Salem

Okay, I've had some requests by people, to write up a guide here, on how to raise your fields to tier 3, within a reasonable timespan.
More importantly, how to do that without developing serious hay fever.

Instead, this method relies on the liberal application of massive quantities of humus, which takes about 1000 times less effort to produce.

I quote the requester:
"[23:34] when someone says "just dump 200 hay per field twice)
[23:34] noobs will just quit playing"
Now ,we all don't want that, right?

Stage 1: pushing for tier 2
In this stage, we are not going to use any hay at all !
I am assuming you are starting with fields that already have their upkeep reduced to 50%
I also assume you have three field system. Don't bother pushing for t3 before you get that skill

Day 1
- plant the crops
- fertilize with 3 coal for speed
- use one wood chipping on the fields to reduce upkeep
- dump as much humus on it as you can
- make sure your compost bins have enough to regen humus
Day 2
- before harvest, dump as much humus on the fields as your compost bins have regenned
- harvest
- dump excess harvest in compost bins
- replant

Now, depending on how many compost bins you have built, it will take 3-5 of the cycles described above to get the first influence bar up to 100.
3 if you can push it to 667% = about 90 pieces of humus per field (after 3 coal),
4 if you can push it to 500% = about 68 pieces of humus per field,
and 5 if you push it to 400% influence = about 53 pieces of humus per field

Now, depending on how fast you push, during this stage you also:
- grow 8 fields of cereals (hay) per t3 field if you push to t2 in 3 cycles
- grow 6 fields of hay per t3 field if you push to t2 in 4 cycles
- grow 5 fields of hay per t3 field if you push to t2 in 5 cycles
In all of the above 3 cases, use 3 coal per field on the cereals to keep up speed with your t3 field.
Use the excess cereals this produces to keep your compost bins filled.

Stage 2: pushing for tier 3
Day 1
- plant crops
- use 12 of the hay you saved up during stage 1on the fields. This gets influence to 500%
- use 2 wood chippings on the fields to reduce upkeep
- dump as much humus as you can
Day 2
- dump as much humus as your compost bins have regenned
Day 3
- before harvest, dump as much humus as is still needed to reach 1000% influence (probably none, already got there on day 2)
- harvest
Day 4
- replant
- refill compost bins
- fertilize with 12 hay
- 2 wood chippings
- more humus
Day 5
- more humus
Day 6
- more humus, if not at 1000% yet
- harvest

Now, after dumping 12 pieces of hay, and 2 wood chippings on the field you need a total of 86 pieces of humus per field to push from 500% to 1000%
Spread out over 3 days, that's a little under 30 humus per day.
So for every t3 field, you want 3 compost bins, and you'll surely have enough humus to push.

You now have your field at 100/90 influence, ready to produce t3
Upkeep on that is easy.
After a t3 harvest, the field will drop to 95/85 influence.
It will then only need one harvest cycle, with 5 pieces of hay and some humus, to push to 300% influence, and get the bars back up, to 90/100

If you use 3 cycles on the t2 push, it's more work on the hay, but you can get your fields up to t3 from scratch in about 14 days
If you use 5 day cycles, you need to grow less hay, and it will take you about 3 weeks.
Note that it might take a bit longer to grow t3 crops that require cotton influence, since it grows slowly.

EDIT: If you don't want to use any hay at all, it will take about 130 pieces of humus to push from 0 to 1000% influence, if the charts at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... vWHc#gid=0 are correct.

Nice post dude, much easier to do it this way than going insane getting enough hay.

Mods: Sticky now plox!

whats good for refilling compost bins? Is it better making flour and cooking stuff ot go in bins like oatmeal crackers? or are the seeds more effective? Compost genreation was my bottleneck until recently, now I struggle to keep them all filled overnight

Oh and what is the best time to add clay for minimal slow down and maximum influence gain?

DemonEyes wrote:whats good for refilling compost bins?

Pumpkins

However using this method you essentially use the yield of the fields you are tiering up to fuel the composts in a closed loop.

Yourgrandmother wrote:

DemonEyes wrote:whats good for refilling compost bins?

Pumpkins

However using this method you essentially use the yield of the fields you are tiering up to fuel the composts in a closed loop.

indeed, plus the cereal seeds you get from the hay harvests

Using wood chippings before humus is dumb. It's the cheapest fertilizer and should always go last!

I disagree. humus is much much cheaper / easier than chopping trees. Wait until you have 200+ fields, and trees have been exterminated in a 10 min. radius around your base.

martinuzz wrote:I disagree. humus is much much cheaper / easier than chopping trees. Wait until you have 200+ fields, and trees have been exterminated in a 10 min. radius around your base.

Wrong

Also unless you have a secret darkness base Sherwood has less trees cut down total than I would do in a week.

martinuzz wrote:I disagree. humus is much much cheaper / easier than chopping trees. Wait until you have 200+ fields, and trees have been exterminated in a 10 min. radius around your base.

Major spoilers:
You can plant trees!
Plus you can transport 4 trees in a boat.

I guess it's psychological then. I probably just dislike treecutting more than I do grabbing some extra humus.
Also major spoiler, berlioz:
you can transport 5 trees in a boat