Mono Culture v. Multi Culture

[Kortanis]

Something I find a bit confusing about setting down plantations until I get hydroponic plantations is the degradation of fertility over time. As such, I find my usual strategy is to try and cluster 3 or 4 different plantation types, switch them all over to multi culture and if need be, crank up the budget on a certain crop type if I find I need more of that particular one (i.e. tobacco if I build a cigar factory)

The problem, naturally, is because plantations are so damn huge that this can prove downright annoying if not impossible depending on the map.

If I left my plantations on mono culture, how bad would their production suffer short term vs. long term if the base yield of the ground I'm placing them on is at least 90% efficiency for arguments sake, before any additional modifiers from upgrades or edicts like agricultural subsidies?

[Twelvefield]

As a rule of thumb, I use three plantations to one production facility. If I had plantations on mono, I could perhaps get by on two plantations instead of three. So very roughly, I'd say you get around a 33% increase in short term. The goes down fairly quickly, though. In a year or two, your two mono plantations will be depleted to the point where you would need a third anyways. If you neglect fertility, you simply blast the soil into oblivion.

[Kortanis]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

As a rule of thumb, I use three plantations to one production facility. If I had plantations on mono, I could perhaps get by on two plantations instead of three. So very roughly, I'd say you get around a 33% increase in short term. The goes down fairly quickly, though. In a year or two, your two mono plantations will be depleted to the point where you would need a third anyways. If you neglect fertility, you simply blast the soil into oblivion.

Thanks. Things like this are the reason why reaching the modern era and unlocking hydroponic plantations are my favorite thing lol

[based af]

I usually set up three seperate clusters of 8 plantations in the Colonial era where all plantations surround a cattle farm (placing them optimally enables you to get the fertilizer bonus to each and every one). This of course means they can't take up full space, leading to a fertility penalty. But the multi culture bonus makes up for it, and once you progress through the eras, you're basically guaranteed to have at least 100% efficiency on every farm on 3/5 budget unless you placed one on red soil.

Clusters like these are easy to build services and housing around too, but they do take up quite a lot of space.

[Kortanis]

Originally posted by the three time:

I usually set up three seperate clusters of 8 plantations in the Colonial era where all plantations surround a cattle farm (placing them optimally enables you to get the fertilizer bonus to each and every one). This of course means they can't take up full space, leading to a fertility penalty. But the multi culture bonus makes up for it, and once you progress through the eras, you're basically guaranteed to have at least 100% efficiency on every farm on 3/5 budget unless you placed one on red soil.

Clusters like these are easy to build services and housing around too, but they do take up quite a lot of space.

Any chance you have a screenshot you could provide of where you've done this? A visual reference would be a big help.

[based af]

Originally posted by Kortanis:

Originally posted by the three time:

I usually set up three seperate clusters of 8 plantations in the Colonial era where all plantations surround a cattle farm (placing them optimally enables you to get the fertilizer bonus to each and every one). This of course means they can't take up full space, leading to a fertility penalty. But the multi culture bonus makes up for it, and once you progress through the eras, you're basically guaranteed to have at least 100% efficiency on every farm on 3/5 budget unless you placed one on red soil.

Clusters like these are easy to build services and housing around too, but they do take up quite a lot of space.

Any chance you have a screenshot you could provide of where you've done this? A visual reference would be a big help.

https://i.imgur.com/LPSOJtO.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/CPUNThB.jpg

I typically build a roads around this entire complex and build some bunkhouses, (three in a row so they take up 6x2 space, as much as 2 tenements later on), two teamster offices, chapel (can be demolished for a fire station later on, both are 3x3), tavern surrounded by 2x1 parks (ends up taking 4x3, tavern scale quite nicely even later on with National day edict and rum distillery supply and it's always good to have parks anyways).

Anyways, there's a lot of room here to work around. If space is tight, just build the road around as tightly as possible instead as if you had hydroponics. You'll receive a large fertility penalty, but it allow you to have transportation services closer (parking garage, bus stops), which in the end can actually make up for the worse efficiency of plantation itself - remember that the plantation only produces its resource when there's a worker present, and if the worker spends a long time travelling around the island in search of services, the plantation will produce less resource.

The benefits on these are imho the following:

1) allows you an easy way to maximize food happiness
2) builds a solid platform and a diverse production economy to carry you throughout the rest of the game, helping you with requests and demands
3) the empty space around the plantations can be used for services
4) nobody's gonna starve working here
5) no worrying about soil fertility as you run multi culture and pasture prohibition

Negatives

1) takes up a lot of space, not suitable on all maps
2) will break up a grid system, but then again I'd rather keep the amount of intersections as low as possible because they can lead to traffic jams