Q: Department Store Unique building

[Palmerdale]

Okay, I've got my city slightly evolved and I dumped money into a Department Store. Despite its name, it doesn't seem to contribute to my commercial economy as I anticipated. The store is showing that it is getting visitors each week (locals and tourists), but it doesn't seem to receive shipments or goods.

So, what does this unique building actually do for me and would a second one actually be a good thing?

 

[metacritical]

https://skylines.paradoxwikis.com/Unique_buildings

 

[28rommel]

Palmerdale,
The Department Store really isn't a "department store" per se. It will not bring-in direct funds into your treasury/economy. Think of it as a park or a monument that others go to visit/see.
It is just a unique building that helps to beautify your city, and brings-in more outside tourists (I cant remember if it also provides overall happiness to your residents, but they might). You can see some indication of this, when you hit the Info Views/Leisure button (there could be multiple tabs here, so try them all).

The economic (money-making) dynamics of this game is strange. It is difficult to determine exactly how something (anything) will help with the profitability of your city. But basically, the game auto conforms to make-up for the added ongoing upkeep expense of placing/buying unique buildings (and other stuff) in your city. Just put them down gradually (and not too many at any one time), and usually you will be OK.

 

[Emre Yigit]

What @28rommel said.

 

[Palmerdale]

Palmerdale,
The Department Store really isn't a "department store" per se. It will not bring-in direct funds into your treasury/economy. Think of it as a park or a monument that others go to visit/see.
It is just a unique building that helps to beautify your city, and brings-in more outside tourists (I cant remember if it also provides overall happiness to your residents, but they might). You can see some indication of this, when you hit the Info Views/Leisure button (there could be multiple tabs here, so try them all).

The economic (money-making) dynamics of this game is strange. It is difficult to determine exactly how something (anything) will help with the profitability of your city. But basically, the game auto conforms to make-up for the added ongoing upkeep expense of placing/buying unique buildings (and other stuff) in your city. Just put them down gradually (and not too many at any one time), and usually you will be OK.

So, the Department Store is nothing more than a statue that attracts some tourists, costs a lot with a high upkeep cost (especially early on) and generates no real revenue. Probably better to zone the space as commercial. Pretty much a pointless feature, and a big disappointment.

 

[28rommel]

So, the Department Store is nothing more than a statue that attracts some tourists, costs a lot with a high upkeep cost (especially early on) and generates no real revenue. Probably better to zone the space as commercial. Pretty much a pointless feature, and a big disappointment.

Basically, yes.
The search feature for this website is limited, in where older threads are impossible to find (they remove their search ability from the database, but they are still "out there"). If I could easily find one good (maybe two), older thread that is about 1-1/2 years-old, I would post the link here for you to read. This older thread had a number of posts, many/most from "well-seasoned" players of this game with very good knowledge of Cities Skylines.

These players all came to, basically, the same conclusion. That money/profitability just "magically" appears to make-up for the ongoing upkeep expense of many assets that are placed down. Assets like Unique Buildings, Monuments, the Cargo Train Terminal, the Cargo Harbor, etc, etc. But the "magic" is not always immediate, or necessarily bringing you back to the exact prior profitability.
If your profitability is good (or very good), you may want to try placing some Unique Buildings because they truly do look neat. It gives your city some diversity from the vast majority of "normal" buildings that exist (the growables).

Conclusion: The finance/economics is just strange. You just except it and move-on to the other neat and very good aspects of this game. But as an accountant (me), I have to admit I am somewhat disappointed. Oh well.

 

[Turjan]

So, the Department Store is nothing more than a statue that attracts some tourists, costs a lot with a high upkeep cost (especially early on) and generates no real revenue. Probably better to zone the space as commercial. Pretty much a pointless feature, and a big disappointment.

It's not as bleak as it may look. You get your taxes from land value, and most unique buildings have enough value to offset their costs and more by increased tax revenue.

I did a test once in a city where I just dumped all available unique buildings far away from the city where they didn't really have their usual area effects. Of course, the finances first took a beating, but tax income pretty much rose the same as the costs, so it was a non-issue. And usually you place the buildings somewhere where they do their upgrade magic, so it's even better than in that test.

The department store doesn't really have much of a positive effect on its surroundings, but as you probably put it in a commercial area, that one upgrades very easily.

 

[Promethian]

Its not magic. Its actually rather obvious if you understand tourism. Each unique you place increases your effective maximum of tourists. You still need parks and commercial for them to generate revenue but the unique will pay for itself through the tourists.

Tourists have been a very obscure mechanic for a long time and Parklife only made it a bit better but was able to confirm for me the beneficial effects of tourism. So its understandable a lot of people don't figure it out.

 

[28rommel]

Its not magic. Its actually rather obvious if you understand tourism. Each unique you place increases your effective maximum of tourists. You still need parks and commercial for them to generate revenue but the unique will pay for itself through the tourists.

Tourists have been a very obscure mechanic for a long time and Parklife only made it a bit better but was able to confirm for me the beneficial effects of tourism. So its understandable a lot of people don't figure it out.

Promethian,
I own the base game and SnowFall DLC expansion only.
Maybe the economic/finance dynamics work different depending on which DLC's you own, but for what I have, the numbers displayed by the game do not "add up," and thus some "magic" must be present.

My city currently has 125K population. I have lots of parks and quite abit of commercial spread-out throughout my city (a mixture of both low-density and high). My public transportation would be described as good to very-good.
If I click on Info Views/Tourism I see the following info: "Weekly tourist visits = 955" and "City attractiveness = 57%."
I have so far placed down 18 Unique Buildings from the total of 30 that are available.

From the first image attached below, you will see that my city only makes "Weekly total income from tourism = 3,569." This number breaks down to these two sub-categories: "Commercial zones = 127" and "Public Transportation = 3,442." (By the way $127 from commercial zones is laughable).
From the second image below, you will see that my "Weekly Unique Building Expenses = 17,936."
The difference between income and expenses here is a whopping loss amount of -14,367.

I have plenty, plenty of money in my bank account. My overall weekly income for everything (the amount we are used to seeing at the bottom of the page when we play), has for some time now, shown a loss. But my bank account is either stable or goes up very little and slowly (so I am not concerned). So I am not complaining about money, but all I'm trying to point-out is that money is "magically" being made through other means, because my tourism income is nowhere near my Unique Building expenses.

PS: Can you compare these two numbers in your city. I'm curious if your numbers make better sense than mine. You don't need to include images, unless you want. But can you at least post the two numbers. Thank you.

PSS: I thought you were one of the forum members that was involved in this debate/issue in the thread I described earlier from about 1 to 1-1/2 years ago. And I thought you did agree, at that time, that money was "magically" appearing for the finances of the game. But maybe I am getting you mixed-up with somebody else.

 

[Promethian]

@28rommel

I was not one of the "magic" people. I said back then that I believed tourist income was not being properly recorded. I still don't think it is. One aspect I know is missing is the revenue from people visiting unique buildings. They do pay an entry fee.

Since you asked for it I have a similar ratio of tourists to income that you do. 642 tourists to 90 income from commercial in my current city.

 

[Turjan]

Promethian,
PSS: I thought you were one of the forum members that was involved in this debate/issue in the thread I described earlier from about 1 to 1-1/2 years ago. And I thought you did agree, at that time, that money was "magically" appearing for the finances of the game. But maybe I am getting you mixed-up with somebody else.

That was mostly my thesis, and I had done lots of testing regarding this. Everything you do gets magicaly "priced in" after a while. I just recently saw the effect with the Chirpwick Castle. When I paid my 1.9 millions (or whatever it was), my weekly income jumped up by 60,000. This then went down week after week, and when I had my 1.9 millions back, the value had returned to where it was before. That's the opposite to my test with placing lots of unique buildings on purpose in a place where they don't have any area effect, where you incur huge losses for a while, until everything returns to the baseline after a while.

It's a bit different in very small towns, where you can have real effects. In a city above 100k, the fudging seems to become widespread.

Anyway, from my tests, Promethian is wrong. There's lots of fudging going on on the economic side of things.

 

[Palmerdale]

That was mostly my thesis, and I had done lots of testing regarding this. Everything you do gets magicaly "priced in" after a while. I just recently saw the effect with the Chirpwick Castle. When I paid my 1.9 millions (or whatever it was), my weekly income jumped up by 60,000. This then went down week after week, and when I had my 1.9 millions back, the value had returned to where it was before. That's the opposite to my test with placing lots of unique buildings on purpose in a place where they don't have any area effect, where you incur huge losses for a while, until everything returns to the baseline after a while.

It's a bit different in very small towns, where you can have real effects. In a city above 100k, the fudging seems to become widespread.

Anyway, from my tests, Promethian is wrong. There's lots of fudging going on on the economic side of things.

Fudging numbers seems like a very bad thing to do for what is essentially a financial simulation. I've not encountered anything near that, as my largest city barely hit 6200 people before I gave up on it. (Water pollution overtook me). It makes me ask, is C:S a financial simulator, or is it an aesthetic drawing tool? I wish I had known this before I bought this game.

 

[Turjan]

Fudging numbers seems like a very bad thing to do for what is essentially a financial simulation. I've not encountered anything near that, as my largest city barely hit 6200 people before I gave up on it. (Water pollution overtook me). It makes me ask, is C:S a financial simulator, or is it an aesthetic drawing tool? I wish I had known this before I bought this game.

For the most part, you can safely ignore the economic side of this game. It's only relevant during the start of your city. Most issues in this game are traffic-related, so that's where the challenge lies. Of course, Natural Disasters (and the stuff you can build in that expansion) can throw your finances off, so there's that.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

It makes me ask, is C:S a financial simulator, or is it an aesthetic drawing tool?

It is different things to different people. It is a "City Painter" to many.

As far as simulation goes, I think that it is more of a traffic simulator than a financial simulator.

 

[Palmerdale]

For the most part, you can safely ignore the economic side of this game. It's only relevant during the start of your city. Most issues in this game are traffic-related, so that's where the challenge lies. Of course, Natural Disasters (and the stuff you can build in that expansion) can throw your finances off, so there's that.

It is different things to different people. It is a "City Painter" to many.

As far as simulation goes, I think that it is more of a traffic simulator than a financial simulator.

Thanks, both of you. I suspect that is why I'm not enjoying this game all that much. I was expecting a financial based game, but it doesn't seem to be that at all. I'd refund this, if Steam's refund policy was a bit more lenient.

Some other issues. The 'unlock' feature is a rather simplistic design and crippling to the way you play, especially at the start. I know I'm going to need something more than a 2-way road to handle traffic, but can't build a 4 lane road until after I've played a while. Even the 'trick' of building a road to immediately unlock other road types seems idiotic. This forces unnecessary building and rebuilding/upgrading, neglecting the planning stages of city management. This stops me from building a farming community, because I have to start with regular industry until I can establish districts. There's only one way to handle sewage until your city reaches 14,400 residents.

All in all, the 'unlock' feature tries to force the player into play in a particular, predetermined pattern. This one decision makes C:S feel like an interactive tour of how the developers believe that a city should grow, rather than a set of tools that I can experiment with. That's what I had hoped I was purchasing. It's not what I got.

 

[28rommel]

That was mostly my thesis, and I had done lots of testing regarding this. Everything you do gets magicaly "priced in" after a while ...
... That's the opposite to my test with placing lots of unique buildings on purpose in a place where they don't have any area effect, where you incur huge losses for a while, until everything returns to the baseline after a while.

Oh, now I remember you Turjan. Hi !
Sorry I didn't connect your user name to your great help and assistance from the past.

 

[28rommel]

@28rommel

I was not one of the "magic" people. I said back then that I believed tourist income was not being properly recorded. I still don't think it is. One aspect I know is missing is the revenue from people visiting unique buildings. They do pay an entry fee.

Since you asked for it I have a similar ratio of tourists to income that you do. 642 tourists to 90 income from commercial in my current city.

Promethian,
I have never read or heard of visitors/tourists "paying an entry fee" for Unique Buildings (UB). I just read the Wiki page for UB's and there was nothing there. Where are you getting this information? (Please post a link to your source.)

But in any case, even if there is a entry fee, where is that included in the income categories that are listed on the Economy panel page? There is none, nor is there a category that it could quite possibly fall into. And by the way, I also have the free DLC called Match Day. With it, I placed down the official Football Stadium which produces ticket income for my bank account, and prize winnings if my team wins the match (this accounting detail of money, is displayed on the asset panel when you click on the Stadium). So here again, where are these monies displayed on the Economy panel page? There isn't one.

So all this additional money earned is, in a way, "magically" being infused or forced into the economic/finance side of the game. Call it magic or "fudging on the economic side of things" (using Turjan's words) or call it what ever pleases you .... the fact is that "things" are happening, behind-the-scenes to keep the money-side of the game to continue.

PS: If you believe that there is an entry fee for Unique Buildings, then take into consideration that it must be a lot (and I mean massive) amount of income per week, to offset their huge weekly cost. So in a way, you do believe that there is some kind of "magic" happening, and thus it makes you a member of the "magic people." Congratulations and welcome to the club.

 

[28rommel]

For the most part, you can safely ignore the economic side of this game. It's only relevant during the start of your city. Most issues in this game are traffic-related, so that's where the challenge lies. Of course, Natural Disasters (and the stuff you can build in that expansion) can throw your finances off, so there's that.

It is different things to different people. It is a "City Painter" to many.
As far as simulation goes, I think that it is more of a traffic simulator than a financial simulator.

Agree with both of these comments above.
And with extra emphasis on Turjan's comment that the economic/finances are most crucial during the start of the game only. I think the true reason the developers make the beginning of a game slightly "tight" with money, is that they encourage (or force) some not-so-groomed-newbies to try/use the Loan feature in the game (because later, the Loan feature is completely disused).


Palmerdale,
This is definitely more of a city painter and traffic simulator, than an economic/financial simulator. I would never describe this game as a "financial based game." I'm sorry if this might cause some disappointment for you, but there really is a tremendous amount of joy the game brings from the other excellent aspects.

 

[28rommel]

...Some other issues. The 'unlock' feature is a rather simplistic design and crippling to the way you play, especially at the start. I know I'm going to need something more than a 2-way road to handle traffic, but can't build a 4 lane road until after I've played a while. Even the 'trick' of building a road to immediately unlock other road types seems idiotic. This forces unnecessary building and rebuilding/upgrading, neglecting the planning stages of city management. This stops me from building a farming community, because I have to start with regular industry until I can establish districts. There's only one way to handle sewage until your city reaches 14,400 residents.

All in all, the 'unlock' feature tries to force the player into play in a particular, predetermined pattern. This one decision makes C:S feel like an interactive tour of how the developers believe that a city should grow, rather than a set of tools that I can experiment with. That's what I had hoped I was purchasing. It's not what I got.

When you say "unlock feature," I assume you mean when players reach what is called population "milestones" that unlock new roads, zone types, services, additional tiles to purchase, etc.
One thing you should know, is that the base game includes free mods (from the developers) that allow you to play with all milestones "unlocked." This will allow you to build whatever you want, from the very beginning of your game.
From the opening main menu, click on Content Manager. Then once that window opens, on the left-hand side, click on Mods. You will see a number of mods here that you might find interest in (each one, you can turn on or off). But I believe (not exactly sure) that if you turn-on any mod, it will disable your ability to reach "achievements" to unlock Unique Buildings. (But also, there is an outside mod that someone developed that will negate this, and thus you can use mods and still reach achievements. You can find this special outside mod in Steam Workshop.)

 

[Turjan]

Oh, now I remember you Turjan. Hi !
Sorry I didn't connect your user name to your great help and assistance from the past.

Thank you for the kind words.

That was a fun experiment with those unique buildings. This makes me curious whether Fox ever managed to balance his city again. My own city went that well that I never removed all those superfluous unique buildings, which surprised me a bit, because I had fully expected it to be at least somewhat of a losing business. One by one, I moved them to better places in the city though, over a long time period, while my city grew. It got to 400k inhabitants at some point.