Auto farming -how does it work

[Grace1957]

I'm trying to understand how this works.After I till the soil I think I have to fertilize it the first time but then what.I had a farm and after it was harvested they did nothing.Do you need to clear the stubble or do they do it? Is it set to a certain day that they start the auto part,maybe I didn't wait long enough.

[dissent]

You need to turn on auto harvest, replant, fertilize and water in the bottom right. Then just till the soil and plant your first field. Thereafter the workers will do everything automatically. Obviously they can't do things if you have no fertilizer or if they have no tools, etc. They also won't replant anything once it reaches fall. They will, however, automatically harvest on the first day of winter, even if the crop isn't ready, as nothing will grow after that.

[Grace1957]

I don't have the game open now so I'm going on my poor memory but I think the auto stuff is on by default so I shouldn't have to touch it,so what you're saying is after I plant my first crop it should take care of itself?Do you know if there is a set day that they do things?Maybe I just panicked and did it myself because it seemed to be taking too long.As far as the stubble,I can leave that and they will plant over it? Thank you for your time.

[dissent]

The moment the crop is ready, they will harvest it. The moment it needs water or fertilizer, they will add it. Providing you have fertilizer, of course. The moment the crop is cleared, they will remove the stubble and replant.

They won't do things after sunset. So the crop can mature in the middle of the night and they will only get to it the next morning. Also if you have a very high task load, it may take them a while to get to it. But other than that, it's as efficient as it can get. I wouldn't interfere with it.

[miauukisu]

Also, requires that at least one folk has farming as a skill with high priority.
If everyone is busy with other jobs, may take much longer even if task load is high, if other jobs are deemed more urgent.

[Philtre]

Originally posted by Grace1957:

I had a farm and after it was harvested they did nothing.

What time of year was it? They can only plant in spring and summer. If it is fall, they will continue to water and fertilize growing crops, but once the crops are harvested they won't do anything until next spring. On day one of spring if you have't changed the growing orders they will cut any leftover stubble and replant.

[Grace1957]

Thank you all :)

[Lone Lycan (aka. Ippiki Ookami)]

why do they wait all that time to cut the stubble? farmers call that lazy... shouldn't they prepare as much as possible before the first day of spring so all they have to do then is just plant?

[miauukisu]

Keeping stubble on the ground as long as possible is beneficial to soil, both in topsoil preservation and in weed preventation. Ploughing it under only when ground is prepared for next harvest is also a labour saving way; one round of ploughing is removed.
So they are doing it as real life smart farmers would do, not lazily :)

[Diarmuhnd]

I've been auto-farming for 6 years now. Something i do is when I notice most of the fields needing water or harvesting i shift select all of them and increase the Priority to 9 or 10 for those jobs to force more workers to focus on the growing crops. I do also make sure all my clanfolk have those skills higher than others so they focus on crops 1st.

If they happen at the same time i choose one to be 1 level lower than the other. This seems to work, or I'm just crazy while I watch 20'ish clanfolk go running to do my bidding.

[Lone Lycan (aka. Ippiki Ookami)]

Originally posted by miauukisu:

Keeping stubble on the ground as long as possible is beneficial to soil, both in topsoil preservation and in weed preventation. Ploughing it under only when ground is prepared for next harvest is also a labour saving way; one round of ploughing is removed.
So they are doing it as real life smart farmers would do, not lazily :)

ok, then maybe at the very least allow the stubble to be auto-cut on the last day of winter... the sooner the crops are planted the sooner they can be harvested

[Grace1957]

Still having issues with this.Everything goes fine the first year but the next year they won't replant even tho I have seeds,water jugs,fertilizer,and planters.Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

[Rane]

On the first day of Spring, you have to manually set what you want in the field. So, Oats here, Flax here. After that, if the autos in the lower right are on, they will fert, water, clear stubble, and replant throughout the rest of the year. But you still have to manually set what to plant on Spring 1.

I tell my Folk to fert on Winter 10, just so that's one less thing to do in Spring. Spring days are usually kinda busy.

[Grace1957]

Thank you,I guess the auto replant button confused me.I thought it was once and done unless you changed what you wanted to plant.