Gogowars329
Odd though it sounds, I think the tiny city plots in the region are a stratigic feature. If you had a large location, you could easily build a single city with all facilities. The small land area forces co-operation with other players and forces city specialisation.
If you are playing alone, develop two or three cities by playing for a while in each, aiming for each to have a specific purpose. Ie: Have a town doing lots of mining with lots of workers. Have a casino city with lots of high wealth homes, entertainment, high wealth shops, tourist attractions and, of course, casinos. Have a university city. etc.
The different locations can share resources too, so, perhaps your mining city could provide power to your casino city, or any other utility as a matter of fact. (I tried this with water and sewege, and would not recommended as a permanent solution, but that maybe because I still have a lot to learn!) Sims travel between cities for work, shopping and entertainment, but, you need to pay a lot of attention to how, and what types of roads you build, and to public transport for it to work successfully.
WARNING: This is not funny and is a real game spoiler. In one evening of play I lost count of the desasters which you cannot turn off! Amongst these events, my university - the most expensive building I have found so far - was totally destroyed three times, each time when I had completed over 90% of the research which also costs a substancial amount of capital. My city which had over 2,000,000 sims when I began the research is now bankrupt! I doubt that I will play this again.
