Extra money
Use the magnifying glass to click on the condo that is marked "For Sale". A message similar to "The conditions are terrible" will appear.. Click on the current price, and lower it to $4,000. The comments will disappear, but do not exit. Immediately after the price has been lowered, increase it to $20,000. Note: This trick can also be used with other rooms, such as offices, hotel rooms, and the small retail shops.
Build an elevator in the middle of your tower, then stretch it to the B3 floor. Place fast food facilities on both sides of the elevator. This will result in $200,000.
More money
If you have an office building, place a restaurant on the second basement floor. It will be a guaranteed source of income, and will earn more as your building gets bigger. Note: Only place one restaurant at that location.
When you have just one star, build ten offices. Set the game to fast mode and watch your money grow.
More people
When you get three stars, place a lot of hotel rooms. Do not place suites. Place a good security system and a good housecleaning system. Minimize the game, but do not pause it. Mute the sound, and turn off your monitor and allow the game to run overnight. The game will automatically look for bombs call the fire rescue crew. When bombs are searched for, hotel sims do not check out, so they are added as permanent population. Nothing bad will happen if you planned it correctly. You may place a suite when you have the desired population.
Santa Claus
Set the system date to December 25. Begin the game and Santa Claus and his sled will eventually fly over.
You do not need to have the date set to Dec 25 to see Santa. The game automatically displays Santa at the end of every Sim year, no matter what the computer date is.
When Santa appears, most likely everyone moves out. It will help if you build only offices.
Condos
Do not build condos unless you want fast money and fast. They are a quick fix to a solution that could easily be resolved by some other way.
Offices
It is helpful to build only offices. When condos sell out, you will go deep into debt. Offices still sell out but, if you do go into debt, it is not near as far as with condos.
Restore terrible condos
When people leave condos because of terrible conditions, get the magnifying glass, click on the condo, take the price down to $40,000. The terrible conditions comment should disappear, and you can raise and re-sell it at a normal price.
Never have people leave
Lower the condo prices to $40,000 and the people will never leave.
Determining elevator use
Use the following trick to tell if Sims are waiting to go up or down on an elevator. Remember the mnemonic "LARD". People waiting to the "L"eft of the elevator are "A"scending, while those waiting to the "R"ight of the shaft are "D"escending. Note: This only works if you have elevators positioned so that Sims can go on either side of the elevator. If you have elevators on the edges of your tower, you will only see them on one side.
Sim stress levels
If you have a lot of offices and not enough elevators, you may see Sims that are waiting for an elevator turn pink after a few seconds, then red. This is their stress level and it also affects the population of your tower. Make sure to put in a lot of elevators for a big building, and try to put in a couple of stairs.
Tower tips
The metro station requires a subway tunnel running the entire length of the landform on B10. If you build anything on B10 except the Metro Station, you will not be able to place it. Even if you bulldoze things that were placed on B-10, the floor section will remain, and even the smallest floor section will block the Metro tunnel. The only exception to this is the "lots of money" cheat and the elevator mechanisms that "hang down" from elevators which terminate on floor B9.
Contrary to the manual, you do not have to bring all service elevators to the recycling center. It would be impossible since service elevators can only go 30 floors.
Just like real-life towers in real cities, you'll find that stores, theaters and other commercial establishments usually do well in the basement. But they also bring in a lot of traffic from outside. In order to keep your "permanent" population upstairs happy, you may need to have elevator service that services only the basement levels and the floor 1 lobby.
If you build a regular elevator that passes through a recycling center, you may occasionally see people get on and off in mid-air on the upper floor of the recycling center.
One successful strategy is to keep offices and condos totally separated by building entire floors of offices and entire floors of condos. You might want to mix fast food joints with offices on the floor just above each lobby and put all your stores, movie theaters, etc. in the basement levels.
How can you tell if SimCitizens are waiting to go up or down an elevator? Remember the mnemonic LARD. People waiting to the "L"eft of the elevator are "A"scending, while those waiting to the "R"ight of the shaft are "D"escending.
To key having a good tower is to not place any condos. Only put offices you get the second star. After that, put in hotels and offices. If desired, you can now put in a fast food place and make money until you get a third star. Then, put in a recycling center and a large parking lot. You are now ready to put in a movie theater, stores, and a party hall. When you run out of room do not think you can go any higher, put in an elevator on the 15th floor, then the 30th floor. By doing this, you can have an 104 story tower.
