CS1 - Issue with Citizen Instances

[Rhino.CA]

Hi,

After many hours on CS1 and on my 14th city, I tried using pedestrian zone/streets for the first time. I'm not sure if this is the cause of the problem but I never faced this issue until this city. The issue is that Citizen Instances has reached 99% while the other related indicators are as follows:

Citizens: 23%
Citizen units: 23%
Population: stagnant at around 167k
City occupies all 25 squares

All my previous cities grew their populations to around 300K with no issues, this plus traffic above 80% were the thresholds for moving on to the next city.

I did make a copy of this city and removed the pedestrian zone/streets however the issue continued as described above. The RICO demands are still present and I did create the corresponding zones but the population remain stagnant.

Transportation is provided by well established networks of buses, trains, metros, ferries and some trams and monorails. The city is profitable with a healthy budget and all services well funded. I'm using a number of mods and assets but nothing different than the previous cities.

Is there a way to reset the Citizen Instances? Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Thanks very much.

Dalton.

[numbat]

You can only have 65,536 "citizens" active at any time. There is more info on the limits, plus some ideas on what to do in this guide here.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2712549268

Cheers,
Chris.

[Cosmic Sea]

Citizen instances cap out at 65k - thats the number of citizens walking around/physically represented in your city. But you can have a little over a million citizens and citizen units - citizens = residents + tourists currently present in your city. Its a virtual representation of a citizen/tourist. Citizen units on the other hand is how the game assigns actions in groups for the simulation - stuff like moving in, public transportation, etc. So hitting the citizen cap of 65k is not unusual or problematic.

[TheKillerChicken]

The problem is that Colossal Order forced these agent limits upon us against our will for no rhyme or reason at all. Perhaps a physical Unity3d limit for the 2015 build? There are mods to increase the citizen units, vehicles, and path units, but to what I have been told from the citizen units and path units modder is that the citizen instances will require a substantial re-write of either the engine, or of the code for that specific agent.

[numbat]

Originally posted by TheKillerChicken:

The problem is that Colossal Order forced these agent limits upon us against our will for no rhyme or reason at all.

The limits are not there for "no reason". The devs will have decided (rightly or wrongly) that going beyond those limits would adversely affect the performance, or required substantial testing that they weren't in a position to apply.

Some of those numbers are instantly recognisable to a developer. 65,535 is the max value of an unsigned 16 bit integer. Allowing even one more, 65,536 would require doubling the amount of memory required for those instances from 2 bytes to 4 bytes.

It doesn't sound like much, but if 16 bit integers take up say, half of the 12GB of memory that a given game takes, and you double it, then all of a sudden you're using 18GB of memory.

Cheers,
Chris.

[atelier.aks]

Is there a way to reset the Citizen Instances? - NO
Any suggestions on how to fix this? - Check each transport line to pick up passengers correctly

[james]

The best way to free up some instance capacity is to ensure the cims can reach their destinations quickly.

Having hundreds of cims waiting at public transport stops is a no-no. I really like the Advanced Vehicle Options mod to cure this issue.

In addition, the actual animals on the map take up citizen instances, including all the birds flying around. Using a mod like Hide It! could help free up some instance units. If you are against installing a mod to remove animals, consider not using animal pastures in your industry DLC area for Animal Products.

Furthermore, if you're using pedestrian paths, make sure there is sufficient pathing and not long lines of grids. (This also will help for hearses and police). If you're using pedestrian paths with buses or other public transit, consider using the Network Multitool so you can add crosswalks inbetween the longer roads so cims can reach their destinations quicker and free up instance units.

[mistermcd]

You can use Loading Screen Mod Safe mode option to remove cim/vehicles on load, not sure if that will help you in this instance though. I also had numerous issues with Pedestrian zones that made me stop using them - in my case it was a path unit issue where within a short time of running the city with the pedestrian zone, transport lines would start breaking all over the map due to no more path units. I think it was eventually traced to the use of the Large Service Point for pedestrian zones, but I had since given up on that zoning type and instead grabbed a bunch of pedestrian roads from the workshop and use TMPE to block the cars. The only thing I miss is the visual of the bollards going up and down to let emergency vehicles but working game vs a small visual, well...

Also grab Broken Node Detector mod and make sure you don't have a bunch of stuck cims somewhere and follow the mod advice if you find some.

McD

[Rhino.CA]

Originally posted by mistermcd:

You can use Loading Screen Mod Safe mode option to remove cim/vehicles on load, not sure if that will help you in this instance though. I also had numerous issues with Pedestrian zones that made me stop using it.

Also grab Broken Node Detector mod and make sure you don't have a bunch of stuck cims somewhere and follow the mod advice if you find some.

McD

Thanks very much. I’ll give it a try with these mods. I started another city without Pedestrian Zone and it is working fine, the instances are much lower around 40%.
Cheers.

[Stealthy]

Originally posted by TheKillerChicken:

The problem is that Colossal Order forced these agent limits upon us against our will for no rhyme or reason at all. Perhaps a physical Unity3d limit for the 2015 build? There are mods to increase the citizen units, vehicles, and path units, but to what I have been told from the citizen units and path units modder is that the citizen instances will require a substantial re-write of either the engine, or of the code for that specific agent.

Lol. Have you seen what happened in C:S2 when these limits were lifted? Imagine that same scenario 10 years ago.

This game had poor enough performance at the start even with these limits.

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by Rhino.CA:

The issue is that Citizen Instances has reached 99% while the other related indicators are as follows:

Citizens: 23%
Citizen units: 23%
Population: stagnant at around 167k
City occupies all 25 squares

This sounds like you have an overloaded transportation system with a gazillion cims waiting at stops all day.

To get your agents back (65,536 of them), you need to optimize you city. Use trains, planes and ships to move cims around. Reduce public transportation in the city, so they aren't stops everywhere.

My 9-tile city has around a dozen lines and very few stops. One single stop can cover several block radius. They should be spread out very far away from each other.

All my previous cities grew their populations to around 300K with no issues, this plus traffic above 80% were the thresholds for moving on to the next city.

This sounds like you are understanding the game better, so you now build much faster, as a result, you now have to be more aware of what you place and where you place them. Avoid overlapping lines. This will allow cims to ride one line, then switch to another line, then they switch back to the previous line again, and they seem tp loop forever.

I did make a copy of this city and removed the pedestrian zone/streets however the issue continued as described above. The RICO demands are still present and I did create the corresponding zones but the population remain stagnant.

I find it helpful to make a copy of your city, so you can make changes and see if it works. If it fails, you can always come back to the original city. Just name them carefully, to show what you are doing. After 10 different saves, it is hard to remeber what city10 had done to it. name it meaningful, for example: "city10-removed all bus stops"

I find removing parts of your city to be a bad idea. It changes the balance of the game. Just alter or remove routes. One of the things I do when helping cities with stagnant cims is to remove all transportation lines in the city. Then add them back in one at a time, after the traffic settles.

I'm using a number of mods and assets but nothing different than the previous cities.

This is often the culprit, unless you started with all of these mods at the beginning of the game. Adding new mods can have a citywide effect and screw up your city quickly.

Is there a way to reset the Citizen Instances? Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Thanks very much.

Dalton.

No, you must manage cims in the game. You cannot reset them. You can only remove or rearrange needs of cims, like stops, to remanage them.

[Haystack]

Originally posted by Rhino.CA:

Is there a way to reset the Citizen Instances? Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Thanks very much.

Dalton.

YES ! Simply get CO to adjust the artificial cap on limits in CS1 Like they did in CS2.

[buda atum]

Anyone mentioned the pedestrian something else that chewed up paths?

[Rhino.CA]

Thanks very much Mark for the detailed answer. I will definitely follow your recommendations and suggestions to see if I can overcome this issue.
Cheers.

[Rhino.CA]

Originally posted by MarkJohnson:

This sounds like you have an overloaded transportation system with a gazillion cims waiting at stops all day.

To get your agents back (65,536 of them), you need to optimize you city. Use trains, planes and ships to move cims around. Reduce public transportation in the city, so they aren't stops everywhere.

My 9-tile city has around a dozen lines and very few stops. One single stop can cover several block radius. They should be spread out very far away from each other.

I have deleted all bus lines and recreated new ones, 11 in total (the city has 25 tiles) but it made no difference on the citizen instances. In fact, even in the previous "version" of the city there was practically no waiting at the stops, as there aren't now. I also have all other modes of transportation, i.e., ferries, trains, metros, cable cars, monorails. None of them have large numbers of cims waiting at stops, on average less than 10.

This is often the culprit, unless you started with all of these mods at the beginning of the game. Adding new mods can have a citywide effect and screw up your city quickly.

There were no changes on the mods used during the building of the city. The only difference from previous cities was that I created a Pedestrian zone but the DLC was already installed before creating this city.

Although this city evolved to be quite nice, sadly I am forced to abandon it definitively.

Thanks for your help.

[MarkJohnson]

Just make sure you don't delete your saved game. You can always come back to it after you get more experience with the game and you may figure out the issues later.