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Cam farming issues with employment

Started by Philopolymath, March 02, 2022, 12:16:47 PM

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Philopolymath



So I'm only giving CAM a chance because I've maxed out PEG and thought the CAM offered higher stage (>5th) Farming/ag but frankly the content options are pitiful and the CAM custom stage 6-7 ag package is useless as an industry/job source. It does not seem like CAM will even come close to matching PEG in functionality in ag/rural.

"Fantozzi Colossus Farming" seems to be the only options for stages >5 They do work well but are also useless for jobs...My stage ONE SIMGoober farms create MUCH more jobs. Even Maxis farms out perform many of the custom stage 4&5 farms for employment

And I am comparing them fairly under exact same conditions

Ditto for many of the others Dutch CSX MedStyle I've tried them all.
Many are absolutely beautiful & fun to watch bloom especially Lotties Nursery my absolute favourite
JMyers farms are also excellent but again employment varies dramatically with which field spawns with it.
His hydro's and set of stage 3's sometimes 'out job' all others but NOT his dairy..why?
CSX farms and fields also work fine and do seem to scale up the employment with each stage increase better but again are no match for many low stage 1 farms for jobs.


I'm confused as to why low stage farms consistently outperform higher stage farms for employment.
Is not the whole point of higher stages to offer higher density/more employment as an INDUSTRY.

I've also noticed it is always better from an employment perspective to make one large farm over several small ones. More small farms means lower acreage lower profit lost to higher costs of roads and water power supply servicing.
And sometimes CSX farms produce MASSIVE AIR pollution but zero water...clearly something is wrong with that.

I never use farm plops, I don't want farms of only fields and a silo.

I have NO interest in eye candy unless it offers vital and/or IMPROVED function or lower costs.
Goobers rural water and utilities are beautiful but difficult to integrate and far more expensive than a maxis tower and pipes.

I would love to hear from people who have successfully well developed AG/farm communities for advice or tips on which content integrates best.
I play on HARD mode so and find ag is especially difficult to make profitable seemingly even more so when you have very low density spread over a large area.

I like to have many rural communities contribute to building up demand to my large cities both inland and coastal...I like/want ag in my Big cities too...
I don't expect Ag to be able to compete or replace IHT IM ID industry or CS CO completely.
But I wish be able to make small self sustaining ag focused cities survivable without having the need for CS or IH IM ID.

Am I expecting too much from CAM farming? Can it compete or exceed PEG?





jeffryfisher

Quote from: Philopolymath on March 02, 2022, 12:16:47 PMI'm confused as to why low stage farms consistently outperform higher stage farms for employment.
You should read CAM's design notes about the higher Ag stages. My recollection is that they were intended for idiosyncratic and elite rural development, not higher employment.

And you must already know that the original Maxis Ag design was almost an afterthought -- Players were going to build *cities*, which meant that farms were expected to exist only temporarily to provide early jobs before being paved over.

PEG's SPAM (with its expansions) is the best farming I know, and I use it with CAM despite the conflict. By loading SPAM after CAM, I sacrifice CAM's upper stages -- acceptable losses in my book.

Elsewhere in industry, there's an "Industrial Revolution Mod" that similarly repurposes light (cheap) and heavy (expensive) zones into dirty and clean. Like SPAM, there's some effort required to reconcile with CAM.
Modding PC games since 1993 (back when we needed hex-editors)

Philopolymath

Thanks. I was hoping to get the best of both worlds in one region.
I'll try your suggestion... LOAD LAST!...DOH ah yes forgot about that. Zspam