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[irmo]

buy tower cap seeds and plant them in farm land and have them grow albeit exponentially longer grow times than plump helmets.

I'm against this. The restriction that you can grow tower caps, but you can't farm them, is a useful one.

Something has to be a scarce resource, folks.

[profit]

I think farming tower caps is a good idea, But I am concerned about the very limited labor used to grow one, as they could be grown near a stockpile makes them excessively valuable.. maybe requiring every year or so they get a bucket of water in order to keep them growing,  Maybe not allowing  them to be planted next to each other so they require a bit more space to grow..

[TettyNullus]

I think farming tower caps is a good idea, But I am concerned about the very limited labor used to grow one, as they could be grown near a stockpile makes them excessively valuable.. maybe requiring every year or so they get a bucket of water in order to keep them growing,  Maybe not allowing  them to be planted next to each other so they require a bit more space to grow..

I see trees and tower-caps take up space right next to each other, so I disagree with putting artifical limit on that. But it does takes around a year and half or so for sapling to grow into a tree, so it does take quite a bit of time even to just 'boot up' a tree farm in first place, not to mention it'd be slow to spread out the stuff. And, well, if it needs water, then regular farm should need water too, since both tower-caps and farming need muddied or soil areas to work (I've seen tower-cap saplings on soil area underground from time to time, oddly, so I assume it just need area that's farmable also). Maybe make the trees take two years to grow from seeds, seems to be appropritely long to me.

I'm against this. The restriction that you can grow tower caps, but you can't farm them, is a useful one.

Something has to be a scarce resource, folks.

I seem to recall a mention of tower-caps being able to be plantable eventually somewhere, I forget where, though.

[scribbler]

When you transplant a tree you need to water it a lot for the first few seasons. On that note, keeping them happy and healthy for a month as the caravan travels might be a bit much, plants can be stressed. I'm not even going to try and fathom how it would work with a giant mushroom, although not clear cutting a tower-log farm could be expected to improve growth since it's a mushroom. Perhaps realistic pollination in that during a certain time (for a couple of weeks in the spring we're covered in pine pollen) new trees are seeded, to be invisible for a time until they become saplings, if not trampled and if you clear cut before then then you have to wait for seeds to spore in from the edges of the map.
The real question is, are planting orchards or tree farms and raising bees to improve pollination a little too much or should we just ask for a keep off the grass sign? (I just mark saplings restricted.)
Oh, and milling, we're being seriously robbed in how much wood we get. Maybe trees should actually grow so we can get a 30' pine or whatever and it's up to us to selectively log, like they do in some countries (saw a National Geographic podcast where the government instituted forest preservation procedures and the logging had to be done with elephants since it was spread out and machinery would tear up the ecosystem).

[irmo]

I think farming tower caps is a good idea, But I am concerned about the very limited labor used to grow one, as they could be grown near a stockpile makes them excessively valuable.. maybe requiring every year or so they get a bucket of water in order to keep them growing

All crops should need to be watered, and a lot more than one bucket per year. This makes the farming process require either continuous labor or irrigation systems.

I still think making tower caps farmable would be a mistake.

[scribbler]

I still think making tower caps farmable would be a mistake.

I don't know how they commercially grow mushrooms now, much less 1000 years ago. But this is Dwarf Fortress and I could see environmental controls affecting the growth of a Tower Cap farm. Right now you only need to wet the floor. What if you had to keep wetting the floor over time? Or carry down enough dirt to make a proper field, maybe they only get to plump helmet size without it, good for charcoal but not much else...

[Fossaman]

Commercial mushrooms are grown using large piles of poo in dark, damp places. I see no reason that dwarves couldn't do the same. Just add in manure from animals, and hey! You've got dirt. It'd be another bit of complexity, but if you're going for realism...

As for trees: Yes, please. I'd love to be able to transplant saplings and grow mature trees. I'd also love to see trees that grow more than one z-level high and more than one square wide. That's fine for secondary growth forest that's already been logged, but old growth forests have fewer, bigger trees.

[Silverionmox]

I still think making tower caps farmable would be a mistake.

I don't know how they commercially grow mushrooms now, much less 1000 years ago. But this is Dwarf Fortress and I could see environmental controls affecting the growth of a Tower Cap farm. Right now you only need to wet the floor. What if you had to keep wetting the floor over time? Or carry down enough dirt to make a proper field, maybe they only get to plump helmet size without it, good for charcoal but not much else...

Growing them in caves of chalk and related minerals really gives a boost to quality. The temperature is caves is also just right to keep them from growing too fast, so they have sufficient nutrients instead of being airbags.