Topic: A couple Of Noob Questions (Read 585 times)

farm the man · « **on:** December 19, 2010, 12:55:26 am »

Ok, I'm completely new to this game and on my 2nd functioning fortress. It's 2 years old and from the start I planned on basing my economy on having a breeding population of cats and butchering their kittens as a neverending source of food,skins and bones. But, I haven't been getting much actual food from butchering cats.
Is this a viable food source, or should I be boring and breed cows? On a related note, can animals breed in cages? Finally, what's the point of building stockpiles deep underground? you dig out all the rock, and then have to use up all of the space you just carved out to hold the rocks you produced.

rephikul · « **Reply #1 on:** December 19, 2010, 01:12:01 am »

Ok, I'm completely new to this game and on my 2nd functioning fortress. It's 2 years old and from the start I planned on basing my economy on having a breeding population of cats and butchering their kittens as a neverending source of food,skins and bones. But, I haven't been getting much actual food from butchering cats. Is this a viable food source, or should I be boring and breed cows?
Cat are at least 10 times smaller then cows which's about 3 times smaller then elephants.

On a related note, can animals breed in cages?
Grow up, yes. Deliver babies, yes. Getting pregged, no.

Finally, what's the point of building stockpiles deep underground?
Layering stockpile reduce travel distance and ultilize z levels better. A 9x9x9 (729 storage space) cube need you to travel about 22 steps between extreme ends. A 27x27 (729 storage space) room require 40 steps

you dig out all the rock, and then have to use up all of the space you just carved out to hold the rocks you produced.
You dont need to care about the rocks. If you put pile of other stuff the dwarves will happily stack those onto the rock.

beekay · « **Reply #2 on:** December 19, 2010, 01:14:37 am »

Cows produce a lot more food than cats do, but they also grow more slowly (slaughtering a calf or kitten will net you less food than the full-grown version). I wouldn't base my food on either of them, but cows are probably a better choice. Especially since they can't adopt dwarves.

If you want a really inexhaustible food source, try elephants. 100+ meat from a single grown elephant corpse is common, and even the calves would provide more than a full-grown cow. Which is just as well, since they take 10 years to grow up.

re: underground stockpiles. Stockpiles in rock are good because you are a dwarf and leaving things outside or in the dirt is horrible and wrong.

rephikul · « **Reply #3 on:** December 19, 2010, 01:18:28 am »

Quote from: beekay on December 19, 2010, 01:14:37 am

Cows produce a lot more food than cats do, but they also grow more slowly

Not true. Both take 2 years to fully grow.
Cat size, year 0:500 year 1:2k year 2:5k
Cow size, year 0: 100k year 1:250k year 2:600k

beekay · « **Reply #4 on:** December 19, 2010, 01:46:14 am »

Oh. Oops.

I guess that makes cows an unequivocally better choice then.

BuGGaTon · « **Reply #5 on:** December 19, 2010, 05:05:57 am »

Dogs would be drastically superior to Cats if you're planning on basing part of your food industry on meat from breeding. They only cost 5 more points to purchase at embark but produce up to twice as much meat, twice as much fat (Tallow can be used for making soap or cooking in the kitchen), nearly 3 times as many bones (if you like bonecarving? >.>) and can be used as war/hunting animals should you need some quick early defence. I often embark with 10+ females and 1 male. If you can feed yourself until they start producing puppies you should be golden. Preferably wait until they reach adulthood (leave them in a cage until they do to reduce lag and puppies following your hunters) before slaughtering them. Also, only kill the males and you'll produce more and more food.

The biggest problem with cats is that they'll adopt a dwarf and you'll be unable to slaughter them removing any chances you had of culling the population. This can lead to a deadly Catsplosion! Whilst this might not lead to much fun it could kill your FPS if left unattended.

celem · « **Reply #6 on:** December 19, 2010, 05:21:30 am »

^^This

Im surprised no-one mentioned it before but cats are the 1 animal you really want to control the population of. If you get a dwarf in who 'likes cats for their aloofness' he'll rapidly adopt a dozen or more leaving you screwed.

Plus as said cats are small, their leather is also of the 5 dorfbuck tier.
Go for something a little larger. More exotics usually give a bit more value with elephants and unicorns i think having special boosts to product values. (plus you get ivory/horn from both)

rephikul · « **Reply #7 on:** December 19, 2010, 05:45:16 am »

elephant is a bad idea... they are expensive and take forever to mature. By the time you get couple breeding pairs the fortress is already at its end. My favorite are grizzly bears, polar bears and giant eagles. Breed fast, like 2 years to mature and war trainable. Butcher the weak and breed the strong.

farm the man · « **Reply #8 on:** December 19, 2010, 01:15:05 pm »

Okay, thanks I'll try to remember this, especially the part about bald eagles, grizzly bears, and polar bears. Wow, that is dwarfy. One more way that cats are bad is proboably the fact that I have had to build a huge 40x20 refuse pile outside just for all the corpses they bring in.

Rowanas · « **Reply #9 on:** December 19, 2010, 01:31:35 pm »

I use Crocodile Monitors, a large lizard species I made for myself to take the place of dogs and cats. They start as small as kittens and take 2 years to mature properly (it was 4, but all of my fortresses crumble before that), but grow to be as large as a man when fully grown. When young, they'll happily kill kobolds and Rhesus Macaques, but they aren't overpowered, so they go down pretty quickly to ambushes. They lay clutches of 7-17, providing many, many skulls (they're too small at birth to provide meat), but after a year or so you'll have a thriving meat industry. They cost about twice as much as cats, are amphibious, trainable and move slightly faster than average on the ground.

Plus, they're real creatures. Everything in the raws is based on the actual lizard, except for the shortened growth time.

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Author Topic: A couple Of Noob Questions (Read 585 times)

farm the man

A couple Of Noob Questions

rephikul

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beekay

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rephikul

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beekay

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BuGGaTon

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celem

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rephikul

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farm the man

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Rowanas

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