Ok, thought I'd throw this out there to other players because it's driving me insane. I'm looking for a better, quicker way of clearing vegetation for placement of farms. At the moment I'm placing roads and deleting them. I've tried tenements but they leave a concrete footing which farmers tend to avoid. Is there a quicker way to remove vegetation?

PS. What I could really use is a chainsaw like in Tropico 1 cheat area.

But building and deleting roads can be profitable! Just lay out a long stretch that would cost you $60, $80, or $100, then backspace to undo the road; you get back $20 more than what you had tentatively paid!

But, seriously, like so many other community-building games, there should be a bulldozer tool to clear away terrain clutter.

I used garages, mines, etc to do it depending on how much I would try to clear. This was before I realized the farmers don't care. You can use ranches to remove the concrete.

(07-10-2011 02:36 AM)CaptainPatch Wrote:  But building and deleting roads can be profitable! Just lay out a long stretch that would cost you $60, $80, or $100, then backspace to undo the road; you get back $20 more than what you had tentatively paid!

But, seriously, like so many other community-building games, there should be a bulldozer tool to clear away terrain clutter.

I must have a seriously problematic game then because I've never received $ back from deleting roads. In fact I just tested it in game. I spent $160 laying roads, game was running on slow (also tested on pause), deleted the roads, checked funds only to find not only did it debit me for laying the roads, it took another $80 off me to delete them.???

Demolishing what you've built (dynamite cursor) doesn't do the trick. Before you finalize the road, use the backspace key to UNDO the road that you just laid down (deleting vegetation in roads in so doing). Plus the road length MUST be at least $60 long ($80 and $100 works best).

Go to a long section beach. Hit the R key to bring up the green square Road cursor. Left-click to set the start point of the road. Then stretch the proposed road out as far as it will reach. Left-click again. The proposed road is laid down (and vegetation and rocks get blown away). Immediately hit the Backspace key. The road is undone and your Treasury should now be $20 greater than when you started the procedure.

I _do_ have the most recent patch and this process works for me every time. When I start a mission, I use the road construction/undo procedure to clear out all of the vegetation and rocks where I'm thinking of building Farms and Ranches. (Doing this is how I discovered that doing so was profitable.) By the time I get done clearing away all of the clutter, my Treasury is usually @$3000 richer.

(07-10-2011 08:25 AM)CaptainPatch Wrote:  Demolishing what you've built (dynamite cursor) doesn't do the trick. Before you finalize the road, use the backspace key to UNDO the road that you just laid down (deleting vegetation in roads in so doing). Plus the road length MUST be at least $60 long ($80 and $100 works best).

Go to a long section beach. Hit the R key to bring up the green square Road cursor. Left-click to set the start point of the road. Then stretch the proposed road out as far as it will reach. Left-click again. The proposed road is laid down (and vegetation and rocks get blown away). Immediately hit the Backspace key. The road is undone and your Treasury should now be $20 greater than when you started the procedure.

I _do_ have the most recent patch and this process works for me every time. When I start a mission, I use the road construction/undo procedure to clear out all of the vegetation and rocks where I'm thinking of building Farms and Ranches. (Doing this is how I discovered that doing so was profitable.) By the time I get done clearing away all of the clutter, my Treasury is usually @$3000 richer.

Ahhhh, just tried it your way and it does work! Woot. That makes it a bit more fun. What I wouldn't give for a bulldozer tool though. <sigh>

Thankyou Captain.

Although since you now officially posted about it and I doubt this is an intended feature, do expect earning money from building and undo'ing roads to be patched

(07-10-2011 04:07 PM)LeaT Wrote:  Although since you now officially posted about it and I doubt this is an intended feature, do expect earning money from building and undo'ing roads to be patched

Actually, that's what I was hoping for. (I hate being tempted by an exploit that I can't resist!)

[Hmm. The "Patch patch". Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? ]

It is not necessary to clear the vegetation (ie: trees or bushes) for your farmers, because when they plant their crops the vegetation will automatically be removed from the plot.

About the road removal glitch, $20 isn't worth the effort because it's not a "get rich quick scheme." That is why they made "God Mode," its for people who don't know how to balance their budget (or just want to build without restrictions).

(08-10-2011 05:32 AM)Boston Wrote:  It is not necessary to clear the vegetation (ie: trees or bushes) for your farmers, because when they plant their crops the vegetation will automatically be removed from the plot.

About the road removal glitch, $20 isn't worth the effort because it's not a "get rich quick scheme." That is why they made "God Mode," its for people who don't know how to balance their budget (or just want to build without restrictions).

I've never seen my farmers clear a plot to plant, or have a plot self clear when they do plant. They seem to plant all over the place to avoid the trees and shrubs.

(08-10-2011 06:22 AM)ivory_malinov Wrote:  I've never seen my farmers clear a plot to plant, or have a plot self clear when they do plant. They seem to plant all over the place to avoid the trees and shrubs.

I am inclined to agree. If anything, I'm pretty sure that the farmers "take the path of least resistance." That is, upon exiting the Farm structure to do some planting, they WILL plop a field down in an area that is already cleared before they consider planting on decent soil that requires clearing. The result is that a given Farm's cultivated fields are scattered all about. I would MUCH prefer if the farmers bunched up the fields that they are working on the theory that if it takes less time to go from one field to the next, bunched up fields are much more efficient than scattered fields. So I pre-clear the potential fields in advance of dropping a Farm into the middle of the cleared area, hoping that the farmers plant optimally.

Why do you guys clear the farmland? Is it purely for aesthetic reasons? Or are you talking about those removable rocks that sometimes clutter your fields?

The farmers will clear any vegitation in their fields, even trees. Try placing farms in sets of two, right next to each other to make sure they fill up all the available nearby farmland. In fact, my typical farm "module" consists of two rectangular farms one square apart with three country houses wedged between them. Works great.

I don't think the farmers choose the most open area, it seems to me they choose the most fertile squares. If you watch them from year to year, they plant in different areas.

I tested it before I answered the post last night. I created a forest area and built farms in the middle. The farmers automatically cleared the trees.

(08-10-2011 07:31 PM)Boston Wrote:  I tested it before I answered the post last night. I created a forest area and built farms in the middle. The farmers automatically cleared the trees.

Was it ALL forest? My point was that the farmers would most likely plant in clear areas before bothering to plant in an area that needs to be cleared first (given identical fertility between the two kinds of areas).

My reversed field data is shaky (mostly because I didn't care about it until about 3 days ago, and then I'm not in a rush to do what I was going to do), but I'm fairly sure the farmers don't care. Provided it's passable (read: gree/non-red areas when trying to build), they'll dump a field there.