Commute times to neighbouring cities

[Grayham 2]

I have a large square city with residential zones situated roughly in the centre. I have two neighbouring cities on its western edge with dirty/manufacturing industry, with road, rail and monorail links. Some of the more eastern residential areas keep choosing to work in the neighbouring cities, and even using the monorail they have a long commute time, often too long which makes the buildings abandoned.

 

Solutions?

 

PS. I do use the NAM.

[Turjan 1,048]

If you use the NAM, "long commute time" means that the Sims have a job in a neighboring tile. If you in the meanwhile zone residentials in the tile where the original jobs were, those jobs will be gone when you return to the first tile.

 

It's generally easier to balance job requirements on the same tile.  The way different tiles work together can be complex and also depends on how often you synchronize them. You could build some jobs on the city border, something that "catches" the commuters before they leave the tile.

 

 

(edited a questionable statement out)

[Grayham 2]

My city's education level is about 180, the education data view is green apart from a couple of very small areas on the most eastern edge* and I've got plenty of educational facilities (including the university, main library and art museum) The people that commute out of city still live in very green areas on education data view.

[Grayham 2]

It's generally easier to balance job requirements on the same tile.  The way different tiles work together can be complex and also depends on how often you synchronize them. You could build some jobs on the city border, something that "catches" the commuters before they leave the tile.

 

I already have large areas of high tech industry within the city on the western side.

[Abrams 1,744]

But what's the problem with sims going to another town?Basically this is the concept of sc4.Cities connect together

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

It is not the idea of commuting so much as the quality of the jobs in the external city.  If the external city is I-D or I-A expect Sims to look elsewhere for employment as they become more educated.  You need to keep a pool of new Sims coming into your city, which means finding a way to stabilize and hold sufficient R$ housing.

 

I gave up on this idea years ago and found that staging industry in the same tile was more satisfactory.  Of course, as the city improves you need to start upgrading the industry.  Dirty I-D ground will not easily clean up to be I-HD, and you are better off to find new ground for High tech and recycle the I-D areas into low and medium residential until is has fully cleaned up.  It might also be possible to get low and medium commercial there, but remember that the requirements for CO$$$ and I-HD are the same.

 

Oh, and I often use mixed areas.  That is, I have low density C mixed into my low and medium density R to provide local shopping.  I even do strip malls.  And similarly, I often mix CO$$$ with I-HD zoning.  Makes for an interesting city, and you can get quite a fascinating CBD this way.  I don't much care for pincushions.

 

And someone above mentioned synchronization.  If you don't keep the tiles within a Sim-year or so of each other, expect funny behaviour.  You can't really make an I-D job sink and leave it static for too long.

[Mister Giggles 310]

A sim's educational level has absolutely nothing to with, in any way, what jobs it is willing to work. Educational levels decide the job demands generated.

 

The occupancy type of the job itself determines how many of what sims will work there. Please see the chart under "Census Drives (Demand of Workforce)" here:

 

https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=963.0

 

This chart lists what percentage of a building's capacity is allowed for each residential occupant group. For instance, 15% and only 15% of a CO$$$ building's occupancy is allowed for R$$$, with 65% for R$$ and 20% for R$. This is how jobs work in SimCity 4.

 

You can have a city of 3 million low wealth sims with 200 EQ and only dirty industry jobs available, and the sims will still have no problem working them. This remains true even if a neighbor has millions of cleaner jobs available, as again the sims themselves decide nothing about the jobs they'll work.

[Turjan 1,048]

 

It's generally easier to balance job requirements on the same tile.  The way different tiles work together can be complex and also depends on how often you synchronize them. You could build some jobs on the city border, something that "catches" the commuters before they leave the tile.

 

I already have large areas of high tech industry within the city on the western side.

 

 

If the way out of town is shorter (faster?) than the way to those jobs, Sims normally look elsewhere for jobs.

[Grayham 2]

 

 

It's generally easier to balance job requirements on the same tile.  The way different tiles work together can be complex and also depends on how often you synchronize them. You could build some jobs on the city border, something that "catches" the commuters before they leave the tile.

 

I already have large areas of high tech industry within the city on the western side.

 

 

If the way out of town is shorter (faster?) than the way to those jobs, Sims normally look elsewhere for jobs.

 

 

 

I don't see how that could be because they have to travel through these areas to get to the other cities.

[Turjan 1,048]

I don't see how that could be because they have to travel through these areas to get to the other cities.

I think we are fishing in the dark here because we don't have enough information.

How many jobs per resident do you have on the current tile? 50%? Or do you use the CAM without the fix (then you need 100%)?

You say the commuters have high education. What kind of wealth level do they have? For instance, if they are R$$$, did you apply the I-HT fix?

 

The monorail is btw one of the fastest modes of transportation in the game. It may still be faster for them to reach the border than any job on the same tile from what you say.

[Grayham 2]

City population: 867,895

 

R$: 230,000

R$$: 550,000

R$$$: 100,000

CS$: 16,500

CS$$: 110,000
CS$$$: 43,000

CO$$: 100,000

CO$$$: 200,000

I-HT: 75,000

 

I bulldozed all my Dirty and Manufacturing industry.

 

I do not use the CAM (I haven't heard of it before)

 

Zone view of main city:

 

 

Region View (transportation):

 

 

The large tile city on the western edge of the main city has 32,636 industrial jobs and a population of 3,933 (the northern part is occupied by farms), the medium tile above it has 40,276 industrial jobs and 0 population. But the medium tile city above that has 74,070 population, 32,224 commercial jobs and 0 industrial jobs. It's not connected with the city west of that.

[Turjan 1,048]

Thanks for the info. You did not answer my questions of what kind of wealth level of citizens actually leave the tile and whether you applied the I-HT fix, which fixes the bug that I-HT creates R$$$ demand but doesn't provide the R$$$ jobs it is supposed to supply (10% or 7500 jobs in your case).

 

The reason why I ask is that you can, with exact figures, calculate a few things. From your rounded figures, I calculated 48940 R$$$ jobs on your tile w/o I-HT fix and 56440 R$$$ jobs expected from the demand calculations (that figure would be close of what you get with I-HT fix). I-M would also provide R$$$ jobs, but you said you don't have that on this tile, but on the western one, so R$$$ people would find employment there. As you rounded your numbers, I cannot really tell whether you have enough jobs or not (for 100,000 R$$$ people you need 50,000 R$$$ jobs).

 

You can do these calculations yourself by using the numbers in the table on this page.

[Grayham 2]

How do I get exact figures for each income/job class? My city has 471,709 total commercial jobs and 73,887 total industrial jobs (population 867,895)

 

I didn't know about the I-HT bug so I guess that's a no. The only changes I've made to the game are downloaded the NAM and the official SKU2 patch.

 

 

You did not answer my questions of what kind of wealth level of citizens actually leave the tile

 

 

It's hard to tell (clicking on the neighbourhood connections with the transport query tools gives you a big web of arrows), but I think it may be more R$$$.

 

29,162 people commute to the other large tile city and 30,035 people commute to the medium tile city.

[Turjan 1,048]

How do I get exact figures for each income/job class? My city has 471,709 total commercial jobs and 73,887 total industrial jobs (population 867,895)

 

The table I linked to has the percentages, so you can calculate from there. Of course, an easier way is to use the Census Repository or Cogeo's Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which will give you detailed numbers in their queries (disregard the actual numbers in this example, as this was from a bugged city):

Furthermore, I recommend the which, despite its name, is very useful for additional queries and information. For example, you can just hover the query cursor over a lot while pressing Alt-Ctrl-Shift and get detailed job information like this (see the last line with job numbers in the format R$:R$$:R$$$):

 

I didn't know about the I-HT bug so I guess that's a no. The only changes I've made to the game are downloaded the NAM and the official SKU2 patch.

 

 

The I-HT fix is very important to avoid abandonment of R$$$ homes. Get the fix and follow the instructions If the instructions are too intimidating, try with just the file first and check the jobs on an I-HT building with the Extra Cheats tool.

 

Edit: Actually just try the file Tropod attached in Should be easier. I guess Tropod should check this one again.

 

It's hard to tell (clicking on the neighbourhood connections with the transport query tools gives you a big web of arrows), but I think it may be more R$$$.

You will recognize the buildings after a while, and R$$$ makes sense, as that is the usual effect of the I-HT bug.

[Grayham 2]

Tropod says he hasn't tested the file and says try it at your own risk.

[Turjan 1,048]

Tropod says he hasn't tested the file and says try it at your own risk.

 

Every coder will tell you to try things at your own risk . Tropod is a very experienced modder and programmer, and he usually knows what he is doing, so I wouldn't expect any bad things to happen. At worst, it doesn't work. Just use the extacheats.dll I linked above to check whether it works.

 

I'm not keen on trying it myself as I patched the fix into simcity_1.dat, so I would have to look for the original simcity_1.dat file first, which I backed up... somewhere.

[Grayham 2]

Have just downloaded and started up the game again, HT jobs have now dropped to zero on the charts!

[Turjan 1,048]

Heh. I guess I should just try it myself .

 

Edit: Just tried it. While I cannot say that it drops all jobs to zero, it does indeed remove all R$ jobs, which should make up 10% of the whole I-HT workforce. It only provides R$$ and R$$$ jobs. So you are right, it seems to be buggy.  I guess you will have to do it the old-fashioned way.

[Grayham 2]

What is simcity_1.dat exactly?

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

What is simcity_1.dat exactly?

 

In C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 you'll find a bunch of SimCity.dat files.  These contain all the buildings, lots, textures, props, exemplars, and other items found in the game.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

You are looking at the forest and seeing too many trees.  This is supposed to be a simple problem solving game, not an exercise in statistics.  Keep a ratio of 2 Sims per job, get in the black and stay there by zoning enough R, and play by the seat of your pants.  It is a leisure time activity, so don't over-think it.

[Grayham 2]

I'm starting to find having to add all these mods is making things complicated. And this talk of messing around with game files is making me a little nervous (in case you can't tell, I'm not a programmer)

 

Get the fix and follow the instructions If the instructions are too intimidating...

 

 

I'm reading that thread and various people seemed to run into problems. Is this really the best thing to do?

[Turjan 1,048]

I'm starting to find having to add all these mods is making things complicated. And this talk of messing around with game files is making me a little nervous (in case you can't tell, I'm not a programmer)

 

As long as you keep backups and don't press the save button when you open up the game and see something out of order, you can always go back if something looks wrong. That's the beauty of the game. It's quite forgiving.

 

You can live with the I-HT bug. You will just have to live with abandoning R$$$ then. Or don't build any I-HT. Neither will present insurmountable problems.

 

However, just a hint regarding the Datpacker: It's also nice to have as soon as you add more custom content. It shortens load times and switch times from underground to surface view.

[Grayham 2]

But don't you need some industry to generate commercial jobs?

You can live with the I-HT bug. You will just have to live with abandoning R$$$ then. Or don't build any I-HT. Neither will present insurmountable problems.

 

 

The problem I'm having is buildings keep springing up and then become abandoned due to commute time.

[Turjan 1,048]

But don't you need some industry to generate commercial jobs?

No, not really. The game works without industry, if you want. It's a bit more difficult at the start, but later on, you can safely replace it with commercials. It's not the way I take, but it's possible. The game tries to copy Silicon Valley, and the ingame industry takes up lots of space with only few jobs, so it's clearly not intended as the final stage of the game. Of course, you can use mods to help you with this.

 

The problem I'm having is buildings keep springing up and then become abandoned due to commute time.

Yes, sure. In my view, it's definitely worth tackling the bug and just follow those instructions. It's a bit intimidating the first time you do it, but as soon everything is in place, another use of the Datpacker is just a matter of a few clicks and some move actions. I definitely recommend going that way. It's easier than it looks. As long as you keep a backup of all files you touch, there's nothing you cannot fix with a few clicks.

[Grayham 2]

 As long as you keep a backup of all files you touch, there's nothing you cannot fix with a few clicks.

 

 

How do I know what files will get touched? Is simcity_1.dat the only file I need to backup?

[Turjan 1,048]

How do I know what files will get touched? Is simcity_1.dat the only file I need to backup?

 

Indeed. I had linked the procedure already in one of the posts above, and it is again. Backing up  simcity_1.dat is clearly listed as third point of the detailed instructions . You can move other stuff out of your Plugins folder, but it's not necessary if you follow the instructions. However, the instructions mention this, too . They are very thorough.

[Grayham 2]

OK, it's just you said files, implying that more than 1 might be altered.

 

There are Simcity_2 , 3, 4 & 5 DAT files, what are they for?

[Turjan 1,048]

OK, it's just you said files, implying that more than 1 might be altered.

 

There are Simcity_2 , 3, 4 & 5 DAT files, what are they for?

 

I meant in general. I don't remember what the other Maxis dat files contained. For your purpose, you only need Simcity_1.dat and z_IH_census_10_78_12.dat, and then datpack the two files.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I am a programmer!  You don't need to be one to follow this recipe.  You do need to know how to copy files as opposed to moving them.

 

Anyway, did I not see that someone had made this fix without all the handsprings needed?