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[Immortal-D]

If you are lax for even a few years, you suddenly find half your Fortress complaining about tattered rags.  I even resorted to purchasing Rope Reed from the hippies, but the merchants kept getting eaten by Giant Armadillos (lol irony), making that an unreliable source at best.  I re-purposed an entire acre of farmland to growing Pigtails and stopped brewing them.  Even started using my leather supplies for clothing, but my pigs only reproduce so fast.  When well over 100 Dwarves (and rising steadily) need a full suit of clothing, there is no good way to meet demand.

How many tiles of Farm do you dedicate to non-alcohol Pigtails?  Can a single GCS supply enough silk to make Pigtails obsolete?  Does a robe provide enough coverage for a Dwarf to not complain about lack of pants & socks/shoes?

[Zuglarkun]

I don't use invader clothing or gear either, so I understand the sentiment. But I'm quite used to producing everything I need anyway so its not that much more of a hassle to add the clothing industry onto that.

I've never needed to dedicate a farm solely to producing crops like pigtails, rope reed or cotton. But that's probably because I usually have lots of cloth produced beforehand or purchased from traders anyway. I run a 10x10 farm that is split into 4 quadrants (5x5 each) and I'm only using one dedicated quadrant for producing all the booze the fort needs, with one season dedicated to pigtails that usually end up as cloth anyway. This is for an 80+ dwarf fort. You'll probably want lots more farm space if your dwarves are already running around naked.

I haven't messed around with a captured GCS yet, but I reckon a GCS is sufficient but very finicky as you'll need a automated setup that allows spit out webs to gather in some room below regularly to produce the best results. Farms are more hands off in that regard.

Robes do have the same full body coverage as dresses, so you can probably save on producing an additional article of clothing like trousers if you produce robes. Don't take my word for it though, I don't use robes because of potential interfering with military outfits. Robes DON'T cover the hands and feet, so you'll still need gloves, shoes and a cap for full coverage. I don't bother with socks, the feet only need one item for coverage. Gloves are optional if your dwarves are handling potentially dangerous contaminated items, but usually I leave them out.

I make an abundance of clothing such that my standing clothing supply has a few bins full of fresh clothing. This is so I can monitor whether I need to produce clothing or not by checking the bins. I usually stop clothing production once I notice I have a few bins of fresh clothing and start it up again when everything in there is X quality or worse. My dwarves have personal rooms though, so any claimed but unworn clothing is left strewn about in their room or lying in closets. This gives you some buffer in the event you forget to produce clothing for some years.

Hope this helps somewhat.

[PatrikLundell]

My clothing industry tends to get off to a slow start, as I dedicate all the pig tails for production of bags the first two years (a glass industry stalls easily without a lot of bags for sand). Since untrained farmers provide a poor yield you're not getting too much that way anyway early on, but the production increases fairly rapidly later on. (I don't brew pig tails, but use them exclusively for clothing).
Above ground threshable crops (hemp, rope reed, cotton, etc) are a good complement, especially since the can be grown during all seasons.
I keep 2+2 sheep for a basic wool industry (mainly to ensure mood requirements can be met, but it does provide some support).
A silk farm should be able to provide all the silk you need. You only need to release a new batch of webs from the farm when the previous one runs out, so you may have to do it a few times early one, but they can do it yearly or so. I tend to turn off the silk production after a while, allowing to be restarted later if needed.

It should be reasonably straight forward to calculate farming needs:
If each dwarf is provided with a full set of clothing (10 item [sets] produced), and each item lasts for 2 years before showing the first sign of wear (when the dorf will replace it if given the opportunity), you need 5 * #dorfs pig tails (or other plant crop) produced per year. Each farm tile produces pig tails for two seasons per year with 2? (check wiki) harvests per season. The farmers' skill levels control the yield per planted seed (again, check wiki), with fertilization increasing that further, if you bother with that.

[taptap]

A few tiles of dedicated farms, a few wool producing animals and/or a single, farmed high volume silk producer are technically all it takes. Don't rely exclusively on a single GCS - it can produce enough silk, but it will die of old age at one point. Capturing an immortal silk producer is the perfect long term solution imo. Do not kill a silk-producing forgotten beast / titan if you are lucky enough to get one. Advanced silk farms are sufficiently productive to run in batch production, when producing several hundred silk per batch you don't really need a fully automatic setup imo.

Substituting armour for clothing can reduce requirements (for military and "reservists").

[PatrikLundell]

If you manage to do it, capturing a breeding GCS pair is probably the best silk farm solution. I don't think it matters to the dorfs, and it certainly doesn't for the "economy", but GCS silk is actually worth more than FB silk (but FB silk is rumored to be able to have interesting properties, such as fire safe). Anyway, I like to think (in a role playing kind of way) my dorfs are happier with more expensive clothing.

[Tirion]

Make 2 3x3 above ground farm plots, gather all the plants on the surface, set them to be processed in the farmer's workshop, or to be brewed - you just need seeds first. In the newest version there are way more thread crops than just pig tails and rope reed*. And all above ground plants can be grown all year, while pig tails are only for summer and autumn.

Seriously, just Ctrl+f thread in this list: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Crop

[taptap]

If you manage to do it, capturing a breeding GCS pair is probably the best silk farm solution. I don't think it matters to the dorfs, and it certainly doesn't for the "economy", but GCS silk is actually worth more than FB silk (but FB silk is rumored to be able to have interesting properties, such as fire safe). Anyway, I like to think (in a role playing kind of way) my dorfs are happier with more expensive clothing.

I roleplay that they need woollen socks for happiness, not expensive silk and cold feet

[Bumber]

I've always felt that invaders make it more annoying. Fort being flooded with worn goblin-tainted thongs while I'm mass producing high-quality pig tail goods.

I dedicate a 5x5 farm for pig tails. Shirt, trousers, shoes. I still have plenty left over for supplemental booze once my farmers skill up. One weaver, one clothesmaker. Workflow helps tremendously, else I have to queue up a bunch at the manager from time to time. No cloth bins, just let the overflow sit in workshop.

[Daris]

A high-volume GCS silk farm produces so much silk I have to turn off production after a year or so to keep my item inventory under control.  The only limiting factor is waiting for an appropriate bait to show up on my map, so that I can avoid the micromanagement of using my dwarves for bait.

You can also request every type of leather your liaison offers, and the following year you'll find yourself with enough leather to outfit your entire fort twice over.

[Kneenibble]

I've always felt that invaders make it more annoying. Fort being flooded with worn goblin-tainted thongs while I'm mass producing high-quality pig tail goods.

I agree with this sentiment.  I don't like the idea of my dwarves pulling on some scratchy skid-marked troll fur gitchies, when they can luxuriate in soft and colourful tailored finery.  Those vile rags go straight into the magma laundry.

I have two 2x2 underground plots that grow dimple cups in spring and winter, and pig tails in summer and fall; and one 3x3 above-ground plot that grows redroot (no bladeweed in embark, alas) in summer and fall and ramie in spring and winter.  With several farm labourers for threshing and milling, highly skilled growers, and two each of dyers, weavers, and clothiers, I have more than enough high-quality dyed clothing to keep everybody (200 adults and a gaggle of children) warm and giggly.  I've found it easiest to set the workshop orders to "auto-loom dyed thread" and "use dyed cloth only," and dye each thread as it is produced.  Yarn-dyed fabric is usually higher quality in real life anyways.

It requires a degree of busywork and micromanagement, but running a high-quality clothing industry in this way scratches my dwarfy itch: and what else is Dwarf Fortress for?  One thing I have meant to try is also sewing each garment with an image, but it can be tricky when dwarves like to claim an item as soon as it is made.

Never quite gotten the trick of setting up a Giant Cave Spider silk farm, alas.

[Linkxsc]

Clothing industry is usually 1 of the slowest ones to start off, but once its organized and running, its not so bad.

Of all industries though, its very important to have stockpile links and such set up (so that clothing and thread is dyed properly). Though dye isn't necessary at all and can be skipped wholeheartedly. (actually avoiding doing it can keep fort "wealth" down by quite a bit.)

Things to do though.
Personally, most of my forts end up with a 3x3 of pigtails starting off for the first couple years. And virtually all of this early cloth production goes to bags. Without bags you, any of the millable plants are useless, can't do glassmaking, quarry bushes have no point. You WILL need bags, and in vast quantity.
If I can get other sources of plant cloth, I'll instead do about 8-10 tiles of varied cloth producing plant. Almost never use pigtails for brewing this early on.

After a year or 2 of that that assuming you have a somewhat talented dyer and clothesmaker, and the stockpiles are setup efficiently, just make orders to cycle and make sets of 30 of each body part covering. (cycle between types so I don't end up with stacks of 200 shirts, but no pants).

By year 3, the industry is in full swing, and its easy enough to use damaged clothes as trade goods. Nice thing, you can sell tons of secondhand clothes, and just buy more cloth (in various types). Honestly, after the first couple caravans (trade away some meals for cloth), really don't actually need to farm plant cloth at all, since oyu can jsut import hundreds of it. But if you get a siege, or the caravan derps and doesnt bring that much cloth, it can mess up the industry for several months.

[Wheeljack]

I think the trick to avoiding being overwhelmed with the clothing industry is to start it before you start facing droves of dwarves in worn clothing. It also helps to split it between different resources. I always make my shoes and gloves out of leather, for instance. Pants, shirt/tunic, and cap are usually either wool or pig tail/rope reed cloth. Bags are whichever I have more of on hand, but are usually made of leather.

As for farm space, I usually have one to two 3x5 plots for each textile crop I plan to use. I start with pig tails (and dimple cups for dying). These are usually brewed in the first and second year since I don't have any handy clothes makers. That or I let the plots fallow since caravans can easily bring the fort enough booze to live just fine with only a plump helmet farm to supplement. Once I get enough dwarves, I throw two to three into the clothing industry. Farmers help thresh/mill, but the clothiers will thresh/mill as well at first.

By this point, I'm beginning to move away from leather armor, and that means a ton of leather suddenly gets freed up. I always embark with pigs, peafowls, and cats. If I get lucky and my pack animals are a breeding pair, I keep them around. Most of my leather comes from my pigs and cats. If you can, request some more of whichever animal you want to breed for leather. You can get a good setup for leather pretty easily and it'll allow you to cut back on farm space for cloth. (Leather is just easier, period. Tanning gets done automatically, so one less step to worry about. Well, when your leatherworker doesn't decide to party for a year. OTL)

If I get in a pinch and just need a ton of clothes, I'll start ordering clothes in full leather as well, or buy clothes from caravans. I personally never buy clothes. Just cloth to make my own.

Also, I didn't mention silk here because I rarely have a reliable source of it. In the event that I do get enough, I usually attempt to save it for hoods, and cloaks. Hope this helps some. :3

(P.S. Yes, I don't make socks. I'm a barbarian, I know. My dwarves have feet made of iron and steel. They don't need no stinking socks. The refuse pile stinks enough as it is.)

[Snaake]

I've always felt that invaders make it more annoying. Fort being flooded with worn goblin-tainted thongs while I'm mass producing high-quality pig tail goods.
...

I also agree with this completely.

The last time I ran a longer-term fort (34.xx) I had a 11x11 room for all my farms, this meant 4 quadrants with 5x5 farm plots and the aisles between them for seed stockpiles (no bins allowed). After a year or so, I tend to have both excess fibre plants and excess food available. I even farmed some dyes eventually, once I bought the seeds/gathered some, but mostly I allowed my dwarves to use undyed cloth as well as dyed cloth. I don't like using anything bought from the caravans unless I have to, so I farm my own pig tail/rope reed, and tend to have a bit of wool production as well (but that's not really viable to keep a large fort clothed)

I also had one floor of my fort setup for automated clothing production. But that's actually the end point: I had an initial stockpile that only accepted fibrous plants, workflow was set to process that into thread in two workshops that took only from the previous stockpile. The workshops fed into another stockpile which had 2 looms taking from it (again, workflow made sure that all thread was being spun) and feeding to a cloth stockpile. Like I mentioned, I eventually involved dye in the process, that the dye, dyers and their workshops go in in this part of the manufacturing line. And then the dyed or undyed cloth was used by clothier's workshops and workflow kept iirc 10 each of trousers, tunics and shoes available. I had 2-3 dwarves with skill for each of the workshops mentioned above who had most other jobs disabled, and it worked fine.


And yea, I also want to second that you need a lot of bags for some stuff, although you can survive without making them you'll have to skip some production avenues entirely (flour, glass, dyes too actually). And all in all, yes, the cloth industry can take a bit of time to get started, but once it's running it can be easier than many others if you set it up well. Where it really stands out and what you're seeing is that many players who haven't played large forts for long often get surprised by a lot of dwarves suddenly needing clothing replacements. You at least used to be able to get around 100 dwarves in the first year, and they'll start discarding their clothes almost exactly at the same time: if you don't know this is coming and/or haven't started preparing for it in advance (and don't have loads of goblin rags lying around because you haven't gotten around to burning/atomsmashing it yet), you'll have a lot of unhappy dwarves for a long time, until you catch up with the demand. This wasn't an uncommon cause of tantrum spirals.

[darkflagrance]

If you don't have invaders, you probably have traders. I usually buy all of the cheap leather on the caravans, which can quickly be turned into clothes as necessary.

But yeah, the important part is to prepare for the mass waves of nakedness and madness with abundant apparel.

[steel jackal]

on my last fort i had just 1 10x10 farm plot that did pig tails in 2 seasons, and dimple cups in the other 2

it produced well more than enough pig tails to keep my dwarves constantly busy making clothes all year round


i did not use fertilizer but i had about 20 farmers planting at the same time so the feild was usually fully planted


the fort died of megabeast extract causing mass necrosis