RCI demand questions

[Next_rim 1]

1) Had an elevated highway connecting a 100% commercial region to a commercial + residential region. I was messing with some roads at the map edge and accidentally deleted the highway connection. Then saved over it. Commercial demand plummeted down. I restored the highway, but demand never went back up. I added more connections since then (another ferry route, a railroad, an avenue, nothing helps.

2) For commercial demand boost with inter-city connections, does it matter where to put the highway? Does it have to connect commercial zones in City A with commercial zones in City B, or I can just have couple tiles in the map corner?

3) Does intercity connection demand boost depend on how much traffic goes through the actual connection? Because 90% intercity traffic goes on ferries for me.

4) How do I boost industrial demand? Freight is low, taxes are very low (3%), education is next to 200, yet my sims only want 12k or so high-tech jobs. City population is 265k.

5) My residential demand is sky high for all incomes, but commercial and industrial demand is rock down (commercial soared after events in Q1, industrial never went high). There is huge capcity for either jobs in connected regions, and traffic is fairly good (commute time ~110). Yet city won't grow above 270k citizens, and new residential zones don't develop.

Thanks in advance, cheers!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

1) Had an elevated highway connecting a 100% commercial region to a commercial + residential region. I was messing with some roads at the map edge and accidentally deleted the highway connection. Then saved over it. Commercial demand plummeted down. I restored the highway, but demand never went back up. I added more connections since then (another ferry route, a railroad, an avenue, nothing helps.

2) For commercial demand boost with inter-city connections, does it matter where to put the highway? Does it have to connect commercial zones in City A with commercial zones in City B, or I can just have couple tiles in the map corner?

No. Yes. Highways are not required except by the will of god.

3) Does intercity connection demand boost depend on how much traffic goes through the actual connection? Because 90% intercity traffic goes on ferries for me.

Intercity ferries are like Star Trek transporters. They are the fastest form of travel. Blow them up unless you really need them.

4) How do I boost industrial demand? Freight is low, taxes are very low (3%), education is next to 200, yet my Sims only want 12k or so high-tech jobs. City population is 265k.

The algorithms in this program are set up to phase industry out when the Sims get an EQ that high. Start replacing the industrial with commercial. With 265,000 Sims you need around 135,000 jobs or slightly less.

5) My residential demand is sky high for all incomes, but commercial and industrial demand is rock down (commercial soared after events in Q1, industrial never went high). There is huge capacity for either jobs in connected regions, and traffic is fairly good (commute time ~110). Yet city won't grow above 270k citizens, and new residential zones don't develop.

See the answer to 4). Also, fix your taxes which are far too low. What are the other tax rates in the city. Taxes can't overcome negative desirability, so examine your desirability display. Make sure all areas are watered properly. Waterless operation only works at the start of small towns.

Thanks in advance, cheers!

What are you doing for money? If your city is profitable, well and good. If you are using a money tree, all bets are off.

[jason leo 485]

1) Had an elevated highway connecting a 100% commercial region to a commercial + residential region. I was messing with some roads at the map edge and accidentally deleted the highway connection. Then saved over it. Commercial demand plummeted down. I restored the highway, but demand never went back up. I added more connections since then (another ferry route, a railroad, an avenue, nothing helps.

I feel so sorry for that, try to be careful another time.

2) For commercial demand boost with inter-city connections, does it matter where to put the highway? Does it have to connect commercial zones in City A with commercial zones in City B, or I can just have couple tiles in the map corner?

No, you can put your highway connection everywhere, as you want.

3) Does intercity connection demand boost depend on how much traffic goes through the actual connection? Because 90% intercity traffic goes on ferries for me.

Yes, a little demand boost, but the real way to boosting demand is by set the tax and keep the desirability to be high.

4) How do I boost industrial demand? Freight is low, taxes are very low (3%), education is next to 200, yet my sims only want 12k or so high-tech jobs. City population is 265k.

Seems like you have the same problem with husher, check his maybe you will find the solution there.

5) My residential demand is sky high for all incomes, but commercial and industrial demand is rock down (commercial soared after events in Q1, industrial never went high). There is huge capacity for either jobs in connected regions, and traffic is fairly good (commute time ~110). Yet city won't grow above 270k citizens, and new residential zones don't develop.

Thanks in advance, cheers!

Sky high ? Do you mean many R$$$ ? If the number of the R$$$ in your city is too many, then it my become a disaster waiting to be happened. 110 is not very good, I think, because my city's commute time is only 30-40 and that is quite long. Try to put more mass transit system and install NAM to fix some bugs from the game. Make sure if you already add power and road connection to the residential areas, otherwise, they won't grow though you already do your maximum effort.

EDIT : I didn't realize if Nonny Moose already beat me.

[Next_rim 1]

Thanks for answers, really helped.

One more thing - if I'm exporting trash to neigboring city, do I need to keep the sanitation budget? Because it appears huge in both cities, part of me thinks one of them should be 0.

[Jim14409 448]

Thanks for answers, really helped.

One more thing - if I'm exporting trash to neigboring city, do I need to keep the sanitation budget? Because it appears huge in both cities, part of me thinks one of them should be 0.

If sanitation budget is zero then no trash gets picked up. You still have to pay "pick up and delivery" in the city that is exporting. However you should not need any landfill or other disposal facilities if the other city is accepting all of your garbage.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

That's right. The other thing that can happen is that the importing city can run out of capacity. Had that happen in my biggest city today (an importer) and had to double the disposal system. Unless you are using something like the Black Hole plant, there are still limits.

[Next_rim 1]

Ok, I'm still a bit stuck. Attached is some info.

My city won't grow above 300k, although there is clearly capacity in the zones (houses are half empty, like 4k residents/8k on each). Demand seems to be there. When I go to either of my satellite cities to make jobs, zones don't really develop. When I go to main city, there are commercial skyscrapers abandoned due to "low demand". As if my sims don't match the jobs that are out there.

Is it traffic? Should I bomb ferries and hook up all zones with subway?

What are you doing for money? If your city is profitable, well and good. If you are using a money tree, all bets are off.

No cheats, no mods, running vanilla deluxe game on hard. And profitable. It's hard though. Almost no loops, unlike SC3000.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

There is a preponderance of pedestrian traffic. How about some bus lines? I have a feeling that you really need to add the Network Addon Mod to make this city sing. Unmodified Deluxe has some serious problems with the transportation simulation. Before you consider any custom content, is your version of the game up to at least build 1,1,638? This is the bottom level to the NAM.

[Next_rim 1]

There is a preponderance of pedestrian traffic. How about some bus lines?

I think it all comes from sims walking to bus stops and subway stations actually.

I will try the addon, thanks for suggestion.

[bxbb 0]

This happened a lot to me when using vanilla, in fact most of my city will start to collapse after reach 300k pop.

Ok, I'm still a bit stuck. Attached is some info.

My city won't grow above 300k, although there is clearly capacity in the zones (houses are half empty, like 4k residents/8k on each). Demand seems to be there. When I go to either of my satellite cities to make jobs, zones don't really develop. When I go to main city, there are commercial skyscrapers abandoned due to "low demand". As if my sims don't match the jobs that are out there.

Is it traffic? Should I bomb ferries and hook up all zones with subway?

What are you doing for money? If your city is profitable, well and good. If you are using a money tree, all bets are off.

No cheats, no mods, running vanilla deluxe game on hard. And profitable. It's hard though. Almost no loops, unlike SC3000.

I wonder how you layout your zones, in vanilla I used to mix commercial district with residential, which help both demand and commute time.

Since you didn't attach screenshot on your desirability info, zone composition, and RCI composition, I suggest to start looking at them, keep the desirability green, water and power all arround, and keep a balance between the rich and the poor. too much richie rich will kill your joy. as for Industrial, I usually 'bait' the demand by setting zero taxes for Industry for about a year or so.

Additionally, you can download Cencus Repository Facility (link form LEX, you may have to register). The readme and in-game query show some useful info.

[z1 566]

Yes, the NAM will make a big difference here. It should solve most of your problems.

This happened a lot to me when using vanilla, in fact most of my city will start to collapse after reach 300k pop.

No coincidence here. The bigger the city, the more crucial the NAM's traffic simulator becomes.

The algorithms in this program are set up to phase industry out when the Sims get an EQ that high. Start replacing the industrial with commercial. With 265,000 Sims you need around 135,000 jobs or slightly less.

This is not at all true for high tech jobs. See Workforce and Occupation Demands (Drives) for an explanation of the relationship of education to industrial jobs.

Is it traffic? Should I bomb ferries and hook up all zones with subway?

No need to bomb the ferries. Although it's true that they appear to be instantaneous, they're a perfectly legitimate form of transportation. I use them all the time without getting into any trouble.

Nevertheless, subways are good, especially intracity. The traffic simulator needs a large number of subway lines to run optimally in big cities, even with the NAM installed.

I think it all comes from sims walking to bus stops and subway stations actually.

In the vanilla game, this would use up too much commute time. With the NAM installed, it's not a problem.

As for the commute time graph, ignore it. It's irretrievably broken. Also, with the NAM installed, commute time is not an issue. Instead of the commute time graph, rely on the Route Query Tool and the Traffic Data Views to make sure that your traffic is flowing smoothly.

[Next_rim 1]

I installed NAM, managed to squeeze in ~40k more people, up to ~320k +/- 10 (it fluctuates wildly for some reason). Almost every road is green now.

I wonder how you layout your zones, in vanilla I used to mix commercial district with residential, which help both demand and commute time.

True to my SC3000 habits, I put residential way too far from C and I. Guess it doesn't work in SC4.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, it will with good transit. Now that you have NAM (did you get the Hotfix?), things should be better.

On the congestion display, try the second option (second radio button down). With NAM you get a very detailed colourful display showing traffic volumes. Also the congestion display goes nuts after a while.

[z1 566]

Also the congestion display goes nuts after a while.

How so?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Also the congestion display goes nuts after a while.

How so?

With the NAM installed, the congestion display starts to get very fragmented as it shows separate colours for each grid square at times. This is why I prefer to use NAM's traffic flow display, which usually doesn't have this problem except at busy intersections. Not only that, but this display can be used to pick off the flow of a specific traffic type, and this is not available for the default display. Frankly, if the Traffic Advisor could see this display there would be fewer false alarms.

[z1 566]

With the NAM installed, the congestion display starts to get very fragmented as it shows separate colours for each grid square at times. This is why I prefer to use NAM's traffic flow display, which usually doesn't have this problem except at busy intersections. Not only that, but this display can be used to pick off the flow of a specific traffic type, and this is not available for the default display. Frankly, if the Traffic Advisor could see this display there would be fewer false alarms.

That's the game's Intersection and Turn Capacity Effect. The NAM's traffic simulator simply turns this up to the point where it actually does something. When you see these squares, that means that the Sims are actually slowing down for the intersection; if you have two red squares in a row before an intersection, it's the equivalent of stopping about 15 seconds for a stoplight. If the squares are all green (as they typically are in virtually all vanilla SC4 intersections), it means that the Sims are zipping through the intersection at full speed, without even taking their foot off the gas pedal. This is regardless of the presence of stoplights, or what the automata appear to be doing.

The game implements the Intersection and Turn Capacity Effect by means of temporarily lowering the network's capacity, which leads to increased congestion, which leads to lower speed. Unfortunately, as you noted, the Traffic Advisor doesn't like this at all, as he doesn't realize that traffic is supposed to slow down at heavily trafficked intersections with stoplights. My personal solution has just been to turn the advisors off. However, the Traffic Congestion Data View does provide a more accurate view of congestion than the Traffic Volume Data View; it shows the combination of commute periods, and it is these numbers that are actually used to calculate congestion. The two views are very useful in combination, but they show different things. For those who don't like the increased but more realistic Intersection and Turn Capacity Effect (and there are many), you can always dial it down in the Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool in the Intersection Effect Multiplier field. If you dial it all the way down to 0.2 (its lowest value), this effectively turns off the feature.