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[DwarfOfDefeat]

How does one keep a stable food and water supply?
I get great food growing but i can never seem to work with water.
Some examples would be nice, I was thinking about a well inside my fortress, but I would have to build the well first wouldn't I?

[MonkeyHead]

Other than for wounded dwarves, why the need for water? They want booze.

[DwarfOfDefeat]

Thats my problem, i need to get them water while i try to figure out what to do with a distillery...

[MonkeyHead]

Building a still is a simple workshop. If you have farming, you will have something to brew with a very easy task, needing only a brewable substance (easiest to go with plants here, such as plump helmet, pig tail, cave wheat or sweet pods, but abovegrownd plats obtained through herbalism foraging or aboveground farming) and a barrel/rock pot. Its much easier to set up a still near your farms and organize suitable stockpiles than to set up a bucket brigade to fill a well, or a channel system of some type (I drop water into my hospital well from above using a pressure plate system to automatically refill it when needed - this gives a nice waterfall happy boost to any patients) to get water into a well. Besides, dwarves work slowly when sober. Seriously, get booze production running as an early priority. Any you bring with you on embark wont last long.

[NedeN]

Wells also give a happy thought to your dwarfs. What most people seem to do is dig to the caverns and if youre lucky a water source will be directly under where you want to place the well. After finding this water source, you will begin to carefully channel out one space down a level until you reach your water source

Code: [Select]

__[ ]__    z0
__ | __    z-1
__ | __    z-2
~~~~~~     z-3

_ = Floor
[ ] = Well
| = Rope (channeled open space)
~ = Water

Or you can always pump water up from the caverns into a giant cistern and just refill it as water runs out.

Last but not least, just dig a giant cistern and fill it with mined out space from a flowing river/brook

[greycat]

you will have something to brew with a very easy task, needing only a brewable substance (easiest to go with plants here

Plants are the only things that are brewable.  But not all plants.

As far as a stable water source for emergencies, I almost always build an underground cistern that is fed from a brook, a river, or an aquifer, depending on where I embarked.  Those are infinite water sources, so you'll never run out once you've got it set up.

Dropping a well 30+ Z-levels into a cavern presents certain issues I prefer to avoid.  Most importantly, flying cavern monsters can enter your fortress through the well.  Also, it takes a while to retrieve the water from a well that deep.  The bucket has to physically move up and down that distance.  (To some extent, making a bunch of wells can help mitigate that, but it's still not my preferred solution.)

Edit: really, brain?  Aqueduct?  That's what you came up with instead of aquifer?

[Leonidas]

Building a well should be a low priority, far below food, beds, and defense. You don't need a well to make alcohol. Wells are only vital for injured dwarves, so they should be part of a larger hospital project.