How the eden project wrecked my city.

[Badben]

So I had built a tourist city of around 180 000 that was getting a steady 2200 tourists a week when I ulocked the eden project monument and placed it in my city.

If you don't know what the eden project does, it's like a super park that makes all land in your city max value, you can essentially bullldoze every park you've ever made after placing it because they don't do anything anymore.

So the immediate effect of placing it was bad enough, instantly, all my houses everywhere started to level up to max level which caused a masive population boom. I went from 180 000 to 220 000 in a few months. This already is terrible becaue all people that move into your city are the same age, and eventually they'll all die at the same time. This is what's known as a death wave, and they can come from zoning too much residential too quickly. Death waves are terrible, they continue for generations giving you a fluctuating population.

Secondly, I saw a huge drop in my tourists. I went from 2200 to about 1600 a week, my tourist districts started to crumble. It took me a really long time to figure this one out, but essentially, the eden project made my city too expensive for low income tourists.

If you don't know, there are 3 levels of tourist, low, med, high income. The outside connections only support so many of each, so only so many of each can vist every week. If all your tourist districts are on very high value land, low income tourists won't come, it's important to have tourist districts with different value, having one around an airport a little outside of the city is perfect to attract low income tourists.

So since the eden project made all the land in my city max value, no more low income tourists. Once I figured it out though and destroyed the eden project, the real massacre happened. All those houses that had leveled up to max value were on worthless ground now, and buildings don't level down, they get abandoned. I lost the people faster than they had arrived, 40 thousand gone in 2 weeks, my city was decimated.

It's recovered now though, back up to 210 000, now with 2500 tourists a week. But be warned, the eden project is terrible in tourist cities, place it at your own risk.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by Badben:

If you don't know what the eden project does, it's like a super park that makes all land in your city max value, you can essentially bullldoze every park you've ever made after placing it because they don't do anything anymore.

Secondly, I saw a huge drop in my tourists. I went from 2200 to about 1600 a week, my tourist districts started to crumble. It took me a really long time to figure this one out, but essentially, the eden project made my city too expensive for low income tourists.

It's recovered now though, back up to 210 000, now with 2500 tourists a week. But be warned, the eden project is terrible in tourist cities, place it at your own risk.

Did you by any chance demolish all of those parks before you observed the drop in tourists? You do realise that despite the EP, those parks are leisure facilities and tourist attractors in their own right? Consider that for a moment ;)
I do use the EP often in my cities and I'm well aware of what that will entail. In fact, it is one of the first monuments that I rush to build if playing with the vanilla population conditions and so at 75k pop I'll build one right then rather than wait until the city is larger. My main reason for doing so isn't the land value boost but rather the reduction in pollution that it also provides.

[Badben]

No, you misunderstand, I ddn't demolish any of my parks, I'm just saying that you could demolish all your parks and all of your land value would still be max everywhere. I didn't touch any of my tourist districts in any way, but before I placed the eden project I got 2200 tourists a week, with it, tourists sank to 1600, destroyed it and they're up to 2500 a week now.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by Badben:

No, you misunderstand, I ddn't demolish any of my parks, I'm just saying that you could demolish all your parks and all of your land value would still be max everywhere. I didn't touch any of my tourist districts in any way, but before I placed the eden project I got 2200 tourists a week, with it, tourists sank to 1600, destroyed it and they're up to 2500 a week now.

Okay... if I had to weigh the many benefits of no pollution and universal high land value against a 900 temporary drop in tourists, it's no contest, I'll take the EP every time ;)
It's not like those tourists are generating any significant amount of revenue. The land value boost from the EP though will have a much greater positive effect on the city revenue.
But if you're not concerned with the money and just want to see hundreds of more tourists on your streets, then that's fine too ;)

[n00B]

i had the same situation. i refer from building eden project now. it looks rather cartoony anywayz ;))

[Humorous_Humor]

So would it be better to place EP when most of your buildings are at max level so there isn't a populatiuon boom?

[Badben]

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

Originally posted by Badben:

No, you misunderstand, I ddn't demolish any of my parks, I'm just saying that you could demolish all your parks and all of your land value would still be max everywhere. I didn't touch any of my tourist districts in any way, but before I placed the eden project I got 2200 tourists a week, with it, tourists sank to 1600, destroyed it and they're up to 2500 a week now.

Okay... if I had to weigh the many benefits of no pollution and universal high land value against a 900 temporary drop in tourists, it's no contest, I'll take the EP every time ;)
It's not like those tourists are generating any significant amount of revenue. The land value boost from the EP though will have a much greater positive effect on the city revenue.
But if you're not concerned with the money and just want to see hundreds of more tourists on your streets, then that's fine too ;)

Sure, that's fair. I actually think the tourist mechanic is a little silly, I think having a super clean city should attract way more tourists actually, but it's the cap on any certain type of tourist that screws it up, I don't see why there should be a limit on how many high income tourists a city can get.

If anyone's interested, the configure outside connections mod can help you get around this. It allows you to alter how many of any type of tourist each outside connection supports so you can let in more high income tourists.

[Mr Critterfur]

What if you placed the EP after the Space Elevator? I feel like the SE is easier and quicker to get, because the required building just happen on their own pretty easy without trying, and the boost in tourism seems like it would counteract the loss from the EP.

[Badben]

Originally posted by Mr Critterfur:

What if you placed the EP after the Space Elevator? I feel like the SE is easier and quicker to get, because the required building just happen on their own pretty easy without trying, and the boost in tourism seems like it would counteract the loss from the EP.

I did have the space elevator already, but there's a cap on how many high and middle income tourists can come to your city. With no low income tourists, there were only so many tourists I could get.