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[Durin]

My experience is that a population above a certain amount drains all your non-fed ponds.  If that is not what other people are experiencing, well...

But I have two large fortresses now that have ground into horrid emo spirals for lack of water to give to wounded dwarves after getting attacked before I had a properly prepared defense.

Possibly my newbiness at defense is what is making this a larger issue for me than for most people, but no... refilling pools do not cut it once you get beyond a certain fort size. Even non-ill dwarves start sucking down water occasionally for reasons not entirely clear to me.

Also, once a murky pool tile has been dried, it rarely rains enough to fill it back up to 7, so it is essentially permanently useless after that.

[Durin]

Well, sure Murky Pools!

But arn't they poisonous? And technically hard to get to unless you put a well ontop of them?

Aquifiers unless you use tricks are useless and inhibiting.

Dwarves will only drink from the dregs of a murky pool if they are out of any other option.  Wells do not make murky water drinkable.  Wells cease functioning when the water level drops below 3 or some such.

[Squirrelloid]

Possibly my newbiness at defense is what is making this a larger issue for me than for most people, but no... refilling pools do not cut it once you get beyond a certain fort size. Even non-ill dwarves start sucking down water occasionally for reasons not entirely clear to me.

You ran out of alcohol.

Yes, your stocks may say you have alcohol left, but remember dwarves drink from the barrel, and any drinks in that barrel they *aren't* consuming also aren't available for anyone else.  So when Urist McThirsty goes to get a drink, and notices all the barrels of booze currently have dwarves doing kegstands on them, he can't simply wait his turn, he wanders over to the nearest water to sate his thirst.

[Durin]

Possibly my newbiness at defense is what is making this a larger issue for me than for most people, but no... refilling pools do not cut it once you get beyond a certain fort size. Even non-ill dwarves start sucking down water occasionally for reasons not entirely clear to me.

You ran out of alcohol.

Yes, your stocks may say you have alcohol left, but remember dwarves drink from the barrel, and any drinks in that barrel they *aren't* consuming also aren't available for anyone else.  So when Urist McThirsty goes to get a drink, and notices all the barrels of booze currently have dwarves doing kegstands on them, he can't simply wait his turn, he wanders over to the nearest water to sate his thirst.

Heh heh.  Uh, no...

I had some several hundred booze barrels and food as well.  My first fortress was kind of funny.  I was down to one dwarf left in the spring of '02 when immigrants showed up to save the fortress, and most of them died too.  All of this due to mismanaged food.  Since then, I always err on the side of too much.  Besides, really good prepared meals make happy dwarves and hella fine trade goods.

So no, I was not out of booze... interesting insight though.

[Neonivek]

The problem with alcohol and some objects (like Bolts) is that they are used up SOOO FAST and require constant diligence to restocking.

[Urist McDepravity]

I will now proceed to search the wiki and ask on the forums, but the bottom line is that the difference between a dump ZONE and a refuse STOCKPILE is rather arbitrary, and the function of each, and the interplay between the two is downright arcane.  Add to that the fact that a properly formatted dump zone can preserve infinite amounts of stuff forever, and what you have basically is a very old bug no one ever got around to fixing because it helps fix yet another annoying aspect of the game -- clutter.  It's entirely too difficult to organize.

Actually you are wrong here. Dump zones and refuse are completely different concepts. You will see it yourself if you try to make dump zone over magma moot or chasm. It's a good way for actual never-see-it-again disposal of anything burnable for the first case, and anything carryable for second.

[Durin]

I will now proceed to search the wiki and ask on the forums, but the bottom line is that the difference between a dump ZONE and a refuse STOCKPILE is rather arbitrary, and the function of each, and the interplay between the two is downright arcane.  Add to that the fact that a properly formatted dump zone can preserve infinite amounts of stuff forever, and what you have basically is a very old bug no one ever got around to fixing because it helps fix yet another annoying aspect of the game -- clutter.  It's entirely too difficult to organize.

Actually you are wrong here. Dump zones and refuse are completely different concepts. You will see it yourself if you try to make dump zone over magma moot or chasm. It's a good way for actual never-see-it-again disposal of anything burnable for the first case, and anything carryable for second.

And yet if you merely stick skeletons in the refuse pile outside, they disappear for good as well...

I understand the difference in DF, and I get the connotations of the words that this difference is supposed to stem from.  I am saying the difference in those words' usages in reality is pretty similar, their function in DF relatively arbitrary, and the difference in DF also obscurely technical and dependent on a lot of variables.

[Durin]

The problem with alcohol and some objects (like Bolts) is that they are used up SOOO FAST and require constant diligence to restocking.

Power cranking food and booze is a constant battle.  If you grow food too rapidly, the spare barrels get filled up with food as the dwarves drink them dry, then there is no space to make more booze....

That in itself is the main reason my first fortress eventually became a food production monstrosity.  I just kept cranking barrels.  I had a decent number of trees, and after a while I would order trees from the humans AND the dwarves and buy all of them plus all the empty barrels I could as well.

This methodology is sustainable only because there is also a cap on the number of dwarves.  LOL!  Otherwise I swear you could devote a map to growing and boozing and eventually they would drink it dry.

I eventually learned to just stop planting for a few seasons if the situation gets too out of hand.  I guess the rule of thumb is keep plenty of food and twice the booze, and let off the accelerator when you note your booze count diving toward your food count.

[Squirrelloid]

The problem with alcohol and some objects (like Bolts) is that they are used up SOOO FAST and require constant diligence to restocking.

Power cranking food and booze is a constant battle.  If you grow food too rapidly, the spare barrels get filled up with food as the dwarves drink them dry, then there is no space to make more booze....

That in itself is the main reason my first fortress eventually became a food production monstrosity.  I just kept cranking barrels.  I had a decent number of trees, and after a while I would order trees from the humans AND the dwarves and buy all of them plus all the empty barrels I could as well.

This methodology is sustainable only because there is also a cap on the number of dwarves.  LOL!  Otherwise I swear you could devote a map to growing and boozing and eventually they would drink it dry.

I eventually learned to just stop planting for a few seasons if the situation gets too out of hand.  I guess the rule of thumb is keep plenty of food and twice the booze, and let off the accelerator when you note your booze count diving toward your food count.

I just tell my prepared meals stockpile to not accept barrels - that way I can clear the food out of my barrels by cooking it.  (Also, makes it much easier to trade if i want/need to).

[Durin]

The problem with alcohol and some objects (like Bolts) is that they are used up SOOO FAST and require constant diligence to restocking.

Power cranking food and booze is a constant battle.  If you grow food too rapidly, the spare barrels get filled up with food as the dwarves drink them dry, then there is no space to make more booze....

That in itself is the main reason my first fortress eventually became a food production monstrosity.  I just kept cranking barrels.  I had a decent number of trees, and after a while I would order trees from the humans AND the dwarves and buy all of them plus all the empty barrels I could as well.

This methodology is sustainable only because there is also a cap on the number of dwarves.  LOL!  Otherwise I swear you could devote a map to growing and boozing and eventually they would drink it dry.

I eventually learned to just stop planting for a few seasons if the situation gets too out of hand.  I guess the rule of thumb is keep plenty of food and twice the booze, and let off the accelerator when you note your booze count diving toward your food count.

I just tell my prepared meals stockpile to not accept barrels - that way I can clear the food out of my barrels by cooking it.  (Also, makes it much easier to trade if i want/need to).

I did that on my first fortress and it was very helpful.  I can't figure what I did wrong on my second one, but the dwarves refused to use the prepared food stockpile and I eventually just deleted it and put a regular one there in its place.

Probably will try it again sooner or later.  I know from experience it SHOULD work...

[Rozenbuddy]

Those long times where like, nothing is happening... No raids, sieges, thieves, snatches, nothing... food and water is available at all times... nobody is insane or in jail... everyone has a job and is doing it happily... Unicorns aren't acting up... it's... so... boring... Zz.z.zz...

[Squirrelloid]

Those long times where like, nothing is happening... No raids, sieges, thieves, snatches, nothing... food and water is available at all times... nobody is insane or in jail... everyone has a job and is doing it happily... Unicorns aren't acting up... it's... so... boring... Zz.z.zz...

Someone hasn't learned the joy of megaprojects.

See, i get a goblin siege and my first thought is 'crap, another metric buttload of narrow armor and clothing to move/dispose of again,' - it takes my dwarves away from important tasks, like building a magma cannon or working on my 20 z-level megastructure.

[NWTreeOctopus]

... I think the lack of coherent goals is what makes it difficult to pick up and play for many people...

I think that this is the big thing that underlies most of the other problems.  I know the people that I've shown the game to really appreciate the insane depth/complexity of the game mechanic itself.  However, not everybody enjoys just trying to scratch out a subsistence from the rock.  Because the learning curve is so steep, I think that not at least having some simple tutorial goals, or something of that nature, really turns some people away from the game.

I too have fallen into the "Now what?" scenario several times.  I'm absolutely not advocating that there should be some undeniable, unwavering "end game" that you're striving for while playing (short of Fun).  If there is some way to "win," I think that it should be completely optional.  However, sometimes I think it would be enjoyable to play a game with a set of goals monitored by the computer instead of being self-inflicted.  However, with the new update, I can imagine there will be countless more hours for me to enjoy the current "goal-less" setup.

One last thing that I think would help keep a large number of early players from quitting is a little bit tighter control of your dwarfs.  I've seen people advocate for the "Dungeon Keeper" level of control (though, I tend to think of this as more of a "Sim Ant" level of control).  In that, I mean the ability to possess a single dwarf and fully command it. 

As I've taught some of my friends to play, I've found that they become frustrated when the need for a really important job suddenly comes up (pull that lever.... NOW).  The ability to grab a single dwarf and guide it along would be enormously useful and help mitigate some of the frustration that comes from the current way jobs are handled.  This is especially true when the dwarf on its way to pull the fortress-saving lever suddenly decides that eating can not wait any longer.  Given the current strange-moods and the like that dwarfs go through, I wouldn't see exerting your direct control over one as far outside the game's spirit anyway.

While I'd enjoy these changes; I feel that they'd have to be options set in the init.txt or something.  Keep the updates coming guys; the game becomes immeasurably greater with each new release.

[Quantum Toast]

The problem with alcohol and some objects (like Bolts) is that they are used up SOOO FAST and require constant diligence to restocking.

Power cranking food and booze is a constant battle.  If you grow food too rapidly, the spare barrels get filled up with food as the dwarves drink them dry, then there is no space to make more booze....

True, I ran into that problem a while back. Took me a while to even realise where all my barrels were disappearing to.

[Innominate]

You need to tweak your food production down slightly. With enough small fields (say twelve 2x2 instead of one 6x8) you increase the number of fields you can set to fallow or fertilise to slightly modify production.

Every year your food count increases (excluding trade) set one or more fields to go fallow for one or more seasons - use your discretion. If your food count decreases over a year then build more fields, trade for more, or use fertiliser (in order of increasing Fun). Remember that your growers will naturally increase in skill, so a small deficit can turn into a huge surplus after a few years. Likewise, the death of your legendary+5 grower might mean you need to supplement your food production.