Farming


Farming is one of the noblest professions known to our peoples. It marks the transition from us being bands of hunters to creating towns and developing greater technologies. Without the farmers, we would not eat, we would not be healthy and merry, we would once again be at the whims of the environment. To be a farmer is not to fight nature, but to coerce it to our advantage.

 

The farmer is resolute in the face of disaster, hard working and with purpose to help others in life. There are those who call the lives of farmers simple, but it is in the simple work of tending fields that we can draw most of our understanding of the world

 


Farming is a very major part of Shasnani'i life.  Most common in the temperate transition zones, the foods produced are locally adapted and rarely shipped far.  There is still a good distribution of foreign foodstuffs, but the prices are higher and they come from different regions seasonally.

 

It should also be one of the largest career/mini-games available. It is mostly a strategy game that is based upon reading patterns and developing things over time.  It should have roots in actual sustainable agricultural theory as well as revolve around fun gameplay.  For now, it uses a Mancala/Wari/etc type gameplay.

 

For all Farming tests, play a round of Mancala against an opponent of the correct level (e.g. easy/med/hard here ) and the resultant points are your pool to use against an environment check for productivity of Food.  Use the points as the number of times you can roll the Rainbow Dice game to succeed against your environmental target.  The number of rolls *20 is the food you produce.  This food is either of your homestead to keep, or earning you work credit in a community.

 

[farm phase]

 

Turn-based investment and management vs hands on farming sim.  The higher level management is preferable to going through the mechanical motions for routine tasks.  New tasks have to be done manually before automated, and perhaps weeding minigames can be done to increase productivity for the really hardcore.

 

Area and resource allocation is key to making the most profit.  Usually planting some stable crops to ensure a certain sum and then a riskier set is the strategy.

Environmental productivity must be maintained.

 

How could portions of it be action games?

skill, reaction based minigames to determine farming effectiveness?

fighting pest infestations manually

a reaction based game to tend to a fast growing and sensitive plant?

 

Here is a link to the math of multiple variations of the Mancala sowing game:

http://mancala.wikia.com/wiki/Modular_arithmetic_of_mancala_games

That wiki has nearly endless traditional and modern variations of sowing games

 


 

Brain-storming to make it a simple turn based system for python.

 

Image credits

All 4 from flickr CC

http://www.flickr.com/photos/olly_boyo/181102513/ - madagascar savannah set

http://www.flickr.com/photos/terriem/3507686150/sizes/l/ - fish pond

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34336766@N05/3655605145/ - strawberry rows. non-commercial

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cicada/3091460637/sizes/l/ - dryland food forest non-com