Simcity info and data analysis

[Howitzer Zak 17]

Edit:  I cross-posted this at Simcity Hall since this site was so slow and kept returning as unavailable.  Guess the post went through.  If you visit both sites, sorry.

 

Yes I'm crazy, but I like to know how things work, it makes me better at creating cities.

Here are some things I found out from fooling in sandbox mode, feel free to make corrections, additions.

Let's start with housing data (XXX are just missing data, I'll try to fill in later).

A low income, low density home has 6 adults and 2 kids.  Of these 6 adults, 4 are workers and 2 are shoppers.
A medium income, low density home has 3 adults and 2 kids.  Of these 3 adults, 2 are workers and 1 are shoppers.
Didn't check high yet

A low income, med density home has 60 adults and 15 kids.  Of these 60 adults, 40 are workers and 20 are shoppers.
A med income, med density home has 30 adults and 7 kids.  Of these 30 adults, 20 are workers and 10 are shoppers.
Didn't check high income yet

High
density is where things get weird...  The population seems to keep increasing, but the # of workers stays static, not sure if it's a bug or working as intended.
A low income, high density home has 5000+ adults and 100 kids.  Of these 5000+ adults, 400 are workers and 200 are shoppers.
A med income, high density home has 2500+ adults and XXX kids.  Of these 2500+ adults, 200 are workers and 100 are shoppers.
A high income, high density home has 500+ adults and XXX kids.  Of these 500+ adults, 67 are workers and XXX are shoppers.

Now business data:

A Wind Power farm supplies 20 low income jobs and 6 med income jobs
A Dump supplies 20 low income jobs and 6 med income jobs
A Fire Department supplies 20 low income jobs and 6 med income jobs
A Grade School supplies 40 low income jobs and 10 med income jobs
A Police Station supplies 10 low income jobs and 4 med income jobs
A Clinic supplies 12 low income jobs and 8 med income jobs and 4 high income jobs

A low income, low density store #1 supplies 5 low income jobs and 2 med income jobs
A low income, low density store #2 supplies 10 low income jobs and 4 med income jobs
A med income, low density store #1 supplies 6 low income jobs and 4 med income jobs and 2 high income jobs
A med income, low density store #2 supplies 3 low income jobs and 2 med income jobs and 1 high income job

A low income, med density store #1 supplies 60 low income jobs and 16 med income jobs
A low income, low density industrial supplies 20 low income jobs and 6 med income jobs and 1 high income job

ALL parks, not matter what the size or income supply 5 low income jobs and 2 med income jobs
City Hall (final upgrade) supplies 40 low income jobs and 20 med income jobs and 8 high income jobs

I still need to make some high density businesses and see what they provide

Some general notes of interest:

Kids do not count toward your population
Shoppers who go to parks return happiness back to the home, kids who go to parks do NOTHING AT ALL
Freight delivered to stores does not affect the store supplies at all, it only returns happiness to the source industry
Commerce stores vary in worker count (see above).
SOME commerce stores stay open at night (Gas, Hotdog stand) and others don't!  There are a lot of shoppers wandering around at night, so it may be beneficial to blow up buildings until you get one open all night
ANY time you add upgrades to buildings (extra fire truck, police station, school buildings, dump trucks, extra wind turbines etc...), no workers are added, the worker count stays the same for the building
Medium/high income residents start off as educated, but can become uneducated if you have no schools
# of workers in a building seems to have no effect on that building (i.e power output from power plants etc...)
When Students return home they add education to the home, they do not increase happiness

And just a non-statistical note/rant

Buses and bus stops are completely broken.  I have nice evenly spaced bus stops and maxed out trollys and I couldn't figure out why I had so much traffic until I looked at the garbage/recycle trucks trying to move about.  Buses get stuck CONSTANTLY at bus stops.  They just sit there forever and block all three lanes of traffic.  I sat there and watched the buses just sit there for an entire day, not moving.  Every time I saw this happen I removed the bus stop and the bus happily moved along.  I did this every time one got stuck.  After that, ALL my traffic problems went away.  Major bug.  This seems to happen most frequently with the large buses, not the small shuttle buses.

If you got this far, thanks for reading.  I have a lot more notes of interest, I just need to verify them.  I'm also going to do more sandboxing and see what else I can find.  Feel free to comment or add things I may have missed.

[JeffCraig 3]

This is great infos! That really helps me understand some city dynamics.

 

Your data looks pretty sound and matches up with what I am seeing in my cities, ratio wise.

 

I haven't seen the bus glitch recently, although I have seen school buses get stuck in a glitched out loop when they try to enter a school. Pretty much everything about traffic in this game is jacked right now

 

Have you looked into tourism at all yet? I played in the sandbox for a little while to see if I could figure out what brings in the most, but it just fluctuates wildly and I can't really figure out why.

[PeterWeaver 2]

Thanks Zak, more please

[Syque 0]

Thanks a lot for doing this.  This information is very helpful, and hopefully it can be stickied eventuall when the info is more complete.

 

I have a question you might be able to answer.  Do all residential buildings of the same wealth/density combo have the same sized footprint AND supported population?  If population is always the same but footprint size varies, that would mean the best way to optimize population is to destroy the largest footprint buildings of each class

[Catchin22 299]

Great info, how did you remove the bus stop?

[PapasGigantes 3]

Catchin - you can doze a bus stop, but you have to zoom in to do it.

[Catchin22 299]

Catchin - you can doze a bus stop, but you have to zoom in to do it.

Thanks!

[EnKay 0]

It's no surprise then that when you reach 30 to 50.000 population the zoning advisor starts telling you there are not enough workers, seeing that High density gives so little in terms of workers.

 

What I don't understand is, what do the other 4000 people do all day?

[Major_Heartfire 1]

It has to be a bug. No way in heck are they supposed to be old people or something.

 

There are lots of screenshots, and I'll have to check my own cities, of people having 10% of their population being workers. TEN PERCENT! That's insanely low, especially if kids aren't counted in a city's population. In real life, although it fluctuates, it sits at usually around 45 - 50% (in the US) of people over 18 are working at least 30+ hours/week.

 

TC, any idea how kids are simulated? Do they take 1 year to grow up? I haven't played any of my cities past about 2 and a half years, but I certainly have large amounts of adults, and I can't imagine this simulation having a kid take 15 years to grow up, especially considering they randomly assign houses and jobs every single day.

[czNemesis 8]

It has to be a bug. No way in heck are they supposed to be old people or something.

 

There are lots of screenshots, and I'll have to check my own cities, of people having 10% of their population being workers. TEN PERCENT! That's insanely low, especially if kids aren't counted in a city's population. In real life, although it fluctuates, it sits at usually around 45 - 50% (in the US) of people over 18 are working at least 30+ hours/week.

 

TC, any idea how kids are simulated? Do they take 1 year to grow up? I haven't played any of my cities past about 2 and a half years, but I certainly have large amounts of adults, and I can't imagine this simulation having a kid take 15 years to grow up, especially considering they randomly assign houses and jobs every single day.

I think that there's no aging in simcity. Nor I have seen something that would prove that sims age. I think that house will just generate some workers, shoppers and students, and that number will stay constant. Each of those agents then serve their own purpose. Workers going to work (thus making other buildings work), shoppers doing shopping (bringing happines thus increasing density) and students going to schools (increasing education and technology knowledge).

[dan008 2]

my university has low student count why?

[Major_Heartfire 1]

It has to be a bug. No way in heck are they supposed to be old people or something.

 

There are lots of screenshots, and I'll have to check my own cities, of people having 10% of their population being workers. TEN PERCENT! That's insanely low, especially if kids aren't counted in a city's population. In real life, although it fluctuates, it sits at usually around 45 - 50% (in the US) of people over 18 are working at least 30+ hours/week.

 

TC, any idea how kids are simulated? Do they take 1 year to grow up? I haven't played any of my cities past about 2 and a half years, but I certainly have large amounts of adults, and I can't imagine this simulation having a kid take 15 years to grow up, especially considering they randomly assign houses and jobs every single day.

I think that there's no aging in simcity. Nor I have seen something that would prove that sims age. I think that house will just generate some workers, shoppers and students, and that number will stay constant. Each of those agents then serve their own purpose. Workers going to work (thus making other buildings work), shoppers doing shopping (bringing happines thus increasing density) and students going to schools (increasing education and technology knowledge).

 

You're 100% correct. There is a thread either here or on Reddit that explains it, but basically each house that is represented on the map spawns in a certain number of workers, shoppers, students and kids. They then perform their daily roles. There is no age simulation. 

[czNemesis 8]

my university has low student count why?

Because every education building is using students to fill itself, so I think the problem is your other education buildings are taking the students for themselves and theres no one available for university. I did a test yesterday and it really is that you only need the highest available education building in your city. So if you have university, demolish all other schools in your city. It's weird but it's how it works. Each new level of education building replaces the previous.

[EnKay 0]

Solve this conundrum: I build a shop. This generates jobs, wares to be sold to buyers and request for industrial products. To replenish their supplies, I build industry, which generates jobs and needs workers. Building the shops has me at low unsatisfied buyers, but when I build more homes to have more workers, I create new buyers, who will be among the unsatisfied. This means I have to build more shops...

 

It reminds me of the shoe shop story from the Hitchhikers' Guide. It spirals on and can never find balance. 

 

Is there a rate you can use of how many industries, shops and homes you need to balance things out, or should you stop caring and play on regardless of demand?

[cnelson711 1]

I'm glad somebody else thinks like I do!

 

A Wind Power farm supplies 20 low income jobs and 6 med income jobs

...

 

You missed the rest of the power plants (note, the maintenance cost is of the building, not including the free smoke stack/windmill/etc):

 

 

Wind Farm $40 20 6 0

oal power plant $25 25 8 0

Oil power plant $100 40 12 4

Solar farm $40 20 4 0

Nuclear power plant $100 220 604 240

Water Tower $100 0 0 0

Water Pumping Station $400 80 40 12

Also, I was starting to calculate tax revenue per household.

$ Residence $10 Low 4     2     2

$$ Residence $20 Low   2     1   2

$$$ Estate $50 Low     2     1    1

 

I love the nuclear power plant... it creates 1064 jobs for $100 an hour (and nothing else; blow up the tower)... if all those workers come from low density residential, that's $12,590 in taxes per hour.  Keynes was on to something here...

[Kentotoro 0]

my university has low student count why?

Because every education building is using students to fill itself, so I think the problem is your other education buildings are taking the students for themselves and theres no one available for university. I did a test yesterday and it really is that you only need the highest available education building in your city. So if you have university, demolish all other schools in your city. It's weird but it's how it works. Each new level of education building replaces the previous.

Also try to build more busstops

Bring out the education table and start placing schoolbus stops near the uneducated buildings and the enrollment will just sky-rocket and there will also be less risk of fire.

Do it for about 20min realtime and you'll see the effects.

[Freeze01 1]

A few more buildings

[cnelson711 1]

Looked into $$$ wealth high density today:

 

$$$ high density residential = 62-70 workers, 33 shoppers, 30 students
$$$ high density commercial = 200 $ jobs, 300 $$ jobs, 120 $$$ jobs, 465 goods per 12 hours (satisfies 465 shoppers, I think), 0 or 155 souvenirs
$$$ high density industry (tech 3) = 200 $ jobs, 600 $$ jobs, 240 $$$ jobs, 360 freight
$ high density industry (tech 1) = 1400 $ jobs, 200 $$ jobs, 20 $$$ jobs,