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Hi All and welcome to my symposium on Education within SimCity 4! We will be covering what drives the education level (or education quotient, EQ) of our sims and its effects on Industrial and Commercial demand (the Workforce Drives). This will also require us to have a look into the residential simulator. Once the mechanisms are established, I will explain the effects of the settings within the base game and present my modifications. These modifications have not been made into a package at this time, but if the community enjoys the results of the modifications I will make it available with a little help. Let's get Started What is the Point of an Education Anyway? As what is generally observed in the real world, the purpose of education within SC4 is to give sims the opportunity to work in higher paying, cleaner, safer, and more engaging work. Or, to look at it from the view of an employer, the purpose of education is to provide a workforce qualified for the jobs available. (Of course, education has many other benefits in real life, but this is as far as the game goes) So, how is this accomplished in SC4? Well it is all to do with the Workforce Drives! The Workforce Drives exemplars are how SC4 generates Industrial and Commercial demand. There is a detailed posting by RippleJet on SC4 Devotion, link here: https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=963.0 Here is my Workforce Drives table (slightly modified from CAM1.0 settings to get my preferred mix): Occupation: CO$$$ CO$$ CS$$$ CS$$ CS$ I-HT I-M I-D I-R Wealth Education R$$$ 150-200 70% 10% 35% 25% 10% 100-150 60% 30% 30% 5% 15% 10% 50-100 30% 52% 23% 15% 22% 8% 0-50 22% 60% 10% 23% 10% 15% 15% 16% R$$ 150-200 45% 15% 10% 30% 30% 20% 100-150 22% 38% 40% 15% 35% 50-100 10% 40% 30% 10% 50% 15% 16% 0-50 30% 25% 20% 55% 30% 160% R$ 150-200 22% 53% 15% 23% 22% 15% 100-150 22% 10% 30% 53% 40% 16% 50-100 5% 10% 40% 40% 65% 160% 0-50 50% 115% 1600% From the table, we can see what type of occupation a sim seeks out is determined by their wealth level (R$, R$$, R$$$), and their education quotient (EQ) (0-200) which is chunked into 4 groups. An EQ of 0-50 is EQ1, 50-100 is EQ2, 100-150 is EQ3, 150-200 is EQ4. Uneducated sims (EQ1) seek out I-D and CS$ jobs. As they become more educated and reach higher EQs, they soon demand I-M and CS$$ jobs, followed by I-HT, CO$$, CO$$$ jobs when they reach the higher EQ ranges. As city planners, if we want to control the demand for the various industrial and commercial occupations, our primary tool is to influence the education quotient of our sims. So, How Does Education Work? There are two main factors driving the education quotient of our Sims. There is the Residential Simulator, which controls how the sims education quotient changes throughout their lifetime, as well as their starting values. Then there are the ploppable educational buildings. First, let's talk about the Residential Simulator. This primarily drives education, health and life expectancy, the chance of education and medical strikes, mayor ratings for health and education, etc. We will stick to just the factors that effect our sim's EQ. Residential Simulator education properties hex decimal Average age reset value 0x28 40 EQ Decay n/a 0.2 EQ Reset percent n/a 80 low wealth EQ 0x14 20 medium wealth EQ 0x28 40 High wealth EQ 0x3C 60 low wealth average age 0x19 25 medium wealth average age 0x1E 30 high wealth average age 0x23 35 R$ sims start out in life at age 25 with an EQ of 20. R$$ sims age 30 EQ 40, R$$$ sims age 35 EQ 60. This applies to all newly moved in sims. If some sims move out, and new sims move in, these will be their values. So, what is Average age reset value? Well, when a sim reaches average life expectancy, they are reincarnated! That's right, when the sims living in a residential building reach life expectancy, their age is reset to 40. Furthermore EQ reset percent, 80, means that 80% of the sim's EQ is retained when they are reincarnated. This has some major implications which we will discuss later when we move on to the educational buildings. The remaining variable of significance is EQ Decay, 0.2. This is a decay of 0.2/month, 2.4 per year, 24 per decade, applied to all sims. When we get to the library building this will be important. Testing Environment Before we get into the buildings, I'll describe the simulation parameters. Welcome to the town of Education Test! (creative name, I know) Education Test is a sleepy little town with a fair balance of industry and commerce that can support a residential population of 3,500 with plenty of excess jobs available. Power, water, and refuse services have been provided as well as police and fire coverage. Taxes have been adjusted to discourage all but R$ sims from moving in (A key to proper analysis is to reduce or eliminate as many variables as possible). There are no traffic problems in Education Test. The residential zoning has been sized to fit within the catchment area of the small elementary school. A census facility has been provided for data collation and collection. The town is profitable once the supported population moves in. We start the simulation by plopping our educational buildings in the town square and clicking cheetah speed, running for ~100 years for each test. It takes <5 years for all the sims to move in and from there the population remains stable. Let's have a look at the results: Educational Building Properties Elementary (Primary) School elementary school Effectivenes cost EQ boost radius age 20 age 30 age 40 age 50 age 60 age 70 age 80 capacity 300 24 384 5 5 0.5 0 0 0 0 500 EQxEffect 120 120 12 0 0 0 0 The Elementary school "Educates young Sims." If by young we mean ages 20-40. I suppose that's fair though considering age 20-30 is the youngest cohort, despite what the population graphs show. Anyway here are the results. I will discuss below. When our new sims move in at age 25, the Elementary school immediately goes to work educating them, and it does a mighty fine job. Within 16 years their educational attainment has peaked at an average of 145. Looking at the map, there are many residences that have reached above 150, putting them at EQ4- these sims could go on to work in I-HT at Andrews Semiconductor, Max's Microchips, or even a nuclear power plant. In fact, they demand it! However that won't last too long. As they lose EQ at a rate of 2.4/year they will soon find themselves in EQ 3, then 2, then 1... So, we ran this test for a 100 years, where is the 2nd generation? Well, they're here, but they don't get educated at elementary school. Remember, sims are reincarnated at age 40, with 80% of their knowledge (EQ) retained. If you look closely at around 75 years, you can see a small dip in the chart, that's when the reincarnation happens and the sims lose 20%. In a stable population where sims are not moving in and out, an Elementary school only works once. It has no effect on subsequent generations as they are aged out of the school's age effectiveness brackets. Maybe you've noticed it yourself, elementary schools in old neighborhoods of a city have few or no students. This age 40 reincarnation is why. Library library Effectivenes cost EQ boost radius age 20 age 30 age 40 age 50 age 60 age 70 age 80 capacity 250 0.3 512 30 30 30 30 30 25 20 30000 EQxEffect 9 9 9 9 9 7.5 6 The Library "Keeps adult Sims from forgetting their education. EQ Decay sucks 2.4 EQ from our sims per year. The library has a very small EQ boost x Effectiveness at 9 for most age brackets, and this is 9 spread over 10 years, or 0.9 per year. Thus a library will reduce EQ Decay from 2.4/year to 1.5/year, a 37.5% reduction. Since the library on its own cannot overcome EQ Decay, I have run the simulation with an Elementary school and a library. Let's have a look: As with the Elementary School, it took 16 years to reach peak EQ. The library contributed 0.9 per year, adding 14.4 EQ over those 16 years. Thus, the census shows us an average EQ of 160, 15 points higher than the Elementary School result. Furthermore, as the decay is reduced for every age cohort, we can observe the slope of the EQ chart is not as steep. We peak at 160 and drop to ~85 as the first generation is reaching their life expectancy, vs. 145 to 20 for the school alone. That's a loss of 125 reduced to 75. Not bad for $12 a month. High (Secondary) School High School Effectivenes cost EQ boost radius age 20 age 30 age 40 age 50 age 60 age 70 age 80 capacity 650 24 512 0 0.5 5 2.5 0 0 0 750 EQxEffect 0 12 120 60 0 0 0 The High School "Educates teen Sims." We can see the age brackets are "higher" than that of the Elementary School, with the peak effectiveness centered at age 40. Interesting. Looks like EQ peaked at 159, that's a bit higher than the 145 the Elementary School provided. When did it peak? 33 years. But wait, there's a factor going on here that's more exciting. The chart rebounds at 75 years when the 2nd generation begins. What is the saying? Life begins at 40? Anyways, since the High School primarily educates the age 40 bracket, it is actually effective as a multi-generational institution, unlike the poor Elementary School. However, the second generation's peak is lower than that of the first. Well, let's add a library and see what happens. That's better. Museum Museum Effectivenes cost EQ boost radius age 20 age 30 age 40 age 50 age 60 age 70 age 80 capacity 450 40 5800 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.75 1.5 3 900 EQxEffect 12 12 12 12 30 60 120 Hmmm, so the Museum EQxEffect is only 12 for ages 20-60, but EQ decay for 10 years is 24. What to do? Yep, this test will need the be run with a library. Ah, and the museum has quite a strong EQxEffect on the elderly, I wonder how that will go? WOW. Bet you weren't expecting that. Simply a museum and a library turned our sims into certified geniuses! Furthermore, they reach their peak EQ at end of life, meaning the next generation retains 80% of a very high EQ. Furthermore, the sims remain in EQ4 from one generation to the next; no change in industry or commercial demand. The coverage area of the museum is 5800 m, that's bigger than a large tile! All of that for $58+ $12 = $70 a month. It only took 70 years... College City college Effectivenes cost EQ boost radius age 20 age 30 age 40 age 50 age 60 age 70 age 80 capacity 1000 24 5800 0 0.5 1.5 5 2.5 0.5 0 7000 EQxEffect 0 12 36 120 60 12 0 The College "Educates young adult Sims". Age is just a number, right? 50 is young. Like the museum, the college coverage radius is 5800, covering an entire large tile. Let's get to the results. Lowest cost yet for 3,500 sims at $40, and our sims became rocket scientists after 30 years, with EQ peaking at 184 after 40 years. Without a library to help maintain that EQ, our sims did dip to EQ3 later in life, but the next generation came roaring back. Not much else to say here. I won't cover the large Elementary School and large High School. They have the same stats as their base schools, but with extended catchment areas and greater capacities. I also won't be covering the rewards educational buildings University, Major Art Museum, Main Branch Library, Opera House, Private School. Thoughts on this Educational System Whelp. As we can see, practically every educational institution provided will turn an uneducated sim into a certified genius. That's great if our goal is to get to High tech and High Wealth commercial offices as quickly as possible. Furthermore, this process can even be sped up by overlapping the services of multiple educational buildings. If that is your goal, the information above can help you achieve the highest EQ faster, or for less cost, or help you to maintain it between generations. As for myself, I'm looking for a bit more out of the game's educational system. I view the system shipped with the game as far too easy. As mayor, I would like to be able to tailor my city to focus on dirty industry and low wealth commercial services, or manufacturing industry and mid-level offices, or high tech industry and high wealth commercial offices. As hinted in the topic title, I have achieved that through mods. Stay tuned for the next post which will cover that topic. P.S. if you like the educational data map used in the posting, you can find it here:- 46 Replies
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