December 22nd, 2019 at 9:29 AM
Here are a few musings about the 'population swings' theme. I prefer to place them in your CJ, Brian, rather than in Skype, because there is a bit of text required, and it is easier here - for me at least.
Although I have read about 'Demand' in various locations like the SC4D threads, the Prima Guide, the CAM documentation, etc, my understanding of it is still hazy, and will probably remain so. I just find the concept hard to grasp. I tend to play rather intuitively, and rather prudently. I don't zone extensively at any time, I go by relatively small increments. This seems to yield good results, since I do not notice - with very few exceptions - large swings in population. In most of my cities there is steady, rather slow, population growth, with sometimes a slight decrease of at most a few thousands Sims.
I do not think that there is some hard-coded 'recession cycles' in the game. At least, I have not observed such behavior in my cities. But it is possible that a combination of factors triggers a recessive effect, because of some erroneous, imprecise, behavior of the game. We know that a game as complex as SC4 contains some imperfections, that would have eventually been fixed if Maxis had wanted/allowed it, which apparently they did not. The glitch producing population swings, if it does exist (we will never know for sure) would then have been identified and corrected in due time.
I have often wondered whether the extensive use of large-size condos, which you seem to be quite fond of (contrary to me) increases the phenomenon of population swings. One way of finding out about it would be to build a city with no condos (by not zoning residential surfaces large enough to have condos built on them) and observing whether the effects of population swings are less there.
Although I have read about 'Demand' in various locations like the SC4D threads, the Prima Guide, the CAM documentation, etc, my understanding of it is still hazy, and will probably remain so. I just find the concept hard to grasp. I tend to play rather intuitively, and rather prudently. I don't zone extensively at any time, I go by relatively small increments. This seems to yield good results, since I do not notice - with very few exceptions - large swings in population. In most of my cities there is steady, rather slow, population growth, with sometimes a slight decrease of at most a few thousands Sims.
I do not think that there is some hard-coded 'recession cycles' in the game. At least, I have not observed such behavior in my cities. But it is possible that a combination of factors triggers a recessive effect, because of some erroneous, imprecise, behavior of the game. We know that a game as complex as SC4 contains some imperfections, that would have eventually been fixed if Maxis had wanted/allowed it, which apparently they did not. The glitch producing population swings, if it does exist (we will never know for sure) would then have been identified and corrected in due time.
I have often wondered whether the extensive use of large-size condos, which you seem to be quite fond of (contrary to me) increases the phenomenon of population swings. One way of finding out about it would be to build a city with no condos (by not zoning residential surfaces large enough to have condos built on them) and observing whether the effects of population swings are less there.
