Do sims travel to the other cities in SimCity 4?

[Joe_Winko_From_YouTube 18]

I hope this makes sense, but say you have a bunch of cities in a huge region connected, do the sims ever travel between them? like if a sim in one city needs a job, and the city next to it has plenty of industrial and commercial zoning, will the sim be able to drive over there to work? 

I always see cars in the cities going in and out of the city. does it really work that way? 

and also, why else would sims travel out of the cities? 

[SimCoug 5,972]

Short answer, yes, sims will travel from one city square to another to find a job. 
And (afaik) jobs are the only reason sims travel across city boundaries.  They are trying to find the 'right' job, and the closest.  So if they think that exists in the next city, they will go there.

[Joe_Winko_From_YouTube 18]

oh interesting but they'll still continue to live in the same city but just will be traveling and working in another one?

^i know i kinda asked that already but just double checking  

[SimCoug 5,972]

Yes, you can check by using the commute query and clicking on a house that goes to the next city tile for work 

[airman15 4,111]

They can, in my experience they will stick to the neighboring city. As long as you have a connection that lets sims use cars or transit, they will use them!

One strategy you can do is to let all your 'dirty' items such as utilities and industries build on one tile and then surround them with residential/commercial only. Due to SimCity physics, pollution doesn't travel over city boundaries. So when you build up housing and shops they will have a jobs source without getting their demand hurt by the offending polluters. Then you'll be able to see how lots of sims get to work outside of the one you're playing!

[Joe_Winko_From_YouTube 18]

interesting, but would the sims ever travel to a city that's multiple city squares away? if there was a freeway or subway to take them there?

 

and also, how do i check the commute query? is that a thing that tells me where the sims are traveling to? 

[Terring 6,473]

Since it's a Simcity 4 topic and not a Cities: Skylines one, I moved it to a more suitable category. Have a nice day

Moderator Terring

[Fantozzi 4,064]

4 hours ago, Joe_Winko_From_YouTube said:

interesting, but would the sims ever travel to a city that's multiple city squares away? if there was a freeway or subway to take them there?

To my knowledge: no. They will only travel to neighbour tiles (crossing one border). They are dependend on neighbourhood connenctions - so they can travel only between tiles that have a neighbourhood connenction with each other - tiles not connected with each other can't share a neighbourhood connection and therefore sims won't cross more than one border. 

4 hours ago, Joe_Winko_From_YouTube said:

and also, how do i check the commute query? is that a thing that tells me where the sims are traveling to?

left corner in the GUI you have two question marks - the upper is for getting information on lots, the lower for networks. Click the lower than click on a street or on a neighbourhood connection. See there is a box where you can change from morning commuting to evening commuting view.

I remember some time ago @philforhockey51 posted some funny picture of a guy even walking form one tile to another:

 

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

There are many threads around here describing sim behavior.

* The vehicles you see (called automata) are only notional -- they're not a precise or complete representation of the model calculations going on in the background.

* Sims drive freight and commute to and from work. They do not create traffic to shop or to play or to fly or to attend school or anything else. That means your 75,000 seat football stadium can be on a residential street with no parking, and it won't create any of the traffic problems one sees at UC Berkeley on a game day.

* The commute to work is timed and has a limit. The commute home need only connect -- time is irrelevant.

* Freight moves to a port or neighbor connection and then vanishes. The game does not have any raw material -> refining -> manufacturing -> retail freight model whatsoever. Sims don't even eat food (only electricity), so farms, like factories, just send their products to the easiest freight sink and dump it all into the void. Only commuters appear on the far side of a connection.

* Commuters that have come from another sector (city) are definitely able (and sometimes eager) to move right along to yet another.

* A sim remembers only its last network entry point, so it is prone to commuting in an infinite loop, especially if you build a "short circuit" (literally) among 3 or 4 sectors touching at a corner (search for "infinite commuter").

* Sims in vanilla SC4 behave differently from sims under the NAM.

* I read quite recently that if commuters have been given to a neighbor, then it is important to run that neighbor long enough to absorb or relay them, or else.

[CT14 2,486]

Don't build a loop of 3 or more cities with neighbor connections. Sims will circle forever causing demand problems everywhere. This is the Eternal Commuter bug.

Instead, build neighbor connections in a tree or star shape.

[CorinaMarie 29,556]

On 6/27/2017 at 11:19 PM, Joe_Winko_From_YouTube said:

would the sims ever travel to a city that's multiple city squares away? if there was a freeway or subway to take them there?

Yes, they will travel more than one tile. I don't know if there is an upper limit, but we know they will travel thru at least 3 as that's what causes the eternal commuter bug as mentioned above. The one thing I've noticed is they will not travel thru a tile that has no work at all. In other words if you've just run a highway thru to connect two tiles on either side the little Sims won't enter that one cause there's no perceived jobs for them. So, build a tiny little town and grow a wee bit of commercial and industrial. Prolly good if it's the kind that could have jobs for all 3 wealth levels. (I'm uncertain if that matters.) So, what we have is a Sim in tile A sees there are jobs in tile B. They don't know how many so they hop on the freeway and head over. Once there they find out all jobs are filled. Since they can't turn around and go home, they move on to the next tile that has jobs.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

On 6/29/2017 at 5:52 PM, CorinaMarie said:

they will not travel thru a tile that has no work at all.

Aha, I neglected to mention that important safety tip. It becomes a challenge when bridging big water with a little rock of an artificial island used to make a neighbor connection (SF Bay is like that in my life-sized region). If a "city" is virtually all water, then it's too easy to forget to install some jobs to activate commuting.

[Joe_Winko_From_YouTube 18]

hmm, sounds quite complex. i actually have a huge region of cities connected for this gaming SimCity 4 series im doing for youtube. 

didnt know the sim's behavior was that advanced. i use the money tree mods though. those seem to help out a lot lol