Is Herb Garden always better?

[Lemonpie]

Is Herb Garden way better than the other two farm like buildings?

With Plantations, you can't make flour, which means you can't make biscuits, which guarantees hits atleast 2 species of citizens.

With Small Farms, you can't make packs provisions.

With Herb Garden, you can make flour, biscuits and pies, pickled goods, incense, ale, provisions, crops and the drawback seems minimal. You can't make wine, but not many species needs luxury. You can't make pigment, but pigment doesn't have much use beyond trade goods and education. If you're going for education, you're likely trying to hit dwarves with it as well, which circles back to the Plantations can't make flour to feed them.

[SalleStar]

Publicado originalmente por ulzgoroth:

]The
One advantage for grain is grain sacks is a wildly powerful cornerstone, and AFAIK there isn't an equivalent for roots. (I believe there is for mushrooms, but you need a cornerstone or the greenhouse to cultivate those.)

There's the +1herb/root production per 75 biscuit produced. Not quite equivalent but you can get it up and running through trading fairly easily if you already got the blueprints.

[arjensmit79]

Herb garden is the worst because it doesn't produce ready to eat food.
Hoping that you will complete a production chain is not why the farms are offered as embark options. They are there so you can remove the uncertainty if your people will have any food option at all. (And the embark options is the only reason to compare the farms anyway, if its not for that, you dont choose, you use what you get offered)

Greenhouse is also pretty bad as it needs raindew to be productive.

Small farm produces edible food in small quantities (only 3).

The Plantation is hands down the best food source in the game.

[ourorboros]

if you can get the "spices" cornerstone then herb gardens are insane, just had a game where each square of farmland was making 18 roots/20 herbs which all fed back into biscuit production which just kept raising the amount of roots and herbs. needed to have 2 herb huts per field of farmland just to harvest it all before the storm.

[ourorboros]

Publicado originalmente por arjensmit79:

Herb garden is the worst because it doesn't produce ready to eat food.


The Plantation is hands down the best food source in the game.

roots can be eaten raw, berries are good initially but unless you can then find a source of flour to turn them into pies or start pickling them they're pretty meh.

[Paladino]

Herb garden is actually my last pick.

Plantation is best pick for early game, carrying your simple foods needs by itself. Plus can help on cloth production, or even meat if you have the ranch. Also since it produces a lot of berries, excess can be made in supply packs for trading.

Small farms can't carry ur food production as hard as plantation, but the wheat can help you start ur biscuit production with the field kitchen and that can garantee your first resolve point for harpies. Plus it can also be made in to oil. And oil and flour are the best good imo to make packs of trade goods with. If you have the right buildings it can fuel an economy that allows you to buy everything you need for a resolve win instead of having the whole production chain.

Also, there is a lot of perks/order bonus that increase wheat production. More then berries or roots usually.

For embarcation, I pick one of the 2 based on biome and points cost. I never pick herb garden..

[Narandia]

Publicado originalmente por ourorboros:

Publicado originalmente por arjensmit79:

Herb garden is the worst because it doesn't produce ready to eat food.


The Plantation is hands down the best food source in the game.

roots can be eaten raw, berries are good initially but unless you can then find a source of flour to turn them into pies or start pickling them they're pretty meh.

By that logic every base food is pretty meh, especially from farms. Both grain and herbs are completely dependant on being able to produce flour if you want to make food, otherwise you are just producing half the amount of roots or vegetables compared to growing berries.
That advantage even carries over to Pickled Goods and Skewers, neither of which require flour.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Publicado originalmente por SalleStar:

Publicado originalmente por ulzgoroth:

]The
One advantage for grain is grain sacks is a wildly powerful cornerstone, and AFAIK there isn't an equivalent for roots. (I believe there is for mushrooms, but you need a cornerstone or the greenhouse to cultivate those.)

There's the +1herb/root production per 75 biscuit produced. Not quite equivalent but you can get it up and running through trading fairly easily if you already got the blueprints.

There is a similar bonus for both mushrooms and grain prod. Every 25 prod you get +1 increase. Same for meat.
Berries do not have this. The best you can hope for is to get a cornerstone to get +1/+2 berries from traders, rewards, or order rewards.

Also there are much more "benefitting" cornerstones for farm and herb garden.

Plantatation can get some mushrooms produced and crystallized dew. That is it. (The increase in fiber i just leave it alone for now, as it is only useable for Ranch as food supply.)

The farm and the herb garden can get multiple bonuses.

As it is said early in the game the plantation can really help, however since on higher prestige games it is your food that is usually the main issue, the best strategy is to get a food producing building that has a rolling increase. (Ranch, Greenhouse, farm and herb garden.)

If you manage to get the +1 herb+1root production early on you can really make a difference since for every 8 unit of biscuits produced, as they come in 10, you get +1 increase for each. So neither supplying your biscuit production nor your supply production will not be an issue. (Not to mention if you increase both your flour and biscuit production with cornerstones it can start to really roll. Is very similar to meat production if you have a big trapper camp and you have the meat increasing cornerstone.)
Also root can be eaten raw and it also can be used to make flour.

What really matters is how much synergy you can get for your food producing building. As later on you rely less on traders, because you are at such a disadvantage when you wish to buy food.

[Crank Stanis]

About food is not much problem without Plantation, when your citadel skills are well-invested. There are lot of food ressources around to gather and Herb garden is great alternative for crafting tools, if there are no Mine you find and from a trader it's very expensive but complex food are cheaper to buy and will boost your species for 2 years.

[Draago]

I think they are all good depending on the biome and resources you get. I found 5 large herb nodes in marshlands I think and they never managed to run out before I won.
But yeah in a map without herbs like royal forest (lots of farmland too) herb garden is top tier.

[Blue Lotus]

In my experience, herb gardens are much worse than plantations and small farms. I value having a high-yield piece of a production chain more than I value having a low-yield all-in-one option. At P20, a 1-star crop does not produce enough to base my economy around without getting a lucky cornerstone.

So for comparing the 2-star crops.

Berries are more useful than herbs. Berries are a raw food. Berries can be turned into complex food with meat-likes, flour, or containers; herbs require flour. Cleanliness, luxury, and education are better services to support than cleanliness and religion. Metal production is bad, and can be fed from camps or trading if absolutely needed.

Grain is more useful to farm than herbs. A farm's worth of grain can be turned into food with flour buildings or the ranch. A farm's worth of herbs can only be turned into food with flour buildings. Oil production is more useful than metal production, and I can find a way to use a farm's worth of oil. A farm's worth of metal just kind of sits around.

Herbs are usually more useful to farm than plant fiber. The fiber is a bonus to the plantation, which is already better. Having a ranch also makes plant fiber more useful to farm than herbs.

However, having a herb garden is much better than not having any crops at all. And adding a herb garden to settlements with a small farm is worthwhile, even if I'd prefer a plantation.