No jobs zot due to regional connections... help

[pjk64 6]

Hi. This is my first post. I have been reading the forums here for a while, so I have some basic knowledge.

 

Here is my issue. I have a new city in a new region, there are no other developed cities but the one I am playing. I have just started out building a city with R in the west, C in the middle and I to the east. Everything goes fine until I make a regional connection. As soon as I do, the neophyte R$ start getting the No Jobs zots. If I remove the connection, the zots dissappear.

 

Well fine. I can play the game without regional connections until it's time for I-HT. At that point, a connection becomes imperative as the HT industry won't grow properly without it. So with the connection (to a blank city), the no jobs zots appear again.

 

It is worth noting that the no jobs zots occur because of long commute times and eventually lead to abandonment. Without a regional connection, however, all commute times within the city are short. I installed NAM some time ago (years, so I am unaware of the version), but recently updated it with the latest version of the NAM Traffic Subsystem - which I have set to default (medium) settings. Also, I have tried this multiple times with different cities and get the same results - zots with connections, no zots without. That can't be right, can it? It looks as though with the connections, some sims are driving to the non-existent other city and getting lost or giving up. This occurs even if the connection is past (farther away) than the job zones.

 

I have read that I can place a seaport(s) within my city to aleviate the problem caused by the regional connection affectinglong commute times, but I was hoping there might be a solution that stands alone, perhaps something I am missing or doing wrong or need to do instead.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

PK

[CapTon 592]

This is just a guess on my part but maybe it's because you don't have another city when making that region connection. As a result, there are no jobs. Some of the residents may be using that region connection in an attempt to search for jobs, but don't find any. As a result, those zots appear.

[pjk64 6]

Hey. Thanks for replying...

 

It's true there are no jobs in the connected city, but there are plenty in the main city. Why would the sims choose to drive even farther (past plenty of jobs) to an empty regional city when there are jobs at home? Could it be that the RCI indicator of the empty city has a greater need and thus draws the sims there? In any case, what I am hearing is that I should try and develop at least one neighboring city. That would imply that stand alone cities are not fully functional. Is that a correct assumption? Anyway, I'll go try that...

[CapTon 592]

I'm assuming that yes stand-alone cities are not completely functional, I believe. Let me know what the results are

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

There is a need to understand what playing field we are talking about here.  People often write replies assuming your game is the same as theirs, which may not be true.  What is the build version of your game?  If it is 238 or higher, do you have the NAM?  NAM is the big fix for commute time abandonment and other problems with the transit network which is badly broken in the original game.

 

The fact that Sims start looking for work in an empty city indicates that you don't have enough jobs of the right quality for all your Sims.  R$$ won't work in CS$ lots except maybe one as manager, etc.  How is your education level?  Look at your Jobs and Population graph and see if you have enough jobs for the different levels.  The desirability display will also help with this.  Remember, the model is 2 Sims per Job.

 

And welcome to the conversation.

[APSMS 1,892]

Nonny, the OP mentioned the NAM as installed.

 

Current version is 32, so make sure that is the number of your installation. There are great improvements over aged versions (from a few years back).

 

Pictures would be helpful in this case. Are the jobs Sims are passing actually farther as the crow flies, or merely as the road networks are concerned? The destination finder, which runs before the pathfinder, ignores commute time as a factor in its search (since commute time is a result of the pathfinding) and thus the only true solution to the problem is to place all of the residential at the center and place all the jobs roundabout. Usually you will not need to do this, though.

 

Is the neighboring city actually a founded city that you haven't played? It's worth noting that initial demand in a starting city is often artificially high (particularly for Com), and if you don't play the city afterwards the residual starting demand may be causing the destination finder to "see" jobs next door that aren't really there. Also, as Nonny mentioned, having the right kinds of jobs for your residents is also crucial (though it does seem like this is not your first time around the block).

 

As a final Search for Stats, download the Census Repository Mod (not really a "mod" per se) from the STEX (?). It provides a wealth of information on your city's demands, workforce, population, commuting patterns, as well as regional demand drives. This will allow you to get a better idea of the jobs and workers in your city and what exactly the commuters are trying to go to when they commute out of town (the repository provides the number of Sims working in the region outside of town). It's extremely handy for understanding the way the game deals with demand, and very fun to read, too, if your into that sort of thing (which I am, unfortunately).

[pjk64 6]

Sorry for the delay in responding, but I have a wife with a birthday and kids who wanted to go to Sesame Place over the weekend.

 

Well, I tried to duplicate my issue and failed. I started a new (second) city, but got no early no job zots, so I tried a third city with the same results. Then I thought it might be due to the fact that I now had a region with three cities where originally I had just the one. So, I deleted all my cities and started a new. Still, I did not get any no job zots until I had R$$$ - and that is definitely a different issue.

 

I had the original issue two or three times in a row and quit because of it. The thing is, I just installed the NAM traffic subsystem and I am wondering if that might have helped produce the zots for a period - a period that now seems to have ended. In any case, I guess this thread has become irrelevant as I can't seem to duplicate the original issue any more. If I ever do, I'll come back with new info. Until then, maybe you geniuses can look at my issue with the I-HT bug fix

 

 

It looks like I am just not getting things right, right now...

 

BTW - How does one apply spell check in this forum? My curent option is to cut and paste from a word doc to insure my poor spelling doesn't show through...

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Spell checking:  I think it is a property of my browser.  Which browser are you using?  I am using Firefox version 28.0.

 

Check your browser properties and see if there is a spell checker.

 

No-job zots with newly laid down lots are, unfortunately, a sort-of bug having to do with the pathfinder (I think).  When a lot is sensed but no path has been determined it may get an NJZ until the next pass of the pathfinder determines that there is, indeed, a path to work.  Adding an empty neighbour should not provoke this, but the game is quite well known to be rather temperamental until the full simulation has settled down.  This often takes a few Sim-years.  If NJZs bother you, and you are sure things are OK, you can get rid of them with the extended command tastyzots.  Causes all current zots to be eaten.

[pjk64 6]

I am using the same browser and Spell check works well for me on most other websites. It is on in my properties (right clicking with text highlighted shows spell checker marked with a swoosh) but I do not get the tell-tale red underline on misspelled words here for some reason...Hmph. (<- double Hmph as 'Hmph actually DOES have a red underline, the one and only such underline in any post I have made till now). How weird.

 

I am glad to hear that njz with newly laid lots are known to occur. I was getting the impression that I was the only one. I can live with them if that's the case. And, thanks for the cheat code. But, uhm, how does one enter that code?

[APSMS 1,892]

Ctrl+X is the command to bring up the cheat code box

 

If you download the ExtraCheats.dll (highly recommended, and no conflicts), you can right click on the box once it's pulled up to see a list of all the codes.

 

Handy ones to remember in that case are "moolah #" where # is a number; this sets your city's treasury to the number stated. Also drawpaths (to check for highway/intersection functionality) and LotPlop, which allows you to plop any RCI lot in the game/your plugins. Worth noting that plopped Res never works, even this way.

[pjk64 6]

I'm back. I've been able to replicate the issue (though it's slightly different than the original issue - removing the connections is not an option in this case), and this time with pictures!

 

So, I started two new cities, the third and fourth of the region. One was industrial only while the other was commerce and residential. All was fine for a short while. I kept oscillating between the two cities, zoning more I and R. Then I added a second parallel avenue and all hell broke loose.

 

 

Welcome to Waterloo. The area circled in red was the original development where all housing was employed with short commutes. I added the green circled section along with the avenue and that's when the zots appeared. Blue 1 & 3 are the original connections, while 2 & 4 were the newly added. I did all this while the game was paused, and shortly (a month or two) after un-pausing, the NJZ appeared. Note that the city ONLY has R$ and C$ and nothing else. There is a power deal with neighboring Cambridge, and no other services.

 

 

 

Before houses even begin to develop in the newly zoned R, the existing housing (which two months prior was fully employed with short commute times to neighboring Cambridge) now have long commute times. Demand for both R and I is still steady. It is because there is no growth yet in the new area that leads me to believe that the problem occurs either when adding the new R zone or adding the new connection. If there is no population growth, why would there start to be a shortage of jobs? When this issue has occurred in the past, it was always after adding new R and a new connected avenue.

 

 

Over in industrial Cambridge, you can see that there is zoned room for I to grow along with demand, yet no growth occurs. Blue 1 is the original connection, while Blue 2 has yet to be implemented. This was the first time I had visited Cambridge since the zots appeared.

 

 

Here is the regional view. There is no connection to the major city of Kitchener yet. I only started these cities 10 minutes earlier. Baxter is a farming community that has nothing to do with anything at this point. I was just messing around with agriculture the other day.

 

 

I let the game run for about 4 years and watched as the population oscillated between 1K and 2K. AT 1k the NJZ vanish, but the population quickly rises again to 2k and the NJZ return. I played with the tax rates, hiking Industry to 20% in Waterloo to help raise demand in Cambridge.

 

 

A year later, the population is back to 2k and the NJZ are back, but on different houses...

 

 

I let Cambridge run for three years. There is no I growth anymore and no I demand either. I added fire stations and a water deal with Waterloo, but still no growth or demand, despite very favorable I tax rates (I tried as low as 7% in Cambridge with 20% in Waterloo).

 

 

Final picture (sorry there are so many)...

 

I let the city run for 25 years. I removed the 'newly added' R zone and second avenue (Red 1) (to put the game back in the state it was prior to the arrival of the NJZ), no change. I returned the tax rates to normal, no change. In desperation, I added local I zones (Red 3) and more (auto) R zones (Red 2) to spur growth locally in Waterloo. But as you can see, 25 years later, there is no demand for industry and commerce and the population is stagnant at around 1k. The population continues to fluctuate between 1k and 2k while the NJZ appear and vanishing in harmony.

 

This doesn't always happen in every city I build, but when it does, it seems to render the city FUBAR and I end up quitting and starting over.

I know it's possible to have a split city with I in one and R & C in the other because I have done it before. The difference being that I installed the NAM traffic simulator configuration tool - to help alleviate the NJZ for R$$$ last week. Prior to that I don't recall seeing this kind of problem. Perhaps there are settings in the TSCT that would help, but I don't know what they would be. Other than that, I'm lost on this.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

So, let's see your jobs and population graph.

[pjk64 6]

After all those pics, you want more? Well, I deleted those towns and started over in a new region. I'll have to recreate it another day.

 

BTW - what would you expect my jobs and pop graph to look like with the aforementioned behavior?

 

From the images, you can see that my population varies between 1k and 2k and all are R$. There are no R$$ nor R$$$, not a one. The jobs would be based on the few commercial zones in Waterloo, but mostly with the dirty Industry in Cambridge. From the image, there are about 5 developed 3X1 commercial plots - all level 1. In Cambridge there are about 8 6X6 plots of I-D. I don't know what that translates to in shear numbers, so if you insist, I'll try to recreate it tomorrow and post back the numbers then.

 

One thing I noticed that I didn't mention before is that early on, the route query tool indicated that Waterloo residents were working at every Cambridge industry. Every building I clicked on had a car path back to the other city. But when the NJZ cycle started, that same query only showed workers at the the two 6X6 squares adjacent to the avenue connection. All the rest had no paths back to Waterloo. Nobody from Waterloo was working in them, though they did indicate a number of employed.

 

I also noticed that when I severed the connection, the demand for I-D became positive again in Waterloo, while remaining negative in Cambridge. Reconnecting the two cities made Waterloo adapt Cambridge's negative demand and not visa-versa, like I would have expected.

[pjk64 6]

Hi again. here are two more pics...

 

 

In new Waterloo, you can see there are 315 R$ and ~120 C$ jobs. However, it appears only 49 car loads of sims are working. I've used the route query tool on the avenue to pick up all traffic routes. As you can see, there are only 49 cars, and they all go to one business, coincidently, the closest possible place of employment. There are more unemployed, yet none are using the other 2 C$ buildings (it's hard to see, but there are three), let alone using the connection to find employment in neighboring Cambridge. Clicking on each C$ building  in turn lists the current jobs as: 49/52 (49 matches the route query)  --> 50/52  --> 14/15. Why do the last two buildings show 50 & 14 current jobs at all? Those employed sims certainly aren't from my town, if the route query can be trusted. There are no other cities in this region either. There's no other residential zones at all, except for the two sparsely populated areas you see in the above image.

 

Also, if you notice the population graph, you can see one of these NJZ cycles. The town loses and regains about 1/2 of its R$ sims.

 

 

Over in Cambridge, it's the same deal. The route query on the avenue shows only the freight routes and there are no car routes - no worker sims coming from neighboring Waterloo.

 

Between the two cities, there are 315 R$ sims with 119 C$ and ~570 I-D jobs, yet only 49 of them are finding employment.

 

I know this type of two-city setup worked in the past, so maybe it's time to reinstall. All I did (that I can think of) was apply the I-HT fix using the Dat Packer and install the NAM traffic configuration tool and fiddle with the settings. I'll remove those two dat files and see if it make any difference.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The first graph shows a wild variation in R$ population while the number of jobs in CS hold steady.  Since all categories on the graph are checked, one wonders where the R$$ and R$$$ lines have gone.  The pathing looks correct, but a drawpaths could have been more useful than the route query in this case. 

 

It would seem that R$ are emigrating and that there are not enough unfilled jobs, so the NJZs are justified.  Try adding another commercial pod about half-way along that avenue.

 

In the industrial scene, it appears that the workers have not yet recognized the jobs.  This is not an instantaneous thing and takes a considerable amount of time for the game to recognize the jobs-drag across a neighbour connection which has a commute penalty attached, by the way.  You should try running both cities for a couple of Sim years or until you get some activity from Waterloo to the neighbour connection, then running Cambridge until the neighbour connection picks up your commuters.  Connections are there but not recognized for some time.  The simulator is not instantaneous.

 

As an experiment, stick in a small R$ pod into Cambridge and connect it to the industrial pod.

 

I don't know what you are trying to find out here, but this game is of the slow and steady variety, so instant gratification is not in the cards.

 

FYI, at one point in my checkered career, I lived in Kitchener while working at the U. of W.

[pjk64 6]

The first graph shows a wild variation in R$ population while the number of jobs in CS hold steady.  Since all categories on the graph are checked, one wonders where the R$$ and R$$$ lines have gone.  That's just it, there aren't any R$$ or R$$$. The game is only minutes old, has no services yet and only a few initial R$ have moved in.

 

It would seem that R$ are emigrating and that there are not enough unfilled jobs, so the NJZs are justified.  Try adding another commercial pod about half-way along that avenue. Yes, adding commercial pods closer will allow a few sims to become employed. However, the majority still won't be able to find jobs as the C demand is very low to start the game and the sims simply can't find the I jobs in the neighboring city.

 

In the industrial scene, it appears that the workers have not yet recognized the jobs.  This is not an instantaneous thing and takes a considerable amount of time for the game to recognize the jobs-drag across a neighbour connection which has a commute penalty attached, by the way.  You should try running both cities for a couple of Sim years or until you get some activity from Waterloo to the neighbour connection, then running Cambridge until the neighbour connection picks up your commuters.  Connections are there but not recognized for some time.  The simulator is not instantaneous. In the first iteration (above my recent two new images), I let the cities run for 20 years. The zots just kept cycling in tandem with the "wild variations" in R$ population. No growth occurred in either town for the duration of that 20 year period.

 

As an experiment, stick in a small R$ pod into Cambridge and connect it to the industrial pod.

 

I don't know what you are trying to find out here, but this game is of the slow and steady variety, so instant gratification is not in the cards.

 

FYI, at one point in my checkered career, I lived in Kitchener while working at the U. of W.  MY father graduated from there in the late 60's. I went to UCLA though.

 

 

Okay, I have some good news and some bad. I can't fix the issue, but I know how to avoid it. After extensive testing, I have discovered a couple of nuances about the game.

 

1) It appears that one cannot build a two city system (one with clean R & C and one with dirty I) when the industrial city is a larger region section than the R/C city. I tried connecting a medium R/C to a large I AND a small R/C to a medium I. In both cases the njz started within a few game months. It is worth noting that for the first month or two, or maybe even three, sims from the R/C city would indeed commute into the neighboring I city and find jobs. This was limited to somewhere around 30-50 sims max during my testing. In the end though, the sims simply would no longer travel to the connected city (at least that is my interpretation of the route query showing no routes). Since they remained locally and the demand for C$ is initially very low, the majority of sims simply can't find work and the njz/population cycle begins.

 

I do not know if the trigger for this behavior is time or population, my guess is population. Further testing is needed to determine that.

 

2) One can build a two city setup and avoid the njz/population cycle if and only if the two regional sections are of equal size or the R/C is larger than the I section.

 

3) It has become apparent to me that in a two-city setup with different sized regional sections, the smaller section inherits the RCI demand of the larger one, or at the very least, the RCI of the larger one dominates the smaller one. As an experiment, I created a medium R/C city with a smaller I city to the north and a larger I city to the south. When I connected my R/C city to the larger I city, the NJZ started up abruptly, and the RCI demand instantaneously mimicked that of the large I city - namely the I demand was negative. By default, the game has very low C$ demand to start and this demand only grows after a few sims move in. Therefore, dirty industry is the main employer in the beginning. But since my smaller R/C city was connected to the larger I city and had adopted the RCI demand of the larger city, there was no demand for dirty I in either city. The sims can't or won't travel to the I city and no I-D will grow in the R/C city. Therefore the city becomes stagnant and virtually broken.

 

Now with a quick bulldoze, I disconnected the medium R/C city from the larger I city and connected it to the smaller I city. Instantaneously, the RCI demand was back to normal - the R/C city (which has no I) has demand for I once again. Not only that, but the smaller I city inherits the medium cities I demand and it too can grow dirty I. After a few game months, the NJZ go away and the city begins to grow normally again.

 

It is worth noting that when connected in the 'bad' way, sims can't even cross the local map entirely to find C$ jobs. It's like there is an invisible line that no sim will cross. With the R$ pods in the north and a single C$ pod in the south with 5 total developed buildings, my sims would only path to the closest two and never to the farthest thee - even though the C$ building were only a few squares apart. As soon as I disconnected the larger I city, the sims would again path to all the C$ buildings immediately. If I reconnected, they would stop.

 

Honestly, I am surprised this behavior hasn't been documented here before. It so easy to replicate.

 

If you don't mind, would you please try to replicate this yourself? It won't take but a few minutes, and it would give me great peace of mind.

 

Follow these steps...

 

1) Start with an empty region.

2) Use the largest tile to make an industry only city.

3) Connect it to a medium tile R/C only city.

4) Put the coal plant in the I city and make an avenue and power line connection to the R/C city.

5) Place 4-6 6X6 medium density industrial zones in your large tile Industrial city.

6) Place 6-8 6X6 low density residential zones in your R/C city and 6 3X1 low density commercial zones

7) Force all your sims to use the avenue exclusively to travel between cities. That will let you monitor the total number of commuter routes easily.

 

Basically, make your two cities look like the two from the two images above. You may have to go back and forth a few times to get the initial growth going. Then run your city for a year or two and tell me if you don't get those same zots and population fluctuation like I did.  If you don't, why..., I'll eat my Leafs cap. I've been wanting to get rid of that embarrassment anyway.

[pjk64 6]

You know what. Forget about it. I just deleted two cities that had the issue and then recreated them to check at what point the zots first appear... and they never did. I give up. I have no clue what is going on here. Don't waste your time either.

 

Thanks for all your help though.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, friend, I think you are just in too much of a hurry.  SC4 is a very large but non-comprehensive, city simulator which does as best as it can considering the time-frame in which it was written.  Overall, for a simulator, it is quite fast and would work much better except for the overheads to process the display.  Marrying a simulation to a simultaneous display was not very advanced in 2000, especially as a game.

 

I often just let the thing run for about a half an hour real time to be sure things have all caught up.  Visual evidence is not always reliable and a lot of the display is eye-candy as are some of the lots.  I generally try to avoid eye-candy lots such as non-functional landmarks.

 

If one were to write this program today, there would be a lot more multi-tasking than there is currently.  There is some, I've tested that, and got it up to 120% of one processor (60% on each of two).  It will multi-process but then I recommend garbage collecting (saving) frequently.  The quick save is CTRL+ALT+s.  The internal save including updating the region snapshot is CTRL+s.

[pjk64 6]

SC4 life is a lot less stressful now that I have given up trying to figure out what was going wrong with my two-city approach and just played it. I've started anew using what I've learned to avoid and have successfully built my twin cities to around 40K so far. In the end, the dirty industrial city becomes less important as I-HT takes over within the R/C city.

 

Anyway, this thread is done...