On Education in SC4: A Detailed Deep Dive with Simulation Data and Recommended Modification

[xBlaze89x 68]

Hi All and welcome to my symposium on Education within SimCity 4!

We will be covering what drives the education level (or education quotient, EQ) of our sims and its effects on Industrial and Commercial demand (the Workforce Drives). This will also require us to have a look into the residential simulator.

Once the mechanisms are established, I will explain the effects of the settings within the base game and present my modifications. These modifications have not been made into a package at this time, but if the community enjoys the results of the modifications I will make it available with a little help.

Let's get Started

What is the Point of an Education Anyway?

As what is generally observed in the real world, the purpose of education within SC4 is to give sims the opportunity to work in higher paying, cleaner, safer, and more engaging work. Or, to look at it from the view of an employer, the purpose of education is to provide a workforce qualified for the jobs available. (Of course, education has many other benefits in real life, but this is as far as the game goes)

So, how is this accomplished in SC4? Well it is all to do with the Workforce Drives! 

The Workforce Drives exemplars are how SC4 generates Industrial and Commercial demand. There is a detailed posting by RippleJet on SC4 Devotion, link here: https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=963.0

Here is my Workforce Drives table (slightly modified from CAM1.0 settings to get my preferred mix):

	Occupation:	CO$$$	CO$$	CS$$$	CS$$	CS$	I-HT	I-M	I-D	I-R
Wealth	Education
R$$$	150-200	70%	10%	35%			25%	10%
	100-150	60%	30%	30%	5%		15%	10%
	50-100	30%	52%	23%	15%			22%	8%
	0-50	22%	60%	10%	23%	10%		15%	15%	16%
R$$	150-200	45%	15%	10%	30%		30%	20%
	100-150	22%	38%		40%		15%	35%
	50-100	10%	40%		30%	10%		50%	15%	16%
	0-50		30%		25%	20%		55%	30%	160%
R$	150-200	22%	53%		15%	23%	22%	15%
	100-150		22%		10%	30%		53%	40%	16%
	50-100		5%		10%	40%		40%	65%	160%
	0-50					50%			115%	1600%

 

From the table, we can see what type of occupation a sim seeks out is determined by their wealth level (R$, R$$, R$$$), and their education quotient (EQ) (0-200) which is chunked into 4 groups. An EQ of 0-50 is EQ1, 50-100 is EQ2, 100-150 is EQ3, 150-200 is EQ4. Uneducated sims (EQ1) seek out I-D and CS$ jobs. As they become more educated and reach higher EQs, they soon demand I-M and CS$$ jobs, followed by I-HT, CO$$, CO$$$ jobs when they reach the higher EQ ranges. 

As city planners, if we want to control the demand for the various industrial and commercial occupations, our primary tool is to influence the education quotient of our sims.

So, How Does Education Work?

There are two main factors driving the education quotient of our Sims. There is the Residential Simulator, which controls how the sims education quotient changes throughout their lifetime, as well as their starting values. Then there are the ploppable educational buildings.

First, let's talk about the Residential Simulator. This primarily drives education, health and life expectancy, the chance of education and medical strikes, mayor ratings for health and education, etc. We will stick to just the factors that effect our sim's EQ.

Residential Simulator education properties

			hex	decimal
Average age reset value			0x28	40
EQ Decay			n/a	0.2
EQ Reset percent			n/a	80
low wealth EQ			0x14	20
medium wealth EQ			0x28	40
High wealth EQ			0x3C	60
low wealth average age			0x19	25
medium wealth average age			0x1E	30
high wealth average age			0x23	35

R$ sims start out in life at age 25 with an EQ of 20. R$$ sims age 30 EQ 40, R$$$ sims age 35 EQ 60. This applies to all newly moved in sims. If some sims move out, and new sims move in, these will be their values. So, what is Average age reset value? Well, when a sim reaches average life expectancy, they are reincarnated! That's right, when the sims living in a residential building reach life expectancy, their age is reset to 40. Furthermore EQ reset percent, 80, means that 80% of the sim's EQ is retained when they are reincarnated. This has some major implications which we will discuss later when we move on to the educational buildings. The remaining variable of significance is EQ Decay, 0.2. This is a decay of 0.2/month, 2.4 per year, 24 per decade,  applied to all sims. When we get to the library building this will be important.

Testing Environment

Before we get into the buildings, I'll describe the simulation parameters. Welcome to the town of Education Test! (creative name, I know)

Education Test is a sleepy little town with a fair balance of industry and commerce that can support a residential population of 3,500 with plenty of excess jobs available. Power, water, and refuse services have been provided as well as police and fire coverage. Taxes have been adjusted to discourage all but R$ sims from moving in (A key to proper analysis is to reduce or eliminate as many variables as possible). There are no traffic problems in Education Test. The residential zoning has been sized to fit within the catchment area of the small elementary school. A census facility has been provided for data collation and collection. The town is profitable once the supported population moves in.

We start the simulation by plopping our educational buildings in the town square and clicking cheetah speed, running for ~100 years for each test. It takes <5 years for all the sims to move in and from there the population remains stable. 

Let's have a look at the results:

Educational Building Properties

Elementary (Primary) School

elementary school			Effectivenes
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
300	24	384	5	5	0.5	0	0	0	0	500
		EQxEffect	120	120	12	0	0	0	0

The Elementary school "Educates young Sims." If by young we mean ages 20-40. I suppose that's fair though considering age 20-30 is the youngest cohort, despite what the population graphs show. Anyway here are the results. I will discuss below.

When our new sims move in at age 25, the Elementary school immediately goes to work educating them, and it does a mighty fine job. Within 16 years their educational attainment has peaked at an average of 145. Looking at the map, there are many residences that have reached above 150, putting them at EQ4- these sims could go on to work in I-HT at Andrews Semiconductor, Max's Microchips, or even a nuclear power plant. In fact, they demand it! However that won't last too long. As they lose EQ at a rate of 2.4/year they will soon find themselves in EQ 3, then 2, then 1...

So, we ran this test for a 100 years, where is the 2nd generation? Well, they're here, but they don't get educated at elementary school. Remember, sims are reincarnated at age 40, with 80% of their knowledge (EQ) retained. If you look closely at around 75 years, you can see a small dip in the chart, that's when the reincarnation happens and the sims lose 20%. In a stable population where sims are not moving in and out, an Elementary school only works once. It has no effect on subsequent generations as they are aged out of the school's age effectiveness brackets. Maybe you've noticed it yourself, elementary schools in old neighborhoods of a city have few or no students. This age 40 reincarnation is why.

Library

library			Effectivenes
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
250	0.3	512	30	30	30	30	30	25	20	30000
		EQxEffect	9	9	9	9	9	7.5	6

The Library "Keeps adult Sims from forgetting their education. EQ Decay sucks 2.4 EQ from our sims per year. The library has a very small EQ boost x Effectiveness at 9 for most age brackets, and this is 9 spread over 10 years, or 0.9 per year. Thus a library will reduce EQ Decay from 2.4/year to 1.5/year, a 37.5% reduction. Since the library on its own cannot overcome EQ Decay, I have run the simulation with an Elementary school and a library. Let's have a look:

As with the Elementary School, it took 16 years to reach peak EQ. The library contributed 0.9 per year, adding 14.4 EQ over those 16 years. Thus, the census shows us an average EQ of 160, 15 points higher than the Elementary School result. Furthermore, as the decay is reduced for every age cohort, we can observe the slope of the EQ chart is not as steep. We peak at 160 and drop to ~85 as the first generation is reaching their life expectancy, vs. 145 to 20 for the school alone. That's a loss of 125 reduced to 75. Not bad for $12 a month.

High (Secondary) School

High School			Effectivenes
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
650	24	512	0	0.5	5	2.5	0	0	0	750
		EQxEffect	0	12	120	60	0	0	0

The High School "Educates teen Sims." We can see the age brackets are "higher" than that of the Elementary School, with the peak effectiveness centered at age 40. Interesting.

Looks like EQ peaked at 159, that's a bit higher than the 145 the Elementary School provided. When did it peak? 33 years. But wait, there's a factor going on here that's more exciting. The chart rebounds at 75 years when the 2nd generation begins. What is the saying? Life begins at 40? Anyways, since the High School primarily educates the age 40 bracket, it is actually effective as a multi-generational institution, unlike the poor Elementary School. However, the second generation's peak is lower than that of the first. Well, let's add a library and see what happens.

That's better.

Museum

Museum			Effectivenes
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
450	40	5800	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.75	1.5	3	900
		EQxEffect	12	12	12	12	30	60	120

Hmmm, so the Museum EQxEffect is only 12 for ages 20-60, but EQ decay for 10 years is 24. What to do? Yep, this test will need the be run with a library. Ah, and the museum has quite a strong EQxEffect on  the elderly, I wonder how that will go?

WOW. Bet you weren't expecting that. Simply a museum and a library turned our sims into certified geniuses! Furthermore, they reach their peak EQ at end of life, meaning the next generation retains 80% of a very high EQ. Furthermore, the sims remain in EQ4 from one generation to the next; no change in industry or commercial demand. The coverage area of the museum is 5800 m, that's bigger than a large tile! All of that for $58+ $12 = $70 a month. It only took 70 years... 

College

City college			Effectivenes
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
1000	24	5800	0	0.5	1.5	5	2.5	0.5	0	7000
		EQxEffect	0	12	36	120	60	12	0

The College "Educates young adult Sims". Age is just a number, right? 50 is young. Like the museum, the college coverage radius is 5800, covering an entire large tile. Let's get to the results.

Lowest cost yet for 3,500 sims at $40, and our sims became rocket scientists after 30 years, with EQ peaking at 184 after 40 years. Without a library to help maintain that EQ, our sims did dip to EQ3 later in life, but the next generation came roaring back. Not much else to say here. 

I won't cover the large Elementary School and large High School. They have the same stats as their base schools, but with extended catchment areas and greater capacities. I also won't be covering the rewards educational buildings University, Major Art Museum, Main Branch Library, Opera House, Private School.

Thoughts on this Educational System

Whelp. As we can see, practically every educational institution provided will turn an uneducated sim into a certified genius. That's great if our goal is to get to High tech and High Wealth commercial offices as quickly as possible. Furthermore, this process can even be sped up by overlapping the services of multiple educational buildings. If that is your goal, the information above can help you achieve the highest EQ faster, or for less cost, or help you to maintain it between generations.

As for myself, I'm looking for a bit more out of the game's educational system. I view the system shipped with the game as far too easy. As mayor, I would like to be able to tailor my city to focus on dirty industry and low wealth commercial services, or manufacturing industry and mid-level offices, or high tech industry and high wealth commercial offices. As hinted in the topic title, I have achieved that through mods. Stay tuned for the next post which will cover that topic.

P.S. if you like the educational data map used in the posting, you can find it here: 

 

[Ulisse Wolf 4,426]

Quick question. Are you using Vanilla or CAM or SPAM ? In the case of CAM which version are you using?

[xBlaze89x 68]

I'm using CAM 1.0

[xBlaze89x 68]

Okay, on to Modifications

The target is to achieve a balanced educational system that gives greater ability to control the level of education reached by our sims. Additionally, there is a desire to have the system better align with education in the real world. Lastly, it should inspire the use of the full suite of educational institutions provided, to enhance the challenge and the fun. 

First, let's take a look at the 

Residential Simulator education properties

			old values		new values
			hex	decimal	hex	decimal
Average age reset value			0x28	40	0x19	25
EQ Decay			n/a	0.2	n/a	0.1
EQ Reset percent			n/a	80	n/a	20
low wealth EQ			0x14	20	0x14	20
medium wealth EQ			0x28	40	0x28	40
High wealth EQ			0x3C	60	0x3C	60
low wealth average age			0x19	25	0x19	25
medium wealth average age			0x1E	30	0x1E	30
high wealth average age			0x23	35	0x23	35

Let's get this out of the way first. The reincarnation system was likely designed with the idea of creating stability from one generation to the next, but it is highly flawed. After one generation in a no growth city, the average age of the populace permanently shifts from age ~40 to ~60. Even in a growing city, established neighborhoods experience the same effect. While this sort of effect can be seen to an extent in certain cities in real life, it is not to the level experienced in game. If I were in the room when the game designers made this decision, I would advocate for a different approach. Rather than dealing with sims passing on with the reincarnation mechanism, simply move in new sims to take their place. In most cases, I believe that's how it works in reality, no? How many people go on to inherit and live in their family homes vs. moving into vacancies at young age? 

Since we cannot change the base code of the game and only have the parameters to tinker with, we can do the next best thing. The average age reset value has been modified to age 25, the same age as when the low wealth new sims move in to newly built properties. But how to deal with the inherited knowledge of these young reincarnated sims? Well there is not a perfect solution available. If we leave this value at 80%, then the subsequent generation will receive a massive head start in EQ and be at EQ4 in no time, if they weren't already. However, if the value is set too low, the reincarnated sims will be handicapped vs. newly moved in residents. I settled on an EQ Reset of 20%. This means if a sim reaches life expectancy at EQ100, they will be reset to EQ20, so they will have the same age and EQ as a newly moved in R$ sim. If they have a lower EQ at end of life, the next generation will have a small penalty they need to overcome, likely meaning the educational system in the city needs an upgrade. If they an EQ higher than 100 when they reach old age, that will actual provide a boost to the next generation. Since EQ200 is the max, the next generation could start off with an EQ as high as 40. Cities with robust educational systems will have an easier time maintaining high EQs, but not nearly as easy as it was in the base game settings. 

(I did play around with the idea of all new and reincarnated sims starting at EQ0, but the simulations didn't prove too promising. I think it could work with more tweaking though.)

What impact do these changes have?

The main thing is that the Primary (Elementary) education school works the same for each generation, not only the first. Every generation will go through the same cycle of beginning at a low EQ and learning as they age through each educational institution. Is there a catch or a downside? Yes. When a neighborhood all reaches life expectancy around the same time, there will be an 80% drop in EQ, and it will take 25-40 years to return back to the same EQ through educating the young sims that replace them. There are ways to mitigate or eliminate this issue though, which I will discuss at the end of the post. (Some may not even see it as an issue, as it raises how dynamic a city is with shifting job demands. Also, established businesses in the game are quite sticky. Demand can drop quite a bit without businesses moving out. EX. tax on dirty industry can be raised to 15% and demand for I-D can be -6000, yet the established I-D will almost never move out unless they are forcibly removed by bulldozers)

There is still EQ Decay to discuss. The game sets this to 0.2 per month, meaning in 20 years sims lose 48 EQ if they're not being actively educated. 20 years drops a 197EQ (EQ4) sim to 149 (EQ3). Over the course of a 40 year career, the sims drop two entire EQ levels. Let us think of the four EQ levels as corresponding with educational levels in real life. EQ1 (0-50) is no Primary education. EQ2 (50-100) is Primary (Elementary) education. EQ3 (100-150) is Primary (Elementary) and Secondary (High School) education. EQ4 (150-200) is Primary (Elementary), Secondary (High School), and Tertiary (College) education. So if a sim achieves a college level education, after 40 years they have dropped to an elementary level. That seems excessive. I have halved this value from 0.2 to 0.1, so in 40 years they will drop 48 EQ or one education level. 

Educational Building Properties

Onto the institutions that educate our sims. In the base settings, primary, secondary, and tertiary educational buildings all achieve a peak EQ near to or over 150, the EQ4 threshold. We have just discussed that this level should correspond to graduating from all three education levels. Ideally, each primary, secondary, and tertiary school should raise EQ 60 points, just a bit more than the minimum for 1 EQ level. 

Elementary (Primary) School

Base Stats

elementary school			Effectiveness
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
300	24	384	5	5	0.5	0	0	0	0	500
		EQxEffect	120	120	12	0	0	0	0

New Stats

elementary school			Effectiveness
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
300	8.5	384	5	5	1.1	0	0	0	0	500
		EQxEffect	42.5	42.5	9.35	0	0	0	0

The EQ boost has been lowered to achieve a target EQ of 60. The effectiveness for the age 40 bracket was about doubled to stall the effects of EQ decay until after that age.

Results

High (Secondary) School

Base Stats

High School			Effectiveness
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
650	24	512	0	0.5	5	2.5	0	0	0	750
		EQxEffect	0	12	120	60	0	0	0

New Stats

High School			Effectiveness
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
650	8	512	0	2.5	5	0.5	0	0	0	750
		EQxEffect	0	20	40	4	0	0	0

The EQ boost has been lowered to achieve a target EQ of 60. The effectiveness for the age 30 and age 50 bracket have been swapped to move the EQ effect earlier in life and allow EQ decay to take effect sooner.

Results

College

Base Stats

City college			Effectiveness
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
1000	24	5800	0	0.5	1.5	5	2.5	0.5	0	7000
		EQxEffect	0	12	36	120	60	12	0

New Stats

City college			Effectiveness
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
1000	8	5800	0	0.5	1.5	5	2.5	0.5	0	7000
		EQxEffect	0	4	12	40	20	4	0

The EQ boost has been lowered to attempt to achieve a target EQ of 60. 56 is close enough, right?

Results

Library

            

Base Stats

library
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
250	0.3	512	30	30	30	30	30	25	20	30000
			9	9	9	9	9	7.5	6

New Stats

library			Effectiveness
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
250	0.1	512	15	15	15	60	60	30	15	30000
		EQxEffect	1.5	1.5	1.5	6	6	3	1.5

 

Park Effect	60 over 30 tiles
Landmark Effect	20 over 15 tiles

Since EQ Decay was reduced from 0.2 per month to 0.1, it follows that we should reduce the power of the library, lest it become too effective. I still want it to slow EQ decay, not eliminate it, although it is marginally more effective than the base library for ages 50 and 60 when considering the 50% reduction in EQ decay. Also, originally it enhanced the elementary and High Schools a bit too much, so I reduced the age weights for ages 20, 30, and 40. It only provides a small boost now. Finally, I gave the library the same landmark and park effects as a Medium Park Green. In real life libraries attract residents. 

Museum

Base Stats 

Museum
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
450	40	5800	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.75	1.5	3	900
			12	12	12	12	30	60	120

New Stats

Museum			Effectiveness
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
250	1	512	1	1	1	1	2	3.5	3.5	900
		EQxEffect	1	1	1	1	2	3.5	3.5

 

Park Effect	25 over 25 tiles
Landmark Effect	60 over 15 tiles

Okay, it was obvious from the base museum results that this building was too overpowered, so I nerfed it. Rather than the museum covering the whole map, it has the same coverage area as that of the library. In the base version, it took uneducated elderly sims and turned them in EQ4 geniuses. Now, the building is only slightly more effective than the library on the age 70 and age 80 cohorts. How to compensate for such a loss of power? Well, I lowered the cost to match the library, and since the radius is also reduced to that of the library, it costs a similar amount to fund, between $20 and $40 a month for 3,500 sims. I also gave the museum the same landmark and park effects as a Medium Plaza. In real life, museums are often used to draw demand to an area.

Effective use of the modified Educated System

Now that each educational primary, secondary, and tertiary institution contributes a bit more than one EQ level to a sims knowledge, we have great control over what final EQ level our sims achieve. An Elementary (Primary) School will achieve an EQ level of 2 (50-100) prior to EQ Decay. Adding a High (secondary) School will achieve an EQ level of 3 (100-150). The addition of a college will achieve an EQ level of 4 (150-200). Libraries and museums will slightly boost the target EQ level and delay the effect of EQ Decay, so sims will stay at or near the target EQ level until much later in life. Let's take a look at the performance of standard combinations of schools.

Elementary (Primary) School, High (Secondary) School, Library and Museum

Sims reach EQ level 3 (100-150) at around 20 years and maintain it for the duration of their lifetime. Without the library and museum, they would drop to EQ level 2 (50-100) some time before their death.

Elementary (Primary) School, High (Secondary) School, College, Library and Museum

Sims achieve EQ level 4 (150-200) and maintain it throughout their lifetimes. Without the library and museum, they might drop to EQ level 3 (100-150) some time before their death.

Okay, but what about the Massive EQ drop experienced at Death?? That can't be good!

Well, as mentioned earlier in the post, there is a way to mitigate this problem. When developing the city, the city planner should ensure that there is a healthy mix of ages within each school's neighborhood. The following example was made using an Elementary (Primary) school, High (Secondary) School, and a library. Smoothing was achieved by filling the neighborhood within the school's radius in 1/3 increments. At 0 years the entire neighborhood was allowed to grow. At 13 years 1/3rd of the neighborhood moved out (via bulldozer) and new sims were allowed to move in. Again at 26 years, a different 1/3rd of the neighborhood moved out and new sims were allowed to move in. This rather cruel method is not the only choice, there are more humane ways to achieve similar results if desired. In most cases, since cities are grown and developed over time, there is likely a healthy mix if ages present already and this micro-management won't be necessary. However, if viewing the Education chart is showing massive swings, we know what to do. 

Elementary (Primary) School, High (Secondary) School,  Library smoothed

[Ulisse Wolf 4,426]

20 hours ago, xBlaze89x said:

I'm using CAM 1.0

CAM 1.0 is considered obsolete.

CAM 2.1 has completely overhauled the education system resulting in a change in the workforce. 

I suggest you consult the documentation of CAM 2.1

https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=17318.0

[xBlaze89x 68]

I reviewed the changes to the residential simulator included in CAM 2.1, the SC4devotion forum concerning it and the CAM 2.1 manual. CAM 2.1 does not address or fix the findings I have presented.

There are no modifications to the education buildings in CAM2.1 that I found in the .DAT files included, and the modifications to the residential simulator concerning education are only that low wealth sims start with an EQ of 10, medium wealth start with an EQ of 15, and high wealth start with an EQ of 20 (vs 20, 40, and 60 for the base game). That won't address the reincarnation issue that obsoletes elementary schools, and it will only lower the peak education reached for each school with the base settings by 10 for low wealth sims in the first generation, a minimal impact. It will have no effect on subsequent generations.

[matias93 7,535]

6 hours ago, xBlaze89x said:

Okay, but what about the Massive EQ drop experienced at Death?? That can't be good!

Well, as mentioned earlier in the post, there is a way to mitigate this problem. When developing the city, the city planner should ensure that there is a healthy mix of ages within each school's neighborhood.

Great investigative thread all around.

But I want to stop here, because what you did was enhancing a great feature of the simulation: this sort of drop actually happens, not only in educational levels, but in all kinds of accumulated resources, when neighbourhoods age and their inhabitants start dying without being effectively replaced by new generations. In many places, for example, the adult children of the older residents don't stay but get their own houses elsewhere, and their parents supplement their pension incomes with rent, which starts a cycle of population replacement, because when they die, their children usually keep renting those houses, or even sell them, generally to the renters themselves: that people, obviously, don't inherit the accumulated wealth of those families, and most precisely, don't benefit from their investments on educating the next generations, so the effect is actually a sort of demographic reset.

Now, it would be great to have the option to modulate this reset effect by wealth level, because this is more marked in low wealth neighbourhoods, but from what you describe, this doesn't seem to be possible. What should be possible, though, would be to offer a handful of variations of this settings, like how the NAM traffic controller does, to let the players choose how much inheritable the education in their cities should be.

[Brad 343]

wow, what an awesome study. now i feel educated. still need to read past the 1st post.

[xBlaze89x 68]

19 hours ago, matias93 said:

But I want to stop here, because what you did was enhancing a great feature of the simulation: this sort of drop actually happens, not only in educational levels, but in all kinds of accumulated resources, when neighbourhoods age and their inhabitants start dying without being effectively replaced by new generations.

Yes, you're absolutely correct.

 

19 hours ago, matias93 said:

What should be possible, though, would be to offer a handful of variations of this settings, like how the NAM traffic controller does, to let the players choose how much inheritable the education in their cities should be.

An excellent suggestion.

[Brad 343]

there is a lot of info here. I didn't realize there wasn't any children. I don't run cities for 100's of years, so I may be confusing myself with the interesting info.

let me see if I have this correct. question- do mods affect this or do they mainly just change the looks of the school buildings? based on all this info-

if we build a normal school system <grade school and high school> with a library and museum, we'll actually over-educate the citizens and have no workers for the factories in about 100 years? libraries don't teach. so using PEGS kindergarten day care school that acts as a library will keep the people happy but also keep them dumbed down to work the fields and low grade factories. whereas if we build a city with a college and the others, everyone will b too educated and rich. but the mid level shops and factories will close down in about 100 years? assuming that all building radiuses cover the entire map.

on a full map not just building 1 region, the citizens that move in at the start and build mansions will all move away from the rural sections and small towns to the metro city regions where there are more education buildings?  in which case, all the shops and offices will close down and move as well. how long, 10 or 25 years?

building a school system too early will bring in upper class citizens and we will have less room for lower grade workers to move in. so there will be less for the farms and factories to hire.

 

basically the game isn't designed for the cities to function like in real life but to go from 1 extreme to another constantly. whereas a city will function with a mixture of different class people, SC4 is geared toward making everyone rich and smart.

 

did I confuse everyone else?

 

 

[xBlaze89x 68]

1 hour ago, Brad said:

let me see if I have this correct. question- do mods affect this or do they mainly just change the looks of the school buildings? based on all this info-

Difficult to answer, it depends on what the modder did. Would have to analyze the mod files with Ilive's reader or similar.

1 hour ago, Brad said:

if we build a normal school system <grade school and high school> with a library and museum, we'll actually over-educate the citizens and have no workers for the factories in about 100 years? libraries don't teach. so using PEGS kindergarten day care school that acts as a library will keep the people happy but also keep them dumbed down to work the fields and low grade factories. whereas if we build a city with a college and the others, everyone will b too educated and rich. 

The sims will become over-educated, but they will work in what jobs are available. However, the demand for dirty industry, manufacturing industry, and low wealth commercial services will wither while demand for high tech industry and high wealth commercial offices will grow. In most cases the factories and commercial buildings will upgrade accordingly -although- dirty industrial areas won't upgrade to high tech industry because high tech industry hates pollution. 

The consequences to the player are that if you want to develop more dirty industry or manufacturing industry, low wealth commercial services, you won't be able to because the sims living in the city don't want those jobs anymore.

1 hour ago, Brad said:

  in which case, all the shops and offices will close down and move as well. how long, 10 or 25 years?

You may experience abandonment of certain job sectors to an extent due to the shift in demand, although sectors such as dirty industry tend to be quite robust and somewhat immune to this.

1 hour ago, Brad said:

basically the game isn't designed for the cities to function like in real life but to go from 1 extreme to another constantly. whereas a city will function with a mixture of different class people, SC4 is geared toward making everyone rich and smart.

Yes, with the education buildings in place and covering all residential areas, after 25 or so years all the demand will have shifted to high tech industry and medium and high wealth commercial services and offices. None of the lower and mid tier services and industry will grow in the city any longer. Demand can be attempted to be altered to an extent with taxes, but if the sims demand 0 manufacturing industry for example, lowering that tax rate to zero won't make any more manufacturing industry show up. 

This shift in demand tends to make the game more difficult as sims get more educated as well, as high wealth commercial and high tech industry are more sensitive to desirability factors and thus more prone to abandonment. Example: a crime is committed close to an area these businesses exist, they may move out. That won't happen with the lower tier businesses.

We can look at the census data for one of the high EQ outcomes I posted above:

We can see that the demand for dirty industry and manufacturing industry are both negative; no more of these industry types will grow unless we destroy the schools to bring the EQ back down, even if we zone for more of them in the existing industrial areas. However, the existing industries of 1,992 ID and 454 IM aren't moving out. We can also see no high tech industry and no High wealth commercial offices are growing in my city, even though there is demand for it. This is due to the available existing zonings are in areas undesirable to them (due to pollution). However my sims are not moving out of their houses, they continue to work in the jobs they are now over-qualified for.

 

None of this is really a problem per se,  you can match your play style to how the game works. However, if you want to have the control to develop a manufacturing focused city, which requires some education but not too much, you really can't do that without adding education buildings to raise the sims EQ, then deleting them before the EQ gets too high, and so on. The goal with my mod is to fix that and have maintainable education levels across the range of EQ, to better match real life and make the game more interesting in my opinion.

[xBlaze89x 68]

Oh, another thing to note is that the sums of the demand table are greater for the low EQ sims than the high EQ sims. This means it is somewhat easier to get (the low tier) businesses to grow while the sims are uneducated. It will become more difficult when they reach high EQ due to the demand table and due to the more difficult to achieve desirability factors for high wealth businesses.

[Jasoncw 11,933]

I'd like to second Matias.

This issue is extremely common in the US. New suburbs are built all at once, and are built to attract families. So most of the neighborhood will be families with school aged children. Then as time passes, the neighborhood ages in sync, creating demographic waves. Where I grew up is a suburb where there were a few blocks here and there of houses from before WW2, but most of the city was built in the 1950s and 1960s. When I was a student in the 90s and early 2000s, the schools were building additions because there were wasn't enough space (while there were certainly less students than when the suburbs were built, we no longer have 40 kids per classroom), and in the last 10 or so years some schools have been closed because there aren't enough kids. If you look at the dates, when my family moved in was when the first generation of families got old and moved/died, so my generation was the second wave, and when we graduated there was a lull. Maybe by the next wave, the demographics will have evened out enough that the student population will have stabilized, but it's taken a long time.

 

My only other comment (other than good work!) is that for the museum, I think having a very large, generally city-wide radius would be ideal. Schools have radiuses because in most countries, schools are considered to be neighborhood features. Both for the practical reasons of kids needing to be able to walk/bus there, but also for the social/community reasons. Private schools, magnet schools, and specialized schools, could have larger radiuses. Libraries in the game have radiuses because those are neighborhood branch libraries, which exist to serve the immediate neighborhood, and aren't of interest to anyone outside of it. This is in contrast to the main/central library, which has programming and resources that serve the entire city. Museums are attractions that people travel to, and not things which only serve the immediate neighborhood, so museums should have very large radiuses. A person who lives 5 minutes from a museum and 20 minutes from a museum benefit equally, because both are equally able to make the occasional visit to see an exhibit. A museum being built in each neighborhood doesn't mean that everyone has one local museum they can go to, it means that everyone in the city has many museums they are able to visit. A library being built in each neighborhood does still mean that everyone has one local library they can go to, because even though the city has many branch libraries which you could hypothetically go to, there's not reason to go to any of them other than your own.

[xBlaze89x 68]

7 minutes ago, Jasoncw said:

My only other comment (other than good work!) is that for the museum, I think having a very large, generally city-wide radius would be ideal. 

 

8 minutes ago, Jasoncw said:

Museums are attractions that people travel to, and not things which only serve the immediate neighborhood, so museums should have very large radiuses. A person who lives 5 minutes from a museum and 20 minutes from a museum benefit equally, because both are equally able to make the occasional visit to see an exhibit. 

That's fair. Truthfully I decreased the radius of the museum because in my 100,000 population city its capacity of 900 was already overwhelmed. Decreasing the radius was a way to limit the number of visitors. I could increase the capacity instead to solve the issue. Another factor to consider will be the monthly budget cost. I'll play around with it.

[xBlaze89x 68]

Introducing the beta release of what I'm calling the Education Realism Mod (ERM)

Education Realism Mod (ERM)(BETA).zip

The mod been thoroughly tested in the above test city and has also been running for several days in another 100,000 pop city trouble-free.

The civic buildings match the modifications in the above post, except for the museum, which has been modified to have the same radius and capacity as that of the college per @Jasoncw's feedback.

Museum			Effectiveness
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
250	1	5800	1	1	1	1	2	3.5	3.5	7000
		EQxEffect	1	1	1	1	2	3.5	3.5

The folder consists of the modified civic buildings in ERM_Base_Buildings.dat and 8 versions of the modified residential simulator. There are four versions with differing levels of inherited knowledge as detailed below:

ERM_Residential Simulator_20.dat - EQ Reset percent = 20

ERM_Residential Simulator_40.dat - EQ Reset percent = 40

ERM_Residential Simulator_60.dat - EQ Reset percent = 60

ERM_Residential Simulator_80.dat - EQ Reset percent = 80

Thanks @matias93 for the feedback .

Choose to install only one of the residential simulators based on the response curve you prefer. There are also CAM 2.1 compatible copies of each simulator choice that are fully tested with CAM 2.1 installed. If you have CAM 2.1 installed you should use one of these, as there is another property within the residential simulator modified by CAM 2.1, the Life expectancy to workforce % curve, which the CAM 2.1 compatible versions preserve. The files should be placed in the Plugins folder below CAM 2.1

Also, it must be noted that in existing cities, the educational buildings that will be modified by this pack should be deleted before installing this mod, to be re-plopped after installation (I've heard if this procedure is not followed it may cause the "phantom slider bug")

If you have any questions or feedback after install please reply to this thread.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

@xBlaze89x

This is absolutely brilliant! I wish I'd been around to comment while you were active.

[trar 336]

Phenomenal work. If there were ever an update to this I'd suggest looking at the More Realistic Radius mod and seeing if the education building radii from there are compatible/desirable for this mod.

[Hoses850 2]

This mod is fantastic but it doesn't work with any of the radius mods I've tried (both radius doubler and more realistic radius). Is there any way to get larger radius' while using this mod that anyone knows of?

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

On 8/13/2025 at 4:38 PM, Hoses850 said:

Is there any way to get larger radius' while using this mod that anyone knows of?

Yes. (And the reason they don't work together is because whichever loads last overwrites the other one.)

So, edit in Reader and increase the School Coverage Radius in each exemplar in the ERM_Base_Buildings.dat file to match the number in the radius mod you prefer.

Do we know if the doubler and realistic-er mods also increase the capacity? Seem likely they would, so you'd want to make those match your preferred radii mod too.

Here's a peek at just that radius entry in one of the exemplars:

 

Be certain you don't change any of the monthly costs when editing or you might create a Phantom Slider Bug. (Yes, it would be easy to fix now with @Null 45's DLL, but I prefer to never create the bug in the first place.)

  Edited Saturday at 05:32 PM by CorinaMarie  
Restored Image

[Ulisse Wolf 4,426]

3 hours ago, Hoses850 said:

This mod is fantastic but it doesn't work with any of the radius mods I've tried (both radius doubler and more realistic radius). Is there any way to get larger radius' while using this mod that anyone knows of?

Or you can use CAM, which contains this mod and an improved radius for school buildings.

[Hoses850 2]

15 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Yes. (And the reason they don't work together is because whichever loads last overwrites the other one.)

So, edit in Reader and increase the School Coverage Radius in each exemplar in the ERM_Base_Buildings.dat file to match the number in the radius mod you prefer.

Do we know if the doubler and realistic-er mods also increase the capacity? Seem likely they would, so you'd want to make those match your preferred radii mod too.

Here's a peek at just that radius entry in one of the exemplars:

 

Be certain you don't change any of the monthly costs when editing or you might create a Phantom Slider Bug. (Yes, it would be easy to fix now with @Null 45's DLL, but I prefer to never create the bug in the first place.)

My problem is that I'm on a Mac so I can't use the reader! Do you have an updated .dat file you could give me?

[Hoses850 2]

13 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

Or you can use CAM, which contains this mod and an improved radius for school buildings.

I use CAM 2.1 on a Mac. Are you saying it's like "double dipping" to use that and this mod together? The way I understood it was that this mod was designed to work with CAM, but still modified it's educational system.

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

12 minutes ago, Hoses850 said:

Do you have an updated .dat file you could give me?

I could modify the file for you, yes. I would need know which radius mod to mimic so I can see what settings they alter. However, I have a feeling you'll be better off with @Ulisse Wolf's suggestion since that'll already be tweaked for CAM.

And I'll let them answer your question about it since I'm not actively playing the game atm and also I hadn't gotten around to CAM when I did play.

[Hoses850 2]

2 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

I could modify the file for you, yes. I would need know which radius mod to mimic so I can see what settings they alter. However, I have a feeling you'll be better off with @Ulisse Wolf's suggestion since that'll already be tweaked for CAM.

And I'll let them answer your question about it since I'm not actively playing the game atm and also I hadn't gotten around to CAM when I did play.

That would be awesome just to give it a try along with CAM since this mod does have a residential simulator designed to work with CAM. I was trying to mimic the radius' of the more realistic radius mod. Thanks so much for responding so quickly!

[Hoses850 2]

In my test cities I'm not getting the "rebound" effect where a second generation comes in and raises the EQ again. Also the elementary school alone is only getting me to about 35 EQ instead of 60. Anyone else experiencing this? I'm using the Residential Simulator 20 CAM 2.1.

[Kel9509 1,475]

I think it's a mistake for this mod to be added ad-hoc to New Properties, especially without further explanation.  Essentially, New Properties.xml has been edited to reflect the lower-valued educational buildings based on the revisions discussed above.  However, the resulting RCI edits are not available to anyone who runs a vanilla game.  That means if you ever create a new educational building using the current New Properties, but are running a vanilla game, your educational buildings will be much lower-powered and will stall your education whereas the Maxis buildings will continue to support education.  That seems very counterproductive.

I understand the need for these values to be in New Properties so that CAM Lotters can create CAM educational buildings, but the Education Realism Mod is not as widely distributed as New Properties and Vanilla gamers will lose out.   There should be some consideration for those who continue to run vanilla games and for BATters to not essentially create buildings that unknowingly require another mod.

[Kel9509 1,475]

I am (reluctantly) considering installing this Educational Mod in my existing region.  The reason I'm considering it is that it is very easy to get a high EQ in cities with just some basic schools and libraries.  I almost never need to plop a college or university, for instance.  So I'd like some realism in Education.  That said:

1. I'd have to bulldoze all of my existing schools, including private schools.

2. I'd have to run all custom schools through PIM-X to get the same characteristics.

3. I don't want it to mess up my region, even assuming I can bulldoze everything and fix it in PIM-X and then re-plop it again.

Does anyone have any experience in using this mod, outside of CAM?

[Kel9509 1,475]

Sorry to once again bump this very old thread, but I've finally taken the plunge and re-caculated all of my downloaded educational buildings to the new values in New Properties.  I will install the Residential simulator in my game and bulldoze and re-plop all existing educational buildings.  However, I notice that @xBlaze89x's mod includes most, but not all, Maxis educational buildings.  

It is missing the following:

• Opera House
• University
• Main City Library
• Major Art Museum

I would like to update his mod to patch those Maxis buildings without overwriting the original (need to look into how to make a patch via iLives reader instead of editing the values directly). - although maybe I'll leave the Opera House alone since there are other mods that affect it.  Once I do that, I'd like to upload a final version of this mod for Vanilla players if that's ok.  @xBlaze89x has not visited here since September 2023, but since New Properties in PIM-X now basically requires this mod for anyone who wants to download newer educational buildings, I think this mod needs to be posted to the STEX somehow.  

EDIT: Well that was easy.  Made a patch for the reward buildings (still not sure if I should include the Opera House or not) and it can easily be added to the ERM linked above (the attachment survived the website deletion somehow).  Will wait for others to weigh-in, though.

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

20 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

Sorry to once again bump this very old thread, ...

No apology needed. This is an excellent example of why CB and I discontinued that old no bumping policy. Now it is allowed and even encouraged when it's the right thing to go.  

Btw, I'll just follow along to see what the experts have to say for how to accomplish your goal.

[Kel9509 1,475]

4 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Btw, I'll just follow along to see what the experts have to say for how to accomplish your goal.

Thanks! 

What I want to do is to create a version of the Educational Realism Mod for anyone who is not running a CAM game, of which there are a TON of people.  But I also still want users of the ERM to be able to download new or updated educational buildings made with PIM-X, so they're not cut off from modern BATting.  They'd still need to go through their downloads and fix older custom educational buildings as I did, but this is all designed to make things easier for people in the future.  

(Although I note, by the way, that there are very few downloads that actually use these stats. Even the Mattb325 collections on SC4Evermore by @Tyberius06 do not yet have these stats applied to the educational buildings there.  I only first saw them applied to the SimGoober collection.)

Opera House

I did some review and the Opera House doesn't seem to have been affected at all by edits to its EQ stats in New Properties (NP).  It has the same EQ effect across all ages and so can probably be removed from this mod.  There are some slight tweaks to the Opera House's properties in NP - like # of "students", radius, the costs, and its query and the addition at my request of Catalog Capacity - though none of those affect EQ per se.  So I think I'll drop the Opera House from this mod.

Private Schools

Next are Private Schools.  The normal base game treats them as both an Elementary School (for Age 20) and a High School (Age 40), as well as a Junior College (Age 50), with a better EQ boost as well.  As @xBlaze89x noted, the base school EQ is 24 for both Elementary and High Schools.  But for Private Schools, the base EQ is 30 - probably because it's got resources a public school doesn't have.  Following the charts above, a Private School has the following stats:

Base Stats

Private School			Effectiveness
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
0	30	512	5	5	5	2.5	0	0	0	1000
		EQxEffect	150	150	150	75	0	0	0

But the current version of New Properties (v3.5+) treats Private Schools with the same EQ boost as a public high school.  No more boost for being rich, I guess.  Also, while they still have EQ effects for Age 50 (the Junior College sort), there is no more education for Age 20 elementary students, and very few of Age 30:

Current New Properties v3.5+ Stats (based on 0.5 fill ratio - relevant only for cost, radius and capacity)

Private School			Effectiveness
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
2320	8	552	0	0.5	5	2.5	0	0	0	1000
		EQxEffect	0	4	40	20	0	0	0

By comparison, here's xBlaze89's revised High School stats again:

High School			Effectiveness
cost	EQ boost	radius	age 20	age 30	age 40	age 50	age 60	age 70	age 80	capacity
650	8	512	0	2.5	5	0.5	0	0	0	750
		EQxEffect	0	20	40	4	0	0	0

So, basically, I'm wondering if this is "correct" or ok, or am I thinking too hard about this?  Is it "correct" that Private Schools do not have a slightly better EQ than public schools (maybe make it 9 or 10 instead of 8)?  Is it correct that instead of educating both Elementary and High School residents, a Private School now educates mostly High School and some Junior College students?  Or should a Private School do it all?  Elementary (Age 20) through Junior College (Age 50) - and with a slight EQ boost as well?  @Ulisse Wolf since you did some of these edits for New Properties and CAM, I wonder what you think?