Fishing vs. Farming

[Green Raven]

Is one better than the other?

[Vemonia]

There are 4 different things:
- villager farming
- villager fishing
- fish ships fishing on regular fishes
- fish ships farming of fish traps.

Then:
- Early game, we want to avoid the 2 farming options as they cost wood. We rather keep the resources for army. We slowly transition to the 2 farmings as natural resources get depleted (or too far away).
- Before castle age, villagers are in theory better than ships. But in practice you add ships to boost your economy as you only have 1 TC. Making ships increase your overall production speed
- After castle age, fish traps gather faster. They also contain more food per wood invested unless you have the imperial farm upgrade "crop rotation". But they are more expensive (100w vs 60w). So it is a compromise between investment vs efficiency;
- in open maps we rather make farms in castle age and invest more resources for the army.
- In late game, fish traps are always prefered to farms as long as your traps are not raidable (ex. ponds in Black Forest or Four lakes) or if you have water dominance. In this sense, fish traps are better than farms, even with crop rotation. Because the extra wood per food invested in more than compensated with the faster gathering.


TL/DR: fishing is overall better, but you shouldnt overcommit to early because traps need a bigger investment.

[Bob of Mage]

Fish traps can also be more compact as things get larger in scale, but you have to be careful since those fishing ship will block movement.

Personally I try to invest more in fishing traps than farms unless the civ I am playing has bonuses to farming. Generally in those cases farming will edge out fish traps.

Limited food sources tend to gather much faster. Thus animals, bushes and fish should be targeted first before you majorly invest into farming or traps.

[Fido]

If you have easy access to food-rich water in dark age, you should go for it. Supplement a few food villagers to wood, and make fishing ships while you sheep, berry, deer and boar a li'l into Feudal, so you might not need to refresh those mid-Feudal farms until you have your Castle mill research.

It's not an "either/or" kind of deal, and making it one would be a terrible mistake to your eco.

[TPTI]

If you play Ghost lake the fishing is probably a bit slower and as a result, more boring.

[MassMetalizer]

Fish traps are real nice, but finicky. If you can make it so the fishing ship is directly beside the dock and the trap is on the other side, the collection is super quick. Just don't build too many too close to each other because fishing ships get confused and stuck eventually if they're crowded.

For farms, I always build eight of them in a square and the mill in the middle. Very efficient and always consistent

[peonpiat]

If you have the luxury of a small lake to yourself in say, a Black Forest map, you can build multiple docks and have each fishing fish right up to it with a fish trap. There is zero movement and it will be dropping it off instantly. Civs with faster fishing will do even better. If it's not a completely safe area such as that though then it's a big risk investment wise.

[peonpiat]

Originally posted by MassMetalizer:

Fish traps are real nice, but finicky. If you can make it so the fishing ship is directly beside the dock and the trap is on the other side, the collection is super quick. Just don't build too many too close to each other because fishing ships get confused and stuck eventually if they're crowded.

For farms, I always build eight of them in a square and the mill in the middle. Very efficient and always consistent

Yep for both. I try to do the same.

[Kampfschwein Fjonda]

Malay fish traps boss. 2100 meat. No vegans in that culture.
Japanese gather their Sushi also up to 20% faster from traps.