It clears weeds and rocks which affect crops differently. To boost fertility you need to plant things that boost fertility like clover or legumes.
Hmmm, I need to test this out some more - I thought this was the smallest one I could make.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. I started a new field earlier that was a bit bigger than the minimum and it was 2000+ for the initial clearing/tilling. I’ve quickly learned to always be planning a year ahead on new fields.
I don’t hate that aspect, they clearly put a lot more realism into the farming portion than similar games. It is funny to compare to how quickly structures go up, though.
Also, I’m really enjoying this as a largely chill survival medieval city builder. I say chill because the pace is quite slow, which I’m all about in this case, especially as I learn it.
I’ll probably play my tier 3 settlement a little longer before putting this down for awhile. What’s there is a really enjoyable 10-hours of content town builder. Still needs work to make some things clearer, like, I had my herd of cows die with no warning or way to see what happened. Presumably they starved in the winter, but there is no way to know. Also there are a bunch of tooltips that should exist but do not or the existing tooltips leave out important information. Things like in tier 2 you can build a potter but the game gives you no information about what pottery is used for.
That being said, this game has already been responsible for a couple of nights where I’ve stayed up way too late playing. Always have just one more thing I want to get done before I turn it off that inevitably lead to two more things I just need to do quick.
I’m enjoying it as I build out to level 4 as I’m organically building something resembling a real medieval town… but a few nits:
-no where as polished as Against The Storm was 9 months ago, but still very enjoyable.
-they need a way to flag buildings with issues and let you quick jump there
-a medieval city with no church? Kills the look of the city.
Indeed, the game is really bad at explaining things.
If you hit f2 f3 and f4 some popups will appear on top of buildings, one of them shows your barn is out of food for the winter and your animals will probably die.
Also pottery and candles are needed in homesteads as luxury, its shown if you click on them or when you open the villagers needs in the town center.
Also i wish you would get a popup when a trader arrives…
Yeah, they must have switched those to be on by default now, because I do get them over my barns now. Although, once you’re in that situation for a year it’s pretty hard to do anything about it. As far as I know there is no way to tell people not to eat that grain because you need it for the cattle whenever your rancher bothers to go pick it up.
I have since figured this out once I was at the point of needing to check out the upgrade requirements past homestead. Although, if they really have no other effect then there is no reason not to sell all your candles and pottery before you’re looking to upgrade. It seems like Anno had this problem in the past and they’ve since fixed it by having providing more needs end up making you more money from those pops.
Yes, this! It does have the little bubble over the market and they do arrive about the same time every year, but it’s still really easy to forget. It’s also easy to miss that a second trader has arrived after you already went and concluded business with the first.
About that…
“Well mosques/temples/etc also existed in that era. I’m sure everyone shocked we didn’t add churches would be just as satisfied by the addition of those instead, right?” responded Zantai, a designer at Crate Software.
“We’ve intentionally left faith ambiguous in [Farthest Frontier] even if churches are a ‘staple’ of medieval Europe, which is another thing we’ve deliberately left vague,” Zantai continued. “The setting for the game is inspired by certain time periods and places, but it is not set in those places. The player can decide whatever suits them.”
“If we ever incorporate a faith system of some kind, I think it would be best if it was a customizable system where you name the faith and decide its bonuses/features. There’s way too much baggage and drama around real world religions,” said Zantai.
It’s pretty clearly not meant to be real Europe. I wish it was just explicitly set in the Grim Dawn universe 100-200 years prior to that going to shit.
We’ve been busily reviewing your feedback, getting bug reports to TOP MEN, and we’re now ready to talk about some of the changes and improvements you can look forward to in the near future, and throughout early access.
It’s not only “real” Europe, the setting is essentially unlike anything on this planet, at least in terms of human social development.
The backstory such as it is about people fleeing a dismal pseudo-feudal dystopia for the promise of a better life on the frontier is sort of chimerical. Large swathes of fertile, developable land within horseback and foot distance of existing developed societies simply don’t exist, unless they are occupied by people already (as in the case of the indigenous peoples of North America, which of course was an ocean away from Europe and out of reach of casual migration).
None of this matters much in terms of the game, as really, it’s not important and Crate has no obligation to replicate any particular historical element at all. So the absence of churches should not be an issue. The problem perhaps arises from the use of so many other tropes and signifiers drawn directly from medieval and early-modern European experiences and cultural memories. The gap between what is used and what is ignored is what stands out I suspect.
Yeah, I think the issue is that for much of human history, a church/temple/mosque/shaman’s hut or whatever religious building center you think of was often the most important building in a town or village. It was the community gathering place, news disseminator, and even political powerbroker. Not having them when you have other common buildings stands out.
Personally, I’m fine with the abstraction/fiction of not having churches, but since the game already has shrines, it’s not like Crate has completely avoided the issue.
Oh yeah, I have zero issues with what they’ve done in this regard. I just find the topic interesting. Building game worlds requires you to have a connection with the audience, so relying on familiar ideas to bridge them into your world is often necessary. Nothing is free, though, and such bridging always comes with a cost.
Major Update!
Thinking of picking this up. Since I already own Grim Dawn it would only cost me around $25. Does the game have good tutorials or will I be searching Youtube for those?