Maximum taxes having no effect on low demand abandonment

[Nielsen 10]

How come my cities face no abandonment due to low demand despite having all tax parameters set to 20%? The demand graphs drop to the bottom so no zoned land develops but once zones have developed, they are willing to pay maximum tax without abandoning properties. In the past I remember how the advisor board in SC4 warned that high taxes limit business opportunities, but again that is probably a hint to tell players that zoned land won't develop. As suggested, I basically see no abandonment due to low demand even though taxes are above the skies. Just in case, I tried deleting all my mods except for the NAM and RAM but to no avail.

I have read the "Demand, Desirability and Abandonment" guide here on Simtropolis (see link at the bottom). It doesn't seem to relate low demand abandonment to taxes but rather to an insufficient number of workers capable of taking jobs that already exist within the commercial and industrial sectors or the opposite. This makes me think that this " tax problem" is perfectly normal but I still wonder whether this is a glitch/bug that Maxis never catched?

http://www.simtropol...abandonment-r31

  Edited June 17, 2012 by Nielsen  

[Jamonbread 222]

That's interesting I have never tried raising them all to 20%... I often do that to stop high wealth as I find the lots super ugly and true I don't think they are ever abandoned but they do redevelop to a lower class. Maybe this is the extent of high taxes. If thats true just raise taxes to the max when you are growing and rake in the dough... thats an oversight for sure. So if I understand correctly you raised commercial as well?

[Nielsen 10]

That's interesting I have never tried raising them all to 20%... I often do that to stop high wealth as I find the lots super ugly and true I don't think they are ever abandoned but they do redevelop to a lower class. Maybe this is the extent of high taxes. If thats true just raise taxes to the max when you are growing and rake in the dough... thats an oversight for sure. So if I understand correctly you raised commercial as well?

I start a new city, zone a fair amount of R, C and I land, provide some wealthy jobs such as police stations, power plants, medical clinics etc. and let properties develop across the three different zone types and income levels. Then I raise taxes to 20% across the entire board. As metioned, demand graphs fall but I don't see any abandonment caused by low demand. So something tells me that taxes mean nothing in terms of abandonment from existing properties. Right now I think that the decisive factor, in terms of abandonment due to low demand, is whether the residents which qualifiy for $$ and $$$ jobs remain available. None of my experiments so far have given me reason to believe that taxes play a role in terms of abandonment. Neither have I been able to tie a connection between taxes and income level degradation on $$ and $$$ properties. I hope someone can prove me wrong or elaborate on this.

In order to test this under simple and transparent circumstances, I have only tried it out in small cities that I start from scratch without any neighbour connections.

  Edited June 18, 2012 by Nielsen  

[Silur 3,297]

Well ...

If I'm a poor man with 20 SS ( aka Sim Shekel ) - You can fix 100% taxes for me - You'll get ZERO from me

But I'm here - on the Earth and in Your City ...

  Edited June 18, 2012 by Silur  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

It is a little late in the quality assurance cycle to be making extreme tests of this nature. This kind of thing should be part of the beta test cycle.

[Nielsen 10]

Am I the only one who has this problem?

[Essex 322]

Nope, I remember having the exact same thing happen to me when I fooled around with it years ago. Left it at that, never used it, game breaker.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Am I the only one who has this problem?

Just what effect were you trying to get with this?

[Nielsen 10]

Just what effect were you trying to get with this?

Abandonment due to low demand but it just doesn't happen. It's as if there is a missing link between the actual amount of demand and the abandonment which can happen as a result of this. In other words, I have taken what I thought would be a disadvantage of taxes in order to see whether abandonment would become a significant consequence of extremely low demand. it's not like I aim to create a region of deserted cities, I just like to understand how the game responds to certain actions. Furthermore, during these tax experiments I ocasionally get a "red message" from the city planner who claims that sims and businesses will move out if the high taxes remain in place but these warnings usually fade to grey upon reading. I wonder if some underlying miscalculations are taking place but I remember to have had cities in the past which had big problems with abandonment due to low demand, especially in the commercial sector, but I never really pushed taxes back then.

The city below is the ugly yet fruitful remains of my most recent tax experiment. Look closely at the population number and demand graphs and explain how the remaining properties keep thriving under such circumstances? Some properties did abandon due to low demand once I started removing the residental zones though. I initially thought that residents were required in order to keep every wealthy businesses alive but I obviously can't make these last abandon.

Close up of the scattered commercial zones:

game breaker.

Right now, I have no reason to oppose that. Those +900k simoleons were acquired with a population originally topping around 11k while running at full game speed for about an hour with full taxes.

  Edited June 19, 2012 by Nielsen  

[Darkwings 5]

I picked up this game again after years and I was amazed by the activity of the online comunity

Getting in topic, it would be a game breaker if you could actually 'win' the game.

Getting a huge amount of money by having some sort of low pop and providing minimal services (if any) is easy, and isn't the goal of the game anyway.

It's actually the beginner's strategy you'll find in most guides.

Some zones will be abandoned but the last few will remain there.

The fact that you won't reach a game over or a ghost town when reaching zero pop is not that big of a flaw since that city is not doing much anyway.

You would be giving up playing at that point.

You have money, but you are not using it.

If you were to build a lot of stuff with that, you would still need to implement services, structures etc to avoid collapsing later.

And even if you choose to have sad sims with low paying jobs, no education and drinking from puddles, it's your choice and the game was designed to let you do that.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

This game can only be lost, and cynically, politicians heads roll up hill. You can play the same region for as long as you like, and never come to a complete end. Some city tiles get so full it is hard to continue with them, but that is the time for a huge urban renewal project like an RHW six-lane highway right though the middle of the business district. Disturbing the ant hill is part of civic life. Remember, that a city has only two seasons: winter and construction.

[Essex 322]

Haha, I like that one Nonny Moose, that's the way I play.

[Darkwings 5]

Actually, based on life experience, the two seasons are "construction" and "we ran out of money so we'll finish it later".

[Nielsen 10]

In fact, it is possible to be removed from the mayor office if the financial situation in a city becomes extremely bad, I would call that a game over but that is not really my point. The game doesn't have to end because everyone abandons, it simply means that players are back where they started. The game just doesn't work that way, instead we can build a small civilisation and let high taxes kill demand while a comfortable income has been ensured until you decide to reduce taxes and raise demand again. It's sort of a workaround to accquire easy money without facing an actual long term consequence. On the other hand, if players make cities grow at a normal rate while keeping taxes at a reasonable level, it becomes much harder to earn money as they have to make sure that taxes, funding etc. keep everyone happy. From what I can tell so far, dirty industry and lower class properties never seem to abandon as a consequence of low demand. Middle and upper classes do to some extend demand abandon when demand gets low but it never seems to turn into a citywide problem, even without residents.

I don't know how these actions would affect bigger cities but it seems that if players do not care about immediate growth, more than a handful of money can be acquired pretty fast. If players want to see steady growth, money are much harder to acquire. Most rational players would probably take the latter approach as this is the way to make the game fun to play. I just miss some kind of long term consequence of being an evil mayor.

Wouldn't it be possible to fix this with a mod? Most mods around seem to make the game more forgiving, I would like one that makes the game a bit harder because the hard difficulty level really never gets just that.

  Edited June 22, 2012 by Nielsen  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Actually, based on life experience, the two seasons are "construction" and "we ran out of money so we'll finish it later".

Well done! That's a horse on me.

@Nielsen:

You and I think alike on this, but my approach is to keep things rural throughout the region unless nature forces more growth. There is nothing like a long coast line to attract a big port, which in turn attracts industrial growth, commercial growth and need Sims to work there. In my current scenarios (I have three on the go), I have one fully developed that I only tweak, one that is having growing pains that I mostly play right now, and one that is not completely developed that I work on when the spirit moves me.

  Edited June 22, 2012 by A Nonny Moose