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[Kestrel]

Is it just me, or is farming not as stupid easy as it once was?  Last version I'd fire off a farm and forget it.  Pay a visit to it years later and plump helmets are flowing out into the halls.  Now it seems like I have to run multiple farms to keep everyone fed.

I guess I missed this in the dev log...?

[Girlinhat]

I didn't see it either, but I've seen it.  I've begun overstocking on farmers and still hitting issues.  I like it.

[Kestrel]

My latest fort of 191 just hit a mass of hunting vermin.  During that "oh shit" moment about 150 of them got retasked to ripping out every berry on the damn map.  Fortunately the humans came along and pawned more cheese than I've ever traded for in my entire Dwarf Fortress playing experience.

[ullrich]

I don't think farming has been made more difficult (by itself), I just found the number of migrants with skill level 6+ in farming is now much more likely to be skill level 1-3 combined with a much larger child population (eat/drink but don't produce food) makes it much more difficult.

[Girlinhat]

I've always sustained on a single farmer, two if I'm doing a textiles farm.  This time I'm grudging by on 5 dedicated farmers.  There is definitely a drop in farming somewhere, either stack size, growth time, or planting speed.

[Flying Dice]

I've been doing fine with a single or 2-3 farmers and 2-3 4x4 plots. Probably helps that I slaughter a crapload of animals and sieze all non-dwarf caravans, though.

[ullrich]

This time I'm grudging by on 5 dedicated farmers.  There is definitely a drop in farming somewhere, either stack size, growth time, or planting speed.

Stack size is determined by the skill of the farmer (and fertilization), as such having a large number of low skill farmers only improves production by having larger farms (more squares to plant). My number of farmers has not been increased from before so planting speed, and growth speed are not issues, you just have to start farms earlier to level the farming profession.

[Girlinhat]

I am, actually, a bit skilled at farming, usually.  I know the approximate progression of stack sizes and how skill changes it.  But something has changed in DF2012 and I'm not sure what.  I've generally been to preoccupied screaming and running from giant were-badger corpses in the blistering rain to pay attention to my farms

[rtg593]

2 farmers and 5 farms (3x3) keep up with a 200 person fort for me just fine, 2 farmers and 9 farm plots (3x3) resulted in 3,000 drinks by the time I abandoned my last fort.

I never pay enough attention, as long as drinks stay high I ignore it, so if it changed, I wouldn't know:p

[ullrich]

My farm setup is 12 1x8 farms, 1 each for plump helmets, pig tail, cave wheat, sweet pod, pickle berry, wild strawberry, longland grass, fishery berry, rat weed, rope reed, whip vine, and once sun berries get fixes I'll add those. With 2-4 farmers (with me they only have farming/milling/food hauling enabled) is sufficient to produce lots of excess food once farmers get skilled.

I used to be able to not bother with farming till year 2 of a fort but now I find I have to start them up (the underground ones) almost immediately on embarking, I love dirt layers.

[white_darkness]

Fort I just canned, the 5 3x3 underground and 9 3x3 aboveground were overwhelming my brewers, cooks, millers, and plant processors.

Started over from scratch for the bug fixes of .05, and it already looks like it's heading in the same direction.

[Hyndis]

I tend to build large farms that grow crops year round, or as often as possible anyways. Far larger farms than I actually need.

This is to ensure that once they're up and running and I've got my stockpiles configured right, everything can be completely ignored and food will take care of itself no matter how large the fortress grows. Extra plants that won't fit in the stockpiles is just left to rot in the fields. Plants don't produce miasma so its fine.

[Linkeron]

I carve out a 10x10 room in a soil layer and stick nine 3x3 plots in there. I have all of the underground plants making returns by the end of the first season. One migrant each in the next two waves become backup dedicated farmers. All three brew, cook, butcher, tan, and plant. I've never ever worried about food or drink. I've actually found myself wishing I hadn't brought cats to kill vermin because I'm generating so much goddamn food and drink by the second spring I have to expand my food stockpiles.

[wierd]

I usually make 10 1x10 plots. (Equiv of 10x10 plot, but I find this is more efficient at creating planting jobs)


I assign 5 or 6 farmers, set different crops on all the plots (I usually use surface crops in the 1x10 method, so I get a nice mix of plant foodstuffs without seasonal restrictions), and then forget about it.

Seems to have stayed functional in 2012.  It works great, because I can have fisher berries, strawberries, prickle berries, ropereeds, longland grass, a dyestuff crop, whipvine, etc all going at once, without worrying too much about overproduction. It leaves a few plots open for double production on some of the crops if there is a shortage.

For subterene crops, I usually put a 3(or 4)x10 plot, and rotate plump helmet, rocknuts, quary bush, and pigtail.

I usually have around 500 plant all the time without even trying.

[slink]

I think the comment about children is dead-on.  Most of my migrants have been married, some with children, and all producing children during their first year in the fortress.  I have gotten extended families even including a grandmother, which is really neat.  They do require more food with fewer hands to produce it, though.  I feel as if the farms are producing the same as always.