Ten Days Watching Grass Grow: Graphing Crop Growth Over Time

Alpha 42 saw the introduction of variable crops, as well as a day / night growth cycle, and I've been trying to figure out what this means for crop production. I figured charting some data would be a good basis for comparison, so here are my results. Discussion of procedure and implications follow. Briefly, I charted the production of fields of uniform size, over ten in-game days:

Combined crop harvest over time:



I tracked wheat over two separate sessions (and I forgot the last day of one of them), which is why it appears twice.

For the sake of interest, here's the same data broken into individual crops:








Some interesting observations:

Pumpkin vs. Cabbage

In the long term, pumpkin (moderate growth, medium yield) produces very nearly the same number of bushels as cabbage (high growth, low yield). The pumpkins did produce between 20-25% more over a ten-day period, but that occured within the first 3 days, when the fields were still being established. I believe this can be disregarded as wobbly work crew performance. For the majority of their growth time, the two crops produced nearly identical amounts. The longer a session runs, the less difference the choice between these two crops makes - this should hold true for any crops with similar characteristics: maize has the same profile as pumpkins, and chilli peppers have the same profile as cabbage. Why choose one over the other, then? Consider:

Crop Growth Rates and Volatility

Crop growth rates are an interesting balancing act: faster growing crops (e.g. cabbage) will produce food more quickly, but also require more intensive care. However, speedy crops can also bounce back from disasters like fishmen, beetles, and spoilage, more quickly. The longer a crop needs to reach maturity, the more likely it is to suffer a mishap that renders it inedible. In this context, slow-growing crops like wheat are the most susceptible and thus the riskiest crop. Speaking of wheat:

Wheat is Cyclical

It takes an average of four days elapsed after planting before a new wheat field produces its first Bag of Wheat Flour. Cabbage and pumpkins, on the other hand, will produce food beginning the very next day. Because you'll plant an entire field at the same time, and because wheat takes so long to mature, it will tend to produce a harvest approximately once every four or five days. Nonetheless, wheat is so productive that one harvest will probably exceed five days of pumpkin or cabbage harvests.

Conclusions:

• over time, pumpkins and cabbage produce nearly the same volume
• over time, wheat is far and away the most productive crop
• if you are plagued by crop-destroying fishmen and beetles, consider growing cabbage / chilli peppers
  
• if your crops are relatively safe, and you need need to free up some farmers, consider pumpkin / maize
• if your crops are very secure, grow wheat

 

How did I gather this information? For each crop, I started a new session in New Antipodia, I chose the Nature's Bounty loadout (two weeks' worth of bread and sausages), so colonists would not get so hungry that they'd eat the crops raw, and I would not have to cook them in the kitchen, which made it easy to tally crops by looking at the Commodities list. I created a 4x4 farm plot, which always hold exactly 6 plants - 2 rows of three (also, two rows of three in a 4x4 plot is extremely counter-intuitive, that's probably a UI issue that could use some attention). Then, I put on a movie (or movies, plural, as I did this over several nights), and I watched plants growing, recording daily results in a text file I had open for that reason:



My efforts to grow wheat were particularly fraught with frustration:



When I had the crop yields for every plant, I plugged everything into a spreadsheet and graphed it:


Watching crops grow is not an activity I would recommend for the faint-hearted.

 

You are a truly one of the Empire's most dedicated Naturalists. I may be nobody of any importance, but I truly praise your efforts in this detailed observation work.

 

I am impressed over your dedication for The Empire.

 

Amazing.

Now watch as they completely redesign the farming system for the next build...

 

Either that or he is somewhat unhinged by his exposure to fishpersons.

 

I am kind of surprised at your surprise. You have produced an incredibly compelling game. You are bound to attract puzzle-solvers like Alephred.

 

Now you are just being mean.

 

Interesting...*makes notes for the glory of the Cog*

 

I would like to add that maize is potentially a better choice than pumpkins as it can be used by a brewer to create alcohol.

 

Alephred, I used your combined graph for to add content in the "crops" section of the wiki.
http://clockworkempires.gamepedia.com/Graphs_of_Crop_Growth_Over_Time

 

Ah, neat! That graph is pretty quick and dirty, and the sample size is probably too small (and the wheat results are wonky), and now the pumpkins have been changed, but hopefully it illustrates the different uses of crops (until everything changes again).

 

So now that farming has changed...what do you guys feel is the best way to handle it? I seem to be having slight problems with trying to grow food in a timely manner. A few specialized workcrews? Or perhaps each team just maintains one field?

 

A really big farm plot, say 7x7, needs a dedicated crew. If you assign that crew to a second plot, they will never get to it, because that first plot will keep them busy forever. A single crew can probably tend 2 smallish (5x5) plots, depending on the crops. I find it help to tailor crops to the size of the field, as well. You can put the lower-labour, slower-growing crops in the big fields, and the labour-intensive crops in the small plots. But a useful general rule is to assume one dedicated crew per big plot.

 

I would really love to see how much labor to crop production works out too. Quick test with a terrible overseer on a plot growing Maize showed that it took him 2 days to 7 Maize, grow two to second growth phase, and 1 to first growth phase. Would need a lot of testing, perhaps I will work on that on my next weekend.

 

I've been using a full crew doing a 6x6 of cabbage and then a second full crew on a 12x12 of maize. This seemed to be the size and workforce strength, at least for these two particular crops, that kept the farmers always farming (no downtime of them just standing around or going off to haul things if I enable that filter). I don't know that this is the optimal thing to shoot for, but it's been working for me.

Edit to add: I also tag at least one grouping of animals to be hunted right off the bat, before I ever unpause the game from the initial loadup, and have my starting NCO spend the entire first day hunting them down. You can see more of the area around you during this phase, and there are always at LEAST one grouping of animals to the northeast and/or southwest of wherever I start. Generally, that leaves me with round about 25-30 raw steaks OR 10-20 raw bird, depending on which animals I had present exactly. Especially with the aurochs, this has really changed up just how quickly I HAVE to start farming.

 

This great! By my calculations this should drop cases of rampant cannibalism in my colonies by 18%.

Question for everyone - with the latest adjustments to farms; essentially "assigning" a work crew to a certain field, does anyone else feel like it's a net drop in productivity? Yes you don't have work crews wandering off (blithering dunderbolts), but at the same time I no longer have the option of Day/Night work crews working on the same fields since they're now dedicated to only one crew at a time. I suppose I could manually switch out work crews through day/night cycles, but that seems like such a pain.

 

I think it's better. Now that I've had some time to mess around with it and see how things pan out I like the system, and it will probably need just a bit more tweaking as you figure out how much of each crop you personally like or desire. Not to mention I'm sure eventually farming will also including raising animals to help balance out things and such.