02-11-2021, 01:40 AM
"Optimal" size a farmer alone can manage is 120 squares, so 11x11 IF he has housing and storage right next to the fields.
Use the pathing tool (in the tools and report section of the toolbar) to click on each of your fields and see where the farmer lives. Very few of them will be right next to the field they work on. And th en the storage: few of your fields have storage right next to the field. Each extra square your farmer has to walk is a loss in productivity. In some cases your farmer will reach the field, work on just a few tiles and then will be hungry and will have to walk all the way home to eat.
I didn't circle all the housing (red) or storage (blue) but this is what I mean when I say keeping distances short: houses and barns are right next to the fields (or pastures, or fishing docks) so the farmers don't need to go more than a few squares away from their field in general. They'll still sometimes need to go to the market, or go iddle somewhere because they're grumpy, but the avoidable delays are mostly avoided.
This is with The North, and a climate that's roughly equivalent to CC's Very Harsh climate. That's why I've reduced my fields to 7x13 and put 2 farmers on them (I juggle at the start, putting 2 farmers on only for harvest, but once I have enough workers, I no longer do the micro-managing). I still regularly don't get a full harvest because it doesn't get warm enough for things to grow, but everything that does grow gets harvested, usually early enough to send the farmers pick up wild food in the forests.(Wild food also dies when it starts freezing in The North, so wild food vanishes at the time you'd be losing the harvest if it hadn't been finished)
Use the pathing tool (in the tools and report section of the toolbar) to click on each of your fields and see where the farmer lives. Very few of them will be right next to the field they work on. And th en the storage: few of your fields have storage right next to the field. Each extra square your farmer has to walk is a loss in productivity. In some cases your farmer will reach the field, work on just a few tiles and then will be hungry and will have to walk all the way home to eat.
I didn't circle all the housing (red) or storage (blue) but this is what I mean when I say keeping distances short: houses and barns are right next to the fields (or pastures, or fishing docks) so the farmers don't need to go more than a few squares away from their field in general. They'll still sometimes need to go to the market, or go iddle somewhere because they're grumpy, but the avoidable delays are mostly avoided.
This is with The North, and a climate that's roughly equivalent to CC's Very Harsh climate. That's why I've reduced my fields to 7x13 and put 2 farmers on them (I juggle at the start, putting 2 farmers on only for harvest, but once I have enough workers, I no longer do the micro-managing). I still regularly don't get a full harvest because it doesn't get warm enough for things to grow, but everything that does grow gets harvested, usually early enough to send the farmers pick up wild food in the forests.(Wild food also dies when it starts freezing in The North, so wild food vanishes at the time you'd be losing the harvest if it hadn't been finished)
