Services
Nobody moves into a tower for its recycling center. But past a certain size, a tower without the right services stops growing: the city won’t give it another star, tenants complain about the garbage, and sooner or later something catches fire. This page covers the rooms that keep a big tower running. Most of them cost you money every month instead of earning it, and they are worth every dollar.
| Service | Needed for | Also |
|---|---|---|
| Security | 3★ (two offices) | Catches thieves, makes fires less likely, searches for bombs |
| Medical Center | 4★ | Makes fires less likely |
| Recycling Center | 4★ (enough for everyone) | Keeps garbage from wearing down ratings |
| Parking | 4★ (for the VIP’s suite) | Offices, and in Modern homes, want spaces |
| Metro Station | 5★ | Brings shoppers in from the city |
The full list of what each star needs is on Stars and the TOWER.
Security
Section titled “Security”A Security office keeps six guards. The tower needs two Security offices before it can reach three stars.
Guards earn their keep in three ways. With any Security in the tower, a thief who slips in is caught; without it, the thief walks off with up to $25,000. Security makes a fire much less likely. And when a caller threatens to set off a bomb and you refuse to pay, the guards search the tower for it, floor by floor, walking the fire escapes on the outside of the tower (they never take the elevators). The bomb goes off at 1 PM, and the rest of the tower stands still until the guards find it. More offices mean more guards and a faster search. See Events.
Medical Center
Section titled “Medical Center”Four stars needs a Medical Center. Having one also halves the chance of a fire.
Recycling Center
Section titled “Recycling Center”A tower makes garbage. Each Recycling Center handles the waste of 2,500 people; through the day you can watch it fill, and a garbage truck empties it every morning at 5 AM.
From three stars, a tower with more people than its centers can handle starts to smell: the game warns you, and tenants’ ratings suffer until you build more. Four stars needs enough recycling for everyone. Plenty of recycling also gives your shops a small boost.
Classic Any shortfall at all drags ratings down.
Modern A small shortfall holds ratings at Good; only one more than a whole center’s worth short drags them down.
Parking
Section titled “Parking”Parking is underground. Build a Parking Ramp first, then lay Parking Spaces beside it. A space only works if it touches the ramp or another working space, so chain them off the ramp in a row; a space on its own sits empty.
Who needs a space:
- Hotel suites, one each, always. The VIP drives, and a VIP with nowhere to park circles the block and leaves without the review four stars needs.
- Offices, from three stars, out of whatever is left after the suites. Classic Any spare space at all serves every office; none leaves them all unhappy. Modern One space for every 24 workers, the lowest offices first.
- Modern Homes need spaces too: one for every two condos, three apartments or six studios. Homes short of parking hold at Good and fill more slowly.
Modern A working Metro halves what offices and homes need. Suites still need their own.
Metro Station
Section titled “Metro Station”The Metro is the biggest thing you will build underground: three floors tall and thirty tiles wide. It unlocks at four stars, and five stars needs it.
A working station brings people from all over the city into your shops and restaurants, a quarter more business than your own people bring, and it takes the sting out of rainy days. In Modern it also halves the parking your offices and homes need.
Riders get off on the station’s middle floor, and that platform works like a lobby for shoppers. A shop, restaurant or theater within two floors of it does full business even deep underground. With the station on B8 to B10, the platform is B9, so B7 to B9 are good for shops, while B5 and B6 are too far from both the platform and the ground lobby and take half.
Classic As in the 1994 game, the station only brings in shoppers once its platform is connected: build an elevator, stairs or an escalator down to it. The game warns you if the platform is cut off.
Modern Stairs and escalators built against the station’s wall wind down to it: a spiral staircase, and an escalator that turns back halfway. See Stairs and escalators.
More than one station
Section titled “More than one station”Classic One station per tower, as in the 1994 game.
Modern You can build up to three stations. They all run on one line, so each one goes on the same row as your first station, anywhere along it that is clear, even right beside another. The tunnel fills the gaps between them, and one train runs the whole line: each daytime hour it calls at your stations in turn from left to right, so only one platform has the train at a time.
Every station costs the full price and its own upkeep. The city doesn’t send more riders because you built more stops: the same riders split between your stations, so no one elevator by the platform takes them all. Someone heading back to the train after a visit walks to the station nearest the elevator or stairs that brought them down.
The stations share one platform floor, so the shop rule above works the same with one station or three: shops within two floors of the platform do full business while any station is working. The business boost, the parking help and the five-star requirement come from having a working station, so a second or third adds nothing more to those.
See also
Section titled “See also”- Stars and the TOWER
- Events for fires, thieves and bombs
- Hotels for Housekeeping, the hotel’s own service room