OK, people. Now please sit down and take a deep breath.
This is about a set of farms with some size. The dependencies list seconds that.
So where should I start... First make you eager by showing some parts of the set? Or scare the heck out of you by showing the dependencies list first?
I am not a marketeer, so this is probably the wrong choice, but you have to live with it.
You could have seen some info on this in my lot thread already, but I am going to do some short summing up here now.
Chapter 1, The Farm LotsOK, so this is about a huge farms set.
The set contains farms from stage 1 up to 5 at the moment. You can build your farming community with almost only this set, so I recommend to use the BSC Maxis IR blocker.
Now some overview pictures.
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Stage 5
Chapter 2, The Stage 0 and Farm Field lotsNow I got something unusual. I have made 1x1 small Stage 1 farms that I call Stage 0. These are farms that contain nothing more that what you see in the adjoining farm field. The result is: you see a farm field without a farm, which can grow anywhere.
So these look like the farmfields that I have made. There are 21 of them.
I have some random images of the fields.
Seven tulip fields

And some different like malus, humulus, rubus fruticosus, asparagus, cucurbita, triticum, mays.




OK, then. Got your attention?
A short summing up of the set:
About 15 farms in every stage from 1 to 5, meaning a total of about 75 farms.
Also the so called "Stage 0" farms: 21 different ones. This contains 7 flower fields, 1 pasture and 13 crop fields. These fields are not completely new. I derived them mostly from Simgoober and the SPAM, but they have been altered a bit and the seasonal properties are a bit different.
All these farm fields are also available as ploppable fields.
Chapter 3, The Dutch LandscapeThe objective of this set was to be able to get a rural area that looks as much as possible as the dutch landscape. So the farm fields are edited in a way that the seasonal behaviour more or less comes close to the behaviour of the Dutch farm fields: growing time and reaping time wise.
Also most of the farms will have the pastures growing most of the time, because the Dutch landscape is dominated by pastures and grassland. Have a Google Maps view on the country if you like. You could type in "Netherlands, Deventer" and have a look around the town. It's the town I live in, by the way.
I have been thinking of includig three or four different pasture lots, but I decided not to, because I could not find enough nicely matching textures. Besides that: I think in most cases I will delete the pasture farm fields and use the terrain texture as pasture, where I (and you) can MMP props onto.
Also it would demand an enormous amount of lots in order to have the right textures next to fence lots (e.g. ChrisAdams) and the like.
So far about the farm fields.
I do not BAT.
That is important, because this is the main reason for the huge dependencies set. I had to scrutinize quite some prop packs and uploads in order to find a good amount of barns, sheds, houses, vehicles and other props that match the Dutch opinion on how a farm should look. A lot of common things were not found at all and that was the moment
Fred/mrbisonm came in. He offered to BAT some props for me. Things like manure pits, silage silo's, haystacks, sheds and barns. He is working hard on them at the moment.
Why Fred? Maybe it's because both of us have a family root in the German Aachen area? I am not sure. It is certain that he knows the Dutch landscape in some way, that he likes to BAT and that he was, apparently, triggerde by my first images of the farms set.
In some of the images above you see open spaces that do not look realistic: there I hope to put Fred's props when they are ready. Probably I have to rearrange a lot of my farms when his set is finished and maybe I will be able to kick out one or two megapacks from the list that I will show you further on in this post.
(getting some coffee now)(you might take the opportunity to do that yourself too)
In the Stage 4 and 5 farms images you see some of Fred's first barn models on my lots. The final ones will look more or less alike, so I am already anticipating and lotting with them.
Chapter 4, The Set up of the FarmsIn order to get as much variation as possible with as little props/lots/buildings as possible I decided to make a large group of prop families first. I released these already some time ago on the STEX: The
FrankU Farm Prop Families Maxis and BSC, uploded the last version in july 2011, downloaded 598 times up to today.
For this set of prop families I used the dependencies that are neccessary for the CP Meadowshire Terrain mod. Two reasons: the dependencies are very common and this Terrain Mod is used by me, because I think it gives a good base texture for the lush Dutch farmlands. So I recommend it if you want to use my farms set.
I use these prop families extensively on my farm lots, meaning that the looks of the lots can vary very much from lot to lot.
As an example I show you here:
Kuiermans Weide 1
This is the same lot! One file in your plugins folder.
So the first dependency is:
1. FrankU Farm Prop Families V1.1
For this prop families set I needed the following dependencies:
2. BSC MEGA Props - CP Vol01
3. BSC MEGA Props - D66 Vol01
4. BSC MEGA Props - Gascooker Vol01
5. BSC MEGA Props - MJB Vol01
6. BSC MEGA Props - RT Vol01
7. BSC MEGA Props - SG Vol 01
8. BSC MEGA Props - swi21 Vol01
9. BSC MEGA Props JRJ Vol04
10. BSC MEGA Props JRJ Vol05
Then I scrutinized for other useful barns, animals and other props.
I also needed some decent base textures that went with the Meadowshire terrain mod. Naturally CP textures go with this.
So I decided to add:
11. BSC_TexturePack_Cycledogg_V 01b
12. BSC Ploppable Cattle
13. BSC Mega Props - JMyersAgriculture01
14. BSC MEGA Props - KWKVol02
15. BSC MEGA Props - Misc Vol01
Of course there are some Maxis buildings as props on the lots, so I guess you need (not 100% sure):
16. bldgprop_vol1
17. bldgprop_vol2
While I was working on my lots Simpeg came up with SPAM. A long time I have been doubting wether I should include this pack. I decided positively when I found out that I could throw out some other prop packs that I had included in the first place (like BSC textures and Newman Inc vol 1).
So there we go:
18. PEG_Spam_Super_Resource
And we have some flower and farm fields by Simgoober.
19. Simgoober Farm Fields Revised
And not the least important ones: a set of single model downloads. You need only certain models from the following files. They are mostly Dutch models, so definitely neccessary for the farms.
20. JS_Tobacco barn
21. vda_Langeraar Geerweg, by Vanderaap
22. Zeeland Cottages1, by Meurdoos
23. Zeeland Village 9 houses, by Meurdoos
24. Dutch Farm Pack, by Haarlemmergold
You also need Tag_One's RNP ploppable greenhouses and RNP T1 Dutch Farmers Houses. These are only available on a SC4D disk at the moment, which you have to buy, but Tag_One is working on a new prop pack that will contain these files for you and me.
25. Tag One prop pack, name not yet known.
So the list contains 25 downloads at the time.
Fred's Modern Farm Prop Packs will be added when they come out.
It might be possible to delete one or two prop packs form the list when Fred's props are available, but I am not sure. I will do my best though, without decreasing the quality of the set of course.
Chapter 5. The QuestionSo here's the question:
Do you think it is worth wile to download all these files in order to have a totally new rural look?Please comment.
I must add to my defense the following:
1. Many of the above mega packs are very common, so most of you will have them installed anyway.
2. Once you have installed these packs, you will be able to add my Rewards, Churches and Windmills without downloading too many extra files, besides the neccessary models, of course.
3. After release of the set I will not be finished. It might even be possible that I quit playing the game altogether and concentrate on lotting only. I have plans to add:
- Additional Rewards
- Stage 6, manors and country houses
- Stage 7, castles and abbeys
- Commercial lots like milk factories, grain silo stations, cattle food factories, machinery stores.
- Several ploppable eyecandy stuff for your Dutch rural atmosphere.
It might take some time though.
That will be enough for today,
Greets and have fun!
FrankU