Regional Crime is suddenly KILLING a nice profitable city!

[Rhadamant5186 19]

Oops. Yeah, sorry about the OP's troubles -- I was adding info about the detective wing as a side note. TBH -- I've only played public regions to sort of fool around, not really get invested in. And to be even more honest, I did on one occasion even set out to build a crime-generating city to, erm, make it more fun for fellow region mayors. I'm very interested in finding out if you ever manage to get a handle on the crime problem. I suspect there's something murky going on with the game engine and the way it generates criminals on a region-wide level, sort of like those infinite commuters and never-ending visitors.

 

 

The large police station's detective wing is super useful. It's the only thing that lets you nab criminals from inside their residences.

 

The problem we've got - the criminals in question are NOT from my city, so they're not in residences. They're all out running around inside the city, helping clog traffic, and if you switch to region view, they're moving around on the highway from one city to the next. Detective's don't seem to make any difference.

I'd LOVE somebody to find the math on how this all works somewhere. It would tell us if we need to just give up or not!

 

Is there a max number of criminals vs citizens for a city?

What determines the max number of available criminals?

IS there a max?

Fudged numbers and all - wonder what the "converted to crime" ratio is for a population of a destroyed city that suddenly found themselves thrown out into the cold when their expensive penthouse burned??

 

The longer we play right now, the HIGHER the numbers are growing, so we're not even sure how many we will eventually have to deal with. I don't remember the population numbers for the city that was destroyed, but it was VERY high.

 

If we add the criminal numbers up between all the cities at this point, we're quickly approaching a known total of 5,000. If each has to be arrested 7 times - I don't see 35,000 arrest EVER happening! The region may be lost.

 

If nothing else, all our doughnut shop owners will be able to happily retire in Aruba.

Maybe he just unlocked a fun new mode of the game... Sin City! All joking aside I'd be interested to hear if you're ever able to clear up the massive crimewave you're currently suffering.

[endorken 13]

Here's my crime map -- mine is a scary orange (SinCity!), but of course you have the insane numbers. Go figure.

 

 

[Cob92 360]

Here's my crime map -- mine is a scary orange (SinCity!), but of course you have the insane numbers. Go figure.

 

 

 

It's almost like the police stations are under constant siege! Must be a pretty bad place if there's no guarantee that you won't get shot on the front steps of police HQ.

[Biblitz 0]

Hmm after i stopped laughing at your cities expense... I've noticed a similar issue "starting" in one of my high density (HD) cities next door to my Casino Town(CT) . Interestingly i'm getting a lot of criminals in my HD town BUT the CC city was built around crime prevention. There are only 2-3 criminals in the CC town yet when i go to regional view with my HD town loaded it show's a buttload of criminals in my HD cities regional stats page! I would Imagine only 2-3 should show but this is not the case

[g5todd 5]

just make traffic so bad they can't get in...in my city they sit in grid lock so long trying to get in...they just immediately leave

[Rhadamant5186 19]

 I'm very interested in finding out if you ever manage to get a handle on the crime problem. I suspect there's something murky going on with the game engine and the way it generates criminals on a region-wide level, sort of like those infinite commuters and never-ending visitors.

 

Heh ...

 

Everyone involved in the region will be on together this evening. We'll see if anything we're trying is bringing numbers down.

Sadly, if they keep rising, we may all vote to abandon the entire region and move elsewhere.

You could also try to just demolish your highway connection to your region and then attempt to clean up your criminal problem while making sure your city is sustainable without a highway connection? Well that's just one idea, but I doubt that'd work.

[LGMizzell 15]

Nothing is working.

 

Thieves in the Night now has over 4,000 criminals per day ... it went up after the screen shot below.

At the same time, one of my cities has risen to over 1000. A second is slowly climbing to over 500.

 

So what's the Simcity RECORD for criminals? Maybe we win that award!

 

Worse yet ... we started looking at our population panels as other things are starting to go borked.

City with population of 95,000 suddenly has 151,000 visitors - zero tourist!

Same city had zero unemployment, now it's rising because the visitors are taking the jobs!

Other cities in the region, same problem, just as many visitors.

Traffic is slammed everywhere, nothing moves.

 

So basically, every single citizen in the city that was allowed to fall is milling in the region looking for something to do.

 

We're still trying some stuff ... and all commercial/industrial city to give them all jobs or something. But, it's looking like the region may be lost.

Not giving up yet! There's still a few more boxes of doughnuts for the police left!

 

 

[jamn69 5]

I read somewhere when someone just looked for where the criminals lived like houses and just bulldozed them! lol, now if they lived some high density apartment then that wouldn't be

advisable I guess, anyways that's what I saw once.

[LGMizzell 15]

I read somewhere when someone just looked for where the criminals lived like houses and just bulldozed them ...

 

This is the entire problem. They lived in another city. That city was destroyed. Out of work, out of money, nowhere in the rubble to go ... they all went elsewhere.

Honest citizens became thieves just to get bread for their families! THOUSANDS of them!!

... and from what we can determine, there are now THOUSANDS of ex-residents roaming around with no jobs (over 15,000 of them in ONE of my cities alone), and one by one, they're ALL turning to crime to support themselves.

 

We're adjusting Thieves in the Night (a city built as an experiment to deal with them) into a C&R only city to see if we can get most of them into there and into jobs before turning to crime. Will know if that does any good at all in another day or two.

UPDATE: quick check before work - after leaving Thieves in the Night running all night - there are now 5,734 criminals there - and the other cities have NOT gone down at all!

 

Do we win "Most Criminals in a Region" award NOW???

 

Superbacon - education levels in the city involved was actually very high.

[TuPhat 27]

This super crime wave that you're dealing with is much more interesting than what's happening in my cities.   Don't give up!   I want to see what happens. 

[Srafty 7]

this thread has been a good read over the last few days. i really do not think you can win. i ruined my last city just attempting to reduce "criminlas per day"..

 

i had 4/12 hats education, via high schools (99.9% enrollment)

i had 100% employment - from what i seen in 4 cycles of day\night everyone was making it to work (checked periodically)

i had a happiness of atleased 85 % but mostly 87% for about 1 year

i had very low pollution (almost none existent)

i had Zero crimes per day EVER

I had sub 10 arrests per day (attempted crimes)

i had 2 police stations plus 1 precinct (precinct is rubbish even detectives do nothing to prevent the issue i was having)

None of my police stations ever released a criminal early

yet  criminals per day was always on the rise

the only real issue i had was on occasion a ware house would burn down because i never buy hazmat... Oh and even tho there was 4 trade depo right next door to my factorys (spread out) they occasional complained "now where to sell freight" but at the exact same time the very same factory would state "freight is making huge profit!" this was the one thing stopping me from getting to 90% happiness "without cheating by lowering taxes - taxes where at 9%"

 

in the end i give up on trying, basically i couldn't figure out why people where turning to crime, and why that number was in fact always increasing. ffs i didn't even have 1 homeless!

 

This actually started happening the moment i got rid of my grade school because it was replaced with a high school.. so my education took a hit down to 4 hats from 4 1/2 for a few days while all the students merged over.. "This" is the only thing i can think of that might of had an effect, but i played this city for over 20 hours real time after this thus had over 4 hats of education for years.. but still its the only thing i can think of so i have since demolished one of my prized citys to start again..

 

anyway i kind of hope this doesnt discourage you from trying to fix the problem, as i have gotten a few good laughs from this thread, just thought id share my experience and hopeful someone looking here might have an answer to my issue.

 

 

Edit: figured out the cause and 2 possible solutions, solution 1 is detectives at a higher ratio of 1:1 (that's 750/hr +60k per wing!!!!) criminals thus very expensive and also requires a university, solution 2 is to somehow get criminals to commit more crimes, but getting them to commit a crime well that i haven't figured out

[Larsz 7]

The large police station's detective wing is super useful. It's the only thing that lets you nab criminals from inside their residences.

The problem we've got - the criminals in question are NOT from my city, so they're not in residences. They're all out running around inside the city, helping clog traffic, and if you switch to region view, they're moving around on the highway from one city to the next. Detective's don't seem to make any difference.

I'd LOVE somebody to find the math on how this all works somewhere. It would tell us if we need to just give up or not!

Is there a max number of criminals vs citizens for a city?

What determines the max number of available criminals?

IS there a max?

Fudged numbers and all - wonder what the "converted to crime" ratio is for a population of a destroyed city that suddenly found themselves thrown out into the cold when their expensive penthouse burned??

The longer we play right now, the HIGHER the numbers are growing, so we're not even sure how many we will eventually have to deal with. I don't remember the population numbers for the city that was destroyed, but it was VERY high.

If we add the criminal numbers up between all the cities at this point, we're quickly approaching a known total of 5,000. If each has to be arrested 7 times - I don't see 35,000 arrest EVER happening! The region may be lost.

If nothing else, all our doughnut shop owners will be able to happily retire in Aruba.

Sorry about double post. As for regional criminals. I would think they are shared, in other words, don't add up cities. The same criminal can visit multiple cities at same time.

[Biblitz 0]

this thread has been a good read over the last few days. i really do not think you can win. i ruined my last city just attempting to reduce "criminlas per day"..

 

i had 4/12 hats education, via high schools (99.9% enrollment)

i had 100% employment - from what i seen in 4 cycles of day\night everyone was making it to work (checked periodically)

i had a happiness of atleased 85 % but mostly 87% for about 1 year

i had very low pollution (almost none existent)

i had Zero crimes per day EVER

I had sub 10 arrests per day (attempted crimes)

i had 2 police stations plus 1 precinct (precinct is rubbish even detectives do nothing to prevent the issue i was having)

None of my police stations ever released a criminal early

yet  criminals per day was always on the rise

the only real issue i had was on occasion a ware house would burn down because i never buy hazmat... Oh and even tho there was 4 trade depo right next door to my factorys (spread out) they occasional complained "now where to sell freight" but at the exact same time the very same factory would state "freight is making huge profit!" this was the one thing stopping me from getting to 90% happiness "without cheating by lowering taxes - taxes where at 9%"

 

in the end i give up on trying, basically i couldn't figure out why people where turning to crime, and why that number was in fact always increasing. ffs i didn't even have 1 homeless!

 

This actually started happening the moment i got rid of my grade school because it was replaced with a high school.. so my education took a hit down to 4 hats from 4 1/2 for a few days while all the students merged over.. "This" is the only thing i can think of that might of had an effect, but i played this city for over 20 hours real time after this thus had over 4 hats of education for years.. but still its the only thing i can think of so i have since demolished one of my prized citys to start again..

 

anyway i kind of hope this doesnt discourage you from trying to fix the problem, as i have gotten a few good laughs from this thread, just thought id share my experience and hopeful someone looking here might have an answer to my issue.

 

 

Edit: figured out the cause and 2 possible solutions, solution 1 is detectives at a higher ratio of 1:1 (that's 750/hr +60k per wing!!!!) criminals thus very expensive and also requires a university, solution 2 is to somehow get criminals to commit more crimes, but getting them to commit a crime well that i haven't figured out

Detective wing, no patrol cars out + Helicopter Fleet (I'm assuming you can arrest via chopper? Haven't tried myself).

 

This should increase the rate they commit crimes I think! Sounds like education is decent... This will be a never ending battle though, sounds like the rate at which criminals enter your city is dependent on the regional cities crime rate! This means it's a money pit for all region members - there is no "check and balance" for crime - and I would call this a design flaw. IE you should be able to hire a bounty hunter or have a "law division" to get some income back to help combat more crime. Secondly there needs to be a way for you to counter the regions global crime rate - again another check and balance design flaw.

[LGMizzell 15]

The city of Thieves in the Night is approaching 6,000 criminals/day!!

[Bibor 3]

Seriously though, what happens if you cut all connections to your city and then demolish everything? That should save the region, right?

[LGMizzell 15]

Seriously though, what happens if you cut all connections to your city and then demolish everything? That should save the region, right?

 

I'm not sure.

 

Demolishing a city is what started all this! Heh...

 

First, we'd have to demolish EVERY city in the region after cutting off the connections.

 

But - and I still haven't groked how the numbers are actually working .... what if we demolish everything, and there's STILL several thousand extra criminals/whatever roaming around at random on the highway system BETWEEN cities? We start rebuilding from scratch, reopen the connections, and here they come again!

 

Or, maybe we kill all cities except ONE, leave it open for a very long time hoping any stragglers are inside, and THEN demolish it.

 

However, the idea of a "trap city" didn't work the first time ... It now has almost 6,000 criminals/day, and the number in the other cities have NOT gone down...

 

Really do think it's a spawn bug of some kind. It's certainly been interesting (and highly annoying!!) though

[Biblitz 0]

Seriously though, what happens if you cut all connections to your city and then demolish everything? That should save the region, right?

 

I'm not sure.

 

Demolishing a city is what started all this! Heh...

 

First, we'd have to demolish EVERY city in the region after cutting off the connections.

 

But - and I still haven't groked how the numbers are actually working .... what if we demolish everything, and there's STILL several thousand extra criminals/whatever roaming around at random on the highway system BETWEEN cities? We start rebuilding from scratch, reopen the connections, and here they come again!

 

Or, maybe we kill all cities except ONE, leave it open for a very long time hoping any stragglers are inside, and THEN demolish it.

 

However, the idea of a "trap city" didn't work the first time ... It now has almost 6,000 criminals/day, and the number in the other cities have NOT gone down...

 

Really do think it's a spawn bug of some kind. It's certainly been interesting (and highly annoying!!) though

Whatever you do DO NOT BULLDOZE YOUR MAP! I did this on one of cities after accumulating some $, nothing has been working right since! For example, i have ZERO shuttles from my shuttle bus depots, the city does not receive water from regional water supplying neighbors (even though it says it does, it pumps nothing through the main entrance) and finally my industry has issues finding places to ship freight, with a nearly empty Freight Cargo Trade Depot LITERALLY next door!

[LGMizzell 15]

Region partner left the city of Thieves in the Night running ALL night. WE threw every single police force, detective station, van, whatever we had at it ... budgets be damned.

 

Result? Even worse! More than likely, we're abandoning the region. Every city there is now pretty much unplayable. There is simply no way to get the numbers to go down. They just keep going up. Decision will be made by vote later today.

 

But, for grins and giggles ... we're probably going to close the connection of every single city to the region, and then bulldoze the ENTIRE REGION. Just to see what happens. Afterwards, we'll see if there were any stragglers out on the highways and figure out what to do with them. Maybe.

 

I'm pretty convinced we win the "Most Criminals/Day" award!!

 

[gmart530 6]

That's actually really funny, this has been a great thread.  Hope Maxis sees this and comments, I'd love to see them get a laugh out this.

 

As a coworker just said "those must have been the wives and the children of criminals as well"

[Zpike 79]

Make me want to create a region of criminals just to have some fun.

[BravoGreenONE 120]

Or you could wait for the martial law dlc

[LGMizzell 15]

We voted this evening to abandon our region.

 

Our problem is obviously a spawning bug of some kind and once started, there's no way to combat it. It was certainly fun trying, but it eventually overran us completely.

 

Our last ditch effort today before voting was to close every single regional connection on ALL cities - buses, airports, ferries ... we discovered that bus stops (and school bus stops) must be destroyed too for even with the highway connection terminated, they still run and affect the numbers. Then we carefully watched the population numbers for each city for a bit to be sure NOTHING was getting in or out of any city.

 

After all that, we bulldozed the entire region, all 7 cities, back down to absolute zero.

 

Even with ZERO POPULATION in the entire region, we STILL showed thousands of criminals, thousands of visitors in each empty area .... there was just no way to get anything working properly again. We waited a few full game days to be sure. Even with zero population, criminal numbers STILL continued to rise!

 

If/when the bug is fixed, we may go back and give the region a go again, but for now, we're starting over with the new knowledge we have:

 

1. don't EVER do that again!!!!

2. Having region partners to cooperate closely with each other makes this a MUCH better experience.

 

For everybody else, if you get ticked at a region partner and really want to do some damage to them, now you know how (as long as the bug exist)!

 

Moving on.......

[oldbrokenlink 43]

yeah i had similar issue

 

i was able to find an open game

 

started a city

 

and some jerk put vu towers and flooded nearby cities with crime

 

that and the constant disasters

 

have resulted in hour wasted futilely fighting crime

 

constant murders, fires, robberies.

 

already 2 have abandoned their cities

 

im going to do the same

 

basically i just cant keep population up and i every few seconds have to demolish dozens of buildings

 

worse i think they are taking over my businesses.

 

vu towers suck, who is going to spent time creating a realistic city when it so easily and repeatedly gets destroyed and their is no saves, no rollback, well the kind that people want, not the kind that is forced on them.

[TuPhat 27]

Thanks for keeping us entertained!    I quite enjoyed this thread.   Thumbs up for trying!

[PeterWeaver 2]

Later that day he would be among the first to die </gravel>

[p30pl3h4t3m3 0]

LOL

 

creator of "Mad Max 4: on the Highways of Sim City", thanks that you have shared with us this story...

 

i'm still laughing xD