Another take on farms

[karolans]

Farms seem to be a hard nut to crack, there are already some interesting threads ie. by Rabiosa suggesting a special brush tool for zoning farms and others.
But at least a little improvement could be achieved by removing some of the fences - there is absolutely no reason for fences around the actual fields, so only leave them around the animal pens and make them darker so that the division isn't so obvious? Could look something like this (yes feel free to laugh at my photoshop skills ), you get the gist. If you want bigger farms, just zone more of them around small roads.
new version on the left

 

[charlesnew]

Yeah, I like the darker pens (no, your photoshop skills look quite good).

 

[medopu]

this would work if:
a)we had a way to seperate wheat fields from cattle ranches for example and other types of fields that are present.
b)there is still a problematically high number of silos. A silos should suffice for hundreds of these 4×4 fields.

 

[nitram78]

Interesting. In the UK you tend to see fields surrounded by hedges (these white fences remind me too much of the US and South Africa).

I agree with medopu, if the silos were reduced and maybe the fields we not all surrounded by fences (giving a chance for fields to almost appear as one), it may visually look better to the eye.

 

[Rabiosa]

Anything that helps to make farms to look a bit larger and more realistic is great imo. If farms are really stuck in this state, your changes to the fences really do make a great difference.

 

[eaglechopper]

Interesting. In the UK you tend to see fields surrounded by hedges (these white fences remind me too much of the US and South Africa).

I agree with medopu, if the silos were reduced and maybe the fields we not all surrounded by fences (giving a chance for fields to almost appear as one), it may visually look better to the eye.

In Aus our farmland is usually wire fence, sometimes no fence

 

[BigGiantBear]

looks better than the default ones but they should be at least 16x16 and not 8x8

 

[karolans]

Yup I do agree with everything, this just seems like a quick temporary fix. We have no idea how the game is handling things, let's just wait until we know something or have the game in our hands

 

[medopu]

What about this idea:

1) you get 4 seperate (level 1) farm fields connected like picture shows
2) game notices that and upgrades these four 4×4 fields in one 8×8 level 2 farm field
3) remove the fences and voila! Bigger farm

 

[BigGiantBear]

What about this idea:

1) you get 4 seperate (level 1) farm fields connected like picture shows
2) game notices that and upgrades these four 4×4 fields in one 8×8 level 2 farm field
3) remove the fences and voila! Bigger farm

i think the game can handle only independent 4 square tile. only thing to do in this case is to make them look the same like it would be only one big farm, but each square would function alone and can't be merged with others to share a bigger number of jobs, workers and production.
what could be done, if the modding tool allows it, is to take a bigger building like the airport and modify it into a farm that would be placed by the player each time he wants a new big farm and forget about the agricultural zone ones.

 

[karolans]

Weeeell if the modding tools would even allow custom zones, we'd make one called "agricultural" and give it a list of buildings to spawn. The possibilities are infinite, too bad we can't wait 10 more years for the game to be released

 

[medopu]

i think the game can handle only independent 4 square tile. only thing to do in this case is to make them look the same like it would be only one big farm, but each square would function alone and can't be merged with others to share a bigger number of jobs, workers and production.

Game can perfectly well handle lots of various sizes. Just look at airports and stadiums.

The problem with farm-fields being 4×4 like every other zone exists because zoning mechanics can't zoning above 4×4, not the whole game itself.

Then you say that game can recognize independant fields and make them "look like" they're one big farm, which is not the best solution. If you can recognize different farm fields and just visually connect them together, you might as well just make it function like one farm too.

 

[BigGiantBear]

Game can perfectly well handle lots of various sizes. Just look at airports and stadiums.

The problem with farm-fields being 4×4 like every other zone exists because zoning mechanics can't zoning above 4×4, not the whole game itself.

Then you say that game can recognize independant fields and make them "look like" they're one big farm, which is not the best solution. If you can recognize different farm fields and just visually connect them together, you might as well just make it function like one farm too.

don't know how the game could go over the 4 square zone limit, we don't even know yet if we can modify the existing big lots. this is why sooner or later the devs need to give us more info about the modding tools.

 

[Deville]

Game can perfectly well handle lots of various sizes. Just look at airports and stadiums.

The problem with farm-fields being 4×4 like every other zone exists because zoning mechanics can't zoning above 4×4, not the whole game itself.

Then you say that game can recognize independant fields and make them "look like" they're one big farm, which is not the best solution. If you can recognize different farm fields and just visually connect them together, you might as well just make it function like one farm too.

Those are placed by the player manually and don't spawn because of a specific zone.

 

[medopu]

don't know how the game could go over the 4 square zone limit, we don't even know yet if we can modify the existing big lots. this is why sooner or later the devs need to give us more info about the modding tools.

yeah. seems like modding is the only plausible solution for now at least. Since this game is beta already anyway, we can definitely forget about farms for the base game. BUT we can hope for a farming DLC of sorts.

 

[eaglechopper]

The problem most likely is how farms are implement in game. Farming, Mining, Forestry, Oil are all part of the base industry class zone and thus must follow the restrictions placed on it including maximum lot size. The way to fix this would indeed be to make another zoning tool specifically for farming but that would then break the design choice to using policies to control industry.

The problem also with combining multiple grids is that the road tools are freeform so it's it's harder to tell if there is an two 4x4 to make an 8x8 industry zone compared to a game like simcity4 and transport tycoon where the grids are fixed.

 

[karolans]

Farms are already in the game as a feature, they can still be improved even though they are in beta. No more base features doesn't necessarily mean no new tools for zoning

 

[cd concept]

I like the way the agriculture mod works in SimCity 4. You can stretch the grid anyway you want. Into all kinds of shapes and sizes big and small in between forest, creeks,and hills. And it looks more natural than square boxes.
That's why I think most people like the way SimCity 4 farmland looks. It establishes a rural and farm area in the beginning of the game. Later to be sold for residential commercial or industrial land in the future. That's the way to go!!

 

[yurcick]

Wow, there are places in the world where most farms are fenced. Never seen something like that in Russia.

 

[karolans]

Ok let's not revive this thread anymore . They actually mentioned farms over a week ago in that Reddit AMA, including the idea of removing fences and such... They just know everything already, let's just wait for that launch