So what happens at 500,000?

[cybr426 0]

Hey There
          Well I'm running a region right now an its standing at about 460,000. I was wondering what is going to happen we I approach 500,000? 
          
         Also I don't know if the game is messed up or if it's me but recently, my regional demand has the R$$ and R$$$ in the negative while the R$ is flourishing wherever I lay any residential zones. Could it be because of the fact that up until this point most of my regional population has been R$$ and R$$$ and that just now the R$ demand is just starting to catch up? Also, the CS demand whether it be high, med, or low is mostly negative while the CO$$ demand is high but the CO$$$ demand is relatively low to nothing at all. Whats up?
        
         And just one more question (I've played the game since it came out but I really haven't gone hardcore, so bare with me) Do farms have any effect whatsoever on the other demands whether or not they are there? Do I even need farms? 

Thank You!

[Sam 163]

From your description I don't think there is anything messed up with your game, your economy just needs a bit of fine tuning. The demand charts just tells you what you need more of and what you need less of. So if it is saying it has high demand for R$ then that is probably what you should try to catch up on. Especially if you have a large amount of R$$ and R$$ in your region you will find you need to add quite a bit more R$ to promote further development of your cities. If you don't have enough R$ then this will reduce demand in the business sector (Commercial and Industry) which in turn will reduce demand in your Residential sector (including R$$ and R$$$) The end result of this can be economic depression, unemployment and abandonment.

Because you have a reasonably high amount of R$$ and R$$$ in your cities, you may need to provide some more CO$$ in order to give them some more jobs. Probably what happened was, as your residents became more wealthy, a lot of CO upgraded to CO$$$ to keep up, but there wasn't enough CO$$ left. So it looks like you may also need to allow for more CO$$ to build.

Farms are nice additions to cities, and look realistic. They also provide jobs for low wealth, uneducated sims. However wealthier and educated sims will not want to work on farms, so more developed cities will probably have no demand for them. Also all other industry counts against the demand cap for farms, so the more other industry you have in a city, the less demand you will have for farms. So if you would like to use farms, its probably best to start them in a new undeveloped city and make sure there are lots of R$ nearby to work the farms.

I'm not sure that anything particular happens at 500 000 (except that you have another 40 000 sims to look after ) You may get a new reward, or hit a new demand cap or get a congratulatory message. But the only way to find out for sure is to move in those extra 40k sims, and enjoy the milestone when it happens

Hope this helps, good luck with your cities.

[usad25 0]

That is so weird but I just hit 1.8 million for my region and all my remand or R$$ and R$$$ just went flat. And I amit that I have a lot of R$$$ but as I play on more R$ moves in and R$$ and R$$$ get a higher demand. Like it used to be -5000 sims for R$$ and R$$$ but now its like +2000 R$$ and +1000 R$$$. It just takes time. Well to give you an example.... just look at our econemy (im talking about the usa) its building up. Just this past month our econemy rose alot. So over time everything just gets better. JUST KEEP PLAYING.

[SC4BOY 20]

Is there a "RIGHT ANSWER" for this question at all? Can't you control what demand is for various sectors? Or is there a "target" ratio. All of the hints drive to evergrowing R$$$ and all shiney cities... Is it possible to rule out the low end by reducing where possible low end jobs, taxing them heavily, giving them restricted living choices, etc (or any other group as far as that goes.) I have read that many try to hold R$$$ to 20% or lower by taxing them, etc because they are not good workers.. In other words does the GAME control YOU or do YOU control the GAME..

[Constantina 5]

In terms of the population, not much happens at 500,000 residents as long as demand for your city is balanced.

[cybr426 0]

See I thought that once your region population hits 500,000 you unlock a certain building stage where you get huge corporation skyscrapers. Also can someone explain to me the building stages. I know that as your city/region grows in population, the office buildings get taller, at least thats how I understand it. And one last one just for giggles. At any point during the game do you reach a population point where something dramatic happens? Like let's say you reach 1 million sims in a city, do you get a parade or a certain secret reward or does god send it's wrath of fury by sending some sort of apoctolyptic disaster?

Thanks Again!

-and Thank You to those who already replied!

[Tolomar 5]

the game starts to become interesting...

[simzebu 19]

And that means...?

[Bones1 96]

It means absolutely nothing.

Nothing special happens at 500,000 or 1,000,000. All the rewards are triggered by about 120,000 pop. There's no parade, or special message, or bigger buildings.

You do get taller buildings as your entire region population grows. But by about 127,000 pop, the building proportions are already at their maximum sizes.

[Crimson King 0]

... up until this point most of my regional population has been R$$ and R$$$quote>

That's a bit of a problem if you're looking to keep the demand for all of the developer types (R$$$, CO$$, etc.) positive. Sims of a given wealth and education level will demand certain types of commercial and industrial buildings, and the commerical and industrial buildings will in turn demand a mixed workforce of sims. These demands feed on each other in a cyclical nature, causing the city to grow.

Problems arise when a part of the demand cycle is not satisfied properly. For example, many players don't realize that even CO$$$ needs R$ sims to be staffed to full capacity. They erroneously think that CO$$$ can be filled with R$$$, but that is not the case. In fact, CO$$$, which has the largest R$$$ demand by percentage of workforce, only requires 15% of its workforce to be R$$$. So, even if your city's businesses consisted solely of CO$$$, only 15% of the city's population ought to be R$$$.

Unfortunately, there is another factor at play that serves to imbalance your city's wealth demographic: desirability. Increasing the desirability of a R$ area will almost always result in it upgrading to higher wealth levels. Since many players go for universal school and hospital coverage to maximize mayor rating, pretty soon they have no slums left, and all the rich folks in the world can't keep the office buildings full. But even those jobs that are unfilled count as satisfying the demand for CO$$$, so eventually the demand cycle will stagnate.

Look through your city, and see if many of your office buildings are not fully staffed. If that's the case, examine your population graphs, and see if more than 10% of your population is R$$$. If it is, try raising taxes on R$$$ and demolishing a school and/or hospital to create a less desirable area. When the area fills with low-wealth housing projects, make them historical so they won't upgrade, then replace the schools.

Quite a while ago, I posted an Excel spreadsheet on this site that allows you to calculate the ideal ratio of R$, R$$, and R$$$ sims, given a city-wide education level. I don't know if it's still on here, but most players are only interested in the ratio for a highly-educated city, which is 4:5:1. That's 40% R$, 50% R$$, and 10% R$$$. Makes for easy calculation when trying to figure out when to raise taxes. :-)

Of course, there is also the issue of demand caps, but I assume that's not part of your problem, since many players build lots of reward buildings and connect to neighboring cities with highways.