I haven’t bothered with the attempts to get friends in town. Probably because that’s the kind of person I am. I’m focusing on just making obscene amounts of money and stockpiling absolutely everything. I’m starting the second fall and I’ve got pretty much everything done in the community center except fishing, but given that I didn’t start fishing at all until this fall and some of the fish you need are only found at certain times and seasons and weather and places, and I’m trying not to “cheat”, I don’t think I’ll be able to get all those fish by the end of the winter.
If you want to progress fast, the game is a bit of a slog. But when compared to the board game Agricola, it’s pretty lenient. You don’t have to feed yourself, and no one’s fighting over your resources. One scarecrow keeps birds away from any size field you actually would want to be managing the first year, and there’s no other way to lose crops unless you let your animals wander in your crop fields. So you’re never worried about making it through to the harvest or through the winter, which is half of what I expected in a farm simulator.
Does anyone ever chase the train? I have a couple times and the rewards don’t seem worth it. I can get more spending the same amount of time in the mine.
Over the winter I managed to scrape together enough metal to make a swack of quality sprinklers. I was able to plant a field of 240 plots of cauliflower that didn’t need tending. By the time the egg festival rolled around, I had enough sprinklers to service 360 plots, so I planted that many strawberry seeds. I’ll have to build some seed makers so I can plant earlier next spring.
My first strawberry harvest has garnered me enough cash that I can renovate the vault room in the community center and unlock the bus to the desert. That should be fun.
I have installed and recommend the following mods:
Better Sprinklers - It is a sprinkler mod that makes sprinklers better. They cover slightly more area and it also shows where they are going to cover when you lay them down.
Fruit Trees with Signs - adds a little sign in front of fruit trees to tell you what fruit is coming up. Cute and helpful.
CJB Show item Sell Price - It shows in the inventory how much items are worth so you know what you have. Nice.
NPC Map location - Shows where other characters are so you can find them. Nice again.
Gift Taste Helper - When a birthday occurs, it lists the likes of that person. Cheating if you obsess on learning this on your own, but worth it if you don’t care about that detail.
Chest Labeling - let’s you label the various chests. Finally.
Picked up this game over the weekend. It’s been on my wishlist waiting for a Steam sale, but after two weeks of watching let’s plays I couldn’t wait any longer.
Question #1: Do you ever get the opportunity to hire workers? Farming is becoming a nasty grind.
Question #2: After you choose a profession at level 5, is there any way to go back and change it if you chose the wrong one?
That’s a pity. I read that you can get married & have kids, so theoretically it would make sense to be able to [del]enslave[/del] employ them as farmhands.
I love all the little random cutscenes with the villagers, they always seem to come out of nowhere. One of them involved Emily & Haley arguing about who’s turn it was to clean sofa cushions (wtf?); I picked what I thought was the most sensible choice but instead they both got pissed at me. Ah, women…
Another Q: Is it possible to walk to the desert before the bus stop’s back in service? I haven’t tried yet.
Trees won’t grow during the winter. You can plant the seeds, but they’ll remain dormant until spring.
I’m trying to get the hang of the Skull Cavern. The deeper you go, the more iridium you find, but there’s no elevator. There are sometimes holes you can jump down, allowing you to skip floors (and take damage in the process). I had a good run earlier today. I waited until a lucky day and ate a lucky lunch to maximize the chance of ladders appearing, and brought about a dozen or so bombs that I used liberally. I must have gotten to around level 50. I’ve got 12 iridium bars in reserve now, and got close to 100 each of gold and iron ore, and more copper.
I started to run short on coal, so I made more charcoal kilns. Now I’m running short on wood. I’ve got a bit of a tree farm on the go in an empty corner of my farm, but the trees aren’t growing all that quickly. I’m starting to wonder if there are only so many “tree growth points” to go around each day.
So you have to plant spring trees on the first of Fall in order for them to be ready in time? That’s gonna somewhat bork up my plans…
Copper is the thing I keep running short on now. I know I could go to the upper mine floors and find copper there, but that’s annoying because I’m not making any progress towards the bottom when I do that. Meanwhile I’ve got iron & coal coming out my ears until Sunday…
Finally unlocked kegs. Got a nice supply of hops & wheat to keep the whole town drunk all winter long.
Each tree has all 8 adjacent tiles free. Trees seem able to grow to maturity in this arrangement, eventually. There’s just some randomness to it.
It might have to do with various volunteer plants cluttering up my stand. I wasn’t sure whether surrounding the seeds I’d planted with cobblestone paths would interfere with growth, so I left the ground natural. This led to the volunteer clutter. I’ve since added cobblestone paths around my designated tree sites, and they seem to grow fine.
At least that’s how it works for pine, oak, and maple trees. I haven’t tried fruit trees yet.
Incidentally, I’m on the verge of being able to make a whole bunch of kegs. I’ll have to adjust my planting accordingly. This summer I’ve planted mostly blueberries, which are very profitable, but I kind of wasted fertilizer on them. Close to 360 plots, all serviced by sprinklers, gives me about 100,000g per harvest (with an expected 4 harvests per summer). Next summer I may switch to starfruit; it’s not quite as profitable as blueberries, but starfruit wine is crazy valuable.
Oh, and there’s another thing I forgot to mention: Remember that you can put an ancient fruit into a seed maker and (usually) get 2-3 ancient fruit seeds. I managed to get my hands on two seeds in late spring of year 2 (one from digging and one from extracting seeds form strawberries). I’ve been dutifully putting the fruits into seed makers and I’ve got around 12 plants going. If I keep this up, in a few years I’ll have veritable ancient fruit plantation.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that the naturally occurring tree species seem to be a bit looser in their requirements for growing. I’ve seen plenty of pine/maple/oak trees growing with a sprout next to them. Two won’t grow at the same time, but the presence of anything directly next to a fruit tree will prevent it from turning into a sapling. Happily, once any tree is grown, you can put flooring/fencing down next to it, and it won’t prevent it from producing fruit. Otherwise, my little orchard would be a mess to walk through.
It’s driving me crazy that you can’t buy eggs or milk from anybody, not even at the JojaMart outside of town. So many recipes require eggs/milk, but in order to get them you have to raise the cows & chickens yourself. (As if growing crops wasn’t enough of a grind…) It’s reminding me of that guy who made a bacon cheeseburger from scratch by growing the wheat, raising the cows & pigs, etc.
Spent about two hours at the Autumn Fair grinding the fishing game for stars to buy the Rarecrow & Stardrop, then later discovered you get 1,000+ stars for free just from arranging your display stand. :smack:
This is a really great game so far. It’s got real heart.
