Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[counting]

That is true... almost. It will increase the farmers count - and the number of farms - but the player efficiency need not be docked.

If you look at how the farming thing is laid out there's already the option for a field to be left fallow for a season automatically; upon farm creation, the entire pattern can be set up and then left behind by the player. However, as it is that function has literally no use. My idea gives it some function, is already almost implemented and in latter stages of a fort, when megaprojects begin, the fortress will likely already have a decent crop rotation setup anyway.

Another farming idea (Yes, I carry on with the farming idea, since it serves as a useful base) is to limit the sheer volume of seeds that are produced. After my fortress is a year old, the whole place gets swamped by a tidal wave of seeds that I furiously begin cooking solely so that I can make room in my stockpile for more seeds.

I like the crop rotation idea, but in history it was in fact used to increase the farm output (not the opposite). But it is a very important agriculture development in medieval, hence no reason not to introduce it in DF.

And the "seeds" in real life is just "uncooked" or crops that are not dried. So dwarfs already skip one many steps between harvest and stockpiles. In history there is a very important factor in measuring agriculture - crop yield. It's the ratio between the crops (seeds) planned and the crops produced. And there is a magic number of 1:3 in real life as a base line. (Modern genetic altered crops can have up to 1:30 yield). I guess DF can use similar mechanism to solve the seeds overflow. (By introducing the drying process, and letting the "seeds" to rot fast as they are in real life).   

Also some things left out in DF farming are natural fertilizers, and farming tools/animals. (But animals I guess they will be introduced later, a lot later I think). But natural fertilizers may be an interesting plan if designed properly. One of the reason behind rotation farming is originally what's left from the harvest in old crop field needs to rot on the ground, and provide nature fertilization. But in rotations they will use different crops which uses different kind of nutrient in different depth (root depth). Maybe it can be factored in with the synthetic fertilizers like the potash.

[Niccolo]

I like the crop rotation idea, but in history it was in fact used to increase the farm output (not the opposite). But it is a very important agriculture development in medieval, hence no reason not to introduce it in DF.

And the "seeds" in real life is just "uncooked" or crops that are not dried. So dwarfs already skip one many steps between harvest and stockpiles. In history there is a very important factor in measuring agriculture - crop yield. It's the ratio between the crops (seeds) planned and the crops produced. And there is a magic number of 1:3 in real life as a base line. (Modern genetic altered crops can have up to 1:30 yield). I guess DF can use similar mechanism to solve the seeds overflow. (By introducing the drying process, and letting the "seeds" to rot fast as they are in real life).   

Also some things left out in DF farming are natural fertilizers, and farming tools/animals. (But animals I guess they will be introduced later, a lot later I think). But natural fertilizers may be an interesting plan if designed properly. One of the reason behind rotation farming is originally what's left from the harvest in old crop field needs to rot on the ground, and provide nature fertilization. But in rotations they will use different crops which uses different kind of nutrient in different depth (root depth). Maybe it can be factored in with the synthetic fertilizers like the potash.

*Shrug* Fair enough. I'd like to see crop rotation brought into DF too - it bugs me when things exist that have practically zero purpose. Except lead goblets. Their purpose is to be sold to Elves and drive them crazy through lead poisoning..

Your natural fertiliser idea is a good one too; a certain percentage of the season's crops have to be sacrificed. That makes sense - and since we don't have clover growing (pre industrial revolution farmers grew clover or beans to fix nitrogen into the soil, not that they knew it was nitrogen) then rotting plant matter is a good option.

[G-Flex]

Your natural fertiliser idea is a good one too; a certain percentage of the season's crops have to be sacrificed. That makes sense - and since we don't have clover growing (pre industrial revolution farmers grew clover or beans to fix nitrogen into the soil, not that they knew it was nitrogen) then rotting plant matter is a good option.

You need more fertilizer than part of last season's crops. In fact, using previously-grown crops as fertilizer is ridiculous; why sacrifice crops to grow crops? The amount of fertilizer provided by a pound of corn crop is enough fertilizer for, er, another pound of corn crop, or (more likely) far less. You aren't going to magically get more nutrients from a crop than are necessary to grow that amount of crop in the first place.

Farming has been discussed to death in other threads and it probably isn't worth going through too much in this thread, but I will say that for underground farming, you need both a source of nutrients and a source of energy (you don't have the sun). Decaying organic matter makes sense (plants, animal remains, waste, mulch, whatever), for example, especially if we're talking fungus.

[counting]

So we can rotate the farm fields with dumping of dead corpses and animals, simply the dumpsters. That doesn't actually sound weird in DF for some reason

But it will be a farming efficiency boost, rather than a modifier though. I think it needs to be combined with the idea of "soul soil fertility" though. And not just any dumps can help. Certain pre-processes might be needed before turning wastes into fertilizers. (And not all is boost, it's easy to think some maybe toxic or no helping)

In real world, rotten planets are used since you actually needed some nutrient to feedback into field. And growing some intermediate planets. Since in real world not every harvests are perfect and every bit good worth collecting (each grains are different, and some crops are bad). But in game sense, I do agree it's a bit over complicated indeed.

However I still believe the seed problem remains to be corrected for its way too long shelf life.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

here's another one for you to lampshade next time

rotten planets

[JohnieRWilkins]

I believe that toady stated his ideas for making farming a giant nightmare somewhere and basically forcing players to buy food from the hilldwarves/trade caravans, unless the players want to dedicate 100% to the farming industry. That sounds like a reasonable way to buff sieges and maybe make cavern African trading posts clutch.

[Dae]

rotten planets

That sounds lovely. I heard they're quite scenic in the summer.

[Johuotar]

I believe that toady stated his ideas for making farming a giant nightmare somewhere and basically forcing players to buy food from the hilldwarves/trade caravans, unless the players want to dedicate 100% to the farming industry. That sounds like a reasonable way to buff sieges and maybe make cavern African trading posts clutch.

That could make thing a lot more Fun. A mean the current farming isn't too interesting feature, its just something you set to be done in first 15min and then forget about it.  That would make managing foodstocks a proper feature. Can't wait for hilldwarf stuff!

[counting]

I believe that toady stated his ideas for making farming a giant nightmare somewhere and basically forcing players to buy food from the hilldwarves/trade caravans, unless the players want to dedicate 100% to the farming industry. That sounds like a reasonable way to buff sieges and maybe make cavern African trading posts clutch.

One simply way of doing that is to introduce scalability. It makes entry hard and inefficient, and with rise of scale, the production output level will increase faster (margin rate) than the input capitals and manpower. It will naturally lead to monopoly in productions. But farming traditionally can only scale to certain level (due to the lack of machinery).

[irmo]

One simply way of doing that is to introduce scalability. It makes entry hard and inefficient, and with rise of scale, the production output level will increase faster (margin rate) than the input capitals and manpower. It will naturally lead to monopoly in productions. But farming traditionally can only scale to certain level (due to the lack of machinery).

How is this a "simple way"? In a simulation at this level of detail, you can't just magically turn on economies of scale. Which part of the (already absurdly efficient) crop-growing process gets more efficient in a specialized farming community?

[counting]

How is this a "simple way"? In a simulation at this level of detail, you can't just magically turn on economies of scale. Which part of the (already absurdly efficient) crop-growing process gets more efficient in a specialized farming community?

Scalability is not about absolute values, but the relative values. It's not increasing the current efficiency, but to differentiate the efficiency level between scale. In effect, the entry efficiency like if there's only 1 farmer, the efficiency will be much lower than current level (and probably limited the amount of fields 1 farmer can effectively taken care of). And with the growing of farming labors and capitals invested (tools, farm fields, fertilizers), the efficiency can slowly increased to current level or beyond. THAT's the definition of scalability. Only specialized agriculture society will be able to make a profit out of it, and the level of sustaining a community itself will require a large portion of the populations/industry capability. Those only choose small farmer populations will have to import foods. (Or completely dependent on importing food or hunting)

[irmo]

And with the growing of farming labors and capitals invested (tools, farm fields, fertilizers), the efficiency can slowly increased to current level or beyond. THAT's the definition of scalability.

I'm aware of the definition, thank you.

Only specialized agriculture society will be able to make a profit out of it, and the level of sustaining a community itself will require a large portion of the populations/industry capability. Those only choose small farmer populations will have to import foods. (Or completely dependent on importing food or hunting)

In case you haven't tried this: download Dwarf Fortress, create a world, start fortress mode, and build a farm on a patch of muddy ground. You will make a profit. It's almost impossible not to. So how can this be changed so that "farming capital" and specialization actually matter? Right now there's no place where "scalability" can change anything--each additional square of farm plot is exactly as productive as the first one, and the labor input is small enough to be irrelevant.

[PTTG??]

Make it so that all fields need to be either "wet" (within 5 tiles of water, the way that shrubs react to rivers), manually irrigated with buckets, or else muddy. A dry tile will produce less crop more slowly.

What's more, make farming a full time job. every farm tile will need to be "tended" at least twice while it's growing. Failure to tend will result in the crop failing.

You will thus need a large investiture in water moving equipment and in semi-skilled farming labor, including full-time farmers.

Also, we need scythes. I could totally see some random human farmer beheading a dragon with a scythe in legends mode.

[Rockphed]

At some point dwarves are going to be able to carry multiple small things in their hands, yes?  I figure at that point toady will consider making dwarves gather up a significant amount of food to eat at once.  Until then, having dwarves eat a proper amount of food is too hard to manage.

[eux0r]

this issue will solve itself once the farming overhaul (thats already on toadys list) makes it more realistic: then a farm will naturally need more space and labour to produce a lot of _small_ items, not a little bit of space and a low amount of labour to produce a lot of _big_ items.
i dont think we need to throw suggestions on the specifics around in here any more, theres the suggestion forum for that, and pretty much anything said here is probably already there and i guess toady will check there and think things over together with threetoe once he gets to it himself.

but theres the issue of what rockphed said and i think its a legitimate question, so ill green it:

At some point dwarves are going to be able to carry multiple small things in their hands, yes?  I figure at that point toady will consider making dwarves gather up a significant amount of food to eat at once.  Until then, having dwarves eat a proper amount of food is too hard to manage.