Trouble controlling demand

[MasterN 5]

Hi guys, how are you doing?

 

 

 

 

I've recently started playing again, and for a change my cities are working out much better than usual.

Tweaked a bit here and there with NAMs settings and stuff is moving in quite well.

 

A little problem arose fairly recently and I can't figure out a way to fix it.

I have great difficulty controlling, and more or less understanding, my demand.

 

To prevent dilapidation of high wealth residential buildings I increase their taxes accordingly. And everything works fine until I reached about 500k regional population.

At first my general demand stagnated, as it always has (not cap related...), and this time I figured out that lowering the taxes helps very well ^^. The problem that arose after reaching a higher regional population is, that high wealth residents keep moving in uncontrolably at, let's say 8.7% taxing, while abandoning their facilities with a -6000 demand at 8.8% and after a while I get a massive demand hit and all C$$, C$$$, IM and IHT drops well below -4000.

 

It may be, that my region is generally lacking R$$$ residents, but I only play on large maps and travel time becomes a massive issue whenever I allow them to accumulate above 100k per city.

 

 

What am I misunderstanding here? The no work icons appear faster that the buildings are being build.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Too much zoning at the wrong density is my guess.  You have to have proper accommodation for R$$$ to live long in your city.  This means:

 

Jobs for them - A CO$$$ building doesn't hire only R$$$.  To examine a building for its job complement you need to load up the extra cheats dll if you haven't then access the query operator (/).  Now hold down CTRL+ALT+SHIFT and hover the query operator over a building.  You will see all the gory details for that building.  This is a debug feature which is what that dll is.

 

High education levels.  > 100.

 

Low to no pollution.

 

Parks and plazas.

 

Schools at all levels from primary to post secondary.

 

Municipal services, especially good police and fire coverage.

 

A good, clean water system.

 

Amenities for older Sims: Museums, Libraries, Art Galleries.

 

The desirability for R$$$ and CO$$$ should show bright green.

 

Try zoning fewer high density R and C, and only increase the density when the demand for CO and CS$$$ starts building.  This can be done by overlaying existing zones.  The buildings do not get destroyed, but on the next cycle they will upgrade.  Squeeze the zoning to force development up instead of out.

[MasterN 5]

Thank you for your reply.

 

You're not entirely off, but that's not exactly what I meant.

 

 

Quote from a simphony.net FAQ (showed up first on google...)

 

"Co$$$ is the single-best employer for R$$$ sims in the entire game, and in Co$$$, a mere 15% of the jobs provided are for R$$$ sims. So that means even in the huge Co$$$ skyscrapers, there are not many R$$$ jobs. If a Co$$$ building has 5,000 total jobs, only 750 of those are for R$$$ sims. The other 4,250 go to R$$ and R$ sims. For Co$$ and IHT, the figure drops even further. These types of employer only provide 10% of their total jobs to R$$$. The only other significant R$$$ employer is Cs$$$, which provides a mere 8% of its jobs to R$$$ sims.

Now, this alone doesn't cause the problem that R$$$ buildings seem to have. One would think that when there were no more jobs, demand for R$$$ would stop, right? Wrong. The demand simulator in the game was set up, either accidentally or deliberately, to create more R$$$ demand than the employers are capable of providing jobs for. This causes R$$$ to "overbuild," far exceeding the ability of the city's employers to provide for them. When a new R$$$ building goes up, and its residents find that they can't get a job, the building abandons. This compounds the problem though, because when the building abandons, demand for R$$$ spikes back up, usually causing the construction of a similarly-sized R$$$ structure elsewhere in the city. It too then abandons for lack of jobs. It's a vicious cycle."

 

 

I am well aware of the problem high wealth residential demand causes and I'm trying to compensate it with proper taxation, but I can't adjust the taxes precisely enough to get the desired effect.

The example I gave was from my most recent city. 8.7% means overgrowth, 8.8% and they're all running away.

 

I took the time to count all seperate entities in my current region and there are about 310k high wealth residents, but only jobs for about 120k.

 

The thing I don't undestand beyond that is, if the demand for high wealth residents drops too low, the commercial and industrial sector are affected massively as well.

[Ro-Bo 183]

Do you have the

 

I-HT in the original game is bugged. They offer 10% of jobs for R$$$ but do not employ them.

[MasterN 5]

I'm not at home atm. Most likely I have, but even if not.

 

The amount of high wealth residends is triple the maximum possible job capacity...

[Arsalan Rashid Khan 0]

Hi guys.. I am new to this forum. Will somebody please tell me all the discussion here, is it also for SC4 deluxe edition or only for SC4??

[Cyclone Boom 16,829]

Hi guys.. I am new to this forum. Will somebody please tell me all the discussion here, is it also for SC4 deluxe edition or only for SC4??

 

Generally, most of the discussion on these forums applies to SC4 Deluxe / Rush Hour. Although the basic city-building concepts will still apply, there are many differences from the original game. This includes the support for custom content (such as the items mentioned above). If you don't already have the Deluxe Edition, it can be purchased as a digital download from GamersGate or Amazon.

[Arsalan Rashid Khan 0]

 

Hi guys.. I am new to this forum. Will somebody please tell me all the discussion here, is it also for SC4 deluxe edition or only for SC4??

 

Generally, most of the discussion on these forums applies to SC4 Deluxe / Rush Hour. Although the basic city-building concepts will still apply, there are many differences from the original game. This includes the support for custom content (such as the items mentioned above). If you don't already have the Deluxe Edition, it can be purchased as a digital download from GamersGate or Amazon.

 

I already have Deluxe Edition. In fact, i never tried the simple version..

[MasterN 5]

Do you have the

 

I-HT in the original game is bugged. They offer 10% of jobs for R$$$ but do not employ them.

 

 

I'm not at home atm. Most likely I have, but even if not.

 

The amount of high wealth residends is triple the maximum possible job capacity...

 

btt...

@home now. And yes, I installed it.

 

while there are mods like they feel too much like a cheat... although they fix the problem(sort of)..

 

I can't find any mod, that fixes the original problem of over-demand for R$$$.

Does anybody know of one?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

A mod really isn't necessary if you don't fall for the automatic click and hold zoning method.  If you prevent the game from making 3 x 4 and 4 x 4 residential lots, you won't get any mansions, and you should stay at low density initially in the game.

 

I pretty much hand zone everything, and am partial to low density 2 x 1 lots in back to back sets.  Maximum consolidated lot depth is 2.

 

When you want a mansion, zone for it, and not before.  For some reason, the game is hot on consolidating low density lots and coughing up R$$$ mansions early in the game.  I think this is a bug or certainly an undocumented feature.  You have to have time to educate your Sims to over level 100 before you should even consider any R$$$ residentials.

 

Don't zone too much.  The demand graph should be taken as a suggestion only, just like the advisors.

[Arsalan Rashid Khan 0]

Will somebody please helpme. I cannot find Tram avenue stations in my SC4D. There's just no option for that

[MasterN 5]

A mod really isn't necessary if you don't fall for the automatic click and hold zoning method.  If you prevent the game from making 3 x 4 and 4 x 4 residential lots, you won't get any mansions, and you should stay at low density initially in the game.

 

I pretty much hand zone everything, and am partial to low density 2 x 1 lots in back to back sets.  Maximum consolidated lot depth is 2.

 

When you want a mansion, zone for it, and not before.  For some reason, the game is hot on consolidating low density lots and coughing up R$$$ mansions early in the game.  I think this is a bug or certainly an undocumented feature.  You have to have time to educate your Sims to over level 100 before you should even consider any R$$$ residentials.

 

Don't zone too much.  The demand graph should be taken as a suggestion only, just like the advisors.

 

ok, perhaps I need to clear it up a little better.

I'm talking about a large city tile with a residential population of about 400000 citizens. Age of the city itself is about 80 years.

Education regionwide is at this time >160. Over 90% of the available surface is zoned, otherwise occupied or not usable for building(steep slopes or water.)

 

This is not a problem of early development. If I set the taxes too low, I get like 150000 additional R§§§  on the map which won't find work there or anywhere else.

 

I would consider it more a bugfix than a mod, if the R§§§ demand would be put into line with the other demands.

 

 

 

Will somebody please helpme. I cannot find Tram avenue stations in my SC4D. There's just no option for that

 

What you probably need is the

And I would greatly appreciate it if you would stop hijacking this thread. If you have additional questions please consult a FAQ or open your own threads.

[Metalpuritan 160]

If you do not want your cities overrun by high wealth then just make all low and medium wealth buildings historical as they grow and destroy your high wealth neighborhood by neighborhood and as those grow lock down the low and medium wealth and just keep destroying the high wealth as it pops up and repeat that until you are satisfied with your cities wealth population proportions.

 

This sounds like a pain in the butt, but is highly rewarding.  Don't forget YOU are the Mayor and "Mayor" is another word for God on the lips of the Sims.  Remember, what you say, goes, the Sims do not have a choice in the matter.  

 

This game operates in the reverse of reality.  In the game, high wealth encroaches on upon low wealth, in reality low wealth encroaches upon high wealth.  It totally sounds like you are having a massive high wealth encroachment issue.  To combat the high wealth Sims, you make all low and medium wealth structures historical, raise taxes on high wealth and bulldoze the high wealth homes, that will effective drive them out.  You are in complete control of things, you always have been and forever will be.

 

I have entire large city tiles with nothing but low wealth Sims, they have proper schooling and libraries and complete fire and police coverage and heath coverage for all and low pollution.  These things make high wealth Sims move in, but because I tax the high wealth Sims like 20% they will not move in, at any time I can drop the taxes back to 8% and they still won't be able to move in because I have historically locked down every building in my cities.  I can drop the taxes back to 8% on high wealth Sims and destroy some current development and then they will grow back as high wealth or I can zone new zones and those will grow as high wealth.

 

The fact of the matter is, I AM IN CONTROL OF IT, as you are in control of yours, you just need to take that ownership and run with it.

 

Now if you want a high population of high wealth Sims in your city, you simply need the jobs to support them, Industrial high tech and High wealth commercial.  I find thought hat the biggest problem with high wealth Sims is long commute time, this will cause the "no job zot" issue very quickly and will go over your city like waves, destroy one and two more pop up down the road.  For this you need to simply decrease your commute times, subways and monorail and bigger higher capacity roads and avenues and highways.

 

Abandonment due to commute time is more common of a problem, you are just going to have to learn the tricks to get your Sims moving around right.  I personally use a more square approach to this, I will run major arteries, like roads and avenues you can find with NWM that came with the new NAM every 4-8 blocks depending the size of each block.  As far as traffic goes, if it works in reality, it will likely work in game too.  I mainly just copy real city plans from Google maps.  I live in Cincinnati and I can tell you with great certainty that you will not find ANY 2 lane roads anywhere in or around the city, not until you get like 3/4 of the way out of downtown to the outer ring highway, until then though everything is high capacity, 4 lane roads, 6 lane avenues and such, then you have your back streets, which I would call streets in game, the gray streets, I use those inside of the larger road blocks I just described.  A perfect and clear example would be to look at Google maps and call up 'Tracy, CA'  That town makes things quite clear, and that towns traffic network I have proven to work in game.  It will work on a large city tile with no kind of mass transit at all, but you will be limited to about 70-100k population.  If you want more just add buses and subways and that should take up the slack.

 

If you have the NAM installed, that means all the  problems are on your end not the game's end.  After patching the game and installing the NAM pretty much all problems are fixed.  If you find your transit system to be adequate in your opinion, just use the traffic controller program to increase the capacities of your roads to suit your population.  I set mine to ultra at all times, all regions and all cities.

 

I live on a street off of a normal 4 lane road and each day many thousands of cars use this road, if I had to estimate I would put the number in the tens of thousands.  It is impossible for the the unmodded maxis roads to handle that kind of capacity, I think traffic numbers like that would even bog down the normal maxis highway.  I don't even live downtown though I am within that 3/4 area that I was talking about earlier.  Cincinnati does not even have a population over a million last I checked and you cannot fit the city of Cincinnati in just one tile in game either, to make a scale Cincinnati you would have to use at the very least 3 large city tiles and even then it might be bigger than that.  So that would make each map roughly equivalent to around 250k-300k population in game.  What this means is that your transit system will have to be extremely robust and you will likely HAVE to have the NAM if you don't already.  I mean, you said you have populations upwards of 400k on one city tile, that means your transit network is over loaded and would explain the "no job zots" and your abandonment issue.

 

I do not have any abandonment in any of cities at any given time, I will not put up with it, my cities look too pretty to be ruined by some black building or any "no job zots"  I will do whatever it takes to make sure the machine is well oiled.  I am the only one in control after all...

[MasterN 5]

whoo... thanks man...

 

I didn't think of using historical setting in this fashion, but it sounds like it'll work.

 

After counting the amount of residents and jobs in my region, the reason for the no job zods was apparent. The algorithm couldn't find any jobs in a 2.5h traveling radius, because there just weren't any and blamed it on commute time. my network is fine...^^

I use the "High" option for the traffic capacities, good enough even at stage 8.

 

I'll try this in my next city, and keep you up to date on the progress.

[Metalpuritan 160]

whoo...

 

Yeah... I know... Sorry for the long ass post I tend to ramble, most have said my ramblings are helpful but I have my doubts as to just how helpful it really is, I just never really want to leave it open to interpretation, we don't see body language in text so sometimes things can get a mixed up.

 

Anyway, I wish you good luck.

[infamousjbe 592]

 

whoo...

 

Yeah... I know... Sorry for the long ass post I tend to ramble, most have said my ramblings are helpful but I have my doubts as to just how helpful it really is, I just never really want to leave it open to interpretation, we don't see body language in text so sometimes things can get a mixed up.

 

Anyway, I wish you good luck.

 

Ramble on fellow mayor. I for one also enjoy your ramblings at times. We share some similar ideals for building our cities, but then again, we also have almost completely opposite views on other matters.

 

I personally enjoy the details when it comes to answering the "why" questions. 

 

Case in point: 

 

 

This game operates in the reverse of reality.  In the game, high wealth encroaches on upon low wealth, in reality low wealth encroaches upon high wealth.  It totally sounds like you are having a massive high wealth encroachment issue.  To combat the high wealth Sims, you make all low and medium wealth structures historical, raise taxes on high wealth and bulldoze the high wealth homes, that will effective drive them out.  You are in complete control of things, you always have been and forever will be.

I just stated this similar statement in a one of the ST threads just a few days ago. Not very realistic at all.

 

This scenario, unfortunately, is taking place around my mother's home over the last decade. The neighborhood just isn't what it used to be. I sort of wish SC4 mimicked this scenario rather than fighting back the rich bastids! Nothing a bulldozer can't handle.

[MasterN 5]

Please delete this post!

[MasterN 5]

Yeah... I know... Sorry for the long ass post I tend to ramble, most have said my ramblings are helpful but I have my doubts as to just how helpful it really is, I just never really want to leave it open to interpretation, we don't see body language in text so sometimes things can get a mixed up.

 

Anyway, I wish you good luck.

 

 

That's not what I meant, I was just astonished at the fact, that I didn't think of that.

 

You never made a really long ass (donkey ) post until you had to split it into several post because of the posting-character limit...

Which happened to me at codemasters forum. character limit was 20k, and I had about 44k to say ^^

 

 

 

edit:

It looks like I won't get around fixing that bug.

Making structures historical works fine, but not on the required scale.

 

When you zone high density, the size of the building is dictated by the demand, and not every single one is stage 8. Thus most buildings do not yet "deserve" the historical tag, and if I were to issue it, it would restrict further growth.

[Turjan 1,048]

When you zone high density, the size of the building is dictated by the demand, and not every single one is stage 8. Thus most buildings do not yet "deserve" the historical tag, and if I were to issue it, it would restrict further growth.

 

I guess it depends on your game goal. If you just go for high numbers, you are definitely right, but using the "historical" setting is more used to achieve a certain look than anything else. Also, there's no need to make a stage 8 CO$$$ historical, as there's nothing that will replace it (except if you turn off water or power supply).

[MasterN 5]

I guess it depends on your game goal. If you just go for high numbers, you are definitely right, but using the "historical" setting is more used to achieve a certain look than anything else. Also, there's no need to make a stage 8 CO$$$ historical, as there's nothing that will replace it (except if you turn off water or power supply).

 

After all these past years I finally found out where my cities failed.

What I'm doing now is testing what it's like with a huge city and this demand problem was up until now the only mayor problem (hopefully there won't be any more...)

 

As a sideeffect I get cash. So once all city tiles are fully developed, I'll just raze it and start my proper game with a couple more funds (yes, there are cheats for that, but to me it's killing two birds with one stone). Maximum profit I had so far was 180k/month in a stable state for about 25 years...