Hill-top Farm
| Hill-top Farm | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Farm Type |
| Location | The Farm |
| Skill | Mining |
| Tillable Tiles | 1648 |
| Buildable Tiles | 930 |
The Hill-top Farm puts a working quarry on the property. Its southwestern corner is a raised rocky shelf that grows fresh stone, ore and geode nodes every morning, and what turns up there climbs with the farmer's Mining level, so the same patch of rock hands over copper in the first Spring and iridium much later. The price is paid in terrain: cliffs and a stream break the rest of the farm into shelves and ledges, and the planting has to be fitted around them. A boulder or a heavy piece of timber can also sit in the entrance to the mining shelf at the start of a save, which locks the map's whole selling point away until a tool upgrade arrives. The layout is chosen once and kept for the save, and it rewards a farmer who likes crafting and smelting more than wide fields.
Layout
The farm is built in steps. High ground and low ground sit side by side with cliff faces between them, and a stream runs down through the middle, so there is no single stretch of open soil to plough. A good deal of the ground refuses a hoe while happily taking a building, which means the ledges and the awkward corners are where the Barn, the Coop and the shed row belong.
The mining shelf fills the southwest. Each morning it tries to seed itself with new rocks, and anything already standing on a tile blocks the spawn, so paths, fences and crates laid across the shelf quietly reduce the harvest. Artifact spots turn up among the rocks as well, which makes the shelf a steady trickle of museum donations without a trip down the ladders.
Two bushes elsewhere on the map clear once the Axe reaches copper or better. The rest of the clearing work is ordinary trees, weeds and stones.
A cleared quarry rolls for a new node each morning, and Mining skill decides what it can roll.
| Level | Stone | Artifact Spot | Geode | Frozen Geode | Magma Geode | Copper | Iron | Gold | Iridium |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0, 1, 2, 3 | 60.44% | 15% | 6.72% | 0% | 0% | 17.85% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 4 | 51.37% | 15% | 5.71% | 0% | 0% | 15.17% | 12.75% | 0% | 0% |
| 5, 6 | 51.37% | 15% | 2.85% | 2.85% | 0% | 15.17% | 12.75% | 0% | 0% |
| 7 | 46.23% | 15% | 2.57% | 2.57% | 0% | 13.66% | 11.48% | 8.5% | 0% |
| 8, 9 | 46.23% | 15% | 1.71% | 1.71% | 1.71% | 13.66% | 11.48% | 8.5% | 0% |
| 10+ | 45.77% | 15% | 1.7% | 1.7% | 1.7% | 13.52% | 11.36% | 8.42% | 0.85% |
Farming
Crops here are planted in pockets. The useful habit is to pick two or three of the flatter shelves, square them off, and treat each as its own small field with its own sprinkler block, rather than trying to run long rows across ground that keeps stepping up and down. A Quality Sprinkler and its ring of eight tiles suits that shape, and an Iridium Sprinkler is worth saving for the one or two shelves wide enough to take a five by five square.
The stream is a quiet bonus for the crop plan. Tilled tiles along the bank will hold Rice Shoots and Taro Tubers, which both insist on soil beside water, and a Watering Can tops up from the stream rather than from a walk back to the house.
Because the field is broken up, the Greenhouse matters more on this map than on the open layouts. It is the one square of soil on the property with no cliff in it, and it is the obvious home for the crops that want a tidy grid.
Fishing
The stream takes a rod, and about half of the casts pull up the fish of the Cindersap Forest river, with the rest coming up as rubbish. That is enough to work on the Community Center fishing bundles at home and enough to keep a cooking supply stocked, though a serious angler still fishes the town river or the beach.
Crab Pots behave here as they do in any fresh water, so the stream can be lined with them for an overnight catch that never needs the minigame at all. A Watering Can refills from the same water.
Strategy
The first year on this map runs on the shelf. Copper is on the farm from the opening days, which brings the first tool upgrades forward and makes the Blacksmith a short walk rather than a mining expedition. Iron starts appearing once the Mining level has risen a little, gold a good way further on, and iridium only once the skill is maxed, so the shelf keeps gaining value across the whole save instead of peaking early.
How often to clear it matters. A shelf that has been emptied builds back up over several days, and the stock stops growing once the rocks run out of free tiles, so visiting every few days collects a full load rather than the handful a daily sweep returns. Keeping the shelf bare of paths and clutter is the other half of the same point.
The map also has the clearest trap of any layout. A Large Stump, a Large Log or a Boulder can block the way onto the mining shelf when the save begins, and none of those break until the Axe or the Pickaxe reaches steel, which can be most of a year away. Many farmers restart the save until the entrance is open, because a blocked shelf means the map has given up farmland for nothing.
The last trap is relying on the shelf alone. It produces ore steadily but slowly, and it hands over no ladders, no monster drops and no deep floors, so The Mines and the Skull Cavern still have to be worked for the volumes that later crafting wants.
Notes
Geode nodes appear on the shelf along with the ore, and which of the three kinds shows up depends on the Mining level, so the plain Geodes of the early game give way to Frozen and Magma Geodes as the skill climbs. Clint cracks them open at the Blacksmith.
The ruin on the lower ground turns into the Greenhouse once the Pantry bundles are finished or Joja has been paid, and Robin or the Wizard will move the restored building to flatter ground on request.
The farmhouse arrives with its own mountain styling inside, while the outside of the building matches every other farmhouse in the valley.
All Farm Types
The table lists every layout with the skill it favours and how much of it can be farmed or built on.
| Name | Skill | Tillable | Buildable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Farm | Farming | 3427 | 235 |
| Riverland Farm | Fishing | 1578 | 516 |
| Forest Farm | Foraging | 1413 | 1490 |
| Hill-top Farm | Mining | 1648 | 930 |
| Wilderness Farm | Combat | 2131 | 444 |
| Four Corners Farm | Multiplayer | 2952 | 562 |
| Beach Farm | Foraging and Fishing | 2700 | 1928 |
| Meadowlands Farm | Farming | 2066 | 2141 |