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[Dorfus]

I can't deal with mass organisation. I know I need to provide clothes and things for my dwarves but it all gets so messy. I either end up with not enough or I have huge stockpiles filled with cloth boots. I never know how much to make or when to order it - how do you manage your clothing and other boring goods production so that you don't get overwhelmed but you still have enough to keep everyone happy?

I also don't totally understand the layering of clothes for the military. The wiki articles seems to suggest that the optimal equipment set is likely to be thwarted by the order in which they equip themselves. Is that still the case (so am I better off making sub-optimal uniforms but guaranteeing equipability)?

[wuphonsreach]

For regular dwarves, I just do a (v-i) and poke around the fort looking at various random dwarves and see what items they have which are marked as worn/tattered.

Then I go queue up 10 or 20 of those items.  (The job manager can be useful for this.  In which case I make a few dozen of each as needed.)

Although once I hit my 2nd or 3rd year and have 1000+ leather from the dwarven caravans then I just set my leatherworker to making the 10 common clothing items year-round on repeat.  That's a tunic, cloak, trousers, cap, hood, glove, mitten, shoe, shoe, bag.  Then I only need to make socks and a few other things from cloth/silk/wool.

[Azated]

The manager is a godsend here. I queue up a set of 100 cloth trousers, shirts and socks. They aren't made instantly or even quickly, but it's enough to keep my dwarves from going nude.

[Dwarfler]

Like the others said, use the job manager - it's a huge help in coordinating the efforts of a larger fortress.  Also keep in mind your dwarfs do not need a full set of every clothing item.  They only need shirt, trousers and shoes to keep them from getting negative thoughts.  As far as the military goes, I know some people like to go nuts with layering and all that, and that's great for them, but you don't really need to go that far if you don't want to.  No matter how much you armor them they can still be killed.  A lucky hit from a lasher or an elite bowman and all the layers in the world aren't going to help.  Definitely make basic armor for your dwarfs, but don't exhaust yourself.  So a dozen of them die fighting off a siege, guess what?  There's another wave of novice lye makers coming next month.  It's the circle of life.

[knutor]

I've been trying to keep them happy enough elsewhere, until a toggle or mod appears someday, for us to turn off these senseless nudity thoughts.  No dwarf is nude, unless she shaves.  And I have yet to see a razor sharp enough to shear off dorf hair, have you?

With that said, I find my bag supply the limiting problem with making clothing.  As I like to dye thread and cloth before making clothing, and the dye industry takes a bazillion bags.  I try to organize my bags, and milling, before I organize the cloth industry. 

[Azated]

I've been trying to keep them happy enough elsewhere, until a toggle or mod appears someday, for us to turn off these senseless nudity thoughts.  No dwarf is nude, unless she shaves.  And I have yet to see a razor sharp enough to shear off dorf hair, have you?

With that said, I find my bag supply the limiting problem with making clothing.  As I like to dye thread and cloth before making clothing, and the dye industry takes a bazillion bags.  I try to organize my bags, and milling, before I organize the cloth industry.

Tailors workshop > Make cloth bag > repeat. That's the first order I give my tailor, and I keep it on until my fortress starts filling with bags.

[Dorfus]

Thanks for the suggestions guys - I thought I'd have to make all the different types of clothing. I can handle it if it's just 3 or 4 types.

I usually hate seeing dwarves die but I'm starting to become accustomed to military tragedies. I'll keep the armor simple and keep the blood flowing. Blood for the blood god and all that.

[redsector]

I've found that the manager method for procuding large amounts of clothes isn't actually the best one.

Basically, if you queue up 100 shirts, 100 trousers and 100 boots via the manager, your clothier will make them in that exact order, which might lead to a shortage of trousers and boots because he's still working on that huge stack of shirts.

Instead, go into your clothier shop's menu and queue up 3 orders: a shirt, trousers and boots. Then set all 3 orders on repeat. Your clothier will make one of each and then start over. Which means that you will pretty much always have a complete set of clothing ready instead of a huge pile of shirts but nothing else.

And once there's enough clothing for a while, or if cloth stocks are running low, just suspend the three orders until you're ready to make more clothes.

[Dwarfler]

I've found that the manager method for procuding large amounts of clothes isn't actually the best one.

Basically, if you queue up 100 shirts, 100 trousers and 100 boots via the manager, your clothier will make them in that exact order, which might lead to a shortage of trousers and boots because he's still working on that huge stack of shirts.

Instead, go into your clothier shop's menu and queue up 3 orders: a shirt, trousers and boots. Then set all 3 orders on repeat. Your clothier will make one of each and then start over. Which means that you will pretty much always have a complete set of clothing ready instead of a huge pile of shirts but nothing else.

Well, obviously different methods work best for different people and their play styles.  I prefer the manager because the jobs persist until they are complete, whereas if you just have the three types on repeat they will all get canceled if your cloth supply gets interrupted.  If you don't notice that happen, you may not notice the lack of new clothing until your dwarfs are tantruming and you've got big trouble in little china.  Also you can't queue up orders of 100 in the manager since the max quantity is 30, and I find that 30 is generally not too bad if you queue up 30 of each of the three clothing types.  And hey, if 30 is too much for you, just queue them up 10 at a time, or whatever.  Again, not saying that way is best, just that I find it's best for me.  YMMV.

[xpi0t0s]

When I order a new batch of drinks I just have a look at the Inv's of the dwarfs sucking on barrels, then if anything has an x on it I order 30 of them from the manager screen.

[mordrax]

No one's recommended using dfhack-workflow yet. Simple and powerful way to automate production that is tedious to repetitively assign using the job manager.

In my 6th year fort, i've only ever used the job manager a couple of times for hatches or other once off items.
And i never manually check whether i have enough drinks, clothes, bags etc... i just set the amount of items i want and let workflow activate/suspend the jobs for me. workflow is on par with DT when it comes to tools required for fort management.

[Bellicosity]

No one's recommended using dfhack-workflow yet. Simple and powerful way to automate production that is tedious to repetitively assign using the job manager.

In my 6th year fort, i've only ever used the job manager a couple of times for hatches or other once off items.
And i never manually check whether i have enough drinks, clothes, bags etc... i just set the amount of items i want and let workflow activate/suspend the jobs for me. workflow is on par with DT when it comes to tools required for fort management.

I read through the readme for DFHack regarding the workflow but its not very revealing. Is there any where I can find a good tutorial or more detailed walkthrough for it?

[mordrax]

It took me alot of trial and googling to get to where I am. The information is in bits and pieces. I started here:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=104015.0

I was thinking about writing a small guide seeing as there are quite alot of job management related questions that are effectively nullified by this method vs the lack of a guide for this crucial functionality.

[weenog]

I've found that the manager method for procuding large amounts of clothes isn't actually the best one.

Basically, if you queue up 100 shirts, 100 trousers and 100 boots via the manager, your clothier will make them in that exact order, which might lead to a shortage of trousers and boots because he's still working on that huge stack of shirts.

Instead, go into your clothier shop's menu and queue up 3 orders: a shirt, trousers and boots. Then set all 3 orders on repeat. Your clothier will make one of each and then start over. Which means that you will pretty much always have a complete set of clothing ready instead of a huge pile of shirts but nothing else.

Well, obviously different methods work best for different people and their play styles.  I prefer the manager because the jobs persist until they are complete, whereas if you just have the three types on repeat they will all get canceled if your cloth supply gets interrupted.  If you don't notice that happen, you may not notice the lack of new clothing until your dwarfs are tantruming and you've got big trouble in little china.  Also you can't queue up orders of 100 in the manager since the max quantity is 30, and I find that 30 is generally not too bad if you queue up 30 of each of the three clothing types.  And hey, if 30 is too much for you, just queue them up 10 at a time, or whatever.  Again, not saying that way is best, just that I find it's best for me.  YMMV.

I usually do one lighted 3x9 farm plot growing rope reeds year-round, two farmer's workshops ordered Process Plants R, two looms nearby picking up jobs automatically, and one clothier doing Make Cloth Shirt R, Make Cloth Trousers R, Make Cloth Sock R.  They all sit amongst a very large rope reed and slightly smaller cloth stockpile which don't allow containers.  Rope reeds are forbidden from brewing.  The cloth supply doesn't get interrupted.

[Garath]

It took me alot of trial and googling to get to where I am. The information is in bits and pieces. I started here:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=104015.0

I was thinking about writing a small guide seeing as there are quite alot of job management related questions that are effectively nullified by this method vs the lack of a guide for this crucial functionality.

please do. All it did for me was warn me when I was low on booze because suddenly I was flooded with job cancelations or other errors. Somewhere I must have missed a step... And the clothing thing I never got to work.