Automated Farming Help

[Indianer]

How do you get your settlers to do all of the farming. I want them to be able to plant, harvest, and thresh, etc all the crops. And to know which to plant for which season. I'm not sure which buildings to assign them to, other than the barn obviously.

[*Morri*]

For field and orchard work:

1. You need to go to the field settings of each field and plan the crops you want in the correct season.
2. you need to make sure the things your farmers need are either in the chest of the shed (not the barn!) or the chest in the resource storage building. That are bags, fertilizer, seeds, hoes and sickles/scythes.
3. you need to assign your field workers to the shed. NOT the barn.

Make sure they live close enough to the shed and that the shed isn't too far away from the fields. Otherwise they'll have to travel a long time and waste precious farming time.


For barn work (making fertilizer, threshing grain):

1. Assign your workers to the barn
2. set the correct tasks you want them to do in the barn management menu
3. make sure all the necessary materials are either in the chest of the barn or in the chest of the resource storage building (food storage if it's rot)

[Trim]

The farm management screen takes a bit of getting used to. Select the field and the magnifying glass shows the current status. The four season icons show the planned state of the field in each season. The only thing you need to set is when to plant. So, for example, you can click on Spring, press C to show the crops that can be planted in Spring, click on a crop and press F to select it, then click on a square you want to change to this crop type. You can click-drag to change a rectangle of squares. Click on another season or press Esc when you are done, and you will be asked whether you want to save. The game will automatically fill in green (growth) and yellow (harvest) squares in the correct season for whatever you have chosen to plant.

You can harvest and plant in the same season, so if a square is already yellow, then you can still select it for planting a crop without any ill effect (well, see below). If you select to plant on a green square I am not sure what happens, but I expect you will lose the green crop.

Field workers, provided they aren't too low a level, can get through quite a lot of work. My only field worker is now level 6 and spends a lot of their time lazing about, but I think they were level 4 when I set up my current field system, and they have never had any problem completing all the work. I have 229 field squares in total, and plant 269 squares each year. Only 40 squares are double-cropped; 28 of these are rye and oats (harvest and plant in Spring and Autumn) and 12 are double cabbage (plant in Spring, harvest and plant in Summer, and harvest in Autumn). You need to be a little careful with how many double crop squares you have, because they are very demanding on the field worker. There will always be one season (and there may be two, as with rye and oats) where they have to harvest, fertilise, plough and sow all within the same season, as well as harvest and sow other squares. If a square only has a single crop, then the fertilising and ploughing can be left for a time when the field worker is not busy. In my big flax field (plant in Spring and harvest in Summer, my field worker used to take till Winter to complete the ploughing (but now they are level 6 they can get most of it done in the Summer, with only a bit of ploughing left till Autumn).

Other players, I notice, like to double crop more so they can get away with smaller fields, but they probably require more field workers in the busy seasons.

[Ookapia]

A small correction: field workers are special in every respect. Their level is completely irrelevant, but their journey to work is very important. Field, farmshed and houses should be as close together as possible so that the field work can be done quickly. (Alternatively, if you have a lot of gardens and fruit trees in the city like I do, you can also spread out several farmsheds and employ plenty of people).

This peculiarity comes from the fact that the field workers are the only ones whose animation changes anything (in the fields). All other workers conjure up the product and the animation is only for our amusement.

[Indianer]

Thanks for all the info. It looks like a lot to manage, but I will give it a shot.

[Foxglovez]

Don't make huge fields. 5 x 10 max or many make smaller. Or start off with 2 farmers at least in busy seasons. Actually ask yourself what do your people need, what do they eat, what do you use for selling? If it really has no purpose then cut back on the work you make your folks do. Automation is a science but also an art. You are the conductor of a symphony. Don't expect perfection instantly and expect as village and needs change so will your farming.