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[Giskard73]

Has anyone tried specializing their Dwarves? I mean to just "HAULERS", "METALSMITHS", "NURSES", "FARMERS", etc?

I did this right about the time my fortress started starving. It may be unrelated but even ever I activated farming and butchery on all dwarves they still wouldn't farm or butcher really.

They're all starving to death now. I'm wondering if my Specialization program had anything to do with it.

[Albert the Absentminded]

All the time. Works great.

Lessee, I typically have

6 Miners/Engravers
1 Rockcrafter
1 Bonecrafter
2 Tailors
2 Weavers
2 Brewers
2 Chefs
6 Dirtgrubbers
2-4 Leatherboys (butchery, tanning, leatherworking), depending on
? Rangers (hunters)
4 Stonemasons
4 Woodshapers
1 Lumberjack

Everyone else gets cycled through various stuff, such as carpentry and masonry, so as to produce low quality items for the ghetto housing. Then they get sent to learn about stuff that I'd like them to artifact up on, like weaponsmithing and armorsmithing. The advantage is that I get Haulers who have some experience, so many of them get to be Strong or Agile. I also try to get people to practice with armor, by preference bronze chain etc., to skill up in Armor Use, Shield Use, and Wrestling.

-Albert

[Ravendas]

Giskard, thats basically the whole point of the game, so yes 99% of the people here should say yes.

If you dedicate people to one task, they will get extremely efficient at that task. I don't see how you could effectively play this game in any other fashion.

You set a few farmers to farm (and do some side job in the winter, like engrave or haul), you set some to being masons carving away all day, set some to be carpenter/woodcutters, etc etc.

I even specialize down to making certain metalsmiths be exclusively furnace operators so they can churn out bars fast, and have one magma furnace and one dwarf dedicated to making armor, and another to making weapons/bolts.

I have a dwarf working just with leather, another with just bone, and another with just glass. The glassmaker has been pumping out so much green glass i started replacing the nobles doors with glass portals, and swapped some of the older statues out with green glass statues.

Even my peasants hauling jobs become slightly specialized. I have a few called 'waiters' that just haul food, a few called 'cleanup' that haul refuse and deal with injured dwarves, and a few called 'runners' that just haul items between the various shops and stockpiles. The rest just have all hauling jobs on.

For kitchens, I have 2 kitchens, each with a dedicated cook, with nothing but cook turned on, and another pair of stills, each with a dedicated brewer. However I have a bad habit of running out of barrels, so those brewers are sometimes used in butchering or hauling.

[Faces of Mu]

I used to try this really hard earlier on, but I also used to pop limit to like 25. I found I would keep losing key dwarves to whatever and would struggle replacing them. Now I don't care about pop limits and specialising as it's too inefficient and takes up too much micromanaging forcing no jobbers to go do something else when my focus has shifted. Most dwarves in my fortresses now have up to two or three profs that they can rotate through. Dunno if there is a 'best' way about this but the outcomes of this work best for me right now.

[herrbdog]

I use a non-specialized specialist setup:

EVERYONE:
-Animal Care (off chance of getting super stats)
-Health Care (compassionate dwarves(?))
-Burial (same)
-Cleaning

DIGGER:
-Mining
-Stone Hauling
-Furniture Hauling

BUILDER:
-Carpentry
-Masonry
-Architecture
-Mechanics
-Architecture
-Seige Engineering
-Stone Hauling
-Furniture Hauling

JACK:
-Wood Cutting
-Animal Training
-Wood Hauling
-Animal Hauling

PLANTER:
-Farming (Fields)
-Plant Gathering
-Food Hauling

COOKIE:
-Fish Cleaning
-Butchery
-Tanning
-Milling
-Brewing
-Farming (Workshop)
-Cooking
-Food Hauling
-Refuse Hauling

KRAFTER:
-Leatherworking
-Tanning
-Craftsworking
-Crossbowmaking
-Weaving
-Clothesmaking
-Item Hauling
-Refuse Hauling

SMITTY:
-Furnace Operating
-Wood Burning
-Metalsmithing
-Glassmaking
-Stone Hauling
-Item Hauling

HISTORIAN: (either a mother or someone who's been gimped)
-Stone Detailing
-Food Hauling
-Furniture Hauling
-Animal Hauling

GPN: (General Purpose Newbies - roughly half of my population. Their purpose is to help all civilian tasks, and when not needed, are drafted and set to spar, thus getting both stats (for fighting) and military skills.)
-Carpentry
-Masonry
-Stone Detailing
-Mechanics
-Architecture
-Butchery
-Milling
-Brewing
-Farming (Workshop)
-Cooking
-Tanning
-Furnace Operating
-Wood Burning
-Glassmaking
-Weaving
-Clothesmaking
-Animal Training
-Siege Operating
-Stone Hauling
-Wood Hauling
-Item Hauling
-Food Hauling
-Refuse Hauling
-Furniture Hauling
-Animal Hauling

Marine: Dwarves who have proven themselves (by becoming elite military dwarves that I cannot assign back to civilian duty).

Edit: Any skill you do not see (jeweling, alchemy) I do not consider important enough to bother with.

Oh and sometimes I use

FISHER:
-Fish Cleaning
-Fishing
-Food Hauling
-Refuse Hauling

[ July 05, 2007: Message edited by: herrbdog ]

[Faces of Mu]

I would agree with yr Jack, Planter and Cookie, but definitely not with yr Builder. I like to know what my staff:workshops ratio is, and I like to easily see if there's a certain task getting done regularly. On the down side is having a few dwarves getting around with 'no jobs' coz there's no wood or something, but when everyone has a set responsibility, the loafers are pretty easy to spot and set straight.

I think I'll adopt similar management style if/when skill prioritisation comes in.