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[Sofaspud]

I've been playing DF for a while now, and done some pretty cool things (for a noob).  But one thing I've yet to grasp is the finer points of food production.

Oh, I can get a farm or ten up and running and have plump helmets coming out my dwarves' ears.  I'm not starving, you know?  I can keep them fed just fine.

What I don't get is how to move on past subsistence-level mushroom growing.  Plant rock nuts (quarry bushes)?  Got it.  No problem.  So... what next?

Plant cave wheat?  You betcha! ... funny, they don't seem to DO anything with it after it's gathered, though...

Sweet pods?  Hey, I got a bumper crop of 'em!  What are they good for and how do I get there?

See what I mean?  I can grow all this stuff 'til the cows come home, but I have no idea how to get the dwarves to do something interesting with them.  So... can anyone enlighten me?

[puke]

mills, breweries, and farmer's workshops.  you can grind some into flower at a mill.  you can brew some directly from a brewerey, and you can take others to a farmers workshop to extract or process them.  extracting or processing may require a bag or barrel, and then you may be able to cook or brew that extract.

also, a kitchen lets you make meals out of combined items.  some of these would not be edible on their own.  seeds and tallow and syrup, for example.

[JadeFalcon]

The Farmers workshop can change sweet pods into dwarven syrup,process to barrel,they can turn quarry bushes into leaves,process to plant,the mill can process the various wheats in flour.

So basically make a farmers workshop and mill and look for what they can do with each different crop.  

Edit:Beaten to the punch.So uh ya what he said  

[ December 12, 2007: Message edited by: JadeFalcon ]

[Sappho]

Indeed.  You can look these buildings up in the wiki for more information, or feel free to ask more questions if you have em.  I learned most of what I know about the game from the wiki, back in the days of two dimensions...  Ah, memories.

[Kagus]

Booze:

Build a brewery, and make sure you have an unused barrel and some sort of plant ready.  Select "Brew Drink" from the brewery, and make sure a dwarf has the "Brewer" job enabled.  Now, sit back and watch your dwarves drink themselves silly.

Processing:

This can be done any number of ways, depending on the plant type.  If you want flour, get a quern set up (make one in your mason's shop, and then build it somewhere) and select "Mill plant".  Do you want dye, thread, or syrup?  Build a Farmer's Workshop and select one of the jobs listed there.

Meals:

Build a Kitchen, and make sure you have plants/meat/booze/milled plants/just about anything short of Rhyolite ready, and select one of the cooking options from the Kitchen.  "Easy meal" takes two ingredients and makes biscuits, "Fine meal" takes three and makes stew, "Lavish meal" takes four and makes a roast.

I think that about covers it, if you need anything else just ask.  It's what this forum is here for. (Well, that and the Wiki) http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Main_Page

[InquisitiveIdiot]

I'm a large advocate for growing boozable plants, particularly pig tails and rope reed since extra plants can (and indeed should) be processed to cloth.  It's more controllable in terms of barrel usage - you can cook a little more than usual if you need barrels, or hold back a little on cooking if you need booze, or make some into thread if you need barrels but have too much food.

Basic plan
farms -> pig tails/rope reed/sweet pods
still (b+w+l) -> Brew Drink R
kitchen (b+w+z) ->  Prepare Lavish Meal R
Farmer's Workshop (b+w+w) -> Process Plants (when you have leftover pig tails)

[Edit] A flow chart would also help
seed -> farm -> plant
plant+barrel -> still -> booze+seeds
boozex4 -> kitchen -> booze roast(don't ask)+barrelx4

[ December 12, 2007: Message edited by: InquisitiveIdiot ]

[Aspartic]

Due to the farm issue thats out there right now, my fortress lives on nothing but Strawberry Wine, and Sewer Brew. Ironically, they really seem to like the Sewer Brew and cook the win...

[Troas]

While we are on the subject, I also had a farming question - is there any way to get dwarves to consolidate seeds?  My seed stockpile grew to 1000 or so, which would be nice except they keep insisting on putting a handful of each seed in a bag, stuff the bags in a barrel and then go get another barrel - leaving me short on bags and brew barrels.  Is there any way to encourage them to consolidate seeds?  

I'm beginning to think I need to cook my way down to about 25 seeds/plant and replant them all at once to empty the bags.

[Magus]

Someone really needs to post this link, to one of the most useful pages on the wiki: http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Crop

My dwarves are currently mostly living off exceptional dwarven wine roast (with the occasional masterwork).  It sure makes them happy.  Conveniently, there are often a few stacks of roast which haven't made it into a barrel (but are in the food stockpile).  The elves are perfectly happy to take these in trade.  Exceptional dwarven wine roast x40 is worth quite a lot...one could probably keep an economy running on nothing but farm/brew/cook plump helmets.

[Reasonableman]

One big tip: do NOT set plump helmets too "cookable," at least not for long. I made that mistake and payed for it with a bunch of starving dwarves: when cooked, the plants leave no seeds behind for planting. Brewing is fine, as it produces seeds, but if you run out (without requesting seeds in trading) you are pretty much screwed. I had to desperately carve out a surface farming operation (which didn't work too well; after pumping water into a little walled-off area next to my brook, I designated some farms and lo-and-behold, no seeds for this type of farm, despite the fact that I spent about half of my immigrants on plant gathering. Turns out that the "mountain" biome prohibited farming in that spot. Eventually built another little farm in the "forest" part of the map and that worked fine, at least as fine as a farm located half a map away from my fortress could work.)

Goddang that was a very long... erm... parentheseseseses phrase-a-ma-thing.

[Skanky]

Paragraph.  

You make an excellent point though. Cooking plump helmets really puts a dent on your food production abilities initially. With my first farm and many low-skilled farmers, I could barely keep my dwarves with enough seeds to plant even when importing as many as possible.

With my current fortress I discovered a downside to this, though. I ended up cooking the plump helmet's booze faster than I could produce the stuff, and several dwarves had to resort to drinking water. Water. They have never quite forgiven me for that.

[Nik]

My previous fortress literally existed on prickle berries.  Prickle Berry wine and biscuits was essentially the diet.  

[Magus]

quote:Originally posted by Skanky:
<STRONG>You make an excellent point though. Cooking plump helmets really puts a dent on your food production abilities initially.</STRONG>

Yeah, you brew the helmets and then cook the wine, but you clearly have learned that.  As a bonus, as best I can tell, in addition to getting your seeds back, you actually get more food than if you cooked the helmets directly.

quote:<STRONG>With my current fortress I discovered a downside to this, though. I ended up cooking the plump helmet's booze faster than I could produce the stuff</STRONG>

Ouch.  Drop into the kitchen management screen occasionally and check how much wine you have.  When you have plenty, set it to cook, when it starts getting low, turn off cooking.  Since the numbers are right there, it's not too micromanagey; just an occasional check to make sure things are going smoothly.

[martinuzz]

Pigtails >> farmer's workshop >> pig tail thread
sweet pods >> farmer's workshop +barrel >> dwarven syrup
sweet pods >> mill +bag>> dwarven sugar
dimple cups >> mill +bag>> dimple dye
cave wheat >> mill +bag>> cave wheat flour
longland grass >> mill >> longland flour
rope reeds >> farmer's workshop >> rope reed thread
quarry bushes >> farmer's workshop +bag >> quarry bush leaves
whip vines >> mill +bag >> whip vine flour
valley herb >> farmer's workshop +vial >> golden salve?

I'm not sure, but I think the other two dyes are milled from hide roots and blade weed.

I never cook my booze for aestethics. Plenty of food anyhow.
"Bladwarf has been miserable lately. He endured the travesty of booze defacement"

Also, I allow all my plants to be brewed, not cooked (for the seeds). Only when I have more than 100 of a particular plant, I turn cooking on.
Prepare to need LOTS of bags and barrels.

[erendor]

quote:Originally posted by Reasonableman:
<STRONG>Turns out that the "mountain" biome prohibited farming in that spot.</STRONG>

OH!