An agricultural outpost

[jeroenla]

I found a nice spot to build a settlement, but to my surprise (noob) the farm fields take more place than I expected. The entire clearing in the forest I had planned for my town is now completely built. I do not want to cut down the forest, because I like forests.

So the question is: is it doable to make a farming outpost, taking into account that the commute from home to fields affects field productivity? If I build a few houses, a shed, and a storage far from my village, will the villagers be smart enough to work only the fields nearby? Or are they going to try to walk all the way across the map?

[Legadian]

The farmers (those who are assigned to the Farm shed) who actually work the Fields only do so when they complete the animation. All other workers can spend all day walking down roads, but the farmers must live/hang out near the fields to get to work on time to get the job done.

Therefore, it is doable, but only if you house the villagers who will be farmers, right by their fields.

Edit: The Farm Sheds have a range of about 70 meters. So, if you've got fields/orchards at your main settlement, the two groups of farmers shouldn't run across the map. If they do, report it as a bug.

[jeroenla]

70m radius from the shed only? Darn... it seems that no matter what question I ask, the answer contains some info I had never even thought about! Loving it.

Will the outpost need a food storage too, or is that just assumed to work from downtown?

[CaBux]

Originally posted by jeroenla:

I found a nice spot to build a settlement, but to my surprise (noob) the farm fields take more place than I expected. The entire clearing in the forest I had planned for my town is now completely built. I do not want to cut down the forest, because I like forests.


As a priority, build a Woodshed or two (until you can upgrade your Woodshed I to a Woodshed II) and hire 2 NPC woodcutters - they will collect wood for you without cutting down any trees in your village. They will provide you with all the logs, planks, sticks and firewood that you need. I do this as I too, like to keep all the trees in my village that I can

Outposts do need both a resource storage and a food storage that connect with your 'home' storage buildings

[*Morri*]

Originally posted by Legadian:

Edit: The Farm Sheds have a range of about 70 meters. So, if you've got fields/orchards at your main settlement, the two groups of farmers shouldn't run across the map. If they do, report it as a bug.

Not true, there is no limit to the range. You get an indication when a field is too far away from a shed to be efficient, but it won't stop your farmers from trying to go there.

[Legadian]

Originally posted by *Morri*:

Not true, there is no limit to the range. You get an indication when a field is too far away from a shed to be efficient, but it won't stop your farmers from trying to go there.

Just going by the information posted on the game's discord channel and my own experience.

Edit: I think we may be talking about two different scenarios.

If both settlements have fields and farm sheds with farmers near by, there is no field that will show the range inefficiency debut. Only if one settlement is missing a shed would your scenario play out. Otherwise, each group should take care of its own fields on a priority basis, first.

[Foxglovez]

It wont stop them but the field will be marked as too far away, which doesn't stop anything but when you first see that it looks like it should. It's just a caution.

The way to be happiest in this game is to learn from at least your first save. You will learn tons and screw up every way but Sunday so at some point many of us just said screw it and started over. And you also may think you need really big fields, which you actually don't. It's easy to overthink things when you have just a few people and you see pictures from folks who make enough fields that they could feed the world. Just a couple fields of 5x10, maybe even one to start, is just fine. You can also have your fields fairly close so the town looks like a figure 8 with craftish stuff going on in one area, maybe houses in the middle then fields on the other side of that. You will find that a great spot doesn't necessarily work well for a town. So many choices. None of them really wrong, just maybe problematic. Learn to think out of the box which is really hard early on when one is not exactly sure what the box is...

[Ookapia]

Originally posted by Legadian:

If both settlements have fields and farm sheds with farmers near by, there is no field that will show the range inefficiency debut. Only if one settlement is missing a shed would your scenario play out. Otherwise, each group should take care of its own fields on a priority basis, first.

It is not working this way. Have a look: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1129580/discussions/0/3842179510156550655/

[*Morri*]

Originally posted by Legadian:

Originally posted by *Morri*:

Not true, there is no limit to the range. You get an indication when a field is too far away from a shed to be efficient, but it won't stop your farmers from trying to go there.

Just going by the information posted on the game's discord channel and my own experience.

Edit: I think we may be talking about two different scenarios.

If both settlements have fields and farm sheds with farmers near by, there is no field that will show the range inefficiency debut. Only if one settlement is missing a shed would your scenario play out. Otherwise, each group should take care of its own fields on a priority basis, first.

That is sadly not correct. The first farmer to reach the shed they are assigned to, will get a field assigned where there is still work to do. Normally the field closest to the shed. If that field is on the other side of the map however, your farmer will still go there and the field is blocked for that task for closer by farmers who happened to arrive a bit later to their shed.

[Legadian]

I've only ever seen that scenario when farmers are assigned to a shed and there is no available work nearby. Which begs the question: why are they assigned as farmers to a shed without fieldwork nearby?

[The REAL chris]

3K hours of Experience tells me

Do NOT have fields scattered around. It is best to have a farming community in one area, this can be far away from your main village. but do NOT have fields (or orchards) in the village AND a farming community far away.

ie Farm location (3 fields - 3 workers) Village (3 fields- 3 workers). What will happen is some at least WILL travel to fields far away. ie: 2 fields at village need fertiliser. That takes 2 workers. 1 WILL, at some point, therefore go across the map to work on the far farm, as no work near him. That blocks that job from someone far away, and that one WILL go to the village.. Then ..... when the village farms need planting. a worker from the distant area WILL travel to the village as that is where the work is.

It's even worse if you have orchard trees scattered around as they will walk round to them in the summer as well gathering fruit.

[jeroenla]

I am starting to get the feeling it might be good to just put all farming in one spot, and tear down the existing farms (I just realized this is much like it would have gone IRL, as cities grew).

[Foxglovez]

Yes. Just start over. With your added knowledge you will get it all fixed pretty quickly. And then later you will realize that wasn't right either. As noted above, much like irl. It's actually much more important to figure out a place with good field potential, lots of flat space, a few trees maybe for your first village. Keep it simple. Get creative some new playthrough down the road. And know that what you see in your mind rarely is how it works out. Not altogether a bad thing.

There's been a lot of testing through the years and there are 5-6 places that are always chosen because they are just really good. There's Utubes, vids on this if you're interested..

[jeroenla]

Originally posted by Foxglovez:

Yes. Just start over. With your added knowledge you will get it all fixed pretty quickly. And then later you will realize that wasn't right either. As noted above, much like irl. It's actually much more important to figure out a place with good field potential, lots of flat space, a few trees maybe for your first village. Keep it simple. Get creative some new playthrough down the road. And know that what you see in your mind rarely is how it works out. Not altogether a bad thing.

There's been a lot of testing through the years and there are 5-6 places that are always chosen because they are just really good. There's Utubes, vids on this if you're interested..

I actually chose one of those six, the Crossroads one (the junction N from Denica). Thought I'd have enough room there (for my ninth attempt), with the little river as a natural border to the East. Now heading east to see if I can zone a residential area for my farmers. Just plopping down the blueprints, but not building.

But not quite happy with this either....
five fields, a barn, resource and food storage plus 5 houses. It looks messy

[img[https://imgur.com/asM1by6[/img]

[pdoan8]

Originally posted by jeroenla:

Originally posted by Foxglovez:

Yes. Just start over. With your added knowledge you will get it all fixed pretty quickly. And then later you will realize that wasn't right either. As noted above, much like irl. It's actually much more important to figure out a place with good field potential, lots of flat space, a few trees maybe for your first village. Keep it simple. Get creative some new playthrough down the road. And know that what you see in your mind rarely is how it works out. Not altogether a bad thing.

There's been a lot of testing through the years and there are 5-6 places that are always chosen because they are just really good. There's Utubes, vids on this if you're interested..

I actually chose one of those six, the Crossroads one (the junction N from Denica). Thought I'd have enough room there (for my ninth attempt), with the little river as a natural border to the East. Now heading east to see if I can zone a residential area for my farmers. Just plopping down the blueprints, but not building.

But not quite happy with this either....

How big is your village? Could you share a few screenshots?

I have built north of Denica many times, both south and north of the main river.

[jeroenla]

I have actually just moved south towards Denica for my agricultural expansion. That would leave some room for growth in my Old Center.

Screenshot (surprised I managed to get the whole village, camera mode is new to me too). Not sure how to embed in Steam, but...

https://imgur.com/vvJebVY

I intend the triangle to be the hub of commerce (some sales booths, a tavern). Up in the distance is the new expansion. Left bottom (near the fishermans hut) is room for expansion with commercial buildings.