Make crops seasonal

[shubla]

We have seasons, farming should be changed to respect them.

You should be able to only plant crops in spring/summer and harvest in the autumn. Only once per year.

Planting times would vary by the crop (planting in wrong time could result in stop of growth or less harvest), so would harvesting times.

Of course, some crops may give multiple harvests a year, such as peas. But others not, like pumpkins. These should reflect real world.

[Lunarius_Haberdash]

To absolutely no ones surprise, I love this idea.

[VDZ]

People aren't complaining enough about their activity being limited by seasons already?

[MadNomad]

People aren't complaining enough about their activity being limited by seasons already?

but this is not the only activity in the game

[Mario_Demorez]

This would force players to have large farms. No one likes large farms.
This would make players who only like to farm quit the game, and that's not good for the population of the game.
This would make leveling farming skill feel useless at all times except the farming season.
This would handicap the farming qualities far too much.

Adding realism to a game is good until you start making the game boring and shitty to play.

You could multiply the yield from the crops to satisfy the yield the same amount of time at current game mechanics. Add storage buildings that hold vegis/hay to make storing for winter not an annoyance. Farmers could focus on animals and gardens during the winter maybe or even cooking. Maybe make storage buildings to hold food so these farmers could cook during the off seasons. Making farming a 1 season batch process would make mass storage needed for the game to work.

[shubla]

This would force players to have large farms. No one likes large farms.
This would make players who only like to farm quit the game, and that's not good for the population of the game.
This would make leveling farming skill feel useless at all times except the farming season.
This would handicap the farming qualities far too much.

Adding realism to a game is good until you start making the game boring and shitty to play.

You could multiply the yield from the crops to satisfy the yield the same amount of time at current game mechanics. Add storage buildings that hold vegis/hay to make storing for winter not an annoyance. Farmers could focus on animals and gardens during the winter maybe or even cooking. Maybe make storage buildings to hold food so these farmers could cook during the off seasons. Making farming a 1 season batch process would make mass storage needed for the game to work.

This wouldn't make players have large farms, because yield of crops could be increased to account for the losses in growth time.
I don't think that anyone plays this game only to farm, there is already winter and you would still have plenty of crops to farm, most people would be relieved because they'd have to do less farming, then you could focus on processing the harvest during other seasons.
Quality system as well could be changed to account for losses in crop-rotation-speed.
Farming skill already feels very useless every minute when I am doing something else than farming.

Plowing of fields yearly after snow melts, fertilization etc. could provide more farm work to compensate.

Basically yield/farming/quality mechanics for plants could be changed to account for this new change. So there wouldn't be any of the issues that you listed.

[Mario_Demorez]

I doubt this will be implemented due to the fact that how many things theyd have to change or add to the game. Maybe in 3 years.

[VDZ]

I don't think that anyone plays this game only to farm, there is already winter and you would still have plenty of crops to farm, most people would be relieved because they'd have to do less farming, then you could focus on processing the harvest during other seasons.

Conversely, having a fixed 'farming season' means you MUST farm during that period because you won't have a chance to farm outside of that limited period of time. I can't imagine this being fun.

[Mario_Demorez]

I don't think that anyone plays this game only to farm, there is already winter and you would still have plenty of crops to farm, most people would be relieved because they'd have to do less farming, then you could focus on processing the harvest during other seasons.

Conversely, having a fixed 'farming season' means you MUST farm during that period because you won't have a chance to farm outside of that limited period of time. I can't imagine this being fun.

but on the other hand, not having to farm all seasons for the same yield would mean less mundane work. This could outweigh the cons of having a time frame. Less work for same yield but with the extra restriction on timeframe. I'd like the change if they scaled stuff to make it not a nerf but instead a change to reduce tedious work.

[Zentetsuken]

besides winter, are any crops really "seasonal" in the sense that they simply cannot grow at all if planted during some incorrect time of the year?

Or is it the case that we call many crops seasonal because our advanced agriculture dictates that some crops simply prosper, or organize our time management in such a way that we can manage multiple harvests on the same land each year?

I feel like a truly realistic implication of seasonal crops would just be that a few crops can actually survive the winter?