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[monk12]

Presumably that is because making the fortress not be self sufficient without the ability to survive from Caravans would be counter productive.

In a nutshell. I know mineral stuff is explicitly on the release cycle, and he's talked about a farming rewrite at some point in the (relatively for DF) not-too-distant future. NW_Kohaku has a nice thread about that in the Suggestions forum someplace.

[Neonivek]

Unfortunately from everything I know of the farming rewrite it is more about making farming a more time consuming process rather then making it less efficiant.

[Organum]

Making it take longer does effectually make it less efficient, if efficiency can be taken as "produce/time".

[counting]

Presumably that is because making the fortress not be self sufficient without the ability to survive from Caravans would be counter productive.

Trade and Caravans? (TEXT WALL!  , not really)

I think there is not just YES/NO in the field of self sufficient. I think it's a level of differences. A fortress can just be self sufficient to a certain level. Unless its in the center of the trade, like the capital. And those who don't rely on trade can not go beyond certain limit with small population and less effective. And the farming output rate will be linked with how long food can be preserved and how long a trade cycle may take. Hence in a way it's making a certain level of "combined" dwarf populations and resources/productions to determine the strength of dwarven kingdoms, and caravans should be the link between them. Or you can build a self-sustain kingdom that just limited to local small area, but it will develop slowly as in populations and productions via in slow increases. (On the contracts that trading empires can stretch far and wide via trading quickly, but also suffering the vulnerabilities)

[monk12]

True, there will always be the ability for a fortress to be "self-sufficient," in that it can produce food indefinitely and cut itself off from the outside world- as the Caravan Arc progresses (and the Army Arc as well, I wager) there will be more and more of a tradeoff for doing so- you won't be able to import the nice things you can't make locally, which means your dwarves aren't as happy, you are more susceptible to disruptions to your food supply, you can't maintain as many nobles, etc.

[counting]

Dwarfs are super farmers up to the level of modern mechanized agriculture. Only so little farmers can sustain such large proportion of specialized craftsmen and noblemen, also the military. (40 dwarfs in an army of a 100+ fortress, even if the woman dwarfs are equal, it's an outrageous rate). In real life it's like less than 1% of specialized experts, less than 10% in concentrate population areas (even less if only counts city level), and most populations are farmers/hand-craftsmen lived in small villages in medieval time.

DF is exact opposite to it, 90% experts and less than 10% farmers, and how little lands it requires. And although I know its impossible to make DF a farming centered simulation or it will be boring as hell, but this did contribute a lot about how self-sufficiency existed. (Imagine a 20-80 ratio, then you just can not have enough specialists to sustain your fortress with 100 pop, let alone dozens. Dwarfs will have to be full time farmers and part time craftsmen).

[JimiD]

If farming needed more people, then I might have go chose between stone crafts and clothing, or woodworking or metal industry, rather than having it all.

If it's unclear, I think this would be a good thing.  It would stop mature forts being all the same. 

As for Toady trying to please all players, I had the reverse impression, that ge does whatever he wants, and maybe puts in an init option for the odd serious issue.

[Dsarker]

I think he does it both ways. He's doing it for himself, but he's willing to listen to suggestions people have.

[Ethicalfive]

I'm surprised that constructed walls cannot be engraved. Countless ancient civ's could clearly build stone walls, smooth them(even to the point where a wall looked like a singular peice of stone) and set engravers to work on decorating the surface. I also like an above suggestion that engraved walls should also be able to be taken back to a smoothed surface for engraving something else.

Building natural rock and hiding the area behind it, apart from satifying the OCD inflicted among us, seems like an odd proposal to me. How does one build natural rock formations(apart from pouring magma and water in there) and then forget what was behind it?

[Caldfir]

The real problem with farming in DF right now is that dwarves don't eat enough in dwarf mode.  If you actually look at the quantities of food produced, it makes sense for the given time (in dorf-days) required to produce.  The problem is that your average dwarf goes a month or so before getting hungry.  This is a limitation of the simulation.  Obviously, if dwarves ate daily, they would never leave the dining hall, so another solution needs to be implemented.  Possible alternatives to fix this include:

• slowing food production to match food consumption (not my favorite because it makes the simulation less realistic, not more)
• making dwarves eat more often (again, for reasons above, can only go so far)
• make dwarves eat more things during each meal (dwarves grab X food and Y drink, sit down for meal)
• dwarves carry food around and eat from their private supply (like soldiers from a backpack)
• ??

Whatever happens, I look forward to farming actually being something that matters, because my current forts can survive off the bodies of immigrant cats, and something about that makes no sense at all. 

[zwei]

I like to pretend that each farm plot represents village that supplies fort and dwarf with farmer labor is its overseer.

[Neonivek]

Dwarfs are super farmers up to the level of modern mechanized agriculture

Actually Dwarves are even better then that.

The ONLY thing that gets close to comparing is hydroponics which is extremely expencive.

Then again Humans arn't all that inefficiant either. You even been in those Farm houses? Each farm plot is feeding a family of twelve.

[counting]

I like to pretend that each farm plot represents village that supplies fort and dwarf with farmer labor is its overseer.

So each dwarf fortress has its own miniaturized farming villages underground, and magical shrinking/expending machines to turn miniaturized crops back to normal size. That makes a lot of sense right now.

And it is wrong that each dwarf fortress is isolated during siege. In fact if they want, they can all shrinking into their miniaturized villager land when things get FUN.

[Neonivek]

Well ok to be fair another aspect is how little dwarves actually need to eat.

Could you imagine a single turnip, a single strawberry, or even a cookie filling you for an entire meal?

[Areyar]

Farming fixes

If dwarfs eat more often, then time needs to be slowed down, which would be frustrating to megaproject builders.
I would like it if we'd be needing big stocks of seed, in order to sow larger fields.

edit:

Well ok to be fair another aspect is how little dwarves actually need to eat.

Could you imagine a single turnip, a single strawberry, or even a cookie filling you for an entire meal?

then again, they also need a barrel of beer.



also: yay at vertical selection!