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[Bumber]

Upping consumption would make starting forts needlessly difficult, probably even impossible for single pick challenge. It would be far better to decrease supply.

[C27]

No it wouldn't, unless you're opposed to plant gathering and aboveground farming. You don't need to dig in order to have plenty of food.

[Bumber]

No it wouldn't, unless you're opposed to plant gathering and aboveground farming. You don't need to dig in order to have plenty of food.

Wild plants are seasonal and growing takes time. You'd have to bring 10x food on embark if they eat 10x more at a time, which forces a rebalance of other stuff (weight/cost.)

[Urist Tilaturist]

Since embarks always arrive in spring, there should be some wild plants around.

Food could cost fewer embark points to bring if dwarves ate more, but its weight should stay the same. Salted meat is quite heavy, but not as heavy as the anvils that dwarves can still haul around.

[Dirst]

Since embarks always arrive in spring, there should be some wild plants around.

Food could cost fewer embark points to bring if dwarves ate more, but its weight should stay the same. Salted meat is quite heavy, but not as heavy as the anvils that dwarves can still haul around.

Even keas haul around those anvils.  Not sure why weight is a concern for embarking.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Weight should at least have some effect on keas carrying things off. Only giant keas should be able to carry anvils.

[catten]

Upping consumption would make starting forts needlessly difficult, probably even impossible for single pick challenge. It would be far better to decrease supply.

Some would argue that single pick challenge is needlessly difficult... I would think that folks who go for that sort of thing would welcome it being even harder. Same for embarking on a terrifying tundra with an aquifer below and tower next door.

There's been discussion about decreasing food supply, but it's problematic. If you look at butchery returns, farm plot yields, gathering, egg clutch sizes, milking frequency, etc. in isolation, they all seem reasonable enough. The problem comes when you look at how absurdly little a dorf eats in a year (~8 units of food).

As for making embarks needlessly difficult, I can think of two concerns: increased cost (in embark points) and increased labor (during the first year).

Re cost: Right now, 205 embark points (15% of total) gives a year supply of food for 9 dwarves and and a six-month supply of booze for 12 dwarves. That should be ample time to get some sort of food production up and running, as long as you can find soil or water to make an underground farm plot.

Spoiler: embark details (click to show/hide)

Plump helmets and strawberries cost 4 and 2 embark points, respectively. Booze, fish, and most meats are 2 points. Milk is 1 point. Right now, I normally embark with 60 milk (for cheese) and 15 meat; 10 plump helmets and 10 strawberries (= 100 booze after 4 brew jobs), 7 seeds each of pig tails, sweet pods and cave wheat; and 4 peafowl (1 male).

Re effort: Right now, my fort can get by for the first few years with just one dwarf working part time on food production (planting, butchering, tanning, brewing, cooking, cheese making). Putting another 60 embark points into a skilled grower and lye (for potash-making) significantly boosts farm yields. I completely ignore caravans, hunting, and plant gathering. Except to order barrels of lye from the dwarven liason (for fertilizer) so I don't have to make it myself.

Spoiler: labor details (click to show/hide)

Assuming the embark above, build nest boxes for the peafowl. Make a few cheeses to free up some barrels, brew the plump helmets, and plant the spawn. If nothing goes wrong, you'll have two crops of plump helmets by mid-summer, with cave wheat and pig tails arriving soon after. During slow moments, finish making the cheese, brew the strawberries, and cook up the food. Hatch the first batch of eggs, and collect eggs after that. Right about when the big spring wave of immigrants first gets hungry (late summer of the following year), you'll have a couple dozen full-grown peafowl ready to butcher, plus about 1000 booze from 8 crops of brewables (four types) that were harvested and brewed from the farm plots. That's about year supply of food and booze for 50 dwarves.

If dwarves ate and drank 10x more, then I estimate I'd need to spend about 40% of my embark points on food, and have 3 food production dwarves by the end of the first year instead of one. Still assuming no caravan or plant gathering.

Spoiler: details (click to show/hide)

I would probably double the milk and meat, and bring 4 extra peahens (186 pt). I'd bring 15 plump helmets and 5 strawberries for early booze (70 pt). I'd plant four farm plots instead of two, with the two new plots growing plump helmets, quarry bushes, and sweet pods for food (42 pts, focusing on farmer's workshop to process the latter two, milling can come later). I'd hatch three clutches of eggs for chicks twice a year and collect the rest of the eggs. Urist McFoodProducer would stay pretty busy, and I'd enlist a migrant or two to help him ASAP.

I usually have embark points to burn, so it would probably still be very doable (though more difficult) to embark in a reasonably calm location with the current point budget (decent military equipment gets expensive fast). I'd probably have to bring less sand, coal, ore, and wood that I currently use to jump-start things and be lazy. In any case, Toady would almost certainly adjust the default embark points to compensate, like he did after stepladders were added. The dwarfpower required early on wouldn't be outrageous, either, especially if I supplemented with plant gathering and caravans (which are fairly low labor food sources). If opportunity presented, I'd do some military hunting with the marksdwarf I always bring for early defense.

[Bumber]

Since embarks always arrive in spring, there should be some wild plants around.

Not anymore. It's a fixed two week time skip.

Food could cost fewer embark points to bring if dwarves ate more, but its weight should stay the same. Salted meat is quite heavy, but not as heavy as the anvils that dwarves can still haul around.

Anvils aren't used as often. You're going to be constantly hauling new food to the ever-depleting stockpiles. Not to mention the item clutter and FPS concerns.

Upping consumption would make starting forts needlessly difficult, probably even impossible for single pick challenge. It would be far better to decrease supply.

Some would argue that single pick challenge is needlessly difficult... I would think that folks who go for that sort of thing would welcome it being even harder. Same for embarking on a terrifying tundra with an aquifer below and tower next door.

I'm saying it could end up logistically impossible to survive until the first caravan in such scenarios. In the time it takes to acquire food, your dwarves could already have starved to death.

There's been discussion about decreasing food supply, but it's problematic. If you look at butchery returns, farm plot yields, gathering, egg clutch sizes, milking frequency, etc. in isolation, they all seem reasonable enough. The problem comes when you look at how absurdly little a dorf eats in a year (~8 units of food).

As for making embarks needlessly difficult, I can think of two concerns: increased cost (in embark points) and increased labor (during the first year).
...

All of that can also apply for a decrease in supply as well. The main difference that occurs to me is with regards to the number of items involved. Items which may all have differing freshness data to be tracked. Items that will take up many more barrels, and barrels that contain mostly depleted stacks after a food binge. Caravans already overload themselves, and now they'll need to bring more food to trade. (Even if food weight is adjusted, they still need to bring the extra containers.)

What changes is how much food each unit represents, and I think it's more sensible to go with the lower overhead. The only problem is that some yields are currently at 1 and can't go any lower, although stuff could be adjusted to take longer to develop or be more scarce (e.g., wild animals that don't immediately arrive once the previous group is gone.)

[Urist Tilaturist]

I was thinking of first embarks. My bad.

If survival becomes logistically impossible, make food cheaper so more can be brought at embark.

Food hauling will take up lots of time, but guess what, most people in long past ages were involved in farming and food production in some way. Gathering food should occupy a lot of dwarves and time. It is very labour intensive, and would be a good use for all those peasants who have no other skills. The starting 7 dwarves should mostly rely on hunting and gathering at first, and only switch to farming as they gain enough dwarves to do so. I doubt FPS will be that much of a problem, since food gets eaten and disappears.

[Pyrite]

As far as food hauling goes, we did just get dwarves who can carry multiple stacks in a haul. Hopefully they'll be able to top off old barrels soon, too.

[catten]

You're going to be constantly hauling new food to the ever-depleting stockpiles. Not to mention the item clutter and FPS concerns.

Agree there would be more hauling, but clutter and FPS should actually improve because of the "ever-depleting" part. Right now thousands of food units just sit around instead of being eaten. Especially if you're butchering animals for leather (*shudder*). Besides, as Uristurister said, the labor-intensive food situation is kind of a fact of life for many parts of the world *today*. The proposal would keep 20-30% of dwarves busy with food where a more realistic number for 14th century and earlier would be 80-90%.

Items that will take up many more barrels, and barrels that contain mostly depleted stacks after a food binge.

You have a point with this one. Food isn't a problem, dorfs redistribute it easily, but that stockpile full of large pots, each with 1 unit of booze inside, is really annoying even now. Ideally, Toady would allow brewing batches to go into compativel non-empty containers, and/or combining of compatible barrels. Drinks don't have quality levels as far as I know, so no complications there.

On the other hand, if dwarves actually drink a significant amount at each sitting, instead of taking one sip, they would tend to empty barrels more often. Especially if you set up burrows and stock rotation (so the new barrels don't get used until the old ones run out).

Caravans already overload themselves, and now they'll need to bring more food to trade. (Even if food weight is adjusted, they still need to bring the extra containers.

You must have very different caravans than I do... I never request any food (except maybe milk to turn to cheese), because the fish, meat, plants, and cheese they always bring add up easily to several hundred units of food. Slaughter the animals they bring and you're really over the top. If elves and humans come too, you're absurdly overflowing with food. And one prepared food barrel can buy all the food they bring, so it's not exactly hard to acquire.

What changes is how much food each unit represents, and I think it's more sensible to go with the lower overhead. The only problem is that some yields are currently at 1 and can't go any lower, although stuff could be adjusted to take longer to develop or be more scarce (e.g., wild animals that don't immediately arrive once the previous group is gone.)

While technically you are correct (eating 1 unit 10 times a year is the same calorie count as eating 10 units once a year), it would be a really large overhaul/refactoring to decrease yields. Plus, a year supply of food and booze for 200 dwarves should *really* take up *much* more than 200 squares of stockpile IMO. Right now, 200 dwarves will drink 3200 units of booze in a year. Assuming decent yields, there are 25 booze in a barrel, for 128 stockpile squares. Throw in 1600 units of food for a year, with ~60 units/barrel, and you're talking ~25 stockpile tiles. Roughly 150 tiles total.

it could end up logistically impossible to survive until the first caravan in such scenarios. In the time it takes to acquire food, your dwarves could already have starved to death.

Easily fixed by embarking with more food (with starting points adjusted as needed), but that would mostly be a problem for inhospitable places (where "inhospitable" is historically defined as a place where food is difficult to obtain). For normal embarks it just forces players to get right to work on the food supply.

Sure, everyone will probably lose a fort to starvation when the first big spring migration eats them out of house and home, or when the first bad siege forces their herbalists and hunters indoors and scares away the caravan... but then they'll learn to take food seriously and it will never happen again unless something goes wrong.

Just like all the other sources of !!Fun!! in the game. You get burned, you develop a strategy to compensate, you move on.

[catten]

Weight should at least have some effect on keas carrying things off. Only giant keas should be able to carry anvils.

I don't know... one of my younger kids had a sparrow snatch a bagel out of her hand and fly away with it. I didn't think that was physically possible, but it happened and many tears followed. Minecarts are probably out reach for non-giant animals, tho. Dwarves can't even hardly walk with them, so things shouldn't be able to fly them away.

[Bumber]

I was thinking of first embarks. My bad.

Embarks, too, though it's not so much an issue until Toady implements embark scenarios (i.e., when you may have the option of needing to transport all that stuff to the embark site.)

Agree there would be more hauling, but clutter and FPS should actually improve because of the "ever-depleting" part. Right now thousands of food units just sit around instead of being eaten. Especially if you're butchering animals for leather (*shudder*). Besides, as Uristurister said, the labor-intensive food situation is kind of a fact of life for many parts of the world *today*. The proposal would keep 20-30% of dwarves busy with food where a more realistic number for 14th century and earlier would be 80-90%.

More hauling equals more pathing calculations. It doesn't matter that the food's ever-depleting (spoilage could do that.) It's the number in existence at any given time, and now you're requiring that large surplus to be maintained for emergencies (e.g., some brewers go on break or run out of barrels.)

You must have very different caravans than I do... I never request any food (except maybe milk to turn to cheese), because the fish, meat, plants, and cheese they always bring add up easily to several hundred units of food. Slaughter the animals they bring and you're really over the top. If elves and humans come too, you're absurdly overflowing with food. And one prepared food barrel can buy all the food they bring, so it's not exactly hard to acquire.

It's exactly the stuff you don't ask for that's the issue. "Oh, your food stockpile looking a bit low at the moment? We'll bring hundreds of barrels of food (carried by extra wagons) to help you out!" *Cue goblin ambush*

While technically you are correct (eating 1 unit 10 times a year is the same calorie count as eating 10 units once a year), it would be a really large overhaul/refactoring to decrease yields. Plus, a year supply of food and booze for 200 dwarves should *really* take up *much* more than 200 squares of stockpile IMO. Right now, 200 dwarves will drink 3200 units of booze in a year. Assuming decent yields, there are 25 booze in a barrel, for 128 stockpile squares. Throw in 1600 units of food for a year, with ~60 units/barrel, and you're talking ~25 stockpile tiles. Roughly 150 tiles total.

Now consider those requirements multiplied by 10. 32000 booze and 16000 food over 1500 tiles. It's quite a bit.

[Urist Tilaturist]

I don't know... one of my younger kids had a sparrow snatch a bagel out of her hand and fly away with it. I didn't think that was physically possible, but it happened and many tears followed. Minecarts are probably out reach for non-giant animals, tho. Dwarves can't even hardly walk with them, so things shouldn't be able to fly them away.

A bagel is somewhat lighter than an anvil.

Urist's daily wisdom.

[catten]

Agree there would be more hauling, but clutter and FPS should actually You must have very different caravans than I do... I never request any food (except maybe milk to turn to cheese), because the fish, meat, plants, and cheese they always bring add up easily to several hundred units of food. Slaughter the animals they bring and you're really over the top. If elves and humans come too, you're absurdly overflowing with food. And one prepared food barrel can buy all the food they bring, so it's not exactly hard to acquire.

It's exactly the stuff you don't ask for that's the issue. "Oh, your food stockpile looking a bit low at the moment? We'll bring hundreds of barrels of food (carried by extra wagons) to help you out!" *Cue goblin ambush*

Wait.
First you complain that there wouldn't be enough food and no easy way to obtain it, so I pointed out that caravans seem to work well.
Now you complain that caravans would bring too much food without being asked.
Which is it?

Also, I'd love it if 40.xx caravans noticed my empty wood stockpile like they used to in 34.11. Now they bring 2-3 logs at most unless I beg the liaison for more. It used to happen with food, too, but that also seems to have disappeared at some point.

It's the number in existence at any given time, and now you're requiring that large surplus to be maintained for emergencies (e.g., some brewers go on break or run out of barrels.)

You don't need a year supply to handle brewers going on break. Even if you ignore them completely and just turtle, most sieges get bored and leave in less than a year.

Spoiler: tangent (click to show/hide)

Especially if you left a cat chained up outside. They seem to declare victory and go home after they kill everything in sight. I haven't checked whether that gets reported in legends as the site being razed (would be hilarious if it did).

Undead could be a problem, but they're already a problem so nothing new there.

a year supply of food and booze for 200 dwarves should *really* take up *much* more than 200 squares of stockpile IMO. Right now, 200 dwarves will drink 3200 units of booze in a year. Assuming decent yields, there are 25 booze in a barrel, for 128 stockpile squares. Throw in 1600 units of food for a year, with ~60 units/barrel, and you're talking ~25 stockpile tiles. Roughly 150 tiles total.

Now consider those requirements multiplied by 10. 32000 booze and 16000 food over 1500 tiles. It's quite a bit.

That's one 40x40 room, or 4 20x20 rooms. I usually have a 21x17 dining room for a fort with 100 dwarfs, and would build another of the same size as population headed toward 200. So a year supply of food/booze for 200 would occupy about twice as much space as the dining rooms used to eat it. Seems reasonable to me.