Is a Profitable Village Possible?

[Alky 16]

I've been away from SimCity for quite some time because it wouldn't run in Windows 10, I've since resolved that issue.  

Whenever I've played the game it always seemed like a race to get the city to at least show a profit and be self sustaining which ends up being a giant megatropolis.  I'd like to try and build something on a smaller scale that supports itself, is that even possible? If anyone has suggestions or a link to someone else's successful efforts, I'd be appreciative.

Thank you!

[CorinaMarie 29,574]

8 hours ago, Alky said:

I'd like to try and build something on a smaller scale that supports itself, is that even possible?

It is possible even without any mods or custom content. I personally enable the Gambling Ordinance in the first February of the game and this adds $100 income which is quite helpful when starting a city from scratch. For a simple start, zone three full sized Farms (18 x 18 cells in size), connect with Streets, add a Wind Power Plant, zone for Low Density Residential. When it's grown enough that no more residential will pop up, you'll be making enough profit to add a small Fire Station.

Now you have a small village which is self sustaining.

[Cyclone Boom 16,852]

As Cori hinted towards, the important thing is to develop gradually with a close eye on the budget panel.

Adjusting funding for services accordingly, so supply is directly proportional to the current demand. For example with Clinics and Elementary Schools to adjust the sliders so total patients and students are below the maximum capacity for each individually. This can be a lot of fine-tuning as the parameters constantly change in the simulation on a locational basis. Query each every so often to keep them in check. Building up slowly is the key to the self-sustainment, and solid groundwork gives the option to expand towards a bigger city in due course. Consider adjusting taxes too which is a highly effective means of controlling RCI demand.

Are you running the vanilla game or with any custom content? If open to using mods for this purpose, it's another possible route.

There are many examples, but two @CorinaMarie made which come to mind are AgPay5x.dat for a 5 times multiplied agricultural tax boost for all developed farms, or ParkPays to subtract from monthly expenses for each park plopped. See her post here for more info and download links if this sounds useful. I personally like the idea this way by increasing profit to a scaled amount. Thus still making the financial side relevant for balancing the budget, but it doesn't become a constant burden to creativity.

Also this topic has a few other suggestions for manipulatory money methods.

Some may class any money mods as "cheating" the game, but it really all depends on personal preference.

[Alky 16]

Thank you both for your informative replies. I'm going to try out CorinaMarie's model as it sounds exactly the way I'd like to start out instead of chasing the RCI bars.

I'll be checking out the links you provided too Cyclone, much appreciated.  BTW, I do have an assortment of mods but I'd like to do this without using them. 

[CorinaMarie 29,574]

5 hours ago, Alky said:

I'm going to try out CorinaMarie's model as it sounds exactly the way I'd like to start out instead of chasing the RCI bars.

Yay!
 

I'm home from work now so I have more time to reply. Visually, here's what I'm talking about:

^ This is pure vanilla. (As in no mods at all.) And the grid is on so you can get the perspective of how large it is.

You can set your Sims on the right path to a long life span with a Medical Clinic. Turn the radius (Ambulance Funding) to zero to save money. Then adjust the Local Funding as @Cyclone Boom mentioned to be just sufficient for the Patient Capacity to be slightly above the Number of Patients.

 

Also, add a small Fire Station so nothing important ever catches fire:

 

With the Gambling Ordinance enacted, this Village is earning $57 profit per month. With more forethought on the layout you could have a central area for an Elementary and High School and turn their Bus Radius down to zero as well as adjust the Student Funding to just cover all who'll attend.  Another option in this arrangement with Health covered, is you can drop in a single Museum instead, reduce its funding to just cover the number of visitors and in time that alone will take your Sims EQ to about 160 which is sufficient to get High Tech demand. See  The 505 Year Education Experiment topic if you are curious.

You might also consider using NKO which makes the game so much less frustrating later on. Using NKO prevents the R$$ and R$$$ Sims from taking over the lower wealth R$ Sims's homes (which otherwise then messes up the workforce balance and that causes the no job zots). With NKO, you are in charge and not the whim of the game.

 

[Cyclone Boom 16,852]

Cori has explained and showed the concept of a profitable village really well above.

 

7 hours ago, Alky said:

... chasing the RCI bars.

I'll just add a word about RCI demand bars and what they represent. These can be considered to be "building permits" of what can potentially be built given the current conditions per zone type. This is based on each individual city tile, and also factors in demand from neighbouring tiles too. It's worth propagating across by saving each tile in sequence so it carries over the effects to the one desired. When looking at the bars, they can be seen as what has greater encouragement to build. However, it's not what needs to be met necessarily, because when there's demand and it doesn't currently mean there's adequate supply.

This is all based on quantity too. For instance, if there's lots of CO$$$ demand and commercial offices could build. But still it needs there to be enough high wealth residents who are available to commute so the offices are sustainable. Also it's not just R$$$ that they employ either, so they need some R$$ as well as R$ too. Otherwise abandonment issues can occur even though they might've initially built based on sufficient demand to begin with. So this way it's all the need to carefully observe changes in the simulation when choosing what to later develop if expanding from a small village once profitable.

It's why for demand mods how they effectively remove the initial criteria, but still there's thought required in zoning to ensure there's plenty of each type. As mayor the choice is to decide what aspects of RCI demand are worth focusing on, then building to the conditions.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

In other words, keep services to a minimum, zone/build only what you need today, and keep taxes high. Also don't be afraid to invest in some toll booths.

[Alky 16]

That's an awesome example, I really appreciate your input.

I have one small issue. As I mentioned in my OP, I haven't played since I got Windoze 10, gotta be 3 or 4 years I guess.  Somewhere in my previous sim life I activated a couple of mods that seem to have stuck with the game even though there's nothing in my plugin folder. I think it's from the extra cheats mod where you use CTRL X.  It seems I've turned on the water and power to blanket the entire city without pipes or power lines just by adding a pump or power source.  Is there any way of undoing the CTRL X cheats short of re-installing?  Thanks.

[CorinaMarie 29,574]

It sounds like you have the Extra Cheats DLL in the Plugins folder of the installation folder. That is a good place for it.

To uninstall it, you just move it to another folder outside of the game directory. However, it does not hurt to have it in there all the time. It's not active unless you issue a command after having typed Ctrl-X to get the cheat box in the game. And commands there are applied and embedded in the save data for some of them. So, the one that makes it so you don't need power and the one so you don't water are one way toggles. Any city tile where those were used will remember that forever. Removing the DLL will not alter those city tiles. And then to top it off, those two cheats are already in the base game and weren't activated by the extra cheats anyhow.

Now, if there is some mod(s)  installed in the other Plugins folder, then removing those should do the job.

[Alky 16]

Ok, I figured it out, after re-installing, practically the whole game is duplicated in the users/<userxxx>/documents/SimCity 4/ folder.  All the plugins are there even though I emptied the game folder plugins, the game still saw them. So I deleted the whole SimCity 4 folder from there and we are starting with a clean canvas!  LOL

I appreciate all the help and now I'm going to try out your scenario. 

[CorinaMarie 29,574]

Sounds good. Keep in mind the Plugins and Regions folders in the Documents are the ones you want to use. Only the two DLLs should go in the Installation Folder's Plugins.

[Cyclone Boom 16,852]

@Alky

Also just a little tip...

For the Extra Cheats DLL and this must be placed directly in either Plugins folder and cannot go inside any subfolders or else it won't load. Probably back in the day the Maxis devs had it inside a development setup where it was called from their root folder, and they didn't add in subfolder capability. I also like having the SC4Fix inside the main installation Plugins because as Cori alluded to, it then gets loaded all the time (even when switching to different sets of custom content).

Very occasionally I find the Extra Cheats doesn't work, and that can be seen when right clicking the cheats box and no list appears. Not sure why that happens occasionally (I'd estimate about 5% of the time), but it usually is fine upon restarting the game.

Good luck experimenting with your village, and let us know how it goes!

[carlosmarcelo 971]

12 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Only the two DLLs should go in the Installation Folder's Plugins.

My dlls are in the personal folder plugins and they work well. 

[CorinaMarie 29,574]

1 minute ago, carlosmarcelo said:

My dlls are in the personal folder plugins and they work well. 

Yes, they will work there too.

However, many peeps (myself included) prefer them in the installation folder's Plugins so they load sooner.

[carlosmarcelo 971]

5 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

However, many peeps (myself included) prefer them in the installation folder's Plugins so they load sooner.

I hadn’t thought about it, it’s an advantage. But as there was no problem so far, I intend to keep it there because this personal folder of plugins is synchronized and "backuped" by google drive. 

[Naomi57 2,985]

On 06/03/2020 at 10:18 AM, CorinaMarie said:

Another option in this arrangement with Health covered, is you can drop in a single Museum instead, reduce its funding to just cover the number of visitors and in time that alone will take your Sims EQ to about 160 which is sufficient to get High Tech demand. See  The 505 Year Education Experiment topic if you are curious.

The 505 Year Education Experiment is quite fascinating, blew my mind the first time I read it.   

Way to go directly from Agriculture based economy to High Tech   ... and it sounds quite doable for a village without any mods.  I haven't tried it myself, but I'm keen to do it one day.  I'm actually thinking to do something like that for some of the poorer parts of Brownsville, as part of my experiments in reducing residential desirability.  Public schools are just too darn desirable to R$$ and R$$$ sims.  I'm still thinking of trying out your NKO, Cori, but turning every other stone first.  

If you want to supplement Cori's Library + Museum unschooling approach, the  Pro-Reading Campaign  in your City Ordinances is a good way to provide a city-wide EQ boost.

On 05/03/2020 at 3:32 PM, Alky said:

I'd like to try and build something on a smaller scale that supports itself, is that even possible? If anyone has suggestions or a link to someone else's successful efforts, I'd be appreciative.

For myself, I don't like money mods (aside from my once-off city-startup loan courtesy of Ctrl+X  moolah ), but I quite frequently install a Federal Prison (using Ctrl+X  you don't deserve it ).  A Federal Prison is a very clean business deal providing §250/month, and the NIMBY is quite compatible with nearby low wealth residential R$, low wealth commercial services C$, manufacturing I-M, dirty industry I-D, and agriculture I-Ag.  The prison even provides some local jobs.  

The Maxis vanilla Missile Range, bringing in §450/month is almost clean, too, the only disadvantage, aside from NIMBY, being that it tends to start fires.  I wonder if if it can start a forest fire?  

The other Maxis vanilla Business Deals have nasty problems associated with them, most particularly the "Police Corruption Effect".   The  Legalize Gambling  ordinance is a good option as long as your population stays small.  The 20% increase in crime is a non-issue in a village where everyone knows each other.  I'm not sure if the Business Deals with "Police Corruption Effect" are similarly harmless with a small population, or if they're worse.

https://strategywiki.org/wiki/SimCity_4/Ordinances
Legalize Gambling
Cost to enact: none
Cost to retract: §20
Monthly income: §100
This ordinance earns you §100 every month, which makes it a great ordinance to enact in early game, where you'll be needing every dollar you can get. The only side effect to it is that it increases crime by 20%, which isn't much of a problem when your city is still small, but might prove to be more troublesome once it has grown.

Here's a couple Business Deal mods that are completely clean, and take the form of tourist services.  I haven't tried them yet, but they're on my shortlist for a pretty little mountain village someday.

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=182
CSXNature - PEG Hunters Cabin (v1.0)
This is a PEGASUS Original with the CSX Twist. This hunters cabin will bring §250.00 per month into your city and is under the Business Deals in the budget. Use this to help small cities that struggle with income.

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=181
CSX Nature - PEG Hotspring (v1.0)
Well sometimes we have some cities that we do not want to build into residential places or commercial hubs, no, we just want to preserve nature and do some nice looking things. However the city is part of the Region and roads and rail and other stuff has to go through there and it costs money. So CSX has decided to release a collection of lots with a Nature theme that will allow your city to make money although it is not really a well managed or functioning city. With these lots you will "make" money from all the tourists that will flock to your city.
... This one will give you $ 250.00 per month and you get it in your Parks Menu and shows in the Business Deal Budget.

A little manufacturing village works, too, from scratch, as long as you skimp and save on the city budget.  Factory workers don't need parks, plazas, or even an education.  In fact, you'll get a more stable low wealth R$ population without those things.  If you don't want to skimp and save, you can bring in a Functional Landmark industry plop, like one of these, and then set up some commercial lots along the road from the residential areas to the local plant.

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3658
SM2 Borden's Dairy Processing Plant
Lot size 8X6
Provides 390 IM jobs
You will find it in your landmark menu.

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3572
SM2 Wind Power Inc. (v2.0)
19X15 and will provide 496 I-M jobs

There are ways to beautify cities on the cheap, without parks, using trees and cosmetic mods for a nature theme.

DISCLAIMER:  I haven't tried the above 4 mods ... as I have a slow uptake of new mods and a peculiar enjoyment of the (almost) vanilla game.

[Naomi57 2,985]

I just remembered this post I did on another thread.  Books are balanced — does this qualify as a little village?  

"Look ma ... no mods!"  

https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/58455-what-constitutes-a-complete-region/?tab=comments#comment-1720804

Population 133.  Much to my surprise, the books are balanced, too, with Monthly Income and Monthly Expenses both coming to §114.  That gave me a rush of pleasure to see that!  
...
The reason that small city tile is complete as far as I'm concerned, is because the real life Kings County in New York actually has no people at all, just a dock and a few other odd installations ... probably abandoned naval works.  I just wanted to zone a wee little bit of residential and commercial so that the Passenger Ferry Terminal would get used.  No schools or hospitals.  The sims catch the ferry for everything they need, which is quite realistic for some bayside communities.
...

[Naomi57 2,985]

If you want to economise on Police protection, a tiny village seriously doesn't need it.

A slightly larger small town benefits from Police protection most in it's commercial area, zoned along the busiest avenue (Main Street), the route most people use to commute to work.  Police protection is highest in close proximity to the police station, and commercial prosperity depends upon low crime levels.

By contrast, manufacturing, dirty industry and agriculture seems to just carry on and do fine despite crime.  In particular, there's almost no point having police protection for large farms, as it's been verified that it's hard for police to catch the criminals on such large lots anyway.  Factories do, however, really need a Small Fire Station, which completely prevents fires inside it's fire protection radius, and fights fires that occur outside that radius.

I've read in several places that a 1x1 Police Kiosk is useless, so if you're going to have any police presence at all, a 2x3 Small Police Station is the go, with your most prosperous commercial buildings clustered around it, and with the factories and farms far enough away so that any tourists on Main Street can't smell the dung and fumes.  

[Alky 16]

Some incredibly good information here folks, thank you.  So far I've had no luck in sustaining a small village but I haven't given up yet.  Thanks again.