How do cims choose their jobs?

[Nekozji]

Hey peeps, this feels like a simple question, but I'm struggling to find good information about it.

TLDR: how do cims choose where they work?

Long form: it's clear that cims want to a job suitable to their education. My oil town and farm experience regular shortages of workers as I create new offices and HD commercial areas, which I assume is the overeducated people moving on. What I'm not sure of is how they choose which of several well/highly educated jobs they go for.

• Do they look for the closest job to their home, by distance or travel time?
• Are they assigned to chronologically first job that became available within a given radius/travel time of their home?
• Do they explicitly favour offices over commercial?
• Do they prefer higher levelled buildings?
• And do they change jobs for reasons other than education? If a new opportunity arises that halves their commute, will they switch?

Any info much appreciated

(Basically I'm investigating mixing offices with residential, in the hopes that this will give the local residents some walkable employment options and cut down commuter traffic. Also thinking about dedicated dormitories for production industries, because I have a real hard time filling up distant industrial estates.)

 

[TimW]

This makes me wonder as well. My old industrial areas have plenty of workers while newer ones tend to have shortages or are abandoned. Same for low density commercial.

 

[Promethian]

Nearest to home they can get with education preference. Distance is always measured in travel time. (its actually a complicated score system with different road types having different values)

Its not that offices are specifically favored. Its that your education level is high and offices are the top preference high education job. Workers that have less than the top education level won't favor offices.

High education cims do prefer higher level buildings. Look at the jobs available as a zone levels up. You'll notice that not only are jobs added but the average education level of the jobs goes up as well.

They change jobs all the time. I would be surprised if commute wasn't a factor but education definitely is. They bail from low ed jobs fast if they are high ed.

Offices and Residential have almost the same needs to level up (offices are a little more picky). Mixing them is definitely a good idea though not necessary. Offices as a job providing zone draw dramatically less traffic than other job providing zones.

You should be able to fill up distant industrial as long as you have a good highway system that reaches the distant zoning. By highway I don't mean a 2 lane road with the lowest speed limit. I mean the actual road type with the maximum speed limited that is literally called highway in game. Just remember to provide services so they level up to maximum. High ed cims dislike working in industrial zones that are lower than level 3.


@TimW You probably aren't providing services to the new zones so they can't level up. If that isn't it then just zone more residential, you aren't providing enough people to work the zones. As a rule you want the residential demand to always be a very tiny bar or none at all. Otherwise you get employment problems.

 

[Nekozji]

@Promethian - that's really useful, thanks for the detailed answer

I'm always keen on building my own highways, tied in gracefully with the existing ones for top speeds - although they do often start as 2x 1-way roads and get expanded later on. It's possible I'm a bit too keen on building non-residential zones though, as I tend to end up with about 10% more jobs offered than there are workers, so they're probably cherry picking the closest options. I'm going to start targeting around a 4-5% unemployment rate, hopefully that will give enough of a pool so that opening new estates doesn't close down the old ones.

I've also been experimenting with a town of oil+generic industry, and some HD residential. Provided all services and public transport options, with the School's Out policy set on the district. They became the first level 5 apartments in the city, all the generic industry is level 3, and it looks like a little corner of Dubai! Quite a few of the cims seem prepared to hop on a train and go to university anyway, but that's mostly fine, as they take the generic factories while the lesser educated ones man the oil pumps.

One thing I have spotted is that cims seem to prefer working in larger buildings over little ones. Every time I try for 2x2 or smaller, it's always the first thing to be abandoned. Tried a whole road of 2x2 and 1x1, with a nearby residential estate, and its really struggling. Put some 4x4s nearby and they filled right up... Which is a shame, because I was trying to break away from square-grid roads, and this kind of behaviour means I'll have to leave a lot of empty space :/ Would love a district policy for "subsidise <type>" which would increase worker wages and add weighting to the desirability of jobs there.

 

[TimW]

@TimW You probably aren't providing services to the new zones so they can't level up. If that isn't it then just zone more residential, you aren't providing enough people to work the zones. As a rule you want the residential demand to always be a very tiny bar or none at all. Otherwise you get employment problems.

What do you mean by "providing services"? I see that with abandoned buildings that are within walking and driving distance of residential. They also have access to roads, transit, education, fire, health, and police.

 

[MarkJohnson]

Services are pretty much all of your plopable building. mainly fire. police, and medical. But you also need garbage, death, parks, mass transit, cargo, and all education buildings.

Here's an info mod that gives building information requirements:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=670422128&searchtext=extended+building

I try for around 100 points for each service type for max building level. The larger boxes have greater influence so use them first. I.e. Generic Industry loves cargo train station. It will give a full 1 level by itself. Remember, the further away the building is from the service the weaker the influence.

Education is the most important. I find your buildings won't level up until it matches your education level, so it can take a while to fully educate cims. So plop education first thing.

 

[Nyanako]

What do you mean by "providing services"? I see that with abandoned buildings that are within walking and driving distance of residential. They also have access to roads, transit, education, fire, health, and police.

Industry doesn't need education transit or health to level up. Most of the time, to get a level 3 industry, all you need is a Large Firestation and a Railyard. Add a few parks and you'll be golden.

 

[ristosal]

Industry doesn't need education transit or health to level up. Most of the time, to get a level 3 industry, all you need is a Large Firestation and a Railyard. Add a few parks and you'll be golden.

Cargo transport and fire coverage are indeed the two most important for industry, but public transport is almost three times more important than parks.

 

[TimW]

Thanks for that link! That is something I will have to learn from.