Farming question

[jayjaysupercards]

Is it a good idea to completely stop making potatoes and just feed the people vegetable and bread?

[Synical]

Yeah, bread is very efficient and probably the best food if you just want to feed people without much planning. You'll want to grow wheat and vegetables on the same farm to prevent fertility penalties from monocropping. The health bonus you get from providing bread and vegetables (foods from two categories) is nice too.

[Ravanavir]

Yep. In early game I stop farming potatoes as soon as i have wheat to make bread. Feeds more ppl than potatoes.

In later game when you want to get more unity you could farm potatoes again, but i don't bother.

[jayjaysupercards]

Ok, thanks

[Inanimate]

I would actually suggest that you keep potatoes in mind.
If you heavily overproduce bread it is less impactful, but having multiple foods under the same category helps alleviate pressure if you cannot scale up immediately.

For example, potatoes and veggies are 2 categories, carb/vitamins; if there are no other categories being fed then the nutrition demand for each category is held up entirely by that one food type.

As your population expands and food needs go up, it is mathematically better to fulfill a new category, VS scaling up a single food type dramatically.
If you have multiple food types under a single category, however, they share the burden.

When you go from potato/veggies to potato+bread/veggies, you basically double the effectiveness of potato, or you need "half" as much bread compared to ripping out all the potato and replacing it with bread.

[Synical]

Originally posted by Inanimate:

I would actually suggest that you keep potatoes in mind.
If you heavily overproduce bread it is less impactful, but having multiple foods under the same category helps alleviate pressure if you cannot scale up immediately.

For example, potatoes and veggies are 2 categories, carb/vitamins; if there are no other categories being fed then the nutrition demand for each category is held up entirely by that one food type.

As your population expands and food needs go up, it is mathematically better to fulfill a new category, VS scaling up a single food type dramatically.
If you have multiple food types under a single category, however, they share the burden.

When you go from potato/veggies to potato+bread/veggies, you basically double the effectiveness of potato, or you need "half" as much bread compared to ripping out all the potato and replacing it with bread.

You are correct that adding potatoes to a bread only diet will about halve the amount of bread you need, but bread is more space and water efficient than potatoes. Testing on my ~13K island where I'm providing all the foods, if I disable all except bread, it states I need 264 bread per 60. If I switch it to bread and potatoes, I need 313.5 potatoes and 146.7 bread per 60.

Per farm numbers assuming 100% fertility on a Greenhouse II and rates per 60
Bread: 40 water -> 14.5 wheat -> 21.75 bread (7.25 add'l water from baking so 47.25)
Potatoes: 45 water -> 29 potatoes

So on just bread, I need 12.14 farms and 576 water. Bread + potatoes needs (6.7 + 10.8) farms and (317 + 485) water. Allocating foods differently doesn't change that some are more efficient than others, but the unity and health bonuses potentially make up for that.

Admittedly I've assumed single crop farms here, and there may be something I'm missing by reducing the numbers to that (particularly fertilizer costs), but my gut feeling says it'll still average out that wheat is king.

[Antheatre]

but please, farm all food for bonus unity.
My recipe:
2 potato+grass
3 potato+vegetable
->split into snack maker
2 corn+grass
3 corn+vegetable
->split into animal feed
2 wheat fert 100% -> into 1 bread maker
2 soy fert 100% -> split into cooking oil
1 fruit fert 110% -> split into cake maker
1 sugar cane fert 90%
2 maxed chicken coop
Not efficient and overproduce all the time at 3450 pop.