Rural Mountains /w CAM?

[Aphid]

I would like to start making a region with this here CAM mod, but am a little unsure as to where to start and with what. The files on the actual LEX are from 2007, so since development is still going on are probably a bit outdated. I would like to shoot for a region with a realistic appearance that is self-sustaining. So tending to about 8-20sqpp of farm space. (A large city tile would support about 3,250-7,500 people)

Which brings me to my first question: How and where can I modify the amount of jobs/sq. farms generate (e.g. farm plots, not barns. I believe it is a single value somewhere, but where?). The default value is obviously far too high, if it were true in real life we humans would be extinct. 

Say, given ~10% agricultural jobs (still a very high number to be honest), so ~5% of total population employed, yields 0.0025-0.006 workers per tile. Actually, since barns employ people, I suppose one could set it to 0 and be fine. 320-tile minimum for a 2-person barn.

Second question: Is the CAM from 2007 the version I should be using?

Thirdly, is there some way to customize the natural growth stage percentages? Utilizing natural growth seems really fun, but it's a little strange to have only 5% of the population in normal housing, 15% in apartments, and 80% in highrises once population hits the millions, which is what I believe the defaults allow for given sufficient high-density zoning. Limiting development artificially by zoning alone results in the 4-7 problem, where buildings will predominantly be from stages 4 and 7 since that's the highest stage in low- and medium density resp.

That brings me to the next question... wouldn't it be really great to customize zoning somewhat more? (E.g. the low-mid-high classification turns into a X ppsq occupancy limit or X ft. building height limit, where X is any natural number, or maybe categorized in small increments. So 256+ types instead of 3). I wonder if that would be possible. (Doing it by hand...)

[jmyers2043]

Hi Aphid

How and where can I modify the amount of jobs/sq. farms generate (e.g. farm plots, not barns. I believe it is a single value somewhere, but where?). The default value is obviously far too high, if it were true in real life we humans would be extinct.

You would use iLives reader or the XTool. But I don't think you need to. Here are some things to consider.

The typical Maxis field has one worker per field tile. Most BSC fields have the same. The Maxis farm buildings are very poorly done with respect to barn size/farm lot/occupancy. But the game is called SimCity so I'll not pick them too much. Most BSC farms consider the Barn, the outbuildings like silo's, the farm house (the farmers home office), and the size of the lot to determine how many jobs each farm should have and consequently, determines whether it's a stage 1or stage 5 farm.

My typical farm is set on a 4X4 lot, has a barn that employs 3 to 4 people, and a few corn cribs that employ 1 Sim each. That would be 16+4+1=21 Sims. A stage 2 farm. Farm stages are not as important as commercial buildings or industrial because farms do not upgrade. So there is some wiggle room when deciding the correct farm stages.

You'll remember this scenario. Maxis Vanilla farm city starts with a few stage 1 farms. Then a few stage 2 farms. Eventually you will grow stage 3 farms about 70% of the time. I used to pack my plugins with huge numbers of stage 3's to have some variety. The CAM changes that. Stage 1, 2, and 3 farms have about equal chance to grow at the start of your region. Stage 4, 5, farms are more commercial looking will come later as your regions industrial capacity grows.

A large city set on flat land with a small town population of 7,500 can support 250 or so farms of about 15X15 tiles each. A city with mountainous hills and farms set in the valleys will require fewer people. The number of R$ Sims is important as that will 'drive' farm demand up so that the new farm zones will develop. Zone a small village of 500 Sims somewhere in the city if farms stop developing or if growth seems sluggish.

Just because you have a farm does not mean that a Sim must work in the fields. Farms, to some extent, are eye candy. Yes, farms close the city limits will have some commuting workers but farms further away will not have any workers. R$ Sims like to work on farms, Dirty Industry, and CS$ jobs. So you'll need to encourage all three zone types in your early city. Add some education later to encourage manufacturing and office jobs. Some R$$ homes will develop and your small town will look appealing. 

Is the CAM from 2007 the version I should be using?

Yes. Current CAM on the LEX is the one to use. CAM 2 is in beta and has been for a while. Many of us who are working on it got a bit burned out so testing is in hiatus.

Utilizing natural growth seems really fun

I agree. My typical CAM City/Region starts out all low density residential and commercial. I'll then find a spot where some tenements and medium density buildings look natural like a river junction or a bay or inlet. The typical major city in my region will have a block or two of stage 9 or 10 buildings and that's me, done. Surrounded by some medium density residential/commercials. Farms give way to sprawling low density zoned suburbs. Hence the organic or more natural approach that you're seeking. Just because you have the CAM does not mean that you HAVE to create giant tall cities. You'll find rural small town Americana easy to create as well.

wouldn't it be really great to customize zoning somewhat more

I'm not sure if you refer to zones or stage growth? Zoning is probably not possible. More stages is possible but not on any drawing board that I know of.

Good Luck

- Jim

[Aphid]

(...)
A large city set on flat land with a small town population of 7,500 can support 250 or so farms of about 15X15 tiles each. A city with mountainous hills and farms set in the valleys will require fewer people. The number of R$ Sims is important as that will 'drive' farm demand up so that the new farm zones will develop. Zone a small village of 500 Sims somewhere in the city if farms stop developing or if growth seems sluggish.

Just because you have a farm does not mean that a Sim must work in the fields. Farms, to some extent, are eye candy. Yes, farms close the city limits will have some commuting workers but farms further away will not have any workers. R$ Sims like to work on farms, Dirty Industry, and CS$ jobs. So you'll need to encourage all three zone types in your early city. Add some education later to encourage manufacturing and office jobs. Some R$$ homes will develop and your small town will look appealing. 

So basically, I do not actually need to have sufficient workers for my farms at all. That's great to hear.

My question wasn't really whether I'd have enough people to support my farms, but whether I could have enough farms to support my people realistically, and without causing problems to the game. (This isn't implemented in the game, but I'm giving myself a realistic lower limit of 8 tiles of farmland per sim. (Which is about half an acre, or 2,000 sq. metres)). I thought it would be problematic in the long run (e.g. not enough demand for I-R eventually) to keep building 8 tiles per sim when each tile employs one sim, thus 8 workers needed to feed one person. (Hence, if true in real life, civilization would collapse). That's why I kinda wanted to reduce it to 1/166 worker per tile. Also, it would generate a huge amount of unnatural R$ demand with 1 worker/tile.

Installed the reader, figuring out where to look.... aha!

If anyone else wants to change it, it's property 11356, "Industrial Resource" in the cohort analyzer. Default value 0x00000001, I set it to 0x00000000, obviously. I'll check on what happens. (Should probably backup the .dat file...). Also, since all modded fields should use the same base cohort, they should now also have 0 employment. Gots to check that immediately.

Good luck with the v2 CAM project.

[Lowkee33]

If anyone else wants to change it, it's property 11356, "Industrial Resource" in the cohort analyzer. Default value 0x00000001, I set it to 0x00000000, obviously. I'll check on what happens. (Should probably backup the .dat file...). Also, since all modded fields should use the same base cohort, they should now also have 0 employment. Gots to check that immediately.

You want to right click on the Cohort and "add to patch".  Then use the patch manager to "create a dat" into your plugin folder.  Mod this new file, not SimCity.  This way if testing goes bad you haven't done any damage to SimCity_1.

I would say that a 16x16 meter area would be enough to feed a person though (Just pulled up about 100 pounds of potatoes in less).  The farm I am at is probably 2 tiles large in terms of produce, and there is way more food than this 4 person family can eat (they now have about 100 chickens too, still only 2 less-than-full-time brothers working though  ).

In Sim City, I like to think of farm jobs in terms of how much food can be created by one person, rather than the amount of space things take up.  Also to note that as education rises, the demand for farms decreases.  You need to make farms before adding schools (cover your region with farms, then go for smarts).  The way I deal with this is to say some thing like, "one dumb person could feed 10 people, so a smart person should be able to feed 20".

[Kitsune]

I accomplished this with a modified turbo demand mod. The majority of the fields are 50x50 tiles (so 3rr style), and this region I'm planning as more of a country as its more then ample enough in terms of tiles. The largest tiles hold 17-18K jobs... and I reckon its close to 200K IR jobs I have. Also note... I found this region on my hd and most tiles had a save date from 2008. It was fully treed... and its definitely not my doing, but all development is my doing.