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[Corona688]

Skills increasing food requirements is a stupid video game mechanic

Harsh, but I can't see the sense in it myself either.  It certainly doesn't have a reflection in real life, where food intake is more related to energy output.

Remove Grower skill (it really has no real life basis)

If you really think there's nothing to learn about how to make plants grow you're mistaken.

[Pilsu]

There's plenty of room for knowledge but none whatsoever for skill

[Grendus]

I would change it a bit, dwarves need to eat a LOT more. Compared to the average human, they eat 88 fewer meals per season. The time is about the same, if we're talking 15-45 minute meals on average, spending two days a month eating is about right. It also may be a good idea for dwarves to collect their booze at the same time, since eating and drinking always go hand in hand.

Basing food eaten on skill is unrealistic beyond even the realm of fantasy. It is, though I don't want to be harsh, a stupid idea. Doctors don't eat more than bums (in fact, it's often the other way around, doctors tend to be more careful about nutrition and health).

[Sidhien]

Actually in real life the more active a person is the more they need to eat, though I'm not sure why you would link it to skills... perhaps stats or jobs performed would be more suitable.

However I don't get why no one has brought up the possibility of simply having adjustable rationing for your dwarfs. At one end, giving large meals (allowing them to take up to X units in a stack, or the entire stack if it contains less the X units) would give a large happiness bonus, while at the other you could strictly ration dwarfs to the bare minimum to survive, which could cause unhappiness, slow working and even attempts to steal food which would have to be punished.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I don't see why Skill levels should determine how much a dwarf eats, I might be persuaded that age (Child vs Adult) or Stats like strength and toughness would require more food (Strong & Tough dwarves have more muscle mass which results in a higher metabolism).  But even the toughest strongest dwarf isn't going to eat more then four times the normal amount (a fit human working strenuously in cold weather will need about 8000 calories a day)

Though I agree farming should be harder (see thread linked by Granite26), but your proposal seems to be aimed at making skill ingresses self-defeating, the experienced planter eats all the increased productivity he produces.  That's not the way to fix farming as it completely removes the incentive to train farmers (or any of skill for that matter).  Increased skills must be rewarded or theirs no sense of progress or achievement.

What I would like to see is an Oregon Trail style of 'Rations' ware you can conserve food by ordering 1/4, 1/2, full or double rations.  Naturally a reduction in health occurs at low rations which ingresses chance of disease and injury, but it was often critically important to ration food because starvation kills very very fast if food reserves hit zero.

[Grendus]

I don't see why Skill levels should determine how much a dwarf eats, I might be persuaded that age (Child vs Adult) or Stats like strength and toughness would require more food (Strong & Tough dwarves have more muscle mass which results in a higher metabolism).  But even the toughest strongest dwarf isn't going to eat more then four times the normal amount (a fit human working strenuously in cold weather will need about 8000 calories a day)

Though I agree farming should be harder (see thread linked by Granite26), but your proposal seems to be aimed at making skill ingresses self-defeating, the experienced planter eats all the increased productivity he produces.  That's not the way to fix farming as it completely removes the incentive to train farmers (or any of skill for that matter).  Increased skills must be rewarded or theirs no sense of progress or achievement.

What I would like to see is an Oregon Trail style of 'Rations' ware you can conserve food by ordering 1/4, 1/2, full or double rations.  Naturally a reduction in health occurs at low rations which ingresses chance of disease and injury, but it was often critically important to ration food because starvation kills very very fast if food reserves hit zero.

I like that idea, actually, though you don't need to set a new system to deal with the health issues. Dwarves at half rations would spend half their time suffering from a hungry status, which causes unhappy thoughts and causes them to work slower. Dwarves still need to either consume more food or farmers need to produce less. One farmer feeding a fortress of 200 without machinery, irrigation, and fertilizers is pretty unrealistic, again beyond the realm of fantasy.

[Warlord255]

One minor integration with health issues; injured dwarves require slightly more food? The immediate threat is that injuries will clutter your fort's already massive workload, but it is one way of raising the ceiling of required food.

Another obvious one would be feeding animals, but that's a hard system to balance.

[Pilsu]

Reducing crop yields dramatically, increasing growing time & requiring irrigation underground is a better approach if you want to increase the amount of required farming workers per capita

As for strong (what exactly does toughness entail?) dwarves needing to eat more, until stats are handled realistically this really doesn't work too well. Dwarves don't get strong out of heavy labor, they just sort of end up as physical gods from carving trinkets out of wood. Whether a dwarf needs to eat more would be completely random, not actually dependent on his work. Muscles are also permanent

[Impaler[WrG]]

Dwarves don't get strong out of heavy labor, they just sort of end up as physical gods from carving trinkets out of wood. Whether a dwarf needs to eat more would be completely random, not actually dependent on his work. Muscles are also permanent

Yes, we all know stat-gains are utterly stupid and broken right now, naturally that and a half million other things need to be fixed ALSO.  It's almost impossible to suggest ANY change to DF without it being 'defeated' or 'broken' by another bug.  I don't think anyone seriously expects to make any suggestion in total isolation, and it should be assumed that when people refer to other sub-system tie-ins they expect those systems will be fixed as well but are not going into the details so as to keep the thread on topic.

[Mohreb el Yasim]

I find the idea of OP a bit too complicated,
this:

There's a fantastic replacement matgloss_plant that someone wrote that makes farming much more interesting . . . I wish I remembered who originally put it together, and that Toady would incorporate it into the game.

migth be a better solution but with a small change:
Don't incorporate it in the game!!! Why?
Farming migth be even an issue to a beginner player (DF is complicated) so too easy farming is just a problem for players who played more. But those players can mod the game by themself more easy.
so just mod-it-your-self if you find farming too easy (ex.: more time to growth, no winter farming at all, once in a season harvest's ....)

[Appelgren]

But starving to death the first winter was one of the things I enjoyed about the game the first time I tried it (back in 2d). Made it feel like the seasons really mattered. Made the early game feel like a fight for survival.  The risk of starvation is what makes food production exciting. I think the "higher skill - more food" thing is the wrong solution though. I'd rather see the need to irrigate fields at least once a year. Winters where nothing grow except perhaps some really expensive stuff you trade from the elves or perhaps strange mushrooms you find in the underground. Vermin eating crops, to make all those cats useful.

[jamoecw]

Actually in real life the more active a person is the more they need to eat, though I'm not sure why you would link it to skills... perhaps stats or jobs performed would be more suitable.

However I don't get why no one has brought up the possibility of simply having adjustable rationing for your dwarfs. At one end, giving large meals (allowing them to take up to X units in a stack, or the entire stack if it contains less the X units) would give a large happiness bonus, while at the other you could strictly ration dwarfs to the bare minimum to survive, which could cause unhappiness, slow working and even attempts to steal food which would have to be punished.

added your suggestion to the first post, it isn't bad.

the reason i linked it to skills, was because skills are earned through jobs, and unlike real life it doesn't go away with disuse.  if that ever is implemented then it would be sorta like linking it to jobs, also stats are currently linked to skills.  in real life the more skillful a person is the more he is worth, and if you look at poor college students that live off of ramen vs. lawyers who can afford to eat out for every meal of the day, thus food intake is a decent representation of this.  but the only good reason for it is scalability, when you start off you have 7 dwarfs and no place to get goods for the coming caravan let alone defenses or farm land.  this is where i feel that increased farming requirements really fall apart, either you are bogged down your first winter, or you never have to worry about food.  it is far from perfect and yes, it is very video gamey.

[edit]

But starving to death the first winter was one of the things I enjoyed about the game the first time I tried it (back in 2d). Made it feel like the seasons really mattered. Made the early game feel like a fight for survival.  The risk of starvation is what makes food production exciting. I think the "higher skill - more food" thing is the wrong solution though. I'd rather see the need to irrigate fields at least once a year. Winters where nothing grow except perhaps some really expensive stuff you trade from the elves or perhaps strange mushrooms you find in the underground. Vermin eating crops, to make all those cats useful.

i would add this stuff to the main post, but it is farm stuff instead of dwarf consumption stuff.  frankly the vermin stuff is the best farming hurdle suggestion i think i've seen.
[/edit]

[Grendus]

Actually in real life the more active a person is the more they need to eat, though I'm not sure why you would link it to skills... perhaps stats or jobs performed would be more suitable.

However I don't get why no one has brought up the possibility of simply having adjustable rationing for your dwarfs. At one end, giving large meals (allowing them to take up to X units in a stack, or the entire stack if it contains less the X units) would give a large happiness bonus, while at the other you could strictly ration dwarfs to the bare minimum to survive, which could cause unhappiness, slow working and even attempts to steal food which would have to be punished.

added your suggestion to the first post, it isn't bad.

the reason i linked it to skills, was because skills are earned through jobs, and unlike real life it doesn't go away with disuse.  if that ever is implemented then it would be sorta like linking it to jobs, also stats are currently linked to skills.  in real life the more skillful a person is the more he is worth, and if you look at poor college students that live off of ramen vs. lawyers who can afford to eat out for every meal of the day, thus food intake is a decent representation of this.  but the only good reason for it is scalability, when you start off you have 7 dwarfs and no place to get goods for the coming caravan let alone defenses or farm land.  this is where i feel that increased farming requirements really fall apart, either you are bogged down your first winter, or you never have to worry about food.  it is far from perfect and yes, it is very video gamey.

[edit]

But starving to death the first winter was one of the things I enjoyed about the game the first time I tried it (back in 2d). Made it feel like the seasons really mattered. Made the early game feel like a fight for survival.  The risk of starvation is what makes food production exciting. I think the "higher skill - more food" thing is the wrong solution though. I'd rather see the need to irrigate fields at least once a year. Winters where nothing grow except perhaps some really expensive stuff you trade from the elves or perhaps strange mushrooms you find in the underground. Vermin eating crops, to make all those cats useful.

i would add this stuff to the main post, but it is farm stuff instead of dwarf consumption stuff.  frankly the vermin stuff is the best farming hurdle suggestion i think i've seen.
[/edit]

1. One of the things most frequently fought over irl is arable land. Up until recent times, land suitable for farming was hard to come by. Farming should be difficult, it should be a danger. You have options if you don't produce enough food: dwarves can eat vermin, you can butcher your breeding stock of animals, you can hunt, you can gather. If farming is difficult but manageable, guides will be written, and players will learn how to keep food on the table. It would be "fun".

2. You're missing the point of portions. College student's don't eat less than lawyers, we all have roughly the same daily calorie requirements (varying based on gender, body mass, activity, etc). College student's eat cheaper food than lawyers - I know, I'm a sophomore currently. This is already represented in game, raw food is cheaper than prepared food, poor dwarves will live on raw plump helmets and water while wealthy dwarves will eat expensive food and their favorite booze.

Let me repeat myself. Dwarves eating more food based on skill is very unrealistic in a bad way. Some argument can be made for dwarves eating more food based on strength, toughness, and activity, but having dwarves eat more food based on skill is counterproductive.

[Granite26]

Dwarves don't get strong out of heavy labor, they just sort of end up as physical gods from carving trinkets out of wood. Whether a dwarf needs to eat more would be completely random, not actually dependent on his work. Muscles are also permanent

Yes, we all know stat-gains are utterly stupid and broken right now, naturally that and a half million other things need to be fixed ALSO.  It's almost impossible to suggest ANY change to DF without it being 'defeated' or 'broken' by another bug.  I don't think anyone seriously expects to make any suggestion in total isolation, and it should be assumed that when people refer to other sub-system tie-ins they expect those systems will be fixed as well but are not going into the details so as to keep the thread on topic.

Well put... Also, more to the point, it's being 'fixed' (adjusted?) in the next release.

the reason i linked it to skills, was because skills are earned through jobs, and unlike real life it doesn't go away with disuse. 

Another thing fixing to change.

Can we agree on a few things, just to frame the debate?

The amount of items a dwarf eats is not necessarily important.  One plump helmet isn't enough to feed a dwarf because a dwarf eats, but because one unit of plump helmet is defined as the amount a dwarf eats in a month.  If you look at cows, you will see a similar fact is true.  A cow isn't made up of only 5(or whatever) steaks, but a cow is enough meat to feed one adult for about 5(or whatever) months.  Increasing the number of plump helmets a dwarf eats would not make the game more realistic in that sense, even if it would cause a better farming effort balance.

A specific unit of space is not a defined area.  Thus, for farming, and because space is rarely a premium, one square can be of variable size, and thus considered 'enough space to grow food for 1 month in one season'.  Increasing the space required would increase time, because walking is broken, but would not increase planting time or effort.  It would also not cost an appreciable amount of space (since short of walking being expensive, space is free).


Eating Costs:
Eater Transport time (walking around, generally 99% of the time)
    Go to Food Pile
    Go to Dining Room
    Go back to work
Actually Eating (small chunk of time)
    Sit, eat

Farming Costs:
Farmer Transport time (walking around, about 95% of the time)
    Go to Seed Pile
    Go to Farm
    ...
    Go to Farm
    Go to Food Stockpile
Farmer work costs
    Stick seed in ground.

Hopefully you'll agree that any solution (at present) is either going to involve increasing walking time (not fun) or have very little effect on the game.  Requiring more plants is one way to do this (since 95% of that time will be walking).

My solution?  Just mod seeds to be 100lbs a piece.  QED

[Corona688]

Actually in real life the more active a person is the more they need to eat

That's what I meant by energy output.  It'd make sense for harder-working dwarves to eat more, not higher-skilled ones.  Higher-skilled ones might exert themselves less hard, being stronger in general and capable of working more efficiently.

However I don't get why no one has brought up the possibility of simply having adjustable rationing for your dwarfs. At one end, giving large meals (allowing them to take up to X units in a stack, or the entire stack if it contains less the X units) would give a large happiness bonus, while at the other you could strictly ration dwarfs to the bare minimum to survive, which could cause unhappiness, slow working and even attempts to steal food which would have to be punished.

Hm, that doesn't sound unreasonable.