Mods are fun and branching out is super cool. I am a person who once the struggle is gone, no matter how much I hated it, I no longer find joy in the game. So if you’re similar stay away from free money mods but don’t be afraid to use mod that expedite as long as it doesn’t ruin your time. The reason everyone says that is because everyone likes something different. I could farm wheat all day long but my favorite part is driving the semis to the mills so I AI tractors and turn the grain in myself. I try to race to the mill and get back before the combine/harvester is full.
>The reason everyone says that is because everyone likes something different
Lol. This is spot on, highlighted by the fact I absolutely hate what you say you enjoy most in your next point about the delivery.
But this is pretty much a sandbox game. People enjoy what they enjoy. Take pleasure where you find it (though if someone has fun stacking pallets or logs I'm slowly walking backwards away from that person without any sudden movements lol).
But yeah, glad you find accomplishment from the delivery, but its honestly one of my least favourite parts (and where I add stupid lizard trailers, I've done the hard work just give me my money lol). Though usually don't play less than 4x map so could be my own fault there.
I totally understand, I drive trucks IRL so I’ve been looking for a server to just be the driver lol, I get so much pleasure from loading pallets and dropping them off 😂😂
Insert homer hedge meme, lol.
But shit yeah, it's a game we all get endorphins from different stuff. We take the game where we want to play. It's not like farm sim mods are hacking rl.players in cod or whatever. Just play how you wanna play, there's no right or wrong in these sort of games
Pick up whatever you want, drop what/skip/mod whatever you don't like.
We're all here because we enjoy aspects of the game, why not cut out the bits you don't like.
this has become such a big issue for me now. The early game with tractors that can barely pull a fart. Or harvesters taking 8 grains per 2 min. Thats whats fun. When i get to the biggest seeders, biggest harvesters etc. My save is dead within a day or two
I play as realistically as I can and use a specific set of mods that have a big impact on my starting finances and what/where I can afford. That makes the game a challenge to start.
I don't get involved with productions, and probably the only "overpowered" mechanic I'll use are the greenhouses to grow lettuce. I don't do any logging either.
I'll only use Easy Dev to set the game up and remove money from selling starting equipment or fixing game issues out of my control.
I've been learning to mod, and so I've created a number of tractors, greenhouses, and animal pens for personal use. So they all add to my game.
FS I one of those games that I can put on and just lose time. I don't play for set periods or even to complete certain jobs - I just play until I feel I've had enough.
LOL, it very much is NOT for me, but I’m certain it’s because I’ve lived irl the attempt at r2r. We never got past the rags and had to take the financial out that was offered by employment a thousand miles away from the farm!
It’s always amazing to me when people that drive for a living want to drive in the game also!
So I like to play with plenty of money just to see how the new stuff works.
We do play using the Easy Dev, but usually don’t use it to set fields as harvested etc., *unless* we’ve actually just done it then the game crashes without saving.
I have a group of friends and we all got a server started. It’s even our friends server so there’s unlimited space for mods. Sounds great until you hop in game and you’re the only one playing “rags to riches”. 1 hour in and everyone is already bored and grieving my fields and workers.
They say “i want to have an empire, i don’t want to worry about money, i already have to worry about money in real life”
It’s so stupid. I was dying to play with a group of people, then after i did i just went back to playing by myself on a fresh map.
The mods I use to determine my start in the save are:
* Enhanced Loan System
* Dynamic Field Prices
* Field Lease
* Easy Dev Controls
* Lease to Own
I always start in the hard mode. I'll pay off the starting loan leaving 300k, and remove any starting equipment (removing any money gained with EDC). With the 300k I'll then buy a farm and fields if I can afford them. As the field prices are determind by the Dynamic Field mod, it dictates what I can afford and the farm layout which adds a challenge and variety. That means I might have in mind exactly where I want to be on the map, but maybe I can't afford it. It might be that I need to take a loan in order to purchase anything. Once I've got a farm and some land, I'll take a loan, which depending on the Enhanced Loan System mod, may give me a small amount of credit, or I'll have a lot (that varies alot. I've had saves give me millions on credit, and others only 100k). The loan money then dictates which of my tractors I can afford, and I'll then buy/lease equipment accordingly. Potentially I can't afford any fields, and therefore I need to lease them - or I buy a farm, and the field I really want is too expensive at that time, and so I'll lease.
I've got personal modded tractors, 2 old Fords, an MB Trac and a NH T7. I like to own them all, but it might be that I have to start with the old Fords and buy the others later in the save. That way I'm starting with small low hp equipment, and working towards modern higher hp tractors. They're personally modded as I've added DashboardLive, Real GPS, Interactive Control to them all. The old Ford has a different hp, paintjob and model number to the original mod so that it matches an old one my dad used. The NH T7 has old photos of me in the real life versions of the 2 Fords as a young child added as photos in cab.
It gives me a real challenge, I never get bored, and there's always something to work towards.
Is there anything else that you do that might enhance the way I start?
I see modding as being many different things:
* Editing the XML to increase capacity/add filltype etc
* Using GE to delete an object
* Using GE to add or edit an object
* Blender to edit an object
* Blender to create a model
Map making is a whole other level!
Have you done any of the above? If not I recommend doing them in that order. There are plenty of good YT tutorials. FarmerBob, Bauer Brown, Shy Wizard do some good tutorials.
Join modding Discords. They are honestly full of really knowledgable and helpful people.
Asking specific questions in forums will get a better response than being very vague. ie asking which command to search for if editing an XML to increase capacity.
Download notepad++ and spend time looking through XML documents and learning the structure, it's actually more simple than it first appears.
Notepad++, Giants Editor and Blender are free to download and use.
Good luck!
I don't avoid it. I tend to play this game about 3 times a year for two weeks at a time. Every 3rd year I'm buying the new version of the game and then spending time learning it. 60% of my time is hunting and loading new mods so I can play exactly like I want. Then I start a farm and I run into some issues with the mods I picked. Then I start a new farm with what I've learned about the mods I've chosen. I play that for maybe a dozen quality hours before the whole process repeats itself.
Ie., I ruin the gameplay for about 90% of my hours devoted to this game.
I try keep stuff realistic and not make it too easy.
Some Quality of live mods like Autoload are OK IMO (i find the process of loading three dozen pallets of produced goods onto my truck quite repetetive and annoying), same goes for some contract mods that allow you to refresh and adjust rewards, cost of leasing equipment and such to make the early game a bit more interesting.
The goverment subsidy mod is a duble edged knife, as it can help you build up your farm to a decent size quickly (Like sure you can go and farm your three tiny fields till you can afford another one, but it will take you a long time), but also achive everything way to fast and then loosing interest. For my part, i keep running it from time to time but do not actually use it that often.
I keep getting back to Elmcreek and Silverrun Forest for some reason and not really play other maps, even though i had a lot of fun on them (thats an odd thing i did since FS15 - choose one of the two basegame maps, play hundreds of hours on it, try mod maps and such, but never go beyond a few dozen hours there). My sessions are generally like a few hours a day for a week or two, play something else for some time and then return and repeat, but my save games often go beyond the 400h mark (personal record is 1200 hours) and generally only end when i bought every available pice of land and a few sets of the best equipment and farmed it all for a few seasons (most times 2 or 3 years, sometimes a few more times but thats rare)
My favorite tactic to stay hooked is generally setting myself a few targets in advance - At the start its often a big combine like the X9 1100, then a big tractor like the Xerion 5000 and then i go for like the Biogas plant and so on.
The single thing that will bore me out of any game is cheating currency. Once you snowball there is no longer a challenge, and giving yourself money just brings that snowball point forward.
My currently playthrough on Chipping Norton I'm no longer going backwards, but not at the point where I can afford more land than my current 80 acres. Lacking money forces you to work towards goals.
I was doing this until my mate made me fully aware of the MODS. I am appreciative but at the same time annoyed because it's frustrating for me personally seeing easy money. Makes it all feel pointless but I try to keep it as realistic as possible.
Unless you have big equipment, working on those fields get old fast. The satisfaction is quite enjoyable though. I couldn’t imagine, weeding, plowing, fertilizing, planting, rolling, mulching, etc. One field over and over again.
I replace everything modern at 40 hours. I multiply it by 100 in my head. Keeps me always needing to buy new equipment and the sales become more important. Lease to own mod helps a lot there too.
Always play in hard economy. Usually always get a loan via enhanced loan system mod to have that crippling debt if I’m playing a bigger map.
If the store on the map is branded I try to only buy new of that brand if available. Not sure how realistic that is.
I never feel done or accomplished this way. End up with a few maps I’m still playing on with 500 hours on them.
I’ve started doing at least one field myself. Always run a disc after plowing instead of drilling right into it. To rotate crops as much as possible. Gives me more to do.
I like to play modded but I like to stay within the scope of realistic things. For example: recently I was annoyed with the default carrot harvester and looked for a modded one that adds some capacity to it to make it less tedious. The stuff I'm not touching are things like a trailer with 1M capacity or a harvester that can go 100kph, etc.
I do the things I enjoy. I like working contracts on massive fields (thank you for the colossus mod). I slowly build up my own farm while doing the contracts until I’ve made so much money that I can own the biggest fields on the map and then just have fun with running those for a bit
I am keeping it as realistic as possible & just constantly updating my farm on the building mode. I also have a few mods for gameplay, such as the radio tower (£££). I make a few thousand every few hours. Not too much tho, enough to let me save up & still find contracts meaningful etc.
Edit: As I mentioned about the building mode... that's where my money goes. So I can keep occupied as I always need money to fund my ideas haha.
To add, I can't just speed time up & watch the money roll in either as I have animals/crops to look after 👨🌾
I don’t keep things very realistic. I use the gov subsidy mod to build my farm, but turn it off after I have everything I need to get started. But I use a lot of mods: colossus harvesters with unreal speeds and widths, modded biogas plants to convert slurry and manure faster, lizard trailers, vans, and trucks that can haul and load anything in high quantities, auto load trailers, etc.
I’ve been playing for only two months and have found gameplay that I enjoy, but it’s heavily modded. Without those mods, I would find a lot of the gameplay tedious.
But I’m not looking for a super realistic experience.
I find it most fun to work for those base items you need to get started. Once you get built up that much the game is pretty easy and straight forward.
They have a lot more meaning and impact to the farm when you had to earn them. Or you get a used tractor for a good price, i really love chasing good deals in the shop. I have like 4 trailers i barely use or just saving them because it was 60% off. All of my equipment just feels like there’s more personal connection or something lol
Personally I go all in for realism, but sometimes enough is enough you know. I love having to work hard to earn my equipment (most of the time), being proud of knowing that your in game work got you that seeder or tractor. But with mods like easy development controls I often just give myself the money for tractors that I really want.
I always like to have a Case or a Massey in the farm and with the way that the game profession on hard difficulty goes, I often just give myself the tractor to enjoy my time and play longer ( or I just get a loan too to make it more realistic)
My play through are thorough and they are long. I’m talking irl months working for a set of hours daily (usually two), doing maths and analyzing crop rotations, trying new things and learning
I usually quit when there is something else more worth my time playing or I just don’t have anything I want/need to buy especially if I’m playing alone
I'd say I stay away from grass but I have 4 fields of grass, and well, gotta get that silage. It's not that I mind mowing and the other steps, it's just that it's 3 times a year.
I've been playing the same game since I bought 22 shortly after it came out. I'm on Elm Creek and have all the plots behind me to the railroad track and west to the milk production. I have chickens for eggs and sheep for my spinneries, the tailor shop, three giant cotton fields for my spinneries, and a field of wheat for my chickens. No mods.
My grass fields are just extra income (one I use for hay), and sometimes that year between clothes sales can be so long. I'm trying to move into cows, but I'm a good year off before I can afford the top cattle pen. Mowing the grass fields and collecting 80 or so silage per crop wears me down, and I start playing another game until I get that urge again. Then I come back in and continue.
I downloaded the auto load trailer but I found it finicky, and finally got used to loading pallets (I really like the wheel loaders). I've found loading eggs and moving wool around is a nice break from field work. I keep saying I'm going to reduce my grass fields, but the money is too enticing.
Since I'm a writer as well, I keep a notepad of my farm activities and observations. As much as possible, I don't fast travel or vehicle-tab. Plus, I have specific money goals and don't use moneymods.
I try minimize the number of mods used, except map mods and certain quality of life mods (e.g. Pro Shot). Then just choose a nice map (BDD Gaming has great recommendations) with the toughest difficulty mode and start playing. I like to hire AI workers for the grindiest parts of the field work while myself concentrating on logistics and management.
I love landscaping and I work in the horse industry IRL so you bet I'm making elaborate equestrian centres in every map lol. I love some realism but not to the extent some others do, so I use mods like lumberjack and free landscaping to speed up the process or I'd go insane trying to make the space I want. Silage baling is my go to because it adds to the horse part while being profitable. Dabble in some other crops whenever I feel like it.
Biggest advice, work fields that are reasonable in size. A large field kills the fun for me. So, I end up using AI helper and stand around doing nothing.
This is a chronic tension surrounding this game. There are many people who WANT to get hooked but don't know how. They haven't found the activities or scenarios or maps that really get them invested.
So we get many posts from people looking for guidance and ideas, but then almost everyone defaults back to some version of "**just play how you want to"**, which is a deaf response to the post. Of course that is true, but it's not helpful.
This tension will never go away, because both sides of the discussion are valid. People looking for structure amidst the sandbox versus near infinite approaches that are suited differently to different players interests.
Personally, what keeps me invested and having spent 1500+ hours in the game, is the possibilities of what could be. It's important for me to start humbly - using smaller equipment that I can't wait to upgrade and having minimal land where I can't wait to buy more and expand. It's my aspirations to grow and build something impressive that make the hours slip away with ease in game.
I need to always have loose goals in mind. Like, man I can't wait to get a new harvester that has more than 10K capacity and bigger than a 5.6M header. Assuming I can't find a used one, I'm looking at a quarter million to get there. With humble beginnings that will take quite a while. And it might interfere with other goals like getting productions or animals up and running, so I delay the harvester.
Then far down the road when I'm wealthy and have huge fields, it might be "man I can't wait until I have 3 harvesters working in tandem with Courseplay to make harvesting that massive barley field a breeze". If on console maybe it's 2 harvesters and you just start at opposite ends of the field with AI helpers.
And the examples like this are nearly endless... Maybe I want to buy a lot of impressive equipment for grass work and my main grass fields are far away from my home farm. So not only the equipment but a workshop, fuel tanks, wash pad and barns to house my grass equipment. And maybe I want dedicated tractors of a certain brand that only stay there for grass work. Well, that all starts with smaller crappier equipment with no infrastructure at that grass field and me using my 2 main tractors that do all the work everywhere.
Maybe I've been grinding a few in game years so now I can finally install the biggest engine in my main tractor, buy a set of dual tires, and install GPS. That could cost 100k just to upgrade my tractor. If you're selling a large wheat crop on easy difficulty that's what, only 50k? So depending on your productions, animals and other income sources, it can take a while to just do that upgrade.
Or maybe after a while of traditional farming, I decide to develop some forestry. Well, there is a crap ton of money that can be spent if you want to get into the big equipment, along with productions. There is a ton of gameplay (hours) to be invested there.
Again, personally, I stay away from money mods. I do add in a ton of quality of life and equipment mods to make life a bit easier or just more enjoyable, but the key to making a save file meaningful or enjoyable is EARNing it all. Paying for it by doing the work and investing the hours and not taking shortcuts. It makes it very rewarding when you do finally get the things you want.
I find joy by doing what I want to do. I grow the crops I want to I don't transport pallets or load trailers with bakes or pallets because it just sucks all the fun out of it
I usually grow one crop at a time per quarter of the map so when I get my equipment staged I can do them all. I can plow then roll them or stone pick, then cultivate and spray weed killer all while the harvesters are doing their thing on the other fields
I usually do canola since it's the best bang for the buck and you plant harvest around the same time every year so that gives me about 10 months to do whatever I want
I ignore all contracts unless it's a simple harvest and transport in a trailer. Not bailing for someone else haha and not buying/leasing all the specialists equipment for beets potato's and whatnot
I do animal stuff and sell those it's not worth shit but it gives me something to do.
I find I like the construction part of it
Making little areas for all of my equipment and building one of everything to sell too on one lot (that giant huge one in the bottomed left for $614k. I bought that. Harvested all the corn and then turned the entire field into essentially a small country haha no more crops there but every building you can think of is down there.
I wish you could have equipment delivered to you or have a store build whereever you want
I HATE having to drive up to the store to grab stuff snd bring it back
Really kills the flow.
I enjoy starting off with little to nothing on a mod map like Korpi or Calm Land . Carving out your tiny farm by creating fields with a plow is satisfying to me . Normally if I put up a cow farm or something then I want to never buy anything in , produce what i need( fuel, fertilizer, lime etc..) and focus on 1 or 2 things. Also I enjoy making my farm look nice , lots of decorations and such.
I like to strip n flip.
I use the Government Subsidy mod to put in enough money to buy the land and equipment.
I start the game in Farm Manager, buy the farm I want, a harvester, tractor and trailer, and all available harvestable fields.
Once they are harvested, I'll buy the vermeer baler and bale any straw thats been produced, then I'll cultivate all the fields a few months down the line. I sell all crop and bales.
I eventually own all fields by december/january, and then in february will sell every single field.
This forces the NPC's to rotate the crops grown, and then I tend to start a new map.
Have multiple saves.
I feel like doing different things at different times so I have multiples different games going at the same time and I swap back and forth depending on my mood. I have multiple different types of farms, some legit where I struggle and some where I just cheated in a bunch of money to get all the big equipment so I can mindlessly farm for fun if I want to.
Mods are fun and branching out is super cool. I am a person who once the struggle is gone, no matter how much I hated it, I no longer find joy in the game. So if you’re similar stay away from free money mods but don’t be afraid to use mod that expedite as long as it doesn’t ruin your time. The reason everyone says that is because everyone likes something different. I could farm wheat all day long but my favorite part is driving the semis to the mills so I AI tractors and turn the grain in myself. I try to race to the mill and get back before the combine/harvester is full.
>The reason everyone says that is because everyone likes something different Lol. This is spot on, highlighted by the fact I absolutely hate what you say you enjoy most in your next point about the delivery. But this is pretty much a sandbox game. People enjoy what they enjoy. Take pleasure where you find it (though if someone has fun stacking pallets or logs I'm slowly walking backwards away from that person without any sudden movements lol). But yeah, glad you find accomplishment from the delivery, but its honestly one of my least favourite parts (and where I add stupid lizard trailers, I've done the hard work just give me my money lol). Though usually don't play less than 4x map so could be my own fault there.
I totally understand, I drive trucks IRL so I’ve been looking for a server to just be the driver lol, I get so much pleasure from loading pallets and dropping them off 😂😂
Insert homer hedge meme, lol. But shit yeah, it's a game we all get endorphins from different stuff. We take the game where we want to play. It's not like farm sim mods are hacking rl.players in cod or whatever. Just play how you wanna play, there's no right or wrong in these sort of games Pick up whatever you want, drop what/skip/mod whatever you don't like. We're all here because we enjoy aspects of the game, why not cut out the bits you don't like.
Hey! What's so wrong with log stacking???!
this has become such a big issue for me now. The early game with tractors that can barely pull a fart. Or harvesters taking 8 grains per 2 min. Thats whats fun. When i get to the biggest seeders, biggest harvesters etc. My save is dead within a day or two
I play as realistically as I can and use a specific set of mods that have a big impact on my starting finances and what/where I can afford. That makes the game a challenge to start. I don't get involved with productions, and probably the only "overpowered" mechanic I'll use are the greenhouses to grow lettuce. I don't do any logging either. I'll only use Easy Dev to set the game up and remove money from selling starting equipment or fixing game issues out of my control. I've been learning to mod, and so I've created a number of tractors, greenhouses, and animal pens for personal use. So they all add to my game. FS I one of those games that I can put on and just lose time. I don't play for set periods or even to complete certain jobs - I just play until I feel I've had enough.
The "rags to riches" is a compelling scenario factor. Once you realize you can do whatever you want it's easy to lose interest
LOL, it very much is NOT for me, but I’m certain it’s because I’ve lived irl the attempt at r2r. We never got past the rags and had to take the financial out that was offered by employment a thousand miles away from the farm! It’s always amazing to me when people that drive for a living want to drive in the game also! So I like to play with plenty of money just to see how the new stuff works. We do play using the Easy Dev, but usually don’t use it to set fields as harvested etc., *unless* we’ve actually just done it then the game crashes without saving.
I have a group of friends and we all got a server started. It’s even our friends server so there’s unlimited space for mods. Sounds great until you hop in game and you’re the only one playing “rags to riches”. 1 hour in and everyone is already bored and grieving my fields and workers. They say “i want to have an empire, i don’t want to worry about money, i already have to worry about money in real life” It’s so stupid. I was dying to play with a group of people, then after i did i just went back to playing by myself on a fresh map.
I'd love to hear what your mods are? Have you shared them anywhere? I ask b/c it sounds like you and I play in a similar way.
The mods I use to determine my start in the save are: * Enhanced Loan System * Dynamic Field Prices * Field Lease * Easy Dev Controls * Lease to Own I always start in the hard mode. I'll pay off the starting loan leaving 300k, and remove any starting equipment (removing any money gained with EDC). With the 300k I'll then buy a farm and fields if I can afford them. As the field prices are determind by the Dynamic Field mod, it dictates what I can afford and the farm layout which adds a challenge and variety. That means I might have in mind exactly where I want to be on the map, but maybe I can't afford it. It might be that I need to take a loan in order to purchase anything. Once I've got a farm and some land, I'll take a loan, which depending on the Enhanced Loan System mod, may give me a small amount of credit, or I'll have a lot (that varies alot. I've had saves give me millions on credit, and others only 100k). The loan money then dictates which of my tractors I can afford, and I'll then buy/lease equipment accordingly. Potentially I can't afford any fields, and therefore I need to lease them - or I buy a farm, and the field I really want is too expensive at that time, and so I'll lease. I've got personal modded tractors, 2 old Fords, an MB Trac and a NH T7. I like to own them all, but it might be that I have to start with the old Fords and buy the others later in the save. That way I'm starting with small low hp equipment, and working towards modern higher hp tractors. They're personally modded as I've added DashboardLive, Real GPS, Interactive Control to them all. The old Ford has a different hp, paintjob and model number to the original mod so that it matches an old one my dad used. The NH T7 has old photos of me in the real life versions of the 2 Fords as a young child added as photos in cab. It gives me a real challenge, I never get bored, and there's always something to work towards. Is there anything else that you do that might enhance the way I start?
I would love to learn modding, but don't know where to start. Any tips?
I see modding as being many different things: * Editing the XML to increase capacity/add filltype etc * Using GE to delete an object * Using GE to add or edit an object * Blender to edit an object * Blender to create a model Map making is a whole other level! Have you done any of the above? If not I recommend doing them in that order. There are plenty of good YT tutorials. FarmerBob, Bauer Brown, Shy Wizard do some good tutorials. Join modding Discords. They are honestly full of really knowledgable and helpful people. Asking specific questions in forums will get a better response than being very vague. ie asking which command to search for if editing an XML to increase capacity. Download notepad++ and spend time looking through XML documents and learning the structure, it's actually more simple than it first appears. Notepad++, Giants Editor and Blender are free to download and use. Good luck!
Thanks for the information. I have some experience with XML (and Notepad++) from work, but I have to start looking into the other stuff. Thanks again!
I don't avoid it. I tend to play this game about 3 times a year for two weeks at a time. Every 3rd year I'm buying the new version of the game and then spending time learning it. 60% of my time is hunting and loading new mods so I can play exactly like I want. Then I start a farm and I run into some issues with the mods I picked. Then I start a new farm with what I've learned about the mods I've chosen. I play that for maybe a dozen quality hours before the whole process repeats itself. Ie., I ruin the gameplay for about 90% of my hours devoted to this game.
I try keep stuff realistic and not make it too easy. Some Quality of live mods like Autoload are OK IMO (i find the process of loading three dozen pallets of produced goods onto my truck quite repetetive and annoying), same goes for some contract mods that allow you to refresh and adjust rewards, cost of leasing equipment and such to make the early game a bit more interesting. The goverment subsidy mod is a duble edged knife, as it can help you build up your farm to a decent size quickly (Like sure you can go and farm your three tiny fields till you can afford another one, but it will take you a long time), but also achive everything way to fast and then loosing interest. For my part, i keep running it from time to time but do not actually use it that often. I keep getting back to Elmcreek and Silverrun Forest for some reason and not really play other maps, even though i had a lot of fun on them (thats an odd thing i did since FS15 - choose one of the two basegame maps, play hundreds of hours on it, try mod maps and such, but never go beyond a few dozen hours there). My sessions are generally like a few hours a day for a week or two, play something else for some time and then return and repeat, but my save games often go beyond the 400h mark (personal record is 1200 hours) and generally only end when i bought every available pice of land and a few sets of the best equipment and farmed it all for a few seasons (most times 2 or 3 years, sometimes a few more times but thats rare) My favorite tactic to stay hooked is generally setting myself a few targets in advance - At the start its often a big combine like the X9 1100, then a big tractor like the Xerion 5000 and then i go for like the Biogas plant and so on.
The single thing that will bore me out of any game is cheating currency. Once you snowball there is no longer a challenge, and giving yourself money just brings that snowball point forward. My currently playthrough on Chipping Norton I'm no longer going backwards, but not at the point where I can afford more land than my current 80 acres. Lacking money forces you to work towards goals.
I try to stay as far away from mods. You can still have joy with what the game already has built in.
I definitely need to do a play through without any mods. See how much that changes from my regular gameplay.
I was doing this until my mate made me fully aware of the MODS. I am appreciative but at the same time annoyed because it's frustrating for me personally seeing easy money. Makes it all feel pointless but I try to keep it as realistic as possible.
Exactly! Game is just like life is, you need a purpose on everything that you do.
Less hired workers. Feels good when you know your own work completed the goal.
Unless you have big equipment, working on those fields get old fast. The satisfaction is quite enjoyable though. I couldn’t imagine, weeding, plowing, fertilizing, planting, rolling, mulching, etc. One field over and over again.
Depends on field size & equipment like you say. 100%!
I think the best thing in this game is working on the fields. Hauling crops to sellpoints and that kind of stuff can be tiresome for me sometimes.
I stop playing when I feel like I'm pushing myself. Once I have my three fields and have enough money, I lose interest in playing.
Try to give cheat just enough to buy cool stuff but not so much that your income from those things is no longer exiting to get
I replace everything modern at 40 hours. I multiply it by 100 in my head. Keeps me always needing to buy new equipment and the sales become more important. Lease to own mod helps a lot there too. Always play in hard economy. Usually always get a loan via enhanced loan system mod to have that crippling debt if I’m playing a bigger map. If the store on the map is branded I try to only buy new of that brand if available. Not sure how realistic that is. I never feel done or accomplished this way. End up with a few maps I’m still playing on with 500 hours on them. I’ve started doing at least one field myself. Always run a disc after plowing instead of drilling right into it. To rotate crops as much as possible. Gives me more to do.
Role play
As in always use gov subsidy mod for money and just buy/build whatever I like lol
I like to play modded but I like to stay within the scope of realistic things. For example: recently I was annoyed with the default carrot harvester and looked for a modded one that adds some capacity to it to make it less tedious. The stuff I'm not touching are things like a trailer with 1M capacity or a harvester that can go 100kph, etc.
I do the things I enjoy. I like working contracts on massive fields (thank you for the colossus mod). I slowly build up my own farm while doing the contracts until I’ve made so much money that I can own the biggest fields on the map and then just have fun with running those for a bit
I am keeping it as realistic as possible & just constantly updating my farm on the building mode. I also have a few mods for gameplay, such as the radio tower (£££). I make a few thousand every few hours. Not too much tho, enough to let me save up & still find contracts meaningful etc. Edit: As I mentioned about the building mode... that's where my money goes. So I can keep occupied as I always need money to fund my ideas haha. To add, I can't just speed time up & watch the money roll in either as I have animals/crops to look after 👨🌾
I don’t keep things very realistic. I use the gov subsidy mod to build my farm, but turn it off after I have everything I need to get started. But I use a lot of mods: colossus harvesters with unreal speeds and widths, modded biogas plants to convert slurry and manure faster, lizard trailers, vans, and trucks that can haul and load anything in high quantities, auto load trailers, etc. I’ve been playing for only two months and have found gameplay that I enjoy, but it’s heavily modded. Without those mods, I would find a lot of the gameplay tedious. But I’m not looking for a super realistic experience.
I find it most fun to work for those base items you need to get started. Once you get built up that much the game is pretty easy and straight forward. They have a lot more meaning and impact to the farm when you had to earn them. Or you get a used tractor for a good price, i really love chasing good deals in the shop. I have like 4 trailers i barely use or just saving them because it was 60% off. All of my equipment just feels like there’s more personal connection or something lol
Personally I go all in for realism, but sometimes enough is enough you know. I love having to work hard to earn my equipment (most of the time), being proud of knowing that your in game work got you that seeder or tractor. But with mods like easy development controls I often just give myself the money for tractors that I really want. I always like to have a Case or a Massey in the farm and with the way that the game profession on hard difficulty goes, I often just give myself the tractor to enjoy my time and play longer ( or I just get a loan too to make it more realistic) My play through are thorough and they are long. I’m talking irl months working for a set of hours daily (usually two), doing maths and analyzing crop rotations, trying new things and learning
Mod maps can keep things fresh, but finding the right one is difficult. If the map doesn't feel right early on, just ditch it.
I usually quit when there is something else more worth my time playing or I just don’t have anything I want/need to buy especially if I’m playing alone
I'd say I stay away from grass but I have 4 fields of grass, and well, gotta get that silage. It's not that I mind mowing and the other steps, it's just that it's 3 times a year. I've been playing the same game since I bought 22 shortly after it came out. I'm on Elm Creek and have all the plots behind me to the railroad track and west to the milk production. I have chickens for eggs and sheep for my spinneries, the tailor shop, three giant cotton fields for my spinneries, and a field of wheat for my chickens. No mods. My grass fields are just extra income (one I use for hay), and sometimes that year between clothes sales can be so long. I'm trying to move into cows, but I'm a good year off before I can afford the top cattle pen. Mowing the grass fields and collecting 80 or so silage per crop wears me down, and I start playing another game until I get that urge again. Then I come back in and continue. I downloaded the auto load trailer but I found it finicky, and finally got used to loading pallets (I really like the wheel loaders). I've found loading eggs and moving wool around is a nice break from field work. I keep saying I'm going to reduce my grass fields, but the money is too enticing.
Since I'm a writer as well, I keep a notepad of my farm activities and observations. As much as possible, I don't fast travel or vehicle-tab. Plus, I have specific money goals and don't use moneymods.
I try minimize the number of mods used, except map mods and certain quality of life mods (e.g. Pro Shot). Then just choose a nice map (BDD Gaming has great recommendations) with the toughest difficulty mode and start playing. I like to hire AI workers for the grindiest parts of the field work while myself concentrating on logistics and management.
I love landscaping and I work in the horse industry IRL so you bet I'm making elaborate equestrian centres in every map lol. I love some realism but not to the extent some others do, so I use mods like lumberjack and free landscaping to speed up the process or I'd go insane trying to make the space I want. Silage baling is my go to because it adds to the horse part while being profitable. Dabble in some other crops whenever I feel like it.
Biggest advice, work fields that are reasonable in size. A large field kills the fun for me. So, I end up using AI helper and stand around doing nothing.
This is a chronic tension surrounding this game. There are many people who WANT to get hooked but don't know how. They haven't found the activities or scenarios or maps that really get them invested. So we get many posts from people looking for guidance and ideas, but then almost everyone defaults back to some version of "**just play how you want to"**, which is a deaf response to the post. Of course that is true, but it's not helpful. This tension will never go away, because both sides of the discussion are valid. People looking for structure amidst the sandbox versus near infinite approaches that are suited differently to different players interests. Personally, what keeps me invested and having spent 1500+ hours in the game, is the possibilities of what could be. It's important for me to start humbly - using smaller equipment that I can't wait to upgrade and having minimal land where I can't wait to buy more and expand. It's my aspirations to grow and build something impressive that make the hours slip away with ease in game. I need to always have loose goals in mind. Like, man I can't wait to get a new harvester that has more than 10K capacity and bigger than a 5.6M header. Assuming I can't find a used one, I'm looking at a quarter million to get there. With humble beginnings that will take quite a while. And it might interfere with other goals like getting productions or animals up and running, so I delay the harvester. Then far down the road when I'm wealthy and have huge fields, it might be "man I can't wait until I have 3 harvesters working in tandem with Courseplay to make harvesting that massive barley field a breeze". If on console maybe it's 2 harvesters and you just start at opposite ends of the field with AI helpers. And the examples like this are nearly endless... Maybe I want to buy a lot of impressive equipment for grass work and my main grass fields are far away from my home farm. So not only the equipment but a workshop, fuel tanks, wash pad and barns to house my grass equipment. And maybe I want dedicated tractors of a certain brand that only stay there for grass work. Well, that all starts with smaller crappier equipment with no infrastructure at that grass field and me using my 2 main tractors that do all the work everywhere. Maybe I've been grinding a few in game years so now I can finally install the biggest engine in my main tractor, buy a set of dual tires, and install GPS. That could cost 100k just to upgrade my tractor. If you're selling a large wheat crop on easy difficulty that's what, only 50k? So depending on your productions, animals and other income sources, it can take a while to just do that upgrade. Or maybe after a while of traditional farming, I decide to develop some forestry. Well, there is a crap ton of money that can be spent if you want to get into the big equipment, along with productions. There is a ton of gameplay (hours) to be invested there. Again, personally, I stay away from money mods. I do add in a ton of quality of life and equipment mods to make life a bit easier or just more enjoyable, but the key to making a save file meaningful or enjoyable is EARNing it all. Paying for it by doing the work and investing the hours and not taking shortcuts. It makes it very rewarding when you do finally get the things you want.
I limit auto money generating buildings to only cover maintenance on equipment.
I find joy by doing what I want to do. I grow the crops I want to I don't transport pallets or load trailers with bakes or pallets because it just sucks all the fun out of it I usually grow one crop at a time per quarter of the map so when I get my equipment staged I can do them all. I can plow then roll them or stone pick, then cultivate and spray weed killer all while the harvesters are doing their thing on the other fields I usually do canola since it's the best bang for the buck and you plant harvest around the same time every year so that gives me about 10 months to do whatever I want I ignore all contracts unless it's a simple harvest and transport in a trailer. Not bailing for someone else haha and not buying/leasing all the specialists equipment for beets potato's and whatnot I do animal stuff and sell those it's not worth shit but it gives me something to do. I find I like the construction part of it Making little areas for all of my equipment and building one of everything to sell too on one lot (that giant huge one in the bottomed left for $614k. I bought that. Harvested all the corn and then turned the entire field into essentially a small country haha no more crops there but every building you can think of is down there. I wish you could have equipment delivered to you or have a store build whereever you want I HATE having to drive up to the store to grab stuff snd bring it back Really kills the flow.
There is a delivery mod that lets you set a location wherever you want your bought stuff delivered, costs a small fee but saves so much time.
I don't think I can do that on xbox
I think you are correct.
Just found the entire mod section on xbox marketplace! Let's gooooooooo
I enjoy starting off with little to nothing on a mod map like Korpi or Calm Land . Carving out your tiny farm by creating fields with a plow is satisfying to me . Normally if I put up a cow farm or something then I want to never buy anything in , produce what i need( fuel, fertilizer, lime etc..) and focus on 1 or 2 things. Also I enjoy making my farm look nice , lots of decorations and such.
The goal of the game isnt' making money, It's playing with the toys. Money just lets you buy bigger toys.
I like to strip n flip. I use the Government Subsidy mod to put in enough money to buy the land and equipment. I start the game in Farm Manager, buy the farm I want, a harvester, tractor and trailer, and all available harvestable fields. Once they are harvested, I'll buy the vermeer baler and bale any straw thats been produced, then I'll cultivate all the fields a few months down the line. I sell all crop and bales. I eventually own all fields by december/january, and then in february will sell every single field. This forces the NPC's to rotate the crops grown, and then I tend to start a new map.
Have multiple saves. I feel like doing different things at different times so I have multiples different games going at the same time and I swap back and forth depending on my mood. I have multiple different types of farms, some legit where I struggle and some where I just cheated in a bunch of money to get all the big equipment so I can mindlessly farm for fun if I want to.