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InPharaoh: A New Era, farming is vital to sustaining your population. Having a steady supply of food and water is the cornerstone of your city and nothing will thrive without it. While there are a couple of other ways to generate food, on most maps farming will be a core industry you’ll need to get right.
Related:Pharaoh A New Era: How To Keep Your City Safe
Farming isn’t just useful for food either, it can also generate some raw materials you can sell or use for crafting, although these will be covered in another guide. Here we take a look at all the options for farming food, and which ones you should prioritise.
Food Farms
There are five core food farms:Chickpeas, Figs, Grain, Lettuce, and Pomegranate. In order to build them you’ll needa meadow- indicated by the presence of white, pink, and yellow flowers. Alternatively, they can bebuilt on a floodplain in the river, which we’ll cover later.
Meadow farms will need six workers, while farms on floodplains require a work camp to provide labour.
Often you will havelimited farms available, and in many ways, it doesn’t matter which you use. However, some have the advantage ofproducing two smaller harvests instead of one large one. This can be especially helpful if you are building on floodplains, as you will lose less if a flood comes early and wipes out your crops. Here are the details for each farm.
January and May
June and November
None
As you can see themonths in which harvests can be gathered varyfrom crop to crop. This means thatif you have the choice of more than one it’s worth varying what you build.This will allow you to have a more steady flow of food, and also to providemultiple food types, somethingcitizens will ask for later in the game as your housing evolves.
Water Lifts And Irrigation
If you are building on a meadow you may notice that your crops aren’t growing well. Often this is down to irrigation. While worker shortage will also affect productionif the land is not fertile your yield will be reduced.
In order to irrigate the land you’ll need tobuild a water lift next to the Nile.This must beconnected to a road and requires six workersto operate at full capacity.
Once this is operational you’ll want tobuild irrigation ditches around your farms. If you click the farm you can see information about if the irrigation is working, and how fertile the land is.
Irrigation ditches can beup to two tiles awayfrom a farm.
Yourditches will need to link together and be connected to the water pump.You cannot build them directly underneath a road in a line, but they cancross under a road.Simply build them over the road, making a crossroads, anda bridge will be added.
Related:Pharaoh New Era: How To Keep Your Citizens Happy
Farming On A Floodplain
If you have no meadows available you’ll need tobuild your farms on a floodplain. To do this, place your farms on the fertile land by the riverbank and connect with a road as usual. You’ll also need toput a work camp nearbyto train workers each season.
We recommend placingone work camp per four to five farms.
Each season the floods will come in, andthe land will be unusable for the duration.Workers will besent back out after the floods recedeto prepare for the next harvest.
Flood Changes
The floods naturally change and if youcheck the Nileometer,at the top of your screen you can seehow strong they will be. The higher the waves the further in the flood will come, and it will last for the duration of the icon.
If youbuild Temples and Shrines to Osirisand stay in her good booksby holding frequent festivals dedicated to her then she willreduce the severity and duration of the floods.Likewise, if you anger her then expect the floods to be fiercer and more unpredictable.
Other Food Sources
There arethree other sources of food: Cattle Ranch, Fishing Wharf and Hunters Lodge.Each one has different requirements in order to operate.Cattle Ranches need a supply of strawfrom a grain farm, aFishing Wharf will require a boatand access to an area populated with fish, while aHunters Lodge can only be used if the map has live game animalsfor them to hunt.
If you have game animals on your mapbuilding a hunters lodgeclose by willnet you a lot of meatvery quickly.
Hunters Lodgesseem to bethe quickest way of generating food, with just one or two able to provide for a decent sized city. The closer they are to prey the more efficient they are.Fishing Wharfscome next, althoughtheir speed is hugely dependent on how close to shore the fish are.
Farming Tips
Here are afew quick tips for efficient farming and food distribution.
Next:Everything You Need To Know Before Playing Pharaoh A New Era
