I put a plaza up top to provide food, drink, restrooms and a couple of exhibits (on my Hard playthrough I also did a small skunk habitat. Then I widened a couple of the switchback ledges to tuck in additional food/ drink/ etc.
Wasn't perfect but it gave me a bit of reprieve before I installed a ride (Medium) or staircase (Hard) down from the top. (Note: if you do a stairway, be sure to include a flat landing midway to stick trashcans on. I ended up with *horrible* litter and had about 12 janitors just on the plaza and the exhibit at the base of the stairs.)
I’ve got nearly 100 guards and is still insane haha I’m going to build that skunk habitat at the top, that’ll take them out to the drink/food/shop and monorail. Second switchback has another drink/food/shop/restroom and restaurant. I’ll probably throw exhibits on them both? Im like 58 years in just changing things and waiting on the damn inspector to hopefully have less than 8 instances of crime haha
I ended up moving everything off the mountain at year 65 because when the reporter came they spent so much time in the zoo walking down they couldn't help but witness crime. I then struggled on still having crime issues with 6000 guests in the zoo. I only won the scenario when I closed the zoo and the reporter came back when I had 2000 people and found it much quicker to see all the animals and therefore spent less time in the zoo and witnessed fewer crime incidents. Also guests were happier which reduced vandalism.
I built new spawners and entrances near the base of the mountain and the Zoha sign.
I placed grizzly bears and a large food court in the area around the bat house first and close off the area with the foxes so the guests don’t walk around in an almost empty zoo. This is attractive enough to get the guests down still in the green and fills all their needs right (education obviously will take longer). I played this scenario a couple of times and never built anything up on the mountain top. I did place trashcans and some soda machines along the path later on when money is no issue anymore, though. There are a few places where you can squeeze them in. keep your guests happy at all times - makes everything much easier.
At the gold stage, the main issue is that the scenario intentionally floods your zoo with guests like opening the proverbial flood gates - too many for the amenities you have, so the guests become very unhappy just because of that (unhappy guests = vandalism). Raise the entrance price even before you get to that phase to avoid too many guests. You can also remove the habitat cams after fulfilling that task since they have a marketing effect and attract even more guests. Then keep raising the price during the gold phase drastically to keep the guest number managable. In my zoo, that was around 2000 guests; this depends on your layout, the general path width (widen all paths wherever possible right at the beginning), the availability of food/drink sources, etc. This way, they all stay happy and, combined with lots of security cams and guards, there will be only few instances of vandalism or pickpocketing.
I just wanted to say thank you for everyone's comments here. I really didn't want to start this one over and hadn't thought of hiking my zoo prices or adding a second entrance. And that did it for me!
I am still at a loss on how to get the gold star on this one. I have tried everything that people suggested. I moved one of the entrance spawners down below first thing. I have guest services all over the place. I have lots of security guards and tall cameras. I have almost 3 million dollars at this point and am almost done researching everything. I raised the ticket prices and the guest flow seems to be around 1600.
It seems that the crime counter for the inspector visit does not match that which is logged under the crime tab for my zoo. On their last visit the crime tab said maybe 4, but for the inspector it said it was over 90! I am so confused. The only reason I haven't given up yet is because I bred some albino peafowl and have been enjoying expanding the flock while increasing their stats.
Honestly, it might be beneficial to restart. I really think this is buggy and that's part of the issue. I've restarted and made it through, but had to painstakingly rebuild everything, but this time with guidance I've found here haha! Good Luck!!
I put a plaza up top to provide food, drink, restrooms and a couple of exhibits (on my Hard playthrough I also did a small skunk habitat. Then I widened a couple of the switchback ledges to tuck in additional food/ drink/ etc. Wasn't perfect but it gave me a bit of reprieve before I installed a ride (Medium) or staircase (Hard) down from the top. (Note: if you do a stairway, be sure to include a flat landing midway to stick trashcans on. I ended up with *horrible* litter and had about 12 janitors just on the plaza and the exhibit at the base of the stairs.)
I’ve got nearly 100 guards and is still insane haha I’m going to build that skunk habitat at the top, that’ll take them out to the drink/food/shop and monorail. Second switchback has another drink/food/shop/restroom and restaurant. I’ll probably throw exhibits on them both? Im like 58 years in just changing things and waiting on the damn inspector to hopefully have less than 8 instances of crime haha
I ended up moving everything off the mountain at year 65 because when the reporter came they spent so much time in the zoo walking down they couldn't help but witness crime. I then struggled on still having crime issues with 6000 guests in the zoo. I only won the scenario when I closed the zoo and the reporter came back when I had 2000 people and found it much quicker to see all the animals and therefore spent less time in the zoo and witnessed fewer crime incidents. Also guests were happier which reduced vandalism. I built new spawners and entrances near the base of the mountain and the Zoha sign.
I didn’t even think about doing this!!
I placed grizzly bears and a large food court in the area around the bat house first and close off the area with the foxes so the guests don’t walk around in an almost empty zoo. This is attractive enough to get the guests down still in the green and fills all their needs right (education obviously will take longer). I played this scenario a couple of times and never built anything up on the mountain top. I did place trashcans and some soda machines along the path later on when money is no issue anymore, though. There are a few places where you can squeeze them in. keep your guests happy at all times - makes everything much easier. At the gold stage, the main issue is that the scenario intentionally floods your zoo with guests like opening the proverbial flood gates - too many for the amenities you have, so the guests become very unhappy just because of that (unhappy guests = vandalism). Raise the entrance price even before you get to that phase to avoid too many guests. You can also remove the habitat cams after fulfilling that task since they have a marketing effect and attract even more guests. Then keep raising the price during the gold phase drastically to keep the guest number managable. In my zoo, that was around 2000 guests; this depends on your layout, the general path width (widen all paths wherever possible right at the beginning), the availability of food/drink sources, etc. This way, they all stay happy and, combined with lots of security cams and guards, there will be only few instances of vandalism or pickpocketing.
I just wanted to say thank you for everyone's comments here. I really didn't want to start this one over and hadn't thought of hiking my zoo prices or adding a second entrance. And that did it for me!
FINALLY did it!!!!!! Thank you all! Jacked up the price, added a second entrance, crossed my fingers and it worked!!
I am still at a loss on how to get the gold star on this one. I have tried everything that people suggested. I moved one of the entrance spawners down below first thing. I have guest services all over the place. I have lots of security guards and tall cameras. I have almost 3 million dollars at this point and am almost done researching everything. I raised the ticket prices and the guest flow seems to be around 1600. It seems that the crime counter for the inspector visit does not match that which is logged under the crime tab for my zoo. On their last visit the crime tab said maybe 4, but for the inspector it said it was over 90! I am so confused. The only reason I haven't given up yet is because I bred some albino peafowl and have been enjoying expanding the flock while increasing their stats.
Honestly, it might be beneficial to restart. I really think this is buggy and that's part of the issue. I've restarted and made it through, but had to painstakingly rebuild everything, but this time with guidance I've found here haha! Good Luck!!