Another pro about the Riverland farm: if you have ducks they will jump in the river and swim around :3

Here is my opinion: if you're going for the Community Center, choose the Forest Farm and fruit bat cave, as you'll get a bunch of mushrooms already from the forest farm, and fruit from the fruit bat will give you stuff you'd normally need a tree for (sometimes), mainly tree fruit like a pomegranate and 3 apples

If the wilderness farm actually gave you a goth house i'd appreciate it more.

Hilltop being the least popular hurts my soul, it's my favorite farm because of how pretty it is, geologically, and the work to get to that point with decorations and such has a nice payoff. Helps me prioritize what tools I wanna upgrade first to get around more easily too!

One important tip for the forest farm: you can remove bushes with the axe, which helps with building placement a lot.

For my Perfection file, I'm using the Four Corners farm. I like raising animals a whole lot more than farming crops, and the extra cliffs let me keep animals without using too much fenching

The thing with the Riverland Farm is that it's not the Fishing people go for (imo) it's the more segmented layout. With the other farms being massive in area it can be overwhelming for people who aren't too good at filling up space, so having individual islands to keep things orderly is a plus. I had my Barn on the main Central Island, Beehives to the East, Fish Ponds to the West, and an Orchard to the Southwest. Additionally, islands act more or less like automatically fenced off areas for livestock, so you just need to place a gate in front of the bridges to keep them from wandering too far.

id like to point out something cool: shortcuts! On the forest farm, there's a shortcut that not everyone knows about, between the two grassy areas to the left. Fumble around a bit and you'll find it :) there's also one on the four corners farm! so, between each section, there's a cliff, and a gap in each cliff can be accessed once you have the right tools. however, some people don't know that between the two bottom sections, there's also a shortcut. in the small gap between the fences and then the hedges just below them, you can walk. i believe this is sometimes blocked off at first by a hardwood stump or something, but if you start on the cliff and try it, you'll find it. hope this helps someone!

I really like using the four corners map. It makes it easier for me to organize my farm, because I can just go “okay, animals here, buildings here” etc. I just started a new game and chose standard, which I haven’t since my first play throughs, and it’s alright but I miss the fun lil gimmicks. Sometimes having fun outweighs any potential negatives.

i actually ADORE the beach farm, it's definitely my favorite layout by far. i remember it got a lot of hate back when 1.5 dropped because of the sprinkler mechanics and i used to be a hater too, but i somewhat-accidentally ended up starting (and finishing) the process of reaching perfection on my 1.5 beach farm file, and i fell in love with the layout in the process. my only problem is that i now have trouble going back to the other layouts, because they feel so very small now that i'm used to the amount of space that the beach farm provided.

I like the Wilderness Farm. The light annoyance of having monsters if I'm working late breaks up some of the grind for me.

Hilariously my very first save in stardew, when I knew exactly nothing about it- I chose the beach farm b/c I love the ocean. I read the 'not intended for beginners' much after the fact. I think the reason it has that tag is simply because the lack of usable sprinkler space- but there is SO much space for animals and that's kinda what I like about it.

What I appreciate is that every farm encompasses a skill that our characters need to work on. Standard is best for upgrading your farming, Forest for foraging, Beach and Riverland for fishing, Hilltop for mining, and Monsters for combat, and four corners for a well rounded balance. You're basically choosing which skill you want to focus on first and become the epicenter of your characters traits.

I really like 4 corners farm because it makes it pretty easy to organize, like you can dedicate one of the sections to just animals

As a fisher main, one thing overlooked on the riverland farm is the bubbles on rainy days! It has one of the greatest if not the greatest spawn chance for reachable bubbles in the game! First year that is golden ❤

Forest and Hilltop are normally my top picks, but I've been using standard and beach more!! Great video Sal!!

My main file is a 4 corners farm. I like how separated each piece is. All my crops were in one corner, animals in another, taps and bees in another. I like how easy it is to compartmentalize everything

I personally love the 4 corners farm not because it's a multi-player map, but because of the 4 corners, it makes it easy for me to organize things. 😂 Coops and Barns here, plants there, and sheds over there

About Hilltop: The area immediately below the house neatly fits 1 barn and 1 coop and keeps the animals penned in a small area without the need of fences if you fence off the stairs above and below (the small hill below it is nice for fruit trees!). Also, the mining area, you can usually sneak by a stump or a boulder as the entrance to it is 3 tiles wide IIRC, and stumps/boulders are only two tiles wide. I've done perhaps 5 playthroughs on a Hilltop Farm and I've never once seen one where it was not accessible Day 1. Also, for the Beach Farm, it's mainly for ranchers as the beach has a HUGE area to grow grass in, and place barns/coops. Also, try to remember that 1.6 is going to add yet another farm, so right now might not be the best time to start a new playthrough if you're wanting a farm to stick with for awhile.

I very much enjoyed the riverlands farm. More than anything, I appreciated being able to dedicate each island to a different purpose and I never had to worry about fences. It just felt very organized

Great video as always! As a fan of the hilltop farm, I just wanted to say, as many times as I've played it, the quarry has never been blocked off for me. I love this farm for mining runs.

i love the wilderness farm, it gives me a good sense of time when the monsters start to spawn. i also like being able to get monster drops while on the farm

The kicker to the beach farm, and why it’s my favorite, is that if you are pushing for efficiency, you aren’t using farm land for farming anyway. Sure you can’t use sprinklers, but you can just build a shed, fill it with pots, and use retaining soil. The biggest downside is not that big of a deal early on, and completely negated by the end.

Something I'd like to point out is that for the wilderness farm it doesn't spawn monsters at 8:00, I played on it for a while on one of my saves and found out that each season has a different night-time, winter being the shortest at (I believe) 7:00 so monsters would spawn then, unlike spring or summer at around 8:00

I'm a Wilderness Farm gal. At the time I really wanted a role-playing element to my farm; like, an extra element of danger at night, She Kills Monsters vibe. I picked Forest Farm for my second file because I wanted to lean in more to the romanticized Lady of the Forest vibe.

Forest and Four Corners are the absolute best for an efficient gameplay in my experience. The river lands and hilltop are nice for challenges or aesthetics.

Fishing on the bridge while bubbles are in reach kills my soul 😂

I’m a huge four corners farm enthusiast, I love the way it makes splitting the farm up into useful areas so easy, I love dedicating one cube to a hugs farming area, one to farm animals, and so on, and I love how it has my favorite benefit of the forest farm, the special weeds, while also having plenty of farmable land, I haven’t played a multiplayer game of stardew in my life and four corners is still my favorite because of well it balances both early game and late game utility while farms like the standard or forest farm heavily lean into one or the other, and being more visually interesting than the standard farm (the beach is gorgeous i really wish i had a mod or something that reskinned the standard farm to look like the beach farm without the annoying sand thing)

I really do think you can find success and enjoyment on any of these. Sure the Riverland, Hilltop, and Beach farms aren't super optimal for getting the most out of everything, but you can still have fun and do perfectly fine with them. I picked Riverland Farm as my first farm, and while it doesn't have nearly as much farming space, I'm loving the aethsthetic and still making bank.

i love using the four corners as a solo just so i can dedicate different sections to purposes more efficiently

I always play in the Standard Farm, but after your pool I remember the 4 Corners and how I like having everything sorted and create a new file to play it! Great video!

The standard farm does have the most tillable tiles, to be sure, but after a certain volume, it becomes impractical to plant crops. Even with upgraded iridium tools, it can be very difficult or even impossible to plant above a certain number. And a lot of that space gets used for other things, like bee houses etc. So having farms with less tiles but other features often feels better, to me.

i was watching this video right before i headed to bed and you ending the video with “and good night!” caught me so off guard LOL. you really know when ppl watch these sorta informative videos!

i actually like the hilltop farm because of the sectioning, it makes decorating and setting areas for animals and crops a bit easier. i get very overwhelmed on other farms as idk how to break them up

Thank you SO MUCH for making this video!!! I am a new player and I really wanted to start with the beach farm, but I thought I was screwing myself over and I started a second save file. I had no idea about the second farm thing! Thank you so much for saving my preferred file! :D

I love the beachfarm! By the time I get to quality sprinklers (I never bother with the standard ones) I usualy have the sprinkable area decently cleared, and the rest of the farm I use for fishponds, treetappers, slimehutche and the standard animal stuff. 😊

I was literally contemplating what farm I should start on my new play-through this past weekend. I've only ever used the forest farm and standard farm, and haven't really seen too much about the other layouts. I was hoping you would put a video up about it soon!! Love your videos, thanks!!! :D

First time I played Hilltop I worked so hard for that first pig, and then the truffle goes and spawns between those two little bushes next to the quarry. I never recovered. 😂

Im so glad i found this channel i learned a lot of things from these kinds of videos!(:

This was such a fun and comprehensive breakdown of the farms, really helpful for new players so thank you!

My first time playing Stardew, I picked the Wilderness farm. I still enjoy it even if the 1.5 update made it less unique.

Whenever my girlfriend and I play together, we ALWAYS pick the beach farm. She loves fishing in Stardew and I like the extra challenge of playing on the map (plus aesthetically speaking, I think the beach farm is the most beautiful pick). It’s got a soft spot in my heart for a reason

I only started playing the game like a month ago - I really liked the idea of having a bit of everything available to me so I chose 4 corners, and I love it! The unique features of each area helped me get used to all the different tasks and as a newb made it easier to make decisions for decorating and organising my farm. I'm thinking of challenging myself and trying the forest farm for my next one, I like the aesthetic but it seemed a bit daunting first time around 😅 this is actually a very reassuring video for me!

i love the four corners farm for organization, but this video made me want to try out the hilltop farm!

My first ever playthrough was, of course, on the standard farm. But I always wanted to try the hilltop, because I think it's layout beautiful, so now for my second save I'm playing on it. It's been a challenge to arrange all the buildings, but the result it's awesome. All the layouts have their perks and after this video I'm tempted to try all of them at some point

I tried the beach farm for my current playthrough and it's really fun! Did not know about the secret passage though, will have to try it out.

My first farm was the forest farm, but my first perfection farm was the hilltop farm! I have my greenhouse and barn at the quarry and my coop bellow by the lil pond (for the ducks ofc). It was pain in the beginning before I upgraded my tools, learning which ways were blocked or not. But late game I really love that farm! The elevated terrain mixed with the river just makes it diffirent and interesting. Especially since I was previously used to the forest farm. Great vid Sal! Very useful to hear about all the diffirent farms, and fun to read how people play themselves c-:

I love Four Corners because I like being able to divide the land without fencing. I typically have one area for crops, one for animals, and one for whatever else I want. (Typically fish ponds.)

My favorite is the wilderness farm. I just enjoy the layout. You can keep it from spawning monsters. There is a setting you can uncheck on the advanced game options menu when you are starting your farm.

Assumed knowledge is very often the hardest to obtain :) Thanks for the info!

You've helped me realize how pretty the Wilderness Farm is with those big bodies of water.

god i love your videos. i get so excited every time you post

This is actually a much needed video for people finally giving this game a try like myself. I had 0 knowledge going in and I wanted to be informed before I commit to a farm type. Thank you very much ^_^

This video was super cool. I had no idea about all the different layouts. I’ve never played this game before. I’d love to play it

The stumps on the forest farm are a great way to level foraging quickly, once you upgrade your axe. Also good for the "resource rush" bulletin board quest if it's hardwood, because between the forest farm and secret woods, you can get enough hardwood without having any of the trees planted ahead of time, cutting non-renewable sources, or needing tree fertilizer. Four corners I used for a self-imposed challenge where I restricted leaving the farm, because it has access to fishing (and the treasure that comes with it), mining, and extra mixed seeds, covering every skill but combat (monsters on the farm don't give XP, but you can at least get bat wings for lightning rods if you use that advanced option). The single respawning stump is of minimal value, you just need one seed to grow your own. For the beach farm, I grew a lot of rice, since in game it doesn't care that it's ocean water that you're planting it by, so there's a lot of area to grow where it doesn't need to be watered. The rest of the sand can be used for buildings, grass for animals, or trees.

I got the riverland farm for my first game and i love it! Im loving my design for it and it was pretty easy for me. And my crops and farm is thriving

I quite like the forest farm. The little bump-outs with the hardwood stumps were really convenient for keeping the coop and barn out of the way of the tillable land

The 5.6% who main the Beach Farm are real Gigachads.

My all time fav is the Forest Farm for sure. Also I've personally never encountered something blocking the quarry on the Hilltop Farm. The bridges always have at least one or two blocked sadly xD

I love the beach farm. It has a lot of upsides, not being able to use sprinklers is not as bad as you think.

After spending time on the beach farm I found other farms surprisingly congested and small. There just so much space available on the beach farm. The sand is great for growing grass to graze animals. You can turn areas into huge groves of sap trees or fruit trees. You can put a ton of fish ponds down. Between the soil plot and the greenhouse, I don’t really feel bad about the crop space either. Theres a lot of other ways to make money. It’s also really nice having decent fishing available right outside your house. I often close out the last few hours of the night fishing right behind the farmhouse.

Cheers. I've only done 2 saves, one on gamepass and one on mobile, each standard farm, and this was helpful. Definitely factoring in Ginger Island changes up how I would look at the farms for sure. Also, I went a bit hard on the animals on my second farm and that's been a whole issue for pasture space so without that I'd love to suss out other varieties of farms.

i find that the hilltop farm has a huge benefit in that you dont need to stress over coming up with a layout for your farm yourself, if you happen to find that difficult (i do...) i find having an enormous amount of uninterrupted free space really daunting personally and get decision paralysis haha

Yaaaay I wanted to hear your opinion on this and was looking for this video

my personal fav is definitely four corners, i love how i can organise it by sections and even though im only using the corner with my house so far because ive been too lazy to remove the stuff in the other corners, its just easy too navigate. tho i also wanna start saves with the beach farm

i just finished my personal challenge to get perfection on all the farm types. It was really fun. Took me about a year (real time). The first one i finished was Riverland, the last one was Hilltop. They were all fun in their own ways. : ) Fun info as always! Riverland was my favorite -- like a puzzle. And i really prefer the Wilderness to the Standard Farm! (monsters turned off!)

Like a few others have mentioned, I like using the Riverland farm because of the segmentation. It's easier on my brain to figure out a farm plan/layout imo. Also excited for 1.6 with the release of a new farm type!

i know im really late to the party but I'm brand spanking new to stardew. I haven't even properly played cuz I was stressing out over what farm to pick! Thank you so so so much for this video!

I did the hilltop farm as my first ever farm and it definitely made me appreciate the farms with bigger farming spaces more That being said, it still holds a special place in my heart since it was the first farm I also ever got Perfection on

My favorite is the beach farm. The goodies showing up on the beach in boxes 📦 were too enticing to pass up. Getting free sugar or wheat flour was wonderful. Plus so much space! Just upgrade your watering can for crops! Perfect for fishing squid late at night in winter. Definitely worth it!

Thank you, this was helpful.

It would be nice to get an update of this with the Meadow Farm.

I adore forest and beach farms. Those are my go tos!

I'm always a hilltop teuther, i feel like the geography is just way more interesting than most by having raised areas and it makes you have to only really build gates to pin in animals in certain places which cuts down on fence annoyance a lot. The ores also really help, even lategame as sometimes I'm just like "damn i need 1 more gold ore" and the boom its there on my farm. I really appreciate it.

Forest farm was always my favorite. It had a nice mountainy log cabin feel to it that I enjoy. ❤

I use the four corner map and pick an specific use for each corner. One for only farm, one for only processing, one for animals and one for other stuff like decorations, teleporters, etc

I love the 4 corners farm, mainly bc it being divided up helps me keep things organized and focused

I started on the hilltop farm, and wondered why you couldn't do any terraforming. The bottom row of terrain makes for a great place for passive buildings, like slime hutches!

This is my first play through ever and I started on the Beach farm, I just came here to make sure I wasn’t missing out but this just confirms that even though it doesn’t have the most farmable space for sprinklers, it still has the most benefits and I’ve already cleared that one area and put the sprinklers down that I can and those 200 something plots have been more than enough for me even though I wanted to main in Farming. I now see I should just throw some crab pots down everywhere and level up my house to get some better loot and make the most out of it. Plus I’ll have to try that cave fishing spot! Thanks for the tips.

Hilltop is fun to play with imho, a decent source of stone, ores, and geodes. I love grinding out geodes for big luck days. Also heehoo cliffs fun to build around.

I ended up doing my 1.5 Perfection playthrough on a hilltop farm. It made for an interesting challenge and had a really funky setup, but I love the cliffs and the river, it looks very cute.

I really love the Riverland Farm. Next to expanded, it's my most played farm. The islands were such a cool layout to me and let me separate stuff in a fun way.

I liked the decor in the wilderness the most. I didn't know the grass golems were exclusive :0

I said this on the community post too but man, crab pots on the riverland farm are so underrated, the sashimi made from them gives you so much added profit

The wilderness farm was my first farm and I still like it's layout. I find myself picking it a lot. Then probably the forest farm. I'll have to do a beach farm eventually because I do like it's aesthetics.

I chose the beach farm as my first farm. It was fine. Midgame I was making most of my money from ranching and being an artisan, so being able to sprinkler large areas wasn't a huge issue. Grass still grows just fine in sand. My second farm was the river farm, and I went all in on fishing. It was great at the start! I am definitely hurting for space at this point though, just for the various buildings I want. I think if I ever start a third it'll be the Wilderness farm thanks to this video. I'll just go ahead and make my life even harder.

I recently started Stardew with a wilderness farm. I really like the look of the forest farm I wish I had done a bit of research before choosing semi randomly

My first ever farm was the forest so it always feels like the default to me now, the four corners farm is the best imo it’s just so easy to organise and has really no downsides

Wilderness Farm definitely gives me nighttime Minecraft vibes. Casually working on your crops while constantly checking over your shoulder to see if something is creeping up on you. It'a a really niche way of looking at it, I'm sure, but it's honestly pretty fun. If I hadn't been so spoiled by the Hilltop Farm (I love the mining in the game) and by extension the Four Corners Farm (aka the LoZ: Four Swords Adventures Farm), Wilderness would probably be my main.

Lately I've been using the beach farm for story and roleplay reasons. It is a little tricky to navigate mainly because I'm still learning its layout but I love it.

I had no idea on the beach farm you could place sprinklers in that specific spot! That’s good to know!

Whenever I start a new farm, I check out new farm maps on the Nexus. The Waterfall Farm is pretty cool. DaisyNiko makes some great farm maps, and I’ve been enjoying their Zenith Farm. Grandpa’s Farm from SVE is probably the farm I’ve played the most.

very nice bonus to riverland imo: the sections are a nice way of separating the farm into good sized areas! in the middle, there's just enough room for the (maxed, can't remember if they change size) barn and coop, plus an optional iridium sprinkler and trees, and you can set fencing and gates up exclusively by the bridges for minimum fence upkeep. there's space for a shed or cabin on most islands or tight spot, the thin left side can be used for silos and (heaven forbid i minmaxn't) a mill, the crab pots basically belong on the mini pier.. the only catch is that there's maybe 2 or 3 good spots for the slime hutch. so keep trekking to robin or the wizard to shuffle things about ig?

i recently got back into the game and im using the wilderness farm and i love it so much. i love having the grass golem things because i have the better mixed seeds mod and i always need more mixed seeds

I think the beach farm is also great for buildings, in mine I have an entire deluxe shed filled with as many pineapple garden pots with deluxe retaining soil so I never need to water them and a second deluxe shed with an equal amount of kegs for pineapple wine making, because you won't be planting huge crop fields you can use all that space for fish ponds, barns, coops, a slime hutch, fruit trees and sheds

Standard, four corners, and forest are my favs. Actually, I’m going for perfection on my forest farm and i love it

I only ever play in single player but I love the four corners farm! I find it much easier to organize my farm into sections like crops, animals, fishing, and industry. And it’s my favorite farm to decorate! My second has to be the wilderness farm, but you can’t go wrong with any of them!

My favorite farm I’ve ever made (and my main) is the beach farm. The layout is cute and the boxes are sweet

Wow, I can't believe I didn't know about the secret path on the beach farm until now! I have nearly two years complete on my current Beach Farm save and just never knew.

It's kinda interesting seeing this, I saw a video or two on the farms before but for some reason either forgot or never saw info on the 4 corners farm having a little bit of everything. I've always used the default farm cause that's what I've always messed with but I'm planning to make a new main save file at some point & use the four corners farm. This is kinda mostly for cosmetic reasons due to how I setup my original main farm cause of weird stuff I did like hiding a shed in the corner that holds many of my museum rewards(including a chest for my legendary fish which will be moved to an aquarium thanks to an update) & other trinket rewards as a kind of as a nice spot to keep items from my adventures. Also going to make the river section for my animals(especially the ducks) while the spot grandpa's shrine is at will be for my artisan shed & my bee hives.