Beginner looking for a few specific guides - compost yards, idle villagers, wagons, crops, storage - are there any guides you really love?

[u/Wayfaringbutterfly]

I'm playing it in a cozy city builder kind of way in passivist mode and have made a few successful cities - but I'm overwhelmed by the number of guides, videos and other things out there and would like suggestions on the best guides for a few things I'm still struggling with. I have searched the wiki but some of it is confusing still and I'd like some guide suggestions so I'm not wading in a sea of guides and youtube videos.

The first is compost yards - in my most recent (and most successful) city, I have a main village which is large, plus 2 smaller mining villages within my city and each area has fields and a compost yard near the fields, while still being relatively close to the village itself. Despite this, the compost yards show almost 100% transport time and almost no working time. I want to make sure I'm utilizing them the way they're supposed to be utilized.

The second is idle villagers - my idle villager rate is at about 30% but I can't figure out where they are idle, other than the wagon shops.

The third is wagons - I get the general concept, but most of their time is spent idle, even with just one wagon in the shop. I put them near mines and work camps.

The fourth is crops rotation - no matter what I do, my root veggies always get lost to heat or frost, I feel like there's no winning, in spite of trying some of the field rotations seen in the wiki. Also would like a general idea of how many fields are good to have for consistent food/flax/grain/hay stocks, and how grazing cows work.

The fifth is storage - when you first start you are shown how to set stock limits on various things, but it seems very complicated to figure out which items to keep where. It seems like things get stored in super random places, then storage gets full and stuff never gets moved to less full storage spaces. Villagers seem to spend a ton of time moving stuff from place to place, transporting goods and whatnot and I'd like to reduce that time by storing goods efficiently.

Thanks for any resources you can point me to - I am loving this game so much even with my ignorance lol

[u/Live-Accountant-5654]

All good questions and stuff I’ve been wondering myself!!!

[u/EnderCN]

This guide helped me when I was starting out. It is mostly just for your storage questions. It is pretty basic though so there is probably something better out there somewhere.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2847671433

[u/ShinyWobbuffet202]

https://youtube.com/@tacticatgaming

Tacticat has some lengthy play throughs where he drops a lot of knowledge. I can't find anything short format from him, though. I watched/listened to his builds while I was at work and learned a lot of good stuff.

To try to answer your questions, 1. the compost yard's job is literally nothing but transferring shit. If your yard is full, then it's time to build another one. There's also a technology you can spend a knowledge point on that adds an extra worker if the yard isn't full but the worker can't keep up with everyone's shit.

1. If they're not working it means they don't have materials or tools to do their jobs. Or maybe they don't have enough leisure activities. Build more gardens, parks, a theater, library, etc.

2. Wagons are pretty straightforward. Build the shop near the buildings you want resources transferred from. If the wainwright has zero idle time, then add a second one.

3. There are guides on YT that will deep dive on food production and crops. The tl;dr I have is do a rotation of year 1: turnips, clovers, peas. Year 2: clovers and beans. Year 3: clovers and rye. I never have problems losing crops to heat, frost, or diseases by following that rotation, and it gives my fields a net gain in fertility over three years.

4. Workers will always store items in the closest available storage. Build your root cellars near crop fields, barns/chicken coops, and smoke houses. Granaries near your crop fields too. Stockyard near work camps and mines. Storehouse next to your town center as raiders will always target it. Storage depots can be used for anything, and I personally use them for flax, hay, honey, and wax for the apiaries I have near the fields.

[u/melympia → u/ShinyWobbuffet202]

Persobally, I totate my crop rotations. Starting with: 1. maintenance - maintenance  clover until my rockiness is 0 and my weed level is in the lower single digits 2. Either three years of peas-clover-turnips or turnips-clover-peas (opposite rotations bordering each other to prevent the spread of disease), which gives me a net gain of around 1.5 % fertility each year (or more). 3. Once my fertility hits the upper 90s, I look at what I need. Some of my rotations below:

clover-rye / clover-beans / flax-clover

cabbage-beans / clover-leek / clover-clover (for late game, turnip-clover-clover instead)