SIM City 5 - Actual Strategy Discussion

[RU482]

That has failed for me the couple times I tried it. I come back to a city ridden with fire and crime and half deserted.

So.... Detroit?

 

[HarvardAce]

The issue with traffic is not with pathfinding. The issue is a design flaw with the current implementation of the glassbox engine.

The game is, quite simply, a bunch of supply and demand ("sinks"). At its most basic level, a certain "commodity" (e.g. water, power, worker, etc.) is produced from a supply (now called an "agent"). At the time of creation, the agent now finds the closest "sink" that is not full.

The issue is when lots of agents are created at the same time (e.g. at the end of a shift from an industrial building, at the start of every day for work, etc.). In a high density building, you now have about 200 workers looking for the closest job. Let's say the closest job is down a deadend street and only has capacity for 6 workers. Because the agents are independent of each other, they all see that plot as the closest job, and all head that direction. The first 6 workers fill the job up, and now that job is no longer open. It is not clear (and I intend to test this tonight) whether the remaining 194 workers immediately realize that the sink they were heading toward is now full and they reroute, or if they have to reach their destination before they reroute. In either case, you now have 194 workers that have traveled quite a distance for no reason.

 

[MrSquished]

i want to play with some of you smart people. ive gotten a few cities over 100k people making good money.

add me on origin and someone start a region. post it here. invite only. and let's get rolling!

name is falafelist on origin.

 

[redrider4life4]

Follow a recycling truck around for a while and you'll see how bad the pathing is

 

[Dominato3r]

I'm starting to get into processor manufacturing and was wondering what you guys thought of an idea I had

Trade port 1 imports plastic and alloy

Trade port 2 accepts local deliveries of plastic and alloy (from trade port 1) and uses plastic and alloy locally

Processor factories build processors, and send to tade port 3

Trade port 3 sells creates of processors


Is this overly complex? how are you guys selling processors and making consistent $/month?

 

[HarvardAce]

Follow a recycling truck around for a while and you'll see how bad the pathing is

The issue is the same as all the other issues and has little to do with pathing. When the recycling truck is dispatched, it finds the closest building that has recycling to pick up. It then drives to that place, and picks up the recycling (unless of course another truck has already beaten it to that spot, in which case it doesn't pick anything up). Then it finds the next closest spot with recycling, and continues until the truck is full or there are no locations that require recycling pickup.

While the most efficient solution would be some sort of modified traveling-salesman type problem, this solution is especially poor as there is no coordination between trucks -- each one just drives to the closest point needing pickup, which could be the same for each truck you have, and depending on your setup could result in some really weird paths that it takes. However, the path that it chooses to get to the next pickup is usually fairly decent, although traffic doesn't seem to have as big (or any, possibly) affect on its weighting when determining the path.

 

[HarvardAce]

I'm starting to get into processor manufacturing and was wondering what you guys thought of an idea I had

Trade port 1 imports plastic and alloy

Trade port 2 accepts local deliveries of plastic and alloy (from trade port 1) and uses plastic and alloy locally

Processor factories build processors, and send to tade port 3

Trade port 3 sells creates of processors


Is this overly complex? how are you guys selling processors and making consistent $/month?

Trade port 2 is not needed, if you import the materials in port 1, it just means that the trade trucks/trains/boats will pick up the materials from the global market and deliver them to the port, and then local trucks can grab them from the port for use in the processor factory.

I believe that goods in a trade depot are always available to be used locally, even if they are set to export (basically in that case it just depends whether the global truck picks it up first or the local truck). "Local" use on the setting just means that you are neither importing or exporting from the global market (i.e. only using it as storage from some other source, such as a recycling plant or smelting station) before being used somewhere else.

 

[Phanuel]

I'm starting to get into processor manufacturing and was wondering what you guys thought of an idea I had

Trade port 1 imports plastic and alloy

Trade port 2 accepts local deliveries of plastic and alloy (from trade port 1) and uses plastic and alloy locally

Processor factories build processors, and send to tade port 3

Trade port 3 sells creates of processors


Is this overly complex? how are you guys selling processors and making consistent $/month?

Trade port 1 imports plastic and alloy

Processor plant 1 accepts delivery of said plastics and alloy from trade port, delivers completed processors to trade port 1

Trade port 1 exports processors.


Yes, you are making this way too complicated. By the time you have a trade port and are able to build plastic, alloy, and processor/tv/computer yards, it's a done deal. 1 trade port should be able to handle 3-4 plants by itself with no issues.

 

[Dominato3r]

How many processors factories have you guys set up?

 

[Dijeangenie]

Slightly off topic! - Anyone know if they are going to allow modding to take place? - I would love city size to be increased.

 

[Hoober]

How many processors factories have you guys set up?

Had 4 on one map at one point. Then switched over to consumer electronics and am making a mint. Population issues, though with jobs, etc. as others have indicated.

 

[KaOTiK]

Know what pisses me off. Ok, besides the fact we have very limited space to deal with, in order to achieve some of the things for unlocks (like sell xxxxx amount in a day) you have to build quite a few of factories for those things and all the factories are freaking big. It truly does make it a pain in the ass when you can't get to the next upgrade point without destroying stuff to make room for more factories.

This also goes into other things, a lot of the higher end buildings for things are pretty damn big when compares to the amount of room you have to work with. I found that I can't just depend on hiring another cities services for some stuff and have to have a couple of cities being able to provide the service and when there isn't I have to at the least build the low the version of something (police/fire/clinc/etc).

The city size is a big issue for I'm sure all of us, but it makes it even worse with the size of some of building require on top of it.

 

[pcslookout]

That has failed for me the couple times I tried it. I come back to a city ridden with fire and crime and half deserted.

Works fine here just got to check it ever now and then.

 

[Dominato3r]

Any idea how long it takes for oil to run out from wells? it's said 2 months for almost a year of game time now.

 

[KaOTiK]

Any idea how long it takes for oil to run out from wells? it's said 2 months for almost a year of game time now.

Dunno, it last a long time, if you place your wells right over the pure black, it will suck on it for many hours of game time at cheeta (is that even back in or is it just llama even when it says cheeta?) speed, same goes for all the other resources when you build stuff right on top of the "a lot" part.


Bah, went afk for like an hour and a half with my city going, was fully stable and rocking away with no worries. Come back and it is broke with the screen giving me options to get it running again. I look around, my entire electronic and oil setup was destroyed by meteor showers as well as a large portion of the industry oh and to top it off a tornado's in the residential area in one spot and on the other side another tornado that took out most services lol. GG

Thankfully I have my mega bucks city that will gift money over (hopefully sometime in this year, the gifting is so broken, gifted myself 5m to a new city last night and it still hasn't showed up yet shows being taken from my wallet)

 

[HarvardAce]

it will suck on it for many hours of game time at cheeta (is that even back in or is it just llama even when it says cheeta?) speed

Cheetah speed currently runs the simulation at the same speed as llama even though the UI makes it look like you have cheetah speed activated.

 

[KaOTiK]

Cheetah speed currently runs the simulation at the same speed as llama even though the UI makes it look like you have cheetah speed activated.

Thought so but haven't been keeping a close eye on patch info or whatever it is downloading for updates lol. Thanks.

 

[greenhawk]

The first 6 workers fill the job up, and now that job is no longer open. It is not clear (and I intend to test this tonight) whether the remaining 194 workers immediately realize that the sink they were heading toward is now full and they reroute, or if they have to reach their destination before they reroute. In either case, you now have 194 workers that have traveled quite a distance for no reason.

Someone posted a video that showed that, and one of the developer videos I watched mentioned that once in transit, a agent does not re-direct itself. Once it gets to the destination and find it is not needed, it sends itself off to the next nearest "sink". Using a bad road network would have this redirecting blocking roads very fast.

 

[greenhawk]

Anyone know if they are going to allow modding to take place?

I would love city size to be increased.

On the first, given the nature of the server side of the game, that would be a no.

on the second, I suspect it will come, either once the server issues are fixed, or you by the expected DLC that will allow it (just guessing that it will be a charged for extra).

 

[erwos]

There are also problems with roads not having enough left turns, which forces way more traffic into intersections than needs to be there. SOME buildings will generate left turns, but never RCI.

The issue is the same as all the other issues and has little to do with pathing.

I've watched vehicles circle the block a few times for no apparent reason. There is something going on with pathing. I agree that the agent "intelligence" issues are probably the bigger problem, but they're clearly not the only problem.

I honestly have no idea what Maxis was smoking when they tested this game. There are some fundamental issues that anyone with a few hours of gameplay under their belt would spot. Yes, the engine is pretty and the basic mechanics are fun... but for a game where long-term play of a city or region is supposed to be possible, things are horribly broken.

I think a patch COULD fix the game. But I'd like Maxis to acknowledge the genuine gameplay issues we we know what's a feature, and what's a bug.

Oh, and to keep it on topic:
1. Never build intersections near highways. EVER.
2. Never build RCI on your main avenues. Put services on these.
3. Space out your RCI. Plan on mixing your R and C, and have multiple very small industrial zones so that traffic doesn't get bottle necked at rush hour.
4. Don't build services near intersections or crowded streets.
5. Don't build anything besides streetcar avenues. If you need money at first, use medium density avenues and upgrade them later.
6. DO NOT EVER BUILD BUSES! It's basically proven at this point that they do more harm than good, and are not worth paying for.
7. Train station + casino = easy money.

 

[redrider4life4]

I need some people's input on Oil drilling/refining, check out my below scenario and let me know what you have experienced.

I have 4 Oil wells set up to max capacity (12,000 barrels per day) and 3 oil refineries converting this oil to fuel/plastic and am selling the fuel/plastic for a nice profit of around 450-500k per day.

I can tell my oil will be running out withing a few months so I tested to see how much money i would get from importing the oil and refining to fuel/plastic. I deleted an oil well, added 1 more refinery, switched my 3 trade depots to all import oil, my trade port was all for exporting fuel.

There is no traffic in my city, no holdups, I followed the trucks, at no point did my refinery get backed up or a trade depot/port fill up. I was importing around 300k a day in crude oil, but my fuel was only selling for just over 440k a day so I was making 140k a day profit, I did this over a few days just to see if it took some time to switch over.

Anyway, yes I am making 140k profit, but that is a net loss after you take out the costs per hour to run 5 refineries, a trade port, and trade depot. I feel like the oil business is a broken model as you can not make a decent profit importing oil and refining it.

I know processors/tvs make very good money so I am in the middle of switching over to that operation that way I can have a good source of income when my oil reserves dry up.

 

[pwoz]

Red, some of that could be another bug I've found with trade depots. Sometimes when mine buys material, I will get 1 unit of delivery, but receive a charge for multiple deliveries. Again, not sure what causes this, but it bankrupted one of my cities due to poor timing after placing an expensive building. I wasn't planning on importing 10 tons of alloy for $500,000.

 

[T9D]

There are also problems with roads not having enough left turns, which forces way more traffic into intersections than needs to be there. SOME buildings will generate left turns, but never RCI.


I've watched vehicles circle the block a few times for no apparent reason. There is something going on with pathing. I agree that the agent "intelligence" issues are probably the bigger problem, but they're clearly not the only problem.

I honestly have no idea what Maxis was smoking when they tested this game. There are some fundamental issues that anyone with a few hours of gameplay under their belt would spot. Yes, the engine is pretty and the basic mechanics are fun... but for a game where long-term play of a city or region is supposed to be possible, things are horribly broken.

I think a patch COULD fix the game. But I'd like Maxis to acknowledge the genuine gameplay issues we we know what's a feature, and what's a bug.

Oh, and to keep it on topic:
1. Never build intersections near highways. EVER.
2. Never build RCI on your main avenues. Put services on these.
3. Space out your RCI. Plan on mixing your R and C, and have multiple very small industrial zones so that traffic doesn't get bottle necked at rush hour.
4. Don't build services near intersections or crowded streets.
5. Don't build anything besides streetcar avenues. If you need money at first, use medium density avenues and upgrade them later.
6. DO NOT EVER BUILD BUSES! It's basically proven at this point that they do more harm than good, and are not worth paying for.
7. Train station + casino = easy money.

I have a city of 250k and the traffic is very good. I use buses they work good in my city. I also use regular high density streets (one lane each way type). But what I did was make a circle around the whole city with the avenues with streetcars, and one down the middle. Works awesome. I see other people who used every steet with streetcars and have horrible traffic problems. It's really not necessary if you do it right, and may even for some reason make it worse.

 

[sigurros81]

Most of the strategies I'm reading has a common denominator of "it's a bug, wait for a fix". Damn, is the game really this buggy? Hehe.

 

[TheUnk]

I have a city of 250k and the traffic is very good. I use buses they work good in my city. I also use regular high density streets (one lane each way type). But what I did was make a circle around the whole city with the avenues with streetcars, and one down the middle. Works awesome. I see other people who used every steet with streetcars and have horrible traffic problems. It's really not necessary if you do it right, and may even for some reason make it worse.

I have a city at 200k but with no circle and no traffic problems. It is on a lot that had the highway passing through, like 1/4 circle in the corner. Like you I only have regular high density streets and a lot of buses. I think it was like 20k passengers last time I checked.

Oh and I'm proud to say my crime rate is 0 and I have no local police force lol, just another city providing a few cop cars. High wealth and high education!