Theme Park Strategy Guide

Park design
Slow the game speed down when designing the park. This will allow more time to place rides and provide a small amount of lee-way when playing the game.

People enjoy going on rides and winning on stalls; try to cut down the amount of time that they spend walking between one attraction and the next. One method of doing this is to have a straight path with rides coming off either side of it. Each ride is butted up against the side of the path with the entrance around the back and the exit leading back onto the main path. A short queue should link the path to the entrance. Try to stagger the rides on either side so that anyone leaving one ride is pointed straight at the queue entrance to the next one. In this method the visitors will zig zag between the rides and the amount of time they spend just walking and not being on a ride is minimal. The major disadvantage with this method is that it does not leave much room for decorative features that make the park look nice and this may put some people off.

If the park has a complex path system with rides and stalls all over, place signposts so that people know where they are heading. If a person comes across a sign pointing towards a ride that they want to visit then they will feel happier about walking towards it as opposed to just wandering around aimlessly. Also, signposts that point towards the exit allow annoyed people to leave quicker and not wander around for hours getting more upset. Unhappy people tend not to go on rides or buy things from shops and just clutter up the park and reduce the average number of the happy people. As a result of this, the park's reputation and popularity will suffer.

Another method of park design is the one way method. The park is designed in such a way that the people have no choice but to walk around the park in an organized and orderly manner. This has advantages in that you should be able calculate what any person will be requiring at any one time and be ready for it. In addition, the need for signposts is greatly reduced as there are fewer junctions for people to navigate. A problem arises when too many people enter the park. Queues fill up and so people are unable to go on all of the rides. Due to the one way structure of the park, they are unable to return to rides that they may have missed.

Sometimes attempting to place objects on long grass will leave short grass that can cause placement difficulties. Demolishing the short grass may fix the problem.

Place a Balloon Shop right near the entrance so that the visitors will part with their money while they are still happy. This will put them in a good mood for the rest of their stay unless something bad happens.

Place bigger rides and attractions towards the back of the park. This will ensure the customers spend money on shops and stalls on their way through the park.

Do not be afraid to remove rides that are placed incorrectly. It is far better to lose the money for buying this one ride than to distract valuable Mechanics from repairing the star attraction so that it blows up with people on it.

The little people tend to prefer a large variety of rides as opposed to lots of identical ones. If the park has more than one of the same type of ride, try to position them quite far apart.

Build good rides two times and very good rides three times if possible.

As rides get older so they do not last as long as they should before needing repair. When this starts to happen, consider selling the ride and replacing it with an upgraded one. This will put less strain on the mechanics. When replacing rides, the old ride first must be demolished. Demolishing the Roller Coaster or Big Dipper entry will also demolish all connected track, so it is a good idea to break the track manually first. A ride must be replaced if the "your XXX ride has gotten so old you should replace it" message appears. If the ride is not replaced, it may blow up and leave immobile debris.

To keep rides busy, make sure the queue lanes and the exit joined up to the path. Swapping the queue path and exit (for track rides) may help. People cannot seem to walk across bridges that are part of a path intersection; add in a section of path between the bridge and the intersection.

The coaster cannot be turned on if there is not enough room on the track for the roller coaster to stop. The coaster may not stop to let passengers on and off if there is not enough room on the track for the roller coaster to stop. The coaster will stop twice if the track passes right next to the ride entrance on both sides.

The actual placement and apparent placement of some rides (especially the track ride entrances) can be very confusing. Often removing a few lengths of extra track at both ends will provide enough space to replace the object.

Litter is the major problem, as nobody likes a messy park. If there is too much litter then the visitors will stay away from the park. Certain shops such as the Coffee Shop have litter bins inside to take care of their own litter although they are not quite as effective as Pokey Cola's for quenching thirst. Whenever a shop is bought that produces litter, make sure that there are sufficient handymen to combat the litter problem.

The other main problem is that of keeping them well stocked. A shop that has run out of stock is no use to anyone. Keep an eye on the shops to ensure that they have sufficient stocks to last. If they do not, order some more immediately. Learn how often certain shops are restocked to develop a rhythm so that you do not have to keep looking around the map at all of the shops. It is worth spending some time getting the prices just right. You can delay the arrival of stock by re-ordering.

If the Advisor states that a certain shop is running low and you have not already sent off an order for that shop, immediately order some more to minimize the amount of time that the shop is closed. If the game is in Sandbox mode then this should not be a concern.

Catch customers early by placing shops at the entrance to the park.

The best way to set the prices is to watch the visitors. Start by adjusting the prices in large steps, and note what the visitors say as they go by. If they are hungry but it is too expensive they will say so, if not, they will buy something. Once the price is roughly correct, it can be fine tuned.

Stalls have the added bonus in that they entertain the visitors (although not as much as rides) and do not produce litter. They are also smaller than rides and so can be slotted in several small places around the park. The visitors tend not to keep visiting the same type of stall so, as with rides, variety is the key. Research is needed to have this variety

A few things to keep in mind with handymen zoning are: the route is a loop that passes through all control points (reachable from the handyman's current position); the route can only follow the park paths and ride queues; any route that covers disjoint sections of path will only be patrolled in the sections that the handyman can reach without leaving the park paths (when in the zone editing mode, only those sections of the route "reachable" by the handyman will be shown)

Handyman zones are assigned as follows: select the handyman whose zone you want to work on (place the handyman on a path with the "tweezers" if necessary); select the zoning button. This will toggle the handyman zoning mode. In this mode two extra buttons are available: "erase zone" and "add control point". Select the "add control point" button. Select the path in the places through which the zone should pass. As new control points are added the zone route (shown with black shading) is extended to include the new control points. Note: only eight control points can be present in a zone. Select the zoning button when zone assignment has been completed to exit the handyman zoning mode.

The handyman will now obediently patrol his zoned route picking up the litter as he passes by. Black arrows over handymen indicate that the handyman has a route assigned.

After toilets are built, hire a handyman just to clean them. Nothing clears the park quicker than chain vomiting.

If the handymen become stuck in "turbo mode", picking them up with the "tweezers" should also fix up this problem.

Make spare handymen work exclusively outside shops.

When a ride breaks down, do not wait for a mechanic; tell him to fix the ride by questioning him, selecting the wrench, and selecting the broken ride.

Often, a mechanic will get to a nearby damaged ride before it completely blows up. If there is more than one ride that is in trouble, direct the mechanic to fix one ride immediately and either shut the other ride down, or hire another mechanic. A single mechanic can usually maintain three to four rides successfully, varying with the quality of the rides, how often they are used and for how long.

A slightly risky tactic is to slow down the speed of a damaged ride while the mechanic is fixing another ride. With luck, the ride will not blow up in the time it takes for the other ride to be fixed. The benefit to this strategy is only having one mechanic employed and giving the visitors at least one ride as opposed to having two rides closed down.

Each signpost can point to: one ride (white sign), one shop (red sign), or the exit (blue sign).

To place a sign: select the signpost tool. Select the object to point to (choosing a ride selects a white sign pointing to that ride; choosing a shop selects a red sign pointing to that shop; choosing the exit selects a blue sign pointing to the exit). Select the path to place the sign. When placing a new sign, the sign will be placed so that it points "towards" the selected object. Adjust the sign (if necessary) by selecting the sign with the signpost tool to rotate the sign. Selecting an existing signpost only rotates the sign whose color matches the current color of the signpost tool.

Caution: Close signposts should generally point away from each other. Close signposts that point towards each other might trap visitors between them who are interested in the objects of both signposts.

When starting, do not open the park until a few rides, bathrooms, food and drink stands, and merchandise shops have been built. Do not let the first guests enter a park that has been poorly laid out, because they will be dissatisfied and word of mouth will hurt future attendance levels.

The visitors are very fickle in that they are not easily pleased yet the smallest thing will make them unhappy very quickly. Always listen to what they say. Keep an eye on the thought bubbles that appear above each little person's head and react accordingly. If several people get hungry in the same area, consider building a food stall of some type nearby. Likewise, if several people are upset about the cost or prizes of a stall, then either lower the price or raise the prize.

Research the following items first: ride upgrades; ride technology; shops/attractions/games. The ride upgrades will allow higher guest capacities, as well as more reliability. The ride technology will allow access to better and more exciting rides. The shops/games will create a wider selection of food/drink, merchandise, and game units to place. These will generate profits the park. Do not pump too much money into research, as the research expenses are incurred per month.

If the workers strike, select the workers and pick them up off the picket line and set them back to work.

Do not just buy as much stock as possible. Build up cash by buying low and selling high rather than just buying everything. Sometimes other parks stock will slip below 100/share so that it costs virtually nothing to buy all of their stock. Usually the next year that same stock is worth over 10,000/share allowing a nice little profit. It's always worthwhile to buy up your own shares. This will prevent a buy out, and, if the park does well, may be used as extra cash later.

Control the crowd of visitors by spreading them out in the park. Use arrows on the path to lead them to the inner sections of the park. Use a wide entrance area to avoid congestion at the park entrance

Build a roller coaster "chain" by creating an entrance, some track, another entrance, more track, the first entrance. The same can be done with the bumper cars or the tube ride. The monorail is not the only way to get around the park.

Use the grassy area out the front of the park to create a street fair. It is only three squares wide, but a decent selection of shops and scenery will fit in that space. With careful planning, some of the track rides may be set up in this area.

An alternative strategy would be to build a park and develop it massively, optimizing for profit. Crowd the rides in and do not bother with aesthetics. Eventually money will start to accumulate (e.g., 500 people in the park with a gate fee of zero will earn income of around $90,000 per month). Build up at least $5M this way, then sell the park. By this time, the park will be number one in four or five areas. After the park is sold, the game resets your character and the competition. Use your cash to maximize research. Design and setup an amazing park before the competition. On the second park, lay out things more carefully.

Another alternative strategy to developing your park year after year is to develop a park just to sell it (if possible) at the end of the year. There is an auction where your character can wait until the price is very high. Use that money to build a new park (even in the same country).

Key

• Area: The minimum bounding area required to build the object.
• Extra: Additional Space outside the minimum bounding area required for the rides track, entrance, or exit.
• Full: Indicates whether or not the minimum bounding area is filled by the object.
• Cap: The ride capacity (or for raised track rides, the capacity per car on the ride).
• Excite: The ride excitement level.
• Reliable: The ride reliability.
• Typ: The ride type: RT (raised track, paths can be placed underneath), GT (ground track, requires dedicated space), TE (track extras, requires flat, straight track to go on), LS (live show), SR (standard ride).

All track ride entrances can be oriented in four ways: facing down (normal), facing up, facing left, or facing right. The area required to place the ride entrance varies according to the orientation of the entrance (raised track ride entrances are manually oriented, ground track rides are automatically oriented).

Key

• Area: The minimum bounding area required to build the object.
• Full: Indicates whether or not the minimum bounding area is filled by the object.
• Type: For Refreshment shops the food type sold, for Souvenir shops the object sold, for Sideshows note the Addictiveness column

It is possible to reclaim the area under the shop for other objects (except the square directly under the shop - see this in tiny mode). Reclaim this area by erasing the ground under the shop. This will change the grass from short "used" grass to normal "usable" grass. This also can be done to the square directly under the shop (choose "No" when prompted to confirm the delete operation), but the only thing that can be placed is a path. This method can be used to pack much more into the park (the space requirement for each shop is effectively reduced to a single square!). However, it looks messy.

* A Lake piece must be placed in a 3x3 area, but can be reduced to take up only a 2x2 area (and can of course be made much larger)

Key

• Area: The minimum bounding area required to build the object.

Big Time Fries
Buying at: 35; Computer suggested mark up: 45

Price	Cont	Margin	Sales	Profit
45	10	29%	36	360
50	15	43%	30	450
52	17	49%	25	425
54	19	54%	20	380
55	20	57%	28	560
56	21	60%	20	420
58	23	66%	19	437
60	25	71%	10	250
65	30	86%	10	300
75	40	114%	4	160
85	50	143%	0	0

Balloon World
Buying at: 10; Computer suggested mark up: 12

Price	Cont	Margin	Sales	Profit
10	0	0%	29	0
12	2	20%	26	52
14	4	40%	27	108
16	6	60%	23	138
18	8	80%	24	192
20	10	100%	21	210
22	12	120%	21	252
30	20	200%	0	0

Key

• Cont: Contribution