Abandoned Buildings and NAM

[estevesbk 4]

Hello guys!

I've quit playing SC4 1-2 years ago because I was having issues with abandoned buildings... R$$ or R$$$ buildings would eventually "downgrade" to R$ and R$$ respectively, making an ugly city. The reason was not low demand or lack of jobs but commute time, even with good mass transport.

I was using NAM at the time but I didn't increase a lot the pathfinding on the mod installation config.

With higher pathfinding, as long as my computer is able to handle it, will the problem be solved? If so, what config on pathfinding do you usually use?

Also, how many titles do the citizens walk until a station? I remember they seemed to be 6 but I'd like to confirm that...

Thanks!

[aparrot7 82]

You should post a picture of the city so we can try to pick out if there's a problem.

  Edited August 23, 2012 by aparrot7  

[Harden 68]

I think he was talking about his cities he quit playing 1-2 years ago, and asking for advice so it doesn't happen again...

NAM helps out commute times greatly. Yes, sims walk 6 tiles to a station. Just make sure that you zone several random blocks of commercial in your residential areas, or zone strips of commercial along the sides of the major roads. When you start out your cities, there will be a huge demand for Dirty Industry as well, so plan for that, and connect the industry zone or zones, with a highway, avenue, road, elevated rail, or whatever you feel like connecting the zones with. It shouldn't be too hard if you zone like that and have NAM. Also, try downloading NWM, (network widening mod) and SAM (street add-on mod) if you think your computer can handle it. Go to google and type in "NWM Sim City 4", and "SAM Sim City 4." I haven't checked if Simtropolis has these, I got them off of SC4devotion. You might need to register to the LEX on SC4devotion if you get them off of there.

[estevesbk 4]

I think he was talking about his cities he quit playing 1-2 years ago, and asking for advice so it doesn't happen again...

NAM helps out commute times greatly. Yes, sims walk 6 tiles to a station. Just make sure that you zone several random blocks of commercial in your residential areas, or zone strips of commercial along the sides of the major roads. When you start out your cities, there will be a huge demand for Dirty Industry as well, so plan for that, and connect the industry zone or zones, with a highway, avenue, road, elevated rail, or whatever you feel like connecting the zones with. It shouldn't be too hard if you zone like that and have NAM. Also, try downloading NWM, (network widening mod) and SAM (street add-on mod) if you think your computer can handle it. Go to google and type in "NWM Sim City 4", and "SAM Sim City 4." I haven't checked if Simtropolis has these, I got them off of SC4devotion. You might need to register to the LEX on SC4devotion if you get them off of there.

Thanks, that's exactly what I said! =)

For medium-density residential, would you recommend zoning medium or low density commercial? Or low and then later medium?

My computer is a core i5 760 with 4GB RAM and nVidia GF 9800 GT. Also my Windows is very clean because I use it only for games, so not many processes running. How good can I set the pathfinding?

Do you think the problem I described can be avoided entirely with good pathfinding settings on NAM, or is it common on huge cities you see R$$ buildings that "downgrade" do R$ or R$$$ to R$$ and it can't be avoided even with good pathfinding and the zoning tips you gave me?

Actually if I remember correctly 1-2 years ago this problem appeared a lot on R$$ and R$$$ zone types. On R$ never had problems with commute time.

Can NAM save me? =)

Thanks a lot for the replies!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Yes, NAM can do a lot for you. You should first set it up with the default. If this doesn't work out for you, you can choose the next most permissive level, and so on. I run with the default.

Abandonment is a matter of controlling your population. Don't forget the hierarchical pyramid which states "The higher, the fewer". R$$$ Sims need a lot of support by the lower orders and should not be more than about 15% (or less) of your total population.

You need to be careful how you zone, and where you zone. I no longer create large swaths of zoning, but actually craft my zones mostly by hand, lot by lot, with some consideration of what might build there. There are many variables to try to keep on top of.

You should develop an abandonment policy, and behave accordingly. If a $$$ building abandons or degrades, rezone it down to $$ and so down to $, If no one wants to live there, rezone it as C.

Large concentrations of any type is poor practice IMHO. I tend to allow for R areas with some intermixed C. Strip malls and corner stores are everywhere. A central business district may very well have some R on some of the blocks behind some of the commercial buildings.

Limit I-D. In general, I don't allow it at all after Sim-year 4. I set the tax rate to 20% and just bleed them for income while they last. You should get in the black with I-Ag (I recommend the SPAM), R, and C and stay there. Medium and high-density zoning for I should be restricted. Do not create these zones by click and hold. I limited them recently to either 8 x 4 or 8 x 8 when zoning. You can throw a high-density 4 x 4 right in the middle of a CS$$ plot if you think it is appropriate.

Clumps of all one kind of zone is not always the best way to go. Mix things up. Look at a city near you, and pay attention to the towns in the rural areas as well. It is amazing what you will find next to each other.

[estevesbk 4]

Yes, NAM can do a lot for you. You should first set it up with the default. If this doesn't work out for you, you can choose the next most permissive level, and so on. I run with the default.

Abandonment is a matter of controlling your population. Don't forget the hierarchical pyramid which states "The higher, the fewer". R$$$ Sims need a lot of support by the lower orders and should not be more than about 15% (or less) of your total population.

You need to be careful how you zone, and where you zone. I no longer create large swaths of zoning, but actually craft my zones mostly by hand, lot by lot, with some consideration of what might build there. There are many variables to try to keep on top of.

You should develop an abandonment policy, and behave accordingly. If a $$$ building abandons or degrades, rezone it down to $$ and so down to $, If no one wants to live there, rezone it as C.

Large concentrations of any type is poor practice IMHO. I tend to allow for R areas with some intermixed C. Strip malls and corner stores are everywhere. A central business district may very well have some R on some of the blocks behind some of the commercial buildings.

Limit I-D. In general, I don't allow it at all after Sim-year 4. I set the tax rate to 20% and just bleed them for income while they last. You should get in the black with I-Ag (I recommend the SPAM), R, and C and stay there. Medium and high-density zoning for I should be restricted. Do not create these zones by click and hold. I limited them recently to either 8 x 4 or 8 x 8 when zoning. You can throw a high-density 4 x 4 right in the middle of a CS$$ plot if you think it is appropriate.

Clumps of all one kind of zone is not always the best way to go. Mix things up. Look at a city near you, and pay attention to the towns in the rural areas as well. It is amazing what you will find next to each other.

Thanks a lot! =)

Just one question about R$$$, R$$ and R$: It's a good practice then going against common sense to overtax and limit R$$$ if the demand is too high? (due to education, hi-tech industries, etc.)

What I like most are middle-class cities R$$... Do they also tend to drop if there's no enough R$ demand? I can "tolerate" some R$$$ downgrading to R$$, but if there's enough demand, R$$ downgrading to R$ is unacceptable for me...

[z1 566]

With higher pathfinding, as long as my computer is able to handle it, will the problem be solved? If so, what config on pathfinding do you usually use?

The current NAM traffic simulator uses what is known as "perfect pathfinding", which means that it will always find the fastest routes between Sim residences and jobs. This is also the setting that results in the least abandonment and dilapidation. With proper traffic management, it is now possible to build cities with no abandonment and little or no dilapidation.

The NAM traffic simulator has also been tuned so that it requires essentially the same CPU resources as the original Maxis traffic simulator, within about 5%. For this reason, the pathfinding heuristic is always set to "perfect", and it is intentionally not one of the options that can be changed in the Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool. If your computer can run the vanilla game, it can run the NAM traffic simulator with perfect pathfinding.

Also, how many titles do the citizens walk until a station? I remember they seemed to be 6 but I'd like to confirm that...

That was approximately true with the Maxis traffic simulator, but it is no longer true in the NAM traffic simulator, where pedestrians are willing to walk much farther. None of the traffic simulators have an explicit limit on how far pedestrians can walk; it's simply that in the Maxis traffic simulator, if they walked more than 5 or 6 tiles, they wouldn't have enough time left to get to their job. That's not true in the NAM traffic simulator, where they will walk as far as they need to to get to their job. For example, they might walk a number of blocks to a monorail station if it takes them right to their jobs. The limit on walking is that it must be part of the fastest trip available. In the previous example, if there were a bus to the monorail station, then the Sims would take the bus rather than walk the entire way, because the bus is faster than walking. And if there were a parking garage near the monorail station, they would drive to the parking garage.

Generally, even if you don't use much mass transit, the practical limit on walking is often determined by when car travel will get Sims to work faster. Even for those Sims who prefer to take mass transit, if there's not good mass transit available, they will drive if necessary.

My computer is a core i5 760 with 4GB RAM and nVidia GF 9800 GT. Also my Windows is very clean because I use it only for games, so not many processes running. How good can I set the pathfinding?

As it is set to the best possible, you shouldn't touch it. Less efficient pathfinding can actually use more CPU time than perfect pathfinding.

Do you think the problem I described can be avoided entirely with good pathfinding settings on NAM, or is it common on huge cities you see R$$ buildings that "downgrade" do R$ or R$$$ to R$$ and it can't be avoided even with good pathfinding and the zoning tips you gave me?

The pathfinding settings in the NAM traffic simulator will help as much as possible, but by themselves they can't completely solve the problem. The reason for this is that the traffic simulator's destination finder likes to find jobs for Sims that are reasonably close to them, regardless of what the maximum commute time is set to. This is essentially a bug. The destination finder bases this distance on its own rough calculation of how long it takes Sims to get to their jobs. This limitation can be overcome by putting in rapid transit; the bigger your city, the more rapid transit is needed to avoid abandonment and dilapidation. Since most forms of rapid transit tend to take up a lot of real estate, subways are ideal here. Extensive experiments have shown that in large cities, a wide-ranging subway system with frequent stations in combination with the NAM traffic simulator can eliminate abandonment in the vast majority of cities, while either reducing dilapidation or eliminating it completely.

Of course, you can always mix your zones closer together, as the game urges you to do. But this is necessary only to overcome the limitations in the traffic simulator. If you follow the advice in the preceding paragraph, such intermixing of zones is not necessary, and you can lay out your city the way you want to. The NAM traffic simulator was developed in a fairly realistic simulation of Chicago, where Google Maps and Google Earth were used to lay out the zoning and streets, as well as the rapid transit. (The one exception here was subways, which were used extensively.) These cities did not follow the Maxis guidelines for zoning at all. Yet the cities in the Chicago region, all of which were large tiles containing between one and two million Sims, averaged less than one abandoned building per city, with little to no dilapidation.

Actually if I remember correctly 1-2 years ago this problem appeared a lot on R$$ and R$$$ zone types. On R$ never had problems with commute time.

This is exactly what happens if you don't have your pathfinding and rapid transit set correctly. For more information on this subject, please see

Can NAM save me? =)

Yes.

Just one question about R$$$, R$$ and R$: It's a good practice then going against common sense to overtax and limit R$$$ if the demand is too high? (due to education, hi-tech industries, etc.)

You can do this, but it's not necessary if you follow the above advice. Good traffic practices will result in increased desirability and demand for high-wealth businesses, which will give your R$$$ plenty of places to work.

What I like most are middle-class cities R$$... Do they also tend to drop if there's no enough R$ demand? I can "tolerate" some R$$$ downgrading to R$$, but if there's enough demand, R$$ downgrading to R$ is unacceptable for me...

The same principle applies here - you can avoid the downgrading as explained above. If you actually want a lower-wealth population, one of the easiest ways to get it is not to build so many schools, hospitals, parks, etc. I have never found it necessary to raise tax rates to control population type.

  Edited August 24, 2012 by z1  

[estevesbk 4]

Thanks a lot for the replies z1! =)

You have answered most of my questions, just one left:

The destination finder bases this distance on its own rough calculation of how long it takes Sims to get to their jobs. This limitation can be overcome by putting in rapid transit; the bigger your city, the more rapid transit is needed to avoid abandonment and dilapidation. Since most forms of rapid transit tend to take up a lot of real estate, subways are ideal here. Extensive experiments have shown that in large cities, a wide-ranging subway system with frequent stations in combination with the NAM traffic simulator can eliminate abandonment in the vast majority of cities, while either reducing dilapidation or eliminating it completely.

If I remember correctly, even being faster, Sims do prefer to take regular trains rather than subways to get to their Industrial jobs? I don't know if NAM has already corrected that but I remember that was an issue...

The rest, is pretty much explained. There are many good hints and strategies that you gave me, and some of them could be even mixed...

Thanks a lot! =)

[z1 566]

If I remember correctly, even being faster, Sims do prefer to take regular trains rather than subways to get to their Industrial jobs? I don't know if NAM has already corrected that but I remember that was an issue...

The traffic simulator doesn't differentiate between industrial and commercial jobs in terms of making transportation choices. It really just comes down to what's the fastest, at least in the NAM traffic simulator. The Maxis traffic simulator usually picks the route that's shortest in distance, although large speed differences will have an effect. (That's why buses run 50% faster than cars on most networks in the Maxis traffic simulator, as unrealistic as that may be. Otherwise, the Sims would hardly take the bus at all.) In the NAM traffic simulator, commuter trains run at 140 kph, while subways run at 105 kph, so over a similar route, Sims will pick the commuter trains, whether it's to industrial or commercial jobs.

Thanks a lot! =)

You're welcome!

[estevesbk 4]

Well, I will soon install again SC4... Just need to remember the texture packs and other add-ons that I used to have...

I would like to thank very much the community for all the help that was given me and the quick replies. It's good to know that SC4 has still a solid and very helpful player base...

Different strategies were given me, which may reflect various approaches to the same end, and all will be considered and even mixed if possible by me.

Thanks again aparrot7, Harden, A Nonny Moose and z1 for all the tips and replies! Hope to get my SC4 running again soon!

Regards.

[estevesbk 4]

Just a summary about all the good hints that I've received on this topic to prevent abandonment due to commute time:

- Current NAM traffic simulator helps it a lot. As opposed to previous versions, you do not choose the level of pathfinding anymore. They always use the best one because the overload compared to the default is only 5%.

- I don't need to worry to place a station at every 12 blocks because with NAM, Sims can walk more than 6 blocks if the route is faster than by car.

- In large cities, subways are the best cost-effective rapid transit alternative to prevent abandonment.

- Taxing R$$$ to prevent them for being so many (10%-11%?).

- Mixed zones or not zoning large concentrations of the same type (I guess hat goes specially for R because the natural tendency is to zone a large lot to take full advantage of the costs spent on the bus for schools, high schools or ambulances for hospitals).

- Overtax I-D. Use I-A + SPAM.

I believe that one of the reasons that I've experienced previous problems is because on older versions of NAM I've choosen "1x pathfinding" as opposed to other options that I remember that would go up to "32x pathfinding", because I was afraid of CPU issues. But if now NAM uses the best pathfinding, with only 5% more CPU usage and this option is not even available anymore on the installation, I might be seeing a lot of improvement on this matter...

( Sorry for the double post. I think it was better to post again due to the time of the last reply than to edit... One-time only exception! )