Show us your Farm Land!

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

12 hours ago, BugeyedDragon said:

Here's some tips that are helpful:

Thanks.  I've saved these in a text file, nice to have them in point form so I can go through the list as I'm landscaping and terra-forming.

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

Agricropolis

This is what an Arcology might look like if spread out across the land instead of contained in a single megastructure.  The stats reflect high population, high-tech, and lots of gardening.

  Edited September 23, 2017 by RandyE  
reduced image size

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

On 11/14/2016 at 9:05 PM, RandyE said:

This is what an Arcology might look like if spread out across the land instead of contained in a single megastructure.  The stats reflect high population, high-tech, and lots of gardening.

That's pretty cool looking. Is there really enough food produced to support all the peeps in those towers?

 

I've finished Two Egg and the newly created Twig in the southeast corner. Now I'm working in Uncertain.

 

I showed someone my pic of Dipsy-Doodle in chat and they asked where in the real world are the farms interspersed with the trees like that? (paraphrased) And I replied: Right near where I live. Here'a a Bing Maps of the real world near me:

 

And here's a close up in Uncertain:

 

I'm not trying to model any real world stuff precisely, but I do feel I've created a similar effect.

[CT14 2,486]

To access the tree brush anytime after naming the city, simply ctrl-alt-shift click the god mode button.

[MeMyself&I 379]

There's a lot of farms here in Upstate NY that are intermingled with forests too.  Your vision has always seemed very familiar to me, both with the trees and the hills.  I used to work on a dairy farm when I was younger and we had to drive a truck about 2 miles on a secondary road to get to the rearmost corn and cabbage fields on the farmers land which was actually only about 1 mile from the house, as the crow flies, but it was through such dense forest that you just couldn't get there unless you took the road around.  There is one very large farm here that actually goes around the outer leg of a state forest too, almost wrapping it for nearly a mile (or really about 700 acres) on either side.

[rsc204 21,866]

On ‎13‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 11:59 AM, CorinaMarie said:

No. I've progressed a wee bit in that regard. My plugin folder is now 63.6 MB:

WOW

Those are some seriously impressive shots for just the vanilla game. I love the style of these farming communities.

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

On 11/17/2016 at 8:01 PM, MeMyself&I said:

I used to work on a dairy farm when I was younger and we had to drive a truck about 2 miles on a secondary road to get to the rearmost corn and cabbage fields on the farmers land which was actually only about 1 mile from the house, as the crow flies, but it was through such dense forest that you just couldn't get there unless you took the road around.

I thought of you as I'm working in a new tile:

 

On 11/18/2016 at 9:39 PM, rsc204 said:

Those are some seriously impressive shots for just the vanilla game. I love the style of these farming communities.

TNQ!

 

Here's the region atm:

^ Getting close to 100k farm workers.

 

And the city breakdown in case anyone is interested:

 

All tiles are named now. I hadn't made up my mind for the last unnamed one until I remembered a town about 40 minutes south and a wee bit west of me: Gnaw Bone, Indiana.

 

[MeMyself&I 379]

I sometimes wonder if people really understand what I'm describing to them - you seem to understand perfectly because that looks a LOT like what the drive would've been for us!  I like the names you've chosen too, btw.  I keep wondering if Cranky Corners will develop into something . . .  Sounds like my kinda town!   Great job on the farmworkers population too!  You do really nice and very interesting work, Cori, and I think you've shown quite clearly a different side of the game that most people probably just don't think of - and you make it work so well!

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

On 11/18/2016 at 10:58 PM, MeMyself&I said:

... I think you've shown quite clearly a different side of the game that most people probably just don't think of ...

That describes my style to a T. I hardly ever play anything right.

Like back when I played Age of Empires II, I'd be the Teutons and I'd conquer the world and never build a military. I'd just use my villagers and monks. As soon as time started I'd send my sheep out as scouts (rather than slaughter them for food like everyone else did) and decide what would be a reasonable area for my territory which had enough rocks and gold and trees. By the time Dolly and her friends explored enough I'd have plenty of villagers chopping wood and growing food. I'd use a few of them to build a little wood fence around my area. (They were called palisade walls or some such, iirc.) Anyhow, that'd keep the other civs out in the early eras. Next I'd upgrade those to stone walls. The fun little trick I discovered is to leave one opening in the perimeter and make a zig-zag death trap by lining it with towers and putting villagers in them. The silly civ's AI always thought an opening in the wall (no matter how convoluted) was the best way in. So they'd march back and forth slowly advancing toward my town all while getting pummeled by arrows from my towers. I'd get the musical tone announcement of being attacked and not even bother to go look. Once I perfected this method I knew how much zig and how much zag I needed so they'd never make it all the way in alive. Then I'd simply out last them until they ran out of stone and gold and they just stood around in their towns all dejected like. To then conquer them I'd have my villagers and monks stroll over to them, convert their villagers to my side, and build towers on the edge of their town and slowly keep moving in building more towers until they were defeated. So yeah, making my own rules definitely suits me.

Anyhow, back on topic. I finished Hop Bottom for the pre-industrial part of my region development:

I know I should be modest, but I feel this one turned out really, really well. Prolly cause of so many more sacred trees in this tile to begin with.

[MeMyself&I 379]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

That describes my style to a T. I hardly ever play anything right.

I think the term that best describes your style is "clever".  Yes, I think that suits you AND your style perfectly!  Love the way Hop Bottom turned out too. Your use of trees is very natural as are the hills and water and I don't think it looks far fetched at all.  Love where you placed my house, btw.  Right where I would want to live and work my farm   Cranky Corner will have to really pull out something special to make me want to move from Hop Bottom lol.

[APSMS 1,893]

On 11/13/2016 at 4:35 AM, CorinaMarie said:

Yes. There's a mod called Mega God Mode Tree Brush, however, it comes with the caveat that you can crash the game if you paint along the borders with the Big+ brush. (You can also crash the game with the regular, non-modded one if you stray too far out into the ether.) I haven't tried the aforementioned mod.

I use whatevermind's mod that lets you plant trees in a square coverage area. Haven't had any CTD issues using it so far. Vortext treed his entire region by opening up each large city tile, going to Z1, and using the macros on his mouse and a particularly heavy marble on the Shift Key to tree each tile. After each city tile was done (seasonal HD flora; so about 5 minutes), he would move onto the next tile. I think he was watching TV or something while he was doing it. Drunkapple's speedy rendering tool is best used the same way.

I suspect rotating the tile adjusts the moisture levels (ever so slightly) that control which trees get planted where, which would explain why you notice a difference between orientations.

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

On 11/19/2016 at 1:06 PM, MeMyself&I said:

Cranky Corner will have to really pull out something special to make me want to move from Hop Bottom lol.

 

Oh, my. I'm just not seeing that at all. I mean for real. Look where it is:

 

And then let's say you get hungry for one of Amo's premium sandwiches. It's nearly impossible to get from Cranky Corner to the Food Cart.

You'd have to:

1. Take the road to the West Amo Ridge (by way of the Gnaw Bone ferry).
2. Get out of your car.
3. Hike thru the woods (whilst fighting off wild animals).
4. Jump in the river.
5. Swim.
6. Hike some more thru woods and Alfonzo's Orange Grove.
7. Finally (exhausted) find out the sandwich stand closed 3 hours ago.

 

[MeMyself&I 379]

Ok, so I won't be moving to Cranky Corner anytime soon, as much as I like the name.  I'm hoping there is another Sandwich Cart franchise closer to Hop Bottom so I don't have to travel clear across the county for a good Reuben or towering Cubano sandwich!  I'm sure the drive would be quite nice though

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

One-Hundred-Fifty-Thousand-and-Twelve farm workers and growing...

 

Current City Stats:

 

West Amo Ridge completed:

 

Tile of Ridge:

 

Maux Ferry:

 

And the one you've all been waiting for... erhm, well maybe just @MeMyself&I... Cranky Corner:

^ Highest population tile in my region atm. Maybe that's its appeal...

 

[raynev1 1,887]

7 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

One-Hundred-Fifty-Thousand-and-Twelve farm workers and growing...

And looking wonderful . The region is developing well . 

[MeMyself&I 379]

That's a lot of folks working those farms.  I didn't think Cranky Corner was that far developed but, then again, it doesn't really show on a lot of your screenshots either so it's hard to tell.   It looks great though - all of it!  I really enjoy the updates on your farmland region.  There is definitely a soft spot in my heart for some good old SC4 farmlands - with or without mods!  You should consider doing a CJ with it.  Ya know, just to get it out there for everyone to see because I think a lot of people would enjoy it and it also might make some people go "Whaaaaaaat??"  Don't see a whole lot of vanilla anything, especially farms, in the CJs.  This could possibly change all that though because I'm guessing that most people don't think it's worth it or it won't work or whatever.  You're definitely making it work and your history/storyline is just too good not to share with everyone! 

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

On 11/25/2016 at 3:38 PM, raynev1 said:

And looking wonderful .

On 11/25/2016 at 9:07 PM, MeMyself&I said:

It looks great though - all of it!

TNQ!

 

On 11/25/2016 at 9:07 PM, MeMyself&I said:

You should consider doing a CJ with it.

I might. Tho peeps could just come here and look at my pics if they are interested in vanilla farms.

 

On 11/25/2016 at 9:07 PM, MeMyself&I said:

I didn't think Cranky Corner was that far developed but, then again, it doesn't really show on a lot of your screenshots either so it's hard to tell.

You were entirely correct. Prior to that last post it was at zero population.  The only development was the main road I pre-laid throughout my region. If you do still happen to want to move to Cranky Corner there is a place to eat right in the county. (County = Tile)

^ Tho the little houses near it are rather squalid and the food simply isn't as good as you'll find in Amo.

 

For reference I gave you one of my spare nice homes in Hop Bottom. (I use the Maxis double reward trick to get two of them.)

^ You might be wondering why the Road changes to Street there. I use it like a fuse. If I start getting traffic congestion warnings there, I know I've got a lot of Sims going to my ferry.

 

I finished Boring and Gnaw Bone. Here's Gnaw Bone since Boring is, well, just rather boring.

 

I've left the peninsula in Zap till last. It'll get farms too, but it's also going to be the base site of the archeological expedition which will explore the ancient village found in nearby Dipsy-Doodle. I've re-connected all the inter-tile roads now and re-visited each tile to make sure they were stable in population. I simply cannot abide having massive population fluctuations. So, I let the game run at full speed while zoomed out and I watch for No Job Zots. Then I zip in and dezone them. Here's some I eliminated from Hop Bottom before saving:

 

And I watch the graph and the population count itself. Ideally I want no variation, but the best I get is +/- 5 Sims. I let it run for several years to be sure it's stabilized:

 

Population is now 182k farm hands:

 

And here's the inter-tile road map. I colored them in so they are easier to see:

^ My pretend idea is that the roads are in the same place as old animal trails. They'd skirt the woods for the most part taking the easiest path near the water. (Maybe not, but it's my pretend story and I'm sticking to it.)

 

So, I've left central Zap for the last part. That is where a more advanced power source is developed (hence the name) and it'll be the beginning of the industrial revolution and later education in my region.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

200k now!

 

And as I've mentioned, but didn't show before, when I started each city tile I provided full fire coverage. (That's why I made my AgPay5x mod.)

 

What I've been working on now is going back into each tile and adding full health coverage:

^ The difficulty is that when I plop a clinic some of the houses go to medium wealth which reduces the population. So, I've had to then add more commercial for the low wealth to work at since the farm workers are basically maxed out for what they can handle. Also, surprising to me, I get a wee bit of manufacturing demand and I've grown as many as four 3x3 / 2x4 IM buildings in some tiles.

I still have 5 tiles to go with the health care. The ones I've completed now have an average lifespan of 80+ years.

[ruan2010 15]

Nice work there.  iv got a medium sized map and have 1.8 mil on it  hehe and on large map 2.5mil 

 

[MeMyself&I 379]

200k is a steady climb!  I'm duly impressed with how you've grown your farming region, Cori!  I also see that Cranky Corner is apparently the place to live with a whopping 23.4k residents.  I hope they don't decide to move over to Hop Bottom because we have Amo's Premium Sandwiches.  We like it nice and quiet here.

50 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

What I've been working on now is going back into each tile and adding full health coverage:

  I would say that you definitely have the fire protection sealed up nicely in the region, which will certainly help keep insurance costs minimal but, what is your health clinic to sandwich shop ratio, I wonder . . .

[MeMyself&I 379]

14 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Also, surprising to me, I get a wee bit of manufacturing demand and I've grown as many as four 3x3 / 2x4 IM buildings in some tiles.

That is interesting.  Maybe people just really want to live there but there aren't enough farming jobs available so they want some other kind of honest work?  I wonder if that will make more R$$ demand though.  Before you know it you'll have developers coming in and trying to raze the landscape for a concrete jungle!

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

On ‎2016‎-‎12‎-‎03 at 9:26 PM, CorinaMarie said:

Also, surprising to me, I get a wee bit of manufacturing demand and I've grown as many as four 3x3 / 2x4 IM buildings in some tiles.

Is agricultural demand still high?   It seems its usually at this point it begins to drop. 

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

On 12/4/2016 at 1:26 AM, MeMyself&I said:

I hope they don't decide to move over to Hop Bottom because we have Amo's Premium Sandwiches.  We like it nice and quiet here.

I wouldn't worry about that for a long time. They are so far apart with three ferries in between that there is almost no desire for the Sims to move around. This is the horse and buggy days in my imagination.

 

On 12/4/2016 at 1:26 AM, MeMyself&I said:

what is your health clinic to sandwich shop ratio, I wonder . . .

Bunches to one based on how many I've specifically named.

 

11 hours ago, RandyE said:

Is agricultural demand still high?

With all tax rates at 9.0, except ID at 9.8, it ranges from a low of 3900 in Cranky Corner to a high of 5800 in Amo. Average EQ in all is zero so there's no detrimental effect from education. Now, iirc, I believe it started dropping from the upper 5000s in Cranky Corner about when the population hit 20k.  I've read that farm demand drops to zero at 30k. However, I'm unsure how that was determined. Was it by code reading? Or by playing? If by playing were there any other factors such as providing education or water to get mid wealth Sims? What I do know is there is sufficient demand to fill an entire large tile with farms before the demand would drop too low to grow them.

Providing one doesn't upset the farm zones by cutting off the juice to them I'm guessing the existing ones will stay in place forever. As a test, I set farm taxes at 20% and let it run for 10 years while watching their population on the graph and nary a farmer moved out.  The demand dropped to minus 6000 tho.

[raynev1 1,887]

@CorinaMarie That region view looks pretty awesome and 200K residents and don't look like that many would be there . Very interesting I must say . 

[Artimus 485]

Cornfields and a stretch of highway. 

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

On 12/6/2016 at 2:20 AM, raynev1 said:

200K residents and don't look like that many would be there . Very interesting I must say . 

Oh, I know. From the whole region view the residential lining the streets hardly show at all. Here's the last pic of it being a farm only region (with supporting low density commercial). It's now at 238k and it looks nearly the same as the 200k pic.

 

Here's the city stats table:

 

So, I've been back in every tile a couple of times running time and getting the demand balanced with their neighbors.  Every tile has nearly full health coverage.  I didn't worry about tiny gaps here and there cause those few Sims who simply do not trust the doctors can live there. 

I'm ready to play phase 2 in which I've set the Building Style to New York 1940. (Up till now they were all set to Chicago 1890.) Now, you might notice Cranky Corner has slipped to the 3rd largest township and the mayor there is, well, a bit cranky about that. Mayor Corner and Mayor Bone (of Gnaw Bone adjacent to the north) have hatched a plan to help each other pursue their own goals. Mayor Corner is a status seeker and is obsessed with having the highest population in the region. Mayor Bone, on the other hand, cares only for Simoleons and has negotiated major kickbacks from the Dirty Industrial Lobbyists.  You can prolly guess where this is going and here's where it will start:

 

Say goodbye to those beautiful trees.

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

On 12/5/2016 at 2:53 AM, RandyE said:

Is agricultural demand still high?   It seems its usually at this point it begins to drop. 

I have new news on this. Cranky Corner just hit 31k population and the Ag demand is still quite good:

^ Taxes are at the default 9% and I have no mods to alter demand. Average EQ is zero. I wondered if that has something to do with it.

However, this post by mkaraske says:

Quote

A city has a maximum number of residents or jobs that it can support for each type of zone (broken down by wealth level). For example, a new city can support 20,000 R§ sims, 2,000 R§§, 1,000 R§§§, 3,000 CO§§ jobs, and so on. These are referred to as "demand caps". Once the demand cap is reached for a given category, no more buildings of that type will be built. Certain buildings provide demand cap relief, increasing the demand cap by a certain amount for one or more categories (e.g. a City Zoo provides 8,000 R§ and 16,000 R§§ demand cap relief, increasing the maximum population your city can support).

There are only a few buildings that provide Industrial demand cap relief, and none that provide IA (agricultural) relief. However, Industrial relief is provided by freight connections. Several times a month, industrial buildings sent out freight shipments, and each one that successfully reaches either a neighbor connection or a seaport provides 20 demand cap relief for each industrial type.

Agricultural demand cap is a special case. For every other demand type, the demand cap is simply compared to sims or jobs of that type. The agricultural demand cap, however, is reduced by all other jobs. The starting agricultural demand cap is 30,000, so if you have a city with, say, 2,000 CO jobs and 3,000 ID jobs, that would only allow 25,000 IA jobs, and as the rest of your city grows the limit would keep decreasing. Once the total number of jobs in your city (both agricultural and otherwise) reaches the IA demand cap, no new farms will be built. There's no way in-game to see what the current demand caps are, but the starting value should give you an idea.

(Source of this information is the Prima strategy guide; I can't guarantee that these numbers are still accurate, but they should be close.)

It appears the vanilla game allows for 30k farm workers and the total population in the tile is irrelevant. So it seems to me if one knows they want a farm region that's entirely possible without demand mods. However, once the tile reaches 30k jobs in total, then no new farm would grow and therein would be the benefit of a mod so one could develop a big city and add more farms at any time.

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

12 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I have new news on this. Cranky Corner just hit 31k population and the Ag demand is still quite good:

I read the post about demand caps.   Using a radical demand mod I could build that large tile with as much ag as I wanted.  The cap reached its limit, but the demand mod still worked.   If you use the census repository it shows the caps (capacity).  

Interesting to see what's happening in cranky corner.    I still suspect that ag will drop at some point soon.  I did an experiment with developing ag without the demand mod and the drop in ag was sudden and permanent.   

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

A farmer feeding his cattle.

[CorinaMarie 29,895]

True to her word, Mayor Corner shrewdly negotiated with both Gnaw Bone and Ridge for them to build the nasty ol' industry while taking advantage of the residential demand that created. Here's the relevant graphs from Cranky Corner. It's time for the other townships to build more factories (as seen by the negative demand for more res). More importantly, most farm jobs were preserved (lost some but I know more about regional play now and that wouldn't have to happen) and there is still demand for Agricultural. Just no place to zone for any more.

 

Here's the relevant portion of my farm region:

 

Adjacent to the north is Gnaw Bone and that's where I built a bunch of factories and some commercial. Notice that Ferry is getting a bit of a workout:

 

To the east Ridge also built factories and commercial (not pictured). Here's the overview of Cranky Corner now:

^ I upgraded the main highway from Road to Avenue and updated the Streets that were overloaded with Roads.

I am still playing without NAM while I learn the trials and tribulations of vanilla transportation. The only place I didn't plan well enough is that the subways and buses for those residential clusters are running around 200-250% of capacity. I'm not too worried since ~400% is the breaking point.

 

Here's where I started with the high density residential. I ran subways to bus stops along the avenue leading to Gnaw Bone with the idea I wanted high traffic across the border for later commercial there. (For later when I install NAM, btw.) All the rewards I plopped in the open space I'd left for them:

 

This is the same concept over on the border with Ridge:

 

Same area turned 90^o and zoomiered:

 

Having seen the Bunker Towers pop up a few times I decided to design a complex to take advantage of their shape. They seem to be the only low wealth 4x2 high density so it was easy to grow them:

 

And a closer look at them:

 

So, Cranky Corner is still predominately farms while now having 3 times more population than the next highest township in my region. And the region has 305k Sims now.