Economic Disasters

[BlackStar 0]

I am not too reliant on money-making mods - I don't have extreme ordinances mods, nor do I have money gen lots. However, I do occasionally find myself in economic trouble, which can sometimes spark into an economic depression.

It's probably due to mismanagement of finances, but the economic modeling in SC4, no matter how basic is very nice indeed.

I was just wondering if anyone else has these episodes?

I've only had a few major crises in all my years playing SC4, but the most recent I had was when public spending got too high, following a series of investments to increase the tax base. The investments didn't pay off, and with the funds dangerously low, I struggled to keep away from the red - going into debt a few times.

I had to severely cut many city services - fire crews and transit workers were on strike - congestion soared as roads crumbled. Mayor ratings plummeted as libraries, local clinics and schools were closed and centralized into larger downtown facilities. Combined with traffic congestion and high taxes, this led to some occasional civil unrest. I also had to contend with a few pipe burst disasters, which destroyed several homes.

This is the sort of thing which could normally be the cause of Game Over, but I eventually recovered, and income slowly crept up - and after a lucky break with a new residential development, I was able to gradually reinstate services and boost funding.

I was wondering what you do to solve such economic downward spirals? And what is the best way?

[Livin in Sim 83]

Yeah, it can snowball on a person, can't it?  I've found myself in a similar situation a few times, and have even had to run for senate.    You've outlined a pretty good strategy to ride it out, but it isn't pretty.  If I recall, at least one time I took out a loan as well.  Water is a big expense, so I cut it off except where required, just demolishing one single pipe to save money wherever possible.  I also have plopped business deals, and tried to keep them nearby R$ only.  That is a fine line to walk, believe you me.    It'll be interesting to hear if anyone else has some tips.

The interesting thing about periods like that is once you make it through, as you said, residential growth can go through the roof for some reason, and then everything starts popping.  Evidently it was designed to reflect the boom bust, boom again, cycle. 

[ThomasSimpson 466]

It's very annoying when that happens - I tend to slash services and push the limit without causing strikes or anything, and I occasionally put toll booths across heavily-congested borders to up the rent. Taxes also have to go up a little bit - but not too much that slight development turns into abandonment.

[Mithrik 562]

I once had one city, It was at my first days with SC4. I were building the city, expanding, when it reached about 3000 many houses stated to abandon and unkown reason, residential areas stopped development, I undergone into a financial crisis, when the city was in it's worst, the clinics where misplaced as also the police and fire departments, the commute time to the industrial center was terrible (it was across a river), then it had to take a loan, and after that in got the military base and missile base offers, I were desperate so I accepted.

I discovered that using the wind power plants and large quantities of water towers was ineffective, so I replaced them, with imported power(very costly by the way) and a water pump. After that I got a steady income, so I decided to crush the old residential area across the river to build on the other side. After that I Ieft the city. About 3 weeks later I enter it again and start working in getting rid of those business deal buildings, using my new knowledge about city building and greater demand caps consequence of the development of the region.

I did eliminated the threat of those buildings and now the city has a little income of about 600, with nearly 4000 of population, but since then I didn't entered again to that city, so it keeps the same to this date.

It happens to everyone in a moment of his play time, especially when you are new to Sim City 4.

[Yonk 2]

Once, in an earlier region, I'm not quite sure what happened, but in once city I was working on, suddenly, about 90% of the residential houses got no job zots, all at once. It must have been a glitch or something, but they all abandoned, and I had to demolish them all, whereupon they redeveloped like nothing had happened. But there was a tense few years I had to let it run where I was losing around ten-thousand bucks a month because I'd lost most of my tax base.

Also, back in SimCity 3000, I had a city that progress just stagnated in for some reason. A friend of mine suggested it was due to everyone in the city being too old and decrepit, and suggested I demolish all hospitals to kill them all. Somehow... I don't know how! ...it worked. The city bounced back after all the elderly sims died from lack of healthcare, and younger sims moved in. Or something, I dunno.

Going even further back, to Simcity CLASSIC... I once had a city that experienced an earthquake, and two nuclear power plants burned down. I'd stupidly put them all in the same place. My entire city lost power, and I couldn't afford new plants, couldn't even afford POWER LINES to connect the orphaned areas to the areas that still had power. I tried, but I couldn't get any profit to rebuild the damaged infrastructure, and the city collapsed completely. I must have forgotten how to take out loans... ugh...

- Yonk

[Nuclear550 3]

What i do is automatically delete the services i just plopped down and I expand to create more revenue to be able to fund the services.

[farquhar92 0]

once a large city has developed (>150,000) naturally i found that every five years commercial demand would crash, whole swathes of the city would abandon. but i had a large surplus beforehand so cut taxes to spur demand and waited for the recovery

[Jmaster23 0]

Once you get above 400,000 (one of my cities) you go through random abandon bursts. Randomly buildings will tend to get abondend once you get massive cities even when demand is ultra high but I have to demolish 3 Wilkinsons that are close to jobs...the larger your city gets the moe complex the issue gets.

[Nuclear550 3]

Demand is demand the only reason they get abandoned is because of no jobs.

[kevin999 0]

hmm, i never have those bursts without a reason, (i've got like 600k residents and 250k commerce in the city i am working on atm) about the money problems, dont build to much at the same time (services) and keep your eye on the cash flow

if something goes wrong, take a step back, the first thing you can do to get money is cutting health care, police or education a bit.

I do have 1 problem myself

i've got 250k commerce atm, but still no building bigger than 2000 jobs commerce, residents dont get above like 4k (only 1 tower has 10k pop)

[Ninth Culture 0]

I go all-or-nothing if I have a situation like this. Instead of cutting funding, just destroy lesser services like libraries and museums. Remove some services completely from any low-density areas. Centralize to the heart of town, and give it some additional money for civics. Yes, give yourself more expenses. This hopefully will keep demand up and let you make large new tax areas to get you back in the green. Also, try to expand industry, since it needs the least ammount of services to keep it happy.