Neighborhood politics get harder, with unit based economy simulation, NIMBYs, staffing-constrained healthcare and more

In this update we continue to explore how housing dynamics change in different parts of the city. We made the „disagreement“ mechanics more influential, to move housing from simple supply and demand to the intricate trilemma of neighbors, landlords and the unlucky mayor that is you. NIMBYs continue to become a stronger force, as we are making it one of the core gameplay elements for future versions.

Neighborhood mechanics:

• Buildings with disagreement aura will have lower chance of being rented and are particularly avoided by high-income citizens and high net worth individuals
• People living in disagreement buildings do not count towards your approval points, making leveling up harder
• Cursor will show a warning when placing buildings where neighbors will disagree with. Likewise, cursor also warns when placing homes near an `undersirable` building.
• New habitational builds: The Platttenbau, a large slab with units for families up to 4 members, based on east european/german architecture from the 1970s. The studio apartments: A small unit, modern high-rise building for singles or couples without children.
• Military compound: A gift that will give you a $1,000,000 monthly military grant but will cause disagreement on a large area. 

Simulation gets deeper:

• Unit-based occupancy, buildings are now tracked by apartment units, not raw headcount. A 12-unit apartment building shows "7/12 units rented (58%)" rather than "42/60 residents." This affects vacancy rates, rent adjustments, and demand calculations
• Households share a home, split rent and make decisions together
• Socioeconomic classification in Census is now calculated through households and using the methodology of the Pew Research Center
• Citizens of different socioeconomic classification make different decisions regarding to housing and they optimize for different targets
• Hospitals need to staff doctors nurses and engineers to be fully operational, or they will have reduced capacity. New UI show operational status and staffing targets.
• Reworked health simulation based on the OECD Health study „Health at a glance 2025“. Waitlist, triage, discharge policy, healthcare satisfaction are all factors of a functional health system. A new setting for „discharge policy“ allows to set a target for how many inpatient days the city should have in hospitals.
• Healthcare satisfaction affects citizen happiness, thus also approval points that are needed to level up.
• Making the bus rides free reduces car ridership but increases usage, with numbers based on data obtained from Germany and Estonia
• Cost of living is calculated more precisely, taking into account the family size, mode of transport and gas price. Driving a car will hurt the wallets of some citizens a bit more.

Cool stuff:

• Cosmo tower, the highest building in the game, a big landmark and tourist attraction.
• Roadside motel: accommodation for frugal tourists and the ocassional criminal in-hiding.
• New event: tourist wave, a travel trend puts your city on the map and retail and leisure revenues rise by 15%
• Botanical house: unlocks flowers in your parks
• The museum of crime: unlocked after 1000 crimes are solved in your city, culture +1.
• Turkish is added to our list of supported languages (in Beta)… thanks to Emre!

Technical improvements:

• Improved Steam Deck compatibility
• Performance improvements targeted to large cities
• New city data format is smaller, requiring less ram and CPU
• Many many many many small bug fixes

That is 1.7: more realism where it hurts, and more consequences of your actions. Build something controversial and watch the city tell you the truth. As always, you can visit our simulation parameters page to get a technical view.