Crazy Commercial Demand

[SilverCyric 130]

Hello, I've got a question maybe some of you guys could help me figure out. I use the essentials, the NAM, CAM, RAM, SAM, and SPAM, as well as the RHW, and NWM, so maybe I'm just missing something, but as I build a city, I try and balance the number of jobs at about half the number of residents. Well I have 2 regions going. One is kinda like a sandobox, but the other I've put some effort into making pretty cool and realistic (Thanks smileymk, your tutorial rocks!!)

Well, anyways, in both regions the population is fast approaching 500,000 but my commercial demand is unsatisfiable it seems, I literally have a region with 425,000 resident population, with 475,000 commerical jobs, with another 75,000 industrial jobs, and they are still screaming for more commercial. Residential as well, but the commerical demand is maxed out!! I don't use any demand mods, or any mods that change the actual gameplay beyond the networks, like a street mod or such. All taxes are even across the board, they're low, but even. Unless all working sims are working 2 jobs and some maybe working 3, but I know the simulator doesn't work that way, it's a nuclear family model. 1 breadwinner, and 1 stay at home and afterwards they should have children so it should be more like a 3:1, or a 4;1 residential to job population. My cities still thrive and I guess it's really not an issue with gameplay, but still it doesn't make sense, and maybe somebody can help me to understand what is happening. Shed some enlightenment so to speak : ) My appreciation to the whole community, this place is fantastic!!

[Burndawg 3]

I have found that CAM makes my commercical demand go through the roof as well. Maybe thats it.

[Superbacon 380]

CAM does make a mess of demand levels. I didn't like it so I removed it. If you have it, try removing it and that may solve your problem. If not, then get some job mods for commerce. Maybe industry, too, while you're at it. Find some skyscrapers with functional office population and plop them down.

[SilverCyric 130]

Thanks guys, I appreciate it. Take it easy!! : ))

[Cefien 361]

Thanks guys, I appreciate it. Take it easy!! : ))

It's not really your issue here but, i see you installed SPAM while using CAM

Did you know SPAM is inCampatible?

[husher 18]

I know how many feel; i was working on a city on friday, it went from 10k to 80k sims in four hours , most of the land got taken up by commercial properties, i haven't had demand like that for ages, mind you i wish it be industrial demand that would do that!

oh well, 'keep calm and carry on'

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Courage! With all those downloads you must take forever to load a city.

I don't use CAM because I too didn't care for what happened when I tried it. However, I was also unaware that SPAM is inCAMpatible. Is it and why?

[SilverCyric 130]

Yeah, I've seen some places says SPAM is inCAMpatible, but a couple of others haven't had issues either, so I gave it a whirl and haven't had a problem. Is there something maybe I'm not noticing that's making a conflict? I'm not nearly as knowledgeable about how the game works as I probably should be. I kinda like the variety of having really tall buildings, it seems more realistic. My load times aren't too bad, the intial boot takes about a minute to load the region view, no more than 2 minutes in some cases, but I've had 1 or 2 times where it took a third minute to load. Depends if I was running other programs, like my iTunes or something beforehand. But the first city tile takes a good 2 minutes to load, but after the intial city is loaded, it takes only a minute to switch to another city tile. My plug-in folder can get kinda out of hand, but I haven't narrowed down what I want to create a dat file, so it's all still loose. Should I really consider taking out the CAM, I've always thought it was an awesome concept to extend gameplay, but I could use some advice. If I remove the CAM, I'll have to scrap all my current regions and start over. Not the worst thing to happen, but I kinda could use some enlightment. : )

Thanks guys, you really make this place the coolest. Definitely one of the best places on the internet, again, thank you!!

[jason leo 485]

The conflict between CAM and SPAM will only happened when you are playing with farms. Other than farms, then no other conflicts should be happened. So, though Cefien is correct, but it is not the problem because he is talking about Commercial demand, not farm issue.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^^ Whatever floats your boat. I've done a complete scrap and start over a few times when I changed the plugin decor. The alternative is to create another user account on your machine, start the game to get it populated on that account, and put in whatever plugin suite you want there.

One of the nice things about modern operating systems is that they are all multi-user. As long as you don't mess with the system residency you are fine. Unfortunately, the CAM does this by messing with the permanent .dat files, so this may not be so easy. Modifying the system residency is always a dicey proposition if you have real other users because they may not want your changes.

{Oh! Nasty, unscrupulous, modifyor! - Paul Stukey}

[SilverCyric 130]

That's a really great idea, I never even thought about creating another user account. Thanks dude!! : )

[His Divine Hand 244]

As SPAM only influences farms, if SPAM loads after the CAM, then the SPAM mod will work, but CAM specific farm attributes (I believe the only one is that farms go up to stage 10, while SPAM only goes to stage 5) will not work.

[Jim14409 448]

<p>

One of the nice things about modern operating systems is that...

Yes, weren't those old hand crank operating systems a pain? So glad we have modernized. (Sorry, just could not resist. )

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

<p>

One of the nice things about modern operating systems is that...

Yes, weren't those old hand crank operating systems a pain? So glad we have modernized. (Sorry, just could not resist. )

Nor can I resist. Did you ever run one of those? I did.

[SilverCyric 130]

As SPAM only influences farms, if SPAM loads after the CAM, then the SPAM mod will work, but CAM specific farm attributes (I believe the only one is that farms go up to stage 10, while SPAM only goes to stage 5) will not work.

Cool Thanks dude!! So since the game loads alphabetically and I have all my mods in my mods folder, the Cam is labeled a-CAM, and the SPAM is in the SPAM folder, then I should be good, right?

[jason leo 485]

Btw, not 100% okay for me because I have many stage 6 and few stage 7 farms. Another that, stage 8-10 farms are not exist. The stage 1-10 is only for I-D, I-M, and I-HT, 1-15 for R and C, and for I-A, the maximum stage is 7. Btw, I ever saw a problem when a Kolhof Farm (Stage 4) was abandoned when the OP installed SPAM. The safest way is still same, don't try to install one of those mods if you already have the other one.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Unless you want staggering skyscraper cities, I vote for SPAM. The maximum city of 16 Km² really isn't big enough to cram in all that. Your population would be greater per Km² than downtown Koli Cutt.

[SilverCyric 130]

Hmmm, well, I don't know. I'm torn I guess, I really like the SPAM, looks realistic as all coolness. But the giant skyscrapers are realistic too of urban environmants, and theres more urban environmants than rural, just as in more variety, a farm is a farm is a farm, but cities come in many styles and variations, plus my goal is to make a realistic looking but functional city as well. I might just stick with both. So far not a single city has dilapidated on me, but maybe the CAM is making it too easy and I just am bone headed enough to think it's all me... But I like your point Moose, but Singapore has a population of 200,000 per square mile if I remember correctly and that would mean there are millions of people on a large city tile at a Singapore density, ganted it doesn't get any denser than Singapore. I also don't zone huge skyscraper forests, I like have one huge bulding and a few smaller sized ones but arranged in a plaza with full parking, bus and subways and cool little plazas and parks. I still like to spread it out. I usually put 3 times as much medium density around the high density. If you cram it all together it has its ceratin style, but I find it unrealistic and it just overloads the traffic when you have 50,000 people fighting down 1,000' of road... I'm definitely enjoying all the input and different views, why we love this place, Thanks!!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, enjoy yourself. This is not only a game but a canvas for your imagination. Everyone does his own thing. At the moment, I am into rural stuff laid out on big tiles. This often results in several towns per tile.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

The problem is CAM, it radically alters the demand levels and so you can have more demand than the population from each component of RCI would normally call for. Without CAM, your cities would suffer from some significant commercial vacancies or a residential boom under your current situation. Powerful stuff this CAM is I tell you...

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The problem is CAM, it radically alters the demand levels and so you can have more demand than the population from each component of RCI would normally call for. Without CAM, your cities would suffer from some significant commercial vacancies or a residential boom under your current situation. Powerful stuff this CAM is I tell you...

I don't look at it as a problem but a challenge. With full understanding of the mod, you can build amazing futuristic cities that rise like a bamboo farm out of the tundra. It is, at the moment, not my bag. I am building small towns at the moment.

[Cob92 360]

If you DATpack the CAM, the insane demand will be taken care of. Without DATpacking, the CAM doubles the workforce, allowing for virtually limitless commercial and industrial growth.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If you DATpack the CAM, the insane demand will be taken care of. Without DATpacking, the CAM doubles the workforce, allowing for virtually limitless commercial and industrial growth.

Really bad news for me because I can't run Datpacker on my Linux/wine system for a reason I haven't figured out as yet.

[SilverCyric 130]

I've been hesitant and a little intimidated to datpack, my cheif reason for waiting is I'm still trying to build a basic plug-ins pack for myself, narrow it down to the essentials... Oye!! : )

Looks like it's time to start over and do it right this time... Thanks

[Cob92 360]

All you have to do is DATpack the CAM into SimCity_1.dat (according to the guys at SC4D, the next CAM will do this automatically during installation). Of course it is essential that you back up the original file, in case something goes wrong or you decide you would like to uninstall the CAM.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Be careful what you datpack. Don't do everything in one swoul foop. You'll regret it later. Especially do not datpack any part of the NAM nor any of the network stuff dependent on it.

Datpack your plugins in groups, not in one huge bunch. You need a full backup for this of the original plugins, and you need to know what's in each package, because if you ever have to maintain one of them, you have to repack it from the (fixed) originals.

Unless you have thousands of files, you may find this is more trouble than it is worth.

[SilverCyric 130]

Thanks Moose that's really great advice, unfortunately, I do have 1,000's of files... Right now I'm sitting at about 10,000 files in my plugins folder and it's always growing. I know everyone says to be selective, but I'm trying to build one giant very connected region with architectual influences from around the world, and it's going to require one heck of a plugins folder, but I was wondering, do I have to datpack everything or can I datpack the important stuff and still add stuffs via the plugins folder? I've read the readme like 4 times and looked, breifly, for a tutorial, but haven't found one yet. I don't remember the readme saying I can't pack the NAM files, so thanks a bunch!! I'm not a dummy, but that program is still a little fuzzy to me, hence my hesitation...

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

You shouldn't pack anything that is clearly subject to change. It just makes a maintenance headache. The NAM team has said somewhere that there are bad effects from packing the NAM, but I don't remember what they are. It is just on my "mustn't do that" list.

Datpacker just makes all the selected plugins into a single .dat file. Nothing says it has to be the only thing in your Plugins folder.