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your population screen actually shows you the total number of available jobs as well, so if you have just a few jobs left, you won't see them in the percentages, but you will see them there. Also, once you're in the higher population it doesn't matter that much, just try to keep unemployment between 2-5 percent for each class of workers and you'll be fine

wooded park area does work towards "enviroment satisfaction", it doesn't "remove" polution however

Hey all, In a number of threads I've read remarks about "non-linear population growth", i.e., one house takes more citizens when there are more houses.... This got me wondering... First of all, is this actually true? (Never assume people on the internet are right ) Secondly, if it is true, why? What's the point? For all the complaints about lack of realism here, I would imagine this is one of the biggest reality-breakers! I mean, how does a 1 family home all of a sudden take a dozen families? (and yes, I realise in some parts of the world this does happen, that's not really the type of sim this is, I thought) And what about traffic? My 6 buidling low density residential zone has some roads around it, which work for the 6 families living there... I doubt they would work as well for 60 families. And then, there's the issue of population density... let's take a look at the numbers for a well-known large city, which happens to have some high-density buildings Area - City 468.9 sq mi (1,214.4 km2) - Land 304.8 sq mi (789.4 km2) - Water 165.6 sq mi (428.8 km2) - Urban 3,352.6 sq mi (8,683.2 km2) - Metro 6,720 sq mi (17,405 km2) Elevation 33 ft (10 m) Population (July 1, 2008)[1] - City 8,363,710 - Density 27,440/sq mi (10,606/km2) - Urban 18,223,567 - Metro 19,006,798 - Demonym New Yorker Hmmmm... 8mill+ pop, 1200 square km.... CXL maps are 10x10 km, or 100 square km... and the biggest beta city had 16+ mill pop..., that's twice as much pop, with 1/12th of the available land (assuming you terraform your whole map flat) In NY, there's 10,606 people per square km. Translate that density to CXL, and you'd have a city with, wait for it, 1 million citizens. My largest city currently has 1.1 million... and half the map is still mountain. So, it's already a much denser populated city than NY.... No wonder I have traffic problems! Bottom line here is simple: Why did they choose to "fake" large cities, in a game called "Cities XL", no less...? The only reason I can think off is "challenge", by limiting the amount of land available, it becomes harder to build an efficient city. If you have a 1000 square km map, you don't need to get into any trouble with polution, traffic or space in general for a looooong time. But to me, that seems a really, really silly way to force "challenge". For instance, they could've provided much bigger maps (let's say 30x30km, 900 square km) and then made distance matter more (so if you place your industry 40km from your residential zones, they'd be far less efficient, unless you have a high-capacity, high-speed road connecting them). I'm sure there's a load more ways to still provide a fun challenge. Another way I'd like to see is the option to acquire more land once your city is a certain size. For instance, upon reaching 500k pop, you get an option to "expand land", allowing you to buy extra land added on the side of the map. The higher your pop, the more you can buy! Anyway, yeah, I'd really like to know if this "exponential growth" is indeed in place in CXL. And if so, I'd love to hear from MC why they chose to do this, and why no-one said "but wait, this is supposed to be a reallistic city building game... isn't the population density one of the most important defining factors for a city?!", or if someone did, why the rest of the company didn't say "OMG how could we've missed that!'

I think it's also important to get the right type of retail for the type of worker, this might be causing your problems...

Originally posted by: Androv I just assume that there are more suburbs off the map area which are contributing to population quote> Heh... that's actually quite a good idea! Now if they'd let met play those sub-urbs

Originally posted by: mentarman I just don't think the players would respond well to that. "I filled up my whole map! Woohoo!" "Yeah? What's your pop?" "I got to 150,000, yeah baby!" quote> Apologies for selectively quoting from your post, but I have 2 good reasons for it First of all, I agree with the rest of your post Secondly, this quote illustrates exactly what I;m trying to point out... apparently it is about the "artificial high score". If a city with 150000 doesn't satisfy someone, but the exact same city with a 0 added to the pop number does, it's not about realism, gameplay or system limitations, it's about people wanting "big numbers" (which to me seems a bit shallow...)

As someone else explained above, parks don't remove polution, they "compensate" for it. So, the red cloud doesn't get smaller, but citizens loose less satisfaction to it when there are parks in the area.

Originally posted by: Vorret Wow... seriously it seems like you read and understand what you want to understand. How can you create a realistic city if the population growth isn't realistic? He put. in detailed, the worse possible exemple of density yet the game is 3 times worse how is that even close to reality? Especially since as far as I know, we're not building poor cities, it's *rich* cities. He's not saying it's not "possible" but it just does NOT make sense.quote> I was starting to think I'd gone crazy, but apparently my point was clear Thanks!

Originally posted by: gyzzzmo Nobody here is holding you from building a realistic city, i dont know why you blame the game. Also your list about 'lack of realism' is incorrect. Cities in real life also exchange workers, zones for wealth is realistic, (MT? whats that?, leisure IS government funded. avatar looks is a graphics choise, location on planet does (kinda) matter and the road upgrades are realistic. And also if you're realistic city growth with a game's city builder growth...... A city in real life does not get designed by 1 person from scratch, and that person does not have hundreds of years to control and continue that growth like in the game. But i think that if some architect had unlimited funds and has to design a city for huge amounts of people on a tiny area, it would be possible to make a city with alot of high-rises and facilities to keep them happy. Maybe even by using megastructures like in Simcity 2, but building those isnt that much fun in a game, wich is also why Maxis didnt implement those buildings in the newer simcities.quote> That´s not entirely true, because if I have a city of, say, 500000, apparently my "1 family houses" allready hold substantially more than one family... (also, I don't "blame" the game, I'm just wondering why a certain choice has been made) And my list about "lack of realism" was a list of complaints from other people, that I've read here on the forums. And yes I agree most are incorrect, that was sort of the point And yes, once again I agree, there are a lot of other things that aren't realistic. Most concessions are made in favor of gameplay, which is good. This one concession I don't understand though, which is why I started this thread And, again, yes. That's most likely possible. However, it's not how cities are built in the real world now. And eventhough the whole concept of "building" a city as we do in this game is unrealistic, I got the impression from most of the game that the intention is to end up with cities that could exist in present-day reality. Of course, I could be completely wrong there, in which case my point is pointless

It's true that Dhaka isn't full of skyscrapers, though they do have some... but that's part of the point indeed. If we look at cities around the world, the ones with high population density are almost exclusively in third-world countries. Yes, NYC has loads of skyscrapers... but the population density is MUCH lower. Aparently, given any sort of choice, people avoid population densities that high... Conclusion (again ): The population density associated with a "succesful" city in CXL isn't realistic. As I said before, I'm sure it's theoretically possible to fit that many people in an area, however the infrastructure needed would be impossible and no-one would want to live like that. Now, since I can find no apparent reason why the game should not use "realistic" population densities and the game has to actually cheat to reach the population densities we have now... I can't help but wonder... Why? And that's really all I have to say about this It's not a very big deal to me, it just puzzles me. And what puzzles me even more is that apparently no-one else cares I've seen complaints about "lack of realism" relating to: trading workers, zoning for wealth, lack of MT, government involvement in leisure activities, the looks of the avatars, location on planet not mattering, the way roads are upgraded and many other subjects... However the fact that the size and shape of a building apparently bear no relation to how many people can live in there doesn't seem to annoy anyone but me /puzzled

Originally posted by: mentarman SimCity 4 was similarly unrealistic in populations in buildings. I don't know that it was nonlinear as you are saying CXL may be, but the populations weren't at all realistic. I think it's just a tradeoff such games make so that players can feel like they made a "real" big city when games at this point just aren't capable of actually duplicating the complexity and size of a real city. Ironically this realistic feeling of making a big city is done through unrealistic numbers for populating buildings..quote> And that's exactly what I think is weird... why not just make the map much bigger, or even have population numbers closer to "reallity"? Why do all cities have to have millions of citizens on 10x10 km? All this does, to me, is make the number of citizens a sort of arbitrary "high score", rather than an indication of the size of my city... What gives me a sense of size of a city, is the amount and size of buildings, and the size of the land... not some number that increases following some formula designed to "cheat" you into thinking you have a big city

Originally posted by: Partydude67 Your forgetting something about this game obviously.The people in the city aren't the only ones who make up the traffic in the city,its the tourists,other people stoping at your city,people who come to your city for work like industry or the offices.Freight also makes up your traffic,so that could be realistic.People coming from the next door city,from the link of the city.Also one small density could hold dozens of people like you said,thats how some cities are in reality.Oh and just because the population density isn't like New York,it doesn't mean it has to be the same.One residential high rise skyscraper could hold thousands of people,one resdidential medium household could hold hundreds of people,and low residential household could hold like tens or dozens of people.Ive seen in reality in cities with more than 20 people in one household.So cities xl could possibly be realistic like reality.I consider it to be much more realisic than any other city simulation game.Hope this could of helped.=)quote> I'm sorry but I have no idea what you mean...

Originally posted by: Okeanos I'm not starting a discussion about the pros or cons of the way citizens are implemented in citiesXL. But I want to give some informations on how it is working internally. Maybe it is easier to understand the hole concept. CitiesXL is using something you might call a "citizen unit". It is the base unit which is used for the "size" of a city. And it is also used in the demand calculations and within the economy in terms of required amount of workers. So you may call it more appropriatly "worker unit". I give you an example: T1 (Tier 1) industry buildings (heavy industry) requires 2 units of unqualified workers. Other buildings and other building sizes have different requirements in type (unqualified, qualified, executives, elites) and amounts. But they are always the same, in cities with a population of 1.000 or a population of 1.000.000. A T1 residence for unqualified workers have a capacity of 1 unit. Therefore you need 2 buildings. T2 residences have a capacity of 2 und T3 a capacity of 5 units. The total amount of citizen units within the city is the true city size indicator and it is linear. And it is also the base for the needs-table. The core problem is how many citizens do you want to put in a residence. 1, 4, 10? And if you do that, do you really want to force the player to build 10 Mio. buildings with 1 or 1 Mio. with 10 or even 100.000 with 100 to get a population of 10 Mio? The "simplyfication" to have a fixed/linear "citizen unit" which scales up the population count in larger cities is quite brilliant. And it simplyfies the requirements for buildings with workers greatly. The needs table stops at 40.000 citizen units. This should be something around 28 Mio. or so, I'm not sure. Hope this helps a bit ... -Okeanosquote> Thanks, that clears some things up I guess. Still doesn't change the fact that apparently, a house which holds, say, 16 people at one point can magically hold much more later though (I could maybe understand that a bit if the building actually changed), which I think is really strange. Effectively, if what you say is correct, you would have to look at the number of citizens per worker unit at close to 0 pop and then divide your population by that number to get a realistic population... What I don't get here is that in a game where realism is important, and it's all about creating "lifelike" cities, am I really the only who's put off by the fact that as your city grows, more and more and more people stuff themselves in houses that were full just a minute ago?(up to the point where your economy colapses because no new workers can move in to the existing building... unless you build a new building next to it, then all of a sudden more people fit in the old building...) Also, for me it ruins the realism of things like traffic, enviroment, services etc. as well... Especially traffic. Real cities' populations aren't so much limited by the amount of housing you can build, but rather by the infrastructure around it. Sure, I can build a whole city full of skyscrapers as high as I can, and stuff those as full of people as I can... that's all fine, if they never leave their house. But they will. They won't get very far though... Which is why I don't get that if the number of people in my HD zones increases as the total pop increases, but the roads don't get bigger, why don't the clog up completely after a while? I've had roads in residential zones that were orange at 200k pop, and are still orange at 1 mill pop.... without any changes to the infrastructure. But, aparently a lot more people are now living in that zone... I guess they can fly! That, or the road's capacity magically changes with pop as well... Bottom line: If I build a two-story, four bedroom house, that will hold 1 family. It might, in times of need, hold 2. But to assume that that same house will hold, say, 10 families at some point (in a stable, profitable city...) is silly.

I'm using windows 7 (ultimate), I

Originally posted by: gyzzzmo Sounds you're doing more a Dhaka promotion than adding anythign to the discussion since you cant compare a High-rise city in Cities XL with your Dhaka, that has few Highrises that are in the game.quote> Excuse me for asking, but what's your point exactly? Dhaka is the most densely populated city in the world. It is not even close to being as densely populated as an average "big" city in CXL. Conclusion, densely populated cities in CXL are not reallistic, as there are no such cities, or even anything close to it, in the real world. And no, there's no highrises in Dhaka that are in-game... so? Are there anywhere else? Nope... Also, I think you fail to see the significance of the most densely populated city in the world (and most of the top of the list, for that matter) actually being in a third-world country. Finally, it's not "my" Dhaka, rather, "my" city is The Hague, for which I also specified the details in a previous post

And, even more interesting facts! My own city, The Hague (The Netherlands), currently has a population close to 500.000. The area? About 100 square km just like the maps in CXL (though without the mountains...) I can assure you, we have pollution issues, trafic issues, even housing issues... and it's quite crowded I'm sure the population will grow the next few years... but to say I could imagine 5 or 10 million people living here... or even 15+ million? Uhm... the whole country only has about 17 million (incidentally, if someone from MC is reading this and thinks "but the maps are 50km * 50km!, what's his problem!", please post! )

I don't think, I know... You obviously think, since you are mistaken Also, as I pointed out, it's the most densely populated city in the world... (not biggest, not most populated, but most densely populated) you think they got to that point with straw huts? I know, "Bangladesh" doesn't really make you think "skyscrapers" instantly, but although most of the country is rather poor and there's a lot of rural and underdeveloped area's, Dhaka is an international Megacity and probably a lot more developped than you'd expect... a quote from Wiki: "Modern Dhaka is the center of political, cultural and economic life in Bangladesh.[4] Although its urban infrastructure is the most developed in the country, Dhaka suffers from urban problems such as pollution, congestion, and lack of adequate services due to the rising population. In recent decades, Dhaka has seen modernization of transport, communications and public works. The city is attracting large foreign investments and greater volumes of commerce and trade. It is also experiencing an increasing influx of people from across the nation." Funny thing is, reading that it reminds me a lot of Cities XL, except for the part that a city with twice the population density in CXL doesn't even have half the issues

Trade credit tokens "represent" your cashflow, where 1 token is 100c. Eacht "turn" (the white/red stopwatch in the middle of the screen indicates turns) your cashflow is added to your cash reserves. The cost of a trade is deducted from your cashflow, so you pay the price each turn. Example: you have 8000 cashflow and 1000000 cash, each turn you get 8000, so a turn later you have 1008000. Then, you accept a contract to buy 1 electricity token for 40 credit tokens. Now, you're cashflow will be 8000-(100*40)=4000. So the next turn, you'll get 4000 and have 1012000... (except of course for the fact that the extra ele token enables your city to operate better, increasing your income, creating jobs, etc. )

Another interesting fact: Dhaka, Bangladesh, is the most densely populated city in the world. It has a population of 7.000.940 on 153 square km. If a CXL map is indeed 10x10 km, that would mean that a similar city in CXL would have a population of 4.575.777... So what the game wants us to believe is that it's possible to have a city with a population density about 3 times the highest currently on earth, and that city could be a nice place to live, with ok traffic and air pollution, services, etc. Sure

I'll give that a try and post results... I did see a post where someone had tried it and found it does increase, but of course I can't verify his findings It really puzzles me why they'd do this though... i just can't imagine they'd think it's a good solution. I'm no reality freak, at all... but if what looks like an apartmentbuilding for 16 people houses 160 or something, even I start to think "hmmm, now that's not very reallistic..." And yeah... acquiring more land for your city would seem to be a very good way of extending longevity for the game.... Right now, once your city is one big grid full of high-density buildings, that's it... nothing more to do. I think the option to gain more land (at a high financial cost, either purchase fee or " rent") could drastically improve this game: you could choose to build a big city "quick and dirty" (fill the starting area as much as you can) or you can take your time, earn lots of cash, buy more land and then expand... you could have a 20 mill pop city with NO high density residential zones, for instance. Prestige would not only come from Cashflow, Pop or Budget, but Size and Population density as well....

Peak-times will be "after dinner" during weekdays (7ish till 10-11) and of course, weekends! If you want to have a fair estimate of the max number of users online, check during these times...

Originally posted by: tonymustang302 Originally posted by: Abmet I try to maintain a 5% unemployed to qualified and unqualified workers but it didn’t make any difference to my silos still getting bankrupt/emoticons/15.gif" alt="" ' alt='15.gif" alt="" '>. Forgot to say that the silos indicators are all green except the profit that is orange and because of that are constantly getting bankrupt. quote> I fixed that problem with my silos by placing a small avenue as close as possible to increase freight...never had that problem since. quote> Gonna have to give that a try, I've had the exact same problem with silos

Originally posted by: gabry85 Originally posted by: Ilikeseattle They closed the demo because they needed the server space for the paid for Planet Offer. It makes perfect sense to do so.quote> Dude, keep in mind this: Nobody will ever buy a game if they can't try it for free, especially in this crisis. Unless of course they got money to dump somewhere, go ahead. I've seen many people supporting this game because they like it or they want to try it and I'm perfectly fine with that. But, honestly, everyone makes mistakes, even... well... Monte Cristo (oh, the heresy!). Give me a break! You always sound like "It's all fine. Just relax. It has potential. There's nothing wr--" Hang on a sec... where did I hear this before? quote> "Dude, keep in mind this: Nobody will ever buy a game if they can't try it for free, especially in this crisis." Dude, keep this in mind: Nobody will ever be able to make a sweeping generalisation like this without it being rubbish, except for this one. I bought the game, without trying it... in this crisis, no less! So, you're wrong. And since there was no room for nuance in your statement, you're not just a bit off mark, you're about as wrong as you can be ... I'm glad you're "fine" with people supporting this game because they like it or they want to try it though. Really, that's very noble of you! (don't take all of this to seriously, just having a bit of lighthearted fun here... all these "oh noes teh world will end!" posts work on my funny bone)

Originally posted by: deanco Originally posted by: Overkast I haven't bought the game yet, and reading all of these issues is really discouraging to me now. I think the game looks fantastic and I really and truly want to get the game. But MC is really pissing me off on a variety of levels because they're getting so much of the equation all wrong. It seems like every action they've made for this game is centered completely around how much extra cash they can squeeze out of an audience. Don't they even realize they're marketing to a specific niche audience such as the Simtropolis community – who are a collection of insightful, dedicated city-building enthusiasts who have taken countless hours, blood, sweat, and tears of their own time to expand functionality of a game like SC4? I think MC is completely insulting it's own audience by releasing an incomplete product and trying to buy themselves more time and funding to finish the game through the current PO model. And their extreme measures to segregate against single-players is so morally wrong its... well... opressive. And in the middle of a global recession on top of it!!! The irony to me is that in trying to build a sustainable cash-flow gimmick in the PO model, MC is doing quite the opposite for themselves with the bad taste they're leaving in our mouthes. Pretty much sealing the fate on their own game IMO. Oh, yeah – I'd like to mention that they also dissed me too when I emailed them asking to get an activation to try the demo a day after they closed down the demo trials. They said the "full retail version will have a trial disc in it for a friend." Oh really? Thanks guys... you won't even let me try the game out without trying to guarantee yourself $40 in the pocket from a full game purchase. Really??? Who doesn't offer free trials for their games????!!!!! It was obvious to me from that point that MC had something to hide in this game, or they just didn't give a hoot about a long-term strategy. This thread pretty much reinforces my speculation and highlights how little concern for their audience they really have. Don't expect much from MC going forward eveyone – I certainly don't. quote> BAM!!! Great post, brutally honest, right on target, well said. quote> Funny how you see it that way, while all I see is yet another rant from someone who seems to think companies should design their business plan and marketing strategy around his personal views and ideas... I'm not a "fanboy", I agree MC has made a couple of "mistakes" with this launch, I also agree that a number of essential features aren't released yet... However, I most certainly do not agree that "MC is completely insulting it's own audience", or that "their extreme measures to segregate against single-players is so morally wrong its... well... opressive. And in the middle of a global recession on top of it!!!" That's just a complete overreaction... it's a game. MC is a company that makes games. They have to balance budget, investments, revenues. They have to come up with a marketing strategy and payment plan to please everyone. They have to actually make the game... And even though reading internet gaming forums would lead you to believe otherwise, all of this is far from easy. Yes, of course, programmers and game designers would love to make "the perfect game". However, that's not possible. Mainly because of 2 reasons: -Everyone's "perfect game" is different. -You have to earn enough to pay for development, which means development resources are limited. So you will have to make concessions, which means it won't be "perfect". So what they end up doing is to try and make a game "as close to perfect" as they can (and remember that that will be "perfect" defined by a team of programmers, designers, marketing execs, finance execs, etc.) with the available resources. And of course, by trying to increase the available resources, you can get closer to perfection... Ok, that was a bit of a rant, but there's a point: I see a lot of people on this forum (and other gaming forums as well) getting very worked up about how companies design and market their games. Which is fine, I guess, but often people also seem to think that this should "do" something to companies.... or, that these companies have some sort of "obligation" to gamers to produce the game they want or expect. Obviously, that's ridiculous. Of course you can offer your opinion. Maybe they will do something with it, maybe they won't. And if you don't like the way they do business, or market their product, or their product itself for that matter, you can choose not to buy it. It's not like food or water or healthcare or education... a "good city building game" is not one of the globally accepted basic rights of humans. It's the same as people complaining about bands that have "lost their edge" or "gone commercial". Of course you can think it's a waste (as I often do). Of course you can express this opinion. But would you really expect your opinion to matter? I wouldn't... All you can do is not buy their new album, and not go to their concerts. So, in short: Stop all the "it's a slap in the face!" "how dare they produce a city builder that doesn't have X/Y/Z!" it's silly... MC is just another company making another game... they will make it and market it the way they think is best. If you don't agree, you can tell them. And then you can either stay or leave based on their reaction. You can hardly blame them for not agreeing with your vision of "the perfect game", or expect them to value your opinion over those of execs and shareholders though...

Highway connections are expensive indeed... as I found out when I laid down a highway, then deleted it again. I forgot the connection bleeding 100k per turn with no idea why... until I checked my expenses tab ^^