RCI Demand Model

[Taifu_Noodle 0]

I have searched for info on this but all I got were threads on demand being too great or too little.

What I would like information on, is how demand changes as you increase your population and your populations education?

For instance, at the very beginning of your game it's not Residents that grow first, its Farms/Industry. So if you zone a large amount of Farms, you will have demand for a large amount of stupid sims. If you never get rid of those Farms the demand must still be there even if your population is hundreds of thousands strong and very smart.

So when should you get rid of the farms? Or should  you?

Does having Farms create false demand for low wealth sims in your rich skyscraper city on the other side of your region?

Anything on how you should interpret the RCI demand meter in the context of your region will be greatly received.

Thanks in advance.

[loveangel 0]

I'd like to see more technical info about RCI demand as well. I myself don't have any definite facts, but I do have some observations, all of which could be totally wrong of course. so if anybody can correct me, I'd appreciate it.

Like you said, industry (incl. farms) is the first to grow. The game seems to give you an artificial head start in that area, just to get your demand moving. The presence of jobs in a city (or region) will drive R demand, but jobs provided by different "levels" of industry don't seem to correspond 100% to different levels of R wealth. This seems to be partly because dirty and ag can also provide jobs for R$$ and R$$$ sims, and HT (and Co-$$$) likely provides some jobs to R$. This is logical; not everybody who works at a law firm earns "$$$" type salary, and people who own or manage "dirty industry" can be very wealthy. For the sake of example, lets say that an industry low wealth ($) building has 60% R$ jobs, 30% R$$ and 10% R$$$. somebody with a better understanding should clarify this, I have no idea what the actual numbers are.

So with that in mind, having farms in your region will create demand for low wealth sims, but it will also cause demand (but less) for R$$ and R$$$. I'm not sure what you mean by false demand; if the farms are close enough to cause demand elsewhere in your region, they will also be close enough for sims to travel to work there.

Industry and commercial demand seem to be driven by residents "needs". So while having some jobs will cause people to move in to fill those jobs, those new sims will have needs (like umm..furniture and ipods and stuff), which is basically what causes industry and commercial demand to rise. This is apparently complicated by education but my theory is, sims with low education only "need" goods produced by dirty industry. As their education level rises, their needs are filled by manufacturing. Once they are very educated, their needs become high tech. This is similar, yet different than the idea that industry/comm demand grows just because sims want more jobs- because if that were true, demand wouldn't really ever stop and if it somehow did, it would never start again.

Like I said, much of this is just guesswork, but if anybody can correct me or point me to a thread with more details about how RCI demand actually works, that'd be great

[RippleJet 36]

Originally posted by: Taifu_Noodle I have searched for info on this but all I got were threads on demand being too great or too little.

What I would like information on, is how demand changes as you increase your population and your populations education?quote>

Demand Simulator: Demand, Supply and CAPs 

Originally posted by: Taifu_NoodleAnything on how you should interpret the RCI demand meter in the context of your region will be greatly received.quote>

 

That meter is kind of logarithmic, so you cannot really read exact values off it.

For exact readings, use the Census Repository Facility, Version 3.

[Taifu_Noodle 0]

Thanks for the replies. A little bit of interesting reading for me there.

Now...I've a couple of new questions for ya.

By false demand, I meant that my 200,000 sim office building city on one side of my region, shows the R$ demand from the 1,000 sim farm city, on the other side of my region. So does demand travel across a region like that, or does distance from the jobs reduce demand?

Also, when you save a city it updates the demand info with the city's directly connected....right? But does it update the demand info to all connected city's, even if there are multiple city's in between.

Thanks again.

[RippleJet 36]

Originally posted by: Taifu_Noodle

By false demand, I meant that my 200,000 sim office building city on one side of my region, shows the R$ demand from the 1,000 sim farm city, on the other side of my region. So does demand travel across a region like that, or does distance from the jobs reduce demand?quote>

 

All demand works on a regional level. 

When being played, each city only sees the capacities of the neighbouring cities, but each neighbouring city in turn has capacities that they in turn see in their neighbouring cities.

The demand simulator is happily unaware of the distances between homes and work places.

Those only come in play when the traffic simulator starts finding paths...

Originally posted by: Taifu_Noodle

Also, when you save a city it updates the demand info with the city's directly connected....right? But does it update the demand info to all connected city's, even if there are multiple city's in between.quote>

 

Yes, extrapolated demand is "step-wise" only seen in the neighbouring cities.

However, if you play one of those neighbouring cities for a while, that extrapolated demand will in the end lead to further (maybe different kind of RCI) demand extrapolated to the neighbours of that city, and so on.

Thus, in the end, plopping a farm in one corner of your region would affect the R§ demand in the other end if that demand isn't fulfilled anywhere in a city being closer to that plopped farm.

[Taifu_Noodle 0]

So...you can potentially create demand in your region that can't be satisfied from certain city's because they are located to far away. How do you go about finding out where the demand is coming from?

Thanks for your time RippleJet, I've now  got loads more questions, but there not really related to this post. So I'm going to have a search around for the answers.

Cheers

[AWatkins 0]

Interesting stuff. I have been wondering what leads to my ever increasing, out of control R$ demand. I read the workforce and occupational demand one, and was wondering how does education correlate to wealth level? Will a population that becomes more educated lead to more wealth? I noticed that a low wealth individual has to have a high education to work in the higher wealth buildings. I take it this then causes businesses to move in that have a higher demand for higher wealth, which causes higher wealth sims to move in and so on. So, in order to lower demand for R$ in my city, I need to increase all sim's education level and wait?