Lag causing unemployment issues?

[greenOak 25]

I'm wondering if anyone else has run into this. SC4 runs slower for large cities (which should be expected), but I have a hunch it ends up causing unemployment due to the simulator not being able to find jobs for sims quickly enough. I make this claim for the following reasons:

1. It seems that without fail, my cities start off with little to no unemployment problems until I fill up about a quarter of a large map. At this point, a number of the newly built buildings (regardless of wealth) will initially get the no job zot, and then it quickly goes away. Once I get to around 75% of a large map, almost all the new buildings (again regardless of wealth) get the no job zot, and more often than not go abandoned.

2. In these large cities there are job vacancies (as per the census repository facility). 

3. Occasionally these newly built buildings will find jobs and the commute time almost always displays "Short".

4. These buildings jump from showing no commuters to all of them (usually around half the building capacity) instantaneously. Earlier in the game if I have unemployment problems I'll usually see something like 20 commuters in a 200 capacity building.

5. These problems appear to be tied to the number of buildings on the map rather than population or job totals. (ie. I don't these problems in a dense 100k city, but will get them in a low density 100k city). 

It may be the case that I'm consistently doing something wrong in sprawled out cities but it doesn't seem like the case for me. It's pretty annoying because everytime I fill up a large map, in the end I feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole with new buildings, destroying them if they go abandoned, and waiting for the seemingly random time they don't. I've considered moving to medium size cities but I've always felt cramped in with such cities. Just for the record, these are the gameplay altering mods I'm using:

NAM 36
I-HT R$$$ Fix
Industry Doubler
Less Abandonment Mod (Bones1)

I do however have a ton (likely 500-1000) custom buildings which probably slow the game down to at least some degree.

[xxdita 1,097]

It sounds like you're reaching the point that you need to improve your transportation networks. Depending on the settings of your Traffic Simulator, each wealth level of Sims has a certain percentage that prefers Mass Transit, but they can't use it if it's not available. 

Check your traffic congestion maps and see where the problems are. You can upgrade the roads all you want, but until you get a real mass transit system in place to get Sims off the roads completely, you're going to keep hitting this wall. 

And maybe try using Cori's Abandoned Buildings Data View mod. Check this thread

  Edited January 2, 2020 by xxdita  
added link

[greenOak 25]

[greenOak 25]

I have uploaded some screen shots. A few notes:

The sudden spike in commute time I believe corresponds to when I started working on another tile and started having commuters between tiles.

The effected areas are not really visible currently since I've already played whack-a-mole to the point of not getting these abandoned buildings. I'll try to upload a video of what I'm describing later.

[xxdita 1,097]

OK, so you have plenty of jobs in the city. So the question is why can't your Sims get to them? 

Try using the route query on some of the Industrial areas furthest away from Residential zones to see how many workers it has, and how they're getting there. Try using the Advanced Query from the Extra Cheats dll as well, to see just who is working in them. 

Is the issue with R$$$ or more general? Have you installed the IHT R$$$ bug fix? 

[greenOak 25]

The issue is general but is definitely worst for R$$$. FWIW R$$ buildings seem to do better than R$ buildings. The IHT R$$$ fix is installed. The problem definitely seems to be with the industrial zones which often show buildings with no workers at them. A few of the commercial blocks appear like this as well. Having said that I'm not really sure why this is the case - there is mass transit to the area, and the people who are working in these remote zones don't seem to be upset about commute times.

[xxdita 1,097]

I run into this a lot myself. There has to be an issue with the routes available to your Sims. Do a route query on the subway stations in Comm&Ind zones to see just how much coverage they're providing, meaning how far your Sims are walking from the final subway stop to the available jobs. 

Which traffic simulator are you using, btw?

[greenOak 25]

Yeah I think I figured it out. My avenues were making weird connections and weren't being used. After I re-built the avenues these issues went away.