Was there a change to Noise pollution?

[Justa Guy]

All the sudden I seem to be having a lot of people in my city turn up sick from noise pollution. To the point I lost about 2k citizens from it. Most of them are around the mono rail lines I have had in place for a while. There is a solid block of comercial/office buildings between them and any residential plus some tree's when possible.

These are tracks that have been in place for a long time, but suddenly people are sick and dying. I have since pushed the housing back further but it seems like noise levels of Monorails went up, or buildings/tress block less noise. I am not sure which is true.

[ThisHero]

yes and!

pre sunset harbor i had a lot of HDC and residential nearby without a problem, but after SH i was hit with a huge wave of noise complaints. i spent several hours using every trick in the book to reduce the complaints. post SH at its worst it was several dozen, after some fixes it held steady in the single digits. single digit complaints i can live with.

odd anecdote, when i went to disable the 'no deathcare' mod and began to put in cemetary/crematoriums the noise complaints dropped immediately to almost zero. i still cant make sense of it, but the effect was immediate and noticeable for me.

[Mr. Monday]

Noise levels in general were changed with the update that came out around the same time as Sunset Harbor. Having said that, you said:

Originally posted by Justa Guy:

There is a solid block of comercial/office buildings between them and any residential plus some tree's when possible.

Commercial zones have always made noise, so you should avoid putting them close to your residential zones. Having offices as a buffer though is something many people swear by.

[MarkJohnson]

As your city matures, it holds more cims/jobs which then create more traffic, which in turns makes more pollution.

Heavy traffic in any zone will make noise pollution. so bad traffic is going to be worse.

But always keep all noise polluting builds outside of residential. Commerce should be about a block away with tree lined roads (trees reduce noise pollution.) You may need to fill in the empty blocks with offices or services that don't create noise pollution.

[Professor H. Farnsworth]

You can obviously deal with noise complaint the Office way (just don't make them in to IT) or you can just like. Secure proper Healthcare.

Healthcare either in the form of localized Clinics and Medical Helicopters that can ferry people to Hospitals or just use the various Health buildings (like the Spa type, Gymnasium etc). They all work like a charm.

Alternatively, you can fix your traffic. I never zone Office buildings as a buffer to Commercial Zones, I have then right next to Residential. However, my traffic never drops below 85% than so I don't have noise issues because people are using an efficient public transport system - metro and biofuel busses as main ways of moving about with trains moving from city district to city district (I'm doing a circular city so, each district is quarter of a circle) I have roughly 5-10% private vehicles, which for a city of 100k is.. ridiculously low. Won't lie, my metro system and busses are a tad taxed.
- Well traffic did fall below 85% (to 40%) as my industry broke at 100k and the 4 districts decided that exporting from their own cargo stations right outside of their area --> bad idea, better to use those 2 cargo stations in the top and when I disconnected them all better to export it all half across the map to the generic industry area through trains so the trucks could backtrack via the highway to export. Before hitting the 100k they were all exporting happily and correctly.

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by Professor H. Farnsworth:

You can obviously deal with noise complaint the Office way (just don't make them in to IT) or you can just like. Secure proper Healthcare.

Healthcare either in the form of localized Clinics and Medical Helicopters that can ferry people to Hospitals or just use the various Health buildings (like the Spa type, Gymnasium etc). They all work like a charm.

This doesn't fix anything at all. Your cims are still being poison by noise pollution, so you'll have constant ambulances all over your city clogging roads, plus hearses too, as cims die prematurely from noise pollution, not to mention it doesn't fix the underlying issues that you are poisoning your cims.

Alternatively, you can fix your traffic. I never zone Office buildings as a buffer to Commercial Zones, I have then right next to Residential. However, my traffic never drops below 85% than so I don't have noise issues because people are using an efficient public transport system - metro and biofuel busses as main ways of moving about with trains moving from city district to city district (I'm doing a circular city so, each district is quarter of a circle) I have roughly 5-10% private vehicles, which for a city of 100k is.. ridiculously low. Won't lie, my metro system and busses are a tad taxed.

You can have limited success with 100k cities and this method as the city is very small still.

- Well traffic did fall below 85% (to 40%) as my industry broke at 100k and the 4 districts decided that exporting from their own cargo stations right outside of their area --> bad idea, better to use those 2 cargo stations in the top and when I disconnected them all better to export it all half across the map to the generic industry area through trains so the trucks could backtrack via the highway to export. Before hitting the 100k they were all exporting happily and correctly.

Yes, Industry will get crazy exports if you are still following commerce demand. You can safely ignore commerce and just build offices, then build only commerce where you want it. But as you expand past 100k, your issues will start compounding very quickly.

[Professor H. Farnsworth]

No, Cims do not die prematurely provided there is healthcare present and an ambulance arrives in due time. The game just cares about whether or not they get treated in time.
Fun fact: Gymnasiums, Spa's and similar do not send out Ambulances and counteracts Noise Pollution effects - they won't reduce it, but Cims are far less likely to get sick from Noise Pollution with them around as they provide a health benefit. Stack them and you get the picture, you could probably run a city with minimal medical care this way (although a tad expensive). I know, because my in so far biggest city hit 300k (it was 9x9 squares), before my laptop at that time gave up running the game and I had plenty of Spa's and Gymnasiums in that one without ever having a single Noise Pollution (albeit the occasional and unavoidable one, can never hit 0%).

Industry is not an issue per say nor is traffic from Industry to Commercial Zones, if you understand how Supply and Transport lines work. The issue was that I accidentally loaded up a save after exiting to main menu thus breaking the save as my mods simply do not like that move (in fact it will never load the save if I try, it'll still break the save). That rendered my transportation network useless and short of restarting from an earlier save (I didn't have any) you can only fix it by restarting - so I did. Short of hitting vehicle limit, you can manage any and all traffic if done right.

9x9 map squares fully built in one big city is hardly small, the only reason I had to stop my previous save was because I could not fix the industry :).
I have seen cities at or around 1 million do the exact same as I do with no issues (other than the vehicle cap)

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by Professor H. Farnsworth:

No, Cims do not die prematurely provided there is healthcare present and an ambulance arrives in due time. The game just cares about whether or not they get treated in time.
Fun fact: Gymnasiums, Spa's and similar do not send out Ambulances and counteracts Noise Pollution effects - they won't reduce it, but Cims are far less likely to get sick from Noise Pollution with them around as they provide a health benefit. Stack them and you get the picture, you could probably run a city with minimal medical care this way (although a tad expensive). I know, because my in so far biggest city hit 300k (it was 9x9 squares), before my laptop at that time gave up running the game and I had plenty of Spa's and Gymnasiums in that one without ever having a single Noise Pollution (albeit the occasional and unavoidable one, can never hit 0%).

Industry is not an issue per say nor is traffic from Industry to Commercial Zones, if you understand how Supply and Transport lines work. The issue was that I accidentally loaded up a save after exiting to main menu thus breaking the save as my mods simply do not like that move (in fact it will never load the save if I try, it'll still break the save). That rendered my transportation network useless and short of restarting from an earlier save (I didn't have any) you can only fix it by restarting - so I did. Short of hitting vehicle limit, you can manage any and all traffic if done right.

9x9 map squares fully built in one big city is hardly small, the only reason I had to stop my previous save was because I could not fix the industry :).
I have seen cities at or around 1 million do the exact same as I do with no issues (other than the vehicle cap)

I think you've missed the whole point. Cims don't get sick, they get poisoned. If you avoid putting pollution of any kind in residential you don't even need heathcare at all, other than cosmetics and save yourself a whole lot of grief. The worst you get is light traffic noise pollution which is easily remedied with tree/grass lined roads.

But it's just very bad form to treat a serious issue so trivially and advise people it's okay to poison their cims and cause them much grief in building their cities.

I looked at your profile and don't see csl stuff. Most people share their knowledge and post stuff for examples for other to use. It could benefit the community if you could share your work and knowledge. I'm sure the community would be very grateful. I for one would like to see your 9x9 city managing health care with your spas and gymnasiums. I've never really used them as I learned to manage my cities in the base game when released.