Peorth

Maybe you can try running the simulation for a bit and see if anything changes. The worker request agents and extra system might need some time before they start working properly. The whole employment system in SC2013 is explained in great detail at the official site: http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/the-workers-of-simcity

The weak commuting infrastructure in SC2013 is exactly the reason why I make all my cities compartmentalized in terms of jobs and education. Never rely on other cities to provide these two things. In contrast, utilities work as they should so power, sewage processing, water, etc. can readily be shared between cities in a region.

Indeed, I discovered quite early on that balancing demand in SC2013 is an exercise in futility. If you zone R they'll demand C for shopping while C will demand I for freight. If you try to fulfill the shopping needs of your R (no unsatisfied shoppers) you'll need more C which will need more I, which in turn demands more R than can be satisfied by your C. It's essentially a vicious cycle that has no ending. Well, in the end all my cities end up having a shortage of workers because an absurdly small number of Sims work (~10%) relative to the total population. Well, workplaces don't need 100% employment to function anyway so I've become used to ignoring the nagging advisor saying I need more workers.

Nope, it has nothing to do with mods. It has always been present in SC2013 but it only occurs intermittently, and is more of a nuisance than anything else.

Indeed, gambling cities are really the worst crime generators. You'll definitely need precincts for those, whereas other cities will do well with just police stations as long as the population is adequately educated. Since you're making a guideline, the grammar Nazi in me is telling me to give some suggestions: First of all "All mayors must maintain criminal activity" is frankly wrong. To "maintain" means to sustain, and hence it means you want criminal activity to continue. Instead, you should state it this way: "All mayors must control criminal activity" "All mayors must limit criminal activity" Second, you don't "raise" a police force, rather you should maintain an adequate police force.

From what I recall, it happens sometimes when you access the Details tab of the Population panel. I think you can make it appear again by pressing Esc to exit the Population panel and pressing the right mouse button.

Sorry, but can you elaborate more on what you exactly want to do? I also don't understand what you're asking.

I have a few cities where I have 100% attendance but those are the exceptions rather than the rule. Majority don't, with 4 to 4.5 hats as you've described. I've noticed this for a long time now, the incomplete education of a city's students despite low traffic and presence of vacant desks (and as always I attribute it to some bug which seem to abound in SC2013). However I don't regard this phenomenon as "education has gone down the toilet," as originally described by the threadstarter because it isn't severe enough to cripple the city. As long as the education doesn't dip too low, say, 3 hats the industries don't complain of the lack of skilled workers which given long enough causes them to abandon. It would be nice if this bug is fixed though.

I actually use the whole range of schools in my cities except universities, which I only use for a few in a region since unlocks are region-wide anyway. I don't find the upper tech levels relevant for certain specializations and I never use nuclear plants because of the possibility of radiation contamination if a disaster hits the plant. About the second issue, "students flooding your schools robbing your students education" how is this demonstrated while running the simulation? It's kinda counterintuitive how many students coming to school will cause a decrease in education.

I dunno which videos you're referring to but you'll want the highest density buildings (not mid density ones or apartments) because they pack the most sims per area. If you look at Cartwheels' screenshot of his 1.6M city you'll see that practically all the buildings are high-density ones. For employment, it was mentioned earlier than one technique is to zone purely commercial (no industry). However AFAIK that approach is no longer be feasible because an update changed the RCI dynamics so that commercial happiness is linked to receiving freight. Without industry to supply freight commercial will abandon. Personally, I don't care about city population at all. I always create substantial amounts of medium- and high-wealth zones which is more realistic and pleasing to the eye but limits the population (since you pack less sims per area as you go up the wealth brackets).

Pretty much my sentiments. I suppose there are terrible games out there where five minutes is enough to judge them as worthless but SC2013 is far from it. Besides, I don't understand how "the graphics are terrible" unless the thread starter is using an ancient computer that doesn't support the high graphics settings.

Why are there five issues for "The two biggest issues are:"? Kidding aside, I do watch education carefully, particularly the display that shows the number of educated/uneducated students and those waiting at bus stops. I usually run the simulation for a while with that display enabled to see the dynamics of the education process. And like I said earlier, I haven't encountered any serious education-related issues. At the most I've had that nagging message about the lack of skilled workers for a single factory, which didn't disappear despite having good education. A simple bulldoze resolved the issue. I know everyone has different playing styles regarding education. I tend to use grade schools frequently (despite being less "bang-for-buck") because they offer the most buses and I use those buses to scour students off the map. If this is evidence-based I have no idea.

Well, no program takes three days to install so you should have cancelled it earlier and retried the installation. Have you done this?