Difficulty with Quantifying Utilities

[SimBurger 0]

Just like SimCity, this game offers one, two, three different sizes for things like Power Plants.

Unfortunately, unlike SimCity, this game doesn't quantify their effect on the city.  At all. 

Whereas in SimCity, a small plant was labeled as generating 10,000 Megawatts, and larger plant 50,000 Megawatts ...

In Cities XL all they say for the small one is "Generates some electricty", and for the large one:"Generates Electricity".

Ooookay.

There is no quantification of the differences between the two, even though they offer nearly 3 distinct sizes of power plants. 

The problem arose when I was told I needed more electricity for my city.  The only gauge I had was a " -1" on the token.  Okay so how do I meet that need and fix the problem?  I am given no information. 

As it stands, the only descriptions we have are:

"Generates some electricity" (smaller plant)

"Generates electricity"  (medium plant)

How am I supposed to fix the "-1" with that type of info?

I feel like Im operating in the dark.  So to speak.

[morriswalters 16]

No you are not.  But it wouldn't help you because you can't quantify demand.  There are two types of demand, one is the type that your used to, the other is population based.  The population based one is  set by the devs and is subject to change when they rebalance, if they do.  But the reason you can't predict is because of the way population  increases, there is some kind of formula but I don't know what it is.  What I do know is that it is not linear.  The more homes you build the more people it takes to fill them, the same is true for jobs.  That's why you can't build your way out of trouble.  The more you build the more you need.  This is why you can stop anywhere and just aquire cash without problems.  If your not in trouble when you stop you never will be.

Nothing wears out, nothing fails.  People call this game socialist but in terms of the way the population acts it is pure capitalistic supply and demand.  And as I said you can never satisfy demand on one map.  The one question I've never heard is how can you put 15,000,000 million people on a 10 km square map.  And almost all the maps have unbuildable areas.  Hong Kong is one of the denser cities on Earth and it's nowhere near that dense. 

If I seem a mite aggravated it's because after filling a farm map full(about 60 percent of the map).  I discovered that to get the farm mega whatever that I will have to redo all my farms. Because the prize is based on the number of farms evidently not the production.   In the process I will double my population while not increasing the amount I am actually farming.  However I will get over it

[SimBurger 0]

Here's my point:

When I am presented with 4 different types of power plants, and I am *EXPECTED* to provide what my city *NEEDS* - and I have no idea what my city *NEEDS* nor how much each plant can *PRODUCE*, then I am completely in the dark as to what plant to build.

Make sense?

The problem arose when I was told I needed more electricity for my city.  The only gauge I had was a " - 1 " on the token.  Okay so how do I meet that need and fix the problem?  I am given no information.  Maybe the power plants could say "Provides + 2" and the smaller ones could say "Provides + 0.5"  and the largest could say "Provides + 5"

Then you'd have a quantifiable description, and then I could actually make a decision. 

As it stands, the only descriptions we have are:

"Provides some power" (smaller plant)

"Provides power"  (medium plant)

How am I supposed to fix the "-1" with that type of info?

SB

[morriswalters 16]

I was tired last night so I wasn't as clear as I needed to be.  I'll post the numbers for the power plant tommorow, but it won't help much.  In SC4 buildings consumed power so you could keep up with it.  But in CXL people consume everything so demand is related to population.  And population doesn't grow in what I would call a normal fashion.  Population growth is not a constant, it increases as you grow.  The faster you grow the faster the population increases.  Jobs work the same way. Build 1 business and it may employee 5 people build a hundred and the last one may employ 50.  Take the farms I was complaining about.  My population was at roughly 350,000 when I finished the first time, it's now around 550,000.  The increase came from rearranging the farms, I reduced their size but the total land area didn't change.  I built no new industry nor offices with the exception of specialty buildings.  Power demand grew, fuel demand grew, office demand grew, along with everything else even though all I did was to rearrange the way I did my farms.  Power plants use fuel so the answer to your question is to add as little capcity as you can live with without messing up your profitabilty.  Watch your businesses, profit will fall if they need something and they will tell you what it is..

As a stategy the best way is to grow slowly, keep an eye on you satisfaction.    If that gets out of control Elites or Executives will leave and your city will collapse.  Remember the game doesn't have a cyclical economy, nothing changes unless you change it.   Acquire cash.  It's not really worth much since cash flow is the important number, but it will give you time to react if something goes wrong.  I sell almost exclusively to Omnicorp since he is the most reliable trader out their right now.  I would speculate that sooner or later MC will tinker with Omnicorp to force you to trade with other players.  Everything is set this way by design.  They want you to trade.  It's the sole purpose of the game since there isn't enough content to justify the PO.  Here's a disaster stategy.  If everything goes sideways and Elites bail out, you can tear your whole city down with the exception of farms.  If your cash position is good it's better than deleting your city.  I personaly like to keep my cash reserves at 300,000,000.  I once did this in the beta.

[Livin in Sim 83]

[TheJackalope 0]

Look at the individual demand bars for each resource to see how much your city needs. What I have seen is that for each 5000 in maintenance one token is produced before modifications for lack of input resources(neg), lack of full employment(neg), or landmark/industry building modifiers(positive). So small is 1, medium 2, large 4 assuming you have fuel and people for them.

[USA_Pride 49]

I agree with SimBurger. It makes no sense not to quantify, in numbers, how much something produces. Because of this and other reasons I'm left frustrated\puzzled by the resource system in CXL.

[gyzzzmo 0]

my experience is that 1 bigger plant is slightly more efficient than 2 smaller types, but also has more negative impact (pollution)

[Rakeesh 0]

I have to agree that the vagueness is a bit odd. I didn't actually think anything of it until a day or two ago when a new building appeared in my list of water utilities with specifically stated bonuses in it's descriptor. +40% water production, +5% education bonus. Granted it's great to know the exact effects of this building, it would be nice if the other utilities actually listed how much they produced. IE: Water tower produces 1 token, or however they want to quantify it.

[morriswalters 16]

All in One

1000=Electrical

Windmill

60=Electrical

Small Power Plant

600=Electrical

Medium Power Plant

1200=Electrical(??????)

Large Power Plant

3750=Electrical

The listing of the Medium Power Plant is from memory and it may have been changed.  Somebody named Greybeard is posting some stats on his site if you want more. 

Be aware of some things.  Some higher utilities are unavailable until you unlock them.  The equation is very complex when you plan.  It's not just a question of how much power, rather it's a balance between how much pollution how much fuel and how much power. It's also a function of population.  In addition to the demand produced by population each new class exerts more demand on your cashflow.  Elites for instance are very difficult to keep happy.  All level three buildings of any type use elites,and require more of everything.  Level three buildings pollute more, use more energy, and more support services.  Building have usage stats and perhaps greybeard will post the.  At a minimum each industrial building has at least two dependencies from among, fuel, electricity, and office services.  High tech is slightly different as it also requires business hotels. These dependencies are listed in the info panel for each building.

People are the kicker.  They demand everything and there is no way to quantify it since population increases on 1 curve while demand increases on another.  And those two curves are only indirectly coupled.

Good luck

Edit to correct my statement on dependencies.

[SimBurger 0]

Morris i believe you're using numbers related to cost.

Not effect on city power supply, how many homes/offices/megawatts each plant produces, nor how many tokens each plant can represent.

So those numbers aren't tied to what we're discussing here.

SB

[morriswalters 16]

Those numbers are not cost.  Think of them as megawatts.  Your direct cost for utilities is the cost per cycle stated in the construction menu.  I'll try to make this simpler.  Your utilities generate 1 megawatt(for example) your industrial buildings take some percentage of that.  There is  a number but it's tedious to get it.  Your population takes what it needs.  If you have a surplus and it is big enough it will show up as a positive token of electricity.  Now to predict usage you need to know all commercial uses(industry) , all private use.  But you can't get the private use, it varies. by population.  Here's where it gets tricky.  It would still  be possible if 1 citizen used the same  amount always.  It turns out that is not the case.  The more people you have the more they want, individually.  Think of smaller cities as less consumerist.  But as they get bigger they want more toys. 

The underlying principle is really pretty sound, if not a lot of fun to deal with.  The way to play this is to  understand that you can only make people as happy as you can afford to.  Your token demands is your best guide, if it  goes red fix it.  If it's yellow be ready to fix it, if it's green ignore it until  it isn't.  But it can change fast.  Have a plan.

[RegisterST2 0]

Doesn't seem like such a simple question should require such a lengthy answer.

[Androv 6]

It would be nice to know which power plant is more cost effective. If they are all the same cost per unit energy then the only things that matter are space constraints and pollution level.

[morriswalters 16]

RegisteringSucks

The answer implies that the question is not as simple as it seems.

Androv

Choice is an illusion in this game.  If you make your city big enough level 3 electrical buildings are the only thing that will satisfy demand.

The only time that you can get a clear view of efficency is when you build specialty buildings because they generate a production increase with no cost but the cost of maintaining them.

Maybe somebody else has a better answer.  Good Luck