Print

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

[Giskard73]

I've hit a point where they just...won't...farm. It's become Dwarf Farm vs. Dwarf Fortress. I spend most of the time trying to keep them fed. I've got the farm plots wet, setup, everyone has farming and butchery skill and there are plenty of animals set to butcher and wells as well.

But they keep dying of thirst and stavation. They won't butcher the animals and won't farm. The fields actually dissappear which I haven't seen until now.

At this point I'm waiting for them to starve to death so I can hopefully reclaim the fortress.

An easier to use skill assignment process vs. having to single-scroll down each dwarf's skills would be nice too. I tried nicknaming them and assigning them specific tasks but it doesn't seem to help.

[Pacho]

You're probably losing the seeds somehow.  Remember not to cook the plants you can farm or their seeds.  You can't farm during the winter, so your farm plots will disappear when it hits.  Also, make sure you're setting the plots to grow plants that are allowed during that season.

Edit:  Remember to build a butchery and have it accessible to your dwarves.

[ July 04, 2007: Message edited by: Pacho ]

[Mechanoid]

Also make sure you have a stockpile large enough to hold the seeds (they do rot away and become useless) and that you are NOT cooking them (putting a repeat on cooking orders when seeds can be cooked is a VERY bad idea; let it go for too long and you'll have none left)

[Giskard73]

Thanks for the replies guys. I'm not cooking my Plump Helmet Spawns and have 200 of them. I don't even have a kitchen built, I just let them eat the plump helmet plants raw. (seeds are not allowed to be cooked)

The dogs run around loose is that an issue? I read on the wiki that the animals don't eat.

It's very weird. They just would not go into the fields to grow crops. They die of stupid things like thirst when I have 4 wells and extra buckets. I can't make wine because I barely get any plants for food. Everyone has butcher turned on and they all have access to the butcher shop.

[ July 04, 2007: Message edited by: Giskard73 ]

[ July 04, 2007: Message edited by: Giskard73 ]

[Pacho]

What Mechanoid said, make sure you have food stockpiles and that the seeds make it there.  I don't really know what to tell you if everything is being done though.  Maybe you got some weird buggy world or something.  Have you tried a new world after a new download?

[Eagleon]

Check to make sure you haven't locked any doors that could get in their way, especially the one to the fields. Happens surprisingly often.

[Grek]

quote:Originally posted by Giskard73:
<STRONG>They die of stupid things like thirst when I have 4 wells and extra buckets.</STRONG>

4 wells is enough to give 16 dwarfs water.

[Dreamer]

Butchering something requries the butcherable corpse to be near the butchery, so placing your butchery next to the refuse pile, or creating a specific stock pile near your butchery and turning corpses off in the refuse pile, will help with that problem.

At least, that was my problem until I figured it out.  Usually a butcher's shop won't touch a corpse outside of the fortress.

[Giskard73]

WOW great suggestions! I didn't think about placing the refuse pile near the butcher shop on the inside and customizing the pile. I need to look into customized piles more.

As for wells, I figured they could wait abit or drink in shifts. Do you really need 1 well for every 4 dwarves? I was up 75 at one time. That would be around 18 wells!

My last fortress almost starved because a tree grew up inside the door to my fields and I didn't realize they couldn't walk around it. The doors were open though. I think they started starving and just went downhill. I'm down to around 20 now, I'll build some more wells and hopefully food will stock up. I'll let the cats grow abit.

I think I need to cage or chain the loose animals and I read about chaining war dogs in key areas which is a good idea too.

[Shzar]

You don't need a well for every four dwarves. A well will satisfy four thirsty dwarves at a time, so there's no hard-and-fast rule for well supplies. My advice is that if you continually see dwarves drinking from one of the rivers, you should build more wells (duh).

[hactar1]

Did you have the farm working at any point?  You need to set the farm plots to a particular plant at the beginning of each season or else they will only wait for the plants from the previous season to grow.  Use the Q menu on the farm plot, then select which crop you want to plant.  The fields disappear every winter, and you need to re-muddy the fields and rebuild the plots when spring comes around.

Rather than starving over the winter, try gathering plants and butchering your livestock.  You can also still fish, but not from the outside river.  If you're feeling adventurous (and your countryside supports it), arm the hungry dwarves as best you can and go gang up on some poor beast.  Getting the corpse back to the stockpile for butchering is kinda tricky though... you need to turn on refuse gathering from outside.

[Captain Mayday]

Dear lord, I can barely imagine the danger that having 18 wells would put you in. How would you ever defend all of them sufficiently?

[TotalPigeon]

Lots of red ^. Lots and lots.

[Solara]

It sounds like you've got more than enough wells, the dwarves that died of thirst must have been for other reasons.  

Anyway, if I were you I'd quit bothering with water and just focus on getting your brewery up and running. I can't even remember the last time I built a well...they're a security hazard and they just get ignored in favor of booze anyway.

[Funkadelic Jive Turkey]

I've never found river monsters to be THAT dangerous. Last attack of 8-9 lizardmen got lured by a child straight into a long corridor with a marksdwarf and swordsmaster without me doing anything at all. End result: 9 dead lizardmen to 1 dead kitten