Well, well, well … many new types of farms, that’s the first thing.
The rock golem landmark is nothing new.
I also see some yellow flowers. I think we don’t have yellow flowers right now?
In the back, there’s a monster camp, I can’t identify … so I’m not too sure if that’s something new or not.
The landmark has scaffolding on it, but is it for a building project? There are stair cases carved out, so this could be a new mining zone pathing support feature.
Hmm. I’ve never seen the rock golem landmark before. Maybe I’m just unlucky
Hmm… are those individual tree plots bigger than normal?
Edit: after further staring at blurry pixels… the large squirrel is actually a deer.
Tree farming/growing mechanic change
You can build new landmarks just like buildings with scaffoldings and so on?
and if you need any help with that, just drop into the stonehearth ACE discord, plenty of friendly people to help you along 
no experience needed.
i mean, i know of one so i wont speak about it, but if you surprised me by having a rock golem mob of that size as a rare spawn, im up for it lol. STOMP. STOMP. STOMP.
There are a lot of fram lands. also, the tree growing mechanic is new, trees did not grow like that before.
How ever, i think the golem is something big. It looks like chunks have been mined out of it, but this could be purely astethic. Also, the goblincamp on the other sie of the river is nothing new, however, Goblins apear realtively early, but you need level 6 farmers to grow trees. So maybe there is some kind of aura around the golem that makes crops grow faster? That could be why there are so many farmers in this vilage, bc there is no way you need this many, unless farming has been nerfed wich i doubt.
Yeah, I wasn’t sure if maybe there was hint about excavation or something but maybe the golem is a red herring since it looks like it’s being mined for resources and not actually un-earthed.
Archaeology would be cool though~
Greetings, everyone!
Just a quick request! 
I’ll try to keep it shorter/simpler than the herb poll last time 
There’s a couple of possibilities/questions that have arisen concerning the Shepherd, considering all the work that we’ve been doing with it (adding new mechanics, new animals, etc…)
We’re not entirely sure about what we feel like doing, or if our impressions about it are the same as everyone’s… so we want to hear it from you once more 
Please respond to these two super quick polls and let us know how you feel about these matters 
Question #1 - Regarding Shepherds producing their own tools and feed
https://www.strawpoll.me/21099812
Question #2 - Regarding the Shepherd being more easily acquired/accessible
https://www.strawpoll.me/21099831
The more opinions we have, the more informed we’ll be before making any game changing decisions that will mostly benefit the community and improve the game!
As always, thank you for your participation 
Stay safe and warm!
Have the cook make a base item for animal feed that the shepherd then turns into animal feed
The base item should be easy to craft in large quantities
Make animal beds turn unusable but repairable using resources or items made by a shepherd
I voted for the top 3 choices on the first, and the “all of the above” for the second.
I like the idea of having multiple jobs be able to produce the same object, just unlocking them at different points in their progression. Having a job like the Shepherd, with no existing workbench, producing the same type of object where other jobs would use one, does make it harder to judge. Should the Shepherd, just pounding it out on the ground, produce a Small Pasture Bedding at the same base rate as a Carpenter/Mason/Potter? Perhaps - their understanding of what makes a usable and well-crafted Bedding is probably better than a craftsman who doesn’t specialize in animal-use objects.
Animal feed, I think, could probably be produced by the Cook or the Shepherd, but the Cook is just helping out or is making a product independent of the settlement’s needs (e.g., a Trader asks for 5 bags of Rabbit Feed, with no pastures in the settlement). Again, the Shepherd’s specialization might justify a similar build speed to the Cook using the grinding wheel.
What else is there for the Shepherd to build? A chicken nest for encouraging cooking egg production? Shears for more/better wool? A milking hat? Opening up the Shepherd to earlier promotion (I would prefer 2nd level in either Farmer or Trapper) would probably need some revision to the Shepherd’s Crook build requirements (level/materials), plus an upgraded version of the Crook (maybe take a base Crook and have the Herbalist add flowers).
Hello, my fellow hearthlings! Do you know what day is today?
That’s right!
So let’s see your guesses…
That was quite close!
Oh! Ohhh!
You’re almost there…
Kinda… Come on, connect the dots!
Well, I’d say all of you got somewhat close enough! @Paldorien did mention types so he can get a bigger slice of the cake!
Let’s talk about…
That’s it!
Farming is getting changed again… But nothing that we did previously is being removed or tweaked, it’s more like… another expansion!
As we continued the work towards our goals - and towards dwarves - we realized that we were trying to create many unique, specific kinds of farms that would behave differently. Additionally, with certain changes that are coming to herbs and herbalists (some of which have been talked here before!) we also realized that existing farms needed a re-organization.
All that put together and we found out that the best way to move forward would be to split the farm system into… different farm types!
I present you the new farm sub-menu:
Now when you click the previously called “Farm” button, you’ll instead go into the Farms menu.
From there, you’ll be able to do basically what you did before - set up farms. The difference now is that you’ll have multiple types of fields.
However, even when choosing the regular Farm Field, you’ll notice a difference as soon as you click and drag. We’ve introduced “preview” models to the placement of farms - these tiny models allow you to predict where the crops will be, so you can plan your farms better… And they’re extremely useful now that you can rotate the farms, which should allow for more diverse looking farmlands!
The second farm type is exactly what you expect from its icon: a Bush Farm.
This new and useful type of farm will allow you to more regularly take care of (and benefit from) the different bushes in the game - not only fruit bushes like berries or cherries, but also the larger plants like wintermoss or dwarfsbeard.
The third type is an interesting one. It’s something I like to personally think as vanity or “legacy” content. They’re called Decorative Flower Fields and they’re meant to be… well, that! A beautiful flower field exclusively for decoration. The reason for this is because the new way to obtain and “farm” herbs is now transferred to the herbalist - through means that might be revealed sometime soon - however we do know how many players appreciate having fancy flower farms on their towns… For that reason we’ve kept farm flowers as an optional and decorative option! 
The good news is that Decorative Flower Fields can be huge - and have no gaps at all!
Then we have Orchards and Timber Farms!
These can be massive fields that will be used for growing trees of different kinds. Orchards will behave similarly to Bush Farms, growing trees that are useful not for their wood but for their products like nuts or fruits… Fruit trees, you ask? Well… Yes. They’re also part of the next update, but let’s leave that for when we talk about the Brewer…
As for Timber Farms, as you expect, they’ll provide you with trees to be cut. The best thing about these new farms is that they’re taken care of (and harvested) automatically regardless of your auto-harvest settings! Which means that once you plop down a Timber Farm, you’ll likely never have to worry about wood again… Well, maybe. Depends on how well you plan your town! 
And it gets even more amazing! Sometimes you get way more than you need… Especially with farms! We’ve all been there, right? Beautiful fields providing you with an overflow of carrots and corn… Sometimes you wish you could just stop it but without having to stop the farmer from working on other fields or removing your precious farms, right? Not anymore! A fancy toggle on the bottom of the Farm UI will allow you to choose if they should harvest (or stop harvesting) a certain field, thus giving you the possibility of having decorative crop fields or simply not overflowing your storage with veggies!
There are other quality-of-life improvements regarding farms as well, like Gameplay Settings for hiding/showing the blue frame around farms (the one used to see where it gets water from) and several bug fixes!
Now, there’s one last farm type that you’ve probably noticed…
The icon might seem familiar too…
Well, I did say that this system felt like it was needed because of our under-the-hood work towards the Dwarven kingdom…
We’ll just leave it like that for now
Who knows? You might see that sooner than you think!
Before we end, there’s one last thing that is interesting to point out!
These new farm types were created with a very sophisticated and elegant design (Some of the finest magic tricks from @paulthegreat until now!) and with one thing in mind: customization-friendliness.
All these farm types and how they work are mostly defined through JSON files, in a very friendly and easy to edit/add way! Which means that once this update is live, it will be super easy for modders to create their own sophisticated new farm types with exclusive patterns, unique dirt models and unique crops! We can’t wait to see what the community will come up with
That’s it! I hope you’ve enjoyed the read!
Have a good weekend and, as usual…
Stay warm and safe! 
These farmers will have to work like crazy, hope they don’t go on strike. 
Awesome work!
man, i can’t wait to eat all the food the farmers make, they need to work harder
Regarding the shepperd poll, just my two cents :
Question #1 : i think alleviating the cook`s current huge workload and “unclutering/unclogging” his menu would be a very welcome change (thus removing feeds from cooks crafting list), same with carpenters/masons/potters (for animal beddings) ; however, i am not entirely sure if it is the shepperd that should acquire crafting abilities - probably not, very limited potential crafting list. And let us not forget that this crafting time will be spent while he could be taking better care of pasture animals.
Question #2 : fourth option, especifically because of Northern Alliance and similar factions - specially if you choose to “roleplay immersively” .
I mean you say taking care but what does he actually do except find new animals once, and then ocasionally harvest them?
There’s also feeding, interacting (gives the cared for buff), occasionally slaughtering them and retrieving them when they wander if the pasture is not fenced.
This last one, however, is the real deal - I’ve noticed that 90% of the time of the Shepherd is spent chasing animals that have wandered off, and this is the issue most people face when they think the Shepherd has no time available. If you fence off all the pastures, suddenly a single shepherd can take care of lots of animals and still have free time
