Census Repository Facility v4.0

[Kel9509 1,363]

Census Repository Facility, version 4.0, as updated by Kel9509
 based on the Census Repository Facility v3.5 by RippleJet
January 2025 
With help from Null 45, CorinaMarie, and Cyclone Boom

Note: After 16 years from the release of RippleJet's Census Repository Facility v3.5 (since October 26, 2008), the Census Repository has been upgraded to take advantage of modern DLL functionality now available for Simcity4. There are also numerous fixes, one of them critical and some others identified by RippleJet himself subsequent to the release of version 3.5, which are now incorporated into the Census Repository query along with some other new features.

For those who have used version 3.5 of the Census Repository, the most critical distinction between that version and this new version is the fixing of an incorrect attribute for Commuters. After a thorough review, Commuters have been identified to exist alongside and within the Vacant Jobs statistics, and the previous Commuter information has been identified as Anticipated Regional Growth (otherwise known as extrapolation). RippleJet had previously incorrectly described this "extrapolation" as Commuters, causing tremendous confusion in a game mechanism that has nothing to do with actual workers moving across city lines, and which function is actually quite simple. A new understandable summary of extrapolation, called Anticipated Regional Growth, is also provided within the Census Repository and in this readme. Finally, the other criticial distinction of this version 4.0 of the Census Repository is the use of DLL mods to complete all missing information from the original query.

This Support Thread highlights key updates of version 4.0 of the Census Repository Facility, as well as providing support to those with questions about anything in the Census Repository.  

See the thread that started this update here.

Download the Census Repository Facility v4.0 here:

You may also find it over at SC4Evermore here: https://www.sc4evermore.com/index.php/downloads/download/21-other/331-kel9509-census-repository-facility

 

Census Repository Query - Expanded and Normal Size
With version 4.0 of the Census Repository Facility, the query has been expanded to provide an additional window for a summary of a city's budget. The new "City Budget Overview" window features tax revenue information from each zone type, as well as a summary of your city's balance sheet showing total RCI tax income, other income, expenses, and net income.

This expanded query is optional and you can decide to use it or instead use the original normal size view. The normal size view also has new tax revenue information for each RCI type overlayed on the existing zone windows, but is not as detailed as the expanded view. Follow the installation instructions carefully. You must manually choose whether you want the expanded view or the normal size view. Only one view can be used at any time, so follow the installation instructions carefully.

The Census Repository's query provides detailed information about the city's residential, commercial and industrial supply or capacity, demand and CAPs. Additional information shown includes:

• Available Vacant Housing
• Total City and Regional Workforce amounts
• The Neutral Tax Rate and each zone type's separate tax rate
• Tax Revenues for each of Residential, Commercial and Industrial zones
• The city's real Educational Quotient, as well as how this affects job demands
• Actual Demand amounts
• Drives - the type of residents that jobs can cater for, or the type of jobs your sims are looking for
• Anticipated Regional Growth, which will help neighboring cities grow once your actively played city grows
• Commuters or Vacant Jobs - the Census Repository can track net commuters to a limited degree, or if there are no commuters it can track vacant jobs that result in unemployment

All of these are important in reviewing and managing a city's growth. By hovering above any piece of information in the query, you will get more explanations than given here.

Census Repository Query - Expanded

:

 

Census Repository Query - Normal Size:

 

More details are included in the Readme file included in the download.  If there are any questions, please post them to this thread and hopefully they can be addressed.

[CahosRahneVeloza 385]

Two questions...

1.) Colossus Addon Mod's I-R Fix (or a full CAM installation) or CAM 2.1.0 Stand Permanent memo exemplar patch, by memo are listed as a Dependency. I take it this only applies to players who play with CAM yes? Meaning as a non-CAM player I won't be needing this dependency?

2. Does the updated Census query part of this pack also work with Cogeo's "Chamber of Commerce and Industry" upload as well? 3.5 did work with it, but will 4.0 will?

I will await your feedback BEFORE I commence installation

[Kel9509 1,363]

2 hours ago, CahosRahneVeloza said:

I take it this only applies to players who play with CAM yes? Meaning as a non-CAM player I won't be needing this dependency?

No, you need it.  The details why are in the Readme.  The vanilla game for some reason excludes agricultural jobs from industry totals.  This results in incorrect capacity counts as well as farm freight not working to lift the IR CAP.  Either the CAM IR fix or memo's exemplar patch will work.  I don't have CAM so I use memo's patch (you'll need his submenu mod and its other DLL dependency for that though). The CAM IR only fix also will work, and I'm told it's not a full CAM installation, and it doesn't require the submenu mod.

This should work with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.  That building doesn't have a query and relies on the Census Repository so it should work with this updated v4.0 as well.

[CahosRahneVeloza 385]

Great!

Thanks man 

I'll definitely update later today then.

[memo 1,445]

Great to see this finished. Thanks your efforts researching and completing this.

Seeing that you refer to the I-R Fix as a dependency, I think you're right that I should probably upload the patch more formally to the STEX. Then CAM and the Census Repository Facility could more easily refer to it as a dependency. My main concern with this is that I'm not quite sure what the impact of installing the patch into an existing region would be – whether the Demand changes are mild enough to be harmless. With CAM, that's never been a concern as installing CAM requires starting a new region anyway.

[Kel9509 1,363]

On 1/14/2025 at 3:04 PM, memo said:

My main concern with this is that I'm not quite sure what the impact of installing the patch into an existing region would be – whether the Demand changes are mild enough to be harmless. With CAM, that's never been a concern as installing CAM requires starting a new region anyway.

In my testing of the new version of the Census Repository, I added your fix and it seemed completely harmless.  Despite the fact that farm exports end up lowering farm caps, the farms will still experience a growing CAP on I-AG as other lots increase.  So unless you're dedicated to building a city of farms alone, or use another farm cap mod, the fix will not make any material difference in the demand caps that exist in the native game.  

I really do view it is a bug-fix that is essential for play.  It makes playing farms slightly easier, but farms still have a significant disadvantage that is intact as intended by Maxis.

@rsc204, I wanted to follow-up on a older post you wrote to me regarding the impact of plopping lots.  This conversation goes way back before the Growify DLL mod was written.  In your post, you noted that with respect to plopping lots:

On 1/15/2024 at 4:00 AM, rsc204 said:

It’s fine provided demand exists when you Plop them. But if it doesn’t, then you get the phantom jobs. I linked to the thread about it in my last post.

Phantom jobs, huh?  Does plopping a lot with jobs REALLY create phantom jobs?  In your prior post, you mentioned:

On 1/14/2024 at 10:56 AM, rsc204 said:

For Res it simply doesn't work, for Com/Ind it's acceptable, provided you have sufficient demand for what you are plopping, but Plopped Ind will not export freight, which can affect the demand Caps since parts of those are linked to freight produced/exported.

And your response linked to an old SC4 Devotion thread that RippleJet started where he discussed the effect of plopping lots that had jobs.  He was using the older version of the Census Repository to describe the impact on demand, and unfortunately he used the incorrect data that he called "Commuters" but that we now know is really Anticipated Regional Demand.  And though he used "Version 2" of the Census Repository, his thinking on Commuters carried its way all the way through version 3.5 that many of us used until very recently.  As a result, his entire analysis is flawed:

Quote

April 02, 2008, 05:03:20 PMLast Edit: May 20, 2010, 08:18:58 AM by RippleJet

Why we should refrain from plopping functional landmarks

...

One month later he gets an annoying call from the Census Repository.
People have started to commute into town from elsewhere, 866 in just one month.
And where are they coming from? There isn't enough workforce in the region to explain the commuters coming to us...

...

Besides, the number of commuters is behaving irrationally...
There are now 1,749 commuters coming into town and 2,236 going out of town.
But the local workforce is still only 142. Are those commuters breeding?

Now, the mayor got a bit nervous... with thousands of commuter going through his town...
Surely the traffic situation must be horrible now, hope I can still be able to cruise around my quiet neighbourhood.

Looking at the traffic report he was perplexed though:

There are no commuters going through his town, the only traffic across the border are a few freight trucks.
There are only 42 workers in the tower with a current capacity of 1,044.

All those commuters that plopping the tower added are imaginary and eternal.
They have exactly the same effect on the demand simulators as the eternal commute circles around city corners.

(note: I deleted some extra paragraphs, but the full post can be read from the links above).

As you can see, RippleJet thought that plopping a building created imaginary workers or commuters, similar to the Eternal Commuter bug.  But in fact, those "commuters" aren't commuters at all.  He was wrong that 866 Commuters from SimNation were coming in, wrong that they were "phantom" commuters like the Eternal Commuter Bug.  In fact, those weren't commuters at all.  Instead, it was the effect of the game creating Anticipated Regional Residential Demand when running time and the "growth" of the plopped building created demand outside of the city. 

So no "phantom" commuters as a result of Plopped lots.  It's merely Anticipated Regional Demand.

Everything else in your post is accurate, though.  Plopped lots do impact existing demand in a city, and demand in a region.  And they can cause vacant jobs to exist, or else actual real commuters will come in from outside the city and take those jobs.  

And with the Growify DLL mod, plopped lots don't have the problems they had before whereby plopped industrial lots' freight exports didn't lower the CAPs.  Since Growify transforms everything into grown lots, it's no longer an issue.  

I wanted to make this post to clear up any misconceptions that readers may have about Plopped Lots.  It's a shame that these misunderstandings have existed for so long, but with the new version of the Census Repository I'm hopeful that more people will be able to play the game to their liking using plopped lots if they like, without worrying that doing so will destroy the simulation entirely.

[rsc204 21,808]

5 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

I wanted to follow-up on a older post you wrote to me regarding the impact of plopping lots.  This conversation goes way back before the Growify DLL mod was written.

For certain that post was talking about Plopping RCI lots without using something like Growifier, whilst the DLL is new, that possibility has existed for a while.

Of course our understanding of the game continues to evolve and it may well be the case that RippleJet's findings were not correct, wouldn't be the first time something like this happened.

5 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

So no "phantom" commuters as a result of Plopped lots.  It's merely Anticipated Regional Demand.

Everything else in your post is accurate, though.  Plopped lots do impact existing demand in a city, and demand in a region.  And they can cause vacant jobs to exist, or else actual real commuters will come in from outside the city and take those jobs.  

And with the Growify DLL mod, plopped lots don't have the problems they had before whereby plopped industrial lots' freight exports didn't lower the CAPs.  Since Growify transforms everything into grown lots, it's no longer an issue.  

I wanted to make this post to clear up any misconceptions that readers may have about Plopped Lots.  It's a shame that these misunderstandings have existed for so long, but with the new version of the Census Repository I'm hopeful that more people will be able to play the game to their liking using plopped lots if they like, without worrying that doing so will destroy the simulation entirely.

Again my comments were not intended to apply to Growify mods, although I do think anyone wanting to do large-scale plopping of cites and keep them functional, should consider some things whilst doing so (regardless of how you achieve such). If you plop a ton of buildings without the demand to sustain them, what is most likely to happen? Perhaps if you can balance them with the underlying simulation, then everything growing will support itself and contribute to further demand/growth accordingly. Consider all the factors that the simulator considers when deciding what building to grow on a given zone. for example the Wealth/EQ sims you will need to support the building you are plopping? When you manually bypass that system, how many players will be catering to the true needs of the city?, what effect will that have on demand?

Sure, Plop away I'm not advocating against doing so, but it strikes me that there would be many pitfalls if this was done with reckless abandon and without some consideration for more than the aesthetics of what goes where. Because creating a large imbalance of the simulator can tank a city if it happens during play, why would the fact the buildings were plopped alter that outcome?

[StevieKam84 46]

Having issue with menu not displaying info with CAM 2.5 version.   Not sure if this a compatibility issue or if I'm missing something.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

10 minutes ago, StevieKam84 said:

Having issue with menu not displaying info with CAM 2.5 version.

I've not tested with CAM, but I can reproduce the error if I remove the required DLL.

SC4 More Demand Info DLL

[Kel9509 1,363]

2 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I've not tested with CAM, but I can reproduce the error if I remove the required DLL.

SC4 More Demand Info DLL

Yup.  Looks like the required DLL isn't installed.

[StevieKam84 46]

Correct, my error trying to make a CAM plugin folder and a Non-CAM folder.  More Demand Info DLL forgot to jump over  - thank you for your quick assistance and mod!

[memo 1,445]

On 1/24/2025 at 4:42 AM, Kel9509 said:

I really do view it is a bug-fix that is essential for play.  It makes playing farms slightly easier, but farms still have a significant disadvantage that is intact as intended by Maxis.

I've finally uploaded the I-R Fix to the STEX, as you've proposed, in order to make this bug-fix more accessible to players without CAM. I've renamed the file, but it's still identical to the previously floated file.

 

[Simaka 0]

Nice and helpful!

(This post is an edit for a problem that is solved now).

[greenOak 25]

Having trouble with the buildings showing up as brown boxes. The installation page says the .model has been moved into "BSC MEGA Props MISC Vol03.dat". I installed the linked dependencies but the closest version of that file I have is "\Plugins\BSC\BSCProps\BSC MEGA Props MISC Vol03 v3.dat". I've tried renaming the file (removing the v3) but I still get brown boxes. Any help would be appreciated.

[Kel9509 1,363]

15 hours ago, greenOak said:

Having trouble with the buildings showing up as brown boxes. The installation page says the .model has been moved into "BSC MEGA Props MISC Vol03.dat". I installed the linked dependencies but the closest version of that file I have is "\Plugins\BSC\BSCProps\BSC MEGA Props MISC Vol03 v3.dat". I've tried renaming the file (removing the v3) but I still get brown boxes. Any help would be appreciated.

Try reinstalling the BSC common dependencies pack.  Download the SC4D LEX Legacy - BSC Common Dependencies Pack, and run the cleanitol to remove any older versions.  Then re-install it.  The model file should be there.

[greenOak 25]

6 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Try reinstalling the BSC common dependencies pack.  Download the SC4D LEX Legacy - BSC Common Dependencies Pack, and run the cleanitol to remove any older versions.  Then re-install it.  The model file should be there.

Thanks, there was an older version still kicking around in my plugins folder. Got it working now. 

[galadriel69 1]

Hey folks,

I'm coming back to SimCity 4 after quite some time and am struggling to get a basic set of core mods set up.  I'm running into what is probably a very basic problem with the census repository facility mod.  I've got the GOG version of SimCity 4, and I'm using SC4Pac (with the attached mod set) to manage my mods.  

With census repository, I can't see any query information.  I'm able to install the mod just fine, I'm able to plop the facility lot from the government submenu just fine, but when I query the facility, I get a sound effect but no query UI.  I installed census repository's the expanded version, which should display info in the city budget window, but my city budget window also appears vanilla.

At least some of my other mods work just fine.  I see all the NAM assets, the autosave feature appears active, the game uses the resolution specified in SC4GraphicsOptions.ini, etc.  I originally got into this rabbit hole to validate that I installed CAM correctly.  Since census repository is clearly not functioning correctly, I'm worried CAM isn't either.

Any pointers you have would be very appreciated!

my-modset.sc4pac.json

[Kel9509 1,363]

55 minutes ago, galadriel69 said:

Any pointers you have would be very appreciated!

What do you mean when you say you don't have a query UI?  Nothing pops up?  You might be missing the required Query file.  Did you use the Java installer to install it properly, or did you manually open it with an archive program?  Try using the java installer.  It should install a file into a subfolder of your Plugins\Kel9509 folder called "Census_Repository_Query_and_Essentials_v4.0-Expanded_Size.dat".  If you're using the Extended Query, then when you click on the Census Repository Vault building, or the Census Repository Facility building, the query should pop up.  This mod does not edit the native city budget window itself, the expanded query does however show some new budget information after clicking on the building.

If you see the query itself but the values are blank, you are probably missing the required SC4 More Demand Info DLL mod.  Try installing that if you're missing that in your plugins.  Only install the DLL from that mod, not the older fix for the older census repository (not sure if that's included in the SC4Pac version of that download).

[galadriel69 1]

20 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Nothing pops up?  You might be missing the required Query file.  Did you use the Java installer to install it properly, or did you manually open it with an archive program?  Try using the java installer.  It should install a file into a subfolder of your Plugins\Kel9509 folder called "Census_Repository_Query_and_Essentials_v4.0-Expanded_Size.dat".  If you're using the Extended Query, then when you click on the Census Repository Vault building, or the Census Repository Facility building, the query should pop up.  This mod does not edit the native city budget window itself, the expanded query does however show some new budget information after clicking on the building.

Thanks so much for your advice!  Really appreciate it.

What I quoted is exactly what's happening.  With the query tool active, when I click the census repo building, a sound effect plays but no UI appears. 

I used the SC4Pac application to install census-repository, and SC4Pac placed a file at Plugins\640-government\kel9509.census-repository.expanded-low.4.0.0-2.sc4pac\!Census Repository Query___CHOOSE ONE - SEE README!\-Census_Repository_Query_v4.0-Expanded_Size\Census_Repository_Query_and_Essentials_v4.0-Expanded_Size.dat.  It's the only file in that directory.  It seems like the equivalent of the file you mentioned derived from running the Java installer.

Also, I do have SC4MoreDemandInfo.dll at the root of my Plugins directory.

Maybe I will try installing census-repository with the Java installer rather than SC4Pac and see if that helps.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

2 minutes ago, galadriel69 said:

Plugins\640-government\kel9509.census-repository.expanded-low.4.0.0-2.sc4pac\!Census Repository Query___CHOOSE ONE - SEE README!\-Census_Repository_Query_v4.0-Expanded_Size\Census_Repository_Query_and_Essentials_v4.0-Expanded_Size.dat

That location along with your user name and documents folder might exceed the Windoze path length? (Or is that still a thing?)

Just for funsies, could you move the .dat file up into the 640-government folder and test?

[galadriel69 1]

4 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

That location along with your user name and documents folder might exceed the Windoze path length? (Or is that still a thing?)

Just for funsies, could you move the .dat file up into the 640-government folder and test?

Oh my god...this fixed it.  Genius.  Thank you so much!  

I'll see about writing into SC4Pac about changing the path.  I can't be the only one hitting this.

[Kel9509 1,363]

7 minutes ago, galadriel69 said:

 

I'll see about writing into SC4Pac about changing the path.  I can't be the only one hitting this.

I didn't even know that on SC4Evermore, the Census Repository was updated for sc4pac.  It's not available that way here, for some reason.  I'm  not a sc4pac user yet so I didn't know about the long filepath.  I agree it probably should be fixed though.  Not sure who did it or who to ask, though.

Glad it's working for you though.  

[Ulisse Wolf 4,412]

46 minutes ago, galadriel69 said:

I used the SC4Pac application to install census-repository, and SC4Pac placed a file at Plugins\640-government\kel9509.census-repository.expanded-low.4.0.0-2.sc4pac\!Census Repository Query___CHOOSE ONE - SEE README!\-Census_Repository_Query_v4.0-Expanded_Size\Census_Repository_Query_and_Essentials_v4.0-Expanded_Size.dat.  It's the only file in that directory.  It seems like the equivalent of the file you mentioned derived from running the Java installer.

I examined your JSON file and null-45:startup-performance-optimization-dll  is missing.

This critical mod for SC4 is also a prerequisite for SC4pac, as indicated in the download description.

• Install null-45:startup-performance-optimization-dll if you use the Windows digital edition of the game. (This adds support for plugin file paths exceeding the 260 character limit on Windows, which could otherwise be a problem for a small number of packages that use deeply-nested, long file names.)

Be sure to install the missing DLL Mod and restore the download to its original conditions, as a metadata update is planned to fix conflicts related to the no DLL version.

25 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

I agree it probably should be fixed though

This cannot be fixed as it requires a change to how the package is distributed. The metadata indicates which files should be installed, but the program installs the selected files and folders anyway.

The metadata is available here.

https://github.com/SC4Evermore/sc4pac-channel/blob/main/src/yaml/Kel9509/census-repository-facility-v40.yaml

25 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

It's not available that way here

Previously, it was possible to automatically link SC4E downloads that also had STEX links, but after some changes on the STEX side, this is no longer possible, and as a result, many STEX downloads have lost the button.

There is a discussion about this issue.

https://github.com/sebamarynissen/simtropolis-channel/issues/280

[Null 45 3,041]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

That location along with your user name and documents folder might exceed the Windoze path length? (Or is that still a thing?)

That path limit is still a thing on Windows, although Microsoft has been relaxing it in recent years there are still a lot of areas of the OS that have the 260 character path limit (e.g. Windows Explorer). They also won't change the OS to let all applications use longer paths for backwards compatibility concerns. The above path snippet uses 234 characters of the 260 character limit. As @Ulisse Wolf mentioned, my Startup Performance Optimization DLL fixes that problem and is a required dependency for sc4pac when using the Windows digital release.

I wonder if it is feasible for sc4pac to check for that issue on Windows after it finishes installing packages and warn the user, @galadriel69 likely isn't the only sc4pac user that overlooked the part of sc4psc's description that mentions the Startup Performance Optimization DLL is a required dependency. The problem wouldn't always be immediately obvious in-game, and even when it is most users wouldn't know that it was due to the game failing to load plugins that are visibly present in the plugin folders. I only discovered the file path length issue by accident when testing some logging code in the Startup Performance Optimization DLL.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,412]

One thing I can do is put a warning in the Census Repository Facility 4.0 metadata saying to install Startup Performance Optimization DLL, but I think @memo might have a better idea for this issue.

[Null 45 3,041]

1 minute ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

but I think @memo might have a better idea for this issue.

I am writing a post in the sc4pac development and support thread with my warning suggestion and links back to this thread.