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[leontas2007]

Hello!

So this is the second time that I lose a fortress. The first was the first second I embarked in a haunted area to see what I can do.

Now this is the first time that I don't have any drinks during the winter and at last I lost a fortress! I run out of plump helmets and gatherings plants didn't help

So my question is, what can I do when its winter? Drinks ran out fast

[mikekchar]

You have to farm plants underground plants.  It might be tricky if you have no soil because you have to flood the area somehow.  However, plump helmets will grown year round underground, so you should have no trouble -- you only need a small farm.  There are lots of tricky ways to flood a room, but I usually just build a staircase next to each farm plot and then designate a pond 1 z-level above the farm plot (accessible from the stairs).  Dwarfs will gather water and dump it from the stairs making the ground muddy.  Then you can make a farm plot.  For drinks alone, you're going to need at most 1 farm tile for every 2 dwarfs (in practice I think you need a lot less than that) -- so for the starting 7, make a 3 tile farm for drinks.  In the first year, you'll have less than 30 dwarfs, so you need no more than a 15 tile farm.

If you have no access to water, *and* no access to soil, then it is a *very* difficult embark, and probably you should try something easier ;-)

[Dahrk]

While your dwarves won't be happy about it, they can also drink water. Since all of the surface water will freeze in Winter, you can dig a well and/or dig down to the caverns. The caverns, while usually containing large lakes of water, are also full of dangerous beasts.

If you channel water from a river or lake to a covered area, it won't freeze. However, it'll need to be at least 2 blocks deep to stop it turning 'murky'. You can even get your dwarves to carry water, bucket by bucket, to a pool zone.

The wiki has a good guide:
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Well_guide

[leontas2007]

for some reason they survived the winter without water and now everything is back to normal.

Now about the soil. Well I have all my farms underground. How can plants grow there?

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I have designated to gather half the plants of the map but still nothing is brewable

[Togre]

Your farms look good.  They are built and growing.  They should easily be able to supply your needs.

I assume you have 1) a still, 2)barrels (or rock pots) and 3) a dwarf with brewing enabled (and probably other tasks disabled)?

If yes to those, then go to the kitchen tab (z) and check your food inventory.  What to you have marked as cookable and what as brewable?

Also, if you are going to town with cooking, you may be consuming all plants for that before they can be brewed.

[PatrikLundell]

A properly run fortress needs water only for cleaning wounds and providing injured dorfs with water to drink. For all other purposes they will use booze (with the rather rare exception of dorfs who have water as a preferred drink). However, a proper hospital is rather useful, as is a well and a water cistern (you can use water for obsidianization as well).
Thus, I'd recommend using the non freezing months to lead surface water into an underground cistern where it's protected from freezing (don't forget to protect the water inlet, or nasty critters may find their way into your fortress that way).

A safe, unlimited water supply is a good reason for liking aquifers (while the effort of penetrating them is a reason not to like them).

[leontas2007]

Ι......Ι found out what was the problem.....and it is embarrassing....

I was so sure that I had....wood....all barrels buckets bins everything are full, when I try to make some they are canceled, so after a while I saw that I don't have wood anymore....

That brings me to another question, what happens when I ran out of wood?

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A properly run fortress needs water only for cleaning wounds and providing injured dorfs with water to drink. For all other purposes they will use booze (with the rather rare exception of dorfs who have water as a preferred drink). However, a proper hospital is rather useful, as is a well and a water cistern (you can use water for obsidianization as well).
Thus, I'd recommend using the non freezing months to lead surface water into an underground cistern where it's protected from freezing (don't forget to protect the water inlet, or nasty critters may find their way into your fortress that way).

A safe, unlimited water supply is a good reason for liking aquifers (while the effort of penetrating them is a reason not to like them).

I never play with aquifers, so I don't really know how to penertate them or how to avoid them and so on.

[PatrikLundell]

Wood is required to make beds. In addition to that, it's used for ash (for soap) and charcoal (for steel making), although charcoal can be replaced by coal ores, if available.

For storage of booze you can make large pots of stone, wood (which you don't have), glass, clay, and metal. If you don't have any wood, caravans will bring a small amount, although if you play a dead civ and have gone to war against everyone that option falls.
Unless you're embarked in a very low rainfall desert trees will regrow (it takes 3 years for a sapling to mature), and you should have wood in the caverns (blood thorn grows even in muddy caverns, although it's a cavern 3 only species). Glass, clay, and metal require magma facilities or coal ore, as there's no wood to fuel their processes with, though.

The double-slit aquifer penetration method is described on the wiki, although you have to follow it carefully, as there are a couple of steps that may take some time to understand (at least it did for me). There are variations of that method, but I'll stick to that one as being "good enough".

[Hiarhu]

In answer to your question about wood, assuming you do have access to water and caverns with trees you can create an underground tree farm to produce cavern trees and plants safely. Just dig out a reasonably sizable area (more open space increases fps lag from pathfinding so keep that in mind) at lest two z levels deep by digging the space you want then channeling down to dig out the levels below it. Two levels are required for the saplings to grow into trees while more z levels can marginally increase yield by allowing trees to grow larger. Then flood the chamber with water and remove or allow it to evaporate. This will leave mud behind upon which saplings will naturally sprout. Avoid letting your dwarves trample the growing saplings as this will kill them, keep this area for tree growing not farming or plant gathering unless it's an emergency to avoid this. It'll take a while, as mentioned it takes at least three years for a sapling to sprout but once the farm matures you have a stable and secure wood supply that should meet your needs.

[Togre]

Don't feel bad.  I know I've been there before too.