please fix the farm system

[Ikea Kitchen Set]

after 40 hours of game play, I find the farm system not able to work at all without micromanagement each single year.

[Clovis Sangrail]

The farm system works, but it is not automatic. You have to actually do something.

[philmo]

It works for me - and it’s just case of assigning farmers and Oxen in September. One thing I have not worked out is if I leave the Oxen assigned to a farm when harvesting is over will they work elsewhere or just stay doing nothing at the farm ?

[Jabberwocky]

Originally posted by Ikea Kitchen Set:

after 40 hours of game play, I find the farm system not able to work at all without micromanagement each single year.

I've explained it in my food guide:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3396755448

But other users have made singular guides specific to farming only, if you're looking for a more in-depth view:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3242064406

It works and does not need to be fixed, only understood.

[Clovis Sangrail]

Originally posted by Jabberwocky:

It works and does not need to be fixed, only understood.

This needs to be carved in stone and put in a pinned topic in big capital letters.

So many people come here complaining about 'bugs' when the problem is simply that they do not know what they are doing or need to do.

[Clovis Sangrail]

Originally posted by philmo:

It works for me - and it’s just case of assigning farmers and Oxen in September. One thing I have not worked out is if I leave the Oxen assigned to a farm when harvesting is over will they work elsewhere or just stay doing nothing at the farm ?

I was pretty sure they just stood around, but I have a game that is at November, and the crops are all in, so I tested. Usually I would unassign them, but this time, I left them in the farmhouse. They spent December just waiting back at their home stable.

But as soon as I unassigned them from the farmhouse, they went to work hauling other non-farm stuff.

So -- They should be unassigned from the farmhouse once the harvest work is done and reassigned at the start of the following September. Unless you just have so many oxen you can afford to let some stand around for nine months out of the year.

[ZAC]

I think the whole farming thing is a trap. To feed so many people prompts you to set up a farm and the fields have to be large enough to yield sufficient crops when it comes to rural planning. However, as it starts to work, you begin to realize that the surplus workers, 4 or 5 maybe, are just not able to work so vast the land--due to the poor design-- and you naturally want to reassign workers and redistribute tasks or build more houses to attract more workers. After you do this, your whole economic system that used to function well gradually becomes dysfunctional and the expanded population worsens your food-population balance. At this time, you finally realize the whole farming mechanism is just a low-rewarding time-and-energy-consuming trap.

[Clovis Sangrail]

Originally posted by 向桑:

I think the whole farming thing is a trap. To feed so many people prompts you to set up a farm and the fields have to be large enough to yield sufficient crops when it comes to rural planning. However, as it starts to work, you begin to realize that the surplus workers, 4 or 5 maybe, are just not able to work so vast the land--due to the poor design-- and you naturally want to reassign workers and redistribute tasks or build more houses to attract more workers. After you do this, your whole economic system that used to function well gradually becomes dysfunctional and the expanded population worsens your food-population balance. At this time, you finally realize the whole farming mechanism is just a low-rewarding time-and-energy-consuming trap.

Poor design or skill issue?

I'm going with the latter.

Farming works, and I have the surplus bread and vegetables to prove it. We're exporting bread, and I still have 500 bread and almost 600 vegetables in the larder, plus another 250+ wheat, grain and flour in the production chain, which will make about 500 more loaves of bread.

Sorry that your mileage is not up to that, but maybe you should take the time to read some of the guides Jabberwocky posted and learn how to do it.

[admiral8q]

Fist time I ever played, my fist map, I didn't even know about the burgage backyards. I thought it was wasted space when zoning so made sure not to have that "wasted space".
So the only food sources were Wild Animals and Berries. The fertility was pretty bad too for the land. Still a newbie, I got the rye as soon as possible. In the meantime farmed emmer on the least worst areas.

Anyways it a took a bit, but eventually did get the settlement's food into the overproducing rather than barely surviving.

Then I was doing research and watching videos on how farming works in this game. Personally I don't like the auto-rotation, I prefer a crop one year, fallow the next. A 2 year rotation instead of 3 . Also even now if I do rotate with 2 crops and 1 fallow I still do it manually.

My point is that it is a bit complicated to learn, yes, but it does work. Even without any gigantic vegetable or apple "backyards", farming can get into the surplus in a town. :)

[afterburn25]

Originally posted by admiral8q:

Fist time I ever played, my fist map, I didn't even know about the burgage backyards. I thought it was wasted space when zoning so made sure not to have that "wasted space".
So the only food sources were Wild Animals and Berries. The fertility was pretty bad too for the land. Still a newbie, I got the rye as soon as possible. In the meantime farmed emmer on the least worst areas.

Anyways it a took a bit, but eventually did get the settlement's food into the overproducing rather than barely surviving.

Then I was doing research and watching videos on how farming works in this game. Personally I don't like the auto-rotation, I prefer a crop one, year fallow the next. A 2 year rotation instead of 3 . Also even now if I do rotate with 2 crops and 1 fallow I still do it manually.

My point is that it is a bit complicated to learn, yes, but it does work. Even without any gigantic vegetable or apple "backyards", farming can get into the surplus in a town. :)

would be nice if you would share the secret to it for the rest of us.

[Clovis Sangrail]

Originally posted by afterburn25:

would be nice if you would share the secret to it for the rest of us.

Read the guides that Jabberwocky posted. There is more than enough information there to get you going the right direction.

If that's not enough, search these ML forums on 'farming'.

[beatles42o]

idk, the system can work and still be broken and need fixed....sounds like none of yall are american, this is a simple concept for most of us to understand.

i can put 8 people on a max fertile field,

three years, not a single yield.

not a single yield, 3 years, eight people working, with oxes,

tried three .5 morgen fields, up to 1 morgen fileds, up to 2 morgen fields, pu to 3 morgen fields.

every run i do, is wasted with attempts to farming.

if putting eight people in your farm house, with oxes, and selecting a crop rotation, and hvaing the people work.

isnt enough to good food to start coming in. the system needs fixed.

everybody says "put more people in during harvest time"

what if you keep max people in there for 3 years straight, and not a single yield?

[beatles42o]

after reading the guides, ive come to the conclusion, that the people complaining about farming, are 100% correct.

when, the average person posting about farming not working, we are talking about the farm house, and fields.

not the dozens of other ways to get food...which 100% do not actually require a farm.

yall sound like pretentious ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥,

this is what yall are doing in an IRL situation

they are asking about farms, not food.

crazy i just,,,cannot fathom the thickness.

it woud be like. if somebody asked for apples IRL

you can get berrys, hunt, you can grow wheat, you can make bread.

like, yalls responses about apples, dont have apples in them.....

you are not answering questions being asked.

and you wonder why people are struggling.

cool, this is how to get farms to work.....dont use farms.....

use every other source to get food,

[Doc_Hotpants]

Originally posted by Ikea Kitchen Set:

after 40 hours of game play, I find the farm system not able to work at all without micromanagement each single year.

I'm by no means a master in this game, but in my games (I'm NOT playing the hard settings, so YMMV on those) this is working for me very well with consistently enough of a harvest to feed 500+ people on maps with rich fertility:

1. I do NOT micromanage anything
2. I set up farms with fields no larger than 0.5 morgen each
3. The fields are all set to a 3-year crop rotation (which I set up once and never touch again afterward): wheat - barley - flax, with the different fields having differing crops, so that I always have each crop available every year, so field 1 will have wheat - barley - flax, field 2 will have barley - flax - wheat, field 3 will have flax - wheat - barley and so on
4. Any family I assign to the farm will remain a farmer all year, while being well aware that this is not the most efficient use of the families
5. I assign one ox as soon as possible to the farm, and will add a second one as soon as I can (at that point I usually have at least 3 or 4 families at the farm).
6. I add fields later as needed (I always count 1 morgen per family, though in this setup, the first family manages to harvest from 3 or 4 fields), and will add another farm at a later point with that same setup, only then making sure I also set a work radius, so that no farmer starts working on a field that was set up for the other farm

Again, on the easier difficulties, this tactic works extremely well, I always have enough of a harvest to supply crops for flour, linen, and beer, with no micromanaging involved. The crop rotation takes care of everything, and with the fixed assignment of the farmers, I can never be late for harvesting or planting. I usually sell flax (as I always have surplus like this)

[edit: I never touch threshing or whatever other settings there are for the farms.]
[2nd edit: On high fertility maps, I always get heavy plow for the farm and install asap]

Maybe some of this will help you.

And for those playing the harder difficulties: yes, I'm aware this is not the most efficient way, but it IS working well, and I'm never short on crops like this.

[Doc_Hotpants]

Originally posted by beatles42o:

after reading the guides, ive come to the conclusion, that the people complaining about farming, are 100% correct.

when, the average person posting about farming not working, we are talking about the farm house, and fields.

not the dozens of other ways to get food...which 100% do not actually require a farm.

yall sound like pretentious ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥,

this is what yall are doing in an IRL situation

they are asking about farms, not food.

crazy i just,,,cannot fathom the thickness.

it woud be like. if somebody asked for apples IRL

you can get berrys, hunt, you can grow wheat, you can make bread.

like, yalls responses about apples, dont have apples in them.....

you are not answering questions being asked.

and you wonder why people are struggling.

cool, this is how to get farms to work.....dont use farms.....

use every other source to get food,

I understand your frustration... Tried to help with a quick setup that works for the easier difficulties. I haven't tried it on harder difficulty. The system would likely still work, but I would guess that the inefficient family usage would not be possible on harder setups.

[Doc_Hotpants]

Originally posted by beatles42o:

idk, the system can work and still be broken and need fixed....sounds like none of yall are american, this is a simple concept for most of us to understand.

i can put 8 people on a max fertile field,

three years, not a single yield.

not a single yield, 3 years, eight people working, with oxes,

tried three .5 morgen fields, up to 1 morgen fileds, up to 2 morgen fields, pu to 3 morgen fields.

every run i do, is wasted with attempts to farming.

if putting eight people in your farm house, with oxes, and selecting a crop rotation, and hvaing the people work.

isnt enough to good food to start coming in. the system needs fixed.

everybody says "put more people in during harvest time"

what if you keep max people in there for 3 years straight, and not a single yield?

Honest question: is this on a region with high fertility? And what difficulty are you playing? And how are you setting up the crop rotation? It does sound that there's some sort of bug in farming in your game there.
Also, which version are you playing? The beta?