Could you explain me RCI + freight/goods?

[Lumdir 1]

Hi guys,

I still don't understand something very important about RCI.

 

In the image below you can find my popolation (sorry for Italian interface). Within the red circle there are 1308 unemplyed sims that need a job... but on the right you can see my Hospital (with addon ) with 31 $ job left so the questions are two:

 

1) Is the addon bugged and doesn't show the real sims employed?

2) Are those 1308 sims too much choosy and doesn't want to work in an hospital (and so on in every other facility like power plants etc)?

 

 

On the other hand... how can I get rid of all those unemployed sims?? The only ways I know are:

• build more commercial zone but that means an increase of request of freights/goods by Sims and that means I will need more industries to produce more.
• build more industries but more industries = more pollution etc.

The last thing I would ask you, that I NEVER understood is how does the commercial-freight/goods system works. Wich one are freights and wich one are goods?

Look at the image below. This is an example of how my test city looks like.

 

I have 1.084$ total buyers and of these only 216 are satisfied... why the other 868 are not?

They can't reach the shop? They arrive too late and don't find anything else on shelves? And what's that 216 value of "total freights/goods" ?

 

Below there are 1.560 total freights/goods, all satisfied but there are 1.980 orders requested.

To get rid of those requested orders I guess I should increase the number of my induestries or reduce the number of my commercial zones am I wrong?

 

If you look on the RCI icon I have an huge request of commercial zones but how can I build them if my sims are already unsatisfied and I don't have enought freights/goods?

 

Please someone explain me because I'm going mad!

PS: sorry for bad english

 

See ya and happy new year to everyone!

[Xenocity 343]

1) The add on is not bugged, it shows how many sims of each class the building employs and how many are employed. 

2) The Sims are very fickle and irrational, especially when it comes to traveling distance. The Sims have been like this since the very first game. 

2b) The Sims are based on Silicon Valley residents. 

[Lumdir 1]

1) The add on is not bugged, it shows how many sims of each class the building employs and how many are employed. 

2) The Sims are very fickle and irrational, especially when it comes to traveling distance. The Sims have been like this since the very first game. 

2b) The Sims are based on Silicon Valley residents. 

 

I asked for a simply answer but that's too much!

Ok, the addon is not bugged but as I said there are 1308 $ unemployed sims and in my hospital (built near the $ residential zone) there are 32 $ job: it's kinda a joke that on 1308 people there are not 32 that wanna work in an hospital.

 

 

I can't understand that thing about Silicon Valley

[Peorth 17]

1) Is the addon bugged and doesn't show the real sims employed?

 

I'm not familiar with the addon but it appears to simply show the breakdown of employment per building by wealth level (denominator) and how much of that is filled (numerator).

 

2) Are those 1308 sims too much choosy and doesn't want to work in an hospital (and so on in every other facility like power plants etc)?

 

SImcity 2013 has two systems for distributing employment. You might just need to wait for the worker request agents to successfully look for employees or for the "extra system" to kick in. The former is a recruiting agent originating from the workplace (e.g. hospital) while the latter involves sims going out on their own and looking for employment. My guess is that large amounts of traffic and/or lack of mass transit will adversely affect the latter though I have no idea if it affects the former. Sometimes I have a feeling that running the game at high speeds might cause these systems to lag so you might want to run at a slow pace.

 

3. On the other hand... how can I get rid of all those unemployed sims?? ...

 

It's extremely easy to get rid of unemployed sims. Just zone some employment. I've found the opposite condition to be much more difficult: having enough workers despite having huge swathes of land dedicated to residential, having a very large population and having only a small amount of work zones.

 

I really don't get your issues with commercial and industrial zoning since you'll inevitably need to zone some anyway. If you don't satisfy commercial demand sims  will become unhappy and can abandon homes. Industry is a very good employer, especially high-density ones. Pollution from industry shouldn't be a major issue: just keep your residential (particularly mid and high-wealth) upwind and educate as early as possible. Once education goes up, tech level goes up and your dirty industry will convert to high-tech, essentially solving your pollution issue.

 

Note that if you have a lot of cash on hand you can plop certain landmarks like the Willis Tower or Empire State building. Not only do they attract tourists but they also come with jobs (not surprising given all the office space inside).

 

 

The last thing I would ask you, that I NEVER understood is how does the commercial-freight/goods system works. Wich one are freights and wich one are goods?

 

Freight is the stuff generated and shipped by industry. They need to sell this in order to survive and gain "happiness," which occurs when their trucks are able to successfully deliver freight to their destination. These "sinks" for freight are commercial buildings and trade depots. That's why it's always a good idea to build trade depots (which comes with one freight lot by default) so you'll have a sink for freight aside from commercial.

 

Goods are the stuff sold at commercial buildings. Sims shop for goods and when they do so successfully they gain happiness. The shop that sells goods successfully gains happiness too. Note that freight is NOT necessary for commercial buildings to sell goods, which spawns independently of freight (like magic!) and can be proven by building a purely RC city. Commercial will still sell goods despite the absence of industry. Therefore there's no point in tying the two together because they have no connection, C is just a sink for freight from I but freight isn't converted to goods.

 

I have 1.084$ total buyers and of these only 216 are satisfied... why the other 868 are not?

They can't reach the shop? They arrive too late and don't find anything else on shelves? And what's that 216 value of "total freights/goods" ?

 

Remember that sims of a particular wealth level only shop at commercial of the same level, which makes a LOT of sense. You don't expect poor sims to shop at high-end boutiques or vice versa right? Those numbers simply mean you don't have enough low wealth commercial shops to satisfy the demand of low wealth sims. Open up your Land Value Map and zone some commercial where there is low value land (colored white or even red). Low-wealth shops will grow and satisfy the demand.

 

A corollary to this is that even if you have enough commercial but the sims can't get to it then your demand will remain unsatisfied. To avoid this always zone your commercial near your residential for two major reasons: 1) sims can access them readily, but more importantly 2) the commercial that builds will be appropriate to the wealth level of that zone. In other words zone R and C together by land value.

[TheCraftKid 52]

...

Remember that sims of a particular wealth level only shop at commercial of the same level, which makes a LOT of sense. You don't expect poor sims to shop at high-end boutiques or vice versa right? Those numbers simply mean you don't have enough low wealth commercial shops to satisfy the demand of low wealth sims. Open up your Land Value Map and zone some commercial where there is low value land (colored white or even red). Low-wealth shops will grow and satisfy the demand.

 

A corollary to this is that even if you have enough commercial but the sims can't get to it then your demand will remain unsatisfied. To avoid this always zone your commercial near your residential for two major reasons: 1) sims can access them readily, but more importantly 2) the commercial that builds will be appropriate to the wealth level of that zone. In other words zone R and C together by land value.

 

You are very correct, but as of SimCity Update 6, commercial buildings lose lots of happiness every day they do not receive freight from industry. Sure, you can supplement the lost happiness with tourists, but most cities aren't really warranted for tourists, and those take some amount of extra work.

(I tested that last week and, suffice to say, some commercial buildings closed as a result of not having the extra happiness from the freight given by industry.)

 

You also know quite a bit about the game, and this was such a nice post, so I gave some reputation. This information is vaguely known by most, but I can tell when someone knows their SimCity.

 

P.S.: You said corollary; that's the first time I've heard someone say that word outside of a logic class!

[Peorth 17]

Thanks for the info, I'm not really familiar with how the changes the updates have made. It does make a lot of sense though for C buildings to lose happiness if they don't receive freight, so the update apparently tries to form a connection between freight and goods which before was nonexistent. The extreme approach would have been to make the appearance of goods tied directly to freight (instead of magically appearing) which of course how it works in real life. However players with bad traffic issues (that would hamper delivery of freight from I to C) would likely get hit hard. So I guess goods still magically appear, and when sold generate happiness for C, but this is counterbalanced by the need to receive freight, lack of which would generate unhappiness. In other words, it seems to be a compromise between the previous nonexistent freight-goods connection and the extreme of actually forming a direct correlation between the two.

 

 

P.S.: You said corollary; that's the first time I've heard someone say that word outside of a logic class!

 

Haha, the wide vocabulary thing "infiltrates" my writing from time to time

[Lumdir 1]

Thank you Peorth for the detailed answer. In the meanwhile I was waiting for an answer, I started a new city, zoning a little R then C then I to understand better its work.

The last question: how parks work?

They increase the value land and that's fine... but I read somewhere that they satisfy shoppers too. That's right?

[Peorth 17]

Parks are pretty straightforward and provide two major functions, namely 1) they provide sims with happiness 2) they modify land value.

 

The first function is related to your second question:

but I read somewhere that they satisfy shoppers too. That's right?

 

The answer to this is that no, they don't satisfy shoppers per se. Rather they provide happiness in the same way shopping gives happiness to sims. Sims acquire happiness by visiting parks in the same way spending simoleons at shops gives happiness to sims. In this regard they function similarly. However, parks cannot replace the function of commercial buildings completely because they do not recieve freight, do not satisfy shoppers, and have upkeep cost while not generating any tax revenue. To demonstrate the second point you can zone purely R and I and plop some parks. Your number of unsatisfied shoppers will remain equal to the total number of shoppers, meaning parks don't absorb any commercial demand whatsoeverr.

 

Since parks give happiness they accelerate the growth of buildings from lower density to higher density. Buildings need to acquire a certain level of happiness before they upgrade and you can view this in the Building Density map. The taller and greener the bar the higher the level of happiness and these buildings will upgrade in density if the correspondng road or avenue allows it. Thus in my cities I use a good number of parks and consider them as "density accelerators." That's why you should also plant low-wealth parks in low wealth areas -- they don't modify land value but provide happiness and accelerate building growth.

 

The second function is that parks modify land value. $$ and $$$ parks will provide appropriate land values for medium- and high-wealth sims respectively but this does not mean you should plop them randomly and hope for the best. Rather, the plopping of $$ and $$$ parks should be purposeful, taking into mind how much area you want to devote to a wealth class. Therefore, it follows that the proportion of land value that is $, $$ and $$$ (by area) should follow the proportion of sims needed by employment which is always $ > $ > $$$. In other words, the bulk of your residential area by wealth should be $, followed by $$, then $$$. To achieve this "tweaking" you'll need to pick your parks well because they have an effect radius and they interact through synergy, meaning two nearby parks will create a greater land value boosting effect in the area where their effect radii overlap. Therefore if you just want to boost your $$$ area a bit you shouldn't plop an Amphitheater but pick something smaller like a Small Fountain Park. Conversely if you're looking to convert a large swathe you might plop an Ampi then using small and moderate sized $$$ parks to shape your land value map by being mindful of the effect radius.

[Xenocity 343]

 

1) The add on is not bugged, it shows how many sims of each class the building employs and how many are employed. 

2) The Sims are very fickle and irrational, especially when it comes to traveling distance. The Sims have been like this since the very first game. 

2b) The Sims are based on Silicon Valley residents. 

 

I asked for a simply answer but that's too much!

Ok, the addon is not bugged but as I said there are 1308 $ unemployed sims and in my hospital (built near the $ residential zone) there are 32 $ job: it's kinda a joke that on 1308 people there are not 32 that wanna work in an hospital.

 

 

I can't understand that thing about Silicon Valley

 

Sillicon Valley folk are supposedly extremely entitled picky people who complain to no end.

This is why the sims are never happy.