CoriBoom ACoCFPaLbN (It's Farm Stuff)

[CorinaMarie 29,910]

When I logged on this morning, I was pleasantly surprised to have multiple beeps from @Naomi57's reactions to a scattered selection of farm themed posts I'd written long ago. While re-reading and reminiscing, I decided it might be nice to have them all consolidated into one new post. @Cyclone Boom then spent the day while I was at work compiling them, creating the table of contents with anchor points, and making the whole thing beautiful. Thanks ever so much, CB.

While the content is what I wrote, the presentation is 100% his. Without further ado, we present:

A Collection of Cori's Farm Posts as Liked by Naomi

Contents – A Couple Handfuls of My Farming Related Posts

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Post #01 – Humble First Farm Pics
Post #02 – High Wealth Farm House
Post #03 – Irregular Shaped Farm Fields
Post #04 – Mention of my No Maxis Dirt Farms Mod
Post #05 – Example of Real World Zoning Transitions
Post #06 – Example of a City Zone Layout
Post #07 – Developed Farmland Example
Post #08 – Farmland in Cori's Castle
Post #09 – Residential Farm Tower
Post #10 – Testing NAM Dirt Roads
Post #11 – NAM Covered Bridge
Post #12 – My First Lotting Project (Cori's Farm House)
Post #13 – Mons Lacus Farmland Overview
Post #14 – Real World Near Me - Zoning Style
Post #15 – Small Town Terraces
Post #16 – Small Isolated Farms
Post #17 – Info on my No Maxis Dirt Farms Mod
Post #18 – Supporting Post About Maxis Farms
Post #19 – The farm pic which inspired Naomi on 23 January, 2020

 

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Post #01  ID: 1702524
Humble First Farm Pics
Originally posted here on: October 16, 2018

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On 16/10/2018 at 4:41 AM, Psiman said:

I've been working on trying to get the "look" of my agricultural farmland right.

I've experimented with this same desire for the past couple of years starting with my humble first farm pics in this post:

To farm land in the tile of Dipsy-Doodle:

 

To West Amo Ridge:

 

Which are a part of a 4 x 4 large tile region:

 

To a random tile in Mons Lacus:

 

To deliberately making the farm fields on flat ground and conforming to the hills around them:

 

Zone view of the above pic:

 

And as you can see I'm using basically the plain vanilla Maxis stuff. Hopefully these will illustrate what can be done even without the awesome custom content which is available.

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Post #02  ID: 1702549
High Wealth Farm House
Originally posted here on: October 16, 2018

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On 16/10/2018 at 1:45 PM, Androgeos said:

Looking at the green areas lining the roads in your first screenshot - those are the open green 1x1 parks, right?

Yes, they are.

That city tile is one I'd built up just about everywhere and had good education and health coverage so by tossing in some parks, the water supply, and the grass tiles I was able to get a high wealth home to grow. My idea was to visually simulate a generations house where a huge family lived and after working the fields they have places to play and relax. (Ofc in the game they all drove to their jobs elsewhere while waving to the low wealth Sims coming in to tend the crops.)

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Post #03  ID: 1703330
Irregular Shaped Farm Fields
Originally posted here on: October 30, 2018

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On 30/10/2018 at 1:46 AM, Psiman said:

How are you making fields of irregular shape in your cool pics?

Magic!

Seriously tho, it's just a matter of chopping the zone to conform to where the hills start (or around the pine trees as I did in Dipsy-Doodle). Here's an example:

 

I'm using my plana camporum montem Aetnam Map (4 sizes) file in the 12 x 12 size (region renamed for my own play as Corillion). This is specifically generated from a C map making program where I've modified the code to be SC4 compatible and to have various flat terraces among the hills.

Grid is on to help visualize the slopes. Find a suitable place:

 

Zone a farm so it extends up the hills:

 

Then using the de-zone tool erase any parts that are not on flat ground. You can see that when the white square de-zone box appears to be tipped a little (or a bunch).

 

Turning the map and continuing:

 

Turned back to the original orientation and all clipping done:

 

Add street (or road), power, and let it grow:

 

Grid off and zoomed out:

 

And turned 90 degrees:

 

This works in pure vanilla too.

You might also like my mini tutorial in this post: Growing Farm Buildings Where You Want

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Post #04  ID: 1703863
Mention of my No Maxis Dirt Farms Mod
Originally posted here on: November 10, 2018

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On 10/11/2018 at 5:51 PM, monkeywater said:

Wow.  This is stunning and looks like all maxis!

Thanks! And yes, it is all Maxis in that first region. It's also before I wrote my No Maxis Dirt Farms mod.

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Post #05  ID: 1698961
Example of Real World Zoning Transitions
Originally posted here on: July 30, 2018

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On 30/07/2018 at 5:48 PM, tails2489 said:

The result is usually light residential and/or industrial zoning bordering directly onto agriculture.

Yes, this is how it goes in the real world. (At least where I live.) As part of my job I look at aerial views, flood map overlays, and zoning every day. Here's a real world picture:

Basically what happens is as a city grows outward tracts of agricultural ground are purchased by a builder/developer that are large enough to then sub-divide it into individual residential parcels with new streets laid out to form the neighborhood. Notice how the housing subdivisions border the farm land? (The fields are the brown parts cause they usually take the satellite images in the late fall or early spring so there is less obstruction from foliage.)

 

On 30/07/2018 at 5:48 PM, tails2489 said:

Would you leave a gap of trees like a Green Belt instead?

Generally the trees that form some sort of green belt are along side of rivers, streams, creeks, and ditches. The area either side are typically flood hazard zones and therefore no one wants to build their home in those. (And in most cases it's against zoning regulations to build a new home in a flood zone.) Click one of these images and use your right and left arrow keys to toggle back and forth between them. Notice how nearly all of the green tree areas correspond to the flood zones?

 

And just for fun, here's the city zoning overlay for the same area:

 

Zooming in and you can see the individual parcels and better see how the housing additions bump right up against the tillable ground:

^ You can also see how there is generally a tree line between each of the different farm fields. These provide a wind break that helps prevent soil erosion caused by quickly moving air which would otherwise blow away the top soil. 

Also, when the ground is too hilly to economically build on then those will have trees too. These next two images are the same area via different mapping programs (so the scale and time of year are different). This area south of where I live is quite hilly and full of trees.

All in all, for flat ground your residential or industrial will likely border right along side the farms. Commercial likes to be more in the center of the houses along major thoroughfares.

And here's a sample from one of my games. The trees mostly correspond to the hills transitions:

 

And here it is with the zoning view and the grid turned on to show the hills:

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Post #06  ID: 1699041
Example of a City Zone Layout
Originally posted here on: July 31, 2018

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On 31/07/2018 at 6:33 PM, tails2489 said:

What do you think?

I believe you've done an excellent job on the transitions. Once outside of the Central Business District with the Skyscrapers the transitions to one and two story homes is just like a major city I'm familiar with (Indianapolis). You have a smattering of medium density apartments interspersed and that's also realistic. Beyond that you have the farms so it's all good.

 

On 31/07/2018 at 6:33 PM, tails2489 said:

I think for the current region I am working on, the large cities aren't large enough and I need to work on city spread a bit to make sure skyscrapers and agriculture can't be seen in the same window.

It really depends on what size city you are modeling. If it were the Circle City (Indianapolis) near me then you've done a very good jobs in density transitions. Here we have maybe a dozen towers that could be called skyscrapers and another dozen wanna-be taller buildings. Here's the southeast section (about a forth of the whole city):

 

What you have created in Lion City, Lessu, Takau, and Lemont all have the same general feel of a smaller core CBD spreading out just like the real world. Keep in mind too the scale of SimCity doesn't map well as a one to one relationship so what is a ten miles square in the real world could be aesthetically represented in one large city tile in the game.

You might also work towards the region view giving the full impression of the larger area you are making.

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Post #07  ID: 1705192
Developed Farmland Example
Originally posted here on: December 3, 2018

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It's farm land, but it's being taken over by other development.

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Post #08  ID: 1707513
Farmland in Cori's Castle
Originally posted here on: January 12, 2019

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Farmland in Cori's Castle:

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Post #09  ID: 1690740
Residential Farm Tower
Originally posted here on: March 1, 2018

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I'd zoned for medium density apartments (so I thought) and they initially grew. There were just enough Sims to work the farms and all was well balanced. Way later as this city tile grew I got a notice for one of the medical clinics going on strike and I found this huge residential tower out in the middle of nowhere. (Those Sims are mostly commuting to to the neighbor tile.)

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Post #10  ID: 1698267
Testing NAM Dirt Roads
Originally posted here on: July 12, 2018

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Nothing on par with everyone else's pics, but I've just made my official jump to using some of the NAM stuff. I did a custom install and selected a limited number of options so in my early learning phase I don't get overwhelmed with too many choices.

Here I've used SAM 3 - Peg Dirt Roads to give my mostly vanilla game a more backwoods rural look:

^ Also used are Farm Fences by @SUICO and the NoPalmsPropsLeafy.dat from: No Palm Mods by @Swamper77 to keep the fence rows from having out of place palm trees in them.

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Post #11  ID: 1698269
NAM Covered Bridge
Originally posted here on: July 12, 2018

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On 13/07/2018 at 3:03 AM, Synergy67 said:

Where did you get the covered bridge?

It's in NAM too. Under the additional bridge options.

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Post #12  ID: 1698698
My First Lotting Project (Cori's Farm House)
Originally posted here on: July 23, 2018

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What is farmland without someplace to live?

(Actually I'm showing off my very first lotting project which happens to be grown in a farm land area. )

Also, the timing was good to capture not one, not two, but three of @airman15's new old cars in the picture.

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Post #13  ID: 1672130
Mons Lacus Farmland Overview
Originally posted here on: July 14, 2017

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Welcome to the world of Mons Lacus:

 

This is primarily a farming region:

 

Unlike my last region, this one has more lower level ground interspersed with the hills.  I'm building the farms in the parts that show as greenish-blue in the zones data view rather than in upper brown levels where the sage brush grows (as I did last time).  The dark green pine trees are still sacred, but the rest can be felled to create tillable land.

You can see the pattern of the hills better in the traffic view:

 

Also, by farming in the lower levels I can have trees in between my farms like they are here in RL:

 

In this next pic you'll see Llama Ag lost a diagonal strip of their farm when the interstate highway went thru:

 

Ofc farmers do need some place to buy their equipment and shop for other goods. A small town has sprung up taking over the land previously owned by Pedriana's Plants. (The injunction against them was detrimental to their business.)

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Post #14  ID: 1679007
Real World Near Me - Zoning Style
Originally posted here on: September 29, 2017

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So, I've been playing a large tile in smaller version of this map I made for myself. What I'm attempting to do is to make my regions somewhat resemble the real world where I live. Here's a couple of satellite pics of said area:

 

Now, ofc, I'm not trying to model this exactly. What I'm after is the general feel. So using those newly introduced automatically generated terraces, I have a way to have random curvy places on hillsides with trees to give a similar effect. First off this is the zoning mini map (doubled in size):

 

Then for the these pics I'm showing first the regular view followed by the zoning layer with the grid on to better show the slopes of said hills.

 

And then this final pic is showing how the No Kickout lets all three wealth levels coexist without needing to mark any of them historical:

 

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Post #15  ID: 1684390
Small Town Terraces
Originally posted here on: December 7, 2017

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A little later in time from the region pic I posted. Here's more of my farmland with a small town:

 

And the zoning map with grid on showing how they are built on the flat terraces which leaves the hillsides intact:

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Post #16  ID: 1684714
Small Isolated Farms
Originally posted here on: December 13, 2017

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Some isolated farms producing just enough crops to sustain their local families.

Spoiler

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Post #17  ID: 1681748
Info on my No Maxis Dirt Farms Mod
Originally posted here on: November 5, 2017

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On 05/11/2017 at 2:28 PM, Lost-In-Sofia said:

Hello, everyone. I bought Aspyr version of SimCity 4

Hiya, Lost-In-Sofia.

First my disclaimer: I know very little about the Mac version. (I have read some of the threads here.)

 

On 05/11/2017 at 2:28 PM, Lost-In-Sofia said:

Ok, so I always build my cities using the Natural Growth method. I built a lot of farms.

I love that. (I do the same.)

 

On 05/11/2017 at 2:28 PM, Lost-In-Sofia said:

Can you see it? The grassy pasture fields I mean. I don't, because I don't have any of them!

It does seem unusual that none of the grassy pasture fields have grown. Each farm has a list of textures it will randomly chose from. Two of those are basically dirt. One is a light tan color and one is a darker brown that has the appearance of crops just beginning to grow. From your picture it does appear that is what you have been getting.

You should not need any mod for the grassy one to grow. However, if you would like to test a mod I wrote for my own use, I will attach it at the end of this post. I wrote them as separate .dat files so I'd have the option to remove one or two if I did want some dirt farms to grow.  In these files I simply removed the hex code values which correspond to the fields I did not want to grow so there are 6 files in total. (I did not make one for Pedriana Plants because I wrote a separate mod to totally block that one.)

Now, one thing I'm aware of is the Aspyr version has a limit to the total number of mods it can handle. Therefore, if you like what my No Maxis Dirt Farms does we would want to combine them into a single .dat file for you.

 

On 05/11/2017 at 2:28 PM, Lost-In-Sofia said:

"Anchor" - Pedriana Plants https://www.wiki.sc4devotion.com/index.php?title=Pedriana_Plants

This one is a Stage 3 farm and does not show up until you pass some threshold. If I understand the Demand Simulator: Demand, Supply and CAPs then you need 4100 farm jobs before Pedriana can grow.

 

Anyhow, here are my mods for no dirt farms if you want to try them. Note: It will not change any farms already grown unless you bulldoze them.

No Maxis Dirt Farms.zip

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Post #18  ID: 1681753
Supporting Post About Maxis Farms
Originally posted here on: November 5, 2017

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On 05/11/2017 at 5:05 PM, Lost-In-Sofia said:

Thank you CorinaMarie for the reply!

My pleasure.

 

On 05/11/2017 at 5:05 PM, Lost-In-Sofia said:

Don't know whether the mod's yours too?

I'm going to guess: No. Looking thru my List of Files I've uploaded, I don't see that I ever put this one on the STEX. I believe most peeps download better farms than the Maxis ones so I felt it would be a moot point to toss my little override into the mix since they only work for the default Maxis farms. (It is possible I've attached it to a post here before, but I didn't search to find out.)

 

On 05/11/2017 at 5:05 PM, Lost-In-Sofia said:

As it turns out, only 1/16th of all of the farmlands is grassy field (green, with no crops).

You know more about that than me. All I know is I was unhappy with how many dirt farms I was getting so I decided to take matters into my own hands.

 

On 05/11/2017 at 5:05 PM, Lost-In-Sofia said:

Edit: Oh my after visiting your profile, you have saved my life many times before by your wonderful tutorials!

Woot! I'm so very happy to hear this.

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Post #19  ID: 1724411
The farm pic which inspired Naomi on 23 January, 2020
Originally posted here on: January 22, 2020

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Just another Cori style farm scene:

View Naomi's post  (With details on her farming inspiration from the above pic.)

View my reply  (With more farm pics and info!)

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Special thanks to Naomi for bringing these to my attention via my notification beeps.
 

  Edited January 24, 2020 by Cyclone Boom  
Added #19 anchor link. :)

[Cyclone Boom 17,032]

2 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Thanks ever so much, CB.

My pleasure to put this together for you Cori, and how ACoCFPaLbN can be a reference for people to discover a sample of your wonderful SC4 farming related posts scattered around the site. There are many hidden gems in the forums, and having them all collated I think could lead to other similar topics too.

And of course, it's all about you is this. Such a thread would be a completely empty shell without the posts you've made to bring it to life.

(Note to Naomi: You should do what you did more often!)

[Naomi57 2,985]

So lovely to have a review of them all in one place, @CorinaMarie.

Halfway through my farmland review yesterday, I found myself wishing I'd saved some of the screenshots to my desktop, so it's really great that I can just copy this link instead!  

I've been inspired by your farmland stuff to do a wee little bit of agriculture myself, so my Brownsville, New York city tile, instead of just having rectangle fields bordered by roads and rail, now has some pieces snipped out and a God-mode trees windbreak between some of the fields.  Just very small improvements for now.  I'm thinking to do some residential zones snipped in with the agriculture sometime, too, ideas stolen from your pics.  

BTW, you really are too humble.  Your No Maxis Dirt Farms.zip is my 9th mod installed, and I really think it deserves a spot on the STEX.  Like you, I enjoy seeing what I can achieve with Maxis vanilla elements, and hope to do little iLive tweaks like that myself one day.

Some other posts of yours on education helped me figure out how to educate a farm population, majoring on wide radius Library and city-wide Museum EQ effects, which also goes a long way to altering how I think about mixing agriculture and residential.

[Naomi57 2,985]

BTW, thank you for that No Maxis Dirt Farms.zip mod, Cori, really.  The dirt farms were enough to put me off farming altogether, and I don't feel anywhere near ready for installing SPAM yet.

[Naomi57 2,985]

Here's the Brownsville farmlets, inside the Army Base exclusion zone (due to the Army Base police corruption effect), so no residential going there this time.  Agriculture lots re-shaped and expanded, wind breaks of God-mode trees introduced with Shift+1 (thank you, CB!), and some separation of farms from the busiest roads and highways, to reduce the impacts on air pollution and noise pollution from affecting productive agriculture.  Those crops and herds need their peace and quiet, I'm told!  

These fields exist in my re-invented Brownsville, with the convenient fiction that they were part of the war effort, then leased to civilian use when the war ended.  Civilians are no longer required to present papers for entry into the exclusion zone, but there is a definite army presence felt, and the small stretch of bushland highway is still the primary entry and exit for military vehicles

"bushland highway" ... that's a phrase New Yorkers probably NEVER use.  Showing off my Aussie origins, there.  

If you look closely, you can spot my paperclip interchange, complete with lowered road and a tunnel under the highway hidden among the trees.

[CorinaMarie 29,910]

8 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

Here's the Brownsville farmlets ... wind breaks of God-mode trees introduced with Shift+1 ...

Looks good.

One thing I'll mention is that it appears you've created your wind break trees right on top of the zoning itself:

When the farm appears, those will get removed and replaced by the farm field that grows.

[Naomi57 2,985]

8 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

it appears you've created your wind break trees right on top of the zoning itself

Thanks, Cori.  There actually is a 1-tile gap between those two zonings ... but it's almost impossible to see from that angle.  I was having too much fun with God-mode trees, and colouring outside the lines.  I also got a few too many trees under the L2 15 metre highway again – ooops!  

When the farms grow, I'll replant some of the trees, a bit more selectively!

[CorinaMarie 29,910]

7 minutes ago, Naomi57 said:

There actually is a 1-tile gap between those two zonings ... but it's almost impossible to see from that angle.

Ah! (I didn't see.)

I've found two tiles to be the minimum to have a decent tree break without them wanting to spill over into the fields. With a one tile gap they just don't plant well to have them dense enough to be a continuous row of trees.

[Cyclone Boom 17,032]

10 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

Agriculture lots re-shaped and expanded, wind breaks of God-mode trees introduced with Shift+1 (thank you, CB!), and some separation of farms from the busiest roads and highways, to reduce the impacts on air pollution and noise pollution from affecting productive agriculture.

Glad you found the precision planting techniques useful, and you can guess who I first learned that from.

I've found it handy for both terraforming and the fine placement of flora too, with the same trick working for using the Shift + [0-9] keys. Just in case it helps anyone else also, here's part of a reply I made in the "Realistic Transitions" thread.  (This is the same topic as Cori likewise did in her listed Post #05 and Post #06 above.)

As follows:

On 31/07/2018 at 8:35 AM, Cyclone Boom said:

There are some cases where a finer accuracy is desired such as on farm field boundaries. For this I recommend holding Shift and pressing any of the number keys from 1-9. The smaller the number, the smaller the brush. Once setting the number it then gets locked onto that size until exiting the tool or changing to another size. This allows planting on the boundary edges of farms including to fill diagonal empty spaces, while maintaining defined edges.

 

Here's a few of my own pics using the method:

Spoiler

I also like how it gives a natural appearance with blending the edges of fields:

 

A closer view looking in the other direction:

(Yes, I usually wait for the train.  )

This I just used regular Mayor Mode flora planting for some blue spruce trees, but along the same idea as a barrier to shield farms from the industry:

 

I personally don't recommend these though since they keep cycling with their growth. Starting off as small seedlings, and then growing to full size seems natural. But then all of a sudden they bizarrely shrink back down every game year or so, and that doesn't maintain the consistent visual appearance.

This isn't an issue for the regular God Mode trees though, and using this little mod makes those accessible from the menu.

 

[Naomi57 2,985]

13 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I've found two tiles to be the minimum to have a decent tree break without them wanting to spill over into the fields. With a one tile gap they just don't plant well to have them dense enough to be a continuous row of trees.

Oh dear, I just tested that out, and yep, the single-tile windbreak of God-mode trees almost completely disappears when the farms grow.  

I was hoping the farmers would only clear the land directly on the field ... no such luck.  I'm experimenting now with some more precision God mode planting at Shift+1, and discovered there is a minimum of overlap with the farm if you click just once, twice (or occasionally five times) close to the tile border furthest from the farm ... after the farm has grown.  No holding down the mouse button!  Still very finicky and prone to error.

I think I'll run with Mayor mode trees for any single-tile wind breaks between two crop fields.  One of my relatives used to own a crop farm (so I know how much trouble trees in the middle of the field can be), so I'll only use God-mode trees for single-tile wind breaks when at least one side is orchard or pasture.

On a positive note, I've just installed my 10th and 11th mods, navy blue city background, and the perfect weed killer for those pesky Pedriana Plants.  Thank you, Cori and CB!

https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/29981-custom-region-view-backgrounds/

https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/31827-coris-friendly-pedrianas-plants-killer/

11 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

I just used regular Mayor Mode flora planting for some blue spruce trees, but along the same idea as a barrier to shield farms from the industry:

I personally don't recommend these though since they keep cycling with their growth. Starting off as small seedlings, and then growing to full size seems natural. But then all of a sudden they bizarrely shrink back down every game year or so, and that doesn't maintain the consistent visual appearance.

If you want to "spruce up" your windbreaks with Mayor mode trees, without the growth cycling issues, there's two approaches I use:

1. Initially plant the trees in a moderately sparse fashion (I typically use circular mouse movements) across the windbreak tiles.  Then, when they grow, plant a second set of the same trees along the same tiles.  When the windbreak thickens up from the second set of trees, plant a third set with determination to fill in the gaps (I usually use long back and forth mouse movements across the tiles at that point, like a vacuum cleaner).
    
2. If you want to plant the entire windbreak in one go, use a mixture of trees, each tree species having a different growth cycle.  Circular mouse movements for the first tree species, then long hoovering back and forth mouse movements for the second species.  The two Maxis tree combinations I use, being aesthetically compatible to my eyes, are either Nobel Fir + Blue Spruce, or Maple + Oak.

WARNING:  Some Mayor mode trees have ZERO air pollution effects.  I noticed that the downloaded trees I got with "BSC MEGA Props - CP Vol01.dat", don't seem to affect air pollution at all!  Weirdly, the Maxis Vanilla Palm trees are similarly decorative, with zero (or negligible) air pollution reduction effects.

Given air pollution is one reason for dilapidation of farms, choice of tree is important!

11 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

Glad you found the precision planting techniques useful, and you can guess who I first learned that from.

Yes, it's super funny, I've been using God-mode Shift+1 for years and years, for exquisitely delicate terraforming by hand, and never, ever thought to do the same for trees!  

[Naomi57 2,985]

Most gorgeous farms I ever made, thank you for all your tips!  Here it is at sim-year 13.

I managed to get all but one of the farms using the rail.  They didn't want to at first, and then I discovered the buildings have to be located adjacent to the rail for them to use it, so I bulldozed the roads and used a 1x1 street plop to make the farm buildings grow alongside the rail.  Feeling pretty happy with this now.

Notice the navy blue background, @Cyclone Boom, and I can't thank you enough @CorinaMarie, for your No Maxis Dirt Farms.zip and Cori's Friendly Pedriana's Plants Killer. Makes such a huge difference!

You can see that some of the vegetation is different, that's the windbreaks of Oak and Maple, which have still got some ways to grow.

When I've got some residential zoned in the vicinity, then I'll put in the 3x2 rail stations and bus stops to encourage sims to come work here.  At the moment the work is all being done by the oompa-loompas.

[CorinaMarie 29,910]

6 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

Most gorgeous farms I ever made, ...

Very nice. Those look proper for central Indiana. If you don't watch out I might make you an honorary Hoosier.

[Naomi57 2,985]

Wow, wow, wow, @CorinaMarie.  I've just used your hidden zoning technique to fix the sidewalks/verges in my Brownsville agriculture area.

You're a real gem!  How on earth did you discover that technique?

[CorinaMarie 29,910]

1 minute ago, Naomi57 said:

How on earth did you discover that technique?

Oh, my! It's certainly not a Cori Original Discovery. I believe it was Granpa Moose who first told me about it. (And yes, he allowed me to adopt him. )

[Naomi57 2,985]

 

Okay, well here's post #19 ... I think.  

Post #19  ID: 1724411
Show us your farm land!
Originally posted here on: January 22, 2020
 

On 22/01/2020 at 10:05 PM, CorinaMarie said:

Just another Cori style farm scene:

January 22nd in your time zone, Cori.  I was reviewing job leads on LinkedIN, and drinking my morning coffee, on the 23rd January, when I saw my favourite notification popup onscreen.   "Oh goody," I thought, "what distraction can I spot on Simtropolis today!"

Now, I was raised a city kid, but I had cousins who lived on a farm, and some fun holidays out there.  I also spent my final year of high school on an isolated farmlet, with only cows and sheep to talk to ... and my parents, of course.  

I just had to post your image up here in this thread, because this pic brought back that peaceful feeling, among the cows, sheep, horses, alpacas, fields, orchards and wineries.  It's partly the match of SAM colour to the dusty farmstead tracks, but even more the gentle sweeping curves, trees and bushland, with contrasting sharp bends and corners, which is so evocative.   Also the combination of village, hamlet, one-pub town and random little houses springing up alongside roads ... just because the road is there.  I even downloaded the image so that I could zoom in a little bit.

A question for you, Cori ... is the humongous round pool a dam, or a brackish lake?  That perfect round shape reminds me of oh so many little agricultural dams I've seen.  After some 10 minutes taking in the scene, my next thought was what that round pool would look like with some underwater pedmall plopping.   

I am also curious, does the farm suffer economically (in SimCity terms) for being split down the middle by a Street?  A careful vegetation analysis yielded up the information that these two plots of land are a single farm, with an easement granted to a neighbour on the other side of the rail line ... who are probably relatives.  

For that matter, the neighbours immediately to the south look like they might be cousins, too, very similar farming style!   

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There's probably a special word for that peaceful, wistful feeling.  I get it more with my own SimCity 4 creations, than I do with the creations of others, so this is a pretty special scene to inspire me that way.  Inspire is the right word.  There's a small tile neighbour city to Brownsville, called Highland Park, right nearby the Brownsville farmlets I posted on this thread above, and you've got me thinking to do some more semi-rural there, see if I can do some of the idyllic and bucolic feel you've captured here.

Of course, "idyllic and bucolic" surely betrays my city-kid origins.  I was (temporarily) close enough to the life to know it's not really idyllic, but it has some lovely idyllic moments.

It's hard to believe there's so much greenspace on the northern border of Brownsville, New York!  Needless to say, farms are much more fun than cemeteries.  You've done what SPAM couldn't do, Cori, make me keen to do a farming city.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brownsville,+Brooklyn,+NY,+USA/@40.6796868,-73.9029881,1690a,35y,37.13h,40.54t/data=...!4d-73.9125304

[CorinaMarie 29,910]

 

21 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

Okay, well here's post #19 ... I think.  

Yep. Based on the original numbers in the first post it is.   (It's likely @Cyclone Boom will add in the linky and anchor return thinger.)

 

21 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

I just had to post your image up here in this thread, because this pic brought back that peaceful feeling,

Yay! Your heartfelt post was lovely to wake up to this morning and I am honored you like my picture so much.

 

21 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

A question for you, Cori ... is the humongous round pool a dam, or a brackish lake?

Err... well.... uhm, it's just a (computer generated) natural formation, but it can be a dam brackish lake if you like.

Back in late 2017 I was tweaking the C code of a fractal landscape / map generator program and I converted it to output a true grayscale image in the range that SC4 can import.   Along the way CB and I came up with other ideas for me to code into it which included stepped, flat terraces and Gaussian Blur to smooth out the choppiness both above and below the water level. It's likely this is what causes some of the lakes and ponds to turn out perfectly round. I pretend they were caused by large meteorites way back in time and over the years the wind erosion has smoothed out the caldera-looking part.

 

21 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

I am also curious, does the farm suffer economically (in SimCity terms) for being split down the middle by a Street? 

Nope. There is no adverse effect at all. The way that farm was created was with a road stub crossing the railroad and prior to the long road running beside it being created. In this pic, the pink shows the only part which was road and the purple is the outline of the farm that grew. I then added the lazy S-Curve to match the farm field and extended that road on past. Then I drew the other road right thru the apple orchard along side the anchor lot of the farm so my little Sim workers could get there during harvest season.

And the original without any marking in case you might want it:

Spoiler

 

21 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

A careful vegetation analysis yielded up the information that these two plots of land are a single farm, with an easement granted to a neighbour on the other side of the rail line ... who are probably relatives. 

Here I've turned the world upside down (so south is at the top) showing the owners are actually not related at all. While Barthelet Stables does own an Apple Orchard they tend to specialize in cows. Farhan's Farms with their greenhouse also have an Apple Orchard and the two families are good friends. The Jez Knight family has an Orange Grove and they do trade fruits with both the other families. The nearby Alvin clan grows soy beans and also raises some cattle.

 

21 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

I get it more with my own SimCity 4 creations, than I do with the creations of others, so this is a pretty special scene to inspire me that way.

Here're a few more pics for you then.

This is the same general scene showing more of the area:

 

This is the full tile (which is still a work in progress).

 

Same position with the zoning view which reveals the hillsides where the farms aren't.

 

Random pic of the little Trestle Town:

 

Then there's the Garbage Town you may have noticed way off in the corner:

^ And those show a nice view of @Raymond7cn's Cutaway Texture Mod 1.0 for the sides of the world.

 

21 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

You've done what SPAM couldn't do, Cori, make me keen to do a farming city.

Do it. DO IT!

[Naomi57 2,985]

On 24/01/2020 at 11:21 AM, CorinaMarie said:

The Jez Knight family has an Orange Grove and they do trade fruits with both the other families.

Ahhhh, silly me, I couldn't see the difference between the orange orchard and the apple orchard!  

On 24/01/2020 at 11:21 AM, CorinaMarie said:

Err... well.... uhm, it's just a (computer generated) natural formation, but it can be a dam brackish lake if you like.

Back in late 2017 I was tweaking the C code of a fractal landscape / map generator program and I converted it to output a true grayscale image in the range that SC4 can import.   Along the way CB and I came up with other ideas for me to code into it which included stepped, flat terraces and Gaussian Blur to smooth out the choppiness both above and below the water level. It's likely this is what causes some of the lakes and ponds to turn out perfectly round. I pretend they were caused by large meteorites way back in time and over the years the wind erosion has smoothed out the caldera-looking part.

Yes, I remember reading about that map generator somewhere else in your posts.   That would explain the perfect look of the bay just to the south of the "brackish lake".  If you modify the program to have a little less erosion, it just might be a perfect partner for the Sim Mars project.  

On 24/01/2020 at 11:21 AM, CorinaMarie said:

Yay! Your heartfelt post was lovely to wake up to this morning and I am honored you like my picture so much. 

I even put my downloaded copy of your picture in my ST folder, Cori, along with the closeup pictures of your trestle bridge and landfill.  So glad your Garbage Town inhabitants have got medical care and lots of fruit to eat, and I really like that cutting and earth ramp down.  Even the automata are a perfect fit.  We really should have a Show us your Landfills thread, Cori, just for you.  

On 24/01/2020 at 11:21 AM, CorinaMarie said:

Nope. There is no adverse effect at all. The way that farm was created was with a road stub crossing the railroad and prior to the long road running beside it being created. In this pic, the pink shows the only part which was road and the purple is the outline of the farm that grew. I then added the lazy S-Curve to match the farm field and extended that road on past. Then I drew the other road right thru the apple orchard along side the anchor lot of the farm so my little Sim workers could get there during harvest season.

Good to know!

On 24/01/2020 at 11:21 AM, CorinaMarie said:

^ And those show a nice view of @Raymond7cn's Cutaway Texture Mod 1.0 for the sides of the world. 

I was wondering whether to ask, and thought, "Nahhh, I don't really want more mods" ... but now you've mentioned it, I'm stuffing that linky away somewhere, just in case.  It does look so much cooler than the regular sedimentary layers; is that a view of the mantle I see before me?  

[CorinaMarie 29,910]

On 1/22/2020 at 11:14 PM, Naomi57 said:

I am also curious, does the farm suffer economically (in SimCity terms) for being split down the middle by a Street?

While playing in a new tile, this floated up in my memory because I was doing it deliberately.

In this case I want the same farm field on either side of a diagonal dirt road. I've broken the road in the middle so the field will flow to both sides when it grows. I've also placed 3 (yes, three) bus stops where I want the anchor lot to grow. This isn't a guarantee it will grow there, but the bus stops's transient aura is a significant influence.

 

Here the farm has grown as expected:

 

And now turning the world around right side up and zoomed out to show the perspective:

^ The new field is there at the bottom. (I've connected the SAM 3 back together, bulldozed the 3 bus stations, and filled in along the perimeter with trees.)

[Raymond7cn 6,776]

5 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I've also placed 3 (yes, three) bus stops where I want the anchor lot to grow

I'm sorry Cori, since I couldn't quite follow you by the three buses's function or influence here. There were must something I didn't know, Can you teach me that? Thank you very much!

 

On 2020/1/25 at 10:47 AM, Naomi57 said:

It does look so much cooler than the regular sedimentary layers; is that a view of the mantle I see before me?  

Dear Naomi, I'm so glad that you like this mod, Frankly, I thought it's far from perfect by now, I plan to make various versions of it, especially following CB's kind suggestion, however I'm busy with some statue's modeling works now, Anyway, I will do that and send the new version to you as soon as possible. Thank you!

Yours Sincerely,

-- Raymond

[CorinaMarie 29,910]

9 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

I couldn't quite follow you by the three buses's function or influence here. There were must something I didn't know, Can you teach me that?

Sure thing.

It's all about the Transient Aura of a Bus Stop (which I also sometimes call a Bus Station) that, for a short time, increases the desirability in close proximity to it. To best illustrate this, I'll be showing the Agricultural Desirability Data View overlay. (Click an image and use the right and left arrow keys to see them in sequence.)

I've created a short stretch of SAM 3 Dirt Road in the middle of a forest and added a hidden power source to its area. The date is 01 January, year 141. Current Ag desirability is about 206 (in decimal) and that's already very good. (The scale for desirability is 0 to 255 btw.)

01 Jan, 141:

 

Then I Plopped 3 Bus Stations along that dirt road:

 

Turn on time while watching the Ag desirability. 02 February, 141:

^ This is when the most significant change occurs. We now have one cell that reached 255 Ag desirability then fading out from that central location they go: 250, 239, 231, 220, and then 206 beyond the transient aura effect.

As more time runs, the transient effect diminishes. 02 March, 141:

 

02 April, 141:

 

02 May, 141:

 

02 June, 141:

 

And by 02 July, 141 the transient aura is almost completely gone:

 

Had I zoned agriculture adjacent to that dirt road there is a high probability that the Anchor Lot of the farm would appear in the highest desirability location.

[Raymond7cn 6,776]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

Had I zoned agriculture adjacent to that dirt road there is a high probability that the Anchor Lot of the farm would appear in the highest desirability location

Dear Cori, Many thanks again for your time and patience. Now I got it, And also I have readed Naomi's post about how useful the vanilla bus station is, I have to admit I never thought that the station has such a good influence of Ag desirability, since the farmer just lives in the farm in china (Maybe the farmers want to live in somewhere could go downtown more conveniently), Thank you very much, I got to make a note of that.

Yours Sincerely,

-- Raymond

[CorinaMarie 29,910]

16 minutes ago, Raymond7cn said:

I never thought that the station has such a good influence of Ag desirability, since the farmer just lives in the farm in china (Maybe the farmers want to live in somewhere could go downtown more conveniently)

I believe in the game the increased desirability is the added possibility for low wealth workers to get to their job on the farms. Ofc, the farmers might also like not having to ride horseback into town to buy specialty items.

Btw, it's not just Ag which is positively influenced by the bus station's close proximity. Other industrial and commercial as well as R$ Sims like them. I'd have to check for the higher wealth levels to be sure how they react. It's quite likely that R$$$ would see the bus stop as a NIMBY.

[Raymond7cn 6,776]

Yeah! I look forward more researches of Cori Holmes! 

Best Regards,

-- Raymond

[Cyclone Boom 17,032]

It really presents well how the Transient Aura is present as a temporary desirability boost, before dissipating until it goes away completely. This explains why sometimes if struggling to develop farms or houses in a specified location, how placing a Bus Stop or few allows the Aura to do the rest.

I did a little test and can confirm how there is also an effect for CO$$ and CO$$$ and also R$$ and R$$$ too (along with all forms of industrial).

Here's a preview using the CS$$$ filter view and plopping 3 Bus Stops beside a farm track:

(I knew I had to have some farm pictured since this is the ACoCFPaLbN thread after all!  )

As Cori showed, it doesn't last much longer than 6 game months before dissipating completely. For the R$$ and R$$$ it appears they see the network connection as having a constant Transient Aura effect, while here it's only concentrated from each Bus Stop and is cumulative when plopping multiple. This is interesting, and I'd have thought that commercial would see traffic as a positive thing because it equals more customers (whereas residents don't like cars and noise pollution).

By the way @Raymond7cn (and anyone else reading), the color scheme pictured for the Desirability view is from a mod we made.

On the STEX as follows:

 

This is designed primarily for those with Deuteranopia color blindness, but also the views included expand the detail to 9 levels which provides a deeper insight into the various Data Views the game has. Then there's also Cori's Parks Aura which shows the Park Effect that can also help spur on development.

Plopping a few parks also increase desirability too. It appears this persists for residential, whereas it wears off for industrial and commercial (mostly).

So, just thought I'd mention this from my own complementary findings.

[Raymond7cn 6,776]

6 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

expand the detail to 9 levels which provides a deeper insight into the various Data Views the game has

Dear Dr. CB, I downloaded this splendid Color View mod months ago, but I haven't got enough time to use it, and Frankly, I thought it's slight not very suitable for me due to a little feminine for me, I'm very sorry, but today, I just noticed that there is a very vital role of it is that can provide more details. Many years ago, I've seen some classical theories, So I realized if there were this tools at that time, the analysis could be more precise and convenience, Thank you CB and Cori.

Yours Sincerely,

-- Raymond

[Cyclone Boom 17,032]

7 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

Dear Dr. CB

(Thanks!)

 

7 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

I downloaded this splendid Color View mod months ago, but I haven't got enough time to use it, and Frankly, I thought it's slight not very suitable for me due to a little feminine for me, I'm very sorry, but today, I just noticed that there is a very vital role of it is that can provide more details.

That's fine Raymond, and no worries at all.

The mod which Cori made there is primarily intended for those who have Deuteranopia color blindness, and so it was only created for that specific situation to help people see the data more clearly. The expanded detail is only a side benefit to see how the data values are on the increased scale. Cori and I both agree how it's not ideal for those of us without color blindness to get used to the yellow and pink sided scale, and it is very contrasting to the standard way the data views are presented.

Perhaps (instead of Cori's mod) you might like the one from which she based many of the breakpoint values. I've not used the other mod yet myself, but I believe this contains individual .dat files so it's possible to pick and choose which ones to be replaced.
 

Quoting from our file description:

Quote

Note: Some breakpoints are as discovered by @Thalassicus from their Dataviews Increased Detail Mod. Colour Ramp and Legend Colours are new revised additions.

Maybe this could be useful as an alternative?

----------

And I'd better post some farm pics now...

The following are a few scenes from Cori's recently developed J6 tile...
 

 

Looking with the crater lake as the centrepiece, featuring a ring of houses...

 

And up top there's a circular roundabout which might have something built in the middle someday...

(Notice the wind-breaks also with the dividing trees too.)

All the precision planted trees and how the farm tracks weave their way around the contours of the terrain. I think it's really beautiful, and I particularly admire about how her farms are designed in various shapes and sizes. It has a natural and realistic flow to the layout, and how there's diversity in each location. There's also a mixture of zoning as well, and small clusters of houses of different wealth levels (which is where NKO is so useful to sustain R$ development).

So, just a sample from my tour around sightseeing (and trainspotting).

[Raymond7cn 6,776]

Dear CB, Thank you very much! I must be a pretty careless guy, since I had downloaded Thalassicus's mod from one post which Cori suggested to someone of useful mods. But I overlooked this important mod just by its ordinary shot, Thank you, however, I still want to give Cori's Color theme a try, actually, it's not so harsh when I got used to it. And please tell Cori I have got many inspirations from her farm CJ, I will give myself a break after recently modeling to play that unfinished crater village with her style.

Yours Sincerely,

-- Raymond

 

[xxdita 1,097]

On 3/6/2020 at 11:11 AM, CorinaMarie said:

Had I zoned agriculture adjacent to that dirt road there is a high probability that the Anchor Lot of the farm would appear in the highest desirability location.

Actually, Agriculture doesn't have Anchors at all. There are lots that must be modded as Out buildings in order to work, and there are fields. And that's it. 

Like all Industrial Out buildings, the main farm lots would really only require road access to grow. Farms have the same desirability requirements of R$, in that they aren't that picky about where they grow, though they are much more adverse to traffic congestion and air pollution than any other RCI type. This is to allow farms to grow freely in the early game. 

None of my testing over the years has shown that transient aura in any way dictates which way a farm lot will grow. 

[CorinaMarie 29,910]

6 minutes ago, xxdita said:

Actually, Agriculture doesn't have Anchors at all. There are lots that must be modded as Out buildings in order to work, and there are fields. And that's it.

Ah, yes. Checking in Reader and you are correct. For the sake of the discussion Anchor Lot is used to mean the Farm Building and its Lot.

 

7 minutes ago, xxdita said:

None of my testing over the years has shown that transient aura in any way dictates which way a farm lot will grow. 

If you mean the direction of the fields (or even the types of fields) then I agree that does seem to be randomly generated. Where the farm building and lot grows can be influenced by a transient aura.

[xxdita 1,097]

I understand what you meant by Anchor, but I wouldn't want @Raymond7cn to get mixed up, if he should ever want to make farms, which I hope he will someday.

The types of field depends wholly on the lot that grows. Maxis farms can be pretty random, but custom farms can control which fields grow with which lots with total accuracy. This is determined by the Fields Lot Property in the building desc (0x29b55f73). 

I would be interested in seeing what specific conditions have to be in place for transient aura to have any impact on which way a farm lot grows. Because it would be great to have the ability to control that.