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[Phmcw]

No offenses, but I can't understand those who like desert or mountain fortress but don't want to deal with aridity.
Isn't it a key specificity of these regions?
I mean every fortress should have a water source, whatever it may be (oasis, river, underground cavern...). It's mandatory for agriculture.

[Paul]

I agree. Lack of water should be a key feature (read: difficulty) of desert regions. Being able to build lush farms on arid sand just below the scorching surface in previous versions was just silly

I mean technically speaking we're already breaking physics by being able to grow mushrooms in mud underground with no source of energy - that's kinda required for the fantasy style underground to work. But it's even worse to be able to grow them on dry sand with no water in sight.

[uberubert]

I'm split on whether or not I like the irrigation. I started in 2D when you HAD to irrigate. However, in 2D after you flooded a room, closing the floodgate made the water drain away, leaving the mud. Now I have to pump the water out of my farms before sending the farmers back in. It's a neat challenge, but I'm not sure if it should be mandatory for crops.

As it looks like excrement will never be implemented, fertilization is a bit extreme to bother making mandatory, so I propose a different method. As plump helmets are the staple food and are a mushroom, used to growing in soils underground, they should not require irrigation. All other crops should require irrigation in order to be planted. This will let new players get a simple plump helmet farm started to keep the dwarves from starving, while not getting the full benefits from farming. It'll also make it possible to get farming going in a desert with no water.

I also support growing seasons. I'd like to see the 2D inability to grow during winter brought back. It makes farming far more important to learn properly at the beginning so that your dwarves survive the first winter.

Quoted for 100% agreement. Wouldn't have written it any other way myself.

[kurrata]

I think farming should be separate in more difficulty "levels"

1st 40d way of farming no irrigation(like outdoors) nothing to get your basic farming going. It would produce fast rotting crops in small stacks.The preapared meals from it would rot fast to(easy meal).
Basic idea is that you use this to feed your dwarfs on embark 1st year or two.

2nd farming could be with irrigation and where after each session or year planting field needs to be watered
It would give better crops with better lifetime/stacks(middle meal). If it doesn't get watered to changes to type 1 farm field.

3rd would be cave farming where you get best crops from which you make meals worth billion dwarfs bucks like in 40d.
The catch here would be that time by time game would spawn hungry cave monsters(they have to eat something and your farm has plenty of food) with sole propose to destroy/eat crops in your cave farm.(laverish meal). These farms should have to be watered to.
if they aren't they change in type 1 farms with no monsters

This would give natural progression to farming and end up with plenty of fun for the hard work maintaining your laverish meal source.

[SkyRender]

 Like some others, I saw the new limitation as a challenge to overcome instead of an insurmountable obstacle or an irritation.  And I found a workable solution with zero risk in the form of Z-level exploitation to make artificial ponds that my Dwarves then toss water down into (thus making a very lovely mud patch for me to farm on).  I'm half-tempted to use this method to make the entire surface level into a gigantic artificial version of the natural caves, since now any muddy cavern will grow underground shrubs and trees.

[(name here)]

I find it irritating, personally, but not difficult. It'd be nice to make it more like 2D, where a large percentage of dorfs actually need to be farmers, but with a nile-like underground river easily avaliable. However, nostalgia fort indicates that the winter no-farming restriction is really harsh when combined with vanishing mud, and nearly killed that fort repeatedly.

[Urist McDepravity]

No offenses, but I can't understand those who like desert or mountain fortress but don't want to deal with aridity.
Isn't it a key specificity of these regions?
I mean every fortress should have a water source, whatever it may be (oasis, river, underground cavern...). It's mandatory for agriculture.

Actually, this gave me an idea. Soil should be farmable as is, but sand should not be soil, since it cannot hold water.  It will fix both problems this way.