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[orius]

Is there any point to having a cook prepare Easy or Fine meals?  Lavish meals use more ingredients, which makes them more valuable, and gives better thoughts from the value and the possibility a dorf likes one of the ingredients.  But they also take longer to prepare.  Is it worth training a cook on Easy and/or Fine meals until they become Legendary?  The wiki doesn't really have any clear information on this.

[martinuzz]

I don't know if the happy thought for eating good food stems from value, or from item quality. If the latter, it would make sense to train up cooks on easy meals first, because it's faster.

I do find that the game almost forces me to make lavish meals only, if only to get rid of all those craptons of food.

Food production really should be nerfed

[Drago55577]

I don't know if the happy thought for eating good food stems from value, or from item quality. If the latter, it would make sense to train up cooks on easy meals first, because it's faster.

I do find that the game almost forces me to make lavish meals only, if only to get rid of all those craptons of food.

Food production really should be nerfed

What?! My massive farms can hardly keep up with my dorfs

[martinuzz]

I tend to not understand people that have problems getting enough food.

40 tiles of indoor farm and 20 tiles of outdoor farm yield me so much crops, I have to set them to fallow for a full year every 2 years or so, because my plant stockpiles are full. I have to trade away 50+ prepared lavish meals every year, because my prepared food stockpiles are full.

That is, with 54 dwarves, and 3 planters, who do some side jobs next to their planting jobs as well.

What is your definition of 'massive farms'?
How many farmers are planting seeds?
how many dwarves do you have?

[Drago55577]

Well over 100 dwarves, about 30 tiles of farm, massive expansions coming. 8 farmers

[martinuzz]

You have way too many farmers. That way, they level-up too slowly.
Reduce your number of farmers to 3. Make sure to disable item and food hauling, or all hauling, to make sure they have most of their time available for planting seeds.

Experienced farmers are much, much more efficient. You can probably feed your 100 dwarves with those 30 tiles, and 3 Professional+ farmers.

[Drago55577]

You have way too many farmers. That way, they level-up too slowly.
Reduce your number of farmers to 3. Make sure to disable item and food hauling, or all hauling, to make sure they have most of their time available for planting seeds.

Experienced farmers are much, much more efficient. You can probably feed your 100 dwarves with those 30 tiles, and 3 Professional+ farmers.

They are talented/professional but ok

[martinuzz]

Do you have at least 2 mills, 2 farmers workshops, working almost continuously to process your plants into better cooking ingredients?

[Drago55577]

I dontvknowvhow to use them :3

[Astramancer]

I dontvknowvhow to use them :3

Ah, that also might go toward explaining it.

Plump Helmets: Max stack 5.  Gives 5 food.
Sweet Pods: Max stack 5.  Process to barrel (in farmer's workshop) for 25 syrup.  Grind to sugar at quern/millstone for 25 sugar.
Cave Wheat/Whip Vine/Longland Grass: Max stack 5.  Grind to flour at quern/millstone for 25 flour.
Quarry Bushes: max stack 5.  Process to bag (in farmer's workshop) for 25 leaves.

Cook lavish meal using syrup, sugar, flour, and/or leaves.

The same farmer can grow five times as much food, if you just process it.  If you have ashes to spare, you can also fertilize, which increases your stack size and increases your ingredient stacks as well.

Also make sure you've disabled seeds on all your food stockpiles, and create a stockpile next to your farms that only accepts seeds, that way your haulers will bring the seeds to your farmers (well, close to your farmers), giving them more time to plant.

[Mitchewawa]

10x10 farmplot, draft every single fucking useless thresher, potash maker, shearer and animal dissector to plant and pick plump helmets. Add 3 professional fisherdwarfs and you'll need two kitchens with lavish meals on repeat just so you don't literally drown in a sea of mushrooms and fish.

E: Don't forget to make rock pots for storage, wooden barrels are a waste.

[Naryar]

Generally I can go with no more than 12 tiles pf farm plots. 2-3 specialized farmers.

And I still end swimming in excess food. Dwarves should eat more often !

Also, non-lavish meals train your cooks faster, it seems.

[orius]

Don't forget to make rock pots for storage, wooden barrels are a waste.

I think there are some tasks where you actually need the wood. Making syrup from sweet pods I'm fairly certain requires wood barrels, my last fort was mostly all rock pot, and the threshers kept canceling the syrup task.

Anyway, I usually go with 2 6x6 areas for farming, one for undeground crops, the other for surface, with a seed storage area between them.  The underground crop area is broken into 4 3x3 plots and the surface area into 9 2x2 plots.  This is usually sufficient for my forts' needs, but I still need to figure out how many planters I need efficiently farm the plots.

Also, non-lavish meals train your cooks faster, it seems.

That's what I was wondering.  Legendary cooks can crank out lavish meals rather quickly, but I know less experienced cooks take longer.  What I don't know is if the easy and fine meals are effective for training.  I have been using them for training so the cook makes them more quickly.

[Girlinhat]

Dude, my cooks are trained on tallow.  I get TONS of that shit.  Get like one elephant and you've got a legendary cook once he's finished with it all after like 8 years.

[Fahgo]

Anyway, I usually go with 2 6x6 areas for farming, one for undeground crops, the other for surface, with a seed storage area between them.  The underground crop area is broken into 4 3x3 plots and the surface area into 9 2x2 plots.  This is usually sufficient for my forts' needs, but I still need to figure out how many planters I need efficiently farm the plots.

I have the same setup for underground crops (above ground crops I set up the same as underground). 5 decent planters should be fine. I usually embark with 1 Professional farmer then train up any reasonable (competent+) imigrants. Remember the booze leeches children will help harvesting crops. Though according to the wiki switching "All Dwarves Harvest" to "Only Farmers Harvest" will boost your farmers skill gain.

Also, non-lavish meals train your cooks faster, it seems.

That's what I was wondering.  Legendary cooks can crank out lavish meals rather quickly, but I know less experienced cooks take longer.  What I don't know is if the easy and fine meals are effective for training.  I have been using them for training so the cook makes them more quickly.

Personally I've never used Fine meals. I embark with a Professional cook, use Make Easy Meal to train them up (fewer ingredients per exp increase) then switch to Lavish meals. AFAIK cooks gain the same amount of skill per Easy meal made as they do for Lavish meals.