Simcity 2013: Big Businesses (City Specialization)

Today we take a deeper look into the “city specialization” feature which allows you to focus on a central role for your city. This comes about through certain buildings you can place around your city under the umbrella term known as “Big Business.”

There are 5 types of “Big Businesses”

• Electronics
• Metal
• Trade
• Gambling
• Petroleum

You do not have to focus on just one business type, in fact, you can have multiple businesses per city. However, the developers suggest discussing amongst the mayors in your region over which cities should host a particular business type.

Metal

This business extracts coal and ore from the ground. Coal can be traded with other cities to help fuel their power plants while ore can be processed into metal through a smelting plant. As you advance along this path, you can extract larger quantities of these resources.

Petroleum

This business pumps oil from the ground to be used as a resource for power. With a refinery, you can convert this oil and turn it into fuel and plastics.

Electronics

Now here’s where the connection between two specializations becomes apparent. This business type needs metals, alloys, and plastic to create TVs, microprocessors, and computers. You also have the option of collecting these resources through recycling or importing. This business type requires some focus on education and transportation in order to remain stable.

Trade

This sector primarily focuses over the importing and exporting of resources, especially the ones bolded above.  You can trade these resources to other cities or through the global market. Buy low and sell high is the name of the game around here.

Gambling

By building gambling halls and casinos, you can attract a large number of tourists that bring extra revenue to the city. Tourists enter your city through a wide variety of transportation options including airports, bus stations, cruise ships, and trains. Gambling attracts crime, so be sure to have adequate police coverage to support the casino.

Each of these five big businesses come with their own leader-boards where you can compete with other players to see who gained the most profit within a 12 month span.

Oh, we’d also like to announce we’re working on a Simcity 2013 Wiki. Currently it is private until more articles are written, but we plan to make it as informative as possible.