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[dirty foot]

I've been noticing a very large group of dwarfs constantly surrounding the two breweries I have going on. There's almost always about 50 of them there, with their little blue arrow pointing down (signifying they're thirsty), drinking their little hearts out. I've watched them, intently, because I noticed that they spend nearly half their waking hours just sitting there drinking (This is at least ten minutes in game time). Parallel to this, I was watching my super soldier go over and grab a drink from the well because he was really far from the brewery.

It took him about 3 seconds.

I'm thinking that if I sacrifice all the booze making and force them all to spend about 10,000 percent less time consuming a drink, it would make up for the lowered speed at which they all work. I'm also spending less people on making the crap and hauling it to the meeting hall. Add to that the fact that they apparently drink about 4 times a season, and it really starts to add up.

[Raging Mouse]

... If your dwarves go to the brewery to get their drinks, that usually means that you don't have a dedicated booze stockpile and / or the other food stockpiles are nonexistent or full. This leads to your still becoming cluttered by all that booze since nobody is removing the finished barrels, slowing down production. Since your dwarves all flock to the still, specifically the center square that keeps the booze, but only one at a time can act in a single square -the rest are queueing for their turn- of course this is slow.

To speed things up, designate a food stockpile to hold only booze [drink (plant), IIRC]. Also, your soldiers tend to drink from their waterskins. They just go to the well to fill them up.

[Ancre]

I heard that if your dwarves are forced to drink water for a long time they eventually start going crazy.

Though you could stop brewing and let them drink, and restart brewing once they're done drinking.

Or just see what happens in a fort without booze. For !!Science!!

[Gatleos]

Drinking water instead of booze won't make Dwarves crazy on its own, but it produces an unhappy thought which may contribute. In either case, Raging Mouse is right. If Dwarves are crowding around the still, you need more stockpiles.

[dirty foot]

... If your dwarves go to the brewery to get their drinks, that usually means that you don't have a dedicated booze stockpile and / or the other food stockpiles are nonexistent or full. This leads to your still becoming cluttered by all that booze since nobody is removing the finished barrels, slowing down production. Since your dwarves all flock to the still, specifically the center square that keeps the booze, but only one at a time can act in a single square -the rest are queueing for their turn- of course this is slow.

To speed things up, designate a food stockpile to hold only booze [drink (plant), IIRC]. Also, your soldiers tend to drink from their waterskins. They just go to the well to fill them up.

I should have clarified my statement. I call it the brewery, but it really is just two stills with a drink stockpile between them in the dining hall. I've made it as efficient as possible, but they just feel perfectly fine with standing there for what seems an eternity. I think I have about 50-60 squares dedicated to a drink stockpile. Personally, I feel like they spend too much time drinking.

It's almost like in The Sims in how some things are just proportionally WAY off in terms of how much time they spend doing it. Like, in The Sims, you character takes about an hour to poop, and another hour to shower, but it takes them 5 minutes to read an entire newspaper and find 3 jobs.

Drinking time should be lower. Much lower. It's a drink, not a 6 course meal with a 30 minute trained monkey show.

[Gatleos]

Personally, I feel like they spend too much time drinking.

GET. OUT.

Incidentally, are you in a scorching biome? I think Dwarves drink a lot more often in hotter climates, even when they're in the cold caverns. Also, are the individual Dwarves taking a long time to drink? Or is it just that there's always someone thirsty?

[Jeoshua]

Drinking time should be lower. Much lower. It's a drink, not a 6 course meal with a 30 minute trained monkey show.

This.

As it stands, dwarves take HOURS to drink anything.  True, they haven't had anything to drink for several days or months in DF's timescale, but it takes no time at all to wash up or fill a waterskin, yet hours to drink liquor.

[dirty foot]

Personally, I feel like they spend too much time drinking.

GET. OUT.

Incidentally, are you in a scorching biome? I think Dwarves drink a lot more often in hotter climates, even when they're in the cold caverns. Also, are the individual Dwarves taking a long time to drink? Or is it just that there's always someone thirsty?

lol, I feel you on that. Drinking is nice and all, but for dwarves, they're quite inefficient at it.

As for your questions: I'm in a pretty temperate environment; not too hot, not too cold. I know it's that they're individually drinking for too long (in my opinion) and not different people always there. I was watching my super soldier very closely for nearly a year in game time, and he would stop and drink forever before I made him a flask. While watching him, I noticed some other notable people that never left either. I think they just spend way too much time drinking. I don't know why they're coded to spend this much time.

[Jeoshua]

I think the reason they're coded to drink for so long is that, if you're paying attention to how the DF timescale works, they haven't drank anything for days or months.  If they were having to drink several times a day, they'd always be running back and forth from the booze to work, probably never getting to work and always drinking (even if the drinking process was instantaneous).

[darkflagrance]

Doesn't explain why wells are so instantaneous.

Even if you don't use a modded race that isn't alcohol dependent, alcohol is somewhat of a luxury. However, I don't think I've ever had a problem with significant lost productivity due to dwarves taking their time to enjoy their wine.

[dirty foot]

Doesn't explain why wells are so instantaneous.

Even if you don't use a modded race that isn't alcohol dependent, alcohol is somewhat of a luxury. However, I don't think I've ever had a problem with significant lost productivity due to dwarves taking their time to enjoy their wine.

I've noticed some serious downtime from dwarves drinking beer/wine/ale, I'm now just trying to figure out how much time I'd save by just forcing them to only drink water. If it's enough to make up for the decrease in productivity, then I'm dropping brewing like a bad habit.

My next target is going to be taking care of the "angry from long shift, angry from relief from duty" nonsense that happens at the same time with about 5% of my military. So far, I've just solved the problem by dropping them in magma. It's not worth keeping them around once they start that nonsense, because the problem is entirely cyclical until they go insane. Best to get rid of them before they get military training.

Nothing worse than a well-trained military dwarf that goes berserk.

[Jeoshua]

... especially when you could draft them into the engraver squad and give them something to do with their spare time.  If you tell a Dwarf to go off militia duty, and that turns him into a "Peasant", they get unhappy because they're not special anymore.  Likewise, if you tell a Dwarf to become militia, and they become a "Recruit" because they don't have a weapon skill of any value, they get unhappy too.

So really, dropping them in magma is probably the hardest way of dealing with it, and the least effective since they're dead, and when you draft the next militia member they'll be a "recruit", starting the cycle over.

Just crosstrain them, man!

So far you've stated that you don't want Dwarves to drink alcohol, and that militia members who don't like being off duty are magma'd.  Are you sure you want to play this game?

[Gatleos]

So far you've stated that you don't want Dwarves to drink alcohol, and that militia members who don't like being off duty are magma'd.  Are you sure you want to play this game?

Hey, he's solving his problems with magma; that's the first step.

[dirty foot]

... especially when you could draft them into the engraver squad and give them something to do with their spare time.  If you tell a Dwarf to go off militia duty, and that turns him into a "Peasant", they get unhappy because they're not special anymore.  Likewise, if you tell a Dwarf to become militia, and they become a "Recruit" because they don't have a weapon skill of any value, they get unhappy too.

So really, dropping them in magma is probably the hardest way of dealing with it, and the least effective since they're dead, and when you draft the next militia member they'll be a "recruit", starting the cycle over.

Just crosstrain them, man!

So far you've stated that you don't want Dwarves to drink alcohol, and that militia members who don't like being off duty are magma'd.  Are you sure you want to play this game?

I suppose everyone has their way of solving problems, lol.

When my dwarfs complain about something stupid (like aforementioned relief/patrol complaint), they get magma. When I get a mandate for something with items I can't possibly get without rending the world in half, the noble gets magma. If my puppet mayor with simple-to-please "likes" is put out office by a picky "chicken tooth liker," the coup starter gets magma. If my crossbowmen decide to bludgeon a master speargoblin when they have 25 copper bolts assigned to them, they get magma if they live through their stupid mistake.

Sometimes, if they really piss me off, they get to become naked spelunkers.

[CaptainArchmage]

Drinking from a well is actually faster, probably because dwarves want to get it over with as quickly as possible.

Non [ALCOHOL_DEPENDENT] races will drink booze and only booze as long as it is available.

Here's a megaproject for dealing with the time loss from booze drinking and the slow work from not having booze at the same time:

Make a burrow encompassing the entire fortress save for a designated drinking zone. Make another burrow containing the designated drinking zone. Add all dwarves to the fortress burrow. The fortress burrow does not contain any booze, only some wells. The drinking zone contains a booze storage area and breweries. Dwarves only start to work slowly after a while and you can actually check whether the lack of booze is starting to have an effect on them by looking at their thoughts (according to the wiki). When the lack of booze does cause a problem, add them to the drinking burrow so the next time they get thirsty, they will drink alcohol. Then remove them from the drinking burrow.