AM I the only one that finds seasons frustrating...

[SimpleFarmer]

This is a good topic. It seems seasons does get a little annoying after a minute, like using a harvester only a few times in like 100 hours of play time. But at the same time, it is much more relaxing than the base game version. I track my income and loss with my Financial statements (see my post in the community corner) and trying to keep up with depreciation in the vanilla version is a nightmare. I haven't turned a profit is like 5 in-game days due to depreciation expense. The equipment loses like 50% of its value within a few operating hours it seems. For this reason seasons is much smoother and less stressful. I have been trying to do like ChedlyFarms was saying and slow down, but with such high depreciation, I have huge losses day to day. You buy a tractor and find out it doesn't work and the losses just keep eating you alive. My shareholders are losing patience with me, and I can hardly sleep at night. If you see my face through the tractor window you'll see a worried and stressful grimace.
I think it's nice to play 4 different savegames and switch back and forth. I have 2 large farm setups like Welker and Marwell, where I built a starting farm with the smaller large equipment with like one upgrade per vehicle, Welker has Seasons and Marwell does not. I also have a start from scratch on La Coronella without seasons and one on New Woodshire with seasons. Sounds like a lot of different savegames going on, but every time I sit down to play one of them stand out as fun to play from the others. Sometime you just want to do detailed smaller tasks like feeding chickens or making flour, and other times it's 500 horsepower or nothing kind of day. Also, the larger farms aren't always more profitable than the smaller ones - as a matter of fact it almost seems the opposite. My start from scratch with seasons is my most profitable farm.

[SJ_Sathanas]

I don't generally make any big vehicle or tool purchases for the first couple of years, except maybe for a tractor or two.

Planters, bailers, harvesters, they take years to pay for themselves if you buy outright, and tbh, i don't usually have the money anyway.

[iwan073]

Not frustrating. But I know what you mean.
Too much fast forwarding.

I play without seasons.
I just turn plant growth off while working the fields and turn in on fast when I’m done

That way all my fields are in the same state

[jasonbarron]

Without Seasons I'd have played FS for maybe a few dozen hours and then put it aside. As it is, using Seasons, it's my second most played game in my Steam library (400+ titles and dlc) despite only owning it since last Christmas.

[Dairydeere]

It was definitely a good Christmas gift then

[CowsGoMoo]

Hi Everyone,

I really am starting to feel like an *$#%§*...I ran a seasons year again yesterday and managed to harvest one canola crop and two meadows. However, I had a lot of downtime with 6 day seasons despite doing contracts...I understand the added realism but this is the second try and I still cant get double cropping right despite doing it exactly according to schedule.

At his point, I am either too new to the game or too stupid to understand the appeal of this mod...any input into how seasons function and how to make it fun would be great because I see a lot of people with amazing screenshots etc.

Nope not the only one. I deleted the mod a month ago. Base game I also always keep it at 5x time, always skip night, and turn off growth when seeding tho. I try to run the farm so I'm not harvesting every game day.

[jasonbarron]

It was definitely a good Christmas gift then

Definitely!

[this_is_gav]

In my opinion in it's current guise Seasons only really works if you're happy to dedicate a lot of time to the game, as progress is generally much slower than the base-game, and the waiting around does get tedious in single-player.

If Seasons or any seasonal-aspect is implemented in a future FS game then GIANTS are going to have to think very carefully how they will do it. I do think Seasons needs to part of the base-game, but it will have to be optional and I think they will need to add a more sophisticated fast-forward system too, where it stops when there is work to do or crop states change or something. There ought to be some more jobs added in the barren periods too (I've suggested hedge trimming as one such task, better and smaller scale animal care as another).

[FarmBoss]

Just because seasons was in high demand doesn't mean everyone enjoys it, so you're certainly not alone.
If you want to manage your farm and time according to your own schedule and rules, then you likely won't play seasons much.
If you want the game to be a more controlled simulator, then seasons is for you.

[Yn0z]

If your finding you have to much downtime with seasons then there are a few things you can do.

First off run at a faster clock speed normally. If you usually play 1x then play 5x or if you play 5x then play 15x I guarantee you wont run out of time at 15x when a game day is about 90 min real time.

Second, use smaller equipment. If your getting the job done to fast then use smaller stuff to take longer at the job. Seasons gameplay is different than base game where you feel you need to rush around to do stuff as fast as possible because the next growth could happen at any moment and your just a few growth stages away from losing a crop as a result of withering, etc. With seasons game play growth happens at very predictable steps often game days apart. Slow down, smell the roses and enjoy the view.

Third, use less automation. Base game play its often more of managing hired helpers or courseplay or any number of other ways to get the game to do the work for you. Seasons is about replicating the year and unless your playing on 3 day seasons at 5X speed you have some time to do the field work yourself or with minimal workers. Instead of rushing to pickup straw with a forage wagon use a baler and pick the bales up manually or with a loading trailer. There will likely be plenty of time to get the various jobs done.

Four, pickup animals. With seasons you should top them off daily so it gives you a nice thing to do in the morning. Head out of the house feed the cattle, milk them and haul the milk to market. maybe move any males out of the dairy pen into a beef pen then head out to the field to do various jobs.

In the end seasons isnt for everyone so if your just not feeling it then dont mess with it. For me base game gets boring after about 40 or 50 hours of game play on any given map. With seasons that timeframe can easily increase 4x before it feels repetitive. As to the double cropping there are very few GEOs that support this function as you have to have two crops that overlap the harvest period for one and the planting period for another so you can harvest crop one and plant/seed crop two the same time. Usually its a cereal crop like wheat or barley being harvested and corn or soybeans being planted but the window of opportunity is often very narrow and you have to hope the weather cooperates with you just like real life.

Hey thanks for the detailed response and btw I am a fan of your youtube work keep it up

Ok so what I did and giving it another bash is trying 3 days seasons with the eu simplified version, basically can plant whatever whenever but still provides the cool visual effects. here goes, if this doesnt work then I will likely just go for base game...

[High Cotton]

I run 9day seasons on real time and their is usually only 1 day out if that that I fast forward time except for winter. The map I’m on is not set up for logging and I hate snow. I run cattle so I usually feed them everyday. I “rent” grass fields or areas and bale a lot of hay that I store then sell through the winter. I also bale wheat straw In the summer and sell my excess. I’m also going to try this with corn fodder this year. The fodder bales, harvesting corn, beans, and cotton, and a finally cutting of hay should keep me pretty busy. I have baled almost 600 bales this season and I’m at the last day of late summer. I also will get things ready for whatever task is coming up while time is in a faster pace. I’m on the last day of summer so I have the corn head on the combine, did the maintenance on them, The truck and hopper bottom, and the tractor and grain cart. This is much like real life. I will maintain and or upgrade the rest of the equipment through the winter.

[Yn0z]

Yeah so I tried it again and at first I was like I love the long growing times, because you can seed a field in a day, but yet again...not for me, maybe I will revisit this mod when I am more experienced, only time will tell.

[Miketeg]

Season's good for players who like a slower pace. I do like Seasons for the realism it brings to the game and it change from "plowing-cultivating-fert--seed-harvest-repeat".

With season, I discover other things to do, like planting trees, playing with poplar, transport mission, playing with snow etc.

When I play without season, I get bored pretty fast because of the too easy system of the game and not enought thing to do other than basics of the game.

I do think that you need to have a map that offers a lot of thing to do, in order to enjoy season.

Sussex farms is one of them, with the multiple mission and possibility for placeable.

[Patrick73]

I usually spend winter merging fields and chipping trees that need to be removed