Bill Cooper's: Hard Data on Water
I've been working on this a little off and on for a while and some recent queries on the subject got me motivated enough to finish.

I have a Chia city (a city constructed entirely on pause, with no sim activity allowed) with the water pump area separated from the rest of the city. There is only one pipe leading from the pumps to the city so it is an easy thing to turn the entire water supply on and off, while leaving the rest of the city entirely the same (in every respect: when the water to the city is turned of the pumps are still running and drawing power, etc.).

What I did then was to set up 4 trials, consisting of two periods of ten years each. I ran each trial 5 times to get a fair average.
Trial 1 Total Pop Res Pop Ind Pop Com Pop Res Zone Ind Zone Com Zone
1st 10 years Watered 204,994 84k 48k 71k 3489 1250 2716
2nd 10 years Watered 214,722 86k 48k 79k 3526 1257 2873
Trial 2 Total Pop Res Pop Ind Pop Com Pop Res Zone Ind Zone Com Zone
1st 10 years Dry 185,954 74k 47k 64k 3525 1203 2878
2nd 10 years Dry 183,518 74k 43k 65k 3523 1183 2885
Trial 3 Total Pop Res Pop Ind Pop Com Pop Res Zone Ind Zone Com Zone
1st 10 years Dry 184,766 74k 47k 63k 3513 2858 1216
2nd 10 years Watered 210,834 86k 47k 76k 3519 1240 2814
Trial 4 Total Pop Res Pop Ind Pop Com Pop Res Zone Ind Zone Com Zone
1st 10 years Watered 202,026 83k 47k 70k 3451 1225 2715
2nd 10 years Dry 214,578 86k 48k 79k 3529 1262 2962

  1. It looks pretty clear to me that water has no effect at all on industry. While there is a downturn in industry in the second period of the 2nd trial (dry-dry) I think it was the result of continued poor Residential and Commerce figures (lack of customers?).
  2. Water has a strong impact on Residential density. You'll notice that the figures for the number of residential zones is very consistent, but without water the density goes from 24.39 (Trial 1) down to 21 (Trial 2) sims per tile. It also seems to return to the higher level if the water is turned on (see Trial 3).
  3. Commerce is effected also. Density decreases from 27.5 to 22.5. I'm not sure if this is a result of the lack of water or a secondary effect of the residential population decrease. I think I would have to design a new city to test this.
  4. This is the oddest thing I see. In Trial 4, when the water was turned off it didn't seem to have any effect at all. The results from Trials 1 and 4 are nearly identical. This would seem to indicate that it only matters that the tile received water at some point. Or possibly that the effect of being denied water takes a long time to appear?
Notes: The pump area in my city is 128x3 (484) tiles. Obviously there is no way that simply replacing these tiles with zoning would make up for the population loss.

I used a res=6, com=3, ind=2 tax structure (I didn't differentiate between industries). This produces (when the city is full grown) enough revenue to cover city services and replacement of the power sources (2 fusion generators =2x$40,000/50 (years) =$1600/annum)) plus a small surplus. Since the entire point of a chia city is to be able to let it grow without any action on the part of the Mayor (after it starts) you have to use a cheat to get enough money to pay for services until the city grows to it's max size ( as well as funds to build the city, of course).

This is just a start on figuring out what water does. Any other opinions will be welcomed.

Bill Cooper

This Web Page was created by Patrick Coston April 20, 1996, Last updated April 4, 2006