Farming on bad soil

[[Heretic]Rivga]

Has anyone got experience of putting farmland on bad soil, can it still be worthwhile or is it pointless?

[Clovis Sangrail]

It's definitely not as efficient, but if you need something like an additional food source or some barley for your ale, you can squeeze some production out of it. It will, of course, take more fields, more oxen and more farmers. (I usually won't go less than that pea-green that borders on yellow.)

But I have found that even in regions without fertile soil, there is usually a little patch of green you can squeeze a little bread out of.

And then, there is always rye if you want to spend the perks.

[[Heretic]Rivga]

I found a map that seems crimson red for almost everything except a few morgans worth of rye.

The next region is green but I am a long way off expanding, so I wanted to see if I could get some barley for the tavern or if the alternative is to use the guys I would have used on getting barley to earn the money to buy it.

[Didz]

Why bother?

You only have six development points per region you have to be a complete idiot to waste them on farming in an area where soil fertility is low and you have other resources that need those points.

[Jabberwocky]

Originally posted by HereticRivga:

Has anyone got experience of putting farmland on bad soil, can it still be worthwhile or is it pointless?

Since even unfertile regions have more and larger spots of decent wheat fertility (light green with ++ soil) since the latest update than they ever had before, farming can still be done. But it is still one of the least efficient ways of food production in relation between manpower and yield, next to honey production.

In my most recent playthrough I started in Waldbrand with low fertility and two deep mines. So I invested no development point into farming. No heavy plows, no backyard bakeries.

I still tried my hand at farming in the late game stage. My large town has 600+ residents, I have 45 fields on green to yellow fertility, each the size of roughly two corpse pits (~0.5-0.7 morgen) tended to by 32 families. I have two windmills with 3 families each and four communal ovens with 3 families each, and yet my region seems unable to create and hold a decent surplus of bread, even though my veggies and apples consistently stay at 1k+ and my meat surplus from sheepbreeding and butchering has reached a constant surplus of 500+.
All my single house burgage plots that are not workshops have chicken coops, and I import fish from two other regions that I own. Still, bread does not seem to rise above the double digits.

[[Heretic]Rivga]

Originally posted by Didz:

Why bother?

You only have six development points per region you have to be a complete idiot to waste them on farming in an area where soil fertility is low and you have other resources that need those points.

Yeah I was hoping to not have to spend any development points at all but if the farming is not an option then it has to be apples and so I need the development point for that.

The prior version if the game on maps like this I'd just import stuff but as I need to import beer I am going to be bankrupt.

[Agony_Aunt]

Totally worth it if you need to shore up something you don't have, which normally means barley. Even if you're not getting loads, it still helps.

[Razorblade Nipples]

On my new game the entire map sucks for farming. In the past at least a few regions were fertile. Is this common now?

[Jabberwocky]

Originally posted by Razorblade Nipples:

On my new game the entire map sucks for farming. In the past at least a few regions were fertile. Is this common now?

Nah, I think it's just completely randomized without any guarantee for any resource.

[Razorblade Nipples]

Originally posted by Jabberwocky:

Originally posted by Razorblade Nipples:

On my new game the entire map sucks for farming. In the past at least a few regions were fertile. Is this common now?

Nah, I think it's just completely randomized without any guarantee for any resource.

I mean in the old version I genned maybe in the hundreds of maps, just trying to get particular starts. I never once saw it where zero regions were fertile.

[Jabberwocky]

Originally posted by Razorblade Nipples:

Originally posted by Jabberwocky:

Nah, I think it's just completely randomized without any guarantee for any resource.

I mean in the old version I genned maybe in the hundreds of maps, just trying to get particular starts. I never once saw it where zero regions were fertile.

Yeah, that's what random map generation does.