Thought experiment: Are (basic) Wheat Farms better?

[Maehlice]

Farmers have to walk the distance of the field to complete their work. They always start at the Farmhouse and work their way outward, periodically returning to the building during their shift.

On a fully-upgraded Farm, the Farmers have to do a lot more walking for Sowing and Harvesting versus a basic 3-Farmer Wheat Farm.

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Would seven 3-worker Farms out-produce three 7-worker Farms?

[Valck]

I'm currently in the process of converting several of my depots from one-depot-plus-two-upgrades to two or three individual depots on a similar assumption, and it had occurred to me that farms might be a candidate for a similar treatment, under different parameters.

I'd have to look it up, but I think the resource outlay is greater for using the upgrade buildings ("tool shacks"?), but you might save on area footprint, and using additional barns for storage could result in the transporters being able to fetch more in one go, but that depends greatly on the AI making the right choices, which it isn't exactly stellar at.

Currently I'm in favour of large farm conglomerates, with a couple of un-upgraded farms to take care of border area strips of land that are too small for larger farms.
Another thing is how workers work, or don't; there are entire seasonal cycles where during sowing, all three decide to be on free time; on a seven-person farm chances are at least a couple do their job, and later all of them can work together in harvesting.

That's a lot of variables to control for, and as such, I'm just mostly following my gut feeling...

[Maehlice]

Originally posted by Valck:

That's a lot of variables to control for, and as such, I'm just mostly following my gut feeling...

Same. I'm all anecdotal at this point, and I'm not sure if I have it in me to do any kind of 'scientific' testing.

What got me really thinking about this was that I had two farms side-by-side. They were nearly identical except that one was a little bit longer and perhaps a little bid more oddly shaped than the other one.

That long/odd one was never sown as thoroughly as the 'normal' one next to it.

I think the odd shape had the most to do with it, because if Farmers use a similar method as Foresters, odd/pointy shapes will cause them to skip around as they work outward in a kind of spiraling pattern.

[Fred]

I'd say 7 farms with 3 workers would be more efficient since their travel time is like you said reduced. But then again 21 farms with 1 worker and very small fields would be even less travel time for each worker resulting in better productivity right? Where are you going to draw the line for efficiency's sake?

Personally I just don't care enough to draw a line at all and expand every building as big as I can, I'd rather click 3 farms if I want to check or change something instead of 7 or 21 farms. Especially if you have multiple maxed out farms to begin with.

It also depends on how your plots are drawn, you could for example draw all around the farm house, however, it's not like you can control each workers path they walk to sow or harvest, when they go on free time, when they draw water, grab their food from the market or when they go to church. So it's never really going to be reliably efficient anyway. To me it just seems like a lot of effort for minimal gains to me but we all play differently. :-)

[Doc_Hotpants]

I usually spread the storage sheds throughout the field so that they have a building to go to. Those fully upgraded farms sow completely and harvest completely, and they produce high yields

[greenman00]

Don't forget that the inhabitants have levels for their professions. Seven low-level farmers won't be able to cover the entire field. But at levels 5-6, that's no longer a problem.

[Valck]

Originally posted by greenman00:

Don't forget that the inhabitants have levels for their professions. Seven low-level farmers won't be able to cover the entire field. But at levels 5-6, that's no longer a problem.

Not to flat out dismiss your claims, but I have just recently done some testing regarding profession levels of villagers in another discussion thread, and all results pointed to there not being any noticeable difference.
Granted that testing was done with stone masons, and it may indeed be different with farmers. but I'd like to see reliable and repeatable evidence before I believe that farmers were any different.

[Valck]

Originally posted by Doc_Hotpants:

I usually spread the storage sheds throughout the field so that they have a building to go to. Those fully upgraded farms sow completely and harvest completely, and they produce high yields

Good point, and yes, that's how I use those buildings too; usually one barn next to the main farm, and I usually pair the tooling sheds with a barn around the perimeter of the farming plot in some kind of wiggly-trianglish kind of arrangement, as far as the lay of the land allows of course...

[Maehlice]

Originally posted by Valck:

Originally posted by greenman00:

Don't forget that the inhabitants have levels for their professions. Seven low-level farmers won't be able to cover the entire field. But at levels 5-6, that's no longer a problem.

Not to flat out dismiss your claims, but I have just recently done some testing regarding profession levels of villagers in another discussion thread, and all results pointed to there not being any noticeable difference.
Granted that testing was done with stone masons, and it may indeed be different with farmers. but I'd like to see reliable and repeatable evidence before I believe that farmers were any different.

Ditto. Those two farms I was watching; the one that was never fully sown was always sown to the same point. Since day 1 all the way up until all the Farmers were Level 4, the field was always sown to the same exact point. Every. Single. Time.

I also did a quick test during that discussion thread with Wool, Cloth, & Clothes and came to a similar conclusion. (I only let it go up to Level 3, but it was enough to confirm that levels don't matter.)

[greenman00]

Originally posted by Maehlice:

Originally posted by Valck:

Not to flat out dismiss your claims, but I have just recently done some testing regarding profession levels of villagers in another discussion thread, and all results pointed to there not being any noticeable difference.
Granted that testing was done with stone masons, and it may indeed be different with farmers. but I'd like to see reliable and repeatable evidence before I believe that farmers were any different.

Ditto. Those two farms I was watching; the one that was never fully sown was always sown to the same point. Since day 1 all the way up until all the Farmers were Level 4, the field was always sown to the same exact point. Every. Single. Time.

I also did a quick test during that discussion thread with Wool, Cloth, & Clothes and came to a similar conclusion. (I only let it go up to Level 3, but it was enough to confirm that levels don't matter.)

I have to admit, unfortunately, that's true. I just tested it on an old save. I probably just didn't have the buildings fully staffed on my first maps. ^^

[posthum]

This is not quite on topic, but does anyone else have massive framedrops to slideshow fps when drawing wheat fields?

[Maehlice]

Originally posted by posthum:

This is not quite on topic, but does anyone else have massive framedrops to slideshow fps when drawing wheat fields?

Sometimes, but I think I've narrowed it down to when I'm moving the camera and painting the field simultaneously.

[Maehlice]

Originally posted by Fred:

Where are you going to draw the line for efficiency's sake?

Probably not that far.

Generally, I value upkeep over real estate. A Farmhouse costs 1.34 Coin per Farmer in upkeep. A Tool Shed is only 0.5 Coin per Farmer. (A Tool Shed + Barn combo is still just 1.0 Coin per Farmer.)

So, it's a matter of 18 versus 28 Coin upkeep. Certainly not a deal-breaker, since Coin is pretty easy to come by, but still. That kinda hurts my heart.

To be 'worth it' on upkeep, the smaller farms would have to be 35-50% more productive, which I guarantee won't be the case.

[Fred]

Originally posted by Maehlice:

Originally posted by Fred:

Where are you going to draw the line for efficiency's sake?

Probably not that far.

Generally, I value upkeep over real estate. A Farmhouse costs 1.34 Coin per Farmer in upkeep. A Tool Shed is only 0.5 Coin per Farmer. (A Tool Shed + Barn combo is still just 1.0 Coin per Farmer.)

So, it's a matter of 18 versus 28 Coin upkeep. Certainly not a deal-breaker, since Coin is pretty easy to come by, but still. That kinda hurts my heart.

To be 'worth it' on upkeep, the smaller farms would have to be 35-50% more productive, which I guarantee won't be the case.

I know the feeling, in other games with resource management I do the same and try to maximise production for minimal costs, it just logically makes the most sense.

I think with this game I just don't care enough since the trade feels broken, the only time coins mattered is pretty much at the very start, but quickly you'll have too much to spend even if you end up stocking up on everything and coins become useless.
That's probably why I value aesthetics and ease of use over productivity in my game, if there was some kind of money sink that made it feel rewarding and coins weren't as easy to get I would definitely change the way I play accordingly.

[havand]

I've noticed something happens to any farming based item (wheat farm, cathedral vegetables, etc) when your population hits a certain size. Suddenly all my farms go from being full to being 1/2-2/3 full. I can only get the vegetable units to plant 1/4? of the allowed area. Very very frustrating. I have noticed that the workers pause much longer during the planting process vs when they used to get everything planted. Its like there is a glitch in the process code somewhere.

I can't get my population over ~1200. There is some kind of ratio that goes off farther in the game. I can't possibly make all the goods, and distribute them to a stall fast enough without more people. Happiness falls, I triage everywhere, then eventually happiness comes up enough, population increases, can't supply, etc. Process starts over.

[Grimtorn]

when you catch your farmers chilling out:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3428116059