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[fastjack]

i was just wondering how the heck to get a farm to be builable, all i get is red X's where ever i go, i tried to make pot ash to fertilize but then it wanted a 'lye carrying' container, my bucket which worked for lye did not work.  Does it have to be planted in a certain season?  

Also i wa just wondering if you could give a brief rundown of what a fortress should do to become viable, i dont want spoilers, just wondering what order things should be done in.  My big problems being: should all my workshops be inside or is out okay?  should i even bother hunting/fishing until i can process the parts with a butcher and tanner and such? should my first 7 dwarves just carve out a hall some rooms and such (which is what im wishing id had them do, rather than half of them hunting/fishing and defending).

anyway, hoping for a little help, the farming was driving me crazy, but also knowing how to start as far as what neccessities are priority would help, though i appreciate screwing up is part of the fun.  I have read all the online documentation and just didnt see thse answers anywhere.  thank you.

[Toady One]

Farming needs to occur inside, on mud from the underground river.  You can either dig a flood plain adjacent to the river (the river has non-lethal overflow each season) or set up floodgates and channels (which is harder).  You don't need to worry about fertilizer for now, but later you can try it:

Wood -> Ash -> Lye -> Potash

The last two occur at the Ashery, first at Wood Furnace.

Outside is okay at first, but you'll eventually want to find space inside to avoid bears and such things.

Fishing is all right, hunting is harder.  You don't need to worry about it immediately.  Processing the raw fish becomes a concern.  You don't need more than one dwarf fishing.  You don't need any hunters.  I can get pretty far with the play now! mix of dwarves before pressing [v][p][l] to change them.

I think Demon is working some more startup information.  There should be a guide or FAQ posted at some point.

[Jim]

farming is pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

here are a few steps that will help you build a nice farm.

1.  go outside and make a food stockpile.  doesn't need to be massive

2.  build a farm workshop.  get one of the dwarves to change their profession to farming (workshop) and masonry.  they'll bring the stone material to the site and build.  

3.  dig around, and make supports for your tunnels as you build.  dwarves need to have their Architecture profession on to build the supports.  supports are built with the stone that you dig up.

4.  when you go far enough east, you'll eventually find the underground river.  like toad said, you can just tunnel out the area around the river (don't forget to put supports around it if you do this!) and wait for the water to naturally spill over.  problem is, this only happens once.

5.  you can control the river though, with the floodgates.  Build a mason's workshop and a mechanic's workshop.  same rules apply here, have a dwarf be a mason and a mechanic profession to build the mechanic workshop.  to build a mason workshop all you need is a dwarf with the mason profession on.  

6.  at the mason workshop build two floodgates.  at the mechanic's workshop, build 6 mechanisms.  all of these objects are made from stone.  

7.  ok, here comes the tricky part.  dig carefully - dig a 1X1 line (probably do this a little south or north from where you discovered the river) to the river.  should kinda look like this

@@@
X.X
X.X
X.XXXXXXX=
X........=
XXXXXXXXX=

Xs are walls, .s are floor tiles, and = is the river.   @ is suppost to represent where you originally found the river.  i dug south from the original spot i found the river in this example.  

ok.  build the 1st floodgate directly next to the river.   should look like this.

XXXXX=
....F=
XXXXX=

we're getting there.  now a lever needs to be placed near the floodgate.  you use up a mechanism when you build a lever.  should kinda look like this:

@@@
X.X
XLX
X.X
X.XXXXXXX=
X.......F=
XXXXXXXXX=

once the lever is built, you have to hook it up to the floodgate.  push q and go to the lever.  hit a, and then connect it to the floodgate.  this uses up two mechanisms.  

Ok, now you have flooding mechanism.  but it's important to control the water.  start building a channel.  also, dig out a little bit to the west.  should sorta look like this:

        @@@
        X.X
        XLX
  XXXXXXX.X   XXX
  XI...!!.XXXXXIX=
  X..___________F=
  XI...XXXXXXXXIX=
  XXXXXXX     XXX

same as before, except the _ is the channel.
the ! means these walls should never be dug out.  I is the supporters, if it's possible try to build some near the 1st floodgate.  in general, it's not a good idea to connect this water to the rest of the fort. keep the farming area its own place in the fort.  

now the 2nd floodgate can be built.  the floodgate needs to be built on a very specific place, right next to the channel.  another lever will have to be built, and like the 1st, you'll have to pair it up with the 2nd floodgate.  don't accidentially pair it up with the 1st one!

it should look like this in the end:

        @@@
        XLX
        XLX
  XXXXXXX.X   XXX
  XI...!!.XXXXXIX=
  X.F___________F=
  XI...XXXXXXXXIX=
  XXXXXXX     XXX

Ok, the pull first lever, and then the second lever.  what should happen is the little room should be completely flooded.  all of this area can now be farmed.  you can have this room further expand, so you can get more farmland.  just don't have the farming area hook up to the rest of the fort, and make sure that supporting beams are built to support everything.  

enjoy dwarf fortress!

P.S. to view the diagrams just copy and paste everything to notepad.  space up the X.X to match

[ August 09, 2006: Message edited by: Jim ]

[Alanor]

When I get a chance in a few days I will go to town and get a little fortress running again with the new version and put up some pictures of a 'propper' (as I see it) farming estabilshment. :-)

[bbb]

since it's possible to build channels outside the fortress, would it be possible to irrigate farms with water from the outside river?

do you have to turn the flood gate off once the  farming area is flooded? is it necessary to re-flood it periodically?

[Captain_Action]

I fail at floodgate farming. I've flooded so many outposts that even Armok is starting to feel sorry for me.

My kingdom for some screenshots of successful floodgate farming.

[Virtz]

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/4342/floodingts2.jpg

Rather messy, but hope it helps.

[Beowulf]

Jim you should have used the code tags for showing those diagrams.

code:

  @@@
  #.#
###.###=
#...._F=
#######=

w/e    

[ August 12, 2006: Message edited by: Beowulf ]

toad: reformatting code tags

[ August 17, 2006: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[Captain_Action]

Yay! It finally worked! Now my dwarves can leave the filthy hippies behind and stand upright with their bretheren!

There seems to be some sort of "overflow" problem if the engineered flood finds it's way back to the cave river.

[Aquillion]

Is it possible to flood the entire world outside your cave?  I never tried it.

Would be a fun way to deal with enemy attacks, anyway.

And, hrm.  Actually, you could use it for hunting.  Just wait for some bears to arrive, then pull everyone into your fortress, seal the doors, open your floodgate and dive!  After you switch the floodgate back closed, you can just wander out and eat as much bearsteak as you want.

[Toady One]

It's too bad the code flag doesn't seem to be a fixed width font...  I can't figure out how it selected the font from my control panel.

You can flood the outside, but it just sort of turns into a giant marsh. Outside player water doesn't drown or block.  Lava, on the other hand...

[Beowulf]

quote:It's too bad the code flag doesn't seem to be a fixed width font... I can't figure out how it selected the font from my control panel.

uutf
I see it now displays wrong because of that. However when I posted it I saw it displayed correct..
You're pulling my leg here?

[karnot]

Can someone explain how this farming thing works ? What do those options mean ? Fallow, Spring, Summer, Winter...
And also, if you gain just one seed from one plant - how is this supposed to be the ultimate food gain ?

[CogDissident]

Fallow means you don't farm it that season, spring/summer/autumn are the 3 seasons that it is farmable.
It shows them picking up one plant from the 1 seed, but it is actually either a 2 or 3 stack of the plant, so one food becomes 2 or 3 food.

[karnot]

Ok, this game is Harvest Moon ASCII.

However, it says i have 39 seeds, but if i count the actual number in the barrel - its 12. How come ?

[ August 13, 2006: Message edited by: karnot ]