SimCity 3000 is the third game of the SimCity series, developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It was first released on February 1, 1999 for PC, with Mac and Linux ports arriving later, followed by a 2008 iOS port simply called SimCity. There was also a 2007 Nintendo DS release incorporating graphics and elements from the game.
Keeping the isometric perspective much like SimCity 2000 has, SimCity 3000 nonetheless included greater detail for the buildings, as well as additional zoom options. It also introduced numerous gameplay elements; you can now interact with your city's neighors and cut deals with them, utilities (including power) gradually degrade as they age, waste management is introduced as a critical utility, and there is an additional zoning density for moderate development. It was also the first game in the series where it is possible to reach a population of more than one million.
In May 2000, there was an expanded rerelease called SimCity 3000 Unlimited which introduced additional tilesets, unique buildings and some premade cities.
SimCity 3000 contains examples of:
- Bland-Name Product: Some of the larger buildings are modelled after real world buildings, but named differently. For instance, 450 Sutter appears as "Vu Financial" and the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Building (also known as 150 New Montgomery Street) is "The Galvin Corp". Some may even recognise Battersea Power Station as the form of the Coal Power Plants.
- Bootstrapped Theme: The game and its expansion Unlimited have a leitmotif (appropriately titled "Sim City Theme" on the soundtrack) which filters into many of the other tracks in the game.
- Cheat Code: SimCity 3000 displays a cheat code entry menu when you hit [Ctrl][Alt][Shift][C]. The codes can usually be found online.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Zoned buildings of each different wealth tier and density level in the American tileset have a different dominant color. Tall red brick high-rises means high density middle-class, pastel-colored condominiums means rich high density, light green grass means middle-class or rich low density depending on the size of the lawn, dark brown factories means high density heavy industry, and light gray factories means high density modern industry.
- Corrupt Civil Executive: Your advisors in SimCity 3000 tend to give advice based or factors in their area of interest without any regard for the big picture, meaning they occasionally suggest somethat that's good for, say, public transport but would cripple the city as a whole. The manual Handwaves this by suggesting they may have an agenda (which only results in paranoia over whether their advice is trustworthy even within their area of interest).
- Crop Circles: The Flying Saucer will sometimes create crop circles in wheat fields.
- Down on the Farm: Under specific conditions, it's possible to get farms in your Light Industrial zones instead of the usual factories. It's much harder to get and keep them than in SimCity 4, though, because you might get farms and dirty industry mixed together in the same zone, which typically drives the farmers out due to pollution.
- Easter Egg: You have to manually edit a configuration file to unlock the 2000 theme.
- EgoCorp: The CEO of Landgraab Industries, Malcolm Landgraab, will occasionally approach the Mayor in order to gain permission to expand his business empire throughout the city.
- Never Recycle a Building: The abandoned building varies depending on the zone and density type (e.g., a light residential building will turn into the aformentioned ghetto shack, and a light commercial building will turn into a run-down shop).
- No Celebrities Were Harmed:
- The portrait of the Green Gaians spokesman looks like actor Howard Hesseman- known for playing Dr, Johnny Fever on WKRP though the portrait looks almost identical to his appearance on Dragnet as a hippie.
- One of the neighboring mayors looks like weatherman Al Roker, while another bears a strong resemblance to Fred Rogers- one of your advisors looks a fair bit like his puppet Lady Elaine Fairchild, as well.
- Running Gag: The news ticker often makes references to an apparent kitty kibble shortage. Said kibble manufacturers deny everything, but the kitties are increasingly unhappy as you play.
- Secret Test of Character: Typing "call cousin vinnie" in the cheat console will trigger an event where a shady individual called Vinnie will offer you a large sum of money acquired through dubiously legal means. If you accept, you will simply get $100,000 with no strings attached. If you refuse, he will ask you to type "zyxwvu" on the cheat console to get the SimCity Castle on your reward buildings, which will crank up its surrounding land value to Astronomical and put your local approval rating all the way to maximum.
- Shout-Out: One of the types of residential buildings is named "Sheeza Brick House" in reference to the song "Brick House" by The Commodores.
- Theme-and-Variations Soundtrack: The game has a recurring riff throughout the tracks.
- Torches and Pitchforks: Rioters traded the torches for some sort of improvised explosive. They can hurl them several blocks away, starting fires over a large area, but unlike their predecessors they can't create additional mobs.
- Truth in Television: 3000 has what's known as a industrial pollutant impact fee, or carbon tax, which fills the city's coffers at the price of commerce and industry suffering. This has become a rather contentious issue in Australia and other countries where such a tax is causing businesses to close down.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Due to an unexplained bug, when your city's population reaches above 250,000, your citizens will constantly complain about the taxes being too high, even if you set the rates to exactly zero percent! This makes it seem like your citizens are an in-universe version of an Unpleasable Fanbase. Justifiable to a degree because well planned large cities with high land values can have large positive cashflows (a tax rate complaint trigger) even with across the board 1% tax rates. The zero percent tax rate complaining, however, is a bug.
- Vice City: This applies if you don't have any jails constructed (which were first introduced in this game). Even with several police stations built, with no jails, your city's LE will be forced to let criminals go and continue their cycle of crime as they please.
- Video Game Time: Lampshaded when one unpauses a game a while after pausing it and making tweaks. The ticker will display a hilarious message about the sims wondering if time stopped and about things that weren't there before the game was paused.
- You Bastard!: Subtly, when the commercial zones reach Astronomical land value, the Fountain of 9 to 5 and TGIF Hang Spot show up.
