Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Jake]

Agreed. I remember there was a mod that made farming way more intense - everything took longer to grown, so farm plots needed to be larger, in addition to the fact that outside plants had seasonal restrictions put on them.

Remember that one myself, but unfortunately it was made for 40d. You might try the Flora and Fauna mod, which adds a lot of extra crops with seasonal restrictions and makes the vanilla crops a lot rarer.

[Mushroo]

Great thread! Agriculture is easily my favorite industry in DF. I really enjoy balancing the inputs/outputs and the wide range of decisions/products possible (the same plant could become alcohol or pants!)

I am always trying new things and giving myself new challenges. For example I recently tried a dimple cup and beekeeping only fort (cook the dimple spawn into biscuits/roasts as the only food source). It was a disaster but a FUN disaster!!

That being said I do have a "standard" setup that works well for me. This assumes a standard embark with 5 of each seed:

As soon as I've dug out a soil/sand room, I make a temporary farm with six 1x5 farm plots. Each plot is dedicated to one of the six crops, and lies fallow during the off-season (or grows plump helmets if I really want a big food surplus). This farm will supply plenty of food/alcohol for the first year of my fort, and a single dwarf with growing/brewing/threshing/milling can manage this farm all by himself.

By summertime, my miner(s) has dug out dining hall, work rooms, stockpiles, etc. and it's time to build a second farm for my "cash crops." This is an 11x11 room with four 5x5 plots at the corners, a statue in the center square, and seed stockpile in the remaining squares. Plants never wither because there are always idlers congregating at the statue, which also gives my farmers happy thoughts.

I often let the first migrant wave determine what my four "cash crops" will be. If a dyer arrives I grow dimple cups, if a weaver shows up I grow pig tails, if a miller arrives I grow sweet pods and cave wheat, etc. One of my cash crops is always quarry bushes!

Here are the typical results of this plan: By autumn, I've produced enough Roasts to buy everything I need/want from the caravan (cloth and bags for my mill industry are often the first priority). Food is my only export--I don't bother with rock mugs any more since learning about quarry bushes! By year 2, roast stacks approach 10,000 in value, by year 3, they are sometimes over 30,000. Excess production is hoarded away and famine is unheard of.

My agriculture-themed forts are frequently vegetarian; I don't embark with or buy animals, and those that arrive with the migrants go in the petting zoo to give happy thoughts. I don't generally do a lot of above-ground farming (because I consider the lack of seasonality exploity) but when I do, I have a fondness for rope reeds and longland grass. The elf and human traders bring enough vegetables to provide for a nice variety in alcohol (stored in rock pots to supplement my thousands of pots of dwarven wine), and I use the seeds left over from brewing these above ground crops as training material for my culinary academy.

So that's my strategy in a nutshell. To recap:

1. Starter farm with six 1x5 plots
2. Cash-crop farm with four 5x5 plots
3. Export products/industries determined at random by arrival of skilled migrants
4. Quarry bush roasts = PROFIT

[Pan]

Great thread! Agriculture is easily my favorite industry in DF. I really enjoy balancing the inputs/outputs and the wide range of decisions/products possible (the same plant could become alcohol or pants!)

I am always trying new things and giving myself new challenges. For example I recently tried a dimple cup and beekeeping only fort (cook the dimple spawn into biscuits/roasts as the only food source). It was a disaster but a FUN disaster!!

That being said I do have a "standard" setup that works well for me. This assumes a standard embark with 5 of each seed:

As soon as I've dug out a soil/sand room, I make a temporary farm with six 1x5 farm plots. Each plot is dedicated to one of the six crops, and lies fallow during the off-season (or grows plump helmets if I really want a big food surplus). This farm will supply plenty of food/alcohol for the first year of my fort, and a single dwarf with growing/brewing/threshing/milling can manage this farm all by himself.

By summertime, my miner(s) has dug out dining hall, work rooms, stockpiles, etc. and it's time to build a second farm for my "cash crops." This is an 11x11 room with four 5x5 plots at the corners, a statue in the center square, and seed stockpile in the remaining squares. Plants never wither because there are always idlers congregating at the statue, which also gives my farmers happy thoughts.

I often let the first migrant wave determine what my four "cash crops" will be. If a dyer arrives I grow pig tails, if a weaver shows up I grow pig tails, if a miller arrives I grow sweet pods and cave wheat, etc. One of my cash crops is always quarry bushes!

Here are the typical results of this plan: By autumn, I've produced enough Roasts to buy everything I need/want from the caravan (cloth and bags for my mill industry are often the first priority). Food is my only export--I don't bother with rock mugs any more since learning about quarry bushes! By year 2, roast stacks approach 10,000 in value, by year 3, they are sometimes over 30,000. Excess production is hoarded away and famine is unheard of.

My agriculture-themed forts are frequently vegetarian; I don't embark with or buy animals, and those that arrive with the migrants go in the petting zoo to give happy thoughts. I don't generally do a lot of above-ground farming (because I consider the lack of seasonality exploity) but when I do, I have a fondness for rope reeds and longland grass. The elf and human traders bring enough vegetables to provide for a nice variety in alcohol (stored in rock pots to supplement my thousands of pots of dwarven wine), and I use the seeds left over from brewing these above ground crops as training material for my culinary academy.

So that's my strategy in a nutshell. To recap:

1. Starter farm with six 1x5 plots
2. Cash-crop farm with four 5x5 plots
3. Export products/industries determined at random by arrival of skilled migrants
4. Quarry bush roasts = PROFIT

Nice post. Really given me something to think about.

Also, to anyone who thinks farming is too easy, just download the seasonal crops mod. I'm a little embarrased to say I underestimated the difficulty of the mod, and lost my fort to having no booze (and, um, also flooding the cellar I store food with the irrigation system by accident. (water flooded out of well)).

[Lectorog]

I have 20 or 24, 2x1 farm plots. About a third of them grow plump helmets. The emphasis on other crops, from high to low, is: Cave Wheat, Pig Tails, Sweet Pods. I don't grow dimple cups or quarry bushes.

I'll probably start making larger than 2x1 plots soon. I have to relocate all of them next season! 

And I never have a shortage of food. I just fill up a large area with a few plots at a time. I turn on farming for most useless migrants. If fields stop being planted in, I stop making new ones for a while.


Also, Mushroo, that's pretty amazing. My entire strategy may have been influenced by that post.

[AzureAngelic]

I've found that in the last few forts the majority of my food supply has come from cooked turkey eggs.

That said, my previous fort ran a group of 1x7 plots, each dedicated to a specific plant. I also prefer to have only farmers harvest for most of the time, to train up grower. Eventually I have one super-skilled grower managing the crops easily, maybe adding a second if I get a good migrant.

I don't usually grow non-booze crops though, since I never seem to use the clothing industries.

[Nameless Archon]

I operate multiple 3x10 plots in any fort. Typically, each is devoted to a particular crop and left fallow the rest of the time, though some crops (like dimple cups) tend to get rotated into other plots.

Surface crops are grown in "greenhouses" produced by excavating the roof and reflooring. These are also grown in 3x10 plots.

Stockpiles for seeds are placed next to their respective fields. When production gets too heavy (my farmers eventually skill up) I switch off seeds by forbidding them or changing the planting schedule. Typically, however, I want LOTS of plants, because plants are an easy thing to pair with bird eggs and the occasional bit of meat and fish for a roast. Additionally, surface plants make the best plant cloth industry (year-round rope reed cloth) and best booze (whip vines and sun berries).

[Mushroo]

Thanks for the positive feedback, Pan.

Once you've mastered the basics, here are a few intermediate strategies:

1. Stockpiles. Prepared meals near the trade depot (no barrels!!), seeds near the farm plot, no dye near the kitchen, etc.
2. Bookkeeper. "Plants: 200?" on the z-stocks screen is useless. If you know exactly how many of each plant you have, you can plan your work better. Also it's nice to use Forbid on the stocks screen, for example if your herbalist brings back whip vines and hide roots, you can forbid the hide roots and only mill whip flour. It's also nice to forbid one of each seed if you plan to cook plants, just in case, you don't want to cook the last one and lose the ability to grow that crop!
3. Manager. Assigning jobs through the manager works great for things like brewing, milling, or preparing lavish meals. If you run out of raw ingredients, the jobs stay in the queue and will resume at the next harvest. Also a manger allows you to set workshop profile, I highly recommend having one kitchen where your legendary cook makes lavish meals and a second kitchen for your sous-chef to render fat and cook prickle berry seed roasts for the militia (no need to waste your lavish quarry roasts on the cannon fodder).
4. Solid ingredients. You need 1 solid ingredient to make a prepared meal, so don't make a booze-and-syrup-only fort!
5. Stack size. 1 legendary grower is better than 4 dabbling growers because there will be more plants per stack. This has a ripple effect all the way down the production line: bigger prepared meals, fuller syrup barrels, more alcohol, etc.
6. Quality only matters for some jobs: brewer (hidden quality), grower, cook. Skilled milling, threshing, etc. doesn't increase value (only speed) so use your immigrants for those jobs.
7. Non-moodable. No strange moods for any of the farming labors, so you have to train up the old-fashioned way: practice practice practice!

[The Dog Delusion]

does anyone here use rocknut paste, or are those only for growing more quarry bushes? Usually, once I've topped out at 200ish seeds, I start milling them if there's enough free workers.

I have 20 or 24, 2x1 farm plots.

I usually go for just a couple big plots, but I'm curious - what are the advantages of numerous smaller plots?

[Mushroo]

does anyone here use rocknut paste, or are those only for growing more quarry bushes? Usually, once I've topped out at 200ish seeds, I start milling them if there's enough free workers.

Rocknut paste can be pressed at a screw press workshop, yielding rock nut oil (for cooking or soap-making) and a rock nut press cake (for cooking).

The rock nut byproducts are not particularly valuable as foodstuff (especially compared to quarry bush leaves) but the soap is good if you don't have animal tallow and the biscuits are a cheap food source for military/hauler rations.

[UristMcHuman]

When I can, I bring chickens for eggs and also designate a lot of plants for gathering as soon as I hit my site.

[Mushroo]

You might try the Flora and Fauna mod, which adds a lot of extra crops with seasonal restrictions and makes the vanilla crops a lot rarer.

This is really cool, thanks for the recommendation! Just planted my first truffle plot...