Deeper Analysis
Collection of Pinstar's notes.
Back when I first played tropico, I developed a pretty effective strategy for making sure everyone in the island population had housing without building too much of it and wasteing space/money.
Originally my rule of thumb went,
Total job slots X 1.5= Total housing slots required. The 1.5 accounts for the singles in your population who take up 2 housing slots for 1 person. Thus my tactic assumes that 50% of the people on the island will be married at any given time. Has anyone done any research to show a more accurate %? Assuming a normal 50/50 male to female ratio on the island. ...
This adds but one more node to my research: What % of females wear the mother avatar during any given time? Do you think the gender balance formula would work if an arbitrary % was added to the "female only jobs"?
So for example if my research finds that 1/10 of my female population are mothers at any given time, I would simply multiply the "female only" job count by 1.10.
I think the reason it seems more women are mothers in the very begining is:
1. The game almost always starts with some of your women as mothers;
2. All of your people are out in the open and in view, and the yellow dressed mothers stick out visually;
3. In the very beginning, there's less to do (once you plop down your initial buildings) thus you are more prone just to survey your population randomly, thus making it more likely for you to click and notice a mother
I think later in the game you look mostly at your important industries (power plant, dock, factories etc.) to make sure they are filled, thus would neve notice a mother. Once they have housing, mothers generally stay indoors at home, walking around only to get food or fufill their health or religion needs. Also later on, there are so many peons it's hard to notice them from the crowd.
I'm dubious that 100% of the female population would be off baby-making, even on a full tilt birth island (contraception ban + birth setting on clinics) I doubt 100% of the women would be wearing the mother avatar.
I was doing some testing and watched a single farmer closely. She started out single then got married. I was watching her thoughts and saw an interesting line of them:
"I'm going to have a baby"
"I hope everyone at my new job likes me"
Only she didn't take a new job, she continued working at the exact same farm -- she even gave birth right in the middle of the corn field and kept on working. She had 2 more babies like this -- not once for a moment leaving her farm job or stopping her work there, but always had the "I'm having a baby" directly followed by the "new job" quote.
Perhaps there is a % chance each time a woman "is going to have a baby" that she quits her job and turns to the mother avatar. in a sequence like:
1. Quit job;
2. Check to see if woman will become "mother";
3. if not 2, then return to work at same job.
Sometimes when watching a job closely, i've seen a female worker blink quickly -- perhaps that's her becoming pregnant and deciding to keep on working anyway. I still do see mother avatars later in the game, but they are rare.
What do we see from this carefully reported stuff? Given the information in the obsecure post by a PopTop representative on the archives board, we understand that the Mother avatar has a very attenuated role, and barely has time to appear. Pinstar comes close, but no cigar. The actual sequence:
1. Periodically (probably quarterly), all married females are checked by the "Pregnancy Algorithm" (rather complex);
2. if they pass, they have the thought "I'm going to have a baby" and quit their job, leaving the work force;
3.
nine months later her baby appears in the population data and she returns to the work force;
4. she passes the "job selection algorithm" check for assignment to a new job and has the thought "I hope everyone at my new job likes me";
5. or goes to Unemployed status and has the thought connected with it.
There are lots of problems in trying to figure this out from observation of the various avatars associated with a single unit. You really have to start with the information in that obscure post.
To try to answer Pinstar's research about maximizing both rental income and numbers of adults in housing (other than shacks), the factor for vacancies in female only jobs due to "motherhood" would be very small since it involves only a
nine month period. You should be able to make a good guess by looking at the record of births over a few representative years.
"Churning" However, you should now be aware that there is considerable "churning" in housing occupancy and employment based on that
nine month absence from the workforce. If the male spouse alone can't pay the rent, they have to move; when she goes back to work they may move again to regain
whatever. When she returns to work, she may be in the same occupation, but rarely will she be in the exact same job slot.
The really difficult problem about trying to understand all this by simple observation is a lack of knowledge of how units change avatars. It does not happen in the blink of an eye; but in fact it is subject to a strange set of rules. The change has to happen in a building and not just any building. An other discussion entirely.
Random observation: When a child grows up, they go from the child avatar to the "Jobless" avatar, even if they take a job right away. Sometimes I'll be looking at a building and a job slot gets filled by someone who has the jobless avatar -- clicking on it, they're always 13 or so. Given that jobless are more likely to get education, I would think native born tropicans are more likely to attend school right when they grow up. I did see (one "dougie houser") a native born tropican who was a doctor at the age of 16. Made sense because of his "excellent" intelligence.
Again --
too much reliance on the misconception that avatar changes happen instantly.
The unit changes its avatar ONLY when it is in a building -- and not just any building. It has to be its residence or its building of employment. The unit goes into its residence only when it has to rest, not just to shift avatars. The unit goes into an employment building only if it is employed there and is going to work. From this, it should be evident that the unit's actual status and the avatar it is wearing are not always in synchronization. So the female unit who becomes pregnant and unemployed does not "retain a job" - just the incorrect avatar. When a unit transmogrifies from Child to 'adult', it automatically passes into Unemployed status because it is not instantly subject to the "Job Selection Algorithm." The 'urban legends' about why Tropicans go to school are the result of too much reliance on verisimilitude. No Tropican has heard the "American Mantra"
<<get education before food>> !! Tropican Mothers do NOT flog their children to be Doctors or Bankers or Lawyers.
