Growing the nation

[klasanov]

Doing some preliminary testing right now, but it seems that unemployment rate is tied to city competitiveness, and that population is tied unemployment (and housing and commercial buildings).

Taxes are tied to gdp(?), gdp per capita(?), but definitely population growth.

So far, if built slow enough, as in, build a university and allow it to increase city compettiveness, unemployment will drop, the population will grow, and the university will become self sustaining after a couple of years.

I know city competitiveness tops out at 100, but thetr are 22 product classes universities can get, and they can probably switch off universities and therefore making them even more self sustaining.

Also real estate is by far, the biggest money maker in the game. Doing pure re/media and raking in 400m a year by housing a population of 3.5m people or so currently. But with pop growth will definitely house more.

[eleaza]

Doing some preliminary testing right now, but it seems that unemployment rate is tied to city competitiveness, and that population is tied unemployment (and housing and commercial buildings).

Taxes are tied to gdp(?), gdp per capita(?), but definitely population growth.

So far, if built slow enough, as in, build a university and allow it to increase city compettiveness, unemployment will drop, the population will grow, and the university will become self sustaining after a couple of years.

I know city competitiveness tops out at 100, but thetr are 22 product classes universities can get, and they can probably switch off universities and therefore making them even more self sustaining.

Also real estate is by far, the biggest money maker in the game. Doing pure re/media and raking in 400m a year by housing a population of 3.5m people or so currently. But with pop growth will definitely house more.

I feel unemployment is not directly tie to competitiveness, but actual building employment required. And I think the number of employed workers is related to how much actual wage is paid from expenditure whether it's private or public. Total wage expenditure / wage rate determine how many workers a building actually hired. So any buildings with very high expenditures will hire a great deal of workforce proportionally hence dropping the unemployment. The expenditure from university like maxed out 3 million in specialization a month have the similar effect of adding media firms (which also have high expenditures). The other part of the unemployment I feel is connected to the private sector hiring, actual factories, stores, mines, etc. As well as the "invisible local business" hiring. When the city has a low enough population (like below 1 million), the "public expenditure" consist a larger part of the employed workforce, hence the effect like building medias, or universities expenditures make greater impact. Later on when population reach like 2 million or above,in GPD the government spending consists less and less, the importance of private sector hiring becomes less significant. But spamming high expenditure buildings like universities, medias, are still "effective" as providing instance employment boost, although they do come at a "cost".

[klasanov]

Maybe.

Would certainly be good to know.

I can try to demolish the universities and see what happens.

Certainly thoug it has an effect and the private sector can only do so much.

[damaligirl]

The competitiveness rating does affect unemployment. I have used landmarks to boost the competitiveness rating in an industry in order to achieve an immediate reduction in unemployment. The more a city's competitiveness rating exceeds the global rating, the more local jobs in that industry. That is above specific jobs created by building factories, etc.

[eleaza]

The competitiveness rating does affect unemployment. I have used landmarks to boost the competitiveness rating in an industry in order to achieve an immediate reduction in unemployment. The more a city's competitiveness rating exceeds the global rating, the more local jobs in that industry. That is above specific jobs created by building factories, etc.

This is interesting. Maybe competitiveness has an effect on private sector hiring, not just due to university expenditure. How much the increase competitiveness affects unemployment? landmark is 30% boost right? How much unemployment does it drop? 1%? 2%? Or more?

[damaligirl]

I couldn't give an exact percentage. Whenever my city's unemployment rate gets too high, I found that increasing the competitiveness rating is a good way to quickly reduce it. The size of the effect depends on the total population, and the relative size of the industry that has a high rating. For instance, increasing the competitiveness in an industry that has a larger market will bring more jobs than a smaller industry. So it's best to start with the most profitable industries.

Also, the competitiveness rating can be boosted by university research, landmarks, and the number of companies that are manufacturing products or doing R&D in that industry. So I will also look at the AI companies and add university research to the industries that they are active in. It's a waste to boost industries that no one is competing in.

When unemployment is high and the economy is really bad, I will start production in a new market, creating new jobs immediately with my own factories, then add R&D, university research and a landmark if I really need to boost an industry quickly. Combining university research, R&D and manufacturing in a new industry increases the competitiveness rating much, much faster.

It's important to maintain competitiveness in multiple industries to keep adding jobs to accommodate a growing population.

[eleaza]

I couldn't give an exact percentage. Whenever my city's unemployment rate gets too high, I found that increasing the competitiveness rating is a good way to quickly reduce it. The size of the effect depends on the total population, and the relative size of the industry that has a high rating. For instance, increasing the competitiveness in an industry that has a larger market will bring more jobs than a smaller industry. So it's best to start with the most profitable industries.

So it does feel like competitiveness isn't directly tuning the unemployment rate, but as I suspected indirectly affecting the private sector hiring rate. I guess a higher competitiveness of certain class would give those products larger market shares, thus more employees are needed in the "local business" that producing them.

Also, the competitiveness rating can be boosted by university research, landmarks, and the number of companies that are manufacturing products or doing R&D in that industry. So I will also look at the AI companies and add university research to the industries that they are active in. It's a waste to boost industries that no one is competing in.

I usually specialized each city and concentrate different classes in different cities. It's a good way to catch up with AI competitors of high product expertise. And it's probably why I never notice the relationship between competitiveness and unemployment rate. Since I either never use them when I test pure real estate, or if I do manufacturing goods, I max out all universities with 3 million in every city (Now I know why I never had unemployment issue with my mayors like others did, and always be able to grow my city size to 2 millions or more).

When unemployment is high and the economy is really bad, I will start production in a new market, creating new jobs immediately with my own factories, then add R&D, university research and a landmark if I really need to boost an industry quickly. Combining university research, R&D and manufacturing in a new industry increases the competitiveness rating much, much faster.

It's important to maintain competitiveness in multiple industries to keep adding jobs to accommodate a growing population.

In my pure real estate test game, I actually find another way to combat the unemployment, but less effective. Reducing the corporate profit tax rate to below 10%, about 5% to 8% would stabilize the unemployment to about 6%. And I didn't put any university specialized research budget in any city, just let AIs do their own researches and producing goods on their own. And I can still balance the city budget even without any government owned apartments/commercials/medias with 20% individual income tax, 0% consumer tax, and 5% to 10% corporate profit tax. (However I have to manually reduce the upgrade cost of every civic buildings to balance the expenses, and it's why I never put any university research budget).

[klasanov]

I think theres more to gdp than simply player/npc actions.

Were the ai actually investing, i could see the investment side of gdp as high as it is. There has to be a n unseen side to it that represents other businesses (construction, transport, etc) that we as players cant access.

[eleaza]

I think theres more to gdp than simply player/npc actions.

Were the ai actually investing, i could see the investment side of gdp as high as it is. There has to be a n unseen side to it that represents other businesses (construction, transport, etc) that we as players cant access.

Absolutely. those are what I called "invisible local businesses" (and services), however I am still not sure how many factors determine the total consumption.

[klasanov]

When i play more i will start evaluating what is growing in my gdp besides exports.

Anyway just speculating but im guessing it should be possible to get cities up to 5m each which should yield 5b annual profit in rent per year.

Alao want to see if higher per capita gdp means people pay more for goods or if rent can go up.

Ir if rent goes up does gdp go up (more consuming)