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[Relee]

How does tree growth work in Dwarf Fortress? Do saplings just randomly spawn on ground where they can, or do there have to be other trees nearby to spawn them?

I'm worried about doing a clearcut in case it prevents new trees from growing.

[Skanky]

Trees need free space to grow, so clear-cutting encourages growth. One caveat: trampling over sapplings can kill them, so if your dwarves are running back and forth carrying lumber, you may kill a few future trees.

[Exponent]

Designating some high-traffic paths into your tree-cutting region can cut down on the number of grassy tiles that your dwarves ruin, though, if it's important to you.  I like to imagine that they create footpaths that they like to stick to, when possible, so as not to turn all the pretty grass into a mudfield, which tends to happen otherwise.

[Relee]

Thanks, that should help a lot. ^.^

[niaba]

Whether or not a new sapling grows depends on rainfall; when a certain amount of rain (the actual amount depends on the drainage of the area, iirc) has fallen on an area that has space for more trees and a dice roll is successful then a new sapling grows. I'm quite sure this is how it works.

[Baro]

Then how do trees grow for most of us who have weather turned off?

[LegacyCWAL]

And Tower-Caps, for that matter.  They don't tend to get a whole lot of rain.

[Jude]

Designating some high-traffic paths into your tree-cutting region can cut down on the number of grassy tiles that your dwarves ruin, though, if it's important to you.  I like to imagine that they create footpaths that they like to stick to, when possible, so as not to turn all the pretty grass into a mudfield, which tends to happen otherwise.

How would you go about designating these paths?

[Relee]

If you use d to get into the designation menu, then o to get into the set traffic areas menu, you can make dwarves prefer certain paths.

The way pathfinding AI works is it evaluates the 'cost' of stepping in a particular spot, and takes the least costly path. The traffic areas options let you decrease or increase the cost of stepping somewhere. Though, even 'restricted' won't stop dwarves from stepping on that spot if that's where they're going, or if it's the only path.

It's usually a good idea to set the main 'roads' in your fortress to high traffic, so dwarves will prefer running along them instead of running through your workshops and getting in people's way.

[Jude]

Whoa, awesome.

[ikkonoishi]

I'm trying to protect my forest from dwarven stamping by covering it with a nice layer of solid dwarven architecture. This will have a side benefit of letting me harvest wood during a siege. I'm making it in df_27_176_38c so its a bit of effort. The dwarves don't help by putting charcoal in my stone blocks only stockpiles either.

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-3139-allyhame