Feudal Update March 21

Winter's coming up in game, while we got a small crop of 30q barley, we hope to harvest our current 130 tile planting and get another 300 tiles in a later seeding before the harvesting stops.

We adopted some Germans.  They're non-premium members who are having a time of it affording their claim(s) so we're having them stay on one of ours (encouraging them to keep theirs).  Built them a Large plaster house, which depleted most of our wood.  150 building logs is a lot!  Got my wife's XP bar completely filled up.  Then built them a Forge/Anvil, Bloomery, Oven, Workbench and the works.  They now have nicer stuff than I do! :D

Next up will be finishing up a few terraforming projects and aside from the usual horse production, I have to figure out a new production/storage area (now the Hotel Germany area) and then get for us a reliable source of light leathers.  Our attempts to breed rabbits has thus far not been fruitful or worth the time/effort.  Snares has been better...

I'm probably going to have a go at mining soon, it just depends on what I can find.  Start small with copper maybe, or go straight for Gold.  We don't have any jewelry at this point and anything would help.

Stay Feudal!

Life is Feudal Farming Guide March 2019

Farming in Life is Feudal is a material production skill responsible for the creation of Linen Products (Tailoring, Armor, Building Materials), Food (for Players and Animals) and Alcohol (for Alchemy)

All Farmers can grow a Wild or Domesticated version the following:

• Regional Crop (Carrot, Cabbage, Peas or Onion, may have regional property upon harvest)
• Regional Grain (Wheat, Rye, Oats or Barley)
• Flax (may have a regional property upon harvest)
• Potato
• Grapes

The Primary Goal of farmers is to create crops of sufficient/increasing *Quality*.  Higher quality will result in better outcomes for the crafting and manufactured products that result from the products, and in some cases (such as use for animal food) is critically necessary to achieve.

QUALITY of the produce is determined by the --LOWEST-- of four factors:  Farmer Skill, Seed Quality, Soil Quality and Water Quality.

Farmer Skill --  Required to plant or collect certain products, affects the maximum quality of your plantings.  Additionally, level 90 unlocks Fertilization (increasing soil quality by mixing in animal dung) which is an easier/sustainable alternative to the method below.

Seed Quality --  This will be the primary limiter of your farming ability, increasing this will be the "grind" unless you're fortunate enough to trade for higher quality seeds from someone else.  The maximum for Wild Seeds TO BE GATHERED is observed to be 30 (soil over level 30 will not spawn wild plants to gather), so collecting anything lower will waste your time in the long run unless you are in need of extra crop without any worry for the quality.  This may be improved over time as you are lucky enough to find higher quality seeds upon harvesting.

Soil Quality -- Matching your soil quality to your seed will be an important skill to obtain, as anything higher will be reduced to the seed quality upon planting (and "wasted") while a lower quality soil will reduce the results of your harvest (and lower your seed quality for future plantings).

Water Quality -- Since high quality fresh water is easy to obtain from and established well, you shouldn't have to worry about the quality of your water being lower than your seed/soil.

There is a chance, improved by luck, that harvested produce will be 1 quality higher than the seed that was planted.  By planting the newer, higher quality seeds the next growing cycle, this should allow your farming produce to increase in quality, though you will have to match your skill, soil and water to accommodate this.

QUANTITY of the produce is increased by planting on Fertile Soil, and possibly (unconfirmed) by the planting time and number of weather changes ("ticks") the planted crop experiences.  I can confirm that quality 10 items tend to give about 6 seeding products per harvest from any particular tile of Fertile Soil.

Domesticated Seeds are randomly obtained upon harvesting wild seeds named differently, eg "Rich Flax Seeds.  They use a different planting calendar, take longer to grow, and (from my observations only) produce the same as their wild counterpart plus 2 Domesticated seeds.

Crop Rotation is said by the game developers to be a factor in preventing your produce quality from taking a nosedive.  In theory, if you plant the same crop more than once, this may lead to a reduction in your crop quality.  It is unknown by how much this will occur, and how many plantings of other crops are needed to avoid this.  Additionally, there may be an unknown order to which the crops may be required to be planted in.

Seasons:  It is unknown if the seasons will have an affect on crop growth (outside the crop growth calendar) but in previous iterations of Life is Feudal, you could plant, but not harvest (because they would not grow) crops during winter.  Additionally, any snow that spawned on the ground could cause the plants to be killed (removed) before spring.

Theoretical Planting Process:

1.  Choose the crop you want to plant:  This is based on your needs and what the crop calendar allows.  By pressing "K", you can find out what crops are currently able to be gathered/planted by hovering over the icons.

2.  Gather Seed:  If you don't have seed, you must gather it by right-clicking the ground tile (unplowed soil) and selecting "Gather Wild Plants" with a farmer of sufficient level.  Only wild plants that are seeding (check the calendar) and in your region will spawn, but you will only want to gather plants off of a prepared region of soil.

Dirt Quality Manipulation:  For our example, I will want to gather wild flax to get my flax production started.  Since the max quality of wild flax can be is 30, I want to prepare a region of q30 soil.  I have q28 and q31 dirt in this example, so I have to combine some ratio of 1:2 of these dirts to achieve q30.  I spread this soil on my land I want to farm in.  Any higher quality (31, for example) will be reduced to 30 anyways, so it is most efficient to simply make the dirt q30 per stack and split it into units of 15 to lay on each tile.  Once my crops (domesticated) reach q31 seeds, I will need to combine some higher quality dirt to make the dirt q31 and hopefully harvest q32 seed, and so on.  

There is a chance when harvesting that it will reduce the quality of your dirt by 1 (or more, see crop rotation above) so be sure to inspect each square of land before planting if you are really caring about the quality.

3.  Plant the seed in the prepared land:  Make sure the land is under your control unless you don't mind anyone digging it up or harvesting it for you.  Make sure your herbalists/material gathering does not happen on this land and jack with your soil quality.  Beat them with a shovel until they stop.  Make sure your water/farming is up to sufficient quality.

4.  Harvest your crop.  Waiting too long may cause the crop to disappear (I'm looking a you, potatoes that sprouted and rotted out before I got off work!)  Do not combine all the seeds, as some may have increased in quality that you will want to set aside or have regional properties (Flax/Vegetables) that your tailors/builders may find useful.

5.  Repeat with higher quality crop.  Check your calendar for the planting cycles and remember to account for the possibility of winter.

These are my observations about farming in LiF so far.  If you have any comments or clarifications I can add, please let me know in the comments below.  Also, come by our claims and talk to my friendly wife if you have a chance.  Server 31, SW corner of the Trading Post area where the tower is being built.  We give out shoes and food (and sometimes anvils/carts/moose) to new players and it would make my wife's day!

UPDATES:

3/13/19: Updated the hotkey after learning this exists from Paladin_Trainer on reddit.  Discovered that wild seeds can be harvested to over 30 quality, will science to find if these can be further increased.   Harvested a domestic barley, got 2 domestic barley seeds in addition to what I would normally get from a wild barley (6 wild barley, 4 straw).