Do you guys choose plantation or small farm in the embarkation?

[BT]

Do you guys choose one of these in your start up?

Is there a consensus on which one of these two blueprints is generally superior?

Is it worth having both?

I think farm seems superior later game because the wheat seems to scale into more complex foods, but in the start of the game it's useful to have berries and fiber as it fixes more 'gaps'

[mostly willing]

plantation is the best farm building. second best if you include greenhouse which is a cut above the rest. small farm and herb garden are about equal. usually you don't want to waste a bp on a second farm.

Originally posted by BT:

I think farm seems superior later game because the wheat seems to scale into more complex foods, but in the start of the game it's useful to have berries and fiber as it fixes more 'gaps'

well technically speaking on their own berries both contribute to 4 complex foods: Biscuits, Pie, Pickles, Skewers. Grain goes directly into Porridge and can get processed into Biscuit and Pie, so 3 in total. not saying Grain is bad.

[BT]

Sorry I worded it wrong, I meant to say that wheat can be mass produced with the cornerstone that improves it every 25 times. I often disable veggies on some farms since it is 1 star. When it gets process into flour you can trigger some cornerstones.

I guess the cost is that it’s pretty dedicated to only one line of complex foods, like you said.

Don’t know if that’s stupid to disable veggies though, I guess you can re-enable if you get too much flour.

[el Darkness]

You can never have too much flour.

[mk11]

Excess flour is a good for packs of trade goods.

[mostly willing]

Originally posted by BT:

to disable veggies though, I guess you can re-enable if you get too much flour.

you shouldn't use small farm to produce veggies unless you got the worst rolls possible for food. even then, it's better to use stonecutter/harvester camps to get food from their nodes.

Originally posted by BT:

Sorry I worded it wrong, I meant to say that wheat can be mass produced with the cornerstone that improves it every 25 times.

don't bother with grain bags if you are going to use the farm to proc it. you only get +1 after 2 years, and you get like 15 grain year 3 with it. the perk is great with wheat nodes, not small farm.

[BT]

Ah thanks for the clarification

[arjensmit79]

Edit: Oh i see i was just repeating. Willing Son said it all. And he's right as always.

[Samseng Yik]

If you pick a farm that can grown material for your other luxury food.
Then it is a win

[KD.AltQQ]

If I can only pick one, I'd pick the herb garden. Roots go to flour/pickles and herbs go to biscuit or pie filling and porridge. It's the only building which pretty much contains its own complex foods without relying on outside sources. Regrettably +3 roots/tile are really bad, but I once had a game with 5 long patches of soil and 10 herb gardens--2 per patch (4 patches only roots, 1 patch herb) in combination with the "spices" cornerstone (I was mass making biscuits), at the end I was producing ridiculous amounts of biscuits (this cornerstone is just broken as it snowballs itself) that my ~50 villager town (humans, beavers, harpies) could not eat it all.

That said, if I have a choice I always pick 2 such buildings whenever possible (one time Zhorg was selling both the farm and plantation prints and I bought both).

Usually you want farm + plantation or farm + herb garden.
Herb garden + plantation is somewhat redundant... usually herb garden alone is enough but plantation is better for pickles.

Greenhouse, of course (mushrooms + herbs) contains everything one needs--shame we cannot embark with it.

[Cron]

Everyone have different preferences, but for me if the cost is the same then as embarkation bonus i would pick farm because i would pick it only with humans and farm is great for them.
Early game best complex foods to multiply your raw food are either jerky or porridge, farm can make porridge. Also grain is a good source of amber, either through pack of crops (Humans are good at that), Flour -> Pack of Trade Goods is insane value. Even just flour usually gets good price through trade routes.
Big downside of farm (and upside of plantation) is that you can't make pack of provisions from grain.
Also i wouldn't bother with making "advanced" complex foods if only 1 species likes them, and humans don't like skewers and pickled goods. So i would need to dodge harpies to consider pickled goods or roll exactly foxes + lizards to consider skewers.
With humans in caravan you are guaranteed that at least one flour based complex food will be liked by 2+ species

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by a mostly willing son:

Originally posted by BT:

to disable veggies though, I guess you can re-enable if you get too much flour.

you shouldn't use small farm to produce veggies unless you got the worst rolls possible for food. even then, it's better to use stonecutter/harvester camps to get food from their nodes.

Originally posted by BT:

Sorry I worded it wrong, I meant to say that wheat can be mass produced with the cornerstone that improves it every 25 times.

don't bother with grain bags if you are going to use the farm to proc it. you only get +1 after 2 years, and you get like 15 grain year 3 with it. the perk is great with wheat nodes, not small farm.

If i recall well a single farm tile can produce 6 grain. So you can actually get +2 to after your first year already. So it works on farms well too. But if you have additional wheat nodes, all the better, your farm's will thrive like this:D

I always take plantation if there is a choice. It just is too good.
- Berries are very good for complex foods.
- 10 Berries equals 2 dew cornerstone
- Often you can get +1 berry as cornerstone reward from order or buy from trader
- is good to feed your ranch
- is good to feed your weavers:)
- both of the stuff are 2 star products!

But a haunted herb garden tops all:D

[mostly willing]

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

If i recall well a single farm tile can produce 6 grain. So you can actually get +2 to after your first year already. So it works on farms well too.

the perk doesn't count the amount of grain produced, only the number of times you harvest it. you are not going to get grain bags to +2 in one year using the small farm, ever.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by a mostly willing son:

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

If i recall well a single farm tile can produce 6 grain. So you can actually get +2 to after your first year already. So it works on farms well too.

the perk doesn't count the amount of grain produced, only the number of times you harvest it. you are not going to get grain bags to +2 in one year using the small farm, ever.

Oh it does. My bad, for some reason i remembered the usual farming, harvest etc. stuff.
But i double checked now and you are right. Just too many cornerstones to remember:)
(I don't even unlock a few in the deeds part as they do not seem worth it.)

[Grimelord82]

I think it depends on your caravan group. Either feed foxes/lizards because it can pickle + feed a ranch without needing to worry about coats. Either can make coat material, but the farm needs a ranch to convert it to leather first.
Both can get a +50% per tile cornerstone, and +1 wheat or +3 veggie bonuses show up plenty, so I think small farm wins if you can make flour. Humans boost that further, of course.
At lvl 16 I generally consider the farms too expensive in embarkation points. I definitely wouldn't take them without humans to find a field immediately but that's generally a year 2 or even 3 project for me even then.