I have spend some time reading on the topic of demographics and how they might affect a city. Reading other posts here there is a wish for meaningful behavior of CIMs and development of the city in accord with CIMs financial power, education and jobs leading to new challenges.
First, I would like to introduce some terms I will be using to avoid misunderstandings.
The system, I propose bases on the assumption, that CIMs live in households. This will be a bit abstracted as it is necessary for the game to cope with otherwise too many factors.
Education: the level of education an individual has obtained. This covers skills needed to be able to live as a grown-up person. This influences socialization. A highly educated person does not tend to commit petty crimes so I believe higher education has a dampening effect on criminality. Also it helps getting job qualifications.
Qualification: The level of skill acquired for performing well in a job. This is something, I want to seperate from education. Education helps you in getting a higher qualification but being polite and well-behaved does not help you fix a car. Otherwise, being able to fix a car does not make you a humble Holy Mother Theresa. Qualification limits the job a CIM can take.
Job Income: The factor depicting, how wealthy a CIM will be. Each household collects it's wealth from contributing working adults. This income will be taxed and the rest will be spend on rent, consumables, leisure, health care and so on.
Motivation: An abstract concept of one or two random traits giving rise to certain CIM behavior. A pious CIM, for example, would like to have a church around and visit it in leisure time. A cultural CIM would instead like libraries, opera houses and visit those. A security-loving person would like police coverage and low crime.
Happiness: The degree the CIM's demands are met. Unhappy CIMs might become criminal or leave town for a better place to live.
So basically, each CIM can be described with 6 bytes depicting those things.
Now, what to do with it? A CIM in your town starts his own household. His job income will dictate a bit, what kind of residence he will occupy. The housing should come with a kind of fixed cost depending on how luxorious the house is. This means: I want houses being built but it depends on whether there are people willing to move there. Usually, if some land is zoned ans sold, some people buy the land and buy a house for themselves. We have that already. Some houses are built however by companies or investors and rented away or sold later. This means, I expect houses being errected but not being populated at once. Long things short: A CIM will only move into a house he can afford. Affordable housing is crucial. We might only need a mechanism depicting how and why certain buildings are built. The mayor should be able to place social residences to subside poor CIMs to counter ghettoization. His income also would determine whether he can afford a car or not. If not, he would most likely go by train or bus. His education has determined how high his qualification is and what job he has. His Motivation will determine, what kind of other infrastructure he might want in his town and visit those places. Also he needs consumables like foodstuff and general goods which might come in different classes. Basic goods cover foodstuff, toilet paper and so on and every CIM needs that and will spend money on it. In turn, stores having those goods will be visited and gain income and prosper. Advanced commodities cover electronics, furniture and similar items. The CIMs will need them from time to time. A poor CIM, however will not buy lots of those. Luxory items however will be demanded by rich CIMs but not be bought by poor. So your jeweller might only be visited once and a while or by armed figures wearing silly masks...
CIMs will also spend money on random leisure activities. Their Motivation treat however tilts some of those into certain directions. A football fan will visit a stadium more often than a church or restaurant. It would be interesting, to see the CIM going to different directions to cover his needs. If he cannot satisfy his demands, he will become unhappy, which is bad. A CIM might leave town because of this making you lose jobs, have empty houses and empty coffers. OTOH, if there are many CIMs having similar demands, it is more likely that shops or facilities open up to meet those demands shaping your town.
This is the basic idea.
First, I would like to introduce some terms I will be using to avoid misunderstandings.
The system, I propose bases on the assumption, that CIMs live in households. This will be a bit abstracted as it is necessary for the game to cope with otherwise too many factors.
Education: the level of education an individual has obtained. This covers skills needed to be able to live as a grown-up person. This influences socialization. A highly educated person does not tend to commit petty crimes so I believe higher education has a dampening effect on criminality. Also it helps getting job qualifications.
Qualification: The level of skill acquired for performing well in a job. This is something, I want to seperate from education. Education helps you in getting a higher qualification but being polite and well-behaved does not help you fix a car. Otherwise, being able to fix a car does not make you a humble Holy Mother Theresa. Qualification limits the job a CIM can take.
Job Income: The factor depicting, how wealthy a CIM will be. Each household collects it's wealth from contributing working adults. This income will be taxed and the rest will be spend on rent, consumables, leisure, health care and so on.
Motivation: An abstract concept of one or two random traits giving rise to certain CIM behavior. A pious CIM, for example, would like to have a church around and visit it in leisure time. A cultural CIM would instead like libraries, opera houses and visit those. A security-loving person would like police coverage and low crime.
Happiness: The degree the CIM's demands are met. Unhappy CIMs might become criminal or leave town for a better place to live.
So basically, each CIM can be described with 6 bytes depicting those things.
Now, what to do with it? A CIM in your town starts his own household. His job income will dictate a bit, what kind of residence he will occupy. The housing should come with a kind of fixed cost depending on how luxorious the house is. This means: I want houses being built but it depends on whether there are people willing to move there. Usually, if some land is zoned ans sold, some people buy the land and buy a house for themselves. We have that already. Some houses are built however by companies or investors and rented away or sold later. This means, I expect houses being errected but not being populated at once. Long things short: A CIM will only move into a house he can afford. Affordable housing is crucial. We might only need a mechanism depicting how and why certain buildings are built. The mayor should be able to place social residences to subside poor CIMs to counter ghettoization. His income also would determine whether he can afford a car or not. If not, he would most likely go by train or bus. His education has determined how high his qualification is and what job he has. His Motivation will determine, what kind of other infrastructure he might want in his town and visit those places. Also he needs consumables like foodstuff and general goods which might come in different classes. Basic goods cover foodstuff, toilet paper and so on and every CIM needs that and will spend money on it. In turn, stores having those goods will be visited and gain income and prosper. Advanced commodities cover electronics, furniture and similar items. The CIMs will need them from time to time. A poor CIM, however will not buy lots of those. Luxory items however will be demanded by rich CIMs but not be bought by poor. So your jeweller might only be visited once and a while or by armed figures wearing silly masks...
CIMs will also spend money on random leisure activities. Their Motivation treat however tilts some of those into certain directions. A football fan will visit a stadium more often than a church or restaurant. It would be interesting, to see the CIM going to different directions to cover his needs. If he cannot satisfy his demands, he will become unhappy, which is bad. A CIM might leave town because of this making you lose jobs, have empty houses and empty coffers. OTOH, if there are many CIMs having similar demands, it is more likely that shops or facilities open up to meet those demands shaping your town.
This is the basic idea.
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