It's Alive! Casino city 65 k tourists, $2 million income

[perafilozof 143]

This is a city I made pre patch in a region which has a city that provides all the utilities to my tourism, gambling city. My casino city had only 8,000 tourists per day before the patch and 4 casinos where empty most of the time not making real profit.

 

Now post patch 2.0 this city has 65,000 tourists a day and in total generates $2 million income. Here is a in depth view of this city:

 

 

[Dr. Boom 37]

Very interesting. It's design is similar to one of my cities, which I had also made circular.

[TuPhat 27]

Thanks for posting this.

 

I've been working on my casino city with mixed results, but I never could increase my profits anywhere near where you did though I was able to fully unlock the Gambling HQ.   With an expo center and stadium I could usually bring anywhere from 10k-15k people, but they would goto my casinos and other monuments, never turning a profit in my stadium.  My casinos were rocking pretty good though.   Been looking for the secret to bring in more people but never could figure it out (yet).

 

I have a couple questions.

 

Q:  Is there any reason for zoning medium or high wealth?   Does it affect tourism at all?   My casino city was 95% low wealth with a splattering of high wealth around the mansion.  Though I have loads of medium/high wealth jobs open, I balanced low wealth jobs/shopping really well.   Nobody was complaining of needing workers.   All my other cities in the region was balanced really well too so I wasn't getting medium/high wealth workers commuting in for jobs.

 

Q:  I noticed you didn't have any other tourism spots, such as Empire State Building etc.   Do you think these are counter productive for casinos?  They will bring in tourists, but I guess they trap them there instead of the casinos.

 

Q:  How many hotels?   When I play, I notice lots of vehicles and people leaving casinos looking for a hotel.  I've played around with having lots of hotels and not having many at all.  Not sure what works best.  Just let the tourists leave and come back, or deal with them staying and lots of taxies.

 

Q:  I read that Approval rating has a big affect on number people that enter your city?   Any confirmation on that?   I've spent hours balancing my city, so I'm running anywhere between 88%-91% at any given time.   Tough keeping really high.

 

Q:  Any tips for getting those big tourism numbers?

 

Q:  Do you think playing in sandbox vs private region makes a difference?

 

This is a screen-shot of my casino/tourism.  My thoughts was to bring in people via train and boat (at the top and right), have them walk past the casinos, whatever was left over would goto the monuments and stadium/expo.  The bus depot at the bottom/left brought in tourists too.   The airport is there too a the bottom right which seemed pretty busy.   I have space center going too, but it doesn't seem to bring in many tourists at all.  

 

 

Any tips/comments are welcome.

 

Note:  I've pretty much dozed my entire tourism area and I'm starting over.

[perafilozof 143]

I will try to answer as best I can.

 

A : The way I had envisioned the city was to expand the land value in those circles from inside, with high land value, to outer with medium land value. The need, or no need for those workers wasn't my main concern. But there is one side affect, I can't confirm or deny but what I am starting to believe is that what the tooltip about landmarks says about increasing the attraction rating of your city has something to do with land value. The only actual impact of landmarks is that they create land value. We can't actually see how and by how much do they increase the number of tourists.

 

 

A: I do actually have landmarks. Wind mill(275), Leaning tower of pisa(275), Statue of Liberty(375), they are full 24/7 but they aren't making a dent in the gambling tourists. Will they keep the higher numbers of tourists while being turned off, yes and no. Yes, while the tourists attracted are still in the city and no, because they won't attract new tourists. And if my thoughts about land value are correct then definitely no. 

 

​A: Not to many. There is no point in having room for 5,000 tourists in hotels if your landmarks and casinos have only 2,000 total capacity. 

 

​A: Approval rating is connected to attraction rating. In theory higher one goes the higher the other one goes. Just how much in actual numbers no one can tell you. My best educated guess is that it's about %. The closer you get to 100% the game will add a certain % of new tourists based on your current numbers.

 

​A: Unless there are some hidden mechanic working in sandbox mode there shouldn't be a reason it works better in sandbox.

 

A: Tips: Try having multiple municipal bus stations and train stations, run expo center and pro stadium every single day, if you get swarmed by taxis turn the airport off, add more intersections so agents can more easily cross streets and move about on foot, try not to use hotel mods but as many capacity mods as possible for casinos, don't try to make every wealth type of tourists concentrate on the ones that come in high numbers, the positioning of transportation stations can have direct impact on the tourists. Even simple things like changing the side of the street a bus station is on can change things.

[Xr3iracer 5]

Nice video

[TuPhat 27]

Thanks for the responses.

 

I'm going to try to rezone some of my low wealth to high wealth to see if it makes a difference.

 

I see your landmarks now!  Ooops!  They are tucked in with your casinos.  

 

Thanks for the tips.   Going to play around some more.

 

Note:  I wish I knew what drives the tourism numbers a bit more.    Since I have demolished all my tourism/casinos, I plopped down a sci-fi, sleek, empire state and expo center and I'm not drawing a single low wealth tourist, not a one.   However, I am getting lots of medium and some high wealth tourists.   This game is weird.

 

Edit:  Nope.  Nothing I do will gain me any more tourists.    With average 92% approval rate, micro controlled everything I know.   I average about 3500-4000 tourists with expo, about 12K with stadium (not making profits).   Not sure what I do anymore. 

[rainyturtloid 0]

Thanks for the responses.

 

I'm going to try to rezone some of my low wealth to high wealth to see if it makes a difference.

 

I see your landmarks now!  Ooops!  They are tucked in with your casinos.  

 

Thanks for the tips.   Going to play around some more.

 

Note:  I wish I knew what drives the tourism numbers a bit more.    Since I have demolished all my tourism/casinos, I plopped down a sci-fi, sleek, empire state and expo center and I'm not drawing a single low wealth tourist, not a one.   However, I am getting lots of medium and some high wealth tourists.   This game is weird.

I did something similar, but instead i get tons of low wealth tourists, not one medium or high wealth

[perafilozof 143]

Ok so to impart some wisdom I just acquired while making another gambling city but with a different layout.

 

Landmarks and Pro Stadium/Expo:

3 Landmarks from the start, high tourist attraction low tourist capacity (275 and 375). Expo center, run events as your budget allows. Once you can fill a Rock concert and get 200,000 profit each day upgrade to a Pro Stadium. Run the expo a few days more, then shut down. Run Pro stadium 1st event if you want low wealth, 2nd if you want medium wealth.

 

Taxi madness: 

If you look at them with a tourist overlay they are grey cars. If you look at them with a population overplay they are orange-tourists. Why?

They become gray once they have had enough of your city and are ready to leave. The leave by taxi when going out of a high density medium wealth hotel. I had 5 of those and managed to fill my entire city with taxis. Once I bulldozed them... 0.

 

Massive tourist numbers:

Pro staidum. Short and simple. Moster truck if you want low, World soccer if you want medium.

 

Most profitable casino:

Sleek. Just plop 6 modules for capacity and enjoy massive profits. 

 

Tourist attraction:

SF casino mods. Low wealth 400$/h, medium 1,100$/h. Add if your tourist numbers are low and a pro stadium isn't getting to job done. If you can try to avoid adding.

 

Transportation:

Train and Boat high numbers, impossible to go wrong. Municipal bus station, build several but only 3-4 bus mods each. Airport - if it is giving you high numbers and doesn't spon a billion taxes, only then yes.

[TuPhat 27]

Thumbs up!   To help out on taxis and hotels in a bit more detail (you have it right).

 

Lets take a look at a sleek casino.   You can have low, medium and high wealth gamblers.   Once a sim is finished with the casino, he will want to leave the casino for a hotel (providing there isn't a hotel attached to casino).    Low wealth sim looks for low wealth hotel.   Medium wealth sim looks for medium wealth hotel.   Etc.

 

If there is a hotel of their wealth level near the casino, the sim will simply walk to a hotel, otherwise he will take a taxi.  I believe high wealth sims will drive if the hotel isn't near.

 

When a sim is completely out of money and is leaving the city, the taxi is grey (in the tourism data layer), otherwise the taxi is yellow meaning that the sim isn't leaving the city, but looking for either shopping or a hotel.

 

Now when sims leave a hotel, I'm not quite sure what happens.  I need to look at this more.   I know if they still have money, they will walk again if it is close, or I believe taxi if it is far away.    If they are out of money, I believe they take a taxi out of the city.   I will look at this more...

 

perablenta, I'm not having the success you are.   I only get a fixed number of tourists, never any more day to day, and never enough earn a profit on the stadium.  The space center is shooting off rockets and it never says it gives me any tourists.   With consistant 92% approval rate (mayor's mansion is fully max'd out) and empire state, statue of liberty, expo, couple sleek casinos, I can never increase the number of tourists day over day.  I barely break even each day and loose lots on the stadium when I'm running it.   No traffic issues, multiple train stations (with only about 2K riders per day), ferry, buses, airport etc.   Frustrating!   I still think there may be a region issue/bug or just something I'm not doing right.   Have you tried this outside of sandbox?   Anyone else having great success with casinos?   I would love to see this work...

[perafilozof 143]

I have made this second city also in sandbox mode because I wanted to test out another layout. I will be making it in normal mode in my 3 city region about with my tutorial videos are, but I will also have millions of simoleons sent to it, so the money cheat isn't the issue. 

 

That new city: 60,000 tourists(40 k low, 20k medium wealth), 3 landmarks, pro stadium + expo (2$ for every 1$ I invest). 2 gambling houses(capacity upgrades), 2 SF  casinos(attraction upgrades), 2 Sleek casinos (capacity upgrades), 6 train stations, one manipular bus station 2 shuttle bus stations(reason: only 40 k pop in this city).

 

Education, garbage, water, power, sewage all off site in another city.

 

I am making around 170k income on landmarks, 1.2 $ million income on the casinos(it's not even maxed out, I could get it to 2$ million but I have spent enought time on it in sandbox that I know it works, I want to make it in my tutorial region) . If you guys want I can make a video showcase about this city tomorrow or just post a bunch of screenshots tonight.

 

Since I know now that this layout will work, I will be building it in my next video tutorials in my 3 city region.

[TPMP 0]

I'm also currently making a casino/tourism city. I'm really struggling with traffic though! How does everyone else deal with it, in particular taxis? They're killing me! I've beefed up my public transport but theres still roads clogged with busses and taxis.

[perafilozof 143]

I'm also currently making a casino/tourism city. I'm really struggling with traffic though! How does everyone else deal with it, in particular taxis? They're killing me! I've beefed up my public transport but theres still roads clogged with busses and taxis.

 

You bulldoze the source. Track where they are being created and bulldoze. Most likely an airport or a high/medium density hotel.

[TuPhat 27]

That new city: 60,000 tourists(40 k low, 20k medium wealth), 3 landmarks, pro stadium + expo (2$ for every 1$ I invest). 2 gambling houses(capacity upgrades), 2 SF  casinos(attraction upgrades), 2 Sleek casinos (capacity upgrades), 6 train stations, one manipular bus station 2 shuttle bus stations(reason: only 40 k pop in this city).

 

Education, garbage, water, power, sewage all off site in another city.

 

For the sci-fi casino, do you actually see a difference when running the attraction upgrades.  I mention this because I plopped a sci-fi casino down and added two of the medium wealth attractions, not one more tourist entered the city (ran it for days).   Tourists numbers were consistant with the sci-fi casino enabled or not.   I would expect the numbers to jump if the sci-fi casino is running.   I'm thinking that my region may be bugged.

 

I wouldn't expect that since I have water/power/sewage etc running the casino city that it would make a difference to the attraction rating.   I could try and offload it into one of my other cities.

[perafilozof 143]

That is why I wrote that you should try not to have to plop those SF attention modules. They cost A LOT but I have yet to confirm or deny that they actually do anything. Requires further testing.

[TuPhat 27]

That is why I wrote that you should try not to have to plop those SF attention modules. They cost A LOT but I have yet to confirm or deny that they actually do anything. Requires further testing.

 

Oh no worries!   I've been gifting this casino city is lots of cash from other cities in the region so I'm not concerned about blowing away a bunch of cash.   Just experiementing around.

 

 

I'm also currently making a casino/tourism city. I'm really struggling with traffic though! How does everyone else deal with it, in particular taxis? They're killing me! I've beefed up my public transport but theres still roads clogged with busses and taxis.

 

Managing taxis is tough.   It really comes down to smart street design and having mass transit.   Before I even plopped down a single casino, I made sure my street design and traffic was perfect, knowing that taxi's can ruin all your good efforts.    As mentioned above, taxis come from several sources.    Not having any hotels mean sims will leave your city (usually) the same way they come in (mass transit), but you don't get take advantage of them staying the night and spending their cash the next day.   Putting hotels right next to your casinos will keep sims on the feet, until the sims decide to leave the hotel and go home where they will take a taxi.    There is no easy answer but to design your city well and prepare for the onslaught.

 

Edit:  It seems that my tourism city is the only city that isn't benefiting from the Space Center.  All the other cities in the region is showing benefits.  Nice. 

Edit:  I've given up again on tourism for another week.

[TPMP 0]

I discovered the source of my taxis and deleted the hotel. Suddenly there were no taxis!

 

However, I have an unbelievable traffic problem which is crippling me. I've never had this problem before. Really dont know where to go from here. I may have to start over. But I'm not sure what I've learnt from this city which I'll be able to avoid next time.

[TuPhat 27]

So perablenta, as mentioned above I could not bring in extra tourists post 2.0 patch in my private region.   The region was created pre-2.0 patch and was specifically built for casino/tourism.   Once 2.0 patch was released I immediately started my casinos.    Couldn't make it work.    Like I said above, with expo, multiple high attraction tourist traps, casinos, I couldn't pull in over 3900 tourists per day.   High approval rate.  Good city.

 

So I started a new region (post 2.0/2.1).

 

I've got two cities going now.  Completed education electronics city.   Completed oil/mining city.   Finished international airport.   In my oil/mining city, I'm pulling in anywhere from 12k-16k tourists per day without a single tourist attraction.  Hmmmm.

 

I'm guessing the region I created pre-2.0 was somehow bugged.  The tourism patch didn't work for it.   I am wondering if other people may be experiencing the same.   My region post 2.0 seems great so far.   I'm starting my tourism city tonight.   I'll let you know how it goes!

[perafilozof 143]

 

I'm guessing the region I created pre-2.0 was somehow bugged.  The tourism patch didn't work for it.   I am wondering if other people may be experiencing the same.   My region post 2.0 seems great so far.   I'm starting my tourism city tonight.   I'll let you know how it goes!

 

Well, my city was pre-patch and post-patch and was successful. But, yes it's possible some aspects got bugged and it didn't work for you.

 

Here's something to help you out with that new city: 

[CRMDR 0]

Perablenta,

 

Your city and video are both beautiful!  What version of SimCity are you using?  I'm using SimCity 4 Deluxe through Steam, with a few mods, and my buildings, tool bars, info, etc., are nothing like yours.  The detailed information you have is incredible!  Tourists?  I've seen nothing in my version of SimCity where tourists are measured.

 

Thanks for your help,

Coleen

[tnobles 38]

Perablenta,

 

Your city and video are both beautiful!  What version of SimCity are you using?  I'm using SimCity 4 Deluxe through Steam, with a few mods, and my buildings, tool bars, info, etc., are nothing like yours.  The detailed information you have is incredible!  Tourists?  I've seen nothing in my version of SimCity where tourists are measured.

 

Thanks for your help,

Coleen

Think maybe you are on the wrong forum, this is SimCity 2013 which is a re-boot and not a version of SC4.

[perafilozof 143]

Perablenta,

 

Your city and video are both beautiful!  What version of SimCity are you using?  I'm using SimCity 4 Deluxe through Steam, with a few mods, and my buildings, tool bars, info, etc., are nothing like yours.  The detailed information you have is incredible!  Tourists?  I've seen nothing in my version of SimCity where tourists are measured.

 

Thanks for your help,

Coleen

 

LoL!

Way da go necroing this thead AND in the wrong games forum

 

Like tnobles wrote, this is SimCity 2013 not SimCity 4.

[CRMDR 0]

Thanks for the info.  I'll just creep away now

[g5todd 5]

liked the videos gave me some things I want to try .... thanks for keeping the game fresh

[zombie615 9]

So with SimCity 2013 you can adjust individual building settings? Like amount the workers get paid an stuff? Just wondering.