Population limit?

[Screwballl 196]

I've played several default maps over the past week, and in each case I seem to reach a population limit around 170,000. I zone, almost everything is maxed, plenty of extras like Space Tower, Hadron Collider, and such, traffic is mostly under control, yet for some reason I seem to hit that 170-180K population level and it just stagnates for me each time. So far the only mass transit system I haven't used in my latest one is busses, but that does not seem to make any difference (I have 2 others that did use busses and same stagnation).

Any ideas why?

[iviaarten 533]

I haven't reached those population numbers myself, but a trend I've seen in some let's plays / CJ entries and posts on the Paradox forums is that people mostly tend to swap over to offices from regular industry after a while.

From what I gather, it helps to keep expanding/leveling up your generic and specialized industries as well to keep residential demand up.

 

You could also try messing around with tax rates and policies, since after a certain point money doesn't seem to be an issue anymore.

[Screwballl 196]

I've tried all that, residential just stagnates and refuses to build anymore. Commercial and office does slowly grow, industrial builds but eventually abandons due to lack of workers.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Looks like a population cap... If there's no real cap you might overcome it by zoning more in the 3 rci cats... I'm not at your pop yet (building takes most of my freetime) but slow demand does not mean no demand.

[Mystrelia 57]

As far as I know (I dug around on the internet and couldn't find anything to the contrary) there's only one population cap, which is 1,000,000, at which point no more residential will grow.

 

Beyond that I'm clueless because my population is nowhere near 200,000. I do know there's a super demand mod in the Workshop which would work failing anything else.

[Screwballl 196]

I've done some adjustment and gotten it a little over 200K, but beyond that it is useless. Entire sections of zoning for all 6 options and nothing grows anymore.... Eventually commercial starts failing, and industry/office complains about lack of workers and causing mass amounts of abandoned buildings... Tried more mass transit, policies, everything, but nothing works.

 

[Dodike 0]

I've read somewhere that Hadron Collider does more harm than good.

[eskie227 1]

The Hadron Collider will give you a highly educated population, so your RCI zones should all level up. As your Industry advances to level 3, they'll use more educated workers, and the higher level commercial also will use more educated users. The only zones that continue to provide lower level employment are Forestry and Agricultural, I believe, but even there, if your educated cims need jobs, they'll still fill those positions. I've used it in 2 cities so far, one that got up to 300K, and another over 200K, so I do not think that should limit your growth.

 

The only "trick" I've found to encourage growth was to zone up residential in blocks and let it fill itself in as the RCI meter "drives" it, but to wait for both C and I to rise significantly before adding additional areas. That way, the residential growth is driven by C and I, rather than flogging for more population to increase demand, which it really won't. When the residential zones are getting a bit tight, I'll put in a whole bunch of new areas to support the cycle again, building out the others only if there is high demand.

 

And yes, once the population is educated, I rely on office only for "industrial" growth (it should really be, IMHO, commercial, but they consider it industry, which I don't quite get, as commercial in game is really retail). Your offices will also level up quickly with the Hadron Collider in town, and offices carry a bonus of not only no pollution, but low noise and little traffic, which makes managing a big population much easier. But as office space, even at level 1, requires some educated cims, I don't zone for that until later once the city is more established.

 

Technically, as commercial can import products to sell, you could phase out your industry later in the game and just rely on office work, but I hate rezoning industry that's polluted the ground purple and build offices on them. That just can't be healthy.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

I found that once your Cims begin to get educated, offices are the way to go as they are now too good to be working on assembly lines, cashiers and security guards. I had some bad stagnation for a while with abandonment happening in both my commercial and industrial zones and no RCI demand. Then I re-zoned all the high density commercial to offices and things started taking off again. The abandonment decreased and even some offices upgraded to commercial retail after a while. I found that interesting. Maybe the educated Cims need the offices to have the meetings for the next gen products which sparks the new rounds of production from the industrial level like RL.

 

So now my question is when is it the right time to zone for high density commercial?

[Mystrelia 57]

I found that once your Cims begin to get educated, offices are the way to go as they are now too good to be working on assembly lines, cashiers and security guards. I had some bad stagnation for a while with abandonment happening in both my commercial and industrial zones and no RCI demand. Then I re-zoned all the high density commercial to offices and things started taking off again. The abandonment decreased and even some offices upgraded to commercial retail after a while. I found that interesting. Maybe the educated Cims need the offices to have the meetings for the next gen products which sparks the new rounds of production from the industrial level like RL.

 

So now my question is when is it the right time to zone for high density commercial?

Right now I have 35% highly educated citizens and the vast majority of them are in jobs they're over-qualified for. There's no need to replace industry with offices unless that's just what you want to do. Also, you have the option of limiting available space in schools to keep a less-educated workforce. Normally I have fewer schools than I need but ended up having to put in some extras for the Sterling District (where most of the uber-rich people live) and that's how I ended up with way too many top educated Cims. That won't happen again, though, because I downloaded some colleges with smaller capacity so now only the "brightest and best" will get college degrees and everyone else will go straight into the workforce when they become adults.

 

You don't need to convert your industrial areas to offices unless that's what you want to do. I have high-level industry with 16/5 highly educated Cims working in them and offices and commercial buildings in the same boat currently. I also don't keep high unemployment to keep those jobs filled. I currently have what for me is a rash of unemployment at 3% and every available job is filled.

 

Things may look differently in my city than it does right now when I have ten times the population but I tend to play slow and build slow and let things even out as I go along and so far (knocks wood) this is working extremely well.

.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

 

 

Right now I have 35% highly educated citizens and the vast majority of them are in jobs they're over-qualified for. There's no need to replace industry with offices unless that's just what you want to do. Also, you have the option of limiting available space in schools to keep a less-educated workforce. Normally I have fewer schools than I need but ended up having to put in some extras for the Sterling District (where most of the uber-rich people live) and that's how I ended up with way too many top educated Cims. That won't happen again, though, because I downloaded some colleges with smaller capacity so now only the "brightest and best" will get college degrees and everyone else will go straight into the workforce when they become adults.

 

You don't need to convert your industrial areas to offices unless that's what you want to do. I have high-level industry with 16/5 highly educated Cims working in them and offices and commercial buildings in the same boat currently. I also don't keep high unemployment to keep those jobs filled. I currently have what for me is a rash of unemployment at 3% and every available job is filled.

 

Things may look differently in my city than it does right now when I have ten times the population but I tend to play slow and build slow and let things even out as I go along and so far (knocks wood) this is working extremely well.

.

 

I replaced high density commercial with offices, not industrial. I left the industrial buildings alone. Abandonment don't make me panic. I just look for the stimulant. I think I zoned for high density commercial too soon (I have a peninsula zoned for 75-80% commercial to have a Manhattan feel where the super rich will live). I'm only at 20,000 population so far in my first city. I never put the speed past 1x so I'm a slow grower too to keep tabs on whats happening. I have a lot more residential zones to build. My hope is that the new residents will begin to fill those industrial buildings back up. But  I think the offices did something good for the industry. Gotta play some more to confirm.

[Mystrelia 57]

Okay, I was confused. I keep seeing so many people say they're destroying industrial and replacing it with offices because of the abandonment that I was thinking you were too. While I can understand that's the quick fix I think there has to be a way around it. I started my dense commercial while I had only about 15-18,000 citizens. The dense commercial in Sterling came later, after I'd moved in a bunch of Cims who managed to level up the light commercial across the freeway. I also have the policy set on the light commercial so they sell twice as many goods. Even so, I only have about 25,000 right now but I'm always stingy when it comes to zoning for commercial anyway because of all the noise pollution it causes. If in doubt, just zone a small area and make sure it gets the workers it needs and see how well it holds up. If that works out well add another block or two. I much prefer testing the waters a little to developing a whole area only to have to do something else with it because the city wasn't mature enough to handle it.

 

Yeah, I'm a 1x speed player, too.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

The cap for the amount of simulated agents, including resident Cims, tourists, freight import/export trucks (and trains and boats), and public transit is 1 million. You might run into a demand cap before getting close but some people have built cities of almost 1/2 million population.

 

--Ocram

[rmjohnson144 39]

I've done some adjustment and gotten it a little over 200K, but beyond that it is useless. Entire sections of zoning for all 6 options and nothing grows anymore.... Eventually commercial starts failing, and industry/office complains about lack of workers and causing mass amounts of abandoned buildings... Tried more mass transit, policies, everything, but nothing works.

 

I've found when RCI comes to a halt, it's usually always traffic.  Mass-transit can help.  But you may need more access to the freeway.  This game gives you a sense there are no traffic issue as traffic despawns when it starts to get a little backed up.  Watch your traffic map, it is very important the later in game you are.

 

I've read somewhere that Hadron Collider does more harm than good.

 

I find the Hadron Collider is fine.  It just educates all of your cims so you can remove all of your other education buildings.

 

I do find they will take the highest educated job they can find which means offices first and industrial last.  This can cause freight issues when you first place the Hadron Collider.  I only place offices if I have unemployment issues and freight issues as Offices are suppose to be industry with no freight.  so they count as industry.

[Mystrelia 57]

There is also a mod that stops the traffic from despawning which while a person may not want to use it all the time could be turned on to see if there are any areas where vehicles are backing up to the point of disappearing.

[cromabianca 158]

I'd be rather careful with the "education boost" policy; it was practically destroying my commerce and my offices. Too many highly educated workers and not enough well educated, with the result of massive abandonement!

[Mystrelia 57]

I'd be rather careful with the "education boost" policy; it was practically destroying my commerce and my offices. Too many highly educated workers and not enough well educated, with the result of massive abandonement!

I think in some areas the education boost may be fine, like for a wealthy district, then limit education for everyone else. It's surely not something I would want enabled for a whole city.

[Turjan 1,048]

My city is at 250k inhabitants at the moment, no mods and still in the confines of the original 9 tiles. There isn't much space left though as I zoned lots of low density. I have only used the Space Elevator and the Fusion Power Plant of the monuments, as I didn't like the effect of the others.

 

I have about 6% unemployment, which is slightly above the ideal value. It's good to never exhaust commercial or industrial demand in order to prevent abandonment.

 

Buses are important for leveling, if that's what you are after. Bus stops make a big difference.

 

Most of my time is spent fiddling with road traffic. The solutions are not always aesthetically pleasing, but they seem to work. I should use more metros, I guess. I tend to forget about them.

 

By the way, today I spent quite a bit of time downgrading the city center. This became quite quiet lately. I removed elevated expressways, downgraded roads, stuff like that. I could probably even scrap the railroad in that area. It's weird. Somehow, the action in this game seems to always follow to the newly built places.

[cromabianca 158]

I think in some areas the education boost may be fine, like for a wealthy district, then limit education for everyone else. It's surely not something I would want enabled for a whole city.

I agree! Indeed, that's what I ended up doing.

[Screwballl 196]

Just seems like no matter what I try, it seems to hit the wall a little over 200K. I have one city I have almost completely replaced Ind with Offices and so far it has not made any difference. It bumps up to 205K, then drops to 190K, just bounces up and down a little as time goes on (usually speed set at 2x).

[Mystrelia 57]

Just seems like no matter what I try, it seems to hit the wall a little over 200K. I have one city I have almost completely replaced Ind with Offices and so far it has not made any difference. It bumps up to 205K, then drops to 190K, just bounces up and down a little as time goes on (usually speed set at 2x).

I think this is a common problem because I've seen several people having the same one. I don't know if it's a bug or if the game hit the agent limit or what.

[Turjan 1,048]

I don't think it's an agent limit at that point. I had no discontinuity in my population growth, except the usual swings in the 3-10k range, up to the 260k I'm at now. I have to add a mod now, as I ran out of space.

[Mystrelia 57]

I don't think it's an agent limit at that point. I had no discontinuity in my population growth, except the usual swings in the 3-10k range, up to the 260k I'm at now. I have to add a mod now, as I ran out of space.

I wouldn't be surprised if you're right. I've seen a number of posts about this and it's one aspect of the game I'm trying to learn about before I get to it and end up going through the same thing. Someone on the Paradox forum posted about how he keeps having population swings in that range with a city at roughly 300K population and when I posted that if a person took a look at the percentage of population that moves in and out on a regular basis it could be about right. I ended up getting a pretty rude reply in that I was probably a player with a city of around 30,000 Cims so didn't know what I was talking about since I hadn't experienced it first-hand. Well, I may not have that large of a city yet but I do have eyes and can read and pretty much understand what I read, and most days I can do fairly remedial math in my head without too much trouble. Maybe it's not a bug or an agent limit but possibly computers struggling to process everything that's going on in a city that size. Shoot, I don't know, probably shouldn't have even replied tonight because all of a sudden all the tiredness hit at once.

[Turjan 1,048]

I just noticed that, at first glimpse, my population graph looks a bit like what the OP is describing, but rest assured, it has nothing to do with it. I ran out of space, which means didn't zone anything for a long time and just played around with taxes and policies.

 

 

So what you see is the usual: there's this pretty regular sine wave that underlies everything. Steep rises follow periods of more residential zoning, and this rise is usually followed by a more pronounced drop than usual.

[Mystrelia 57]

@Turjan, yeah, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. I've seen graphs very similar in just about every city building game I've ever played that had such a thing. You zone, you see a spike in residents and as things get adjusted some move out, others move in, some die, some have children, etc. It wouldn't be a very realistic simulator if the population just kept increasing all the time.

 

And of course the larger a population is the bigger the percentage looks like. Shoot, just the death rate in a city of 300,000 Cims would be noticeable.

[Dragon687 0]

I've not run into a population cap, instead I've run into an object cap. One of my most long term cities currently has over 750k residents in it, but the only way I was able to achieve that was with some mods. One of the most important is a mod that redefines the death rate of citizens. This was probably one of my biggest frustrations in the game, having to deal with massive death waves. My research on it concluded that apparently all sims have an exact age length in the game. So the problem ends up being if you end up zoning any type of high density residential in even remotely good size areas, every single one of the 2-10k citizens that move in in the next month or so will all die at the exact same time. This is something I wish the game devs themselves would fix instead of forcing users to apply mods to have a functional city. Here's a graph of how that mod changed it up to what I would consider a more realistic algorithm. 

 

The other mod I had to use was one to expand the territory beyond default allowed. But before I was able to actually fill it all I got an error saying "cannot create anymore objects of this type" across every build able option in the game. 

[perafilozof 143]

Can you post a screen shot of the Show limits mod turned on in your city? I would like to take a look. Because I got up to 950k+ population and still can build more buildings and roads.

[csSniper 1]

Sounds like you're playing a 81 tile map. Try it on a 9 tile map if you want to go to 1.04 mil  Otherwise go to 25 tiles and a 450k - 600k pop count.