#rop tips beginner

great question! i definitely struggled with this. but there is a solution:

food buffs and making your own timber forest:

firstly, food buffs are a huge boon. you are right equipping accessories is a great way to get more resources, but can be difficult if you like the accessories you already have equipped. but food buffs can be surprisingly powerful! id pay attention to what recipes you can make, and see if any of them give you woodcutting buffs - ill add some dishes under the cut that could help (just in case people want to be surprised by what they can make, and don't want to be spoiled)

as for what i mean by timber forests: you can buy tree saplings from Igrork! i missed this for the longest time when i first played, but the tab is right next to the crop tab from the start! you can buy fruiting trees, nut trees, etc, but you can also get birch and hardwood trees! there's so much space in the Southern field (and clearing that will give you a lot of wood on its own!), you can easily plant a row or two of trees that you keep to chop wood down, then replant!

these two things combined make it easier to obtain wood - but chopping down the forest and land trees also works, and has no ill consequences. just remember, for all naturally generating trees, to chop the stump too - otherwise the tree won't regrow!

list of dishes for woodcutting under the cut (contains spoilers for recipes, crops, ingredients, kitchen tools, and how to unlock the recipes and kitchen tools required)

on the wiki on the page for the player character it says birthday and gender and both are listed as 'customizable' which lead me to believe you could choose a birthday since you can choose a gender

ah, i found it, thank you! im not a member of the wiki, ill have to see if i can do anything.

good question!! the answer is... complicated. even with many playthroughs, i myself have not found a perfect way to do this. you want to both get knowledge up, but you also want a variety of crops - how to balance it?

first, use ollas. the main obstacle to having a lot of crops (and therefore being able to have a pretty good variety while also getting knowledge) is watering. even with a well, it can be tedious. ollas water the 8 adjacent spaces automatically every morning. and remember, you do not need to top them off every day! the olla will last 2 days, and will visually show the water level going down; the last day will show the crops watered and olla empty - this is when you need to refill it. you don't need to spend your time and energy topping it off every day!

second, upgrade that waterskin! in some farming games, like stardew valley, the watering can is not that important to upgrade. that is not the case in RoP! upgrading your waterskin will mean your reach will drastically expand for less energy, and you will refill the olla in less trips!

i go into all this bc having your watering be easy makes it much easier to both diversely plant crops, and plant a lot of them, so you are able to get the best of both worlds. the soil in RoP does not become untilled over time, so you are able to set up crop fields easily, with watering being the only ongoing concern, energy-wise

now i don't know how everyone does this, but my general strategy is, in year 1, to use the smaller northern field for crops, and the southern field for animals. animals will not only eat grass, but also weeds/fiber, helping clear that area. meanwhile, im able to focus on filling the top field with crops.

i usually do 2-3 ollas for each crop. if a crop grows into the next season, i may chop it down to 1 olla, to make room for crops i haven't grown before. at the end of year 1, i will check how far each crop is in knowledge, then in year 2, will prioritize the crops with less knowledge. for example, if tomatoes are at level 5, the max, then I will only plant 1 olla of them, but if they're at level 1, the lowest, i might plant 3-4 ollas of them.

but also, i will plant a lot of a crop if i know i want to process or contribute a lot of it, even if it's at max level. so i have to balance that, as well.

in year 2 is when i may rearrange the farm and fields for whatever vibe im going for (which changes in every playthrough), but my year 1 layout is generally this, bc ive found it works for me.

there is not a perfect or right way to do it! the only thing i can say for sure is what not to do:

do not only plant 1 or 2 crops, and do not skimp on planting crops in general.

having a variety of crops is important, and having enough to contribute is important game progression!

Also, did my first ask get through?

firstly, yes, your ask got through! just answered it :D

but yeah there are a LOT of crop types in this game! the way i deal with it is chests sorted by season. each season has one chest, and i keep 1-2 qualities of each crop type at most

so for example, tomatoes have a wild and domestic variety, and both of those have 4 qualities. this makes 8 possible slots used in a chest, which is quite a lot! what i do is keep a stack of many, with whatever quality has the most, and then a small stack of the best quality i have. so if i got 2 normal quality wild tomatoes, 5 good quality, 3 better quality, and 2 best quality, i would only keep the stacks of 5 better quality and 2 best quality. the rest would be contributed, processed, gifted, etc.

once im only getting domesticated versions of a crop, i will keep only one stack of the wild variety. this means in a chest of 24 slots, only 3 will be taken up by any tomatoes. and that's the max amount of slots i give a crop. for crops i end up using less of, needing less of, i often only have 1 stack.

you can always make more chests, they are quite cheap to make, but you really don't need to be holding onto every single quality of a crop! if you're wanting to save some for cooking, putting a chest in your hut is a good plan, as well as expanding your hut - a fully upgraded hut will come with built in pantry space, which is 48 slots! it takes time to get to that point tho, alas

as for sheds: sheds are a pretty good investment! i have a good few of them...but not for storage. as you progress in the game, there are more and more ways to process raw materials. food, animal products, etc. i mostly use sheds to store those, especially ones that can be used without the player being there the whole time*, in bulk.

*ie. a smoker vs pestle; smoker you just place an item and can do other things while it goes, a pestle you must be there the whole time

TAME ANIMALS

this is legit the best early-game advice i can give anyone. tame animals, build animal sheds, start breeding animals

there is so much semi-early, middle, and late game content that you need animal products for - and for a reason ill provide under the cut for people who want to see the spoilers.

one tip regarding animal sheds is once you have the basic one built, don't upgrade it yet - get another basic animal shed. then start upgrading. the basic shed holds 4 animals, and the next upgrade for the shed holds 7. so by getting another basic animal shed, you add one more slot for an animal for less cost! (30 wood and 20 stone for a basic shed, 30 flint and 50 fiber for the first upgrade)

the other thing is make friends with people! a lot of Ideas and quests and materials only become available once you hit a certain amount of flowers with someone! this is a game about community, not making the most optimized farm possible. you literally will not be able to progress unless you connect and engage with others!

in that vein, also, if you are playing single-player: try to take your time and do a bit of everything. fishing, farming, caving, etc. you need materials and resources from some skills in order to progress in another - it's a very well-balanced game. you are not in a rush!! (except the first day, meeting everyone. in which case i will say: the map shows people's current locations!)

thank you for your ask! sorry for the slow response, the holidays and my work has been quite busy!

spoilers for very late game below the cut!

yes!! you absolutely can!!

you can date anyone, even if you are in a union! more than that, you can still experience all the flower events even if you turn someone down - they'll just be more platonic hangouts, but still have the emotional closeness and character lore!! you can get full flowers with them, see all the cutscenes, dating or not!!

it's one of my favorite parts of the game - no jealousy issues, you can just be poly!! unfortunately you can't be in a union with more than one person, but you can be dating however many you like!!

quick note: children don't provide a lot of extra help, but they are some of the best developed and designed children ive seen in games like these. i won't go into much, bc spoilers, but i will say ive had some legitimately emotional moments with my kids in-game, which is a huge departure from the 'small sprite that walks around your house/farm' model ive seen in other games. children are worth having for the experience alone!

more information on extra farm help goes into spoilers, so:

spoilers for late game farm mechanics under the cut

of course, and thank you for all the asks!!! it's so nice to have engagement on this blog!!!

yes, diversifying your animals is a good idea! having a couple of each, enough to have a breeding pair (and then to breed those offspring...im glad inbreeding has no consequences in this game) is good, and not just for breeding!

while some animals, like boars, have males and females give the same resource (for boars, fur), having a male and female of some animals is the only way to get all of their resources! for example, male ibex drop horns, and female ibex can be milked.

taming a lot of animals also can help with easy contribution points: meat! you can send one animal to Grob per day for butchery. the next day you will receive the meat from a Smoke Signal. taming animals you don't have a specific use for, like if you already have enough of that species, is how i do this. meat, especially smoked meat, gives a lot of contribution points!

note: you can also get meat from traps, which you can get once you've unlocked the savannah. this is a good option, too - it costs materials and time setting them up, but can be done every day. meanwhile you get 4 free slots on the flute a day, but it takes multiple days to tame an animal.

there's another reason to tame a lot of animals, but it's a bit of a spoiler (not a huge one), so ill put it below the cut!

spoiler for very minor mid-late game mechanic: