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[florian]

I have been calculating a lot lately. We all know that the wiki recommends a 5x5 plot for feeding 200 dwarves, but that seems to be too much.

To find out the minimal amount of farm plots necessary, I solved the following equotation:
13 (maximum number of plump helmet harvests per year) * 11 (maximum plant stack size) * 5 (multiplicator for booze making, food is cooked booze) * x (farm plot size) = 200 (number of dwarves) * (4 (number of drinks per season and dwarf) + 2 (number of meals per season and dwarf)) * 4 (number of seasons)

Turns out, x is approximately 6.7. So, the minimal number of farm plots you need to feed a fortress of 200 with Plump Helmets is 7. Make that 8 and you have some reserve. Of course you will need to fully fertilize those farms, but that's only 8 potash per year. And you will need legendary growers.

Any objections? Anybody willing to try this out?

[Simmura McCrea]

5X5 for feeding 200 dwarves? I use twice that for a 50 dwarf fort. Plus all the above ground plants adding up to that again. And I empty human and dwarven traders of their food and booze every year.

[florian]

What skill levels do your growers have?

[DennyTom]

You are telling that 200 dwarves can live from farm field smaller than workshop?

[NegaDwarf]

Its even easier to feed dwarves with enough fertilizer. I, sadly, cheat my little dwarfy butt off with smelter reactions these days. I have one that produces 10 potash and I always irrigate my underground farm plots.

Turns out that you can get stacks of 6, 7, 8, and even 9 plants from a good planter and a fully fertilized field.

Its also nice to get about 600 Plump Helmet Spawn through a few years of high demand trading with your dwarfy friends.

Then you can get one planter to Legendary in about one and a half years of having them do nothing but nonstop fertilizing and planting plump helmet spawns nonstop.

[Itnetlolor]

I generally go for uber-production.

With a supply of seeds for every type of plant, I just have a series of farm plots specialized for each separate crop. Works especially well for above-ground crops since they don't alternate. As for the underground ones, I only make the maximum amount of plots for a season with the most options, and plan accordingly from there.

It can be done well with 2x2 or 3x3 plots to save room, works well with irrigation farming. And it keeps plenty of variety to prevent bad thoughts. Given about a year, you have more than enough food, as well as some lavish foodstuff to trade, provided the skill of course.

[Martin]

I make a 1x8 plot for every above plant type and 2-3 1x8 for every below and turn them on/off as needed. I usually have one plot of above/below ground plants that also produce flour running nonstop, and I never fertilize (one more thing to remember to do). If I can plant sun berries, I always run that as well.

With legendary growers, I do produce too much, but I turn most of it to flour where it takes up little space and is always ready in the event I need to crank out some meals.

[The13thRonin]

I hate how easy it is to farm in Dwarf Fortress. I ended up modding it to be less fruitful so you can't feed 200 dwarves on a 5x5 farm. That's kind of ridiculous.

[florian]

You are telling that 200 dwarves can live from farm field smaller than workshop?

Yeah. Fertilizer is mighty stuff. My trading is based on Dwarven Syrup. By planting Sweet Pods with fertilizer, I can easily get stacks of 4-6 plants in the first year and make those into Dwarven Syrup roasts worth more than 20000.

[geoduck]

I've never even used fertilizer; I always end up with food coming out my ears without it.

[Smew]

I've never even used fertilizer; I always end up with food coming out my ears without it.

Same, I also don't see the farming as very unrealistic, seeing as how every tile is a quantum space big enough to hold dragons, etc, etc.

[florian]

I've never even used fertilizer; I always end up with food coming out my ears without it.

Fertilizer saves you some time. Applying fertilizer costs less (I think) time than growing more.

[Noble Digger]

Most recently I'm making 7x7 plots with a pillar in the center (48 tiles) and currently I have 4 of them. The excess food and booze gets traded away. Minimalist isn't so fun.

Farming is too easy, and with magma workshops, so is metalworking. I've started using wood-fired metalworks again just so it's not so mindlessly easy.

[Martin]

Same, I also don't see the farming as very unrealistic, seeing as how every tile is a quantum space big enough to hold dragons, etc, etc.

Estimates are a minimum of 3,000 sq ft per person per year for food production. Even if we assume that a tile is 10x10 (split the difference between a bed and a dragon, and that's likely still way too large since no two dwarves can occupy the same tile without one lying down) then you'd still need 30 tiles *per dwarf*. Toss in some magic with dwarves only eating once a season, with dwarven food producing more than human food, and so on, and we're still WAY off.

The US requires 5% of the population to be dedicated to agriculture, and that's with John Deere in the mix. In a fortress of 200, that's 10 dwarves doing non-preparation food tasks year-round. As it is now, a single dwarf can *easily* feed an entire fortress.

To balance, I'd put minimum farm size to feed one dwarf at 10 tiles running year round without fertilizer, 2000 tiles to feed 200. That's just shy of a full embark tile worth of plants and would require either an easy to setup (but possibly difficult to defend) aboveground operation, or some real effort to setup underground. A fortress of 200 shouldn't be a cakewalk, but I'd think that 10 dwarves could keep that kind of farming operation running, especially if you cut the size in half with fertilizer.

We keep asking for challenges to the game, I don't see why providing enough food shouldn't be one of them.

[sonerohi]

I'm using the DangerousWilds mod and I'm needing to use 2 10x10's just to feed and inebriate 23 dwarves.