How do Stage Limits and Thresholds work?

[Psiman 177]

The SC4 Wiki has a page on Stage Limits and Thresholds. It says: 

"These properties determine the percentual chances that buildings of a certain growth stages will appear (depending on the size of your region)." 

I'm trying to understand what this means exactly.

Here's the residential table from the wiki:

Let's look at the bottom line of the table. Let's say I zone a block of low-density residential when at this capacity. There is a 1% chance of a Level 1 house developing? An 8% chance of a Stage 1-3 house developing? 

[CorinaMarie 29,569]

2 minutes ago, Psiman said:

Let's look at the bottom line of the table. Let's say I zone a block of low-density residential when at this capacity. There is a 1% chance of a Level 1 house developing? An 8% chance of a Stage 1-3 house developing?

Yep.

As the population goes up it favors larger dwellings based on their stage.

[Psiman 177]

My city isn't quite at the bottom of the table, but if I zone some blocks of residential zoning, I will get low-density housing. According to the table, I should have been three times more likely to have had skyscrapers building there instead. I should only have had a 2% chance of each of those houses building at Stage 1, but instead 100% of them are. 

[CorinaMarie 29,569]

And do you have sufficient demand and jobs available that they could grow?

[Psiman 177]

Yep, maybe I'm just unlucky. 

Surely the definition has got to be a bit different from what is really happening. "Percentual chances that buildings of a certain growth stages will appear" cannot be right as a Stage 1 house has a more than 1 or 2% chance of appearing when zoning residential. 

[CorinaMarie 29,569]

When the experts get here we may find out that's only one piece of the equation.

[twalsh102 1,601]

@Psiman, you are correct that the explanation is somewhat in error.

The population levels obviously trigger advancement to either intermediate levels within each growth stage, or advancement to the next growth stage.  There are different trigger levels based on wealth, with low-wealth Sims having lower trigger levels needed to advance

The percentages are actually the ratios of buildings (at each wealth level) that are allowed to exist.  In other words (using the last line as an example), 20% of all R buildings must be Stage 8, 29% must be Stage 7, 18% must be Stage 6, etc.  Inevitably, as growth continues, the percentages get out of whack such that the number of buildings for one or more growth stages exceed their mandated percentage according to the Developer exemplars (which means one or more of the other Stages is below their mandated percentage).  When that happens, no more growth for those stage building will occur until the percentages are back in balance.

Another way of looking at it would be that at Stage 8, level 5, only 18% of Residential buildings at each wealth level can be below Stage 5.

Hope this makes sense.

[Psiman 177]

30 minutes ago, twalsh102 said:

@Psiman, you are correct that the explanation is somewhat in error.

The population levels obviously trigger advancement to either intermediate levels within each growth stage, or advancement to the next growth stage.  There are different trigger levels based on wealth, with low-wealth Sims having lower trigger levels needed to advance

The percentages are actually the ratios of buildings (at each wealth level) that are allowed to exist.  In other words (using the last line as an example), 20% of all R buildings must be Stage 8, 29% must be Stage 7, 18% must be Stage 6, etc.  Inevitably, as growth continues, the percentages get out of whack such that the number of buildings for one or more growth stages exceed their mandated percentage according to the Developer exemplars (which means one or more of the other Stages is below their mandated percentage).  When that happens, no more growth for those stage building will occur until the percentages are back in balance.

Another way of looking at it would be that at Stage 8, level 5, only 18% of Residential buildings at each wealth level can be below Stage 5.

Hope this makes sense.

Thanks.

So 1% is the minimum amount of Stage 1 buildings there can ever be, because the buildings of Stages 2-8 cannot number more than 99% combined.

Suppose our city is at the third stage from the bottom of the table and the Stages of all the city's residential buildings are of the exact percentage proportions as the table specifies for that Capacity level. Would this neutralize RCI residential demand? 

Assuming RCI residential demand is there, what happens if one builds a few blocks of residential zoning? I presume they would grow to Stage 1 only and they, and no other residential buildings in the city, would develop into higher Growth Stages until Residential Capacity had been increased to the next level?

[twalsh102 1,601]

Just because the overall numbers of buildings for each wealth level match the mandated percentages, doesn't mean that no more buildings can't grow.  There is no limit to the overall number of buildings in each wealth level.  It means that any new growth would have to maintain the same percentages.  Again as percentages inevitably get out of whack, some Growth Stage buildings will not be allowed to grow until percentages were brought back in balance.

Further complicating matters is the density of zoning that you are laying down.  Many lower Growth Stage buildings are configured to grow in any density of zoning.  However, most upper stage lots are configured to grow only in medium or high density zones, some only in high density.  So the possibility exists that as you reach the higher Growth Stages, if you have not raised the density of the zones you are laying down, you likely will not be able to meet the mandated percentages for the higher Growth Stages.  This could stop the growth of any lower stage buildings until you change your zoning strategy to allow the growth of higher-density/upper Growth Stage lots.  Then you would probably see a huge growth spurt of these higher-density, upper Growth Stage lots until percentages are again in balance.

Here are some stats (Maxis RH default lot properties):

R$

All Stage 1-3 lots (thirty-eight total) will grow in any density zone.

Of twelve Stage 4 lots, 4 will grow in any density zone.  The remaining eight will grow in med- and high-density zones.

All Stage 5-6 lots (twenty-three total) will grow in med- and high-density zones.

Of fourteen Stage 7 lots, nine will grow in med- and high-density zones.  The remaining five will grow only in high-density zones.

All Stage 8 lots (fifteen total) will grow only in high-density zones.

R$$

All Stage 1-4 lots (fifty total) will grow in any density zone.

Of sixteen Stage 5 lots, six will grow in any density zone.  The remaining ten will grow in med- and high-density zones.

All Stage 6 lots (ten total) will grow in med- and high-density zones.

Of thirteen Stage 7 lots, seven will grow in med- and high-density zones.  The remaining six will grow only in high-density zones.

All Stage 8 lots (twelve total) will grow only in high-density zones.

R$$$

All Stage 1-4 lots (forty-eight total) will grow in any density zone.

Of twelve Stage 5 lots, six will grow in any density zone.  The remaining six will grow in med- and high-density zones.

All Stage 6 lots (thirteen total) will grow in med- and high-density zones.

Of twelve Stage 7 lots, six will grow in med- and high-density zones.  The remaining six will grow only in high-density zones.

All Stage 8 lots (ten total) will grow only in high-density zones.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

And then there's the CAM. If you have installed that, then you have a completely different table with 15 stages.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

Well RippleJet points out that those values refer to the total regional capacity which is indipendend from population. Population controls density - ths means how many sims can be hosted on a tile. So with growing population density grows. But not your headroom for growth.

The table given by RippleJet means a different thing. The growing possibility depends on the headroom for growth you have. This is regional residential capacity minus residential population. The difference is what actually can grow. The trick from this: even if you have very big headroom for growth no skyscrapers will grow if there is still low density (population). If there is high population and therefore high density skyskrapers won't grow neither if there isn't enough headroom for growth. So it isn't sufficient to look on population as you need to know how much headroom there is. Desirability and headroom aren't the same. There can be much desire but things don't grow because of missing headroom. Headroom is defined by Caps.

Basically there's no problem to mod lots the way all the skyscrapers grow from level one. Basically you could do an "Anti Colossus Addon Mod". Question would be: why? Maybe a game to plasticizing the atlantic ocean would be even more fun?

[Psiman 177]

It seems a bit strange that adding more zoning and building growth can hinder higher-stage growth, but I guess it makes sense in that if one is opening up more land for development, then that would relieve pressure to increase the density of existing zoning.

[Psiman 177]

On 26/11/2018 at 8:43 AM, twalsh102 said:

Here are some stats (Maxis RH default lot properties):

R$

All Stage 1-3 lots (thirty-eight total) will grow in any density zone.

Of twelve Stage 4 lots, 4 will grow in any density zone.  The remaining eight will grow in med- and high-density zones.

All Stage 5-6 lots (twenty-three total) will grow in med- and high-density zones.

Of fourteen Stage 7 lots, nine will grow in med- and high-density zones.  The remaining five will grow only in high-density zones.

All Stage 8 lots (fifteen total) will grow only in high-density zones.

R$$

All Stage 1-4 lots (fifty total) will grow in any density zone.

Of sixteen Stage 5 lots, six will grow in any density zone.  The remaining ten will grow in med- and high-density zones.

All Stage 6 lots (ten total) will grow in med- and high-density zones.

Of thirteen Stage 7 lots, seven will grow in med- and high-density zones.  The remaining six will grow only in high-density zones.

All Stage 8 lots (twelve total) will grow only in high-density zones.

R$$$

All Stage 1-4 lots (forty-eight total) will grow in any density zone.

Of twelve Stage 5 lots, six will grow in any density zone.  The remaining six will grow in med- and high-density zones.

All Stage 6 lots (thirteen total) will grow in med- and high-density zones.

Of twelve Stage 7 lots, six will grow in med- and high-density zones.  The remaining six will grow only in high-density zones.

All Stage 8 lots (ten total) will grow only in high-density zones.

Where is this information from? Do you know whether it's in the game files somewhere?

[twalsh102 1,601]

All these stats are derived directly from the Residential Lot Exemplars in SimCity_1.dat using @rivit's SC4DataNode.  Information was obviously compiled from values in each individual Exemplar (Growth Stage and Lot Config Zone Types properties).  If you haven't used it yet, it can probably be very useful in the type of research you are doing in that it is much easier (in my mind) to find things vs. trying to use Reader to find the same information (plus you export lists to a .CSV file with DataNode).

[Psiman 177]

3 hours ago, twalsh102 said:

All these stats are derived directly from the Residential Lot Exemplars in SimCity_1.dat using @rivit's SC4DataNode.  Information was obviously compiled from values in each individual Exemplar (Growth Stage and Lot Config Zone Types properties).  If you haven't used it yet, it can probably be very useful in the type of research you are doing in that it is much easier (in my mind) to find things vs. trying to use Reader to find the same information (plus you export lists to a .CSV file with DataNode).

Thanks.

Do you know of any tools that will count the numbers of buildings at each Growth Stage level in a city, or will show capacity usage at each Growth Stage?

[twalsh102 1,601]

Unfortunately, I don't think such a tool exists will accomplish either of those tasks.  That type of information will need to be compiled manually.

[Psiman 177]

Suppose that all Stage 1 R$$$ lots were removed from the game. Do you think it would be better to keep the R$$$ Residential Stage Limit table as it is, or add the percentages from Stage 1 to Stage 2, since that is now the lowest?

[CorinaMarie 29,569]

3 minutes ago, Psiman said:

Suppose that all Stage 1 R$$$ lots were removed from the game. Do you think it would be better to keep the R$$$ Residential Stage Limit table as it is, or add the percentages from Stage 1 to Stage 2, since that is now the lowest?

Yikes! I'd suppose it'd be better to not change those things as the game is so inter-dependent on a zillion things. It could introduce other problems which you'd have no idea where they came from. It could be similar to the trouble peeps have when installing super demand mods and then wondering why their cities get all out of balance and they have no useful graphs to show what's really needed.

[Psiman 177]

8 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Yikes! I'd suppose it'd be better to not change those things as the game is so inter-dependent on a zillion things. It could introduce other problems which you'd have no idea where they came from. It could be similar to the trouble peeps have when installing super demand mods and then wondering why their cities get all out of balance and they have no useful graphs to show what's really needed.

It could potentially reduce the total amount of R$$$ housing.

For example, at 390 R$$$ Stage Limit, default is 80% at Stage 1 and 20% at Stage 2. If the table is not amended, and Stage 1 has no lots, then only the 20% of Stage 2 would be built, meaning there'd be a lot less total housing for high-wealth residential. 

Since I've never built a Stage 1 R$$$ in the game before, though, I guess it probably wouldn't matter.

Also, adding the Stage 1 percentages to Stage 2 would run the risk of getting spammed with Stage 2 mansions, I guess.

[CorinaMarie 29,569]

1 minute ago, Psiman said:

It could potentially reduce the total amount of R$$$ housing.

One thing about this game is peeps experiment with a multitude of things and some turn out to be extremely useful so you might discover stuff no one else has looked at in the same way.

[Psiman 177]

On 26/11/2018 at 5:20 AM, twalsh102 said:

The percentages are actually the ratios of buildings (at each wealth level) that are allowed to exist. 

Just checking whether this is the ratios of individual buildings or the residential capacity of buildings? So if it was 35% R$$$ at Growth Stage 3, that means that 35% of R$$$ Lots/Buildings must be Growth Stage 3, or that 35% of residential capacity must be in Growth Stage 3 buildings. 

[twalsh102 1,601]

Ratios of individual buildings

[Psiman 177]

On 07/12/2018 at 5:13 AM, twalsh102 said:

Ratios of individual buildings

Ratios of individual Buildings or individual Lots?