I have an idea to change the graphics to instead show where the best place to put an agricultural tower is, instead of the soil quality. Because the tower can only plant in a 3x3 location, what if the dot for each tile was colored based on the number of valid 3x3 sectors within the 21x21 area around that tile?
To give an example, let's say you've got a 7x7 patch of green tiles. If you place the agricultural tower's center two tiles away from the edge, (remember towers are 3x3 themselves, so this would make the tower's edge flush with the edge of the 7x7 patch) it will line up two 3x3 sectors within that 7x7 patch, with one line of tiles leftover. But, if you place it three tiles from the edge, it will only be able to line up a single sector within that 7x7 patch; this is because the first 3x3 sector will have 6/9 growable tiles, the second 3x3 sector will have 9/9 growable tiles, and the third sector will have 3/9 growable tiles. Therefore, placing the tower two tiles away would give double the amount of growable 3x3 sectors than placing it three tiles away from the edge of the 7x7 patch.
This would greatly aid the early game, and not matter once you've gotten to the point where you can place artificial soil. I was thinking you could change the colors to be something like this: (You'd probably need to restrict it to search only the area around where the cursor holding the tower ghost is.) Green tiles give the highest amount of growable sectors within the nearby area, yellow tiles give between half of the maximum and one less than the max, and red tiles give less than half the max.
