...what's missing are the consequences. You can verify what follows in the Population Details panel.

Place residential, this generates a demand for money (satisfied by and represented as a demand for employment) and a demand for happiness (satisfied by and represented as a demand for places to shop).

Place commercial zones, and you'll see people both employed and shopping, and so it appears like that's all you need. But it isn't entirely. Commercial operations generate demand for employees (as jobs), shoppers (as unsold goods)...and freight (visible if you scroll down to the Industrial Freight section).

The problem is...failing to actually place Industry to fulfill this industrial demand doesn't seem to have much consequence. You can employ people and keep them happy with commercial alone, and they'll never move out (at least, not that I've seen yet), and commercial never seems to ACTUALLY run out of goods to sell, even if freight is never satisfied.

So there we have it. The numerical connections between these things DO appear to be in place. What's missing is strong pushback for unfulfilled expectations.

Oh, and one other, similar point.

In past SimCity games, zones planted without demand would not be built upon. They would lie fallow until the demand was there.

As far as I can tell, that's not true in SC2013. If you zone, they will build...even if it completely unbalances your city by generating demands you're in no shape to fulfill.

This means you need to be MUCH more conservative about your zone layout if you care about balance. You can't just zone as placeholders for stuff you eventually want to see. You have to mean it when you zone, because what you zone for WILL be built almost immediately, and immediately affect your numbers.

Well, yeah dude... that's why it's broken.

you're right about the core there is no consequence but inter city trading of resources I MEAN (workers / shoppers / freight) isn't working either sometimes you'll get 1/3 of your unemployed traveling for jobs others you'll get almost zero, and shoppers don't like going on the highway apparently. cause i never had a significant amount of traveling shoppers (If im playing the R city).

also zero dollar zoning zero dollar bulldozing make for even less consequences the number mean nothing as we have shown a million times before.

Wait seriously? My city drowned with commuting shoppers. Everyone in the region wanted to shop at my city for no apparent reason.

At least the 50k shoppers commuting in weren't as bad as the 100K tourists... and I had no attractions or any reason for them to be in my city. Just a few commercial buildings. I would pan out to the highway all the time yelling "GO AWAY THERE"S NOTHING HERE FOR YOU GOOOO AWAAAAY"

The devs have said on twitter that basically all C and I do is earn money. I earns $ at twice the rate of C. So you can build a city with just R with the only consequence being a slower economy.

There's RCI for you. Enjoy, suckers.

P.S. - I'd call that pretty damned broken OP.

Klypto wrote:Wait seriously? My city drowned with commuting shoppers. Everyone in the region wanted to shop at my city for no apparent reason.

At least the 50k shoppers commuting in weren't as bad as the 100K tourists... and I had no attractions or any reason for them to be in my city. Just a few commercial buildings. I would pan out to the highway all the time yelling "GO AWAY THERE"S NOTHING HERE FOR YOU GOOOO AWAAAAY"

Yes I meant if you're playing the city without shops. That city shows almost zero shoppers commuting even though the unsold goods in the "shopping" city shows high numbers.

Let me put it this way City A) has shops shows TONS of shoppers coming in.

City B) has zero shops but shows almost zero shoppers going out. Therefore it's easier to play with shops, but as far as playing without shops is also broken.

I wouldn't say it's easier to play with shops if no one else in the region is. It's a traffic nightmare.

But you're right, the other city owners wouldn't even realize it since it doesn't show anyone leaving.

Klypto wrote:I wouldn't say it's easier to play with shops if no one else in the region is. It's a traffic nightmare.

fair enough i meant to even try to satisfy the fake RCI

You're right the traffic is a nightmare.

unclemikey wrote:Oh, and one other, similar point.

In past SimCity games, zones planted without demand would not be built upon. They would lie fallow until the demand was there.

As far as I can tell, that's not true in SC2013. If you zone, they will build...even if it completely unbalances your city by generating demands you're in no shape to fulfill.

This means you need to be MUCH more conservative about your zone layout if you care about balance. You can't just zone as placeholders for stuff you eventually want to see. You have to mean it when you zone, because what you zone for WILL be built almost immediately, and immediately affect your numbers.

Actually if you have zero demand they won't build anything.

You rarely get zero demand though.

Residential and commercial only cities don't work very well. As sims spend money but not many of then Earn money. Purely residential cities work better as they don't spend money and don't earn money so they don't really care too much. Just slower growth. Chuck in a few service buildings and parks and your sorted.

Lemonater47 wrote:

unclemikey wrote:Oh, and one other, similar point.

In past SimCity games, zones planted without demand would not be built upon. They would lie fallow until the demand was there.

As far as I can tell, that's not true in SC2013. If you zone, they will build...even if it completely unbalances your city by generating demands you're in no shape to fulfill.

This means you need to be MUCH more conservative about your zone layout if you care about balance. You can't just zone as placeholders for stuff you eventually want to see. You have to mean it when you zone, because what you zone for WILL be built almost immediately, and immediately affect your numbers.

Actually if you have zero demand they won't build anything.

You rarely get zero demand though.

Residential and commercial only cities don't work very well. As sims spend money but not many of then Earn money. Purely residential cities work better as they don't spend money and don't earn money so they don't really care too much. Just slower growth. Chuck in a few service buildings and parks and your sorted.

Are you talking about past simcity games or this ... thing 2013?

i have quite a few screen shots that show ZERO demand for R yet they are building bigger buildings.

The whole problem is this: nothing that you do matters. Things will grow no matter how crappy your city layout is and, conversely, no matter how well you set up your city some things will never work.

supernarfa wrote:The whole problem is this: nothing that you do matters. Things will grow no matter how crappy your city layout is and, conversely, no matter how well you set up your city some things will never work.

1000% agreed.

s1n3rg3y wrote:

Lemonater47 wrote:

unclemikey wrote:Oh, and one other, similar point.

In past SimCity games, zones planted without demand would not be built upon. They would lie fallow until the demand was there.

As far as I can tell, that's not true in SC2013. If you zone, they will build...even if it completely unbalances your city by generating demands you're in no shape to fulfill.

This means you need to be MUCH more conservative about your zone layout if you care about balance. You can't just zone as placeholders for stuff you eventually want to see. You have to mean it when you zone, because what you zone for WILL be built almost immediately, and immediately affect your numbers.

Actually if you have zero demand they won't build anything.

You rarely get zero demand though.

Residential and commercial only cities don't work very well. As sims spend money but not many of then Earn money. Purely residential cities work better as they don't spend money and don't earn money so they don't really care too much. Just slower growth. Chuck in a few service buildings and parks and your sorted.

Are you talking about past simcity games or this ... thing 2013?

This one. I've had zero need for industry and placed lots of industry zones and only one building was built. Lots of empty space.

Its the only time I've seen something go to zero though. Its mainly because most of my current industry buildings were high density.

And I tried a commercial residential city and that didn't work as well. Many people just ran out of money as they wanted to buy things when they had no jobs. So they either left or became homeless. I destroyed all my commercial and built lots of houses so it was 100% residential. And they were fine. They weren't spending or gaining any money. They complained about no jobs but my parks countered that. They were perfectly fine with starving to death.

supernarfa wrote:The whole problem is this: nothing that you do matters. Things will grow no matter how crappy your city layout is and, conversely, no matter how well you set up your city some things will never work.

This. Even more basic...all you need is R and low taxes. Not even power!!!!