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[yiggdrasill]

what's a good way to keep everyone housed when wood is limited by my environment and its needed for other stuff as well? I typically build everyone a room because it helps so much with happiness (and I still have nightmares about the old tantrum spirals) but could I get away with a good dining room and temple, and just stick everyone in a dormitory?

[LaChouette]

Caverns and make it out of shrooms. Or you could simply buy wood, the beds aren't really necessary early on and you can probably buy enough wood with the caravans.

[callisto8413]

Just make it a REALLY nice dormitory with statues and cabinets.  OR fill a room with beds, make overlapping bedrooms, and don't assign any of them to anybody.  And add statues and cabinets.  And lots of engravings.

[PatrikLundell]

The only things you NEED wood for is beds, soap, and charcoal, while everything else can be made out of other materials. Coal may be present on the embark (very rarely for me), and I believe you can make soap out of some oil, so you might not need ash for that. Beds, however, can't be made out of anything but wood (ignoring strange moods, as that's not a reliable production method).

Otherwise, as mentioned, caravans and caverns. Finally, if you know you're going to be short of wood you might want to spend embark point to bring a decent carpenter, as you won't get as much opportunity to train.

And a clarification on using caravans for wood: you CAN get wood from the wagons, but it's usually a lot better to buy wood from them, as they bring wood when you're low on it.

[《monty》]

... and I believe you can make soap out of some oil, so you might not need ash for that.

The oil just takes the place of tallow - you still need ash to make lye.

I usually just use dormitories and sometimes dwarves will actually become used to the situation, reducing the negative thought from sleeping without a proper bedroom to a neutral thought. Unfortunately that's counterbalanced by the ones who really hate it and will keep dwelling on the situation.

And a clarification on using caravans for wood: you CAN get wood from the wagons, but it's usually a lot better to buy wood from them, as they bring wood when you're low on it.

After clear-cutting the few trees in a savanna the local elves started bringing me more than enough grown logs to keep my metal industry going, a very nice change from their usual reaction.

[Loci]

The only things you NEED wood for is beds, soap, and charcoal...

and water-wheels, windmills, axles, siege engines, potash, pearlash, clear glass, and obsidian swords.

what's a good way to keep everyone housed when wood is limited by my environment?

If you have no unforbidden logs, each caravan will bring roughly one log per dwarf, which should provide plenty for beds. Logs in buildings *are* counted, so it's best to turn logs into blocks to use for building material instead.

[PatrikLundell]

Hm, looks like I missed a few essential (and not so essential) wood usages... Thanks, Loci.

While turning each log into a block to counter log accounting should work (I'm not doubting Loci, just don't have any personal experience), going through that extra effort is probably a waste of effort compared to building with rock (or 4:1 rock blocks), unless you have a particular reason for wanting to use wood in you building.

[Saiko Kila]

If you have no unforbidden logs, each caravan will bring roughly one log per dwarf, which should provide plenty for beds. Logs in buildings *are* counted, so it's best to turn logs into blocks to use for building material instead.

I don't build with logs, but shouldn't forbidding logs in building be enough? Logs in items like windmills or axles can be forbidden and the machines still work, while the logs in other buildings (which would probably disable them) can be temporarily forbidden before the caravan comes, and unforbidden then.

EDIT: it seems it works. I just loaded an archive save from just before elven caravan, forbidden all loose logs (about 1000), and all logs in building (30, parts of power generation since I don't have other wooden buildings). My population is listed as 323 in this save. The elves brought 322 logs of grown wood.

[PatrikLundell]

I don't think forbidding logs in buildings disable them. Forbidding a nest box (rather than the eggs in it) won't prevent it from being used, nor does forbidding gears and rocks/blocks in bridges prevent them from being operated.

[Saiko Kila]

I don't think forbidding logs in buildings disable them. Forbidding a nest box (rather than the eggs in it) won't prevent it from being used, nor does forbidding gears and rocks/blocks in bridges prevent them from being operated.

I had workshops specifically in mind, without testing other items (except machines). At least with stone blocks, forbidding the building block of a workshop stops dwarves from initiating the jobs in them.

[PatrikLundell]

I don't think forbidding logs in buildings disable them. Forbidding a nest box (rather than the eggs in it) won't prevent it from being used, nor does forbidding gears and rocks/blocks in bridges prevent them from being operated.

I had workshops specifically in mind, without testing other items (except machines). At least with stone blocks, forbidding the building block of a workshop stops dwarves from initiating the jobs in them.

Hm, time to get a bit careful then. I d-b-f larger areas during invasions to deal with cancellation spam outside of the civ alert burrow, and have done similar things indoors when cleaning up after infiltrator chaos messes.

[Saiko Kila]

I don't think forbidding logs in buildings disable them. Forbidding a nest box (rather than the eggs in it) won't prevent it from being used, nor does forbidding gears and rocks/blocks in bridges prevent them from being operated.

I had workshops specifically in mind, without testing other items (except machines). At least with stone blocks, forbidding the building block of a workshop stops dwarves from initiating the jobs in them.

Hm, time to get a bit careful then. I d-b-f larger areas during invasions to deal with cancellation spam outside of the civ alert burrow, and have done similar things indoors when cleaning up after infiltrator chaos messes.

I have forgotten about another thing which can be prevented by forbidding - loading cage traps. I use it often during sieges. When the cage trap's mechanism is forbidden, the dwarves won't load it. I forbid both mechanisms and cages with prisoners (so no dwarf will come to load trap or to retrieve cargo). This also prevents announcement spam. Maybe you are doing the same with mass forbidding, if you happen to use cage traps.

[PatrikLundell]

I do d-b-f cage traps when invaders arrive, so I know how that works (the cage will remain forbidden after an invader has been caught), but yes, it's a useful reminder.

[wierd]

I personally find putting a very high trade priority on wood (and nothing but wood) with the trade liason causes them to bring epic buttloads off the stuff in their wagons, with the expectation that you will load them up with all kinds of lighter (and more valuable) cargo to replace it.

If all you are looking for is the means to get over the "early difficult embark slump" by getting beds and the like made, this will get you going.

If however, you are having a "recurring needs" basis for your wood shortage (resorting to charcoal for furnaces, have specialized in soap production as a trade good, et al) then going the extra effort to produce a multi-level mushroom plantation pays off big.

[PatrikLundell]

There are already multi-level mushroom plantations. They're called "caverns". You can seal one off (or a bit of one off). It takes 3 years for a tree sapling to mature, and in that time you can probably seal off a cavern (it usually takes me longer, but that's both because I have other things with higher priority initially, and then spend most of the time cleaning up after necro and undead sieges).
The only case where this is an issue is when the two top ones are muddy and the third one keeps getting dangerous critters in it.