Forget About "Always leave one carrot" - MAKE SECRET GARDENS

TyrantNomad · 2018-03-03 17:31:08

We all know "always leave one carrot" only works until the food source starts to collapse.
(that's when the need for seed, most wanted, is at its highest)

So I bring you an alternative to teaching people to leave one carrot and hoping on good faith that no one will desperately eat it.

THE SECRET GARDEN TECHNIQUE

As in, you hide the crops that are supposed to seed.

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CLICK THIS LINK TO LEARN HOW TO SECRET GARDEN

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(the title is hyperbolic and "always leave one carrot" is still important, but please also consider secret gardens.)

Twinsen · 2018-03-03 17:39:51

nice idea, I found people hiding basket of meat before as well.

CMH · 2018-03-03 19:34:50

How does this benefit the future generations if they cannot find the carrots?

I'm still very early and confused with how to play and do anything but die, so perhaps my comment means nothing.

Twinsen · 2018-03-03 19:41:27

CMH wrote:

How does this benefit the future generations if they cannot find the carrots?
I'm still very early and confused with how to play and do anything but die, so perhaps my comment means nothing.

Sometimes, you are trying to save one patch of carrot for seeding; with people hungry and then people eat, you would never be able to save carrot seeds. Frankly, you really can't save everyone. Some players are smart enough to leave the settlement when food doesn't go well.

CMH · 2018-03-03 19:43:26

Twinsen wrote:

CMH wrote:
How does this benefit the future generations if they cannot find the carrots?
I'm still very early and confused with how to play and do anything but die, so perhaps my comment means nothing.
Sometimes, you are trying to save one patch of carrot for seeding; with people hungry and then people eat, you would never be able to save carrot seeds. Frankly, you really can't save everyone. Some players are smart enough to leave the settlement when food doesn't go well.

I will take this knowledge with me. Thank you!

asterlea · 2018-03-03 19:50:45

You can always pass the secret down to a trusted apprentice, and more experienced players will learn to look if this becomes a thing, but new players who are still learning are unlikely to just grab one because they're hungry.

brianj · 2018-03-03 20:58:48

I've been starting to encourage children to start neighboring hamlets.

I think many small hamlets (small farms) are superior to single large farms (villages).

We don't have the technology yet to support villages.

Keep hamlets to three or four players. Only childbearing woman at a time-- everyone else should spread out.

Eventually you will have enough hamlets to support metalworks & a cook, which can be shared across multiple hamlets.

Uncle Gus · 2018-03-03 21:02:14

To refer back to the title, another reason to forget leaving one carrot to seed is that it takes ten minutes to go to seed. In that time, if you had emptied the plot, you could have grown ten more carrots in that land. See my farming guide thread for the math.

TyrantNomad · 2018-03-04 03:19:07

Uncle Gus wrote:

To refer back to the title, another reason to forget leaving one carrot to seed is that it takes ten minutes to go to seed. In that time, if you had emptied the plot, you could have grown ten more carrots in that land. See my farming guide thread for the math.

Yeah, leaving one carrot actually wastes a lot of a farm's productivity.
One secret garden is comparable to 4 "last carrots", and even so you'll quickly learn that one secret garden is not even close to what you need to keep 4 plots running at full efficiency.

Uncle Gus · 2018-03-04 04:55:46

Exactly. You need three seed plots for every five harvest plots.

Doctor Flintrock · 2018-03-04 05:04:55

Now see, what I would've done is complain to every villager that they're eating all the dang carrots and to knock it off or we're all dead.

This is the better way.

(And you hide your knife there too, huh)

Tebe · 2018-03-04 05:38:06

I saw this in action once, and I also used this once. Both farms worked a lot better than the usual mess-of-carrot-plots. I think I will always have a couple rows of hidden carrot flowers as I go along and develop settlements. And milkweed for that matter too.

It doesn't have to be far, just out-of-the-way enough to be clear of most of the local traffic. A rabbit trapper may run into it, or a metalsmith gathering ore, but otherwise it's Farmer Bob's plot. When Bob gets old, he can show the apprentice farmer where it is and continue the way of the secret flowers. I can dig it. I'm into the secret garden ways.

Twinsen · 2018-03-04 06:58:15

Doctor Flintrock wrote:

(And you hide your knife there too, huh)

Are you the murderer? XD

TyrantNomad · 2018-03-04 14:00:33

Twinsen wrote:

Doctor Flintrock wrote:
(And you hide your knife there too, huh)
Are you the murderer? XD

I am the babby-stabber, yes.
I also use trees to hide knifes and other items.

Tebe · 2018-03-04 23:09:12

A lovely village I was born into, with a blacksmith working away bringing the first steel tools. It was a small tribe, three adults, a teen, and infant me. I would see barrows there before I died.

Fire was kept, pies were cooked, abundant rabbits were brought, and the carrots never ceased, the farm rich with food and flower.

But what began as a lovely farm tended by an elder who knew how to handle the crop deteriorated after she died. A new young man took up the task but couldn't wrangle the hunger of the growing population. It is a story generations old.

I brought milkweed to the farm to make use of the many rabbit furs, but after a couple harvests, it too was trampled.

So in my autumn years I started a secret garden a ways out of the village, near the southern mountains where nobody ventured. I left it to grow in the little glade and went about my business.

When I reached the age of the crone, the inevitable happened. There were no carrot seeds left, and the plots were barren. A few baskets of harvest were being eaten by what had become a chaotic horde. The famine had come. I knew the secret garden's day had arrived. I asked around the farm who was tending the crop. A young man had taken it on and lamented that the young villagers were draining his crop and making it unfeasable for him. I asked him to follow me. The carrots in the secret glade were bearing food now, and very soon, seed. Milkweed seeds were stored, still awaiting their plots of fertile soil.

The farmer lost me on the way - Easy to happen due to the pathfinding on such a small number of onscreen tiles. But another young woman who was running around the farm did manage to stick with me. I was ancient by now, withering, and this would be my final gift to the village.

I arrived in the little glade of wild gooseberry bushes, with my secret carrots growing. So proud I was to have this ready at a time of such great need.

The young woman promptly plucked all but one carrot and munched them down and filled her basket and spread them upon the ground.

"what have you done?" I asked.
"What?" She replied, her belly full of fresh carrot pulp, a sprig of greens sticking out of her teeth.
"These were meant to grow seeds to save the village! Doom! Woe!"
And with that I was bones.

The lesson is, if you take it on yourself to start a secret garden when you see a growing village struggling, beware who you reveal it to.

Bubbrubb · 2018-03-05 00:44:16

I agree the "leave one carrot rule" is not working. The 3/5 ratio works. also i like the idea of smaller hamlets working together

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#1 2018-03-03 17:31:08