how to use space

I'm debating taking out field plots to keep more animal pens going. Right now I have animal pens only on one field. Both the others are used for plants. Suggestions?

 

It really depends on what your farm plans and goals are. There is no right or wrong way to set up your farm, as long as it does what you want it to do.

If you want lots and lots of animals, it's recommended that you fill your space firstly with animal pens. Fill up the rest of the space with plots, because you need crops to make feed (if you intend on milling your own). Then fill in the gaps with trees.

 

What I do usually, I put animal stalls on the magic glade completely, and fell the rest of the spaces with trees, if I need more animals I put few like 4 or 5 maximum on the main field and the meadow with some trees at the edges, remember the magic glade give you free water for the stalls or what ever you put there, but better ep for animals so I put the trophy for animals and trees there all the time, and when an event comes I remove all from the glade except trees unless the event need huge number of event crops, and on the other fields I remove the animal stalls but I keep few necessary tress and I use 1x1 plots (and CF if I decided not buy event baskets), when I finish the event crops I change to what ever needed to finish the event quests, may be other players have better strategies but this have served my well during the events and I usually finish 48 to 24 hours before the event ends.

 

I have a routine: I grow trees and animals together or exclusively crops (exceptions like wolf stalls should always run, up to you). I always try to use CAC when I grow crops.

I would grow trees and animals till the evening and set up crops on small fields for the night.
Take the CAC in the morning and concentrate on crops for 18/24 hours.
Then I could switch back to trees and animals or keep growing crops.

 

I do almost the opposite, putting my shortest growing crops in the Magical Glade, to make best use of the free water. (if you have premium, that won't matter). I keep the green meadow filled with workshops and animals, trying to get the highest value and/or at least one of each type in the green meadow. I "fill in" with my highest value/most in demand trees around the "edges" of all fields, including Baha. Then I vary what I grow in the main field, either crops or other animals, depending on what stocks I want to build. This way, I have a "base" for moonlight crops.

The frequent events are changing the routine a great deal.

 

Thanks everybody. For the 6-8 or so months I've been playing I had come up with a plan I liked, animal pens on one field and the other two with crops, with trees around the outskirts of each, but woody, like you said, the frequent events lately have really made me want to change things up. I don't put a ton of time into the game, and I don't use real money, so changing things frequently like some people do is way too labor intensive for me. Plus I still don't have tons of animal pens, but am starting to get enough "rare" ones that it's fun to be able to keep going. I'm sure by the time I settle on one thing, it'll change again!

 

Yes. And my former stated strategy will have to change soon because of personal decisions. I will be living in Thailand for a while and I believe that I will grow a lot more animals again. Because for one I will not have the time to be on the game on time or to deal with weeds if I couldn't find a way to connect.
And right now I am still having a harvester... but why have one for example if I can only log into the game once a day at most?

Changing over from my point of view is only necessary, when wanting to grow crops. So sometimes I go on growing animals for the whole week and then on the weekend I splurge on a CAC harvest and rather use a harvester for that limited time.

The use of a CAC is the most effective way of boosting the space to the max when using small fields as well:
Production of one 2x2 is 5-1 = 4 (minus 1 is the seed to be used for planting)
four 1x1 is 8-4 = 4 (minus 4 are the seeds to be used for planting)
four 1x1 with CAC is 16-4 = 12
I rather use a CAC when growing crops or I usually just grow animals and trees. Because I can produce triple as much in the same time (after a 18/24 hour period of CAC). That means that I now could free up the space for two days to grow animals instead (not even including the growing time of the long overnight crop).
It just means for me that the effort of growing crops is only worthwhile when I use CAC or rather not at all. And I decide to grow animals and trees instead. I will start checking out working with more CFs at some point.

In this sense the space is obviously limited and it is up to everybody to play the game they want. The only way to reach maximum use out of this limited space is to cut down on the growing times when possible so that more things can be done on the same spot.
For animals for example orange stalls take longer but produce two animals (with one food too). That growing time for animals can be greatly reduced by using time related buffs like eggnogg (depending on initial running time of the stall).

I believe that CAC has been introduced by the dev team exactly for that reason back then (that was probably not the only reason though): to give players a possibility to grow more crops at least within the limited space available.

 

To optimize the use of buffs I usually have all crops or all critters. For instance if using CAC I will have most of all four fields in small plots. I feel like I get more value out of each buff that way.

Since I don't usually have the builder I don't change my fields very often.

 

Thank you Suzee for clarifying just my thoughts. I didn't mean to change over between animals and crops all the time but to optimize what to grow at what time and CAC are the only realistic way to go for me if I want bulk crops (meaning production of crops compared to EP generation for example).

Even if I only grow two rounds of crops within those 18/24 hours because of all the clicking involved.
Sometimes I still end up growing those crops for several days.
Two times a day turning around small fields seems okay for me for a couple of days sometimes. And then one big effort to set up animals again until further notice. I prefer to eat CAC's for several days and then extend them with one single pinkie pie pie instead of turning the whole farm around every couple of days.

Turning around the farm is a real nuisance without a builder, I agree.
For example the small plots are not forgiving any double clicking on the same spot. How annoying!
Animals just stay my active plot because??? I use the Ctrl button maybe? A different mechanic behind that function? Especially when I have a slower internet connection, I might end up placing half a field before noticing that I had nothing to place anymore because of a tiny mistake in spacing them out.
Could that problem be fixed?

Oh and the grid sometimes just disappears altogether too. Placing the fields and animals correctly is more difficult without the grid to show the available spaces.

On the other hand turning around the farm with the builder is a nuisance as well sometimes, but this time I even pay for it too!
Please dev team set the builder to being able to place 40!! animal stalls in the forest and finally to place 41 animal stalls on BH without me having to place small fields first to get the builder of doing it's job properly (I always end up setting up the forest by hand altogether when placing animals).

And when placing more animals/trees on a field and then stacking an upgrade on top, I would appreciate if the builder would not always choose an already running stall/tree of the same kind irregardless of the setup. Yes even if my new trees/animals are placed on the left top the upgrade goes on a tree/stall that has already been fed or even Turbo or Suzied (the Suzy stays valid but the growing time starts all over!). So I end up putting a lot of the stall upgrades out by hand too.

 

Thanks SuzeeRabbit and jennifersiegel! (And everyone!) Lots of things to think about that I hadn't before!

 

No worries, how you play the game is up to you.

EDIT: Please just remember when growing animals that the forest can hold 40 stalls if it is set up right (a weird setup but it fits)!! And BH can accommodate 41!! And even just setting up with a builder will not achieve that without tweaking!

If you haven't opened a trade yet you should really consider the confectioner at this point. It is the only trade that offers recipes to boost the production (but they have to be bought for BB's in the shop).

I had to save my BB's for a very long time just to buy the CAC recipe on shop sale day (lucky me I started saving those BB's even before I opened my first trade or I still might have to save now).
Prices in BB's are extremely high to afford for players that do not have a cinema and one BB per level up just doesn't cut it.
A BB for a level doesn't buy very much considering that I am level 89 and need over 16 mio. EP to level up now (it takes a very long time to level up).

 

There is no forest in Farmerama. I assume, from the number you have specified, that you are referring to the Glade?

 

Sorry, sure. The magical Glade.

 

Thanks, Jennifer, for your insight. I've got one question though. From the FAQ's I can see the placing of 40 stalls in the Glade, but 41 in Baha? I assume you have a different set up than the FAQ shows. Would you be willing to share the set up of Baha? That would be awesome!

 

Not the person you replied to but... the 41st stall would be at the far right just below the elephant (Baha harvester).

The setup shown in the FAQ, for some reason, has the right half of the field shifted up by one unit and an unnecessary 1x1 plot at the center. You just have to delete the center 1x1 plot marked 16 and another 1x1 plot at the far right marked 12, delete the four 1x2 plots marked 1-4 along the bottom on the right-hand side, and shift the twelve 2x2 plots on the right half (marked 9, 10, 11, 22, 23, 24, 27, 26, 25, 35, 36, 37) back down by one unit. You will also need to shift the three 2x2 plots marked 22, 23, 24 to the left by one unit. Then you should have space for a 2x2 stall where the 1x1 plot marked 12 and the 1x2 plot marked 1 used to be, as well as space for three 1x2 plots along the top.

The 2x2 plots should all be in perfectly neat rows and look something like this:

1
2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9
16 15 14 13 12 10 11
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 41
31 30 29 28 27 26 25
32 33 34 35 36
39 38 37
40​

 

Thanks, Zerodegrees, for your help! I don't have everything open yet, but I hope I'll soon have it open. This set up will help me great!