SimTower, otherwise known as "The Vertical Empire" is another great Maxis game that tests your management skills. The objective is to build a successful money making tower. You increase your population by building offices, fast food restaurants, retail shops, and condos, and make money off the rent they pay. To get new facilities to add to your tower you've got to earn stars. Once you've got all five stars, and have built a Cathedral you earn "Tower" status, and well, once you've got that you've basically won.
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I honestly haven't got enough great things to say about this game. We all know Maxis games are addictive, but I don't give K-Stars to classics. If I did, this game would get a good rating.
Hints/Cheats
- At the very beginning of the game, before you build any object, place a lobby on the very bottom left corner of the screen to double your starting funds.
- To get a 2 floor Superlobby, before you build your 1st piece of lobby on ground level, hold down Ctrl-Alt and place the lobby, or Ctrl-Shift for a 3 floor Superlobby.
- To maintain a high Office Eval don't place them next to Retail Shops, Theatres, Restaurants, Hotel Rooms, or Fast Foods.
- To maintain a high Condo Eval don't place them next to any any Retail, Office, Hotel, or other business. Give condos their own floors.
- Place no more than 2 Securities between each Lobby. (One will usually do.)
- Once you get Express elevators (3 stars), don't use Standard Elevators in the bi-levels. Start your first SE at floor 1, and end it a floor 30. Start the next one directly above it on floor 33. at 60, stop it, and start another above that on 63, ect. To keep lineups at a minimum, make sure you've got at least 4 of these, in parallel. Place Express elevators at both ends of your tower, and in the center. place offices or retail shops on floors 31, 32, 61, 62 ect, because they don't require elevator access. Build stairs, for them.
- As a rule, keep the floors directly above and below each sky lobby for retail shops, fast foods, and offices. (ie: 14, 16, 29, 31, 44, 46 ect...)
- To save on maintnance costs, and space, try to keep Hotel Rooms to entire floors, rather than many, in a row with multiple service elevators. One Housekeeping will easily clean about 20 rooms a day, so don't overdo it. If you place more than one floor in a row (ie 4 or 5), place one service elevator dead center, cover all four or 5 floors entirely, and place about 2 housekeeping stations on each floor. Remember that you can't bulldoze housekeeping, so place them carefully.
- Recycling centers are costly to maintain. Only build additional ones when a message tells you that they're full. The lower bi-levels (ie B6, B7) are the best places to put them.
- Don't lower the rent on anything on floors B1, B2, or B3. It's just stupid. Retail Shops will always do well on those floors as long as there is adequate transportation. Three or 4 rows of escalators, evenly spread out will usually do the trick.
You can download a cheat utility that lets you adjust your money and star rating, by clicking the button below!
| TowerHex | towerhex.zip | 4KB |
The
Classics