What do office zones need?

[AvgUsr]

I am trying to keep my commercial zones lean and keep pollution low, so i have zoned a lot of office. My population is more than 60% highly educated, so getting people employed is not a problem. But what makes some office zones stuck in level 2 for a loooong time while some office zone pop to level 3 right away?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=903889387

Here is the overall zone map of my new city. On the far left is suburbs. To the right of it is all dense residential. Then the green belt with bike and ped paths. Then office and commercial. The zone on the far right in the middle of the shot was built around 10 game years ago. built up to level 2 quickly and then tapered off. then i zoned a small office zone in the far bottom of the map, just below my dense residential zone, and itr got to level 3 in literally 5 minutes. My unemployment is at 8% now, but when i built the older zone it was 20%. The zones are all very well connected with subways in addition to bike and walking paths over the green belt. My traffice is a little heavy but nothing out of the ordinary.

[Prometheus]

Offices have basically the same needs as residential. The thing most people neglect is education coverage. Yes, they want education coverage. Educated citizens is a big deal for offices. 60% highly educated isn't going to get you full level 3 offices when they are the majority of your jobs.

After that remember that the "upgrade points" contribution of each service has individual diminishing returns. You technically can get full upgrades if you leave off a service and hard max the others but its generally easier to provide a bit of everything. With that in mind I remind you that access to mass transit (bus, metro, etc) is considered a service that contributes to upgrade points. Make sure your coverage is good.

[grapplehoeker]

In addition to above, when dealing with education, it requires time for your kids to progress through the education system and graduate. So, while you have sufficient elementary/high school/university services, it's not an instant effect. You still have to wait for your new well educated workforce to be churned out.

[AvgUsr]

Thanks prom and grapple.

What does it mean to have education coverage? You mean i need to build schools near offices? So far all my education dollars are plunked in residential zones figuring that people to to school around their residences.

[Moro]

Originally posted by Promethian:

Offices have basically the same needs as residential. The thing most people neglect is education coverage. Yes, they want education coverage. Educated citizens is a big deal for offices. 60% highly educated isn't going to get you full level 3 offices when they are the majority of your jobs.

After that remember that the "upgrade points" contribution of each service has individual diminishing returns. You technically can get full upgrades if you leave off a service and hard max the others but its generally easier to provide a bit of everything. With that in mind I remind you that access to mass transit (bus, metro, etc) is considered a service that contributes to upgrade points. Make sure your coverage is good.

im not finding this to be true at all.

1. i have 51% highly educated and have L3 offices in one district and not the other.
2. L3 offices not max education coverage... L2 offices max coverage all education facilities
3. transit services are the same. they are both covered by metro and bus lines.
4. they both have max fire and police dept coverage
5. the L3 one has less medical coverage than the L2 ones. max coverage on the L2 one.
6. they both have max death care.
7. L3 has pitiful garbage collection... L2 max garbage collection.

i mean short of adding in a train station i have done about everything. the vague message about "the building needs to be covered by more services" when it is max on every service available has always infuriated me because it is confusing as hell when trying to figure out what the building actually wants to level up.

[ttower]

Originally posted by AvgUsr:

Thanks prom and grapple.

What does it mean to have education coverage? You mean i need to build schools near offices? So far all my education dollars are plunked in residential zones figuring that people to to school around their residences.

I believe they mean that people will not travel to the nearest school, but will only attend if the school is in range, so make sure your schools are spread out. Having one university is ok, but I have found that i end up putting residetial out of the university range long before the university reaches max capacity, so keep that in mind.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by AvgUsr:

Thanks prom and grapple.

What does it mean to have education coverage? You mean i need to build schools near offices? So far all my education dollars are plunked in residential zones figuring that people to to school around their residences.

In terms of beneficial levelling bonus for residential, the green area of service coverage will need to cover the residential. Bear in mind though that the actual service coverage is citywide, meaning that kids from anywhere in the city may go to school there, while only the residential within the green gets the bonus.
In terms of benefit to businesses, the beneficial effect of education comes from filling it's vacancies with educated workers. So, as I said above, you just have to churn enough of them them out.

[MarkJohnson]

I place schools in the middle of my office districts. If outside the district, the coverage is weak.

The further away a building is from schools (or any service,park, etc.) the weaker the influence. So plopping them in the middle of the office districts are best.

Try the Extended Building Information mod to see what bonuses you need to level your buildings to the max. I try to get things close to 100 across the board to max my buildings. Tge large boxes have the more impact.

Extended Building Information by HedgeHog.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=670422128

[AvgUsr]

Thanks Mj.

I just ran into a weird problem: i use extended landscaping tools to add trees to my city (so its green and nice) and apparently, i just ran out of trees. There is a cap for that?

[MarkJohnson]

Yes, there is a cap. You are very near it to start with.

The solution is to bulldoze trees when you are going to build as the trees are still under roads and buildings and sill count towards this limit.

I think there is an unlimited tree mod if I recall correctly.

[Prometheus]

The tree mod I found isn't actually unlimited but it boosts the limit so high you won't reasonably hit it.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=455403039