Is goat farming generally worth it?

[Yomamashouse]

Hey all, I am curious to know what you guys think of the goat farming chain of farm buildings. Wheat offers maximum food minimal income, while livestock are maximum income minimal food. Goats seem to occupy the area in the middle. Do you guys tend to build lots of goat farms or is it better to stick to a balance of wheat and livestock?

[Caligula's_Horse]

I usually go with which ever chain gives the most food at minimal fertility. Money is better made through industry and commerce buildings (that don't suffer from dropping fertility while we're at it), and the food situation gets harsh late game.

Fertility is basically a crutch that the earlier you learn to live without, the better, because later on it will be kicked out from under you.

[yupper]

Fertility drops as a result of climate change, so wheat farms no longer become viable in most provinces in the late game. This is why many players start building only goat/cattle/sheep/etc farms right from the get-go, so that they can prepare for late game climate change and do not need to spend any money to convert the wheat farms to animal husbandry buildings. So yeah...pretty much what CH said.

[Yomamashouse]

Fertility drops as a result of climate change...

I knew something was up! I was doing amazingly as the WRE, annihilating hunnic armies and stopping rebellion, then suddenly I was inexplicably at -500 food. This must be why. I guess I will stick to livestock and husbandry.

[ThorHa]

While climate change renders wheat farms vastly inferior to e.g. sheep and cattle, it might still be economically sound to initially build them in very fertile regions - you can convert later, provided the funds for conversion are available.

But to be on the safe side it pays to only calculate food based on base return of an agricultural building because that is where you will end up anyway. Even the most fertile regions in Attila will end up just one level above "infertile".

Regards,
Thorsten

[Aenima]

Unless I desperately need to get a province in the + for food I never go for wheat farms. They just don't make any money and often their surplus food isn't needed.

Typically I go for cattle farms but I've never actually sat down and tried to work out the pros and cons of going for sheep AND cattle; cattle is something of the middle option when it comes to food and income, so I'd imagine where food isn't an issue having a sheep farm could potentially be well worth it.

[yupper]

Typically I go for cattle farms but I've never actually sat down and tried to work out the pros and cons of going for sheep AND cattle potentially be well worth it.

That's pretty much how I structure towns. I always build a cattle farm chain and a tanner industrial chain (which synergizes with animal husbandry buildings), then a sheep farm chain if there is no resource or port in that town.

[6Bagheera9]

Goat farming gets you decent food and wealth even with terrible fertility. You'll need to make sure that every town has a farm, but it will support a good deal of development when combine with other non-farm food producing buildings.

[Slaists]

Camel farms all the way