Farming is so broken

[Oni]

Ox plows for 2 months it's faster to let people do it

a huge blob people stand on the middle of the field "transporting" for a whole month ignoring other fields left to rot to the snow

any workaround?

[jawwagner]

small fields with diffrent prioratys

[Doc_Hotpants]

Originally posted by Oni:

Ox plows for 2 months it's faster to let people do it

a huge blob people stand on the middle of the field "transporting" for a whole month ignoring other fields left to rot to the snow

any workaround?

I agree with jawwagner - In my current game, none of my fields is larger than half a morgen. Those fields can easily be worked, so I'm actually getting yields from them. I'm having all of them on a rotation (in a generally fertile region). If you don't have a fertile region, still stick with small fields, have many small fields, but all of them with fallow inbetween to restore fertility. Should work fine.

Huge fields don't work because if reaping can't be completed, the whole yield is gone.

[Boyko Borisov]

In my game it's even worse - the ox will plow a little then ''go to rest'' so the villagers come out to plow by hand but they plow in a different pattern - then the ox comes back and all the villagers retreat (they can't plow while the ox is there) and then the ox tries to fill in the blanks caused by the different plowing pattern so he does this little small bits here and there and has to turn around constantly spending most of the time turning around instead of working...then it gets ''tired'' again and goes to rest, the villagers come back to resume plowing ....and it takes 2 months to do a 2 morgen field with an ox and a dozen farmers

As for OP's problem I think this is caused by fields being too ''long'' as the villagers have to come back to the centre of the field each time their inventory is full of harvest this causes them to do long inefficient trips and can delay the harvest because that 1 guy had to go all the way from the middle of the field to the very edge to pick the last 3 wheat while everyone is waiting to start transporting the harvest from the field to the farmhouse

[Lexyvil]

I made a post about just that a week ago, and I have to agree:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1363080/discussions/3/4358998287105160700/?tscn=1714691856

[madpraxis]

Originally posted by Boyko Borisov:

In my game it's even worse - the ox will plow a little then ''go to rest'' so the villagers come out to plow by hand but they plow in a different pattern - then the ox comes back and all the villagers retreat (they can't plow while the ox is there) and then the ox tries to fill in the blanks caused by the different plowing pattern so he does this little small bits here and there and has to turn around constantly spending most of the time turning around instead of working...then it gets ''tired'' again and goes to rest, the villagers come back to resume plowing ....and it takes 2 months to do a 2 morgen field with an ox and a dozen farmers

As for OP's problem I think this is caused by fields being too ''long'' as the villagers have to come back to the centre of the field each time their inventory is full of harvest this causes them to do long inefficient trips and can delay the harvest because that 1 guy had to go all the way from the middle of the field to the very edge to pick the last 3 wheat while everyone is waiting to start transporting the harvest from the field to the farmhouse

Well, you said it yourself. 2 morgen field. You are trying to work an area that is too large, honestly. If you want to go that route, it would honestly be easier to just get rid of the oxen, have just a couple fields, and throw people at it until it works.

Or, do 1 morgen or so sized fields, and have 1 family per 'active' field, and watch how smoothly and nicely things get done.

OP's problem is the same. If you look at something that you made stupid big in game, that can't get done, then isn't kind of obvious that 'maybe I should make it smaller?' should be the next step?

[paulbierley]

Originally posted by Oni:

Ox plows for 2 months it's faster to let people do it

a huge blob people stand on the middle of the field "transporting" for a whole month ignoring other fields left to rot to the snow

any workaround?

Set threshing to low they will then get all the crops in and stored. They may start ploughing
the field they should be leaving to fallow but dont worry about that. Once the month turns they will go and start threshing all the stored crops. Your town will be overflowing with grain. Then they will plough the correct field.

[Boyko Borisov]

Originally posted by madpraxis:

Well, you said it yourself. 2 morgen field. You are trying to work an area that is too large, honestly. If you want to go that route, it would honestly be easier to just get rid of the oxen, have just a couple fields, and throw people at it until it works.

Or, do 1 morgen or so sized fields, and have 1 family per 'active' field, and watch how smoothly and nicely things get done.

OP's problem is the same. If you look at something that you made stupid big in game, that can't get done, then isn't kind of obvious that 'maybe I should make it smaller?' should be the next step?

I was working with 5 fields each 1 morgen in size but this was barely enough to feed a town of less than 100 and since every field pretty much requires manual harvest (as in forcing an early harvest) I decided to plant new field 2x the size. No way in hell am I going to micromanage 20+ fields for a town of 400-500 and 80% of the houses have gardens with chicken /veg/ apples + max harvest from berries and wild animals and that's before you start to plant barley for ale and forget about flax....

Automating (crop rotation) doesn't work as they'll never figure out on their own how/when to harvest in a way that doesn't let most of the crops go to waste before the winter.

[madpraxis]

I... my experience is completely different.
Using the (broken ass cause it is, hah) automated farming, I had 6 1 morgen fields. All on rotation, so only 2 being worked.
4 people, total, in farmhouse. Plus windmill, and upgraded to artisan bread.
Fed 500 people, easily.
At over 700 I added another 3 fields, and threw 1 more family in farmhouse.
And was feeding everyone. And exporting bread. And then also flour, cause bread market crashed.

I think the highest fertility field I had in all 9 of them was like, 39 percent. All the rest were low 30's.

[Boyko Borisov]

Originally posted by madpraxis:

I... my experience is completely different.
Using the (broken ass cause it is, hah) automated farming, I had 6 1 morgen fields. All on rotation, so only 2 being worked.
4 people, total, in farmhouse. Plus windmill, and upgraded to artisan bread.
Fed 500 people, easily.
At over 700 I added another 3 fields, and threw 1 more family in farmhouse.
And was feeding everyone. And exporting bread. And then also flour, cause bread market crashed.

I think the highest fertility field I had in all 9 of them was like, 39 percent. All the rest were low 30's.

I'm getting 50-60 wheat from 1 morgen fields with 50-55% fertility. So 3 active fields per year = 150-200 wheat = between 300 and 400 flour / bread. A town of 100 needs 1200 food per year assuming single food item per house or up to 2400 if level 2 houses

Maybe you're playing an older/newer version of the game or this artisan bread upgrade is really powerful (i've never tried it)

[madpraxis]

Artisan bread making is hilarious. If you haven't, try it.
They just spew that stuff out. Like, SPEW it out. Makes the (as it should be) crappy communal bakery look so sad.

[Oni]

thanks for the help guys

[TechReaper]

I have been building farms only to the size of the area you can set for them to work. Seems to work well enough, yeah the ox makes it worse, faster to just let people do it.

[Kedryn]

Originally posted by madpraxis:

Artisan bread making is hilarious. If you haven't, try it.
They just spew that stuff out. Like, SPEW it out. Makes the (as it should be) crappy communal bakery look so sad.

It turned bread into my regional currency for pack mules.

[9erRed]

Greetings,

Have noticed that with the oxen tilling the "Square shape" field that it runs down one side then walks over to the other side and tills that side. Does not till the bottom or top during this cycle just the sides.

So, changed my field shapes to match historically accurate shapes. Long and narrow size as it was difficult to turn the plow around, so longest the oxen could walk straight before becoming tired. (historically speaking the furlong. "furrow length")
- Now the fields are tilled faster as not as far to travel to next line.

Anyone else seen this?

[Boyko Borisov]

Originally posted by 9erRed:

Greetings,

Have noticed that with the oxen tilling the "Square shape" field that it runs down one side then walks over to the other side and tills that side. Does not till the bottom or top during this cycle just the sides.

So, changed my field shapes to match historically accurate shapes. Long and narrow size as it was difficult to turn the plow around, so longest the oxen could walk straight before becoming tired. (historically speaking the furlong. "furrow length")
- Now the fields are tilled faster as not as far to travel to next line.

Anyone else seen this?

Yes long fields are most efficient for ox plowing however least efficient for harvest because workers will walk back to the middle of the field every time they have their hands full of harvested crops then back to the far ends to resume harvesting...it's a no-win situation atm