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[Khym Chanur]

This current game was the second time I got a dwarf with a strange mood, and the first one that required shell, which I had forgotten about.  Being very new to the game, it took me a while to get some turtles and put them in a food stockpile near a dining room.  However, none of the dwarves would eat them.  So I tried forbidding everything in that food stockpile (and other stockpiles nearby) except for the turtles.  However, as far as I could tell:

1) They kept eating out of the forbidden barrels.

2) They started taking the forbidden barrels out of the stockpile and moving them... somewhere.

3) After my dwarf went insane and I reclaimed the remaining food barrels, they started bringing back the removed barrels.

Was I misinterpreting something?  Was I doing it wrong?

(And it was the stonecrafter who was the source of all my exports.  *sigh)

[assimilateur]

I don't know about them eating forbidden food, as I've never really tested things like that (I guess I've forbidden food before, but not en masse). What you should do next time you're in a similar situation, is dump a turtle, so it rots and you can use the shell and bones without having to wait for one of your guys to eat it.

That said, if they did touch your forbidden stuff, then maybe you indeed did something wrong. You can mass-forbid things by using a key combination that starts with "d" "b" something (probably "f", but there will be a list of possible options for forbidding, dumping, and so on, so you'll figure it out), so if you do that over all your food stockpiles you can then manually unforbid (aka claim) some turtles or whatever you need them to eat.


Also, if your stonecrafter is your main source of trade goods, then I recommend trying something different. What I always liked to base my exports on was prepared meals. You set up a bunch of farms, more than you think you'll need, use relatively few farmers (I use one, who is able to go from proficient [I give him 5 growing skill points on embark] to legendary after like 1.5 or 2 years of tending 4 farms of 3x5 tiles each; I recommend turning on "only farmers harvest" in the "o" menu) and have a cook make your plants into roasts. Concentrate especially on quarry bushes and sweetpods and process them into bags and barrels, respectively, as they yield large stacks of ingredients for your roasts.

[Grendus]

I usually do bonecrafting, but I play military challenge mods (Dig Deeper, Relentless Assault, etc) so I have a lot of bones. Cooking is currently broken in my opinion, a single unit of Dwarven Syrup is worth the same as a bar of electrum, and you get five units per Sweet Pod compared to three goblets from a bar of electrum. And unlike electrum, sweet pods are an infinite resource. But that's just me.

I would not recommend stonecrafting as an economic basis, the only thing it really produces is TONS of low value crafts. Metalcrafting and gem setting are my favorites, masterwork platinum mugs with masterwork yellow diamond designs can buy you most of the mountainhome. Saves you a lot of bins, and frees up your workers to do something other than haul 56 value basalt mugs around.

[sono]

Hi, I am new as well but i know exactly what happened since i had this exact same problem a mere hour ago =)

I was going insane but figured it out eventually, and managed to save my dwarf, and it's rather simple (albeit unintuitive but what's new?):

If you designate a barrel as forbidden, the flag will only apply to the barrel.. not its contens. Urist McHungry will still go and fetch food from that barrel. What you have to do is go into the barrel(enter) then select the individual food items (enter again) and then press f to forbid that individual food item.

The idea that letting a turtle rot will produce the desired results was of course very worthwhile, but i didn't read it yet =)

I have established a rather strong prepared meal economy but i must say it's a lot of hassle with the vermin. Since my uber meals are 20+ in size not only do they not fit in barrels but attract vermin (i have a fly problem because i am above an aquifier, on my third attempt to punch through, looking good now finally lol) like mad.

There is, AFAIK, nothing i can do against flies short of putting my foodstocks further underground. Correct me if i am wrong.

[assimilateur]

But that's just me.

I see where you're coming from, but look at it like this: you're selling food made by a legendary cook. If we take "legendary" to actually mean something in this game (it doesn't, but that's another story), then that's not unlike catering by a famous chef, whose work wouldn't exactly be cheap either.

[sono]

Cooking is, as a matter of fact, absolutely ridiculous. I'm churning out 10k+ (tho the average is, admittedly, lower) value meals from a comparatively small fortress in year 2. I can buy entire caravans with a couple of roasts. What's that for trade?

PS: Don't tell anyone but I am actually playing Hobbit Fortress. At least i can get through that bloody aquifier =)

[MrFake]

Hi, I am new as well but i know exactly what happened since i had this exact same problem a mere hour ago =)

I was going insane but figured it out eventually, and managed to save my dwarf, and it's rather simple (albeit unintuitive but what's new?):

If you designate a barrel as forbidden, the flag will only apply to the barrel.. not its contens. Urist McHungry will still go and fetch food from that barrel. What you have to do is go into the barrel(enter) then select the individual food items (enter again) and then press f to forbid that individual food item.

The idea that letting a turtle rot will produce the desired results was of course very worthwhile, but i didn't read it yet =)

Yes, very unintuitive, as it's natural to assume that forbidding the container forbids any actions regarding the container, including taking things out.

Though, the OP did say that dwarfs were moving the forbidden barrels.  That really shouldn't happen bar at least one exception I know of: the dwarf owns the item and is already performing some job related to the item.  And this does pop up a lot, since dwarfs take possession of food they eat, and I guess booze barrels they're carrying during and after drinking.

Carrying forbidden food barrels?  Are you sure they were forbidden ('v' over the dwarf, 'i' for its inventory, then 'enter' on the barrel to see if its forbidden, or curly braces around the barrel, {})?  Where were they being taken to?

If you want to get turtle bones quickly, then forbid all food.  Go to the 'z' screen, then select 'stocks', then find all food items listed in the stocks menus (plants, meals, meat, prepared fish).  Go down each list and 'f'orbid each item except for 'turtle'.  Make sure the turtle is prepared, as in not in the raw fish menu.  Dwarfs will not eat raw turtle.  To prepare it, then choose 'prepare raw fish' at a fishery and keep doing that until the turtle is picked up and prepared by a dwarf with the 'fish cleaning' labor.

With only that prepared turtle to eat, they'll gobble it up quickly.  Just unforbid everything afterwards the same way through the 'z' menus.

[assimilateur]

It's important to note that while preparing (as in, cleaning) turtle, or any other fish (yes, turtles count as fish in this game) is necessary*, cooking would defeat the purpose, as the shells and bones would be lost.

*Imported fish, including the one you embark with, is already clean on delivery.

[Khym Chanur]

Carrying forbidden food barrels?  Are you sure they were forbidden ('v' over the dwarf, 'i' for its inventory, then 'enter' on the barrel to see if its forbidden, or curly braces around the barrel, {})?  Where were they being taken to?

I'm pretty sure they were forbidden, since after mass designating them as forbidden I had to go back and unforbid the booze barrels.

If you want to get turtle bones quickly, then forbid all food.  Go to the 'z' screen, then select 'stocks', then find all food items listed in the stocks menus (plants, meals, meat, prepared fish).  Go down each list and 'f'orbid each item except for 'turtle'.

Oh, you can forbid things from the stock menu?  That would have been a lot easier.  Huh, and looking at the stock menu, I see that the turtles were all raw, which is why no one was eating them.  I thought that they had been processed, but...

Make sure the turtle is prepared, as in not in the raw fish menu.  Dwarfs will not eat raw turtle.  To prepare it, then choose 'prepare raw fish' at a fishery and keep doing that until the turtle is picked up and prepared by a dwarf with the 'fish cleaning' labor.

I forgot about that part.  Just like how in this game I'd forgotten to put my stonecrafter's jobs on "Repeat" until after the first dwarven caravan arrived and I realized I had only 12 trade items.

In my next game I'll have to make sure to catch some turtles right away.  Or would turtles bought in the pre-embark supplies screen produce shells as well?

[gtmattz]

...would turtles bought in the pre-embark supplies screen produce shells as well?

Yes