Optimal farm size?

[Strexxin]

Is there an optimal farm size? I know in Banished there was depending on the number of workers you assigned. Is this the case here too?

[MedeaFleecestealer]

Can be anywhere from 5x5 (1 farmer) up to 12 x 12 (7 farmers). You can start off with a small field and then enlarge it later if you want to.

[Strexxin]

Originally posted by MedeaFleecestealer:

Can be anywhere from 5x5 (1 farmer) up to 12 x 12 (7 farmers). You can start off with a small field and then enlarge it later if you want to.

But it doesn't matter what size you build? There won't be crop left to die because the farm was too big for the workers to harvest?

[MedeaFleecestealer]

Sometimes there will be no matter what size it is. But that should happen only occasionally. Only if you reduce the max number of farmers would it possibly happen consistently.

[jedi72]

I currently have 1 fisherman, 3 hunters, 2 gatherers, 1 orchard, 2 5X5 crop fields, and i consistently feed 90-100 pops.

I am planning to build another 2 5X5 fields and another orchard and fisherman to sustain another 100 pops and see how it goes, before starting the cattle/grain/bread chain.

[HunApo]

5-7 x 5-7 at start and once you have enough manpower go and extend them to 12x12
Reason for 5-7 is because of game limitation wont allow you to extend anything less then 5x5
So 5x5, 6x7, 7x6 and so on is good on start, but eventually you want the 12x12 anyway, so it is better to plan ahead

[SgtScum]

5x6 is the largest you can do with one farmer and its also the most efficient use of space vs farmers used. Larger fields are more for ease of management over twiddling with a large amount of small fields or if you want to make a single large crop of something like wheat or flax. But for growing a large variety of roots and greens and beans and keeping disease to a minimum then lots of 5x6 are the best option. Think of how the fields on the title screen are set up.

[mikeydsc]

Since this also models disease and blight, you do not want large fields. This is how you starve when a disease wipes out your crops. You want smaller lots, and often only a couple few together to stop disease transmission.

[restarter]

Originally posted by mikeydsc:

Since this also models disease and blight, you do not want large fields. This is how you starve when a disease wipes out your crops. You want smaller lots, and often only a couple few together to stop disease transmission.

I was curiouos if this was a mechanic in the game. Im just figuring out crops and have kept them small due to this concern. I would rather have a smaller field go bad than the whole shebang

[Zero1]

5x10 is only 2 farmers

[Matthew]

The other benefit of small fields is you can rotate clover while maintaining a more consistent annual food supply.

3 fields with the following rotation, staggered:

peas / beans
carrots / maintenance / turnips
clover / clover

Every year you are getting peas, beans, carrots, and turnips while having average field fertility go up long term.

If you do that rotation on 1 large field then you get less food variety and 1 year out of the 3 year rotation you get no food.

[mikeydsc]

There is no harm in building a couple extra fields. Always have maintenance and clover on a farm or 2. Keep those fertility rates up, you get more food.

I build in groups of 3 so 1 in the group is always getting worked on. If you have 3 pods of 3 farms, you will have 6 farms growing and 3 farms recovering.

[Owlchemist]

Btw how come I keep hearing 12x12 coming up as max size? You can go as big as you want if you use the expand field button. Eg doing 10x10 then expanding another 10x10.

[Shealladh]

Originally posted by mikeydsc:

There is no harm in building a couple extra fields. Always have maintenance and clover on a farm or 2. Keep those fertility rates up, you get more food.

I build in groups of 3 so 1 in the group is always getting worked on. If you have 3 pods of 3 farms, you will have 6 farms growing and 3 farms recovering.

Pity you cannot assign the Barn grazing on rotation from farm to farm, like wayponts

[daggaz]

You can also "build" a bunch of small farms off to the side, but pause the construction, and you force the game to give you more farm workers (one per field) who will then go and work on your active fields.

Man this game is rough when it comes to core functionality of a city builder.

[frank327]

Reminder that you can just build a bunch of 10x10 farms and then use 4/5 farmers. This gives you the same farmer/tile ratio as 5x5's but makes it a lot easier to manage your farms.

I don't know the exact mechanics of fertilization but I suspect that it is better to have large farms for more fertilizer impact. Even on a 10x10, you get 7% fertility from it and I don't think you get 28% on a 5x5 field. That would mean bigger = better.