Going Medieval Best Crops Guide

There is no universal S-tier crop that solves every colony's farming problem. The useful choice depends on what the settlement needs next: emergency food, a processing chain, animal feed, medical supplies, or textiles. This guide uses those decisions instead of presenting an unsupported one-dimensional ranking.

Version boundary: The game has received the Cultivation and Quality of Life updates and Steam News Hub entries for the 1.1.x line. The tables below intentionally avoid unverified growth times, yields, resident counts, and field percentages. Confirm those values in your current save before using them for production planning.

Choose Crops by Colony Goal

Use this as a planning map, not a permanent tier list. The evidence column distinguishes public update information from values that still need a current-version game test.

Crop	Primary use	Planning value	Evidence
Barley	Food and downstream production	Consider when your colony can support the required processing chain; do not treat a fixed field size as universal.	Needs testing
Redcurrant	Food / processing	Useful as a longer-term planting option if the current save confirms its harvest behavior.	Needs testing
Cabbage	Food	A practical food option, but actual timing depends on the current crop cycle, conditions, and botany work.	Needs testing
Herbs	Medical and cooking-related needs	Reserve space only after confirming the recipes and medical chain in the current version.	Needs testing
Carrot / Beet	Food and variety	Use as part of a mixed food plan rather than a universal ranking.	Needs testing
Flax	Textile production	Plant when clothing or other linen-related production is actually on the colony roadmap.	Needs testing
Hay	Animal feed	Relevant when keeping livestock; not a human-food priority.	Needs testing

What Changed the Farming Question?

Seeds and trees are part of the planning loop

The Cultivation update introduced or changed seed and sapling behavior, crop life stages, and additional plant content. Do not plan a field from an old list of final harvests alone. Record how a current save obtains seed, what the plant is called in the farming panel, and which stage the settler is being asked to harvest.

Blight changes the value of a monoculture

A crop plan that puts every food tile into one crop has a larger failure surface than a mixed plan. The safe recommendation is not a universal percentage; it is to keep a food reserve, split essential production across more than one crop where practical, and record the current blight behavior before making numerical claims.

Harvest and cutting phases matter

Current farming controls include harvest-phase and cutting-phase decisions, plus crop-priority controls such as Don't Sow. The best crop guide should explain when to let a plant continue, when to harvest, and when a field should stop receiving labor—not merely label a crop S or D.

Winter Planning Checklist

Check the current save's seed and sapling stock before committing the next field.
Separate food crops from animal feed, textile, and processing crops in your production plan.
Harvest and store enough food before the growing window closes; do not rely on an untested growth-time estimate.
Confirm whether the chosen underground or covered location supports the current plant behavior before investing labor.
Keep a small reserve plan for blight, missed harvests, raids, or a delayed cooking chain.

What This Guide Does Not Claim

This page does not claim that one crop is always best, that a fixed field size feeds a fixed number of settlers, or that old growth-time tables remain accurate in every 1.1.x save. Those claims require a recorded version, map conditions, botany skill, soil or location conditions, and a reproducible test.

Sources and Verification Boundary

Last reviewed: August 3, 2026. Numeric crop data remains pending current-version in-game testing.