Planting crops and farming in ArcheAge is a great source of cooking and alchemy materials, in addition is a great way to make money from other players and create trade packs to trade across the continent and beyond. It’s super simple to.

If you need to know how to plant something in the world the best way to learn is through the in-game tutorial, which is around the 5th quest you do in the game. It’s as simple as using the plant in your inventory and placing it on the ground. The tooltip will tell you when you can harvest it.

So basically, buy seeds, plant them in the ground, and return to harvest when ready. Easy right? Well, whatever you’ve planted is fair game unless it’s planted in a protected zone.

Farms & Protection

There are five areas that are protected:

  • Small Scarecrow: Patron only item. 8x8
  • Large Scarecrow: Patron only item. 16x16
  • Aqua Farm: Patron only item. Allows underwater claim areas.
  • House, Farmhouse, or Marine House: Patron Only Everything planted on your own property is protected. Farmhouse has more land and Marine House can be placed underwater.
  • Public Farms: Protection for 24 hours, anyone can plant in public farms. No patron status required.

As you can see, without patron status, you’ll need to use public farms which is totally fine. Most everything grows under 24 hours, so it shouldn’t be that huge of an issue to utilize it. But it’s important to understand and know where to plant.

For all of your farms, you can set usage permissions to allow others to tend to your farm in your absence. If you set it “Open to Public” then your crops become fair game.

The farmhouse is a bad buy, you can’t build a workshop, which makes farming harder (because you’ll want a Farmer’s Workbench). You get a smaller house for more land, which can work if you’ve got some friends nearby who are working to make sure relevant workshops are available near you, but otherwise eh.

Scarecrows Farms can only be placed in specific areas as noted on the map. Some areas allow any kind of farms or houses, some areas only allow houses, some only farms, some only certain types of each.

Now, you might not even need to use a farm. Farms only provide protection. If you have some secret out of the way spot, you can still plant, but it’s not protected and can be uprooted or slain by anyone. Some term this “illegal farming” because you’re getting away from taxes, but the realistic approach to it is that you’re trading taxes for risk for ultimately a bigger payoff since you have much more space, although the bigger your farm the easier it is for another player to spot.

Theft is illegal, no matter where you put your plants, however the other person only faces repercussions if caught. More in a second.

Farms also apply to both plants, trees, and animals. It protects anything that really falls under farming, husbandry, gathering, and logging. Realistically anything you drop on your own property is protected, but there are exclusions (like trade packs).

It’s also important to note that Scarecrown Farms are ultimately just additional houses.

The Art of Farming

To farm, simply buy some seeds or saplings from the store or gather them from the world. Go to your farm location, use the seeds on the ground. Now it’s a young plant and this is your chance to water it to speed things along.

As it matures, it enters a second phase, where you can’t water it anymore. This is the regular growing phase. Finally it hits the last phase, which is ripened / harvest time. If you don’t harvest it and it starts to expire, it will wither then eventually die. Fertilizer can be used to save dying plants.

Part of the art of farming is making the most use of your available land and trying to get as many plants on your plot as possible.

Understanding Thieves

If you plant on land you own and have the permissions not allowing the public to control your plot, then nothing on that land you plant can be touched by anyone without permission. However, if you farm in the open world and someone either gathers or uproots your plant, you can then investigate the clues around the crime to find out who did it.

If you’re successful, they’ll be brought to trail and the community will vote guilty or not guilty for them. The community acts in randomness, so you never know what they’ll do. Players who play the game in character will generally punish those who uproot (since no one got any value out of the plant) but those who just gathered are usually given the slide. HOWEVER, again, it’s critical to understand the community is whimsical and people randomly vote.

If you do want to plan in the open world, avoid anything big like trees, and find a nice hiding spot where no one would travel to and has plenty of bushes and cover so that if someone does walk around, they don’t see all of your hard work out in the open for them.

World farming has the advantage of having more space at the risk of someone taking your crops. Oh, you’ll get flagged as a criminal if you try to PK a thief.

Tractors and Other Info

  • You can craft a tractor which requires some really rare materials. The tractor can carry water and trade packs.
  • The climate of the zone determines what will grow well in it.
  • You can make seed bundles out of 10 plants, they produce more total output than individual seeds, but cost more labor points, has a longer time to grow, and you get less rare plants.
  • Watering costs labor and takes a percentage of the time off, so the lower the time the less reward watering gives you.
  • Workbenches, bee hives, chicken coops, etc. are all crafted items that you can plop at your house to help with your farming.
  • Saplings are tree seeds.
  • Animals work the same as plants, fertilizer replaces water. They work through the same phases and everything. They are even put into the world in the same manner!

That’s pretty much the basics to growing plants, trees, and animals in ArcheAge. Happy farming! 


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our ArcheAge Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 18, 2016

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