tutorial Detailed how-to for sustainable SC3K farmland

[VetinarisClerk 271]

For all of you who want to build a rural area:

Farms need a road but only along one side. They need power but they can't have water.
Build power lines along the road and keep pipes at least 7 tiles from farmland.

Farms only develop on light industrial zones, and are best in 8x8 blocks.

They fail if polution gets worse than low, but they produce polution, which means that every farm needs "hedges" around it to be sustainable.
Plant 3 tiles of dense forrest between farms, and 5 between a farm and light residential. Keep heavy poluters far away.

A farm develops all at once, so wait untill industrial demand is half-full before zoning a block.

Once zoned, buldoze anything that popps up on the block that isn't plowed/wheat field.
As soon as you see fields, pause and mark all tiles as historic, fields and buildings.
If you miss one tile, as soon as conditions are not ideal, that tile will turn into industy and poison everything else.
Then you'll need to de-histoic all the other tiles, buldoze the whole block, plant trees on poluted tiles to remove polution, and start over.
Make sure you've made everything historic. Double check.
Yes, it's tedious but salvaging a missed tile sucks. And having a big rural area is worth it.

Once historic, the fileds will stay that way forever.
Farm buildings will get abandoned if industrial demands goes into negative, but they will not turn into industry, and will recover as soon as demand is positive again.
This will go in cycles, and is fun to watch.

Anyway, wait untill industral demand is half-full again to zone the next block.
Repeat as much as you want.

And only build residential next to the "hedge"!

Example:

[Wild Dog 17]

Thanks for this. I always struggled to get farms consistently in SC3k

[VetinarisClerk 271]

17 hours ago, Wild Dog said:

Thanks for this. I always struggled to get farms consistently in SC3k

Same. It took me a while to figure everything out. Farms are touchy. If not historic, you blink and it's gone.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,085]

Good tutorial and let me say - I really appreciate your devotion and affinity towards SC3000. 

Farms in this game are indeed touchy-feely. Still, I don't fully agree with some of the points mentioned in the tutorial.

From my experience, it is not always necessary to make all farm tiles historical. As long as you keep pollution away and adhere to the "hedge rules" (which I am fully in favor of) mentioned, you don't need to go through the tedious job of making an entire field historical.

I have run many farms and never made any of them historical. They kept growing successfully forever and defended themselves from industrial interference anyway. That, however, requires a wider "buffer zone" between the fields. If you ask me, six tiles would be the recommended number for this approach.

Another thing - farms don't need water but may well be provided with some. If you want to be super-good to your agrarian Sims, you may.  I always did it and, likewise, did not experience any problems.

[VetinarisClerk 271]

I'll try the six tiles buffer and water. I once forgot to make a single tile historic and boom - smoke stack right in middle of the wheat. 

I think I'm just writing down stuff I wish I could find on line but didn't. 😛

[TheMurderousCricket 5,085]

Do give it a try. I think you will be positively surprised. Non-historic farms should work fine with the requirements and constraints that you have put down yourself. But you can be even more conservative to improve the odds.

I also find it usefull to create complex junctions just before the farm area. Then, one can fork roads from the main junction in such a way that each of them connects just a single farm. This, effectively, reduces traffic and pollution that would otherwise accumulate on a single, general-access road.

I'll post a screenshot of this solution later when I get back home. I'm actually returning from the RL farmlands right now! 😀

[TheMurderousCricket 5,085]

Okay, so here is...



Not even half as aesthetically pleasing, no doubt, but these farms have been there since early 80's and have never been made historic. Still, they are as stable as a Soviet concrete.

The distance from the main (370k resident) city and the road "separator" reduce the pollution to a minimum. These farms are also fully watered and powered and, as you can see, have a wider "buffer zone" which reduces any interaction between them to a minimum as well.

I know that feeling of intense anxiety when one attempts to start a farmland in SC3000.  But producing some farms without making them historic is absolutely possible and not quite as hard as one would expect. As is evidenced by the above... well, yes - a little half-assed attempt to toss some farms in.

  Edited December 5, 2020 by TheMurderousCricket  
Improved some wording

[VetinarisClerk 271]

Oh cool. I will definitely try this. I always felt the make historic was a crutch but could never pull them off without it.

I guess you can tell I'm a city kid - I never thought to just leave more space and give each its own road - everything must be multi purpose and every inch must be used! 😛

[Tag365 0]

Is there a mod that lets me just mark an area all as historic similarly to zoning the areas in? That would be a major quality of life thing for something like this.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,085]

9 hours ago, Tag365 said:

That would be a major quality of life thing for something like this.

I know, right? Unfortunately I am not aware of any such mod.

A workaround, though dirty and only candy-eye, would probably be to create a ploppable farm, accustomed to one's needs. I believe it can be done by reediting some of the unused ploppable buildings.

[Komodo 81]

Also turn on the Farmer's Market Ordinance, it makes the development of farms 10% more likely.

[Lab Rat 16]

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