Farm Towns

[Couvs 0]

Yeah I know I"m crazy for wanting to build a relatively "small" and little-developed town, but I figure there are some building rewards I'd like to see that specifically require a relatively large farm population.

I've tried a couple times to get one going on the smallest region tile size, figuring that should be big enough to get the farm population for the farmers' market & county fair.  every time I pretty much cover the entire tile with farm zoning and drop some residentials on it as I need.  I drive up the taxes on the dirty & manufacturing and even on the commercial to keep the demand for farm jobs up, but I cant get to the minimum 600 farm jobs for the farmers' market (fair is 1,200).  is this just a bad tile size for this goal or am I not doing something right?

[Teddah 1]

It takes a lot of land to get 1,200 jobs. Small tiles are too small, you should be able to do it with a medium tile.

[buckbeach 8]

I'm not sure if I can be too much help but I too love the small to medium size communities using ag as the principle industry.  I start over too often to give you a solid path but you might explore using a farm job modifier to increase the jobs.  I also use the jobs for parks mod and sometimes plop a base industry having jobs (ie lumber mill) but I am not crazy with the fact that such industries do not generate freight.

Good luck

[tungston 19]

My advice, use the UDI missions to get the rewards. It takes a lot of farms to get those populations, and you may still not get them if you are playing with the easy level.

[Couvs 0]

I started another one on a medium tile at medium difficulty.  I've got enough farm jobs for the market, I just need to attract 1900 more residents.

now I might be misunderstanding something but why would it be harder ot get the population on the easy difficulty?  also, I havent seen any missions related to farming...

[tungston 19]

Some, if not all rewards are not awarded in the easy level.

State fair: Ice cream truck, Ice cream delivery

Farmers Market: Crop duster, Farmers got vermin

[Couvs 0]

what needs to be in place for those quests to come up? parks for teh ice cream truck I assume at least.

there are some rewards I was getting in my larger population city without quests, incl the mayor's house, the first statue, and a university (a few other stoo I think but I cant remember)

[tungston 19]

Crop duster: small landing strip, and 50 farm tiles.

Ice Cream truck: [>] 2 elemetary schools

There are rewards offered at certain times during the game that are not earned by the requirements, the Mayors house, and some of the paying rewards if your money supply is really low. The army base, the federal prison, are two that I can think of.

[Couvs 0]

oh yeah I did read that those business deals are for fixing money issues.

I've added 2 elementary schools (since one doesnt cover the whole area and I'm not funding them completely) and I'm still not getting those ice cream missions

[tungston 19]

I think I was too quick with my reply, ice cream truck requires >2, in other words at least 3 schools. It does take game time to get them offered, especially the "Pure Evil Ice Cream" mission. I think it is one of the slowest missions to come along. 

I put the schools on a corner, so they are easily accessed.  You must drive to all schools, so make it as easy as possible.

[Couvs 0]

weird thing is I have dropped over 2 elementary schools in all 3 towns and none of them are getting the ice cream missions.  oh well.

[Cougar2004 127]

I always build small tile farm cities (without changing taxes) (without mods) and always obtain farmers markets within 10 years, usually only 3. But for state fair, which requires 1,200, i think ive always needed a medium tile of farms to get it.

[Couvs 0]

Originally posted by: Cougar2004 I always build small tile farm cities (without changing taxes) (without mods) and always obtain farmers markets within 10 years, usually only 3. But for state fair, which requires 1,200, i think ive always needed a medium tile of farms to get it.quote>

 

got any tips for accomplishing that? I"m running on easy right now on a small tile for farming and with about half of the map already zoned I'm still not even half way to the 600 farming jobs

[Cougar2004 127]

Originally posted by: Couvs

Originally posted by: Cougar2004 I always build small tile farm cities (without changing taxes) (without mods) and always obtain farmers markets within 10 years, usually only 3. But for state fair, which requires 1,200, i think ive always needed a medium tile of farms to get it.quote>

 

got any tips for accomplishing that? I"m running on easy right now on a small tile for farming and with about half of the map already zoned I'm still not even half way to the 600 farming jobsquote>

 

Sure.  Id be happy to share how I do it.  But if you already have your city started, you may just want to do UDI missions to win the State Fair and Farmer's Market.  Have you tried those yet?  Are you using an existing city or a brand new one?

[Couvs 0]

I'm building from nothing.  I have the entire map zoned now and I keep capping out on farming jobs just past the 500 mark.

as for the missions, I havent been able to get the ice cream trucks missions to come up in ANY of my towns.  At this point I dont have room for an airstrip for the plane missions to unlock the market.  I've basically started a brand new region with this one and this is a brand new farming "county" on a small tile.  on my other region I was able to build up 600 farming jobs on a medium tile with little trouble.

[Cougar2004 127]

Tell me briefly about your neighbors to that farmtown. What are you using for power? water? ordinances? and other civic services? Tell me what you have for neighbor connections. And I want to know exatly what you are doing for transportation type around this small farming community.

[TV-VCR 14]

One thing you can do is press CTRL+X and type you don't deserve it. All rewards become available. Of course, if you're not into cheating, this would not be the way to go. If you are aiming for realism, using that cheat would be more worth it in the end.

Chris.

[Couvs 0]

Originally posted by: Cougar2004 Tell me briefly about your neighbors to that farmtown. What are you using for power? water? ordinances? and other civic services? Tell me what you have for neighbor connections. And I want to know exatly what you are doing for transportation type around this small farming community.quote>

 

this small town is on a fresh region, small region tile with empty neighbouring tiles to the east, west and north. (on the south edge of the region).I have one road connected to each town as well as a rail track to each.  the track circles the town.

so far I'm using wind for power.  I've read that small populations like this (only barely over 1,000) has little to no need for water.  (even then I've read that no water is necessary for building a large town so long as only low residential is being zoned like the large city tutorial).  I have no ordinances in place at the moment, though I didnt see any to benefit agriculture anyway, unless I'm missing something.  I'm mostly using streets, with the exception of one road going straight from one neighbour connection to the opposite (east to west) right in the middle of the town.  I only just dropped the first elementary school, running at a 200 simolean surplus per month.

no matter what I try, my agriculture jobs cap out around 500 and do nothing but take a small dip and cap out again at the same spot.  this seems to start happening the instant my residential population surpasses the agricultural population.

and no I dont want to cheat, that defeats the challenge.  I'm just looking for some tips to improve my strategy. 

[Cougar2004 127]

I didnt need the UDI or a cheat to get the Farmers market in these last 2 cities i just was playing with. But if you want to UDI it.... here is what you need to know:

Having any residential should get you the ice cream truck, but you sure dont get the Mission that gives you the State fair. Oh no. You actually need at least 2 elementary schools, plus some residential to open that Ice Cream Delivery up.

Likewise as you figured already, any landing strip will get you the crop duster. But the Crop Duster mission that gets you the Farmers Market is Farmer's got Vermin, and that only becomes available when you have the landing strip, plus at least 50 tiles of farming, and besides that, this was always a pretty hard mission for me.

When you have those answers on the questions above, I'll see if there is something in your plan that is backfiring on you, otherwise ill just share a handful of tips on how i did my successful Farming communities, which I will add, were very profitable with income 3 to 5 times expenses. It CAN be done. Don't give up.

EDIT: Oh it looks like you actually just responded above, so ill go read that now.

[Couvs 0]

if I can, I'd like to get at least the farmer's market without a UDI, since I have no room for a landing strip.  my problem with the ice cream truck missions is that in other towns I've done, where I have 3 elementary schools and a bunch of residential is, while the truck itself is available on U-Drive It's free drive, the missions themselves never appear for some reason.

[Cougar2004 127]

Originally posted by: Couvs

Originally posted by: Cougar2004 I always build small tile farm cities (without changing taxes) (without mods) and always obtain farmers markets within 10 years, usually only 3. But for state fair, which requires 1,200, i think ive always needed a medium tile of farms to get it.quote>

 

got any tips for accomplishing that? I"m running on easy right now on a small tile for farming and with about half of the map already zoned I'm still not even half way to the 600 farming jobsquote>

 

Soundslike you have a lot of good information already.

Okay, so how I do it...  I just did the exact same thing twice, once with an easy city, and once with a hard.  Now don't assume just because I put it in writing that its law.  I could be wrong about the causes, but here's what I do that always seems to work.  Feel free to follow all or some of my ideas below.  But this is how it has worked for me.

Steps:
1.  Setup - Pause the game on the first month, by the 2nd day.  Start with a pure small tile (any level of hardness, no mods, no cheats, no tax manipulation, no teraforming, God-mode trees and animals are completely optional - as i dont know if they even work).

2.  Farms - Read this whole step before doing it:  Build 15x15 I-Ag (Farm tiles) immediately while on pause, during year 1, across the entire map with 1 tile lanes separating them for streets (do not place the streets yet!).  You should touch the sides of the map with the farm tiles.  Now, you will quickly notice that you cannot actually do this.  Because you would end up with an extra lane of tiles, so to solve this simply leave a double lane (for a future avenue that you may or may not ever use).  This extra lane can also be used for low res housing but i usually leave it empty, and toss some trees it in someday when i get bored.  Sometimes i do that in the center so its a big PLUS sign, but i think its kinda ugly even though practical, so for both of these 2 cities, i did them off centered more like a northern european flag.  Now, before you go and do any of this, I usually leave one 15x15 farm unplanted (usually one of the 4 center farms).  This is reserved for step 3 below. 

3.  Streets - Use the LEAST amount of streets that you possibly can, usually all you need to do is a big 4 sided square of street which connects at least 1side of all farms to the network (except for the 4 farms in the corners).  Now, at your own choice, connect ONE street to the edge of the map for each map side, and use road for the final 2 tiles to connect to the neighbor.  If you do it right, you will also have connected the final 4 farms to the street network.  

4.  Residential - In the empty space left from step 2, place residential (high med or low has always worked for me) in blocks of  4 long, 3 deep, with a tile lane between them for a street (that you will not be placing yet, perhaps ever).  You can do this for all 4 sides of the 15x15 unplanted farm.  However do not do this until after you have placed the streets in step 3 above.  This helps the arrows match up right.  And dont allow the 4x3 blocks to turn into streets which it will do if you dont use the shift or alt key while placing, or simply place 1 strip of 3 at a time to be safe.  There will be tons of wasted land, thats ok.  It isnt needed to do what you are doing, and besides, you can easily use it with other things later in the city's life.  If you did this right the way i usualy do, there will be 3x3 empty spaces in all 4 corners of this unplanted 15x15 block.  I usually eventually place the farmer's market smack in the middle of this empty sqare which is now surrounded by housing, besides residential loves farmer's markets. 50% more than commercial does, but commercial loves them too.  By the way, don't place any commercial, its unnecessary to do what you want are trying to do at this point.  You can always add later.

5.  Power - Do not add any ordinances or water, or garbage, or civic buildings, however I often put  the $0 anti-fire ordinance on at this time.  Parks are optional, but id go without it your first time.   Build 1 windmill and place it somewhere out of the way.

6.  Time - Turn on the clock and watch all the farms fill in within a couple months, or at least a year.

Perhaps try this, and write back here with what results you get.  I may have left something important out, but I think this is pretty much all that is needed.  Good luck~!

[Couvs 0]

I just want to make sure I read that all correct.  here's two screenshots of steps 2 to 4 (2 and 3 are in basically the same shot).

https://s260.photobucket.com/albums/ii12/kronohs81/Sim%20City%204/?action=view&current=HickCounty-Jan2001223097424.png

https://s260.photobucket.com/albums/ii12/kronohs81/Sim%20City%204/?action=view&current=HickCounty-Jan2001223097799.png

I got a bit confused with the tie-in to steps 2 & 3 so i'm not sure if I did this right from the point of setting the streets.  Mainly I was a bit confused as to what to do with that one 15x15 section to "not grow yet".  probably part of the same thing, I'm thinking.

[Cougar2004 127]

Pretty close! Ah, yes, i can see the confusion. There are too many streets, it may not ultimately matter, but you will save some money by not having them all, and I've never needed that many streets to get the job done. But you did everything almost perfect for the sizes and spacing, etc.

1. Notice on each side you have one street to a neighbor connection (good) but then there are a total of 3 streets leading to the city map edge. Go ahead and remove, or when you make the city again, do not put the other 2 on each side N W S E. (Reason: Because you already are touching each farm on ONE side already, that is all the is necessary for now - and later someday when traffic is heavy, you can draw the other streets to the map edge one at a time as needed and build a neighbor connection, but not needed right now, so save money, and limit pollution, which promotes more farm jobs.) When you are done building it without all the extra streets, you will still have a place to put them later, but no need to lay them now. And all farms will only have a street on one side, except 2 farms (one being the top left which have the 2 future avenue spaced streets, and the other being one randomly in the center because you will choose to put streets all around the 15x15 block that you decide will be your residential. (Technically i shouldnt call that a farm, because you should probably leave it unzoned until you are are ready to place your residential there.)

2. Notice that you have an inside square of streets (it surrounds the 4 inner farms) - that is correct, but notice you left one tile unconnected, so go ahead and connect it. (upper right of your picture)  Maybe that was just a mistake, but i spotted it on the image.

3. Now just when you thought you had it all figured out, im going to suggest you switch where you are thinking to put the residential... and ill explain why. It is probably wisest to do this with the residential 15x15 touching the 2 avenues (but still the center tile, so in the future, if needed, you will have the best transportation for the residential and they will be less likely to run into the freight trips which will be MANY in a farm community, which all will go to map's edge to neighbors, by design.)  So, instead of putting the streets all around the bottom right square, first move the two streets as avenues to the inside track touching the top left inner farm block (which you really didnt need to zone as a farm anyway, you could have just left it blank to save money, and then zoned your residential when you get to that step (as i mentioned in step 2 above), then add the the additional 2 legs of streets to complete this square so when you zone residential, all the houses will touch a street.  Now notice that by doing this, some of the outter farms won't have streets touching them, (the ones on the middle map edge of the top and left side, due to the shift of the 2lane open street to touch the residential. So for very little cost, simply drag a street from the intersection until touching for 2 tiles along side these farms.  And they are good to go.

4.  If you didn't catch it by now, the residential placement is not quite right.  To use the extra lane was one variation, but the full farm square which I described didn't need to be zoned, the center upper left in this case, because it touches the 2 streets with the extra lane available, you will go around the outside of that square with the residential like this....

      |||| ||||

---              ---

---              ---

---              ---

      |||| ||||

 

Not exactly but you get the idea.  3deepx4wide a blank tile (for a future street to draw a plus through that 15x15 block someday in the future when traffic needs require it), leaving 3x3 in the 4 corners of that map unzoned.  Hope that helps.

Now you should be set.  Hopefully that made sense, i went really quick because its late and im heading to bed... and tomorrow ill be with friends at an amusement park, but ill check this thread again Sunday, to see how its going. Good luck!

EDIT:  Sunday, i can build it again, only takes a few minutes, and screen shot it for you.  But honestly, im pretty sure that most variations on it  should get the job done still for the 600+ population.  Ive had well over 1200 I-ag population with een a few less farms than this default.   I'll check back Sunday.  See ya.

[Couvs 0]

well I started over again and got this:

https://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii12/kronohs81/Sim%20City%204/HickCounty-Feb2011223103128.png

I fell into some trap where I needed to keep that west edge of teh residential touched by a street, but I still ended up with a few too many zones with more than one street touching, so I'm not sure where I messed that up.

my population so far is up to 800 residents, but the farm jobs have leveled off at 450...  I'm still probably missing something here.

[Spinmaster 75]

Originally posted by: TV-VCR One thing you can do is press CTRL+X and type you don't deserve it. All rewards become available. Of course, if you're not into cheating, this would not be the way to go. If you are aiming for realism, using that cheat would be more worth it in the end.quote>

This is what I often do, but I wouldn't usually regard it as cheating. The farm rewards only look to the current city for jobs and population. But if I already have 2000 farm jobs in the area - in neighboring cities - but not enough in any single one of them because I didn't want to use a multiplier or cram everything together... I think I should still be able to build the farmer's market and state farm somewhere nearby. These rewards really should've been region-based to begin with, in my opinion, for the very reason that it's just near impossible to cram 1200 farm jobs in a single city and make it look good at the same time, without using a multiplier or abnormally-high-capacity farms. I do the same with some other rewards as well (e.g. if I want a pro stadium, but I don't want it smack in the middle of downtown - I'll build it in a little 'burb next door).

In a sense the only "cheating" I'm doing by this is deciding for myself what the true boundaries of my city really are, and applying the rewards' requirements to that, rather than the perfect square of Columbus' worst nightmare I'm otherwise forced to deal with.

[Couvs 0]

last attempt I made on this my farming jobs leveled off at 500 and then after a while dropped to 480... dunno what I'm doing wrong on this.

[Cougar2004 127]

I just attempted it this morning a few times. Once i did it. I took some screen captures, but since I attempted it a few more times, and it levels off at 578 or 565, etc, now I believe that there is a random element in the game which either pushes the farms to 8/10 or 10/10 (or 6/8 or 8/8, etc) which is out of our control. I spent the last 15 minutes trying one of my configurations on a Medium Size city, and it went perfectly and quickly to win the Farmer's Market. But Small Cities... Its possible, and I've done it successfully 3 times in the last week, but this morning's tests (in various zoning layouts and configurations non-modded) prove to me that it is hit or miss, and likely resultant upon a random factor in the game mechanics.

I'd be happy to post screen captures of the 3 zonings that were successful for me, however I do not claim that everyone can do it every time by following it. I am feeling pretty positive that Farmer's Market is a sure fire with a Medium City (within 2 Years).

A note about the State Fair. My resources tell me it only requires the 1,200 Farm Population, Mayor Rating 48, and City Size 3,500 residents (however other sources such as the Omnibus claim its actually 35,000 city residents, so im not positive until i test it, someone let me know if you have proven which one - and don't let your answer be biased if you actually won it with the Ice Cream Truck Delivery UDI mission.)

[Couvs 0]

yeah I wondered.  if it's not too much trouble I would like to see the zoning layout that ended up working.

i think the random element you're talking about is the type of farms that end up developing.  a lot of the time I have pumpkin acres and fahran farms developing which are only 2/2 and 4/4 in the building.  dunno if that actually has anything to do with it as someone previously posted that it's 1-2 workers per square of the field.  I've also noticed that the amount of freight trucks per farming land are based on either the number of squares or the surface area it takes up.  15x15 yields 12 jobs in freight

the biggest problem I've seen is that the only farms that end up  producing a large number of jobs are the ones right close to the residential zone. anything farther than that will produce minimal jobs for commuters (or none at all) plus the freight.

I'm also assuming you did this all with just light residential zoning?

[Cougar2004 127]

No, I started with Low Dens Res, then did High Dens Res, to see if it made a difference. It did not. But maybe after 10 years when the High Dens could go above what the Low Res max of 12 jobs provides, it might make a different. Besides that in relation to # of reported jobs per farm (which I dont believe is the solution here, due to the fact that there must be jobs in the field tiles and/or the freight trips) are as follows:

FARMING    | Jobs |Stage|

-----------------------------------

Pumpkin Acres       | 2 | 1 |

Farhan's Farms      | 4 | 1 |

Alvin's Acres           | 6 | 1 |

Llama Ag                 | 6 | 1 |

Barthelet Stables    | 8 | 2 |

Jez Knight Acres     | 10 | 2 |

Pedriana's Plants   | 13 | 3 |

-----------------------------------

[High5flyier 7]

Do you have "Rural Variety Pack"? Its a set of 19 farms based on the maxis farms and does give you some added variety. Check it out of the STEX. Just type in rural variety pack.

Your farming community can even look a little crowded on a medium tile, I have learned over the years to spread out and give yourself plenty of room to make a farming community look authentic. Plus with all the great maps that are available now use them as your canvas and create many different types of regions. Its not necessary to try and cram it all onto one region. But this took me a few years to figure out myself.

One method I like with a group of medium tiles is to have the small town on a medium tile and surrounded by all farming tiles and the people travel to all the farming areas.