EA is doing this to everything; Need for Speed Most Wanted Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Medal of Honor SSX
True. But it's still sending a dishonest message. They want people to look at the title and think that they are returning to the traditions that made the original a classic. It would only have been honest had they simply repackaged the original, and maybe updated the graphics. Not that that would necessarily have been a good idea either. But it's really the only thing that could justify them releasing another game with the exact same title.
There were a few tricks you could do in the original, but something like that 0 tax thing should definitely have been caught :/ Anyway the most efficient layout I found for the original was: ___ ___ _______ where the zones are whatever ratio of R/C/I you need, and the is a Road half the time and a Park the other half. Throw some power plants in the corner, along with your Seaport and such. -Every zone is touching a road and at least one park, so it gets those bonuses. -Roads only develop traffic if they are at least two squares long, so no traffic complaints or pollution from that. -You save $3 upkeep by not needing Railroads since the Railroad "less traffic" bonus means nothing. The "Citizens demand a railroad" didn't seem to actually penalize anything, but feel free to put a 2 square railroad in the corner next to your Stadium or something to shut them up. The Scenarios also had some silly solutions. Any scenario that asked you to reduce Traffic, Crime, or Pollution could be solved by killing everything with whatever Disaster/Bulldozer combo you felt like. 9.9 years of 0 population rubble later, you receive the Key to the City! Yayz.