Cities: Skylines Optimal RICO Zoning Ratios
I'm fascinated with pushing the limits of Cities:Skylines, so in this experiment I found the optimal zoning mix of Residential, Industrial, Commercial, and Office space (RICO) using high-density, maximum-leveled tiles.
Summary
The optimal mix is summarized in the table below.
| Zone Type | Tile Count | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Residential | 896 (14 parts) | 60% |
| Industrial | 256 ( 4 parts) | 17% |
| Commercial | 192 ( 3 parts) | 13% |
| Office | 128 ( 2 parts) | 03% |
Objective
The purpose of this experiment was to find the optimal ratio of RICO for Cities: Skylines. Obviously a lot goes into this, so read the whole post for details.
Turns out this blend is profitable too, even when your RICO is smothered with services.
Conditions
It’s easy to just lay things out and call it done, but the rations fluctuate wildly as the game settles into the zoning available. Education changes, wealth levels change, and zones advance up the density tree. So below were the conditions that constrained the objective
- All zones are high density. We're going for maximum population in addition to maximum leveling.
- All zones are fully covered by all services: police, fire, health care, death care, public transportation, garbage collection, and leisure.
- All zones are allowed to “settle” for a few hours on max speed.
- All zones should be allowed to fully level up.
Caveats
I can’t control everything. Here’s what you should know about these results:
- The tiling of buildings generated within zoned areas affects the ratio. I tried to force 4x4 buildings everywhere, but your mileage may vary. Zoning lots of 1, 2, and 3 wide strips is going to influence your mixture.
- This test has 100% leveled up buildings. Different levels among your zones will definitely influence your RICO blend.
- This test has 100% education coverage. Less education generally means lower zone leveling and also influences your RICO ratios.
Methodology
I created a small prototype town with three major sections: a residential, a commercial/office, and an industrial. This makes adjustments easy to zero in on the right blend and I can add services all around without trouble.
Each “block” is 8x8 tiles to make counting easy!
You can download the Cities:Skylines save file here.