Start the Farm (farming industry grid)
This is a compact starting layout for your farm industry area, designed to quickly get you to level 3 so you can unlock buildings to start customizing for the space you actually have in an aesthetically pleasing way. This grid can be placed on any road (boulevard, avenue, or highway) of your choice. However, if you are using it to build your "forever farm," instead of sprinting toward a base level of unlocked items so you can rebuild to your preferences, I recommend building a feeder road with dedicated highway access for this asset to handle growth past industry level 3.
It’s dirt roads with some country decor for character. You can see in the images that I leave 2 units on the empty side for a future workers barracks (while a small grain silo furthest, or second from furthest, on the decorated side looks nice with a bit of fencing – set it to empty or you’ll be sorry) and plop the industry area main building in the small central block. I start with 3 orchards immediately across from the farmstead I just created, then fill up a run on the sides with crops (choose whatever skins you think are appealing or swap farmland for orchard if you wish). After you have at lease one orchard area and one run of crops, you can support two animal pastures in the center-center without importing resources. Add the final orchard area and run of crops to finish off the inner grid!
REACHING LEVEL 3 (speed-run)
Assuming you are building early and have to wait to afford each asset as you go: If you dive into animals early you will need to wait a bit after filling the grid area to pop level 3 (animals consume your export product), if you leave animals for the last you will likely hit level 3 when you go to place the second pasture (you had to hire farm hands). If you have a tidy nest egg available to plop everything at once it’s just a waiting game for level 3.
EXPANDING THE FARM
Based on where your fertile land resources are in relation to your roads will really change how you want to build the rest of your farm if you continue with this starter grid. Be strategic about placing utilities and services (like fire and public transit) and additional access points as you grow your farm. The grid layout you make works best for extractor style assets in the industry area: fields, pastures, cattle sheds, etc.
ON TRAFFIC JAMS
DO NOT zone RCI inside this asset, bonus points if you don’t zone around it either. I don’t tend to see traffic issues in farming industry areas until I’m mid-level 4 or 5 if I avoid growing the city around the industry area (it’s usually a shock when traffic starts piling up). You can get a pretty slick working level 5 industry area with this asset if you constructed a well planned feeder, upgraded to one way roads as needed (this always makes me sad as the dirt road feels right for this), and MADE SURE TO PLACE ANY FLOUR MILLS AND SLAUGHTER HOUSES OUTSIDE THIS GRID. (those always bog it down so I’ve started placing the processing plants and large barns/warehousing off the feeder road rather than in the farm grid starter).
