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[JT]

Most farmers don't rely on flood-farming.  Rather, they simply run irrigation channels up and down the length of their farms, allowing the water in the channels to soak the soil adjacent to the channels; simple capillary action is all that's required to wet the soil near the irrigation channels, thereby soaking the farmland and rendering it suitable for farming.

To that end, will it be possible to implement simple farms that don't rely on complicated flood chambers?  The way I see it, building the following set-up:

code:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
. ~ . . . . ~ . . . . ~ . . .
. ~ . . . . ~ . . . . ~ . . .
. ~ . . . . ~ . . . . ~ . . .
. ~ . . . . ~ . . . . ~ . . .
. ~ . . . . ~ . . . . ~ . . .
. ~ . . . . ~ . . . . ~ . . .
. ~ . . . . ~ . . . . ~ . . .
. ~ . . . . ~ . . . . ~ . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

...should be more than sufficient to allow planting in any of the tiles between the two irrigation channels.  I suggest a 2 to 3 tile capillary action from all filled channels of water.

[caeono]

That makes perfect sense to me. Tiles along a river should be muddy in the first place, and letting water soak into adjacent dirt would do the job.

[Thallone]

in the new version, all water muddies, and apparently you can specify places for dwarves to dump buckets of water. I think we can call this one handled. Additionally, in the new version, water has finite volume, so one full square of water cannot flood your entire fort.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

I like this idea, and it would make for more realistic-looking farms as well.

[Zargen]

Would make more sense in a desert area. quanats anyone?

[mickel]

Yea, irrigation was something I was surprised that it wasn't in already. But now it seems it is. Yay us!

[JT]

quote:Originally posted by Thallone:
<STRONG>in the new version, all water muddies, and apparently you can specify places for dwarves to dump buckets of water. I think we can call this one handled. Additionally, in the new version, water has finite volume, so one full square of water cannot flood your entire fort.</STRONG>

I wouldn't call that handled.  You elicited the following choices: we can build a complex flood room to muddy the floor which the water flows over, or we can micromanage the dwarven labour jobs to force them to dump water from the ceiling into a room, then cancel the pond designation and wait for the water to evaporate once all of the floor has been covered with water.

That seems like an awful waste of time when someone could simply dig channels to water an area without requiring so much micromanagement.

Insofar as I've seen, I haven't seen any indication that water does anything other than create mud directly underneath itself as it flows. =)

[mickel]

quote:Originally posted by JT:
<STRONG>
Insofar as I've seen, I haven't seen any indication that water does anything other than create mud directly underneath itself as it flows. =)</STRONG>

True. It needs to soak in and muddy the adjacent squares too. Ultimately a system to emulate capillary effects etc. to allow dirt and other porous materials to soak up fluids will probably come into place, but until then it's sufficient if a number of squares of dirt, depending on the amount of water in the flow, are muddied.

[Grek]

Maybe make pond/stockpile designations that are only in effect during certain months? You could have a pond that is only filled in midwinter.