Guide: Optimal Start

[holtb80]

This is what I've come up with as my Optimal Start Guide after 25-30 restarts on Free Play Mode. By no means is this the best, but what has worked for me. Feel free to tag any suggestions, what you think is wrong or good in here.

*As of this post I have 53 hours for a reference*

*Please note all starts are on Medium difficulty with 750k currency.


-Buy your house...
-Immediatly start Practical training in negotion skills.
We do this to get the high cost of equipment under control and gain huge saving.
-I start with 8 Beekeeper buildings and 1 House for permanent employees. I keep this close together to keep travel down on the workers. Each Bee area gets 10 Hives and add some flowers around to get your Honey production going.
-Save Honey until end of Spring or early Summer for Highest price.

-4 fields 20x50
-2 Seasonal houses near by (1 house per 2 20x50 fields)
-4 Small warehouses (also right by fields)
-Go ahead and get 25-50 of each Agrochemical, you'll need it
-Well or Water pump (your choice) central to the fields or 4 water sources, 1 at each (we will be using seasonal workers to water for first year)
-Hire 48 seasonal workers when their housing is build and the fields are set up. A 20x50 field will allow 12 workers at a time. Since we're not using any equipment yet as it's still in its 20 day training. You can have all 4 fields plowed and cultivated before the training is complete.

-2 Small cowsheds (can be built at same time fields are being started but after your seasonal housing is built)
-1 Manure storage, near your planned Garages (scroll down for garage planning). The Manure storage should be near your fields as well. It does NOT need to be adjacent to cow farms.
-1 Permanent employee house near the Cowsheds. Will house only the 2 Cow workers and if the house is placed between Garages and Cowsheds, it can house your Drivers (Permanent employees with high Machinery skill)
-1 Barn next to Cowsheds. This is where you will store Silage and Grass
-Buy 5000 grass and 5000 Silage. These are cheap and I've read (cannot be confirmed yet) Silage is better when mixed with other foods.

-Garage planning 3 Medium and 1 Small
-Garages for me are near the main road (faster driving and sets up for future fields not planned in this guide). Near Fields and Manure storage.
-1 Permanent employee house (optional) if you've not put your Cowshed house between Garages and Cowsheds.

-Cucumbers are you friends
-Get around 20KG (should cover all fields easily)


-Equipment
-Rega Tractor
-Manure Spreader (Season employees on 1-2 of the fields speeds up planting process.)
-Precission Seeder
Your seasonal employees can have all 4 20x50 fields plowed and cultivated by the time your training is done, so I buy only the equipment needed to get the fields ready. If done in prompt order, you can have all 4 fields full seeded and growing by the end of April. This puts us on schedule to do a second round of Cucumbers fully planted by the end of August.

*** Update*** The second round of harvesting must be started by Nov 8th or the crop will die and your workers cannot get on it. So long as they are already working it, it doesn't appear to die out after this date.

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After all the building, planting, buying and hiring, you should have 150-200k currency left. Go ahead and get the rest of your equipemt, maybe plan a larger field for some Apples, Pears, or Cherries. Just leave 40-50k to cover payroll.

Go ahead and put Cucumbers on autosell infinite, by the time your first harvest is done the prices will be nice and high. I have typicall ended up with 250k + after first harvesting and buying the rest of my equiment.

Each 20x50 field yields approx 20k Cucumbers, giving easily 50k per field.

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-Second Training (optional)
-I tend to go right for the minimum and maximum crop pricing training and throw in some warehouse space training as well as opperation cost reduction. I want to test the Windmill training to get some supplemental income going but haven't had a chance yet.

-Through the summer you can buy the rest of your started equipment as mentioned above, this gets your ready to cultivate the fields for round 2 of Cucmber summer.

-Additional equipment
-Sprinkler (still use the seasonals to water as you're paying for them anyway)
-Sprayer
-Plow
-Culitvator
*Make sure you get the right equipment to match your crop and tractor types*



My best layout thus far. http://steamcommunity.com/id/holtb80/screenshot/2431257256130296044

Another start using smaller fields that worked really well.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/holtb80/screenshot/2431257256127735296

A start using larger fields, it takes too long for the workers to harvest to get a second crop planted and fully harvest before winter sets in and kill it.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/holtb80/screenshot/2431257256126427178



Using this I have been able to end the first summer with 500k + a few times, always over 300k. Not blowing your cash on junk is key. I like to set up a larger field for one of the apples, pears, or cherries and add a set of equipment dedicated to that field and type (requires the Orchard tractor and other special EQ).

Another thing I have done after first summer is uprgade the Main house to level 2 to start looking at expansion and larger fields. I have only played through 3 summers in any 1 save. So beyond the first few years I'm sure there are plenty with more expertise than myself. I by no means believe my strategy to be the best but simply one that works and is optimized to work with the Cucmber crop.

I have done tomato after the first cucumber with succesful results as well. I have also done perrinials like strawberries with success as well, but not as much financial gain.

I look forward to the communites input on this as it's my first attempt at a guide in a public forum. Any pro tips from you folks is much appreciated!

Thanks for reading.

[holtb80]

res

[holtb80]

res

[DareDevil]

Im trying to run a beekeeper start with buckwheat and colza field nearby to get the extra honey production. Can’t find the right layout tho. That flowers trick will be usefull to get it up and running bit earlier

[J4ffa]

awesome cheers

[City Builder]

Optimal start for me: Do research until you can build windmills. Place as many windmills as you can afford and have room for. Run game on high... Wait... Wait... Now you have enough money to do what ever you like. LOL

If need be do banking research then... Take out a million dollar loan and build more windmills (million dollar loan pays back around $21k to $30k per pay period/month). Now build about 3 to 5 small cow barns and a slaughterhouse. You now sell your cow meat between $48k and $60k per relatively small load, pay off loan over time at 21 to 30k/month, watch money roll in... Build more small cow barns and slaughterhouses then do as you please in game.

I tried going the route of fields but it was too click intensive for me (i.e. click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click)

[Marc Cassin]

Why the flowers ? You can produce regular honey without. Does it increase production ?

[Efraim X]

No,flowers have no effect but colza and buckweatfields are important as well as the skill of the beekeepers. A beekepers building have the same range as a well when decide how far from a field a building can be placed.

[Marc Cassin]

Yep, I always do two 10x10 fields close to the hives that I don't bother to harvest to max the time colza and buckweat is available ;)

[Efraim X]

There is not such thing as an opimal start. This is a sandboxgame and you just build the farm you like.It can be a farm with lots of field and machines or it could be a farm with just animals and industry or even just industries.It can also be a farm with just a lot of greenhouses or with a mix of everything.Just try to learn what is profitabe and what is not.(Building windmills is absolutely not an optimal start.)