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[Dwimenor]

So, your entire farming industry design is built around the inefficiency of the default plant stockpile.  I'd like to introduce you to my friend, Mr. Quantum Stockpile.

Oh please, this game is easy enough* without using exploits;)

*Once you memorize wiki

The alternative to QSPs for efficient hauling is to have a barrel-less feeder stockpile giving to a 'Take from links only' food barrel stockpile.

Wouldn't that make dwarves try to act smart and skip middle-barrelless-stockpile and use barrels? I once tied to try this design for cleaning after goblin party. One bin-less stockpile in the middle of the whole mess feeding main stockpiles(bins enable) inside fortress. Dwarves were ignoring feeding stockpile and were using main stockpiles.

My design seeds and plant stockpiles goes like this:
fields <-short distance-> barrelless seed stockpile (if I'm doing bigger fort, then there is specific stockpile for each type of seed,  and one field for this kind of plant)
fields <-a bit bigger distance->plant stockpile with barrels<-short distance->stills, kitchens<-short distance->barrels/pots stockpile.

I wish there was an easy way to create barrel-less, bag-less, seed-specific stockpiles. 1 seed per stockpile square. Maybe not the most efficient at the first glance, but you can have 12-square seed stockpile around 3x3 farm plot. Less hauling jobs (dwarf takes seed from still/kitchen/table and hauls it directly to seed stockpile, without fetching seedbag first), less canceletions (seeds are always in the stockpile).


As for proactive gaming: one of my early goals for nearly every fort is using marble or obsidian (if possible) to "smooth" sand/clay/soil corridors, walls and stairs, thereby every migrant gets masonery. With the beekeeping improvements in the 40.0x version I think my next early thing to do will be setting 2-3 hives for mead. Beekeepers are kinda common. This can change into a bit of reactive gaming ^.^

[Larix]

"Take from links only" on the collector should prevent skipping the middle pile.

I normally have a general idea where i'm going with a fort, and when migrants roll in, there's usually some type of most pressing need, so incoming dwarfs are typically sorted into whatever the fort needs, with only minor attention to the talents the dwarf brings. Of course, if the fort needs more clothes made and a master weaver immigrates, that's a perfect fit - they instantly get all their other jobs disabled and may even be assigned a personal loom. But if we have two proficient carpenters already, a new "great" one might end up burning wood or something.

[Niddhoger]

Yield increases and speed are significant leading to only needing one high level plant gatherer or grower to feed and water an entire fortress, also leading to much larger prepared food stacks (from syrup and bushes made at the threshers) and booze stacks.  Not that they're totally awful at low level but having one person who is very good at growing is high priority in my embark.

I know about that and my embark team usually have 2 proficient growers. But it's somewhat in my mindset:
1. All dwarves harvest, all dwarves plant seeds.
2. Have a lot of individual farm plots (1x1 - 2x2 - 3x3) for many different crops.
3. Produce wide range of different drinks, but in small quantities. I try to keep every drink at around 50 units.
4. In long run around 50% of total population have farming enabled. Kids, military and important dwarves (medical, military, bookkeeper, manager, don't do that stuff.
5. This makes planting seeds faster during season change. 30+ dwarves do it much faster then 2, no matter skill difference. Even if I have best designed seed stockpiles, hauling every single seed adds a lot to total planting time.
6. 30+ planters do the job simultaneously. When harvest time comes, most plants are ready withing 1-2 days. This reduces hauling time for gathering crops. If there are a lot of plants, peon will come with barrel and take a lot of plants at once. If harvest period is longer (weeks) the same job (take barrel from plants stockpile, come to field, take one plant, haul barrel back to plant stockpile, hey-look! there is new plant on the field) have to be repeated many times. Not to manition, that plant will wither if not gathered soon enough. You can really get unlucky, if you legendary farmer hit get booze->break->sleep->eat->attend party combo.

Maybe it's not the best farming design, but I kinda like it. in 34.11 I played with seasonal crops mod, which required a lot farming space (2-3 farming plot squares per dwarf, and sometimes I still had to import plants or booze). In vanilia legendary farmer can feed entire fortress using 3x3 plump helmet farm.


Anyway, one of my megaprojects was "all dwarves legendary", where my goal was to make sure that every single dwarf will be legendary with their best migration skill. It failed on medical skills and some bugged ones (animal care, glazing) but at the same time 50 war grizzly bears were pretty awesome. To free animal hard-cap I periodically sent them to clear caverns from Forgotten Beasts.
You can count it as "proactive-reactive" design.

You do realize that an unskilled grower can fail to gain any harvest, right? You can plant 5 tiles of plump helmets and gain maybe 3 out of it.  A legendary grower would assure you got 25.  The main benefit to the large stock sizes is a more efficient booze stockpile.  There is no way to combine booze barrels, so a stack of 5 plump helmets (from a skilled grower) is turned into 25 dwarven wine.  Your "peon's" will likely only pick in stacks of 1 or 2 (if not 0), so you would need upwards of 5 barrels (4 extra barrels/spaces in stockpile) to equal the same amount of stored booze.  The same goes for roasts and biscuits... if the stack starts at 5 instead of 1 you get to better consolidate space.  This also requires 5 times the hauling jobs as well (5 trips to the farm, 5 trips to the plant stockpile, 5 trips to pick up a barrel... 5 barrels to be made and hauled to the stockpile, etc) 

You are basically justifying the need for more dwarfpower by having terrible inefficiency in the first place.  What you should do is put a barrel-less "feeder" stockpile directly adjacent to your farms.  Then have this "give" to a food stockpile near your kitches/mill/farmers workshop as someone else mentioned.  Then you start with two dedicated growers and "only farmers harvest" enabled.  With two you minimize the risk of loosing crops to break time and parties.  Once they reach legendary (and one skilled grower can easily manage ~30+ farm tiles, brew alcohol, and still have free time to jack around your dining room), switch back to "all dwarves harvest."  Only your skill at PLANTING increases yields, while harvesting is just butt-monkey peon skill (that still gives grower exp).  Then when a few of your peons get high enough grower skill, you can upgrade them to full-time farmers and plant 40 more tiles (or keep them in reserve for break-itis).  Those 40 tiles can easily be broken up into 10+ different crops.

[wlmartin]

Proactive.  I rarely start a game without a goal.

For migrants I generally give them all a "Peon" role, and then assign them specific tasks(or roles) as I need them.

Looking through, this seems to be a popular attitude. Have a goal and unless the migrant is a god in something, reasign them.
However I am a bit crap myself at protecting myself from the annoying strange mood. I say annoying because i never seem to get happy results.

The main reason I don't is that my workshops are focused into what I need, now what I have skills for.
So when the strange mood kicks in and I am not paying attention, the guy who is dabbling in about 5 different skills doesnt have the building he needs and without me setting something up he will flip out.

If however I had catered for him when he arrived, perhaps I could have avoided that.


I now have to create a workshop in my workshop pool, once I get going for EVERY workshop.. so the problem should never happen there.



I did however take a different tact recently and for anyone that was a weak skill, I put them into the pleb role (whatever busy work i needed) but otherwise if they had a juicy skill, I immediately found use for them.

Before I knew it, I had 5 Beekeepers (3 that appeared in the same wave) running a thriving beekeeper farm. I was making mead exclusively (i know, not good for happiness with no variation but it felt good with the theme) and were it not for my fisherman turning into a necromancer, I was hoping to setup an entire empire on bees!

I do like this approach though because you go into the embark with minimal skills, with no goal and let the randomness to kick in and flow with it. So all of your guys want to be mechanics.. time to make the most trapped and suped up fortress possible MUAHHHAAAAHAHA