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Author Topic: Dwarves should eat/drink about 10x more at a time  (Read 15090 times)

GoblinCookie

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Re: Dwarves should eat/drink about 10x more at a time
« Reply #30 on: October 26, 2014, 08:07:31 am »

This is a good idea for a bandaid fix, but as mentioned above, is in no way a replacement for fixing the countless gaping holes in the food system long term. All food needs preservation required, and every individual food industry needs to be made more difficult and realistic in concert (at which point the hunger could be reduced back down slightly to remove its bandaid-y-ness a bit).

OP, keep in mind that one problem with realistic food is that it's much harder to balance. 2-3% of the population means that if for some reason you have a temporary food issue that needs to double the labor, it's still 4-6%, and the game is playable. If you need 50-80%, and suddenly temporarily you need double the labor due to a balance issue, you now need 100-160% of the population, and half your fort dies.

So if you make it realistically half your population as farmers, then the whole system would have to be MUCH more stable than now to be playable. Namely, skill couldn't be allowed to do nearly as much to swing outputs, nor could fertilization. Nor could you allow silliness like the arbitrary season cutoffs for crops being erased like now, etc. it's a lot harder to make and maintain.

Simply making dwarves hungrier will not successfully serve as a bandaid for this balance issue -- if you make dwarves 10x hungrier, then you initially will need 50% farmers, but as soon as any get high skill, you're back down to 5% again. Or if anybody uses fertilizer. Alternatively, if you want high skill and fertilizer to require 50%, then the initial labor requirement will be like 400% of the population, and forts will never get off the ground. This cannot be solved without food reworking properly.

Growing plants underground and living in underground bunkers is not a realistic situation, so wanting to have 50% of the population realistically employed in agriculture is rather a mute point.

I do support this concept, but I do not see why it is a problem to develop a small specialised group of farmers and employing fertilizer and other equipment to increase productivity per hour allowing them to feed other .  That is also completely realistic ironically since this is what happened historically during industrialization. 

I do not understand the initial labour requirement thing at all.  Ideally we want to make it so that we need 1 farm plot per dwarf in our fortress.  A dwarf should eat as much as is produced by a single farm plot in a given period, farming does not require a great deal of labour since between the plants being planted and being harvested there is free time. 
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Dirst

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Re: Dwarves should eat/drink about 10x more at a time
« Reply #31 on: October 26, 2014, 03:33:19 pm »

This is a good idea for a bandaid fix, but as mentioned above, is in no way a replacement for fixing the countless gaping holes in the food system long term. All food needs preservation required, and every individual food industry needs to be made more difficult and realistic in concert (at which point the hunger could be reduced back down slightly to remove its bandaid-y-ness a bit).

OP, keep in mind that one problem with realistic food is that it's much harder to balance. 2-3% of the population means that if for some reason you have a temporary food issue that needs to double the labor, it's still 4-6%, and the game is playable. If you need 50-80%, and suddenly temporarily you need double the labor due to a balance issue, you now need 100-160% of the population, and half your fort dies.

So if you make it realistically half your population as farmers, then the whole system would have to be MUCH more stable than now to be playable. Namely, skill couldn't be allowed to do nearly as much to swing outputs, nor could fertilization. Nor could you allow silliness like the arbitrary season cutoffs for crops being erased like now, etc. it's a lot harder to make and maintain.

Simply making dwarves hungrier will not successfully serve as a bandaid for this balance issue -- if you make dwarves 10x hungrier, then you initially will need 50% farmers, but as soon as any get high skill, you're back down to 5% again. Or if anybody uses fertilizer. Alternatively, if you want high skill and fertilizer to require 50%, then the initial labor requirement will be like 400% of the population, and forts will never get off the ground. This cannot be solved without food reworking properly.

Growing plants underground and living in underground bunkers is not a realistic situation, so wanting to have 50% of the population realistically employed in agriculture is rather a mute point.

I do support this concept, but I do not see why it is a problem to develop a small specialised group of farmers and employing fertilizer and other equipment to increase productivity per hour allowing them to feed other .  That is also completely realistic ironically since this is what happened historically during industrialization. 

I do not understand the initial labour requirement thing at all.  Ideally we want to make it so that we need 1 farm plot per dwarf in our fortress.  A dwarf should eat as much as is produced by a single farm plot in a given period, farming does not require a great deal of labour since between the plants being planted and being harvested there is free time.
I'm going to guess you live in an urban or suburban environment.  The dawn of settled civilizations allowed cultures to move from 100% of their labor going to food production to something a little less than 100%.  The number has fallen over time, but agriculture was still the biggest employer in the US up until the Industrial Revolution.  What bothers people is that DF requires industrial age levels of agriculture labor in a pre-industrial setting.

I personally don't find farming fun, so I'm just as happy that I don't need to spend a lot of my time on it... but what makes you think that a Dwarf can subsist on the crops from four square meters of soil?

I would not be adverse to an overhaul that reduced output unless you used fertilizer and tools (e.g., plows) and a reasonable version of irrigation, but I don't want something that's going to require a lot of micromanagement just to keep the fort from starving.
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Witty

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Re: Dwarves should eat/drink about 10x more at a time
« Reply #32 on: October 26, 2014, 03:53:17 pm »

Toady has stated in previous DFtalks that he actually wants player fortresses to be interdependent on the soonish-to-come hillock settlements that will spring up around your fort for food stocks. A small growing dwarven hamlet should be able to feed itself for the most part, but a bustling city would certainly need imports from the outside to keep everyone from starving in this pseudo-high medieval setting.

I'd rather see something like this implemented, personally. Unless you're going for an agricultural-heavy fort where most of your populous are farmers, you should be dependent on food imports once your fort gets big enough. You're producing masterwork weapons, gear and works of art. Leave the farming to the dirty hill dwarves.
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GavJ

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Re: Dwarves should eat/drink about 10x more at a time
« Reply #33 on: October 26, 2014, 05:06:42 pm »

Quote
That is also completely realistic ironically since this is what happened historically during industrialization. 
First of all, no, even after industrialization, the number of farmers was hugely higher than in DF. Even in the 1930's, we still have like 25% of our population as farmers, compared to DF where you only need, maybe 2% farmers.

Second of all, DF takes place in the 14th maybe 15th century, so even the very beginning of industrialization is completely irrelevant, as it is many hundreds of years after our game. Let alone the additional hundred and fifty years after THAT until we approach anything like DF farming efficiency levels.

In reality, in the time period that DF takes place in, something like 95+ percent of the population would be involved in food production. Us wanting it to be 30-50% for the game is not even itself at all realistic. That's ALREADY a huge compromise for gameplay purposes.

Quote
farming does not require a great deal of labour since between the plants being planted and being harvested there is free time.
What is this I don't even... please, seriously STOP with the constant foregone conclusions about entire lifestyles and cultures with which you have obviously zero experience or research, all over the forums. Gameplay opinions okay whatever. But stuff like this is not only wrong but just flat out insulting to people who work their asses off every day to bring food to your table. Past or present.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2014, 05:08:35 pm by GavJ »
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Cauliflower Labs – Geologically realistic world generator devblog

Dwarf fortress in 50 words: You start with seven alcoholic, manic-depressive dwarves. You build a fortress in the wilderness where EVERYTHING tries to kill you, including your own dwarves. Usually, your chief imports are immigrants, beer, and optimism. Your chief exports are misery, limestone violins, forest fires, elf tallow soap, and carved kitten bone.

Chimerat

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Re: Dwarves should eat/drink about 10x more at a time
« Reply #34 on: October 26, 2014, 05:16:05 pm »

You're producing masterwork weapons, gear and works of art. Leave the farming to the dirty hill dwarves.
Interesting. Can we play as the dirty hill dwarves!? ;D
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GavJ

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Re: Dwarves should eat/drink about 10x more at a time
« Reply #35 on: October 27, 2014, 02:57:18 am »

It's sort of unclear what the dirty hill dwarves are, exactly, or how they survive, as currently they are just crammed into a large room with no clear evidence of farming or anything else, IIRC. I.e., they seem even MORE magical than the fort dwarves, until Toady fleshes them out more.

(Maybe they hunt?)
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Cauliflower Labs – Geologically realistic world generator devblog

Dwarf fortress in 50 words: You start with seven alcoholic, manic-depressive dwarves. You build a fortress in the wilderness where EVERYTHING tries to kill you, including your own dwarves. Usually, your chief imports are immigrants, beer, and optimism. Your chief exports are misery, limestone violins, forest fires, elf tallow soap, and carved kitten bone.

utunnels

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Re: Dwarves should eat/drink about 10x more at a time
« Reply #36 on: October 27, 2014, 03:49:36 am »

Well, if barrels don't magically keep all kinds of food from rotting away, then your dwarves 'consume' more food, essentially.
So you can't stack prepared food barrels indefinitely.
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Chimerat

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Re: Dwarves should eat/drink about 10x more at a time
« Reply #37 on: October 27, 2014, 05:55:37 am »

Well, if barrels don't magically keep all kinds of food from rotting away, then your dwarves 'consume' more food, essentially.
So you can't stack prepared food barrels indefinitely.
Maybe there could be another layer added? Like how salting meat makes it last longer?
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Dwarves should eat/drink about 10x more at a time
« Reply #38 on: October 27, 2014, 12:54:53 pm »

What is this I don't even... please, seriously STOP with the constant foregone conclusions about entire lifestyles and cultures with which you have obviously zero experience or research, all over the forums. Gameplay opinions okay whatever. But stuff like this is not only wrong but just flat out insulting to people who work their asses off every day to bring food to your table. Past or present.

I was making a statement about gameplay mechanics.  Gameplay mechanics that mean that I generally do not bother to have a seperate group of farmers at all and instead enable everyone's farming labour.
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GavJ

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Re: Dwarves should eat/drink about 10x more at a time
« Reply #39 on: October 27, 2014, 01:55:23 pm »

Quote
I was making a statement about gameplay mechanics.  Gameplay mechanics that mean that I generally do not bother to have a seperate group of farmers at all and instead enable everyone's farming labour.
Okay fair enough, sorry for misinterpreting. However, in that case it's not insulting, but it IS just odd, because this is the suggestions forum, so not wanting to have things the way they are now is sort of the idea of posting threads here...

Yes, currently farming doesn't take any effort in DF. The whole point of this post is that that's an issue we should address, because it's not even accurate for modern farming, and is nearly 100x off of accuracy for the middle ages.
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Cauliflower Labs – Geologically realistic world generator devblog

Dwarf fortress in 50 words: You start with seven alcoholic, manic-depressive dwarves. You build a fortress in the wilderness where EVERYTHING tries to kill you, including your own dwarves. Usually, your chief imports are immigrants, beer, and optimism. Your chief exports are misery, limestone violins, forest fires, elf tallow soap, and carved kitten bone.

dudlol

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Re: Dwarves should eat/drink about 10x more at a time
« Reply #40 on: October 27, 2014, 04:36:17 pm »

Perhaps they eat more if more is available, and gain some benefit to physical stat growth. When less is available they don't necessarily starve, but they get a large penalty  to physical stats until they've eaten a few full meals?
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catten

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Re: Dwarves should eat/drink about 10x more at a time
« Reply #41 on: October 27, 2014, 05:43:41 pm »

FYI: added to Eternal Suggestions, since this seems to have gotten some mindshare.
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Caoryn

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Re: Dwarves should eat/drink about 10x more at a time
« Reply #42 on: October 28, 2014, 02:31:36 am »

    Agree completely on the food intake of dwarves - it's simply too easy to have a few dwarves allowed to somewhat farm / gather plants, and keep the whole fortress fed and ripping caravans off for required resources with minimal effort invested.

    Increasing the dwarves' thirst is in line with that - personally often have issues having surplus booze, but again, new options for that in DF now and would be a nice challenge (for me personally again) to improve my boozemaking facilities management. Still, being the casual Fortressmaster I wouldn't mind if Dwarves could stay alive on water, just getting dissatisfied if they can't get boozed up for too long.


  • Hunger/thirst threshold. Urist McHungry shouldn't start prowling for food until he passes 40-50k hunger, but he shouldn't stop eating until hunger drops below 10k (or whatever). Without a threshold, he'd eat every time hunger passed 10k (every 4-5 days), which would be really disruptive to the fort.
  • Food stacks. Urist McHungry should be able to take a strawberry[5] to his table in one trip. Right now he always takes them one by one, which would mean lots of exercise at mealtime (food stockpiles in the dining room might help, but it would still be annoying/unnecessary).

This looks like a completely adequate mechanism to manage that, with higher value ingredients and better quality cooking increasing the nutritional value of the meals, and optionally adding quality to booze amounting to the same thing.
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catten

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Re: Dwarves should eat/drink about 10x more at a time
« Reply #43 on: October 28, 2014, 12:15:44 pm »

  • Hunger/thirst threshold. Urist McHungry shouldn't start prowling for food until he passes 40-50k hunger, but he shouldn't stop eating until hunger drops below 10k (or whatever). Without a threshold, he'd eat every time hunger passed 10k (every 4-5 days), which would be really disruptive to the fort.
  • Food stacks. Urist McHungry should be able to take a strawberry[5] to his table in one trip. Right now he always takes them one by one, which would mean lots of exercise at mealtime (food stockpiles in the dining room might help, but it would still be annoying/unnecessary).

This looks like a completely adequate mechanism to manage that, with higher value ingredients and better quality cooking increasing the nutritional value of the meals, and optionally adding quality to booze amounting to the same thing.
Implementing some sort of nutrition based on ingredient quality/value would actually be a separate tweak. A very reasonable one, too. But for now the idea is to just let dorfs eat a lot more at a meal (say, a stack of ten food rather than one).
Spoiler: Nutrition tangent (click to show/hide)
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utunnels

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Re: Dwarves should eat/drink about 10x more at a time
« Reply #44 on: October 28, 2014, 08:53:22 pm »

Well, if barrels don't magically keep all kinds of food from rotting away, then your dwarves 'consume' more food, essentially.
So you can't stack prepared food barrels indefinitely.
Maybe there could be another layer added? Like how salting meat makes it last longer?

Yeah, I didn't think about that.
Though it doesn't stop players from stocking up canned food instead.
Maybe preserved food should generated unhappy thoughts or salty food make dwarves thirsty.


Implementing some sort of nutrition based on ingredient quality/value would actually be a separate tweak.

And volume. Dwarf has only one stomach. You know you can hardly keep yourself alive by only eating some vegetables, but a handful of beans should be able to keep you going for a long while. You can't just eat 10x more if the food is not nutritious enough.
« Last Edit: October 28, 2014, 09:03:08 pm by utunnels »
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