User blog:Sucinum/General Scenario Guide

Draft of a new page to reduce redundancy in scenario guides.

General

The first step in a new park is to pause the game and have a look on your park. You can set up a few things as long as the game is paused.
Many scenarios already have prebuilt paths. Be sure to block off unused paths so your guests don't get lost. Avoid long walks and dead ends, so your guests don't have to wander around aimlessly.
Also check for Path Items to make sure there are enough benches (every 3-5 tiles) and litter bins (every 10-12 tiles).
You need enough Staff to keep your park running and clean. Set patrol areas to coordinate your handymen, while mechanics are usually good to run around freely (unless your park is kind of mazy).
A handymen can keep about 30-40 tiles of path clean, depending on how nauseating the rides next to them are are. Be sure to keep your park clean from litter and vomit as much as possible, otherweise guests will vandalize benches and litter bins.
Each mechanic can keep 3-4 rides running, keep adding as soon as they are fully stressed. You will have to reduce maintenance times once rides get older, so check your mechanics' status now and then.
Build enough stalls so your guests don't have to search long when they get hungry, thirsty or need to visit a bathroom.
Place food stalls near less nauseating rides to prevent your guests from vomoting all over the area. Stalls with souveniers should go to your most exciting rides, since happy guests are more inclined to buy balloons etc.

Research

You can setup Research as long as the game is paused, so do that as one of the first steps after beginning a scenario.
Most important is to fulfill the basic needs of your guests, that means you should research Shops and Stalls until Bathroom, Drink Stall (or similar), Information Kiosk and at least one Food stall are available.
Next consider researching roller coasters until you have a good design available. Examples for good roller coasters are Steel Roller Coaster, Steel Corkscrew Roller Coaster, Wooden Crazy Rodent Roller Coaster and Steel Wild Mouse Roller Coaster since they allow to build cheap, compact and popular rides.
Since your guests have different needs, consider building a variety of Gentle Rides, Thrill Rides and roller coasters and set up research accordingly.
Researching Theming and ride upgrades isn't that important usually.

Building good rides

The Ride Ratings show how well you designed a ride.
While most scenarios are about squeezing your rides in ungentle terrain, consider preparing some compact rides and save the track design to use in scenarios. You will usually find a spot for those rides and it gives you a head start in scenarios. Consider checking the Ride Exchange for track designs you can use.
Queue Lines shouldn't be too long or too short. Guests will start complaining after a while and will finally leave after about 11 minutes in a queue. Entertainers can help with that, but consider also that waiting guests don't spend money.
Try to interlock your queue line with the ride to increase its excitement rating. For details, check this link: Using Paths to Increase a Coaster's Excitement Rating
Your guests have different needs you need to cater, so consider building rides with mixed intensity ratings.
Scenery increases the excitement of your rides when placed 5 tiles around the "yellow arrow", this also counts for tracked rides (for multi-station rides, this works only on station 1). Check this link for details: What makes an Exciting Flat Ride?
Your rides will get stale over time, so you have to drop the ride fees continually to keep attendance high. You might even have to offer a ride for free after some time or have to replace it.
Some rides get stale quicker than others, like Scrambled Eggs or 3D Cinema.
If a ride offers more than one operation mode (like 3D Cinema, Whoa Belly or Gravitron), you can build multiple versions of this ride and have them operate differently. Your guests won't get bored of this.
To prevent a Crash, have the cars of a roller coaster enter the station at no more than 45 km/h (28 mp/h).

Attracting and keeping more guests

If you are missing guests for the scenario objective, there are several measures you should consider using:

Marketing helps a lot and you should consider doing that from the 2nd to the last year. This will bring in more guests and depending on how money they have compared to your fees, they will stay until the end of the scenario.
Building new rides makes people curios and bring in additional guests that way.
Having a high park rating raises mouth-to-nouth prapaganda for your park, that is basically free marketing. The happier your guests leave your park, the better.
Getting awards also attracts new guests and some of them are quite easy to get. Consider putting additional effort in getting awards and prevent getting bad awards.
Lowering admission and ride fees increases the time guests can spend in your park before running out of money. With enough free rides and free stalls, guests might even not leave at all if your park can keep them happy. Also lower ride fees increase the satisfaction with your rides. Pricing can have a drastic effect on your guest count.
As a last measure you can block the exit with a sign or by removing a path tile. Note that your park rating will drop very fast if guests are trapped in your park! Still this can help if it gets tight at the end of a scenario.