Bay 12 Games Forum

I have a few forts under my belt, but I've not really gotten to long-term sustainability yet.  And one of the things I've come across in my play of late is what happens after clothes finally wear out, and what happens when the baby boom grows into children and adolescents.  Suddenly there's a need for a textile industry, as well as the management of clothes produced and replaced.

So far I've set up my pig-tail and rope-reed farms, a few farmers workshops that are processing plants constantly, a few looms, dyers, and four clothesmakers.  I've been using my production manager to queue up batches of socks, trousers, dresses, tunics, and robes.  I also make leather shoes, leather gloves, and leather cloaks.

First I'm curious if that's sufficient in terms of type?  Do the non-soldier population require other clothing items than those?  Are any of those unnecessary, either partially or wholly?  Are there some optional items that are worthwhile to produce?

Second, I'm curious how much is needed.  What rate of production is needed?  Is it easier to supplement clothing income from goblinite and caravans?  Do I gain simplicity and streamlining or other benefits by using only what I produce?  And if I was purely self-supplying, what rate of clothes making is necessary?  How early should it start?  How many workshops?  On paper, the magnitude of the need seems... Dizzying.

Third I'm curious about organization.  Stockpile setup, keeping track of needs and replacements, separating and somehow dealing with the old, worn out stuff.  Avoiding the random perma-clutter of dropped clothing.  Etc.

Do you have your system working fluidly?   How do you do it?  What challenges do you run into?  What kind of scale do you deal with? 
My fort is currently around 250 population.  =(  I run LNP out of the box, haven't changed any settings.

Thanks everyone!

Since starting my current fortress, I've been treading water the whole time.  Each facet of needs and infrastructure take time and dedicated attention on pause, and time to play out.  You can multi-task these items, but that can get messy, and it's sorta taxing depending on what you're doing.  This would all be manageable, and even fun(classic definition), except that despite my skill at the game so far, the care, and the foresight I try to use, I feel that I'm taking on water faster than I can bail it out of the boat.  Or more accurately, I'm gaining migrants and babies faster than I can accommodate them + pre-existing needs. 

Meanwhile, I check the wiki for some infos, and come across an interesting entry: Sheriff.  Hey, look at that, it's possible to have a simple law-enforcement mechanism for the early game.  Neat.  But assigning someone that role, let alone addressing justice and order at all, went immediately by the wayside as I focused on more critical needs, like gaining access to safe water, basic fortification, industry establishment, and keeping nobles happy.  Fast forward a day's play, and there's no sheriff on my nobles screen; below Baron is the Captain of the Guard. 

I describe this because I think it's emblematic of something unfortunate, where the "early-game" phase flashes away quite quickly.  Instead of a steady progression, where I have an opportunity to sit back for a couple minutes and just let the dwarves run their business before getting the next wave of migrants and chaos, I go from 7 dwarves to 250 before I feel I can deal with a siege, let alone their clothing needs.  I feel like I'm missing out on an entire phase of the game.

I want to know if this is just a 'problem' with how I run a fortress(too perfectionistic, perhaps?  Create too much wealth?), or if others are having this experience?

Next time around, I'm gonna look for ways of extending the early game... Thoughts on courting that goal would also be welcome.

I had some ... fun...  the other night.  My fortress was really coming together with a meticulously planned water system that was nearing completion, and things were pretty darn well-arranged.  But alas, I discovered the 'loyalty cascade,' and the fortress ceased to function.  I couldn't stabilize with a handful of war survivors, as these maniac horses I'd been raising were killing even them.  I abandoned, having decided I was having enough... fun....

...So I reclaimed today, because that fort was sweet, and I don't feel like taking another 24 hours to design and dig it out again, etc.  That's too much... fun.... for me.

The reclaim did not go well.  I had things going as stably as I could, trying to clean up methodically.  Pretty much, I just monitored the cleanup for... 5, 6 hours?  Till the inside of the fort wasn't a mess, trying to prioritize ghost-busting. 

Alas, I couldn't get all the ghosts, and eventually a pair who latched onto my two axe-dwarves-in-training, and drove them berserk, along with two others.  This reclaim has failed, as I'm nearly non-functional again, and I can't get migrants to come due to local 'friendly' goblins killing mountainhome caravans.  I'd been  trying to grow my axedwarves & war dogs to take them out, but it just took too long.

So now I'm considering another reclaim.  How can I make the reclaim process .... less fun?  Spending hours waiting for crap to get stockpiled, criss-crossing the map  to mark & gather bodies takes too long.  It's a waste of  time.

Anyone have suggestions on how to handle starting over?  The build-time on a new fort is just too much, and the item-hunting on reclaim is just as tedious, it seems.