production farms

[Kruciprdel]

i did little test "production farms" and I found, that to have farms together is not effective.

In my view, it would be ideal, farmer working on blue fields


but in reality the farmer works worse. Sometimes farmer goes too far (red dots)






Difference is 20% against secluded farm. When secluded farm has optimal number fields is difference even 27%.
(test was 5 hours long)

question: It would be good to somehow improve?

[Lewin]

Interesting, I didn't think the inefficiency would be that big. 20-27% makes quite a big difference. Thanks for testing this!
We don't want to reduce the "mining distance" of the farmer because sometimes people will expect him to work above him (e.g. if they build a big field and surround it by farms), but what about this: If the number of fields within half the mining distance is >= 15, then use half the mining distance instead. Can anybody seem any potential issues with that?

NOTE: The distance is measured from his doorway.

[Krom]

I have replicated this test results. Indeed, 4 farms placed well separate produce ~20% corn more than 4 Farms placed together!

That could be explained with:
1. Averagely longer walking paths for Farmers
2. Fields being already taken by competing farmer (in that case late farmer walks back "empty-handed")

We probably need to use combination of Random and Weight to choose best working tile. That is TileWeight = Distance + Random, where Random is a small coefficient to make Farmer look less predictable. That way Farmer will prefer closer tiles with some variation instead of picking RandomTileFromAvailableWithinWorkRadius - which as we see is suboptimal.

[FeyBart]

Another solution might be assigning tiles to specific farms, but I can also see the problems in that.

[Krom]

Another solution might be assigning tiles to specific farms, but I can also see the problems in that.

If that is proposed to be made by player - that will overcomplicate the game for no reason.
If you propose to make it internally - that will require a lot of work and synchronizations (e.g. in case player has 1 large field in between 5 Farms).

[FeyBart]

(...)
If that is proposed to be made by player - that will overcomplicate the game for no reason.
If you propose to make it internally - that will require a lot of work and synchronizations (e.g. in case player has 1 large field in between 5 Farms).

That's true.

By the way, I've been paying attention to this today, and I am actually quite surprised on how strong this effect actually is. Here are three screenshots (these all happened right after each other):

Pharm1.png

Pharm2.png

Pharm3.png

[The Dark Lord]

Well in the first two pictures there are no fields under the farms, so those farmers don't have any choice.

[FeyBart]

Well in the first two pictures there are no fields under the farms, so those farmers don't have any choice.

That's not the point. The point is that they keep walking to their neighbor's fields.

[The Dark Lord]

Well in the first two pictures there are no fields under the farms, so those farmers don't have any choice.

That's not the point. The point is that they keep walking to their neighbor's fields.

Yes but why shouldn't they do that? They have no fields for themselves, so it's the best thing to do. Or do you think they should just stay in their houses?

[FeyBart]

(...)
Yes but why shouldn't they do that? They have no fields for themselves, so it's the best thing to do. Or do you think they should just stay in their houses?

What do you mean with "they have no fields for themselves"?

[Ben]

He means that the farmer goes to the fields that "belong" to the other farmer. Since he can't work on his fields (they just need time to grow) he goes over to help with the production of his neighbor's fields. That is Definitely a good thing. I don't feed my people to be lazy

[sado1]

(...)
Yes but why shouldn't they do that? They have no fields for themselves, so it's the best thing to do. Or do you think they should just stay in their houses?

What do you mean with "they have no fields for themselves"?

So you suggest that if there's no fields below a farm, then the farmer should stay inside? Why?

Some people actually use this farmer behavior to build farms like that: farms, 6 rows of fields below them, then another farms below the fields (then repeat...) - so farmers can work on fields that "belong" to someone else. Da Revo, would you mind pasting that Paradise Island screenshot (if I remember correctly that it was an example of this)?

[Da Revolution]

As you wish Sado:



This is how I prefer to build farms.

[T*AnTi-V!RuZz]

As you wish Sado:



This is how I prefer to build farms.

Holy shit..

[Ben]

I'd like to play a game like that. I never get into a good game; though