Farms > Farmer > Hearthling ratio for ACE?

[VSX]

Hey, I know that there were the same questions asked in the forums multiple times, but I do not know if they include ACE modpack.

I am wondering what is the appropriate ratio with ACE installed? Other than that, I've read from someone else that one high level farmer is enough while the rest are cooks (which also act as farmers after cooking), does that strategy still hold true?

[YetiChow]

The strategy of using cooks to help out with farming will only work if your cooks have a lot of down-time when they're not crafting. This often depends on the levels of your cooks -- if you have several low-level cooks and you're cooking mostly high-level dishes, then the lowbies are going to hopefully be doing the prep work like making flour while the high-level cooks are constantly pumping out the good dishes; and that gives the lowbies a chance to bring in harvests between rounds of making ingredients. However, if your cooks are all working on cooking all the time, nobody will be bringing in harvests regularly (the high-level farmer will spend a lot of time planting and tending); so the cooks will get "jerked around" between cooking and farming based on what ingredients/fresh produce/jobs are available at the time.

ACE adds several mechanics that improve the yield of farms and the quality of crops (which in turn leads to higher quality finished dishes), so you can feed more people with less work in ACE if you set things up right. However, this also adds more steps to the whole process; so you really need to work out the optimisation for that route if you want to rely on a "quality over quantity" approach.

Personally, I like to have 3 cooks to 2 farmers, small fields, large variety of crops, and plenty of non-crop food sources (nut trees, trapping, fishing, shepherd, and I usually move berry bushes etc. into the shepherd pastures so that I can harvest a whole swathe of foods with a single order if I notice my stocks are low.)

ACE adds so many new dishes that it's really not practical to make all of them at once -- you're going to want to pick a "menu" based on season, needs (i.e. do you need lots of food that's easy to make, or can you afford less food but it's all high-quality buffing food that will make your hearthlings more productive?), and even things like aiming for particular buffs (e.g. if you're running a trading town, you might want to focus on foods and drinks that will give buffs to creativity since fine items will sell for that much more compared to regular items... and that in turn gives you more money to buy better food and materials!.) That menu is also going to be a big factor in your cooks -> farmers equation -- e.g. if your menu has lots of meat dishes then you won't need to farm as much as if it's reliant on lots of different dishes that each require a specific kind of veggie.

[VSX]

Okay, thanks. So there is no simple "2 farms to 1 farmer to 10 hearthlings" (the only ratio I saw on forums) or any golden-ish ratio like that anymore? Seeing that ACE had revamped the entire food system? I wanna have consistent food coming in but not too much, I find that 1 farmer with 2 fields and I barely with cope with 6 hearthlings, while 2 farmers with 10 fields and 10 hearthlings I find them doing better. So I don't know which is better.

[YetiChow]

The ratios depend on your kingdom, biome, what other foods you're combining with farming... if you only have farmers and are serving raw food, then yeah you still want about 2 farmers and 10 fields for 10 hearthlings including those farmers. I've found that with a cook, a farmer, and a trapper you can feed about 12 hearthlings (including those three) pretty comfortably in the forest biome; but that heavily depends on making efficient use of the trapper and having the cook make good filling meals. In the desert or tundra though, you'd need a second cook (who can help with the fields too) in order to have enough crops to mix in with meat dishes.

Or you can forage, which is always going to throw a wrench into trying to estimate how many farmers etc. you'll need since forage yields are a bit erratic and will always depend on seasons and number of plants and more.

Overall... there's no single golden ratio, no. There are always many factors to take into account; and Stonehearth isn't a game where "brute force" is ever really your best bet. It's a game about adapting and figuring things out -- often you can boost productivity by an amazing amount as you reach the mid-late game just by making better use of what you already have available. I've actually had several runs where my total number of food producers (counting cooks, farmers, shepherds, trappers, fishing using Archipelago mod) has stayed the same from just before tier 2 all the way through tier 3 and the final boss fight, even though my population has doubled during that time. That's the sheer scale of optimisation possible for things like food production... there are lots of things, some subtle and some pretty obvious, that you can do to improve the output. Better recipes, better equipment + consumables (things like fertiliser with ACE, as well as worker tools), and just the productivity bonuses from levelling up; seasonal bonuses, unlocking new crops, having your hunters or trappers start bringing down new/better game and your shepherds unlocking new herds... there are so many bonuses "built in" that it's easy to miss a lot of them, but when you take a step back and look at the cumulative effect it's astonishing.

The key is to pay attention to the new unlocks, and figure out how to take advantage of them. Once you have a new swathe of recipes to use, perhaps those old staples like bread or veggie soup aren't as efficient anymore? Perhaps your high-level NA hunters are bringing down big game regularly enough that you don't need the trapper to manage a full-size trapping field anymore, and can have them spend more time on bug trapping (which can be used for chicken feed for the shepherd with NA) so that you have reliable sources of both poultry and eggs? And never underestimate the difference that banner, hearth and fountain upgrades can make! One of the banners gives you effectively double crop production; one of the hearths gives you a chance for various buffs (one is increased productivity across the board; another is that everyone skips eating for the day); and the fountain that enhances your crafters also increases your cooks' chances of creating Exquisite meals which are both more filling and give more happiness (and happy hearthlings walk and work faster!)

Even something as simple and tangential as improving the average morale around town can make a difference to your food production and consumption! Like, having a mess of loose and rotting produce around your fields will make your farmers less happy; and if they get unhappy they walk slower... conversely, if you put in some nice decorations and neat storage then your happy farmers will spend less time walking between plants and more time tending/harvesting them.

So yeah, it's never just a matter of pure maths/ratio... it's always a bigger picture. There are "minimum limits" if you want to play that way, but trust me, you're missing half the game if that's all you ever focus on. It's incredibly satisfying to go from a rough-and-ready farm to a neat, well-oiled machine; to see your bustling kitchen always cranking out food with very little down-time, etc. And all those little things do add up -- if you have 10 things you can improve by 5%, well, that's effectively 50% more food to use or less food needed.

[VSX]

Thanks for the in-depth reply! I've taken a habit of checking each season on how much food I have in relative to my goals- at the moment, I only increase the fields if I fail the check in the morning, and assign a farmer every 5 farms I build.

I've not unlocked a cook yet, thanks to my stupidity, I failed to realise most things require a Mason Lv2 to craft, so my Mason was idle for the better half of an hour before me realising he probably need to craft something in excess (that I can sell too) to level himself up to be remotely useful.

I want to try to increment my productivity to ensure that I will ALWAYS get new hearthling each season, but I am afraid that I grow too fast and get overwhelmed by the things I may need to do or notice.

I am not an attentive player (which explains my idle Mason), which is why I often disliked games with much micromanaging aspects, a city building game such as Stonehearth and with ACE's auto-craft intermediaries feature was what pushed me over the fence to purchase the game. This is not a complaint, this is just me clarifying why I asked for a golden ratio in the first place- I am simply not good at predicting or observing trends, I often rely on cold, hard numbers to figure out what I need to do next.

In any case, thank you once again for your answer, I will try my best in estimating based on my daily goals. But if you do have other tips, please do let me know (even though the above post is so much more than enough for all intents and purposes)!

Edit:
I took a look at Ascendancy's building templates and they are... not as fleshed out as NA or RC? I see things like engineer workshop in NA and RC templates but not Ascendency, is this intended?

[YetiChow]

Ascendancy unlocks templates based on having those crafters present in the town, just like all kingdoms do. That said, if you've ever built those buildings then they'll be added to your "automatic templates" list (any time you build a building the game takes a template of it as a safety thing, so that you can easily rebuild it if anything goes wrong.) I'm gonna guess that you've played further through as NA and RC than as Asc?

I'm not sure if Asc has a dedicated engineer's workshop template; I actually like using one of the kitchen/tavern templates for an engineer's workshop since it has multiple separate rooms (one for workshop, one for storage, upstairs for living area.)

And if you're looking for any other tips please don't hesitate to ask -- that's what we're all here for hahah! It's good to be able to talk about the game with someone who is exploring it and trying things out