Stage 4+ Farms won't grow for me

[SeanSC4]

Can anyone think of a reason why I would be unable to grow farms that are stage 4-7?

I'm able to grow RCI buildings of the higher order CAM stages but have never been able to grow CAM I-R lots. I have various stage 4-7 CAM I-R lots installed and have been zoning appropriately large areas for them. I've also been providing water and/or fire coverage to the areas in question but I still tend to predominately only grow stage 1 and 2 farms with a very rare stage 3 farm even when I have 5-10k farm jobs in the city I'm testing on. Demand for I-R is very high as well.

Any help or suggestions would be welcome.

[RippleJet]

even when I have 5-10k farm jobs in the city I'm testing on.

Note that the thresholds for IR are based on the regional industrial capacity.
Industrial capacity does not include IR though!

Agricultural Stage Limits

The threshold values are in all cases the total regional industrial capacity (not workforce): ID + IM + IHT.
Note that IR (agricultural farms) are not included in the regional industrial capacity!

In Rush Hour stage 3 farms took over as soon as the regional industrial capacity grew.
For CAM, the emphasize was simply to get an even distribution of farms of different stages, with the addition of the special stage 6 and 7.

IR	Stage	Stage	Stage	Stage	Stage	Stage	Stage
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
0	50 %	30 %	20 %
500	45 %	28 %	20 %	7 %
800	40 %	26 %	20 %	14 %
1548	35 %	25 %	20 %	20 %
2723	30 %	23 %	20 %	20 %	7 %
4791	25 %	21 %	20 %	20 %	14 %
8429	20 %	20 %	20 %	20 %	20 %
14830	19 %	19 %	19 %	19 %	19 %	5 %
26091	18 %	19 %	19 %	19 %	19 %	6 %
45905	18 %	18 %	19 %	19 %	19 %	7 %
80764	18 %	18 %	18 %	19 %	19 %	8 %
142095	18 %	18 %	18 %	18 %	19 %	9 %
250000	18 %	18 %	18 %	18 %	18 %	9 %	1 %
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7

Thus, in order to get stage 4 farms, you need to have at least 500 ID+IM+IHT jobs available in this city, or any city/cities connected to it.

If you've been awarded the CAMeLot Counter,
then you would also see your current regional industrial capacity in its query (187,432 below):

You can hover query over any part of the query to get further help and information.
The hover query will also tell you when each growth stage can be expected, based on the regional capacities (which are shown to the right, separately for residential, commercial and industrial).

[jmyers2043]

Ha! as I type, RippleJet replies and covers it really good. I'll add one more thing -

A stage 4 farm requires water. A stage 5 farm requires a nearby fire station. So the player can have to some extent some control of where those farms have a chance to grow.

As seen from the chart, a stage 1-3 farms have about equal opportunity to grow at the very beginning of your city. There has to be a very large number of ID, IM, and IHT jobs in your city for a stage 7 farm to have a 1% chance to grow. I once QC'd a stage 7 farm that Barby made. It took 5 large cities filled with farms before it grew. So there is a sense of accomplishment and a pat yourself on the back if you can get a stage 7 farm to grow.

[xxdita]

Also, farms don't upgrade, so as your regional capacity grows, try demolishing those early farms, so that you can grow higher staged farms.

[SeanSC4]

Thanks for all the excellent replies.

It seems to be a problem in general with the percentages of what will grow for me since I've never seen anything approaching 20% for stage 3 farms. Stage 1 and 2 farms (especially stage 1) seem to be the predominate choice for what the game chooses for construction. Even when I go back and demolish older farms after I've built 3-4k jobs worth of farms, I never see a 20% chance of stage 3 farms. This is all occurring while the demand for I-R is at 12k+ so the simulation isn't lacking for demand.

I wish I could figure out what's buggy with my files since CAM works great for me otherwise. It'd be nice if I could achieve some real variety in my agricultural areas.