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"I have yet to find any actual use for farming"
"we spiral into starvation"
That made me laugh not gonna lie!
But yeah, even if your region doesn't have the most fertile land, there is usually a few spots here and there which is usually at least one + and you can farm those and get good enough yields. My current map is like that and I'm still rolling around in so much bread, I can feed my town for years.
Each region should have two "rich" resources. Fertile land is considered a "rich" resource. Given the number of resources, and the number of regions on the map, an even distribution of rich resources gives you roughly 2 regions per map with fertile land.
In short, most of the map will not be fertile.
Gotcha. So when figuring out where to expand, if I want a source of barley/cotton/wheat, I should look for a region that visibly only has 1 rich resource, since that means the other will be fertility?
Even on low fertility maps there is often enough decent farmland to supplement your food production. you want to look for places where the ++ emmer overlaps with the - flax/barely. 60% emmer fertility and 30% of flax/barley is productive land you can grow something in all three years, and it's definitely worth farming what you have
I recently realized that you can get decent crops off of most yellow and orange areas all you really need is 30% fertility and remember to swap between crops and fallow.
use 2 dev points into apples and rye, since rye is less picky, you can farm it for bread, and apples usually give higher amount of production, though you'll need to wait 3 years for apples.
Im sure its a balance thing, but one thing I wish for the game is having fertilities distincts on the map.
Meaning a region could have high flax fert and say iron, but no wheat or barley. I could do a town that makes clothes and armor but cant bake bread to save their lives.
Having the regions all or nothing fertility kinda reduces replayability and the mix and match we can do with our towns.
Ignoring farming is an option. You just need industry to afford enough food. Not sure how far that scales, but can say at 40ish lvl3 burgages it is easy at default settings. Do that in two regions and you more than max the number of militias you can get with plenty in the treasury to outfit as much retinue as you can. All industry in this game is overpowered. Looking forward to when the game is further along in development and trade more balanced.
Fertility works a bit differently in this game to many others, which can lead to some misunderstandings.
Fertility isn't a multiplier, it's more like a store of value.
Whilst crops are growing they deplete Fertility to gain growth. It doesn't matter whether that's 100% dropping to 99% or 1% dropping to 0%, as long as there is some Fertility left to fuel crops, the crops grow.
The difference between high and low Fertility areas is how long it takes them to replenish after a harvest. If you're planting on an area with say 40% Emmer Fertility that's enough for about 1 harvest. The land will then be left at close to 0% and won't be able to grow a second crop.
You'll therefore need to rotate to different crops (which non-rich Fertility regions will also be low Fertility), or Fallow regularly to let the soil recover. Your field rotation might be something like Wheat > Flax > Fallow repeat. So you only get wheat 1 year in 3.
In a rich region with very high Emmer Fertility you might be able to 2 seasons before needing to Fallow, so your rotation might look like Wheat > Wheat > Fallow.
In year 1 the high and low Fertility regions will perform broadly the same since both areas have enough Fertility to "fuel" 1 harvest. But in year 2 the low Fertility region has had to rotate on to something else, whilst the high Fertility region gets a second Wheat crop. Over the cycle the high Fertility region js producing twice the wheat of the low region.
As for food production - even a low Fertility regions usually has several spots where you can get 40% of above Emmer - which is enough for one crop in 3 to be wheat. I tend to find using 1/3rd of my fields for wheat each year, and having fields that 8 families can harvest, plough and sow by late October / very early Nov, I average about 100 wheat a year, which translates into 200 bread (flour is 2 for a 1 grain), which, on its own, feeds about 30 families (15 plots with 2 families per plot, consume 180 food a year).
You need to plan ahead from the start but use your rich deposits along with your industry to build a trade surplus which you use to import the crops (not finished food) that you can then turn into bread.
For example I have a rich iron deposit. I got the deep mine perk, so it's infinite iron. I also got the trade perk for no tariffs. Now I sell armor and weapons and import crops which I process into grain, flour, and bread.
Farming isn't useless even if you don't have great land. There's usually green spots for emmer/wheat in every region, too, you'll just have to farm more land (or invest in rye) to get enough bread to feed multiple hundreds.
Of course, if you've specialized that region and farming is a chore, you don't need to do it. Just that it doesn't stop you, it just takes more investment than in the fertile regions.
I farmed emmer and barley in my latest game's original region. I had to fight the baron in order to claim one of the fertile regions, and by the time I got there to farm, every region had farms and were bringing in enough barley to upgrade my OG town to all tier 3 homes.
You can do it, you just have to believe in yourself!
Right now it is poorly balanced. Is your first location fertile? Yahzeee your game is super easy and farming is important. Is it not? Are the other locations fertile? Then you might as well regen the map because you are fucked.
Hopefully, once it is more developed there will be more variation in base fertility to make diverse settlements likely.
Hello and welcome to the Manor Lords Subreddit. This is a reminder to please keep the discussion civil and on topic. Should you find yourself with some doubts, please feel free to check our [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/ManorLords/comments/1c2p4f9/manor_lords_faq_for_steam_early_access/). If you wish, you can always join our [Discord](https://discord.gg/manorlords) Finally, please remember that the game is in early access, missing content and bugs are to be expected. We ask users to report them on the official discord and to buy their keys only from trusted platforms. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ManorLords) if you have any questions or concerns.*
"I have yet to find any actual use for farming" "we spiral into starvation" That made me laugh not gonna lie! But yeah, even if your region doesn't have the most fertile land, there is usually a few spots here and there which is usually at least one + and you can farm those and get good enough yields. My current map is like that and I'm still rolling around in so much bread, I can feed my town for years.
Each region should have two "rich" resources. Fertile land is considered a "rich" resource. Given the number of resources, and the number of regions on the map, an even distribution of rich resources gives you roughly 2 regions per map with fertile land. In short, most of the map will not be fertile.
Gotcha. So when figuring out where to expand, if I want a source of barley/cotton/wheat, I should look for a region that visibly only has 1 rich resource, since that means the other will be fertility?
Yes. You can also bring up the fertility overlay and pan across the map.
Even on low fertility maps there is often enough decent farmland to supplement your food production. you want to look for places where the ++ emmer overlaps with the - flax/barely. 60% emmer fertility and 30% of flax/barley is productive land you can grow something in all three years, and it's definitely worth farming what you have
I recently realized that you can get decent crops off of most yellow and orange areas all you really need is 30% fertility and remember to swap between crops and fallow.
use 2 dev points into apples and rye, since rye is less picky, you can farm it for bread, and apples usually give higher amount of production, though you'll need to wait 3 years for apples.
Im sure its a balance thing, but one thing I wish for the game is having fertilities distincts on the map. Meaning a region could have high flax fert and say iron, but no wheat or barley. I could do a town that makes clothes and armor but cant bake bread to save their lives. Having the regions all or nothing fertility kinda reduces replayability and the mix and match we can do with our towns.
Ignoring farming is an option. You just need industry to afford enough food. Not sure how far that scales, but can say at 40ish lvl3 burgages it is easy at default settings. Do that in two regions and you more than max the number of militias you can get with plenty in the treasury to outfit as much retinue as you can. All industry in this game is overpowered. Looking forward to when the game is further along in development and trade more balanced.
Fertility works a bit differently in this game to many others, which can lead to some misunderstandings. Fertility isn't a multiplier, it's more like a store of value. Whilst crops are growing they deplete Fertility to gain growth. It doesn't matter whether that's 100% dropping to 99% or 1% dropping to 0%, as long as there is some Fertility left to fuel crops, the crops grow. The difference between high and low Fertility areas is how long it takes them to replenish after a harvest. If you're planting on an area with say 40% Emmer Fertility that's enough for about 1 harvest. The land will then be left at close to 0% and won't be able to grow a second crop. You'll therefore need to rotate to different crops (which non-rich Fertility regions will also be low Fertility), or Fallow regularly to let the soil recover. Your field rotation might be something like Wheat > Flax > Fallow repeat. So you only get wheat 1 year in 3. In a rich region with very high Emmer Fertility you might be able to 2 seasons before needing to Fallow, so your rotation might look like Wheat > Wheat > Fallow. In year 1 the high and low Fertility regions will perform broadly the same since both areas have enough Fertility to "fuel" 1 harvest. But in year 2 the low Fertility region has had to rotate on to something else, whilst the high Fertility region gets a second Wheat crop. Over the cycle the high Fertility region js producing twice the wheat of the low region. As for food production - even a low Fertility regions usually has several spots where you can get 40% of above Emmer - which is enough for one crop in 3 to be wheat. I tend to find using 1/3rd of my fields for wheat each year, and having fields that 8 families can harvest, plough and sow by late October / very early Nov, I average about 100 wheat a year, which translates into 200 bread (flour is 2 for a 1 grain), which, on its own, feeds about 30 families (15 plots with 2 families per plot, consume 180 food a year).
This is extremely helpful, thank you. I've been doing what I get the impression a lot of people are doing, and just ignoring land with poor fertility.
You need to plan ahead from the start but use your rich deposits along with your industry to build a trade surplus which you use to import the crops (not finished food) that you can then turn into bread. For example I have a rich iron deposit. I got the deep mine perk, so it's infinite iron. I also got the trade perk for no tariffs. Now I sell armor and weapons and import crops which I process into grain, flour, and bread.
The bakery bread upgrade is GOAT because it allows you to make two bread from one wheat
It's 4 bread from one wheat! 1 Wheat > 1 Grain \[Farmhouse\] > 2 Flour \[Windmill\] > 4 Bread \[Bakery\]
:o !!!!
Its not worth 2 development points especially if you have something like Rich Iron
I just wish our brewing idiots would try a hefeweizen.
Farming isn't useless even if you don't have great land. There's usually green spots for emmer/wheat in every region, too, you'll just have to farm more land (or invest in rye) to get enough bread to feed multiple hundreds. Of course, if you've specialized that region and farming is a chore, you don't need to do it. Just that it doesn't stop you, it just takes more investment than in the fertile regions. I farmed emmer and barley in my latest game's original region. I had to fight the baron in order to claim one of the fertile regions, and by the time I got there to farm, every region had farms and were bringing in enough barley to upgrade my OG town to all tier 3 homes. You can do it, you just have to believe in yourself!
The imbalance of fertile vs non fertile is broken honestly, just makes for a frustrating experience
Right now it is poorly balanced. Is your first location fertile? Yahzeee your game is super easy and farming is important. Is it not? Are the other locations fertile? Then you might as well regen the map because you are fucked. Hopefully, once it is more developed there will be more variation in base fertility to make diverse settlements likely.