And what a task! Plowing. If there is a simple technique that can quickly become complicated, it is this one. Fortunately, agricultural simulations are up to date and only offer flat plowing, the most widely used and simplest tillage technique… from an artificial intelligence point of view.
If in a game, turning your land comes down to putting down the plow and sending the horses, in reality, you often have to be careful to perform the turns correctly. Let's take a look at how each AI works in Farming Simulator, Cattle and Crops, and finally Pure Farming.
FS 17, evolutionary intelligence
The workers in Farming Simulator 17 are by far the most versatile. It must be said that the game is showing its 10th year of good and loyal service and that AI is really coming of age. Not content with managing the original machine park, the employees are also doing very well with the countless mods of the title.
Putting a worker to work is a model of simplicity. All you have to do is position yourself at the entrance to a field and press a key… easy. For plowing, the game is content to pass the plow on the inside, overflowing copiously during maneuvers, which are carried out OUT OF THE FIELD. And if we can be satisfied with that in a simulation, it goes without saying that in reality, there would be a problem to see the soil of the overturned roads. Another downside, if you have a tree too close to the field, the worker is unable to go around it and will painfully wait for your intervention.
A mod to the rescue
It is possible to greatly improve Giants title workers using the CoursePlay mod. This tool is used to give work instructions to an employee such as for example the clipping of a field before working on the inside of it. But we must admit that this mod is a bit complex and that it takes time to adapt.
But the funniest thing in the story is that the tool in question is developed by members of Cattle and Crops. When we know that, we are not surprised by the formidable realism of the latter.
Cattle and Crops is no longer a game but a simulation
In Cattle and Crops, the workers are… stunning. We take pleasure in watching them plow a plot. Even if one can be skeptical on the start, they always end up making up for small imperfections, and above all they are not paying for nothing to do. When you send them to a field, they don't leave 1cm2 not returned. They start from the inside before doing the clipping. U-turns are done with a well-raised plow and tractor at the edge of the plot. It's clean !
AI works wonders, even on rounded terrain, because in Cattle and Crops not all of your fields are rectangular, and most have non-linear boundaries. And as if the beauty of the work was not enough, the game amazes us with the realism of the deformations of the land under the wheels of the tractor and the bodies of the plow.
All that would be missing would be to be able to adjust the plow according to the resumption to be carried out. But there it would undoubtedly go too far in the simulation and that could put off a number of players.
Pure Farming, simplicity
The Polish team aimed for simplicity for their title. Since its release not even a month ago, the title has already undergone 2 updates (the 3rd is in progress as I write its lines). The title's AI can still be improved. For the exercise of the plow, the worker sets up the tool and puts on the gas. At the end of the field, he pulls out the plow and makes a wide turn. Little more compared to Farming Simulator, the employee knows how to manage when he crosses a tree and does not ask you to intervene. It must be said that the developers took care to place the trunks well away from the plots… smart.
In Pure Farming, we can only put one worker per field, this is the main limitation compared to its competitors. However, at IceFlames, one person works full time on artificial intelligence, and the team promises continuous improvements for this newly released title. At all good.
And the winner is?
In my opinion, for a game that has not yet been released, the workers at Cattle and Crops are a step ahead of the competition, and the recent implementation of the employee management tool only supports my words.
Nevertheless it is advisable to temper my remarks, because, in full play, it is just as effective to bring its material to the field and to press a button to launch the worker. Better yet, artificial intelligence, even if it troubleshoots, is nothing compared to a multiplayer mode. And there, Farming Simulator is far, far ahead ...