Are any of the farm options particularly stand-out?

[ulzgoroth]

So far I've gotten the small farm, plantation, and herb garden, and of them it seems like the herb garden is a pretty secondary pick, but the other two both have merit right off - wheat is really powerful if you've got the full chain for it, but berries are immediately useful and can be pickled. Plus the plantation means never having to worry about what you're going to make fabric out of.

(Or maybe herbs for rain-metal is worthwhile?)

Not sure how many other options remain undiscovered.

[arjensmit79]

3 or 6 is quite a big difference. So i prefer berries from the plantation as you get twice as much food per worker and farm tile.

If you want to produce flour, i much prefer the mushroom path over the grain path.

The most important reason is that mushrooms can be eaten as is. With grain, your must have all 3 parts of the production chain or its all useless. While at low difficulty levels you can reasonably well expect to get all 3 parts of the equation and thus you are sort of safe risking the pick on the first 2, that is not so on higher difficulty levels. With shrooms on the other hand, you can safely build a mushroom industry, and later upgrade it to cookie/pie production if you're lucky. And if you're not lucky, still no harm done, your people are happily eating the shrooms.

Also dont disregard gathering as a long term solution. If you have +1 to gathering, a hand full of large patches will feed your people the entire game. If you have +1 per 25 gathered, your gonna be overflowing in them soon. This of course goes for both grain and shrooms.

Herbs are a possible ingredient for dew bars, but note that you can click in the ingredient and also select different ingredients for your recipe. Metal or Dew bars are a reasonably significant resource as it can help you make simple tools which are a victory condition in and off themselves. Manufacturing dew bars is however a last resort. The easiest way is the farm thingy that produces dew bars. The second easiest option is mining copper and producing copper bars. The last resort is producing the dew bars.

[Narandia]

yeah I prefer the plantation for the same reasons mentioned. Plus, there is even a cornerstone for extra crystalized dew for berries produced. And the occasional +3 berry yield in drizzle, which does actually work for farming (adding it to the yield when planted).
As an embark choice or other situations where I'd have to choose, its an easy option. Unless during a game I already gotten other things that benefit the other two types or building blueprints that allow better uses of grain or herbs. If I can already make flour, in particular.

[archelonian]

The grove is a very powerful source of rain bars.

[DG]

I suspect the races and map will change the 'optimum' farm for a settlement through the complex foods and production lines to the service buildings (if you're an economy builder). The herb garden is a lot better if you're using it for herbs more than roots.

The greenhouse is probably the best but it does work slightly differently and is unlocked quite high up the citadel.

[arjensmit79]

Originally posted by DG:

The greenhouse is probably the best but it does work slightly differently and is unlocked quite high up the citadel.

A plantation will produce i think 4x6 = 24 berries per villager per year ? (not entirely sure how many fields one guy can actually work)

A greenhouse can produce about 30-35 mushrooms per villager per year. depending on carrying capacity and distance So in direct production per citizen that seems to beat the plantation.

However, for each villager working, it als requires a villager working a dew collector, halving its efficiency per villager. And each villager working a dew collector will require some effort to keep the blight in check making it even worse. Hence the greenhouse is imo vastly inferior to the plantation in situations where you just need raw numbers of food.

It does however have the advantage that you can fit multiple buildings on a grass patch. I recently had a game with double resources from buildings using fertile soil which can be important some times. The greenhouse recently was a key to my victory in a game where i had double production for buildings using farmland and multiple greenhouses on my patch of grass for insane shroom production.

I do think when its about flour, a greenhouse producing shroom is more efficient than a small farm producing wheat.

[Kalisa]

I like all the farm types, they each have their uses though i prefer plantation as a standalone for basic food production though and is almost always an instant pick for me if its early game and i have fertile land.
If i have humans and lizards I often like to get basic farms and ranches going if it doesnt strain my blueprints too much (all depends on what i find in early glades and what traders offer me) 5 veggies to 10 meat or 8 grain to 10 meat is quite nice if your overflowing with either, not even counting the extra production chance with lizards, again this all depends on map and what blueprints, glades, trade options, and just natural resources spawn.

[Mmm]

What it the logic behind making vegetables only 3 per field? Would 6 be too strong?

[alexshiro]

I like the herb garden as it makes both ingredients for biscuits and pies, and bars, and pickles/skewers. Farm is better for flour/beer, Plantation for pickles/skewers, but the flexibility of the Herb Garden makes it my favorite pick

[Narandia]

Originally posted by Mmm:

What it the logic behind making vegetables only 3 per field? Would 6 be too strong?

From what I'm seeing, its a means to balance the two options. you get more by planting grain, but you can't use grain directly as a food source. Same with the herb garden. Plantation is the exception presumably because plant fiber isn't even supposed to be an indirect food source (though you can convert it to food via the Ranch).
That said, maybe it would be better to up the 1 star farm recipes to a yield of 4, just to make them a bit more viable as an early food source compared to the plantation.

[Yogurt]

Berries are the best because they will always be useful.

Wheat is less consistent but with extra yield it can power your entire economy as well as act as your primary food source. The tricky part is you rely on blueprints / cornerstones for it.