Sim City 4

[Monk]

I am the SC4 King.

The trick is to not build too quickly, unless you build like I do, and reduce funding to all your facilities. Like, spending enough money on one school to support 200 students when you only have five is just a waste of money.

Traffic is easy enough to deal with if you start with streets and upgrade them as needed. Also, don't be afraid of using your unlimited powers of imminent domain.

My fast cash strategy is to spend all of my starting cash plus a couple loans and build a completely planned and gridded city. This works best when the city has a few well established neighbors. Doing this I end up having skyscrapers within a few turns and massive profits.:D

EDIT: Also, don't forget to build some farm towns nearby. This will help the population growth to remain steady.