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I currently have 38 fields and the 39th asks for 750 catnips. Are they still worth the food I should spend for them? To what extent? (that is, how many catnip fields can I have before the price makes them worthless) I currently have 12 kittens

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Catnip fields give infinite catnip. Therefor more fields is better. At least, that is my philosophy. I have 47 fields right now, and the next costs 2057. During spring I have no farmers and +1.5 catnip. During summer and autumn I need 1 or 2 farmers, depending on the amount of catnip I have to survive winter. During winter, I have most of the time negative catnip production, but I have a buffer (that was a tip from a previous question) so that does not matter very much. My buffer is now 3500, after a warm summer.

It's not mathematical my answer, but I try to upgrade my field when my buffer is more than twice as much as the price of the new field. In that way I still can survive winter and have as least as kittens possible on the farm.

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  • While I agree that it's better to just get as many as possible instead of letting catnips pile up, I was wondering if at some point it's better to convert them to wood instead of buying another field
    – Raestloz
    Commented Sep 18, 2014 at 13:44
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    After playing for a while longer, considering that it'd be very bad if my kittens die, I decided to upgrade field (to 56), pasture (to 14) and aqueduct (to 8), now I have 7 base production, 3 kittens are enough to feed my army of 14 kittens. Since food is the most important resource, I guess it's never a waste to buy more field, it's just a matter of balancing it with pastures and aqueducts
    – Raestloz
    Commented Sep 18, 2014 at 17:10
  • I'm taking this as an answer because while this does not answer the question mathematically, after playing further I find that I agree with the philosophy behind the answer
    – Raestloz
    Commented Sep 23, 2014 at 4:17
  • It does answer it mathematically though. The catnip you get is infinite, so it's guaranteed to be more efficient in the long term than any fixed benefit you might get from the wood, since you'd get infinite wood with that infinite food. Eventually.
    – corsiKa
    Commented Sep 25, 2014 at 9:33
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If you want to calculate if a new Catnip field is worth the investment use:

Price/ProductionRate = Seconds Till Profit

Example, if a new field costs 10K

10000/0.63 = 15873 seconds

Convert seconds to hours

15873/3600 = 4.4 Hours

A field that costs 10K will start paying you back in about 4.4 hours

Of course the modifiers and seasons change this payback rate, generally the payoff time will be much better, this simple math can help provide a baseline.

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  • The fields only become 'Worthless' if you quit the game before the payoff happens.
    – DigitalDesignDj
    Commented Jul 11, 2015 at 3:19
  • but it's always a question of opportunity cost... if you had extra catnip, you could also convert it to wood and use that wood for something else.
    – Jason S
    Commented Nov 22, 2015 at 14:52
  • Without modifiers or metaphysics, the first field takes 16s to pay itself back, and the n-th one costs (1.12)^n that, so every tenth is 3 times more expensive and every 30th is 30 times more expensive. Roughly field #12 takes a minute to reimburse itself, field #42 takes half an hour, field #80 about a day, and field #110 about a month. At which point you probably have reached either significant modifiers or storage problems.
    – Nikana Reklawyks
    Commented Nov 24, 2015 at 1:25
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I keep the 10% rule in mind: only buy another field if it'll cost you 10% or less of your current harvest. No idea if it is actually mathematically sound, but so far, it has worked out pretty ok for me

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I mean, you should always buy more fields. Once you have hit the storage limit, THEN start converting to wood. More fields = more kittens you can support, AND more wood you can convert, in the long run.

I would advise buying as many fields as you have patience for before buying a single hut.

(source: have started from scratch in a new browser multiple times, have a good grasp of early game)

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