Can you fix bad fertility?

[Mouldlicker69]

I started a new village with new land, and the fertility on barley, flax, emmer, and rye is very bad. Is there something i can do to fix it, or should i just wait until i have enough influence to claim new lands with better fertility?

[Dazzy_D]

Currently there's no way to improve fertility. It doesn't mean you can't grow crops there, you just won't get a very good yield.

You could keep restarting the game until your starting region has good fertility (shouldn't take that long) or you'll have to wait until you've got the influence to buy a region with rich soil.

[cookie]

i think you are supposed to be able to use sheep with the fence upgrade for that , but it didnt work for me , the sheep never entered the fallow fields i upgraded despite being all around the sheep pens . i think it may need more work/patching. farming is too important to ignore so i always start fresh games on fertile ground most annoying part of the game for me is the fertility , it ends in regions on a red line despite the landscape which i find dumb

[eflat0]

Every region has two rich resources - that may include being very fertile.

imo: While the production point tree does increase yields, it's best to make up for the poor resource production in a region via imports and invest the points into what the region is rich in (specialize), then when you get a second region with good fertility invest in the production points there and trade across the two regions more than importing from outside.

The thing is with importing you need to be exporting something to handle the costs - you also have to do so cross region but least it's a balancing of wealth between your regions.

i.e. I have five regions in my current game... There are five towns in this current game, the smallest population is around 300, the largest over 600 every burgage is a level 3.
Two regions do have great fertility the other three do not but they're trading things like iron, charcoal, apples, vegis, meat and berries, and honey for bread, barley and malt to the fertile regions. Everyone is happy most the time their at 100% approval, only time it goes down is with a natural disaster - Peasants, what can we say? I don't know why they blame me for an act of God? ;-)

The game is a lot of micro-management, production is related to distances-time. If a worker has to walk across the map to go to work that takes time. Streamlining and right-sizing is important.

[Fortigan]

You don't actually need to farm to live. There are 6 other food types, you can get clothing from leather and shoes, and you can import barley to make ale.

If you don't have fertile land, that means you have 2 rich resources. Exploit those for income to pay for barley

[Dazzy_D]

Originally posted by cookie:

i think you are supposed to be able to use sheep with the fence upgrade for that

No, that development option helps restore the fertility back to it's starting point quicker after harvesting, when the field is set to fallow.

It doesn't improve it beyond. Meaning that land that is yellow single minus will never go above yellow single minus. You can't get prime green double plus on that land no matter how long you fallow a field with sheep in it.

[Agony_Aunt]

The only time i bother farming in low fertility (unless I go for the Rye development point) is for Barley, but you need a ton of fields to get enough barley and really, its probably just easier to import the barley and then process it, or hell, even the ale.

[eflat0]

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

The only time i bother farming in low fertility (unless I go for the Rye development point) is for Barley, but you need a ton of fields to get enough barley and really, its probably just easier to import the barley and then process it, or hell, even the ale.

I've been thinking about importing the ale in my less fertile towns, I gave them brewers though.

The issues are malt is like flour... so is only grabbed one piece at a time - no cart - so the malt house should be close to the brewer and the brewer to the tavern. Barley at least can be carted. I'm not sure about ale? Do you know?

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by eflat0:

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

The only time i bother farming in low fertility (unless I go for the Rye development point) is for Barley, but you need a ton of fields to get enough barley and really, its probably just easier to import the barley and then process it, or hell, even the ale.

I've been thinking about importing the ale in my less fertile towns, I gave them brewers though.

The issues are malt is like flour... so is only grabbed one piece at a time - no cart - so the malt house should be close to the brewer and the brewer to the tavern. Barley at least can be carted. I'm not sure about ale? Do you know?

Good question, and i should have paid attention to that. But i always put everything close together if i can, so brewer(s) is/are normally right next door to the tavern, so not really a question i've considered. I also tell storehouses not to store ale, so cart doesn't even come into the equation anyway, so in my case, it will always be one at a time.

I think this is the argument for having more than one family work the tavern though, if they are fetching the ale.... or brewers being size 3 plots if they deliver.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, you know, i've never even looked who whether its brewers delivering or taverns fetching.

[eflat0]

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

Originally posted by eflat0:

I've been thinking about importing the ale in my less fertile towns, I gave them brewers though.

The issues are malt is like flour... so is only grabbed one piece at a time - no cart - so the malt house should be close to the brewer and the brewer to the tavern. Barley at least can be carted. I'm not sure about ale? Do you know?

Good question, and i should have paid attention to that. But i always put everything close together if i can, so brewer(s) is/are normally right next door to the tavern, so not really a question i've considered. I also tell storehouses not to store ale, so cart doesn't even come into the equation anyway, so in my case, it will always be one at a time.

I think this is the argument for having more than one family work the tavern though, if they are fetching the ale.... or brewers being size 3 plots if they deliver.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, you know, i've never even looked who whether its brewers delivering or taverns fetching.

Thanks for the feedback. Yes I use a double level three burgage next to the tavern myself. Yes, it did annoy me when I realized the granaries will pick up ale... having to go around turning that off. This I do know the brewers are just like the bakers they go grab the malt.

[satioh]

I read that you actually get the same yield from bad fertility as godd, as long as the fertility doesn't drop to 0. Yield from a crop drops 2 points each month so up to 24 a year, while it increases with 4 points pr year when fallow. So in bad fertility with less than 50 fertility you need to have it fallow every other year, (if less than 26% don't bother farming) while in good fertility, over 50% you can farm for 2 years and only have it fallow or even grow another crop the third year. I'm not 100% sure as I haven't tested it myself, but can anyone confirm this is how it works?

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by satioh:

I read that you actually get the same yield from bad fertility as godd, as long as the fertility doesn't drop to 0. Yield from a crop drops 2 points each month so up to 24 a year, while it increases with 4 points pr year when fallow. So in bad fertility with less than 50 fertility you need to have it fallow every other year, (if less than 26% don't bother farming) while in good fertility, over 50% you can farm for 2 years and only have it fallow or even grow another crop the third year. I'm not 100% sure as I haven't tested it myself, but can anyone confirm this is how it works?

Don't know where you heard that, unless you mean a yield of 30% in low fertility is the same as a yield of 30% in high fertility. That would be correct. Just in high fertility you should be making fields in an area with a much higher % fertility than that, whereas in low fertiltiy regions you don't get such high %, except for perhaps with Rye.

I don't know about recovery rates on high vs low fertility, i always do 2 years fallow and cycle groups of 3 fields.

[Nellvan]

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

I think this is the argument for having more than one family work the tavern though, if they are fetching the ale.... or brewers being size 3 plots if they deliver.

Yep, tavern keepers fetch the ale and more of them help, depending on the distance. I'm pretty sure it's one unit at a time, despite them rolling barrels.

Bigger breweries only speed things up if the malt is further away since there are only 2 crafting spots. Like, if malt is right next door 1 family may be enough. 2 will speed things up if they gotta walk a bit and 4 is probably overkill unless it's really far.

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by Nellvan:

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

I think this is the argument for having more than one family work the tavern though, if they are fetching the ale.... or brewers being size 3 plots if they deliver.

Yep, tavern keepers fetch the ale and more of them help, depending on the distance. I'm pretty sure it's one unit at a time, despite them rolling barrels.

Bigger breweries only speed things up if the malt is further away since there are only 2 crafting spots. Like, if malt is right next door 1 family may be enough. 2 will speed things up if they gotta walk a bit and 4 is probably overkill unless it's really far.

Thank you. I'll keep that in mind in future.

[satioh]

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

Originally posted by satioh:

I read that you actually get the same yield from bad fertility as godd, as long as the fertility doesn't drop to 0. Yield from a crop drops 2 points each month so up to 24 a year, while it increases with 4 points pr year when fallow. So in bad fertility with less than 50 fertility you need to have it fallow every other year, (if less than 26% don't bother farming) while in good fertility, over 50% you can farm for 2 years and only have it fallow or even grow another crop the third year. I'm not 100% sure as I haven't tested it myself, but can anyone confirm this is how it works?

Don't know where you heard that, unless you mean a yield of 30% in low fertility is the same as a yield of 30% in high fertility. That would be correct. Just in high fertility you should be making fields in an area with a much higher % fertility than that, whereas in low fertiltiy regions you don't get such high %, except for perhaps with Rye.

I don't know about recovery rates on high vs low fertility, i always do 2 years fallow and cycle groups of 3 fields.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUbHiiB9yrA

He mentioned it briefly at 4.30 and between 9 and 10 min, but the full in depth explonation starts 30 min in. I haven't tested this myself, but I see np reason to doubt these numbers unless something has radically changed since he made this post.

The only thing I know of is that ale consumption is reduced by 2/3 so you will need only 1/3 of the barley he explains at the end.

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by satioh:

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

Don't know where you heard that, unless you mean a yield of 30% in low fertility is the same as a yield of 30% in high fertility. That would be correct. Just in high fertility you should be making fields in an area with a much higher % fertility than that, whereas in low fertiltiy regions you don't get such high %, except for perhaps with Rye.

I don't know about recovery rates on high vs low fertility, i always do 2 years fallow and cycle groups of 3 fields.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUbHiiB9yrA

He mentioned it briefly at 4.30 and between 9 and 10 min, but the full in depth explonation starts 30 min in. I haven't tested this myself, but I see np reason to doubt these numbers unless something has radically changed since he made this post.

The only thing I know of is that ale consumption is reduced by 2/3 so you will need only 1/3 of the barley he explains at the end.

I think you're misunderstanding what he's saying. He's simply saying 30% in low fertility is ok if you have to. That would be roughly a 1 plus bit of land. You'd get the same yield from a 1 plus bit of land in a fertile region, however, in a fertile region, you should have some ++ or +++ land, which is much better.