It has been over a quarter of a century since Simcity 3000 was released in 1999. Since then we’ve had some enormous changes in the city-builder genre, with EA’s arguably failed multiplayer focused Simcity (2013) reboot, the rise of Cities: Skylines, and the appearance multiple smaller indie competitors like Citystate, Urbek City Builder and many more.

Title from the original 1999 release. The most popular version is Simcity 3000 Unlimited released in 2000 with minor addons. Full version of the intro (AI upscaled)

That being said, I keep coming back to Simcity 3000 and I always do a fully city run every ~2 years or so. Simcity 3000 offers a solid city-building experience, while having a very polished UI and gameplay experience even by modern standards. Unlike Simcity 4 (arguably an objectively better and more sophisticated game) or even Cities: Skylines, you don’t have to mess with mods and/or actively work on understanding each games’ gameplay model.

I believe GOG version comes with an HD resolution patch. The detailed 2.5D isometric graphics have aged very gracefully and still look good even on higher resolution monitors.

Simcity 3000 is very much a “pick up and play” city-builder. The gameplay is straightforward with a focus on expansion via zoning and infrastructure, managing your services provision while keeping your budget in check.

Main menu I was able to run the game at 1920x1080 on my 1440 monitor. Supposedly, 4K is actually supported.

Terrain editor Picking an island terrain (more so with a mountain) is generally harder both due to space constraints and lack of easy connections with neighbours.

Early game industrial district It helps to define a measure of planning in your early game; city-wide transportation structure, maximizing coverage for police and fire stations, general growth directions.

A town in 1912. Industrial districts on the edge of the map.

While I did say that Simcity 3000 was “pick up and play” (by city-builder standards), I do find it helpful to keep in mind a few general concepts:

• Until 1950-1970 you will need a lot of fiscal discipline and you have to make sure you have money for growth, services and transportation infrastructure.
• Initial focus should be on industrial, commercial will come later when you have much bigger cities. Commercial fares well in the city centre.
• Population growth before ~1970 or so will be modest.

Same industrial district 1998.

Late game central commercial district

Airport district

Airports always remain a source of pollution. It can be helpful to surround the airport by other polluting rewards like the military base or the industrial contractor. Additional buffer space between your city and this district can be taken by recycling plants.

Subway view A extensive metro system is by far the most efficient solution for transportation and lower pollution, it is very expensive in the early to mid game (pre-1970).

Traffic data map The traffic data maps is still showing a lot of heavy traffic, but it’s often focus on key municipal railway corridors and major metro lines.

Simcity Castle Simcity Castle requires a cheat, but it’s a good fit for posh low density districts without undermining the game.

City’s edge

Asian building style in the downtown district. One of the additions in 2000’s Simcity 3000 Unlimited released was the additions of Asia and European building style.

North American building style on the left side of the down district.

North american building style in medium density residential/commercial district further away from the centre.

You can load some existing city maps into Simcity 3000. Above is Berlin with the Berlin wall still intact. I’ve been to several of the cities included as custom map and the geography seems pretty close to reality.

The city of Noviy Luch via max zoom out.

If the city-builder genre seems somewhat interesting, Simcity 3000 is not the worst example of the genre and it runs relatively well on modern system compared to most games from 1999/2000 (and looks fine too).

The Simtropolis website has a somewhat active forum for Simcity 3000, a knowledge base and a set of custom building style (can only be added as a landmark or to replace the style of an existing building). I added the terminal building by the airport (in the 8th screenshot) as landmark. The amount of activity/content/article on Simcity 3000 is miniscule compared to Simcity 4, but it’s still helpful.