My Cities keep stalling...(SimCity4)

[Sir Goulum]

I seem to have trouble with making my cities prosper. They get off to a great start, but once they hit around 18000 people or so, they just stall, and noone wants to go there anymore. My best city in my region has around 22000 people, but it came with the game, and was already started. I do everything that you should do(Lots of res., commercial, and industrial), and everything is perfect! [img]tongue.gif[/img] Also, my commercial doesn't like to grow. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[johnny]

Let other cities dump their waste in your landfill. I told you this before. It's not that hard.

[Sir Goulum]

No...its not money! People just dont move in! I've zoned for residential, commercial, industrial, the whole works! Noone builds! THe land values good, the desirabilitys good! Grrrr! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[johnny]

Originally posted by Sir Goulum: No...its not money! People just dont move in! I've zoned for residential, commercial, industrial, the whole works! Noone builds! THe land values good, the desirabilitys good! Grrrr! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Do they have enough recreation ? Are your taxes too high ? Is there plenty of education ? Good police coverage ? Firecoverage ? You need to check all those things, or you might get in trouble.

[Sir Goulum]

Originally posted by johnny: quote: Originally posted by Sir Goulum: No...its not money! People just dont move in! I've zoned for residential, commercial, industrial, the whole works! Noone builds! THe land values good, the desirabilitys good! Grrrr! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Do they have enough recreation ? Are your taxes too high ? Is there plenty of education ? Good police coverage ? Firecoverage ? You need to check all those things, or you might get in trouble. [/QUOTE]No, its all good! I've got so many parks/rec places that it could serve the entire world! [img]tongue.gif[/img] All fairly close too.

[Chewbacca]

I highly recommend the official strategy guide for this game. It describes the, IMHO overly-complex, concept of stage limits and how they effect population growth.

From what I understand of stage limits the different types of zone develpoment (R$,R$$,Co$,CS$,IA,ID,IM,IHT,ect.) effect population limits regionwide
So you have to find the right balance within your residential, comercial and industrial development types in order to expand your population to the next threshhold level.

I honestly put this game on the shelf a month or two back in favor of C&C generals and haven't gotten back to it. This part of the game seemed more complex than anything in previous simcity games but perhaps when I go back to the game and play it more it will be easier to understand.

Good luck and happy city building! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 05-30-2003, 08:43 PM: Message edited by: Chewbacca ]

[Sir Goulum]

So your saying that I can't have too much of each?

[Chewbacca]

Originally posted by Sir Goulum: So your saying that I can't have too much of each?

Its more complex than that. There are two pages of graphs in the strat guide describing how stage limits work!!!!!
I wish I could be more helpful here! [img]smile.gif[/img]

I havent even touched upon the concept of demand caps, which is another factor that can limit city growth. According to the strat guide Residential caps are raised via parks and amenities, commercial & industrial with connections to other cities.

[johnny]

I think it's the same concept as in real life... when there are plenty of jobs available, people will move in. You can build all the housing areas you want, but if there are no jobs, people won't come.

[Chewbacca]

Okay I read the strat guide abit more about stage limits....Basically your overall population effects the size and capacity of the indivual buildings in zones.
In order to increase population density you must grow over-all population by zoning more!
Each kind of zone has its own threshhold of population when its buildings get "bigger". Thats what the graph in the book is all about.

To quote the book- "Zone out in order to zone up." Building more zones actually increases populaton in two different ways.

Ultimately there are a whole variey of factors that effect population.

Also-I found it useful to inspect my zones and re-zone any buildings that had zero occupancy into a zone-type that was in demand. "Dirty" industry can be upgraded, and light residential into medium residnetial will help to.

If you have ALOT of commercial zones that arent developing. change them into residential and see a big boost in population and job demand. Commerrical zones are way more important when your city has 30,000-50,000 population and an airport.