Backyards

[Pastek]

It is unclear (like many other things in this game, I know) to me if backyard extensions of Burgage plots do take work time of peoples and families living in.

My question is, if by example I have a burgage with a garden backyard. Does it take time from the daily work of the family inside this burgade ?

Does it mean that double the family in a larger burgade slot will make more efficient the work on that gardens ? (more large backyard = more large gardens = more time to work these gardens = more workers needed).

And does it mean that workers in that burgade will be less efficient working elsewhere, like in the fields ? Does one or two family members (like the woman) will be locked to the gardens ?

I also dont know how much the size of the backyard is important. But a lot of people say that it doesnt matter except for the following backyards : gardens and orchards. Is that true ?

Everything else (workshops, bakers and even chicken coop and goat shed) do not require larger backyard. Then smaller backyards is more practical.

Then, if I understand right, making medium to large backyard size is a waste of space. And only orchards and gardens should be huge.

I do want to know also if making no backyards to a Burgage is good. To focus production by example on something else.

Thanks !

[Magnus Aurelius, Bright Lord]

Yes, you understood everything correctly. Don't know about if they're inefficient somewhere else tho. Really you should play however you want. I tend to make huge backward in far away places just for the look of my town.

Take a look at this for exemple: ( the house in the far back)
https://imgur.com/a/uDZV5D1

Huge backyard that has no utility. But it looks good and since the people living in that house are also sheep herders, it make sense they would have a big backyard.

[Ninjafroggie]

i personally havent noticed any real impact to families abilities to get stuff done in their assigned job. It could be that it's there and all my stuff is getting done anyway so it just doesnt really matter. Where I HAVE noticed an issue is with granaries. I've gotten towns up to a good 120+ families, with stable food production and enough goods being exported to pay for barley imports and still gain wealth, but i've discovered that the main limiting factor isn't how much time the residents have to devote to managing the veggie patch, it's the granary workers. Ive been expirimenting with yard sizes for veggie plots, and in my latest run where i tried out having REALLY big yards, I noticed a problem in that the residents would only harvest 6 veggies at once, then wouldnt harvest any more until the granary workers had come and taken the stock away. Because of this, harvest was being wasted because it wasnt being taken in before winter. With a smaller veggie plot it would be fine, but the bigger the plot the more food there is to be taken in and being limited to only doing so 6 units at a time meant that a lot of time was wasted waiting for the granary workers to come empty the storage. Building 2 more granaries among the houses and staffing the heck out of them improved production dramatically, but between making food and transporting it a good 75% of my town is just devoted to food production and aside from fuel the rest of my economy runs on a trickle.

[Validuz]

Originally posted by Pastek:

Then, if I understand right, making medium to large backyard size is a waste of space. And only orchards and gardens should be huge.

I do want to know also if making no backyards to a Burgage is good. To focus production by example on something else.

Thanks !

Nah. Always make atleast a tiny backyard for chickens or goats. Its free resource income after a tiny investment of 15-25 silver. And if you make a neighbourhood of goatfarmers you can supply your entire town with leather for clothes.

I just did the 'no berry pickers or hunters before small town' achievement and i was suprised how strong large carrotfields were. Just a tip!

[a.gmag]

In short, yes.

At least, for orchards and vegetable patches. These require time to farm/tend, and this will prevent the family unit of 3 to alternate between whichever job they've been assigned to and their own plot.

Villagers already take some time "off" to gather resources for their home, including water, and spend some time indoors to make it a bit more realistic in terms of how much time they spend either idling or working.

As far as I understand, chicken coops and goat sheds do not require tending to, just to empty the pantry every now and then, which will also means the villager will stop doing their job to do that (unless you have enough warehouse/granary workers that can do the same with a cart).

The space dedicated to backyards, as you said, only has an impact when it comes to orchards and vegetable patches. These will produce more (and take more time to farm) the bigger the plot size. Goat sheds and chicken coops will produce the same amount of skins/eggs no matter the size of the plot.

When it comes to zoning your village, it is really up to you.

Not all house plots need a backyard, it is just a case for you to make sure you have enough backyard space to build whatever you need to advance. Blacksmiths, tailors, etc. If you have enough of what you want to produce, then having a mix of plots with and without a backyard is perfectly fine. Families in plots with no backyard will just spend their time working, but remember that you will not receive the benefit of passive (skins/eggs) or active (vegetables/apples) goods.

Just have a balanced mix that works for the type of settlement you're creating, and the type of economy you want to achieve.

[Pastek]

Ok

And for the workshop extensions, does it is really a waste of workers to double the burgage slot for two families ?

I mean, some of my industries buildings sometimes have two families working in them. So I guess having a burgage with two families will be the same.

But I guess that some workshop do not require such families, like the blacksmith, the armorer, the fletcher and the joiner ? Not sure.

[a.gmag]

Originally posted by Ninjafroggie:

I noticed a problem in that the residents would only harvest 6 veggies at once, then wouldnt harvest any more until the granary workers had come and taken the stock away.

A tip I've found to solve this is to build a dedicated granary near my big veggie patches and apple orchards and limit the number of items it can hold to just veggies and apples (in the Advanced tab inside the granary menu).

This will make sure you have one or two dedicated granary workers that will continuously go around picking whatever your backyards are producing.

I was having issues with my orchard reaching the limit of 37 pantry items way too fast before my normal granary workers could pick the apples up, with a yield of around 70 apples per year. After building a dedicated granary the same plot was producing around 130 apples as they were able to clear the pantry faster and the villagers would keep picking more apples.

[Pastek]

So is there any real downside to double the family numbers of a burgage slot ?

Except for some workshops.

[a.gmag]

Originally posted by Pastek:

And for the workshop extensions, does it is really a waste of workers to double the burgage slot for two families ?

The point of having more families dedicated to workshops is that they produce faster, as it is 2 or 3 (if you have a tier 3 house with a +1 extension) families gathering supplies, loading and unloading goods.

But of course you need to make sure that your economy is capable of supplying the primary goods they need to keep producing, otherwise they will eventually become idle as they don't have the necessary materials (ie, the fletcher and the joiner compete for planks to produce their respective goods).

You can pause the production of goods, but remember that artisans with a workshop extension, even when paused, don't go back to the "free" population that can be reassigned. So you will have a group of people that will consume goods and produce nothing, and it is in your benefit to make sure they're producing things that are necessary, or that you're offloading their production via a merchant.