Overview

The objective of SimCity, as the name of the game suggests, is to build and design a city, without specific goals to achieve (except in the scenarios, see below). The player can mark land as being zoned as commercial, industrial, or residential, add buildings, change the tax rate, build a power grid, build transportation systems and many other actions, in order to enhance the city.

Also, the player may face disasters including: flooding, tornadoes, fires (often from air disasters or even shipwrecks) , earthquakes and attacks by monsters. Later disasters included lightning strikes, volcanoes, meteors and attack by extra-terrestrial craft.

In the SNES version and later, one can also build rewards when they are given to them, such as a mayor's mansion, casino, etc.

[edit] Scenarios

The original SimCity kicked off a tradition of goal-centered, timed scenarios that could be won or lost depending on the performance of the player/mayor. The original cities were all based on real world cities and attempted to re-create their general layout, a tradition carried on in SimCity 2000 and in special scenario packs. While most scenarios either take place in a fictional timeline or have a city under siege by a fictional disaster, a handful of available scenarios are based on actual historical events.

The original scenarios were:

* Bern, 1965 - The Swiss capital is clogged with traffic, the mayor needs to reduce traffic and improve the city.
* Boston, 2010 - The city's nuclear power plant suffers a meltdown, irradiating a portion of the city. The mayor must rebuild, contain the toxic areas, and return the city to prosperity. In some early editions of SimCity (on lower-power computers that did not include the nuclear power plants), this scenario was altered to have a tornado strike the city. Much like the Tokyo scenario below, the mayor needs to limit damage and rebuild.
* Detroit, 1972 - Crime and depressed industry wreck the city. The mayor needs to reduce crime and reorganize the city to better develop. The scenario is a reference to Detroit's declining state during the late 20th century (See also History of Detroit, Michigan).
* Rio de Janeiro, 2047 - Coastal flooding resulted from global warming rages through the city. The mayor must control the problem and rebuild. In some early editions of SimCity (on lower-power computers that did not include the flooding disaster), this scenario was altered to have the objective be fighting high crime.
* San Francisco, 1906 - An earthquake hits the city, the mayor must control the subsequent damage, fires and rebuild. The scenario references the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
* Tokyo, 1961 - The city is attacked by a Godzilla-type monster (Bowser in the SNES version). The mayor needs to limit the damage and rebuild. The scenario is likely to be based on the original series of Godzilla films.

The CD re-release, as well as the Amiga and Atari ST versions included two additional scenarios:

* Dullsville, USA, 1900 - Boredom plagues a stagnating city in the middle of the United States; the mayor is tasked to turn Dullsville into a metropolis within 30 years.
* Hamburg, Germany, 1944 - Bombing, where the mayor has to govern the city during the closing years of World War II and rebuild it later. This scenario references the bombing of Hamburg in World War II.

In addition, the later edition of SimCity on the Super Nintendo (SNES) included the basics of these two scenarios in two, more difficult scenarios that were made available after a player had completed the original scenarios:

* Las Vegas - Aliens attack the city. This invasion is spread out over several years, stretching city resources. While somewhat similar to Hamburg, the scenario included casino features as well as animated flying saucers.
* Freeland - Using a blank map without any water form, the mayor must build a game-described megalopolis of at least 500,000 people. There is no time limit in this scenario. While similar to the earlier Dullsville scenario, Freeland took advantage of the SNES version's clear delineations between city sizes, particularly metropolis and megalopolis. In the center of Freeland is a series of trees that bear the familiar head of Mario. However, the player is unable to build any of the reward buildings from the normal game.

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