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[Gantolandon]

Which monster from the game is the most dangerous? The dragon you say? The bronze colossus? Maybe the carp? Bah! It's all nothing. No megabeast could waste an entire fortress in less than one season. Fear the king of the monsterkind! Dread the emperor of subtle cruelty. Tremble before the...

...rock gnome.

I decided to make another fortress. I have found a nice spot: a desert neighboring the mountains. Untamed wilds and joyful wilds. That seemed like a good place to settle. It had coal, iron, flux, sand - everything I needed. What it did not have, was a brook... but hey, who needs it? It's not like dwarves prefer water over booze.
So I settled down. I made some workshops and the barracks. My hunter was bringing so much meat I didn't even have to rely on plump helmets farm. I have built it though... I needed booze.
Then the caravan appeared. I had more than enough crappy leather and bone crafts to show them. It seemed logical to trade it for some more bewerages. I bought so much that I did not have to worry even when the migrants came.
My only mistake was not bringing the food inside.
When I realized what's going on it had been too late. The gnomes had gurgled almost everything. My dwarves were trapped on a desert with nothing to drink. But I had a still. And plump helmets. Yay!
Not so much. There's no trees on a desert and the caravan brought about five logs. And every barrel I made was instantly claimed. My dwarves were going to die from thirst, but they could not let this meat and fat lay on the sand. It's unhealthy! No, it was nessesary to stuff these precious barrels with remains of dead animals. If it meant death, fine. Ordnung muss sein!
I tried everything. Forbidding and reclaiming didn't work. I were just using up the precious iron and coal. Every barrel I made, however, instantly was assigned to the food stockpile...
Everyone died.
A lesson: you don't need a megabeast nor an army of goblins. A bunch of gnomes can destroy your city much faster.

[Dwarfu]

Pretty sure if you use the 'reserve barrel' option, they wouldn't have used them for food storage.

[Gantolandon]

I wish I knew this then  

[Derakon]

You can also simply limit the number of barrels that may be assigned to the food stockpile. Typically for such resource-limited maps, you make huge food stockpiles that don't use barrels at all.

[Dark]

The true moral of this story is that the Dwarf is the most vile and dangerous beast, not the foolish rock gnome. If your dwarves didnt stuff your barrels full of fat then they'd have survived. Think of how many dwarves died this way, then think of how many goblins have been murdered, how many kittens, elves, nobles...

Dwarves, the ultimate killing machine.

[BurnedToast]

next time dump the food into one tile of the food stockpile which will (I think) keep it preserved (it's on the stockpile after all) and more importantly free up barrels.

After you brew, don't forget to reclaim the food or your dwarves may starve.

[Gantolandon]

I'll try these solutions. My new fortress have access to trees, though.

[Erom]

Even so, I never use barrels for food, just lots of stockpiles. Greatly reduces the amount of wood a fortress requires. You do have to cook the meat, though, or it will get nibbled to trash by flies and rats pretty quickly. Vegetables and cooked food will keep for years and years without getting rotten/nibbled, though.

[ June 04, 2008: Message edited by: Erom ]

[zagibu]

If you have magma, you can make barrels and bins out of lead, copper, or any other usually abundant metal.