The Farthest Frontier crop rotation system is one of the most complex systems of survival city builders. Like your villagers, crops are susceptible to heat waves in the summer, freezing temperatures in the winter, and even disease. Fields must be free of weeds and rocks, and keeping the soil fertile to increase the yield of your crops can be a major challenge.
Villagers can hunt for meat, gather berries and even plant fruit trees, but you’ll have to farm if you want your town to thrive. Growing grains means you can produce beer for your pubs and flour for baking, flax must be grown to make linen for clothing, and a crop of vegetables gives your villagers more food choices than just meat and fruit, which is important to make them Merry. Changing crops – not growing the same crop year after year in the same field – is necessary to prevent diseases and keep the soil healthy. Crop rotation is tricky, but it’s also important to master.
Here’s how Farthest Frontier’s crop rotation system works and how to make sure your crops are as healthy as possible.
Farm creation
How do you make a farm?
The farm crafting tool can be found in the food production tab and is easy to use: click, hold and drag the shape of your field. Fields must be at least 5×5 in size and cannot be drawn larger than 12×12. However, you can later expand and expand existing fields from the farm menu.
As you choose the area for your plot, the Fertility Overlay is displayed. Make sure you have a nice fertility bonus before drawing your field – it will appear greener than other areas. You’ll also see a window full of details: how many labor hours it takes to clear and prepare the field, soil fertility, soil mixture, minimum and maximum crop yields, and how many farmers are needed.
Once you’ve placed your field, you’ll have to wait for the workers to finish preparing it, which can take a long time – sometimes even years – depending on the size of your field, the condition of the terrain, and how many workers you have. Keep in mind that in the winter months work comes to a standstill because the ground is frozen.
Crop rotation
How crop rotation works
Once your field is ready, you will receive a notification that you can plant your crops. You don’t have to worry about seeds: your farmers have instant access to plant any crop they want. But the crop rotation window is a bit complicated and not immediately intuitive.
You will see three rows at the top, numbered I, II and III. Row I is the current year, row II is next year, and row III is the year after that. You also see a slim vertical line somewhere in row I: it represents the current date, the timeline of how far you are in the current year.
Below those rows, you’ll see factors for your fields, such as fertility, weed level, and rockiness. You’ll also see the soil mix meter, which can be adjusted by adding clay to the left or sand to the right.
To add a crop, first click on the year you want to grow it: row I for this year, row II for next year, or row III for the third year. Then select your crop from the icons on the right. Hovering over a crop will give you the stats for each crop: yield (how much it will produce), frost tolerance, heat tolerance, rock resistance, weed suppression, growing time, how much it affects soil fertility and how dependent it is on soil conditions. soil fertility .
Clicking on a crop will place it in the year you selected, and clicking the red X button on the left will remove it again. Once it’s on your timeline, you can drag it left or right to change its position in the year. For example, on a crop with low frost tolerance, make sure it isn’t too close to winter on either side of the timeline. For a crop with a low heat tolerance, try not to plant it in the middle of the year, when it is warmest.
You can also see how long each crop takes to grow by how wide its icon is – this is how much space it takes up on your timeline. Wheat, rye and leek, for example, take the longest to grow. So long, in fact, that you cannot grow them in the same field in the same year. So if you want to grow a second crop in the same field in the same year as wheat, you should choose a crop with a shorter growing time, such as turnips.
While choosing which crops to grow in each field, consider the soil mixture. You can change the soil mix at any time by clicking “add clay” or “add sand” on either side of the soil mix meter. With a crop on the selected timeline, the gauge will display the optimal mix for that crop, and by adding clay or sand you can target the optimal mix for a 10% bonus. Most crops have different soil mix bonus zones, so look for crops with similar soil mix needs by clicking on each crop and checking the gauge.
Once you’ve set up your crops, the three-year cycle repeats indefinitely until you make changes to it.
Soil Fertility
How to improve soil fertility?
Fertility is the most complex factor for your crops and there are a few different ways to improve it. Some crops severely affect soil fertility, such as wheat, rye and flax, which also build on on soil fertility for a solid yield, so growing these crops year after year in the same field will not yield much and will also lower the soil fertility for your other crops.
To increase soil fertility, do not grow crops that negatively affect fertility in the same field too often. For example, try growing wheat in year 1 on one field, in year 2 on a second field, and in year 3 on a third field. That way, you’ll have a wheat crop every year, but only grow it once every three years on a single field.
have a …. compost yard can also promote soil fertility. As your village grows, your citizens produce compostable waste in their homes, such as spoiled food and, well, poop. If you have not yet built a compost yard and designated an unlucky villager as a night oil collector, do so immediately. I recommend building your composting yards near your farm because when one of the compost bins is full, you can click on it and then choose which field to fertilize. Every field you have will show its fertility level, so pick the field that needs it the most. You can add compost to each field once a year.
Finally, you can grow clover on your fields. As a crop, it will not feed anyone or produce salable goods, but it will greatly increase the fertility of the soil in which it grows. If your soil fertility continues to drop, plant a clover crop instead of another crop and watch it improve. Other crops that increase soil fertility (though not as much as clover) include: beans and peas.
Rocks and weeds
Rocky and weed level
The only way to lower a field’s rocky and weedy level is by: performing field maintenance. You can add a field maintenance period by clicking the farmer icon at the bottom of the crop list, and during that period workers will tend the field to remove rocks and weeds. When you first start on a new field, you will probably need to do this a few times right away, but once the rockiness and weed level are reduced to zero, fields should not need maintenance more than once every few years.
Wildlife protection
Fences, walls and gates
Your villagers aren’t the only ones hungry for fresh vegetables. Planting crops will attract wildlife such as deer, which can destroy much of your yield. Once you’ve built a field, you should immediately build a fence around it and add gates so that your farmers can get in and out. When you have enough stones, you can upgrade the wooden fences to stone walls, which will also help prevent raiders from making their way through your fences as they attack your village.
Harvest and storage
Harvest and storage
Another factor to consider is: spreading the harvest time for each field. If you have multiple fields that all need to be harvested at the same time, you can lose crops to rot, simply because there aren’t enough people to harvest your crops before they go bad. Also consider storage: green leafy vegetables do not keep as long as other vegetables, so try not to have several fields at the same time that only produce crops with short storage periods or your villagers could go hungry.
The best crops
The best crops to grow
What should you plant on your first few fields? Here are all crops ranked from best to worst for when you start on your new farm, with notes on which strengths and weaknesses each have.
pick up: A short growing time that allows you to have several harvests in the same year and a good resistance to frost, heat and disease. They are not exciting, but it is a sturdy and reliable crop.
beans: Not a huge yield, but they last longer in storage than most crops and growing them improves soil fertility.
Peas: Excellent frost tolerance, but weak to heat, so try not to harvest them in summer. They are great for improving soil fertility.
Buckwheat: Wheat is the most difficult crop, but buckwheat is a good alternative for grain production. It has a short growing time and can thrive in the heat. Also good at suppressing weeds in the soil.
Roots: Frost resistant and they will last a long time if stored, and they don’t need much soil fertility to grow. However, they do not do well in rocky fields.
Flax: Not a crop to rush into, but once you’re ready to build a tailor shop, you’ll need flax to produce linen for clothes. Very sturdy crop, but makes the soil less fertile.
Clover: You can’t eat or sell it, but growing clover is one of the best ways to restore a field’s fertility. Make sure it’s somewhere in the rotation on your fields.
leeks: Tricky because the growing period is extremely long, but they have excellent heat and frost resistance, so they do well all year round. Unfortunately, they spoil quickly when stored.
cabbage: Frost and heat resistant, but difficult to grow well unless your soil fertility is high. Doesn’t last long in storage either.
Rye: Not as high yielding as wheat, but needs less soil fertility. Does well in heat and frost.
Wheat: Definitely the worst, but very useful crop for flour and beer production. Will destroy your soil fertility and is prone to disease but stores fairly well as grain. Needs very fertile soil for a decent yield.
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