PROPOSED SOLUTION: Small farms

[Hannodb]

Sure, 4x4 farm sizes are not realistic, but so too is the idea that mayors get involved in agriculture. City councils don't get to zone for agriculture. Quite often, it happens the other way around: Agriculture is there first - often creating the incentive to start a town in the first place, and then the city need to buy out that land in order to expand.

My proposed solution is to remove agriculture from the city building mode of the game all together, and move it to where it actually belongs: The terrain editor.

Once you divorce agriculture from the zoning functionality, you immediately remove all the restrictions that is valid for city development but not agriculture: Farmland is not restricted in size, nor does it have to be next to a road. You could have a circle tool to set pivot irrigation, or a polygon tool for large farmland areas. A line tool can be used for planting trees between lands, and then you can have dirt roads between farmland. A tool similar to the district tool can be used to define the borders of individual farms, with farm names automatically popping up.

Once you're happy with your agricultural land, you can start your city.

The plus side of having farms is that it could provide your small town with an economic boost.

The minus side is that you'll have to buy out each farm before you can expand on it. One could even consider keeping the farm boundaries as new districts in the city that can be merged with existing districts. New suburbs often inherit the name of the farm it is build on.

I think this will elegantly resolve the farm issue in a realistic way, which, as far as I can see, is the biggest objection that has been raised against this game.


I would love to hear the feedback from both fans and the dev team

 

[Lakenstaken]

I don't like this idea much, because I can't plan that far ahead, suddenly the place where I placed my farms might seem like a good spot for a suburb.

 

[Hannodb]

I don't like this idea much, because I can't plan that far ahead, suddenly the place where I placed my farms might seem like a good spot for a suburb.

I fail to see the problem. This happens all the time as modern cities expand. You simply buy up the farm and turn it into a suburb.

 

[medopu]

I fail to see the problem. This happens all the time as modern cities expand. You simply buy up the farm and turn it into a suburb.

Exactly, that's Hannodb's idea! Things like farms, power plants, airports, railway stations, big chunck of all the road network, i might be exaggerating but probably half of the city really, isn't being done by city itself, but mandated by government and private enterprise.

Real mayors functions, and that of city council, municipal representatives, are really quite limited, as Hannodb pointed out, that's why we've got games, that can help us overcome that barrier in a fictional environment, where we can have a sort of a bigger say in what we do and how we want things to look. Like a dictator, but not really. More like a mixture of god and dictator.

 

[Hannodb]

Exactly, that's Hannodb's idea! Things like farms, power plants, airports, railway stations, big chunck of all the road network, i might be exaggerating but probably half of the city really, isn't being done by city itself, but mandated by government and private enterprise.

Real mayors functions, and that of city council, municipal representatives, are really quite limited, as Hannodb pointed out, that's why we've got games, that can help us overcome that barrier in a fictional environment, where we can have a sort of a bigger say in what we do and how we want things to look. Like a dictator, but not really. More like a mixture of god and dictator.

No. My idea is only to do that with farms, since farms are often a pre-extisting part of the landscape before the towns are started, and it would solve the problem of the small farms. I am not at all in favour of expanding this to airports, ports train stations, etc.

Either way, I don't really mind. I can live with the small farms. I'll be building cities, not farms.

 

[charlesnew]

I'm just imagining them coming in tomorrow and saying

"WE HAVE BIG FARMS! WE HAVE BIG AIRPORTS!"






But probably won't happen.

 

[charlesnew]

I'm just imagining them coming in tomorrow and saying

"WE HAVE BIG FARMS! WE HAVE BIG AIRPORTS!"






But probably won't happen.

 

[kosh22]

Farms -NO. They have made that very clear already.

Airports -They have remained very silent on that topic so maybe they have taken comments on board.

 

[Chaapa]

It hopefully won't happen. It's a waste of resources

 

[Fantail]

I am wondering if the mechanics - meaning the commerce behind agriculture in the game would play well with a mod that say - let you plop a farm building. Where each floor had hydroponics. I don't think I'll go nuts with agriculture, but I want farms in the game. Maybe a farm lot and plop able fields or two. It's one thing I kind of liked in XL.

 

[kovak]

Well, i living in the rural area in germany now and the farms are small, [not like the game but more 8x8-10x10 lots], maybe the best idea to make farms is 'decor plops' like in CIM """farms"""...

 

[kosh22]

Would love to see decor plops like national parks/beuatispots. Would make a good tourist trap.

 

[madpc]

I also wanna see farms, big farms. There was one time I traveled in japan, and I saw farms everywhere within/outside the cities, and they are so beautiful.

For paradox, the visual effect/eye candy of farms is also a good way to attract new gamer.

 

[cRAGGLE]

Removing farms is blasphemy. Also, I can't believe someone suggested to remove Airports also. Shame on you, if anything they should be improving both making them larger and more realistic.

 

[jo-o]

ok i also thought of a solution and it is sitting in front of everyone's noses. Where you can't see it until its pointed out to you and then it is obvious. if you use the regions and policy's to allow for bigger zones meaning you can have bigger farms. You could also use the system for the airport. I thought of this idea before seen this one. And I think either idea will work well.

 

[Hannodb]

The advantage of having farms as part of the terrain editor, rather than the city builder, is that you could have farms in the "eye candy" section of the map as well, and those farms could continue to contribute to the economy of your city, even when you filled all your city tiles.

 

[medopu]

one good idea of having pre-existing farms is, that no city on this planet earth can exist without farms directly enarby.

Farms already existed, but cities never get-build. Cities grow from villages, and farms already exist just as villages.

You cannot have a city without farms, this is why I like Hannodbs idea.

 

[KyleJ]

I dislike the idea of having to buy out farmland... we're already having to buy plots, I don't see the reason for them having to buy a field with corn growing in it if its possible for me to demolish a whole residential neighbourhood just to place a highway, it seems unnecessarily restrictive especially in the bounds how other things are built.

As much as this is a solution, to me it just sounds overly-complicated... what If I wanted to make a farm land whilst I'm in the middle of building my city? Like Lakenstaken said, I dislike the idea that you have to think THAT far ahead. What if I wanted to make a farm town? I'd have to plan to such meticulous detail to make things fit that it'd take a lot of the fun away.

 

[AKicebear]

one good idea of having pre-existing farms is, that no city on this planet earth can exist without farms directly enarby.

Many cities in China have zero or marginal sized farming communities within a distance you consider to be part of the city...

 

[Torv]

I don´t like the idea of farms as a part of the terrain editor.

Perhaps the problem is the 4x4 size but for me is worst if I can´t play with the agriculture zones during the game, if I can´t decide if I create or move them.

For me, farms are a zone, a zone that I define in my planning, no a zone that I have predefined in the terrain editor.
Even I would prefer farms as an individual building with different sizes.

I'm expecting to see if Colossal Order has another alternative.

 

[Hannodb]

Many cities in China have zero or marginal sized farming communities within a distance you consider to be part of the city...

Many cities in China is build for millions of people over night, and is completely empty. It's by far the biggest real-estate bubble in history. I wouldn't take them as a benchmark.

[video=youtube;wm7rOKT151Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm7rOKT151Y[/video]