CAM 2.1.0 Commercial Demand Problem?

[jleadermaynard]

Hi all,

So I have a problem (/bug?). Like many I have recently returned to SC4, and the forums (having forgotten my old account). Great to see so much activity, and to find CAM 2.1.0, and install it. Thanks to InvisiChem.

However, I have a persistent problem now - which is that all forms of Commercial Demand seems irredeemably negative (or only nominally positive, with no actual commercial growth). This is true both across existing regions (built under CAM 1.0) and new regions.

For example, I start a new region, and a new city, a single road, power plant, water pump and a commercial and residential zone. Whilst residential lots pop up all over the place, I get, say, one or two commercial lots (small shops) developing before commercial demand plunges into the negative. Then, 'no jobs' signs appear over the residential lots, but still no commercial demand. Using the Census Repository (the simpler always-available one) reveals that there are, say, 500 residents and about 30 jobs. So why isn't commercial demand positive?

I have tried a lot of things to rectify this but none work. I won't lie - I have a lot of old plugins transferred over from a previous computer, but these are not radical mods, just added buildings. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling CAM, and the NAM, and made sure that CAM 1.0 is uninstalled (early on I had the old CAM_5% files in, but removing them makes no difference). I have learnt about JDatPacker and manually merged SimCity_1.dat with z_CAM_2.1.0_Stand_Permanent Merge.dat (since on Windows 10, this seems the easiest way to do this). It's possible, of course, that I haven't done this right if there is some complicated set of previous files that needs to be installed prior to CAM 2.1.0, but I haven't seen a suggestion that this would be the case, and have tried to follow InvisiChem's manual installation instructions, but with JDatPacker. I can, of course, remove everything from my plugin folders, work off a blank copy of Rush Hour, reinstall CAM 2.1.0 and NAM, and then gradually reinsert all my downloaded buildings from a backup folder into the game, but this is going to take a huge amount of time, and I can't see what else in my plugin folder could be mucking up commercial demand in this way. Or, is it simply intentional now that commercial demand works like this - the effect seems to be to force me to build vast quantities of residential and, especially, industrial before any commercial demand will get off the ground. I'm assuming this isn't right.

Apologies if this is a known issue, or if I've done something obviously stupid (or failed to do something obviously necessary) which creates this. But can anyone help?

[mgb204]

the effect seems to be to force me to build vast quantities of residential and, especially, industrial before any commercial demand will get off the ground. I'm assuming this isn't right.

Sounds about right to me, CAM or otherwise. To get the game going you must have Industrial and Residents, only then will Commercial Demand appear. In the beginning you won't have much either. This is pretty much how the game works, although CAM may adjust things in this regard. Give your cities (new regions) time to develop and I'm sure you'll see commercial demand starting to pick up.

Think of it this way... you have 500 residents, roughly half will need jobs, but a village with so few people wouldn't need a lot of shops. So to begin with you need lots of I-D or I-AG for employment, but until the population increases, the amount of commercial demand will be low. When you get to the point of I-M demand, then C$/C$$ demand should pick up.

[jleadermaynard]

Mmm... ok. I think I had just played the game for so long with big developed cities under earlier mods that I had lost track of the early game census drives, especially now they have been modified under CAM 2.1.0. When I play a new region (as opposed to an old region with a big city) for a longer period of time, I agree it seems normal.

Sorry for wasting time!