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[KojaK]

So I ran a few numbers...

The time to plant any seed is approximately 100 steps.

You can grow 13.44 plump helmets per year (rounds off to just 13- growers don't cycle through years according to the wiki). This means that per season, if plants grow in stacks of one, one farm tile will produce 3.36 plump helmets. Since a dwarf will eat 2 of something per season, and drink 4 of something per season, this means one farm plot can produce enough to sustain a dwarf for exactly one season, leaving one unit of booze left over.

So at the bare minimum, you should have one farm plot for each dwarf in your fortress, if you have unskilled growers and are growing only plump helmets.

Meaning, for a fortress 200 strong, you need four farm plots of the maximum size possible.

However, with legendary growers, the average stack size is roughly 4. This means that each farm tile can support roughly 4 dwarfs. So for a fortress 200 strong, you need only one farm of the maximum size.

Quarry bushes are a different matter. One tile can produce 6 quarry bushes a year, 2 per season. Thus, if they grow in stacks of one, you get enough to support 5 dwarfs a season. However, quarry bushes don't grow during the winter. You can either grow plump helmets during this time, or you can grow all you need during the other seasons.

As it turns out, with legendary growers churning out quarry bushes, you can meet your entire fortress's food needs with 13.3 farm plots growing quarry bushes at 4 stacks each time, in a year. So if you had a 14-tile farm plot and a legendary grower, you can meet the food needs of a fortress 200 strong indefinitely. (to meet booze needs, a 13-tile year-round farm growing plump helmets will work, provided your dwarfs didn't eat the plump helmets)


Don't give me that look. I was bored. <>.<>

[Lemunde]

Something about the math doesn't add up.  Um...no pun intended.  I don't really know how all the calculations work but I do know I've been able to sustain a population of 40 to 50 dwarves with pretty meager farm plots.  This includes booze production.  I think the thing is that plants don't grow in stacks of 1, at least from what I've seen.  Of course most of my farms are surface plots so the rules might be different.  But in 40d I'd have underground plots which when added up measured around 4x6 in size and it didn't take long at all to start seeing stuff rotting on the vine.

I do know that most surface crops grow in stacks of around five.  Every once in a while I'll get buzzards flying around and start seeing messages like "buzzard has stolen wild strawberries(5)".

[KojaK]

I dunno how fast surface plants grow... I was just comparing the underground plants.

The wiki says that plump helmets grow in 25 days... which equals 30000 steps. And 'other' plants grow in 42 days, which 50400 steps. It was just a matter of figuring out how many plants one tile could produce over a period of time, then multiplying that by stacks of whatever. Nothing really crazy.

I have noticed that aboveground plants grow incredibly fast.

But, this is all based entirely on luck. A legendary grower can produce a huge lucky string of stacks of 6, or there's a chance nothing will grow at all, as the wiki says.

I was just doing a few bits of math here and there to see what a good sized farm plot is. I currently have four 50 tile plots. I leave two unused at all times. I've always had issues with overproducing food, and I've seen a few other comments about making way too much food... so yeah.

But if you know anything about the specifics of it, please, let me know. I'm always open to being dead wrong.

^.^

[Lemunde]

I've never actually noticed a planted crop not producing anything at all.  I guess the thing is you really have to go out of your way to get a fortress going with unskilled farmers.  Anything above dabbling seems to be enough to keep farms going without too much hassle and migrant waves almost always seem to have one or two farmers in them.  But having larger stacks produced by skilled farmers does explain why food production becomes overly excessive after the first couple of years.

Like I said, I don't know the particulars.  I just know that it doesn't take much to get my farms going.  Hell, I don't even embark with any seeds or plants, just meat.  After I get my food stockpile going I set a dwarf to gather plants and use the seeds from those to grow my crops.  It starts off a little slow but it picks up real fast.  Perhaps you should experiment with surface crops on your next fortress.

[Reese]

OK, I think I see what you're saying here.

1 farm tile can do ~13 cycles of growing in a year, and since a unskilled planter can produce stacks of 0 regularly, this ends up being about 3x plump helmet [1].

brew one makes one barrel of 5 booze, a dwarf drinks 4 booze and eats two plump helmet in a year

then your math breaks down, because you use the average plump helmets from an unskilled grower (3) instead of the average cycles (13) to multiply the average produce from a legendary grower (4)

so one square tended by a legendary farmer would produce an average of 52 plump helmets, brew 15 gives you 37 plump helmets and 75 booze, which is enough to support 18 dwarfs, not 4

given that, a 5x5 farm plot diligently attended by a legendary grower should provide enough plump helmets to feed and booze 450 dwarfs

[Lemunde]

Now THAT seems a little more in tune with what I've been seeing.  Another thing to consider is skill progression.  I'm pretty sure any dwarf can reach at least novice in farming by the end of the first year, probably higher.  That means the math is only reliable for a very short amount of time.  In fact in every skill I've seen, an unskilled dwarf will reach dabbling almost instantly after their first task has been completed.  That means as soon as they finish planting that first seed they're no longer unskilled.

To be honest I've never paid too much attention to how fast my farmers gain skill so this is mostly assumptions based from what I've seen in other industries.  Farming is an industry I like to get going early on and forget about the rest of the game.  I don't think I've seen a legendary farmer yet in the .3x versions.  I think the only legendary dwarves I've gotten from labor alone are engravers.

[Gilgameshclone]

I'm with Reese on this one, In my experience a legendary grower can feed about 4 fortresses, at the high end the only limit i see to food production is barrel production.  Not that it even matters in 2010 since all you have to do is slaughter one elephant and you're set for a decade.

[KojaK]

OK, I think I see what you're saying here.

1 farm tile can do ~13 cycles of growing in a year, and since a unskilled planter can produce stacks of 0 regularly, this ends up being about 3x plump helmet [1].

brew one makes one barrel of 5 booze, a dwarf drinks 4 booze and eats two plump helmet in a year

then your math breaks down, because you use the average plump helmets from an unskilled grower (3) instead of the average cycles (13) to multiply the average produce from a legendary grower (4)

so one square tended by a legendary farmer would produce an average of 52 plump helmets, brew 15 gives you 37 plump helmets and 75 booze, which is enough to support 18 dwarfs, not 4

given that, a 5x5 farm plot diligently attended by a legendary grower should provide enough plump helmets to feed and booze 450 dwarfs

Actually I'm not taking into account any loss in plump helmets. Just the bare minimum which is a stack of one. So 13 cycles a year producing a stack of one each time. This ends up being roughly 3 per season, so eat two brew one, there you go.

Also, I read that they consume 2 food and 4 booze per season, so I mulitplied it by 4 to get per year.

If I'm wrong, please let me know.

[Dorf3000]

Farming is an industry I like to get going early on and forget about the rest of the game.  I don't think I've seen a legendary farmer yet in the .3x versions.  I think the only legendary dwarves I've gotten from labor alone are engravers.

Whaaaaaaaat?!  I get legendary growers all the time.  My starting farmer is already legendary +5.  Do you not turn off harvesting for all dwarves? ('o' screen).  Half the time I get immigrants with farming skill, I turn it off because I don't need more than a handful of farmers.  I have more prepared meals than I can get rid of, and I run out of barrels for booze before I run out of ingredients.  I have 36 farm tiles (some fallow in winter, some producing dimple cups) and it's way more than enough for 75 dwarves.

[Reese]

hmm...

magmawiki has it at 8-9 food a year and 18 booze a year (looking at the 40d articles, that is; the 31.xx articles do not list consumption rates, which may be different.)

I've never had trouble growing enough food using underground plants only, but I also have never maintained a fort with a population greater than 100 or so, and usually have a second or third 5x5 farm plot up for production of cave wheat, sweet pods, pig tails, and so on for variety and for other industries.
(and I always buy all the booze available off the filthy elves, because they don't deserve to so much as carry it, let alone appreciate it.)

[Avaline]

Well that explains why I get so overloaded with my farms.  5x5 plots of every plant in the game, over and underground.  Also, I tend to give my starting dwarves no skills at all and farming ends up being my third legendary (mining first, stonecraft second). 

I guess the most efficient option is to just to have small plots so that all those blasted plants don't clog up the haulers/barrels.

[Zaik]

I always have way too many farmers, i just dunno what to do with them after i get so many dudes.

even cramming a bunch in the military, i'll have tons of guys just idling or whatever. I usually try throwing a bunch of magma smelters up, but all those jobs going on lag the crap out of me.

[JAFANZ]

hmm...

magmawiki has it at 8-9 food a year and 18 booze a year (looking at the 40d articles, that is; the 31.xx articles do not list consumption rates, which may be different.)

Actually, the "Starting Builds" page (http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Starting_build) lists ~=(((2 food + 4 drinks)/dwarf)/season) & ~=(((14 food + 28 drinks)/7 dorfs)/season) in the sections (both of them) tagged "Items".

[Valkyrie]

Reese's numbers 'feel' much more accurate to me, too.  In mature forts with ~80-100 dwarves, usually one 3x3 plot is enough to keep my food supplies bountiful - though with a few caveats: it's usually growing sweet pods or quarry bushes for at least one season, and I tend to import some degree of booze (surface-plant-based from humans/elves), but my main export is roasts.  That messes with the math, but even so, it leads me to believe a 3x3 with skilled growers can to support 100 dwarves rather easily.

In a couple forts, I've experimented with 1x3 or 2x3, but there I usually wind up needing to activate another field periodically to supply drink-fodder.  I suspect that's largely because of my imprecise balance of materials used in roasts versus drinks, but it might just simply be too little plant matter, period.

[Khift]

In fact in every skill I've seen, an unskilled dwarf will reach dabbling almost instantly after their first task has been completed.

Sidenote: Dabbling is mechanically identical to unnskilled; they're both level 0. Dabbling only lets you know that the dwarf in question has some experience points in the skill but not enough to move up to level 1 (novice) yet.