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[Urist McXenu]

Long time lurker, first time poster here.

Recently got back into DF properly and actually got stuff working (kinda)... but also seem to be having some problems too.

Current fortress seems to be suffering two major issues which I can see ending up in some kind of fun sometime soon:
1. Barrels, I can't seem to make enough. I read somewhere that splitting food stockpiles helps and that is definitely something I'll try retro in (And do in the future), but at the moment I got one everything-goes food and one booze-only (Which I recently tacked on). But I swear the gorram barrels my carpenter keeps making are vanishing somewhere. I can't see them in my only furniture stockpile, and the main food one is full.

2. Is there any point to specifying what item your military wears, or should it just be left as the generic "metal breastplate" etc.? Cause it seems my hapless fools have a tendency to ignore my wishes and shed clothing like they are some kind of free-love hippie elf (Which naturally has me concerned).

Overall, I'm glad I got back into DF and gave it a proper shot. Understanding the quantum miracle known as the garbage dump makes my fortress looks much cleaner and I've even decided to take after my booze-guzzling minions after I tried to give everyone their own bedrooms. That battle seems to never end, as I always seem to get new cannon fodder as soon as I get it updated (I know you dont *need* to, but I'm determined to do it anyway. And tombs too. Sucker, I is).

[NecroRebel]

1. You might want to set your reserved barrels up a bit. This is done in the stock(p)ile menu with */. If there are fewer empty barrels than the reserved barrel number, nothing will be stored in any new barrels that pop up, so jobs that require barrels (such as brewing) can use them. Also, at a craftsdwarf's workshop you can make rock pots that serve as food storage, just like barrels. Since stone tends to be more abundant than wood, that may help you increase production.

2. It's helpful if you want your dwarves to wear a specific material, especially if they've become attached to something. For instance, if you've got a lot of steel, telling your dwarves to wear steel armor specifically can help them get the right armaments faster.

[Jelle]

For barrel shortage there's one thing I like to do wich is limit the stockpile space for any type of food you really want. It doesn't matter if you're producing excess amounts because they'll just leave the stuff to rot instead of grabbing even more barrels.
So I usually set up these stockpiles 1. a Breweable plant stockpile 2. Anything that can be cooked stockpile 3. Booze stockpile 4. A prepared food stockpile.
This way you can manage precisely how much you want to stock without micromanaging your production and you willl only need to produce as much barrels as  the sum of all stockpiles need.
Obviously you'd start with small stockpiles at start and gradually increase the size as needed.

As for the armor using the generic metal armor outfit doesn't usually go wrong, dwarves will grab the best piece of equipment available to them.
It's mostly useful to specify wich they can have if you plan to make multiple squads with one squad needing better equipment then the other.
Say you want an elite vanguard equiped with spoilermetal and the rest of your military equiped with steel. If you'd just assign metal armor then the spoilermetal goes to first come first serve.

Also a bit of advice on bedrooms there's no need to assign dwarves to a bedroom. All you need to do is designate the room as a bedroom and a dwarf will claim it automatically eventually. Just incase you didn't know 

[Endiqua]

Try making rock pots from your craftsdwarf's workshop.

I have a furniture stockpile set up in my pantries for just empty barrels and pots.  When I notice it's looking a bit empty, I queue up 30 more pots or so.

I start out with one big food pile with seeds and drinks eliminated, one seeds pile, and one drinks pile.  I then create separate piles when I have time and space for plants, meat/cheese/eggs, leaves/fat and little drink piles around the fort, a big prepared food pile under or above the dining room.

I have found that I prefer making stockpiles big right from the beginning, rather than trying to enlarge later, but that's probably more of a personal preference thing.

Armor:  I use the default metal setup until I get enough leather and metal bars on hand to start making things like robes, cloaks, trousers, and hoods (leather) and can specify a material (like steel) for mail shirts, breastplates, leggings, etc.  I leave the default armor as "over clothing," but when I create my full armor setup, I set it to "replace clothing."  The military dwarves will drop clothing in both situations, I've found, but every dwarf gets 2 cabinets in their bedroom and they do put the clothes away eventually, given idle time.  If I see clothes on the floor in the bedroom, I add another cabinet.

There are several topics that talk about what to use for armor and how much you can equip, something like 3 mail shirts and 4 cloaks.  I don't really like going that route, personally, so what I do is:

mail shirt
breastplate
leather robe
leather cloak
metal leggings
leather trousers
metal helm
cap (metal or leather, whatever I have the most of)
leather hood
gauntlets
high boots
shield
weapon

It works well enough for me.

[Urist McXenu]

Shiny, thanks for the advice all

I dig that I dont need to assign individual bedrooms, it's just a quirk of their Supreme Overdorf. As it seems to help keep them in line (So far), I've been balancing going insane making rooms against the potental tantrum spirals from crappy dorm conditions. Past experience tells me to put dwarf happiness first, as I had my ever tantrum spiral while bored at work the other day (Totally my fault, was curious if you could make part of the mountain collapse. Yep, I succeeded ) and that was.... fun.

Currently kicking off a new embark on a different map and seems to be going OK so far... finding a distinct lack of fuel other than wood though. Good for us, bad for any passing elves I guess. As trying to find magma probably isn't a recommended course of action just yet, any tips on making trees grow back quickly?

Did not realise you could reserve barrels etc. for stockpiles, def going to give that a shot

[Garath]

download df hack and command the trees to grow?
breach a cavern, seal the breach and watch underground trees supplement your above ground ones?

i also have a stockpile for seeds, no barrels, for 2 reasons.

1: there is a bug that can destroy seeds if they are stored in a pot instead of a barrel

2:as your fort ages, you'll collect around 300 seeds of various kinds per year (if cheating a bit with the therapist, let your children become the farmers. Its pretty much the only thing they do, so they get to legendary VERY fast). You can sell them, for a shiny DD, but if stored in a barrel or pot you can only sell the whole barrel (unless i'm wrong, always an option). in their own seperate storage without barrels, they get stored in bags and you can pick through it at your leizure