Backyards and Backyard Size

[constantinople]

So, anyone figured out backyards and size yet? Like, how big do they have to / should they be for, say, a chicken coop or a vegetable garden?

[madpraxis]

Yes. And then some. All over the place, here, internets, all of it.
Coops/Goats/Artisans don't care. It doesn't matter with them, smaller is honestly better to utilize space. As long as there is *A* backyard extension space, you are good to go.

Veggies/Orchards? Size does matter, cause, you know, more things in the ground.
There's been some rather lively debate in the corners about 'how much' you get from 'how big', but... Honestly? Meh. Just don't make stupid large plots, you are good to go.

[Jabberwocky]

For a chicken coop or a goat shed you take the smallest backyard extension possible. Just fiddle around with the burgage plot planner until the "backyard" icon just barely appears. Size does NOT matter for chickens or goats.

For a vegetable garden, I have found that a good unit of measurement and a nice tool for planning out your vegetable plots is the corpse pit.

It is free to build it. Put two in a row behind each other on the street you want to build your vegetable garden. Then make a small road around them to frame them, then delete the corpse pits. Then it also helps to use roads to round out the egdes of the back end of the garden size you just framed before putting down the burgage plot. Use the road frame you just made to define the edges of the burgage plot. Should be an ideal size.

Bigger is not always better with vegetable gardens, as they take longer to till and harvest the longer they get. But "two corpse pits" is a good size for them.

Orchards no not need to be tilled, only harvested. I advise you to use orchards only with double plot houses that you plan on expanding to level 3 eventually, because they will need the expanded pantry size.

For orchards, I have found that three to four corpse pits is a good size. I have had good experiences with putting four corpse pits together in a square formation, drawing a road around them, rounding out the road on the back end as well, and then using said road to define the borders of the burgage plot. Yes, that is huge. But it will also have a huge yield. Obviously, use a double plot extension and upgrade to level 3 as soon as possible.

[madpraxis]

I like this. Forget acres, forget furlongs, forget morgens... New unit of measurement: Corpse pit.

Yes, I need 1 corpse pit length of cordage please.
Why, we managed to plow 4 corpse pits of field yesterday, it was amazingly good work.
How far are the enemy troops... Why, they are 14 corpse pits away and closing! To arms!

[Jabberwocky]

It works like a charm ;-)

"morgen" is so 12th century... make our orchard the size of four corpse pits! ^^

[madpraxis]

You do have to appreciate the evolution of 'morning' as a term used for the size of something :D
Just think HOW LONG and how many times people used 'I got all my work done in the field this morning' before someone finally had a light bulb moment and realize, hey, instead of using the 12 different kinds of measurement possible for fields, we should just use 'How much you can work in a morning' for some measure of sanity. Considering how hilariously fiddly the size is in real life, its kinda 'meh' beyond medieval land tax usage, since the 'size' didn't matter, just how productive it was.

Uh...brief history lesson over...