JimCityBuilder

The question here is: Grade School or High School ? People have been going on and on about what needs to be done about education in their cities and what roll which type of school/college/university has for education and tech levels. Well tech levels are straight forward; Community college raises to Tech lvl2 and University to tech lvl3 ... simples ! However, what does the difference in rolls played in your city for Grade School and High School, and what choices should you make selecting which one to place ? Again, if you look at them more closely you will see that they both perform the roll of raising the Sims education levels and have the impact on Tech lvl1 industry by going some ways to speeding up density for industry buildings (debatable?), and the mechanics that runs them in-game has nothing to equate to the real world senario, however it is just a simple case of mathematics to work out which one you need as I will demonstrate below: Grade School = max students is 950 High School = max students is 4800 Now each zoned residents has 2 kids and 6 residence (total= This leads to 950= 2 X 475 kids Therefore 2850 =6 X 475 residents Total = 3325 population So it goes to show that to keep all your Sims educated you will need to build a minimum of two Grade Schools to eventually get to a population level of over 5000 before you can upgrade your Town Hall to a City Hall and add a Dept of Education which allows you to add a High School to your city. To fully upgraded two Grade Schools containing all the classrooms and buses will cost you 3200 simoleons per hour and educate up to1900 students. (20 students per bus) A fully upgraded High School containing all the classrooms and buses will cost 3400 simoleons per hour and educate up to 4800 students. (60 students per bus) Bus Stops laid out to accommodate the two Grade Schools are left in place because they can be used by the High School too, therefore their costs are additional to either type of school laid out and are essential to get all the students to school itself. So in conclusion: Grade Schools are used to educate your Sims up to a sufficient population level of 5000 Sims and a minimum of two Grade schools are required to achieve this if full enrollment is wanted (and yes, the second grade School does not have to be fully upgraded with all the classrooms to reach a population of 5000 Sims total ! ) and if a Dept of Education is the first building added to your newly upgraded City Hall. Then it makes sense to demolish your two Grade Schools and build one High School which will require a minimum of two additional classes and all the buses to maintain the same level of service with instant expansion of student numbers (900 free desks) at less than the previous cost of the two Grade Schools. However, if you place another Dept on your upgraded City Hall then you will need to build more Grade Schools to continue to educate your Sims until the next population level allows the next upgrade. This has two problems for your city, the first is that your running costs for education will become very high very quickly, and the second and most important problem will be all those additional buses that transport only 20 students per trip to the schools will also very quickly fill up your roads at rush hour. So you will need to think very carefully about placing the Dept of Education first at upgrade to City Hall. The only thing that will help you avoid this problem is if a dept of Education is placed in another city in the region. Jim

So if this is all people can get their population numbers to then how exactly can anyone get the achievement of pop. 2,000,000 ? Jim

This type of trolling as well as other tasks you can perform is becoming more commonplace in multiplayer regions, people don't seem to be cooperating with game play and in your case you were playing with someone you know ! Another example is waiting until one of the players in your region builds a high school, then jack up you residents population and place school buses all over your city then sit back and watch as your neighbors city chokes to death on all the excessive buses that appear and drive your students round and round thier city and solving neith your needs for education or their need for reduced traffic. Jim

Let's take Grand Theft Auto as an example for a famous game, this game was started by a few people (DMA Design Ltd) who got together and had fun making the game with no idea what the overall consequences of the game would be, but they went ahead in all innocence and put the game out there with very little money in their pockets and just a dream it might break even. When it was first released it was considered great for its time, however it had all the usual features of games of that period in that you could not save and the driving around with little to no idea where you actually were but it was still fun and could be played through again and again as you learned the maps and challenges. Then before you knew it the politicians around the world were up in arms about the graphic violent content and how a game like this would send the youth of our society out in to the streets on killing sprees, there have also been many court cases where people have blamed the game for the criminal acts they committed and have tried to sue Rockstar Games for the things they had done because they had played the game. But here is a company that continually reinvested in its product and strived to make the content and gameplay even better and the graphics even more spectacular and as a consequence almost every launch of this game GTA had been put back until a finished product was ready for release ever since GTA 3 from GTA Vice City to the present day GTA 5 which was to have a spring release but has been put back to 17th september for here in the UK. My point is that not one of these games Rockstar games has released has ever dissappointed its players in anyway whatsoever; this game has always delivered on its promises and for those of us that have played it it has been a fun ride with great adventures and ever increasing difficultly in overall gameplay but his has not stopped the masses going out and buying this game. If you have been in a shop on launch day you'll even see parents buying this game for their kids even though they are younger that the gameplay age but hat does not stop its sales does it ? Does anyone even know just how much money Rockstar Games and their creators Dan and Sam Houser actually make ? Sim City through Sim City 2000 and beyond and all its spin offs such as the Sims, Sim City Societies, etc had its humble beginnings back in1989 (and incidently I wonder if anyone still has their Nintendo and the game to still play it on ?). This game was started as a side project to another game called Raid on Bungling Bay which I had for my Commodore 64 which I still have the tape for but not a working Commodore 64 and was developed by the creator Will Wright and mostly because he was having fun making the maps and building these little cities. Now the first games we all played where very basic compared to today but they have all given us lots of hours of fun and distraction over many many years; and with the development of Sim City 4 which opened up all those modding options has been keeping this game going and being available for sale for nearly ten years now, and it even prompted Maxis to release further additions to the game such as the Rush Hour package. Yet here we are in 2013 with a successful franchise being brought out and promising even more in depth simulation and game play and by watching all the trailer videos as well as reading all the hype being put out through Twitter and Facebook to name a couple of sources as well as EA/Maxis websites I personally was ready to get my hands on this game install it onto my laptop and forever after have a brilliant Sim game available at my fingertips whenever i can get the free time to play it through. However this was not to be the case; it took me three days before I could even get to play more than one hour of the game and since then there has been nothing but a plethora of bugs glitches and i must say it out load but dissappointing gameplay, graphics, tile size, failed multi-player, hackers, trollers, and an assortment of other problems too many to mention here. The answer from EA/Maxis it seems is that it can fix these problems as it goes along and we should all be quiet and patient while they do so and not to complain either, after all if you read these game producers and designers blogs you'd be lead to believe that there is actually nothing wrong at all with the game and surely it must be just your computer or laptop ! In my opinion they just released this game as soon as they possibly could under the illusion (or is that delusion ?) that as loyal fans we would all rush out and buy it which in all honesty is exactly what we all did ! Their obvious contempt for us their loyal fans as merely just a source of initial revenue is to kick start their need for a financial return on what is beyond doubt an unfinished game is contemptible to say the least, I for one feel cheated by all this yet here I am still hoping beyond hope that the game itself would be redeemable by that wonderful band of modders out there that made SC4 such the success it is, and now we are being informed that any outside interference to the game through modding or otherwise will lead to players being banded from the servers even though you have purchased a product for yourself because of this always online aspect of the game they will be able to do this and quite frankly get away with it as well. Then lo and behold we begin to see the reason why they are doing what they have with the release of the first DLC which is a blatant advertising ploy which will allow EA/Maxis to generate more revenue for themselves and at the same time will not remain a free option for these type of DLC's for long but time will tell how this will play out. At the moment i have purchased Cities In Motion 2 on Steam and having great fun with this game while I am awaiting further developments of SIm City 2013, and to be honest I just don't see how they could not have introduced the simulation from CIM 2 into Sim City 2013's mass transit it certainlt would have made sense to do so ! Anyway, enough from me ... discuss/berate !!! Jim

THIS, EXACTLY!!!! Yes, we all paid for the game... but what do I need a Nissan Leaf station for if the game sucks so bad? I'll say it again, this game should've been delayed. Earliest release should've been Q4. Even better would've been Q2 2014. Must say I do agree with this 1 Jim

You have to shake the charity tin to be able to afford an air ambulance service, at least here in the UK it is like that. Jim

It does seem that placing and using a Vu Towers goes against all the hard work and expense of setting up a education system and does nothing but add criminals and as a consequence more police cars on the streets creating not only more crime and traffic problems but also upsetting all your fussy Sims. As for the population of a city it seems that the fudged numbers that make up the population count at the bottom of the screen has nothing at all to do with the rest of the game mechanics, at least from what I have observed, other than give the impression you have a massive city. Instead by looking at the details tab in the population menu that gives the number of workers shoppers and students is where all the necessary calculations should be taken to plan the future of your growing city. It is from this that care should be taken as to what type of education facility should be chosen for the number of students you have and the tech level you wish to acquire for your city, and remembering that within these stats will also be commuters coming into and out of your city too. Jim

Downloaded my new free DLC, still don't really see a point to it overall though. However, if advertising is going to be the future of providing us all with free DLC content and at the same time Maxis can recoup its production costs to ensure the game will keep going and they have more time to fix all the bugs and problems then I think this is a good thing ... after all who even looks at ads ? Think of it like this in the long run: If more of the mainstream companies jump on this bandwagon this would give us all more control over ploppable shops for our commercial high streets, by that I mean we can select the type of business rather than having 24 game generated petrol stations in a row ! After all who's Sims wouldn't want to work in a brand name shop, and the problem of sufficient employment for low educated Sims can be resolved with a McDonalds or two could it not ? !!! And if your Skilled labour force becomes unemployed then there will always be a place for them at B&Q right ? Also a Tesco an Asda or even a Walmart would provide a better single ploppable for creating more jobs and places for shoppers on a 24hr basis in an overall smaller area than would be needed for the equivalent amount of normal shops, and also be equally good at putting all these other smaller business' out of business and freeing up more space on your city tile, just like they do in the real world, just saying that's all ? Jim

I think he means combining Sim City with CitiesXL as a single game with all the best features of each ... not a bad idea in principle, but let,s all see how Sim City will progress in the near future. Jim

Before carrying out any building or other tasks check to see if the show me button is visible on the advisor of the menu you are looking at, this usually gives a paying mission to complete. The fire station gives 50,000 if less than 5 fires occurs and by that it means 5 building must go up in flames to fail. Another one is the guy who wants to throw a party and needs 250 bins emptied in 24 hrs and you get 25,000 for that one. there are some more but can't think of all the details at the mo. Jim

The guide book says that airports can be used for medium and high wealth commuters and tourists. Airports need to be placed in at least two cities in a region for this to work. Although only a few commuters will use the planes their regular frequency keeps up a steady flow through the day and obviously another means of mass transport is needed from the airport to the commuters final destination. The guide also says that with the addition of a passenger terminal it will significantly increase the capacity of the airport and more runways even more so. Having said all this I can honestly say that I have never personally ever got airports to work effectively, I'm assuming it is another bug that will need an overhaul to fix. Jim

Wouldn't it be a nice feature when playing in a public region with non-cooperative players that ruin your game play that military bases can be installed and you can attack their city and its infrastructure ??? WAR !!! On a Regional Scale !!! That being a feature you can click on in the disasters menu.

24. If you would like to vary the density of buildings in your city on your roads, and even be able to create single isolated apartment blocks on the same roads without the need to de-zone here is a simple little trick: By adding side roads off the road you wish to upgrade you can create small sections of road that can be upgraded between these side roads with the road tool, and then afterwards you can demolish the side roads and you end up with small sections of different density of roads that will remain afterwards. By doing this it is possible to create all sorts of combinations of low rise and high rise on the same road or grid, and for the more adventurous isolated tower block estates. Try it, it's fun. Jim Additional: The junctions that appear along your mixed roads do not create actual stop points along the road however I forgot to mentions that these points do act as turn around points that can significantly reduce the Congo effect from utility and service vehicles by making those not need further down that length of road turning on these points and going back another direction and is some cases speeding up traffic across the city, eg school buses seem more efficient at picking up and dropping off students. Now this is working well for small cities but it remains to be seen how effective this is in larger cities. Please let me and others know if you can see any more advantages/disadvantages to this tip for the roads and their densities ? Jim

You two are both wrong !!! Let me demonstrate so that you do not continue to mislead other players of this game. First of all if you are $%&^! enough to play just sandbox then yes you can go straight ahead and put in Universities and begin to raise your education and tech levels, however this is not the case at all when playing the game in proper mode and without all the cheats enabled, sandbox game mechanics are completely different to the proper game mechanics which is why you are wrong and will always be so when playing only in sandbox mode. Here is why you are wrong: After placing a Dept of Education in your newly upgraded City Hall the other education buildings become available but however they are still locked out from placing them unless you satisfy certain criteria. 1. To Place a University you need to educate 1200 students in one day, but to be able to do that you need to have other school buildings open to do so, Correct ? !!! 2. A High School can educate a maximum of 4800 students per day which is more than enough students to unlock the University, But Wait !!! 3. To unlock the High School it is necessary to educate over 500 students per day to do this. Now where is it that I can do this I ask myself ? Wait again what could the answer to this be ? That's right I can start with a Grade School !!! 4. A Grade School will educate 150 students per day, and by adding extra classrooms I can raise this to 950 students per day in total. This is more than enough to unlock the High School, but it is also sufficient to open up a Community College which requires 800 students educated per day to unlock. So as you can see it is not possible to play a proper game and educate your Sims just using a University as it is required to start with a Grade School to start off the education process and to begin to educate your Sims properly, then as the number of students increase either more Grade Schools are required to educate even more students to unlock all the available buildings in the education menu. In the time it takes to do this your Sims will have already aquired a certain level of education before they can even start University, but in the proper game mode (and not the cheating $%&^! sandbox mode ) the education does not rise only the tech level. I hope now that this better explains how to educate your Sims and create a nice town, city or metropolis free of crime fires health issues and garbage and that your Sims also use less power and water too. You are actually wrong. Once you unlock university/college in one city, it will be unlocked on all cities in the region, so you can build university right away on your second city. Universities alone can and do raise the education level for your population. You do not need the grade school and high school at all. You two are both wrong !!! Let me demonstrate so that you do not continue to mislead other players of this game. First of all if you are $%&^! enough to play just sandbox then yes you can go straight ahead and put in Universities and begin to raise your education and tech levels, however this is not the case at all when playing the game in proper mode and without all the cheats enabled, sandbox game mechanics are completely different to the proper game mechanics which is why you are wrong and will always be so when playing only in sandbox mode. Here is why you are wrong: After placing a Dept of Education in your newly upgraded City Hall the other education buildings become available but however they are still locked out from placing them unless you satisfy certain criteria. 1. To Place a University you need to educate 1200 students in one day, but to be able to do that you need to have other school buildings open to do so, Correct ? !!! 2. A High School can educate a maximum of 4800 students per day which is more than enough students to unlock the University, But Wait !!! 3. To unlock the High School it is necessary to educate over 500 students per day to do this. Now where is it that I can do this I ask myself ? Wait again what could the answer to this be ? That's right I can start with a Grade School !!! 4. A Grade School will educate 150 students per day, and by adding extra classrooms I can raise this to 950 students per day in total. This is more than enough to unlock the High School, but it is also sufficient to open up a Community College which requires 800 students educated per day to unlock. So as you can see it is not possible to play a proper game and educate your Sims just using a University as it is required to start with a Grade School to start off the education process and to begin to educate your Sims properly, then as the number of students increase either more Grade Schools are required to educate even more students to unlock all the available buildings in the education menu. In the time it takes to do this your Sims will have already aquired a certain level of education before they can even start University, but in the proper game mode (and not the cheating $%&^! sandbox mode ) the education does not rise only the tech level. I hope now that this better explains how to educate your Sims and create a nice town, city or metropolis free of crime fires health issues and garbage and that your Sims also use less power and water too. You are actually wrong. Once you unlock university/college in one city, it will be unlocked on all cities in the region, so you can build university right away on your second city. Exactly. JimCityBuilder is wrong. The university etc are unlocked region-wide.You only need one educational facility, not all of them. The university and college raises BOTH education and tech level. And no-one is talking about sandbox mode. You're the one misleading players, JimCityBuilder. If you got to the thread on Grade school or High school ? in the concepts forum threads you will see that i have fully explained the whole principle of setting up and obtaining all the education facilities in Sim City. And as you have both even said yourselves that all buildings are unlocked across the whole region if they are unlocked in one city, but yet again you are overlooking the simple fact that before you can even get to your University which you seem to pride yourself on obtaining so much someone if not yourselves must first start with the other education buildings before your University can become available whether in your city or someone else's in the region. Now that is what must be done if the game is played in proper game mode ... Grade Schools lead to Universities !!! Jim

true dat !

It may also have something to do with commuters coming into the city and then not leaving but also not having anywhere to go either and start to fill up your parks. next thing you know is all the stats seem messed up and everything starts to go wrong ... personally i am still trying to figure out how negative numbers start appearing in the stats ? Jim

To further clarify the situation about Grade Schools and High Schools I would like to point out the issue where people are insisting that University is the only building necessary to educate your Sims. When people play in sandbox mode all cheats are available and the game mechanics are completely different than when playing the game in the proper game mode therefore the two methods of playing do not equate. In sandbox mode all buildings are available from the beginning and all cheats are too, however in the proper game mode this is not so and buildings have to be unlocked by completing certain criteria and this is just as true for education. When the game starts the only education buildings available are the Public Library and the Grade School; it is now necessary to reach a population of just over 5000 Sims to be able to upgrade the Town Hall to a City Hall and to make available the add-ons to your new City Hall. For education it is necessary to plop down the Dept of Education to unlock access to the other education buildings. However this is not the whole story, when you look at the education menu you will see that all the new buildings are in fact not available straight away rather that you still have to satisfy certain criteria to open each one and the final requirement for each building is to educate a certain number of students per day to do so: 1. Public Library ... available after placing a Town Hall. 2.Grade School ... available after placing a Town Hall. 3.Community College ... available after placing a Town Hall and educating 800 students in a day. The next buildings require the Upgrade to City Hall and the add-on of a Dept of Education, plus the following: 4. High School ... available after educating 500 students in a day 5. University ... available after educating 1200 students in a day. Please check your education menu so that you can see that this is true. Other cities can unlock these buildings for themselves if at least one city in the region can educate the required number of Sims needed and/or adds a Dept of Education to their City Hall where required. Also the Community College can be opened if another city with a Grade School educates over 800 students. Many people state that Universities are all that are needed to educate their Sims but as you can see when playing a proper game mode this is not the case because of the need for the other education buildings at least in the region. This then gives the appearance that education levels are rising in the city with a University, however this is a hidden aspect of the game when playing a region with multiple cities because of the issue of commuting between these cities. If you are to follow some of your Sims around for a while you will see some of them commute to other cities; now if you watch a city that has commuters coming into it and follow these Sims you will see them go to a home at the end of their day and they take their education level with them when they do so thus raising education levels for that city even if it has no school college or university and this is a great example of how the education game mechanics are messes up and give all sorts of wrong read outs with one of them being negative number students shoppers and workers ! So in conclusion: Start your city off with a Grade School to get your Sims educated as soon as possible to avoid all the unnecessary crime etc and if you choose to upgrade your industries then add a Community College once it becomes available in the education menu. As your city grows the Grade School can be replaced with a High School and the Community College can be replaced with a University, but at the end of the day how you place these buildings and in what order is entirely up to you but bear in mind that they do still have to be unlocked in the menu. Jim

Universities alone can and do raise the education level for your population. You do not need the grade school and high school at all. Wrong. Universities and colleges raise the education level and the tech level of the population. There is no need for the grade school or high school if you have a university or college. You two are both wrong !!! Let me demonstrate so that you do not continue to mislead other players of this game. First of all if you are $%&^! enough to play just sandbox then yes you can go straight ahead and put in Universities and begin to raise your education and tech levels, however this is not the case at all when playing the game in proper mode and without all the cheats enabled, sandbox game mechanics are completely different to the proper game mechanics which is why you are wrong and will always be so when playing only in sandbox mode. Here is why you are wrong: After placing a Dept of Education in your newly upgraded City Hall the other education buildings become available but however they are still locked out from placing them unless you satisfy certain criteria. 1. To Place a University you need to educate 1200 students in one day, but to be able to do that you need to have other school buildings open to do so, Correct ? !!! 2. A High School can educate a maximum of 4800 students per day which is more than enough students to unlock the University, But Wait !!! 3. To unlock the High School it is necessary to educate over 500 students per day to do this. Now where is it that I can do this I ask myself ? Wait again what could the answer to this be ? That's right I can start with a Grade School !!! 4. A Grade School will educate 150 students per day, and by adding extra classrooms I can raise this to 950 students per day in total. This is more than enough to unlock the High School, but it is also sufficient to open up a Community College which requires 800 students educated per day to unlock. So as you can see it is not possible to play a proper game and educate your Sims just using a University as it is required to start with a Grade School to start off the education process and to begin to educate your Sims properly, then as the number of students increase either more Grade Schools are required to educate even more students to unlock all the available buildings in the education menu. In the time it takes to do this your Sims will have already aquired a certain level of education before they can even start University, but in the proper game mode (and not the cheating $%&^! sandbox mode ) the education does not rise only the tech level. I hope now that this better explains how to educate your Sims and create a nice town, city or metropolis free of crime fires health issues and garbage and that your Sims also use less power and water too.

Your education level is raised by building either a Grade School or a High School, each of these raises the education level which by the way is associated with the residential building the Sims go back to each day and not individual Sims themselves. Level.1: Reduces chance of house producing a blue collar criminal. Level.2: Reduction in power and water usage. Level.3: No benefits given. Level.4: Further reduction in power and water usage Level.5: Residents install solar panels on roofs greatly reducing power required. Also from Level.3 Sims start to recycle their garbage and the percentage they do this increases over levels.4 & 5. This can only be taken advantage of if you build a recycling center which may be expensive to start up but can be a good way to make simoleons when used with a trade depot, otherwise only garbage will be collected. Community College and University raise the Tech Levels for your city's Industry ... simples Jim

I don't seem to see how the Park and Ride really work either, sometimes they do and other times they are useless. I have placed them next to the highway entering my cities and sometimes all the traffic just drives straight past them and they remain empty for the most part, but having said that they seem to work well when placed next to a railway station near to a residential area to get more low wealth Sims to commute. As for the buses you are correct, they all leave the depot to pick up nobody and spend all the time following each other in a Congo line of buses. I wish i was able to set up specific bus routes and limit my buses to them then separate areas of the city could be better served just like in the real world! Jim

It says in the manual that when new Sims enter your city their education level is 0, also the education level displayed when you open the education menu is an average for the buildings where the Sim students goes home to and not individual Sim students. As everyone who has sat and watched your Sims go anywhere they all start to fill up the nearest homes first on their return and then work their way outwards which is a bit daft really; as a test leave an area around a new school free and run the city for a time, then build and zone residential between the school and the old residential area and watch the new houses start to get the education benefits first and if the difference in new housing built is higher than the existing buildings the average education level drops !!! More and more people are finding that education levels do not continue to rise in this situation if you have new Sims coming in and only a University in your city or region, therefore the problem seems to resolve itself if you have either a Grade School in your city or there is a High School in the region. I know people dispute this but it is probably better to have a Grade School or a High School as well. Also a Community College only benefits Tech 2 Industries if they are close by and the same seems to be true for the University too which must also remain open to maintain a continuous supply of high tech students for the Tech 3 Industries. But at the end of the day the whole education mechanics is completely broken and something needs to be done about it and soon. Jim EDIT: It should also be noted that Grade School and High School give benefits to Residential with regards to crime, fires, garbage,etc. whereas Community College and University benefit the tech levels for Industry.

With the game being always online and the potential to play a multiplayer style game in regions how exactly will DLC's and modding content actually work. For example, if a player was to download a DLC into their city on multiplayer and I was on the same region and wanted to visit their city then how exactly would this be rendered on my game if I don't have the same DLC on my game ? Also modded content would act the same way too would it not ? At the moment it is not possible to take over a city in a region if the other players have different content, and some of you will have had that message when trying to do so. I have the limited edition of the game with the hero and villains pack, and the first available DLC is the foreign city packs which stops anyone playing a city in a region if anyone has this DLC. So where do we go from here ?

I have been looking through the net and found a site that has opened the file on schools and there it has this so-called fudged mode for population growth and it shows me where i have been right and where ours can see that i have been wrong. Basically it goes like this: For the first population growth up to 500 all stats remain as intended ... 4 workers, 2 shoppers, and 2 kids. From 501 to 5,000 the population to kids ratio goes out of sync if only low wealth residents are used but equates to the above when a balance of all wealth residents needed to fill jobs/shops is used. From 5,001 to 40,000 the stats become between 15% to 25% population to kids ratio, and above 40,001 they become about 10% population to kids ratio. I have been working on the low population of up to 5,000, building a town with all facilities and a proper ratio of all wealth levels which is why I am getting the returns i am. As McFluffy says, and which I agree with him: building a Grade School as soon as possible delays all the problems of crime, fires etc until it is possible to afford all the other services. Personally I build in the order of: 1. Wind Power Station 2.Water Tower 3.Sewage Outlet Pipe 4.Then start zoning for residential, and as each of the above services can be afforded through taxation I switch each one on in the above order therefore the cost of running them never comes out of my initial cash amount. Next to add is the Town Hall which allows the building of Public Service buildings: 5.Grade School 6.Clinic ... adding one additional ambulance 7.Garbage Dump ... adding two additional garbage trucks 8.Fire Station ... adding two additional fire trucks 9.Police Station And again each one is switched on when then cost can be met from taxation. Remember, i am trying to build a small balanced and functional town and not a sprawling Metropolis. Jim

I think your calculation about student and population is wrong. Look at my city You only need 3 grade school to cover pop 80k. So I think you don't need Grade school until your pop is about 15k. You only will wasting your tax money. It's more efficient to build police station to fight crime. And for my other city, I didn't build grade school or high school until I touch 200k pop. And after that I simply build 2 High school. to cover about 6k Student. So what Rhadamant5186 is true. You can always wait for pop is enough to support expense for education, and aim for community college or University directly. And I side with him again, about you didn't need grade school or high school to increase tech level. If you pre order this game you can build Dr. Vu tower, and increase tech level cheaper than build university. I see from your thumbnail that you are on a public region, can you please check your stats to see if any of your students are commuting to other cities to satisfy their education needs please ? A population of 80,875 with only 2775 students does seem strange to me, even though I am aware that higher density building appear to have a lower percentage of students compared to overall population but even I would not think it would be by that much, but I am looking into students/density at the moment. and will need to get back to you on that one. Jim

In the UK it is always essential to pull over the side of the road and let emergency vehicles through and this also applies at traffic lights, slip roads on to duel carriage ways and motorways ... after all one day that emergency vehicle may becoming for you or a loved one right ?!!! But this doesn't seem to be the case in-game. However it must be said that the recent update (1.7.1) has gone some way to resolving this issue and especially where the traffic at least lets the emergency vehicles out of their garages and on to the road, However there is still a ways to go before all the issues with normal traffic, school buses, emergency vehicles, and especially trade vehicles so they are not all doing the Congo on the opposite of the city from where they are needed eh ? ... lol.