Fertility dropping too fast now?

[Ranmus]

So I built a scant few farms around the area and found that after only a few years in the Colonial Era, my farms, which were at 99%, has dropped to 40% and wondered if they increased the fertility decline rate a bit too much?

I mean, it sucks, but if it is intended, I don't think farms work that way, fantasy or real life...

[Toaster]

Set them to multiculture and diversify.

[beardog]

yep, that's weird :(

and multiculture does not help much, because on most maps there is a good enough place for no more than 3 plantations. So it's a choise between "get 70% effective forever" or "get 100% now and 50 in next era"

[Moonshine_Brew]

multiculture helps a lot, as the real radius of the effect is a lot bigger than the blue circle (at least 3 times that much) so it is very easy to get 150%+ with multi culture.

[cocapelli]

heh i have found that multiculture did not help me very much.

what helped the most is making sure polluting buildings arent near my farms... most notably shacks.

the stoopid shacks that pop up right next to my farms do more to lower the fertility than anything else. besides that, a single farm makes so much food that even at 40% it is usually enough.

the main problem i have with it is sugar for the stills... at 40% you need 3+ farms

edit. the problem with multiculture is that it is impossible to balance the -40%efficency hit. i did a test and put 5 farms next to each other with multiculture and then did the same thing with monoculture. i found that the monoculture group had a larger yield... forever. now, i always use agricurtural subsidies, so that *may have played a part:) subsidies are your friend

[LArc7thHeaven]

when in world war use the agricultural subsidies edict, combine it with multiculture and upgrade from pineapple plant and more budget you can easily boost it to 120%