Poor soil is only poor soil for underground crops. It's perfectly fine for aboveground crops. I always dig in a "greenhouse" (#7 above) if there is any native flora in my embark I can put to use. The yields will be at least 2x as good as for underground crops until you get farming going in the caverns or irrigate some rock farms (which can take seasons, or longer if nasty aquifers to pass through.) Also, aboveground crops (for whatever reason) can be farmed year round. Unless I am embarking on a biome with no native flora, I bring a 5 skill herbalist as that's more efficient that a 5-skill planter at the start (which is when it's more critical.) I live of gathered crops while I skill up a farmer or two growing plants for fabric usually.
Nasty aquafiers actually are great for setting up farms because you don't need to bring water by hand all the time. The only real problem they introduce is that upper level aquafier will leak into open space on level below. All other thing like leaking walls easiely done with by just building brick walls.
regarding seeds in barrels also, i found toggling the option to not store similar seeds in containers acheived the effect of keeping a single type of seed in it.
This stuff is all true, but the only strictly *necessary* tip is to disable "everyone harvests" and set dedicated farmers. I start my forts with two dedicated farmers and three 2x5 farm plots on dry subterranean soil, and by the time I hit ~160 dwarves I've usually only added two more plots for variety and three more farmers. Legendary farmers produce an absurd quantity of plants and seed. Then again, I also always embark with four turkey hens (eggs), sheep (milk and cheese), and dogs (sorry doggies) so my kitchens don't need to rely on plants at all.
I routed the drainage from my tavern mist generator to a wide open area and made a huge farming area in a few minutes. It was much faster than using buckets.
Yeah, buckets are really your last resort kind of thing, when you really don't want to re-route water for whatever reasons. Cause irrigating via bucket is really the slowest available option afaik
Yes you are. Basically only the kitchen is destroying seeds. All other refining processes retain the seeds. Community please correct me if I overlook something here ^^
if you irrigate soil to get mud i only get a little bit of mud and soil still says poor. do you have to irrigated multiple times do you get more mud and have better soil?
No, the tiniest splattering of mad is enough to put a farm plot on top of it. As long as it's muddied stone ground, the amount of mud is irrelevant for the farm output.
One more tip you missed: surface farms are up to 15x less efficient than underground farms. You need them to be MUCH bigger if you want to sustain a fort with them.
There's 3 levels of soil quality, bad = soil layers, normal = muded stone, best = soil in the caverns. Also you can have a cavern soil growing surface crops.
I've had many issues with kitchen workers doing dumb decisions in which ingredients to use when storing food ingredients in barrels. I prefer to just have large stockpiles set to zero barrels
I'm still rather new but able to hold my own. A "Proficient" player that lived off wiki and advices. The purpose of farming to me is either a brewery or for textiles. That's it and fertilizing them is a waste. I started off with a 8x20 farm plot of poor soil exclusively for plump helmets year round. With 2 (dedicated) brewers and an over-employment of planters, I manage to be very stable with alcohol until 100 pop i think when I realized my alcohol stocks were dangerously low. Food? Embarked with the milk-cheese strat, insignificant amount of livestock and requesting milk/cheese a lot. Mainly milk since they bring plenty of cheese regularly. Hunters were pretty unreliable to me other than training a future marksdwarf. Idk what cooking will do to my food stocks (decrease quantity for quality or increase both, im not sure) and that there's no need to bother with it, so no cooking at all until everything overflowed.
My bins and barrels don't get to where they're supposed to be, once maid they stay at the carpenter's... I always increase the number of bins or barrels in the stockpiles, but rarely I get the result I want
10:27 Barrels in seed stockpiles shouldn't be a problem anymore according to salfordsal on Kitfox stream (Understanding Dwarf Fortress: Food, Brewing and Farming th-cam.com/video/zPuhMXWnNlk/w-d-xo.html , after 2:02:00) at least for the reason of dwarves preventing others from using the barrel. You might still want to do this if you want to sell specific seeds to traders.
@@Ic0nGaming How do I prevent it from happening. My dwarves never get rid of food stuff in the workshops. I have enough spaces, barrels, pots. Even tried dedicated storage and haulers
@@walli6388 couple things: 1. Rotting items will never produce miasma at all if they rot while on a tile that is currently or has ever been exposed to sunlight. 2. Make sure you have enough spare containers (barrels or large clay pots) 3. Make sure you have a stockpile configured to accept that item with empty space For more specific advice we would need to know exactly which items you're having problems getting hauled.
1:16 in I understand why even with my massive farm plots I am constantly running out of food. Stupid newb farmers slowing down the harvest and lowering the yield >:(
![ค้างคืนโรงเก็บกระสวยอวกาศร้างกลางทะเลทราย [Around The World Ep. 3]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/E5bWZQhABJE/mqdefault.jpg)
Poor soil is only poor soil for underground crops. It's perfectly fine for aboveground crops. I always dig in a "greenhouse" (#7 above) if there is any native flora in my embark I can put to use. The yields will be at least 2x as good as for underground crops until you get farming going in the caverns or irrigate some rock farms (which can take seasons, or longer if nasty aquifers to pass through.) Also, aboveground crops (for whatever reason) can be farmed year round. Unless I am embarking on a biome with no native flora, I bring a 5 skill herbalist as that's more efficient that a 5-skill planter at the start (which is when it's more critical.) I live of gathered crops while I skill up a farmer or two growing plants for fabric usually.
Nasty aquafiers actually are great for setting up farms because you don't need to bring water by hand all the time. The only real problem they introduce is that upper level aquafier will leak into open space on level below. All other thing like leaking walls easiely done with by just building brick walls.
regarding seeds in barrels also, i found toggling the option to not store similar seeds in containers acheived the effect of keeping a single type of seed in it.
Sweet! Thanks for sharing, this is indeed cool =)
This stuff is all true, but the only strictly *necessary* tip is to disable "everyone harvests" and set dedicated farmers. I start my forts with two dedicated farmers and three 2x5 farm plots on dry subterranean soil, and by the time I hit ~160 dwarves I've usually only added two more plots for variety and three more farmers. Legendary farmers produce an absurd quantity of plants and seed. Then again, I also always embark with four turkey hens (eggs), sheep (milk and cheese), and dogs (sorry doggies) so my kitchens don't need to rely on plants at all.
That's why I put the very important things up front on the list ^^
I'm new to the game thank you for this! I'm going to have to try it out!
I routed the drainage from my tavern mist generator to a wide open area and made a huge farming area in a few minutes. It was much faster than using buckets.
Yeah, buckets are really your last resort kind of thing, when you really don't want to re-route water for whatever reasons. Cause irrigating via bucket is really the slowest available option afaik
Am I right that millable plants such as cave wheat will yield seeds when milled?
Yes you are. Basically only the kitchen is destroying seeds. All other refining processes retain the seeds. Community please correct me if I overlook something here ^^
I love your videos bro, excelent work
Is there anything in the game that reports crop yield? (Any addon that does this?)
if you irrigate soil to get mud i only get a little bit of mud and soil still says poor. do you have to irrigated multiple times do you get more mud and have better soil?
No, the tiniest splattering of mad is enough to put a farm plot on top of it. As long as it's muddied stone ground, the amount of mud is irrelevant for the farm output.
Just what I need. Thank you.
One more tip you missed: surface farms are up to 15x less efficient than underground farms. You need them to be MUCH bigger if you want to sustain a fort with them.
Thanks, that's awesome to know! I never tried to rely on surface crops alone, so it's a great heads up =)
That's great to hear! I've always wanted farming to be harder.
Does the thickness of the mud have any effect on fertility?
No, tiniest speck of mud is enough to build a farm which will suffice. More mud won't make the farm better.
So does cavern refer to the actual floor of the cavern or just any underground wetted rock tile?
The latter. You can make fertile soil in any rocky layer by muddying it with some water.
There's 3 levels of soil quality, bad = soil layers, normal = muded stone, best = soil in the caverns. Also you can have a cavern soil growing surface crops.
@@merephet3377 That's what I thought, but I also thought that for surface crops the soil layers did not have a quality penalty.
My cavern floor dried up and i could plant anymore pn the farm plot above
I've had many issues with kitchen workers doing dumb decisions in which ingredients to use when storing food ingredients in barrels. I prefer to just have large stockpiles set to zero barrels
I'm still rather new but able to hold my own. A "Proficient" player that lived off wiki and advices.
The purpose of farming to me is either a brewery or for textiles. That's it and fertilizing them is a waste.
I started off with a 8x20 farm plot of poor soil exclusively for plump helmets year round. With 2 (dedicated) brewers and an over-employment of planters, I manage to be very stable with alcohol until 100 pop i think when I realized my alcohol stocks were dangerously low.
Food? Embarked with the milk-cheese strat, insignificant amount of livestock and requesting milk/cheese a lot. Mainly milk since they bring plenty of cheese regularly.
Hunters were pretty unreliable to me other than training a future marksdwarf.
Idk what cooking will do to my food stocks (decrease quantity for quality or increase both, im not sure) and that there's no need to bother with it, so no cooking at all until everything overflowed.
My bins and barrels don't get to where they're supposed to be, once maid they stay at the carpenter's... I always increase the number of bins or barrels in the stockpiles, but rarely I get the result I want
10:27 Barrels in seed stockpiles shouldn't be a problem anymore according to salfordsal on Kitfox stream (Understanding Dwarf Fortress: Food, Brewing and Farming th-cam.com/video/zPuhMXWnNlk/w-d-xo.html , after 2:02:00) at least for the reason of dwarves preventing others from using the barrel. You might still want to do this if you want to sell specific seeds to traders.
Thank you so much for the detailed answer! Love to see that this got sorted out =)
Thanks for suggesting that video. It was really helpful too! The part about not needing barrels in seed stockpiles anymore is at time 1:54:00
@@16stellarstars Thanks for pointing this out. I'm still taking barrels out of my seed stockpile.
Can you, please, make a DFHack or Therapist to 10 functions? I am a little bit lost :)
i love this game
Can you pls make a video about miasma tips?
Sure, what exactly you wanna know about? Always love to collect ideas in a more detailed manner.
@@Ic0nGaming How do I prevent it from happening. My dwarves never get rid of food stuff in the workshops. I have enough spaces, barrels, pots. Even tried dedicated storage and haulers
@@walli6388 couple things:
1. Rotting items will never produce miasma at all if they rot while on a tile that is currently or has ever been exposed to sunlight.
2. Make sure you have enough spare containers (barrels or large clay pots)
3. Make sure you have a stockpile configured to accept that item with empty space
For more specific advice we would need to know exactly which items you're having problems getting hauled.
Also, Stockpiles aren't Zones, those are a completely different thing.
Yeah, my bad on this, gonna fix at least the bullet point, thanks for pointing it out.
1:16 in I understand why even with my massive farm plots I am constantly running out of food. Stupid newb farmers slowing down the harvest and lowering the yield >:(
Yeah, it's easy to make it stop, but also easy to never notice that one button to push