Are sick Sims cost conscious?

[Norm35]

I have a high sick Sim count.

On checking the visit counts at my medical facilities, I find the counts at the Clinics are high but at the Medical Groups are low.

This raises the questions:

Are Sims cost conscious when it comes to seeking medical attention?

How is the total sick count collected?

[Azeem]

It depends on their condition. Some buildings cure injury and illness while others cure illness only.

[MidrealmDM70]

Also are both venues open during the same time period each day?

[Norm35]

Approximately.

I changed the Clinics to operate on a 24 hour a day schedule.

Then I sat and watched for a game week while the sick count oscillated between 6 and 68 and hasn't settled down yet.

I am beginning to think the program for handling sick count is a joke.

[Azeem]

How old is your city?

It seems older cities tend to have higher sick counts and health issues.

[Norm35]

How old is your city?

It seems older cities tend to have higher sick counts and health issues.

The city is about 870 days old.

[Azeem]

Your answer is right there, then.

Older cities = more sickness-prone sims.

[Norm35]

Your answer is right there, then.

Older cities = more sickness-prone sims.

How many days is considered old?

Is there any way to replace the Sims without having to rebuild the city?

[MidrealmDM70]

How many days is considered old?

Is there any way to replace the Sims without having to rebuild the city?

I don't think so, the elderly just get sick more often.
The best you can do is put buildings in that make Sims more resistant to illness.

[Norm35]

I don't think so, the elderly just get sick more often.
The best you can do is put buildings in that make Sims more resistant to illness.

I am using Clinics and Medical Groups now.

What else can I do?

[MidrealmDM70]

I am using Clinics and Medical Groups now.
What else can I do?

There are other buildings, I think many are agricultural or botanical that have a chance to make sims visiting them immune to illness for a few days.

Unfortunately I don't have a list of such buildings .. :(

[Norm35]

There are other buildings, I think many are agricultural or botanical that have a chance to make sims visiting them immune to illness for a few days.

Unfortunately I don't have a list of such buildings .. :(

Getting the Sims to visit them is a problem.

I have never found a way to interest Sims in the Botanical Garden even though it is supposed to good for them.

I guess I can raise the Happiness Effect to 50 in the XML file.

[SlipperyJim]

Getting the Sims to visit them is a problem.

I have never found a way to interest Sims in the Botanical Garden even though it is supposed to good for them.

I guess I can raise the Happiness Effect to 50 in the XML file.
You've already made sure that your Botanical Gardens have full Attractivness "flowers", right? My sims seems to love visiting the Botanical Gardens in my new Romantic city, but I also made sure to place the Gardens next to Decorations (and a Recycling Center) that increase Attractiveness.....

[Norm35]

You've already made sure that your Botanical Gardens have full Attractivness "flowers", right? My sims seems to love visiting the Botanical Gardens in my new Romantic city, but I also made sure to place the Gardens next to Decorations (and a Recycling Center) that increase Attractiveness.....

Since the objective here is to improve the health of the Sims, I raised the Happiness Effect of the the Exercise Gym and paired 3 of them with 5 Baroque Fountains, making the combination irresistible and put the combination right in the middle of town. We'll make 'em healthy or kill 'em. So far, I don't see any sign of improvement but we'll give them more time and see what happens.

The city is less than three game years old and the Sims are in old age already. They have the longevity of a fruit fly.

[Azeem]

I don't know what specifically is meant to be "old," but I've noticed that cities that into the hundreds tend to have more health problems. As MidRealm mentioned, older sims are more prone to health sims and there's not much you can do about it other than corralling sims into health-booster venues. It becomes easier to corral sims to the venues you want them to visit if you don't have such an excess of venues. I usually prefer keeping the number of venue space at most 10% above the total number of sim workers in the city. Chucking the odd venue at a sim doesn't guarantee that they'll visit it. In that case, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.

[I'll note that there seems to be some unresolved calculation bugs when it comes to happiness and the like that pops up; I've had the issue where some sims become permanent miscreants, never able to become happy. But then again, that is somewhat realistic anyway since there are lots of people in real life that seem to be permanently unhappy.]

The city is less than three game years old and the Sims are in old age already. They have the longevity of a fruit fly.

Well, if you expect them to live as long as normal humans in the real world, you'd be sitting in front of the computer 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the next 60 years or so. How long do you plan on playing SCS in that case? ;)

[That being said, what is the average real-world life expectancy these days anyway?]

[Norm35]

I don't know what average longevity is today but it is a lot longer than three years.

After I installed the exercise gym, I monitored the sick count for several game weeks. The pattern by which it varied did not resemble old age at all.

It started at 68 and then fell steadily until it reached 7. Then it rose steadily until it reached about 32. Then it fell until it reached 6. It continued to oscillate between 67 and 8. Last I looked, it was in the range 35 to 56. There are occasional spikes where it doubles.

I am still waiting for it to stabilize somewhere.

If this is old age, the patient is at death's door one day and out playing handball the next.

How do they calculate the sick count anyway?

[MidrealmDM70]

It becomes easier to corral sims to the venues you want them to visit if you don't have such an excess of venues. I usually prefer keeping the number of venue space at most 10% above the total number of sim workers in the city.

I agree, though you might boost it a bit if you have more tourists. But if your venue capacity is a great deal higher than Sims + Travellers then the venues that are less appealing will almost never recieve visits.

Also, if that is the case, If you take steps to increase the visits at Venue 'A' then you are taking visits away from venues 'B' and 'C' - a population can only visit so many venues in a day.

[That being said, what is the average real-world life expectancy these days anyway?]
A more important question is what is the life expecancy of a Sim in the game. If we know that we can establish a baseline of what is 'old'

I don't know what average longevity is today but it is a lot longer than three years.

Considering you can build an entire building in a second (even while the game is paused) the concept of time is pretty much abstracted in the game. I always viewed each game 'day' as 6 months to a year. So a city of ~900 days would be akin to 450 to 900 years (In my opinion only).

It started at 68 and then fell steadily until it reached 7. Then it rose steadily until it reached about 32. Then it fell until it reached 6. It continued to oscillate between 67 and 8. Last I looked, it was in the range 35 to 56. There are occasional spikes where it doubles.

You may have a long wait,
Lets assume that 70 Sick sims is 'normal' for your city (for whatever reason) and that that many sims are going to be sick on a typical day.

Then a large number of the population join the gym and become immune to sickness for a number of days (lets say 3 days).
As more Sims visit the gym the sick count drops, but those who are already immune can't become immune again until the first one wears off.
So three days later all the immunities begin to fade, and sickness rises. The cycle then repeats itself over and over.


How do they calculate the sick count anyway?

I would assume the number of Sims are affected by the condition 'Sick'

What is your total population anyway? Is 70 Sims a significant percentage?

One other thing, if your computer has low memory, the game may be using 'abstracted' sims. I have no idea what this means though. But it could be causing things that don't have a direct observable effect.

I've never delved into the concept of abstracted sims, but I have seen several references throughout the documentation.

[Norm35]

Before wading through the first part of this posting, read the last paragraphs.


I agree, though you might boost it a bit if you have more tourists. But if your venue capacity is a great deal higher than Sims + Travellers then the venues that are less appealing will almost never recieve visits.


Worker Sim count = 562

Average traveler count ~ 245

Population ~ 17,000

Venue capacity = 1486

I have affiliated the venues that might tempt worker Sims into trips that would have to be aborted because they could not be made in the time available during the work week.


Also, if that is the case, If you take steps to increase the visits at Venue 'A' then you are taking visits away from venues 'B' and 'C' - a population can only visit so many venues in a day.


Hopefully, the affiliations keep the worker Sims from having too many venues to choose from.


A more important question is what is the life expecancy of a Sim in the game. If we know that we can establish a baseline of what is 'old'


I have no idea of what this might be.

Since the city began, there have been about 10,000 "natural deaths." If this figure is based on the number of workers (500), this represents 20 lifetimes. If it is based on the equivalent "population" figure, it is less than one lifetime. Do you know which applies?


Considering you can build an entire building in a second (even while the game is paused) the concept of time is pretty much abstracted in the game. I always viewed each game 'day' as 6 months to a year. So a city of ~900 days would be akin to 450 to 900 years (In my opinion only).


I guess this would be a matter of opinion.


You may have a long wait,
Lets assume that 70 Sick sims is 'normal' for your city (for whatever reason) and that that many sims are going to be sick on a typical day.

Then a large number of the population join the gym and become immune to sickness for a number of days (lets say 3 days).
As more Sims visit the gym the sick count drops, but those who are already immune can't become immune again until the first one wears off.
So three days later all the immunities begin to fade, and sickness rises. The cycle then repeats itself over and over.


If all I get for my trouble is 3 days of immunity, I am shoveling against the tide.


I would assume the number of Sims are affected by the condition 'Sick'


But what causes the wild fluctuations?


What is your total population anyway? Is 70 Sims a significant percentage?


See above for the population figures.


One other thing, if your computer has low memory, the game may be using 'abstracted' sims. I have no idea what this means though. But it could be causing things that don't have a direct observable effect.

I've never delved into the concept of abstracted sims, but I have seen several references throughout the documentation.

I know even less about this.

My computer has 3 GB of memory and 250 GB of disk. The CPU is a 2800 MB Pentium D. The video card is the standard that comes with the machine, nothing special.

************************************************** ********

Out of curiosity, I went back through my city log to see where the increase in sick count occurred. I was surprised to see that prior to about a week ago, the sick count was down below 20.

This high sick count dates from when I did some major building shifts. I don't think it has anything to do with Sim age at all. Something tied to that move is responsible.

I had not been paying much attention to the sick count, probably because it was low. Only when it got up over 50 did it get my attention. I did not remember what it had been a few weeks ago until I looked at the log.

The question now in my mind is, given time - will the sick count drop by itself without my doing anything or is this a permanent shift caused by the move?

This raises again the question is how sick count is determined. If a Sim has a problem getting to work and misses a day, is this charged to sick time? If so, a commuting problem could be misinterpreted as a high sick rate.

************************************************** *****

I confirmed that this problem stems from the building reorganization by loading the previous version of the city (pre-building reorganization).

I repeated the collection of sick counts and where the latest version had sick counts of as high as 62, the older version had counts at a uniform value of 6 through the entire work day.

I apologize for taking up your time with a problem that I should have identified the cause of myself.

I would really like to know how the sick count is determined. This was a commuting problem yet it gave the appearance of a weird sickness problem.

I am going to scrap the latest version of the city and resume with the previous version.

[Azeem]

You have far too much venue space, which is probably making your city much less efficient. If you want sims to go to the venues you want them to, it's better to limit the number of venues you have, taking in account only the number workers and travellers in your city.

[MidrealmDM70]

[B]I would really like to know how the sick count is determined. This was a commuting problem yet it gave the appearance of a weird sickness problem.

I am going to scrap the latest version of the city and resume with the previous version.

Do you know what buildings were added or moved during you re-arrange?

It is possible the shift may have caused more sims to visit locations that cause sickness. Or it may be that the shift result in fewer sims being able to reach healthcare locations easily thus a rise in illness. :confused:

[Norm35]

Fewer participants on the forum means fewer people to exchange information with. You two and Rizzla are about the only people I talk with consistently.

Now that I have gone back to the prior version, my sick count is about 6 - 8. The only buildings involved in the move were Sky Rise Apartments. I moved them closer to the work area. I wasn't careful about the commuting routes. I am still convinced that despite what the sick count was, the problem was commuting not sickness. Somehow, the system is getting them mixed up.

The venue capacity is not a problem so long as I restrict it to the travelers. I have a lot of venues but most of the popular stuff is affiliated so I don't have to worry about distracting the worker Sims. There are plenty of venues for the workers though. "Content" is about as low as the Happiness gets. That includes the period of high "sickness."

Now that I have learned the basics of keeping the Sims happy, generating good cash flow, and attracting tourist income, I am looking for something new in the way of a city project. Got any ideas?

[Azeem]

Most people don't go on forums. Oftentimes, people simply register for games forums simply to get tech support or to download mods.

Building a specific type of city (Authoritarian, Capitalist, Romantic, Fun City, Industrial, etc.) can take a bit of effort. Each of them have their own particular downsides and positives as well as their own particular management challenges.

[MidrealmDM70]

Most people don't go on forums. Oftentimes, people simply register for games forums simply to get tech support or to download mods.

Building a specific type of city (Authoritarian, Capitalist, Romantic, Fun City, Industrial, etc.) can take a bit of effort. Each of them have their own particular downsides and positives as well as their own particular management challenges.

Authoritarian Rules!

[Norm35]

Authoritarian Rules!

What is the attraction of an Authoritarian city? Some gamers seem to get a big kick out of this type.

[Azeem]

Aside from getting a particularly insidiously satisfying "Big Brother" feeling? :D

[I usually prefer "Small Town."]

[Norm35]

Aside from getting a particularly insidiously satisfying "Big Brother" feeling? :D

[I usually prefer "Small Town."]


I'll pass on that.

Any other ideas for a unique city?

[MidrealmDM70]

What is the attraction of an Authoritarian city? Some gamers seem to get a big kick out of this type.

Authoritarian - Aside from the 'feel' of the city, (clean streets, orderly inhabitants, etc)
As far as game play goes, there are a lot of conditioning buildings and effects. Which means (once you get past a certain point) you have fewer and fewer sad or angry sims with less effort on your part. The trade off is, you have fewer happy sims as well as all of your workers fall into place and realize that complacency is the key to contentment.
I wrote a brief story, "What Price Authority" told from the point of view of a rebelious Autoritarian Society inhabitant
http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24265
that might give you an idea of what the society is like (if nothing else it has some nice screen-shots)

Other Types

Romantic - characterized by high knowledge with a mixture of creativity and prosperity, the romantic society offers many artistic venues (opera house, museums, etc.)

Small Town - Often a simple agricultural town, expect lots of farms. Usually high in spirituality.

Contemplative - Similar to the small town, with less emphasis on agriculture and more on spiritual locations. A great deal of the buildings appear to be from an eastern or 'oriental' themed culture.

Capitalistic - Also known as Materialistic, expect lots of big business and office buildings. Generating and using Prosperity is a must for this cultural type, stock exchange, banks, shopping centers, and signs of excess wealth are abundant.

Industrial - Practically a picture of 1930-1940's Americana, poor housing conditions and excessive work loads keep your Sims down. A challenge to keep your city functioning while keeping the workers happy (or at least content) and keeping polution and crime under control.

Fun-City - honestly one of my least favorites, maybe because it just seems too sickly-sweet happy when it is done. Personal opinions aside, this society is more about short work weeks and lots of entertainment. Expect extreme levels of creativity and venues that offer a variety of entertainment.

Haunted - no prizes or trophies for this one, but can be fun to put together. Expect lots of ghosts and zombies when you are done. This one is much better if you have the Creepy-Nightmare mod.

CyberPunk - A dirty futuristic society where corporations are the new ruling body. An extremely graphic intensive city once you get it going, as neon signs appear on almost every building. If your graphics card can handle it though, it is quite an impressive (yet gritty) society.

There are also other society types that were added by Destinations, but I forget exactly what they are (Forced-Fun, Religious, First-Class, etc.)
You should be able to hover your mouse over the society name in the society filter to get a brief description.

=-=-
Lastly if you want a challenge - there are pre-set Scenarios
You can play in scenario mode to try to achieve a specific goal or challenge created by the game designers.

[Azeem]

It's possible to build a city with a particular theme but be somewhat contradictory to it. For example, you could keep your city with a "Small Town" theme but in actuality have a huge sprawling metropolis. My city "River Town" in the General Forums is an example of this.

[rizzla]

I have just completed my first two scenarios. These scenarios limit you to a certain city type (that is, you can only choose buildings from their type) where you will get to know these types a bit better. At first I went for the scenario which has a 30 day limit - it's actually a bit of a challenge to complete this. You need an airport (easy enough, you only need 50 beds for travellers, but expensive), a resort casino (quite tough, needs a 4 star rating and 10+ professional gamblers at the same time) and a sports stadium (which needs a population of 5250!). And that in just 30 days. At least you get to start with $200.000. I needed 23 days, by the way. And I also tried the small contemplative village. That taught me something new about the game.

[SlipperyJim]

I just started playing SCS, and my current goal is to win all of the trophies in Creative mode. I'm about halfway there, and each city has been a lot of fun ... in its own way.

Cyberpunk: This city was my first. It was (sadly) named SimTopia, because I forgot to name it. Anyway, SimTopia was a lot of fun. The city looked really cool (in my view, anyway) by the time I earned the trophy. Lots of neon everywhere. Heavy megacorp domination. By the endgame, I felt like I was watching an aerial view of Blade Runner or a Gibson novel.

(Cyberpunk is my favorite genre so far.)

Industrial: Ah, New Detroit. Smell the air! (Cough, cough, cough....) This was my second city, and I built it with Midrealm's excellent Syndicate mod. The Mob rules New Detroit. Wiseguys keep the peace, and the Don has a luxurious estate right in the middle of town. All of the nasty industry is to the East and the West, so the Don actually has some clean air. It's good to be the king! As Midrealm wrote, keeping my Sims happy was a bit of a challenge in New Detroit. All of the industry has some nasty "Eyesore" effects that tend to drive down the happiness. Fortunately, enough Dive Bars and Liquor Stores will enable the proletariat to forget their nasty living conditions. ;)

Small Town: Djedu. Despite the Egyptian name, I went for a "Wild West" atmosphere. Djedu was a fun little "snack-sized" city that took a lot less time to build than my other cities. I built a college & administration offices, and I set both of their "Activist Rally" events to auto-fire. My small town was full of smelly hippies and photojournalists. :D

Romantic: Port Pheasant is a lovely, charming town by the sea. I think I build more Venues than I have Sims, so everyone is wildly happy. There's a little bit of pickpocket trouble from the Concourse Hotels and B&Bs, but the Port Pheasant Bobbies can take care of that little problem. So far, I'd say that Port Pheasant is the most beautiful city I have made.

Authoritarian: Greybanks is my current project. The city almost crashed before I could build enough conditioning Venues, but now it's stable. I'm loving the Authoritarian buildings, and I'm really digging the music. As Azeem wrote, there's an oddly-satisfying feeling to the sinister "Big Brother" aspect of building Greybanks. I picked a Tundra landscape to match the dreariness of life under Authoritarian rule. And yet, there's a little cluster of Syndicate Safe Houses on the edge of town. Does the Mob control the Party, or does the Party simply tolerate the Mob in exchange for "services rendered"? Only time will tell.....

I can try to post some screenshots of some of these cities, if anyone is interested. I'd imagine that most long-time players have dozens of cities like mine, but I'll be happy to provide an example for other newbies to consider.

[sev]

I, too, have been playing the scenarios. I'm finding them more challenging than simply earning the trophies -- because in addition to the "use this much of a societal value" goal, they also limit you to only a subset of the buildings.

And let me tell you, keeping a happy population without my beloved triple-deckers, and keeping a healthy population with nothing but the Department of Public Health? Is hard! The "Dawn of Tyranny" scenario, which I'm currently working on, has me using a very different strategy than I used earning the trophies.

[MidrealmDM70]

I, too, have been playing the scenarios. I'm finding them more challenging than simply earning the trophies -- because in addition to the "use this much of a societal value" goal, they also limit you to only a subset of the buildings.

And let me tell you, keeping a happy population without my beloved triple-deckers, and keeping a healthy population with nothing but the Department of Public Health? Is hard! The "Dawn of Tyranny" scenario, which I'm currently working on, has me using a very different strategy than I used earning the trophies.

*Laugh*
I always played with the societal filters on when I went for the trophies, so for me Dawn of Tyranny was about the same as getting the Authoritarian Trophy. I prefer leaving the filters on because otherwise there are just too many different buildings, plus you get the society change (streets, music, etc.) faster if you use only buildings that contribute to your socity type

And yes, Authoritarian needs more health care facilities. :mad:

[SlipperyJim]

And yes, Authoritarian needs more health care facilities. :mad:
Bah! Who cares about sickness and injury? We must all give our utmost for the glorious City! Unity keeps us strong! :)

Just nailed the Authoritarian trophy, and it was quite a bit of fun. My only complaint is that the State Housing Project is an eyesore, which has a negative impact on all of my Venues. Heavy-duty Conditioning seemed to make this point irrelevant, but it still bugged me. Perhaps I'll mod that way in my next game....

FWIW, I found that my Authoritarian city of Greybanks became a lot easier to master at two particular breakpoints:

Build the Propaganda Ministry -> Enact the Patriotism Policy -> Super Conditioning!
State Housing Projects combine high Population and Conditioning into one lovely package


I also spent a whole heap of money at my Behavior Control Facility to make sure that every Workplace had Conditioning. Mmmm ... mind control. :D

Next city project: Contemplative!

[sev]

Just nailed the Authoritarian trophy, and it was quite a bit of fun. My only complaint is that the State Housing Project is an eyesore, which has a negative impact on all of my Venues. Heavy-duty Conditioning seemed to make this point irrelevant, but it still bugged me. Perhaps I'll mod that way in my next game....

That just means you can plant them next to the eyesore factories and venues without causing any additional sadness! I had these little clumps all over my city, factory-housing-liquor stores, each clump surrounded by a field of decorations.

And I agree, the Patriotism policy & those workplaces that add conditioning to buildings have been enormously helpful.

[eladimir]

Agreed on the Cyberpunk best looking finished city I think.
But I enjoy making the small town ones the best. Love the various farm types and nice homes.

Currently taking on the Authortative trophy in Strategic Challenging and having some rough starts but I'm sure I'll get it. Not alot of decent venues in that mode so I need to keep em happy enough to get up to the high level of conditioning. Tried working with alot of low rise office buildings (with the $2,500 bonus) but was basically breaking even on costs (military schools and redistribution centers are pricey venues) so I kept over spending and things getting broken on the weekend.
More paitence required I think.