Question for the "do it yourself" out there

[Chad]

I periodically see the "no hired hands on this farm" being thrown About. My question to those individuals is, "how big is your actual farm"? Before the PC police Kik my balls in, I don't care if your farm is big or small: merely curious if this play-style lends itself to small, med, or larger scale farms. Thank you in advance!

[Paeppchen]

I wonder about that as well. I always try to work without helpers or a limited number, but that doesn't hold long. So I would interested how you single hand farmers do that ( hope to learn a thing or two)
Kind regards
Rolf

[chaseydog]

Standard size map, large fields, the largest of which is 42ha, and an average field size of 18ha. I don't always play exclusively 'do it yourself' but when I do use hired help it tends to be in a support role like following behind me with a tipper while I run the forager. If I have hired help running they are generally doing so on the same field I'm working rather than running fields of their own

[fenixguy]

Not me. I use them for as much as I can. That being said, back in my PC days with GPS, I did a lot of the work myself. And I played a lot on Westbridge when it came out so fairly big fields. I just don't have the patience to try to keep my lines straight on Xbox. Now, sometimes I'll stay with the tractor and do the turns (especially with a moldboard plow) and let the hired worker be the "GPS". I find I can turn quicker and more efficiently than the workers sometimes. But usually I'm running the chaser bin or getting the next tractor/equipment to the field.

[hpmc13]

I don't think of them so much as "workers" but as my three or four "children." I grew up on and around farms where big families were the norm. I probably wouldn't let my 10 year old drive a New Holland CR10.90 with a 45-foot header, though.

Having said that, once I "finish" the map I'm currently playing - which is sort of corporate farming - I'm thinking that I'll go to a smaller map and use smaller equipment, and perhaps do more of it myself.

[hopalongali]

I am definitely not "No hired hands" but I much prefer to do things myself. I found on GCV that when I owned fields 12, 14, 15, 19 (grass), 23 and 24 I would do most of the work on the farm by myself but ever since purchasing field 26 and purchasing animals I have been stretched and need to get more helpers in, which is a shame. I think I will be getting rid of the pigs as they require too much attention and multiply far too quickly. I must admit I am not a big fan of plowing but a good hour playing was like last night was spent spraying, cultivating and planting 12, 14 and 15. You don't get to buy machinery very quickly or ever have a very large bank balance but I prefer that pace of game.

[JohnDeere318]

Everything is hired help on my farm, big or small, if they don't have a hired worker option, I get sad

[thumbwiz]

I hire workers for everything possible. My "do it yourself" includes maintaining animals/greenhouses, transporting crops and delivering equipment to the helpers. I also remove the odd tree that I just don't like.

[fenixguy]

I will say I like to run the planters/seeders up and down the fields if they have ridge markers. It only takes 3 or so trips before I get bored or need to do another chore, but I do enjoying trying.

[Loerwyn]

I only use workers if I can't really be bothered doing something, or if I'm starting out and have small equipment that takes a while to 'complete' a field, I'll do that. Sometimes it's just better to let the AI do the plowing whilst you get on with doing stuff like cultivating/seeding/fertilising or other tasks.

[jenna_q]

Currently I am playing on American Outback and I never hire workers. Never have in any FS game and I don't think I ever will really. Currently I own fields 1,19,20, 2,3,4,5,6,9 and 11. Nothing really special about how I do it aside from staggering growth on my fields. So I will seed half of them, wait for it to grow half way and then seed the other half. This way I can keep on top of crops and they won't wither on me and makes it so I don't do every separate stage all at once, keeps things fresh.

[W1der]

I use the AI as much as possible ... and that is weird in a way, as I love the tight maps that forces me to do more of the work manually.
How much manual work I do really comes down to the map I am playing.

For "tricky"fields I do the headlands manually and then let the hired help do the rest and so on ...

I am currently playing the Altenstein map ... with the manual gearbox and manual attaching mod running.
Progress is slow, but I get so much joy out of having to drive very carefully to get around the farm without crashing in to stuff ...
I need to stay super focused all the time ... and this gives my brain the brake from the real world that it needs ...

Actually I am tempted to give it a go to add AI traffic on this map, for an extra challenge ...

We all have our different ways of game play ... and some of us has multiple ways of doing it, depending on what state of mind we are in ...

I am currently working on my first own map for this game ... and even to I am far from finished, I have come up with ideas for the next map already ...
A map that has "everything" ... multiple farms where some are small and tight and others are big with a lot of room to get around easily ... something that fits all styles of playing ... also some nice flat areas for placeables ...

[hopalongali]

Currently I am playing on American Outback and I never hire workers. Never have in any FS game and I don't think I ever will really. Currently I own fields 1,19,20, 2,3,4,5,6,9 and 11. Nothing really special about how I do it aside from staggering growth on my fields. So I will seed half of them, wait for it to grow half way and then seed the other half. This way I can keep on top of crops and they won't wither on me and makes it so I don't do every separate stage all at once, keeps things fresh.

After about 200 hours on GCV I was thinking of starting a new game on American Outback in a couple of weeks, as I will have some good time to throw at it then. Is it a good map to work on by yourself? I don't really want the feeling of starting from scratch (that's what I have done already) so I was going to cheat in some money to get midsized equipment to get me started and then I can work up to buying the big stuff eventually. Can't wait to try it out though, looks like a really fun map. Are the fields you mentioned a reasonable size to work on yourself? I saw a video of working on fields 7 and 8 (I think, the long skinny ones) and they look like they take a very long time to get anywhere in!

Edit: Having said cheat in money, I might just do lots of jobs for other farmers instead as the reputation will help drive down the price of the fields in the long run.

[jenna_q]

After about 200 hours on GCV I was thinking of starting a new game on American Outback in a couple of weeks, as I will have some good time to throw at it then. Is it a good map to work on by yourself? I don't really want the feeling of starting from scratch (that's what I have done already) so I was going to cheat in some money to get midsized equipment to get me started and then I can work up to buying the big stuff eventually. Can't wait to try it out though, looks like a really fun map. Are the fields you mentioned a reasonable size to work on yourself? I saw a video of working on fields 7 and 8 (I think, the long skinny ones) and they look like they take a very long time to get anywhere in!

Edit: Having said cheat in money, I might just do lots of jobs for other farmers instead as the reputation will help drive down the price of the fields in the long run.

Some of the fields are a pretty decent size, but there are also some smaller ones that you can buy to start on with smaller equipment. I am currently using the 18m equipment that you get with Big Bud and the starting field is done in only a couple minutes. Then seeding all the fields I own is 1-2 hours or so, I don't find it bad at all. I have done field 19 (the long skinny one in the top right) with both 6 and 9m seeders and I didn't find it too boring to do at all.
Then there is some really nice storage for equipment on your main farm and I haven't had an issue with the big equipment, however the Seedhawk may be a little awkward. The only thing I have a but of an issue with is running 2 of the large 70,000L BSM semi tippers, but even that isn't too hard. Then if you join fields 1 and 19, 4 and 5, 7 and 8 or 11 and 12 you will need 2 of those large trailers.
If the dryer, arid look doesn't bother you American Outback is a fantastic map. Fields 1,2,3,9,13, and 14 are all on the smaller side for the map but they are all fields that you will want atleast 6m equipment and maybe even larger.

[hopalongali]

Can't wait to get stuck into it, I love that part of the world and as soon as I saw it I knew it would be right up my street.