Is there any reason to grow anything besides rice?

[jpinard]

I've got a lot of rich soil, and I'm wondering if there's any reason for me to grow potatoes, strawberries, or corn since they grow so much slower?

[AileTheAlien]

Corn lasts longer without refrigeration, and (I think) takes less work for the amount of food harvested, because it produces more per harvest. Berries can be eaten uncooked without a mood loss. Potatoes grow well in poor soil.

[mebe]

There is not *enough* reason to vary the crop type and I always end up with rice. It is one of the weaker elements of the (very good) game. I'm not sure how I would go about improving it though.

[fritzgryphon]

Berries used to be good, because they didn't cause food poisoning.  Now they do, so it's not safe to rely on.

Corn is good, if the location doesn't have cold snaps, or you have a greenhouse.  Nothing like losing the corn to cold at 64% growth.

[jpinard]

Why change it so berries give food poisoning?  If Tynan felt is was unbalanced, why not just make it take longer to grow or give less yield to balance it?

[Canute]

Potatos are only good when you don't have soil/rich soil availble since it only need 70%fert.
Rice has a fast growing time, good to train your pawns at growing.
But corn got nearly the same yield/grow day but need much less work that made your pawn free for some other task like hauling or Art.

Berries are good if you don't have/want a cook, because no mood debuf when eaten raw.
(why does berries should give a food poisoning ? Only happen when you harvest the wrong berries :-) )

[Shurp]

If your pawns are overworked harvesting / planting rice, then corn makes sense.  But generally, rice is superior, because you don't have to wait so long.  It does you no good to have a monster crop of corn at 50% when your colonists are starving.  A finished crop of rice could save them today.

(Mixing corn and rice in separate plots might be reasonable)

(And of course, potatoes are your go-to on desert / ice sheet maps)

[5thHorseman]

Personally:
When I have rich soil available:

• Rice when I'm just starting or am out of food (say, first harvest of the year) or it's almost winter.
• Corn when I've plenty of food and there are 10+ days left in the growing season.
• Potatoes never.
• Berries never

When all that's available is normal soil:

• Berries when I'm just starting or am out of food (say, first harvest of the year) or it's almost winter. Rice would work here too but if it wasn't for this, I'd never have berries and I like the variety.
• Corn when I've plenty of food and there are 10+ days left in the growing season.
• Potatoes never.
• Rice when I get hydroponics up and running, and then it's generally only rice.

When all that's available is poor soil (note this is speculation as I've never actually encountered this):

• Potatoes always, until hydroponics is working.
• Corn never.
• Berries never.
• Rice when I get hydroponics up and running, and then it's generally only rice.

[AileTheAlien]

When all that's available is poor soil (note this is speculation as I've never actually encountered this)

You don't like extreme desert? :P

[Boston]

Like.... Well, many other aspects of the game TBH, agriculture is sadly lacking in complexity.

[cultist]

Rice is the most labor-intensive food (planting, harvesting, hauling) compared to others - this is fine if you have year-round growing and lots of pawns or you need to train their planting skill, but it can be tough if you only have a single grower, limited outdoor growing times or no dedicated hauler (these are just examples).
Once your colony (and your need for food) grows big you may want to grow something with a better payoff per plant to save soil for something else, or simply to cut down on the amount of time pawns spend planting and harvesting.

[jpinard]

There's another game I've played where you need to grow a variety of crops for your peeps or they get a malice penalty due to low food variety.  Tynan should add one more crop, and add this to the base game.  I think it makes sense, unless he actually wanted zero micromanagement on the crop growing part of the game.  But honestly, crop manegemnt is a huge part of the fun of the game.

[Razzoriel]

Tynan cut some complexity of the initial alphas, so I doubt he'll add any right now, but I'd be really glad if he added some sort of soil erosion system; faster-growing plants eroding soil faster, requiring you to grow plants that are less erosive or change the location of planting until the soil stabilizes again.

[jpinard]

Tynan cut some complexity of the initial alphas, so I doubt he'll add any right now, but I'd be really glad if he added some sort of soil erosion system; faster-growing plants eroding soil faster, requiring you to grow plants that are less erosive or change the location of planting until the soil stabilizes again.

Yea that would be pretty cool.  Adding crop rotation, maybe peanuts as another food sourse, and of course peanuts (or beans) fix nitrogen and replenish the soil.

[BLACK_FR]

It's very time-intensive. For the same work you will get 18 vegies instead of 5 on Merciless if you plant corn. It's pretty big deal (especially if you play solo naked brutality). I play on 20-day cycle and plant only corn from year 2. Plus corn lasts longer (that's a big deal, you can make yeraly stock of it).
I also plant potatoes when there is enough time for them to grow but not enough for corn. Only reason is because of work per tile ratio.