and
everything is finally at peace. Second guide? Probably San Andreas. However,
this guide is by all intensive purposes complete. I'm still going to accept
all e-mails, but whether or not I put it into the guide will be judged by
importance. I want this chapter of my life to be over. Nostalgia is such an
addictive bliss. See you around.
Version 1.50 - 11/18/04
------------
I'm about 1000 people away from finishing Star 4. My arm hurts from all of the
clicking to lower the prices. After I get 5 Star, I'm probably going to be
resting for a week, but I've decided that when I complete the walkthrough,
I'm going to declare it version 2.00. Then that will probably the end of my
guide. I'll still accept e-mails and stuff, but I won't be making regular
updates. My second guide will probably involve something with less clicking.
I'll have a decision by 2.00.
Version 1.49 - 11/17/04
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OK, I've added in a lot of stuff. First, I want to ask if anyone else has
noticed how differently my writing style was before and after my five month
"break". My update notifications before the break are straight to the point,
but my ones afterwards are bigger and more conversational. Well, anyways, I
realized how annoying it will be to scroll through the walkthrough section when
I finish Star 3 and move to Star 4. So, I've acted upon it now. There are now
shortcuts to the start of each star walkthrough in the contents section which,
by my own guide version rules, gives this update a .1 upgrade. Speaking of
walkthrough, I've made more progress on Star 3 and am so close to finishing
it and moving to Star 4. Next update will probably be when I finish Star 3,
which actually is this one. I wrote this update before I continued on, but I
ended up exceeding my target point. So, I've got the Star 4 shortcut up, and
I've started on the Star 4 walkthrough. Quoting the fast food info box,
"Business is good." Wow, this really constitutes a .1 updrage now, eh?
Version 1.39 - 11/13/04
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My devotion and my brother never giving me a turn on the PS2 after we bought
GTA: San Andreas has lead to the return of my walkthrough file. The five people
who've read this guide can now rejoice. I've continued the walkthrough and
added on a little bit to Star 3 and I hopefully will be finishing it by '05.
But for now, progress is good. Say... my second guide could be San Andreas.
I'll have to ponder over whether or not to do it, because it's a BIG game.
IF I make a decision, you folks will be the first to know.
Version 1.38 - 11/3/04
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The slow, painful death of my computer has become an inevitability. I highly
doubt I will be able to finish this guide before my computer dies on me. As
a matter of fact, I seem to have misplaced or just possibly lost my SimTower
accompanying file, so I get to be the first to try my guide. Fun. I'm also
adding a contribution from James Bond about the super-duper event that I
forgot about: the buried treasure. I've added it in the Events section.
Don't worry, I'm progressing on the walkthrough, but like I said, my current
file is corrupted and I can't find my backup. So... it'll have to wait. The
day I re-complete my file is the day the walkthrough continues. Stay tuned.
Also, upon a further read-through of my guide brought to my attention several
conflicting statements. I fixed those as best as I could and also... it's funny
to see what you write like when you're unconfident in your guide writing
skills. But now, I might even consider a second guide, but something bigger. If
I get an idea on what game I might do, I'll post it in updates. Now, I need to
start redoing my guide. Oh, by the way, I'd like to wish GameFAQs a happy ninth
birthday. I don't really know what else to say.
Fun statistic: this little guide I started seven months ago has become:
721 lines long!
Version 1.37 - 9/19/04
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When did this margin rule occur? Arrgh... i'm going to be spending some time
fixing all these errors and making sure it doesn't go over the required 80
characters.
Version 1.36 - 9/19/04
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No, I did NOT forget about this guide...I just never got around to writing it.
With the addition of school homework on my regular schedule comes the
annoucement that I have received two e-mails since my last update 5 months ago.
These two e-mails alone have reminded me that there are people around the world
are reading this guide and it is my sole duty to finish it. So, I'm pleased to
say that this guide will be finished soon enough! Hopefully. This update is
really just to add in that I'm not dead and that I'm adding in the two comments
which are pretty awesome. Big thanks to David Zhong and John Kao (I hope I
spelled those right...) for re inspiring me to finish this guide. You may have
noticed that this is Version 1.36. So, where's 1.35? I skipped it. I felt that
this wasn't too big of an update to receive a full .1 upgrade, but it was too
big to receive only a .01 upgrade. So it receives a .02 upgrade.
Version 1.34 - 4/12/04
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Started 3 Star Walkthrough. Still no e-mails... :(
Version 1.24 - 3/5/04
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Changed 2 star requirements to needing only 1 Security Office, not two.
Version 1.23 - 3/4/04
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Started the walkthrough section.
Version 1.13 - 3/3/04
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I feel so popular... added neoseeker.com to my accepted sites list.
Version 1.12 - 3/1/04
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Added DLH.net to the accepted sites list.
Version 1.11 - 2/28/04
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I won't be working on it every day, but I still have a lot of stuff I forgot
about.
-Added in FAQ section(coming soon).
-Added Rain in events.
-Added in Walkthrough(coming soon).
Version 1.01 - 2/27/04
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-Added something in semi-cheats from GameWinners.
Version 1.00 - 2/26/04
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There. I think that's everything. There's still a lot of stuff missing that I
can't remember, but it can be added in later. Here's to finishing my first FAQ,
I guess.
Version 0.50 - 2/26/04
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The morning after... Mainly got through Buildings and finished up the
Transportation section. Going online soon, hopefully.
Version 0.00 - 2/25/04
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After writing the Intro, I can see how much work this will be. Expect a lot of
changes as I get submissions (if any =P).
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3. Getting Started NINT
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Every game has a goal to reach and rules to set. The section here is going to
explain those goals and give personal advice.
Clicking on New Tower gives you a mini-map, an info bar (with a clock), and a
tool window. Looking on your mini-map shows blue skies, moving clouds, and a
gray box showing what you are looking at. By the time you've become experienced
at the game, the blue skies will be replaced by a giant gray shape that is your
tower.
The mini-map in detail will show many things eventually, but for right now has
four buttons on top: Edit, Eval, Pricing, and Hotel, currently grayed out.
You should currently be in Edit mode; if not, click on it. See how the clouds
are moving in it? Edit mode is the only mode where time will pass in the game.
Eval mode will automatically pause the game. The gray in here will either turn
blue, yellow, or red. These represent your buildings. As described just below
the buttons, blue means an excellent evaluation of the building. Don't change
a thing. They're happy, so leave them. Yellow is the cautionary status of a
building; this is still nothing to worry about. However, if you ever see a red
building, this is where you worry. At the beginning of each quarter, some red
tenants will move out, and you lose the profit of the rent. This is bad for
condos, because after the current tenants move out, more might move in almost
instantly. Condos are the only building that you *cannot* change the rent for
after purchasing. All other buildings are OK.
Each rentable building has four price levels, which vary. The next button,
Pricing, shows the price level for each building by a color, again explained
underneath the buttons. Red colors mean the price is at the highest rent price.
Yellow signals the average price (second from top in drop list), green coloring
is sort of low (second from bottom), where as blue is the lowest rent available.
My personal strategy has been to set all the prices to blue. This generates the
lowest income, but a blue price also gives an indefinite blue Eval as well. In
other words, the tenants never move out when they're given the lowest price of
the bunch. I find it handy, even though I lose most of my 2.1 million income to
a 2 million maintenance cost.
The hotel buildings are a building that become useable starting with the single
room at the two star level. The minimap will show rooms that are dirty in red.
In order to clean them, you need a housekeeping staff, also available at star
two. However, note two things about housekeeping: a) They CANNOT be bulldozed.
Once you place them, they sit there until the end of your tower, good or bad.
Therefore, plan carefully as to what you will do before you place items like
housekeeping. b) The maids will not use a regular elevator to move between
floors. Instead, you need a service elevator to transport maids. This may be
confusing, but all will be explained.
With the mini-map finished with, go ahead and close it with the little square
in the top-left corner of the mini-map, not the whole application. You can open
it later in the windows menu. The next focus is on the info bar with the clock.
The clock is... well, a clock. If you can't read analog, it's OK. The clock is
sort of unimportant in the whole scheme of things, unless you like watching
people on their lunch break or something. You'll have more important stuff to
do anyways.
The star is your rating. As you can see, there are four hollow slots for you
to fill with more stars. So, how do you get the stars? The little chart here
will try to help.
Stars Requirements
----- ------------
1 None; you start here.
2 Population of 300
3 Population of 1,000 & 1 Sec. Office
4 Pop. of 5,000, more than one Hotel Suite, Recycle & Medical
demands met, and a favorable VIP rating (see Events about it)
5 Pop. of 10,000 and a Metro Station underground
TOWER Pop. of 15,000 and a Cathedral. (VERY hard! Been here once)
To the right of those stars is a chart e.g. 1st WD/1Q/1st Year. This means:
First Weekday of the first quarter of the first year. In each quarter, there are
2 weekdays and 1 weekend. Office workers show up on the weekdays, while most
shopping profits can be made on the weekend. After the weekend, it's the first
weekday of the next quarter. After the fourth quarter, it's a new year.
Offices fork over the rent at the beginning of each quarter, so be sure to make
the tenants happy before then, or you'll lose money.
Fund and Pop are your funds and your tower population. Pretty self-explanatory.
The little white box at the bottom of the info bar is very, very, important.
That box tells you the important things in your tower: when your buildings are
sold, transportation problems, when your recycling centers are full, etc. Pay
attention to it. Some messages go too fast to read, but they will be repeated
most of the time.
Some advice for your starting tower: don't make your tower lobby too big. You
won't be able to jump all hurdles in a single bound. Instead, try something
simple and use offices. Offices have a good population with low risks if you
try a variation of my low-price policy. This game isn't linear at all, so
experiment a little! Half of this game is trial and error; the other half is
frustration. I personally believe condos can be good, but have caused too many
of my towers to fall in later years. Just try to use offices, since you can
change rent whenever you want. When you get into later stars, try adding a hotel
division to your tower.
Oh, right. Something I forgot... offices are loud and busy, and will annoy
buildings like hotels and condos, but don't mind being next to each other. So,
If you do build hotels, use the magnifying glass to make sure there's no note
that says "Office neighbor is too noisy". If it does, move it further away.
Transportation is no joke in this game. Long elevator waits will stress outside
visitors and might discourage them from suggesting the tower to friends and
family. This can then lead to those people not coming back and causing less
customers in shops and fast food stores, effectivly killing $5,000 from your
funds and in the long run, assuming you do not recognise the problem at hand,
kill your tower expansion. If you are foolish enough to try and raise money by
raising rent, which you hopefully aren't, it then encourages the office tenants
to move and kill another $3-4,000 of your funds until you're stuck with an empty
tower. But, that's a worst case sceneario. In reality, it won't get that bad,
but it helps not to get all of your customers angry at your one elevator.
Sims will only take two methods of transportation to their destination. For
example, let's say you have two elevator shafts. One shaft goes from floors
1-30 and the other goes from 30-59. Elevators can only span a maximum of 30
floors, so this would be neccesary to reach something like floor 58. The Sim
enters the tower on floor 1 and needs to get to his office on floor 58. There
is only one elevator car running the 30 floor shaft. The Sim was late to work
and showed up during the lunch hour. Assuming 2 Sims were on every floor except
1, the elevator would pick up the first 21 people and rush to floor B1. It
rushes back up to the next floor and so on and so on. The Sim finally gets to
his office with a lot of stress, which brings down the eval of the office.
There are two solutions I've found to remove most stress on floors. You can add
more cars in an elevator shaft, or you can only have the shafts go up 15 floors
to the first skylobby instead of a full 30. If the elevator car has less floors
, it can move faster and it helps a lot IMO. The most effective technique is a
combination of both, but try not to over-produce your cars. Sims can handle a
little stress.
The elevator example may bring up a good observation to the keen-eyed. If
elevators are 30 floors max, your elevators can't go above the 60th floor.
However, you need the Cathedral on the very top height of your tower, floor
100. This is where the express elevator comes in. The express elevator stops
every 15 floors, which is where you can place skylobbies. The express elevator
has no length limit, so it can go to floor 90 and an elevator can go from 90 to
100. Problem solved.
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5. Buildings PSX
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I'm going to try to make a chart for the buildings, but if you don't like it,
tell me.
Name Cost Available Removable
---- ---- --------- ---------
Lobby 22,000 Star 1 No
Floor 500 Star 1 No
Stairs 5,000 Star 1 Yes
Elevator 200,000/Shaft, 80,000/Car Star 1 Yes
Office 40,000 Star 1 Yes
Condo 80,000 Star 1 Yes
Fast Food 100,000 Star 1 Yes
Service E 100,000/Shaft, 50,000/Car Star 2 Yes
Single Ho 20,000 Star 2 Yes
Security 100,000 Star 2 No
Park Ramp 50,000 Star 3 Yes
Park Spot 3,000 Star 3 Yes
Recycle C 500,000 Star 3 Yes
Escalator 20,000 Star 3 Yes
Express E 400,000/Shaft,150,000/Car Star 3 Yes
Twin Hote 50,000 Star 3 Yes
Hotel Sui 100,000 Star 3 Yes
Restauran 200,000 Star 3 Yes
Retail Sh 100,000 Star 3 Yes
Movie The 500,000 Star 3 Yes
Party Hal 100,000 Star 3 Yes
Medical C 500,000 Star 3 Yes
Metro Sta 1,000,000 Star 4 No
Cathedral 3,000,000 Star 5 No
There. Some items have special requirements, so let's tackle those. First, the
Lobby can only be placed on Floor 1 and on every increment of 15 floors. Sims
on elevators will only change floors at a skylobby, so it is crucial for your
tower to have nothing but lobbies every 15 floors.
Before I get an e-mail on how the lobby tool is only 5,000, let me explain why
mine says 22,000. The 5,000 you see on your screen is for one tile length.
However, the lobby tool spans four tile lengths. That makes 5,000 * 4, 20,000.
The extra 2,000 comes from the 500 cost of the floor space, again set at one
tile length. Since there are four tiles to place flooring on, that makes a
2,000 cost. Adding the costs together gives 22,000. The read-me file included
on the disc explains this better than I can, and I should probably thank the
read-me file for its explaination, since I got the explaination from it.
The floor tool is to even out your building. You are not allowed to have a
floor be wider than the floor below it. This tool widens the floor so you can
place the really big stuff without having to lose a building. Anytime you build
a building, the floor cost is automatically included. Open floor is gray. Also,
you can click and drag along the area to put the flooring in without constant
clicking of the mouse.
When you get to Star 2, you recieve the Security office. Security is used to
sniff out the bombs your tower has when you get the terrorist event (see
Events). Security only uses outside stairs on the side of your tower. You
need at least one Security office as a requirement to advance to Star 3.
Parking ramps are demanded by office workers at Star 3. The first ramp must be
below the lobby, and the next down must be vertically aligned with the first
parking ramp.
Parking spots must be touching the parking ramp or another parking space in
order to function. If you bulldoze one the cuts the chain, all of the broken
parking spaces have a big red X on them. A fun trick I learned while making the
walkthrough was that you can use parking spots like you do the floor tool
mentioned above. If you click and drag, you can create chains of parking spots
connected to the ramp.
The Recycle Center is a requirement to Star 4. The garbage fills up and is
emptied the next morning. The instruction manual says you need a service
elevator for them to work properly, but I have found this to be wrong. Tell
me if I'm wrong. If the garbage centers fill up, the truck cannot get in and
the center is effectively useless; bulldoze it and make another with an extra
one touching it to spread the junk. Recycle Centers must be connected to each
other or you can't build one.
The escalator can only be used in commercial spaces like shops and theaters.
In other words, you can't have an escalator in an office complex.
The express elevator will only stop every 15 floors if they are sky lobbies;
this is why you want to place the sky lobbies where you get to. An express
elevator is needed if you ever want your tower to go above the 60th floor
(see Transportation).
Hotel suites are a must for your tower. You need a parking space for each suite
and the VIP will only stay in a hotel suite (see Events). Not only do you need
a good VIP eval to advance to Star 4, you also need more than one Hotel Suite.
I also find them good money makers, since hotels have customers daily.
The Movie Theater is a good way to make income, but it costs 150,000 for
an average movie and 300,000 for the new blockbuster, and they can't generate
that much money. They span two floors and are really useful for attracting
Sims to your shops, so place shops near your theater if you choose to have one.
Party halls are used by your hotel visitors to mingle. If you have a lot of
hotels, place one of these near them and you'll get some good income.
The Medical station is a requirement for advancement to Star 4. Place one
near your lobby. Does this even do anything? Apart from the requirement to
Star 4, this indestrucible item seems to just take up space and I seldom see
people in this place.
The Metro Station is the coolest item IMO. You need it to advance to Star 5.
The Station brings in outside visitors and they will shop in your underground
facilities only. You can't build anything under them and can't be removed.
They span three floors, so you shoud place it on B8,9,and 10. The read-me
file mentions that some versions allow you to build on B10. Do not even
think of doing that. If you even move the elevator down to B10 it creates a
floor tile that can't be removed, and your metro station is impossible to
build. The station's tunnel goes through all of B10, so the floor tile blocks
the tunnel from being built. I repeat: DO NOT BUILD ON FLOOR B10! Also, you
can only have one metro station per tower.
The Cathedral is where it will end. It is only available in Star 5 and is the
only requirement, besides population, to get the all-mighty TOWER rating. The
Cathedral can only be placed on floor 100, and in order to get the rating, you
need a wedding to occur there. The wedding will only occur on a weekend. If the
wedding occurs, then congratulations! You have accomplished SimTower's main
goal. Try setting your own goals and start over or something.
There are plenty of events in SimTower. Here they are:
Rain: While this isn't an event of importance, it is once in a while and has an
effect on your tower, so I classified it as one. When it rains, people don't
come to your tower as much, since no one wants to be drenched (where's their
SimUmbrella?). It effects the fast food business mostly, and the rain usually
stops before hotel check-in, so your hotels don't go to waste. In speculation,
the rain shouldn't matter as much when you have a metro station, since it's
underground, but I haven't looked into my theory.
Fire: Basic. One of your buildings catches fire and spreads to other buildings.
You are offered fire rescue for $500,000, but it may be too expensive at the
beginning. It's probably best to let nature run its course. Afterwards, just
bulldoze the burned buildings and build them again.
Terrorist: I like this event even though it's bad. The adrenaline of it is sort
of cool. Terrorists call up and blackmail you for $300,000 or they detonate a
bomb in the tower. If you have the money, pay them. If you don't have it or
want to save $300,000, click on find the bomb. Your Security forces quickly
scan the building, with one of the six units from each office covering a floor.
If you find it, that's good. If you don't, it literally blows up about 5 floors
of your tower. One FAQ writer said that you should always click on find the
bomb, because if it blows up, it's still cheaper than the blackmail. I found
this untrue. My bomb blew up in a section of hotel suites, costing me 2
million instead of 300,000. The decision is yours to make. Actually, my bomb,
which should have detonated at 3:00, detonated at 1:00 instead. Don't trust
terrorists...
VIP: This event is important, since you need a good evaluation to advance to
Star 4. VIPs only stay in Hotel Suites, and after they check out, you will
be told if they liked it or not. Some people have suggested things like cutting
off transportation services to all floors but the one the VIP will stay in.
This works, but I find it defeating the difficulty. The VIP is supposed to tell
you how the tower was, and if the VIP doesn't experience a little stress, it
sort of seems like cheating. If they aren't happy, don't worry. You'll have
another chance to please them. The VIP is almost like constructive criticism
in a way, except without any criticism and just complaints. Use it to your
advantage.
Santa: Jolly old Saint Nick drops by on WE/4Q/whatever year. At night, look for
a red dot across the screen and click on it to see him. No presents, sorry.
Buried Treasure (contributed by James Bond): How could I forget this wonderful
event? The buried treasure is an event that occurs while you make buildings on
the underground floors. Eventually, your workers will find a chest of treasure
that is worth about a half-million. Very, VERY cool. If you wanted, you could
keep building fast food places underground until you find this treasure, but
you shouldn't. You'll lose more money than you'll earn.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Walkthrough FEB
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Star MAR
------
So, you have a lot of open space, $2 million, and all these items in a tool
bar. What now? Well, for starters, click on the left side of the mini-map.
Build a lobby and stretch it one screen length; if the screen scrolls, you
can stop. You want it to be all visible so you can manage stuff on a small
scale. Once you get the hang of it we'll be expanding. Build as many offices as
you can above it. On my screen, it perfectly fits 11 offices with no leftover
space. Results may vary from screen to screen. Before building any
transportation to your new offices, if you want to follow my low rent
suggestion in Getting Started, lower the prices now. They may seem low, but
over time they pay themselves off and make profits. After you've lowered the
prices (if you chose to; this is in no way a linear game), it's time to make
some transportation up to those offices. Since you're starting out, do not
build an elevator yet. You only have one floor, so it's useless at this point
of the game AND they cost 10,000 in maintenance every quarter. That can really
cut into your profits. Oh, right; there's also the fact that they cost 200,000
per shaft! However, stairs don't have a maintenance cost and are only 5,000.
I'd say that's pretty good for your limited funds. Don't overload your tower
with stairs. It's just being over-effecient. If your tower holds 11 offices as
well, then you should have a population of 66 people. Yay. Since you need 300
people to the 2 star level, let's do some math. 66 people per floor means about
5 floors to get 300 people. Build 4 more floors of offices. Lower the prices
again before you make some transportation up there. If you can't afford all of
the buildings to go in yet, just minimize the game and let it run without you.
Once you can make all of the buildings, change the rents to your liking. Then,
build an elevator up to floor 6 and let the buildings be sold. If all goes
well, you should be at a 2 star rating. Addmitedly, this strategy can take a
long time in your tower e.g. 15 years until 2 star. If you're not worried about
time then you should be fine. If you are, then you might want to find another
guide.
2 Star APR
------
With this star comes the addition of one of my favorite items, the hotel rooms.
Anyways, after your offices sell, you should have enough for a new elevator
car. Buy one and put it in your elevator shaft. You can afford the
maintenance now and also there's going to be long lines at the elevator stop
and people will get agitated. Once again, wait a couple of years and build up
some money for some stuff. Once you have about 150,000, build your elevator
into the B1 floor and make a fast food place on the far left of the floor.
The fast food makes some good money on weekends once it becomes popular among
your office workers. My fast food right now can get 225 people on weekdays but
only about 25 people on weekends. However, 5,000 twice followed by -3,000 is
still a 7,000 profit. It will have more visitors on weekends, but you'll have
to wait. To get to 3 star, you are allowed to count hotel people towards your
population. However, once you do get to star 3, you cannot count the hotel
people towards your population. You can add hotel rooms if you want for money,
but you won't need one until 3 star, so I'm skipping them until later. For now,
follow the same rules you did on 1 Star: keep building offices in a line until
you hit the target population. My tower needed to go up to floor 17. Remember
to make a sky lobby every 15 floors. After you hit the 1,000 mark, you still
have another task: make a security office. I reccomend placing it on its own
floor, so one floor above the end of your offices. This is a good idea since
you want to get rid of bombs in the building or put out a fire. They cost
maintenance, but they're worth it. If you place two stations next to each
other, it's only effective in one area. You want to spread your stations for
total coverage of the tower and work in harmony with each other. When you make
a bigger building later on, don't forget about security offices to cover higher
floors. Otherwise, your floor 11 men will have a hard time finding the bomb on
floor 56. After you get the security office put in, you should get a
notification that you've made it to star 3.
3 Star JUN
------
After you build the Sec. Office, put offices to fill in the rest of the floor.
You're going to be bombarded with a bunch of messages about recycling and
medical requirements. The first thing you should do is place a medical center
near your Fast Food facility on B1 (the medical center can be found in a
sub-menu of the security office). The medical demands will be cleared
immediately. After this, build an express elevator on the opposite end of your
tower from your first one (if you placed the first standard elevator shaft on
the left side of your tower, place the express elevator's shaft on the right
side of your tower, and vice versa). Stretch it up to floor 15. Now, in order
to settle the Recycle Center demands, access the sub-menu of the Fast Food
icon. Look at all those new toys :). We'll deal with those later. I felt like
getting you hyped about them. In order to really get a recycle center, hold
down the new button next to the security office. The recycle center button
is the one at the bottom with the picture of the... trash cans! Whoa! Who
would've guessed? The recycle center is two floors, and can only be
placed underground. Place the first one next to your medical center so that it
takes up some of B1 and B2. Place a second one next to that one (hotels use
them a lot and they're useless full). This should clear all demands except for
one: Parking. Your tower as is doesn't have enough room for a parking ramp or
any spaces, so it's time for an expansion. The expansion will not only help you
for parking, but also will allow you the room to build your hotels and suites.
Click on your lobby tool and set the view so the emergency stairs on the
right side of the tower are barely on the left side of the screen. You can
use the scroll bar to fine tune the view. Extend the lobby another screen
length. It's safe to go a little over just in case. Build the parking ramp
right next to the recycle center. Access the sub-menu of the ramp after that
and select the P (Parking Space). Click on the area to the right of the ramp.
You should get a parking spot created. If there's an X over the spot, it's not
touching the ramp. Bulldoze it and place it so it touches it this time. All
parking spots must be in a chain touching the parking ramp. Here's a little
trick I learned: You can build parking spots like a lobby. Click, hold, and
make a long chain to the end of the lobby. Make a second parking ramp directly
under the first one; it won't work any other way. Of course, make more parking
spots. Click on the one bed hotel room. Build rooms starting on the right side
of the tower until you're touching the offices on floor two. Pause the game and
look at the rooms near the offices and go right until you find one that does
NOT say, "Office neighbor is too noisy". Bulldoze that one. This will act as a
marker. Bulldoze the rooms to the left of that (not the offices, though). Place
a housekeeping unit next to the hotel rooms. Also, build an elevator in the
middle of the hotel rooms. Because of Suites taking up parking spaces, it will
be necessary to stretch them down to the parking levels, even if they're only
used by offices so far. Your housekeeping (for some reason) will only send out
one worker per floor. Your hotel length is too big for one unit to clean; this
will lead to an unused room and, if un-attended for a long time, a cockroach
infested room. The cockroaches spread to other rooms and will eventually infest
the entire chain. The only solution to this problem, apart from removing some
rooms, is to build a second housekeeping. Since your hotel area will have more
rooms on higher floors, I recommend building a second housekeeping a floor
above the first one. After that, build a service elevator (in the elevator
sub-menu; it has an S on it) and connect floor 2 and 3. Go ahead and make more
hotel roooms on floor 3 (two workers per floor easily get the job done). Don't
forget to drop prices to the bare minimum. Build six more floors of offices on
top of the other offices, lower the prices, and stretch the elevator up. You
should have about 1500 people; you need 5000 to advance. However, the offices
will balance your maintenance costs from the new elevators and housekeeping (I
can't remember if I mentioned this or not, but if you're ever curious about
what your maintenance costs or profits are, you can click the magnifying glass
on the lobby or any skylobby). Take the hotel service and standard elevators
and stretch them another floor up. Yes, we're building more hotel rooms. This
time, however, they're going to be two bedroom spaces. They cost a bit more,
but they're worth it. Access the sub-menu of the hotels and select the button
with a 2 on it. You should align these rooms with the one-bed rooms below it.
Look at the leftmost one-bed room on floor 3. Place the two-bed room above it
so that the left ends of each are lined up. Keep building to the right until
you hit the end of the lobby. Lower the prices and repeat for floor 5. It
is not necessary to have a housekeeping building on every floor. As you
recall, I stated that there is one housekeeping person sent out for a floor.
This means that one building can take care of six floors. For hotel floor 6,
we're going to add on some suites. The suites are in the hotel sub menu and
have an S marked on them. The VIP guest, who must give a good rating of their
stay in order to advance to Star 4, will only stay in suites. I don't think
I've ever failed the VIP visit before, but if you do, they'll come back
eventually to give you a second chance. Obviously, the VIP will like low prices
to stay in a hotel suite for one night, so, like everything else, drop the
prices of the suites to bare minimum. I made an interesting observation
regarding hotels today: You know that little space left over from the 2 bedroom
hotels? A one bedroom fits in there. The space left over from the suites on the
right side of the tower fits a two bedroom. This could just be for my tower,
but if you followed my guide like I did, then this is a nice way to make a
little more money. Anyways, eventually the VIP will come to the tower. Mine
already has, and they enjoyed it. Since the suites are on floor 6, you
shouldn't need to add on a second elevator to please them. After the VIP has
checked out, add in more offices up to floor 29. Lower the prices, bring the
elevators up, you should know the drill by now. Add a sky lobby on floor 30 and
make a Security office on the left end of floor 31. But wait, your elevator
shaft can only cover 30 floors! B1 to floor 29 is 30 floors. So, you need a new
elevator shaft. As a personal preference I like the elevator shafts to start
at a sky lobby, so place the elevator shaft at floor 30 and bring it down to
floor 29 so that your Sims can transfer by express or normal. Speaking of
express, bring your express elevator up to floor 30. After that, place
the security office on the left side or floor 31 and fill in the rest of the
floor with offices like you did with the other one. This brings you to
slightly under 2000 people in your tower. Only 3000 more to go. Add another
elevator car to your B1-29 elevator; you might have noticed all of the Sims
glowing red with anger waiting for a car. This should help a little bit.
Actually, since you probably have the money from all of those offices lying
around, fill up your B1-29 shaft with cars until it says you can't anymore.
Another quick note: if you haven't already, bring the Express shaft down to B2.
Offices on floor 30 and above won't be able to get to their offices if you
don't. By now, you probably have over 10 million dollars. It's time to go into
office overdrive. Build offices up until floor 44 and lower all of the prices.
After you've finished that, make a sky lobby on 45 and place a security office
in the left side of floor 46. This is probably going to notify you that you
need more parking spaces. It's time to move down into B3. Drop the express
elevator down to B3 and make a third parking ramp and add in parking spots.
The office expansion probably added in roughly 1000 more people to your
population. This tower's going up to floor 75, also known as the 3/4ths
point, to leave 3 Star for good. Make offices up to floor 59; however, the
elevator shaft will only stretch up to 58. Make another shaft at floor 58 next
and bring it up to 60. Place a skylobby at 60 and bring the express up to 60
as well. Place a security office on the left side of 61 and fill the rest of
the floor up with offices and make sure you remember to add on that little last
bit of flooring. After that, make offices up to floor 74 and put a skylobby
on 75. Lower all of the prices and bring both elevators up to 75. If you are
still a bit under the 5000 mark, make as many more offices on 76 and up as
needed. Once you've accomplished that, you probably still won't get that golden
fourth star. Why? Because you need more parking. Also, your recycling centers
have probably filled up. They're now useless; bulldoze them and replace them
and add in a third center on B2-B3. It must be touching the other two centers.
If you have extra space on the left side of it, throw in two more fast food
places just for money. If you have extra space on the right that can be
connected to the parking ramp, add in parking spots. Star at the ramp and go
left. If you haven't gotten the fourth star from those extra spots, go ahead
and place another ramp on B4. However, I didn't need the fourth ramp, and this
means only one thing: Star 3 is finally over with. Pat yourself on the back;
I myself have made it to 4 star very few times.
4 Star JUL
------
Welcome to Star 4! This is exactly like star 3, but you get one more item: the
metro station. You can only have one in your station, and it spans THREE
floors. It's only underground, and nothing can go beneath it, so place your
metro station on B8, B9, and B10. Yes, there is going to be a lot of dirt
between your metro station and your other B-floor items, but oh well.
Remember how Star 3 required 5,000 people? You've got to double it.
Thankfully, that is the only requirement because you've already put your metro
station in. However, even if you build offices up to floor 100, you won't hit
the target point. This means the tower is having another expansion. However,
this is a major expansion: the tower is going all the way to the right side of
the entire game board. Do this now. However, you're not using it until you make
your current office zone up to floor 100. Just keep building offices to 100 and
then just lower all of the prices, bring the elevators up to 100, and let the
offices sell themselves. Remember to place a skylobby at 90. Also, your
elevator is going to stop at 87 due to the 30 floor rule. Make a new shaft at
87 and bring it up to 100. Congratulations, you've reached the top floor.
Your recycling centers are reaching the top again; we're going to move them
right now for good. bulldoze the three centers and make new ones on the FAR
right side of your tower. In other words, place them in the field of dirt you
received when you expanded your lobby. Place five of them side by side. As for
the space that used to occupy your recycling centers, make parking spaces.
Now, give EVERY office elevator shaft 8 cars. Also put 8 in the express
elevator to speed up the picking up of Sims. We now need to start a second set
of offices and they're going to go to the right of your hotels. Remember in
Star 3, when we kept making hotel rooms until we had one that didn't say
"Office neighbors are too noisy"? WE're doing that again. Place an office on
the right side of the hotels, but remember to give space. Measure the space on
the left side between the left side HOTEL, not housekeeping, room and the
office. Estimate by buliding size, e.g. one housekeeping and one unit short of
an office. Place your first office after that and keep going to the right end
of the screen. Also, make a new elevator and express elevator shaft over near
your new offices. A problem with making a new office facility is that people
will automatically move in because they can access the offices from the far
left elevator. Therefore, you have to move fast and lower the prices quickly
after you make the offices. Fill up your new elevator shafts with 8 cars for
later. Also, stretch the B1 and B2 parking over to the recycling centers.
Raise the offices to floor 14 and place a skylobby at 15. Once you hit 15,
put 8 cars in the express shaft. Connect the skylobby from the first office
sector to the second office sector. Next, bring your elevators up to floor 30
and build offices up to there. Do it in portions; if you do it for too long at
standard prices, the tenants will move out and you'll lose money. Lower the
prices. You are probably about 1000 or so short of 10,000. 10-15 more floors
of offices should do it, then you'll be at the 5 star rating. The only tough
part of this game is the 3 Star level, after that it's all hard work to the
top. This tower is going to be HUGE. Make sure your new express elevator is
stretched down to B3 for the parking spaces. The emppty space you have between
your elevator and your last parking space should be filled with, surprise, more
parking spots! Since you've reached floor 30, your standard elevator has
reached its limit. Place a new elevator at floor 30. Build more offices up to
floor 45 and, as usual, lower the prices, put in a skylobby at 45, and bring
the elevators up to 45. Actually, stop at 40 and lower the prices up to there.
This will probably bring your tower rating to a five star. However, a problem
has come to my attention: the offices on the opposite side of your elevator
will say that it's either far away or too far away. So, your new office block
will require two elevators. Whatever side your current elevator is on, place
another elevator shaft on 30 on the other side of the block. Place another
elevator on 1 as well on the opposite side of the elevator. Now, even if you
have reached 5 star, in which case congratulations, build offices up to floor
45. Place the skylobby on floor 45, bring all three elevators up, lower the
prices, and pat yourself on the back. You've reached star 5 and already 500
or so into the next 5000 people you need.
5 Star AUG
------
WHOO!!! Come on, try it. Just once: WHOOOO!!!!!! There are only 5000 people, a
cathedral, and a wedding between you and the top! Let's get that cathedral over
with right now. You need 3,000,000 dollars, which you should have much more
than by now, and it can only be on floor 100. You have two choices:
1) Tear down some offices on floor 100 and place the cathedral there.
2) Build a BUNCH of offices up to floor 100 and place the cathedral in the
empty space between the two office blocks.
Since you need about 4500 more people to finish up the tower to even consider
getting the wedding, it would appear that we're not going to be building the
cathedral yet. Sorry for the false alarm. For now, build offices up to floor 60
and do the usual. Your elevators will stop at 59, place two new ones at 60 and
bring them down one floor. Add more offices up to 75, lower the prices, place
a skylobby at 75, etc. and bring the elevators up. I apologize if this part if
this part of the walkthrough seems blunt, but come on, you can't say you don't
want to reach tower right now. After you've done all of this, take a rest for
about 5 to 10 minutes. You've probably spent most of your money, and your arm
is probably tired. Now you can take a breaak and make money. Just make sure you
have put the mode back on Eval. You are now only about 2000 people and a
wedding away from Tower status. Think about that as you take a break. AH!
Holy crap! Forget the break for a minute, your recycle centers are full! Place
new ones touching the old ones on lower floors; if you have parking spots
taking up that space, get rid of them and we'll put them on floor B4. You've
been long overdue for more parking spots anyways. Since your recycle centers
stretch down to B4 anyways, you might as well fill in the space there.
Actually, those centers are probably coming pretty close to filling again.
Place a couple more directly below the new two ones. This means the new ones
will be on B5-B6. Heck, you have the money; make a third B5-B6 center touching
the other two. Stretch your elevator shafts up to floor 90. Arrgh, your
shafts will stop at 88. Place new ones on 88 as usual and bring those up to
90. You're probably REALLY running out of funds now, so that 10 minute break
might not be such a bad idea. The only hard thing about Star 5 using this
strategy is that the maintenance starts catching up with all of the offices.
It's also probably because of all of the recycling centers you've added.
Anyways, once you have all of your money back, build offices up to 90
and lower all of the prices. Place the skylobby and smile at the fact that
you are less than 500 people away from the 15000 point. Build your last 10
floors of offices. As soon as you finish these, the game is virtually complete.
Oh, one last thing: your wedding to tower status will only occur on a weekend,
so don't be agitated if you don't immediately get the wedding notification.
Bring your elevators up to floor 100. After you finish your last 10 floors of
offices, lower all of the prices and cross your fingers that it'll break
15000. And you know what? It will. If you have over 3,000,000 dollars to spend,
build a cathedral in between your two offices blocks on floor 100 and build an
express elevator going up to 90 and then a standard elevator reaching for the
top. I suppose I will use this time to remind you to save often. It may be a
bit late for simple advice, but my game just had an error so I have to finish
the floor 100 block again. Anyways, after you've built the cathedral and the
elevator up to it, just wait. Oh, also, in case you haven't found out yet, the
cathedral is under the parking row. You probably noticed it when you were
adding in spaces earlier. Oh, it would appear you don't get a reservation for
the wedding. Anyways, you'll watch the wedding, you'll see the little Cupid
people holding the banners saying "Welcome to Tower", your stars will be gone,
replaced with the word TOWER, one letter in each star slot, and then you know
it's finally all over. The cathedral looks like the cherry topping on a cake,
or maybe those little toothpicks that stick out of sandwiches. No matter what,
my job here is done. What you do with your tower is now up to you. Will you
add in more offices? Will you expand the small hotel block we added in Star 3?
The choice is up to you. Have fun in TOWER status.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Semi-Cheats PS2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There aren't any real cheats for SimTower, but I can tell you some things that
could be semi-cheats.
"Cannot place on top of other items" override: For a quick way to place in
something new over something old, instead of clicking on bulldoze and then
clicking on the new item, hold down shift and click on what you want to get
rid of. It will destroy the old item and place in the new. Thanks to
GameWinners.com for this tip. Word of warning: if you do not line up your
click, you could accidentally end up taking out two things. Be careful.
Doubling Funds: Start a new tower. Before you do anything, click on the
mini-map's bottom left area. Click on the lobby tool and click on the very
bottom left area of the editing screen. The lobby will not build, but your
funds should go from 2,000,000 to 4,000,000. That's the only money cheat.
2/3 Story Lobby: When building your lobby, hold Ctrl for a 2 Story lobby and
Ctrl+Shift for a 3 story lobby. This only works on the ground lobby. Also,
if you want to use the doubling funds cheat and build a 2/3 story lobby, you
need to hold down the buttons when clicking on the bottom left area.
Super Money (contributed by John Kao): I'm quoting this from an e-mail received
by John Kao:
There are times when you need money, but you have to wait till the next day to
get it.
1. Double your money
2. Make a lobby, 2-3 floors, doesn't matter.
3. Make a number of floors, just offices. 3 floors at least.
4. Make a number of floors, just condos. 3 floors at least.
5. Have a few shops underground.
6. Make sure theres an elevator going to each floor to reduce stress.
7. Put evaluation and make sure its always in blue.
8. Run a simulation of it for a few days to see how things go.
9. Get 2 Stars.
10. Make a number of floors, just hotels with service.
11. Make sure that there are elevators that start on the floors with hotels.
12. Make sure that there are elevators that start on the floors with offices.
13. Make sure that there is at least 1 elevator going to the middle of the
floors with condos.
14. Put Stairs, 1 on each floor.
15. Run a simulation of the tower to see how things go.
16. Make sure everything is evaluated in blue.
17. Make sure you have no security offices yet.
18. Make sure you are making a profit.
If everything is running just fine and theres no stress or complaints, leave
your game on fast animation (under options) and let it sit overnight. When you
return, you should be on your 100th year or so, with 100+ million dollars,
giving you ample time to build without pause.
The nifty little escalator trick (contributed by David Zhong): The other e-mail
I got that re inspired me to do this guide again:
Quote from
The escalator can only be used in commercial spaces like shops and theaters.
In other words, you can't have an escalator in an office complex.
Actually, if you demolish your office, build the escalator, then rebuild the
office, you will have built an escalator where your offices are!
See? Isn't that nifty? Now if someone can tell me how to fix the font from
e-mail to Notepad this section would be perfect.
Right then, that's all I have. If you know of any new, tell me and I'll credit
you fully.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. FAQ JAN
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Do I need to put Housekeeping units next to my offices and condos? When
I check them, they say that "conditions are terrible".
A: No. The "conditions are terrible" message means that the price is too high,
as far as I know. Offices and condos do not have to be cleaned or taken care
of in any way, unlike the hotel rooms, which is what the Housekeeping units
are for.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. Credits SEGA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Extra thanks to:
James Bond for the contribution of the buried treasure event.
David Zhong for the nifty little escalator trick.
John Kao for the money trick (in the Semi-Cheats section), even if it is pretty
obvious. Still a contribution nonetheless, and for that I thank you.
GameFAQs for being my only source of info for games and for accepting my guide.
It really is better than the strategy guides out there. Excellent place.
All you other websites that make me feel popular by asking for this lame little
file...
You for showing up and reading this. If no one read this, I'd be useless.
My computer for putting up with all of this.
NotePad+, which helped me get past the little memory problem with NotePad.
GameWinners.com for the little override trick in Semi-Cheats.
Maxis for making one of the best Sims out there.
CJayC, because every other FAQ writer seems to thank him for making GameFAQs.
Also, happy ninth birthday GameFAQS!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. Copyright SONY
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright Kyle McDonald 2004
This FAQ is the sole property of Kyle McDonald (That's me, Kiwizoid). I allow
this FAQ to only be shown at the web sites listed above at the top. If you see
this FAQ anywhere else, please tell me. I don't care if you keep a copy at home
to print out as a guide, but if you want it on your site, just be sure to ask
before doing so. Failure to ask may result in legal action being taken against
you. I'm more than happy to have my FAQ distributed, but only in its entirety
with no modifications and if I am identified as the owner and with my
permission as well.
------------------------End Of File-----------I've always wanted to say that...
