Comment by somat
18 hours ago
I was replaying SC2K(dos) recently and it is much harder than I expected. Usually these city games are fairly easy chill affairs. On a 1900 hard(max bond) start the only way I found to succeed(marked when I payed off all bonds) was to pause(to avoid early bond repayment losses), use all your money to setup the perfect layout for the next 40 years. Then wait in debt(can't build anything) for 40 years while hopefully your city profit grows past the bond interest amount and you are able to slowly claw yourself out of the red. Then immediately start saving for the replacement power plant as your original one will explode soon. I was not making a comfortable profit until about 1960. And this was after many failed cities, can't fix anything when you can't build anything.
Couldn't you do external connections to sell power and water? I vaguely remember this being the best strat in the beginning. Or maybe that was just in 3k.