Few questions about trapping and a couple of misc questions

[Kantall]

I've decided to survive as a hunter/trapper and for the most part this is going well. During spring I got a lot of elks, stags and the odd wolf and bear wandering into my trap fence (Two world map tiles long, with a non-spiked pit every 6-7 area tiles apart, not sure if this is a decent setup or not) and I didn't even have to bait it, every few days I'd have a new prize. These early successes have faded though and I haven't had an animal caught in it for over a month, nor in my bear traps in spruce mires. I have no bait for herbivores honestly, since I read it's turnips I need and although I have a box of turnip seeds, I missed the right time to plant them and will have to see winter through now.

My trapping skill is 65% and though I'm not sure if it matters I make sure to be reasonably unburdened, unfatigued and fully fed/watered when setting my traps. I've baited them all with smoked meat, though I can't find ouit anywhere if this works as bait.

If anyone could run through some trapping tips or point me toward a good trapping guide I'd really appreciate it.

Following on from this I do have a couple of minor questions I couldn't find the answers to.

Where can I buy cows? I've searched a good amount of Reemi, Koivula and Kiesse villages though admittedly haven't been able to go further yet. I've found pigs, sheep and dogs but no cows/bulls.

For actual hunting my strategy has been, against animals that flee (Stags, elk and reindeer) to command my dog to attack, fire a couple of arrows at the target while it's fleeing, then chase the tracks in a walk, switching to a run when I hear my dog barking. Is there any way I could improve on this?

Finally, my agriculture is at 0%. Is it worth just ignoring farming altogether with that in mind or will I still get a reasonable harvest at 0%? Or, does the skill raise fast enough to make it worth pursuing?

Thankyou to anyone who can answer any of these.

[PALU]

As far as I've found, processed meat (cooked/dried/smoked) cannot be used as bait. You can feed it to dogs as long as it's not spoiled, though.
Spoiled raw meat is a very poor bait, but may work (scavengers ear spoiled meat left on the ground, but the "fishiness" factor of traps may repel stronger than the rather weak attraction factor of spoiled meat. Fresh meet is good for carnivores, though, and fresh fish work with bears (berries SHOULD work with bears as well, but I haven't tried that).

If you don't have turnips you can buy them from settlements, but that may be against your game principles.

Non carnivorous birds are quite attracted to berries, and hares go for turnips and various other kinds of roots.

With a trap fence you don't really need bait, although it probably helps. Personally I make a trap fence around a single tile lake and have 3 traps on each side (pit traps without stakes or bear traps).

Cows ought to be available from the same kind of villages as pigs and sheep, I think. Driik territory is the goto place for anything that's not culture specific, but cows are by no means restricted to the Driik. Reindeer herders tend not to have any animals apart from reindeer and dogs, though.

I've stopped sending my precious dogs after animals after losing one to a reindeer. Instead, I endurance hunt them by walking after them, following their tracks until they're exhausted. I sometimes lose them, especially if they get into an area with other tracks (including a lot of its own older tracks). Chasing them into a bend of a river or lake can be very effective, though, as you can often walk back and forth to get the panicked animal run itself into exhaustion as it runs back and forth.

You can get farming going from 0%. The first year you may not get much more than your seeds back for low yield plants, but turnips will still provide a surplus, and cereals work as well. This is, of course, provided you don't get large parts of your harvest eaten by animals...
The second year ought to give you a reasonable harvest. However, all of this is dependent on how much you plant. Preparing soil occasionally improves the skill, but very occasionally, while planting is fairly effective.  There are more and less exploity tricks to speed the rate at which the agriculture improves...

[Kantall]

Thankyou, that was all very, very helpful!

The bait issue explains why I'm having such an awkward time attracting animals into my traps. I've just replaced all of my bait with fresh meat and will hopefully get some major results soon. Winter's just around the corner and I'm weirdly suspecting it will be the best time for me, with bait taking much longer to expire and the meat I do get being able to be dried on my Kota. I'm not sure if there are less animals in winter though, or if carnivores will get desperate and try to hunt me.

Driik land wasn't too far away from me and I managed to find a bull, much to my delight, so thankyou for that, finally I have a way to haul back my kills when I'm hunting further from home. I'm guessing it's not possible, but if I buy a cow too (Not that I can afford one yet, the bull cost me a whole lot) will they breed?

[PALU]

Not yet. They won't breed in the next update either, but cows give milk except during the winter.

I generally skin and butcher animals where I kill them, and then use my character and my dog to haul the results back. However, it may take two or up to four trips (my last character was very small, with a very limited carrying capacity).
I tend not to hunt too far away, though.

[LoLotov]

I have one piece of information to add to PALU's excellent active hunting advice: only hunt in pine/open mire. The increased visibility of potential prey is good zoomed out, but once you're on the ground endurance hunting, it's downright overpowered. Your prey will have difficulty getting completely out of sight range, and the large number of odd shaped water features are as useful as fences for coralling a fleeing animal.

[Kantall]

I have one piece of information to add to PALU's excellent active hunting advice: only hunt in pine/open mire. The increased visibility of potential prey is good zoomed out, but once you're on the ground endurance hunting, it's downright overpowered. Your prey will have difficulty getting completely out of sight range, and the large number of odd shaped water features are as useful as fences for coralling a fleeing animal.

Yeah, I've noticed when I've been hunting in the forest unless I have dogs with me, I almost always fail. The issue I'm having though is there are almost no areas like that anywhere near me. Should I be considering relocation? I'm currently between Kiesse and Koivula lands, settled by a lake surrounded by Lichenous pine forests and Heathland, with some spruce mire to the southeast (Very small amount and there's almost no animals there. My bear traps have literally never caught anything there)

I don't mind relocating honestly, I use a Kota and have a bull so it's fairly trivial to do so, though I'd need to make a new trap fence. Better now if I need to rather than after I build a log cabin.

[PALU]

I do my hunting where I encounter the prey, but it has usually been in forests, and only rarely on open ground. As far as the forest isn't spruce infested I find it works OK, though.

[Silenia]

Having a high tracking skill definitely helps a lot in seeing enough tracks to actually follow that fleeing animal, even through woodlands. If dealing with an animal that's been hanging around the same area for a while, do occasionally double-check if you're still following the recent, not several days old, tracks.

And be persistent. It can easily take traipsing after that stag for half a dozen overworld tiles before it gets even slightly fatigued. Make tactic use of hiding/not hiding. Don't be afraid to spook an animal to get it to flee and thus tire itself much faster, but at the same time, try not to needlessly spook it in areas where you're likely to loose track of its tracks either due to terrain visibility, track visibility on said terrain or due to presence of many, many other/older tracks.

And don't spook it if you know it'll cost you an opportunity to corral it against a shoreline, fence, closed treeline or the likes.

If you lose the tracks, head back to the last known track and double-check it didn't turn while you headed in a straight line. Look for tracks manually if none are visible. If you really can't find the next tracks, look a bit further out from the last track. Keep in mind whether it's likely to change direction slightly or a lot. Try to consider where it might have gone. Which brings me to my next point:

Almost as important, though, is getting used to various animals and their behaviour pattern. Know what animals can and can't get over fences. What animals are willing to go into the water to escape and which will be corralled nicely against the shoreline. What animals may be chased onto weak ice and drown themselves or at least tire themselves out a lot that way. Whether an animal is likely to head in the same direction for a long while or turn frequently, and whether they're more likely to change direction after hitting an obstacle or just try to get around it and then head for the same direction they were originally going in. Whether they're likely to keep trying to flee even if you've got them cornered, or if they may try to actually defend themselves. If they're group animals, whether they will try to mostly flee in the same direction and then regroup asap, or scatter in all directions and then regroup, have some scatter as others go aggressive and attack you or whether persistence will make it possible to drive one individual from its herd without having the rest nipping on your heels.

In other words, don't hunt a bear like it's a stag, or a forest reindeer like it's a wolf.

[Shadowdweller]

I find that the game rarely (if at all) just spawns animals in traps.  The single biggest thing you can do to help trapping success is to search for animals, and then place traps in nearby areas; particularly in tiles where you find their tracks.  Small, isolated lakes are a good place to search for animals (but it may easily take a fair few before you find anything worth trapping).  For carnivores you almost always need bait.  I find trap fences to be particularly effective on narrow islands and peninsulas where you can chase your pray into them.  Also something to keep in mind: It doesn't take much investment to make traps.  So make a lot of them in various locations, and stop by to check every so often.  Winter is actually great for hunting - it's quite easy to follow tracks in the snow, even at 0% skill.  Deep snow also tires prey out pretty quickly.  (You do need to be properly outfitted with heavy winter clothing though).

I haven't personally noticed any difference between spoiled and non-spoiled bait, but then I haven't experimented that much with non-spoiled meat.  Just make sure you use uncooked meat.

[Kantall]

Thankyou guys, some great advice!

After switching from smoked meat to a turnip and fresh meat in each trap, I've had so much more luck with my traps, I'm up to 1785 smoked/dried meat in the middle of "Center month" and I'm so warm in all this clothing I don't even need a fire. I'm genuinely struggling to work out what to do with all of this meat/fur now, it's way more than I need. I've got around 300lb of furs just sitting there collecting dust and this meat will last me right through winter of probably next year!

For hunting, I'm still having the most luck when I just let the dogs loose, though at the cost of hide quality. That being said though, most of my quality hides come from traps anyway. I'm getting better at wearing them down but I find a legshot with an arrow works better for me usually.

All this being said though, I'm still thinking more about relocating, preferably to somewhere with more open fields/plains. Is it up north I'd need to go for that? I'm currently in the southwest.

-edit-

As a side-question, what's the best way to protect livestock left at a camp? I got my cow killed by a wolf who scaled the fence. I had two dogs in the pen too, but they were unwounded so I don't think they got involved, but I was out of the area so I'm not sure.

[Silenia]

Re: best way to protect livestock: I tend to build a wooden building without floors/ceiling. The door gets 'blocked' by a three-piece fence. Usually I build a slightly larger fence with a door around it as well. That way, I can enter the minor fenced enclosure with a new leashed animal, close the door behind me, deconstruct the fence directly in front of the building's door, open the door, unleash the animal when inside and get out without risking my other animals escaping all over the place. At most, they get a few steps outside the building where it's not too hard to chase them back in. Once everything is back in, close the door, reconstruct the fence in front of the door.

It's not entirely kill-proof, but limits possible kills by wild animals to those that can both open doors and climb over or destroy a fence. In other words, bears. Long as you keep a nice larger fence with bear traps or trap pits around your homestead, and another few traps surrounding the stable building (just be careful with traps and livestock when bringing new lifestock home. I've never tested it but wouldn't be surprised if a leashed animal is capable of stumbling into a trap if guided too close to it), the chances of a bear actually getting at your livestock is quite small.

As to what to do with surplus meat: trading. Dried/smoked meat will eventually spoil, even if kept in a cellar (though it takes a loooong time). I smoke during summer season and dry in winter, and generally make two* meat-selling trips a year: at the end of winter, I sell off all smoked meats I have left (which are anywhere from 6-12 months old by then), and at the end of summer, I sell off whatever dried meat is left (same).

*Two as in, I take the time to do so twice a year. Usually each "trip" consists of heading back and forth between my home and the closest settlement repeatedly. If there's a village entirely or almost entirely reachable over water, I may instead manage to take most of it with me at once by dumping it on the raft. (Due to limitations on how much you can take on a raft, both in weights and stacks, this works best if stuff stacks as much as possible. 2 bland smoked lynx cuts count as a stack. 471 tasty smoked elk cuts counts as one stack, too. For that reason, I tend to switch from eating oldest-first to from smallest-stack first during the latter half of a season, by which point I should pretty much be through most of the really old stuff anyway)

As for furs: look for foreign traders. At first, buy stuff you need/could use, especially stuff you either can't make yourself or won't easily find in settlements, including quality upgrades to stuff you already have. Once you pretty much have everything you *need*, look out for stuff that's easier to haul around to actual settlements/you can haul more of around at once. Valuables, arrows, anything reasonably valuable that weighs significantly less than the furs you're trading in for it. You can always look into grabbing a back-up weapon to have in case yours gets damaged, too--or extra tools to leave at places other than your home you nonetheless frequent a lot, to cut down on the number of items you have to haul around.

Make a nice stack of cords and bandages, too. You don't want your cuts to spoil because you didn't have enough cords around to smoke/dry it and had to make some first. Bandages never hurt to have. If you have multiple shelters around, especially in areas you take frequent hunting trips to, put a couple of bandages and some cords there too. Meats can't be smoked at a shelter, but they can be dried there. Dried cuts weigh a lot less than fresh ones, so in case of large or multiple kills, it's often easier to just leave them to dry there, put up a note when approx. they'll be done, and grab them at that time. (Consider felling a tree for the last stage of hideworking at such places too, especially if a fair while out from your main settlement, and dump either a stone on top or craft a club to leave there. The less you have to haul around on a daily basis, the better)

If you find you've got a couple of shelters you pay a lot of visits to, drop a few less-valuable larger furs there. Helps keeping you warm when sleeping, but also means you can immediately replace whatever cords or bandages you use rather than having to remember to replace them later. (Replacing the furs can simply be done by hanging around for a day or two to tan the kill's hide at the spot. You're not likely to be using masses of cords for anything other than preservation of fresh kills at such places anyway, so you should easily be able to replace what's used.)
If the shelter is near fish-able water, pick up a couple spare fishing rods in villages and leave them at such places. If there's absolutely no water near, not even puddles, consider putting a tub of water there. Again, the less to carry as standard item set, the better.

Always keep a couple of furs around the homestead to sleep on, to repair worn armor, craft more cords/bandages, etc.

Consider crafting a spare set of fur armor if you start going after more dangerous prey frequently, or if you deal with hostile humans a lot. Armor can degrade rather quickly in certain fights.

[Kantall]

I actually feel like a bit of a fool that I never thought about trading away my meat 

I wasn't aware dried/smoked meat would ever spoil so thankyou for the heads up on that, I would have ended up very cross seeing my preserved meats waste away if I'd not known!

Once I've relocated, I'll make a structure like you described. I'm hoping to have my main home completely surrounded by a trap fence and other general traps so hopefully the two combined will keep my cattle safe. Bears I'm not too worried about though, in fact I've not seen one in months and months. I'd love to encounter them!

I've just done some trading with foreign traders and wow, furs don't go very far when buying their exotic goods! Got a masterwork battlesword and a masterwork crossbow though.  And yeah.... I don't really have the skill for either (At all) but they might come in handy down the line!

[Silenia]

Nah, makes sense. So much of the game's early stages are about trying not to starve that it's pretty easy to get into a "Protect Mah Food At All Costs!11!1!"-mode.

You're welcome.

As to furs and foreign traders: it also depends a fair bit on the quality of the fur, whether or not it's a wintertime fur (not something currently visible from the name, except that winter- and summertime furs don't stack even if of the same quality and animal, but no way to tell at a glance which is which. If I remember correctly, though, winter furs will actually have winter in their name next release onwards) and what animal species.

That, and large portions of what the foreign traders sell is bloody expensive stuff.

Aye. If nothing else, they weigh a lot less than the furs, meaning you could reasonably take those with you on a longer trading trip to, say, Driik (Why Driik? 'cause Driik has a lot more iron goods for sale) to use those to pay for awesome weapons you actually *can* use. Or you could train those skills up. Probably best to do so in safe circumstances, though, at least until your skill is at a more reasonable level.

Safe circumstances, like, say, attempting to hit a trapped animal with blunt arrows fired by crossbow. Or whack at an unconscious/non-hostile trapped animal (so no bears/wolves/etc, at the utter least) if you don't mind probably damaging the fur somewhat. (You could always set up an array of berry-baited light lever traps and whack at black grouses. They only give leather/feathers anyway, not fur, and leather value sucks compared to fur. Plus black grouse leather sucks for armour and all that. You could make ropes, bandages and cords from it, but the pests are common enough that if you have a sizeable number of light lever traps, you end up with dozens and dozens of 'm anyway. (One of my characters currently is well into the four digits of black grouse feathers. Not sure exactly how many right now, I'm a few days away from my settlement, but iirc, it was something like 3500 or so. Considering one black grouse gives off about 20 feathers or so--and none if the carcass is in too bad a state--and the character is about 1.5 years in-game time...yeah, no shortage of black grouse at all.)

[PALU]

Regarding a "stable":
I build my stables as windowless (so you don't see them moving while crafting, which can decrease the FPS consideraby otherwise) buildings with a 3*3 interior size area to house a cow and a sheep (for mod wool), and I think a floor/ceiling is a good idea as animals don't leave tracks on floors, so the animals will not contribute to "item" clutter. Outside the door I build an "airlock" of a fence on each side of the door and a door (flanked by fences) outside of that so I can open one door, go through, close it, and then open the next one without the animals escaping. In the cases where animals get to share the space with the stable door I can just open it again, push them inside, and close the door, without risking their escape. The only trouble I've had is with companions who apparently have poles sticking out of their arses, as they keep opening doors without closing them afterwards, thus releasing the animals.

[Kantall]

Another question.... This one I'm really struggling with.

It's currently late swidden month and when I've burned firewood on the ground I still can't prepare it, it says the ground isn't warm enough. I've watched a couple of youtube vids and can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. Is there a step I'm missing?

I'm putting 3 firewood on each tile, burning it, waiting until the fire's out then trying to prepare the ground.