Connected cities question

[Eclipse99 2]

Hey all,

I recently re-installed SC4 and have been sifting through the bewildering array of mods available, truly some amazing work around.

Anyway, I have a question about connecting my cities and jobs, I'll try to explain the situation and hope someone understands what i'm on about.

I have a region with two cities in, one where I want to have mostly farms, some industry, landfill, etc.

The other I want to have just residential/commercial zones in.

I've linked the two cities via an elevated highway.

The city with the residential/commercial area has about 5,500 people in it and maybe a couple of hundred commercial jobs.

I've zoned for alot of agriculture in the other city, which is reporting as providing around 1,500 jobs. When I query the farms, most of them are reporting that all the jobs are not being filled.

My question is, where are the other 4000+ residents working, and why aren't the farms showing as fully staffed when I query them?

There doesn't seem to be anything stopping either city from developing yet, just curious about the apparent discrepancy.

The RCI display is still showing strong demand for R$, R$$ and Agriculture

Is this a problem of my city design, incompatible mods, or just the query tools giving me inaccurate info?

I'm using SPAM, NAM, and also JRJ Street side Mod.

Any help or pointers you can give me would be much appreciated. Thanks for reading!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

1. The employment model says that only 1 of every 2 Sims works. Mommy stays home with the kids. When the kids come along they either stay home (under 5 or 6) or go to school. So the ratio of Sims to jobs should be around 2:1. (S = 2(C+I)).

2. Only the route query (ALT+/) can tell you who is working on a workplace. The regular query operator (/) applied to a lot tells you the number of jobs being offered versus the number of jobs that could be offered given ideal conditions. That ratio has nothing to do with who is actually working there.

3. SPAM lots are a little deceptive in that they can show workers who are virtual. Read your SPAM documentation carefully.

4. If your connecting highway is active, put some toll booths on it. It is a great way to earn income.

5. Your farm workers should be in the farming city. Urban workers are not keen about working on farms. Farming towns need little commercial cross-roads with a few houses to really be any kind of town. You can have more than one town on the same tile. If you keep it all down to low density, you don't need water. Industry, however, needs water but don't put your water pumps near the plants or the farms. If you do that, they will be shut down due to pollution. Pick a nice spot away from both and drop in a water pump.

6. In your farming area, you can drop in a school, but kill the busing. To keep 'em down on the farm, you need to keep the education levels low. No high schools or institutions of higher learning. These should be in your R/C city.

7. To save overloading your highway with freight trucks that only go to the city boundary anyway, try rail with freight stations only. Try and find a short route to the edge of the city for this that is closer to the industry and farms than the run down the highway. This will keep the freight from congesting your highway. Freight goes off the city boundary to the big bit bucket in the sky, by the way.

[Eclipse99 2]

Thanks for the quick and very informative reply, definitely helps figure a few things out.

1) That certainly helps to partly explain the big gap, having checked the numbers, i'm on about 3000 workers then and about 2,000 jobs, so things aren't as bad as they first appeared

2) I'll have to investigate the ideal conditions for SPAM farms a bit more, for example I've got a few that are reporting 31/32 and in the tile next door one with 20/30. I used the route query on the highway and it's showing about 1,500 people leaving the residential city and going to the farming/industrial one.

3) Will check that out, thanks!

4) More money is always good.

5) Im guessing this continues to become more of a problem as the main residential/city goes up the wealth and education scale. I suppose I should move some of the R$ zoning to the farm/industry city as time passes to keep the fields busy, or replace some of the farms with normal industry?

7) I'll try that, would adding the rail system also improve the number of jobs offered by the farms/industry?

[Prophet42 1,500]

For the number of available Sims that can work, check out you population by age graph. The Sims below the 20 age are going to school, the Sims above 70 (or maybe 60, I'm not sure) are retired, therefore they do not work. Then to A Noony Moose's point 1, only about half of the working age Sims work. This will give a more accurate count of your actual workforce available.

Also A Noony Moose's point 2 is absolutely correct. You really need to use the route query tool to see if any Sims are actually working in your commercial, industrial and agriculture buildings.

[Eclipse99 2]

I've played abit more and have another beginners question to ask if that's ok....

When I go to the res/com city i'm getting no demand showing for R$, but when i switch back to the farm/ind city the graph swaps and im seeing alot of R$ demand.

I thought I remember reading that the RCI demand indicator was regional, not city specific, in which case why are the fluctuations so dramatic when switching? Are there some subtleties im not understanding?

I feel like im still several years of playing the game away from having enough understanding to make a dramatic region sprawling setup Everyone needs an ambitious goal, right?

[Cefien 361]

I thought I remember reading that the RCI demand indicator was regional, not city specific, in which case why are the fluctuations so dramatic when switching? Are there some subtleties im not understanding?

May i suggest you to read this thread too, sir >>> http://www.simtropol...abandonment-r31

It'll help you a lot in understanding the RCI.

[Eclipse99 2]

I thought I remember reading that the RCI demand indicator was regional, not city specific, in which case why are the fluctuations so dramatic when switching? Are there some subtleties im not understanding?

May i suggest you to read this thread too, sir >>> http://www.simtropol...abandonment-r31

It'll help you a lot in understanding the RCI.

Thanks, I couldnt see anything specific there about if the indicator was per city or for the whole region though. i'm just trying to balance between the two cities at the moment, but having the demand bounce from a big + to a big - when I switch cities is confusing me a bit, i'm not building or zoning anything extra in either so im not sure whats going on exactly :|

[Cefien 361]

Thanks, I couldnt see anything specific there about if the indicator was per city or for the whole region though. i'm just trying to balance between the two cities at the moment, but having the demand bounce from a big + to a big - when I switch cities is confusing me a bit, i'm not building or zoning anything extra in either so im not sure whats going on exactly :|

Of course, that's just the basic of understanding the RCI, but very important in developing city.

Concerning your demand graphs, it is because the RCI indicator in regional is a matter of reciprocity. But in one single city there are much to consider about the RCI. In this case, it is a matter of balance. while you're only paying attention to the demand for your R$, what about the others like R$$, R$$$..?? Your city might already contained too many R$ and make the demand for it goes down. You should pay attention to your education system too as that will attract more R$$ and R$$$ instead of R$.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Actually, the RCI indicator is not quite regional. That's too simplistic.

Let's say that the demands that are not yet met in one city are forwarded to the next. If city A has outstripped its need for R$ (should not), then no R$ demand will appear, but if City B needs R$ the local demand will be added to the graph.

Believe me, there is nothing simple about the way this game operates over a region. The developers did a very good job.

Here is an experiment you can do that might clarify this issue. Open an adjacent city with no neighbour connections and build it a bit. Note the RCI graph is strictly local. Then make a neighbour connection and run a couple of months. Now see what has happened to your graph.