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[Inconspicuous]

So for this fort, I want to start focusing on on some new things, like visitors, traps, military management, attracting a monarch...

But I keep having to micromanage the more mundane tasks, like food and drink industry, or the plump helmet farms. I also have to micromanage the dwarves labors, to make sure everything is running along smoothly. Is there a way to automate this stuff? I have DFHack installed, if that helps.

[Grim Portent]

My personal preference is to add the [AUTOMATIC] token to the necessary reactions in the raws where possible.

I use it to automate drink production, coal refinement, milling, bee product stuff, pottery glazing and such. Doesn't eliminate micromanagement, but it does reduce it somewhat.

[D_E]

Use the Work Orders menu (j-m).

I set up automatic orders to make charcoal, brew drinks, process plants, weave thread, make clothes, make trade goods (collect sand and make green glass serrated discs) mash plants, make paper, quires, book bindings, and bind books.

Combined with my farms, the game basically plays itself.

Most of the jobs can be set to only activate if the products are needed.  For example, the drinks job activates if the amount of drink drops bellow 50.  The jobs that can't be set to activate if needed (clothes, mostly) are set to activate once a season.

The only busywork I have to do is deal with caravans and periodically designate some trees for cutting.

Edit:  I turn off Auto Loom, since this strategy depends on having a stock of thread around to bind the books with.

[mikekchar]

Admittedly using work orders takes time to set up, but for me it's actually the most fun part of the game.  I recommend setting up the workshop and using 'q'->'P'->'TAB' rather than 'j'->'m', though because it allows you a lot more control (and also makes it easier to search for things).  The other thing I do is set up input stockpiles around each workshop.  Again, this gives you a lot more control over what's getting done and reduces problems related to hauling silliness.  For the size of the job, use single digits (1 - 5, but almost always 1).  If the job size is X, this allows you to build X things a day.  There are over 300 days a year, so even if you set the job size to 1 it's almost always big enough.  Keep a stockpile of 3-5 of everything in your input stockpiles.  This will allow you to build most things quickly in an emergency.  The only real exception I can think to this is charcoal, which you will go through very quickly, so it helps to keep a stockpile in the 10-20 range.  Oh and blocks if you are building a lot -- I often keep a stockpile of 100 or so.  Essentially your stockpiles only have to be big enough to satisfy demand until the following day, where the manager will schedule someone to build more.

You *might* run into labour shortages if you aren't careful about assigning a number of dwarfs for each task.  Remember that they might go away for a week or two to pray/study/socialise.  If you have 2 or 3 dwarfs for each position, you should have very little problem, though.

[Fearless Son]

I have to agree with D_E and mikekchar, the jobs manager is the way to go.  Combine that with careful stockpile and workshop settings, and you can automate large portions of your economy without having to do the micro-managing.  Rather, it is like giving a broad set of orders (standing or self-limited) and (if you have set things up correctly) watching as your dwarfs carry all this out.  That will let you focus on micro-managing the things you need to micro-manage while the more route tasks are being taken care of. 

This does require that you actually assign one dwarf as your manager though, and probably another as your record keeper, and each will need a very modest office to do their task, but those are easy.  Think of your manager as your first officer, to whom you tell the broad strokes of what needs to happen ("I need twenty stone tables," or "Brew fresh drinks if we have less than fifty units in stock,") and let them delegate the individual tasks out ("You four will make five tables each, split among our five masonry workshops," or "Brewer, keep repeating the brew task until the number of units of alcohol in stock is greater than fifty.")   

[mikekchar]

Literally the first thing I do in DF is to dig out a hole, chop down some trees, build a carpenter shop and then build 2 chairs and 2 tables for the manager and record keeper.  I do it even before I move my gear off of the wagon (which obviously wouldn't work with some embarks...).  From that point on, unless I have some limited resource (like stone if I need to get through an aquifer), every single thing is set up with the manager.  Some people have worried about the hit in productivity from doing this, but honestly I don't notice any problems at all.  In fact because the dwarfs are able to schedule everything without over producing, I get quite a bit done -- definitely better than I would if I set up auto-repeat barrels and drinks and forgot to switch to something else.

[muldrake]

I have to agree with D_E and mikekchar, the jobs manager is the way to go.  Combine that with careful stockpile and workshop settings, and you can automate large portions of your economy without having to do the micro-managing.  Rather, it is like giving a broad set of orders (standing or self-limited) and (if you have set things up correctly) watching as your dwarfs carry all this out.  That will let you focus on micro-managing the things you need to micro-manage while the more route tasks are being taken care of.

The "conditions" submenu (hit c on a job in the job manager) also lets you set conditions that trigger a job being done.  So, for instance, you could say if there's less than 30 rock thrones, and you have 30 non-economic rock, make 10 rock thrones.  This way you can prevent "sorcerer's apprentice" type jobs that eat up all your resources long after you forgot you assigned them, as well as making sure you always have a reasonable number of certain useful items.

The job manager is also particularly good for setting up production flows where, for instance, you need a series of tasks performed to accomplish some complicated production, like soapmaking.  So, for instance, you could have a job to process quarry bushes when they're available, then mill rock nuts to paste when they're available, then press liquid (oil) from the paste when that's available, then use that oil to make soap when the oil is available.  Using the conditions means the jobs don't start until the materials are available, and cuts down on cancellation spam.

[Chief10]

Admittedly using work orders takes time to set up, but for me it's actually the most fun part of the game.  I recommend setting up the workshop and using 'q'->'P'->'TAB' rather than 'j'->'m', though because it allows you a lot more control (and also makes it easier to search for things)

I'm just really getting into the improved work orders, and I'm curious what your thinking is for this? It seems like setting things up in each workshop makes it harder to find things?

[mikekchar]

Definitely, if you don't already know where each thing is, it would be that way :-)  But the downside is that you might schedule a job for something that you don't actually have a workshop for :-)  Also, for me, setting the jobs is a small part of setting up my workflow.  Much more important is setting up the stockpiles.  So I'll almost always know exactly which workshop I want to work on because otherwise the inputs will be coming from who-knows-where...

[Baffler]

The new standing orders really are a godsend, even though the system took me a long time of experimenting to get a grasp on. I used to have to spend at least half of my play time managing the farms unless I wanted to just grow masses of plump helmets and let Armok sort out the clothes and booze.

Now though I can just watch the threshers spin pig tail thread, the weavers turn it into cloth, the dyers and clothiers turn it into usable clothing, and the dwarves pick it up as needed all with no input from myself, all while ensuring that there's usually still enough of the plants for the kitchen staff to keep ale on tap. The only thing I have to oversee personally is destroying or selling off low quality or damaged goods, and edge cases like the embroidery on the capes issued to the fortress guard. And that's just the clothing industry.

[Thorfinn]

Hasn't been mentioned yet, but DFHack's workflow is good, and in some (IMO, most) instances, better than work orders. Certainly it's faster to set up.

Most of the problems I see being solved by work orders are easier to solve with stockpiles. For instance, you can't get overrun by plump helmets if you only have so many spaces to put them, and any excess wither in the field. If this happens regularly (it will), just set that field to go fallow every other season, or more as needed. I find most of the surface crops only need one season per year in a 1x3 field, (and consequently, need only a tiny stockpile assigned to each crop) and, again, I set them to fallow or to some other crop as needed. Like Baffler, I can just sit and watch my clothing industry move goods from shop to shop and into a finished goods pile, but unlike him, I haven't had to issue a single work order.

QSPs are nice and all, but of you overuse them, you end up with problems you need work orders or workflow to solve.

[Fearless Son]

Most of the problems I see being solved by work orders are easier to solve with stockpiles. For instance, you can't get overrun by plump helmets if you only have so many spaces to put them, and any excess wither in the field. If this happens regularly (it will), just set that field to go fallow every other season, or more as needed.

I think in cases of over-production like that, the the manager is still of a benefit.  I hate letting crops wither on the vine, but one might set up conditional cooking jobs when the level of raw ingredients is approaching storage capacity (and there are sufficient seeds for replanting stockpiled.)  It will effectively "compress" the volume and value of your food stocks to make more room by combining the raw stuff into more valuable cooked food.  So long as the conditions are set up right, you should not have to micro-manage it. 

[Thorfinn]

I hate letting crops wither on the vine, but one might set up conditional cooking jobs when the level of raw ingredients is approaching storage capacity (and there are sufficient seeds for replanting stockpiled.)  It will effectively "compress" the volume and value of your food stocks to make more room by combining the raw stuff into more valuable cooked food.  So long as the conditions are set up right, you should not have to micro-manage it.

I don't like letting crops wither, either. Complete waste of grower-dwarf ticks. If you need the food (for trade, presumably) just build another kitchen/still and assign another cook/brewer. Those are easy chains to balance from that end, and then QSP what you want to trade near the depot. If you don't need a particular crop, you could just let it wither, but it's better to switch the field to a crop you do need, or set it fallow.

At some point, though, you have more production than you need to buy out the caravans. Changing fields over to fallow lets you very precisely balance production to what you need, to within a few piles of food per season. Cooks will use up the stockpiles and then take other jobs, but switch back to cooking as soon as the next harvest comes in. All without touching workflow or issuing a work order.

[mikekchar]

I also like the "oversupply and limit stockpile space" strategy for things like plants.  It's hard to predict exactly how much you will need and growing space is essentially free (you need *so* few farm plots simply to maintain production).  My most successful forts have been container-less for that reason.  Lately I've been trying to use containers, but it's a lot harder because the damn things hold so much.  A single barrel will hold *all* of a single type of plant, so if I want to use it in multiple places I'm screwed.  I never use QSP and apart from holding ore or wood, I don't really see any need for them.