Mod suggestions for long playthroughs

[Ceepert]

I wanna start playing this game again soon, but I want the survival game loop to be difficult long term.

Last time I played with the Butchering mod already but that only makes the game more actually difficult early game. Once I reached a state where I could farm just surviving wasnt much of an issue anymore it felt like.

The first winter was a close call cause I could only start farming rather late due to constantly needing to focus all my work just to not starve, but once I got over that hurdle, built my house and had a cellar I could still get a harvest of crops in.

But for the second winter the challange was basically beat, I could harvest a ton of food and didnt even need to worry about soil that much cause I could just replace it every other harvest if needed. With that I could basically sustain myself fully off of meath and turnips.

Are there any mods that make this not as easy? Maybe something along the lines that eating the same foods for long times makes them less efficent, or things like crop blights, rat infestations in the cellar that eat through your reserves and so on?

 

I love the challange of food in the midgame where it doesnt take up 99% of your time but its also not a afterthought. I never really got a reason to get into beekeeping from a mod or animal husbandry simply because the simple turnip and meat stew is just so good.

[Echo Weaver]

If you're interested in food production, I'm currently playing a game with Ana's Taste and Novelty -- a carrot (sometimes literally) and a stick for meal variety. Gourmand is another variety-incentive mod for foods, but the rewards in Novelty are both more interesting to me and seem less OP. YMMV. Ana's Taste was a bit too much on default config for my current game, which is on its first summer. I could get sick of literally every food I was able to procure at the same time. So I doubled the satiety required to get sick of a food, and that still provides challenge in early game. Before you can start harvesting, you still might be able to get sick of everything available at the same time.

That's a bunch of caveats, but I'm really enjoy playing with both of them. They're making food a lot more interesting, over and above just trying to keep my vanilla nutrients maxxed.

I'm also playing with a good 2/3 of the Fauna of the Stone Age mods (not all of them because I'm a bit concerned about performance, and also there's only so many of the predator packs I want installed simultaneously). They're magnificent, and I can't believe they're exclusively content mods. Many of those animals can be domesticated, and they're a real challenge. (I documented my quest for a breeding pair of eurasian aurochs here, and I think the chance of being able to milk a generation 0 cow is essentially zero.) Also, I have since learned that these animals run on more realistic time scales -- a baby takes months rather than days to grow to adulthood, and I suspect a female's gestation period is also longer. So overall, attempting animal husbandry with these creatures is going to be more labor intensive and take longer to pay off. Then again, if you have a way to preserve it, I think a single slaughtered auroch might be able to supply your protein for the winter -- considering their size, that's probably not unreasonable. Some animals in this series can be ridden like an elk if domesticated, so that offers more incentive for husbandry. Also they look awesome.

Or if dinosaurs float your boat there's Legacy of the Phanerozoic. That's getting a bit off the beaten path, but they look cool.

If you're looking for more interesting vanilla animal husbandry, there's Detailed Animals. This adds in genetics (including inbreeding), dietary needs, and more realistic timelines.

There are also mods that make farming more realistic. I haven't tried them out, but Wild Farming is pretty popular and looks interesting. There are a few others, but they haven't been updated to 1.21, and that update broke a lot of stuff in this space. I'd assume anything in agriculture that isn't updated is broken unless someone has confirmed otherwise.

ETA: I much prefer animal husbandry to hunting, but it sounds like you might not be the same. I always consider dairy a slam dunk for animal husbandry, but I guess a lot of folks skip it entirely. 

Edited October 9, 2025 by Echo Weaver

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Ceepert said:

I wanna start playing this game again soon, but I want the survival game loop to be difficult long term.

For base game settings, I recommend turning the month length up to 30 days, and setting your seraph's temperature tolerance to 5 or even 10 C so that warmth is a much bigger concern(and not one limited to winter). Additionally, setting your starting climate to Cool will make it harder in general to forage certain resources(but not impossible), as well as make the winter longer and a bit harsher. You might also consider imposing specific challenges on your own progression, such as not farming until year 1.

As for mods, there is also Hydrate or Diedrate, which adds thirst, and Nature's Call, which uh...well I'll just call it what it is: the potty mod. SleepNeed adds consequences for not sleeping, and Vigor makes you be more deliberate in your movement instead of sprinting around like a caffeinated chicken. And if you're wanting a more interesting diet system, with potential long term consequences(good and bad), there is Expanded Stomach.

Hydrate or Diedrate: https://mods.vintagestory.at/hydrateordiedrate

SleepNeed: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/27871

Vigor: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/26142

Nature's Call: https://mods.vintagestory.at/naturescall

Expanded Stomach: https://mods.vintagestory.at/expandedstomach

[Ceepert]

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

For base game settings, I recommend turning the month length up to 30 days, and setting your seraph's temperature tolerance to 5 or even 10 C so that warmth is a much bigger concern(and not one limited to winter). Additionally, setting your starting climate to Cool will make it harder in general to forage certain resources(but not impossible), as well as make the winter longer and a bit harsher. You might also consider imposing specific challenges on your own progression, such as not farming until year 1.

As for mods, there is also Hydrate or Diedrate, which adds thirst, and Nature's Call, which uh...well I'll just call it what it is: the potty mod. SleepNeed adds consequences for not sleeping, and Vigor makes you be more deliberate in your movement instead of sprinting around like a caffeinated chicken. And if you're wanting a more interesting diet system, with potential long term consequences(good and bad), there is Expanded Stomach.

Hydrate or Diedrate: https://mods.vintagestory.at/hydrateordiedrate

SleepNeed: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/27871

Vigor: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/26142

Nature's Call: https://mods.vintagestory.at/naturescall

Expanded Stomach: https://mods.vintagestory.at/expandedstomach

I´ll definetly check those mods, but wouldnt turning up the days in a month make the problem that farming makes it very easy to make food a none issue even worse? Or does food growth speed scale with the "days in months" option?

 

Also I didnt even know you could overheat as it literally has never been an issue for so far.

Also also, is there a sort of cryogenic winter mod? So like the first year is normal, but when winter starts it never ends and the seasons just become winter and even harder winter? So you would have the first year to prepare, stock up food, to stay alive for long enough so that you could start a greenhouse?

[Echo Weaver]

1 hour ago, Ceepert said:

Also also, is there a sort of cryogenic winter mod? So like the first year is normal, but when winter starts it never ends and the seasons just become winter and even harder winter? So you would have the first year to prepare, stock up food, to stay alive for long enough so that you could start a greenhouse?

I've never heard of a mod like that, but it sounds cool.

1 hour ago, Ceepert said:

Also I didnt even know you could overheat as it literally has never been an issue for so far.

I'm not sure I follow what LadyWYT was saying there. There's no overheating mechanic that I know of. Hydrate or Diedrate has a mechanic like that.

1 hour ago, Ceepert said:

wouldnt turning up the days in a month make the problem that farming makes it very easy to make food a none issue even worse? Or does food growth speed scale with the "days in months" option?

I'm currently playing with 12-months, and I'm not sure I want them that long. Food growth speed doesn't scale, and neither does hunger, so you'd be a wash. But it would make winter much longer.

Edited October 10, 2025 by Echo Weaver

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Ceepert said:

I´ll definetly check those mods, but wouldnt turning up the days in a month make the problem that farming makes it very easy to make food a none issue even worse? Or does food growth speed scale with the "days in months" option?

Plant growth time scales with month length. Turnips take a month to reach maturity, on average, which equates to 9 days on default settings. However, on 30 day months, turnips are going to take 30 days to mature, meaning that until your harvest comes in you will need to be hunting or foraging for food. I think livestock breeding also scales with month length.

I wouldn't necessarily say it's harder, as much as it is a different type of challenge. Since the warm seasons will last longer, you'll have more time to hunt and get things done. However, the longer months also means that winter will be longer as well, so instead of say, prepping for around 36 days of winter you'll be needing to prep for 120 days instead.

1 hour ago, Ceepert said:

Also I didnt even know you could overheat as it literally has never been an issue for so far.

Overheating isn't really a thing in the base game, but Hydrate or Diedrate is about as close as you can get to that kind of mechanic. It's really more of a concern in warmer regions than the standard temperate zone though.

 

1 hour ago, Ceepert said:

Also also, is there a sort of cryogenic winter mod? So like the first year is normal, but when winter starts it never ends and the seasons just become winter and even harder winter? So you would have the first year to prepare, stock up food, to stay alive for long enough so that you could start a greenhouse?

To my knowledge, there isn't one that does this exactly, but you might be able to install this one mid-playthrough and/or otherwise fiddle with the mod settings to achieve the effect you wish: https://mods.vintagestory.at/neverwinter

I will note though, that while greenhouses do extend the growing season a bit, you're not going to be growing anything in greenhouses over the winter unless you're in a warmer climate. For that kind of challenge, you might want to look into trying an arctic survival challenge, or snowball earth. They're similar challenges, but I would say the arctic survival is probably tougher, since you will have extremely long nights for around half the year.

[Echo Weaver]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

Plant growth time scales with month length. Turnips take a month to reach maturity, on average, which equates to 9 days on default settings. However, on 30 day months, turnips are going to take 30 days to mature

Oh, wow, I stand corrected. 

Otoh, I'm almost sure my turnips are not taking 12 days to mature on my current game with a 12-day month. Turnips seem to be the crop that matures fastest. I'm always walking by my garden and finding mature turnips. I haven't timed them, though. I should probably try to do that.

If crop growth scales to month length and hunger does not, wouldn't you need 3x the farm size to feed yourself for a month 3x as long?

Edited October 10, 2025 by Echo Weaver

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Echo Weaver said:

Otoh, I'm almost sure my turnips are not taking 12 days to mature on my current game with a 12-day month. Turnips seem to be the crop that matures fastest. I'm always walking by my garden and finding mature turnips. I haven't timed them, though. I should probably try to do that.

I think the listed maturity times might be the average expected, and not the actual. I've not crunched numbers or anything, but I'm guessing the better the soil the more likely the crop is to grow according to the listed times, if perhaps not slightly faster with good RNG.

 

1 hour ago, Echo Weaver said:

If crop growth scales to month length and hunger does not, wouldn't you need 3x the farm size to feed yourself for a month 3x as long?

You do, yes. That's partly why I wouldn't necessarily call longer months a harder setting, as much as I would a different challenge. You will need a lot more food in order to stay fed over the winter, but the food problem is countered easily enough by simply building much bigger farms than normal. It's more effort than one would need to apply on default settings, but the advantage of having longer months is that there's more time to work as well.

[Echo Weaver]

7 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

You will need a lot more food in order to stay fed over the winter, but the food problem is countered easily enough by simply building much bigger farms than normal.

Not necessarily easily. In my current game, scavenging seeds has been an issue. I just haven't found as many wild crops as in other playthroughs.

7 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I think the listed maturity times might be the average expected, and not the actual.

Oh right. My farm is on high quality soil. I'm guessing the expected maturity times listed are for medium.

[Echo Weaver]

On topic, a just saw a mod go by on ModDB that makes longer months more challenging for farming: https://mods.vintagestory.at/yieldnah