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Author Topic: Why arent they farming?  (Read 756 times)

PringleMan5

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Why arent they farming?
« on: October 04, 2010, 09:55:56 pm »

Ok so I made muddy ground by accidentally breaching a pool. I turned fun into win and just converted the area into a farm.

Anyways I laid down a farm plot. The entire plot is not on muddy ground, but maybe 80% of it is. Certainly worth at least 9 or 10 tiles of farm.

I set it for plump helmets all year round, and...the farmers did nothing.

Understand I have gotten a total about about 6 farmers through immigrants, so I thought it odd that none of them were doing anything with the farm that I had designated. So I took a look at what they were doing. At the time they were moving rocks from the living level to my giant stone stockpile I built in a loam level so that I would not just dig out more stone. The stocks tell me that I have like 2000 stone already, and for a new fortress that is already far more than I need. But I digress.

Seeing that they were just hauling, I found the most competent farmer and told him to only A) Farm fields and B) Haul food and items. I figured if I set him so that his only real job was to move food and farm, he would farm.

So far he has not done anything still. I checked the ground the farm is build on and it is still muddy. I checked through my food pile stocks and I do in fact have plump helmet spawns. But the dwarf is still walking around not doing jack.

Am I supposed to wait for another season to start before they begin? Should I just re-irrigate it once I get some flowing water again (it is all frozen right now)?
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proxn_punkd

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Re: Why arent they farming?
« Reply #1 on: October 04, 2010, 09:59:00 pm »

I've had that problem. Farm plots have to be on 100% muddy ground or they won't work.
« Last Edit: October 04, 2010, 10:01:26 pm by proxn_punkd »
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PringleMan5

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Re: Why arent they farming?
« Reply #2 on: October 04, 2010, 10:04:56 pm »

alrighty, I wish that would be slightly more well documented, though perhaps I just did not read it when I was learning some of the changes on the wiki.

By the way, is there a way to melt water. I dont think the wilderness around my fortress can support me for much longer and the closest water that is not frozen over is 20 levels down in the carverns. I definitely do not have the time to make a pump stack, even a manual one.
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BigJake

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Re: Why arent they farming?
« Reply #3 on: October 04, 2010, 10:07:33 pm »

alrighty, I wish that would be slightly more well documented, though perhaps I just did not read it when I was learning some of the changes on the wiki.

By the way, is there a way to melt water. I dont think the wilderness around my fortress can support me for much longer and the closest water that is not frozen over is 20 levels down in the carverns. I definitely do not have the time to make a pump stack, even a manual one.

Just magma.  Best bet would be to gather plants and make some booze.
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PringleMan5

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Re: Why arent they farming?
« Reply #4 on: October 04, 2010, 10:31:25 pm »

Yea thats what it is looking like I am going to have to do for the next two seasons.

Hey on a side note, does anyone know why my fortress is becoming infested with shrubs and small trees? Is just because I have not put down a finished floor?
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NKDietrich

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Re: Why arent they farming?
« Reply #5 on: October 04, 2010, 10:39:19 pm »

I've had a similar issue. I had a farm on mostly, but not entirely muddy ground. They'd farm the first 3 tiles or so, but when they hit the first non-muddy spot, they just ignored the rest of the plot instead of just going to the next valid spot.
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PringleMan5

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Re: Why arent they farming?
« Reply #6 on: October 04, 2010, 10:42:31 pm »

Maybe an easy solution is to just designate 1 or 2 tile farms and skip over the non-muddy ones?

Again I would probably flood the whole thing again but I do not really have much water to work with as it is.
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pushy

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Re: Why arent they farming?
« Reply #7 on: October 05, 2010, 12:08:10 am »

Hey on a side note, does anyone know why my fortress is becoming infested with shrubs and small trees? Is just because I have not put down a finished floor?
Possibility #1: Your fortress is outside (but if you had to ask then that'd be silly :P)
Possibility #2: You've breached the caverns and your fortress is either in a soil layer or muddy rock. Put down floors or smooth the rock if you don't want stuff growing there (in high-traffic areas it's less of an issue; dwarves and pets will trample saplings and kill them before they can grow into trees that will block the path) - putting down a floor will get rid of the mud (I think?) and whether it's a built floor tile or a smoothed floor tile, dwarves will clean the tile (eventually) if it gets muddy or covered in blood or whatever in the future :) But do NOT smooth floor tiles where you're placing farm plots - reports on the forum suggest that if you do so then dwarves will clean your farms periodically and you'll have to re-irrigate them every year (or was it every season?) to keep them running because the cleaning process gets rid of the mud that's needed for the underground farm.
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Quote from: Tim Edwards, PC Gamer UK
There are three things I know about dwarves:
1. They've got beards. Even the women.
2. They're short. Especially the women.
3. They're Scottish.

BigJake

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Re: Why arent they farming?
« Reply #8 on: October 05, 2010, 12:19:48 am »

You could also mine out the area under it.  Unless irrigated, underground trees need a full tile of soil under them.
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PringleMan5

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Re: Why arent they farming?
« Reply #9 on: October 05, 2010, 10:40:09 am »

I think in that case it was breaching the caverns, as I did reach down to the caverns with my central shaft, though I did not actually open into the caverns. I DID place an up/down stair that would have gone down into the cavern, but the next level down was water. Maybe the stair just opened a hole in the ceiling of the floor below?

Another possibility is that the only real bit of water I ever got access to left a large opening in the ceiling so maybe seeds were getting blown in or something.

Anyways it does not really matter now. Since I had no water source and the fools did not understand the concept of "Get booze from barrel, go to dining room next door and drink" they decided to throw a party and have some FUN. That fortress is not really viable anymore >_<
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