Ecological Salvage/Scenario Guide

You start off with no money, but you can borrow up to $30,000 from the bank. This scenario also sets you up with land purchase rights to virtually the entire map at the extremely cheap price of $5 per tile. The park is already open, although there are no rides built.

Money could be a huge problem in this scenario if you don't pay attention to the description where it says "You can sell the old buildings for salvage". Set up research & development&mdash;whatever order you want, there's not much to get&mdash;and borrow just $1,000. As this is a "free rides" park with a high loan interest rate (20%!), avoid taking huge loans at all costs.

With the $1,000 you loaned from the bank and with your view still on the park entrance gate, move up, towards the small building to the right of the park entrance with the satellite dish. Purchase the land this building is on and demolish it along with the dish. The amount you get from demolishing these should give you a bit more money than the amount you paid for the land, so repay the $1,000 loan.

Next, move around the map to see what scenery objects you can demolish once you purchase the land they are built on. Much of the oil refinery mentioned in the scenario description is located near the back of the park, and the land its buildings and scenery items are built on are also fully purchasable. The rest of the map also has a generous amount of scenery items that can be demolished for a profit once you buy the land they are on. The fishing holes strewn around the map give the greatest net profit upon demolition ($25 per tile), although they are relatively few. Demolishing the refinery buildings, as well as the pipelines, gives the greatest total profit due to their sheer size and length; parts of these buildings also have footpaths built, which can also be demolished for additional profit. Across the map, individual scenery objects that take up multiple tiles of space (such as the ice formation near the building you demolished) cannot be deleted unless all the tiles they are built on are purchased by you, although you will still get a profit for doing so. Do not purchase any land that only has fencing/walls (since demolishing these give no money) or trees (since demolishing trees cost money, which adds to the net cost of the tile it is on). You also cannot demolish the ice formation sitting alone on one of the icebergs since one side of it sits on tiles at the edge of the map, which cannot be purchased under any circumstances.

Demolishing most of the profitable scenery items and footpaths on the map should net you a total profit of about $9,500. With the amount you raised from selling off the scenery items, start a nice small park by building a few flat rides, as well as one or two shuttle coasters, and set the park entrance fee to $40, which is the lowest amount of cash a guest has in this scenario. You can also build an Information Kiosk and food/drink stalls if you like.

As this is a "free rides" park, you should ensure a constant flow of guests stepping through the park entrance gate, which can be easily achieved by either not building any Restrooms or closing the park down once every few months.

Once all that is done, let the game run its course for about 3 years without building anything new. Since the value of your rides drop over time, it is not practical to build new rides as they are researched. However, as the number of guests in the park depends largely on the number of rides built, the rides you build in Year 1 will ensure a constant flow of guests stepping through the gate (assuming you chose to build no new toilets or close down the park every few months to make guests leave), generating a consistent source of revenue even as the value of your rides drop.

In Year 4, with the accumulated revenue you generated from your park running uninterrupted for the past 3 years, close your little park, demolish the rides you first built and set about building a real park. There aren't many options when it comes to rides, but you have enough different roller coasters to work with; following the strategy detailed above should give you sufficient funds to build enough rides to reach a park value of $200,000 over the course of 2 years, as the land you start out with is large and flat enough for whatever designs you want.