The Cost and Quantities of Seasonal Crops
Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2015 8:05 am
Farms are a tricky business, since it is difficult to gauge how much of a Crop you need to produce to maintain your factory production, and what the real value of your crop is, in the first place.
I will begin with the Cost of a crop. All running costs will be given in "Labor units" which are $2,000/month at a 'Cost of Living' of 100. The monthly upkeep will also be listed in its equivalent Labor cost for useful comparison and judging economies of scale.
Cost:
The cost of production for a crop, any crop, is fortunately very easy to calculate. You pay for Labor and Maintenance for a year, and at the end you get your harvest. The total cost of production then is simply the cost of running a Farm for a year. Let's look at 3 common farm setups.
Setup #1:
"The &@#$ Seaport cut me off, and I just need a little bit!"
Medium Farm: 50 Labor ($100k)
1 Crop Unit: 16 Labor
1 Sales Unit: 8 Labor
Total Cost: 74 Labor ($148k/month, $1.78 million/year)
Setup #2:
"3 crops in 1 farm? I am a genius of efficiency!"
Medium Farm: 50 Labor
6 Crop Units: 96 Labor
3 Sales Units: 24 Labor
Total Cost: 170 Labor ($340k/month, $4.08 million/year)
Setup #3:
"I am the God of Corn"
Large Farm: 90 Labor
6 Crop Units: 144 Labor
1 Inventory Unit: 2 Labor
2 Sales Units: 32 Labor
Total Cost: 268 Labor ($536k/month, $6.43 million/year)
Ok, so that's some common Cost figures nailed down. But how much do you actually GET for your money?
Quantity:
A field sits unproductive, costing you money, for 11 months of the year waiting for harvest-time. But then that glorious month comes (April, for half of the crops) and your Crop and Inventory units fill to overflowing with your precious bounty. But with all your hungry factories siphoning off the produce, as it comes in, it can be easy to lose track of exactly how much you have to last the year. Fortunately, I measured it!
A further wrinkle comes from the fact that although the Crop Unit has a Storage Capacity for 30 days worth of harvest, the actual harvest duration is 32 days. This means that if you aren't using your crops or moving them into storage, then 2/32 (6.3%) of your crop goes unharvested. This will rarely happen though, since factories are eternally hungry, and the inclusion of a single inventory unit (such as in Setup#3) provides enough internal storage on your farm to ensure the maximum harvest. (Yes, I checked). Even without an Inventory Unit, the storage capacity of the Sales unit will generally allow for 31 days of harvest to be collected. For these reasons, I will assume Maximum Yield (all 32 days of harvest) for all further cost calculations.
This matters because my data for Crop Yields was gathered by building some Medium Farms and filling them with disconnected crop units which filled up to their full 30 day capacity. (Large Farms have exactly 2x the yield as medium ones.) I have to extrapolate to determine their full harvest.
Without further ado, here are the 12 crops (plus wool!) and their equivalent Maximum Harvests.
Total yield per medium Crop Unit: (Crop Unit Storage = 30 days of Harvest, Max Yield = 32 Days)
Cocoa: 1,297,200, Max: 1,383,680
Coconut: 15,999,840, Max: 17,066,496
Corn: 12,000,000, Max: 12,800,000
Cotton: 2,400,000, Max: 2,560,000
Flax: 3,692,160, Max: 3,938,304
Grapes: 2,666,640, Max: 2,844,416
Lemon: 3,000,000, Max: 3,200,000
Rubber: 2,400,000, Max: 2,560,000
Strawberry: 1,066,560, Max: 1,137,664
Sugarcane: 9,600,000, Max: 10,240,000
Tobacco: 1,333,200, Max: 1,422,080
Wheat: 4,800,000, Max: 5,120,000
Sheep are sheared in June, July, August, September, and October. 1,000 wool/day for a period of 153 days (30+31+31+30+31).
Wool: 153,000
...
Ok, now that we know the annual cost of running a farm, and the total yield a farm can produce, we can calculate the per-unit cost for each crop!
Cost/Unit:
This chart will compare the Cost/Unit for the 3 different setups analyzed. Each larger scale operation costs more to run, but in turn produces more Crops and proportionally better.
*Wool's production costs are different from the Crops because you use Livestock+Processing+Sales
Caveat:
Now, these figures should be taken with a grain of salt, because they make one critical assumption: 100% Utilization. They assume that you are using up every last little bit of Crop that you produce, which in my experience is...unlikely. The only way to get 100% utilization is either to underproduce and suffer annual shortages (thus idling your factories, wasting money elsewhere) or to perfectly balance your Production and Consumption (which is really hard, especially if you ever plan to expand).
My pessimistic view is that since overproduction is inevitable, and more likely and more severe the larger your farm, a good rule of thumb would be to take the Large Farm's cost and Double it. This works out to 50% wastage at a Large farm and 36% wastage at a Medium. Sounds reasonable to me.
I will call it the...
Realistic Cost Index
Cocoa: $0.77
Coconut: $0.06
Corn: $0.08
Cotton: $0.42
Flax: $0.27
Grape: $0.38
Lemon: $0.34
Rubber: $0.42
Strawberry: $0.94
Sugar: $0.10
Tobacco: $0.75
Wheat: $0.21
Wool: $14.74
Conclusion
You can use these costs to judge how much value you are getting out of your own farms, compared with buying from a Seaport or a Competitor, or you can use them to figure out the actual unit cost of a production chain, so that you can set reasonable and useful internal prices. These prices are slightly higher than what you can manage in a really efficient setup, but that's ok! If you use these prices as a benchmark, then any efficiency you can manage you can just appreciate as profit for your Firm.
Final note: Multiply these numbers by the Cost Factor of the city that you're operating in to obtain something more accurate.
Or don't.
There's enough fudging built into these numbers (double the cost 'cuz I said so!) that if you want you can consider any savings from cheaper cities to be pure profit. It's all about your personal accounting preferences.
Addendum: Yield Multipliers from Training
Every Level of training that a Crop Unit has provides an additive +20% boost to its base yield.
Level 1: 1.0
Level 2: 1.2
Level 3: 1.4
Level 4: 1.6
Level 5: 1.8
Level 6: 2.0
Level 7: 2.2
Level 8: 2.4
Level 9: 2.6
You can divide the prices by this value to represent the vastly greater efficiency, if you want to keep tight control of all your material costs. However, I usually prefer to leave the prices at their base level and just use the farm's increased profit as a way of representing the payoff from my investment in training. (Also it's a lot less work than re-pricing all of your farms every couple of years.)
I will begin with the Cost of a crop. All running costs will be given in "Labor units" which are $2,000/month at a 'Cost of Living' of 100. The monthly upkeep will also be listed in its equivalent Labor cost for useful comparison and judging economies of scale.
Cost:
The cost of production for a crop, any crop, is fortunately very easy to calculate. You pay for Labor and Maintenance for a year, and at the end you get your harvest. The total cost of production then is simply the cost of running a Farm for a year. Let's look at 3 common farm setups.
Setup #1:
"The &@#$ Seaport cut me off, and I just need a little bit!"
Medium Farm: 50 Labor ($100k)
1 Crop Unit: 16 Labor
1 Sales Unit: 8 Labor
Total Cost: 74 Labor ($148k/month, $1.78 million/year)
Setup #2:
"3 crops in 1 farm? I am a genius of efficiency!"
Medium Farm: 50 Labor
6 Crop Units: 96 Labor
3 Sales Units: 24 Labor
Total Cost: 170 Labor ($340k/month, $4.08 million/year)
Setup #3:
"I am the God of Corn"
Large Farm: 90 Labor
6 Crop Units: 144 Labor
1 Inventory Unit: 2 Labor
2 Sales Units: 32 Labor
Total Cost: 268 Labor ($536k/month, $6.43 million/year)
Ok, so that's some common Cost figures nailed down. But how much do you actually GET for your money?
Quantity:
A field sits unproductive, costing you money, for 11 months of the year waiting for harvest-time. But then that glorious month comes (April, for half of the crops) and your Crop and Inventory units fill to overflowing with your precious bounty. But with all your hungry factories siphoning off the produce, as it comes in, it can be easy to lose track of exactly how much you have to last the year. Fortunately, I measured it!
A further wrinkle comes from the fact that although the Crop Unit has a Storage Capacity for 30 days worth of harvest, the actual harvest duration is 32 days. This means that if you aren't using your crops or moving them into storage, then 2/32 (6.3%) of your crop goes unharvested. This will rarely happen though, since factories are eternally hungry, and the inclusion of a single inventory unit (such as in Setup#3) provides enough internal storage on your farm to ensure the maximum harvest. (Yes, I checked). Even without an Inventory Unit, the storage capacity of the Sales unit will generally allow for 31 days of harvest to be collected. For these reasons, I will assume Maximum Yield (all 32 days of harvest) for all further cost calculations.
This matters because my data for Crop Yields was gathered by building some Medium Farms and filling them with disconnected crop units which filled up to their full 30 day capacity. (Large Farms have exactly 2x the yield as medium ones.) I have to extrapolate to determine their full harvest.
Without further ado, here are the 12 crops (plus wool!) and their equivalent Maximum Harvests.
Total yield per medium Crop Unit: (Crop Unit Storage = 30 days of Harvest, Max Yield = 32 Days)
Cocoa: 1,297,200, Max: 1,383,680
Coconut: 15,999,840, Max: 17,066,496
Corn: 12,000,000, Max: 12,800,000
Cotton: 2,400,000, Max: 2,560,000
Flax: 3,692,160, Max: 3,938,304
Grapes: 2,666,640, Max: 2,844,416
Lemon: 3,000,000, Max: 3,200,000
Rubber: 2,400,000, Max: 2,560,000
Strawberry: 1,066,560, Max: 1,137,664
Sugarcane: 9,600,000, Max: 10,240,000
Tobacco: 1,333,200, Max: 1,422,080
Wheat: 4,800,000, Max: 5,120,000
Sheep are sheared in June, July, August, September, and October. 1,000 wool/day for a period of 153 days (30+31+31+30+31).
Wool: 153,000
...
Ok, now that we know the annual cost of running a farm, and the total yield a farm can produce, we can calculate the per-unit cost for each crop!
Cost/Unit:
This chart will compare the Cost/Unit for the 3 different setups analyzed. Each larger scale operation costs more to run, but in turn produces more Crops and proportionally better.
Code: Select all
Minimal Farm Medium Farm Large Farm
Cocoa $1.28 $0.49 $0.39
Coconut $0.10 $0.04 $0.03
Corn $0.14 $0.05 $0.04
Cotton $0.69 $0.27 $0.21
Flax $0.45 $0.17 $0.14
Grape $0.62 $0.24 $0.19
Lemon $0.56 $0.21 $0.17
Rubber $0.69 $0.27 $0.21
Strawberry $1.56 $0.60 $0.47
Sugarcane $0.17 $0.07 $0.05
Tobacco $1.25 $0.48 $0.38
Wheat $0.35 $0.13 $0.10
Wool* $14.12 $11.50 $7.37
Caveat:
Now, these figures should be taken with a grain of salt, because they make one critical assumption: 100% Utilization. They assume that you are using up every last little bit of Crop that you produce, which in my experience is...unlikely. The only way to get 100% utilization is either to underproduce and suffer annual shortages (thus idling your factories, wasting money elsewhere) or to perfectly balance your Production and Consumption (which is really hard, especially if you ever plan to expand).
My pessimistic view is that since overproduction is inevitable, and more likely and more severe the larger your farm, a good rule of thumb would be to take the Large Farm's cost and Double it. This works out to 50% wastage at a Large farm and 36% wastage at a Medium. Sounds reasonable to me.
I will call it the...
Realistic Cost Index
Cocoa: $0.77
Coconut: $0.06
Corn: $0.08
Cotton: $0.42
Flax: $0.27
Grape: $0.38
Lemon: $0.34
Rubber: $0.42
Strawberry: $0.94
Sugar: $0.10
Tobacco: $0.75
Wheat: $0.21
Wool: $14.74
Conclusion
You can use these costs to judge how much value you are getting out of your own farms, compared with buying from a Seaport or a Competitor, or you can use them to figure out the actual unit cost of a production chain, so that you can set reasonable and useful internal prices. These prices are slightly higher than what you can manage in a really efficient setup, but that's ok! If you use these prices as a benchmark, then any efficiency you can manage you can just appreciate as profit for your Firm.
Final note: Multiply these numbers by the Cost Factor of the city that you're operating in to obtain something more accurate.
Or don't.
There's enough fudging built into these numbers (double the cost 'cuz I said so!) that if you want you can consider any savings from cheaper cities to be pure profit. It's all about your personal accounting preferences.
Addendum: Yield Multipliers from Training
Every Level of training that a Crop Unit has provides an additive +20% boost to its base yield.
Level 1: 1.0
Level 2: 1.2
Level 3: 1.4
Level 4: 1.6
Level 5: 1.8
Level 6: 2.0
Level 7: 2.2
Level 8: 2.4
Level 9: 2.6
You can divide the prices by this value to represent the vastly greater efficiency, if you want to keep tight control of all your material costs. However, I usually prefer to leave the prices at their base level and just use the farm's increased profit as a way of representing the payoff from my investment in training. (Also it's a lot less work than re-pricing all of your farms every couple of years.)
