CAM 2 Farming

[InvisiChem]

No, please do not use that XML file. PIM-X is not reading my changes very well with IR. It is still reading as total employment with IR, so what should be stage 3 is reading as stage 9. Good thing this is a test and discussion phase. lol. Gonna have to straight decompile PIM-X to see how it handles ID and IR. See what the differences are and how to change them.

Anyways, that post makes me wonder if my line of thinking is any good. I know my intention of bringing Farms to an equal form of industry is a great one. As you well know, I have some really strong ideas about this.

That certain stage 5 lot, although 7 x 8, the main buildings, do they fully cover the lot?

Lets say the buildings together are 14 tiles, this would be actually be 11.5 per tile, with a pasture, yard, courtyard or something in between, at the edges, etc. That would be a solid Stage 3 and could be a Stage 4 without unbalancing the game. Not too far off. Of course, I would need to know these specifics and what makes this so fun to figure out. 

Let me know if this is accurate first, before I continue this line of thinking.

[FrankU]

Let's take the large farm on this image as an example.



It is a piggery. Stage 5. The size is 5 x 10 tiles. It contains two houses, several barns and a hand full of other objects.
It has 162 jobs.
(I have no image of the lot I used as an example in my last post, so now I take this one. The issue is identical)

Jim Myers advised me to calculate the jobs on a lot by taking 1 job per tile plus jobs for every building, shed, barn etc.
So I made a long job-list of all the sheds and barns I use: one by one I made them a building in SC4-Pim on a test lot, guessed the right filling degree and wrote down the amount of jobs SC4-Pim gave me.
This list I used to calculate the jobs for every lot I made afterwards. Then I had to use a very large filling degree for the actual building on this lot. In this case The building is the Dutch farmhouse on the left. The filling degree I used in order to get these 162 jobs is 40!

So for this lot I have 50 jobs for the 50 tiles, plus some for the houses, plus the barns, and maybe a handfull just for the fun of it. ANd it dadded up to 162. It could easily have been 149 or 176 or something around these values. You know how much guessing is needed for the filling degree.

There is of course an important thing we tend to forget: the game is not representing real life jobs etc, but it is a simulation that handles numbers in order to make a fun game. This goes certainly for farms, because in real life even these large farms hardly employ more than four or maybe seven people: the farmer and her/his husband/wife, one or two grown up children and, on busy times, maybe a hand full of contractors. So nothing about 162 jobs.
And 1 job per acre? It would make food unpayable!

But your aim is to balance the use of farming with the other industrial countings and in that respect we indeed maybe should have much more jobs. So don't bother if the amounts seem unrealistic: they need to be in balance with the rest of SC4.

Of course the jobs on the farm field tiles play an important role too. When we have farm lots with many jobs and farm fields that have little jobs there can be very different outcomes when you use small farming areas or large areas. If you make small areas in your city there is a relatively small amount of farm fields, so the outcome is many jobs. If you zone large areas, there are not so much farm lots, but many farm fields and then there is less farming jobs in your city. I don't know if this is a problem or a feature, though...

[InvisiChem]

Of course the jobs on the farm field tiles play an important role too. When we have farm lots with many jobs and farm fields that have little jobs there can be very different outcomes when you use small farming areas or large areas. If you make small areas in your city there is a relatively small amount of farm fields, so the outcome is many jobs. If you zone large areas, there are not so much farm lots, but many farm fields and then there is less farming jobs in your city. I don't know if this is a problem or a feature, though...

Great point. Could swing either way. One problem is some zone in very large plots, could easily handle this building plus another same size in fields. For me, this would not be a problem. Your piggery could be justified with more jobs by saying the farm house holds the owner and their family ($$$ or $$ sims). The other building, similar to a house would be a servants or help quarters ($ sims). The barn to the right with the entrance facade would make a great pig housing area(low density sims), the one behind it that connects a slaughter area (high density sims), across a processing facility (Such as making Chops, halves, bacon, etc. High density) and the processing/shipping as the last (Medium to high density assembly line). This is consistent with modern large scale industrial farms.

With this in mind, We could PIM-X the occupancy with the different types of industry already in PIM-X, House and Help quarters, IR, Slaughter house ID, Processing facility ID or IM, and packaging/Shipping IM. This would give some good pollution, power usage and water usage values as well. By adding together all the occupancies, you could get a total Occupancy and then put it together as a farm. Also, averaging the stages could be a great way to get a final stage.

Farm fields attached would be feed for the pigs, extra product for processing and distribution or trade for needed equipment.

These numbers are not really out of line with what would make this a Stage 5 lot with the proposed curve.
Todds Packaging Plant, a 6x2 IM lot about the same size as one of the barns shown above, is a stage 4 with 362 jobs. A large scale processing lot would require about the same.

Of course, this lot would make a great industrial lot all by itself, no fields attached. It really is that good.

Not having a great knowledge of building these, This does seem like it would be pretty easy after designing everything. A bit of reader work and all is well. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I'm not too sure how people would take this idea though. That is the important part. I know I would love it, as some would, but would the majority?

I must say: this makes the step to using CAM2 a bit harder, because there are no CAM2 Farms yet. Off course I could start with my Maxis Farms Override set.... I could make an edited version for CAM2. I suppose I can use your properties.xml for that? Just put it into the SC4-Pim directory and go ahead?

This would always be a problem at first. The good part is that Original Maxis Farms, CAM 1.0 Farms and content for both would still grow just fine with CAM 2.1.0 until there was enough content to overtake that and the older custom content got revised to the new standards (Not developed yet though  )

There is of course an important thing we tend to forget: the game is not representing real life jobs etc, but it is a simulation that handles numbers in order to make a fun game. This goes certainly for farms, because in real life even these large farms hardly employ more than four or maybe seven people: the farmer and her/his husband/wife, one or two grown up children and, on busy times, maybe a hand full of contractors. So nothing about 162 jobs.
And 1 job per acre? It would make food unpayable!

This I too forget very often. Fields like lettuce take an immense amount of help, but it's very seasonal. Cotton, we just go with early 1800 USA before the cotton gin, again a very labor intensive farm type that is seasonal (This one I'll leave the type of worker out so we don't cause a major debate about the morality of my home country at this time). Being that this is a simulation though, we cannot simulate seasonal labor.

Personally, I think this would be a valuable set of standards for the game. Farming is one of the largest industries around the world.

These standards would put a lot of current material in lower stages, so I don't think anyone would have to develop separate sets for the different versions. A stage 4 CAM 1.0 farms would become a stage 2 or 3 with the new standards, so they would still grow with any version. I'm expecting CAM 2 to overtake CAM 1 in the future so this will not a be a big problem for too long.

I don't know, hence why I brought the productive debate public. Bluntly and honestly, is this a good change? We know what I think but I want to know exactly what you and everyone thinks.

[FrankU]

Well, about the compatibility of older lots: there are more developments that require a new region or extensive bulldozing. Like CAM 1 itself: installation is best done in a new region.
So if someone likes CAM 2 he or she should take care and download CAM 2 compatible Farms. As far as I have understood there are noe new properties in other inrustrial, residential or commercial lots, right?

And, if it was not clear already: I am perfectly willing to make my Farms in two versions. So if there is a SC4-Pim properties file that I can use for the new farms just tell me and I will start with adding a CAM 2 version to the farm lots I have already uploaded.
And hopefully I will be able to finish the Dutch farms Set with mrbisonm's props soon. As he is in the hospital right now it will take some time.

[APSMS]

Of course the jobs on the farm field tiles play an important role too. When we have farm lots with many jobs and farm fields that have little jobs there can be very different outcomes when you use small farming areas or large areas. If you make small areas in your city there is a relatively small amount of farm fields, so the outcome is many jobs. If you zone large areas, there are not so much farm lots, but many farm fields and then there is less farming jobs in your city. I don't know if this is a problem or a feature, though...

Coming from San Diego, I'd say it's a feature (small farm plots=lots of jobs). San Diego county (4200 sq. mi/10 900 sq. km) had over 6000 farms in 2010, of which 4000 were under 10 acres (which in game terms is still 160 tiles, but everything's relative), and I think most of the 4000 were really under 5 acres.

I'd say it depends a lot on what look you're going for; arguably farming is not the go-to zone for the casual player, and requires a bit of precision when achieving the look you want. Chances are that most casual users will not notice much of a difference, because likely farming is a stop gap measure at best, and more serious players will already be aware of the fact that smaller farm plots equal more jobs in general. The game already works this way, and when I zone farms as a stopgap I make them smaller because of this.

On the question of auto-upgrading farms, I feel like as nice a feature as it is, it's not completely essential. Unless we are going to remake all of the existing CAM lots for farms, I would say it's not worth it to rewrite the stage tables. Farms are already a niche zone, great for rural areas (which I am fond of, and terrible at making); very little has happened custom content wise for farms recently. The most I can recall is FrankU's work with the Dutch Farms, and his work in Nexis on the MFP, but the Dutch farms are now 2? years old, and the MFP has been in development hell for at least as long (something like 4 years, right?)

Sure going forward the new standard should be more adopted, but consider that major reworking of existing parameters is probably going to limit adoption.

As an example, the IRM by TWrecks is a great revision of the way industry works. It probably messes with development a little, given how it reworks the zone density into an industry type picker (Mid-Ind for I-D, High-Ind for I-HT, and I-M split cleanly between the two per aesthetics). The problem with the IRM is that it requires all of the non-Maxis lots you might have to have their occupancy groups adjusted in the Reader manually to conform with the new zoning logic. I have been using the IRM for the past year (Someone--I forget who--made a CAM version that works great), but have only just started on sifting through all my industrials to get them up to speed.

Chances are, unless there is a massive effort to convert the existing farm lots to the new paradigm, it won't happen, and CC dev in agriculture for the game isn't high enough to warrant mass adoption either.

[Mandarin(a)]

I have never used CAM, since I didn't like watching my cities turning into a metropolis. But after seeing your threads and reading about I-R fix and CAM 2 general awesomeness, especially with different playing styles available, I will have to rethink about it. 

Back to farms, one thing I have on my mind: I have always wanted to make my farms look "traditional" - small, narrow fields without huge processing plants. Barns, hayracks and sheds were acceptable. Now, my point is, looking at this thread I imagine CAM 2 farms are created in a more "industrial" style of agriculture, like plantations. Am I right? Those simple barns I was talking about would fit in stage 1, maybe stage 2. I like the idea of being-able-to-upgrade farms, but I am little concerned about what will happen to small farming communities (one of my strongest concerns with CAM). What is your opinion? I have no idea how do you plan to organize newly developed I-R stages, but maybe you could leave some stage 1 farms even for the biggest regions. A matter of playing style maybe? Or is this controllable with education, similarly how it is I-R demand without CAM? 

I admit I am a little bit confused, maybe my wishes are incompatible with the fundamental idea of CAM.
Anyway, keep the good work, I wish you luck! 

[InvisiChem]

And, if it was not clear already: I am perfectly willing to make my Farms in two versions. So if there is a SC4-Pim properties file that I can use for the new farms just tell me and I will start with adding a CAM 2 version to the farm lots I have already uploaded.
And hopefully I will be able to finish the Dutch farms Set with mrbisonm's props soon. As he is in the hospital right now it will take some time.

I have edited and edited that file. lol. So far, I can extend RCI except IR to 20 stages very easily. IR is another matter. So, I'll probably put up an extension to stage 15 for ID, IM, and IH. This will set up for at least the future expansion of IHT to higher stages (Them darn SOMY buildings violate the stage vs. density ranges).

Frank, I think I will continue with the optional Farm Plugin for you and the niche group that would enjoy them. Yes, this would require a special set of farms just for CAM 2. I will post them once I develop them. Depends on what I have to do to get this to work, while keeping the remaining system in place.

So far, you well know I have scattered ideas on this right now. 

[InvisiChem]

@APSMS Thank you for that reply. This really does help me to refine my thoughts a bit. A lot more details to work out of course and I completely agree this is not for the mass audience. More of an optional plugin to the CAM. I'm not a rural player myself.  Large city grids and regional economies are more my thing.    Plus, I like the challenge of trying to get this system working correctly.

Hopefully this doesn't become a first of many failed projects to come, lol, but it does give my brain something to work on.

[InvisiChem]

@Mandarin(a)
I have never used CAM, since I didn't like watching my cities turning into a metropolis. But after seeing your threads and reading about I-R fix and CAM 2 general awesomeness, especially with different playing styles available, I will have to rethink about it.

That is perfect. Please, do try it out and see which style brings you the most fun. I am very sure you will enjoy the CAM. For most of your questions here though, please read through the manual http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=17318.0

Now for some answers for you.

As the stage of a region progresses, stages less than that do not stop growing. Lets say an area is growing full stage 15 skyscrapers of all types, a new zone is just as likely to grow a lower stage building. Depends on percentage chance, desirability of the area and some other factors.

So, to control farms to remain at lower stages, don't provide fire coverage to the farming areas. Manually dispatch trucks if a fire does occur. This will cap your growth to lower stages. Another trick is don't put a park lot (i.e. Park, flower garden, plaza, etc) anywhere near a farm area. This again will restrict the stage of farms.

The IR Fix itself does not affect demand at all, except it provides some IR cap relief through the normal connections (Freight station, neighbor connections, etc.). It also causes Industries to grow in stage slightly faster because Farm jobs count as total industrial jobs now. Other than that, without the CAM, demand is not affected at all.

With the CAM, this is a very different story. CAM spreads the IR demand throughout the education and wealth types. This keeps demand up, even if you have a college, high school, university, etc. CAM decreases overall abandonment and makes farms a lot more tolerant to air pollution and traffic. As long as you zone residential, you will get IR Demand. Rural has the same benefits except a massive boost in IR Demand. Expect to have more IR Jobs than population with the Rural version.

I understand this thread can be confusing. It is a brainstorming and experimental thread for a possible farm/industrial overhaul. The original CAM will not be affected by this optional plugin, so please, feel free to download the CAM and have some fun with it.

[InvisiChem]

Listening very closely to earlier suggestions and working within the limitations of programs I don't want to rewrite right now, I have come up with expanded values for PIM-X. The new properties file has been expanded to cover ID, IM and IHT up to 15 stages. IR is expanded to cover up to 10 stages.

IR is staying with the Classic Agricultural model for now. I don't want to alienate the work that has already been done or make a huge amount of work for future development with methods I'm not sure how to implement quite yet. As with previous IR lots, the values are based on total employment as opposed to density per tile. The original CAM 1.0 values up to stage 5 are the same, stages 6 through 10 are graphed to a light positive curve (non-linear) to try to get the best of both ideas. Again, the original values are the same, just expanded.

ID, IM and IHT have been expanded using the exact same exponential curves as the original values, just expanded to stage 15.

The idea of the expanded industrial stages originally was embraced by RJ in the development of CAM 2 in the Beta forums. With this knowledge, I'll get those implemented in the minor increment of CAM 2. For now, the only buildings I'm aware of that would fit into stage 11+ industrials would be the SOMY 1 and 2 IHT buildings. CAM and PIM-X will now be able to handle all future versions of all industrial buildings from here on out.

I'm experimenting with a whole bunch of things with my SC4 game right now. So much, that I really don't get a chance to play. Usually, the changes crash to desktop. lol. This is the nature of progress and development. Strangely enough, it's where I really have some fun. I'll bring this idea up again when I get closer to a new form. Until then, I still wish to hear all of your comments, concerns and ideas about CAM Farming.

[Ocram]

CAM is my 2nd favorite mod after NAM but I disliked how forestry wasn't represented in Industrial-Resources (though national parks/forests were). Forestry would be on stages 2-7 (competing for space with big farms and factory farms) from old fashioned working forests and lumberjacks through fast growing tree farms for paper or engineered lumber, all the way to giant factories fed by (rapidly growing) bamboo forests, outputting tons of paper and engineered wood. Stages 8-10 would consist of intensive aquaponics and highrise greenhouses (Skyfarms).

[InvisiChem]

Interesting idea here. Even with this version, the only thing really stopping this is no development on them. Having the lots and BATs developed would grow on CAM just fine, both versions.

[Mad_genius]

The work that has been done with the CAM 2 is amazing.

I'm currently waiting for the installers to become more "polished/stable" before I try it on my current region.
The changes that you made to the IR to make it more resilient and last throughout various levels of education makes CAM 2 really interesting for players like me who like to build a region exploring the principles of Natural Growth.

On the subject of auto-upgrading farms, APSMS makes some good points although I believe we all agree it would be an awesome improvement.
My take on it currently is, don't give up on the idea but focus first on getting the core features of CAM 2 stabilized and matured. Let's see first how the community and the various CC creators react to CAM 2 over the next year, and then you'll have more feedback on it being worth implementing or not and how to do it.
Who knows, maybe speeder, who is doing the work on reverse engineering the code, might discover usefull information to help implementing the auto-upgrading for farms. Hope doesn't pay taxes yet, right?

Like I said before, as soon as the installers become more stable (particularly the Windows one since that's my current OS) I'll install it on my game. Since CAM 1 first came out I've never played SC4 without it (and the NAM of course) and I suspect that CAM 2 will follow the same trend.

Anyway, keep up the amazing work.

[InvisiChem]

@Mad_genius - The only real issue I'm having with the Windows installer at this point is the SC4 Dat Packer issues. The backup functions are working beautifully, so feel free to run the installer. Worst case, you copy your SimCity_1.dat from the backup directory back to the SimCity 4 install directory. This has not failed to work at all yet.

SC4 Dat Packer is working awesome for the most part. Only a few issues with certain system types. It may be a while yet before I get JDat Packer running from the command line. Feel free to check it out. Every error is helping me to finish polishing the installer.

Working on PIM-X'ing the growables at the moment. Time consuming but not difficult. Doing this, I'm also breaking the family system and giving every building it's own lots. This should make the selection more random, whereas right now SimCity seems to get stuck on certain family types pretty quickly.

That is some very solid advice. I took APSMS very seriously on this and I agree with the arguments you both have made. I will end up developing the new farming methods, just it's a little on the back burner until I figure out how to make it happen. For now, little things to fix with the current version. I need to get this thing as polished as the NAM lol.

[FrankU]

Hi Ocram,

You could make farm lots with farm fields filled with trees, right? If that is what you are looking for you should take a look at my Dutch Farm Fields set. It contains several farm fields with trees and you could use them to make your own forestry lots.

[InvisiChem]

Ocram, 
Frank does some beautiful work and work with him and you should have some unbelievable forestry lots. I am basic when it comes to lotting, useless when it comes to BATing  but with Frank's help I cannot even imagine the awesomeness that will come out of these lots.

[Mero90]

FrankU's fields look really nice, however they won't grow with CAM. Do I will make someting unbalanced if I merge the .SC4lot files into the "CAM_2.1.0_Buildings.dat"?

[FrankU]

Hmmmm, Mero90, is there something wrong with my farm fields? As long as you have Farm lots that grow with CAM my farm fields should grow with them.
The download I pointed at only contains farm fields, so there is nothing growable in that set.
If you want prefab farms that grow my farm fields I can point you at:
1. The Dutch Farm Lots Stage 0
2. The Maxis Override Set

The stages 1 up to 7 that I am preparing now for more than 4 years are still to come, sadly....

[InvisiChem]

Frank beat me to it. 

Farm fields require a building to reference them before they will grow. This is accomplished by adding the Field IID to the IR Building Exemplar entry Field Lots.

Hopefully this helps as well.

[Mero90]

Thanks, they are now growing 

There is any way to make greenhouses grow only on higher stages?

I also liked the idea that Ocram had. Moonlight made some wondeful bamboo models http://blog.livedoor.jp/moonlinght/archives/cat_59226.html