Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Slyjoker87]

So I finally installed DF2014 and am giving it a go. However, I noticed that farming seems to be changed (or so it seems). Before, I recall being able to sustain an entire 100 dwarf fort on a farm plot no larger than 3x3 of plump helmets. Now I have 5 times that space and I'm struggling to even feed everyone, let alone make any brew.

Did the farming mechanics change? Does anyone have any figure of what is now required to sustain a fort?

[Witty]

Farming hasn't changed, there's just a bunch of new crops (some of them even work!)

I've heard things about brewing issues, so I'd investigate that. Do you have enough farmers and spawn?

[Slyjoker87]

Yeah it seems like it. Perhaps it is the brewing issues eating up all my plump helmets?

[greycat]

9 tiles of plump helmet are not enough to feed & booze a hundred dwarves.  Never have been.  But if you're supplementing that with eggs, meat, traded food, or gathering plants that grow naturally in your soil layers after piercing a cavern, then it might be enough to get by.

There are no "brewing issues".  Every "brewing issue" reported so far has been user error.

But... you said you have 5 times 9 tiles of plump helmet?  With highly skilled farmers, that might be enough all by itself.  With skilled farmers and supplementary food sources, it will definitely be enough.

[Slyjoker87]

I swear I never grew more than 3x3 field for my forts of up to 100. Seemed like more than enough. I dunno.

[Telgin]

For the record, yeah, the brewing issues reported so far are generally people being unable to brew things because there's no option in the brewery or something like that.  I haven't heard of anyone noticing it producing less.

Were you fertilizing your fields before?  Even if you were I don't think that would be enough for 100 dwarves, but it would be closer.

[Slyjoker87]

I don't think I ever fertilized my fields. I could be imagining things, though, because its been a good 3-4 months since my last fort...

[celem]

I always used to run 3x3 plump per 100 like that too.  But I know I've got a handful of forgotten migrants fishing who-cares-where, maybe a hunter, and I often buy booze out of lack of things I really want to desperately offload part of a craft mountain so not many plumps get brewed.

You really only ever farmed?  Hunting in particular is epic food if you have even half-decent game since fat becomes food through the kitchen and fishing with high-skill is wicked-fast food too.  3x3 plump, 1 fisher, 1 hunter i would buy for even 150 dwarves, but just farming has never been *that* good.

edit: maybe you have early hunters who rack up loads of tallow, you stop hunting, run out of meat and farm for years but you also cook, so all your plump helmet roasts are actually 1/3 tallow?

[therahedwig]

Eggs are also a good way to supersupplement your fort's food supplies. If you only had one nestbox, it may have helped a lot too.

But yes, stealth fisherdwarves also increase supplies tons.

[Slyjoker87]

Yeah, come to think of it I always had some baller fisherman. Good points all around

[Loci]

For the record, yeah, the brewing issues reported so far are generally people being unable to brew things because there's no option in the brewery or something like that.  I haven't heard of anyone noticing it producing less.

Were you fertilizing your fields before?  Even if you were I don't think that would be enough for 100 dwarves, but it would be closer.

I don't think the farms produce less, but I do believe the dwarves consume more. In v0.34, I often ended up with massive oversupplies of alcohol--I'd just dump the spares in a room behind a locked door to declutter the fort. That hasn't been my experience with v0.40 at all; using a very similar approach I have nearly ran out of alcohol on more than one occasion. I ramped up farm production to 28 tiles and I now have a comfortable surplus that still dwindles rather rapidly if I fail to queue up brew jobs on occasion.

Even if dwarves' appetites weren't modified directly, their behavior certainly was. They no longer spend weeks chugging from barrels, so their "drink" counter gets reset faster, leading them to get thirsty again sooner than they otherwise would have. I haven't performed a full test, but I'd be surprised if this didn't have a notable impact on their alcohol intake.

The wiki, by the way, claims a fully-utilized 3x3 plot *is* sufficient to supply a mature fortress in v0.34.

[greycat]

The wiki, by the way, claims a fully-utilized 3x3 plot *is* sufficient to supply a mature fortress in v0.34.

Whoever wrote that didn't show their work.  I assume they mean some combination of quarry bushes for food and plump helmets for booze, and magically preventing the dwarves from ever eating a raw plump helmet, and using fertilizer, and having enough Legendary+N planters that at least one is on duty (not on break) all the time, and probably some other voodoo.

This is somewhat different from the original poster's "3x3 of plump helmets".

Also, they didn't say how big a "mature fortress" is.

[Dame de la Licorne]

greycat,

Note that the version number in that quote: 34.11.  The wiki is correct, in .34.xx one 3x3 plot of only plump helmets would feed 100+ dwarves.  It's no longer true for .40.xx.

-Dame de la Licorne

[therahedwig]

Dame, that was what he was trying to poing out.

[greycat]

Note that the version number in that quote: 34.11.  The wiki is correct, in .34.xx one 3x3 plot of only plump helmets would feed 100+ dwarves.  It's no longer true for .40.xx.

There has not been any change to the production capacity of a farm plot in 0.40 so far.