how have you all solved your housing problems?

[super-tone_d]

well, this certainly is an interesting game so far, and i am having a
good bit of fun with it, however: the biggest problem i have
encountered so far (aside from the inexcusable inability to rotate
buildings! GRRRR!) is housing my people... those huge apartment
buildings really do not house all that many people, for the amount of
space that they take up, and building houses indivdually takes up just
too much of my valuable construction time. has anyone here managed to
find a good solution to the housing problem? or should i just let them
live in thier filthy little shanties and make sure i have plenty of
good strong military on the island?

[Roden]

I'm having housing problems too but I feel that the housing problems is just a long list of problems when it comes to construction. I have 10 construction offices, and it still took me 7 years to build an airport, and also the tenant housing holds more then the apartment but the housing rating is so low. Also after 10 years your apartments have a housing rating lower then a new tenant building. I wish the buildings didn't deminish in terms of "conditions". Its funny after thirty years a luxury house has about as much appeal as a new country home. And you have to tear it down and build another in its place. But since it takes years to build things it all seems worthless to me.

Until they come out with a cheat that will allow me to build a whole building with just a click of a button instead of waiting a couple years then everyone is going to live in there shacks, or at least the majority of them. After I make the beginging buildings like 10 construction offices, a church, clinic, market place, high school, power plant (in that order). I then build 22 apartment buildings and then an airport, then the tourist places. After I build all that 54 years has gone by. That is a load of horse Sh!t. How many construction offices do I need so I can see a half decent city before I reach the age 79 in this game. Any help would be great.

[KnightOwl]

Personally I build about two Tenament's, followed up by two or three apartments, followed up by more tenaments.  And uhm.. why are you building 10 construction offices? That's like 80 employees.. I wish I had 80 employees just sitting around doing nothing!

[Kuplo]

I have to agree that the building of buildings is WAY WAY WAY too slow!  It does seem that I've been in power for 35 years or more, before I start to see my island starting to really take shape, then it's a coup and im rowing for my life.  While I dont think that buildings should be built instantanaously, I do think that the game takes far too long to build buildings, and airports, well thats another thorn in my side, should be more like 2 to 3 years to build, I mean it's a small caribean island, you dont need JFK airport or nuttin like that, just a little tarmac with a shed to deal with imigration inside the airport.  Then upgrade it later as the need arises.

In any event, I just build loads of tenaments since they hold so many more people, seems to me that a house is a waste of space, they take up large amounts of room for 2 people, and when your island is as small as they are, it's a waste of space, while a tenament seems to hold about 10 to 16 people in the same space that 4 houses would hold 8 people.

I just dont build my tenaments too close to the palace, I hate looking out my balcony at the riff raff.

[Dravin]

If I want to keep the Commies happy, and the capatislist mad I just build row upon row of bunkhouses

[Daoloth]

I don't get what you guys are talking about. I only have 2 construction offices and buildings get built within the year, housing usually gets built within the month or two..

[super-tone_d]

well, i find that my problems do not lie so much in getting my buildings constructed, as they do in keeping my people housed.... no matter what i do, there just never seems to be enough housing to go around... i suppose my next game i will try massive bunkhousing with the occasional tenemaent... i have been trying to keep my people happy, but alas, i simply do not have room for so many apartment buildings...

anyways, for all you having trouble with construction:

make sure that the buildigns you want to construct are NEARBY a construction office... your construction workers are by nature somewhat lazy, and will not work much on a building they have to walk halfway across the island to reach. also, make sure you have a marketplace or other food supply nearby the construction site, so they do not have too far to go to feed themselves... the biggest factor in construction time, i have found, is the amount of time the workers spend performing thier daily routine... they need to eat, sleep, and it seems check into thier office while they are working for you... so make sure that everything they need is near thier work site, and things will go much more smoothly.

[Wooly]

I am having a good bit of success by placing corn farms in a scattered fashion.  The workers always seem to drop by the corn farms to eat.

As you have already noted, the construction crews wont go far when building stuff.  My solution has been the creation of a seperate community.  Start with a construction building, then add a farm, then add an apartment.  Voila!  Instant seperate community.  Add a few other buildings, like church, and the new community becomes independent.

These communities are not all that far apart, either.  In the later game they always seem to merge into one.

  --Wooly

[Garp]

Wooly's idea is a good one. I've tried it and it worked. Wooly should therefore be rewarded. Shower him with tacos, for he is wise, and understands the way of the taco.



Taco!

[Strider]

don't get what you guys are talking about. I only have 2 construction offices and buildings get built within the year, housing usually gets built within the month or two

ditto here.  i was going to write this exact quote when i noticed Daoloth already had.  i'm not that good at the game yet and i know you guys aren't that bad!  but 10 construction offices??!!  years to build a house??!!  dunno what to say but sumthum's wrong..

[Wooly]

When you only have 100 people you can cram them all into a little area around your Palace.  When you have 400 people, or even when you want to build an Airport, you need to spread out across the island.  Heck, sometimes the only gold deposit is a long journey.  As you progress you'll notice that construction workers wont go all THAT far to build a building.  They have needs to fulfill.  If they walk a long distance then they wont hardly pound a nail before they are heading back to town for lunch.  Trust us on this.

  --Wooly

[Strider]

These communities are not all that far apart, either.  In the later game they always seem to merge into one

that's kinda how mine ends up too.  i had a cool little "gold rush town" spring up.  all i needed were the teamsters and i put them in the middle.  they would rest, pick up the gold, haul it to the dock, eat on the way back, rest, etc.  lots of  possiblites.

[futurus]

anyways, for all you having trouble with construction:

make sure that the buildigns you want to construct are NEARBY a construction office... your construction workers are by nature somewhat lazy, and will not work much on a building they have to walk halfway across the island to reach. also, make sure you have a marketplace or other food supply nearby the construction site, so they do not have too far to go to feed themselves... the biggest factor in construction time, i have found, is the amount of time the workers spend performing thier daily routine... they need to eat, sleep, and it seems check into thier office while they are working for you... so make sure that everything they need is near thier work site, and things will go much more smoothly.

Good advice. I'd also add that if the building you wish to construct will be far away over rough terrain then lay some roads (and wait till the workers complete them) before laying down a building. This really speeds up the travel time to out of the way places for things such as airports and powerplants. However if you don't wait till the roads are finished then the workers will take forever getting to and fro,,,I usually spend a large chunk of my intitial cash on a road to a good gold mine location.

[Kuplo]

I put a tourism area at the other end of my island, layed the road work, and it took them from 1950 to 1978 before the road was even half built.

This game screams out for a transportation system, busses, taxis, junk heaps, whatever, it's got to have a transportation system brought into it.

[mdlake]

Suggestion: I used a strategy much like Wooly's to prepare a staff for a distant tourist trap.  (Great minds think alike.)  But I set the housing to a higher priority than a farm.  That way, workers cut their commute time as well as travel-to-site time.  The workers will eventually get just about anywhere, but forget putting up buildings within a decade if they have to hike cross-island to do it.

Thanks for the warning that housing degrades over time.  That must be the reason I retain such lousy happiness on the issue, despite a "no shanty" policy.

[psjoe]

I also never noticed the housing decay, but its only my second day playing. Deffinetly takes way to long to build stuff.
I also discovered Wooly's idea of a sep. community My first build is a construction office where i want that community, eg: gold mines. I make it my only build, thenhit very fast speed to get it built. Of course you loose 5 years of game time.
After that it's the same problem, plenty of yellow building's slow workers.

Find myself yelling at the screen when that voice comes on to tell you people are not happy build a church.
"Well if you don't get those lazy so and so construction workers on the freekin site, theres going to be some executions going on here".
I don't feel  as much like the dictator as those con. workers must...

[Phalanx_]

                        O good i found you this is the thread im looking for good topic...lot of good info here guys thax

[Kendahlj]

I know it takes a long time to build stuff, but here are some things that seem to have helped me.

When you can, avoid building on inclines.  It takes a long time to level ground and make it suitable for building.

Keep your construction workers happy!  Pay them a bit more, and if you can build better housing and charge enough that only your workers can afford it, or place it near a construction office.  Also, avoid sweat shops if you can.

Make sure you check the priority box.  Make your important buildings higher priority.  

Hope this helps!

[futurus]

About Housing:

I don't think that it *does* degrade over time. What you guys are seeing is the overall effect of evironment of the surrounding area dragging done the housing desirability.

As long as you do some beautification around your apartments etc., the building will remain desirable. In fact, I'm almost certain that you can even upgrade the desirability because I'm pretty certain that I've seen apartments with a base of 63 (60 being normal). Anyway, I've had the same living quarters for over 50 yrs and they still have the same desirabilty as when they were built.

Ways to keep housing desirable, (as previously mentioned) use large fountains....also all forms of trees, shrubs, and the smaller fountains have an effect to a lesser extent...confirm this by placing them and then watching on the environment overlay as the color changes from deep red to yellow/orange and eventually to green.

[SofondaCox]

What is wrong with 7 years to build an airport?  If we got a hundred guys together right now and told them to go level the ground, etc, it would take quite awhile wouldnt it?  All of them walking to work several miles each day, cutting down trees, then digging to level the dirt, etc...

[fidel]

futurus is right about the beautification,
but what i also do is to place a large fountian for instance at the intersection on 2 or 4 buildings that way ALL the buildings benifit from it and i only have to buy 1 of the item instead of four!
it saves on beautification costs and my housing desirability numbers go up!

[Cram]

It took me over 10 years to build the airport!My problem was that I started to late with building it so I couldn't make much money.  

[Coconut Kid]

Perpetual Complaint -
Slow Builders

Phil Steinmeyer answered the question:
Construction Priorities. Q Why do workers sometimes ignore a distant high-priority project in favor of a nearby low-priority project?  A The priority system is not absolute, but rather is a function of distance and priority setting.  For buildings with equal priority, workers always go to the nearest building.  Each level of "construction priority" counts as 25 cells of map distance.  Workers will still go to a low-priority building if it's at least 25 cells closer than a medium-priority building, or 50 cells closer than a high-priority building.  The "stopped" priority is absolute; a stopped building will be ignored no matter what distance it is from a worker. The Laborers simply are not at all efficient at more than 100 tiles from the Construction Office.

An ocean of ink has been spilled over housing. We know a lot more now - especially since we have the Building Spreadsheet giving the data in the bldg.dat file.

We have learned that housing buildings have a "Service Quality" rating which is one of several factors which determine the individual Tropican's choice. A few of the important factors are:

• Service Quality Rating - may vary up or down somewhat due to subfactors, e.g. environment, maintenance
• Distance from Building where employed
• Amount of Rent
• Husband chooses for immediate family

It is not a good plan to concentrate on only one or two kinds of housing because of the importance of having people live as close as possible to their work building.

It is also important NOT to imprint your personal background and attitudes about a linkage between social class and housing quality on the Tropican World. The amount of time workers spend sleeping (recharging their rest gage) is proportionally shorter as the Service Quality Rating is higher.