Amount: $15,000
Rating: normal
Size: medium
Type: temperate forest
Location: Eastern Europe

This is a rough one - but it's rough for buggy reasons. I had to play this one through three different times to get it to finally "take" and I get a fair amount of email from people with the same problem. For example, they tell you that you can have non-African animals in the zoo until the end, at which point you have to get rid of them. Fine, I started with some peacocks since I like them and they're easy. I got all of my 12 African species happy and prepared to get rid of the peacocks. No dice. You can only release an animal in the wild when it's happy. I would release most of my peacocks but then the remaining ones would be unhappy because they were "lonely". I would add a few more peacocks back into the cage, and they were happy. I'd try to release them again, and as I got down to 1 left, that 1 would be lonely, so I couldn't release him. Finally I tried feeding him to the lions, the lions wouldn't eat him. Nobody would. I tried to starve him to death. He wouldn't die. I tried making a 1x1 cube cage with no door, with ocean water in it. He splashed around saying "help me!" but somehow miraculously stayed afloat. Finally I started again. Other bugs happened. One time I ended up with a crate that said "Okapi 1" - and also a real Okapi 1 running around in the same cage. Another time, my crocodiles were miserable claiming they needed privacy - even when I put them in a nice, big enclosure with giant wooden fences all around them, and the people were claiming they couldn't see the crocodiles. But yes, finally I did win the level.

So the main up-front advice I have is if you get stuck, start fresh. To win you need 12 different species of African animals and all must be happy. You can't have any non-African species in the zoo. I began with 2 gazelles in the lower L of the main gate area, against that corner. I made one path to that, and another straight north to a food court area by that lake. The food court gets a sundial. During this whole mission I continuously rejected any non-African species so that African species would be made available to me.

Spend any free time recycling all the trees, etc. in the park. Always build a male and female of each species. As they make kids, release out the matching sex parents because this gives you fame but retains a breeding pair.

Next come 2 camels and a scratching post, taking up most of the rest of the lower left area. Build the next cage going along the far left wall, and start a food court in that southwestern corner. In Feb add in a gemsbok on that left wall, and get 1 star. Add all new food stalls you can and a flower arch. Now a flamingo stall - since they only need a low fence I make a large square to the left of the path that leads north to that water-front food court. You can "see" into this from both the left and right sides. Now it's March with 1.5 stars. Make sure as always that there's a donation box by each cage. April - 2 stars - lots more options. Wait for the crocodile at $3k. I put it in the lower right corner by the main gate.

Add in a compost heap and the spider and photo objects. When you can, completely replace old restrooms with the new family ones. May, research new food items. Put a Zebra in along the far lower right wall. Start up a little food court to the right. By July you have 2.5 stars. Make sure you now have 2 maintenance people and 2 keepers, plus 2 educators.

August - get an Okapi (#7) at $5500 each, on the right wall heading north. September brings an ostrich on the far left wall, north of the gemsbok. In October I put a lion immediately right of that central path heading to the north waterfront food court, it was very popular. Now just sit back, rack in the money and get 3.5 stars. Plunk in one giraffe and one cheetah and you're done!

Zoo Tycoon 2 Walkthrough

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