Is a perfect city possible?

[Darth Mark]

Is it possible to have a perfect city? Ie a city that requires no ongoing maintenance (except for demolishing abandoned houses) and still generates an income? I feel like this game makes you constatnly strive for this perfect city where everything works like clockwork and you can finally sit back and enjoy your perfectly running city, but is such a thing actually possible?

[grapplehoeker]

Yes, it is possible. I have built many cities that require no further input from me.

[Twilight]

Definitely

[OneJasonBradly]

Absolutely, it is possible! You’re 10 hrs. into the game, my first 30 hours were about learning what everything could do.

[WatashiwaNoodle]

It dpends on your definition I guess. I think it may be possible but I'm unsure, I've been playing for a good while now and had no sucsess so far. It's still good fun though :D

[MarkJohnson]

Yes, it is very easy to do. After you get where you want you city to look like, just stop building and fine tune things. It's very easy. It helps if you built a few cities to understand how the game works a little better. But it just a matter of balancing in the end.

zero maintenance is achievable. well, minus disasters.

[Darth Mark]

Any tips on making this perfect city? Roughly how many citizens do you need?

[Ma]

Are there any GOOD tutorials on this? I looked for some, but came up empty handed.

[OneJasonBradly]

You can have a city of 4000 or 400,000 and it be at a state where you don't have to tweak it. Not even bulldoze abandon buildings. It's not about population it's about balance. Start small, build a town and stabilize it. Don't add population until it's running well, including the need to remove abandon and burnt buildings. I can’t remember the last time I had to bulldoze an abandon or burnt building.
Oh, hold on.
Don’t remove/bulldoze abandon buildings. Instead repair the issue that’s causing the abandonment. They will tell you this with another icon before the abandon one. Are you having to remove burnt out buildings too? This means This building is too far from a fire station so even if the trucks get there it might be too far gone and need removing. You may need to re locate the fire station. Or have to break down and place another station closer. Fix the cause of the problems not so much the symptoms.

[SkiRich]

Ignore RCI. That is nothing more than the game attempting to force you to build. Its highly inaccurate and frustrating. Build what you want and concentrate on income and workers.

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by Vengeful Vegan:

Any tips on making this perfect city? Roughly how many citizens do you need?

There is no citizen count requirement. Other than what your computer's CPU can handle.

To get a maintenance free city you just need to provide a proper amount of services to keep them happy and clear roads by having everything in a rough balance. i.e. enough workers to jobs ratio. Enough freight for shops, enough freight for industry.

You roughly need 2 workers to 1 job ratio. one residential will provide one commerce and industry, so to speak. So when you zone, you need two green to one yellow and one blue.

Don't export freight. it does nothing but create traffic and you don't get paid for export. But you also don't get charged for imports. but you want as little imports as possible.

Don't import goods (Purple) as that is created by generic industry.

Keep generic industry near commerce when possible so freight makes it on time.

Remember, this is an agent (cims) based simulator and cims need to get from point A to point B in a timely manner or bad things happen.

For tests, try to build a one tile city only and see how big you can get it and keep it stable. Then you can get an idea what's needed.

[OneJasonBradly]

Originally posted by SkiRich:

Ignore RCI. That is nothing more than the game attempting to force you to build. Its highly inaccurate and frustrating.

I guess you can view it that way though if you look at “any” of my screenshots you would notice the RCI meter almost always looks the same. Low green, mid blue and high yellow is a good target demand (for me). High green would mean you will have worker shortages and industry will plummet. High yellow means factories want to move there and unemployment is at a good level. Mid-level blue means commerce won’t complain too much. When I get the RCI to stabilize at my pattern of choice I know if I want to increase population I ‘need” a bit of industry somewhere to increase residential demand so they will build homes. Population of your city is based on residents (living there) only. So only build what you need, no more of the other two blue and yellow. The RCI can/is a great guide.

[OneJasonBradly]

Originally posted by -DI- rmjohnson144:

Originally posted by Vengeful Vegan:

Any tips on making this perfect city? Roughly how many citizens do you need?

There is no citizen count requirement. Other than what your computer's CPU can handle.

To get a maintenance free city you just need to provide a proper amount of services to keep them happy and clear roads by having everything in a rough balance. i.e. enough workers to jobs ratio. Enough freight for shops, enough freight for industry.

You roughly need 2 workers to 1 job ratio. one residential will provide one commerce and industry, so to speak. So when you zone, you need two green to one yellow and one blue.

Don't export freight. it does nothing but create traffic and you don't get paid for export. But you also don't get charged for imports. but you want as little imports as possible.

Don't import goods (Purple) as that is created by generic industry.

Keep generic industry near commerce when possible so freight makes it on time.

Remember, this is an agent (cims) based simulator and cims need to get from point A to point B in a timely manner or bad things happen.

For tests, try to build a one tile city only and see how big you can get it and keep it stable. Then you can get an idea what's needed.

+1

[SkiRich]

Originally posted by OneJasonBradly:

Originally posted by SkiRich:

Ignore RCI. That is nothing more than the game attempting to force you to build. Its highly inaccurate and frustrating.

I guess you can view it that way though if you look at “any” of my screenshots you would notice the RCI meter almost always looks the same. Low green, mid blue and high yellow is a good target demand (for me). High green would mean you will have worker shortages and industry will plummet. High yellow means factories want to move there and unemployment is at a good level. Mid-level blue means commerce won’t complain too much. When I get the RCI to stabilize at my pattern of choice I know if I want to increase population I ‘need” a bit of industry somewhere to increase residential demand so they will build homes. Population of your city is based on residents (living there) only. So only build what you need, no more of the other two blue and yellow. The RCI can/is a great guide.

I have had more success than not by ignoring the RCI complete.
For instance, in a city of 72k cims, after a disaster that killed almost everyone (Tsunami) the RCI was solid green up to the top, yet all the buildings for residences where still intact and operational.

I find that if you chase the RCI, you typically get into things like death waves, or low unemployement, or too much factory and these conditions rotate.
So rather than play to the RCI, just build, watch your income and unemployement. You always want to shoot for an unemployment of around 5-10% which means factories are full of workers and profitable. If it gets any higher, build more factories or commerce. If it gets lower then demo some factories and zones.

With this+ tactic I make about $50k a week income and a 9 Million dollar bank.
You need to adjust the prices of transit to be either zero sum or make a profit.

Last suggestion that I do, keep your cims somewhat stupid. Building too much education causes highly educated cims to reluctantly take factory jobs or move out.

YMMV, but it has been a success for me on every game I start.

RCI ... Just ignore it.

[OneJasonBradly]

Originally posted by SkiRich:

Originally posted by OneJasonBradly:

I guess you can view it that way though if you look at “any” of my screenshots you would notice the RCI meter almost always looks the same. Low green, mid blue and high yellow is a good target demand (for me). High green would mean you will have worker shortages and industry will plummet. High yellow means factories want to move there and unemployment is at a good level. Mid-level blue means commerce won’t complain too much. When I get the RCI to stabilize at my pattern of choice I know if I want to increase population I ‘need” a bit of industry somewhere to increase residential demand so they will build homes. Population of your city is based on residents (living there) only. So only build what you need, no more of the other two blue and yellow. The RCI can/is a great guide.

I have had more success than not by ignoring the RCI complete.
For instance, in a city of 72k cims, after a disaster that killed almost everyone (Tsunami) the RCI was solid green up to the top, yet all the buildings for residences where still intact and operational.

I find that if you chase the RCI, you typically get into things like death waves, or low unemployement, or too much factory and these conditions rotate.
So rather than play to the RCI, just build, watch your income and unemployement. You always want to shoot for an unemployment of around 5-10% which means factories are full of workers and profitable. If it gets any higher, build more factories or commerce. If it gets lower then demo some factories and zones.

With this+ tactic I make about $50k a week income and a 9 Million dollar bank.
You need to adjust the prices of transit to be either zero sum or make a profit.

Last suggestion that I do, keep your cims somewhat stupid. Building too much education causes highly educated cims to reluctantly take factory jobs or move out.

YMMV, but it has been a success for me on every game I start.

RCI ... Just ignore it.

Oh my.
Who said "chase" RCI? How did you gather that from what was written? I thought I suggested control the RCI, not it control you.
You can't (can not) get low unemployment with high industrial demand. Not sure how you imagine it does otherwise.
Educated citizens require less demand on services over all. They also pollute less as well.
If your educated citizens are reluctant to take jobs in industry then there is a different issue involved.