farmers won't farm far away farms

[jabberwok]

They just stand around the castle, even though I have several fully-upgraded farms standing idle towards the West end of the kingdom. It seems like the general behavior is to only take on jobs that are somewhat nearby. But in the case of farmers, it'd be nice if they would head off in search of empty farms, even if they can't just instantly bolt towards the nearest empty one.

[Don Kanaille]

Farmers doing nothing?

Hello there

I have a rather awkward problem with my game and I need some help. Basically, I have a fairly large and upgraded kingdom now, cleared the left side portal, expanded a lot in that direction and have a lot of farms. However, I still have dire money problems because of all the farmers I recruit, only three of them actually work their fields. I currently have 4 or 5 farmers just idling around my castle despite the fact that I have several empty fields inside my walls - even some of my farmhouses are completely empty.

Is this a bug or am I missing something?


edit:
I tried saving and quitting, but that only caused all of the idle farmers but one to vanish. I checked if they were gone to work in the fields, but the only ones working are the same three farmers from earlier. Recruiting new farmers leads to the same old problem. Saving and Quitting AGAIN after that yields no change at all, the farmers still hang around a castle, trotting around not giving a damn.

[xlockeed]

Is it winter.
Are the farms tier two.
Are they spaced away from walls to allow all fields to be worked.

[Don Kanaille]

It is winter. I was wondering if that has something to do with it, but as I said, some fields are worked on, but most are not despite the presence of farmers. I would get it if fields would not be worked at all in the snow, but that is not the case.

Most of the farms are tier two - the mill houses.

There seems to be plenty of space around the farms, I can see lots of these spatula symbols, it´s just that no one is going there.


Do these screens tell you anything? You can see the idling farmers as well as some of the empty fields, as well as one of the three farmers who actually does work.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=749321069
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=749321133
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=749321183
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=749321237

[scott_smart2000]

Farmers will only work farms during winter that they had already been assigned to. So, if you didn't get the farmers working before winter hit, they'll never do anything. If they had actually gone out to farm before winter hit, then this is a bug. Basically, winter is the devs way of telling you to get the hell out of that land because you make almost no money (farm income is halved and no bunnies spawn). You'll eventually go broke or a side will collapse.

[Don Kanaille]

Alright, thanks for clarifying that. It is a bit counter-intuitive though, as I could not really see a logical reason why some farmers can work their fields in the winter, but others can not. If the farmers I recruited did their job, I would easily have enough money to clear the eastern portal as well. But I guess I´ll just set sail to a new land, then.

[Don Kanaille]

Farmers throw away scythes during long blood moon

So, I know that farmers put away their tools when they´re inactive for too long, and I can see at least some reasoning behind it. However, what I recently experienced was absolutely bonkers. I´m currently on the fifth island, day 50+, trying to find out how long I can survive. I suffered from a drawn out blood moon after destroying yet another portal, which lasted several days. The problem was, because farmers dont work when it´s dark, the three dozen+ farmers I had active just decided, at some point, to throw their scythes away and become regular citizens again. Which really screwed me over, as they are my most important source of income. Not only do they put down their tools, they outright THROW THEM INTO THE WATER! I paid four coins for each of those, and they just threw them away because it was dark too long, despite the fact that every one of them had a field assigned to him. And of course, they did that right at the beginning of winter, which means even if I re-hire them, they wont go to work... great. On top of that, I have a hard time accessing all the money I stockpiled because the banker hardly leaves the castle, but that is another topic.

I can see that, when I hire farmers but dont provide them with fields, that there is a reason they put their scythes down after a certain time of inactivity. But waiting in their upgraded farm houses, surrounded by workable fields, for the blood moon to end should NOT count as inactivity in this regard.

[AbamJemah]

how many farmer u got?
sometime happend to me if i got so many farmer stack at town during night & bloodM

[123]

They do it if there's no work for 5 days.
So they can get employeed as archers or workers.

[Don Kanaille]

But they ARE employed. It´s not my fault that it was dark for so long. They have plenty of fields and farm houses to work. I cannot control the lenght of the blood moon, and if they throw away their expensive scythes due to this, Im getting punished for no reason. I want them to get to work again once the blood moon nights and dark days are over, but I have to completely re-equip them with scythes, and even that won´t do anything once winter started because farmers only work on field they were assigned to before winter.


I had a lot of farmers, but also more than enough farms to support them all. They all threw their scythes away during the "long night".

[CrashToDesktop]

If it's been a Blood Moond status for more than 5 days, then something's wrong with your save. Even if it's Land 5. :P

[Don Kanaille]

Well, there tends to be really drawn out darkness when the only portal(s) left is(/are) at the far end of the map. Enemies travel an extremely long time, so not all of them might be dead once the morning comes, and then they turn around and walk back to the portal which takes almost the entire day. Plus, flying monsters are quite slow and can still be in the air a long time after the ground waves have been cleared off, and as long as monsters are on the map, your people act like its night and wont work... For the same reason, I hardly ever see my bankers face again.

[keeeper]

Hate that too :(

The only solution is to expand both ways (especially the big portal side) so it takes less time for the enemy to reach your walls. On the other hand it can be very problematic sometimes - no suitable wall/tower combination for a long distance.

It's all fault of the trappers - they fly too slow and BM won't end until they are dead or come back. Devs - make'em faster!

[lefiath]

I am not a fan of this either. It seems like a half-baked idea that doesn't really go anywhere. It happened to me once and I had to quickly move to my ship, because at that point, the whole economy collapsed. There is no good reason for all of them to do this, and I would argue that it doesn't have to be in game at all.

[Don Kanaille]

Originally posted by keeeper:

It's all fault of the trappers - they fly too slow and BM won't end until they are dead or come back. Devs - make'em faster!

Not even those. While the flyers are annoyingly slow in that regard, usually I have killed the last of them by noon, which would make at least or half a day of work. But the real problem are the regular greed, who barely reach my wall when it´s almost morning, and then take the whole day to run back to the portal when the sun rises. I´m actually looking forward to blood moons, because they´re the only times enemies don´t return on daytime, so I can properly kill them all and have a "true" day. This, combined with the fact that farmers dump their scythes, killed my late-game economy with no proper reason and no way to recover (as winter just started). And it´s not like I haven´t expanded towards the portal quite a fair bit.

[keeeper]

just finished on the 102nd day, had my walls quite close to the big portal, for many times was destroying it so the waves don't come, the days are full and my farmers (few who don't care about winter and stayed with me) can work morning till evening. But at this point there are 2 waves during normal night and actually also wait for BM - trolls come out but there are less greeds and they are killed quicker.

Wanted to continue further but it looks like there's nothing more - waves will be longer and more of them untill they just won't stop. Need better endgame.