Basic simulation still unsatisfying?

[Phleem]

I am thinking of returning to this game, buying the DLCs, and giving it another try, but I wanted to hear from people if the underlying simulation has been improved since the early versions.

In particular, I was very unhappy with the way the game handled scaling up and things like undesirable syncing of the sim population of large residential areas zoned at the same time.

I don't have an issue with the agent limits per se, but the way the game handles the limits was enough to put me off and abandon it. For example, I hated the difference between a middle sized city where it is able to handle everything compared with a large one where it is dropping things right and left and parts of it feel like a ghost town.

If instead it smoothly started dropping things way before it reached the limits maybe it wouldn't feel like you were playing a different (and worse) game when you crossed some of those thresholds.

Another example I didn't like were the "death waves" when many sims with the same age were created in a new residential area, and caused perpetual boom/bust and corpse rotting cycles as the economy and body pickup mechanisms failed to deal with the oscillating population age.

Some of these things were so obvious and bad that it was as if the developers weren't even playing their own game up to cities sizes where they became unplayable. (And those sizes weren't like 1M pop either...)

Are any of these things less of a problem now?

 

[Red_warning]

Got back to this game a few days ago and death waves are still a problem. With regular intervals I seem to have to go on full time buldozing because my crematoriums can't keep up with all the dying :/

 

[ristosal]

There's a simple and easy fix for death waves: don't zone big chunks of residential at once. It's your call if you want to deal with a slower pace of building or not thougn.

 

[newtlord]

There's a simple and easy fix for death waves: don't zone big chunks of residential at once. It's your call if you want to deal with a slower pace of building or not thougn.

The problem is that death waves do not simulate any real life phenomenon (cities that develop large areas at once do not, in fact, suffer from hearse traffic jams), and it would be trivially easy for the programmers to get rid of them (semi-randomize the age of new arrivals so they don't all die at the same time). Therefore, the fact that death waves are still a thing is not good.

 

[akeela84]

Got back to this game a few days ago and death waves are still a problem. With regular intervals I seem to have to go on full time buldozing because my crematoriums can't keep up with all the dying :/

I have never had those death waves, however I believe that this mod might help you with this problem.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=654707599

 

[Red_warning]

I have never had those death waves, however I believe that this mod might help you with this problem.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=654707599

Nice. Will this disable achievements though? I'm kinda hunting for some now and if it does I'll have to save it for later.

Edit: This is what I'm dealing with every few years, and as you can see the streets are fairly empty so there should be no issue for the hearses to get to the bodies.

 

[Promethian]

Whitefang's lifecycle mod definitely does end death waves. It also provides a much more realistic cim lifecycle simulation if you care about such things.The effect on gameplay beyond death waves is minimal if at all. I activated it on a pre built city and all it did was stabilize my population and end death waves. Zoning and services balance remained the same or changed so little I didn't have to do anything to make my city remain functional.

There are mods that enable achievements when you have mods enabled. I know the irony is painful but it works.

 

[MarkJohnson]

I am thinking of returning to this game, buying the DLCs, and giving it another try, but I wanted to hear from people if the underlying simulation has been improved since the early versions.

In particular, I was very unhappy with the way the game handled scaling up and things like undesirable syncing of the sim population of large residential areas zoned at the same time.

I don't have an issue with the agent limits per se, but the way the game handles the limits was enough to put me off and abandon it. For example, I hated the difference between a middle sized city where it is able to handle everything compared with a large one where it is dropping things right and left and parts of it feel like a ghost town.

If instead it smoothly started dropping things way before it reached the limits maybe it wouldn't feel like you were playing a different (and worse) game when you crossed some of those thresholds.

Another example I didn't like were the "death waves" when many sims with the same age were created in a new residential area, and caused perpetual boom/bust and corpse rotting cycles as the economy and body pickup mechanisms failed to deal with the oscillating population age.

Some of these things were so obvious and bad that it was as if the developers weren't even playing their own game up to cities sizes where they became unplayable. (And those sizes weren't like 1M pop either...)

Are any of these things less of a problem now?

As for death waves, there are two kinds. The is the mass-death waves where dead bodies aren't picked up in time. The simple solution is providing adequate death care coverage. or if traffic related, then you need to clear your roads of too much traffic. Typically from building too fast at once on slow speeds. I just build at x3 speeds to avoid this issue.

The second death wave type is the cycle of life and death. This usually occurs when zoning large areas at once. When you start a new city it is empty and you build large populations in a short time. Well, the game doesn't seem to move in seniors. So your adults die in short order. Usually curable by adequate death coverage as well.

I find most users build the absolute minimum death care and then when bad things happens it turns into a domino effect. But playing at x3 speed usually cures the issue until your city becomes established. Maybe CO will adjust the age limits of cims moving in more of equal age types. But it's not really an issue if you're prepared for it.

Myself, I haven't had a mass-death wave since the first few months of the game when I figured out the causes. The Cycle of life death waves I attribute to zoning large chunks of residential for a while, then zone large chunks of jobs for all the workers, will oscillate the death cycle a bit just from not growing steady, but in small bursts.

Nut to answer your question, no they haven't changed much at all. But this is a game, so you'll need to look into why things happen and figure out how to prevent them, like any other game.

 

[MarkJohnson]

The problem is that death waves do not simulate any real life phenomenon (cities that develop large areas at once do not, in fact, suffer from hearse traffic jams), and it would be trivially easy for the programmers to get rid of them (semi-randomize the age of new arrivals so they don't all die at the same time). Therefore, the fact that death waves are still a thing is not good.

From your description you mass-death wave is from improper zoning of your city, causing huge amounts of traffic, which prevent hearses from picking up the dead. Try to build at x3 speed to let them mature more evenly. Try to not zone large chunks of zones. Remember, this is an agent (cims) based simulator and cims need to travel from point A to point B in a TIMELY manner or bad things happen.

 

[MarkJohnson]

Nice. Will this disable achievements though? I'm kinda hunting for some now and if it does I'll have to save it for later.

Edit: This is what I'm dealing with every few years, and as you can see the streets are fairly empty so there should be no issue for the hearses to get to the bodies.

This is almost always caused by inadequate death coverage. You need quite a bit of coverage. There is a mod called Extended Building Information that will tell you your service coverage. I try to shoot for each building with about 100 points of coverage. no less than 80. I try for these number for all services and they will provide enough land value/happiness for your buildings to reach level 5. But more death coverage will cure this with ease.

 

[Red_warning]

This is almost always caused by inadequate death coverage. You need quite a bit of coverage. There is a mod called Extended Building Information that will tell you your service coverage. I try to shoot for each building with about 100 points of coverage. no less than 80. I try for these number for all services and they will provide enough land value/happiness for your buildings to reach level 5. But more death coverage will cure this with ease.

Well of course, with enough crematoriums I would not notice the spikes, the problem is that with the spikes I have I would probably need 30 or so of them to counter the death peaks.

 

[MarkJohnson]

I don't know how many you have. but try just adding a few. It's not like the game doesn't fork out the cash or anything. Probably for extra crematoriums. You could probably remove some of them after the waves subside, bit then it you hit a disaster of some sort or even a natural disaster, then the death waves will just come back. But the game does like an abnormal amount of services for this game. Just look at the parks. whew! I never seen so many parks. lol

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

If it isn't too much backed up traffic, you can also boost the health/deathcare budget temporarily when a wave comes. It will cause additional hearses to be sent out. Lower it after the wave subsides. May be more cost effective to just plop down a few more deathcare services though.

Also, the "Content Creator Pack: High-Tech Buildings" has a "Cryopreservatory" that is basically a crematorium with greater capacity / more hearses.

 

[akeela84]

Nice. Will this disable achievements though? I'm kinda hunting for some now and if it does I'll have to save it for later.

Edit: This is what I'm dealing with every few years, and as you can see the streets are fairly empty so there should be no issue for the hearses to get to the bodies.

The mod I linked to in my previous post will disable any achievements but you can re-enable them with this mod: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=407055819

 

[Loltak]

Hi all
I don't know if it the best solution to stop or at least reduce the death-wave cycle but after removing the above mod "Citizen Lifecycle Rebalance..." I have to deal with several one.
After different solution, not very successful, I simply dezone som of the "senior house" thought my city to avoid a fresh arrival of cims and stop the next wave.
That works and I pretty happy even if my city is on the edge. (Edit: it greatly reduce the intensity than totally stop it)

The mod Citizen Lifecycle Rebalance do the job well, it just I want to come back to vanilla in term of game-play mechanic

Bye

 

[Phleem]

There's a simple and easy fix for death waves

Mostly the replies have talked about the "death waves" problem. They are just one example of a lot of issues with the way the simulation breaks down at medium to large scale.

Once my city got moderately sized it felt like it was a different game, with new areas looking empty and my attention spent trying to work around simulation problems.

It sounds like none of that has been worked on by the developer, which I find surprising and sad considering how great the game is for small cities yet how terrible the game plays as it scales, at least for my taste.

To be fair, I think part of what makes it great at the start is the sense of life with all the people, cars, and trucks bustling around. I can see it isn't simply a matter of just having that much happening times 1000 to scale to a 1M city. I just don't think it impossible to have that at small scale and keep more of it at huge scale if they at least put some effort into it instead of snow and the like.

 

[Promethian]

Mostly the replies have talked about the "death waves" problem. They are just one example of a lot of issues with the way the simulation breaks down at medium to large scale.

Once my city got moderately sized it felt like it was a different game, with new areas looking empty and my attention spent trying to work around simulation problems.

It sounds like none of that has been worked on by the developer, which I find surprising and sad considering how great the game is for small cities yet how terrible the game plays as it scales, at least for my taste.

To be fair, I think part of what makes it great at the start is the sense of life with all the people, cars, and trucks bustling around. I can see it isn't simply a matter of just having that much happening times 1000 to scale to a 1M city. I just don't think it impossible to have that at small scale and keep more of it at huge scale if they at least put some effort into it instead of snow and the like.

You are going need to be more specific. Because death waves are really the only real simulation failure at large sizes until you start hitting caps. If things are getting abandoned its because you are doing something wrong. Usually its getting your population/jobs balance wrong (read that as residental/industry + commercial + offices) or screwing up traffic. Complaining because the simulation requires you make traffic or population/jobs balance work isn't going to garner you sympathy so we are assuming your problem is with the real problem.

 

[ristosal]

I think I see where you're coming from, simulation wise this game just has a hard time supporting cities of several hundred thousand people because it's agent based. Keeping cities like that lively all around would mean more stress to CPU's, and it's no wonder the Megalopolis milestone is at a mere 90 000 at most.

 

[Phleem]

You are going need to be more specific. Because death waves are really the only real simulation failure at large sizes until you start hitting caps. If things are getting abandoned...

It's been awhile since I played, but as I said, the effect I didn't like was the way that the simulation works as you get close to and reach the caps. In particular it seemed that there was much less traffic, and there seemed to be odd artifacts in the patterns of growth, resource use, and consumption of services like death, garbage, and education.

I think the specific problems behind these issues were some or all of the following:

* Critical units blocked from spawning by 64k unit limit (no hearse for you!)

* Chunky grouping of which agents are simulated each tick. If I remember correctly, it picks a fixed number to simulate each tick, and they seemed to always be from the same area, so depending on how long it takes to get to all of them, and patterns in the game, certain areas seemed to behave differently than others.

* Imbalances between parts of the simulation created as different entities are trimmed and limited by the caps. For example, what happens to traffic and economy simulation when someone who should be going to work and shopping etc can't leave the house because you are at traveling agent cap? Then this times 1000...

* Very different traffic dynamics in new areas as you get to the limits where far fewer agents end up traveling.

I wasn't building ginormous 1M pop cities when I hit these things, and they spoiled the game for me.

 

[MarkJohnson]

To be fair, I think part of what makes it great at the start is the sense of life with all the people, cars, and trucks bustling around. I can see it isn't simply a matter of just having that much happening times 1000 to scale to a 1M city. I just don't think it impossible to have that at small scale and keep more of it at huge scale if they at least put some effort into it instead of snow and the like.

That's your problem. As stated earlier, you need to keep the city in balance, if it gets out of balance, you city becomes flooded with traffic. So, if you have a lot of traffic at the start, then you are going to have problems get worse.

Try to build a one tile city with only one-way in and one-way out and have almost no traffic. Until you can do this, you'll have problems the whole time you play.

Once you figure out how to control traffic by zoning, the bigger the city you can create.

Also, the game is designed for 9-tile cities and there is no way to get a million population. probably not even a half million.

If you go outside of the 9-tile limit, then you are on your own and things will be much more worse as your city grows. And you likely still won't hit a million as the agent systems can't keep on large cities like 25-tiles. let alone 81-tiles. At least not without mods altering game play.

So, pratice one-tiles city until you get the hang of how the game want's you to build. Then do it again with 9-tiles and 300k and try to keep your agents very low. under half of the 80k. i.e. no more than 8k of vehicle traffic and 32k citizen traffic.

Here's my sample city I started. It is still out of balanced and not full yet, but you should get the idea. No workshop is needed.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=934241250