Self Contained cities

[Pinstar]

I hate it when I get too wrapped up in chaseing that huge gold deposit or developing my tourist area that I forget to add additional services to help my swelling population. One never forgets to plop down that first clinic, church and pub in the very beginning, but noticeing that you need another one in time is hard to do when you are focused on other things. So I've developed a theory for keeping all your services in check. This is based on several other theroies and observations:
The tropico guide to the economy of people's needs
My own theory of "houseing points"


                                 Jobs   Houseing
Construction Office                    8   10.4
Teamster's office                    8   10.4
Entertainment                    3   3.9
Marketplace                   1   1.3
Clinic or 1/2 hosptial   2   2.6
1/2 church                    2   2.6
Food                                  12   15.6
Spare                                 44   57.2
Total                                 80   104

Explainations
1/2 church or 1/2 hospital: One of these can serve two cities, so put a fully staffed one in between two cities.When it comes time to build cathedrals, treat them just like churches, in that 1 is able to fill the needs of 2 cities.
Food: enough food to feed the population within the city, assumeing you build food yielding farms or wharves
Entertainment: An entertainment building, vary it from each city. If the building only uses 2 workers simply add one worker to the "spare" slot. For advanced entertainment (IE things that use power), you can get by on one building provideing two cities, in that case treat it as 1/2 the workers employed at that venue.
Spare: Job slots that can be used for anything else: additional economy, farms, factories, government buildings, military/police and media. Whatever is in the area that would make your city profit the country. Also as a side note, I always build roads from one city to another. If anything to make them look realistic, and who knows, maybe teamsters might actually use them.

Housing: I've refined my equasion to be Jobs * 1.3 which assumes that 70% of your workforce will be married and 30% single. To house all the people in the city simply build houseing of any kind who's slots totals the houseing points. The quality of the houseing is up to you, this is just how much you should have to prevent shacks from appearing. While your new city is young expect to see a few shacks as new workers are much less likely to be married (and thus be single and take up more houseing per person) but once the city settles down they should fit in with the 70% marrage rate nicely and abandon the shacks.


Any questions or comments about this I'd be happy. I'm also unsure of the best ORDER to construct these in, so suggestions in that field (as well as what settings to tweak to get the most efficent build) would be welcome. I'm going to try this out later tonight and post a few screens...if it works out that is.

[Brf]

If you have a large island, it is not a good idea to be putting services between the cities.... then it takes a long time for the Tropicans to walk to the clinic or the church. They end up spending all their time walking... and then are too tired to do any work. You are better off building two clinics and closing off one doctor-slot in each one.

This strategy was pretty important when I was testing my Return to Glory scenerio, which has a large island and starts with several distinct cities.

[Pinstar]

Good point. That brings up a question: if your economy is strong enough to support the extra doctors, could you then make use of the other two specialties since your capacity is more than it needs to be.

As for the other services, my cities tend to sprawl and at full size bump into eachother. If the service in question is placed betwen the cities, it isn't really too far from either city at all. That and building a church in each city would seem rather expenseive until later in the game when you're rolling in the money

[Brf]

Probably... but the effects would be localized.... Your citizens would be really healthy in one city.... Your old people would live longer in the second.... and lots of babies would be born in the third.

[Pinstar]

Nothing wrong with that. In the early game I like to have at least one clinic on fertility (I dunno how to spell what they call it in game) so when my economy is really rolling I have plenty of native born tropicans to augment immigrants. And for the city in which I will have old people, I can count on that and build an extra old folks home for them. I personally don't mind the old folks, they are easy to please, just give them a cathedral to attend. They also make bribes alot more cost effective. Bribe a few old folks is like bribeing half your population (and it gets better with bigger families, thats why  I like the fertility setting in the early game)

[Brf]

Try out Return to Glory then.... and see how that works out  

It is on my scenerios page:

http://home.insightbb.com/~b.fermanich/tropico3.htm

[nick3737]

Hi-

I use a little of both ideas. I like a pub, clinic, and church in each population center, right down town. I usually block out a couple slots too, depending on my citizens' needs.  I will put a cabaret, restaurant or marketplace with a few bunkhouses on the edge of town in the direction I plan to develop. When I want to put a construction office out in no-man's land, the workers will have a little something nearby to keep them occupied while I have them build me a new town.  I always end up with a "Capital City" with a High School, College, maybe a hospital and good housing for my generals, soldiers, and other educated folks.
I use the almanac and let my people decide what order to build in by checking their happiness levels. As far as your statistics go, I skip all that and go by "feel".  As a Clinical Lab Technologist by profession, I get enough analyzing data at work. I prefer to govern by the seat of my pants.
Here's a great idea I found by accident...I had forgotton to plan ahead for my people's increased food needs in my rush to develop. The little rascals looked pretty well fed to me! I had spent all my cash and needed a corn farm! As I looked around,(searching for teamsters with wheelbarrows no doubt) I found an unbuilt farm tucked on the edge of the woods. I had plopped it down and set construction priority at full stop back in 1950, then forgot all about it. Needless to say, that little yellow farmghost kept me out of the rowboat!
Now I always stick a farm out there somewhere fertile and shut down the construction. You know you're gonna need it sooner or later. Might as well buy it early with some of your startup cash. It's almost like a reverse line of credit or a 401k plan...pay now, reap the benefits later. I have done this with teamsters offices too. I have spent my last dime to get a cigar factory, only to find all my teamsters hauling farm-to-factory, and no one hauling factory-to-dock. It's great to have anticipated that need and solved it with a single mouse click, and no need for cash on hand. The reasons I don't just go ahead andbuild it right away:
1. I don't have to pay the teamsters
2. I  don't tie up my constuction workers on mid-game projects early in the game
3. I look at it as an "untouchable" savings account. You couldcancel it later if you really need the cash. Those greedy little Trops can suck your bank account dry, but they can't touch an unbuilt farm!
Good luck!
John

[MrManganese]

Brf, do you know how the mechanics of the hospital effects work? Will a single visit to a gerontology hospital, for instance,  give the effect of 5 extra years of life to that individual? Or will the individual require repeated visits to sustain that effect? I have about 2 hospitals serving every 150-worker sector.. I could set one on gerontology and one on preventative medicine. If the effect lasts that individual's entire lift, I'd have a pretty good chance that then everyone would live 5 more years and everyone would require less medical attention.

Probably... but the effects would be localized.... Your citizens would be really healthy in one city.... Your old people would live longer in the second.... and lots of babies would be born in the third.

[Pinstar]

Status Report after initial test:
It is impossible to do everything in one city based on one construction office. There is not enough space. All the houseing takes up so much room that one cannot have it all built in due time by just one construction office. Cities can't be distanced from eachother, they eventually HAVE to touch. I had lots of buidup of goods at various locations and thus need more teamsters offices, as well as more construction offices... Further revision and testing is needed.

[Brf]

The obstetrics hospital is supposed to raise the "fertility" 50% of each woman that visits... The birth-control ban does the same thing, but for all woman.

My guess is that retirees health-need grows faster than younger people... and the hospitals set at geriatrics lessen that growth rate for those who visit it.

Concerning a single construction office... I never start with a single construction office. The first thing I build is a second one.

[Pinstar]

I'm thinking of doubleing up on the construction offices and teamster offices (except in tourism areas, where one teamster's office should suffice). This will eat 16 jobs out of the "whatever" area, giveing you even fewer jobs to work with but at least stuff gets built and things get moved. Once an area has no new major construction available to it, I'll simply demolish the 2nd construction office and keep the first one busy with "easy does it" and ploping down fountains and scenery to get the area dark green with beauty.

[MrManganese]

I can prove that gerontology has a different effect. Assume that the only effect of gerontology is to decrease the need for health care (the effect preventative medicine is supposed to have..).  If that is the case, then there would be no noticable difference between between having plenty of hospitals set to preventative medicine and plenty of hospitals set to gerontology. For, as long as there's plenty of health care when people need it, they won't die as a result of "poor health care" - one of the stated causes of death. However, in practice, my island has shown a difference between hospitals set to preventative medicine and gerontology. Setting all hospitals to gerontology increase my number of retirees by 100% over the course of a few decades! Hence, geriatrics must have some other effect. Q.E.D.

I decided to save my game right before this one retiree goes to get his health care. I counted the number of months he went before needing health care again, and the results are somewhat disappointing. The values changed a lot... for preventative medicine the results were: 25 months, 13 months, 25 months, 23 months. For gerontology, the results were: 14 months, 18 months, 27 months. As you can see, these values are fluctuating quite a bit... especially considering it's the same man visiting the same hospital with the same employees, in the exact same month, immediately after my saved game. It looks like the health care need is totally random! Or maybe it's just random within a range, the range being determined by the status "preventative medicine" or "other," whereas preventative medicine makes visits 20% less frequent. I won't be able to gather that from empirical data without wasting many hours on it.

Anyway I still have my original dilemma; hospitals provide an effect for an individual (decreased heath care need, increased birth rate, increased life span) and it's unclear whether that effect lasts an individual's entire life or just until he needs health care again.

The obstetrics hospital is supposed to raise the "fertility" 50% of each woman that visits... The birth-control ban does the same thing, but for all woman.

My guess is that retirees health-need grows faster than younger people... and the hospitals set at geriatrics lessen that growth rate for those who visit it.

Concerning a single construction office... I never start with a single construction office. The first thing I build is a second one.

[MrManganese]

But how can you be sure that's how obstetrics works? Aren't you assuming that birth rates will drop again if you change a hospital from obstetrics to something else? Isn't it possible that a woman who has visited an obstetrics hospital will always receive the 50% increase in birth rate?

[Coconut Kid]

The primary purpose of this quote is to highlight a few key points and to put the "Theory of Housing Points" into a table format.

I hate it when I get too wrapped up in chasing that huge gold deposit or developing my tourist area so that I forget to add additional services to help my swelling population. ... So I've developed a theory for keeping all your services in check. This is based on several other theories and observations:
The tropico guide to the economy of people's needs & My own theory of "housing points"

Building	Jobs	Housing
Construction Office	8	10.4
Teamster's office	8	10.4
Entertainment	3	3.9
Marketplace	1	1.3
Clinic or 1/2 hospital	2	2.6
1/2 church	2	2.6
Food	12	15.6
Spare	44	57.2
Total	80	104

Explanations
1/2 church or 1/2 hospital: One of these can serve two cities, so put a fully staffed one in between two cities.When it comes time to build cathedrals, treat them just like churches, in that 1 is able to fill the needs of 2 cities.
Food: enough food to feed the population within the city, assuming you build food yielding farms or wharves
Entertainment: An entertainment building, vary it from each city. If the building only uses 2 workers simply add one worker to the "spare" slot. For advanced entertainment (IE things that use power), you can get by on one building providing two cities, in that case treat it as 1/2 the workers employed at that venue.
Spare: Job slots that can be used for anything else: additional economy, farms, factories, government buildings, military/police and media. Whatever is in the area that would make your city profit the country. ...

Housing: I've refined my equation to be Jobs * 1.3 which assumes that 70% of your workforce will be married and 30% single. [Eliminate shacks.]
...

Unfortunately, the whole, elaborate theory collapses on one simple game world fact. The Tropican people do not act like "real world" people. They do not form queues for the buildings they need to use according to how near their house is to them. They don't form queues at all. They will walk across the island to a vacant slot when they have a need to satisfy. So the concept of "self contained" zones simply has no practical meaning.

In order to conceptualize how to "lay out" the buildings, the player has to understand how the units\people go about their living cycles. The information to do that is a recent "discovery" -- the modes of the life of Tropicans. It's discussed in detail in other threads, but the point here is that Pinstar's theory does not take this very different life cycling into account. So it doesn't work because the assumptions are faulty.

[Coconut Kid]

If you have a large island, it is not a good idea to be putting services between the cities ; then it takes a long time for the Tropicans to walk to the clinic or the church. They end up spending all their time walking, and then are too tired to do any work. You are better off building two clinics and closing off one doctor-slot in each one. ...

Only half correct - you have to build two buildings, but half-staffing is likely to be counter productive if you can't be sure of the 'fine tuning.'

... That brings up a question: if your economy is strong enough to support the extra doctors, could you then make use of the other two specialties since your capacity is more than it needs to be.
As for the other services, my cities tend to sprawl and at full size bump into eachother. If the service in question is placed betwen the cities, it isn't really too far from either city at all. That and building a church in each city would seem rather expensive until later in the game when you're rolling in the money.

Probably - but the effects would be localized. Your citizens would be really healthy in one city. Your old people would live longer in the second, and lots of babies would be born in the third.

Now we spin off-topic based on bad assumptions about what the options really mean, how the developers intended them to be used in game play, and what building placement means.

Nothing wrong with that. In the early game I like to have at least one clinic on fertility (I dunno how to spell what they call it in game) so when my economy is really rolling I have plenty of native born tropicans to augment immigrants. And for the city in which I will have old people, I can count on that and build an extra old folks home for them. I personally don't mind the old folks, they are easy to please, just give them a cathedral to attend. They also make bribes alot more cost effective. Bribe a few old folks is like bribeing half your population (and it gets better with bigger families, thats why I like the fertility setting in the early game).

Yep! Spinning out of control on overheated verisimilitude. The health care options are intended to be used in all buildings according to the phases of a 50 to 70 year planned rule. The patrons do NOT go to different buildings because of the speciality - they all use whichever is 'handy.'

• All Obstetrics at the start to build (jump start) your population
• All Preventive Medicine during mid-period to maintain economically
• All Gerontology in the late period to keep skilled workers alive longer. It has nothing to do with Retirees!!!
• Read the mouse over hover!!

.

... how the mechanics of the hospital effects work? Will a single visit to a gerontology hospital, for instance,  give the effect of 5 extra years of life to that individual? Or will the individual require repeated visits to sustain that effect? I have about 2 hospitals serving every 150-worker sector. I could set one on gerontology and one on preventative medicine. If the effect lasts that individual's entire lift, I'd have a pretty good chance that then everyone would live 5 more years and everyone would require less medical attention.

There is no use what so ever setting different buildings on different options at the same time. If a unit was unable to visit a health care building to recharge its needs meter, it lost a year of life each time up to five. Gerontology increases life time by one year for each visit to a health care building up to a total of five. You need it for skilled workers over fifty years of age. Sadly, Mr Manganese set up his tests based on several false assumptions. The actual effects are quite literal based on the the publisher supplied information.