Choosing the right difficulty, need opinions from experieced players

[antrax737]

Hi all, as we all know FS19 is kinda just around the corner and I am really hyped for that game, making plans and stuff, but there is one thing that I have trouble deciding, on which difficulty should I play. In FS17 I didn't really play a lot of maps, actually only Goldcrest and Aberdeenshire. Goldcrest because it is all in all decent map and Aberdeenshire for it's huge fields, used to do between 80 and 120ha on that map. On Goldcrest I used middle range tractors, most powerful Same with 190hp, on Aberdeen mostly tractors in 240-400hp range, for feedeing animals the smallest Fendt. I normally try to hit the working speeds of real life, so basically I am slow, simulation and stuff you know, harvesting at 7kph, seeding at 10kph, plowing at 10kph etc. (that's how it looks to me on youtube). I normally play at time x5. The only animals I really did in FS17 were sheeps, cows and pigs kinda felt like pain in the butt. I have 822 hours on steam and would like to reach 1000 by 20th Nov. but I doubt I'll make it. I love to do everything beside mowing, not really the easiest thing in first person and probably doing chaff with forage harvester, you have to do it with one worker and if you dont have two tractor+trailers and a friend whos got time you are wasting money on worker. I normally use one worker, if I have more workers I feel like I become farm manager not a farmer, you have to deal more whit what everybody is doing than actually yourself farming. Since the day it was possible I use seasons mod.

Back to difficulties, medium is a bit too easy for me and hard seems maybe too hard, I'm not sure, this weekend I made 578 square bales on Aberdeenshire, now I dont know why, maybe I have a mod to do something to prices, I'm getting around 2000€ per trailer, so 16 bales. Baling took me just under 4 hours and now transporting, I don't know 3 or 4, I'm not done yet. Almost 600 bales to transport is pain in the butt no matter how you look at it, and I'll get only between 60 and 70k for the bales, now I know it is straw bales and I got 670.000l of Barley too but still. On Goldcrest I play on medium, I sold 286.000l of silage today for around 120k, moving+tedering took me 40 minutes, picking it up with forage wagon, about 30 and selling around 40 again. A lot of money for very little effort. On that map i won around 25ha, in this season I made around million, from harvest around 300k, wool 370k and silage, I did that twice 270k and then some woodchips too, not a lot tho, maybe 50k. Very easy money. Too easy in fact.

So let's say you are me, would you choose hard or easy? Why would you choose it?

(Sorry for my english it is what it is, it's not my first laguange, plus I am kinda too lazy right now to read everything I just typed :D)

[Sigmund]

We still have 5 or so weeks till FS19 comes out. (i'm anxiously reading up on information about FS19 :P , also quite eager to play it. Also super curious to know exactly what equipment and brands will be available and to know exactly all the official maps we'll get.)

So question is, how far do you want to go with this new playthrough?

Do you want to quickly reach best equipment on all fields (grain harvesting ,foraging, potato, beet, sugar) logging, etc, etc?

If you want that and don't have many hours to play i would recommend a game on easy and do silage to get tons of money fast and get to the top machines fast.

I say this because you might want to test out most of the equipment before FS19 comes out, to have a greater sense of the changes FS19 will introduce , equipment wise.

(i'm saying this taking into account you have 800 hours on the game, but even then, perhaps you haven't tested all the equipment FS17 has to offer)



On the other hand if you just want to chill and enjoy the game and want something different, i would recommend Sosnovka map on hard, it's a very beautiful map , very well designed (the roads almost reminds me of Euro truck simulator) in soviet style. Fields are typically long and rectangular, exactly the way i like them.

I somewhat hated Estancia Lapacho's fields (the platinum expansion map), because they were very irregular and most of them were on top of each other, and the biogas plant is really tight in spaces and weirdly small designed considering the map is big. Also Estancia Lapacho has very few sale points so it gets extremely repetitive selling in the same places, Sosnovka on the other hand has TONS of sale points.

Sosnovka biogas plant is big and spacious.
You start the game with 2 Zetor tractors (czech), and if you want you can roleplay you're a russian farmer and use Rostselmash equipment, it fits the map very well. I would like to be able to buy the soviet cars you see on Sosnovka's roads but sadly haven't found a mod yet.

Sosnovka also has plenty of trees and nice forest areas with flat space to park your logging trailer and load it easily.

I'm currently playing Sosnovka on hard, (was playing Estancia Lapacho on easy but got bored with the map and also already had millions. It's a useful save to test out new equipment before)

So, hmm. i would recommend you Sosnovka on hard or medium. Hard will be a challenge in the beginning but it will make you think very careful on how you spend your money and also push you into using Slurry and Manure to cut costs on fertilizer.

Have fun :)

[antrax737]

Well thank you for your answer... I tried Sosnovka when FS17 was released and I dont really like it due to fields being small and yea the russian look, but maybe I just should play the map more to start liking it? That could be the case... If nothing else I got new things to consider :D

[wim1234]

try one of the great maps like sandy bay..much more challenging and more intersting than the
default maps.

[Sigmund]

@antrax737

Oh, maybe i understood you wrong!

1) Did you ask which difficulty to play in FS19 ?
2) or which difficulty to play a FS17 game until FS19 comes out?

[antrax737]

@sigmund 19

[Sigmund]

Ah yes, well in that case, i think maybe start a game in normal? to get a feel of things and still have reasonable income?

Also i hear there's plenty of maps so you might want to restart or have several saves.


Another aspect is i'm still not sure how it's gonna work in FS19.

in FS19 I've heard you can choose 3 starting scenarios

1) normal start

2) starting without anything BUT a large sum of money which you can spend to make your custom farm / buy equipment.

3) a real hard start (starting with very little or nothing)


So, if this is true, i'm unsure if there will be difficulties on TOP of each of these scenarios.


personally i think the defining factor of a difficulty is not so much what you start with but, the actual crop prices.

Start with nothing and crop prices on easy? still easy.

Start with tons of equipment but crop prices on hard? still hard work to get money.



So, since i don't have confirmed information regarding how difficulties/scenarios will work for FS19, i can't really give a reply, also i'm personally still undecided on what i will do myself in FS19.

If there is difficulty settings which affect crop prices, i think i will start a game on normal.

FS19 will likely have a lot of equipment.

[antrax737]

You are right about that, but i'm leaning more towards option 3, since I always wanted to make my own farm, i'm just not sure because of the reasons you mentioned, crop prices... I'm pretty sure i'm going with cows tho :D