My game has a "build, abandon, repeat" mentality

[Moonraker0 193]

What happens nowadays in my game is it builds up a lot of commercial office demand, then builds office skyscrapers like it should, but then (apparently because of those skyscrapers) demand falls below zero and they become "abandoned due to low demand". Immediately after they are/it is abandoned, the game builds new skyscrapers, sometimes multiple duplicates of the one that just got abandoned, in nearby areas and almost never repopulates the wrongfully abandoned building. In fact, this is happening right now, when I had a nice-looking cluster of skyscrapers and made them all historical, and then one of them abandons and three more duplicates of it are immediately built.

I am really tired of this; it's ruining every city I build. I recently installed the "Less abandonment" mod by Bones1 at the recommendation of Cogeo in another thread. That was in my plugins before I started this latest city, which is experiencing the issue. However, the abandonment issue preceded the installation of that mod. I don't use the CAM now. I have parks all over the place in this new city, way more and bigger ones than I've ever built before. Traffic and air pollution from traffic are both relatively tolerable. Water pollution is non-existent in the area. In other words, desirability is as high as possible. Why does this happen? A response would be appreciated.

P.S.: I also have a certain high-wealth residential skyscraper that abandoned several game-decades ago and basically the same thing is happening with it.

Edit: Now the office building I mentioned is repopulated at medium-wealth (when it should ideally be high-wealth). I noticed it has low customers and high pollution in the query...maybe that is actually the problem. I'll try to get more traffic near it by placing residential zones nearby. I never actually saw the demand graph show negative demand after they were built, but I assumed that is what happened if they were abandoned due to demand. :/

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

BALANCE!

My gut tells me your city is out of balance in some way. Are you trying to create an all $$$ city? That is a labour of Sisyphus, who was doomed by the gods to roll the same boulder up hill forever. When is reached the top it would immediately roll down again and he was required to do it over.

Slow down. Do not run in Cheetah mode. It is for quick developments of specific things in short bursts. At that rate you will miss out on things, then find yourself wondering why that happened.

Try to achieve an overall balance of Sims to that you have only about 15% (maximum) R$$$ and somewhere between 50 and 60% R$. The game militates against rich utopias. With what you've described, the population mix is wrong to support your fancy downtown and the game is telling you to rethink your strategy.

[AwkwrdPrtMskrt 22]

A good rule of thumb is that the game encourages diversity, so it's wise not to create a city with only high-wealth occupants. Even New York and Tokyo, among the world's wealthiest cities, have homeless people and run-down slums.

I don't know how land values or desirability in SC4 work, they probably peak in the centre of the map, like older SCs. Try building the CBD (where obviously most of the skyscrapers will be) in the centre. This means less land value boosting structures (parks etc) and your towers won't deteriorate that easily.

[Moonraker0 193]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I will have to look at how much of my city is high-wealth residential. However, I read in the other thread that one should make a significant number of R$ high-rises historical to keep that workforce present, which I have been doing, at least somewhat. Maybe I should make more R$ high-rises historical.

[lhrob 213]

Boy, that shows how much I know this game. NOT! I didn't think you could get R$ high-rises. I thought all R$ development was single-family homes, or small apartment buildings. Am I wrong?

[Moonraker0 193]

Yeah, R$ buildings in the game go up to high-rise tenements and such, although not as tall as the other wealth level buildings can be.

I checked and found that I had way more R$ in my city than R$$, and just a relatively small fraction of R$$$. I would say the R$ is higher than 60%, but I have to check the exact numbers first.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Have a look at your population by age display (and graph). If there is more blue than green your Sims are aging out. This would account for part of your boom/bust cycle as they die off. Sims do die and if they are not replaced by young Sims, the city dies out too.

[screamingman12 30]

It's not just about population, it's about controlling growth. Always zone less than you think you will need (i.e. a couple blocks at a time, rather than the entire city at once). This will take longer, but you will have less abandonment in the long run.

[z1 566]

I would recommend getting rid of the "Less abandonment" mod; it's not necessary, and it merely masks the problem, making it even more intractable when it does appear. That mod may not be the cause of your problem, but it's certainly not helping.

Meanwhile, do you have the NAM installed?

[Moonraker0 193]

Looks like my largest age group is 21-30, with 11-20 second and the rest of them after that progressively smaller. The data view is pretty much all green areas.

I will try to control my zoning and not zone much at a time. I already kind of had that going in this city; I've been building street grid segments and leaving them unzoned for a while, and the zoned area is relatively compact. Maybe that's why the problem is less severe than in another earlier city where I had more zones.

I removed the Less Abandonment mod at z's recommendation. I do have the NAM installed.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Good luck and have fun. Slow and steady builds the city.

[Moonraker0 193]

Alright, thanks for the replies, everyone. I was happy to see that the CO$$$ building that had abandoned and dilapidated had been restored, so the city looks nicer now. Hopefully building more slowly will prevent the problem from returning in the future.