Wilderness Farm
| Wilderness Farm | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Farm Type |
| Location | The Farm |
| Skill | Combat |
| Tillable Tiles | 2131 |
| Buildable Tiles | 444 |
The Wilderness Farm is the layout that fights back. On this map the advanced setting that lets monsters appear on the farm is already switched on when the save begins, so once the light goes the ground opens and things climb out of it. What climbs out depends on how far the Combat skill has come: green slimes and bats in the first year, frost bats and shadow brutes in the middle of a run, serpents once the skill is maxed. One creature belongs to this farm and nowhere else, and it is the reason seasoned farmers pick the map. Iridium Golems begin turning up at Combat level 9, and they hand over Iridium Ore at the doorstep instead of at the bottom of the Skull Cavern. A lake fills the southwest corner and cliffs run along the east and the south, so the trade is a slice of planting room for a monster spawner that never runs out.
Layout
What sits between the water and the rock is a broad, plain field. The lake takes the southwest, the cliff edges take the east and the south, and the rest of the ground is the ordinary scatter of trees, weeds and stones that the first few weeks clear away. Nothing about the shape is hard to plan around. The difficulty on this map is the clock rather than the terrain.
Monsters appear out of sight beyond the edge of the screen and then make their way inwards, wandering as much as hunting. Anything that walks is stopped by whatever is in its path, so fences, a close ring of buildings and gates that are actually shut will keep slimes and golems out of a crop block or a yard. Bats ignore all of that and come in over the top. A fence is therefore worth putting round the farmhouse, the animal buildings and the busiest working corner rather than round the whole property, since a wall long enough to seal the map costs more Wood than the nuisance is worth and still leaves the sky open.
The night work settles into a routine fairly quickly. A weapon and a stack of cooked food in the bag turn the walk to the shipping bin after dark from a risk into an errand, and the slow ground monsters can simply be outrun when there is no time to fight. Most nights put one or two creatures on the farm, and a bad night puts out half a dozen, so the pressure is steady rather than sudden.
Farming
Crops behave here exactly as they would on open ground, which is the quiet strength of the map. The field is wide enough to be marked out in sprinkler blocks in the first year and then filled in as the better sprinklers arrive, and the strip along the cliffs that refuses a hoe is the natural home for the Barn, the Coop and the machine sheds. Crows are still the only thing interested in the crops themselves, so a Scarecrow at each block corner is the whole of the defence a planting needs.
The fighting pays the planting back in seed. Wilderness Golems drop Mixed Seeds about half the time they are killed, and a Mixed Seed put straight into tilled soil comes up as one of the crops the current season allows, so a few nights of swinging a sword fill a corner of the field without a visit to Pierre's General Store. Over a season that adds up to a free second planting, and the crops that come out of it are ordinary sellable produce rather than curiosities.
The nights also stock the chest with the Monster Loot that normally takes a trip underground. Bat Wings, Void Essence and slime pile up at home, which matters for the crafting recipes that call for them and for the eradication goals posted at the Adventurer's Guild, both of which otherwise mean long runs through the mines.
Fishing
The lake draws on the catch list of the mountain lake, and it is the only farm water in the valley that does. That single fact is worth more than it sounds, because the four fish the Fish Tank's lake bundle asks for all live in that lake: Largemouth Bass through the daylight hours in every season, Carp through Spring, Summer and Fall, Bullhead at any hour, and Sturgeon in Summer and Winter. A farmer on this map can close that bundle without ever walking up to the mountain.
Two other catches are worth waiting for. Midnight Carp bites late at night in Fall and Winter, which is a convenient window on a farm where being outside after dark is the normal state of things. Sturgeon is the money fish of the list and the one that fills a Fish Pond with roe for Caviar later on.
Rubbish makes up most of what comes up, though, so the lake is a place to fill a bundle and a cooking shelf rather than to run a fishing business. Crab Pots are the better use of the bank for volume. A pot sunk in the shallows and loaded with bait works as a freshwater trap, and whatever it has caught is waiting the next day without a single cast.
Strategy
The first year runs like any other farm's. Monsters at Combat level nothing are a single green slime that a Scythe will see off, so the opening Spring is spent clearing ground and planting rather than fighting, and the sword from the Adventurer's Guild arrives in time for the nights to get busier. The useful habit from the start is to finish the outdoor jobs in daylight and to treat anything after dusk as a trip with a weapon in hand.
Combat levels are the thing to raise somewhere else. Anything killed on the farm pays a third of the Combat experience the same kill would give underground, so the mines remain the place to build the skill and the farm is the place to cash it in. That order matters because the map's prize is gated behind it. Nothing of real value spawns until Combat level 9, when Iridium Golems start appearing, and the farm is quiet in the meantime.
Once the golems do arrive the map earns its keep. They are slow, they walk straight at whoever is nearest, and a sword swung at them does the job, so a night spent clearing the farm is far safer than the same haul of Iridium Ore dug out of the Skull Cavern with bombs and a timer running. The honest limit is volume. A golem gives up ore now and then rather than reliably, so the farm supplements a Skull Cavern run instead of replacing it, and anyone who needs iridium in quantity for sprinklers and tool upgrades will still be making the trip.
The trap on this layout is deciding late that the nights are not wanted. The monsters are not a feature that can be ignored, because they are on the farm whether or not the farmer goes outside, and the field they cost is gone for the life of the save.
Notes
The nights can be switched off. The Dark Shrine of Night Terrors in the Witch's Hut takes a Strange Bun and flips the farm's monster setting, which quiets this map for a farmer who has tired of it, and the same shrine is what the other layouts use to turn their nights on.
That toggle is also why the map is often judged the weakest of the eight. Every other layout can have night monsters added to it later, so what the Wilderness Farm really sells is the Iridium Golem and the mountain lake water, and a farmer who wants neither has given up farmland for nothing.
The Adventurer's Guild counts what dies on the farm towards its eradication targets, so the slime and bat tallies creep upwards during nights spent at home.
One creature on this map has nothing to do with the layout at all. A Pig digging up a Truffle has a very small chance of turning it into a Truffle Crab, and that happens on any farm whether or not monsters are enabled.
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 |