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[SirHoneyBadger]

I don't really like the idea of apiaries, though... Without apiaries to increase the availability of honey, mead could be a particularly valuable drink.

Well, on this point, from what I can find out in the 5 minutes or so I researched beekeeping history, reuseable apiaries are actually a fairly modern invention (1800s+), while more ancient, DF-safe, apiaries, were apparently build more for the sake of convenience, higher yields, protecting the honey from theft and the elements, etc. in that the hive structure itself was basically destroyed in the collection process.

So maybe the solution to mead being overly cheap could be to have the ability to build apiaries exist alongside the collection of wild honey, and the apiaries represent a higher (and more renewable) level of sophistication, but not an unlimited resource.

Rather like crops are handled-vaguely, anyway-except apiaries could actually be more expensive and difficult (queen bees from the kobolds could be fairly costly, to use my own example, and they wouldn't "store" like seeds can be stored, you'd have to have an apiary ready to "plant" each queen inside, within a few hours, or days at most.).

Ofcourse, bees are slightly more dangerous than crops, too, in that they're still a bunch of bees.

And you'd also want to have some kinds of plants around for the bees to harvest their honey from, which-for the production of various different kinds of honey-especially monofloral varieties-could involve planting certain crops near those apiaries. This requirement could add a lot to the cost/scarcity of honey--especially rare varieties (orange blossom, sourwood, eucalyptus etc., or something 'fanciful'.).

Bees, on the other hand, are useful to farmers for the spreading of pollen, and apiaries could have symbiotic relationships with your crops, improving the yield of various flowering plants (zucchini comes to mind, since lack of proper pollination was one of many obstacles to my less-than-successful attempt to grow zucchini last year).

Eventually, once you start having some high skill beekeepers around, you might realistically end up being able to harvest your own useable queen bees, occasionally. But this could be kept as a relatively rare occurrance, explained away by the crude/primitive beekeeping methods available to our dwarfs.

This would keep your Fortress dependent on trade for new queens, for some time.

[Footkerchief]

Just to clarify: With point #1, I don't mean to suggest that it actually be changed. Alcohol made from mushrooms is so well ingrained into the culture of the Dwarf Fortress fan community that I don't think changing it is justified. I'm just pointing it out for the sake of discussion.

Understood.  It's an interesting point.

I couldn't actually find anything saying that mushrooms had sugars or starches. If they can indeed be fermented, I might be interested in experimenting!

It took a bit, but I did find two items that seem to be referencing the same U. of Illinois research: this article, which makes passing mention of starches in mushrooms, and this .DOC, which has some numbers -- there's a table on page 4 with dry weight percentages of various nutrients (including starch) in various types of mushrooms.

[Foa]

Stove, good point, my first few successful forts were primarily above ground, I had the innate fear of the HFS.

And Sir Honey, I think I know what you mean about Honey Dependence, like wax, primitive ice cream, candied treats, candles, lube ( machinery ) , Honey Combs w/ Honey, and then the bonuses like: extra crop produce, more animals/meat ( Bowls of Honey, and a nearby Hunter ) .

[SirHoneyBadger]

Foa: And furniture polish. Not to mention samosas.

On the subject of 'Shrooms: I don't think of plump helmets as being fungus--or more specifically, I think of them as being somewhere between a fungus and a plant, with qualities of both.

Maybe some kind of strange and rare hybrid our dwarfs  husbandized in prehistoric times, into their current form? kind of like the Native Americans did to maize.

I wonder if it's physically possible for "thermosynthesis" (or whatever you'd call photosynthesis that was powered by infrared) to work? That way, something like plump helmets might turn infrared light/heat energy/underground radiation into stored energy/plant sugars.

I don't have a real problem with their being unfermentable, or just very difficult to ferment-with a low yield ratio-though.

I *would* like to see the mechanical separation of fungi from plants in the game, and I think one interesting way to do that might be to not allow fungi to be brewed--possibly more as a result of certain fungi, molds, etc. being bacteriostatic (penicillium, for example), than absolutely not having any sugars or starches.

If you want mushroom flavored booze, you can always add mushrooms as a flavoring agent, after the alchohol is produced.

[Mel_Vixen]

I don't really like the idea of apiaries, though... Without apiaries to increase the availability of honey, mead could be a particularly valuable drink.

Well, on this point, from what I can find out in the 5 minutes or so I researched beekeeping history, reuseable apiaries are actually a fairly modern invention (1800s+), while more ancient, DF-safe, apiaries, were apparently build more for the sake of convenience, higher yields, protecting the honey from theft and the elements, etc. in that the hive structure itself was basically destroyed in the collection process.

Five minutes more search would have brought you Apiculture / Beefarm (?) from the year 1000 bc in Tel rehov.  They had ~ 100 Beehives with 3 Hives stacked over each other. Tel rehovs beefarm produced around a half Ton (500 kilograms) of Honey a year. The hives were build in pipes. This Pipes were made from loam and Straw with one hole for the bees and a cover on the backside. They were around 80 cm long and 40 in diameter.

Agyptian Roman Greek and other texts also describe Apiculture like the one in Tel rehov. In Agypt there are even pictures found of apiaries with reuseable baskets to the Pharaos time.

The romans and greeks used Amphoras like careamics as apiaries.

Karl the great did, around 800, release laws on apiculture and creates beefarms with baskets on all his Residencies.

The First european Apiculture Guilds show up around the 14th century.

Even today beehives die out at the harvest cause only some (iirc 1 on 20) Hives are needed for repopulation but here exists different technics all over the world.

edit: Most modern befarmers allow the behive to survive today thanks to "magazin loot" (where honey and brood combs are partet) and the honeyoverproduction of the bees.

[forsaken1111]

Rather than making a new beekeeping skill, could this be another use for the nearly useless animal caretaker skill?

I'm really not a fan of having a hundred thousand skills, especially when some would have logical overlaps. (If you're an excellent mason, you know how to work stone... you'd be somewhat good at mining and engraving as well, if not as good as your masonry skill. Same for blacksmithing and hammer skill perhaps?)

[SirHoneyBadger]

"Rather than making a new beekeeping skill, could this be another use for the nearly useless animal caretaker skill?"

It'd be nice if there were a relatively few core skills (that would represent general knowledge), and then a bunch of specialized knowledge skills to suppliment them.

I don't mind *some* generalization, especially where it makes sense to do so, but I don't want to see everything sublimated into a few "this is your d&d character class" type skills, or situations where the local blacksmith can churn out a robot, just because his profession involves metal.

I don't have a problem with animal caretakers learning to take care of bees over time, but if their only previous experience has been with horses, they should require a lot of time/instruction (or atleast a book on the subject) before they get very good at it.

[Stove]

So maybe the solution to mead being overly cheap could be to have the ability to build apiaries exist alongside the collection of wild honey, and the apiaries represent a higher (and more renewable) level of sophistication, but not an unlimited resource.

I just like the idea of mead being a particularly valuable drink. It would be in accordance with how much the Norse valued mead. If mead has a high value and apiaries make it easy to produce mead in large quantities, it might be unbalanced.

It took a bit, but I did find two items that seem to be referencing the same U. of Illinois research: this article, which makes passing mention of starches in mushrooms, and this .DOC, which has some numbers -- there's a table on page 4 with dry weight percentages of various nutrients (including starch) in various types of mushrooms.

The article also mentions "oligosaccharides", which Wikipedia says contains "component sugars", and "beta-glucan", which contains glucose.
Anyone want to try making some Dwarf Fortress fan-booze? >.>

I don't mind *some* generalization, especially where it makes sense to do so, but I don't want to see everything sublimated into a few "this is your d&d character class" type skills, or situations where the local blacksmith can churn out a robot, just because his profession involves metal.

Hey, it worked for Seppo Ilmarinen, the blacksmith from Finnish mythology who created a robotic wife for himself.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I just like the idea of mead being a particularly valuable drink. It would be in accordance with how much the Norse valued mead. If mead has a high value and apiaries make it easy to produce mead in large quantities, it might be unbalanced.

Well, more costly than beer, perhaps, but remember that mead was
still a very common beverage among the Norse. So it couldn't have
been *that* difficult to make in fairly large quantities, and I just don't
see the good in making acquiring honey a pain. Atleast once your Fortress
is mature. It's my opinion that it should require a decent amount of set-up,
but beyond that, it could simply become another crop--more difficult than
most, perhaps, but not so difficult that it becomes a source of frustration.

There's always a line that exists between what's challenging enough to be
interesting, and what's difficult enough to be annoying.

As far as Seppo goes, that just proves my point: Seppo was an immortal,
who crafted the dome of the sky, itself--not to mention the Sampo. He
obviously wasn't an apprentice horseshoe-thrower, by any means. He may
have started out as a blacksmith, but he became much more than "just" a
blacksmith, and learned many specialized skills along the way.

And that's another good addendum to add to the whole "specialized skills" vs
"basic skills" argument: A being with a high level of "basic skill" in whatever,
could be able to learn specialized skills much more easily, and quickly, than
someone just setting out to learn a specialized skill.

That could end up being a nice trade-off between the two.

[Pilsu]

Not everything should be easy

For the record, I also think sun berries shouldn't be something you farm everywhere just because you got some seeds from the elves. It defeats the point


Honey production in the time period was a bit of a stop & start activity, treating them like crops would fly in the face of history. If anything, plump helmets shouldn't be brewable anymore and dwarven wine is replaced by mead. Whether it needs to be renamed is in the air considering mead was the equivalent of wine for regions where vines would not grow

Could always make growing crops be dependent on temperature. Glacier forts would actually pose a bit of a challenge if you couldn't farm and mead would be important in the north since you'd have trouble growing prickle berries and whatnot

[Stove]

Well, more costly than beer, perhaps, but remember that mead was
still a very common beverage among the Norse.

Actually, I don't really know how much mead they actually drank. You might have a good point.

As far as Seppo goes, that just proves my point: Seppo was an immortal,
who crafted the dome of the sky, itself--not to mention the Sampo. He
obviously wasn't an apprentice horseshoe-thrower, by any means. He may
have started out as a blacksmith, but he became much more than "just" a
blacksmith, and learned many specialized skills along the way.

Well, he's a blacksmith who's so good at blacksmithing that he can create a robot. I guess that's up to interpretation though.
The important thing is that he's a blacksmith who created a robot, which I was reminded of when I read your post.

Not everything should be easy

For the record, I also think sun berries shouldn't be something you farm everywhere just because you got some seeds from the elves. It defeats the point

I agree, but also, the name of the drink "sunshine" is an obvious reference to "moonshine", which tells me that it's a distilled liquor. If distillation is modelled realistically, you wouldn't get as much of it, since the volume is reduced.

Honey production in the time period was a bit of a stop & start activity, treating them like crops would fly in the face of history. If anything, plump helmets shouldn't be brewable anymore and dwarven wine is replaced by mead. Whether it needs to be renamed is in the air considering mead was the equivalent of wine for regions where vines would not grow

We've established that mushrooms do contain starches and sugars, so I'm okay with plump helmets being fermentable now.

[Hectonkhyres]

We've established that mushrooms do contain starches and sugars, so I'm okay with plump helmets being fermentable now.

They should be fermentable... but the resulting brew should be weak and low quality: the most petty of grogs only to be drunk by the most desperate of haulers. Hell, you can technically ferment cats. Its just that nobody actually wants to drink the result.

[Fossaman]

I don't think you can compare dwarven agriculture to human agriculture in any way. Human agriculture has developed over millennia to be ideal for human food. Take corn, for example. It's thought to have been bred from little tiny ears an inch or two in length. Nowadays it can be a foot or more in length.

Reference

So why can't dwarves have done the same thing?

Also of interest may be this wikipedia article which discusses the way commercial mushrooms are grown.

[Quift]

I'm acutally quite certain that Mead wasn't that cheap. On the contrary it is so often mentioned in legend because it was the drink of champions, gods and kings. Ie, bloody expensive. The Swedish wikipedia backs me up on this, http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mj%C3%B6d The primary reason no on longer drinks mead is in fact that it was so bloddy expensive to do, meaning the populace drank beer (instead of water.), and the nobles imported wine from France and Spain, which was cheaper but also more continental. So mead could be implemented, and really really pricey. One behive being able to make about 5 units of mead, and each hive needing some tending to. So that you could export mead if you had beekeeping as a major industry. major meaning about 30-40 dwarves invovled in beekeeping.

I do however support the intriduction of beekeeping, the separation of brewery and distillery, and that much more of the complexities of brewing are introduced. Only surface crops should be brewable for instance, or we could have fermentable mushrooms which are brewable but undrinkable, forcing you to distill them.
Overall I would like to add lots of different challenges towards the different brews, hard liquors, etc.

water, different workshops, vintages, bars etc. I fully support everything that can be thrown at it.

[Granite26]

Pricy is a function of rarity, not history.  Historically it was rare, and sure, should be preserved, but still...

Remember that Fruit Trees are on the docket as well.  Trees that produce fruit without being harvested.  So, yeah... that'll mesh well.