Heavy Plow useless?

[kaibioinfo]

Hi,
I found that when using a heavy plow on a farm house, the workers are not plowing manually anymore. One might say this makes sense, but the effect is that the farmers are more or less idle during the plowing time while the single ox is not able to plow the fields at all. It seems that to make this whole thing work I would have to build many farm houses with heavy plows and very few workers together with many very small fields. Sounds like a lot of work with not much benefit.

[Nikinta_Nightmare]

Sorry if someone's mentioned this already but with the heavy plow it basically kicks out all the other farmers off a field for plowing that field the Ox is on. Thus what you want to do and in general what I suggest you do is do several rather small fields.

For example you set a field the size you'd want for a crop rotation. Then you should break that field (depending on the size) Into 6 or more smaller fields and do that for each large field for set rotation. That way when the ox comes along and holds one field hostage for it to plow the rest of the farmers can still work on the other one's. Plus I feel it just makes things go a little faster when it comes to everything to do with field work having them do it in smaller sections.
Sure it gets to be a real pain and tedious to sit there and set the rotation for 4-8 separate fields just for ONE of 3 times of rotation let alone all the fields for all 3 but once it's done it's well worth. Plus personally I feel lots of small and maybe even odd shaped fields looks rather nice more than one large field.

[Colfer]

I think it's the field hostage thing that makes it non-viable for me at the moment. I get that I can essentially assign less workers to it come harvest/ploughing but the current workers finish their field off much quicker and depending on size the other one is massively delayed. The workers need to be able to assist on the Oxen field once they're done with theirs. Then it would be worth it for the reduced number of workers.

[kaibioinfo]

I'm totally aware that I can avoid this problem by making a lot of very small fields. But this is a lot of micromanagement, doesn't look very realistic and, in the end, is just a workaround for a imbalanced/buggy feature.

[Targaryen22]

Oprindeligt skrevet af KrayZee:

Well.. depends on what you do.
If you have more than 1 field you can have 1 family do field A with the plow and the others do field B

If you have just 1 field you can have 1 family do field A and have 5 free families to use otherwise.

And the plow is faster in collecting the ressources from the field.
It's basically a cart, while all others can only pick up one unit pet trip.

Obviously, you can have multiple farmhouses and multiple fields - with multiple plows.
So you can easily prepare multiple fields with much fewer families and harvest them faster as well.

This is exactly what I do in my regions. Main region supporting 80 families has 3 farmhouses, each with a plow and ox assigned and at least 2 fields per farmhouse though one only has the 1 field atm. takes 1 or 2 families to efficiently run the fields and by november the fields are planted or fallow for the next year. then I get families for winter time to do whatever lol

[Jabberwocky]

Oprindeligt skrevet af kaibioinfo:

I'm totally aware that I can avoid this problem by making a lot of very small fields. But this is a lot of micromanagement, doesn't look very realistic and, in the end, is just a workaround for a imbalanced/buggy feature.

So in other words: You‘re lazy and also ignorant about the medieval period and the „open field“ system, and just because a game mechanic is slightly inconveniencing you, you view it as „buggy“ or „imbalanced“.

Got it.

[LogisticEarth]

Oprindeligt skrevet af kaibioinfo:

I'm totally aware that I can avoid this problem by making a lot of very small fields. But this is a lot of micromanagement, doesn't look very realistic and, in the end, is just a workaround for a imbalanced/buggy feature.

Small fields absolutely is realistic. There's a reason an acre is the common historical unit of land management. It's about what was manageable for a single team in a reasonable amount of time prior to mechanized agriculture.

Go look up old aerial photos from the early 20th century in area that hadn't been mechanized yet, or were only recently so. You'll often see lots of small, linear fields ideal for ploughing with a single non-reversable mouldboard plow, and harvestable by a team of men with scythes working their way down the field abreast.

[Boogey]

Oprindeligt skrevet af LogisticEarth:

Go look up old aerial photos from the early 20th century in area that hadn't been mechanized yet, or were only recently so. You'll often see lots of small, linear fields

And then compare those to the field sizes in the game. What, the fields took 20-40 times more space than all of the village... who knew.

The sizes in the game are not at all proportional nor comparable to "real life".

[haze]

the *ox plow seems a bit buggy to me. it goes to 1 corner and plows a little bit, then across the field (without plowing) on the opposite side, to plow a little bit in that corner, then back to the opposite corner again. I just tried it for the first time, maybe it wont happen if you have a perfect square or rectangular field? seems glitchy atm

[CatPerson]

Oprindeligt skrevet af kaibioinfo:

I'm totally aware that I can avoid this problem by making a lot of very small fields. But this is a lot of micromanagement, doesn't look very realistic and, in the end, is just a workaround for a imbalanced/buggy feature.

I'm not sure what about " a lot of little fields" creates micromanagement, specifically, that you're referring to.

You can just create three fields for one crop type, and make 1 field active, the 2nd active next year/cycle, the 3rd active for the 3rd year/cycle. Increase it to six fields and have tons of bread before too long. Zero micromanagement.

I mean, if one wants to save space via the sheep pasture perk and manually rotating crop type on each field every year, go ahead. But I'm lazy so I do not, and the above works fine for me, including the ox/plow. The ox/plow is a little wonky but it does still seem to speed things up, if the field/s aren't huge or very oddly shaped or something. Edit: defining work area for farmhouses so workers aren't running across the map to far fields doesn't hurt, either.

[kaibioinfo]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Jabberwocky:

So in other words: You‘re lazy and also ignorant about the medieval period and the „open field“ system, and just because a game mechanic is slightly inconveniencing you, you view it as „buggy“ or „imbalanced“.

Got it.

I don't think you've understood. What is "lazy" even supposed to mean? It's a game, lol, it's not supposed to be work. Specifically, it's an **early access game**, which means players can contribute to development by critiquing and making suggestions. It's really sad that every critical thread on this discussion board is flooded with flame posts; apparently anyone who criticizes the game is just too dumb to play.

The heavy plow is imbalanced because:
- you have to spend a development point for it - these points are limited and, thus, very valuable. Thus, one might expect a high benefit from choosing it
- the only advantage of the plow is that it saves some workforce - however, you only benefit from that if you have multiple farms that are all small enough such that the plow is able to process them
- just having enough workforce is arguable the easier strategy, although slightly less effective
- the way the heavy plow moves through the field is very strange and probably buggy
- it's just frustrating as player if you unlock a new "trait" and then learn that it only has disadvantages for you and you have to destroy and rebuild all your farms to benefit from it
- this also means the problem is not just the balancing but also a lack of communication in the game. If the description of the trait would explain these downsides it would be less frustrating for sure

In general, I wouldn't choose the heavy plow for my next settlement again. Development points are for specializing the settlement. The trade-off between having slightly less workforce against being less flexible in the field layout is just not good enough (note that fields should be placed where fertility is high - this areas don't necessarily be stripes).

Small fields absolutely is realistic. There's a reason an acre is the common historical unit of land management. It's about what was manageable for a single team in a reasonable amount of time prior to mechanized agriculture.

I'm not an expert in agriculture, but I'm pretty sure that the fields in medieval time were MUCH larger than one acre. You might be right, though, that they were indeed rather stripes than squares. Nevertheless, it's a bit weird arguing with historical correctness if the fields in the game are extremely downscaled in size.

Oprindeligt skrevet af CatPerson:

You can just create three fields for one crop type, and make 1 field active, the 2nd active next year/cycle, the 3rd active for the 3rd year/cycle. Increase it to six fields and have tons of bread before too long. Zero micromanagement.

That's what I already did - but I made the fields too large. For making use of a farm house and a plow you probably need rather 6 fields of small size instead of 3 fields.

Anyways, I don't ask for a "hint" or help to play the game. I just wanted to say that the heavy plow in its current form is rather disappointing.

[LogisticEarth]

Oprindeligt skrevet af kaibioinfo:

- the only advantage of the plow is that it saves some workforce - however, you only benefit from that if you have multiple farms that are all small enough such that the plow is able to process them
- just having enough workforce is arguable the easier strategy, although slightly less effective

In the beta patch, saving your workforce is actually pretty critical, as the King's Tax scales with your population. If you can shave off the need for say, 10 families, that would otherwise be needed farmhouses or whatever.

I think the heavy plow is a great idea in high fertility areas where you'll be using lots of farms. Set the fields up right, and you'll be rolling in (bread) dough in no time with minimal staff. The Bakeries development point is also locked behind the Plow, which makes using up all that flour a snap. The high food productivity can support other settlements (or a flax or barley industry chain for trade.

[Kedryn]

Earlier today, and this is on experimental branch, I had paused my farm to wait for sowing season because I'd already harvested everything, and my paused blacksmith and her husband both grabbed a plow and an ox and had half the fields plowed for me before October.

So now I'm building a second farm that maybe I can just leave empty aside from two oxen and their plows, and bored people can plow fields or something.

[CatPerson]

Anyways, I don't ask for a "hint" or help to play the game. I just wanted to say that the heavy plow in its current form is rather disappointing.

I wasn't trying to tell how to play/this is the way to play the game or anything, everyone has their way, but I'm still confused re: the many fields = "micromanagement" aspect, was all.

When I first tried farming I kept (manually) rotating/altering crops, tried the early harvest trick, tried the pasture perk, other things, and to me that was all too much tinkering, having to check stuff constantly, maybe keep track of what month it was, whatever. Not my style. Thus what I was describing equals doing none of that - eg, "many smaller fields" doesn't *have* to equal micromanagement - that's more of a choice of the player to manage all those things? Maybe I'm confused what you meant? Anyway, play as you enjoy, of course. And yes the ox are a little wonky, I just work/adapt around it for now I guess/it still works the way I play.

[russfarr2007]

kinda bugged right now - just use peasant spam

[LogisticEarth]

Oprindeligt skrevet af kaibioinfo:

I'm not an expert in agriculture, but I'm pretty sure that the fields in medieval time were MUCH larger than one acre. You might be right, though, that they were indeed rather stripes than squares. Nevertheless, it's a bit weird arguing with historical correctness if the fields in the game are extremely downscaled in size.

Also wanted to touch on this. While "fields" were large often over 100 acres, the management of them was handled on the scale of an acre or so. So strips within the larger "field" owned by the lord. In-game, this is basically the open area in every region. The in-game fields you lay out are more like acreage management units within the larger lord's field. As such, although the time scale and overall yield are obviously scaled differently* for game reasons, the way ploughing works and it's impact on field shape isn't too far off.

*An acre is traditionally the amount of land one man and a team of eight oxen could plough in a day. There are also other measurements like an oxgang, which is the amount of land a single ox can plough in a season. That's approximately 15 acres, organized into long acre strips a furlong in length. Traditional that is roughly 66x600 feet.