New to simcity having issues with "Making money the easy way" tutorial

[Leodido 0]

Hi all,

First of all I gotta say this site is really awesome, I just discovered sim city 4 goodness and I think I'm addicted

Gamewise, I 'm trying to understand how the game works so I though I'd follow a tutorial in the omnibus ("Making money the easy way") and I'm having issues. I like the idea of putting industrial in one region and doing suburbs in the other etc.. but when following his tutorial my sims seem to not notice that there is plenty of work in the neighboor region.

When I get to approximatively 5000 population my industrial city stops popping industry on the zones and in my suburb city the population is whining about not having any jobs.. Both my regions are connected by an avenue. At that point the people start leaving and my population slowly decreases.

Anyone has an idea why? Also if this tutorial does not work could anyone direct me to a functionning one or general tips on how to make my city work.

Thanks

[Livin in Sim 83]

Hi, Leodido,

Welcome to Simtropolis.  Things to check:

Is there some form of road intersecting with your connecting avenue that will give the sims a turnaround to get back into town?  They will leave and work in the other tile if not.  But this may be a moot point, because if I understand correctly, all your jobs are in the neighboring tile, so you want them to do this.

Have all or most of your residential lots upgraded to R$$$?  This will happen if your city is "nice".  They won't work in dirty industries, are limited in manufacturing, they hate to commute to another tile, and jobs for them make up a very small percentage of total workforce in SC4.  So until your region grows quite large and there are enough jobs (especially High Tech) available for them, it's a good strategy to limit their growth by taxation and using the "Make Historical" checkbox in lot queries.  It's also good to have the most R$, second most R$$, like a pyramid, as I heard it most aptly explained, because that is how the job availability is structured.  But if you don't really want that many low wealth residents, you can get by pretty well with quite a few R$$.  Or you can put your low wealth all in one large, slummy city.  But I myself kind of like the challenge of making R$ look attractive.  I've even gone to the point of lotting some parks and removing the park effect, or using non park base lots, so that the residentials don't upgrade as much.  There are probably some on the STEX, too.  Another thing about R$ is that when they are fully educated, CS $$ and $$$ demand really pops, and it helps CO as well.  With this in full force, your skyscapers will start to appear when population reaches a certain level.

That's about all I can think of right now.  Please let me know if you have more questions.

Have fun.

--Liv

[Wilczek 0]

Hello,

I'm also a newcomer here and must say that the site is pretty well-designed and very helpful. Especially Omnibus of Knowledge.

However, I've also had a few issues connected with this tutorial. Maybe not issues but questions regarding that topic.

First of all, I've got the same problem with No Jobs, but I don't have Rush Hours so without avenues it might be simply inconvenient for my sims to commute via normal road to another tile. But it's not what I distinctly want to discuss. Nothing was mentioned about the police and justice department in the article. Isn't it necessary to create supply when the demand is obvious? (I've seen reports about lacks of police coverage on the screenshots).

Additionally, there were also no information regarding bonus buildings like City Halls, Mayor's Houses, TV Studios or even airports. I have no idea whether or not the position of these ones on the map has an impact on the demand of any kind.

Moreover, as far as the Tutorial is concerned, no water in the CBD is necessary.  I couldn't find anything about the water supply in the CBD or these High-Tech Industry districts. Is it absolutely necessary?

Thanks!

[Faded Glory 13]

Wilczek, welcome to Simtropolis! Hope you enjoy the site!

Ok, question time;

1, Typically, the police departments are really neccesary until it become bad enough to cause abandonment. Before that its typically a waste of money. P.S. get Rush Hour or Deluxe, it helps sooooo much.

2, The bonuses (at least in Deluxe or RH) relieve caps that cause growth to stall. An airport would cause addtional commercial demand, etc. So yes, they do affect demand.

3, Public water is not nessecary at the beginning. Low density residential, industry, and commercial will develope, but dont expect very rich people moving in. High Tech industry does require water (the only industry that does).

Hope this helps!

[Leodido 0]

thanks guys.

Well my city has mostly R$ and R$$ no R$$$ as far as I know, I was wondering maybe if it was not simply a matter of expanding my residential city more or something, I'll try this because I really like the idea of having industrial in another region and residential in another.

[Wilczek 0]

Oh, and one more thing about No Jobs issues I've experienced lately. Today, I've been playing an experimental city (also region play with industry in one tile and residential and commerce in another one), and it seems that I've finally got rid of the problem. My issue was unemployment whereas the other city provided an awful lot of vacancies. It seems that the problem was accessibility. Notwithstanding the fact that the commute was ideal for sims, because there was a set of straight roads through an entire residential tile, they couldn't find the route. I based my city on the 'Making Money The Easy Way' tutorial, but I haven't got the Deluxe Edition, so avenues were unaccessible to me. So instead of avenues I've put two roads looking alike, but it appears to me that sims are not likely to take two roads as one avenue, which makes commuting problems. Even though I have 22.000 people in the city, of which circa 11.000 work in the industrial sector in the neighbouring tile, and 2.000 in commerce in residential city, I have no longer problems with commute since I've created highway connections! It's the first time I created a highway and it generated income! I'm quite happy and I feel free to share with you guys ) However, I'm already waiting for my Rush Hour pack, because I think it will be much more beneficial. But for those of you, who don't have Deluxe, it's the good idea of the commuting problem disposal even at the very early stages of our city building. At first I thought that highways are a way to go at the stage of population varying around 100.000 people, but here it is - 22.000 region population with highway creating pretty nice income (I've got $2000 positive balance in each tile).

Cheers

[Tosiek12 0]

I just got back into the simcity world after taking a small break and had the "no job" problem a day ago and i couldn't figure out why. 

My main problem was I started plopping medium sized suburb clusters (20x20 blocks) with 1 main road thinking to my avenue connection and started getting massive abandonement.  Linked a few more roads from the cluster and it fixed my problem.  I had more than enough jobs in the neighboring town also.  The problem wasn't that there were too little jobs but rather a traffic/congestion problem and they started giving up as they were looking for those jobs. 

Also,  my R$ has been completely moving out of my current suburb area.  Give the area plenty of water and education and a few parks along with no pollution and those R$ will move out quick.  Ive been building medium residential zoning in my industrial town and ive all but made up for lost R$ numbers as well as started a small farm town to take a break from zoning suburbs and industrial blocks.  The farm town so far is at 10k and just R$ and its been helping with the high RDI need for them. 

You need a balance of R$ R$$ and R$$$ otherwise your region is going to stagnate or create another block like the abandonment.  Even wose is that it will stagnate your skyscrapers when your ready to build them.  

That tutorial is great but it doesn't tell you alot of things but there is enough reading on these forums to help learn everything else, as well as playing and finding everything out on the way. 

Also, make sure you download the essential addons as they will make your life easier:

NAM june 2009 (make sure you set it up the right way also with the Z mod)

CAM

Also there are bus/subway mods that allow the placement of stops ontop of roads that make things alot less complicating when placing transportation.

And to save you alot of headaches although some might consider it cheating: 

A super polution cleaning park lot

a money tree

a non polluting power source

farming multiplier mod

industrial multiplier mod

Hospital/school range and capacity multiplier (less schools, same cost, more space for zoning)

You don;t have to always use it but its nice when testing or playing around and the farming/industrial multiplier saves you alot of space and time in undustrial/farm zones. 

You can search here or on sc4devotion for the addons. 

[Leodido 0]

Thanks for the advice!

I was wondering which engine to use when installing the NAM and I think I selected Simulator B, should I reinstall and use Simulator Z?

Also there is an option to select Automata, what is it exactly?

[Faded Glory 13]

Honestly, I haven't heard of Simulator B, but Simulator Z is much better (or easier I should say) because it makes sims much more patient. And Automata arew the trains, cars

and such that make the city come to life. Turn it off to improve performance, or keep it on to increase realism.

[Leodido 0]

Thanks for the info, I switched to the Simulator Z.

I have a problem in my region now, some of my sims cry about not having enough job, but in my industrial city I hardly have any industrial demand so I can't really make more jobs.

If make more residential in my suburbs then people will generate some industrial demand but not enough for all my jobless sim, so I'm kinda stuck in a vicious circle that I can't get out of.

Any advice on how to generate more jobs when there is hardly any demand?

[Merlin of Flyote 8]

This might be blindingly obvious but create a second industrial city tile. Also don't neglect Railways and connections to neighbouring cities, placing plenty of stations in both cities. Sims don't like to walk far, about 8-9 tiles only. Place bus stops near stations in both cities, and car parks near stations in the residential city, so sims can park and ride.

[Leodido 0]

Thanks for the replies al l I have another question now if someone could help me. How can I put walls under my Highway ramps circled in red?

[ru3za007 0]

Yo Bro...

I Wanna Make My Own "Money Tree or Money Park"

How To Make It...and What I Need To MAke It...???

[nerdthisname 1]

Originally posted by: ru3za007

Yo Bro...

I Wanna Make My Own "Money Tree or Money Park"

How To Make It...and What I Need To MAke It...???quote>

You need the SC4 plug-in manager and the lot editor (optional).

Create a new lot (whatever you want). Change the properties in the SC4 Plug in manager as you want, you can place the plop cost to 0, but the monthly mantainance cost must be $ - X, where X is the cash you want to get and it MUST BE NEGATIVE.

If you want, change the lot's physical appereance to make it look as you want with the lot editor.