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Author Topic: Do you still need dining halls?  (Read 8630 times)

snow dwarf

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Do you still need dining halls?
« on: January 17, 2019, 07:19:32 am »

I was really wondering if you could forgo designating a dining hall from a table and just only use a tavern designated from the (i) meeting zone. And then if I designated a dining hall and a separate tavern what will happen? I really enjoy giving different rooms their own anesthetics and it doesn't really fit for taverns to be huge halls filled with chairs and tables instead of being cozy little wooden buildings.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2019, 07:21:34 am by snow dwarf »
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Saiko Kila

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Re: Do you still need dining halls?
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2019, 08:21:47 am »

I was really wondering if you could forgo designating a dining hall from a table and just only use a tavern designated from the (i) meeting zone. And then if I designated a dining hall and a separate tavern what will happen? I really enjoy giving different rooms their own anesthetics and it doesn't really fit for taverns to be huge halls filled with chairs and tables instead of being cozy little wooden buildings.

You can do as you wish, mix up, and join. I don't use tavern zone at all (except a small part of booze storage, to keep innkeepers going), instead designate dining rooms from tables, and attach them to the tavern. Tavern can have multiple rooms (including offices or bedrooms) and zones attached in locations screen. They can be rooms, zones, or both. They can be located in different levels and places. The dining rooms can be designated as meeting hall or not, doesn't matter. I added a meeting hall/dining room to the tavern, haven't seen much difference, really, except the secret police innkeepers started to cater to people in the meeting hall. But before that the meeting room was separated from tavern for years.

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callisto8413

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Re: Do you still need dining halls?
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2019, 09:07:36 am »

Interesting - I wad wondering about that.  Few people use the Dining Room and seem to use the Tavern or just eat their food in the stockpiles.  Thanks for the question and the answer.
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Do you still need dining halls?
« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2019, 11:37:47 am »

As opposed to Saiko Kila, I just use a tavern zone and have tables and chairs in it (plus a dance floor). I do make dining rooms for the nobles that require them, though, but they're not part of any tavern. Thus, there are several way to get this working (although having bot a tavern zone and a tavern designated from a table within the zone resulting in stuff in containers counted twice, or at least it did (the bug may have been fixed).
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pamelrabo

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Re: Do you still need dining halls?
« Reply #4 on: January 17, 2019, 01:53:23 pm »

Once your place is really big and deep, it's convenient to have several dining rooms to avoid long walks.

Your magma smelter operator is hungry, but why should he ascend 120 z levels + corridors when there's a convenient dining hall every 20 levels or so?

Also, it allows for more customization, you can do theme dining rooms, plant statues of the deities associated with each work zone, etc.

This is how I do it, anyway. Probably it's in fact worse, but I like it. Like having several wells around.
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Saiko Kila

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Re: Do you still need dining halls?
« Reply #5 on: January 23, 2019, 04:00:05 am »

Considering the multiple dining rooms, if you are using tavernkeeps, I would add advice to either not make them very far away (unless that's your point, see below), or make them parts of different taverns, with different employees. That's because when a tavernkeeper wants to serve a customer, he can collect a mug from one room, travel to fill it in another room, and then go to the drinker in a third room, creating much unnecessary traffic.

This may be exploited to lower the frequency of servings, if the room with mugs is far away from the room with booze.
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Raikaria

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Re: Do you still need dining halls?
« Reply #6 on: February 02, 2019, 06:49:42 am »

I like setting up a large dining hall between the main industry and the bedrooms, so the majority of dwarves use it. It also serves as the location of the food and drink industries; tanners and so on.

Maybe if my food stockpile is getting full I'll make a smaller, secondary dining hall lower down, mostly as an overflow but also more convienient for my miners, doctors [I tend to have the hospital quite deep; above a cistern I've made from the caverns], and of course, the military protecting the caverns.

Besides; Dwarves generally like interacting with others in their off-time so having a large, central dining hall works great for that, it also serves as a warren for 'get all the civvies in safe' times.
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