Harvest Issues late game (hop/wheat/grape).

[Saladdressing]

Hey guys!

I've really been enjoying this game since it's release, and the frequent updates and improvements have really been a great help and problem solver.

Lots of fixes have solved most of the issues I've bumped into.

However, I've been running into harvesting issues of late, and i was wondering if any of you have had the same issues and or know a solution. Ive been running trials and errors frequently, but i can't seem to find the issue or solution.

When in the early game, the harvest seasons seem to work perfect. Doenst matter which (wheat/hop/grapes). However, once i start hitting late games (400+ pops), my villagers seem to be so busy filling needs (which are all satisfy able with surplus and in proximity), that they start missing harvest season all together. Its seems to be in some sort of fine balance of exactly missing the moment i need them to harvest.

Ive also noticed that when they are on the field but the season switches from 'harvesting' to 'resting', they seem to drop all resources in a dump once finished working and proceed to go fill their needs.

The only moment that they actually drop off a resource seems to be an exactly timed moment that they happen to stop working and it also happens to be harvest season.

For example:
I'm running a scenario atm with 4 hop farms, 4 breweries, and a stockable granary practically next to all buildings (all fully staffed, and live nearby).

All staff (mostly serf) go to work, and all have fulfillment of everything they need. It depends on when they work, but all go to work.

Ive literally just missed 8 harvest seasons resulting in 0 resource production because all my 12 hop farmers aren't on the field on the (appearantly) exact moment I need them there. It feels like heavy rng waiting for the production time to shift into my favor.

I've noticed this issue with my wheat farms as well. It also seems to work the other way around with wheat. I've seen them miss the sowing season, resulting in less or even no wheat to grow or harvest once they do get to work.

I havent been able to come up with a possible solution. Ive tried to maximize efficiency so far, but with little result. I feel like the only solution is to have workers with little needs, and thus maximize the working time and so hope for the rng into my favour. Or maybe the other way around, maximize the needs, resulting that they quit work faster and maybe hit the right season more often.

For the record, if the rng is in my favour, i heavily over-produce.

Anyway, anyone bump into this? If im missing something and being a complete idiot, feel free to let me know. I'm looking for the solution. :)

[davemon]

My guess is that like most of us, over time some of your people wind up living too far from their workplace and can't get there fast enough to do their job efficiently. My experience is that farmers are more sensitive to this. In another thread I posted a wheat farm example of how to move your already established wheat farmers to a home closer to their work.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/690830/discussions/0/2913220877908991079/#c2913220877916107770

If you are seeing this with a lot of farmers, my advice would be to move them all from their homes to closer homes. If the existing farms have no available housing zone close by to build on, then maybe build a new (replacement) farm in a new location that does have that. Then hire the farmers at the new location and evict them from their existing home. They will move close to the new job.

If you are seeing this with other industries as well, you could make a drastic move to improve your entire village, which is to evict everyone from their homes all at once, and then let them resettle. Or maybe just evict the people that are working at the extremities of the map, and ensure they have new housing space available at those extremities.

The other thing is to ensure you have all the vitals near the farms. Churches, wells, markets will all their needs for their villager level.

[Panterich]

I was writing about that just the other day, and in my case i switched things around in such way that farmers would live right next door to their farms. I have no clue if that actually matters, or maybe i just 'reset' their needs to be in sync with each other, but i`m watching full wheat fields atm.

[Minotorious]

Farm production can depend on a number of factors.

1) Serfs are the most efficient villagers, if you employ any other rank expect lowered production

2) Needs fulfilling distances, all needs within a 1-2 hex radius for maximum efficiency

3) It can happen that due to bad cycle sync all the farmers go to work only during the end of sowing season, but that is really unlikely to happen for all 3 villagers. The normal/average behaviour is that at least one villager is more or less constantly there working the farm. I think you can try resetting the whole farm field if that happens to set them straight but I am not sure if that option is still in the game or if it has been removed.

4) At very high populations depending on your system specs there are CPU limitations that will cause reduced production after a certain villager number. That number is definitely above 500 villagers in any system above the minimum specs.

[Saladdressing]

Hey guys!

Time for the heads up. With multiple saves i tried the different tips. Relocating villagers worked very well, except voor a few months of severe decreased happiness of course. However, a significant boost came to light once they settled down.

If anyone reads this before they start bumping into this issue, start with it asap. Unless you like to see the red numbers like i did as well.

Tip 4 @Minotorious worked amazing as well. I dont have the best computer out there, so i lowered all the graphics and set gamespeed to normal. Turns out this was the main issue. All my farms tripled in size, and productivity skyrocketed to insane amounts. The farmers seemed to work like intended.

Aside from productivity my budget increased by 10fold.

It appears that at high population the game does indeed need a buffer time for individual commands, resulting in a lot of surplus time in which a villager literally is waiting for the game commands. This probably resulted into many bugs like the random resource dumps, reduced productivity, reduced sales etc.

Another wierd interaction that occured, but appears to be linked, was a significant increase in happiness overall. Whereas id usually have around 80ish in a normal game, my overall happiness now frequently reaches the 100.

However, like was mentioned above, it seems the farms are indeed to most fragile toward efficiency problems. So as mentioned, I'd also recommend not upgrading the status of all farmers further than serf. Anything beyond serf really wrecks any perfectly balance production chain that is vital for a balanced economy.

I hope this heads up can enlighten you all as well. Thanks for the help, and have a great day!