Where's the middle class? Where's the 99%?

[Beric]

Poor areas have schools, hospitals, and police station. This game doesn't simulate real social problems. It's probably to complex of a thing to implement.

It shouldn't be too hard to just make 50% of Cims (or whatever number based on more complex factors) have no interest/capability of going to college, should it? What about family problems? What about college drop-outs?

The problem is right now, if you have enough facilities, every Cim will go on to become highly educated. I don't think it's asking too much to have a little more nuance than that. Actually, I wonder if this is moddable.

 

[Kanimir]

I agree its too easy to make them educated, healthy, safe and rich. I actually have a problem with having enough LOWER class citizens, never had a problem with medium and high.

 

[dakdak99]

Naw SC4 was the exact same way. The only SC game where you NEED low and medium wealth sims is SC13. And even in that one the benefits of having a dirtier city are not very high (though much higher than SC4 and C:SL)

I remember it being harder to get rich Sims in SC though. I'm having no trouble making everyone rich and happy in C:SL, like Kanimir states. Besides, the building variety is just very low if everything just levels up all the time. That is one of the main reasons I would like the leveling up to be more nuanced (and to a certain degree even player-controlled), along with more nuanced effects (and efficiency) of schooling, as has been mentioned by others in this thread.

I also don't want to have to run at a high unemployment rate... cit builders are supposed to be about solving problems, not conciously keeping them going.

Endorken, I would be fine with an initial quick fix like you suggest. They can come back later for a more nuanced fix if you ask me.

 

[Harle]

Yeah, I agree with the sentiment here. There needs to be some limiting factors which prevent the entire population of a city from being wildly affluent just because services are available.

One thought would be able to set the 'cost' of going to university. Basically, the more money you pay into the university, the higher the percentage of citizens able/willing to attend. If you pay the maximum amount, then it is basically publicly funded by the city and you would get about 75% attendance, max (even 'free' university isn't going to result in 100% of the population actually getting a degree). The other end of the spectrum would be paying as little as possible for the university, meaning tuitions are fully paid by the students, and only 10% of the population achieves degrees.

To model class warfare a bit, you could have attendance based also on the education/job level of the student's parents (higher of the two). At full funding the distribution would be equal, but as you drop funding for universities, the distribution increasingly favors students with parents of higher education/job levels. Basically, kids of wealthier families get better educations.

I think this would be a fun thing to play with, from a socio-economic standpoint, and would both solve (and critically, also allow for) the egalitarian classless society issue that is making things a bit wonky.

 

[Mateu]

Edit:

Wrong topic sorry!

 

[Engioc]

To be fair, if you DO provide schooling to everyone, of course they will all become educated.

That may be so but just because people get educated doesn't meant we're all rich. I'm educated, but I aint rich and don't live in a villa. Quite simply being educated doesn't ever guarantee you'll get the job you studied for, you may get a lower level position but never be able to make the grade for the top level job in your field, or some may not even be able to get a job in that field at all due to lack of available positions. There are quite a few reasons why education doesn't mean you end up rich.

 

[bucgene]

Perhaps a district policy saying elementary school in a district won't accept outside student

 

[Beric]

Perhaps a district policy saying elementary school in a district won't accept outside student

I'd definitely like to see something like this. I'm wondering if something like school districts would be possible without making the game too complicated.

 

[maddogmark25]

That may be so but just because people get educated doesn't meant we're all rich. I'm educated, but I aint rich and don't live in a villa. Quite simply being educated doesn't ever guarantee you'll get the job you studied for, you may get a lower level position but never be able to make the grade for the top level job in your field, or some may not even be able to get a job in that field at all due to lack of available positions. There are quite a few reasons why education doesn't mean you end up rich.

Pretty much this

I think all of the working buildings (industry offices and commerce) need a larger gap between the amount of uneducated workers and amount of educated workers. IRL in a production factory, it is usually a much higher ratio of uneducated workers to educated workers/supervisors than what the game represents

Of course, the game doesn't really do a good job of representing the middle class, so that needs to be improved before anything else.

 

[IIWW]

Two things which I haven't yet found in this thread, and are not modeled.
1) Higher education=/= higher education. Basically in this game an engineer can fill a higher education job in Lawyer's office, and a MD can fill an engineers job. Obviously IRL it's not true.
2) not every person is intelligent/wealthy/dilligent enough to finish the uni. Even with free universities the students have to eat, they need a place to sleep. These things are not free, and they either work and study (which is harder, thus more of them won't finish the university) or he'll need a grant (hard work, not everyone can get it) or he needs wealthy parents (obviously not everyone has them).
How to model it?
I think the first one could be, in basic, of course, way, implemented into the game. Divide the higher education into 3 categories: engineering, law and economy (or smth like that, same thing). Industry can only provide higher education job for engineers, offices for lawyers, and commercial for economists. The engineer, if there is no HE job in industry available) can still get any middle education job, but he won't be able to do lawyers job.
The second is harder, but maybe make some percentage of students fail, and the ones with more HE adults in their household have lower chance to do it?

 

[Beric]

Two things which I haven't yet found in this thread, and are not modeled.
1) Higher education=/= higher education. Basically in this game an engineer can fill a higher education job in Lawyer's office, and a MD can fill an engineers job. Obviously IRL it's not true.
2) not every person is intelligent/wealthy/dilligent enough to finish the uni. Even with free universities the students have to eat, they need a place to sleep. These things are not free, and they either work and study (which is harder, thus more of them won't finish the university) or he'll need a grant (hard work, not everyone can get it) or he needs wealthy parents (obviously not everyone has them).
How to model it?
I think the first one could be, in basic, of course, way, implemented into the game. Divide the higher education into 3 categories: engineering, law and economy (or smth like that, same thing). Industry can only provide higher education job for engineers, offices for lawyers, and commercial for economists. The engineer, if there is no HE job in industry available) can still get any middle education job, but he won't be able to do lawyers job.
The second is harder, but maybe make some percentage of students fail, and the ones with more HE adults in their household have lower chance to do it?

This sounds awesome - too awesome to actually get added to the game.

I really hope modding the game to this level is possible.

 

[charlesnew]

I'm finding it difficult to stop my citizens becoming rich too. I need workers for my factories and offices, not just owners of them.

As some people are saying, having education doesn't mean you'll become rich. The main reason you have education is to stay in the wealth class you're in (most likely middle class), and very few people will actually become rich from it.

I think this is one of the things that really needs tweaking and balance to it. Maybe we can make it so people don't upgrade wealth in the first place, and just stay in the wealth class they're in, like in SC.

 

[stumason]

Can't say I have encountered this problem. I have area's of my city with high land value, for the rich folks and other area's which have a lower land value where the rest live. It is relatively simple to create area's for different types.

Also, remember that when you're placing services (police, fire, school etc) it has a radius and a green "efficiency" indicator, but even if an area isn't covered, fire trucks, police cars and the like can still get there, just at a reduced efficiency owing to the distance.

With this in mind, it is easy to create area's of the city which are "well served" and have high land value, while still creating poorer area's which nominally have poor coverage but still won't actually burn to the ground. Placement of parks, district polices etc all have their role to play as well.

The same applies to the commercial and industrial area's - you can keep commercial at lvl 1 for your convenience stores and petrol stations in one area and have the super rich shopping district in another, all through clever use of districts/policies, placement of parks/plaza's and services.

 

[dakdak99]

IIWW: while a nice idea, this wasn't quite the point of the thread - I'd much prefer a fix to the current problem before they expand the simulation this way.

Stumason: I'd love to see screenshots of how you accomplished this!

 

[Elryos]

Maybe there could be a system like in Anno 1404, where a certain amount of peasants allows you to have a certain amount of citizens, those unlock patricians and those noblemen.

 

[stumason]

Stumason: I'd love to see screenshots of how you accomplished this!

I'll see if I can grab some tonight - back at work today

Essentially I have a "rich district" called Victoria Hills which is high value in the centre (with a mix of low and high density) with decreasing value towards the edge. I then have another rich district across the river which is adjacent to an office area and another lower value area towards the edge of town on the other side of my elevated highway.

Like I said, it's a mix of were you place your services, parks as well as district policies. Everyone seems quite happy, my industry/offices are booming and I am making so much money I simply can't spend it fast enough (I built two dams, which didn't work so I had to demolish them both at a cost of $120k each)

 

[Gen.Schuermann]

The devs could simply implement some kind step function distribution for education. Let only 25% of the people graduate university, but 70% only high school and 5% be dropouts, for example.

Something like that. But maybe enable you to change the values through policies (like a 10% increase in university graduation if unis are free - very expensive).

 

[IIWW]

The devs could simply implement some kind step distribution for education. Let only 25% of the people graduate university, but 70% only high school and 5% be dropouts.

Something like that. But maybe enable you to change the values through policies (like a 10% increase in university graduation if unis are free - very expensive).

Why should it be expensive?
Also, good idea.

 

[atomicsoda]

Maybe there are no class divisions because the game is made by scandinavians where there is less income inequality.

 

[Mr Maison]

IRL you would find uneducated workers more in retail stock rooms, janitorial jobs or on farms mostly. Factory workers still need a level of education or skill set depending on what they are doing. I just started playing and from what I'm reading, I will be holding off on schools early on in the game.