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[Nikov]

You are making a motion out of order, Aquillion.

[Aquillion]

You are making a motion out of order, Aquillion.

It's better to get it out of the way, though.  Why delay discussion on just one flaw with this suggestion, when the whole discussion itself shares the same problems?

Putting this aside for now is best.  Let Toady focus on building the game's core features and completing its primary arcs, then we can go back and see if farming still needs attention.

[Footkerchief]

Putting this aside for now is best.  Let Toady focus on building the game's core features and completing its primary arcs, then we can go back and see if farming still needs attention.

Well, that's not going to happen.  The whole reason this thread was bumped was that it's #10 on ESV, which means there's a high chance that Toady will do farming improvements long before Core28, "Control of Territory and External Locations."  And as Dante pointed out, many of the possible improvements will be a complement to outlying farms.

[Draco18s]

Motion to table discussion of farming until after the Magic Arc.

Motion rejected.  Court may continue discussion.

[Nikov]

Following a vote of 45 minutes time, the motion has passed unanimously with one vote aye and no votes nay. Discussion of a farming overhaul's effects on FPS is now tabled for later discussion.

Regarding crop rotation and soil depletion. The current 'four seasons' growth cycle for overland crops is not entirely possible were the plants grown closer to their real-world maturation rates. Corn (which I keep talking about because its something I know) is planted in mid spring and is harvested October to November, depending on complex calculations of moisture content in the corn hull which I am not going into. The result is that a high-yield grain takes fully half of a year to mature, and by the time the first harvest is in the winter months are upon temperate zones.  This doesn't forbid a second crop; winter wheat as well as other crops can be grown. However yields are much lower and usually less commercially viable for these crops.

This ties into crop rotation as well as the larger debate because growing time is so short at present that a competant grower can put down a 6x6 plot of pig tails and by the time he completes half the field, the first seeds are ready to harvest! Even non-food crops, like rope reed, pig tails, dimple cups, ect; need to take a full season to mature. It then becomes crucial to get the complete sowing out before too late in the planting season or else the harvest, and so the next planting, will be delayed. Unless changes are made to plant growing time crop rotation will remain the current seasonal variations of what is allowed to be planted, slightly planned by the player to cycle between nitrogen fixing and nitrogen depleting crops, and then immediately left to run on auto pilot. I for one have no problem with a yearly spring ritual of changing last year's bean field to corn or corn field to beans, just as real world farmers do. This adds a little more learning curve to farming. In addition the use of fertilizers (made of both potash and nitrogen-rich rotting chunks) which can be manufactured during farmer's down-time during growing cycles, the crops rotated will affect the soil quality for various crops. This in turn affects yields. Soil quality for any given crop can readily be displayed by changing the color of the crop's name (dark red, red, dark yellow, yellow, light green, green, or some such fashion). Across the board, nutrient levels can be restored simply be designating a full season to lay fallow. Thus the player can decide; do I plant longland grass in the spring, harvest in the fall, and then plant rope reed for winter but have to rotate out to fisher berries next year? Or should I leave it fallow in the winter and go with a small fertilizer industry, but not have to worry about it?

I think that makes for a medium between players who like to micromanage and get improved results, and players who would rather let the dwarves handle it and neither bother much with farming nor have great results from their farm.

[Draco18s]

Well said stuff

Exactly!

[Aquillion]

Putting this aside for now is best.  Let Toady focus on building the game's core features and completing its primary arcs, then we can go back and see if farming still needs attention.

Well, that's not going to happen.  The whole reason this thread was bumped was that it's #10 on ESV, which means there's a high chance that Toady will do farming improvements long before Core28, "Control of Territory and External Locations."  And as Dante pointed out, many of the possible improvements will be a complement to outlying farms.

Well, yes, that's why it's important to bring up the problems involved in implementing it now, and shoot it down before it causes too many problems.  People can vote for bad ideas, or they can vote for things without properly considering long-term development.  I mean, it's not like I'm being sneaky:  I want it removed from consideration, or at least delayed until many other parts of the game that will interact with it are implemented themselves.  Balancing things now is a waste of effort.

I am grateful that the thread was necroed, of course, since it provides a chance to kill off bad ideas like this before they get out of hand...  or at least to minimize their impact as far as is possible.

Of course, I would also hope that a proper up-down voting system is implemented long before the next version.  Right now, controversial suggestions just go up; people only get a few votes, so they focus on the things that they feel most strongly about, and since they can only vote up, not down, those things end up rising.

I suspect that suggestions like this one will sink like a stone once it's possible to express distaste (or lukewarm endorsement).

Following a vote of 45 minutes time, the motion has passed unanimously with one vote aye and no votes nay. Discussion of a farming overhaul's effects on FPS is now tabled for later discussion.

Out of order.  A quorum is not present, which is necessary to make such decisions.

More seriously, while it was a cute joke, please drop it.  I do intend to keep focusing on FPS, since it is a glaring problem with many of the suggestions in this thread in the long run; you can't vote the flaws out of it.  Clearly you see the problems, since your answer mostly just seems to be "stop talking about it and hope it goes away."

Requiring more dwarves and space for farming ultimately just amounts to requiring more processing; a more abstracted and processing-lite system is clearly superior.

[Draco18s]

Following a vote of 45 minutes time, the motion has passed unanimously with one vote aye and no votes nay. Discussion of a farming overhaul's effects on FPS is now tabled for later discussion.

Out of order.  A quorum is not present, which is necessary to make such decisions.

More seriously, while it was a cute joke, please drop it.  I do intend to keep focusing on FPS, since it is a glaring problem with many of the suggestions in this thread in the long run; you can't vote the flaws out of it.  Clearly you see the problems, since your answer mostly just seems to be "stop talking about it and hope it goes away."

Uh.  No its not.  Pathing is by far the biggest contributer of lag, and while some of the suggestions here "induce more pathfinding because of new jobs" it is not a valid argument to claim that these suggestions induce lag because optimizing pathfinding will make that lag go away to a far greater degree than not-implementing the suggestion.

Q.E.D.

[Aquillion]

Uh.  No its not.  Pathing is by far the biggest contributer of lag, and while some of the suggestions here "induce more pathfinding because of new jobs" it is not a valid argument to claim that these suggestions induce lag because optimizing pathfinding will make that lag go away to a far greater degree than not-implementing the suggestion.

But each dwarf consumes significant FPS resources.  That means that, in general, it is best to abstract most jobs to a level where they can be handled by a minimum number of dwarves (or to abstract high-labor jobs off of the playing field completely into offsite locations, which is another serious option for farming.)

This ties into crop rotation as well as the larger debate because growing time is so short at present that a competant grower can put down a 6x6 plot of pig tails and by the time he completes half the field, the first seeds are ready to harvest! Even non-food crops, like rope reed, pig tails, dimple cups, ect; need to take a full season to mature. It then becomes crucial to get the complete sowing out before too late in the planting season or else the harvest, and so the next planting, will be delayed. Unless changes are made to plant growing time crop rotation will remain the current seasonal variations of what is allowed to be planted, slightly planned by the player to cycle between nitrogen fixing and nitrogen depleting crops, and then immediately left to run on auto pilot. I for one have no problem with a yearly spring ritual of changing last year's bean field to corn or corn field to beans, just as real world farmers do. This adds a little more learning curve to farming. In addition the use of fertilizers (made of both potash and nitrogen-rich rotting chunks) which can be manufactured during farmer's down-time during growing cycles, the crops rotated will affect the soil quality for various crops. This in turn affects yields. Soil quality for any given crop can readily be displayed by changing the color of the crop's name (dark red, red, dark yellow, yellow, light green, green, or some such fashion). Across the board, nutrient levels can be restored simply be designating a full season to lay fallow. Thus the player can decide; do I plant longland grass in the spring, harvest in the fall, and then plant rope reed for winter but have to rotate out to fisher berries next year? Or should I leave it fallow in the winter and go with a small fertilizer industry, but not have to worry about it?

This is fundamentally, though, using micromanagement as a balance factor (you can micromanage for more yield, or not and get so-so yield.)

I don't feel that the game should encourage or reward micromanagement; that's basically making tedium one of the game's challenges, or turning the player's attention and patience into a resource that the game attempts to tax.  It leads to the game being either too hard when not micromanaged, or too easy when it is micromanaged.  Neither are desirable.

You'll end up with situations where people will say "Well, you could survive situation X if you micromanaged!"  I don't think that that should ever be a factor; micromanagement shouldn't help you survive.

Players who want to micromanage for fun, sure, they can work on their own projects.  But rewarding them for it is dangerous -- you're either going to unbalance the game, or end up with more difficult situations becoming impossible to confront without micromanaging.

[Nikov]

I am grateful that the thread was necroed, of course, since it provides a chance to kill off bad ideas like this before they get out of hand...  or at least to minimize their impact as far as is possible.

[sternlecture]

Stuff I probably crossed the line with.

[/sternlecture]

And I disagree, micromanagement equals player attention and effort which should equal better chances of success. However thank you for returning to debating the suggestion rather than axeing it based on an assumed initial point that farming overhauls will cripple FPS.

[Aquillion]

And I disagree, micromanagement equals player attention and effort which should equal better chances of success.

The problem with this thinking is that everything will be competing for the player's attention; it results in a game that become increasingly frustrating as the player finds themselves unable to deal with all the things that they want to deal with.  Additionally, micromanagement rapidly becomes tedious if it is attached to something that doesn't constantly change -- I envision players having to regularly check their farms to see how the soil is doing, say, which is eventually going to grow repetitive.  Once you've done it enough times, the decisions stop being interesting -- you're just doing stuff by rote, because there's not enough ways for farming to change.

I think the game should focus much more on 'dynamic' things -- diplomacy, civiliational shifts, new discoveries underground, things like that.  It should be set up so it's always moving forward and so the bulk of the things that demand (or benefit from) the player's attention are things associated with those constant changes -- not with regular maintenance tasks.

[Draco18s]

Uh.  No its not.  Pathing is by far the biggest contributer of lag, and while some of the suggestions here "induce more pathfinding because of new jobs" it is not a valid argument to claim that these suggestions induce lag because optimizing pathfinding will make that lag go away to a far greater degree than not-implementing the suggestion.

But each dwarf consumes significant FPS resources.  That means that, in general, it is best to abstract most jobs to a level where they can be handled by a minimum number of dwarves (or to abstract high-labor jobs off of the playing field completely into offsite locations, which is another serious option for farming.)

Or....

We could fix the underlying problem and make each dwarf consume less resources.  Voila.  Solved.

I envision players having to regularly check their farms to see how the soil is doing, say, which is eventually going to grow repetitive.

You're obviously not reading what I wrote.  Soil quality changes once per season based on crops that past season and only needs to be checked once by the player when they assign crops for that next season.

The only reason the player would ever need to look at it again is if they're changing crops.  Which is the only time its relevant, and therefore only ever needs to come up then, and otherwise the player need not bother with it.  And the only exception to that is if their pre-determined crop rotation (say, they set the whole year in Spring, but their winter choice will not grow in the soil quality that Fall leaves) the game would throw a warning to the message log: "Oops, something went wrong, I'd like to direct your attention over here for a second."

[Nikov]

And I envision players who find overhauled farming 'rote' or 'repetitive' will simply pour their economic resources into manufactured trade goods and prioritize food from merchants.

Dwarves need food. This is one of their basic neccessities, it is a fundamental component of the game, and currently the supply of food is broken to the point where you can trade prepared meals for large gemstones and one legendary dwarf can feed two hundred. I'm sorry, but the last time one individual provided food for that many people it was considered a sign they were the son of a god, not a farmer who had worked a twenty five by twenty five foot garden for a couple of years. It is absurd and it is broken, and being a broken fundamental, we cannot simply say 'wait until we build on top of it to fix the underlying problems'. Why wait for the magic arc to come around next year when something is already broken today and was broken for over a year to begin with?

[Solara]

But you are suggesting that players should be able to do less with the same total number of dwarves, by demanding that more dwarves should be tied up farming.  This is a bad suggestion in a world where dwarves are capped by FPS.

Okay, I wasn't really planning to get involved beyond my one post in this thread, but you keep bringing this up and now I'm curious to know where you're getting it from.

What is the average population of one of your forts? Because if you seriously cap you population at like, 15 or 20, (whether for personal preference or for FPS) then you have to admit you don't exactly represent the majority of players...and if the purpose of this debate is to find a 'happy medium' of balance changes for farming, almost by definition that means people with radically different playstyles than the norm aren't going to get quite what they want. (Don't feel bad though, I'm going to be disappointed too because from my point of view I doubt any changes will be hardcore enough...thankfully it's a very moddable game though, and will be even more so in the future.)

Anyway, I'm probably in the minority too as I generally cap my population at about 50, just because that's about all the dwarves I feel like dealing with, especially since by that point only about a third of them are actually useful. (The only exception is if I'm doing mass above ground construction, and even then the 'builders' are still only glorified haulers.)

I guess if I've got all those dead weights hanging around it's a good thing I only need two dwarves to feed them all (with surplus left over for trading), but I'd be much happier if I could toss them into the fields and make them earn the food they're eating...if nothing else it would clear up a little space in my meeting hall.   

[Impaler[WrG]]

Regarding crop rotation and soil depletion. The current 'four seasons' growth cycle for overland crops is not entirely possible were the plants grown closer to their real-world maturation rates. Corn (which I keep talking about because its something I know) is planted in mid spring and is harvested October to November, depending on complex calculations of moisture content in the corn hull which I am not going into. The result is that a high-yield grain takes fully half of a year to mature, and by the time the first harvest is in the winter months are upon temperate zones.  This doesn't forbid a second crop; winter wheat as well as other crops can be grown. However yields are much lower and usually less commercially viable for these crops.

This ties into crop rotation as well as the larger debate because growing time is so short at present that a competant grower can put down a 6x6 plot of pig tails and by the time he completes half the field, the first seeds are ready to harvest! Even non-food crops, like rope reed, pig tails, dimple cups, ect; need to take a full season to mature. It then becomes crucial to get the complete sowing out before too late in the planting season or else the harvest, and so the next planting, will be delayed. Unless changes are made to plant growing time crop rotation will remain the current seasonal variations of what is allowed to be planted, slightly planned by the player to cycle between nitrogen fixing and nitrogen depleting crops, and then immediately left to run on auto pilot. I for one have no problem with a yearly spring ritual of changing last year's bean field to corn or corn field to beans, just as real world farmers do. This adds a little more learning curve to farming. In addition the use of fertilizers (made of both potash and nitrogen-rich rotting chunks) which can be manufactured during farmer's down-time during growing cycles, the crops rotated will affect the soil quality for various crops. This in turn affects yields. Soil quality for any given crop can readily be displayed by changing the color of the crop's name (dark red, red, dark yellow, yellow, light green, green, or some such fashion). Across the board, nutrient levels can be restored simply be designating a full season to lay fallow. Thus the player can decide; do I plant longland grass in the spring, harvest in the fall, and then plant rope reed for winter but have to rotate out to fisher berries next year? Or should I leave it fallow in the winter and go with a small fertilizer industry, but not have to worry about it?

I think that makes for a medium between players who like to micromanage and get improved results, and players who would rather let the dwarves handle it and neither bother much with farming nor have great results from their farm.

I think this brings up an excellent point about the need to improve the crop-rotation interface.  Currently you get 4 season selector with one crop per season.  When crops that have maturation's of less then one season this works but with maturation's longer then a season something more sophisticated is needed.  I'd go with a 12 month slots per year, all growth times would be expressed in months.   The player can select the planting month of the crop and see the growth time displayed in the appropriate months and a 'sow' and 'harvest' month bracketing the growing time.  The player could designate fertilizing in monthly increments and fallow is the default if nothing is selected.  The default is to have a single year displayed and for it too loop around but additional years can be added up to perhaps 7 to create long multi-year rotations.  A save/name/import function would of course be crucial to copy work from one field to another.