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[OperatorPants]

Not the most interesting topic, but I feel like refining the way I do things by seeing how other people do things. Maybe other people will be interested in this too. So how do you run your farms and food production? I've always been excessive and it's always worked, but I feel like I'm pushing it.

I usually have two 7x7 farm plots which are constantly growing plump helmets. I also set up nest boxes with about a dozen roosters/hens. As my fortress grows and dwarves grow tired of plump helmets I make another two farm plots which alternate growing all other underground crops. I also let my animals breed like mad and slaughter them when I feel like adding meat to the menu.

With this setup I have a constant stream of food that only grows with time. Around year 5 I'll have a surplus of food, around 6000 various units including booze.

[knutor]

I like the corn row approach.  Then I paint the rows with L travel restriction.  I prefer to have them all, all the dorfs, farming, until I get a surplus, then I work on ash to potash, and limit my farming to just the farmers.  Take care, Knutor

[Bartinyou]

I personally go for variety, starting with a 3x3 plot that does the four basic underground food crops, once I get a migrant wave or two I set up a dedicated quarry bush farm and either trade or scavenge to get a full set of above ground crops.  As my population grows I eventually work my way up to 2 3x3's (one above one below) and 2 2x2s running crops that can be used for both alcohol and food.  That way whenever there is a surplus I just convert it to food for trade to the caravans.

[Loud Whispers]

All plots of farming I do come in sections of 3x3.
Underground the farming is divided into strips - 9 sections x 1 going North/South, with each strip growing one crop and that crop alone. This is to make sure no plants and seeds are ever lost if they are not harvested by the next season.
There are 9 strips, one for each crop and three strips devoted to pig tails (they don't grow all year you know).

Above ground is where most of the all year-farming takes place and are usually the first farms I set up.
It's the same with the underground, except every now and then a new crop is discovered and I knock down the walls to make the farm bigger. As it stands there are 12 strips. It's a great deal more productive than the underground (not including plump helmets), and keeps the cloth industry going whilst the Dwarves wait for the next pig tail season.

Animals are hard to come by. All of the animals were slaughtered for safety reasons (note - undead), with there being no caravans to trade for (bugged siege), the last animals left are 3 pigs, 1 dog and several wild eagles I captured from the wild.

And by extension meat is hard to come by. When a cougar shows up several marksdwarves are dispatched to harvest. When an eagle shows up several marksdwarves are dispatched to try immobilize and capture the eagle, if not, at least bring back a tasty eagle roast.

There are two things everyone can do in Silentthunders :
Masonry and farming. And there's a lot of farming to do.

[knutor]

North/South

Top is West on Dwarf maps right?  HA!  In Middle Earth it is supposed to be so, if I remember Tolkien. 

I run corn rows across the X axis.  With them always starting at the same Y points, for variety.  I toggle  No Mix and pump out lots of stone pots, to hold the various kinds of plants.  It gets a little crazy for me.  I cannot link the farm plot to the stockpile.  So this strategy may be bad, now.  I should try some of these new ones mentioned.

There was a suggestion awhile back on here, to leave the trailing seasons empty, for say.. a specific underground crop with a limited period of growth, in order to allow time for the farmer to harvest it.  The ones with limited seasons, that is.  This is so no withering or plant-overs, occurs.  *shrug* 

[OperatorPants]

lots of stone pots, to hold the various kinds of plants.

This is something else I've been meaning to ask. I'm a 40d player breaking into the new version and I keep hearing about these pots/jugs. What are the differences between them and can they replace barrels? On another random note, has a wooden bin alternative been created?

[Ai Shizuka]

11x11 room with four 5x5 plots underground. I'm on an evil glacier this time, so I walled a 11x11 room in the first cavern. I start with one plot, growing plump helmets in the first couple seasons, then gradually increase and balance it with all the underground crops, except dimple cups.
I alter my popcap to get around 100 dwarves. One dedicated brewer and three dedicated planters are enough to get an obscene surplus of plants and drinks.

My diet is usually based on eggs and meat. I butcher everything: siege mounts, cave creatures, surface wildlife. Every single non-sentient creature killed in my fort gets butchered. Later I add quarry bush leaves, flour, syrup and sometimes cheese (sheep and pigs usually).

I usually don't bother with aboveground crops, but this time I think I'll make a 3x3 plot for rope reed and use pig tails for brewing only.

[acetech09]

lots of stone pots, to hold the various kinds of plants.

This is something else I've been meaning to ask. I'm a 40d player breaking into the new version and I keep hearing about these pots/jugs. What are the differences between them and can they replace barrels? On another random note, has a wooden bin alternative been created?

Rock pots (at a craftsdwarf's workshop) are a good substitute for barrels. They'll clear out some of your stone stockpile, keep your stone crafter busy, and will work just like barrels.

But you're still limited to either wood or metal bins. Lead/copper bins are the choice of most developed forts.

[edgefigaro]

I run a 22x22 room with 6 4x5 or 5x5 plots dedicated to underground farming.  The other half of the room is my kitchens, farm workshops, and brewers.  Above, if available, I run a second 22x22 room with the ceiling carved out and bridged or floored over. I'll throw up another 8 surface 4x5 farms in there. 

All of my junk immigrants get growing till I need something done.  After processing a migrant wave into farmers, all dwarves get architecture.  If a dwarf has a special job and I don't want to draft him for another task, he gets alchemy.

[Keldane]

What I've been thinking about for some time now is starting a fort with a very limited population, having Farming and Brewing enabled on everybody, and having each dwarf assigned to their own burrow that includes a small (1x1 or 1x2) farm plot, a 2x2 food stockpile, and a still. Each dwarf would be responsible for his or her own sustenance.

That said, typically my forts wind up with a large plump helmet farm of no specific dimensions. That's the only guaranteed crop, with surface crops being the next most popular for their year-round growth.

[Laurin]

lots of stone pots, to hold the various kinds of plants.

This is something else I've been meaning to ask. I'm a 40d player breaking into the new version and I keep hearing about these pots/jugs. What are the differences between them and can they replace barrels? On another random note, has a wooden bin alternative been created?

Jugs are little containers, currently used for honey, royal jelly, and rocknut oil.

Large pots are the equivalent to barrels and can be made of different materials, including glass, porcelain, earthenware (for dry food) and glazed earthenware (for drinks).

[WanderingKid]

Personally I start off with a gathering/deforestation of the local wagon area (or dig zone, if I'm not digging straight down from the wagon) and drive a ramp down to stone to get the beginnings of the rock pots/Nest Boxes/etc started up.  While that works and my planters 'finish up' with collecting some local flora I'll usually drive back upwards towards soil if there's any (past a defensive tunnel) and start setting up 2 5x5 Plump Helmet farms... though I may start corn rowing for something different.  They get a private seed dump with no bins and a delivery zone right next to them with no barrels.  That eventually gets linked to the brewer's stockpiles which uses barrels.

Once those are going (and the rest of my fort is busy digging out the kitchen, starting dorm/dining room, and goose/chicken room) I'll take a quick look at my kitchen and see what seeds or plants we got locally.  If possible, I'll brew them for seeds and start up some further brewing plants above ground near the entrance, usually 3x3s because I don't want my Farmer exposed a lot early, he's also my cook and brewer when I start.

Add in a migrant wave or two and I'll have 3 permanent farming grunts.  At that point I'll toss in Pig tails in about 35 plots worth (same setup as above) with a dedicated stockpile on the crafting level for pigtails and rope reed.  Continue to add in plots (digging out more small rooms so I can keep it straight) whenever I see all farm plots 'filled' and nothing waiting for collection.  I usually don't have any spare haulers until the first big migrant wave.

Eventually, with a series of local seed deposits, a main seed storage that feeds those seed deposits, a local dropoff for the plants linked to whatever stockpile(s) they need to go to, I'll end up producing everything I can with 3-4 farmers.  I haven't done an undead biome yet so my hunters are usually hacking up meat like it was no tomorrow, so as much flora as possible usually gets shoved through the still.  When I get an overload they can start cooking with wine.  I've gone so far as to build the farmers local bedrooms at the farms, along with a private dining hall and food storage, so they don't have to travel anywhere.  They're not as ecstatic about the decent dining room as everyone else is for the legendary one, but it does save a lot of travel time.  They'll eventually get masterwork stuff so it evens out later.

[Dwarfler]

This is something else I've been meaning to ask. I'm a 40d player breaking into the new version and I keep hearing about these pots/jugs. What are the differences between them and can they replace barrels? On another random note, has a wooden bin alternative been created?

Pots are a replacement for barrels.  You can make pots out of stone, glass, wood, clay or metal.  Pots made out of clay (except for fire clay) are not water-tight and cannot hold liquids unless you glaze them at a potter's workshop.  The one big difference between pots and barrels is that pots do not have lids.  This rarely comes into play, but if your pots are kept outdoors and it rains they will collect water, which can be detrimental to whatever you're storing in them.

The usefulness of pots depends on exactly what version you're using.  When they were first introduced they were a welcome replacement for barrels, a way to get rid of excess stone and conserve wood for other uses.  However, since the hauling update (34.08?) stone output has been reduced to 25% *and* weight affects hauling speed, so stone hauling (without a wheelbarrow/minecart) is very slow.  These changes, combined with the ease of setting up underground tree farms on most maps, has turned the trend back towards using wooden barrels for the most part.

There are still no alternatives to wooden bins (except metal bins, of course).

[smirk]

Lead/copper bins are the choice of most developed forts.

Oh sweet syrupy Armok don't make your bins out of lead. Or even copper. Weight matters for hauling speed now, so when your dwarf needs to store that one piece of armor away, he'll run and grab your lead armor bin to put it in, schlep it over to the armor piece at ~1 step every 15 seconds, then schlep it back to the stockpile at the same speed. It'll take weeks.


Farming-wise, I use RavingManiac's Seasonal Crops mod to provide a bit more challenge. Makes my forts feel a bit more fortressy and a lot less totally-self-sustainable-enclave. y.

[wuphonsreach]

With the hauling changes, I now setup my farm plots as follows:

Code: [Select]

................
#PP#PP#PP#PP#PP#
#PP#PP#PP#PP#PP#
#PP#PP#PP#PP#PP#
#PP#PP#PP#PP#PP#
#PP#PP#PP#PP#PP#
#PP#PP#PP#PP#PP#
#PP#PP#PP#PP#PP#
#PP#PP#PP#PP#PP#
#PP#PP#PP#PP#PP#
................
# = food/plant stockpile (underground crops only, no barrels)
P = farm plot (2x10)
. = seed bags (no barrels, underground only)

All of the plant stockpiles will give to whichever stockpile is closest to the door leading to the main plant stockpile.  There will be a plant stockpile right by the door which uses barrels and acts as a consolidation point.  From that stockpile, plants get sent to the main plant stockpile (usually 5x10 or 10x20 size).

If you use the (v)-(f) menu to follow your planters for a bit, you should see exactly how they work.  When they harvest a plant, they immediately want to move it to a stockpile.  Since the nearest plant stockpile is never more then 1-2 tiles away, they make a quick drop off then go back to harvesting / planting seeds.  Other "food" haulers then show up to move the plant from stockpile to stockpile and into barrels.