Okay, I figured out, extremely early on in my gameplay (through luck) that farm plots are best laid out in strips of 1x11, and only in one orientation. (seems to be North/South)
I’m certain that most of you know this too; either through learning it the hard/lucky way, or from seeing/reading/hearing someone else do it.
My question is: Why?
Why does farming work this way?
Why will strips only work properly in the one orientation? (I’m assuming it’s supposed to be about what direction the sun crosses the world)
Why do non-strips (let’s say a “full” 11x11 plot) have half of their area non-functional?
I just don’t understand it is all. I would have thought that an 11x11 would produce the same amount of food as eleven 1x11 plots, but no! The many plots out-performed it! (kept the farmer much busier, but that was fine)
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I’m not expecting world-shaking revelations here, I’m mostly just interested in the why?
Was it intended to be this way?
Is it a long-standing bug of some sort?
Are you just uncertain of how it ought to be handled?
Sorry if this seems odd, or accusatory, or whiney. (it sounds a little whiney when I say it aloud, but that could just be me)
They coded it to have a space between each stripe, as real farms have, but didn’t thought about cheating using single rows to avoid the spaces.
They could either limit the minimum size to 2, which player could still cheat by creating a bunch of 3x11, or require a space around farms, so two farms can’t touch.
The direction is always the same because, again, it was simple coded this way. No need to have fancy multiple directions.
Hmm, If they truly want the “null” space in between, then one option is to treat it more like the tunnel designator.
Enforced 2x2, it expands by adding on 2 blocks in whichever direction you stretch.
That then prevents players from being able to “game” the system, but has the significant penalty of breaking compatibility with every savegame prior to that change.
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On the other hand, if it is intended to be “purely” for the looks, then maybe just have the plots with “null” spaces instead grow two plants in the same spot? (this avoids extremely odd behaviour involved with “invisible” plants in the “null” row)
That way, us cheaty players aren’t being quite as cheaty, since now a “full” 11x11 produces just as much as the 11 single-width strips.
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Or the other option of “change nothing”, since it’s been working out pretty well so far.
I like the 11x11 more, but I don’t care if it is possible to compact them. My 30 hearthling town has the equivalent of just 6 full 11x11 farms and it is enough for them. (two are 11x11, most are 3x11, 5x11, depending on the usefulness of the crop)
I’m assuming the farms work this way for a combination of aesthetics and simplicity. The rows of tilled soil just plain look prettier with space in between each row, and there’s plenty enough room on the map that there’s no real need for the farms to be more compressed (unless you’re going for a super-efficient layout or prefer a denser look).
As for the orientation, I imagine it would be a lot more complicated to add in parameters to determine which plots are oriented in which direction under which circumstances than it is to have them all going the same direction. It does make some plots slightly less efficient if they’re oriented in the “wrong” direction, but not by much and only if they’re not squares.
All in all, I’d consider it a choice, not a bug–and using 1x11 plots a playstyle choice rather than a cheat!
Eh, I don’t see the ability to “exploit” this system as an issue. I’m sure only a tiny amount of players will bother (or be bothered) by this minmax technique, I know I’ll certainly never use it.
I wish the farmers would start out planting crops sparsely in the plots and that the plots needed to be sized as a 2x2 min to a 2x11 maximum.
So imagine a level 1 farmer had a minimum plot 2x2. The plot has 4 spots that a crop can be placed in but the farmer being level 1 (lacking the agricultural knowledge) could only place 1 crop in that 2x2 space.
At level 2 the farmer would place crops in 2 of those spaces ect,. ect,. At level 5 the farmer would increase the crop growth speed and then a touch more at level 6 (along with the other bonuses they already get).
So in the beginning the farmer would need larger fields to meet the towns food demands since they are just beginner farmers but as they leveled, those fields could be reworked to take up less space and be more efficient for the settlement/town.
This would highlight the value of having and keeping a higher level farmer.
I don’t know if i am right but i heard/read something about having a water-system for the fields (in later stages) and the free spaces are just placeholders for that. So maybe they designate the farms with that in minde and later when the time is right you will be able to build pumps and pipes to upgrade the farms with the right farmer and carpenter/engineer lvl.
Also they had a picture (i think it was the background for the website) that showed a farm with pipes and some cool other stuff that (jet) has to be implemented. I am looking forward to that.
I think water manipulation is also planned and some kind of better water physics like real rivers with a spring.
