What are some of the "meta" strategies early game?

[caseydwilder]

I'm no noob to the series or anything (not new to this installment either (preordered on console, lol)).

I'm very aware that it's a sandbox type game and it's very much so a play as you wish and do what feels right kind of game, but surely there's some "meta" ways to approach the game--ways that are clearly superior and more efficient than others.

If you were going to start a new save on hard on Goldcrest Valley or whatever right now, how would you start? You'd probably get the golden nuggets, I'm sure, but apart from that or setting your game to 120x with a wind turbine, how do you approach early game?

Take that 1-1.2m early game and go straight for cows?

Buy a new field and keep going with crops?

Sheep?

I've never invested much effort into researching what other people consider the most efficient (just have always kinda played my own way and done fine), but I'm curious what the first 10 hours on a new single player save look like for you and your play style. I'm trying to learn more about the game.

Thanks!

[GIJoe597]

This is not what I think you mean by meta, but this is how I role played a particular game.

I once played a game as a contractor with the goal of eventually earning enough money to start a farm.

I sold all equipment at start.
Edited save to have zero money.
Used Hagenstad bank to sell the three starting fields
Took a 5K loan
Starting working for other farmers to build money.

Once I could afford to purchase one of the three staring fields I did.

I continued to do contract work until I could afford all the necessary equipment tractor/harvester/seeder/plow/trailer/cultivator/fertilizer etc.

Once I could afford everything, I then startrf my farming career with the goal of making 1 million dollars.

I did not and have never collected all gold nuggets. I turn off that feature at game start.


I have also done the same start with the goal of being a dairy farmer. I was only allowed to make money from milk sales. I could not sell any crop.

I did the same start with the goal of being a sheep farmer. same rules as cow, could only make money from wool. This was by far the easiest. Sheep only require grass and water.

[caseydwilder]

Originally posted by GIJoe597:

This is not what I think you mean by meta, but this is how I role played a particular game.

I once played a game as a contractor with the goal of eventually earning enough money to start a farm.

I sold all equipment at start.
Edited save to have zero money.
Used Hagenstad bank to sell the three starting fields
Took a 5K loan
Starting working for other farmers to build money.

Once I could afford to purchase one of the three staring fields I did.

I continued to do contract work until I could afford all the necessary equipment tractor/harvester/seeder/plow/trailer/cultivator/fertilizer etc.

Once I could afford everything, I then startrf my farming career with the goal of making 1 million dollars.

I did not and have never collected all gold nuggets. I turn off that feature at game start.


I have also done the same start with the goal of being a dairy farmer. I was only allowed to make money from milk sales. I could not sell any crop.

I did the same start with the goal of being a sheep farmer. same rules as cow, could only make money from wool. This was by far the easiest. Sheep only require grass and water.

It's not what I meant, but more than anything, I was interested in hearing how other people play the game. I def like this idea of how you've played previously. It adds extra challenge to the game (some days, I feel like it needs it, especially if you want to play on one save for a couple hundred hours or more (usually by 100 hours or so, on hard, if I've collected the nuggets especially, I've got so much great equipment that it starts to get a little boring).

Thanks for sharing!

[GIJoe597]

If you want to really extend a game with on map goals for many, many hours, look into Pleasant Valley v3.96. If you play that solo, or with others, it is quite a challenge to accomplish all map goals.

https://www.pvmods.com/index.php?resources/pv17-v3.74/

It has some other mod requirements as far as equipment is concerned, check around that website. It is a new one and I have not used it yet, as such, I do not know where the specific info is.

[Moose]

Not sure it's optimal, but the early game for me is all about reducing daily overheads and getting some cashflow that is not crop-dependent. I play Seasons with either 24- or 18-day seasons, so cashflow really matters. I sell the starting gear 100% and build exactly what I want with the cash. Minimal gear. A good-quality tractor up front is worth the investment, but a small (not smallest) combine only when needed. I buy the Kuhn sub-soiler as my plow. I don't get into animals early as each of them requires rolling gear to run. I do use the extended chicken mod and focus on meat up to 100 chickens, then eggs daily. You can run those chickens on only wheat and a bit of straw (straw only until you get to 100; eggs just take water and wheat. Or you can just buy the 100 birds.) Eggs almost get me to equipment cost breakeven to cover the early winters. I log to make up the difference. At some point in the first three years I also buy about $100k worth of beehives to add to the cashflow with no input costs. I don't buy new fields for about five years. I almost never do contracts since they're all just driving back-and-forth deals, and that's the part of the game I like least.

After five years I borrow if needed to buy a large field, and I shift into some corn/sunflowers for market variety. I get into pigs using the pig food mod and market-time about 50 pigs to start, only keeping them one Seasons fattening cycle (six months.) It's hard to make money this way if you don't drive the pigs yourself and save delivery fees, so I buy the smallest animal trailer at this point. Once I have corn I also shift the chickens to that and look to diversify into maybe some haying to prepare for cows, or buy a wood chipper to make extra money on trash trees over the winters.

I try to avoid leasing, but I will strategically borrow if the assets will begin to throw off cash without delay. I try to buy at least one size larger than my current needs, as sell-back penalties for used gear are pretty stiff. Once I buy a tool or rolling-gear I drive it into the ground. I do tractor and truck repairs before they're due, but other than that I use tools up before I replace them.

Beets and potatoes require huge investments in gear, are very slow to work, and don't pay out any better than grain. I rarely get into either, Soybeans are profitable, and have counter-seasonal market price cycles, so I try to have some on hand for a late-summer cash shot from the previous year's crop.

Probably more than that. but that's my early game.

[caseydwilder]

Originally posted by Moose:

Not sure it's optimal, but the early game for me is all about reducing daily overheads and getting some cashflow that is not crop-dependent. I play Seasons with either 24- or 18-day seasons, so cashflow really matters. I sell the starting gear 100% and build exactly what I want with the cash. Minimal gear. A good-quality tractor up front is worth the investment, but a small (not smallest) combine only when needed. I buy the Kuhn sub-soiler as my plow. I don't get into animals early as each of them requires rolling gear to run. I do use the extended chicken mod and focus on meat up to 100 chickens, then eggs daily. You can run those chickens on only wheat and a bit of straw (straw only until you get to 100; eggs just take water and wheat. Or you can just buy the 100 birds.) Eggs almost get me to equipment cost breakeven to cover the early winters. I log to make up the difference. At some point in the first three years I also buy about $100k worth of beehives to add to the cashflow with no input costs. I don't buy new fields for about five years. I almost never do contracts since they're all just driving back-and-forth deals, and that's the part of the game I like least.

After five years I borrow if needed to buy a large field, and I shift into some corn/sunflowers for market variety. I get into pigs using the pig food mod and market-time about 50 pigs to start, only keeping them one Seasons fattening cycle (six months.) It's hard to make money this way if you don't drive the pigs yourself and save delivery fees, so I buy the smallest animal trailer at this point. Once I have corn I also shift the chickens to that and look to diversify into maybe some haying to prepare for cows, or buy a wood chipper to make extra money on trash trees over the winters.

I try to avoid leasing, but I will strategically borrow if the assets will begin to throw off cash without delay. I try to buy at least one size larger than my current needs, as sell-back penalties for used gear are pretty stiff. Once I buy a tool or rolling-gear I drive it into the ground. I do tractor and truck repairs before they're due, but other than that I use tools up before I replace them.

Beets and potatoes require huge investments in gear, are very slow to work, and don't pay out any better than grain. I rarely get into either, Soybeans are profitable, and have counter-seasonal market price cycles, so I try to have some on hand for a late-summer cash shot from the previous year's crop.

Probably more than that. but that's my early game.

Thanks for the reply, bud!

[Rocket Witch]

Vanilla meta is maxing out starting loan for grass equipment and doing that for silage, then buying sheep with the proceeds since you can feed them with some of the grass you're cutting anyway, and later cows once you get a source of straw and feed mixers. Don't forget to use the stockpile of digestate built up at the biogas plant when you start on arable crops.

Logging can also rake in the money, but you're looking at handling lots of loose objects so it depends how good you are at loading. You could instead just woodchip literally everything, and I'd guess it's only a bit less profitable than silage, but I haven't tried that.

[dozclarke]

My strategy was to start the game, save right away and then give myself 100mil in the save game file. I know it's cheating but I just play like a sim without worrying about the money stuff. Why play with the rubbish equipment when I don't have to.