How do farms work?

[Grimmrog_SIG]

So i amde a mushroom farm, I have chosen the size to be for one worker as the room layout shows before deploying the farm.

however at the end I can assign up to 7 farmers to it.
And of course if I assign 7 of them the production per day is higher than with a single 1.

so how does that work? why does the tooltip say worker 1.00 and why can I assign more when they also produce more, Shouldn't we be able to NOT assign more? or at leats not get more outcome? how does this mechanic work at all?

[PaddeMcnasty]

I think the one worker thing is the bare minimum required to farm that patch of land. But keep in mind, you can build super sized farms that would allow 40+ workers but tend to only need maybe 25 or so. So yes farming is a bit.. off, but once you get the hang of it, through experience you wil be able to feel how much you need. Also, farm production doesn't go higher with more workers, more workers only really come into play during the prep phases and the harvesting phase, as you want those done as quick as possible. But you can't up the production like you would in a carpenter shop or a mine, a farm wil only produce a set amount and by setting more workers, you can get closer and closer to that maxed out set amount. Hope that helps you out.

[Nphyx]

From what I've gathered observing some farms of different sizes, it seems like it goes like this:

There's a current task scheduled for each farm (tilling, planting, tending, harvesting, weeding or something like that). At least some phases have a cap on how much progress can be made each day, no matter how many workers are assigned. The tasks are somewhat tied to season. Once the workers reach 100% of daily progress they go idle for the day and the overall task progress increases. If the day ends before they reach 100% daily progress the amount of overall progress is penalized. Once one task completes they move on to the next task (so tilling -> planting -> tending -> harvest).

Workload on the farm seems to represent how much of the day's working hours it takes to finish the day's tasks. So if they're at 50% workload and the work day is 12 hours, that means they finished up in 6 hours and piddled around the rest of the time. Workload caps at 100%, meaning they didn't finish up before the day ended.

So what you want is to assign just enough workers to stay below 100% workload, but not much lower than that. Going over is just wasting workers that could be doing something else.

I *think* you can seasonally micromanage this, since some tasks allow more progress and higher workloads than others. But I would not bother with that.

[Jeffreyac]

Hate to start a new thread for another farm questions, so I'll politely intrude here with another one! :)

...so, building a farm... I've looked at the size I wanted, decided I didn't have the workers for it yet, so I built one half that size with the idea that I'd double it at a later time.

...so now it's later, and I'm ready to double. Is there any difference in end production between building another same-size farm right next door (doubling by adding a second same-size farm) vs doubling by adding to the existing farm (keeping it one farm, but doubling the area)?

The second way was what I was going to do, but it occurs to me that this will reset the progress of the current farm, and I think I'd lose the harvest for this year - so if there's no difference in the end, seems like it'd be a better idea to just add a second farm instead of expanding the first. Do I have that right, or am I missing something?

[Grimmrog_SIG]

Originally posted by Nphyx:

From what I've gathered observing some farms of different sizes, it seems like it goes like this:

There's a current task scheduled for each farm (tilling, planting, tending, harvesting, weeding or something like that). At least some phases have a cap on how much progress can be made each day, no matter how many workers are assigned. The tasks are somewhat tied to season. Once the workers reach 100% of daily progress they go idle for the day and the overall task progress increases. If the day ends before they reach 100% daily progress the amount of overall progress is penalized. Once one task completes they move on to the next task (so tilling -> planting -> tending -> harvest).

Workload on the farm seems to represent how much of the day's working hours it takes to finish the day's tasks. So if they're at 50% workload and the work day is 12 hours, that means they finished up in 6 hours and piddled around the rest of the time. Workload caps at 100%, meaning they didn't finish up before the day ended.

So what you want is to assign just enough workers to stay below 100% workload, but not much lower than that. Going over is just wasting workers that could be doing something else.

I *think* you can seasonally micromanage this, since some tasks allow more progress and higher workloads than others. But I would not bother with that.

This would question if it's possible to reach 100% qorkload with a single worker (at 1.00 race efficency) at a farm higher than designed by one worker, because it seems so, but if that is, planning farms qith the working indicator seems to be a bit useless.

Originally posted by Jeffreyac:

Hate to start a new thread for another farm questions, so I'll politely intrude here with another one! :)

...so, building a farm... I've looked at the size I wanted, decided I didn't have the workers for it yet, so I built one half that size with the idea that I'd double it at a later time.

...so now it's later, and I'm ready to double. Is there any difference in end production between building another same-size farm right next door (doubling by adding a second same-size farm) vs doubling by adding to the existing farm (keeping it one farm, but doubling the area)?

The second way was what I was going to do, but it occurs to me that this will reset the progress of the current farm, and I think I'd lose the harvest for this year - so if there's no difference in the end, seems like it'd be a better idea to just add a second farm instead of expanding the first. Do I have that right, or am I missing something?

If the worker is at 100% workload adding to the existing farm makes sense, othrwise it seems not to care much, aause from yes entirely rebuilding the farm. Thw most dangerous part at thw bwginning could be the lack of initial ressources to finish the farm. Unlike livestock, which can start producing at only one of x may livestock, a farm need to be finished before starting to work.

So when you already ran out of veggies and extend a farm you may end up with a farm in the building process at 49/98 veggies not starting production at all. Then you need to find wild veggies or import them. Or in best case if you have another veggie farm need to wait for it's harvest.

[Nphyx]

Originally posted by Grimmrog_SIG:

This would question if it's possible to reach 100% qorkload with a single worker (at 1.00 race efficency) at a farm higher than designed by one worker, because it seems so, but if that is, planning farms qith the working indicator seems to be a bit useless.

Yeah It seems like it takes fewer workers to manage a farm than the default employee assignment. E.g. a 16x8 farm, which defaults to 2 employees, can be run by one. But I think they have a higher workload during harvest tasks (and possibly others, I didn't get interested enough to fully test this), so either micromanaging the farm or just leaving more employees than bare minimum might get you more harvest cycles per year.

[Grimmrog_SIG]

Originally posted by Nphyx:

Originally posted by Grimmrog_SIG:

This would question if it's possible to reach 100% qorkload with a single worker (at 1.00 race efficency) at a farm higher than designed by one worker, because it seems so, but if that is, planning farms qith the working indicator seems to be a bit useless.

Yeah It seems like it takes fewer workers to manage a farm than the default employee assignment. E.g. a 16x8 farm, which defaults to 2 employees, can be run by one. But I think they have a higher workload during harvest tasks (and possibly others, I didn't get interested enough to fully test this), so either micromanaging the farm or just leaving more employees than bare minimum might get you more harvest cycles per year.

I am currently tring stuff with cretonian, but damn, even with a village made nearly only of farms and their race bonus at a high fertility they can hardly feed themselvs, this is so weird and odd thhat I start to think farming is utterly imbalanced. Fish and husbandry works so much better also giving a steady income of food.

[optimumscar]

Originally posted by Grimmrog_SIG:

Originally posted by Nphyx:

Yeah It seems like it takes fewer workers to manage a farm than the default employee assignment. E.g. a 16x8 farm, which defaults to 2 employees, can be run by one. But I think they have a higher workload during harvest tasks (and possibly others, I didn't get interested enough to fully test this), so either micromanaging the farm or just leaving more employees than bare minimum might get you more harvest cycles per year.

I am currently tring stuff with cretonian, but damn, even with a village made nearly only of farms and their race bonus at a high fertility they can hardly feed themselvs, this is so weird and odd thhat I start to think farming is utterly imbalanced. Fish and husbandry works so much better also giving a steady income of food.

Are you putting water around your farms too?

[Lord451]

Yeah, like Optimum said, you also want to put some canals next to them for that sweet sweet irrigation bonus. You can save one side by placing it next to a river. Depending on the size of the farm, you can do smaller ones with just a single side covered, whereas the max size ones basically need to be surrounded.

[Grimmrog_SIG]

Originally posted by Lord451:

Yeah, like Optimum said, you also want to put some canals next to them for that sweet sweet irrigation bonus. You can save one side by placing it next to a river. Depending on the size of the farm, you can do smaller ones with just a single side covered, whereas the max size ones basically need to be surrounded.

it questions how wll irrigation works, I would prefer it raising fertility, the benefit of the required irrigation vs the space needed seems to be not worth it commpared to making just another farm.

[optimumscar]

Originally posted by Grimmrog_SIG:

Originally posted by Lord451:

Yeah, like Optimum said, you also want to put some canals next to them for that sweet sweet irrigation bonus. You can save one side by placing it next to a river. Depending on the size of the farm, you can do smaller ones with just a single side covered, whereas the max size ones basically need to be surrounded.

it questions how wll irrigation works, I would prefer it raising fertility, the benefit of the required irrigation vs the space needed seems to be not worth it commpared to making just another farm.

if you want high fertility, build a farm/pasture over a lake. River/lake water (avoid oceans) have higher natural fertility then other spots. Irrigation isn't the same thing as it's meant for short term gains (in the real world, irrigation in medieval times doesn't work like ground water as it doesn't mix in minerals or other things to keep the ground alive and thriving with life and nutrients). irrigation works in the game as a separate flat bonus up to 100% starting from 0%, so the bonus is way bigger when choosing from a fertility 40% to 90% or 100% plot of land.

I don't mod so I don't know how the calculations mix into each other.

[Grimmrog_SIG]

irrigation maxes out at 10% (in production added when you reach 100% irrigation) fertility is a flat multiplier, so raising irrigation to 100% is +10% ourcome while raising 40% fertility to 90 would wield ore than twice the production. Fisheries are way more efficient than farms, so ther eis hardly a reason to convert a river into a farm.

Originally posted by Nphyx:

Originally posted by Grimmrog_SIG:

This would question if it's possible to reach 100% qorkload with a single worker (at 1.00 race efficency) at a farm higher than designed by one worker, because it seems so, but if that is, planning farms qith the working indicator seems to be a bit useless.

Yeah It seems like it takes fewer workers to manage a farm than the default employee assignment. E.g. a 16x8 farm, which defaults to 2 employees, can be run by one. But I think they have a higher workload during harvest tasks (and possibly others, I didn't get interested enough to fully test this), so either micromanaging the farm or just leaving more employees than bare minimum might get you more harvest cycles per year.

there is amaximum amount of tilling that can be done each day past that nothign will happen so putting more workrs just finishes that daily work quicker but does not add anythign to the yearly productivity.

[optimumscar]

That was my fault. I meant the bonus from irrigation is bigger with high fert then with lower fert.

[PaddeMcnasty]

Are you using tech points to boost your farm output? I am using mainly cretonians as wel and the farms i make over produce even early game. What i like to do is hold RMB to scan for highly fertile spots, go for a nice average so like 80% or above, and watch the produce come in. Then once you get some trade going, like furniture, use that money to supplement what you need. Buy some paper, get a library, and boost your farms.

[solipse49]

i use 10x10 fields for like 1,5 workers.
it much more manageble,then large fields.
also dont forget irrigation (cannals).
you can harvest/trade the resources you need.

[Jeffreyac]

I've found irrigation canals are good for 16 squares of farmland - so I make either a 16 wide farm, and run irrigation down one side, or a 32 wide farm and run irrigation strips down both sides, to get full irrigation. That, plus selecting good land to get fertility rates up there around 90%, seems to work well.

My experiments seem to say that I need enough workers to have the farms about 9% manned to have enough manpower to get all the daily stuff done each day. Later I go to 11% or so to have a few extra bodies around. (I thought I'd gone as low as 7%, but I can't remember if that worked all the time - also, I was using the pig guys, with a bonus to farming, so that may have thrown the numbers a bit)

I used to do lots of small farms, but I've found my most recent save I've gone to fewer, larger farms for simplicity.