Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Farm Update Spring 20

I thought it would be nice to talk about our farms, like what we've been doing lately and things we're looking forward to, problems/mistakes we've made recently and how we've solved them, etc. Just as a way to share our experiences with each other, sort of like a shared farm diary and we could do this once per season. I think this would help give each other more insight on different methods of farm development as well as a way for newbies to be guided by the experienced players.

11 comments:

  1. I already finished up my supply of 7* wheat flour a couple turns ago. There's only 5* wheat flour left on the market and baking 5* sourdough bread isn't very profitable. My taxes need to be paid by the end of July so I needed to find another source of income. I decided to get a winery and make tomato country wine since I couldn't find any good fruit on the market and my oranges and mandarins aren't mature yet. It takes 12 turns to make tomato wine which gives me enough time before taxes though my cash flow right now is tight. Basically, one employee bakes 5* sourdough bread and I use the profit from that to buy tomatoes from the market and let my second employee make the wine. My endurance is all used up watering crops and tending the livestock. Right now I'm banking on challenges to make some extra income (tax-free!).

    My chickens are at 70 quality (4*) now and I just started giving them Advanced Feed but since their resistances are down to 70% and currently there's a very high chance of sickness I'll have to vaccinate. This means they'll go down to 60 if I vaccinate tomorrow... and I'll have to switch back to Enriched Feed again. I'm expecting to harvest watermelon and chili in summer and get an organic workshop to make optimum organic feed. I'm not sure yet if I can get 7* chickens by the end of the year... I'll have to update my feed calendar after vaccination to find out. If I can get 7* manure during winter then we can all have 7* organic fertiliser plus for next game year. I'm really looking forward to this. Or even better, I hope we can get the recipe for organic fertiliser extra. I'm praying that we'll get it from organic workshop accomplishments.

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  2. This winter I set myself up pretty well except for a couple of mistakes. I was stoked to be able to purchase all of the plots under 5k and to start planting a few multi-yield crops. I've got two plots of black grapes, a plot of apples and a mature plot of raspberries going. Other than that I'm growing three plots of wheat with the hope that it will carry me through the winter when the market supply runs out.

    I'm painfully aware of a couple of mistakes I made earlier this year. I stopped accepting missions for awhile because I was traveling and didn't think I'd be able to complete them. This set my fame back a bit and I'm still 40 points away from experienced. I'm also regretting bulldozing the chicken coop as I could use the manure (but thanks to Tami I might have the easy way out of that one till I can build it back).

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  3. During the last winter, I expended $21K to buy land, upgrade house and silo storage. It was a nice winter without a single freeze day, so my corn can be harvested on 2nd week of February without cold damage. But, I did not spray pesticide on my corn to prevent any pest, so it was hit by pest with very high damage on quality, and my corn became 6* even I cured it with organic VSOP.

    I have 3 farmers. In a single turn, they are able to make 240 sourdough breads. Transaction limit and supply of high quality wheat flour are the main concerns for my farm.

    Yesterday, I added a cow barn and bought 3 female cows. Once they hit 3*, I will add the other cow barn and breed them with 1* bull to have some 2* offspring to cull for accomplishment. My goat and chicken are at 3* now. My chicken will be outside the coop during the spring and summer.

    I feed my goat with 4* enriched feed for 5 turns to raise the productivity bonus to 124%, then I will cull them and add a winery on the same plot of land. I have around 300 7* tomato and apple in my store and will have around 1600 potato from my farm, so I should able to make $29K from my winery this year. I will specialized one of my farmer on making wine/vinegar and occasional works (harvest, till, sow), one for baking, and the last one for chores, baking/make diary products depends on season.
    Happy farming to all :)

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  4. @curlymatt: no need to get another chicken coop if you just need manure. There's no point to waste endurance and cereals on it since I can just give you some manure every season. Tomorrow is the last turn for the winter cleaning challenge so I'll put some on the board then.

    @ajoo: whenever you build a new animal barn, you can buy and cull one animal right away to complete the beginner meat accomplishment which only needs 1* meat.

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  5. @Tami: I add the other cow barn mainly for vaccination purpose. Then, I will use the additional space for breeding (1* bull with 3* heifer) to have higher quality bull (2*) for breeding next year. After that, I will cull the old bull (1*) and its female offspring (2*) for amateur accomplishment (4-5 cows) onwards. By this way, I can save the endurance to raise the male cow from 1* to 2*, ~800 endurance just for giving it water.

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  6. @Tami: Thanks for the manure. I'd also like to breed chickens and make fertilizer for the fun of it. Eventually we may need more and even if we don't it will give me something productive to do besides watching the grapes grow and baking bread.

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  7. My newbie protection runs out in 4 turns, so that will be my first year on the farm done. Its gone OK so far, I have my 5 chickens at 2 star (35 points) but am hampered by not having any feed for them so they are dropping down at the moment - I'm hoping the weather will pick up soon. I'd make some but there aren't any decent oats on the market, I have a field at 37% growth now.
    My other crops are a field of wheat (can't go wrong there I hope) - thats at 41% after I took a gamble and planted in February. I have a windmill so hope to add value to that even if I can't afford a bakery just yet. I also have two fields growing mission crops - one lot of plum trees and a field of peanuts which I am going to share with Pam.

    Thats it for now, there isn't enough work yet to add an employee, but at least I save money there, which is important with those taxes looming.

    My aims for the next game year will be to ensure I have enough feed for my chickens to get them up to 4 star, and to add a bakery, at which point I will need an employee. I'm going to keep away from extra livestock for the time being and concentrate on crops, making the most of the benefits this coop offers with all the organics. It will probably all change if interesting missions come along mind you!

    I also need to work out this forum - I've no idea how to add myself to the member list, or how to take part in the recipe exchange

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  8. Unfortunately, blogspot only allows 10 pages for the members section... so I couldn't add a page for you.

    Hmm, for the recipe exchange I think it's best to wait for the next round to sort it out for the newcomers like you and pam. I've recently gained some recipes from missions and accomplishments which I need to pass on to Perk tomorrow as he's the leader and I'm sure others have recipes to give him as well. He then passes them on to the next person in the list and so on.

    In order to trade a recipe to someone the product has to be made and then traded on the exchange board with the recipe included. So I suppose we'll have to make a 1* product of each recipe that's been passed so far for you and pam.

    Anyways, all recipes are automatically shared within the coop so even if we haven't passed on the recipes to the newbies yet, you can still access them in the corresponding workshop to make the products.

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  9. You can also buy the product from the market and then Exchange it to another member with check "include recipe" and the recipe will be tranferred. Just buy 1* or the lowest * to save cost. However, for some recipe, there are none on the market due to it being difficult to make.

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  10. Hello all, I haven't been on the blog much lately, my husband just came home from duty in Iraq and we've been traveling and getting use to having everyone at home also our only child is getting ready to go off to collage so we've been pretty busy. I spend most of my endurance making potato flour. I've done well and I've saved enough money for another workshop or several plots of land. Do any of you have any tips on which is better for a newbie. I'm doing well at making potato flour and I'm wondering if it will bring more profit for a different workshop or should I just add more crops?

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