Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Micro102]

How many dwarves, out of a 200 dwarf fortress, do you usually keep as haulers?

[Kietharr]

Everyone who isn't doing something critical is hauling. I turn it off on 5-6 of my best miners, a woodcutter or two depending on map, my weapon/armorsmith(s), a handful of furnace operators, a couple of butcher/tanners, a bone carver, a carpenter or two, my best few engravers and masons, and after that a few more depending on industry (glass collectors, dyers, clothiers, weavers, soap makers, the industries you don't always work with but might be using a lot).

I usually only have 4-5 'pro' haulers that do nothing but haul, and often I set them to haul only one specific thing, like I'll have two dwarves constantly hauling finished goods to keep production flowing smoothly, I almost always have one dwarf doing nothing but woodhauling at that stage, I usually have one on food hauling duty too to prevent rotting in kitchens/stills.

[bluea]

I have 226 people in my fort, yet have trouble keeping the legendary makers completely flush in raw materials. So a fair chunk of them tend to have hauling for their specific tasks. Three legendary cooks - all with "haul food", etc.

About twenty "nothing but hauling", and twenty "hauling and pump operating as training" (Which is completely unneeded, as I have twenty champion wrestler/marksdwarves).

[Derakon]

Keep adding hauling until:
 * your craftsdwarves' workshops aren't cluttered, and
 * your food doesn't rot.
Then switch over to masons for whatever grandiose project you're working on.

There's only so many manpower sinks in the game. Hauling, the military, and masonry are the big three, and really you don't need that many military dwarves, especially if you ignore the fortress guard.

[Skorpion]

Anyone who isn't doing anything. So, about 100, after the military, guards, legendary crafters, nobility, and essential workforce.
The same goes for masonry, pump operation, furnace operation, wood burning, and other unskilled labour. Speed on-task is sacrificed for speed getting to it.

[Skooma]

Everyone who isn't doing something critical is hauling. I turn it off on 5-6 of my best miners, a woodcutter or two depending on map, my weapon/armorsmith(s), a handful of furnace operators, a couple of butcher/tanners, a bone carver, a carpenter or two, my best few engravers and masons, and after that a few more depending on industry (glass collectors, dyers, clothiers, weavers, soap makers, the industries you don't always work with but might be using a lot).

Soap makers? That job always screams "Please draft me". I've been playing for 2 years now and have never once made a single bar of soap.

[Skorpion]

Soap is a good bling item.

Otherwise, I only draft male dwarves, so I don't get bezerk mothers who realise they just used their baby as a shield.

[KenboCalrissian]

If I have an idler, chances are they're about to be drafted as a hauler.  I hate seeing idlers, not just because they create friendships and therefore tantrum spirals, but because I played a lot of Dungeon Keeper and it trained me to always keep every imp dwarf working.

[Ubern00b]

I ahve all the useless plebs who arent anythign special set to haul and stonework.

So all they do is haul, build walls, make blocks and make fortifications.
Note, they are all women. all workers are women.

All men are instantly drafted into my army of champion wrestlers.
Once champion they get the choice to leanr how to use a weapon. I base this on the roll of a die

[Grendus]

Pretty much everyone who isn't a crafter. Of course, my haulers aren't true haulers, they do all the unskilled tasks like smelting, hauling, cheese making, harvesting once my grower reaches legendary, making sparring weapons, building, plant processing, butchering and tanning, woodcutting (yes, I mass produce axes, makes running off kobold thieves easy) etc. Specialization is for insects.

[dakenho]

Micro,
  I have had the same problem as you, hating it when my weapon smith, or brewer is off on the edge of the map collecting wood when there are 10 units of beer left.  My solution to the problem was to give every dwarf a specific task and disable all other tasks (except health care, all dwarfs still do that in my fortress).

For instance
Miner1
Minner2
Woodcutter
Carpenter
Mason
Mechanic
Brewer
These dwarfs do nothing except that job (I would name each dwarf by profession to).  Any dwarf that does not have  a specific job is costumed named as a present and has only hauling jobs were as all other have only industry jobs.  This prevents there being 3 dwarfs trying to use the carpenter shop and the least skilled dwarf using when a dwarf who needs a bucket to live is slowly dying.  This also means within a few years you will have dwarfs that will pump out goods and incredible rate.  With one carpenter I can pump out a full storage of beds in no time (haulers cannot keep up with his wood demand).  Some down sides on this is, you are screwed if you need something and your dwarfs are sleeping (though some industries you will need to double up on (butchering, ale and food, wood burning (in the absence of magma forges) ( I also built a spate forge for smelting all those narrow pieces of armor and weapons I do not need (hey my iron supply is not infinite).  This does have some efficiency flaws.  Such as you are not going to need to constantly mach rock goods at the masons work shop or rock mechanism at the mechanics work shop.  (though it may be good for you to have more than one mechanic to reload and re-set traps) (I tend to use nobles for this (for which I give hauling duties for (this also gives a limited number of dwarfs fiddle room for when you really need a profession).
The down side of this is that you will most certainly have an area of your fort that you use the least and that dwarf will always have no job.  While other areas do not keep up with the industry.

For instance one wood cutter is enough to cut all the wood for my fortress, but the haulers cannot keep up with the carpenter and 2 wood burners.  My butcher cannot also keep up with my single hunter (which really hurts my leather working industry).  My loom is cluttered with thread and my cloth stock piles are full.

In this scenario you have as many haulers as dwarfs that do not have specific jobs. And thus the max number of dedicated haulers you can probably have.  (if my haulers fall behind I have a few planters that help out as they tend to be able to help and plant all the fields multiple times per session (but still have 2 dedicated planters).

[Micro102]

I doubt we are having the same problem. I give everyone but farmers the hualing abilities. I made this in an attempt to decide the balance i will need to give all these dwarves. I feel assigning any more jobs will create a labor surplus.

And you can't just ask people what their ratios are, everyone has different job types.

[Particleman]

In my fort I've got about 100 dwarfs, and 40 of them are assigned do the stuff that isn't affected significantly by skill level (constructing walls, chopping wood, smelting ores, melting items, designing buildings, making bags, and hauling).

I look at it this way: If I had one dwarf devoted to, say, making bags, he'd eventually create enough of a surplus that I'd pretty much either have to stop because he used up all the materials, or because I had more bags waiting to be used than I was presently using, and I have to have him haul stuff anyway. So, by enabling peasants to make bags, they pretty much get on it as soon as I enter the order, and once they're done they go back to hauling stuff or building walls or whatever.

[XSI]

Everyone hauls. The only exceptions are when I personally feel a dwarf is above hauling. They can get this status only in 2 ways.

1. Be really needed, like a miner that has to mine out something critical.

2. Do something awesome. Win a 1-1 with a dragon, clear out the whole carpriver on your own, whipe out a full goblin siege by yourself..Etc.

[Micro102]

Would it be a good idea to give every dwarf every skill? Just enable everything. I wonder if it would be easier or harder.