Bay 12 Games Forum

Quite possibly the level of the second cistern is critical.  Perhaps the infectious stagnancy is spreading like saltwater through the entire watershed, and can only be stopped by changing levels.

Cavern water never seems to be affected by the surface stagnancy.  That's where I get water when the whole surface goes stagnant.

In 34.x I have been able to run much larger fortresses than I was able to before.  I routinely run a 5x5 embark area with 250 Dwarves.  The FPS runs at about 40.  Once I raised the migration limit and let it get to 322 Dwarves.  The FPS was about 30 in the 10th year.  In 40d I would have been suffocating in single digit FPS.

Water stagnated by the river-neighboring-pond bug doesn't clean up with a pump.  I've tried it.  All you end up with is another reservoir full of stagnant water.  I made sure that I had more than one tile's worth of wall between the two reservoirs, too.

Familywise, I nickname the founders MacUthar (Uthar is "first" in DF Dwarven).  Everyone who has relatives after that gets a family nickname in order of arrival.  The first gets MacNob (Nob is "two" in DF Dwarven), and all of the others get nicknames starting with McA through McZ (note Mc instead of Mac).  If a newcomer has a relation already living in the fortress, they get that family nickname.  Migrants with absolutely no relatives just get "A" for a nickname (for "alone").  If they ever marry into a clan, they will take that clan's nickname.  Sometimes new arrivals tie together two or more families who are already present.  Everyone then gets the family nickname of the earliest migrant.  The same thing would happen with a marriage but so far I have had no marriages in 34.x except for between MacUthars.  I usually end up with one large family and quite a few small ones, not counting the founders.

This playing about with family names keeps me entertained during seiges and the like.   

As far as professions, I use the following custom categories which I only apply after all of the migrants have arrived.

Crafting: gem workers, glass-makers, weavers, clothiers, all crafters except metal-crafters
Defense: all of the red-shirts, plus the animal trainers and bowyers
Forges: all of the metal-workers
Gov-X: all of the government workers, they have their position in their profession name, eg Gov-Broker, for purposes of assigning offices and such
Harvest: planters, butchers, tanners, fishery workers, beekeepers, milkers, plant gatherers, can haul food only
Haulers: everyone who isn't something else, except for Babies and Children, these do all of the hauling, cleaning, recovery of wounded, and mass masonary projects
Health: all medical staff, wood burners, lye makers, soap makers
Kitchen: brewer, cook, miller, thresher, cheesemaker, presser
Lumberyard: carpenters and wood cutters
Quarry: miners, masons, engravers, architects

Everyone can carry food and water to prisoners and patients.

Carpenters don't use axes.  Wood-cutters use axes.  Try disabling the wood-cutter labor on your carpenter, if that is the problem.

Just for the record, I am also having problems with sweet pods recently (34.07). 

I embark with 25 plump helmet seeds, 9 sweet pod seeds, 9 cave wheat seeds, 9 pig tail seeds, and 9 rock nuts.  I checked the initial saves to see that I did in fact bring the sweet pod seeds, and I did. 

I dedicate one field to each type, for all of the seasons during which they will grow.  I don't begin cooking anything, let alone seeds, during the first year.  I don't plant rock nuts in the first year since they can neither be brewed nor eaten raw, not do they produce clothing. 

At the beginning of the second year, I have 9 cave wheat, 9 pig tails, and zero sweet pods.  There are no sweet pod seeds, either, which is to be expected because I observed their planting.

The growth duration is the same for sweet pods as it is for cave wheat, but the seasons are different.   Sweet pods grow during spring and summer, while cave wheat grows during summer and autumn.  Perhaps the point made above about season lengths, in combination with the inevitably rushed timeframe during the first year when the plots are excavated and built, is the cause.  If the sweet pod seeds were not planted until the end of summer, the sweet pods would not mature before their season ran out.

I probably did not see this happening before because previous to the relatively immediate demand for children's clothing I did not plant anything but plump helmets during the first year.  Having decided to rush the first harvest of pig tails, I also decided to plant cave wheat and sweet pods in the first year.  That is probably a mistake, at least for the sweet pods.

What I request:
Wood and booze always.
Leather lately because of clothing requirements, but not every year.
Gypsum plaster the first year.
These are all requested at the first level up from zero.

What I buy:
Wood and booze
Leather and silk (and various wools from Humans, and rope reed from Elves if I am desperate for plant cloth)
Gypsum plaster
Meat, fish, and cheese
Steel items
Clear and crystal glass, and green glass if there is no sand, also sand if there is no sand
Occasionally bars of metal and blocks of unusual rock, if I have a lot of junk to unload
Ocasionally exotic animals from Elves

I have found that the caravans will fulfill my future requirements based on what I buy now, except for leather which will only arrive in large quantities if I request it.  Many of the other things that I used to try to buy from the caravan I have stopped trying because they never arrived in anything but tiny quantities no matter how high I set the demand.  Not even if I request only that item.

Lye I never buy now because I became suspicious that the soap-making used one stack of lye for one bar, no matter how much was in the container.  I know that I get ten bars of soap from a barrel containing ten stacks of 1, homemade.  I believe I only got one bar from purchased barrels containing one stack of 10.

My only experience with a cross-dresser was observing a man on the subway who should have been told that curly thigh hair doesn't look good under nylons worn with a miniskirt.  I wasn't about to, though, because he was a very large man.