Getting Past a Population Plateau

[bearcatnat 3]

So I used to be a regular SimCity expert back when there was SimCity 2000 (and before), and have only recently picked back up on the game with SimCity 4. I'm curious why I'm having trouble with my cities seeming to hit a population plateau? I have 2 cities in the works. One is 34,000 and the other is 24,000. I have just begun adding in medium and high density zoning. I use the desirability view to check where to place these zones, and demolish as needed. But often my Sims are building the same old low-density buildings back up in the medium or high density zones! My stats are pretty good overall for crime, pollution, education, etc. What's the secret to gettting a higher population and the beginnings of skyscrapers?

 

I've attached an overall view of my small city of 24K population.

[Prophet42 1,501]

There is a thing called a Demand Cap.  When a Demand Cap is reached population growth will slow or stop, and demand will fall off.  To alleviate the Demand Cap you can do the following:

 

1) Make sure you have plenty of neighbor connections.  This is important for commercial and industry

2) Build any rewards that you have. This is important for residential and commercial (a little for industry).

3) Place parks and plazas.  This is important for residential and commercial.

4) Make sure you have enough mass transit.  This will help all zones.

5) Make sure taxes are not above 9% (lower is better, as long as you are in the black).

6) Provide water to all you zones.

 

Good luck, and enjoy!!

[Lennson 7]

Other than what has already been mentioned a city's growth can stall if the work force becomes imbalanced.

 

The game has a tendency to push out low wealth citizens in favor of medium and high wealth citizens as the city becomes more desirable to live in.

However, the city's employers (even the highest level skyscrapers) need low wealth citizens to keep them running, and their growth stalls without a balanced work force.

 

I've found that typically the first high density to grow is low wealth residential towers to give the people that have been pushed out of their homes by the richer some where to live.

[mayorgreener 37]

check garbage...

 

remove caps...

 

build jobs to increase R demand....

 

try to fasten traffic... as I think the roads surrounding the med. density or high density zones must have the capacity to take pressure to allow those bldgs. else only those low density bldgs will keep on coming

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

A couple of general rules to try to stick to:

 

1. Sims:Jobs::2:1
2. R$:R$$:R$$$::65%:20%:15% approximately.

 

Those big CO$$$ buildings may only have one or two R$$$ bosses.  Only one person can conduct the symphony at a time and somebody has to push wind into the tuba.

[monkeywater 910]

A couple of general rules to try to stick to:

 

1. Sims:Jobs::2:1
2. R$:R$$:R$$$::65%:20%:15% approximately.

 

Those big CO$$$ buildings may only have one or two R$$$ bosses.  Only one person can conduct the symphony at a time and somebody has to push wind into the tuba.

 

Is it possible to have all your poors commute from another city? Like if you had a banking center, at all your hedge funds management and employees would be loaded and only a couple janitors are needed.

 

I managed to stall a city's growth entirely at year 0 by placing enough education, utilities, etc (money cheat just to buy all the good stuff) that nothing grew because it needed a certain low wealth pop to get going. City ran for like 10 years with zero buildings popping up at all.  Then I placed a toxic waste dump, reducing desirability, got some poors to move in, and the city took off.  No neighbor connections on that experiment though. 

[bearcatnat 3]

 

A couple of general rules to try to stick to:

 

1. Sims:Jobs::2:1
2. R$:R$$:R$$$::65%:20%:15% approximately.

 

Those big CO$$$ buildings may only have one or two R$$$ bosses.  Only one person can conduct the symphony at a time and somebody has to push wind into the tuba.

 

Is it possible to have all your poors commute from another city? Like if you had a banking center, at all your hedge funds management and employees would be loaded and only a couple janitors are needed.

 

I managed to stall a city's growth entirely at year 0 by placing enough education, utilities, etc (money cheat just to buy all the good stuff) that nothing grew because it needed a certain low wealth pop to get going. City ran for like 10 years with zero buildings popping up at all.  Then I placed a toxic waste dump, reducing desirability, got some poors to move in, and the city took off.  No neighbor connections on that experiment though. 

 

 

LOL @ placing a toxic waste dump! I see that maybe having too many high wealth citizens is my problem. I played several hours last night and am now up to 35K by boosting my education, police, fire and medical budgets. I also added some more industrial zoning. Thanks for the tips.

 

Also, re: Sims:Jobs ratio. How do I know my number of available jobs?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

 

A couple of general rules to try to stick to:

 

1. Sims:Jobs::2:1
2. R$:R$$:R$$$::65%:20%:15% approximately.

 

Those big CO$$$ buildings may only have one or two R$$$ bosses.  Only one person can conduct the symphony at a time and somebody has to push wind into the tuba.

 

Is it possible to have all your poors commute from another city? Like if you had a banking center, at all your hedge funds management and employees would be loaded and only a couple janitors are needed.

 

I managed to stall a city's growth entirely at year 0 by placing enough education, utilities, etc (money cheat just to buy all the good stuff) that nothing grew because it needed a certain low wealth pop to get going. City ran for like 10 years with zero buildings popping up at all.  Then I placed a toxic waste dump, reducing desirability, got some poors to move in, and the city took off.  No neighbor connections on that experiment though. 

 

Toxic waste dump? ROFLMAO!!

 

You need to balance your region along the lines I gave, but each city should have a balance of all types because the algorithms in the game will resist not having any R$ in residence.  Don't forget that the majority of Sims is R$.  You not only need patricians and knights, you must have plebeians in abundance.  R$ are your labour engine.

[monkeywater 910]

A toxic waste dump is likely not the solution to OPs issue of course...

[bearcatnat 3]

Mannnn, I got up to 39K tonight, but forgot to save as I was going. Game crashed and I'm back to 34K. Boo! 

[mayorgreener 37]

bear or cat whatever you are also increase desirability of a particular area where you want high rises.

[Temeku 0]

I once had a city that was stuck at 300,000 pop. for decades (in the game). Commute time was a nightmare, apparently.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Sometimes a spot of urban renewal will fix this kind of problem.  Consider adding more rail commuter services, even monorail notwithstanding you might have to rip some neighbourhoods up.

[crishy 57]

60k region wide and under 30k per city is really not enough to guarantee high density development in any sort of reliable manner barring the use of demand mods or job plopables, which you do not seem to use. Your city seems to have a decent assortment of medium density buildings though. My advice is to keep zoning horizontally - medium density stuff will grow first more than likely - and eventually people will fill in the blanks with high density stuff.

 

Also, demolishing low density stuff helps, especially if they are $$$ ones because they tend to overgrow if desirability is good enough, and they will never be substituted away.

 

The "make building historical" option is very useful to preserve $ and $$ buildings, I try to always use them on medium and high (and sometimes even on low depending on zoning configuration) density $ and $$ buildings because otherwise they will be replaced away lol.

[bearcatnat 3]

Thanks for the input. After I lost a few hours of play and hitting 39K, I easily hit 44K within 20 minutes by zoning much fewer high density areas. I got several R$ apartment buildings popping up that hold about 3000 people each. Interesting how the game can totally change when you do things differently.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

This game is very well crafted to respond to the player.  It is basically a study in problem solving, where everything the player does creates one or more problems to solve.  Each success is a ticket to a more difficult situation.  You can't win because there is no end point, but you can lose and wind up in the U.S. Senate.

 

Some players look at it as an urban canvas, and get quite artistic.  Take a walk through some of the city journals and you'll see what I mean.

 

The great strength of this game and the main reason for its longevity is the open endedness that allows infinite variations and custom content.  I cannot think of another "game" that has lasted this long with so many avid followers while still attracting new players.  The graphics are more than a decade out of date, but I, for one, don't really care.  If it was full 3D, it would be much, much slower and more limited as we can see from the SC2013 reboot.