NPC farmers and crop rotation

[neofit]

Hi,

I've checked the interface, read the wiki and a few posts on the issue. I am at the point where I want to start delegating farming to my villagers. It is taking me 1.5 in-game days to manage the fields and orchards currently. From what I've gathered my villagers will automatically do all the steps, from harvesting to seeding according to what's on the Fields tab. The problem is that I am doing a lot of crop rotation. Cabbage every summer everywhere where there is no oat, some fields do rye-flax-cabbage, etc.

It's a shame we don't have per-season setups, neither here nor in the herbalist hut. I've already given up on the herbalist, too much micromanagement is killing the fun for me. I am afraid having to micro-manage crops will kill the game for me completely.

Any tricks? At one point I thought I had had a great idea: I'll hide the bags from them so they don't sow, but remembered that they also need bags for fertilizing :).

Also I'm not sure when I can safely change the field contents in Management/Fields for the next crop. Some post I've read seemed to imply that if I change the crop on a ripe square before a farmer had actually harvested it, it will plow and fertilize that square instead. I hope not, it seems easier to do everything myself than look over the shoulder of every farmer.

Any advice welcome.

[Capuzzi09]

Here is what I do:
I just set up fields, one for each crop I want to grow - and I forget about field rotation.
I know, it would be much more "realistic" to actually be able to change plants according to the current season but it is impossible - so we need to deal with it as long as it stays like that.
So for me best solution is to set one field per crop that I want to grow and let them be unplanted in between.
Taxes for fields are quite low while at the same time the yield of all sort of grain is quite high so I don't really care about some unplanted fields. Better than doing all the fieldwork myself imo. It's boring and time consuming - I just leave that for my NPCs and spend the time on better activities.

[Michael]

I mean, you could just not rotate crops and have more fields. Just leave the cabbage fields as cabbage year round and have dedicated fields for each type of crop. It's a lot easier than trying to micromanage NPCs like that. That's what I do, and my farmers handle everything else on their own. All I have to do is designate an area to be a field and the crop that goes in it, they do the rest.

[neofit]

Not using rotation would make me create too many fields. Then again it looks like I am becoming too rich and am making too much food, to using the same fields without rotation might be good.

What if I hide the grain from then in for instance the hunting hut, then just sow by myself?

[Philtre]

Originally posted by neofit:

Not using rotation would make me create too many fields.

There's no real downside to having a lot of fields, aside from the space they take up. They don't count towards your build limit, and although there's a small tax on fallow fields, it's quite low (much less significant than the tax on harvests).

If you want your people to take care of the crops at all, the field settings need to match whatever's currently planted. Otherwise they'll plow it up to make ready for the "real" crop.

[Kwalyz]

I rotate the crops in my fields every season. I currently have two fields so it takes me a minute or two usually at the start of the season when I wake up. In a previous game I had four fields and it still only took a couple of minutes to manage the fields.

You can reassign the crop spaces to a new crop or clear it so there is no crop assigned whilst the crop that will be harvested this current season is still in the ground and the farmers will harvest the crops before they fertilise the space and plant a new crop (if you have a crop assigned to that space). (Yes they will harvest crops if you have cleared the plan so there is no crop to plant.)
Eg you have a 10 x 10 field with first 8 rows as flax and one as onion and one as beetroot. In summer you leave the beetroot row alone, reassign two as cabbage and clear the rest... A farmer will harvest the flax, one will start harvesting the onions. When the spaces assigned to cabbage have been cleared of crops, one of the farmers will start fertlising the rows assigned to cabbage.

I find that farmers don't have the same work priorities as I do. The AI has priority to start fertilising and ploughing as soon as spaces are clear of crops if the field plan has a crop assigned to it. So clearing the crops spaces of crops that aren't going to be planted that season will keep my farmers on track harvesting and planting the crops that need to be planted that season. Otherwise I find they will stop harvesting crops to prioritise fertlising and ploughing ... and that can be frustrating when other production chains are waiting on the items that are to be harvested that season.

[Michael]

Originally posted by neofit:

Not using rotation would make me create too many fields. Then again it looks like I am becoming too rich and am making too much food, to using the same fields without rotation might be good.

What if I hide the grain from then in for instance the hunting hut, then just sow by myself?

I'm not sure what you mean by too many fields. I have around 14 medium to large fields and 13 small orchards in my current town and the farmers handle them without issue.

[Uncredited Bunny]

My current farm set up is handled in a single day by a full staff of farmers (as long as I do most of the gathering before they start their day).
I have a very small village so I don't need much food for them, so my set up is smaller than most but :
My 9 fields are set up in a 3 x 3 square, with each field being 5 x 5. The fields are a single road width apart. As everyone has stated above, each crop gets their own field. its just easier than trying to manage them. Just have to make sure they have tools and stuff every so often.
Orchards on two sides, Market stalls on the third, with the Barn on the fourth (it has hops on either side).

As for the Herb, I build two. One gets micromanaged for whatever is most needed that season, the other is set to 10% on all the herbs. It doesn't get much, but it's something.

[ledington]

I have thirteen 5 x 4 fields, and 2 farmers. This enables me to rotate crops but I do need to make sure all seeds and grains are available in the resource storage in the appropriate season. I keep a reserve supply of grains and seeds in my personal house storage chest - because mysteriously, they can disappear from resource storage. I still help the farmers by scything crops but mainly because I just love doing it!

[neofit]

Originally posted by ledington:

I have thirteen 5 x 4 fields, and 2 farmers. This enables me to rotate crops but I do need to make sure all seeds and grains are available in the resource storage in the appropriate season. I keep a reserve supply of grains and seeds in my personal house storage chest - because mysteriously, they can disappear from resource storage. I still help the farmers by scything crops but mainly because I just love doing it!

Seeds in the general resource storage can be used for various tasks. What I am doing is store the grain needed for sowing inside the barn storage chest. It won't be available for cooking or brewing, but will be used by farmers. I usually leave a few percent more than exactly needed, but I chalk it down to my farmers being too low level and wasting a few seeds. For a few in-game years now I've been stocking my barn storage with a year's worth of seeds and fertilizer, with no issues.