is simcity 4 broken?

[nikmesh 0]

ok let me lay out the sceanrio for u lot . I was starting a new city on rush hour, latest patch + NAM mod. chose the largest sized area in my region to start off. the plan was to place residential+commercial in this area, then next door i'd have all industrial. Built up my residential area at the left side of the map with commercial surrounding it. the industrial neighbor was also on the maps left, so the residents only had to goto the edge to reach it (so it was super close to them). Around 6-7k population i get jobless houses and houses abandoned due to commute time. what on earth? The commute graph also displays around 50-60. All industrial + commercial demand is met (except farming) and there are plenty of connections to the industrial neighbor. further more at such a early stage with a low population like mine it is unbelievable this was happening. In another game i had a city made with a population of 24-25k without a single problem. And that city was using a similar design and layout to the one with these problems. I cannot think up a logical reason for how this happend =/

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I think when sims go across the border, for their commute time, it's not actually calculated. Since the simulator isn't running for the neighboring city, it just adds up the extra jobs, and anyone who crosses the border just gets a flat increase in commute time, no matter where in the neighboring city the jobs are.

[nikmesh 0]

i can comfirm that. i did an experiment where i placed a single residential zone at the edge of the map. then i went and built an industrial zone in it's neighboring area right next to the edge. After that test i went and reposition the industrial zone at the opposite end of the map. no diffrence in commute time from what i can tell.

[Jeh7497 1]

maybe you rotated the city by accident and they have to go all the way across town.

[nikmesh 0]

nope, i checked the route they took. they headed for the left edge of the map just were they were supposed to.

[SC4BOY 20]

Nope.. once the sim crosses the border he is "employed" as far as this city is concerned. When he crosses the border a penalty is attached to the commute time representing the commute on the other side (some dissagree with me on this point, but I believe it's pretty easy to verify) Further the penalty is the same whether the job is immediately across the border or on the complete other side of it's map. The game only has "here" (in this city) and "over there" meaning all outside the city anywhere in the region. A given city is completely unaware of the details of what happens across borders. The game doesn't track a given sim as soon as he leaves the city. If you want to call this a "bug" feel free, but it's the way the game works.

[orjanb314 0]

Originally posted by: SC4BOY
Nope.. once the sim crosses the border he is "employed" as far as this city is concerned. When he crosses the border a penalty is attached to the commute time representing the commute on the other side (some dissagree with me on this point, but I believe it's pretty easy to verify) Further the penalty is the same whether the job is immediately across the border or on the complete other side of it's map. The game only has "here" (in this city) and "over there" meaning all outside the city anywhere in the region. A given city is completely unaware of the details of what happens across borders. The game doesn't track a given sim as soon as he leaves the city. If you want to call this a "bug" feel free, but it's the way the game works.quote>

So when you load the industrial city the commuters will commute to their jobs no matter how far it is? Given that their mode of transport isn't overcrowded? I'm very new to SC4 and I have soon filled a medium sized map with industry and the commuters are still taking the subway even though it's all the way across the area. I have the NAM though which makes this possible if I'm not mistaken.

[SC4BOY 20]

Well I won't say "no matter how far it is", but generally yes. It is possible for your simulator to have sufficiently low allowed commute times that your worker just can't get there in time, but if you're using the NAM that shouldn't likely be a problem. Even overcrowded transportation doesn't make a lot of difference unless you are SUPER overloaded. Tests by others have shown that you certainly can overload them to 5x capacity or more and not be an issue. I'm not exaclty sure what you are asking by your subways question. The element of the NAM that encourages better commuting are the changes to a few parameters such as commute times, pathfinding values, network capacities, etc. The rest of the NAM is expansion and supplements to the network options and "eyecandy" elements.

When you enter the other city (industrial in your case) the sims standing at the border on the network appear sort of like "residential lots".. the simulator then tries to find them "jobs" and starts to see where the jobs are (this is a brand new process and completely unrelated to what happened in the city where they came from..  how exactly it assesses the wealth level I have no idea) and tries to get them to the assigned jobs. Assuming it can get there, they will go... if the only "job" is the other side of the map, it will try to get them there.. based on the network type and distance it is possible that they can't make it, but the NAM I believe allows a sim to cross even a large tile in the alloted "commute time allowed" .. however I'm sure you could set it up so they couldn't make it..