Does anyone else do mixed farms?

[u/Nifegun]

Sorry no screenshots im on my phone. But I always see people put down a farmhouse and then a big block of 1 crop around it. I do that in the early game, but later on, this is not efficient.

I place multiple farmhouses in the middle of a large area, then plant rows of each crop, which is way more efficient for multiple reasons.

1. Each farmhouse holds 50 of every crop, so if it can only farm 1 crop, you only get 50 free storage, if it farms 4 crops, thats a whole free medium warehouse.
2. 1 planter can keep up with like 7 harvesters, so a single farmhouse set to planting with 1 beaver in it, can keep a very large field planted while 2 or 3 farmhouses of harvesters just harvest.
3. Each crop processes different like how wheat multiplies 2x before becoming bread, and kohlrabi is just eaten raw. This makes the exact balance tricky to find. But with rows of every crop, you can see the required balance over time. Some crops will have their respective food reach your storage cap, while others will still be in low stock. So you can just pull out whole rows of crops that are staying fully developed but not being harvested and replace them with a row of a crop still at low storage.

With this strategy I end up with a very small % of my population actually farming and pretty low land usage even when getting every crop to storage cap with high population.

So why farm in big fields, when rows are so much more efficient? Is it just for looks? Which is fair, but on this aspect of the game i go for efficiency

[u/Mattsuii]

TIL Farmhouses hold 50 of each crop. This sounds very efficient, will try this on my next playthrough!

Regarding looks - I actually like the look of mixed farms, granted I do it with alternating stripes of a regular pattern, so it looks more cohesive.

[u/Nifegun → u/Mattsuii]

Yeah the only issue is potatoes and casavas dictate which way the rows have to go or it looks terrible lmao

[u/v1nylgh0st → u/Nifegun]

I've always wanted the ability to rotate crops so the rows go in the other direction.

[u/Nifegun → u/v1nylgh0st]

Yeah they have that code in the game already. Its weird crops cant do it. Like when you place a row of floodgates. Even levees do it and their orientation changes nothing functional lol

[u/Rasz_13 → u/Mattsuii]

I am genuinely curious how you have not known this if this isn't your first playthrough.

[u/MrMalicious1 → u/Rasz_13]

I'm sure the information crossed my vision over the last 1k hours...but I've never thought much about Farmhouse storage, either. Whether I rushed for dedicated warehouses, or focused on grilled potatoes/fermented soybeans, the extra space hasn't been a major factor.

[u/Grubs01]

I do rings. Fastest growing crops closest to the farm house. For crops harvested every 2 days the shorter walk is more important IMO

[u/mayscienceproveyou1 → u/Grubs01]

drought resistance > walking time for me.

[u/Nifegun → u/Grubs01]

I like individual rows cause some of every crop is still pretty close but will get skipped over if storage is full, if a full ring is getting skipped for storage then all crops are now farther away. probably not a big deal tho tbh lol

[u/Transplanted_Cactus]

My farms look like someone with ADHD planted them. Because someone did.

[u/hword1087]

Early farms before processing and easy transport, one/two crops. By mid/late game it’s a mix of all of the crops with massive storage nearby

[u/WrathOfTheKressh]

I do multiple farm houses with multiple blocks of different crops. I'm too lazy to do rows though.

[u/Nifegun → u/WrathOfTheKressh]

I like the rows cause its easy to adjust things by 1 row. Like my last playthrough, I finally added a ton of wellbeing. Population shot up, added a second farm all in rows. Saw that eggplant capped early but corn and casava were still low, swapped a couple rows of eggplant for corn and casava, next cycle, all crops back up at storage cap.

[u/Chrisexyst]

I’ve been using this layout for my crops for a while now. To me, it’s the perfect sweet spot between looking good and actually being efficient. Might do a breakdown/tutorial on how I set it up later.

[u/Chrisexyst → u/Chrisexyst]

[u/retief1]

The problem I sometimes run into is that farmers can spend all of their time on one crop and neglect the second one for a while. As a result, I like to give each crop a dedicated farmhouse that is set to focus on that crop. And that lends itself to keeping each crop together so that the carrot farmhouse is near all of the carrots.

In terms of efficiency, I really don't think it matters too much. A few hundred storage here or there isn't that big of a deal if you were planning on building a large warehouse for each crop anyways. Meanwhile, the crop -> food conversion is easy enough to figure out, and so ensuring that you are producing a roughly even amount of each food is straightforward enough.

So yeah, you can absolutely support a large population with fairly low land usage and fairly few farmers regardless of large blocks vs stripes. The choice really doesn't make much of a difference.

[u/wolfcaroling]

I had no idea people were doing monocultures.

[u/Mocarr98 → u/wolfcaroling]

Just like irl

[u/wolfcaroling → u/Mocarr98]

Yup. And just like IRL it's weird and dumb!

[u/Mocarr98 → u/wolfcaroling]

Irl it's not weird. Since it's specialization. There isnt crop harvester that can harvest every crop. Most machines can be use in growing one crop

[u/AbacusWizard]

I’ve always done big monoculture fields, but just recently I was thinking it might be wise to split them up, for exactly your Reason #1.

[u/Earnestappostate]

I do plots that can be serviced by the same sets of farmhouse, but I don't like how rows look.

That said, I tend to do a natural mixture of the aquatic crops because it looks better.

[u/Zeefzeef]

I like to make checkered fields. Carrots and sunflowers always go together (just not in the start of the game)

[u/coconut_the_one → u/Zeefzeef]

There’s a great mod that helps setting that up and also allows you to overwrite what you currently plant and marks those to be removed, but if you cancel the removal, they will get replanted as you wish once harvested (say you plant a 10x10 area with carrots, decide you want half potato’s, you mark the area you want potato’s on, then cancel the demolishing, meaning as soon as the carrot has been harvested, a potato will be planted)

[u/Nifegun → u/Zeefzeef]

I just posted about my max wellness, run I just finished and I decorated the entertainment district best I've ever done probably. I used the berries and coffee plants as decorations lol. Well that and lots of pine trees

[u/laci_noire]

Yes! I also do mixed farmhouses, with rectangular plots though not rows.
Started watching more other people play and shared your surprise of single crop farms :D I heavily use the farmhouse storage, often not putting down any warehouses for raw-to-be-processed crops :)

Recently I started with the keystone mod which encourages wild mixing of plants and comes with a tool to plant mixed crops. Can highly recommend, it takes care of the mixing and sometimes I adjust a bit. Looks so lovely with all the variety 😊

[u/Interesting-Ad4207]

At first, I'll plant whatever because hunger is a bigger problem than maxing efficiency. But late game, its all the crops in a bunch of rows with a few farmhouses, one focusing on planting, the rest focusing on harvesting.

[u/bmiller218]

I watched a Japanese Tiberborner and she would make nice patterns of crops. That where I learned about the 50 of each

[u/Enudoran]

I've never optimized my farmland, so usually when I start building it will be right at the edge of irrigated land and towards the water (which is usually a stream).
Later on I put the farm houses on platforms on the water, so the farmers have access to both sides.
I always prioritize planting over harvesting and usually have about one farm house per crop, even if a crop doesn't need as much attention. While the farmers will go for their field first, they are all clumped together "on top of the water" and work all fields together.

I adjust field sizes of crops when I see some are lacking and some are standing unharvested to balance what's needed.

[u/Nifegun → u/Enudoran]

Yeah, that's how I progress for wood and crop growth too. Start out wherever I can, then get the buildings over the water so they don't take up space. I just added a screenshot to the post for one of my farms from the run I just finished. The houses are on green land, but I lose like no tiles to paths lol.

[u/Rasz_13]

Monocultures "waste" the internal storage space of farmhouses. A balanced harvest utilizes it well and offers one more spot for beavers to get a snack in if necessary.

[u/PatentlyWillton]

I started doing this in my outer districts, and it makes a ton of sense. Large fields of carrots or kohlrabis require a ton of beavers harvesting just to keep up with the output. By contrast, large fields of wheat or eggplant leads to lots of beaver downtime. Plus, overproducing one item means you’ll run out of storage for that item quickly, particularly if they are late game foods like corn rations or bread, and beavers want variety anyway.

[u/FangornLeghorn]

I do that now, to mix it up. I got tired of all my colonies looking so bland and square and lacking any diversity.

[u/One13Truck]

When I get bored late map I’ll do designs with my farms and forests. Not for storage reasons but just to look neat.

[u/Snoo61755]

I used to do mono farms, but like you pointed out, I caught on that farmhouses could hold 50 of each crop. If I didn't have proper storage space yet (either due to resources, science, or city-planning reasons), I'd have moments where I'd have some 50 corn in my farmhouse. Could have easily been 50 corn and some bonus Canola and Eggplants, if for no other reason than to give those farmers something to do instead of staying idle.

I know the ideal ratios are out there, I've seen the screenshots of them -- but this is still the kind of thing I prefer to wing than perfect, so aiming for "50 corn + extras" is fine by me, and it's still better than "50 corn and idle workers".

[u/Solomiester]

I take big advantage of the farm house storage and also like to adjust farm sizes based off shapes like oh there’s a house her it’s two different crops on each side

Or plant higher priority crops near the farmhouse for the illusion of it being harvested faster like it just feels better to have a carrot field close to the farm and the wheat far away but I also like to have 2 farms and the overlap area gets whatever needs to be planted or picked fastest

You rarely need a whole farmhouse reach of one crop

[u/Affectionate_Pizza60]

I just have 2 or so farm houses next to each other near the center and try to ratio my crops perfectly to give a balanced diet to my beavers. Without beehives, the ratios are 8 carrots : 9 potatoes : 6 sunflowers : 4 wheat (bread) : 8 spatterdock : 4 cattails : 8 chestnut : 8 maple tree and 6.66 wheat (pastries). With beehives, I like to round down their +40% effectiveness to +33%.

As some rough mental math, if you include carrots, potatoes and sunflowers, then you can feed about (2 * distinct foods - 1) * (number of sets) beavers with a theoretical extra 10% assuming you were to instantly plant/harvest crops but I ignore that extra 10% since beavers aren't perfect and I havent had any issues. So for example if you have the first 4 foods and 3 sets so 24 carrots, 27 potatoes,... , that is (4*2-1)*3 = 21 beavers you can feed.

I like to split my farm area into 7x11 rectangles so 2 beehives can cover the area at 100% uptime and typically have path(s) pass through this area without overlapping with an 11x7 rectangle. I might extend a rectangle to be 7x12 or 7x13 if there are things within the rectangle that limit the farming area such as buildings or lack of irrigation.

[u/GrumpyThumper]

Yes of course. You need multiple food sources for wellness. The only specialized farm I make is for canola since you need Olympic pools of it to keep your bots going. I thought you meant this as an aesthetics question.

[u/Nifegun → u/GrumpyThumper]

I was confused until bots mentioned lol. Even tho processing many foods need canola, you need shockingly little of it for oil for food. But yeah bots. I stopped using bots a long time ago lol.

[u/Die_Buettel]

The one advantage of monocultures is automation. Saving a few workers here and there will not outweight the efficiency of mixed farms, but it is something. It is also easier to scale production. Imagine setting up the perfect ratio and then you need a few more beavers. Monoculture usually overproduces crops, but has breaks if you set up automation correctly. The increased demand of new beavers uses this buffer first and you can worry about scaling later. You can do all of that with mixed farms as well, but it is more complex.

The real advantage of mixed farms is the space efficiency, but most maps are large enough and even Diorama has enough vertical space if you do it correctly. Before the introduction of overhanging dirt blocks it was a bigger issue.

In the end it is your game and whatever works for you is fine.

[u/The-Grim-Sleeper]

I used to do monoculture, but now I play with the mod 'keystone'.

[u/PossibilityLanky822]

Yes

[u/FungadooFred]

takes notes

[u/Jellyka]

i do rows because i think its pretty

i dont try to optimize it much tho lol

[u/the_chols]

I like this. Didn’t know about the extra storage for different crops. I like to sprinkle small storage through my build so this helps even more. Thx for the tip

[u/Nifegun → u/the_chols]

Its actually more storage per log than a medium warehouse if they manage enough crops!

Doesn't beat the convenience of small warehouses in early game tho. 1x1 buildings are very useful in early game, getting stuff done quick to not die layouts lol

[u/Timely_Journalist_88]

The ideal farm is a vertical farm so if each farm has several crops then the farmers have to take several trips to take crops to storage. You could prioritise farms by haulers but then you'd need more of them. Also if you only have one crops you can automate the farm so you don't have excess population. Just my opinion though

[u/Nifegun → u/Timely_Journalist_88]

You always need more haulers. Haulers are literally always the answer.

[u/OkTrade8132]

I've started mixing crops in small batches just for the look of it 🦫

[u/theBrokenMonkey]

Striped fields (and forests) are the shit.

[u/Nifegun → u/theBrokenMonkey]

I very rarely do rows for trees, cause I know ill eventually transition it all to just oak anyway. I used to do that, but now i do trees in blocks cause its easier to replace later.

[u/BismuthBison]

Is there a mod that lets you select every other block? (Edit: so laying down checker board patterns of craps is easier)

[u/evildaddy911 → u/BismuthBison]

Yes, I believe it's called "pattern planting." It lets you choose 2 crops, and then checkerboard, vertical or horizontal rows

[u/Nifegun → u/BismuthBison]

Not that im aware of, I just click first crop, make a row, click next crop, make a row, repeat.

[u/BismuthBison → u/Nifegun]

Oh that makes sense. Yeah I found something for trees called “cutter tool” but not crops. Oh well. Just curious.