In Lords II there are two types of agriculture: grain and cattle. You may buy grain and cattle from traveling merchants. When you have cows or grain you may either raise them or feed them directly to your people. Increasing your agricultural output will allow you to feed a growing population. You may also sell extra grain and cows to merchants, which can be profitable. Allocating agricultural labor is discussed here. Feeding your people is discussed here.
Field usage
Grain and cattle are raised on a county's fields. Fields vary in number from county to county and can be allocated to different uses. Any field can be assigned to any use, as long as it is not barren or damaged.
To assign a use to a field, click directly on the field. This brings up the field usage panel. The symbol at the top of the panel indicates the current status or usage of the selected field. The buttons along the bottom show all possible field uses. Click on a button to assign a new usage. Right click to exit without making a change. Be careful not to change accidentally an active grain field. If you do, your crops will be destroyed!
A field's use, or status, may be any one of the following:
Fallow: A fallow field is one that is fertile and can be allocated to grain or cattle farming. With the advanced farming option activated, fallow fields are necessary to maintain fertility.
Barren: A barren field is infertile and unsuitable for use. You will not be able to raise or plant anything on a barren field until you reclaim it and make it fallow. Field reclamation is hard work, and requires many peasants over several seasons.
Grain: Grain fields look different from season to season as grain is sown, grown and harvested. You will have no active grain fields at the beginning of a game. You must buy grain from a merchant, then allocate fallow fields to grain growing.
Cattle: A cattle field is a grassy meadow with cattle grazing on it. The appearance of cows on a field indicates that the field is currently assigned to cattle use. If a county has no cows, a field assigned to cattle will appear empty, but it will accommodate cows as soon as they are purchased or arrive by transport. The number of cows on a field reflects the field's crowding condition.
Parched or Flooded: Occasionally, a drought or a flood will damage a usable field. Such events are unfortunate and expensive, but unavoidable. You cannot reclaim a weather-damaged field immediately, but after a single season its status will change to barren and you may set peasants to work to reclaim it.
Reclaiming barren fields
Barren fields are reclaimed over several seasons. To reclaim a barren field, click on the field, and then select the farmer symbol from the panel that appears. In order to reclaim a field, you must have at least one peasant assigned to field reclamation.
For each field undergoing reclamation, a hoeing figure will appear on your control panel. Click on the figure to see a report on the field reclamation project. To speed the project up, assign more peasants to reclamation duty (although you will never be able to reclaim more than a quarter of a field in a single season). You will be able to watch as the field is reclaimed gradually with the passing seasons.
Cattle
You will begin each game with some cattle, which you will see grazing in your county fields on the main map. A cow figure on the main map does not represent a single cow, or even a specific number of cows. Rather, it indicates that the field has been assigned to cattle farming. As long as a county has at least one cow in it possession, a cow figure will appear in each field that is assigned to cattle farming. If the county has no cows, a field assigned to cattle farming will appear empty.
In addition, the number of cow figures in each field shows the overall herd crowding conditions in that county. One cow figure represents low crowding, two figures represents some crowding, and three represent overcrowding. Overcrowding can harm the productivity of your herd - your cows need space to graze.
A county may do four things with its cows: it can raise them in its fields, eating the dairy products they produce each season; it can slaughter and eat them; it can transport them to other counties; or it can sell them to traveling merchants. In order to raise cattle, a county must have at least one field assigned to cattle farming, some people working on cattle farming, and some cows.
Cattle provide two sources of food: dairy products and beef. Dairy produce is a valuable food source. As long as a county has cows, they will produce cheese, milk, and other dairy products which will automatically feed some, or all, of your people. Your population will only eat beef or grain after the season's dairy produce has been consumed. If your dairy output can feed your entire population, you need not worry about food allocation at all, because no grain or beef will be eaten. If you provide enough workers to tend to your cattle and do not slaughter and eat too much of your herd, it will increase in size. The more cows you have, the more dairy produce you will get. But don't forget: as your herds grow, you may need more laborers and additional cattle fields to accommodate them.
Hint: one cow produces dairy products for five people. If armies do not eat (see advanced game play), then allocate a number of laborers to your cattle that keeps the number of cows slightly above 20% of your population. That way your population will be entirely fed by dairy and you can still easily manage the herd size. When fields are overcrowded (when the number of additional cows over the seasons is reducing while sufficient labor is allocated) and population is still growing, increase the tax rate to stop immigration and stabilize the population size. Population can only grow as long as there is sufficient food, and food production is limited by the number of fields in the county.
Example:
Click on the cow in the control panel to reveal details about the cattle herd size. In the picture above, it is clear that the situation is not sustainable. Over the next season we are going to lose 57 cows, or about one third of the herd. There is however sufficient labor assigned to the cattle, otherwise there would be a red line surrounding the cow icon. As there are 2 cows on each field in the main screen, there is medium crowding, so plenty of room for more cows on each field. The change is of course because of the eating of beef. The high number of cows being eaten is because people in the county receive a double ration (which is totally unnecessary since happiness is at 100 and population health is good).
Let's do the math: there are 721 people in the county. Since one cow provides dairy for 5 people, normally 151 cows would be sufficient to provide these 721 people with dairy products and no cows would need to be slaughtered. But, since people have double ration, we should double the population to 1,442. With currently 151 cows, only 151*5 = 755 people are fed with dairy. The remaining 687 people will therefore eat beef. Since one cow provides beef for 10 people (in addition to the dairy for 5 people), 69 cows will be eaten. Since there is medium crowding and sufficient labor allocation, there are also 14 cow births and only 2 deaths, for a net change in farming of 12 additional cows. This leads to a total loss of 69 - 12 = 57 cows. These numbers are confirmed when you open the rations panel.
Grain
At the start of the game, your county will not have any grain. If you choose to buy grain, you may either plant it or feed it directly to your peasants. One bag of grain feeds 6 people. In order to grow grain, you must first buy it from a merchant. After buying the grain, allocate at least one field to grain growing and save enough to plant in the winter. Then assign workers to grain farming. Up to 10 sacks of grain can be planted in one field, provided you have enough laborers. The more grain fields you plant, the more workers you'll need to allocate to grain farming.
To raise grain:
- buy grain from a merchant
- in winter, assign one or more fields to grain (one field plants ten sacks of grain)
- make sure you have laborers assigned to grain farming.
Grain will always be planted during the period between the winter and spring turns, and it will always be harvested in the period between the fall and winter turns. For each sack of grain you plant, you will harvest 12 times more sacks, provided you have adequate fields and labor. Grain can be an efficient food source and a valuable commodity. When the advanced farming option is turned on, grain will have different labor demands in different seasons.
The grain planting cycle
As long as you have done all of the above, grain will be planted at the beginning of the following spring. You will see your active grain fields change in appearance as the planting cycle progresses.
Winter is when you need to decide how many fields you want to assign to grain for the coming year. Base this decision on how many sacks of grain you have (up to ten are planted per field), and how many grain laborers you have. Grain is sown during the period between the winter and spring turns. Think of this period as both the end of winter and the start of spring.
In spring you will see that your fields have been sown. The grain is just beginning to appear.
In summer the grain continues to grow into full stacks.
The fall is when your workers harvest the year's grain. Make sure you have enough grain workers to reap the maximum amount of grain. The grain you reap will become available to you after you and the fall turn. The folowing winter you should see the year's work yield a nice return.
Grain and cattle are raised on a county's fields. Fields vary in number from county to county and can be allocated to different uses. Any field can be assigned to any use, as long as it is not barren or damaged.
