SimTower: The Phantom Horror
Made by Mental.Man@excite.com

Version 1 Finished 5/27/00

1. Introduction
2. Walkthrough
3. Emergencies and Special Events
4. The Non-Existent Cheats

Introduction

 SimTower is a very good, addictive game (at least, until you get to 4 
stars). It is also frustrating, hard and confusing. This walkthrough 
will get you through the worst and best of this game (mainly worst). 
However, this is not supposed to be used as an alternative help guide. 
In fact, before you start the game, I recommend reading the entire help 
file. This explains a lot, but not everything… Also, try fooling around 
with the game before you read this, because I am NOT going to go into 
detail over every little thing…
 This is my first walkthrough. I chose an easy, stupid game that no one 
has done before because this is my first walkthrough. So now you know 
why this is so bad.

Walkthrough
 Starting out: How to construct, double your funds, and get a decent 
population!

 Doubling Your Funds: When you first start out, you have money, one 
star and a really fast clock. Slow down the clock by clicking on 
"Options" then "Fast Mode". Now, go to the absolute bottom-left of the 
screen. Click on the "Lobby" button on your toolbar, and try to build a 
lobby. Your funds automatically double!
 Now, build a lobby by clicking on a spot on the ground. Once you have 
done this, go and build an underground fast food place, and at lest one 
story of offices. Use stairs to connect your offices, lobby, and fast 
food place. Remember, your occupants only want to climb FOUR sets of 
stairs to get to their destination. This means that you should only 
start out with one basement level, one lobby, and a maximum of 2 
stories of offices (which, by the way, are your major sources of 
income… and stress). If you leave the tower minimized, it still runs. 
This means that you can start up your computer, load your tower, and 
leave it minimized the rest of the day while you work! Since no one has 
heard of overtime in SimTower, no Sim works on the weekends (signified 
by the red WE in the info bar… You know, the one with the star on it!), 
which means that on a rainy weekday, more people come to your café than 
on a sunny weekend! You can alter this by adding a floor of condos, 
which means you have to add an elevator, which costs $100,000 a quarter 
(Note: People only get mildly stressed when they take the stairs, but 
it normally doesn't get out of hand…)

Getting Your Stars: How to Get More Facilities!
 To get two stars, you need a population of 300 people. Easy, right? 
Nope. It is a complicated thing, and you do NOT get two stars just by 
slapping on another 15 floors with condos (which are your major source 
of population, but don't get you any money after someone buys them). 
Instead, you need to go through a long and rigorous process involving 
elevators, floors, and the fast mode function.
 First, you need to get your first four floors established. Then, you 
need to get your elevator system working by fooling around in the 
control panel, working towards eliminating stress. After this is done, 
you need to add floor by floor of condos ONLY! Mixing condos, offices, 
and fast food places on the same floor is generally a bad idea because 
everyone complains about the noise level; unless you have two spaces 
you equal to the space a condo takes up. Also, try not to get your 
tower 30 stories high before you even get two stars, because it is 
better to build out instead of up, even though it means more elevators, 
because it generally reduces stress.
 Once you get to a lot of floors of condos and offices that are all 
near the lobby, and an elevator shaft, you may find people are getting 
stressed (turning pink or red), or your elevators have big fats "F"s on 
them most of the time (they are full). This means that you should add 
another car in your shaft. Before you add that last condo to get a 
population of 300, remember that your population ebbs and flows. This 
may make that last condo unnecessary.

Two Stars! What Now? (To Get Three Stars)
 Well, by now you should have 300 population, a couple floors of 
offices, a fast food place, two or more elevator cars, and lots of 
condos. Now, you can add security, service elevators, a single hotel 
room, and housekeeping. Start off by adding one security on the bottom 
and top floors of your building. Now, put in housekeeping and a bunch 
of hotel rooms. If the last two are not on the same floor, connect them 
with a service elevator. Add a shaft so guests don't have to use a busy 
elevator. When the rooms are finally bringing in cash, check the 
finance window to make sure that they make more money than Housekeeping 
spends! Remember, Housekeeping can support up to 6 floors of hotels, as 
long as the hotels are fairly close to Housekeeping. 
 Once again, if people are stressed out waiting for the "lift" (as they 
call it in Great Britain), add a new car or shaft. Keep on expanding!
 To get to the big three, you need at least two security offices, and a 
population of 1,000. Ouch! Don't worry, though: just add lots of condos 
and hotels. It will bring up your population. Still, your tower is 
going to go through some drastic changes… 
 Get all of your elevators and make them go up to your highest level. 
Add shafts if necessary. Add as many condos as you can, but don't get 
another cluster of hotel rooms just yet. Also, don't worry about 
evaluation unless it is red. Then, you should bulldoze the unhappy 
people!
 When terrorists loom, you generally want to find the bomb. Yes, the 
bomb can explode, but the ransom is much larger than the repair costs 
(probably). If your tower is the maximum width, you probably want to 
pay him, though, because unless the bomb is on the left side of the 
tower, your security will never get there on time.
 If your population is around 600-800, it is time or another cluster of 
hotels! Place the hotels on the 3rd through 8th floors so you can use 
stairs to get to some of them, and place the Housekeeping on the 2nd 
with some more offices.

Three Stars = Trouble!
 Three Stars: The messiest most unrefined part of the game. One star 
was easy. Two stars were challenging. Three is a complete disaster. By 
now, all of your space has run out. You people are unhappy, and your 
elevator/escalator strategy is horrible. Whatever you do, don't blame 
me! To get 4 stars you need a population of 5000, medical and recycling 
needs met, and a favorable VIP rating.
 First, you have to get one hotel suite on the second floor. Give it 
its own elevator and housekeeping. Add at least one parking spot per 
suite. When the VIP comes, watch his evaluation very carefully. If it 
is yellow, lower the price of his room. That takes care of one 
requirement for 4 stars (favorable VIP rating). (Note: If your other 
single hotel rooms have a good elevator system, and they are clean when 
the guests arrive, you do not need to isolate your suite. Now, all you 
need to do is add on about 4,000 condos (seriously) and have at least 
two medical and recycling centers. This may sound easy, but it isn't. 
All your tenants get PO'ed at you and move out. After they move, lower 
the price so others can move in. 
 Add about two movie theaters and one party hall.
 And here's one final tip: Screw money. You are going to lose so much 
it won't be funny. So forget about it!

4 Stars = Run Away Screaming
 4 stars should not happen. Your entire hotel is shunned, but people 
still stay. This is pretty hard. Add a metro station (Yes, it costs 
money but it brings tons of people to your tower. And you need it to 
get 5 stars.) Get 10,000 people. You will need every square pixel of 
space for this physical improbability, but it isn't really worth it. 
This is where the game becomes a nightmare, because of the billions of 
screaming tenants and unhappy residents. Just ignore them.

5 Stars… Shoot me now.
 This is it. No, it's not the end of the game. Maxis wants to brainwash 
you into playing a decent game like SimCity 3000. Unfortunately, if you 
are playing this, you cannot walk away from this for more than a day, 
so get 15,000 people and a Cathedral. Than you get a rating of "Tower" 
Whoopee.

Emergencies and Special Events
 Fires: The most dangerous thing in existence. Fires eat away at your 
facilities, and there are only two ways to stop them: The quick, 
expensive way or the slow, cheap way. The quick way is to call in the 
copter for $500000. It works, but it doesn't get there in time to save 
the first two buildings that burn down. The slow way is to wait until 
Security comes. It works, but it probably won't save the floor that is 
burning.
 Bombs: Psychopathic terrorists like to call you up and ask for 2-30000 
bucks. The catch? If you don't pay them, they will nicely start up a 
timed bomb. Your Security will try to find the bomb. If you have a huge 
tower that is the maximum length and width and stuff, you will probably 
want to shove the money down their throats. Otherwise, your Security 
will probably find the bomb in time. It helps, though, if your security 
is spread out so you don't have 5 rent-a-cops going along the same 
floor.
 VIP Visits: See the 3 Stars Section
 Santa Clause: As far as I can tell, this does nothing. Santa shows up. 
Whoopee. Maybe he takes all those grumpy tenants and throws them out 
the window?

The Non-Existent Cheats
 What has Maxis done!?!? Contrary to almost all of their games, there 
are no decent cheats for this game! There is only one, and it lets you 
start out with 400000 instead of 200000 bucks. See the Walkthrough 
section