How to increase the yield of apple trees?

[Kudem]

In Campaign 4, apple trees were planted. However, the yield is too low. Is there any way to increase the yield?

[Erik Asmussen]

Apple trees (and all crops) have higher yield in locations with high Affinity for that crop. When planting an apple tree, locations with high affinity are highlighted on the map.

In Campaign 4, the orchard in the center of town starts with high affinity for apple trees, so that's a good place to plant more.

However, crop affinity grows over time based on what is planted on the tile. So your other locations could eventually be good places as well, just keep growing & harvesting on them.

Also, a Tree Planter built on the same tile of any tree-based crop will increase its yield.

[Kudem]

Thx Erik!

[Ryika]

Worth noting that apple trees are kind of notorious for their low yield though, even at max affinity. You just won't get the same throughput from an apple farm that you get from most other items. So don't shy away from building multiple orchards if one just doesn't cut it.

[Erik Asmussen]

Originally posted by Ryika:

Worth noting that apple trees are kind of notorious for their low yield though, even at max affinity. You just won't get the same throughput from an apple farm that you get from most other items. So don't shy away from building multiple orchards if one just doesn't cut it.

I wasn't aware of this - do you feel that Apple Trees need a rebalancing so they have higher yield? Or is it more of a fun challenge to work around?

[Ryika]

Personally, I think its fine for the most part. I've noticed in past discussions that other people are less willing to solve problems by establishing extra infrastructure than I am though, so maybe that's not a neutral opinion.

Regardless, in my games, if I have a patch with natural affinity nearby, I usually start having to add a few extra Apple Orchards only when I start mass-producing Berry Cakes, since they need 2 Apple Jam, which need 4 Apples each. So that's 8 apples per house per 90 seconds if I want to supply the village fully, and a single Orchard just can't keep up because it hits the cap of resources it can produce (until the repeatable tech that increases yield output much later). In my personal opinion, since Berry Cakes are essentially "the" end game food, it's probably fine to require a bit of extra infrastructure.

The much more annoying part is establishing orchards on no-affinity tiles if I don't have a good spot with natural affinity available. Fruit Trees depend a lot on Affinity since they can't get Yield Modifiers from Water and Fertilizer (but get a max of x4 from Affinity instead of x2), but their Affinity grows extremely slow since Apple Trees take twice(?) as long to regrow as normal crops, so that's a very inefficient Forester for a very long time.

Maybe that's fine if the goal is to make players use resources they have available nearby (or transport good from high-affinity areas later in the game), but I tend to just work around it by establishing a few extra foresters to make up for the inefficiency.

[Erik Asmussen]

Ok, thanks for the feedback. Maybe at least I can at least speed up trees' affinity growth.

[Kudem]

Originally posted by Ryika:

Worth noting that apple trees are kind of notorious for their low yield though, even at max affinity. You just won't get the same throughput from an apple farm that you get from most other items. So don't shy away from building multiple orchards if one just doesn't cut it.

Thanks Ryika

[Kudem]

Originally posted by Erik Asmussen:

Ok, thanks for the feedback. Maybe at least I can at least speed up trees' affinity growth.

I am a beginner. I think, minerals are more important. So, I want plant resources to be easy to collect. :)