Not enough goods to sell + not enough buyers for products

[PhilH]

Hey!

I know this has been asked probably a billion times but I'll ask anyway.

I have a huge city that I mess around with, unrealistically. I have all tiles unlocked, unlimited money, etc. It's my "fun/unlimited" city. Current I'm at about 450k people.

I try to rely on the residential/commercial/industrial demand thingies to know what to build, but once in a while, including now, I'm stuck. I have medium demand for all three. Suddenly, a lot of my shops have started complaining that they don't have enough goods to sell. However, a lot of my industrial is also complaining that they don't have enough buyers.

Last time this happened, a ton of my commercial despawned and it took ages for it to reappear.

I don't seem to have any major traffic jam. I'm constantly working to fix all traffic problems. I have a few cargo train stations etc, tried to place them strategically.

Any specific tips to deal with these contradictory messages??

Thanks!!

[MarkJohnson]

Actually they aren't contradictory. Industry has not enough buyers, and commerce doesn't have enough goods to sell.

Likely cause is imbalance. Commerce needs to be near generic industry to get goods to sell. If too far away then they can't get delivered, then commerce gets shortage of goods to sell, industry have too many goods to sell (not enough buyers)

@450k you may be hitting the vehicle agent limits. Watch your imports and exports. You shouldn't be exporting anything as you don't get paid for it and it creates excess traffic. You shouldn't be importing any goods (purple) as it is created by generic industry.

Once you get traffic back in balance, then your city should start growing again.

[PhilH]

Originally posted by rmjohnson144:

Actually they aren't contradictory. Industry has not enough buyers, and commerce doesn't have enough goods to sell.

Likely cause is imbalance. Commerce needs to be near generic industry to get goods to sell. If too far away then they can't get delivered, then commerce gets shortage of goods to sell, industry have too many goods to sell (not enough buyers)

@450k you may be hitting the vehicle agent limits. Watch your imports and exports. You shouldn't be exporting anything as you don't get paid for it and it creates excess traffic. You shouldn't be importing any goods (purple) as it is created by generic industry.

Once you get traffic back in balance, then your city should start growing again.

Ahhh.. thanks a lot. It must be imbalance + distance then. Yes, I understood a while back that I needed generic industry so at least 90% of it is. I still have a few farm/forestry areas but it's mostly generic.

My imports and exports are wrong, but how could I fix that? Would it be "automatically" fixed if I was doing everything right? Some, if not all of my industries export.. trucks often leave the city. I also have several cargo train stations, that used to be a quick fix for me. When all my commercial would start complaining about no goods to sell, I'd build a cargo train station to import.

Are you suggesting I should be self-sufficient? Maybe that's the problem.

I do not have much traffic, but the distances are huge.. maybe it's that.

Thanks very much! Very interesting

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by PhilH:

Hey!
I try to rely on the residential/commercial/industrial demand thingies to know what to build, but once in a while, including now, I'm stuck.

This is the most common error many players make.
Never allow the RCI demand indicator to dictate to you what you should build. It is an indicator of what is possible to build, not what must be built. Ultimately, you are the city designer, not the RCI meter.
When you rely on the RCI meter to dictate your zoning, it will always lead to chaos.
The keystone is the amount of commercial. Most cities really don't need much. However if you follow the RCI meter, you will end up building a lot more commercial than is necessary. Commercial requires generic industry and that requires specialised industry, so if you overzone commercial, then you'll have to overzone industries too.
So, plan your city and determine just how much commercial you want. Ignore any further demand for more.
Hope that helps you to maintain balance ;)

[PhilH]

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

Never allow the RCI demand indicator to dictate to you what you should build.

Ahhh, that makes a lot of sense thanks. I probably have way too much commercial like you said. It is true that all my problems always seem to stem from industrial or commercial, no one ever complains about residential.

I shall stop relying purely on the RCI, thanks a lot!! I suppose with a *lot* more residential, my commercial/industrial to residential ratios will balance themselves out.

[barrygreybeard]

Also remember PhilH that with a city that size, unlimited money, all tiles available your CPU has to make many many computations to keep check of everything. Maybe by doing nothing your supply chain is working but it needs time to settle in. Making changes to your transport network causes a lot of routes that need to be recalculated which takes time too. Something to bear in mind, there's no instant feedback...

[PhilH]

Originally posted by barrygreybeard:

Also remember PhilH that with a city that size, unlimited money, all tiles available your CPU has to make many many computations to keep check of everything. Maybe by doing nothing your supply chain is working but it needs time to settle in. Making changes to your transport network causes a lot of routes that need to be recalculated which takes time too. Something to bear in mind, there's no instant feedback...

That's also very true... good advice once again. Indeed my CPU is under strain, and I have noticed that when I make a major road change, vehicles take a while to readapt. Perhaps this city is becoming a bit large. I initially started it just to mess around, but I've put so much time into it I don't want to abandon it.. I'll work around these issues. Thanks!

[orsa1305]

The things to keep in mind is generic needs to be close to commercial,behind the generic should​ be the specialisations,in between those get your import export stuff like train's and ships.

Never ever put the import export closer to commercial then your generic industry, they will both prefers import export.

That's at least what I have seen.

[PhilH]

Originally posted by felix.flux:

The things to keep in mind is generic needs to be close to commercial,behind the generic should​ be the specialisations,in between those get your import export stuff like train's and ships.

Never ever put the import export closer to commercial then your generic industry, they will both prefers import export.

That's at least what I have seen.

I've surely made that mistake in my city. Oops!!

[Domino of Destitute]

This is BS. I have commerce that is not far from my industry at all and im still getting this problem.

[SkiRich]

Originally posted by Mofo'sFaint of Hearts:

This is BS. I have commerce that is not far from my industry at all and im still getting this problem.

You haven't played the game long enough with a large enough city to understand that each one of these points could be correct. Which one is right needs to be verified by the OP.
With a city of 450-k nothing will be easy to figure out, because every little change requires enormous amounts of processing and settle time unless you have a demon of a rig with 16 cores.

You have 170 hours of game time and a "Hamlet" of a city and have yet to experience what it means to have true issues with scale.

Your comment does nothing for the OP and insults everyone who gave a bit of help. Try learning the game and some manners.

[PhilH]

Yeah personally after a lot of analysis, I figured I had exceeded the agent limit / my computers power with my old 500k city. I started a new one and although I haven’t played in a few weeks, I think I’m at about 100k.

Like SkiRich just said, it’s really not as simple as having commerce right next to industry!!

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by PhilH:

Yeah personally after a lot of analysis, I figured I had exceeded the agent limit / my computers power with my old 500k city. I started a new one and although I haven’t played in a few weeks, I think I’m at about 100k.

Like SkiRich just said, it’s really not as simple as having commerce right next to industry!!

There's no need to abandoned the 500k city. You can fix the agent limits with a little more balancing. well, a lot more balancing.

The more balancing you do, the more things become clear.

[PhilH]

Originally posted by -DI- rmjohnson144:

Originally posted by PhilH:

Yeah personally after a lot of analysis, I figured I had exceeded the agent limit / my computers power with my old 500k city. I started a new one and although I haven’t played in a few weeks, I think I’m at about 100k.

Like SkiRich just said, it’s really not as simple as having commerce right next to industry!!

There's no need to abandoned the 500k city. You can fix the agent limits with a little more balancing. well, a lot more balancing.

The more balancing you do, the more things become clear.

Mmmm, you're most certainly right, but it was a mix of agent limit + bad performance on my machine (big city) + really bad roads since I started that city when I was really new in the game, that pushed me to start a new one. But yes, I'll maybe try to fix it one day, could be fun!!

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by PhilH:

Originally posted by -DI- rmjohnson144:

There's no need to abandoned the 500k city. You can fix the agent limits with a little more balancing. well, a lot more balancing.

The more balancing you do, the more things become clear.

Mmmm, you're most certainly right, but it was a mix of agent limit + bad performance on my machine (big city) + really bad roads since I started that city when I was really new in the game, that pushed me to start a new one. But yes, I'll maybe try to fix it one day, could be fun!!

Actually, roads have little to do with it. It all about zone balancing and keeping traffic off the road. I mean you need a certain amount of roads. but I build all two-lane, two-way road cities with little traffic issues.

Here's a small example of my 300k, 9-tile, vanilla city. Achievements are still enabled. It does require Snowfall, as I used a Snowfall map.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1180188142

This save has a little traffic issues and death wave. But in the comments is a link of a save of the city with a couple minor road changes to get traffic flowing.

It's an interesting city to compare the two saves. Notice the section across the river has no mass-transit at all. and one tile on the main part has no mass-transit either. 4-tiles are mass-transit free.

[Elv.]

I’ve been dealing with this problem for months and this is the most helpful thread I’ve found. What I’ve learned from this is my generic industry is too far away and needs to be spread out, closer to my commerce centers. Second, my cargo train terminals are not helping because they mainly deal with import/export instead of bringing goods from my industries to my commercial. Lastly, I should always leave my commercial demand bar higher. My question is why is it only my big office buildings that suffer from this “not enough buyers for products” syndrome? I took away my cargo trains access to the outside hoping it would only transport goods from within my city, so far it hasn’t solved my problems.