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[DwarfUli]

I have a couple of noob questions I can't find an answer to online or from the DF wiki 

1) If I bring two dogs because I want to breed them to create a number of war dogs, does war dog training affect their fertility? Can you breed war dogs as easily as untrained dogs?

2) I struggle a bit with the whole; "plump helmets spawn -> planted in field -> harvest -> brewed, cooked or eaten raw -> seed production" cycle, I really don't have a good feel of what really is going on. I read a wiki reference about crop yields and that a 3x3 plot of plump helmets can produce enough yearly drink for 80-90 dorfs, but nothing really beyond that. I just check my stocks every so often, to see if I have enough drink and food but I don't have a good handle on how to scale this. I recently went from 30 some dorfs to 80+ in one migrant wave, and it made me scratch my head a bit on how to know how much more to plant or even how much more to harvest. Any light someone can shine on this would be helpful.

3) I would really like to grow Kenaf. It is ultra versatile; thread and paper production, seeds can be eaten and it is fast growing, but obviously there are no seeds available at the preparation screen. Do I have to hope I can buy them through trade at my fort? Do I need to harvest the seeds from native plants?

4) If I pick an island location, do tradespeople still visit?

5) Is there a benefit to picking a starting 4x4 square that has a major road traveling through it? Does this mean more tradespeople will visit my fort?

My apologies for the 20 questions routine!
Thank you

[Mobbstar]

Here are my two cents:

• Training does not affect reproductive capacity.
• Don't worry too much about food supply.  There are many solutions and it is easy to recover if you ever run out.
  
  • If you have a manager, schedule brewing to maintain a drinks stockpile.  Alternatively, make a well where your dwarves can drink clean water if they run out of alcohol.
  • Check the stockpile once a season.  If it is getting low, send out herbalists to get some wild crops.  With those additional crops, you have plenty time to make another farmplot.
  • If farming and herbalism are not possible or insufficient, you can try fishing.  A single fisherdwarf and one or two fishcleaners can produce copious amounts of food.  However, there is no fish alcohol, so you still require a few plants or a well.
  • You'll notice if your dwarves are hungry when they start flashing (brown arrow pointing down, or blue arrow for thirst).
• You can acquire kenaf seeds from wild kenaf if it grows in the biome.  Designate it to be harvested by your herbalists, then give a job to make fibre at a farmer shop.  This has the side-product of seeds.  I believe elven merchants only bring tree seeds/fruits, but I cannot remember if human merchants bring any seeds.
• Your own civilisation will always send a caravan in autumn, but foreign merchants and armies cannot cross the ocean.
• Building on roads has no direct effect because travellers ignore roads.  However, roads are usually on a direct path between two major locations, so armies marching between those locations will likely stumble into your fortress (and usually leave instantly).

[DwarfUli]

Thanks so much Mobbstar /bow

I have assigned many roles but not yet manager. The depth of the game is incredible. I will try and see how that goes.

I also wondered if a single plump helmet spawn, produces one plump helmet, which in turn gives back one seed if brewed (not cooked), unlike real fungi which yield many spores.

My oldest fortress is only 3 years so far, I constantly am learning new things and feel like I need to start over and improve my fortress.   

[delphonso]

A couple additions to Mobbstar's excellent information:

2: cooked plump helmets will destroy the seeds they have (any cooked veg will), so it is possible to cook up all your mushrooms before any are brewed (which does produce seeds. Eating raw will also drop a seed). In the stocks screen (z, then navigate to kitchen), you can disable plump helmets for cooking, which will ensure you've always got /something/ to brew and eat. Plucking veggies from the surface or the caverns is a good way to add some variety to your meals.

3. I don't know if elves or humans will show up with raw kenaf, but if they show up with raw fruit or veggies that is farmable, brewing it (or eating it raw) can get you a seed to start your own farm of the same. May not be useful for cloth production, but can get your blueberry wine or something similar, if your dwarves prefer to drink that.

[DwarfUli]

What would be the fastest way to produce more seeds? Plant the kenaf, not use it for thread but brew all (no cook)?

Thanks

EDIT:  cant brew kenaf lol, cooked or eaten(seed property). Eaten produces seeds, cooked does not

[A_Curious_Cat]

According to the wiki, processing a plant to thread also leaves seeds behind.

[delphonso]

Right, my mistake for not mentioning that. Processing them will produce aeeds. Turning pig tails to thread leaves seeds behind.

[Mobbstar]

I believe elven merchants only bring tree seeds/fruits, but I cannot remember if human merchants bring any seeds.

Update on that: Paralyzoid says that merchants can and will bring seeds if you request them.  Merchants typically have access to a much greater variety, but you should only request the seeds you actually plan to plant.  (Technical reason for that being what happened to Paralyzoid:  If the game believes you are drowning in excess seed, it deletes some.  Reaching that seed limit is difficult, but it can be achieved if you request all seeds from merchants.)

[PatrikLundell]

Elves never bring anything that can be planted. They only bring fruit from trees. Humans can bring edible seeds as well as edible things that can be processed to yield seeds. Inedible seeds are never brought, even if they have other uses, and the same goes for whole plants (so don't try to get papyrus that way).
Gathering local plants is a good way to increase the variety available to you, but keep in mind that many seed bearing parts become available only in summer, as they're seasonal. I typically try to gather those in the second month of summer (at least that's when I designate the tasks for those: when the bugger actually gets onto the job is a different matter).

Caravans only bring things their civs have access to, which is determined when the civs are formed, based on the resources available in the vicinity of their starting site. This also means that the dwarven caravan is only capable of bringing the things available to you on the embark screen. However, goading other civs (including dwarven ones) into sending caravans ought to allow for a broader selection of goods than what's available to your immediate neighbors.

Animal breeding: Don't bring just one of each gender, as there's a risk one of them is unfit for breeding, and there's always the risk of one getting into a fight (with local wildlife or otherwise) and get lost that way. I bring three of each gender, which is a bit of a hold over from when animals had an excessive reluctance to breeding due to maritial inclination being attributed to them.

[vjek]

...
3) I would really like to grow Kenaf. It is ultra versatile; thread and paper production, seeds can be eaten and it is fast growing, but obviously there are no seeds available at the preparation screen. Do I have to hope I can buy them through trade at my fort? Do I need to harvest the seeds from native plants?
...

Another option is hemp.  It can be used for similar purposes, and is available, natively, growing above ground, in a wide variety of embarks (any temperate biome).  You can just harvest it with plant gathering/herbalist, then replant it once you get some seeds from processing it.

[gchristopher]

Check out the wiki page on crops: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Crop

Surface crops are nice and simple because they grow year round.

Which surface crops appear and can be grown will depend on your biome, but there are several that produce thread  (cotton, rope reeds, hemp, flax, jute, ramie, kenaf), and some of those produce other products. Rope reed, notably, produces booze and thread. Hemp, flax, cotton, and kenaf produce thread, flour and paper.

For simplicity, start with gathering crops that are growing around your embark. One easy way to keep seeds in stock is to forbid cooking any brewable plant in the kitchen settings.

Processing to flour produces seeds, so that's a good way to get food for meals without much micromanagement. (longland grass, whip vines, all the wheats/spelt/barley/oats/rye/rice/quinoa/milet/gasp/etc) all make flour, and most also make booze, so can supply both needs.

In general, a small number of farm plots supports a very large number of dwarves and your problem will rapidly become having too much food/booze and no containers/space to store it.

Several crops are bugged and don't produce seeds, but if you just gather a bunch of plants, grow, and process them, the ones without seeds will rapidly vanish, leaving you with an abundance of renewable crops. The basic Modest Mod (without any of the optional modules) fixes most plants.

[DwarfUli]

Thank you everyone for replying. All super helpful and useful. The Wiki "Crop" link is amazing and helped a ton. I now pay close attention to (d)-(p) gather plants and instantly turn cooking to (red) for seed-bearing plants. I also now check for seed bearing plants in the Autumn, when plants are matured.  It is good to know for example that when 1 plump helmet is brewed to dwarven wine, 1 seed/spawn is made available again in the process (not multiple seeds).

I made my first, 1000 year Age yesterday and started a new fortress last night. I have been using the advise someone gave me on here to create a separation between what my fortress' guests can visit, and the world my dorfs inhabit and live in. I am now a firm believer in keeping multiple taverns, having had quite a bit of trouble with necromancers, thieves and goblins slipping into my dorfs' living quarters and stockpiles. When artifacts are carried off by goblins pretending to be artisans, it sours the mood towards guests pretty quickly.
I now build guest structures above ground and dorf stuff underground. I love above ground building, so I would like to start creating larger fields to grow crops, for export and trading, for ☼ (and RP value). I am currently working on a tall, above ground spire that serves as a trap to make trading caravans fall from great heights. I am not even sure if this will damage the trade goods or if I can just sweep away the elven corpses into a channel at the bottom and collect the goodies...guess i will find out 

Thank you all for the excellent advise on all these matters.



 

[Mobbstar]

[...]
I made my first, 1000 year Age yesterday and started a new fortress last night. [...]

Those are awesome plans!  Consider updating us in "What's going on in your fort?" or if you enjoy storytelling start a thread in Community Games & Stories.  Reading your posts is always a delight!

(Also, I feel it is my moral duty to point out how honest trade and excited merchants result in more goods next year.)

[Thisfox]

If the traders suffer an accident, intended or unintended, on your map, then you will be blamed for their disappearance, however coincidental it might be. I once had a tree shoot up under a leaving wagon, stranding a camel up a tree and scattering trade goods around the map. I was of course blamed for the damage and lost goods.

I find it's better to reward the traders handsomely for their goods, especially the elves, as they will bring more wonderful and exciting trade goods every year. Nothing like a few war bears for your military and forgotten-beast-silk stringed instruments for your tavern!

[DwarfUli]

Seed gathering has been very successful tonight. Building my spire has been less fortunate. I have created a base structure that is 12x14. Just simple, single walls made from wood. So far I have
made this tower 4 z-levels tall. It includes staircases and all completed flooring. This took *a lot* of wood...the elves will not be pleased when they see this tower.
Now I want to build a wooden ramp going up and around this column, winding its way to end up at the roof top of the structure (I intend to build maybe a 10 z-level tall tower). I always assumed that trade caravans require a 3 units wide space to travel through. So I intended this wooden ramp going up the sides of the building to be 3 units wide. Now, the ramp attached to the building works as intended, and the outer side of the ramp I supported with walls and it works fine, but the OXXXO, middle X part of the ramp (where O is a wall segment) is unsupported and it doesn't seem to work. I was hoping the dorfs could support the middle section of wooden ramp with the sections on either side.
Even if I support the ramps on the top and bottom end, the middle part of the ramp is not supported even though I could build it. I have noticed dwarfs don't seem to want to use that part of the ramp either, so I assume that the trade caravans will not travel up the ramp unless i fix this. I am using of course (b)-(C)-(r) command.

I am logging back in now, seeing what else I can come up with  It might not be as easy as I thought.