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[dakenho]

so butchering used to provide you with a whole lot less, and I was a little happy when it started to offer more as the most I usually got for wild life was ground hogs.  I decided to play around with world gen settings and setup a new world, large area, several volcanos, more mega beasts, and 50 civs.  This turned out to be a mistake because world gen took over 3 hours with the settings I chose it turned out to be worth it, I got an area with a large volume of gold, iron, flux, magma and elephants.  I was really excited because of the lore behind elephants even though I knew they are far more harmless now, I was low on food and started to forge an xbow and steel bolts, I didn't have any one with hunter abilities so i just sent out a present and wished him luck, after 3 runs he managed to hit an elephant once, luckily a high master ambushers showed up with decent marksmanship.  I immediately took the peasant off hunting, the result the hunter took down too elephants (one shotted one in the skill while the other was unconscious)  I was happy with only about 4 prepared meals and dwindling food my dwarfs would not starve, I knew they wouldn't as I have seen a single hunter feed entire fortresses off of mountin goats and ground hogs.  I was shocked though when they were butchered over 400 units of food per an elephant (130 units of pure meet and the rest is the extra butchering stuff you get) I had to take my hunter off of hunter, he had downed about 4 elephants and my stock piles were flooded.  Although an extreme example butchering for even cattle can feed a lot (though they need to be tone down less)

[mLegion]

That's realistic though, the results of butchering depend on the animals size and elephants are VERY big animals.

[NW_Kohaku]

Elephants weigh about 5 tons.  Much of that is bone, which you will have far, far more of than you will ever be able to get rid of, and most of the rest is meat (or organs that count as meat, or fat, which is basically as good as meat, except you can also turn it into soap).

Frankly, a single elephant should be enough to feed a mid-sized fortress for a full year.  When we were discussing cows, I remember that the difference between what the cow should provide, and what it does provide, however, is about a factor of 4 times as much meat.

[Shade-o]

The cow gives four times too much or four times too little meat?

[Andeerz]

Curing of meats for long-term storage, anyone? 

Also, anyone know historically how much meat was wasted due to spoilage after slaughtering an animal, even with techniques to preserve meats?

[Shade-o]

It would depend I guess. Salting, pickling, brining, drying, smoking... It would depend on the process used, the quality of it, and the environment. In general meat wasn't exactly common unless you were very rich, or a fisherman. It's only with the advent of modern industry that meat has been available to everyone so cheaply.

Presumably meats and other foods in barrels have been preserved to some degree. Since the cooking process is so abstract it could be anything, though. Perhaps they just cook it until it resembles charcoal?

[Andeerz]

Perhaps the issue, then, could be that the availability of livestock is what's screwed up, and not the amount of meat obtained?  I'd imagine that (though I REALLY am not qualified to make this statement) perhaps most livestock back in medieval times were used as beasts of burden or for renewable resources like milk or wool... But, then again, there was a good deal of leather products back in the day.  Some fact checking is in order on my part...

[Shade-o]

At the moment, three things are way off:

- Wild animals are way too plentiful. If you can put yourself in a random area and feed a fort with anything that wanders nearby, then there had better be a cloning centre nearby.

- Domestic animals are free. You don't have to feed or water them. They're walking farm plots that give you tallow. If/When you must feed them, it will be much harder to support a large population of livestock.

- Dwarves don't eat much. They must be part-fungus themselves, because absorbing nutrients from the ground through their feet is the only explanation.

[NW_Kohaku]

Perhaps the issue, then, could be that the availability of livestock is what's screwed up, and not the amount of meat obtained?  I'd imagine that (though I REALLY am not qualified to make this statement) perhaps most livestock back in medieval times were used as beasts of burden or for renewable resources like milk or wool... But, then again, there was a good deal of leather products back in the day.  Some fact checking is in order on my part...

I've looked up plenty of this for Improved Farming as well as Volume and Mass...

Livestock like cows and chickens were kept for their milk (or rather, cheese, milk spoiled too fast) and eggs, which made up the bulk of the protiens in the diet of medieval peasants who otherwise relied upon bread and a handful of fruits or vegetables for variety.  Meat was not too common, and typically came from catching a rabbit rather than slaughtering a cow.

The cow gives four times too much or four times too little meat?

Four times too much.

- Domestic animals are free. You don't have to feed or water them. They're walking farm plots that give you tallow. If/When you must feed them, it will be much harder to support a large population of livestock.

This is the big one.  The reason why farmers relied upon grains instead of meats is beause you need to feed a cow 10 lbs of grain to get 1 lb of meat.  (Milk is not nearly as bad a ratio... although cows need to be milkable FAR more often than they are represented in this game.)  Of course, this is easier when you have something like a cover crop of clover you can just let your cow graze off of while letting a field fallow during crop rotations - the amount of fertilizer that cow drops in the field compensates for the clover they eat.  When you do massive industrial cow/pig/chicken farms that are fed off of grain the way that modern agricorps do, that's when you have the problem with needing to farm far more to feed your cows than you get meat out of the cow.

[Shade-o]

Fortunately, people are willing to spend lots of money on small amounts of meat and cheese, compared to what plain bread costs per unit.

[Andeerz]

This is the big one.  The reason why farmers relied upon grains instead of meats is beause you need to feed a cow 10 lbs of grain to get 1 lb of meat.  (Milk is not nearly as bad a ratio... although cows need to be milkable FAR more often than they are represented in this game.)  Of course, this is easier when you have something like a cover crop of clover you can just let your cow graze off of while letting a field fallow during crop rotations - the amount of fertilizer that cow drops in the field compensates for the clover they eat.  When you do massive industrial cow/pig/chicken farms that are fed off of grain the way that modern agricorps do, that's when you have the problem with needing to farm far more to feed your cows than you get meat out of the cow.

That reminds me of my last visit to my mom's hometown in the Spanish Pyrenees.  There are still fields where they do that kind of fertilization, allowing cows to graze and poop while the field lays fallow. 

[dakenho]

At the moment, three things are way off:

- Wild animals are way too plentiful. If you can put yourself in a random area and feed a fort with anything that wanders nearby, then there had better be a cloning centre nearby.

- Domestic animals are free. You don't have to feed or water them. They're walking farm plots that give you tallow. If/When you must feed them, it will be much harder to support a large population of livestock.

- Dwarves don't eat much. They must be part-fungus themselves, because absorbing nutrients from the ground through their feet is the only explanation.

This also true elephants are around my fortress year round instead of migrating, and there are several of them at any one time, While I do agree with you that the amount of meat they provide is realistic you did cause me to look at this differently eating is not realistic and neither is drinking

according to the united states army a person should should drink proximity 1 canteen worth of water per hour (forgot how much are in though things) and the average meal tends to be 2200 calories, given the averages the average person would eat. the average MRE wieghs between 18 and 24(ish) ounces so one could assume 16 ounces is the food portion (though that is probably off) so while there is no measurement of how much one unit of food is in dwarf fortress assuming one season is 3 months at 30 days a month = 90 days and each dwarf eats two meals a season each unit of food is worth about 135 pounds of food (tough's are big plump helmets)  now that isnt to saw dwarfs should eat realistically because they would never work, but perhaps dwarfs should eat 4-8 times a seasons (depending on labor, soldiers should eat more than any one than maybe woodcuters and so forth on).  On top of this dwarfs should probably more than one unit of food

now going back to the math 135 pounds of a food per unit eaten means that the elephant weight a min of 20,000 pounds or 10 tons (not to far off from real life but if we add the other stuff that goes into the food it weighs 57,000 + pounds or 28.5 tons).  all i am saying is that the rate dwarfs eat probably needs to be increased to be more realistic (and possibly drinking) and that the most effective way to do this would be to say they need to eat more than one unit of food or drink more than one unit of ale at a time (though this would screw up the military who have to carry their food)

[NW_Kohaku]

I've done plenty of these sorts of calculations for Volume and Mass (where I also argue for eating to be based upon mass, not arbitrary units)...

Basically, the average 70 kg human eats about 200 kg of solid food a year.  They also drink roughly 700 liters of water, which is also 700 kg of water.  (Technically, they'd have to drink more alcohol to get the same hydrating effect from alcohol as they do from pure water, but I think we can ignore that for now.)

Dwarves eat 8 times per year, and drink 18 times per year.

This translates into 25 kg per sitting of food (or 55 lbs of solid food per meal), plus nearly 39 liters of alcohol per drink (roughly 10.25 gallons per drink).  *ahem* CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!

[Shade-o]

That explains why it actually takes several days to eat and drink. It would look like a python slowly swallowing a cow.

And why they sleep for weeks.

[Beeskee]

That explains why it actually takes several days to eat and drink. It would look like a python slowly swallowing a cow.

And why they sleep for weeks.

Oh my god.. F'in hilarious. I guess we should count ourselves lucky that we get the BARREL back after they're finished drinking.