Farming tips

[lyravega]

-Build a barn next to your farms. This will save up a lot of time that the farmers waste on harvesting, as they need to transfer the goods to the barn.

-Build houses next to the barn/farmland for your farmers to reside in. This will save up some amount of time (depending on the farm-house distance) as sometimes farmers pick up some of the harvest, and bring them to their houses. Ideally, two adults live in a house, so plan accordingly.

-Use the biggest layout that only one farmer can work on. Any farm that has an area smaller than 60 tiles (8x7, 9x6, 11x5, 14x4) will require one farmer by default (the amount can be increased, but there is no need). This will help minimizing the effects of the disasters, and the reliance of the harvest's yield percentage (the bigger the farm area is, the more reliant your town will be on the harvest's yield; if the yield is bad, you may suffer some food shortage).

-(new) If you are going to focus on a central town area surrounded with relatively remote farms, and would not like to build houses near the farmlands, use bigger farm areas with 2 people working on them instead. This is because of the 2nd point I've tried to make. As they waste time going back and forth between their houses and the farmland, your crops might end up not getting harvested in time.

-Manually harvest if the yield is below expectation at summer / late summer to save the crops. If pestilence hits a farm, immediately hit the harvest button, you'll save a bit of the crops, but it is better than nothing.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by lyravega:

Any farm that has an area smaller than 60 tiles (8x7, 9x6, 11x5, 14x4) will require one farmer by default (the amount can be increased, but there is no need).

Where do you get the odd number of 60 from?

I've been looking for information about optimal farmer numbers but I'm having a hard time.

From this thread[shiningrocksoftware.com] on the Shining Rock forums:

Originally posted by Kelderek:

I noticed that a single farmer can work an area of 50 (5x10), anything more and it requires another worker.

Bit less than 60, but it's pretty close. I also read another thread somewhere (I've been looking, but I can't find it, unfortunately) that broke down plot size by numbers of farmers used, with 4x4 - 7x7 requiring one farmer, and 8x8 - ??? requiring 2 (I forget the other values).

With keeping square plots, that's 49 tiles vs. 64 tiles for 1 and 2 farmers, which seems to fit. Has anybody tried 7x9? This would give you 63 tiles, just under the 64 tile cut-off point of "64 tiles needs 2 farmers".

I'll probably stick to 7x7 or 5x10 plots for now to be safe, but I'd be curious to hear from people who have done testing.

[SacôMatô]

more info here.

Link [www.banishedforum.com]

from the link.

Here's the summary of my results:
- field: 7x8=56 or 5x11=55 (1 worker), 14x8=112 (2 worker)
- orchard: 5x14=7x10=70 (1 worker), 12x12=144 (2 worker)
- pasture: 11x18=198 (1 worker), 20x20=400 (2 worker)

I'm not the person who did the experiments.

[Elegant Caveman]

Very useful, thanks! I also didn't know about that forum, so doubly useful.

[lyravega]

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

Bit less than 60, but it's pretty close. I also read another thread somewhere (I've been looking, but I can't find it, unfortunately) that broke down plot size by numbers of farmers used, with 4x4 - 7x7 requiring one farmer, and 8x8 - ??? requiring 2 (I forget the other values).

With keeping square plots, that's 49 tiles vs. 64 tiles for 1 and 2 farmers, which seems to fit. Has anybody tried 7x9? This would give you 63 tiles, just under the 64 tile cut-off point of "64 tiles needs 2 farmers".

I'll probably stick to 7x7 or 5x10 plots for now to be safe, but I'd be curious to hear from people who have done testing.

I tested them already. Experimented as much as I can. By default, the numbers I gave above (7x8, 5x11, 4x14 9x6) will require one farmer by default. I used 7x8 near my town, for remote farmlands without a close house nearby, I use 14x8. I avoid bigger (15x15 lets say) farmlands, because if a pestilence hits that farm, you may end up in a starvation.

[Itharus]

My findings are generally in line with the OP. I approve of this thread.

[PureOrionBelt]

If you are playing on harsher weather games, than a 50 field is perfect. I usually go for a 7x7 as that is square. If you go larger than you stand a good chance of losing a lot of the crop to weather and infestation.

[lyravega]

Some side tips, not much related to farming.

Marketplace warning:
Vendors will transfer available goods to the Marketplace. This may lead to a resource shortage for the Taverns and the Blacksmiths (that are set to produce Steel Tools). To avoid this, you can either bump the production, another solution is building these buildings next to where they are first stored at.

Lets say your Taverns are brewing ale from Wheat. Building a Tavern next to the barn, where your wheat is first stored at, will help that Tavern a lot on the long run. Likewise, building a blacksmith that produces steel tools, next to a storage area near the coal mine will help it making more tools.

Do not have more vendors than you need. Too many vendors mean that most of the produced goods will be transferred to the marketplace as long as there is space. Just having a few vendors that can maintain a percentage over 35-40% will make sure those storages will have enough to keep the processing buildings (Tavern, Blacksmith) keep going.

As said, bumping the production will always help, but for example coal, your citizens prefer coal over firewood when it is available, and your vendors will be carrying them to the marketplace in bulk, which may lead to the problems stated above. Same for your preferred ale "raw" material, your citizens may preffer eating it instead of other stuff first.

Wish there was a way to restrict certain goods to get consumed.