The Cities Unlimited Archives: Trade Data For Industries
Submitted by John on Thu, 06/24/2010 - 14:45
This concept article talks about a more sophisticated model for resources and economic simulation. Commentary on how this applies to Metropolis below. Posted with the permission of their orginal author, tr0ub1e, these are articles archived from the Cities Unlimited website (along with the first page of their respective comment threads) before the boards were closed down. A huge thanks to Metropolis member Ephemeron for his foresight in hanging on to these, and his hard work cleaning up the formatting! The usual Drawing Board disclaimer applies. Note: dark red text indicates links to other pages on the boards that are no longer active.
Trade Data/Information for Industry & Business
a Conceptual article by tr0ub1es0me
#14677 tr0ub1e
(author: tr0ub1es0me)
SimCity 2000 had a neat little window where you could view the levels of trade and demand for each type of industry; in addition to allowing adjustment of the tax rates for each individual industry trade/sector! This should be brought back, using the new trade simulation (also see the Concepts article "Freight & Goods Simulation") for accurate stats, and expanded upon by having various bar graphs showing various types of data for the various sectors:
Demand here (Trade & Goods Demand) is not to be confused with RCI Demand. The demand here represents the industrial and commercial demand for materials & finished products, not the demand for jobs by residents.
Food demand is one of the most crucial. If you don’t have enough production and imports of food supplies to meet your city's demands, then you will start to lose all residential demand and health ratings drop as the people face food shortages. More on this is outlined in the Concepts article Agriculture, Fishing & Food Supplies.
Materials
- The current demand for each group of materials (both raw and processed) by dirty, manufacturing & high-tech industries.
- The current workforce dealing with each group of materials, i.e. the number of jobs in your agricultural zones, fishing docks, and from mining industries, which provide the raw materials; add the number of jobs in your dirty industrial zones, where processing of the materials occurs, before supplying processed materials to the manufacturing & high-tech industry.
- The current level of imports, i.e. the quantity of raw materials being imported by dirty industry for processing; add the quantity of processed materials being imported by manufacturing & high-tech industry for use in making finished products.
- The current level of exports, i.e. the quantity of raw materials being exported by agricultural zones, fishing docks, and mining industries; and the quantity of processed materials being exported by dirty industry.
Industry
- The current demand in each of the various sectors in manufacturing, high-tech, and commercial service industries, for processed materials & produce.
- The current workforce in each of the various sectors creating, servicing, or selling final products, and dealing with administration, i.e. the number of jobs in your manufacturing zones and high-tech (manufacturers of high-tech and electronic goods) zones, within each sector; add the number of jobs in your commercial service zones, servicing and selling products for each sector; add the number of jobs in your commercial office zones within each sector taking care of paperwork, administration, co-ordination, management, organisation, and many other aspects for both residents and other industries.
- The current level of imports, i.e. the quantity of processed materials & produce being imported by manufacturing & high-tech industries within each of the sectors, for use in making finished products; add the quantity of finished products being imported by commercial service industry.
- The current level of exports, i.e. the quantity of processed materials & produce being exported by manufacturing & high-tech industries within each of the sectors; add the quantity of finished products being exported by commercial service industry.
With combined with the implemented system described in the Concepts article "Freight & Goods Simulation", and the new zoning criteria described in the Concepts article Zoning Options & Control, it will become easy to provide the player with all of the industry & trade data mentioned here. When buildings and developments are being created by Monte Cristo, it must be specified what is the workforce to input/output materials & produce ratios, and for those businesses dealing in finished products, it must be specified what sector they are within. The freight & goods simulation being on-board will mean that goods are being transported between businesses in your own city and between your own and other cities, and those input/output materials & produce will always be going to and coming from somewhere; rather than just disappearing off the edge of the map like in SimCity 4. Using this simulation and the hidden classification of all business buildings by sector, CITIES XL will be able to provide all the necessary data organised into the bar charts described here.
Post any other comments, suggestions, additions, or adjustments here too.
#14679 g314
Thanks for the thread!
Yeah, I missed SC2K's Industry window. You're right: I can adjust those individual sliders for each industry in my city. It would be cool to implement this for CU since I think it's more advanced than mere industry taxes. ;)
4 - Important. I'd like to have these features. (75%)
#14681 citythugs
All very nice. But like I say Please hurry up my time is Short , Hell man I'm 60 years old and still playing sims for god sake hurry up.
I cant wait until dooms day, for you to put hair on the ladies legs and mens chins :D leave some detail to the imagination.
Well here's thankx in advance when you Finnish the game and I'm still alive. Alfred.
#14690 ToeJam
4- that would be cool to incorporate something similar into CU. :)
#14699 The Yeti
3 - Undecided. (50%)
#14734 Jman47
i give it a 4.
i never knew there was a trade window in sc2000, ill have to check. you mean the PC versionm right?
#14758 wisdom_bin
i'll give it a five but too much data might hurt game experience. Too less hurts realism. The example given is just great for me..
edit: increase of industries should also increase commercial demand as they will need offices for the management. ;)
#15787 john2218
1- I want to build cities not micromanage the economy.
#15796 ckwong
john2218 wrote:
1- I want to build cities not micromanage the economy.
Ditto.
#15802 Don Mikimax
1. Maybe in expansion pack.
#16460 JCScooby
I really like wat you have brought up tr0uble (as usuasl), and this is a very important feature. this should influence how commercial and industry buildings are built because they can effect each other. Very well indeed. :)
I give this the importance of 88%. :)
#16464 Pedro Rodrigues
I'll give it a 4 because I like micromanagement and, again, for people who don't like, an option should exist so that all that micromanagement could be done by the computer for them, automatically. Just a thought. ;)
#16469 The Floyd
4 - Important. I'd like to have these features. (75%)
For me this types of feauters are important, due that as you said, i don't want finished goods to dissapear in the edge of the map like happened in SC4. Trade is what makes cities feel alive because of the amount of movement it produces in the city, and, therefore that kind of movement, will make it look even more real.
So i think it's good to have this trade Data so to be albe to see and control what's going on the city and moreover, to make some adjustments in terms of what the city needs. MC could take a look in games where you have to trade like Caesar4, Pharaoh or games like those two and see how trading goes on and then transport it to now a days and create something simliar and why not even better.
Great article indeed ;)
#16756 toyfaces
5 Having this feature will be great
#16759 Joe2102001
I would say 4. Its important, but it needs to be done right to avoid it becoming to overwhelming.:)
5 reponses to "The Cities Unlimited Archives: Trade Data For Industries"
1. My thoughts: I think tr0ub1e
My thoughts: I think tr0ub1e is on the right track here, but I personally think the details of what he outlines are too tightly married to the Sim City model. For Metropolis I envision a much more subtle and complex economic simulation. Resources are certainly an important factor in the economy, but so are things like geography, credt liquidity (the availability of capital investment), and social/political norms and restrictions.
Additionally, I want us to avoid falling victim to another overused city builder paradigm: the "daisy chain" supply model, of which the Settlers is the ur-example. In those kinds of games the player had to create the supply chain themseleves: build an iron mine, which supplies a smelter, which supplies a blacksmith. For a modern city builder, this is too simplistic: there should be no need to provide resources through direct action. No city mayors should be making "trade deals" either: the play of commodities on the economy would be reflected, as in real life, by their price on the open market. The price of resources would become one of the factors affecting what type of industry has the potential for profitability, and hence what appears in your city.
As a final note, having a realistic economic simulation demands one other thing: a robust model of the wider economy of which the city is part. No modern city in a developed nation has an economy which is hermetically sealed and controlled by the city's government; Economic conditions in any given place are wholly dependent on a huge number of factors entirely external to the city or even the region. This would also have to be abstracted in some way to make the economics of Metropolis even remotely plausible.
2. I like it! Interesting.
I like it! Interesting. StarPeace put most of its focus on supply, demand, production, consumption etc of resources and making a profit.
3. That was me as the guest; I
That was me as the guest; I forgot to log in.
With trade of products, I think that the each building should buy the materials, products, and services needed and sell what it produces by itself. The demand for a certain type of industry would therefore be dependent not only on tax rate, education, and demographics of workers but also by the surpluses and deficits of the products in plans on using and producing. Local, regional, (possibly national) and planetary surpluses and deficits can change what type of industries will set up shop. If the mayor wanted a certain industry to grow in his city, then the mayor could buy and/or sell resources and products for the industries.
"Words are words; explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality."
Always do your best and you will always be better than the best in my eyes.
4. I agree with you right up to
I agree with you right up to the end... I don't think it's in any way realistic for a city mayor to buy or sell resources, and I don't want to fall into the trap of turning the game into some sort of RTS with resource stickpiles required to build things. While I think it makes sense that raw materials be necessary to fuel an economy, this impact should be modeled indirectly, through economics: supply, demand, and price.
As an example, say you want to encourage the steel industry to develop in your city. Instead of making some artificial "trade deal" or buying and stockpiling iron ore, your task as mayor would be to facilitate access to cheap sources of the raw material: you could do this either by encouraging the exploitation of iron deposits on your city map (if they were present) by low taxes and favorable terms to mining companies; or, by creating infrastructure which connects your city to an externally available source (freight rail, port facilities, etc.)- easier access means lower prices, which in turn makes your secondary steel industry grow.
5. Economy done any way even
Economy done any way even remotely resembling what's here just doesn't fit in a city builder game. That's one of the big failings of Cities XL.
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