Having some trouble with farmed food design

pein · 2018-06-05 06:03:53

not more nerfs please

milkweed is scarce, not enough baskets and carts usually, also i seen a lot of people despawn with carts
worms take too much time, while now is better to reuse them, 1 hour makes no difference in your life, people can not find soil, yea i was telling a guy where is soil and he went after it, not that he was lazy just map knowledge is bad
not using hardened row blocks half the map and cant be moved elsewhere

i for one, make the pen even first or second generation but is too complicated for most people

changes would help:
more containers
faster worms- dont remove them, just speed them up
crop rotation: you could plant corn after carrot ?
maybe use dung on hardened row to get it back instantly or use it on like 4 tiles? then most berry would go into bowls

i seen a lot of naked people, they ate carrot and we couldnt feed sheep, so making dung usable somehow would give strategic options

stockpile food, maybe a table to eat near but not to take food away? but you could stack much more

use carrot in different recipes
wool backpack would motivate people to feed sheep so they would make carrots too

using soil on berry kills the berry not nerfs it, and a soil for a bowl of berry doesnt really work out early game
why cant we just use a tool on it? berry bush would need tilling under it and grow branches that would need to be cut, would slow down the process and usefullness

Lily · 2018-06-05 06:14:22

Yeah I really like that. Just dumping a bowl of soil on a bush without tilling it preserves the essence of it's advantage, while being a bit more balanced. Personally when it comes to worms, I think it should of been half an hour to till the ground with them, and it wouldn't be so crazy. The main problem was it took too long. I think your change is okay as well. You don't ever get any free soil, but at least there is some use to harden soil.

I think the reason everyone was planting bushes like crazy is more physiological than it being too unbalanced. Yes it was a bit overpowered, but the main reason people planted them like crazy is because mentally they are thinking they are getting the food for free. No soil, means free food. It still uses water, but mentally, you are focused on the cheap deal when it comes to soil.

zennyrpg · 2018-06-05 06:17:35

Using soil for berries basically negates their usefulness for everything but compost. That's 2 extra soil per compost. So compost will cost:

2 full berry bushes (2 soil)
2 carrots (2/5 + 2/7)
1 wheat (1 soil)

So compost is a net 4.3 soil (instead of 6.3 before). Half of all soil will go back to making soil. Sure we can carry more soil, but you now what we can't carry more of? Dung. And you know people are going to eat from the bushes... then we will have a net soil loss just trying to compost. Seriously, let us be farmers to feed our family, NOT soil farmers.

Lily · 2018-06-05 06:23:49

I just had a the nightmare flash through my mind from zennyrpg's post. People running around a large farms of berries yelling, "Don't pick the composting berries!" as the farm collapses from not being able to sustain composting anymore. Welcome to Carrot Farming 2.0.

Tane · 2018-06-05 07:54:11

LOVE the olive idea.
As for the rest, I think its inevitable that (until the tech tree starts to progress vertically instead of horizontally) we will end up with types of crops defined by five or six ways of growing/cooking.
That's not a bad thing and a sense of regularity would help new players. It also wouldn't hurt if we had a choice of crops that don't penalize us. Like a scones which replenish a few less bars but have no plate afterwards.

Perhaps more ways to compost as well would help

Last edited by Tane (2018-06-05 07:54:40)

ZneoC · 2018-06-05 08:29:20

We could compost our food scraps.

Have a compost trash heap, where we throw cornhusks, or plant debris from foraging wilds.

Trim trees for leaves, or throw old food into it.

IRL the plants use up the soils minerals and carbon organics to produce leaves, fruit etc. Return those nutrients back to the soil for your soil losses.

YAHG · 2018-06-05 09:01:02

zennyrpg wrote:

Using soil for berries basically negates their usefulness for everything but compost. That's 2 extra soil per compost. So compost will cost:
2 full berry bushes (2 soil)
2 carrots (2/5 + 2/7)
1 wheat (1 soil)
So compost is a net 4.3 soil (instead of 6.3 before). Half of all soil will go back to making soil. Sure we can carry more soil, but you now what we can't carry more of? Dung. And you know people are going to eat from the bushes... then we will have a net soil loss just trying to compost. Seriously, let us be farmers to feed our family, NOT soil farmers.

This is EXACTALLY what we talking bout in discord only better math..

What about just hour regrowth time again?

Potjeh · 2018-06-05 09:24:45

What if berries cycled between harvestable and empty on their own? That'd remove the storage advantage, as you'd need lots of bowls to hold the harvest.

Stankysteve · 2018-06-05 10:25:26

I was hoping more for the heavy handed balance changes to Multiplayer Farmville after more content had come along. Things were just getting comfortable for new players to learn. Not every player is a coordinated society tycoon in a discord managing vast soil logistics. Vast majority of us are not in fact. Maybe scale back berry regrowth but 60 was too much. 15, ,25, 35, 45, whatever. Just let someone see them in their life.

Steam Engines when?

Last edited by Stankysteve (2018-06-05 10:26:56)

TrustyWay · 2018-06-05 10:58:51

I think compost should be easier to do and by different crafts. It's cool to have more plants but compost is the problem in all that. Different ways to make compost could make different kind of gameplay in villages

wondible · 2018-06-05 11:21:34

I did like that worms became useful and there was a slow sustainable wait to farm. I thought it would be nice, if the engine supports it, to have the worms position act as a sort of progress bar, so new people could have a sense of how likely a row is to be ready soon.

Do tiles support a small chance to change state based on time? Giving berry buses a very small chance to die would make them require some soil, some maintenance, and nerf the permanent storage aspect a bit. The maintenance would also scale with farm size a bit.

Thematically, I liked the soil chemistry concept, as I understand crop rotation is a real thing. For this engine, I presume it would simply to ~3 states, using either element-rich or element-depleted depending on which better represents the actual chemistry. Each crop could be planted in certain soil types, and leave the soil in a different state, breaking up monocultures a bit. The element-specific fertilizer concept could also add some diversity to composting. Perhaps it is too much complexity for this big picture game.

Anshin · 2018-06-05 12:02:11

TrustyWay wrote:

I think compost should be easier to do and by different crafts. It's cool to have more plants but compost is the problem in all that. Different ways to make compost could make different kind of gameplay in villages

Agreed. Take the berry carrot mash on straw step out, since the lamb already eats it to make dung, and it doesn't make sense to throw fresh food away for compost.

S+W=C on everything is boring. Instead of reusing the soil+water=crop mechanic on bushes again:

ADD FOOD SPOILAGE - like if you don't pick the berries they become rotten berries, and if you don't pick those they disappear and you have to wait again.

More useful cycling makes the effective cool down on edible berries more interesting and adds variety to crop types.

Add rotten food to straw for compost.
Or to feed pigs.

... Goin' on a boar hunt ...

MidgetMaker · 2018-06-05 12:45:06

what about using shears on berry bushes to prune them? probably not after every harvest but maybe every 30 mins or every hour or something.

Glassius · 2018-06-05 14:32:49

This a good oportunity to remove soil moving, as it does not occur IRL (Germans tried it in WW2 and failed). Soil pits also not, as something immediately starts to grow on such a thing.

Soil management
1. No soil pit. Tilled row created by using hoe on the ground.
2. Every crop, possibly including gooseberry, hardens tilled row after gathering/removal
3. Tilled row ceases to nothing after like 10 minutes.
4. Hardened row ceases after like 60 minutes.
5. Hardened row can be removed (tile reclaimed for building and farming) with compost immediately.
6. Hardened row can be removed with worm after like 20 minutes.
7. Without soil pit, worms can be obainable randomly from digged carrots, burdocks and shovel holes.

Sustain would be even harder this way, as tool cannot fix hardened row, you need dung or worm. Before dung, players will need to apply nomad forest-gardens (farm untill burden, then move) or medieval two-field system. This is creating more management. Rushing for sheeps (cattle?) would be even more important.

Gooseberries:
1. Make cycle: vigorous (11minutes)-> fruting (1 minute). After gathering no fruit replacement, goes to languished. This way we simulate one month fruting period present IRL.
2. Fruiting-> languising -> dry. Watering still needed, even more than currently.
3. Gooseberries outside bowl/basket quickly dissapearing
4. On transition-> languishing give random chance to change to dead bush. Domestic bush should not live forever (wild also, but it is for another topic). Make average livespan to about 30 years (blueberry can live up to 50 years, could not find info for blueberry).
5. Digged out blueberry may leave hardened row. But it is not necessary.

This way, we remove storage capacity, while still mainaining soil management superiority. But now, gooseberry is long term, very problematic investment.

Applying this to wild gooseberries will create bigger need for onions and burdocks. Place them where soil was removed.

Also, i agree: putting fresh food into compost seems stupid. IRL, in 3-field system, the fallows was left for cattle to leave there dung. It was much more effective than industrial-scale compost crafting. It would be fun, instead from crafting compost, bring sheeps on hardened rows to fix them. We got this way field rotating, much more management, and need for shepherd dogs. But it seems as too big change for now. Soil removal and season fruting would be enough for this moment.

Last edited by Glassius (2018-06-05 14:35:33)

fragilityh14 · 2018-06-05 15:08:58

Jason, I wrote a long blog entry with ideas about farming, sustainable agriculture etc a while back.

I don't know if you saw it, but if you didn't I hope this helps.

https://groundandfury.com/one-hour-one- … riculture/

jasonrohrer · 2018-06-05 15:25:58

I garden IRL and I do move soil, all the time. That's why I have a wheelbarrow.

Compost is soil.

People also get gardens started by bringing in soil for raised beds or just topsoil if the area that they want to garden on has poor soil.

But in primitive times, people probably didn't move soil. They probably searched for "fertile spots" and farmed there. The equivalent in-game would be if you could only farm on fertile soil pits, but there were a lot more of them around (random farmable spots).

BUT.... I'm not doing that because I want you to be able to control the shape of your farm. I want you to have some neat rows outside your door.

You're suggesting that all ground is fertile and ready to go simply with tilling, even in the desert... It also seems to me that people would just ignore hardened rows and keep tilling new areas. Water would be the only cost to farming (and tool breakage). Land is infinite, so they would never run out of free space to keep farming. Eventually they would run out of tools....

I guess they would compost just to avoid tool breakage? Or to avoid farm spreading... composting just for space reasons?

Potjeh · 2018-06-05 15:53:28

People did move farms all the time in primitive times. Though you couldn't just till the soil and be good to go. You'd cut down a forest and burn it on spot to fertilize. Whole trees is a bit much tech-wise, but kindling would be OK. So instead of disappearing, ashes would turn into fertile tiles that you can till into farm plots. Compost could be used to repair hardened rows while expanding would be done with fire.

Last edited by Potjeh (2018-06-05 15:53:52)

Glassius · 2018-06-05 15:57:11

One of my ideas was to make tilling with hoe in badlands and deserts creating hardened row instead of tilled row. But there is much more nuances and I wanted to be clear here.

You are right, soil movement is done for gardening vegetables and flowers. Buy not for farming, as logistic associated with it is much bigger than transport from more suitable area. Gardening is just extreme intensive way of farming. But historically, we started with extensive farming and were slowly changing to intensive. My proposition it to repeat this history: compost would still be possible to do and reclaim land.

jasonrohrer wrote:

It also seems to me that people would just ignore hardened rows and keep tilling new areas.

Exatly. But notice consequences
1. Land will eventually recover, even without resetting tiles.
2. People will have to abandon perfect spots and manage increasing logistic transport between storage, forge, ponds. Rushing for compost is vital for longer generations and cities. They will be not only running out of tools: constant moving will make them run out of time. Yes , this means only "space reasons".

Because everything runs out, even space

Last edited by Glassius (2018-06-05 16:07:16)

Glassius · 2018-06-05 16:03:28

Potjeh wrote:

People did move farms all the time in primitive times. Though you couldn't just till the soil and be good to go. You'd cut down a forest and burn it on spot to fertilize

This is true, but there is more. Farmers were starting in grasslands or in forest. Grassland is better, does not require fire to start farming. But nowadays, most of suitable grassland is claimed for modern farming, leaving for primitive tribes burden tropic forests. In such area, to start farming, you indeed need to deforest it. Even advanced farmers in Brazil do it, destroying slowly this rainforest and leaving burden land behind.

While I don't think it is wise in longer terms, I want players to be able to do it and eradicate area. Because endless fields of hardened rows make more drama, than just empty soil pits.

Last edited by Glassius (2018-06-05 16:20:14)

ryanb · 2018-06-05 16:20:17

Farming becomes more fun if there is variety in how crops grow. This can also cause interesting decisions. Here is a list of ideas along with decisions one might face.

slow growing but high nutrition
- should I plant this now for future generations?
- do I have enough food to last while I wait for this to grow?
grows only in one biome
- should I setup a mini camp at that biome?
- how do I transport water into that area?
harvesting takes time but has short window
- should I get a crew to help harvest?
- should I stagger the planting times?
- should I limit how many I plant?
- what if I miss the window while I'm gone?
prune to improve harvest (requiring tool)
- is it worth the time and effort to make the tool?
tool required to extract seed
- should I plant this now or wait until I have the tech for the tool?
- what if we consume them all before we have the tech to extract a seed?
feed seed to an animal to germinate it (grows in random location from poop requiring no soil or water)
- should I spend time watching the animal to find out where it goes?
- is there some way to contain the animal?
can be eaten early but improves the longer it sits
- should I eat this now while I'm hungry or wait until it's better?
randomly generate an improved fruit which can be eaten now for higher nutrition or planted to grow an improved plant
- should I eat this now or save it for a future generation?
- this allows you to slowly make a super food over generations but would require some effort
- you can simulate randomly generated plants by having it transition between two states (1 sec super seed, 3 sec regular) which would give it a 1/4 chance you would plant the super seed to generate a better plant

Potjeh · 2018-06-05 16:22:11

Would a grassland really be as fertile as a forest, though? In forests you have leaves or needles rotting and creating a layer of rich humus. I'm mostly thinking about development of agriculture in Europe where forest was the go to farmland, but then again pretty much all of Europe was a forest when agriculture arrived. But even if we go to origins of farming in the Middle East, it seems pretty much all of it was on flood plains rather than open savanna.

Glassius · 2018-06-05 17:25:37

Big animals can eat grass, but not wood. Therefore grasslands have more bigger animals with fertilizing dungs and tilling hoofs. Despite flood plains, it is considered Chernozem from grassland Ukraine to be the best.

But, I was talking about rainforest. It has very fertile, but bery thin soil. The crops there are perfect, but only for first few years

Rebel · 2018-06-05 18:04:41

Wouldn't mind it if you can have different compost levels..

For example
straw + worm = composting pile L0 (when wet turns to X1 soil)
composting pile L0 + bowl(carrot and berry) = compost pile L1 (when wet will turn to X2 soil)
compost pile L1 + dung = compost pile L2 (when wet will turn to X3 soil)

or something on the lines of that...

on a side note, people don't grow wheat unless there is a need for pies, if there was a way to store flour/grain to allow for mass wheat farms for composting and basket production. maybe something like being able to put flour into a bucket? then maybe a barrel? I would totally grow loads of wheat just to make baskets if it didn't leave a mess behind.

More recipes for crops will make people grow them, whatever you change to the soil/watering will just change the meta. player will also find the easiest one to grow with less effort/resources, there just needs to be a reason to grow the crops in the first place.

Christoffer · 2018-06-05 18:23:14

Back to the original question about having several different crops being useful in parallel:

1. I'm with Uncle Gus (and some others) in thinking that different biomes should be leveraged differently. Possibly crops would only grow in certain temperatures, or grow at different speeds? I do understand the difficulty, but I think you should at least consider it thoroughly (maybe you have already).

2. Different tooling could be one way. Maybe some crops require deeper digging than others, and require plows instead of hand-held hoes? There's value in giving more weight to the tech tree.

3. Number of food points per unit, vs cost of production. Storage is a scarce resource, so more effective food/unit ratio will sometimes be more valuable than higher total food points per resource/labor unit. And sometimes it won't be, which requires decision-making.

4. You have already covered different use of resource. Shortage of water -> grow A; shortage of soil -> grow B. If more biomes supplied different raw resources required for farming in varying amounts, this could actually end up solving 1. But then there should be rules about which biomes can appear next to each other (no swamps near desert, etc). Are there more possible raw resources for farming than water and soil? Maybe Barren Soil + Fertilizer = Fertile Soil, and desert and rocky only have barren soil?

As a ground rule for balancing, I suggest a predictable mathematical relationship between input (resources and manual labor) and output. Note that waiting time is essentially free as long as you have something else productive to do, and boring when you don't. You should be careful about considering time as a linear input resource by itself. If there is unlimited space to put down more bushes, and no immediate food crises, the time to yield matters little, while the effort and resources to plant matters a lot. If A grows 2x faster than B, and they are otherwise equal, then A is better than B, but definitely not 2x better. (I don't advocate instant crops though, as I think the game experience is heightened by for example seeing the carrots grow over time).

jasonrohrer · 2018-06-05 20:41:32

Soil changes have been implemented, but are not live yet. You can now move soil 3 at a time in a basket. You need a clay bowl to break it up and spread it into three rows after that, but if you're desperate, you can make a row from the full pile and do less tilling (if you don't have clay bowls yet).

Berries require both soil and water for each crop, but no re-tilling.

A hard row requires only one tilling after more soil is added (bare ground requires 2 tilling to work soil into it to create a new row).

The annoyance factor with a bowl of berries has been eliminated. You now fill the bowl one at a time, meaning you don't need a full bush to do it. You can now scrounge around to fill the bowl from multiple bushes. The partial bowl can be eaten one berry at a time, so it's not just for other recipes. This is the most efficient way for children to go berry picking in the woods.

Domestic berry bushes also produce 7 berries instead of 6. This means the total food is equal to carrots per unit soil and water. They don't require re-tilling or re-seeding, but they take longer, so there's a nice trade-off there.

Worm tilling is outta there.

One Hour One Life Forums

#26 2018-06-05 06:03:53

Re: Having some trouble with farmed food design

#27 2018-06-05 06:14:22

Re: Having some trouble with farmed food design

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#35 2018-06-05 10:58:51

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#36 2018-06-05 11:21:34

Re: Having some trouble with farmed food design

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#38 2018-06-05 12:45:06

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#39 2018-06-05 14:32:49

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#40 2018-06-05 15:08:58

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#41 2018-06-05 15:25:58

Re: Having some trouble with farmed food design

#42 2018-06-05 15:53:28

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Re: Having some trouble with farmed food design

#44 2018-06-05 16:03:28

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#45 2018-06-05 16:20:17

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