Investigation of Farming

[therother]

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[Red Harvest]

Thanks, therother. I am going to suggest the following topics to explore in this thread (and encourage anyone to suggest more.) Some of you out there might already know the answers to some or all of these.

1. Farming income effect of base region farming level
2. Farming income with farming upgrades
3. Harvest level effect on farming income & how to influence harvest level?
4. Culture/terrain fertility type effects on farming? (Haven't found clear evidence that any of these exist--fertility seems to apply to tile descriptions only, not regions.)
5. Strategic game difficulty level impact on farming income.
6. Oddities about build order, such as farming temple before land clearance?
7. Population size, govt. building or other unknown effects on farm level/income?
8. Total farm level impact on population growth

[Red Harvest]

Base farming level of a province may be found in the descr_regions.txt file. Typical values are 2 through 14.

Lifting my post in another thread...

First conclusion: Farming comes in 80 pt. increments on medium difficulty with average harvest.

The wierd part is that some levels seem to not increment up? For example, level vs. income:
Level 2 = 160 (Siwa)
Level 3 = 160 (Asturica)
Level 4 = 240 (Damme)
Level 5 = 320 (five examples I've checked)
Level 6 = 320 (four examples I've checked)
Level 7 = 400 (Carthago Nova)
Level 8 = 480 (three examples I've checked)
Level 9 = 560 (two examples...but a third is 160 higher with land clearance)
Level 10 = 640 ??? Not tested
Level 11 = 720 ? Not directly tested (10 + 1 for land clearance Memphis)
Level 12 = 800 ? (Alexandria has land clearance, should = 13 but gets 800.)
Level 13 = 800 ? (Corduba)
Level 14 = 960 ? (Carthage, but should be 15 for land clearance)

Second conclusion: I also noticed that in some instances, first level farming shrines provide no farm bonus until the first level farm is built. This REALLY complicates things, although you can see it when you put one in the build queue, if you don't see a faded farming icon next to the regular income icons, then you won't get a benefit yet. The oddest part is building the farm first does give the one level upgrade, just not the shrine. And if you build the shrine the next turn after the farm upgrade you get the extra point it adds (+2 total).

Poor harvest = 95% of average harvest (limited testing)
Excellent harvest = 107.5% of average harvest (limited testing)

On Very Hard level, farm income is reduced by 15%.

[Oaty]

Also just as a nice little note, if you are a western faction you can tell how well an eastern faction is doing. If you notice in the desert regions you'll see a small patch of green where a city is. If that green keeps taking up a larger area that means that city is growing due to imptoved farmlands. And the nice thing is you do'nt even need to have explored there to see the improved farming.

Playing as Numidia I can tell you how those farm ugrade shrines exactly work. You'll only get a bonus from the shrine equal to or less than the farm level.

So if you have a level 4 temple and a level 3 farm, you'll only get a plus 6 farm upgrade......... excluding governors retinue wich farm temples tend to boost.

But a level 4 farm with a level 3 temple will give you 7.

Of course I kept waiting for that farmer of fertility genius retinue/trait to popup just for the fact I got that little rathole of Nepte to become a huge city in the middle of the desert. Then again that region was once fertile in the middle of the SAHARA FOREST, but that was even before the rise of the Egyptian empire.

[Red Harvest]

Oaty, I'm fairly certain that your assessment is correct: the farm level needs to equal or exceed the farming temple level to get the temple farming income bonus.

[Severous]

RTW V1.5 H/H No Mods

Harvest quality can change once in each year...never in the Summer.

Each winter a new harvest quality can apply. Might be the same as before but probability is higher it will be a new quality.

4 possible quality of Harvest
Poor
Average
Good
Excellent

Income from farming will not change with population. Only with farm related upgrades and governor traits/retinue. So farming is relatively more important for small settlements.

Tarentum. No farm upgrades in 10 years but started with Land Clearance already built:

Quality/Gov -2 /-1 /NoGov
Poor........: 559/629/699
Average ..:....../662/736
Good...........no data
Excellent..:715/...../795

I believe farming displays have a small bug. A -1 farming trait is common for governors. If there is no farm upgrade this negative trait doesnt show up on the settlement screen. Thats the little bug. Once you have a farming upgrade the governors negative trait will cancel the farm upgrade bonus.

[Barbarossa1221]

Does farming help increase your population size?
Like with more advancement in agriculture will your population gorw faster?
I know that seems like a stupid question but I was never entirely sure about it.

[econ21]

Does farming help increase your population size?

Yes, it does. Not sure of the exact numbers, but maybe the city details screen shows the size of the effects?

[orangat]

Does farming help increase your population size?
Like with more advancement in agriculture will your population gorw faster?
I know that seems like a stupid question but I was never entirely sure about it.

Yes. Farms can never be destroyed so don't build too many. Read the many FAQs - city management will tell you everything.

[Severous]

Farms do increase population growth.

Land Clearance add 0.5%
Communal Farming adds another 0.5%
and so on.

A Governor who builds non farm buildings often gains the 'dislike farming' trait which will start to counteract these farming improvements.

[Severous]

The difficulty of your campaign affects farming income.

Mediolanuim in northern Italy is owned by Gaul at the start of the Imperial Campaign. By starting four Gaul campaigns on different difficulties I compared farming income on each difficulty setting.

Mediolanium. No Govenor traits, no upgrades, average harvest:

Easy : 960 (+20%)
Medium: 800 ('Normal')
Hard : 736 (-8%)
VHard : 680 (-15%)

[Vincent Butler]

So the fertility does not seem to matter? Possibly the reason some levels are different in other regions is that some regions have more fertile ground than other areas, ie, Italy having more ground of a higher fertility, say more acreage of high fertility in a given region than Germany. I use the given fertility to determine whether I should build farms or other economic buildings first.

[Ludens]

I use the given fertility to determine whether I should build farms or other economic buildings first.

It may be wiser to use the projected income increase (the greyed out icons in the "income" bar on the "city details" scroll) to determine whether farms or ports are more profitable. These icons are updated when you add or remove buildings from the construction queue, so it's easy to see which building will gain you more.

[ReluctantSamurai]

In RTW I, much of the decision is faction based. For example, as Germania the initial concern is fending off Brittania and Gaul and this means ground troops. Of your five starting settlements, only Damme and Mogantiacum have enough population to recruit your best starting infantry unit, Spear Warband, on a regular basis. Germania has naval needs only to the extent of eventually cutting the flow of troops from Brittania itself, so it follows that farming is the primary early need.

An opposite example might be Carthage. Early needs are fending off the Romans but Iberian Infantry and Libyan Spears just don't cut it against Hastati, and Round Shield Cavalry is too weak to engage much in melee with Roman infantry. The best early solution is a powerful navy that doesn't allow the Romans to ferry troops wherever they wish. So ports, and the ability to produce triremes before the Romans is crucial.

In the later stages of a game, port trade is far and away the biggest source of income. In fact, at dockyard level, port trade exceeds all other forms of income...combined. A general rule of thumb for initial development is roads>land clearance>port. These can be upgraded (with faction restrictions) dependent on the situation and whether you need more navy or more ground troops.