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[Draco18s]

The only problem with that is, it takes a week for a dwarf to walk from one side of the map to the middle.  They'd never get any work done (and they'd have to take a food/drink break three times in that period!).

[AngleWyrm]

The only problem with that is, it takes a week for a dwarf to walk from one side of the map to the middle.  They'd never get any work done (and they'd have to take a food/drink break three times in that period!).

And like most folks, I'm in favor of a substantial increase in the amount of farm plot necessary to support a dwarf. It seems likely that it will require an increase in dwarven food consumption in order to really do it right. Like maybe instead of eating one meal every six weeks, they eat six meals once every six weeks.

They would take the same number of meal breaks per year, they'd just eat more per sitting.

[Draco18s]

Now you need them to carry more than one item (food) so that they don't have to make multiple trips between the dining room and the storehouse.

[AngleWyrm]

Yeah, I guess it would take some extra overhead time for them to eat more/drink more. Maybe the amount of time it takes a dwarf to actually consume food could be shortened quite a bit, to compensate a little.

[INSANEcyborg]

I posted an idea about eating more way back on page 10.  The basics are that dwarfs can choose how much to eat at a time.  Less food at a time will be more efficient at reducing hunger, which will stretch supplies.  Eating more gives better thoughts, and increases the time between meal breaks, so there is less time spent on eating compared to working.  The idea wasn't just to eat more, but to be able to have consumption grow with your farmers skill.   

As for the mechanics, it should be easy to claim a table like a workshop, and gather the food there.  They already put the food in the table so to speak, you use "t" to view it when they're eating.  It would still need a trip per piece of food, but with a nearby stockpile it won't be so bad. 

[jseah]

Dwarves can haul a stack of prepared meals at once.  That means they can just split the stack in half instead of 1s.  (or take 5-6, whatever your number is)

EDIT:
That said, I still think the best way is to make farming more complicated. 

[Shades]

What I keep seeing suggested fall into two basic categories:
1. Add lots of Micromanagement
2. Add lots of clock time keeping track of lots of extra conditions

I'm not sure how much of the suggestions made here could be considered to fall into these categories.

The second point is a fairly strange one to make because although yes tracking more stuff would take processing power the use of the word lots implies that it would be in any way noticeable, I'm fairly confident nothing I've see so far would be.

The micromanagement is more subjective and people seem to dislike NW_Kohaku's concept in particular because of it, but nothing I've seen in his suggestions look to add on going tasks. We can already setup crops by season so if for example you planted a crop that used a lot of the nitrogen in the soil you'd just make sure one season in four you planted something else, or mark the plot for seasonal fertilisation with nitrogen. To be honest we could probably just have the farmer skill handle most of the correction and make requests for more of the various fertilisers that needed to be there.

[AngleWyrm]

This is a picture of soil with two nutrients, one going from 0% to 100% along the x axis, and the other the same on the y axis. Each arrow represents a plant type. The starting tail of the arrow shows the conditions where the plant is most happy, and produces the largest stacks. The head of the arrow is where the soil ends up after the season's harvest.

It then becomes interesting to select plants that are end-to-end mirrors of each other. It could also be that several plants make a circular pattern, so that planting them in sequence leaves the soil in essentially the same condition as the start. Or several hops of a short arrow in one direction, followed by a long hop back.

Fertilizers could jump the soil in a given direction, which might not be straight up/sideways. And there could be any number of fertilizer type additives that shift the soil condition a little or a lot in any direction.

Designing plant types (and fertilizer types) then involves placing an arrow on the map.

This view of soil also makes it possible to represent a plant's "hardiness" as a circle around the tail of the arrow. Within the circle, the plant produces max stack size, and the diameter can be bigger for hardy types and smaller for fragile types.

Note that seasonal limitations will complicate matters.

So it's a sleightly more complicated farming model with some entertainment value, done with only three variables (two nutrients and hardiness), that makes designing plants intuitive.

[Draco18s]

It then becomes interesting to select plants that are end-to-end mirrors of each other. It could also be that several plants make a circular pattern, so that planting them in sequence leaves the soil in essentially the same condition as the start. Or several hops of a short arrow in one direction, followed by a long hop back.

This.  This is what I want to achieve.

Your image, though, does have some issues, as there are some locations that are easy to get to, but no way to get out of (99% x, 20% y)

[AxiumCog]

The second point is a fairly strange one to make because although yes tracking more stuff would take processing power the use of the word lots implies that it would be in any way noticeable, I'm fairly confident nothing I've see so far would be.

We can already setup crops by season so if for example you planted a crop that used a lot of the nitrogen in the soil you'd just make sure one season in four you planted something else, or mark the plot for seasonal fertilisation with nitrogen. To be honest we could probably just have the farmer skill handle most of the correction and make requests for more of the various fertilisers that needed to be there.

Lets take the recent suggestion to changed the eating mechanics. That would entail that every dwarf have to decide its eating style based on factors like how hungry it is and how much food it can afford at a time etc. Each of these checks will involve multiple conditions to be evaluated, and will be(to some extent) constantly evaluated. When you have in upwards of 200 dwarf minions, you can easily end up with a large amount of overhead.

My solution is to SIMPLY change things to achieve the appropriate results( less plentiful harvests, less easy to feed everyone). Many of these suggestions require overhauls of other systems. Im trying to avoid fiddling with other mechanics.

Also, My suggestion is not to make crops assignable by season. I know thats how they already are. Im talking about changing their growing times to be seasonal. I.E. only one harvest per season. Quantities would have to be changed in order for that one harvest to put the proper amount of food out to sustain the 13 dwarfs per 10x10 quota.


A new suggestion(to me anyways again i havnt read all 47 pages):

What if the "light dusting of mud" wasnt sufficient? What if you needed a "pile of mud" and after every harvest the mud quantity depletes by one degree( pile of mud turns into small pile of mud etc.)

[AngleWyrm]

Your image, though, does have some issues, as there are some locations that are easy to get to, but no way to get out of (99% x, 20% y)

I like that you were able to spot issues in the image.

Edit: Better arrows:

[Draco18s]

Your image, though, does have some issues, as there are some locations that are easy to get to, but no way to get out of (99% x, 20% y)

I like that you were able to spot issues in the image.

It wasn't that hard, I could tell it was just random arrows thrown onto the canvas. :|

[Shades]

Lets take the recent suggestion to changed the eating mechanics. That would entail that every dwarf have to decide its eating style based on factors like how hungry it is and how much food it can afford at a time etc. Each of these checks will involve multiple conditions to be evaluated, and will be(to some extent) constantly evaluated. When you have in upwards of 200 dwarf minions, you can easily end up with a large amount of overhead.

You are massively overestimating the time it takes to do these kinds of checks. You won't notice them unless your running multiple hundred game ticks a second, and then you might find you drop one.

My solution is to SIMPLY change things to achieve the appropriate results( less plentiful harvests, less easy to feed everyone). Many of these suggestions require overhauls of other systems. Im trying to avoid fiddling with other mechanics.

Why? the solution you've brought up has been mentioned a number of times (and the solution to make meals take more food and dwarves to eat more, the simple tweaks to balance) and toady knows about them. There isn't much point rehashing them if he doesn't want to implement them and if he does he can whenever he chooses. The point here is to find a fun farming method that is realistic in the same way the rest of the game is (ie based in reality but not accurate to any degree) and achieves the balance. For me the keep point is fun and balance, currently a single 5x5 farm plot and a farmer means you never need to worry about food.

What if the "light dusting of mud" wasnt sufficient? What if you needed a "pile of mud" and after every harvest the mud quantity depletes by one degree( pile of mud turns into small pile of mud etc.)

The main problem here would be how you expect the player to re-muddy the area. If orders can be setup so the dwarves do it then it's no different to the various fertilisation methods. If you have to re-flood the farms every year then it's a chore which isn't interesting. Although an automatic timer that managed to flood the farms at regular intervals without drowning the fort might be fun to build.

Maybe we need to collect the ideas that have been discussed already and link them in the first post. We can't expect people to read the whole thread but rehashing ideas isn't going to help either.

[Andeerz]

Your image, though, does have some issues, as there are some locations that are easy to get to, but no way to get out of (99% x, 20% y)

I like that you were able to spot issues in the image.

Edit: Better arrows:

I like this graphical representation of things!  It brings back (painful) memories of Master of Orion 3 and their graphs for planet habitability (T_T That game had so much potential... if only there was another Toady who worked on that game... but, I digress).

But, yeah!  I had an idea this morning, and I believe something similar may have been suggested before on this thread but I can't find it...

So, I reaaaally like the idea of getting a loose simulation of soil chemistry and the effects of fertilizers, moisture, biomes, etc. into the mix here.  I can assume that, if implemented, a lot of the stuff might happen in the background (as in, there isn't an indication of exact pH, potassium levels, nitrates, etc. directly observable by entities in the game or the even the player... just loose indications sort of).  The graph you presented shows an interesting way of perhaps graphically representing what crops are good where and what the effects might be of planting this that or the other crop or using fertilizers before or after, and I could roll with something like that.  But I don't know if it would fit in the scope of this game in terms of it being medieval-esque; the axes of the graph might represent stuff beyond the immediate knowledge of medieval farmers.

BUUUUUT!!!  It gives me an idea of tying in two things that earlier on NW_Kohaku and I (and I think others) thought would sort of be impossible to do.  Those two things are:
1. Farmer skill and technological know-how (i.e. knowledge of different farming methods, tools... maybe something implementable later... but that's in another thread)
2. Player design of farms, including irrigation systems...

So, the player presumably will know the merits of crop rotation, having grown up in the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as the merits of irrigation.  Crop rotation as it is today is a technology developed past the 1400's tech time frame of this game (though forms of crop rotation and irrigation were performed during medieval times and throughout history for that matter).  Crop rotation today involves knowledge of the chemistry mentioned earlier in this thread, which is not something known by medieval peoples.  But, farming peoples back in the day would know, either through personal experience or the experience of their peers and forefathers, more or less what crops would be safe to plant at what time and where, and what crops might be best to plant after another crop, and when to leave a field fallow.  They would also know when a plant looked healthy vs. not healthy.  It wasn't as perfect of knowledge as what we have now, but it was good enough.

I think we could treat the system of what is displayed to the player about plant health (whether its getting enough water or sun), and soil and weather quality (this plant would grow well here and not well there) much like how quantities of stockpiles and fortress wealth are handled; the skills and knowledge(if that's ever implemented) of the farmers would determine the relative accuracy of the information presented to you (maybe even in the form of the graph shown by AngleWyrm!!!) and what your farming dwarves might suggest to you to increase crop yields (needs more of X fertilizer, needs more(or less) water, this crop might be better planted after this one).  The factors that govern the needs of the plants in the background are based on a model of RL soil chemistry, while the knowledge of the dwarves and what info is presented to you would be based on what info would have been available to farmers during medieval times.    Hooray!  What ya think???

[AngleWyrm]

This seems like forwarding the suggestion that less resolution is in order. That perhaps plants should be represented as having a {little, some, medium, more, lots} type of graduation to knowledge in the dimensions.

If this is a desirable setup, then I suggest there be no higher resolution in the background, because players will not see it or be able to effectively use it.