Im suggesting and at the same time asking if the land on wich you farm is eventually going going to deprave on nutrients becouse if this was a function in the game (wink, wink), it would lead to more stratigical farming like the 2 year crop rotation wich only planted crops on hallf of the land and leaved the other half to recover.
And last, what kinds of soils are their going to be in the game and what factors are going to depend on the soil, and is their going to be soil quality, (wich is related to my first point) like the amunt of nutrients and other components like the sediment size.
Some soil is good for flax, but bad for wheat, for sample.
We have no idea when rotation was invented, but I’d bet the early Neolithic shouldn’t have it, while the later probably does.
I don’t know if you remember, but I took an example of a tribe who founded a village and then some of the tribesmen left the village likely to found on their own, only to welcome the rest of the tribe later . Archaeologists found the reason to be behind this could be field rotation but like totally changing location. A semi-sedentary way of life if you will, where you move from one village to another when the soil gets too poor.
I know for a fact that resource depletion in-game (especially that of overhunting and deforestation) will be a core component of the game. As far as soil exhaustion, I have not heard anything about that being implemented in the game. Although now that you bring it up, it sounds like a completely appropriate feature to add. It will definitely add more strategy to the game in terms of keeping the village from starvation. Adding to @Gal2’s idea, migration is another core feature of the game. If the players are able to migrate back and forth between the same two settlements, crop rotation could still be applied in that sense. But as far as I know, migration is totally random. I think of it like keeping the population but having a completely newly-generated map. But even then this sounds cool enough as it is.
Hi. New to the forum so only just seen this topic.
Was slash-and-burn a feature of neolithic farming? Or did they just move the animals onto the fields after harvest?
On a more superficial level, please could the developers make sure that when laying out fields the furrows don’t all run in the same direction - something that bugs me in several other games! I think furrows should be able to follow contours if required.
I assume that the seasonal weather system will be implemented to effect farming accordingly, but I am wondering whether there will be a way to simulate the accessibility of land areas based on seasons.
My initial example being flood plains which are ideal for agriculture at certain times of year, whilst being completely sodden, flooded, dry, frozen etc in other periods.
Being able to physically show water levels rise may be difficult, but would it be possible to simulate the changes in water table level and water content of soil?
Is that very complicated?
I remember a former Crytec employee working on such a project. It was a few years ago, but it looked good on the cry engine and seemed to work. However, without development and population “on it”
Gameplay wise I imagine (probably ignorantly) that its as simple as areas with flood plains (insert “simple” formula based on soil type, height above adjacent water bodies, and any changes in water level based on season) having its land use properties change to suit. This may result in any of the following outcomes: faming yield increases, area inaccessible to villagers, area not usable for building, remaining crops are lost etc…
To implement it visually, particularly the rise and fall of surface water levels, would be quite complex i’m sure.
How difficult it would be to have terrain change im not sure. In its simplest form, a lot of the variations could perhaps be represented by a texture change or decal; perhaps similar to how snow cover is implemented?
This is still not in the game, but it is a feature we really want to add.
I have read examples of that in findings in the south of Spain, were settlements was found to be inhabited periodically in a regular manner, so it can be guessed that all the settlement moved between some places periodically.
This bugged me as well, but for now it need to stay the way it is. Change furrows directions per field could be posible at some point, but it will need from us to improve the landscape technology we are using.
“furrows should be able to follow contours”, that -to be honest- I have not a clue how it could be done. But if we manage to do the first option at some point, that would be a great improvement to the looks of fields.
There is a reached goal called fluid dynamics.
Its a complicated feature as it need to mix intensive graphics, extensive data updates and logic and IA awareness. It is definitely on our to do list.
I only meant following the general direction of the contours! Even just 90 degree rotation would be nice, but you know better than me what’s possible. And I’m still blown away with how beautiful it looks. Can’t wait to play.
I really don’t remember having read anything about dust bowls in Atlantic Europe. At least, I can’t remember having seen anything similar myself.
Maybe the lone thing being a bit similar are those “sand storms”, with a reddish sand being carried by the winds that may be drop off in quite thin layers. This needs quite peculiar circumstances though, like last October when the sky was yellow and there were such “sand storms” over most of Western Europe.
Also, dust bowls seem to be essentially due to the soil being far too much exploited, until the point there is nothing left to keep it in place, and when this is a think soil like loess that LBK culture favored so much in Northern Europe (Poland, Northern Germany, etc.) this could create issues – in the condition you overexploited the whole region.
Probably the most relevant issue related to such overexploitation of the soil would be the deforestation: when there is no more trees but only cultures to keep the soil in place, this can’t resist terrain movement and may cause mudslides, like this is reported (at least) as soon as classical Greek Antiquity.
I have no idea if this is going to help (coding-wise, etc.), but what if the zoning of farms was made with round tampons (like the districs in Cities Skylies, for example), and make the furrows follow the general curve of the zone, provided the form is a little bit odd?
If the field is round (the tampon itself) or somewhat rectangular, the furrows are only a but curved, but in more complex fields, they would follow the biggest curve.
The furrows had the purpose rather to produce a uniform large-scale slope. It should be prevented that rainwater drains off too fast and floods the valuable field crumb. If it happened by chance that it could optically follow the cleared terrain, o.k., but it was not the primary purpose. Rather the other way around, one cleared mainly flat surfaces as far as possible. When the terrain became too steep, it helped to build terraces.
(Not grown on my crap) Source: an ancient peasant manual on how to properly level an arable land
The realistic limit that we could reach, if we take time from other stuff, would be different directions per field, and maybe different textures for different crops, but no curves.
Curves have to wait for a future expansion when we have more hands at work.
. Archaeologists found the reason to be behind this could be field rotation but like totally changing location. A semi-sedentary way of life if you will, where you move from one village to another when the soil gets too poor.
