Kinda yes, with a caveat: if the war continues, we'll need to instead do Festival+Settlement+War Action. Or something similar.
If the war continues, I think we'd be doing Festival + Economy Action + War action, since War and Festival both cost economy, while Settlement is neutral. You'd need a profit source to at least break even. More optimally, it'd be Settlement + Economy Action + War Action, but the Festivalites will riot.
I don't understand how it's a neutral element. If we're one step away from Step Farms propagating automatically, that still means that they do not propagate automatically.
It's true that choosing Step-Farms later would still establish them @ the New Settlement, but something to consider is that the New Settlement will be based in rough, broken land that is unsuitable for normal farming. Doing Step Farms now rather than later will speed up the growth and development of the town, allowing it to be economically productive quicker.
That would be true prior to the Sacred Forest megaproject granting us an alternative source for settlement growth. Currently it would be
nice but not
necessary.
Tbh I don't know what tasks animals can be used for that we do already use them for, other than plowing, because we lack plows. They're used as beasts of burden and as animal power to turn things. I'd argue that the economic gateway is partly to the increased reliance on flour, but more to the development of plows - though admittedly that's a dangerous path to go down if we plough too deeply.
One reason for not having plows yet is the lack of animal power to do it with. Basically, people won't go looking for new ways to put their animals to work when they don't have many animals and all those animals are already busy working. Currently our animals are used to haul wagonloads of everything, which range from food, to rubbish, to Black Soil to saplings, rocks and mud for terraforming projects.
An excess of animals just standing around probably starts making people wonder why the animals don't have something to do though.
Maximum synergy is always the most effective course of action. If we repeatedly pursue deformed economic models, we will become either rounded or an arrow pointing toward the future.
I would point you to the following factions pursuing a route of maximum synergy:
-Original lowlanders. Pioneer Spirit + Slavery combo to rack up the stability loss and grow rapidly by splintering. Shattered like glass due to pursuit of a short term optimal action.
-Spirit Talkers. Pure religious tribute -> military power model of social control, with imported food for everything using their economic power...led to the discovery that if you trade for food, you will starve even if you are rich when nobody has food to trade to you.
-Us. Settlement was never synergizing with anything at any time, so no settlements were ever built.
Maximum short term synergy needs to factor in the long term viability.
You could say the same for dried fish.
Fish was produced in a single corner of our polity, risky to harvest and then transport. Cheese can be manufactured in any of our settlements locally with pastures. That's the economic and nutritional difference towards putting a lot more protein into the diet. Cows are basically Grass to Protein convertors with that.
...This is basically going to be what our missionaries say, isn't it?
Oh and:
While obviously perturbed, the foreign chief nodded after a moment and then began to talk. It was awkward and pantomiming, but he obviously had some experience with this as his point started to get across. Well, mostly, since Nishiphur soon grew confused. He got the idea that this chief considered this land theirs, and that they considered Nishiphur's clan intruders, but... Nishiphur was sure that he had to be confused. These people wanted to teach his people how to farm? That didn't make a grain of sense!
We have a lot of practice at teaching people how to farm our way even if they don't understand us at all.
"These people are crazy," Nishiphur's son Narrabur noted with a mixture of genuine confusion and contempt and gratitude. Nishiphur had to mildly agree, in that they just sort of showed up with food and supplies and experts and said, 'Here, this is how you build a village. Would you like to trade grain for dyes? How about marrying our daughters?'
We also put up construction project, bargains for shinies and waifus on the market.
As such it only takes the majority of a season to get from the valley to the core of the Confederacy, where the experts are welcomed warmly if with a bit of confusion. The lowlanders don't quite get why aid like this is being sent, or why they're being sent farmers of all people, but after a few demonstrations of the land management techniques they start to appreciate it.
And everyone gets Strong Opinions About Agriculture
