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The COOLEST Games Ever Made
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Need help with Zoo Tycoon? Hopefully you can find some answers on this page.
A single exhibit containing a single, happy animal is better than having ten exhibits with unhappy animals. Theres no bigger turnoff for guests than to see sad, possibly sick animals. If you let things slide too far, you'll also be unable to get more animals for your zoo.
It's wise to plan ahead and keep future options open by leaving areas of empty space near the entrance. Beginning your zoo with a tight cluster of exhibits and buildings right around the front gate can lead to enormous headaches later, when monthly zoo attendance is well into three figures. You may have no choice but to bulldoze several exhibits and build them anew.
Begin building a new zoo some distance away from the zoo entrance. Space by the entrance becomes increasingly valuable as the game goes on; its invariably the most valuble peice of real estate in really big zoos.
Use the CTRL+G command to turn grid overlay on and off while your planning and building your zoo. The grid makes calculating exhibit size and placing everything in the right spot much easier.
Guests have a "sight range" of 10 tiles. Keep this in mind when building exhibits and observation areas. Extra large exhibits containing numerous animals should have observation areas on all sides.
When enough money becomes available, think about replacing that dirt path before investing in foliage, fancy lamps, and care-intensive flowerbeds. Bulldozing the old path before laying down the new one will return most of your original expenditure, too, and offer an opportunity to improve traffic flow.
Not all animal species are capable of breaking through deteriorated fencing, and those that are have varying strength. Predictably, an elephant will be quicker to break down decayed barriers than a wildebeest, and an ostrich will stay put within its exhibit until the fence crumbles into dust.
Vending machines work well as emergency hunger/thirst quenchers even when placed in relatively remote locations. Their low upkeep cost componsates for the low profit potential. Once your zoo has grown to a certain size, try placing a combination of candy/soda machines on paths leading to restrooms; you'll be surprised how many guests need a drink/bite after doing business. Setting up a couple of benches by the restroom path is also a very good idea.
Deciding which animal to sell isn't easy. Reason dictates that you should sell the oldest first. You should always check the sex of the animal you intend to sell and make sure you leave a male-female pair to ensure continued reproduction within the exhibt. Also it usually doesn't make sense to sell baby animals; they don't count towards an exhibits population total, but still count in terms of attractiveness.
Always try to hire any new zoo staff as early in the month as possible. Even if you hire an employee on the last day of the month, you'll still have to pay them a full months salary.
Building a new animal house for each available exhibit helps you push guest happiness up to record levels. You can change the exhibit in a house by clicking on the appropriate icon at the bottom of the house information panel.
Adding a pair of ostriches to an exhibit with gazelles, zebras and wildebeest lets you easily achieve a prize goal: creating an exhibit with four different species. This provides zoo guests with an extra happiness boost.
Remember to keep the exhibits free of poo. Each pile of poo reduces habitat suitability in proportion to the habitat size: small exhibits can suffer a 1% decrease in suitability for every pile of poo.
The petting zoo and Japanese garden are the best all-round choices for making both adults and children happy. Unfortunately, neither structure makes money, and both can contain only four zoo guests at a time.
Cheap prices maximise item sales and boost the buying guests happiness by +5 or +10. Since consuming food and drink carries a happiness bonus in itself, you can make visitors happy simply by providing half price refreshments. This is not usually necessary, but may help if an unexpected calamity drops the average guest happiness rating towards the end of a scenario.
Do not play greedy and build exclusively moneymaking attractions. Japanese gardens, petting zoos and animal houses all play a very important role in keeping your guests happy and your zoo beautiful.
The mushrooming cost of employee wages can easily be contained if you make a pact with yourself to build a money-making structure every time you hire someone. A carousel usually pays the wages of a couple of maintenance men, while a restaurant can easily support two zoo keepers.
Choosing species whose favourite foliage fits four to a single tile (such as the lion, whose favourite is the umbrella acacia tree) is a very good move. Small exhibits do not allow much room for improving exhibit suitability with extra foliage. Remember that several small or medium rocks to a tile may work better than a single big rock.
If you don't build any food/drink outlets apart from restaurants, you can save a few thousand dollars in maintenece worker salaries; you'll only need to hire one once the exhibit fencing begins to deteriorating.
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