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Farmer Effeciency

Started by Biginuf, July 23, 2014, 12:47:54 PM

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Biginuf

Whats up guys, I used the search tool and didn't see anything on farming effeciency, I read on the wiki page a farmer can work a max of 56 blocks, but I have a few crops on my current town that are 9x9(81 blocks) and i have 1 farmer assigned to each field and they routinely will work the field to 100% then clear it. Am I missing something?  Thanks for the help.

irrelevant

Early on when I set up farms, I use one farmer on 120 tile farms (11x11 or 15x8). I have to do lots of micromanagement (moving farmers between fields) during harvest to insure maximum harvest, then putting them all back for spring.

Once I get up to 15-20 farms, I start assigning two farmers to these farms. That pretty much eliminates the need for micro. I never use the default (three farmers) for this size farm, which is my standard size.

Biginuf

Good info, appreciate the reply. Hopefully there is a sweet spot there between 81 and 120 that 1 guy can work by himself without micromanaging them between plots.

irrelevant

#3
A lot depends on the crop. Beans are no trouble at all. Corn and wheat not so bad.

Example, if I am growing half beans and half corn, the bean fields will be fully harvested in late summer. I turn off each field as it is complete, then assign the farmer to the corn field immediately next to it, so that field now has two farmers.

Also be sure the farmers don't get caught up in doing laborer tasks that prevent them from starting their planting in early spring. That can cause big problems.

Biginuf

QuoteAlso be sure the farmers don't get caught up in doing laborer tasks that prevent them from starting their planting in early spring. That can cause big problems.
«Today at 02:04:10 PM by irrelevant
Good tip, I've had that issue more than once. Is there a way to prevent that from happening other than not assigning large tasks right before early spring?

Assuming your beans and corn were both the same block size, does one produce more food than the other? Do some crops yield more than others?

irrelevant

Whenever I have big projects underway in the winter that have lots of laborers running around, I cancel/pause them all when it turns late winter. I start them back up only when I see the farmers out in their fields doing their planting.

Assuming a full harvest, I get 840 food from a 120 tile farm, regardless of whether it's beans, wheat, or corn. Most of my farming experience is with these three crops, but I believe that this is pretty much constant. Just that some of the other crops are more difficult to get full harvest from, or anyway more difficult for me.

irrelevant

#6
Also look here http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=231.60 at reply #67 about halfway down the page. I forgot that I determined that wheat seemed slightly more difficult to get full yield than corn.

After reading more in that blog I realize that with a single farmer on this size field I was not regularly getting 840.

One farmer per farm. The yields do suffer somewhat. I do micromanagement come harvest, when a field is fully harvested I take the farmer and put him at whichever nearby farm has made the least progress. By the time harvest has ended I have reassigned over half the farmers, some fields have 3 or 4 farmers working. Then when it's done, I put everything back.

Where the yield really suffers is on the front end, in Spring. They don't get fully planted before summer hits. But I get more food this way than I would with those same 16 farmers on 8 fields.

edit: to clarify, I do have 32 farmers, but 16 of them are working orchards. Those farms are farmed by 16 farmers. Mostly they don't get 840, although some do. Mainly they are in the 630-800 range.

slink

This was a post about the most yield I ever got from one farmer.  My usual size of field is 81 squares, the same as yours.

Quote from: slink on May 17, 2014, 02:38:39 PM
I just finished harvesting 1008 beans from a field farmed by one person.  I admit I was lucky with the season, but that was an amazing yield.



Here is the field just before harvesting began.



irrelevant

I remember that! So fine.

If you're going to set harvest records, it's clear that it's going to be done growing beans.

Pangaea

#9
Quote from: irrelevant on July 23, 2014, 01:09:25 PM
Early on when I set up farms, I use one farmer on 120 tile farms (11x11 or 15x8). I have to do lots of micromanagement (moving farmers between fields) during harvest to insure maximum harvest, then putting them all back for spring.

Once I get up to 15-20 farms, I start assigning two farmers to these farms. That pretty much eliminates the need for micro. I never use the default (three farmers) for this size farm, which is my standard size.

Quote from: irrelevant on July 23, 2014, 02:00:01 PM
A lot depends on the crop. Beans are no trouble at all. Corn and wheat not so bad.

Example, if I am growing half beans and half corn, the bean fields will be fully harvested in late summer. I turn off each field as it is complete, then assign the farmer to the corn field immediately next to it, so that field now has two farmers.

Also be sure the farmers don't get caught up in doing laborer tasks that prevent them from starting their planting in early spring. That can cause big problems.

Sorry for the old-ish thread, but it's relevant.

Most of the fields I've used so far are 12x10 or 15x8 (both 120 tiles) with one farmer tending each field. With beans it's mostly not a big problem, at least as long as the farmer doesn't fly off to the herbalist or something else silly. But often it causes big problems too, even on bean fields, and I'm losing half the crop. Have you guys found any sweet spot that one farmer can fairly reliably take care of?

I have quite liked the 15x8 size, but if something else is better then I can try to design around that instead. Right now it seems like it's too much for 1 farmer, and I've started putting 2 farmers on a few fields to see how they do (but I lack people to do that everywhere).

Here is one example. Admittedly this was a terrible year with an early winter (-7C at Late Autumn), but it's indicative of the problem in most years.

PS: I already had 2 farmers on the two big fields, and have upped this to three now.

rkelly17

@Pangaea, I usually do 9X9 (81 squares) or 15X6 (90 squares) with one farmer if the house and barn are right next door. If I have to go bigger than that I do 2 or 3 depending on what I see. Not sure whether this is the best use or not. The only time I have issues with harvest is when the job assignments get bumped because of lack of housing near other, nearby job sites. This is with populations under 1200. @irrelevant and @RedKetchup can tell you that all bets are off as the population climbs higher.

Pangaea

Thanks @rkelly17. I have never built cities that big, I like watching the people walk around tending their business too much I guess, but how does big populations affect this? Doesn't the game handle jobs linked to locations well then?

Quite like the idea of only one farmer per field, so mayhaps I shall try with smaller fields and see how that goes. 15x6 would probably allow more or less the same road network and such as now. It also looks like narrow fields may be a smart thing based on how the workers operate. For example they fetch the crops from one side, when that 'row' is done, they walk back to the left side and begin anew. So narrow fields will hopefully be more efficient than same-sized more quadratical fields.

rkelly17

Quote from: Pangaea on September 18, 2014, 03:43:45 PM
Thanks @rkelly17. I have never built cities that big, I like watching the people walk around tending their business too much I guess, but how does big populations affect this? Doesn't the game handle jobs linked to locations well then?

You'd have to ask those who make 2000+ towns themselves ( @RedKetchup or @irrelevant or @Nilla ). I've never gone much beyond 1200 myself, but I think that they have said that the job selector does go a bit wonky. I know that they have to use way more traders and vendors that I ever have at lower numbers.

irrelevant

#13
@Pangaea @rkelly17 what I have noticed is that as your pop reaches a certain level (~2000-2500), and you get a certain number of farms (~150-200? just guessing), the job assignment engine for farmers begins to falter a bit. When you first assign the farmers to new fields, they will not necessarily come from nearby, but might live on the far side of the map.

Normally, most job re-assignments appear to take place fairly often, a few times a year the job assignment engine shuffles things around and people end up working pretty close to where they live.

I think farmers must be done on a separate schedule, probably annually following the harvest. I'd thought I had seen it happening at the transition between late winter/early spring, but I have been watching for that, and have not seen it lately.

The good news is, even at higher pop, the farmers seem to sort themselves out after a year or two. Sink Mill has pop 3822 with 654 farmers on 315 farms, and I now have no real complaints regarding where my farmers live. But it has been 3 years now since I built a new farm.

Unfortunately , the builders never do; sort themselves out I mean, but that's a different story.

Be sure to check out the latest entry in the Sink Mill blog for more developments regarding farmer assignments, which I just noticed.

Nilla

I make different size of the fields. At the beginning, when I have few people, I make quite large fields for one farmer. (7 or 8*15 is a good size).

I think this way: Some years one farmer will not be able to harvest all, some years he will. I consider the crops he gets into the barn, not the crop that freezes. On a smaller field less will freeze in a bad years, but less will be harvested on good and medium years.

Later, when I have a lot of workers, I increase the number of farmers on these fields to 2, maybe even 3 if i have many unemployed workers.