SPAM and work spaces

[EdwardUV 6]

I have a simple question:

Does the number of work spaces from normal agriculture from a certain area is the same as the number of work spaces from SPAM agriculture on an area exacly the same?

If not the can you tell me If the difrerence is pretty big and game changing.I am new to SimCity 4 and i dont want to make the game harder but i want IT to have variety and realism.Oh and while You are still reading ,some mod/lots sugestions wouldnt be bad.Thank you for reading this and pls answer as soon as possible.

[rsc204 21,804]

As far as I'm aware, SPAM does create a lot more jobs than the regular farms. This is mainly because each tile of the fields attached to farms employs people to pick the crops. That's where these numbers were increased with SPAM, maybe as much as 3x/4x the number of jobs. By giving a farm more jobs, you need more residential buildings to support the farm. Some may consider that a cheat, but really such alterations are intended to help make your cities more realistic.

1 hour ago, EdwardUV said:

i dont want to make the game harder but i want IT to have variety and realism

I don't think this change is either harder or easier, just that it makes things different. In short, you need to have a higher ratio of residential buildings to support the farms. Provided you keep checking your demand levels and build accordingly, you shouldn't have troubles.

1 hour ago, EdwardUV said:

some mod/lots sugestions wouldnt be bad

How does one answer such an expansive question? For one, which mods/buildings to use can be a very personal thing. If you gave us some idea of what types of cities you are trying to build, perhaps we could give you a few pointers.

If you are new to modding SC4, the sheer amount of mods created in the 13 years since launch can seem very bewildering. You could look for inspiration in the "Show us Your..." threads:

https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/forum/4-sc4-city-building-concepts/

Otherwise check out some of the City Journals:

https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/forum/11-sc4-city-journals/

If you see something you want, but can't locate the download, you can always ask for help here:

 

[MeMyself&I 379]

I use SPAM and it does indeed create more I-A jobs but, as @rsc204 mentioned, it also requires more low density res lots nearby to accommodate the workers.  They will develop nicely though if they have water, fire protection, education and healthcare.  Problem is; your farms will cover more area with the added housing so less room to develop other zones.  Not an issue for me as that is what I'm looking for but if you're looking to create a lot of city alongside your farms you will be pressed for prime real estate.  I love the SPAM and there are a LOT of really great add ons to go along with it, but it's not for the casual farmer or someone looking to use agricultural lots to start a new city like the Maxis farms.

You can check out this link over at City Builders for lots of SPAM add ons:

https://community.simtropolis.com/clubs/26-city-builders-website/cb-documents/11-catalog-by-website/98-simpeg-exchange-url-updated

It's more consolidated to find Peg's stuff than the STEX is, IMO

[CorinaMarie 29,556]

2 minutes ago, MeMyself&I said:

it also requires more low density res lots nearby

Would they have to be low density? I've done vanilla farm regions I watered and just had the Sims live in medium density apartments.

[MeMyself&I 379]

Actually, I've never zoned all of the residential around the farms medium density so I can't say for sure what will spawn there but, in the lots that I have zoned med-res they usually develop into estates or something like that, not nice farmhouses, when they do get around to developing.  Occasionally I have gotten an apartment building on a 2x2 or 3x3 med-res lot near the farms (I don't zone them that big but they will take multiple lots if nothing builds there right away) but they are low income and not very nice so I just zone low density and get nice 1x1 or 1x2 farmhouses and colonials quickly.  There are actually some very nice farmhouse BATs for the SPAM to download and they look great next to the farms.  I will zone medium residential in the towns or hamlets nearby if I need to and they will put out apartments and multi-sim dwellings like normal.  The SPAM likes having low density houses right close and they develop faster and look better than estates and low income apartments next to fields of pumpkins and cabbage.  If you're going for realism and aesthetics in farms which is what SPAM gives you, you probably don't want medium or high density anything nearby.

Maybe I will try my next farming tile zoned with only medium density residential around the SPAM farms and see how it goes, just for kicks!

[EdwardUV 6]

4 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Would they have to be low density? I've done vanilla farm regions I watered and just had the Sims live in medium density apartments.

I have a city where i use farms and only medium density res and it seems to work pretty well but it creates a very big demand for low density.After a while the demand for medium density wet to 0 and the demand for low density was as high as possible.I fixed that by building a low density town next to it.

[MeMyself&I 379]

1 hour ago, EdwardUV said:

I have a city where i use farms and only medium density res and it seems to work pretty well but it creates a very big demand for low density.After a while the demand for medium density wet to 0 and the demand for low density was as high as possible.I fixed that by building a low density town next to it.

That doesn't really make sense though.  Why would you zone medium density residential next to farmland and low density in a municipality?  The game might fill the zones eventually but they'll look goofy and out of place, plus, you'd have to account for traffic and then commercial zoning as well.  Where do you build the other jobs for all the sims living next to farms because they can't ALL work the farms.  They're going to need some commercial or industrial jobs and stores to shop in nearby too so, then you'd have to toss up a few clothing stores and burger joints between barns because they don't want to travel far for it.  I zone low density close to and around farmland and the medium density demand will rise by the time I expand away from the farms to the towns and villages and there I satisfy it.  Where I come from you would never see medium density zoning of any kind close to farmland other than maybe some light or medium industrial, mostly because there would be no demand for it IRL.  Most people don't want to live near farms unless they work them. They're dirty and they smell and, biggest point IRL is there is usually no water or sanitation on farms other than wells and septic systems. But, SC4 is well known for building residential lots just about anywhere, even right next to landfills and dirty industry so, why not farms too?  Even though the manual says they won't live there, they will.  But also, if you fill all your medium density residential zones close to farms then you're forced to build your towns and villages with low density, like you have been doing.  That's kind of the opposite of how it's supposed to work, especially in the long run.

Personally, I don't see why anyone would want to zone medium density residential or commercial anywhere but in a city or at least suburbs anyhow.  But, the great thing about Sim City is that it's your game and you can do whatever you want with it.  If you like apartments and condos next to your fields and barns instead of farmhouses then go ahead and build them and if your sims choose to live there then everyone's happy!   Just be prepared to deal with lots of traffic on those country roads if they fill up the farm-side apartment complexes and don't forget the strip malls and mass transit you'll be required to create in time next to those farms too.

[EdwardUV 6]

4 minutes ago, MeMyself&I said:

That doesn't really make sense though.  Why would you zone medium density residential next to farmland and low density in a municipality?  The game might fill the zones eventually but they'll look goofy and out of place, plus, you'd have to account for traffic and then commercial zoning as well.  Where do you build the other jobs for all the sims living next to farms because they can't ALL work the farms.  They're going to need some commercial or industrial jobs and stores to shop in nearby too so, then you'd have to toss up a few clothing stores and burger joints between barns because they don't want to travel far for it.  I zone low density close to and around farmland and the medium density demand will rise by the time I expand away from the farms to the towns and villages and there I satisfy it.  Where I come from you would never see medium density zoning of any kind close to farmland other than maybe some light or medium industrial, mostly because there would be no demand for it IRL.  Most people don't want to live near farms unless they work them. They're dirty and they smell and, biggest point IRL is there is usually no water or sanitation on farms other than wells and septic systems. But, SC4 is well known for building residential lots just about anywhere, even right next to landfills and dirty industry so, why not farms too?  Even though the manual says they won't live there, they will.  But also, if you fill all your medium density residential zones close to farms then you're forced to build your towns and villages with low density, like you have been doing.  That's kind of the opposite of how it's supposed to work, especially in the long run.

Personally, I don't see why anyone would want to zone medium density residential or commercial anywhere but in a city or at least suburbs anyhow.  But, the great thing about Sim City is that it's your game and you can do whatever you want with it.  If you like apartments and condos next to your fields and barns instead of farmhouses then go ahead and build them and if your sims choose to live there then everyone's happy!   Just be prepared to deal with lots of traffic on those country roads if they fill up the farm-side apartment complexes and don't forget the strip malls and mass transit you'll be required to create in time next to those farms too.

I did it because i needed a small boost in population when i started playing. I made a medium residential and comercial area and then mede some agriculture to not get any polution then after the city was pretty alright i made an industrial zone in a neighbouring region and filled it with dirty industry.After that i built a rural region to satify the demand for low residential.

[MeMyself&I 379]

See, the thing is, you're going to find in the future that as those zones develop more and the population near the agricultural zones increase because they're zoned denser so will your traffic and commercial demands which will force you to build more stuff in rural areas which will then not be rural anymore.  That's fine if that's what you want but, if that's the case you probably don't need the SPAM.  You can achieve all that with just the Maxis farms which are much simpler to use and don't develop into their own entities, per say.  SPAM is an agricultural mod that is almost stand alone in it's function.  You can build entire thriving, growable agricultural regions with good income that are much more functional and exceedingly more realistic than the Maxis farms if you use the SPAM but if you're going to just develop the land down the road anyway you can save yourself and your plug in folder a lot of aggravation by just using the vanilla farms.

The game requires planning ahead when you zone and if you zone for medium or high density at some point you will be pressured to accommodate all the sims living there with more jobs, commercial services, bigger roads and mass transit to move them around.  If this is near farms you may end up tearing them down to fill these needs.  If you don't fill the needs then the sims will move out.  The point is; you don't need to use SPAM if that is what you're going to do.  If you want to build agricultural regions with low density population then SPAM is the ideal mod.  There is no right or wrong in this, it's all personal choice.  Just trying to help you understand what happens when you zone densely.  You might not see it right away but as they move in the demand for other stuff increases and that can interfere with your farms big time.

You've got the right idea with building dirty industry in another city.  That's a very smart move, especially at the start.  Good place to stick landfills too if you can

[CorinaMarie 29,556]

On 12/12/2016 at 1:57 AM, EdwardUV said:

I have a city where i use farms and only medium density res and it seems to work pretty well but it creates a very big demand for low density.

Ok, let's clarify some terminology here.

The charts for residential show wealth level demand. Low, medium, and high wealth. The Sims themselves don't give a hoot whether that's in low, medium, or high density.

 

On 12/12/2016 at 3:56 AM, MeMyself&I said:

Why would you zone medium density residential next to farmland

When I did it I was pretending they were barracks style accommodations for the workers and they were 1x2 or 1x3 in size. As I was showing Mary in this post, I create the farms so the entrance (barns) to all four are right next to one intersection. For my medium density I zoned them right at that same intersection rather than down the street like in those pics.

 

On 12/12/2016 at 3:56 AM, MeMyself&I said:

They're going to need some commercial or industrial jobs and stores to shop in nearby too

Well, no. Not specifically for those farm working Sims. True, this will create an overall demand for more commercial, but the farm workers themselves don't actually go shopping after work. So, let's say I have my four farm crossroads and medium density res there. Those tightly packed Sims will live in their apartments and many will walk to work. They, themselves, never need to have any commercial nearby. Then the commercial demand can be fulfilled elsewhere in the city.

 

On 12/12/2016 at 4:05 AM, EdwardUV said:

Where I come from you would never see medium density zoning of any kind close to farmland

Same here. It is all about it being a game. I don't currently set up my farm communities with medium res, but I sure did do it as an experiment. I could see it working fine into my story with them being barracks style accommodations tho.

Edit: Adding Pic.

 

[LexusInfernus 908]

9 hours ago, MeMyself&I said:

Personally, I don't see why anyone would want to zone medium density residential or commercial anywhere but in a city or at least suburbs anyhow.  

Well that depends on how big the medium density building get right? Those early stage low wealth medium density buildings aren't that big and they fit in rather well in a variety of settings.

Perhaps its also a bit cultural. Where in the US, the closer you get to a cities core, the bigger the buildings, in the Netherlands its usually the other way around. The big apartment and office complexes are all built at the cities edges. To me its really not that unusual to see a large building quite close to the edge of the city overlooking some farmland. 

Btw, now that we are talking about SPAM, does anyone know if its compatible with CAM?

[EdwardUV 6]

11 minutes ago, LexusInfernus said:

Btw, now that we are talking about SPAM, does anyone know if its compatible with CAM?

I belive it is.I think i did read somewhere that CAM and SPAM work toghether but they make agriculture a bit complicated(not like hard to understad but in the sense that the agriculture doest rly understand what to do).

 

[CorinaMarie 29,556]

17 minutes ago, LexusInfernus said:

Btw, now that we are talking about SPAM, does anyone know if its compatible with CAM?

And iirc, someone in chat said yes, but be sure SPAM loads last.

[MeMyself&I 379]

3 minutes ago, LexusInfernus said:

Perhaps its also a bit cultural. Where in the US, the closer you get to a cities core, the bigger the buildings, in the Netherlands its usually the other way around. The big apartment and office complexes are all built at the cities edges. To me its really not that unusual to see a large building quite close to the edge of the city overlooking some farmland. 

Yes, that's a great perspective and one that I probably wouldn't normally consider seeing as how I'm not all that familiar with European cities.  I like the idea of city edges being close to farmland and you do see stuff like that occasionally here too but it's definitely not typical.  I have a few cities where the farmland goes right up to the highways with medium density zones on the other side so they would easily see the farms but not zoned in and amongst the farms.  The U.S. is largely suburban when it comes to residential area and that takes up a lot of space but it's a mix of all densities, mostly low and medium.  I guess what I was trying to say is that rural is not suburban nor city.  It's rural and the very definition of low density.  I'm not saying that rural and city can't be side by side, of course they can but, it's about traffic and demand going up.  If you zone medium IN rural areas they won't stay rural for long.  Medium density would, by definition, negate rural.  I guess maybe I'm just too literal when it comes to building cities and I don't see anyone IRL building medium density in rural areas.  Next to, close by, not far from . . . sure.  But not IN.  There's just no demand for it but, as @CorinaMarie pointed out; it is a game and not real life.  As long as your RCI demand is satisfied it really doesn't matter how you build it. 

 

[MeMyself&I 379]

41 minutes ago, LexusInfernus said:

Btw, now that we are talking about SPAM, does anyone know if its compatible with CAM?

It's one of the farm mods that is compatible with CAM but, as @EdwardUV noted, it can make it more difficult to use properly.  There's a list of incompatible mods with CAM here:

https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=1925.0

I don't use CAM myself because it is not compatible with many of Pegs other mods like the MTP which I use. 

[metasmurf 705]

You can have farms next to cities, but it's best to

1) Build the farms first

2) Have texture based fields near high traffic volume roads as textures don't deplete.

3) Don't have farm directly facing roads. Build a side street, plop a 1x1 park lot near where you want the farm building and most of the time it grows there. Sometimes this doesn't work and you have to destroy the road, let the farm develop and then rebuild the road again.

Ore you could just use mods like this one

[CorinaMarie 29,556]

3 hours ago, metasmurf said:

3) Don't have farm directly facing roads. Build a side street, plop a 1x1 park lot near where you want the farm building and most of the time it grows there. Sometimes this doesn't work and you have to destroy the road, let the farm develop and then rebuild the road again.

Or, as I show in my post I linked to, just have the road touch a single tile of the Ag zone and the farm building will grow there. Then if you want the road to continue along side the whole farm ground, just extend it after it has grown.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

8 hours ago, MeMyself&I said:

I don't use CAM myself because it is not compatible with many of Pegs other mods like the MTP which I use. 

Making mods compatible with each other can be a major headache. I remember spending hours back in 2013 reading up on exactly what the conflicts were, but I did finally succeed in getting CAM, NAM, SPAM, MTP and other PEG mods all working in harmony with no duplication bugs etc. The project required baking some elements into the Maxis DAT files, and splitting both NAM and PEG. Sadly, I don't recall the details any more; I'm now just enjoying my final result from 3 years ago (I feel like an Alzheimer's patient meeting my adult children for the first time again).

Hint: My plugins folder has these subfolders: "a Misc", "n RTMTv3", "p PEG", "w CAM", "x NAM", "y PEG", "z__NAM" and "zz SPAM Textures"

"p PEG" has CSK, CDK3, MTP and PPonds. "y PEG" has the container seaport and SPAM.

I don't recall what needed to be baked into the Maxis DAT file #1, but my notes say it fixed a "duplication bug". There was at least one other thing that needed DAT packing, but I can't find the note on what it was.

[rsc204 21,804]

What we are talking about here in essence comes down to conflicts. Because of the ID/Load Order system of SC4 mods, conflicts occur when two mods reference the same ID. In the case of texture/T21 mods, that simply resolved by loading everything in the order of preference of the mods.

• SPAM and NAM
  The SPAM and NAM mods do not conflict with each other for the most part. This is because NAM simply doesn't mess with farms in any way. There is a caveat though, SPAM optionally includes it's own NAM-like traffic controller. If you choose to install this, you shouldn't install the NAM. It's a one or the other choice. If you are really knowledgeable, you could technically merge the two, but I don't think I'd like to try.
• CAM and NAM
  CAM and NAM do not conflict with each other. Again, NAM does not alter anything that conflicts with CAM.
• SPAM and CAM
  The SPAM and CAM will conflict, but only in a few areas. You see, CAM simply adds more growth stages that didn't previously exist in the vanilla game. If you try to grow a lot with a growth stage from CAM, it can't without CAM installed, because the growth stage doesn't exist. As such, what's important is the growth stages used by CAM and SPAM. There are also other exemplars related to industry demand/growth that are altered by both mods. Depending on which loads later, you'll either get the SPAM or CAM changes.
   

  Quote

  Since SPAM changes the same Industrial Resource developer exemplar as CAM does, you cannot use them both at the same time.
  Effectively, SPAM would disable stage 6 and 7 CAM farms. I'll add a detailed report about SPAM up in the opening post later on.
  
  On the other hand, SPAM lots should grow in CAM as well, since CAM already enables all growth stages that SPAM is adding

  Quote from here (SC4D)

55 minutes ago, jeffryfisher said:

I don't recall what needed to be baked into the Maxis DAT file #1, but my notes say it fixed a "duplication bug". There was at least one other thing that needed DAT packing, but I can't find the note on what it was.

The only things that need DAT-Packing should be the I-HT fix, or it's equivalent in the CAM (Note if you are a CAM user, you really need the updated CAM fix). Most exemplars can be overridden with new files, but for reasons no one understands, in this instance modified exemplars in new files are simply ignored. Likely this is something hardcoded in the .exe.

[MeMyself&I 379]

Ok.  I somewhat understand about this incompatibility issue a little better now.  When I first started looking at mods I really loved the SPAM and wanted to use it and I found by poking around a little, the link I posted above from SC4D about incompatibility and SPAM wasn't on the list - but I still have shied away from CAM anyway . . . just to be safe.  Besides, I did see that it was incompatible with the MTP mods anyway so, that sealed it.  From the article you linked here it seems that there has been a LOT of discussion about it all around.

[rsc204 21,804]

4 hours ago, MeMyself&I said:

Besides, I did see that it was incompatible with the MTP mods anyway so, that sealed it.

Not sure what exactly you mean by MTP mods. MTP or Mountain Theme Pack is simply a set of lots/mods designed to bring a more rural feeling to your region. 99% of MTP content simply doesn't mess with the operation of the game at the level of the CAM. In fact, I can't recall a single MTP mod that would be incompatible with CAM.

Now, will growable buildings be correctly configured for CAMs new growth stages?, put simply no they won't. But that's no different to the large swathes of other "not designed for/with CAM in mind" content out there. If you take the step of installing CAM, then you either stick with CAMeLots or need to do some work to refresh lots to be CAMpatible.

[MeMyself&I 379]

18 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Not sure what exactly you mean by MTP mods. MTP or Mountain Theme Pack is simply a set of lots/mods designed to bring a more rural feeling to your region. 99% of MTP content simply doesn't mess with the operation of the game at the level of the CAM. In fact, I can't recall a single MTP mod that would be incompatible with CAM.

I don't know.  When I looked into CAM originally over at SC4D I saw on the list of incompatible mods https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=1925.0 that it was incompatible with MTP residential and commercial replacement mods and I decided that I'd rather have those and I never gave CAM another thought.  That's all I'm saying.  Just going by what I read but maybe I read it wrong.

[rsc204 21,804]

5 hours ago, MeMyself&I said:

it was incompatible with MTP residential and commercial replacement mods

Yeah this will just be the growth stages not being in sync with the mod. Easily fixed and something I'd imagine most CAM players are familiar with having to do.

Thinking about it though, MTP and CAM are really polar opposites where mods are concerned (at least v1 of CAM). One makes play more rural, the other is designed to help you make larger regions with higher population densities. It probably doesn't make any sense to have both anyhow.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

Quote

if you are a CAM user, you really need the updated CAM fix

Uh-oh... I built my system back in 2013, so I might not have the "updated" fix. How recent is it?

Sadly, I've forgotten much of what I learned 3 years ago. If needed, I hope I can relearn enough to replace something that was baked into my DAT file back then.

[rsc204 21,804]

9 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

Uh-oh... I built my system back in 2013, so I might not have the "updated" fix. How recent is it?

Sadly, I've forgotten much of what I learned 3 years ago. If needed, I hope I can relearn enough to replace something that was baked into my DAT file back then.

When I say updated, I mean the one included with the CAM. So if you are using CAM v1, it's part of those files. If using a new version, use the equivalent that comes with it. If you ran one file with the DAT Packer, I think it's safe to assume you have the fix. Provided you've not re-installed SC4, which would wipe out the change. Without this modification, the CAM pretty much doesn't work effectively. So again, if all seems to be running fine, I wouldn't worry about it further.