Bagheera

Hello fellow Mayors! First post here - I don't typically involve myself in online gaming communities much; I tend to be more of a private player. However, the new SimCity game has had me banging my head against the desk ever since it came out - it's certainly a lot harder to master (and oftentimes counter-intuitive) compared to its predecessor. Now, I am sure I am not the only one who's been trying to find the "perfect RCI ratio" . Yes, I have read all the guides, I adjust the zones as my population density changes; but time and time again I fall into the same problem. Let me know if this sounds familiar to you: You started a new city. You laid it out all pretty and everything's going well. As you reach high-density, however, you start noticing that there are now unsatisfied shoppers. No biggie, you thought; I'll zone more commercial. So you find some spare room on the map, add some commercial zone - things went better for a while, then the commercial buildings start complaining about lacking freight. Okay, fine, I'll add some/density up more industrial. Well, now you don't have enough workers. Great. So zone more residential? But then that just means they'll need more commercial to be happy, which then needs more industrial! It's a vicious cycle I did not know how to break out of. I looked and looked - there are plenty of tips and general RCI ratios, but nobody seems to have done a detailed analysis of the in-game data - at least, I haven't seen an article about it. Finally, I came across this extremely helpful spreadsheet. I knew the answers I sought lay in those numbers, but the data needed organization to make sense. I needed to translate it into something tangible... something anyone can read and understand. Attached below is a copy of the content from my scratchpad - it's a bit messy, and you will have to constantly refer back to the numbers presented in the spreadsheet for my notes to make sense. I will polish and expand upon this guide when I have time. Please help me proof my maths - it's certainly been many many years since any math class in university. xD Note: The following guide is intended for planning a late game, high-wealth, high-density city. When I find time I'll expand on the guide to include other city plans. Guide to the ideal RCI: 1x High-Density Commercial can satisfy: § - 1.775x Residential §§ - 3.55x Residential §§§ - 9.39x Residential 1x High-Density Commercial require workers equal to § - 1.5x § Residential, 0.5 §§ Residential, 0.14x §§§ Residential §§ - 1x § Residential, 1x §§ Residential, 1x §§§ Residential §§§ - 0.5 § Residential, 1.5x §§ Residential, 1.7x §§§ Residential 1x High-Density §§§ Industrial requires workers equal to: § - 0.5x Residential §§ - 3x Residential §§§ - 2x Residential 1x High-Density §§§ Industrial require this many Commercials to keep its workers happy: § - 0.8875x Commercial §§ - 0.845x Commercial §§§ - 0.213x Commercial This means 1x High-Density §§§ Industrial requires 1.9455x Commercial buildings just to keep its workforce happy. This already won't work, since 1 High-Density Industrial building can only supply 1 High-Density Commercial building (freight orders & supply ratio is nearly one-to-one). Additionally, 1x High-Density Commercial can only satisfy this much residential after taking care of the shopping needs of its own workforce: § - 0.275x Residential §§ - 2.55x Residential §§§ - 7.69x Residential This means for each 1x High-Density §§§ Industrial, it requires this many Commercials to keep its workers happy: § - 1.818x Commercial §§ - 1.17x Commercial §§§ - 0.26x Commercial This translates to 1x High-Density §§§ Industrial needing to supply 3.25x High-Density Commercial, hence why there is never enough freight! People often try to combat the freight shortage by zoning more industrial, which leads to worker shortage, then they try zoning more residential, which leads to not enough shops, then they zone more commercial, then there's even less freight from the industry to go around... you see the problem here. The solution would be to reduce people's need to shop: A large park (satisfying 192 shoppers) can satisfy the shopping needs of: § - 0.96x Residential §§ - 1.92x Residential §§§ - 5.818x Residential Due to the freight supply limitation, let's assume we have 3x High Density §§§ factories to supply 3x High Density Commercial buildings (one for each wealth class). We arrive at the following optimum RCI ratio: $ - 5x Residential, 1x Commercial (3.225x - or 645 shoppers exactly - unsatisfied). §§ - 12x Residential, 1x Commercial (8.45x - or 845 shoppers exactly - unsatisfied). §§§ - 11x Residential, 1x Commercial (1.61x - or 53 shoppers exactly - unsatisfied), 3x Industrial. Let's see how the workforce breaks down: § - 2000x workers total. Industrial requires 200 x 3 = 600, plus Commercial requires 600 + 400 + 200 = 1200, bringing the total to 1800. We are 200 workers over, which is acceptable (you can zone one less Residential building if you prefer to be 200 workers under). §§ - 2400x workers total. Industrial requires 600 x 3 = 1800, plus Commercial requires 100 + 200 + 300 = 600, bringing the total to 2400. Perfect number. §§§ - 770 workers total. Industrial requires 140 x 4 = 560, plus Commercial requires 10 + 70 + 120 = 200, which brings the total to 760. We are 10 workers over, which is perfectly acceptable (you can zone one less Residential building if you prefer to be 60 workers under). Now to take care of the unsatisfied shoppers: § - 645 shoppers unsatisfied. You can take care of this using 4x large parks (192 visitors/day), 14x medium parks (48 visitors/day), or 53x small parks (12 visitors/day). I would do a combination. §§ - 845 shoppers unsatisfied. You can take care of this using 5x large parks (192 visitors/day), 9x medium-large parks (96 visitors/day), 18x medium parks (48 visitors/day), or 71x small parks (12 visitors/day). §§§ - 53 shoppers unsatisfied... seems easy enough. It's likely you already surpassed the need to take care of them in building the §§§ parks to raise the land value. Hope my fellow SimCity mayors find this helpful!