Skipping the dirty/manufacturing/low-wealth commercial service phase

[William Gates 84]

I just realized you can build your city completely normally without ever zoning for any dirty industry, manufacturing industry, or low-wealth commercial service. I always thought low-wealth jobs were necessary to get high-end demand (like high-wealth commercial office or high-tech industry), but they aren't.

Basically, you only get demand for these low-wealth jobs when your Sims have low intelligence. Set taxes on dirty, manufacturing and low-wealth commercial service to 20%. Plop down education buildings immediately after you build your first residences, and go to cheetah speed and wait until education is above 160 (out of 200) for them. Your sims can subsist on the jobs from civic buildings during this period, although your population won't be growing at all. Once there, you'll get demand for the medium and high-wealth commercial service and office jobs, and high-tech industry. You can now build your city normally... these medium and high-wealth jobs will fuel city population expansion instead of the low-wealth jobs.

  Edited July 13, 2012 by William Gates  

[mayordaniel1 13]

Interesting…

[nukeu123 307]

ahh the classic way of government manipulation, by taxing!....

yes you will infact run in to a road block however, if your taxes are off the charts for low wealth than how are you going to succesfully create a region? yes low industry and residents are filthy swines, but they are essential Stage balancing. CO$$$ thrives off of Industrial zones of all types, so with out low wealth infrastructure, you will have issues when it comes to large developement

personaly idk how the whole stage levels and caps work together but im sure one of the experts will explain further...

if you grow only high wealth your game will otherwise look like SC3k when zonning high wealth, in otherwords your game will look too unrealistic! becides i cant see a city starting with only High wealth, in reality, you dont see small towns with a population below 10K and have towering skylines... were is the realism in that?

however this dose show how important and how powerful education is to the game.

becides were is the challange? SC4 is hard to play, but its worth it when all the end, even the most Richest cities in the world have at least a little slums...

[Afronaut 1]

I do something similar since I have something against dirty and manufacturing industry

I put in 7.5% tax on CO demand and eventually and normally before I go in debt the people become smart and demand skyrockets and I find myself siting on 10k in profits.

[cogeo 960]

Wow, my lovely subject again!!!

I too build a region without industry and farms and it's really successful so far. In addition I have posed some additional restrictions, like no startup cash, only a $1000 loan which you have to pay back in three years (had to make mods for these). My goal was to see if it's possible to develop a region this way, and the experiment shows that it is.

I read your post and I both agree and disagree. I have some comments to make:

- The initial main form of employment is the civic sector, and this is actually based on a "bug" (or "miscalculation", if you prefer so) concerning the SC4 civic buildings: you can reduce funding to the lowest possible level and still have full employment. This is what makes running them affordable. The residential taxes you collect (from their employees) far exceeds their running costs. Many of their jobs are $$ and $$$ and this has a very positive effect on your budget. Especially the ingame hospital and college offer many and good jobs and your city sees a shapr population increase as soon as you plop them.

- I don't exactly agree about commercial services, it seems that you don't understand how CS works. CS demand (of all wealth levels) is created as a result of population, and it has almost nothing to do with education level (it regards your sims mostly as "customers" rather than "employees"). You get CS demand immediately after a population rise, and the wealth level and number of jobs depends on the wealth level and population number (20%) respectively. Eg for 1000 R$$ you get demand for 200 CS$$ jobs, that simple (looking into the RCI exemplars can verify this). Now these 200 jobs create demand for another 400 sims (most are low-wealth though), then another 80 CS jobs and so on (for a breakdown of the wealth level of jobs take a look at this thread). Finally, if the model is fully run you can have a total of CS jobs (all wealth levels) amounting to 2/3 of the total number of jobs in the other sectors (civic, commercial office, industry and farming - N/A in our case), resulting in 2/3 more sims. These "other sectors" are the R demand "drivers", while CS is actually the "followers".

- Especially I disagree with taxing-out CS$. The problem when developing a region without industry is slow growth rate due to employment, and it wouldn't be right to snub these jobs. After all, what you want is create as many jobs as possible, to attract more sims, which you have to educate, so that you create CO demand. CO is the desirable employment type, but to do so you need an initial population base (be it high- or low-wealth and EQ). Without these additional jobs my cities would have grown at a much slower rate, if not stalled. Finally what's so wrong with CS$? They do not pollute, do not consume much power (so you won't need large power plants and those expensive water treatment plants), their only "fault" is that the job mix they offer is 100% $, but as said above you may not snub even these jobs, not to mention that CS$$ and even CS$$$ aren't very much better as far as the job mix is concerned - they just pay a lot of taxes. If you are concerned about space, you can use the most packed form of CS$, those "Small Shops" with 143-173 jobs in high-density 1x3 and later on 1x2 lots. Take a look at for details. Also

- I also disagree with "running your city until you get an EQ of 160". My strategy is different here, it is instead "run your city slower, and try to satisfy any kind of R or C demand as soon as you have it" as the problem with these regions without industry is employment and slow population growth. You will have a considerable CO$$ and even CO$$$ demand with an EQ of only 120, 80, or even 40 (yes!), if you were successful at attracting R$$ and R$$$ residents. This demand is enough to grow small CO$$ and CO$$$ buildings, creating more jobs (and more R and therefore CS and so on). And you can get these while you are running your city, so why wait until you get an EQ of 160?

My region currently has a population of 107K and 47.5K commercial jobs (there are also 658 industrial jobs in one city, but these weren't used to kick-start the region, they were actually created much, very much later, carrying-out an experiment, and the region would also do fine without them, so I don't find that this changes the big image in any way). More details about my strategy in

I also have a spreadsheet with population and CS levels, as a function of CO, I and civic jobs. If you are interested pls send me a PM.

  Edited July 14, 2012 by cogeo  

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Well, whether you like them or not, you will still get some low-wealth Sims. Somebody has to sweep the floors in those fancy buildings, so it would be wise to build some housing for them. High-rise tenements are not a bad idea. Grintz usually live in apartment buildings, not on low density tracts. So you should build some tenements and/or MURBs close to the places of employment so they can walk to work (can't afford transit fares either).

[Ltw 401]

Interesting theory.

There are some things that make it difficult though.

Let's assume the demand will allow you to skip the low wealth phase, the costs it will bring are huge. For medium and high wealth you need more services, which cost money, given the fact that at the beginning you don't have any income this could be tricky. A way to cover these costs is to zone highrise areas so that you have a lot of income. In my biggest cities I spend a huge amount of money but I don't go bankrupt because there are a lot of taxpayers in those cities. This brings me to a second difficulty, low wealth usually means less space, less space means more residents (taxpayers) per tile. Highrise low wealth buildings can house much more people than medium and high wealth buildings (I've seen low-wealth-buildings on the STEX for 12.000 residents and there is probably much more possible).

The combination of higher costs and lower income makes it very difficult to skip the low wealth phase.

And I also agree with A Nonny Moose, a world with only managers is just unrealistic (and maybe even impossible). In almost every country in the world there is a big group of people with low wealth and a much smaller group of people with high wealth, so if this is possible it is a bug in the game (unless there is a neighboring city with low wealth). In reality a society would collapse without the people who can do the unfavored jobs.

Nevertheless, it is very interesting to try it anyway. If you succeed to build a standalone medium/high wealth city you could make nice screenshots (CJ?) and if you fail you know that it can't be done (a ghost town could also look cool though).

[William Gates 84]

Ahhh. Thanks for the sc4devotion subforum link, cogeo. I now see that many have gutted the simulation completely apart and have a thorough understanding of how it works.

I'm looking at the Workforce Drive and Census Drive tables. (http://sc4devotion.c...php?topic=963.0) Can you say if I've got this right?

Say, 1000 R$ at 0-50 EQ is added to the population pool.

According to the Workforce Drive and Census Drive tables:

370 (37%) CS$ jobs created, which employ 370 R$ (100%).

1120 (112%) I-D jobs created, which employ 1120 R$ (100%).

In total, 1490 jobs created, which employ 1490 R$.

There are 490 jobs left over. This causes 490 R$ to be added to the population pool (who start at 0-50 EQ), which starts the cycle over again.

Is that right?

  Edited July 15, 2012 by William Gates  

[Moskva 75]

Why would you want to skip these parts? They're vital part of the city anyway. Without dirty industries there would be nothing of what we consume today, keep it in mind. Not everything can be made clean and perfect, sometimes we've to get dirty on our hands to accomplish result.

[cogeo 960]

In total, 1490 jobs created, which employ 1490 R$.

There are 490 jobs left over. This causes 490 R$ to be added to the population pool (who start at 0-50 EQ), which starts the cycle over again.

Is that right?

Not really! The table tells what jobs your sims would take. If you add the numbers in each row (except for I-R ie farms) you will find that they sum up to a number just short of 150%, which means that some sims may take more than one type of jobs. It doesn't mean that you will get all these jobs, you are not zoning for industry anyway, so in our case the sum is smaller. As you can see in the table, there are no jobs for your low-EQ low-wealth sims, other than I-D/M (which you don't want) and CS$, and that's why I insist about satisfying all CS demand, even CS$. Otherwise your city won't be attracting new R$ sims (newcomers have an EQ of 20 by default). If your city has full educational coverage (primary + high schools, libraries, college and museum, their EQ will rise and you will get demand for CO$$ and CO$$$. Besides, some R$ workforce is needed for CO$$ and CO$$$ (see the 1st table) only it has to be educated). Taxing our CS$ will deprive your city from badly needed new workforce. Finally, you want to make your city larger, don't you? Not having the option of industry, the only way to employ R$ sims is civic jobs (but these aren't that many), and CS$, so why not exploit this?

So the cycle you mention does not really work. Instead, in my region, I have been witnessing the following cycle:

- Initially I have some civic buildings (full educational and health coverage), some R, and some C (of any type). I have also satisfied all types of R & C demand, ie all demand bars are around zero (demand is "satisfied" by development, eg if you have positive R demand you can zone some more R and expect them to develop - this will cause the bars to drop, as demand was "satisfied").

- I run the city for several game months. As I have full educational coverage coverage, EQ rises and this increases CO$$ and CO$$$ demand.

- Then some more offices grow (on new zones, or replacing a CS lot, or upgrading an existing CO lot).

- This creates more demand for R, so I get more residents (again, either on new zones or by growing taller R buildings).

- New residents increase demand for CS, as I explained in my first post.

- Then more CS jobs, more R etc.

- Finally all types of demand have been satisfied and you are in a situation like in step 1, only the city has now grown larger. Running the city for a few months starts the next cycle.

Some notes:

- After the city passes the 5000 milestone, growth actually accelerates and the "cycles" are no longer as distinct as before. For example, demand for CO may rise again, before the cycle completes, and so can R or CS demand. I get a medium-sized building (office with ca 50-120 jobs, tennements with some 80 sims, condos housing 150-250 sims, or shops with 50-150 jobs) every 1-2 game-months, so it may look like a continuous growth, but actually it's not. It works as I described above and the mechanism is just these cycles (higher EQ causes CO demand to rise, which drives R demand, and the additional population drives CS demand). But this will finally stall, as all your highly-educated sims will be working in CO$$ and CO$$$, and there will be no more highly-educated workers to drive CO development further... unless more workers flock in (unfortunately they are uneducated, so you have to educate them, but this takes time). Therefore accept any newcomer, and these can only work in CS$. Set all your taxes to 9% initially (default) for all types of development, until your city reaches a population of 150,000. About the "neutral" tax rate take a look in

- Newcomers have a very low EQ, and this may cause the average EQ (shown in the graph) to drop temporarily, esp if there was a large influx of new residents in a short time, however this in normal (simple maths) and does not seem to cause the CO demand to drop (you still have the highly-educated ones in your city, don't you?).

In conclusion, R$ sims and CS$ shops are absolutely needed, if you want to build a growing city. You have to accept that even if you build CO$$$ throughout your city, a large part of you population will still be R$ (esp those working in the CS sector - pls refer to the 1st table).

Hope this helps.

  Edited July 15, 2012 by cogeo  

[wilmer007 0]

Sorry for replying to a month old topic but i had to put in my 2 cents on this.

I just realized you can build your city completely normally without ever zoning for any dirty industry, manufacturing industry, or low-wealth commercial service. I always thought low-wealth jobs were necessary to get high-end demand (like high-wealth commercial office or high-tech industry), but they aren't.

Basically, you only get demand for these low-wealth jobs when your Sims have low intelligence. Set taxes on dirty, manufacturing and low-wealth commercial service to 20%. Plop down education buildings immediately after you build your first residences, and go to cheetah speed and wait until education is above 160 (out of 200) for them. Your sims can subsist on the jobs from civic buildings during this period, although your population won't be growing at all. Once there, you'll get demand for the medium and high-wealth commercial service and office jobs, and high-tech industry. You can now build your city normally... these medium and high-wealth jobs will fuel city population expansion instead of the low-wealth jobs.

When i first saw this i thought it was a dream come true as i just want to bypass the low wealth and go straight to medium and high wealth demand. I did a number of different tests and i always ended up going bankrupt by the time the population had a 160 EQ (not to much mention i couldnt break 1k or 2k population either. I would use a neighbor map to provide electricty and that still wasn't enough to cut the budget down. When i check further a porition of my budget was going into Transportation Dept which meant roads, However i recently started using 4x4 avenues in my city so i don't have to redo the entire road structure later. If i didn't start with Avenues i could probably do this but after much testing i came to the conclusion that it just wasn't gonna work for my particular buiding method.

However i did figure out how to achieve this without taking a hit to population or money. Basically what i did was that i had a city already built before i started testing this. It was a Business/Residential City with a population of 200k on a medium sized map in a checkerboard pattern and i still had a portion of the map that is empty and hasn't been touched. What i did in this city was that they had everything except Education. This made their EQ like 0-20. What this did was made them basically retarded just so i can keep the budget even every month so i wouldn't go bankrupt. Naturally this meant they could only work in Dirty Industry. What i ended up doing was filling up the entire neighbor map (medium size too) with Dirty Industry. This Dirty Industry Map also provided power to both cities using Coal Power Plants.

Anyways after my fail testing in a new map failed hard i went back to my main city (the checkerboard Commercial/Residential City) and gave it the full Education System. I was losing about 1k-2k every month as a result but i wanted to build up their EQ and i had about $333k in cash to last me till they reach a high EQ. Next thing i knew everything started building higher and higher and i started raking in a profit every month. Now i'm sitting at $5k profit every month. My rich sims already demanded 3 private schools and i have all the High Tech Industry Demand i ever wanted as it is at 6k demand. Now i'm just gonna start a new Neighbor Map next to this one for the High Tech Industry City.

So what this means is that now after i spent the entire game filling in my city and giving them all a very low EQ i can now bypass the low wealth and go for Medium and High Wealth in my entire Region.

In short while it seems very much possible to do this if using low cost roads and streets it wouldn't work for someone like me who only builds Avenues in his cities so Roads and Streets never see the light of day for these players. To be able to fully get this to work you need to first a bankroll higher than what your starting cash is. A good benchmark is around $250k-$350k or more. This way when you add in the education system and your budget takes a hit iyou will have enough cash to last until they reach 160 EQ.

TL:DR I made a 200k population with low EQ then gave them full education to give them 160 EQ. Now i have a super high workforce that is demanding $$ and $$$.

  Edited August 18, 2012 by wilmer007  

[wardlitell 8]

So what this means is that now after i spent the entire game filling in my city and giving them all a very low EQ i can now bypass the low wealth and go for Medium and High Wealth in my entire Region.

I don't think so. Even CO$$ and CO$$$ need educated R$ workers (with an EQ>100 for the CO$$ and >150 for the CO$$$), new arrivals R$ need low wealth jobs before being educated and it takes time. You can't override this mechanism.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

I think you can get away with turning off I-D by setting the taxes to 20% at the outset, but you have to have some place for R$ to work while they get educated. Farms and C$ should work. I am working on a city now that is rural, and I didn't have anything other than I-Ag and C for my workers until I was about three years into the city. Then I added an 8 x 4 medium density I zone, which filled up immediately, when I had to double my power resource. This city is profitable, making about $200 a month but is still very small, and out in the boonies. So far, no big cheats and I don't expect to have to use any.