Dwarf Fortress Wiki - User contributions [en]

Advanced marksdwarf training guide

2015-05-17T22:55:16Z

Kroy: loose != lose

{{Quality|Exceptional|21:40, 11 May 2015 (UTC)}}
Marksdwarves are fairly buggy, and often refuse to use archery ranges, or stand in front of them, and fail to fire their crossbows. This guide goes into details explaining known bugs, and getting your Marksdwarves to train properly, as well as going into details regarding various ranged weaponry.

== Understanding Ranged Weaponry ==

In vanilla Dwarf Fortress, the raws define three types of ranged weapons, each with their own skill and ammo.

{| class="wikitable"
!colspan="4" |Ranged Weapons
|-
!Ranged Weapon
!Ranged Skill
!Melee Skill
!Ammo
|-
|Crossbow
|Marksdwarf
|Hammerdwarf
|Bolts
|-
|Bow
|Bowman
|Swordman
|Arrows
|-
|Blowgun
|Blowgunner
|Swordman
|Darts
|-
|}

Of these, dwarfs can only craft crossbows and bolts. Bows and blowguns are gained either through trade or recovery from downed enemies. If playing a modded game, replace crossbow in the following with one of the above weapons, and proper ammo type.

== Equipping Your Marksdwarfs ==

=== The Minimum Outfit ===
At a minimum, each dwarf requires the following to successfully use the crossbow.
* One crossbow
* One quiver
* One stack of bolts for each marksdwarf to fire

A quiver is equipped on the upper body slot. Due to a bug, sometimes a marksdwarf will fail to pickup a quiver if wearing heavy armor. A workaround for this is given below. Wood and metal bolts are generated in stacks of 25. Bone bolts are generated in stacks of 5.

=== Crossbows ===
Crossbows can be made with wood or bone at a bowyer's workshop, or out of metal at a metalsmith/magma forge. Metal crossbows can be forged out of copper, bronze, bismuth bronze, iron, steel, or adamantine. Quivers must be made of leather at a leatherworks. The base material of a crossbow appears to have no effect on the lethality of ranged bolts. However, when marksdwarves end up in melee, they will use their crossbow as a hammer, thus it is recommended to make dense metal crossbows.

=== Quivers and Bolts ===
Quivers can hold 25 bolts, and dwarves will pick up multiple stacks if necessary to fill it. In other words, they will successfully pick up five separate stacks of bone bolts, or 25 separate bolts if you're using a bolt splitting technique in your fortress. Bolts are collected in last-in-first-out order (LIFO); that is, dwarves will always go for the newest bolts in your fortress, even if there is an ammo stockpile three steps away from them. Each squad with marksdwarves must be assigned ammo; as they deplete it, Dwarf Fortress will automatically add additional ammo to the squad if there are some in the fortress, again following the principle of LIFO.

=== Avoiding 'Equipment Mismatch' Issues ===
Miners; wood cutters; and hunters have a default uniform. When these labors are enabled, a dwarf will carry the equipment appropriate to that job, making it unavailable for the military, and causing issues if that dwarf is then drafted. In general, its safe to put miners and wood cutters in ranged squads, and hunters in melee squads, as this prevents them from equipped the same type of item twice.

When drafting hunters, clear their labors, and *confirm* that your hunter has put his quiver and crossbow away. If you don't, he'll generate equipment mismatches. Furthermore, a mismatch may be cause when a marksdwarf grabs a quiver that was once used by a hunter which still has bolts in it. This can be resolved by opening the dwarf in the {{K|k}} menu, then open his inventory, find the quiver, and forbid the bolts in it. He'll dump them, and properly reload.

If you don't use hunters, you may want to remove their bolt assignments from the ammunition screen.

== Setting your Marksdwarf's barrack ==

=== Understanding Possible Training Activities ===
The first rule of marksdwarf training is you do *not* assign them a normal barrack. If they have that, they will prefer to train as hammerdwarves with their crossbows vs. actually shooting bolts. Furthermore, as the game gives precedence to melee training, they will almost never use an archery range even if one is assigned if they have a choice.

When training, a dwarf has four possible options, which they will take in roughly this order:
- Squad Training
- Individual Combat Drill
- Spar
- Archery Training

Squad training and sparring require multiple dwarfs (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves, training their melee skills while doing so). Except for archery training, dwarves require a standard barracks to conduct any of the above activities. Notably, it is possible to actually train marksdwarves via demonstration, both Crossbow and Archery skills are trainable via demonstrations. By combining this with training orders, it is possible to make Archery Training the only valid option, and thus get them to train consistently.

=== Building Archery Ranges ===
Thus, the first step is to build a room with a bunch of archery ranges. I recommend putting them against the left most wall so the shooting direction is automatically correct, but this should work regardless of direction. The room must be large enough that the marksdwarf has a one gap space between them and the target; I just make their "barrack" 10x10, and put an ammo stockpile in it. Notably, and this is a change from previous version is that the dwarf *must* be able to walk up to the the target; placing a channel in front of it will prevent them from training.

Once you build your range, you must define it as a room. Make it so it touches the far wall, and don't worry, range rooms can overlap. You have to do this for each. Make sure the shooting direction is correct! In addition, your marksdwarf squad MUST at minimum have train set on each archery target. One dwarf can use one target at any given time.

[[File:Archery_range_setup.png|A properly setup archery target]]

Repeat this for each range; you'll have 5-10 targets overlapping each other and assigned to your marksdwarves squad (in these screenshots, they are the "Home Guard")

===The Military Management Screen===

This is by far the most difficult part. Fear the 'm' menu, for it eats children. The {{K|m}} menu is confusing on the best days, but this guide will walk you through it.

The first and default page is the positions page. Ignore it for now, because you want to make the right uniform for your marksdwarves. Press {{K|n}} to bring up the uniforms screen. Do yourself a favor and just delete the default archer uniform. It's wrong and will not work properly.

Create a new uniform with {{K|c}} and add the following:
- crossbow (do NOT used individual choice, ranged; you *will* end up with dwarves who think an axe is a ranged weapon)
- shield (optional)
- leather armor
- leather headwear
- leather legwear
- leather armor
- leather legwear

Press {{K|m}} to switch from "Partial matches" to "Exact matches" in the upper right. This appears to fix most of the issues of them not picking up quivers. You might be able to get away with over clothing however.

Here's what it should like if you did it right:

[[File:Working_training_uniform.png|400px|Uniform that gets them training]]

Now press {{K|p}} to go back to the positions menu. When you create the squad, it will ask for a uniform. Normally, this works as you'd expect it, assigning the uniform to an entire squad. However, if done with the captain of the guard position, it will *only* assign to that spot. You can look at the top of the screen to see what your dwarfs will train as (i.e. 10/10 Marksdwarfs). If needed, after selecting your recruits, then switch to the {{K|e}} menu. Select your squad, and then a position, then press {{K|U}} (that's capital U) to bring up the uniform selection screen.

Highlight your crossbow uniform, and press {{K|shift}} + {{K|enter}} to assign it to all positions in the squad. If you then check the positions screen, at the top, it will say 10/10 marksdwarves, instead of 1/1 markdwarf 9/9 wrestlers, which is what will happen if you leave it on defaults.

[[File:10_marksdwarves.png|400px|10/10 Marksdwarves]]

=== Handling Ammo ===
We're almost done. Go to the ammo screen.

[[File:ammo_screen.png|400px|Ammo]]

If you're setting this by hand, here's what to know. Each squad needs the correct ammo. Bolts are assigned on a "per-item" basis, i.e., a given stack of bolts thats marked for training will only be used for training and via versus. Unfortunately, an old bug prevents this from working; if you have multiple ammo types, and some are set Training-only, and others are set combat-only, your marksdwarves *will* get stuck and fail to train, or fail to fire. The only way to get this to work is if all ammo assignments in the fortress are set to both "CT" in the UI.

==== Switching Bolts Types Reliably ====
Forbidding/Dumping is respected by the game when assigning ammo, so you can use the stocks screen to dump wooden/bone bolts when you're not training, and then have them load metal bolts for fighting. The easiest way to just use wooden/bone bolts when you're training (setting both CT flags on it in the ammo screen), and when you need them to switch, delete the ammo assignment for the training bolts, dump them from the stocks screen (DFHack's enhanced inventory is useful from this), and add the new metal bolts to the screen. Reverse the process to get them to change back.

=== Squad Training Orders ===

Now, for the magic bit that gets them doing nothing *but* training. Open the schedule screen with {{K|s}} and look at the orders. The default is "Train, 10 minimium". '''This is WRONG!'''

[[File:default_training_order.png|400px|Default Training Order]]

Press {{K|x}} to delete the order. The schedule screen will change to show no scheduled orders.

[[File:No_orders.png|400px|no_orders]]

Press {{K|o}} to pull up the give order screen. Press {{K|o}} until 'Train' is set, and then press {{K|+}} so it shows minimum 1, like this. Then press shift-done to give the order. The screen will look like this:

[[File:Train_1.png|400px|train 1]]

[[File:given_train_1_order.png|400px|after giving train 1 order]]

Now do it again, until you have as many orders as total members of your squad (using a [[macro]] will allow you to repeat the process easily). You can give more than 5 orders, you just have to scroll in the orders screen to see it. When you're done it should look like this, after doing it 10 times.

[[File:multiple_train_1.png|400px|Multiple train one orders]]

Copy and paste the order to all the months. You can also set Sleep in Barrack at need to increase their training time, though this will raise the stress levels of dwarves in the squad due to tired thoughts.

You're almost done. Activate your squad, and after they finish picking up equipment, watch your bolt supplies vanish as your marksdwarves do nothing *but* archery training.

=== Why This Works ===
Squad training and sparing require multiple dwarves (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves). Training, minimum of 1 forces them to work solo. Since they don't have a normal barrack, they can't drill, which leaves Archery Training as the only possible way to train. Since reloading on marksdwarves continues to be erratic, they'll frequently report "No Orders" or similiar once they've finished archery training until the game notices that a given dwarf is out of ammo, in which case they'll go pick up more.

Archery training grants less experience than live fire (8XP per bolt vs. 30XP), but no micromanagement, no hauling, one setup, and you can ignore it until you get that glorious announcement that Urist McMarksdwarf has become an Elite Marksdwarf.

== Stopping Melee Charges ==

The short version: DON'T USE the [[DF2014:Scheduling#Stations|station scheduling order]]!

When a dwarf has line of sight on an enemy, they'll do one of two things: run away; or run up and fight. While they're running up to the enemy, dwarves will fire bolts if they have any, but then engage the enemy using their crossbows as hammers instead of firing. The easiest way to prevent this is either use fortification pillboxes (also known as [[DF2014:Archery_tower|archery towers]]), with a [[v0.34:Scheduling#Orders|patrol order]] that causes them to break line of sight, or defend burrows orders, which will keep them in the area defined by the burrow and prevent them from running up to the enemy.

For patrol routes, marksdwarves *will* not take a Pickup Equipment order as long as they have line of sight on their enemy. Have them go through a door or something, and as soon as they lose sight of the goblin/forgotten beast/demon, they'll immediately go find bolts and reload.

The full effectiveness at Defend Burrow orders at stopping a melee charge is unknown.

{{Military}}

Advanced marksdwarf training guide

2015-05-17T22:54:18Z

Kroy: added a few internal links to the ==stopping melee charges== section

{{Quality|Exceptional|21:40, 11 May 2015 (UTC)}}
Marksdwarves are fairly buggy, and often refuse to use archery ranges, or stand in front of them, and fail to fire their crossbows. This guide goes into details explaining known bugs, and getting your Marksdwarves to train properly, as well as going into details regarding various ranged weaponry.

== Understanding Ranged Weaponry ==

In vanilla Dwarf Fortress, the raws define three types of ranged weapons, each with their own skill and ammo.

{| class="wikitable"
!colspan="4" |Ranged Weapons
|-
!Ranged Weapon
!Ranged Skill
!Melee Skill
!Ammo
|-
|Crossbow
|Marksdwarf
|Hammerdwarf
|Bolts
|-
|Bow
|Bowman
|Swordman
|Arrows
|-
|Blowgun
|Blowgunner
|Swordman
|Darts
|-
|}

Of these, dwarfs can only craft crossbows and bolts. Bows and blowguns are gained either through trade or recovery from downed enemies. If playing a modded game, replace crossbow in the following with one of the above weapons, and proper ammo type.

== Equipping Your Marksdwarfs ==

=== The Minimum Outfit ===
At a minimum, each dwarf requires the following to successfully use the crossbow.
* One crossbow
* One quiver
* One stack of bolts for each marksdwarf to fire

A quiver is equipped on the upper body slot. Due to a bug, sometimes a marksdwarf will fail to pickup a quiver if wearing heavy armor. A workaround for this is given below. Wood and metal bolts are generated in stacks of 25. Bone bolts are generated in stacks of 5.

=== Crossbows ===
Crossbows can be made with wood or bone at a bowyer's workshop, or out of metal at a metalsmith/magma forge. Metal crossbows can be forged out of copper, bronze, bismuth bronze, iron, steel, or adamantine. Quivers must be made of leather at a leatherworks. The base material of a crossbow appears to have no effect on the lethality of ranged bolts. However, when marksdwarves end up in melee, they will use their crossbow as a hammer, thus it is recommended to make dense metal crossbows.

=== Quivers and Bolts ===
Quivers can hold 25 bolts, and dwarves will pick up multiple stacks if necessary to fill it. In other words, they will successfully pick up five separate stacks of bone bolts, or 25 separate bolts if you're using a bolt splitting technique in your fortress. Bolts are collected in last-in-first-out order (LIFO); that is, dwarves will always go for the newest bolts in your fortress, even if there is an ammo stockpile three steps away from them. Each squad with marksdwarves must be assigned ammo; as they deplete it, Dwarf Fortress will automatically add additional ammo to the squad if there are some in the fortress, again following the principle of LIFO.

=== Avoiding 'Equipment Mismatch' Issues ===
Miners; wood cutters; and hunters have a default uniform. When these labors are enabled, a dwarf will carry the equipment appropriate to that job, making it unavailable for the military, and causing issues if that dwarf is then drafted. In general, its safe to put miners and wood cutters in ranged squads, and hunters in melee squads, as this prevents them from equipped the same type of item twice.

When drafting hunters, clear their labors, and *confirm* that your hunter has put his quiver and crossbow away. If you don't, he'll generate equipment mismatches. Furthermore, a mismatch may be cause when a marksdwarf grabs a quiver that was once used by a hunter which still has bolts in it. This can be resolved by opening the dwarf in the {{K|k}} menu, then open his inventory, find the quiver, and forbid the bolts in it. He'll dump them, and properly reload.

If you don't use hunters, you may want to remove their bolt assignments from the ammunition screen.

== Setting your Marksdwarf's barrack ==

=== Understanding Possible Training Activities ===
The first rule of marksdwarf training is you do *not* assign them a normal barrack. If they have that, they will prefer to train as hammerdwarves with their crossbows vs. actually shooting bolts. Furthermore, as the game gives precedence to melee training, they will almost never use an archery range even if one is assigned if they have a choice.

When training, a dwarf has four possible options, which they will take in roughly this order:
- Squad Training
- Individual Combat Drill
- Spar
- Archery Training

Squad training and sparring require multiple dwarfs (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves, training their melee skills while doing so). Except for archery training, dwarves require a standard barracks to conduct any of the above activities. Notably, it is possible to actually train marksdwarves via demonstration, both Crossbow and Archery skills are trainable via demonstrations. By combining this with training orders, it is possible to make Archery Training the only valid option, and thus get them to train consistently.

=== Building Archery Ranges ===
Thus, the first step is to build a room with a bunch of archery ranges. I recommend putting them against the left most wall so the shooting direction is automatically correct, but this should work regardless of direction. The room must be large enough that the marksdwarf has a one gap space between them and the target; I just make their "barrack" 10x10, and put an ammo stockpile in it. Notably, and this is a change from previous version is that the dwarf *must* be able to walk up to the the target; placing a channel in front of it will prevent them from training.

Once you build your range, you must define it as a room. Make it so it touches the far wall, and don't worry, range rooms can overlap. You have to do this for each. Make sure the shooting direction is correct! In addition, your marksdwarf squad MUST at minimum have train set on each archery target. One dwarf can use one target at any given time.

[[File:Archery_range_setup.png|A properly setup archery target]]

Repeat this for each range; you'll have 5-10 targets overlapping each other and assigned to your marksdwarves squad (in these screenshots, they are the "Home Guard")

===The Military Management Screen===

This is by far the most difficult part. Fear the 'm' menu, for it eats children. The {{K|m}} menu is confusing on the best days, but this guide will walk you through it.

The first and default page is the positions page. Ignore it for now, because you want to make the right uniform for your marksdwarves. Press {{K|n}} to bring up the uniforms screen. Do yourself a favor and just delete the default archer uniform. It's wrong and will not work properly.

Create a new uniform with {{K|c}} and add the following:
- crossbow (do NOT used individual choice, ranged; you *will* end up with dwarves who think an axe is a ranged weapon)
- shield (optional)
- leather armor
- leather headwear
- leather legwear
- leather armor
- leather legwear

Press {{K|m}} to switch from "Partial matches" to "Exact matches" in the upper right. This appears to fix most of the issues of them not picking up quivers. You might be able to get away with over clothing however.

Here's what it should like if you did it right:

[[File:Working_training_uniform.png|400px|Uniform that gets them training]]

Now press {{K|p}} to go back to the positions menu. When you create the squad, it will ask for a uniform. Normally, this works as you'd expect it, assigning the uniform to an entire squad. However, if done with the captain of the guard position, it will *only* assign to that spot. You can look at the top of the screen to see what your dwarfs will train as (i.e. 10/10 Marksdwarfs). If needed, after selecting your recruits, then switch to the {{K|e}} menu. Select your squad, and then a position, then press {{K|U}} (that's capital U) to bring up the uniform selection screen.

Highlight your crossbow uniform, and press {{K|shift}} + {{K|enter}} to assign it to all positions in the squad. If you then check the positions screen, at the top, it will say 10/10 marksdwarves, instead of 1/1 markdwarf 9/9 wrestlers, which is what will happen if you leave it on defaults.

[[File:10_marksdwarves.png|400px|10/10 Marksdwarves]]

=== Handling Ammo ===
We're almost done. Go to the ammo screen.

[[File:ammo_screen.png|400px|Ammo]]

If you're setting this by hand, here's what to know. Each squad needs the correct ammo. Bolts are assigned on a "per-item" basis, i.e., a given stack of bolts thats marked for training will only be used for training and via versus. Unfortunately, an old bug prevents this from working; if you have multiple ammo types, and some are set Training-only, and others are set combat-only, your marksdwarves *will* get stuck and fail to train, or fail to fire. The only way to get this to work is if all ammo assignments in the fortress are set to both "CT" in the UI.

==== Switching Bolts Types Reliably ====
Forbidding/Dumping is respected by the game when assigning ammo, so you can use the stocks screen to dump wooden/bone bolts when you're not training, and then have them load metal bolts for fighting. The easiest way to just use wooden/bone bolts when you're training (setting both CT flags on it in the ammo screen), and when you need them to switch, delete the ammo assignment for the training bolts, dump them from the stocks screen (DFHack's enhanced inventory is useful from this), and add the new metal bolts to the screen. Reverse the process to get them to change back.

=== Squad Training Orders ===

Now, for the magic bit that gets them doing nothing *but* training. Open the schedule screen with {{K|s}} and look at the orders. The default is "Train, 10 minimium". '''This is WRONG!'''

[[File:default_training_order.png|400px|Default Training Order]]

Press {{K|x}} to delete the order. The schedule screen will change to show no scheduled orders.

[[File:No_orders.png|400px|no_orders]]

Press {{K|o}} to pull up the give order screen. Press {{K|o}} until 'Train' is set, and then press {{K|+}} so it shows minimum 1, like this. Then press shift-done to give the order. The screen will look like this:

[[File:Train_1.png|400px|train 1]]

[[File:given_train_1_order.png|400px|after giving train 1 order]]

Now do it again, until you have as many orders as total members of your squad (using a [[macro]] will allow you to repeat the process easily). You can give more than 5 orders, you just have to scroll in the orders screen to see it. When you're done it should look like this, after doing it 10 times.

[[File:multiple_train_1.png|400px|Multiple train one orders]]

Copy and paste the order to all the months. You can also set Sleep in Barrack at need to increase their training time, though this will raise the stress levels of dwarves in the squad due to tired thoughts.

You're almost done. Activate your squad, and after they finish picking up equipment, watch your bolt supplies vanish as your marksdwarves do nothing *but* archery training.

=== Why This Works ===
Squad training and sparing require multiple dwarves (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves). Training, minimum of 1 forces them to work solo. Since they don't have a normal barrack, they can't drill, which leaves Archery Training as the only possible way to train. Since reloading on marksdwarves continues to be erratic, they'll frequently report "No Orders" or similiar once they've finished archery training until the game notices that a given dwarf is out of ammo, in which case they'll go pick up more.

Archery training grants less experience than live fire (8XP per bolt vs. 30XP), but no micromanagement, no hauling, one setup, and you can ignore it until you get that glorious announcement that Urist McMarksdwarf has become an Elite Marksdwarf.

== Stopping Melee Charges ==

The short version: DON'T USE the [[DF2014:Scheduling#Stations|station scheduling order]]!

When a dwarf has line of sight on an enemy, they'll do one of two things: run away; or run up and fight. While they're running up to the enemy, dwarves will fire bolts if they have any, but then engage the enemy using their crossbows as hammers instead of firing. The easiest way to prevent this is either use fortification pillboxes (also known as [[DF2014:Archery_tower|archery towers]]), with a [[v0.34:Scheduling#Orders|patrol order]] that causes them to break line of sight, or defend burrows orders, which will keep them in the area defined by the burrow and prevent them from running up to the enemy.

For patrol routes, marksdwarves *will* not take a Pickup Equipment order as long as they have line of sight on their enemy. Have them go through a door or something, and as soon as they loose sight of the goblin/forgotten beast/demon, they'll immediately go find bolts and reload.

The full effectiveness at Defend Burrow orders at stopping a melee charge is unknown.

{{Military}}

DF2014 Talk:Advanced marksdwarf training guide

2015-05-11T13:11:03Z

Kroy:

Inconsistent use of dwarves or dwarfs? Both are used on this guide.

Guilty as charged, is there a preference on which to use? [[User:NCommander|NCommander]] ([[User talk:NCommander|talk]]) 12:11, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure! Other than looking through other pages, I'm not sure where to find out. [[User:Kroy|Kroy]] ([[User talk:Kroy|talk]]) 13:09, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

--

"Then press shift-done to give the order" what is "Shift-done"? [[User:Kroy|Kroy]] ([[User talk:Kroy|talk]]) 13:09, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

--

"You have to do this for each."

For each what?
[[Special:Contributions/64.56.140.43|64.56.140.43]] 12:28, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

--

I've added some key icons and replaced the ascii [[User:Kroy|Kroy]] ([[User talk:Kroy|talk]]) 13:11, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

DF2014 Talk:Advanced marksdwarf training guide

2015-05-11T13:09:38Z

Kroy:

Advanced marksdwarf training guide

2015-05-11T13:05:33Z

Kroy: /* Squad Training Orders */

Marksdwarves are fairly buggy, and often refuse to use archery ranges, or stand in front of them, and fail to fire their crossbows. This guide goes into details explaining known bugs, and getting your Marksdwarves to train properly, as well as going into details regarding various ranged weaponry.

== Understanding Ranged Weaponry ==

In vanilla Dwarf Fortress, the raws define three types of ranged weapons, each with their own skill and ammo.

{| class="wikitable"
!colspan="4" |Ranged Weapons
|-
!Ranged Weapon
!Ranged Skill
!Melee Skill
!Ammo
|-
|Crossbow
|Marksdwarf
|Hammerdwarf
|Bolts
|-
|Bow
|Bowman
|Swordman
|Arrows
|-
|Blowgun
|Blowgunner
|Swordman
|Darts
|-
|}

Of these, dwarfs can only craft crossbows and bolts. Bows and blowguns are gained either through trade or recovery from downed enemies. If playing a modded game, replace crossbow in the following with one of the above weapons, and proper ammo type.

== Equipping Your Marksdwarfs ==

=== The Minimum Outfit ===
At a minimum, each dwarf requires the following to successfully use the crossbow.
* One crossbow
* One quiver
* One stack of bolts for each marksdwarf to fire

A quiver is equipped on the upper body slot. Due to a bug, sometimes a marksdwarf will fail to pickup a quiver if wearing heavy armor. A workaround for this is given below. Wood and metal bolts are generated in stacks of 25. Bone bolts are generated in stacks of 5.

=== Crossbows ===
Crossbows can be made with wood or bone at a bowyer's workshop, or out of metal at a metalsmith/magma forge. Metal crossbows can be forged out of copper, bronze, bismuth bronze, iron, steel, or adamantine. Quivers must be made of leather at a leatherworks. The base material of a crossbow appears to have no effect on the lethality of ranged bolts. However, when marksdwarves end up in melee, they will use their crossbow as a hammer, thus it is recommended to make dense metal crossbows.

=== Quivers and Bolts ===
Quivers can hold 25 bolts, and dwarves will pick up multiple stacks if necessary to fill it. In other words, they will successfully pick up five separate stacks of bone bolts, or 25 separate bolts if you're using a bolt splitting technique in your fortress. Bolts are collected in last-in-first-out order (LIFO); that is, dwarves will always go for the newest bolts in your fortress, even if there is an ammo stockpile three steps away from them. Each squad with marksdwarves must be assigned ammo; as they deplete it, Dwarf Fortress will automatically add additional ammo to the squad if there are some in the fortress, again following the principle of LIFO.

=== Avoiding 'Equipment Mismatch' Issues ===
Miners; wood cutters; and hunters have a default uniform. When these labors are enabled, a dwarf will carry the equipment appropriate to that job, making it unavailable for the military, and causing issues if that dwarf is then drafted. In general, its safe to put miners and wood cutters in ranged squads, and hunters in melee squads, as this prevents them from equipped the same type of item twice.

When drafting hunters, clear their labors, and *confirm* that your hunter has put his quiver and crossbow away. If you don't, he'll generate equipment mismatches. Furthermore, a mismatch may be cause when a marksdwarf grabs a quiver that was once used by a hunter which still has bolts in it. This can be resolved by opening the dwarf in the "k" menu, then open his inventory, find the quiver, and forbid the bolts in it. He'll dump them, and properly reload.

If you don't use hunters, you may want to remove their bolt assignments from the ammunition screen.

== Setting your Marksdwarf's barrack ==

=== Understanding Possible Training Activities ===
The first rule of marksdwarf training is you do *not* assign them a normal barrack. If they have that, they will prefer to train as hammerdwarves with their crossbows vs. actually shooting bolts. Furthermore, as the game gives precedence to melee training, they will almost never use an archery range even if one is assigned if they have a choice.

When training, a dwarf has four possible options, which they will take in roughly this order:
- Squad Training
- Individual Combat Drill
- Spar
- Archery Training

Squad training and sparing require multiple dwarfs (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves, training their melee skills while doing so). Except for archery training, dwarves require a standard barracks to conduct any of the above activities. Notably, it is possible to actually train marksdwarves via demonstration, both Crossbow and Archery skills are trainable via demonstrations. By combining this with training orders, it is possible to make Archery Training the only valid option, and thus get them to train consistently.

=== Building Archery Ranges ===
Thus, the first step is to build a room with a bunch of archery ranges. I recommend putting them against the left most wall so the shooting direction is automatically correct, but this should work regardless of direction. The room must be large enough that the marksdwarf has a one gap space between them and the target; I just make their "barrack" 10x10, and put an ammo stockpile in it. Notably, and this is a change from previous version is that the dwarf *must* be able to walk up to the the target; placing a channel in front of it will prevent them from training.

Once you build your range, you must define it as a room. Make it so it touches the far wall, and don't worry, range rooms can overlap. You have to do this for each. Make sure the shooting direction is correct! In addition, your marksdwarf squad MUST at minimum have train set on each archery target. One dwarf can use one target at any given time.

[[File:Archery_range_setup.png|A properly setup archery target]]

Repeat this for each range; you'll have 5-10 targets overlapping each other and assigned to your marksdwarves squad (in these screenshots, they are the "Home Guard")

===The Military Management Screen===

This is by far the most difficult part. Fear the 'm' menu, for it eats children. The 'm' menu is confusing on the best days, but this guide will walk you through it.

The first and default page is the positions page. Ignore it for now, you want to make the right uniform for your marksdwarves, press 'u' to bring up that screen. Do yourself a favor and just delete the default archer uniform. It's wrong and will not work properly.

Create a new uniform, and add the following:
- crossbow (do NOT used individual choice, ranged; you *will* end up with dwarves who think an axe is a ranged weapon)
- shield (optional)
- leather armor
- leather headwear
- leather legwear
- leather armor
- leather legwear

Make sure "exact match" is selected. This appears to fix most of the issues of them not picking up quivers. You might be able to get away with over clothing however.

Here's what it should like if you did it right:

[[File:Working_training_uniform.png|400px|Uniform that gets them training]]

Now press {{K|p}} to go back to the positions menu. When you create the squad, it will ask for a uniform. Normally, this works as you'd expect it, assigning the uniform to an entire squad. However, if done with the captain of the guard position, it will *only* assign to that spot. You can look at the top of the screen to see what your dwarfs will train as (i.e. 10/10 Marksdwarfs). If needed, after selecting your recruits, then switch to the {{K|e}} menu. Select your squad, and then a position, then press {{K|U}} (that's capital U) to bring up the uniform selection screen.

Highlight your crossbow uniform, and press {{K|shift}} + {{K|enter}} to assign it to all positions in the squad. If you then check the positions screen, at the top, it will say 10/10 marksdwarves, instead of 1/1 markdwarf 9/9 wrestlers, which is what will happen if you leave it on defaults.

[[File:10_marksdwarves.png|400px|10/10 Marksdwarves]]

=== Handling Ammo ===
We're almost done. Go to the ammo screen.

[[File:ammo_screen.png|400px|Ammo]]

If you're setting this by hand, here's what to know. Each squad needs the correct ammo. Bolts are assigned on a "per-item" basis, i.e., a given stack of bolts thats marked for training will only be used for training and via versus. Unfortunately, an old bug prevents this from working; if you have multiple ammo types, and some are set Training-only, and others are set combat-only, your marksdwarves *will* get stuck and fail to train, or fail to fire. The only way to get this to work is if all ammo assignments in the fortress are set to both "CT" in the UI.

==== Switching Bolts Types Reliably ====
Forbidding/Dumping is respected by the game when assigning ammo, so you can use the stocks screen to dump wooden/bone bolts when you're not training, and then have them load metal bolts for fighting. The easiest way to just use wooden/bone bolts when you're training (setting both CT flags on it in the ammo screen), and when you need them to switch, delete the ammo assignment for the training bolts, dump them from the stocks screen (DFHack's enhanced inventory is useful from this), and add the new metal bolts to the screen. Reverse the process to get them to change back.

=== Squad Training Orders ===

Now, for the magic bit that gets them doing nothing *but* training. Open the schedule screen, and look at the orders. The default is "Train, 10 minimium". '''This is WRONG!'''

[[File:default_training_order.png|400px|Default Training Order]]

Press {{K|x}} to delete the order. The schedule screen will change to show no scheduled orders.

[[File:No_orders.png|400px|no_orders]]

Press {{K|o}} to pull up the give order screen. Press {{K|o}} until 'Train' is set, and then press {{K|+}} so it shows minimum 1, like this. Then press shift-done to give the order. The screen will look like this:

[[File:Train_1.png|400px|train 1]]

[[File:given_train_1_order.png|400px|after giving train 1 order]]

Now do it again, for the total members of your squad (you CAN give more than 5 orders, you just have to scroll in the orders screen to see it). When you're done it should look like this, after doing it 10 times.

[[File:multiple_train_1.png|400px|Multiple train one orders]]

Copy and paste the order to all the months. You can also set Sleep in Barrack at need to increase their training time, though this will raise the stress levels of dwarves in the squad due to tired thoughts.

You're almost done. Activate your squad, and after they finish picking up equipment, watch your bolt supplies vanish as your marksdwarves do nothing *but* archery training.

=== Why This Works ===
Squad training and sparing require multiple dwarves (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves). Training, minimum of 1 forces them to work solo. Since they don't have a normal barrack, they can't drill, which leaves Archery Training as the only possible way to train. Since reloading on marksdwarves continues to be erratic, they'll frequently report "No Orders" or similiar once they've finished archery training until the game notices that a given dwarf is out of ammo, in which case they'll go pick up more.

Archery training grants less experience than live fire (8XP per bolt vs. 30XP), but no micromanagement, no hauling, one setup, and you can ignore it until you get that glorious announcement that Urist McMarksdwarf has become an Elite Marksdwarf.

== Stopping Melee Charges ==

The short version: DON'T USE STATION!

When a dwarf has line of sight on an enemy, they'll one of two things, run away, or run up and fight them. While they're running up to the enemy, dwarves will fire bolts if they have any, but then engage the enemy using their crossbows as hammers instead of firing. The easiest way to prevent this is either use fortification pillboxes, with a patrol order that causes them to break line of sight, or defend burrows orders, which will keep them in the area defined by the burrow and prevent them from running up to the enemy.

For patrol routes, marksdwarves *will* not take a Pickup Equipment order as long as they have line of sight on their enemy. Have them go through a door or something, and as soon as they loose sight of the goblin/forgotten beast/demon, they'll immediately go find bolts and reload.

The full effectiveness at Defend Burrow orders at stopping a melee charge is unknown.

{{Military}}

Advanced marksdwarf training guide

2015-05-11T13:04:29Z

Kroy: /* Squad Training Orders */

Marksdwarves are fairly buggy, and often refuse to use archery ranges, or stand in front of them, and fail to fire their crossbows. This guide goes into details explaining known bugs, and getting your Marksdwarves to train properly, as well as going into details regarding various ranged weaponry.

== Understanding Ranged Weaponry ==

In vanilla Dwarf Fortress, the raws define three types of ranged weapons, each with their own skill and ammo.

{| class="wikitable"
!colspan="4" |Ranged Weapons
|-
!Ranged Weapon
!Ranged Skill
!Melee Skill
!Ammo
|-
|Crossbow
|Marksdwarf
|Hammerdwarf
|Bolts
|-
|Bow
|Bowman
|Swordman
|Arrows
|-
|Blowgun
|Blowgunner
|Swordman
|Darts
|-
|}

Of these, dwarfs can only craft crossbows and bolts. Bows and blowguns are gained either through trade or recovery from downed enemies. If playing a modded game, replace crossbow in the following with one of the above weapons, and proper ammo type.

== Equipping Your Marksdwarfs ==

=== The Minimum Outfit ===
At a minimum, each dwarf requires the following to successfully use the crossbow.
* One crossbow
* One quiver
* One stack of bolts for each marksdwarf to fire

A quiver is equipped on the upper body slot. Due to a bug, sometimes a marksdwarf will fail to pickup a quiver if wearing heavy armor. A workaround for this is given below. Wood and metal bolts are generated in stacks of 25. Bone bolts are generated in stacks of 5.

=== Crossbows ===
Crossbows can be made with wood or bone at a bowyer's workshop, or out of metal at a metalsmith/magma forge. Metal crossbows can be forged out of copper, bronze, bismuth bronze, iron, steel, or adamantine. Quivers must be made of leather at a leatherworks. The base material of a crossbow appears to have no effect on the lethality of ranged bolts. However, when marksdwarves end up in melee, they will use their crossbow as a hammer, thus it is recommended to make dense metal crossbows.

=== Quivers and Bolts ===
Quivers can hold 25 bolts, and dwarves will pick up multiple stacks if necessary to fill it. In other words, they will successfully pick up five separate stacks of bone bolts, or 25 separate bolts if you're using a bolt splitting technique in your fortress. Bolts are collected in last-in-first-out order (LIFO); that is, dwarves will always go for the newest bolts in your fortress, even if there is an ammo stockpile three steps away from them. Each squad with marksdwarves must be assigned ammo; as they deplete it, Dwarf Fortress will automatically add additional ammo to the squad if there are some in the fortress, again following the principle of LIFO.

=== Avoiding 'Equipment Mismatch' Issues ===
Miners; wood cutters; and hunters have a default uniform. When these labors are enabled, a dwarf will carry the equipment appropriate to that job, making it unavailable for the military, and causing issues if that dwarf is then drafted. In general, its safe to put miners and wood cutters in ranged squads, and hunters in melee squads, as this prevents them from equipped the same type of item twice.

When drafting hunters, clear their labors, and *confirm* that your hunter has put his quiver and crossbow away. If you don't, he'll generate equipment mismatches. Furthermore, a mismatch may be cause when a marksdwarf grabs a quiver that was once used by a hunter which still has bolts in it. This can be resolved by opening the dwarf in the "k" menu, then open his inventory, find the quiver, and forbid the bolts in it. He'll dump them, and properly reload.

If you don't use hunters, you may want to remove their bolt assignments from the ammunition screen.

== Setting your Marksdwarf's barrack ==

=== Understanding Possible Training Activities ===
The first rule of marksdwarf training is you do *not* assign them a normal barrack. If they have that, they will prefer to train as hammerdwarves with their crossbows vs. actually shooting bolts. Furthermore, as the game gives precedence to melee training, they will almost never use an archery range even if one is assigned if they have a choice.

When training, a dwarf has four possible options, which they will take in roughly this order:
- Squad Training
- Individual Combat Drill
- Spar
- Archery Training

Squad training and sparing require multiple dwarfs (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves, training their melee skills while doing so). Except for archery training, dwarves require a standard barracks to conduct any of the above activities. Notably, it is possible to actually train marksdwarves via demonstration, both Crossbow and Archery skills are trainable via demonstrations. By combining this with training orders, it is possible to make Archery Training the only valid option, and thus get them to train consistently.

=== Building Archery Ranges ===
Thus, the first step is to build a room with a bunch of archery ranges. I recommend putting them against the left most wall so the shooting direction is automatically correct, but this should work regardless of direction. The room must be large enough that the marksdwarf has a one gap space between them and the target; I just make their "barrack" 10x10, and put an ammo stockpile in it. Notably, and this is a change from previous version is that the dwarf *must* be able to walk up to the the target; placing a channel in front of it will prevent them from training.

Once you build your range, you must define it as a room. Make it so it touches the far wall, and don't worry, range rooms can overlap. You have to do this for each. Make sure the shooting direction is correct! In addition, your marksdwarf squad MUST at minimum have train set on each archery target. One dwarf can use one target at any given time.

[[File:Archery_range_setup.png|A properly setup archery target]]

Repeat this for each range; you'll have 5-10 targets overlapping each other and assigned to your marksdwarves squad (in these screenshots, they are the "Home Guard")

===The Military Management Screen===

This is by far the most difficult part. Fear the 'm' menu, for it eats children. The 'm' menu is confusing on the best days, but this guide will walk you through it.

The first and default page is the positions page. Ignore it for now, you want to make the right uniform for your marksdwarves, press 'u' to bring up that screen. Do yourself a favor and just delete the default archer uniform. It's wrong and will not work properly.

Create a new uniform, and add the following:
- crossbow (do NOT used individual choice, ranged; you *will* end up with dwarves who think an axe is a ranged weapon)
- shield (optional)
- leather armor
- leather headwear
- leather legwear
- leather armor
- leather legwear

Make sure "exact match" is selected. This appears to fix most of the issues of them not picking up quivers. You might be able to get away with over clothing however.

Here's what it should like if you did it right:

[[File:Working_training_uniform.png|400px|Uniform that gets them training]]

Now press {{K|p}} to go back to the positions menu. When you create the squad, it will ask for a uniform. Normally, this works as you'd expect it, assigning the uniform to an entire squad. However, if done with the captain of the guard position, it will *only* assign to that spot. You can look at the top of the screen to see what your dwarfs will train as (i.e. 10/10 Marksdwarfs). If needed, after selecting your recruits, then switch to the {{K|e}} menu. Select your squad, and then a position, then press {{K|U}} (that's capital U) to bring up the uniform selection screen.

Highlight your crossbow uniform, and press {{K|shift}} + {{K|enter}} to assign it to all positions in the squad. If you then check the positions screen, at the top, it will say 10/10 marksdwarves, instead of 1/1 markdwarf 9/9 wrestlers, which is what will happen if you leave it on defaults.

[[File:10_marksdwarves.png|400px|10/10 Marksdwarves]]

=== Handling Ammo ===
We're almost done. Go to the ammo screen.

[[File:ammo_screen.png|400px|Ammo]]

If you're setting this by hand, here's what to know. Each squad needs the correct ammo. Bolts are assigned on a "per-item" basis, i.e., a given stack of bolts thats marked for training will only be used for training and via versus. Unfortunately, an old bug prevents this from working; if you have multiple ammo types, and some are set Training-only, and others are set combat-only, your marksdwarves *will* get stuck and fail to train, or fail to fire. The only way to get this to work is if all ammo assignments in the fortress are set to both "CT" in the UI.

==== Switching Bolts Types Reliably ====
Forbidding/Dumping is respected by the game when assigning ammo, so you can use the stocks screen to dump wooden/bone bolts when you're not training, and then have them load metal bolts for fighting. The easiest way to just use wooden/bone bolts when you're training (setting both CT flags on it in the ammo screen), and when you need them to switch, delete the ammo assignment for the training bolts, dump them from the stocks screen (DFHack's enhanced inventory is useful from this), and add the new metal bolts to the screen. Reverse the process to get them to change back.

=== Squad Training Orders ===

Now, for the magic bit that gets them doing nothing *but* training. Open the schedule screen, and look at the orders. The default is "Train, 10 minimium". '''This is WRONG!'''

[[File:default_training_order.png|400px|Default Training Order]]

Press {{K|X}} to delete the order. The schedule screen will change to show no scheduled orders.

[[File:No_orders.png|400px|no_orders]]

Press {{K|O}} to pull up the give order screen. Press o until 'Train' is set, and then press + so it shows minimum 1, like this. Then press shift-done to give the order. The screen will look like this:

[[File:Train_1.png|400px|train 1]]

[[File:given_train_1_order.png|400px|after giving train 1 order]]

Now do it again, for the total members of your squad (you CAN give more than 5 orders, you just have to scroll in the orders screen to see it). When you're done it should look like this, after doing it 10 times.

[[File:multiple_train_1.png|400px|Multiple train one orders]]

Copy and paste the order to all the months. You can also set Sleep in Barrack at need to increase their training time, though this will raise the stress levels of dwarves in the squad due to tired thoughts.

You're almost done. Activate your squad, and after they finish picking up equipment, watch your bolt supplies vanish as your marksdwarves do nothing *but* archery training.

=== Why This Works ===
Squad training and sparing require multiple dwarves (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves). Training, minimum of 1 forces them to work solo. Since they don't have a normal barrack, they can't drill, which leaves Archery Training as the only possible way to train. Since reloading on marksdwarves continues to be erratic, they'll frequently report "No Orders" or similiar once they've finished archery training until the game notices that a given dwarf is out of ammo, in which case they'll go pick up more.

Archery training grants less experience than live fire (8XP per bolt vs. 30XP), but no micromanagement, no hauling, one setup, and you can ignore it until you get that glorious announcement that Urist McMarksdwarf has become an Elite Marksdwarf.

== Stopping Melee Charges ==

The short version: DON'T USE STATION!

When a dwarf has line of sight on an enemy, they'll one of two things, run away, or run up and fight them. While they're running up to the enemy, dwarves will fire bolts if they have any, but then engage the enemy using their crossbows as hammers instead of firing. The easiest way to prevent this is either use fortification pillboxes, with a patrol order that causes them to break line of sight, or defend burrows orders, which will keep them in the area defined by the burrow and prevent them from running up to the enemy.

For patrol routes, marksdwarves *will* not take a Pickup Equipment order as long as they have line of sight on their enemy. Have them go through a door or something, and as soon as they loose sight of the goblin/forgotten beast/demon, they'll immediately go find bolts and reload.

The full effectiveness at Defend Burrow orders at stopping a melee charge is unknown.

{{Military}}

Advanced marksdwarf training guide

2015-05-11T13:02:29Z

Kroy: /* Building Archery Ranges */

Marksdwarves are fairly buggy, and often refuse to use archery ranges, or stand in front of them, and fail to fire their crossbows. This guide goes into details explaining known bugs, and getting your Marksdwarves to train properly, as well as going into details regarding various ranged weaponry.

== Understanding Ranged Weaponry ==

In vanilla Dwarf Fortress, the raws define three types of ranged weapons, each with their own skill and ammo.

{| class="wikitable"
!colspan="4" |Ranged Weapons
|-
!Ranged Weapon
!Ranged Skill
!Melee Skill
!Ammo
|-
|Crossbow
|Marksdwarf
|Hammerdwarf
|Bolts
|-
|Bow
|Bowman
|Swordman
|Arrows
|-
|Blowgun
|Blowgunner
|Swordman
|Darts
|-
|}

Of these, dwarfs can only craft crossbows and bolts. Bows and blowguns are gained either through trade or recovery from downed enemies. If playing a modded game, replace crossbow in the following with one of the above weapons, and proper ammo type.

== Equipping Your Marksdwarfs ==

=== The Minimum Outfit ===
At a minimum, each dwarf requires the following to successfully use the crossbow.
* One crossbow
* One quiver
* One stack of bolts for each marksdwarf to fire

A quiver is equipped on the upper body slot. Due to a bug, sometimes a marksdwarf will fail to pickup a quiver if wearing heavy armor. A workaround for this is given below. Wood and metal bolts are generated in stacks of 25. Bone bolts are generated in stacks of 5.

=== Crossbows ===
Crossbows can be made with wood or bone at a bowyer's workshop, or out of metal at a metalsmith/magma forge. Metal crossbows can be forged out of copper, bronze, bismuth bronze, iron, steel, or adamantine. Quivers must be made of leather at a leatherworks. The base material of a crossbow appears to have no effect on the lethality of ranged bolts. However, when marksdwarves end up in melee, they will use their crossbow as a hammer, thus it is recommended to make dense metal crossbows.

=== Quivers and Bolts ===
Quivers can hold 25 bolts, and dwarves will pick up multiple stacks if necessary to fill it. In other words, they will successfully pick up five separate stacks of bone bolts, or 25 separate bolts if you're using a bolt splitting technique in your fortress. Bolts are collected in last-in-first-out order (LIFO); that is, dwarves will always go for the newest bolts in your fortress, even if there is an ammo stockpile three steps away from them. Each squad with marksdwarves must be assigned ammo; as they deplete it, Dwarf Fortress will automatically add additional ammo to the squad if there are some in the fortress, again following the principle of LIFO.

=== Avoiding 'Equipment Mismatch' Issues ===
Miners; wood cutters; and hunters have a default uniform. When these labors are enabled, a dwarf will carry the equipment appropriate to that job, making it unavailable for the military, and causing issues if that dwarf is then drafted. In general, its safe to put miners and wood cutters in ranged squads, and hunters in melee squads, as this prevents them from equipped the same type of item twice.

When drafting hunters, clear their labors, and *confirm* that your hunter has put his quiver and crossbow away. If you don't, he'll generate equipment mismatches. Furthermore, a mismatch may be cause when a marksdwarf grabs a quiver that was once used by a hunter which still has bolts in it. This can be resolved by opening the dwarf in the "k" menu, then open his inventory, find the quiver, and forbid the bolts in it. He'll dump them, and properly reload.

If you don't use hunters, you may want to remove their bolt assignments from the ammunition screen.

== Setting your Marksdwarf's barrack ==

=== Understanding Possible Training Activities ===
The first rule of marksdwarf training is you do *not* assign them a normal barrack. If they have that, they will prefer to train as hammerdwarves with their crossbows vs. actually shooting bolts. Furthermore, as the game gives precedence to melee training, they will almost never use an archery range even if one is assigned if they have a choice.

When training, a dwarf has four possible options, which they will take in roughly this order:
- Squad Training
- Individual Combat Drill
- Spar
- Archery Training

Squad training and sparing require multiple dwarfs (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves, training their melee skills while doing so). Except for archery training, dwarves require a standard barracks to conduct any of the above activities. Notably, it is possible to actually train marksdwarves via demonstration, both Crossbow and Archery skills are trainable via demonstrations. By combining this with training orders, it is possible to make Archery Training the only valid option, and thus get them to train consistently.

=== Building Archery Ranges ===
Thus, the first step is to build a room with a bunch of archery ranges. I recommend putting them against the left most wall so the shooting direction is automatically correct, but this should work regardless of direction. The room must be large enough that the marksdwarf has a one gap space between them and the target; I just make their "barrack" 10x10, and put an ammo stockpile in it. Notably, and this is a change from previous version is that the dwarf *must* be able to walk up to the the target; placing a channel in front of it will prevent them from training.

Once you build your range, you must define it as a room. Make it so it touches the far wall, and don't worry, range rooms can overlap. You have to do this for each. Make sure the shooting direction is correct! In addition, your marksdwarf squad MUST at minimum have train set on each archery target. One dwarf can use one target at any given time.

[[File:Archery_range_setup.png|A properly setup archery target]]

Repeat this for each range; you'll have 5-10 targets overlapping each other and assigned to your marksdwarves squad (in these screenshots, they are the "Home Guard")

===The Military Management Screen===

This is by far the most difficult part. Fear the 'm' menu, for it eats children. The 'm' menu is confusing on the best days, but this guide will walk you through it.

The first and default page is the positions page. Ignore it for now, you want to make the right uniform for your marksdwarves, press 'u' to bring up that screen. Do yourself a favor and just delete the default archer uniform. It's wrong and will not work properly.

Create a new uniform, and add the following:
- crossbow (do NOT used individual choice, ranged; you *will* end up with dwarves who think an axe is a ranged weapon)
- shield (optional)
- leather armor
- leather headwear
- leather legwear
- leather armor
- leather legwear

Make sure "exact match" is selected. This appears to fix most of the issues of them not picking up quivers. You might be able to get away with over clothing however.

Here's what it should like if you did it right:

[[File:Working_training_uniform.png|400px|Uniform that gets them training]]

Now press {{K|p}} to go back to the positions menu. When you create the squad, it will ask for a uniform. Normally, this works as you'd expect it, assigning the uniform to an entire squad. However, if done with the captain of the guard position, it will *only* assign to that spot. You can look at the top of the screen to see what your dwarfs will train as (i.e. 10/10 Marksdwarfs). If needed, after selecting your recruits, then switch to the {{K|e}} menu. Select your squad, and then a position, then press {{K|U}} (that's capital U) to bring up the uniform selection screen.

Highlight your crossbow uniform, and press {{K|shift}} + {{K|enter}} to assign it to all positions in the squad. If you then check the positions screen, at the top, it will say 10/10 marksdwarves, instead of 1/1 markdwarf 9/9 wrestlers, which is what will happen if you leave it on defaults.

[[File:10_marksdwarves.png|400px|10/10 Marksdwarves]]

=== Handling Ammo ===
We're almost done. Go to the ammo screen.

[[File:ammo_screen.png|400px|Ammo]]

If you're setting this by hand, here's what to know. Each squad needs the correct ammo. Bolts are assigned on a "per-item" basis, i.e., a given stack of bolts thats marked for training will only be used for training and via versus. Unfortunately, an old bug prevents this from working; if you have multiple ammo types, and some are set Training-only, and others are set combat-only, your marksdwarves *will* get stuck and fail to train, or fail to fire. The only way to get this to work is if all ammo assignments in the fortress are set to both "CT" in the UI.

==== Switching Bolts Types Reliably ====
Forbidding/Dumping is respected by the game when assigning ammo, so you can use the stocks screen to dump wooden/bone bolts when you're not training, and then have them load metal bolts for fighting. The easiest way to just use wooden/bone bolts when you're training (setting both CT flags on it in the ammo screen), and when you need them to switch, delete the ammo assignment for the training bolts, dump them from the stocks screen (DFHack's enhanced inventory is useful from this), and add the new metal bolts to the screen. Reverse the process to get them to change back.

=== Squad Training Orders ===

Now, for the magic bit that gets them doing nothing *but* training. Open the schedule screen, and look at the orders. The default is "Train, 10 minimium". '''This is WRONG!'''

[[File:default_training_order.png|400px|Default Training Order]]

Press x to delete the order. The schedule screen will change to show no scheduled orders.

[[File:No_orders.png|400px|no_orders]]

Press 'o' to pull up the give order screen. Press o until 'Train' is set, and then press + so it shows minimum 1, like this. Then press shift-done to give the order. The screen will look like this:

[[File:Train_1.png|400px|train 1]]

[[File:given_train_1_order.png|400px|after giving train 1 order]]

Now do it again, for the total members of your squad (you CAN give more than 5 orders, you just have to scroll in the orders screen to see it). When you're done it should look like this, after doing it 10 times.

[[File:multiple_train_1.png|400px|Multiple train one orders]]

Copy and paste the order to all the months. You can also set Sleep in Barrack at need to increase their training time, though this will raise the stress levels of dwarves in the squad due to tired thoughts.

You're almost done. Activate your squad, and after they finish picking up equipment, watch your bolt supplies vanish as your marksdwarves do nothing *but* archery training.

=== Why This Works ===
Squad training and sparing require multiple dwarves (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves). Training, minimum of 1 forces them to work solo. Since they don't have a normal barrack, they can't drill, which leaves Archery Training as the only possible way to train. Since reloading on marksdwarves continues to be erratic, they'll frequently report "No Orders" or similiar once they've finished archery training until the game notices that a given dwarf is out of ammo, in which case they'll go pick up more.

Archery training grants less experience than live fire (8XP per bolt vs. 30XP), but no micromanagement, no hauling, one setup, and you can ignore it until you get that glorious announcement that Urist McMarksdwarf has become an Elite Marksdwarf.

== Stopping Melee Charges ==

The short version: DON'T USE STATION!

When a dwarf has line of sight on an enemy, they'll one of two things, run away, or run up and fight them. While they're running up to the enemy, dwarves will fire bolts if they have any, but then engage the enemy using their crossbows as hammers instead of firing. The easiest way to prevent this is either use fortification pillboxes, with a patrol order that causes them to break line of sight, or defend burrows orders, which will keep them in the area defined by the burrow and prevent them from running up to the enemy.

For patrol routes, marksdwarves *will* not take a Pickup Equipment order as long as they have line of sight on their enemy. Have them go through a door or something, and as soon as they loose sight of the goblin/forgotten beast/demon, they'll immediately go find bolts and reload.

The full effectiveness at Defend Burrow orders at stopping a melee charge is unknown.

{{Military}}

Advanced marksdwarf training guide

2015-05-11T12:53:57Z

Kroy: /* Understanding Possible Training Activities */

Marksdwarves are fairly buggy, and often refuse to use archery ranges, or stand in front of them, and fail to fire their crossbows. This guide goes into details explaining known bugs, and getting your Marksdwarves to train properly, as well as going into details regarding various ranged weaponry.

== Understanding Ranged Weaponry ==

In vanilla Dwarf Fortress, the raws define three types of ranged weapons, each with their own skill and ammo.

{| class="wikitable"
!colspan="4" |Ranged Weapons
|-
!Ranged Weapon
!Ranged Skill
!Melee Skill
!Ammo
|-
|Crossbow
|Marksdwarf
|Hammerdwarf
|Bolts
|-
|Bow
|Bowman
|Swordman
|Arrows
|-
|Blowgun
|Blowgunner
|Swordman
|Darts
|-
|}

Of these, dwarfs can only craft crossbows and bolts. Bows and blowguns are gained either through trade or recovery from downed enemies. If playing a modded game, replace crossbow in the following with one of the above weapons, and proper ammo type.

== Equipping Your Marksdwarfs ==

=== The Minimum Outfit ===
At a minimum, each dwarf requires the following to successfully use the crossbow.
* One crossbow
* One quiver
* One stack of bolts for each marksdwarf to fire

A quiver is equipped on the upper body slot. Due to a bug, sometimes a marksdwarf will fail to pickup a quiver if wearing heavy armor. A workaround for this is given below. Wood and metal bolts are generated in stacks of 25. Bone bolts are generated in stacks of 5.

=== Crossbows ===
Crossbows can be made with wood or bone at a bowyer's workshop, or out of metal at a metalsmith/magma forge. Metal crossbows can be forged out of copper, bronze, bismuth bronze, iron, steel, or adamantine. Quivers must be made of leather at a leatherworks. The base material of a crossbow appears to have no effect on the lethality of ranged bolts. However, when marksdwarves end up in melee, they will use their crossbow as a hammer, thus it is recommended to make dense metal crossbows.

=== Quivers and Bolts ===
Quivers can hold 25 bolts, and dwarves will pick up multiple stacks if necessary to fill it. In other words, they will successfully pick up five separate stacks of bone bolts, or 25 separate bolts if you're using a bolt splitting technique in your fortress. Bolts are collected in last-in-first-out order (LIFO); that is, dwarves will always go for the newest bolts in your fortress, even if there is an ammo stockpile three steps away from them. Each squad with marksdwarves must be assigned ammo; as they deplete it, Dwarf Fortress will automatically add additional ammo to the squad if there are some in the fortress, again following the principle of LIFO.

=== Avoiding 'Equipment Mismatch' Issues ===
Miners; wood cutters; and hunters have a default uniform. When these labors are enabled, a dwarf will carry the equipment appropriate to that job, making it unavailable for the military, and causing issues if that dwarf is then drafted. In general, its safe to put miners and wood cutters in ranged squads, and hunters in melee squads, as this prevents them from equipped the same type of item twice.

When drafting hunters, clear their labors, and *confirm* that your hunter has put his quiver and crossbow away. If you don't, he'll generate equipment mismatches. Furthermore, a mismatch may be cause when a marksdwarf grabs a quiver that was once used by a hunter which still has bolts in it. This can be resolved by opening the dwarf in the "k" menu, then open his inventory, find the quiver, and forbid the bolts in it. He'll dump them, and properly reload.

If you don't use hunters, you may want to remove their bolt assignments from the ammunition screen.

== Setting your Marksdwarf's barrack ==

=== Understanding Possible Training Activities ===
The first rule of marksdwarf training is you do *not* assign them a normal barrack. If they have that, they will prefer to train as hammerdwarves with their crossbows vs. actually shooting bolts. Furthermore, as the game gives precedence to melee training, they will almost never use an archery range even if one is assigned if they have a choice.

When training, a dwarf has four possible options, which they will take in roughly this order:
- Squad Training
- Individual Combat Drill
- Spar
- Archery Training

Squad training and sparing require multiple dwarfs (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves, training their melee skills while doing so). Except for archery training, dwarves require a standard barracks to conduct any of the above activities. Notably, it is possible to actually train marksdwarves via demonstration, both Crossbow and Archery skills are trainable via demonstrations. By combining this with training orders, it is possible to make Archery Training the only valid option, and thus get them to train consistently.

=== Building Archery Ranges ===
Thus, the first step is to build a room with a bunch of archery ranges. I recommend putting them against the left most wall so the shooting direction is automatically correct, but this should work regardless of direction. The room must be large enough that the marksdwarf has a one gap space between them and the target; I just make their "barrack" 10x10, and put an ammo stockpile in it. Notably, and this is a change from previous version is that the dwarf *must* be able to walk up to the the target; placing a channel in front of it will prevent them from training.

Once you build your range, you must define it as a room. Make it so it touches the far wall, and don't worry, range rooms can overlap. You have to do this for each. Make sure the shooting direction is correct! In addition, your marksdwarf squad MUST at minimum have train set on each archery target. One dwarf can use one target at any given time.

[[File:Archery_range_setup.png|A properly setup archery target]]

Repeat this for each range; you'll have 5-10 targets overlapping each other and assigned to your marksdwarves squad (in these screenshots, they are the "Home Guard")

[b]3. The Military Management Screen[/b]

This is by far the most difficult part. Fear the 'm' menu, for it eats children. The 'm' menu is confusing on the best days, but this guide will walk you through it.

The first and default page is the positions page. Ignore it for now, you want to make the right uniform for your marksdwarves, press 'u' to bring up that screen. Do yourself a favor and just delete the default archer uniform. It's wrong and will not work properly.

Create a new uniform, and add the following:
- crossbow (do NOT used individual choice, ranged; you *will* end up with dwarves who think an axe is a ranged weapon)
- shield (optional)
- leather armor
- leather headwear
- leather legwear
- leather armor
- leather legwear

Make sure "exact match" is selected. This appears to fix most of the issues of them not picking up quivers. You might be able to get away with over clothing however.

Here's what it should like if you did it right:

[[File:Working_training_uniform.png|400px|Uniform that gets them training]]

Now press 'p' to go back to the positions menu. When you create the squad, it will ask for a uniform. Normally, this works as you'd expect it, assigning the uniform to an entire squad. However, if done with the captain of the guard position, it will *only* assign to that spot. You can look at the top of the screen to see what your dwarfs will train as (i.e. 10/10 Marksdwarfs). If needed, after selecting your recruits, then switch to the 'e' menu. Select your squad, and then a position, then press 'U' (that's capital U) to bring up the uniform selection screen.

Highlight your crossbow uniform, and press 'Shift-Enter' to assign it to all positions in the squad. If you then check the positions screen, at the top, it will say 10/10 marksdwarves, instead of 1/1 markdwarf 9/9 wrestlers, which is what will happen if you leave it on defaults.

[[File:10_marksdwarves.png|400px|10/10 Marksdwarves]]

=== Handling Ammo ===
We're almost done. Go to the ammo screen.

[[File:ammo_screen.png|400px|Ammo]]

If you're setting this by hand, here's what to know. Each squad needs the correct ammo. Bolts are assigned on a "per-item" basis, i.e., a given stack of bolts thats marked for training will only be used for training and via versus. Unfortunately, an old bug prevents this from working; if you have multiple ammo types, and some are set Training-only, and others are set combat-only, your marksdwarves *will* get stuck and fail to train, or fail to fire. The only way to get this to work is if all ammo assignments in the fortress are set to both "CT" in the UI.

==== Switching Bolts Types Reliably ====
Forbidding/Dumping is respected by the game when assigning ammo, so you can use the stocks screen to dump wooden/bone bolts when you're not training, and then have them load metal bolts for fighting. The easiest way to just use wooden/bone bolts when you're training (setting both CT flags on it in the ammo screen), and when you need them to switch, delete the ammo assignment for the training bolts, dump them from the stocks screen (DFHack's enhanced inventory is useful from this), and add the new metal bolts to the screen. Reverse the process to get them to change back.

=== Squad Training Orders ===

Now, for the magic bit that gets them doing nothing *but* training. Open the schedule screen, and look at the orders. The default is "Train, 10 minimium". '''This is WRONG!'''

[[File:default_training_order.png|400px|Default Training Order]]

Press x to delete the order. The schedule screen will change to show no scheduled orders.

[[File:No_orders.png|400px|no_orders]]

Press 'o' to pull up the give order screen. Press o until 'Train' is set, and then press + so it shows minimum 1, like this. Then press shift-done to give the order. The screen will look like this:

[[File:Train_1.png|400px|train 1]]

[[File:given_train_1_order.png|400px|after giving train 1 order]]

Now do it again, for the total members of your squad (you CAN give more than 5 orders, you just have to scroll in the orders screen to see it). When you're done it should look like this, after doing it 10 times.

[[File:multiple_train_1.png|400px|Multiple train one orders]]

Copy and paste the order to all the months. You can also set Sleep in Barrack at need to increase their training time, though this will raise the stress levels of dwarves in the squad due to tired thoughts.

You're almost done. Activate your squad, and after they finish picking up equipment, watch your bolt supplies vanish as your marksdwarves do nothing *but* archery training.

=== Why This Works ===
Squad training and sparing require multiple dwarves (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves). Training, minimum of 1 forces them to work solo. Since they don't have a normal barrack, they can't drill, which leaves Archery Training as the only possible way to train. Since reloading on marksdwarves continues to be erratic, they'll frequently report "No Orders" or similiar once they've finished archery training until the game notices that a given dwarf is out of ammo, in which case they'll go pick up more.

Archery training grants less experience than live fire (8XP per bolt vs. 30XP), but no micromanagement, no hauling, one setup, and you can ignore it until you get that glorious announcement that Urist McMarksdwarf has become an Elite Marksdwarf.

== Stopping Melee Charges ==

The short version: DON'T USE STATION!

When a dwarf has line of sight on an enemy, they'll one of two things, run away, or run up and fight them. While they're running up to the enemy, dwarves will fire bolts if they have any, but then engage the enemy using their crossbows as hammers instead of firing. The easiest way to prevent this is either use fortification pillboxes, with a patrol order that causes them to break line of sight, or defend burrows orders, which will keep them in the area defined by the burrow and prevent them from running up to the enemy.

For patrol routes, marksdwarves *will* not take a Pickup Equipment order as long as they have line of sight on their enemy. Have them go through a door or something, and as soon as they loose sight of the goblin/forgotten beast/demon, they'll immediately go find bolts and reload.

The full effectiveness at Defend Burrow orders at stopping a melee charge is unknown.

{{Military}}

Advanced marksdwarf training guide

2015-05-11T12:53:16Z

Kroy: /* Understanding Possible Training Activates */

Marksdwarves are fairly buggy, and often refuse to use archery ranges, or stand in front of them, and fail to fire their crossbows. This guide goes into details explaining known bugs, and getting your Marksdwarves to train properly, as well as going into details regarding various ranged weaponry.

== Understanding Ranged Weaponry ==

In vanilla Dwarf Fortress, the raws define three types of ranged weapons, each with their own skill and ammo.

{| class="wikitable"
!colspan="4" |Ranged Weapons
|-
!Ranged Weapon
!Ranged Skill
!Melee Skill
!Ammo
|-
|Crossbow
|Marksdwarf
|Hammerdwarf
|Bolts
|-
|Bow
|Bowman
|Swordman
|Arrows
|-
|Blowgun
|Blowgunner
|Swordman
|Darts
|-
|}

Of these, dwarfs can only craft crossbows and bolts. Bows and blowguns are gained either through trade or recovery from downed enemies. If playing a modded game, replace crossbow in the following with one of the above weapons, and proper ammo type.

== Equipping Your Marksdwarfs ==

=== The Minimum Outfit ===
At a minimum, each dwarf requires the following to successfully use the crossbow.
* One crossbow
* One quiver
* One stack of bolts for each marksdwarf to fire

A quiver is equipped on the upper body slot. Due to a bug, sometimes a marksdwarf will fail to pickup a quiver if wearing heavy armor. A workaround for this is given below. Wood and metal bolts are generated in stacks of 25. Bone bolts are generated in stacks of 5.

=== Crossbows ===
Crossbows can be made with wood or bone at a bowyer's workshop, or out of metal at a metalsmith/magma forge. Metal crossbows can be forged out of copper, bronze, bismuth bronze, iron, steel, or adamantine. Quivers must be made of leather at a leatherworks. The base material of a crossbow appears to have no effect on the lethality of ranged bolts. However, when marksdwarves end up in melee, they will use their crossbow as a hammer, thus it is recommended to make dense metal crossbows.

=== Quivers and Bolts ===
Quivers can hold 25 bolts, and dwarves will pick up multiple stacks if necessary to fill it. In other words, they will successfully pick up five separate stacks of bone bolts, or 25 separate bolts if you're using a bolt splitting technique in your fortress. Bolts are collected in last-in-first-out order (LIFO); that is, dwarves will always go for the newest bolts in your fortress, even if there is an ammo stockpile three steps away from them. Each squad with marksdwarves must be assigned ammo; as they deplete it, Dwarf Fortress will automatically add additional ammo to the squad if there are some in the fortress, again following the principle of LIFO.

=== Avoiding 'Equipment Mismatch' Issues ===
Miners; wood cutters; and hunters have a default uniform. When these labors are enabled, a dwarf will carry the equipment appropriate to that job, making it unavailable for the military, and causing issues if that dwarf is then drafted. In general, its safe to put miners and wood cutters in ranged squads, and hunters in melee squads, as this prevents them from equipped the same type of item twice.

When drafting hunters, clear their labors, and *confirm* that your hunter has put his quiver and crossbow away. If you don't, he'll generate equipment mismatches. Furthermore, a mismatch may be cause when a marksdwarf grabs a quiver that was once used by a hunter which still has bolts in it. This can be resolved by opening the dwarf in the "k" menu, then open his inventory, find the quiver, and forbid the bolts in it. He'll dump them, and properly reload.

If you don't use hunters, you may want to remove their bolt assignments from the ammunition screen.

== Setting your Marksdwarf's barrack ==

=== Understanding Possible Training Activates ===
The first rule of marksdwarf training is you do *not* assign them a normal barrack. If they have that, they will prefer to train as hammerdwarves with their crossbows vs. actually shooting bolts. Furthermore, as the game gives precedence to melee training, they will almost never use an archery range even if one is assigned if they have a choice.

When training, a dwarf has four possible options, which they will take in roughly this order:
- Squad Training
- Individual Combat Drill
- Spar
- Archery Training

Squad training and sparing require multiple dwarfs (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves, training their melee skills while doing so). Except for archery training, dwarves require a standard barracks to conduct any of the above activities. Notably, it is possible to actually train marksdwarves via demonstration, both Crossbow and Archery skills are trainable via demonstrations. By combining this with training orders, it is possible to make Archery Training the only valid option, and thus get them to train consistently.

=== Building Archery Ranges ===
Thus, the first step is to build a room with a bunch of archery ranges. I recommend putting them against the left most wall so the shooting direction is automatically correct, but this should work regardless of direction. The room must be large enough that the marksdwarf has a one gap space between them and the target; I just make their "barrack" 10x10, and put an ammo stockpile in it. Notably, and this is a change from previous version is that the dwarf *must* be able to walk up to the the target; placing a channel in front of it will prevent them from training.

Once you build your range, you must define it as a room. Make it so it touches the far wall, and don't worry, range rooms can overlap. You have to do this for each. Make sure the shooting direction is correct! In addition, your marksdwarf squad MUST at minimum have train set on each archery target. One dwarf can use one target at any given time.

[[File:Archery_range_setup.png|A properly setup archery target]]

Repeat this for each range; you'll have 5-10 targets overlapping each other and assigned to your marksdwarves squad (in these screenshots, they are the "Home Guard")

[b]3. The Military Management Screen[/b]

This is by far the most difficult part. Fear the 'm' menu, for it eats children. The 'm' menu is confusing on the best days, but this guide will walk you through it.

The first and default page is the positions page. Ignore it for now, you want to make the right uniform for your marksdwarves, press 'u' to bring up that screen. Do yourself a favor and just delete the default archer uniform. It's wrong and will not work properly.

Create a new uniform, and add the following:
- crossbow (do NOT used individual choice, ranged; you *will* end up with dwarves who think an axe is a ranged weapon)
- shield (optional)
- leather armor
- leather headwear
- leather legwear
- leather armor
- leather legwear

Make sure "exact match" is selected. This appears to fix most of the issues of them not picking up quivers. You might be able to get away with over clothing however.

Here's what it should like if you did it right:

[[File:Working_training_uniform.png|400px|Uniform that gets them training]]

Now press 'p' to go back to the positions menu. When you create the squad, it will ask for a uniform. Normally, this works as you'd expect it, assigning the uniform to an entire squad. However, if done with the captain of the guard position, it will *only* assign to that spot. You can look at the top of the screen to see what your dwarfs will train as (i.e. 10/10 Marksdwarfs). If needed, after selecting your recruits, then switch to the 'e' menu. Select your squad, and then a position, then press 'U' (that's capital U) to bring up the uniform selection screen.

Highlight your crossbow uniform, and press 'Shift-Enter' to assign it to all positions in the squad. If you then check the positions screen, at the top, it will say 10/10 marksdwarves, instead of 1/1 markdwarf 9/9 wrestlers, which is what will happen if you leave it on defaults.

[[File:10_marksdwarves.png|400px|10/10 Marksdwarves]]

=== Handling Ammo ===
We're almost done. Go to the ammo screen.

[[File:ammo_screen.png|400px|Ammo]]

If you're setting this by hand, here's what to know. Each squad needs the correct ammo. Bolts are assigned on a "per-item" basis, i.e., a given stack of bolts thats marked for training will only be used for training and via versus. Unfortunately, an old bug prevents this from working; if you have multiple ammo types, and some are set Training-only, and others are set combat-only, your marksdwarves *will* get stuck and fail to train, or fail to fire. The only way to get this to work is if all ammo assignments in the fortress are set to both "CT" in the UI.

==== Switching Bolts Types Reliably ====
Forbidding/Dumping is respected by the game when assigning ammo, so you can use the stocks screen to dump wooden/bone bolts when you're not training, and then have them load metal bolts for fighting. The easiest way to just use wooden/bone bolts when you're training (setting both CT flags on it in the ammo screen), and when you need them to switch, delete the ammo assignment for the training bolts, dump them from the stocks screen (DFHack's enhanced inventory is useful from this), and add the new metal bolts to the screen. Reverse the process to get them to change back.

=== Squad Training Orders ===

Now, for the magic bit that gets them doing nothing *but* training. Open the schedule screen, and look at the orders. The default is "Train, 10 minimium". '''This is WRONG!'''

[[File:default_training_order.png|400px|Default Training Order]]

Press x to delete the order. The schedule screen will change to show no scheduled orders.

[[File:No_orders.png|400px|no_orders]]

Press 'o' to pull up the give order screen. Press o until 'Train' is set, and then press + so it shows minimum 1, like this. Then press shift-done to give the order. The screen will look like this:

[[File:Train_1.png|400px|train 1]]

[[File:given_train_1_order.png|400px|after giving train 1 order]]

Now do it again, for the total members of your squad (you CAN give more than 5 orders, you just have to scroll in the orders screen to see it). When you're done it should look like this, after doing it 10 times.

[[File:multiple_train_1.png|400px|Multiple train one orders]]

Copy and paste the order to all the months. You can also set Sleep in Barrack at need to increase their training time, though this will raise the stress levels of dwarves in the squad due to tired thoughts.

You're almost done. Activate your squad, and after they finish picking up equipment, watch your bolt supplies vanish as your marksdwarves do nothing *but* archery training.

=== Why This Works ===
Squad training and sparing require multiple dwarves (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves). Training, minimum of 1 forces them to work solo. Since they don't have a normal barrack, they can't drill, which leaves Archery Training as the only possible way to train. Since reloading on marksdwarves continues to be erratic, they'll frequently report "No Orders" or similiar once they've finished archery training until the game notices that a given dwarf is out of ammo, in which case they'll go pick up more.

Archery training grants less experience than live fire (8XP per bolt vs. 30XP), but no micromanagement, no hauling, one setup, and you can ignore it until you get that glorious announcement that Urist McMarksdwarf has become an Elite Marksdwarf.

== Stopping Melee Charges ==

The short version: DON'T USE STATION!

When a dwarf has line of sight on an enemy, they'll one of two things, run away, or run up and fight them. While they're running up to the enemy, dwarves will fire bolts if they have any, but then engage the enemy using their crossbows as hammers instead of firing. The easiest way to prevent this is either use fortification pillboxes, with a patrol order that causes them to break line of sight, or defend burrows orders, which will keep them in the area defined by the burrow and prevent them from running up to the enemy.

For patrol routes, marksdwarves *will* not take a Pickup Equipment order as long as they have line of sight on their enemy. Have them go through a door or something, and as soon as they loose sight of the goblin/forgotten beast/demon, they'll immediately go find bolts and reload.

The full effectiveness at Defend Burrow orders at stopping a melee charge is unknown.

{{Military}}

Advanced marksdwarf training guide

2015-05-11T12:51:35Z

Kroy: /* Understanding Ranged Weaponry */

Marksdwarves are fairly buggy, and often refuse to use archery ranges, or stand in front of them, and fail to fire their crossbows. This guide goes into details explaining known bugs, and getting your Marksdwarves to train properly, as well as going into details regarding various ranged weaponry.

== Understanding Ranged Weaponry ==

In vanilla Dwarf Fortress, the raws define three types of ranged weapons, each with their own skill and ammo.

{| class="wikitable"
!colspan="4" |Ranged Weapons
|-
!Ranged Weapon
!Ranged Skill
!Melee Skill
!Ammo
|-
|Crossbow
|Marksdwarf
|Hammerdwarf
|Bolts
|-
|Bow
|Bowman
|Swordman
|Arrows
|-
|Blowgun
|Blowgunner
|Swordman
|Darts
|-
|}

Of these, dwarfs can only craft crossbows and bolts. Bows and blowguns are gained either through trade or recovery from downed enemies. If playing a modded game, replace crossbow in the following with one of the above weapons, and proper ammo type.

== Equipping Your Marksdwarfs ==

=== The Minimum Outfit ===
At a minimum, each dwarf requires the following to successfully use the crossbow.
* One crossbow
* One quiver
* One stack of bolts for each marksdwarf to fire

A quiver is equipped on the upper body slot. Due to a bug, sometimes a marksdwarf will fail to pickup a quiver if wearing heavy armor. A workaround for this is given below. Wood and metal bolts are generated in stacks of 25. Bone bolts are generated in stacks of 5.

=== Crossbows ===
Crossbows can be made with wood or bone at a bowyer's workshop, or out of metal at a metalsmith/magma forge. Metal crossbows can be forged out of copper, bronze, bismuth bronze, iron, steel, or adamantine. Quivers must be made of leather at a leatherworks. The base material of a crossbow appears to have no effect on the lethality of ranged bolts. However, when marksdwarves end up in melee, they will use their crossbow as a hammer, thus it is recommended to make dense metal crossbows.

=== Quivers and Bolts ===
Quivers can hold 25 bolts, and dwarves will pick up multiple stacks if necessary to fill it. In other words, they will successfully pick up five separate stacks of bone bolts, or 25 separate bolts if you're using a bolt splitting technique in your fortress. Bolts are collected in last-in-first-out order (LIFO); that is, dwarves will always go for the newest bolts in your fortress, even if there is an ammo stockpile three steps away from them. Each squad with marksdwarves must be assigned ammo; as they deplete it, Dwarf Fortress will automatically add additional ammo to the squad if there are some in the fortress, again following the principle of LIFO.

=== Avoiding 'Equipment Mismatch' Issues ===
Miners; wood cutters; and hunters have a default uniform. When these labors are enabled, a dwarf will carry the equipment appropriate to that job, making it unavailable for the military, and causing issues if that dwarf is then drafted. In general, its safe to put miners and wood cutters in ranged squads, and hunters in melee squads, as this prevents them from equipped the same type of item twice.

When drafting hunters, clear their labors, and *confirm* that your hunter has put his quiver and crossbow away. If you don't, he'll generate equipment mismatches. Furthermore, a mismatch may be cause when a marksdwarf grabs a quiver that was once used by a hunter which still has bolts in it. This can be resolved by opening the dwarf in the "k" menu, then open his inventory, find the quiver, and forbid the bolts in it. He'll dump them, and properly reload.

If you don't use hunters, you may want to remove their bolt assignments from the ammunition screen.

== Setting your Marksdwarf's barrack ==

=== Understanding Possible Training Activates ===
The first rule of marksdwarf training is you do *not* assign them a normal barrack. If they have that, they will prefer to train as hammerdwarves with their crossbows vs. actually shooting bolts. Furthermore, as the game gives precedence to melee training, they will almost never use an archery range even if one is assigned if they have a choice.

When training, a dwarf has four possible options, which they will take in roughly this order:
- Squad Training
- Individual Combat Drill
- Spar
- Archery Training

Squad training and sparing require multiple dwarfs (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves, training their melee skills while doing so). Except for archery training, dwarves require a standard barracks to conduct any of the above activities. Notably, it is possible to actually train marksdwarves via demonstration, both Crossbow and Archery skills are trainable via demonstrations. By combined this with training orders, it is possible to make Archery Training the only valid option, and thus get them to train consistently.

=== Building Archery Ranges ===
Thus, the first step is to build a room with a bunch of archery ranges. I recommend putting them against the left most wall so the shooting direction is automatically correct, but this should work regardless of direction. The room must be large enough that the marksdwarf has a one gap space between them and the target; I just make their "barrack" 10x10, and put an ammo stockpile in it. Notably, and this is a change from previous version is that the dwarf *must* be able to walk up to the the target; placing a channel in front of it will prevent them from training.

Once you build your range, you must define it as a room. Make it so it touches the far wall, and don't worry, range rooms can overlap. You have to do this for each. Make sure the shooting direction is correct! In addition, your marksdwarf squad MUST at minimum have train set on each archery target. One dwarf can use one target at any given time.

[[File:Archery_range_setup.png|A properly setup archery target]]

Repeat this for each range; you'll have 5-10 targets overlapping each other and assigned to your marksdwarves squad (in these screenshots, they are the "Home Guard")

[b]3. The Military Management Screen[/b]

This is by far the most difficult part. Fear the 'm' menu, for it eats children. The 'm' menu is confusing on the best days, but this guide will walk you through it.

The first and default page is the positions page. Ignore it for now, you want to make the right uniform for your marksdwarves, press 'u' to bring up that screen. Do yourself a favor and just delete the default archer uniform. It's wrong and will not work properly.

Create a new uniform, and add the following:
- crossbow (do NOT used individual choice, ranged; you *will* end up with dwarves who think an axe is a ranged weapon)
- shield (optional)
- leather armor
- leather headwear
- leather legwear
- leather armor
- leather legwear

Make sure "exact match" is selected. This appears to fix most of the issues of them not picking up quivers. You might be able to get away with over clothing however.

Here's what it should like if you did it right:

[[File:Working_training_uniform.png|400px|Uniform that gets them training]]

Now press 'p' to go back to the positions menu. When you create the squad, it will ask for a uniform. Normally, this works as you'd expect it, assigning the uniform to an entire squad. However, if done with the captain of the guard position, it will *only* assign to that spot. You can look at the top of the screen to see what your dwarfs will train as (i.e. 10/10 Marksdwarfs). If needed, after selecting your recruits, then switch to the 'e' menu. Select your squad, and then a position, then press 'U' (that's capital U) to bring up the uniform selection screen.

Highlight your crossbow uniform, and press 'Shift-Enter' to assign it to all positions in the squad. If you then check the positions screen, at the top, it will say 10/10 marksdwarves, instead of 1/1 markdwarf 9/9 wrestlers, which is what will happen if you leave it on defaults.

[[File:10_marksdwarves.png|400px|10/10 Marksdwarves]]

=== Handling Ammo ===
We're almost done. Go to the ammo screen.

[[File:ammo_screen.png|400px|Ammo]]

If you're setting this by hand, here's what to know. Each squad needs the correct ammo. Bolts are assigned on a "per-item" basis, i.e., a given stack of bolts thats marked for training will only be used for training and via versus. Unfortunately, an old bug prevents this from working; if you have multiple ammo types, and some are set Training-only, and others are set combat-only, your marksdwarves *will* get stuck and fail to train, or fail to fire. The only way to get this to work is if all ammo assignments in the fortress are set to both "CT" in the UI.

==== Switching Bolts Types Reliably ====
Forbidding/Dumping is respected by the game when assigning ammo, so you can use the stocks screen to dump wooden/bone bolts when you're not training, and then have them load metal bolts for fighting. The easiest way to just use wooden/bone bolts when you're training (setting both CT flags on it in the ammo screen), and when you need them to switch, delete the ammo assignment for the training bolts, dump them from the stocks screen (DFHack's enhanced inventory is useful from this), and add the new metal bolts to the screen. Reverse the process to get them to change back.

=== Squad Training Orders ===

Now, for the magic bit that gets them doing nothing *but* training. Open the schedule screen, and look at the orders. The default is "Train, 10 minimium". '''This is WRONG!'''

[[File:default_training_order.png|400px|Default Training Order]]

Press x to delete the order. The schedule screen will change to show no scheduled orders.

[[File:No_orders.png|400px|no_orders]]

Press 'o' to pull up the give order screen. Press o until 'Train' is set, and then press + so it shows minimum 1, like this. Then press shift-done to give the order. The screen will look like this:

[[File:Train_1.png|400px|train 1]]

[[File:given_train_1_order.png|400px|after giving train 1 order]]

Now do it again, for the total members of your squad (you CAN give more than 5 orders, you just have to scroll in the orders screen to see it). When you're done it should look like this, after doing it 10 times.

[[File:multiple_train_1.png|400px|Multiple train one orders]]

Copy and paste the order to all the months. You can also set Sleep in Barrack at need to increase their training time, though this will raise the stress levels of dwarves in the squad due to tired thoughts.

You're almost done. Activate your squad, and after they finish picking up equipment, watch your bolt supplies vanish as your marksdwarves do nothing *but* archery training.

=== Why This Works ===
Squad training and sparing require multiple dwarves (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves). Training, minimum of 1 forces them to work solo. Since they don't have a normal barrack, they can't drill, which leaves Archery Training as the only possible way to train. Since reloading on marksdwarves continues to be erratic, they'll frequently report "No Orders" or similiar once they've finished archery training until the game notices that a given dwarf is out of ammo, in which case they'll go pick up more.

Archery training grants less experience than live fire (8XP per bolt vs. 30XP), but no micromanagement, no hauling, one setup, and you can ignore it until you get that glorious announcement that Urist McMarksdwarf has become an Elite Marksdwarf.

== Stopping Melee Charges ==

The short version: DON'T USE STATION!

When a dwarf has line of sight on an enemy, they'll one of two things, run away, or run up and fight them. While they're running up to the enemy, dwarves will fire bolts if they have any, but then engage the enemy using their crossbows as hammers instead of firing. The easiest way to prevent this is either use fortification pillboxes, with a patrol order that causes them to break line of sight, or defend burrows orders, which will keep them in the area defined by the burrow and prevent them from running up to the enemy.

For patrol routes, marksdwarves *will* not take a Pickup Equipment order as long as they have line of sight on their enemy. Have them go through a door or something, and as soon as they loose sight of the goblin/forgotten beast/demon, they'll immediately go find bolts and reload.

The full effectiveness at Defend Burrow orders at stopping a melee charge is unknown.

{{Military}}

DF2014 Talk:Advanced marksdwarf training guide

2015-05-11T11:38:12Z

Kroy: Created page with "Inconsistent use of dwarves or dwarfs? Both are used on this guide."

Inconsistent use of dwarves or dwarfs? Both are used on this guide.

Advanced marksdwarf training guide

2015-05-11T11:34:21Z

Kroy: /* Equipping Your Marksdwarfs */

Marksdwarves are fairly buggy, and often refuse to use archery ranges, or stand in front of them, and fail to fire their crossbows. This guide goes into details explaining known bugs, and getting your Marksdwarves to train properly, as well as going into details regarding various ranged weaponry.

== Understanding Ranged Weaponry ==

In vanilla Dwarf Fortress, the raws define three types of ranged weapons, each with their own skill and ammo.

{| class="wikitable"
!colspan="4" |Ranged Weapons
|-
!Ranged Weapon
!Ranged Skill
!Melee Skill
!Ammo
|-
|Crossbow
|Marksdwarf
|Hammerdwarf
|Bolts
|-
|Bow
|Bowman
|Swordman
|Arrows
|-
|Blowgun
|Blowgunner
|Swordman
|Darts
|-
|}

Of these, dwarfs can only make crossbows and bolts, but can use bows, and blowguns if you recover them from downed enemeis or trade for them. If playing a modded game, replace crossbow in the following with one of the above weapons, and proper ammo type.

== Equipping Your Marksdwarfs ==

=== The Minimum Outfit ===
At a minimum, each dwarf requires the following to successfully use the crossbow.
* One crossbow
* One quiver
* One stack of bolts for each marksdwarf to fire

A quiver is equipped on the upper body slot. Due to a bug, sometimes a marksdwarf will fail to pickup a quiver if wearing heavy armor. A workaround for this is given below. Wood and metal bolts are generated in stacks of 25. Bone bolts are generated in stacks of 5.

=== Crossbows ===
Crossbows can be made with wood or bone at a bowyer's workshop, or out of metal at a metalsmith/magma forge. Metal crossbows can be forged out of copper, bronze, bismuth bronze, iron, steel, or adamantine. Quivers must be made of leather at a leatherworks. The base material of a crossbow appears to have no effect on the lethality of ranged bolts. However, when marksdwarves end up in melee, they will use their crossbow as a hammer, thus it is recommended to make dense metal crossbows.

=== Quivers and Bolts ===
Quivers can hold 25 bolts, and dwarves will pick up multiple stacks if necessary to fill it. In other words, they will successfully pick up five separate stacks of bone bolts, or 25 separate bolts if you're using a bolt splitting technique in your fortress. Bolts are collected in last-in-first-out order (LIFO); that is, dwarves will always go for the newest bolts in your fortress, even if there is an ammo stockpile three steps away from them. Each squad with marksdwarves must be assigned ammo; as they deplete it, Dwarf Fortress will automatically add additional ammo to the squad if there are some in the fortress, again following the principle of LIFO.

=== Avoiding 'Equipment Mismatch' Issues ===
Miners; wood cutters; and hunters have a default uniform. When these labors are enabled, a dwarf will carry the equipment appropriate to that job, making it unavailable for the military, and causing issues if that dwarf is then drafted. In general, its safe to put miners and wood cutters in ranged squads, and hunters in melee squads, as this prevents them from equipped the same type of item twice.

When drafting hunters, clear their labors, and *confirm* that your hunter has put his quiver and crossbow away. If you don't, he'll generate equipment mismatches. Furthermore, a mismatch may be cause when a marksdwarf grabs a quiver that was once used by a hunter which still has bolts in it. This can be resolved by opening the dwarf in the "k" menu, then open his inventory, find the quiver, and forbid the bolts in it. He'll dump them, and properly reload.

If you don't use hunters, you may want to remove their bolt assignments from the ammunition screen.

== Setting your Marksdwarf's barrack ==

=== Understanding Possible Training Activates ===
The first rule of marksdwarf training is you do *not* assign them a normal barrack. If they have that, they will prefer to train as hammerdwarves with their crossbows vs. actually shooting bolts. Furthermore, as the game gives precedence to melee training, they will almost never use an archery range even if one is assigned if they have a choice.

When training, a dwarf has four possible options, which they will take in roughly this order:
- Squad Training
- Individual Combat Drill
- Spar
- Archery Training

Squad training and sparing require multiple dwarfs (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves, training their melee skills while doing so). Except for archery training, dwarves require a standard barracks to conduct any of the above activities. Notably, it is possible to actually train marksdwarves via demonstration, both Crossbow and Archery skills are trainable via demonstrations. By combined this with training orders, it is possible to make Archery Training the only valid option, and thus get them to train consistently.

=== Building Archery Ranges ===
Thus, the first step is to build a room with a bunch of archery ranges. I recommend putting them against the left most wall so the shooting direction is automatically correct, but this should work regardless of direction. The room must be large enough that the marksdwarf has a one gap space between them and the target; I just make their "barrack" 10x10, and put an ammo stockpile in it. Notably, and this is a change from previous version is that the dwarf *must* be able to walk up to the the target; placing a channel in front of it will prevent them from training.

Once you build your range, you must define it as a room. Make it so it touches the far wall, and don't worry, range rooms can overlap. You have to do this for each. Make sure the shooting direction is correct! In addition, your marksdwarf squad MUST at minimum have train set on each archery target. One dwarf can use one target at any given time.

[[File:Archery_range_setup.png|A properly setup archery target]]

Repeat this for each range; you'll have 5-10 targets overlapping each other and assigned to your marksdwarves squad (in these screenshots, they are the "Home Guard")

[b]3. The Military Management Screen[/b]

This is by far the most difficult part. Fear the 'm' menu, for it eats children. The 'm' menu is confusing on the best days, but this guide will walk you through it.

The first and default page is the positions page. Ignore it for now, you want to make the right uniform for your marksdwarves, press 'u' to bring up that screen. Do yourself a favor and just delete the default archer uniform. It's wrong and will not work properly.

Create a new uniform, and add the following:
- crossbow (do NOT used individual choice, ranged; you *will* end up with dwarves who think an axe is a ranged weapon)
- shield (optional)
- leather armor
- leather headwear
- leather legwear
- leather armor
- leather legwear

Make sure "exact match" is selected. This appears to fix most of the issues of them not picking up quivers. You might be able to get away with over clothing however.

Here's what it should like if you did it right:

[[File:Working_training_uniform.png|400px|Uniform that gets them training]]

Now press 'p' to go back to the positions menu. When you create the squad, it will ask for a uniform. Normally, this works as you'd expect it, assigning the uniform to an entire squad. However, if done with the captain of the guard position, it will *only* assign to that spot. You can look at the top of the screen to see what your dwarfs will train as (i.e. 10/10 Marksdwarfs). If needed, after selecting your recruits, then switch to the 'e' menu. Select your squad, and then a position, then press 'U' (that's capital U) to bring up the uniform selection screen.

Highlight your crossbow uniform, and press 'Shift-Enter' to assign it to all positions in the squad. If you then check the positions screen, at the top, it will say 10/10 marksdwarves, instead of 1/1 markdwarf 9/9 wrestlers, which is what will happen if you leave it on defaults.

[[File:10_marksdwarves.png|400px|10/10 Marksdwarves]]

=== Handling Ammo ===
We're almost done. Go to the ammo screen.

[[File:ammo_screen.png|400px|Ammo]]

If you're setting this by hand, here's what to know. Each squad needs the correct ammo. Bolts are assigned on a "per-item" basis, i.e., a given stack of bolts thats marked for training will only be used for training and via versus. Unfortunately, an old bug prevents this from working; if you have multiple ammo types, and some are set Training-only, and others are set combat-only, your marksdwarves *will* get stuck and fail to train, or fail to fire. The only way to get this to work is if all ammo assignments in the fortress are set to both "CT" in the UI.

==== Switching Bolts Types Reliably ====
Forbidding/Dumping is respected by the game when assigning ammo, so you can use the stocks screen to dump wooden/bone bolts when you're not training, and then have them load metal bolts for fighting. The easiest way to just use wooden/bone bolts when you're training (setting both CT flags on it in the ammo screen), and when you need them to switch, delete the ammo assignment for the training bolts, dump them from the stocks screen (DFHack's enhanced inventory is useful from this), and add the new metal bolts to the screen. Reverse the process to get them to change back.

=== Squad Training Orders ===

Now, for the magic bit that gets them doing nothing *but* training. Open the schedule screen, and look at the orders. The default is "Train, 10 minimium". '''This is WRONG!'''

[[File:default_training_order.png|400px|Default Training Order]]

Press x to delete the order. The schedule screen will change to show no scheduled orders.

[[File:No_orders.png|400px|no_orders]]

Press 'o' to pull up the give order screen. Press o until 'Train' is set, and then press + so it shows minimum 1, like this. Then press shift-done to give the order. The screen will look like this:

[[File:Train_1.png|400px|train 1]]

[[File:given_train_1_order.png|400px|after giving train 1 order]]

Now do it again, for the total members of your squad (you CAN give more than 5 orders, you just have to scroll in the orders screen to see it). When you're done it should look like this, after doing it 10 times.

[[File:multiple_train_1.png|400px|Multiple train one orders]]

Copy and paste the order to all the months. You can also set Sleep in Barrack at need to increase their training time, though this will raise the stress levels of dwarves in the squad due to tired thoughts.

You're almost done. Activate your squad, and after they finish picking up equipment, watch your bolt supplies vanish as your marksdwarves do nothing *but* archery training.

=== Why This Works ===
Squad training and sparing require multiple dwarves (and yes, marksdwarves *will* spar as long as they're novice hammerdwarves). Training, minimum of 1 forces them to work solo. Since they don't have a normal barrack, they can't drill, which leaves Archery Training as the only possible way to train. Since reloading on marksdwarves continues to be erratic, they'll frequently report "No Orders" or similiar once they've finished archery training until the game notices that a given dwarf is out of ammo, in which case they'll go pick up more.

Archery training grants less experience than live fire (8XP per bolt vs. 30XP), but no micromanagement, no hauling, one setup, and you can ignore it until you get that glorious announcement that Urist McMarksdwarf has become an Elite Marksdwarf.

== Stopping Melee Charges ==

The short version: DON'T USE STATION!

When a dwarf has line of sight on an enemy, they'll one of two things, run away, or run up and fight them. While they're running up to the enemy, dwarves will fire bolts if they have any, but then engage the enemy using their crossbows as hammers instead of firing. The easiest way to prevent this is either use fortification pillboxes, with a patrol order that causes them to break line of sight, or defend burrows orders, which will keep them in the area defined by the burrow and prevent them from running up to the enemy.

For patrol routes, marksdwarves *will* not take a Pickup Equipment order as long as they have line of sight on their enemy. Have them go through a door or something, and as soon as they loose sight of the goblin/forgotten beast/demon, they'll immediately go find bolts and reload.

The full effectiveness at Defend Burrow orders at stopping a melee charge is unknown.

{{Military}}

Tree

2015-02-24T10:53:31Z

Kroy: /* Bugs */

{{quality|exceptional}}
{{av}}
{{Translation
| dwarven = dák
| elvish = thelire
| goblin = tonspe
| human = akan
}}
'''Trees''' are a multi-[[tile]] feature that can be found aboveground on all but the most arid or most mountainous of maps, and below ground in the [[caverns]]. The types of trees that grow in a given location depend on that location's [[biome]], as different species prefer different conditions. For example, tropical areas often have palm trees, while colder areas feature pines. Underground trees such as [[nether-cap]]s are an exception, as they will grow anywhere underground. The species of a tree in turn determines its properties, including its structure, the color and density of its wood and what kind of growths it produces. Note also that "trees" in Dwarf Fortress also covers things that are not actually trees, such as palms, large cacti (e.g. [[saguaro]]s) and large mushrooms (e.g. underground trees).

Trees are used as a source of [[wood]], an essential resource in the game, irreplaceable (or hard to replace) for some applications. Thus the amount of local trees greatly affects fortress development, as without a ready source of wood the player will be forced to rely on [[trade]] to get it. Tree growth density on the embark site is determined by its [[biome]], so it's displayed with the rest of the biome properties (temperature, etc.) on the "Choose Fortress Location" screen at [[embark]].

== Structure ==
[[File:Tree animated.gif|thumb|Animation of all z-levels of an [[Apricot]] tree]]
Trees consist of several types of tiles - '''roots''', '''trunk''' sections, '''thick branches''', leafy '''branches''', and '''twigs''', that may be covered in a number of "growths" (leaves, needles, flowers, fruit, cones, etc.), depending on species and season. A single tree is a structure that can span multiple tiles of each type in both horizontal and vertical directions. For example, a typical deciduous tree will have a single tile-wide trunk at ground level supporting a multiple-level crown of intertwined trunk sections, branches and twigs covered with leaves. Not all species follow the same scheme, though - palms have a high, naked trunk that doesn't branch and just a tuft of leaves on top of it, and some species can have trunks that are thicker than a single tile at ground level. Trees also have an underground system of roots, but there is only one kind of root tiles and the extent of the root system doesn't seem to vary with species.

Graphically, vertical 1x1 trunk sections resemble wooden [[column]]s {{tile|O|6:0}}. The thicker trunks (2x2 and 3x3) are represented by rounded double-line structures. Above the first ground level the trunk may branch out, producing horizontal trunk sections that resemble wooden [[wall]]s {{tile|║|6:0}}. These can peter out into thick branches {{tile|│|6:0}} or end directly with leafy branches. A vertical trunk end, if not covered with a leafy branch, is represented by a cap character {{tile|⌂|6:0}}.

Root tiles ({{tile|¼|6:0}}) overlap a number of underground tiles below each tree. They can be designated for digging, but because they usually use the same brown color as the mining designation rectangle, the designation is not evident (the only exceptions are trees with white roots). Some trees can have multiple tiles of roots, others just the one{{verify}}.

There are exceptions to the description above. [[Saguaro]]s don't have any leafy branches or twigs, just a trunk and thick branches. Most mushroom trees that grow in the caverns underground don't have branches - some have only a trunk and a cap
consisting of ramps that can be walked on.

Trees can be [[climb]]ed in both fortress and [[adventurer mode]]. In densely wooded areas, the overlapping tree crowns can form a continuous canopy that can be traversed by walking, climbing and/or jumping. Both types of branches provide floor-like support for walking, but twigs are too frail to support the weight of a dwarf. All kinds of trunk tiles are treated as solid barriers, except trunk tips - they can be walked and jumped over.

On ground level, tree trunks are obstacles that prevent [[channel]]ing or the creation of [[wall]]s and other [[construction]]s on their tiles. This is problematic for caravan [[wagon]]s, which require a path at least three tiles wide in order to access your fortress; on heavily forested maps it may be necessary to check [[trade depot|depot]] access ({{k|D}}) every once in a while as trees continue to grow to make sure wagons can get through, and chop down ({{k|d}}-{{k|t}}) the impeding forest if they can't. Later on this can actually become a blessing, as if there is only one or a few pathways to the fortress it makes it easier to route incoming caravans down certain well-defended pathways, instead of allowing them to choose their own way across the map, where they may fall foul of ambushers or worse. It also makes building above-ground constructions more challenging, as any trees in the way must be chopped down first.

<gallery caption="Heights of a tree" widths="90px" heights="90px" perrow="5">
File:Tree-1.png|1 level below ground: roots in a [[Red sand]] wall on the side of a hill
File:Tree0.png|Ground level: trunk
File:Tree+1.png|1 level above ground, trunk, branches and twigs
File:Tree+2.png|2 levels above ground
File:Tree+3.png|3 levels above ground, includes some Open Space
File:Tree+4.png|4 levels above ground
File:Tree+5.png|5 levels above ground
File:Tree+6.png|6 levels above ground
File:Tree+7.png|7 levels above ground, only Open Space
</gallery>

=== Growths ===
Growths are the things that grow ''on'' a tree, i.e. they are not an essential part of the tree's structure and can be shed or picked without destroying the tree. This includes leaves, needles, flowers, fruit, seed pods, catkins, cones, etc. Each tree species has at least one type of growth, the most common one unsurprisingly being leaves.

The leaves of deciduous trees change color in the autumn, fall before the winter and grow back in the spring. Fallen leaves will color the tiles beneath their trees, turning the forest floor into colorful patchwork.

Trees of fruit-producing species usually grow flowers in spring and fruit later in the year. Flowers will fall in a cloud during the transition from flowers to fruit; the cloud is shown falling, and loo[k]ing at the ground after that will show "<tree> flowers" in addition to other tile contents. Both flowers and fruit appear and fall at set times through the year, so it's possible that a young tree that has never flowered to give fruit.

Fruit can be picked from trees in Adventure mode, Fort mode harvesting is done with [[stepladder]] or by collecting fallen fruits. Fruit can be brewed at [[still]]. Cutting a tree with fruit causes the fruits to vanish{{verify}}.

== Chopping down trees ==
{{main|Woodcutting}}

Trees can be cut down by dwarves to produce [[wood]]. It is enough to [[designations menu|designate]] only one trunk tile for cutting to chop down the whole tree it belongs to. Any trunk tile will do, even those that are above ground, or even a single tile of a multi-tile trunk. As a result, it's impossible to "prune" trees by chopping down only parts of them.

Once a woodcutter is done with the first tile, the tree instantly converts to a number of free-floating logs that fall to the ground in a direction away from the cutter. Cutting a tree from a trunk section above ground level may result in the woodcutter losing their footing and crashing to the ground (similar to having a tile deconstructed under their feet).

== Products ==
=== Wood ===
{{main|Wood}}

One of the variation between the different tree species is in the weight and color of their wood. Weight is often a minor concern but when using wood to create objects that will be moved, such as bins or buckets, choosing lighter wood is an advantage as it will be hauled faster. Heavier wood will make wooden weapons and siege engine projectiles more effective, while lighter wooden shields reduce penalties to speed while blocking just as well as heavier shields.

Nonetheless, all types of wood have the same (low) value (beyond the [[preference]]s of individual dwarves), although the [[color]] of the wood may matter for aesthetic purposes.

=== Fruit ===
Various kinds of tree produce fruit. In [[dwarf fortress mode]], they can be gathered with a [[stepladder]] in a designated [[zone#Plant collection|plant gathering zone]]. [[Elf|Elves]] will also bring fruit to [[trading|trade]]. Fruit can be eaten, producing [[seed]]s.

== Growing trees ==
Trees grow from '''saplings''', which start growing randomly on non-occupied tiles of a suitable biome; thus chopping down a forest may create a clearing, but within a couple of years a new forest will have grown. Saplings can be killed by heavy [[traffic|foot traffic]], but not by flooding — they can survive submergence for extended periods of time and will still grow to maturity once the water level drops to 4/7{{verify}} or lower. Dead saplings will remain for some seasons, and then disappear, more quickly if heavy traffic tramples them away. Many underground trees are called "young <tree>" instead of sapling, but the concept is the same. Saplings will not grow to maturity if their tile contains an item or building (including stockpile designations), though removing the item may cause the tree to spontaneously grow up. Paved [[road]]s and [[farm plot]]s periodically purge all terrain features below them, preventing trees (or shrubs) from growing in unwanted areas. Trees cannot grow on stairs or ramps, making it possible to keep trees out of your plumbing by using {{K|u}}p stairs instead of {{K|d}}igging (this does not reveal the tile above). Above-ground trees will only grow in areas where there is sufficient soil 1 Z-level beneath them (currently observed to be at least one unmined tile within a two-tile radius); underground trees not only ignore this restriction for dry subterranean soil but will also grow on muddy subterranean stone. Additionally, saplings on soil cavern floors will block the construction of farm plots unless there is also a dusting or pile of mud beneath them.

Trees ''cannot'' be specifically "planted"; even if a map is stripped of all trees, new saplings will regrow, randomly and in their own time. Sadly, the [[elf|elves]] do not seem to comprehend this. It is possible to [[tree farming|farm]] trees by walling off or engineering a patch of soil and locking it away so your dwarves don't trample all over it, but it will take a long time for the farm to yield results. After you expose the [[caverns]] subterranean flora (including trees) will begin to grow on any exposed and previously bare soil within your fortress; this can be annoying when a copse of blood thorns suddenly appears in your [[sand#Glass|sand collection]] area, but allows you to easily mine out large subterranean tree farms full of colorful subterranean trees.
{{clear}}

== List of tree species ==

A second trunk tile means that the trunk can branch horizontally. The first branch tile represents thick branches, the second, if present - branches covered with leaves/needles. Trees with leafy branches also have twigs.{{verify}} Mushroom caps are the same color as the trunk and consist of ramp-like and wall-like tiles.

{{multi-tile tree table head}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Abaca]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|4:1}} Flowers|decid=No |wt= |pref=leaves}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Acacia]]|hab=Tropical Dry Broadleaf Forest Tropical Grassland Tropical Savanna Tropical Shrubland|align=All (Dry)|root=|trunk={{tile|O|6:0}}{{tile|═|6:0}}|branch={{tile|─|6:0}}{{tile|¼|2:0}}|growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|2:1}} Seed pods |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=thorns}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Alder]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|*|4:0}} Pollen catkins {{tile|*|6:0}} Seed catkins {{tile|*|6:0}} Cones |hab=Any Temperate Broadleaf Forest|align=All (Dry)|decid=Yes|wt=0.410|pref=catkins autumn coloration}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Almond]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|6:0}} Nuts |hab=Any Temperate Broadleaf Forest|align=All (Dry)|decid=Yes|wt=0.410|pref=catkins autumn coloration}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Apple]] |hab=Any Temperate |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|5:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|4:0}} Fruit |decid=Yes |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Apricot]] |hab=Any Temperate |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|5:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|4:1}} Fruit |decid=Yes |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Ash (tree)|Ash]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|6:0}} Fruit |hab=Any Temperate Broadleaf Forest|align=All (Dry)|decid=Yes|wt=0.600|pref=flying keys autumn coloration}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Avocado]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|2:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|2:0}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Banana]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|4:0}} Flowers {{tile|%|6:1}} Fruit |decid=No |wt= |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Bayberry]] |hab=Any Temperate Taiga |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|*|6:0}} Pollen catkins {{tile|*|6:0}} Seed catkins {{tile|%|5:0}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=waxy berries}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Birch]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|*|6:0}} Pollen catkins {{tile|*|6:0}} Seed catkins |hab=Any Temperate Broadleaf Forest|align=All (Dry)|decid=Yes|wt=0.650|pref=catkins silver bark autumn coloration}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Bitter orange]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|6:0}} Fruit|decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Black-cap]]|trunk={{tile|O|0:0:1}} |growths= |hab=Subterranean Cavern (layers 2-3)|align=All|decid=No|cap=Yes|wt=0.650|pref=gloomy appeal}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Blood thorn]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths= |hab=Subterranean Cavern (layer 3) Subterranean Chasm|align=All|decid=No|wt=1.250|pref=sickening appearance}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Cacao tree]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|4:0}} Fruit|hab=Tropical Moist Broadleaf Forest|align=All (Dry)|decid=No|wt=0.430|pref=flowers}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Candlenut]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|•|6:0}} Nuts |hab=Any Tropical Forest|align=All (Dry)|decid=No|wt=0.140|pref=nuts}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Carambola]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|3:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|2:1}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Cashew]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|5:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|6:1}} Fruit|decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit and nuts}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Cedar]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|*|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|*|6:0}} Seed cones {{tile|*|5:0}} Pollen cones |hab=Temperate Conifer Forest Tropical Conifer Forest|align=All (Dry)|decid=No|wt=0.570|pref=majesty}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Cherry]] |hab=Any Temperate |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|4:1}} Fruit |decid=Yes |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit blossoms}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Chestnut]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|*|7:1}} Pollen catkins {{tile|*|7:1}} Seed catkins {{tile|*|2:0}} Burrs|hab=Any Temperate Broadleaf Forest|align=All (Dry)|decid=Yes|wt=0.430|pref=smelly catkins spiny pods chestnuts autumn coloration}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Citron]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|2:1}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Coconut palm]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|*|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|2:0}} Spathes {{tile|•|6:0}} Fruit |hab=Any Tropical|align=All (Dry)|decid=No|wt=0.680|pref=leaves}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Coffee]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|4:1}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=yummy cherries}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Custard-apple]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|2:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|6:1}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Date palm]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|*|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|5:0}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Desert lime]] |hab=Tropical Grassland Tropical Savanna Tropical Shrubland |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|2:1}} Fruit|decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Durian]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:0}} Flowers {{tile|%|2:1}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fragrant fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Feather tree]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|7:1}} Feathers {{tile|%|7:1}} Eggs |hab=Not Freezing|align=Good (Dry)|decid=No|wt=0.100|pref=feathery leaves}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Finger lime]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|2:1}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Fungiwood]]| trunk={{tile|O|6:0:1}} |branch= |growths= |hab=Subterranean Cavern (layers 1-2)|align=All|decid=No|wt=0.600|pref=fine grain}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Ginkgo]] |hab=Any Temperate |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|*|6:0}} Pollen catkins {{tile|%|7:1}} Seeds |decid=Yes |wt=0.600 |pref=seeds}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Glumprong]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths= |hab=Not Freezing|align=Evil (Dry)|decid=No|wt=1.200|pref=living shadows}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Goblin-cap]]|trunk={{tile|O|4:0:1}} |growths= |hab=Subterranean Cavern (layers 2-3)|align=All|decid=No|cap=Yes|wt=0.600|pref=stunning color}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Guava]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|6:1}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Hazel]] |hab=Any Temperate |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|*|6:1}} Pollen catkins {{tile|%|6:0}} Nuts |decid=Yes |wt=0.600 |pref=nuts}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Highwood]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|3:1}} Flowers |hab=Not Freezing|align=Savage (Dry)|decid=No|wt=0.500|pref=magnificence}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Kapok]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|•|2:1}} Fruit |hab=Tropical Moist Broadleaf Forest|align=All (Dry)|decid=No|wt=0.260|pref=buttresses}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Kumquat]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|4:1}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Larch]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|*|2:0}}{{tile|*|6:1}}{{tile|*|4:1}}{{tile|*|4:0}} Needles {{tile|*|6:0}} Seed cones {{tile|*|2:0}} Pollen cones |hab=Taiga Temperate Conifer Forest|align=All (Dry)|decid=Yes|wt=0.590|pref=cones needles}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Lime]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|2:1}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Lychee]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|5:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|5:1}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Macadamia]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|5:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|6:0}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=nuts}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Mango tree]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|4:1}} Flowers {{tile|•|6:1}} Fruit |hab=Any Tropical Forest|align=All (Dry)|decid=No|wt=0.520|pref=sweet-smelling flowers}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Mahogany]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|6:1}} Flowers {{tile|•|6:0}} Fruit |hab=Any Tropical Forest|align=All (Dry)|decid=No|wt=0.600|pref=loose inflorescences}}
{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Mangrove]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|•|4:1}} Fruit |hab=Mangrove Swamp|align=All (Wet)|decid=No|wt=0.830|pref=roots}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Maple]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|2:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|6:0}} Fruit |hab=Temperate Broadleaf Forest Temperate Grassland Temperate Savanna Temperate Shrubland|align=All (Dry)|decid=Yes|wt=0.540|pref=autumn coloration}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Nether-cap]] |trunk={{tile|O|1:0:0}} |growths= |hab=Subterranean Cavern (layer 3)|align=All|decid=No|cap=Yes|wt=0.550|pref=coldness to the touch (wood has [MAT_FIXED_TEMP:10000])}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Oak]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|2:0}} Flowers {{tile|•|6:0}} Acorns |hab=Any Temperate Broadleaf Forest|align=All (Dry)|decid=Yes|wt=0.700|pref=acorns autumn coloration}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Olive]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|0:1}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=oil-giving fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Orange]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|6:0}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Papaya]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|6:1}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Paradise nut]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|6:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|6:0}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=nut-filled pots}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Peach]] |hab=Any Temperate |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|5:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|4:1}} Fruit |decid=Yes |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Pear]] |hab=Any Temperate |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|2:1}} Fruit |decid=Yes |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Pecan]] |hab=Any Temperate |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|*|2:1}} Pollen catkins {{tile|%|6:0}} Nuts |decid=Yes |wt=0.600 |pref=nuts}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Persimmon]] |hab=Any Temperate |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|4:1}} Fruit |decid=Yes |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Pine]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|*|2:0}} Needles {{tile|*|6:0}} Seed cones {{tile|*|4:0}} Pollen cones |hab=Taiga Temperate Conifer Forest Tropical Conifer Forest|align=All (Dry)|decid=No|wt=0.510|pref=cones needles}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Plum]] |hab=Any Temperate |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|5:0}} Fruit |decid=Yes |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Pomegranate]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|4:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|4:1}} Fruit |decid=Yes |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Pomelo]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|2:1}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Rambutan]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|2:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|4:1}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Round lime]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|2:1}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Rubber tree]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves |hab=Tropical Moist Broadleaf Forest|align=All (Dry)|decid=No|wt=0.490|pref=branch shedding}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Saguaro]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|•|4:1}} Fruit |hab=Any Desert|align=All (Dry)|decid=No|wt=0.430|pref=amazing arms}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Sand pear]] |hab=Any Temperate |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|6:0}} Fruit |decid=Yes |wt=0.600 |pref=fruit}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Spore tree]] |trunk={{tile|O|3:0:0}}{{tile|═|3:0:0}} |branch={{tile|─|3:0:0}}{{tile|¼|3:0:0}} |growths= |hab=Subterranean Cavern (layers 2-3)|align=All|decid=No|wt=0.600|pref=raining spores}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Tea]] |hab=Any Tropical |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|♣|7:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|6:0}} Fruit |decid=No |wt=0.600 |pref=leaves}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Tower-cap]]|trunk={{tile|O|7:0:1}} |growths= |hab=Subterranean Cavern (layers 1-2)|align=All|decid=No|cap=Yes|wt=0.600|pref=great size}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Tunnel tube]]|trunk={{tile|O|5:0:1}}{{tile|═|5:0:1}} |growths= |hab=Subterranean Cavern (layers 2-3)|align=All|decid=No|wt=0.500|pref=curving trunk}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Walnut]] |hab=Any Temperate |align=All (Dry) |root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}}{{tile|♠|6:1}}{{tile|♠|4:1}}{{tile|♠|4:0}} Leaves {{tile|*|6:0}} Pollen catkins {{tile|♣|2:1}} Flowers {{tile|%|6:0}} Nuts |decid=Yes |wt=0.600 |pref=nuts}}

{{multi-tile tree table row|name=[[Willow]]|root= |trunk= |branch= |growths={{tile|♠|2:0}} Leaves {{tile|*|7:1}} Pollen catkins {{tile|*|7:1}} Seed catkins {{tile|*|6:0}} Fruit |hab=Any Temperate Any Tropical Forest Tropical Grassland Tropical Savanna Tropical Shrubland Tropical Freshwater Swamp Tropical Saltwater Swamp Tropical Freshwater Marsh Tropical Saltwater Marsh|align=All (Wet)|decid=No|wt=0.390|pref=sad appearance fluffy catkins}}

|}


==Bugs==
* Constructing on trees causes them to vanish. {{bug|6551}}
* Building something (e.g. a cage) in a tree and then chopping down the tree leaves the building floating in the air. {{bug|6949}}
* Prior to DF 0.40.24 building a construction on a tree would cause the tree to vanish. In the current version it now causes a game crash. {{bug|8719}}

{{Plants}}

[[Category:Map tiles]]
{{Category|Trees}}

Farming

2015-02-08T21:10:11Z

Kroy: /* Managing Seeds */

{{quality|unrated}}
{{av}}
[[Image:Df-crops-diagram.png|thumb|200px|General farming flowchart.]]

'''Farming''' is the act of growing [[crop|crops]] for [[food]], [[alcohol]] production and [[cloth]] manufacturing. While small forts can easily be sustained by plant gathering, [[hunting]] and trading, farming is vital to large settlements.

Farming is done at a '''farm plot''' building ({{k|b}}-{{k|p}}, resize with {{k|u}}{{k|m}}{{k|k}}{{k|h}}). Building uses no resources, and can only be done on soil or muddied rock. Mud-free stone will not allow the building of a farm plot on top. The "Farming (Fields)" [[labor]] must be enabled. Farm plots only display the kind of crops that they are able to grow when selected with the {{k|q}}uery key.

Depending on where the farm plot is constructed, different crops may be planted. Farm plots built [[above ground]] are not suitable for the crops grown on [[Tile_attributes | subterranean]] farm plots and vice versa. Note that the attributes {{DFtext|Inside|6:0:0}}, {{DFtext|Outside|3:0:1}} are of no relevance. You can grow surface plants indoors by channelling out the roof above the desired plot and then constructing a floor ({{k|b}}-{{k|C}}-{{k|f}}) over the open space. Doing this changes the tile from {{DFtext|Dark|0:0:1}} to {{DFtext|Light|6:0:1}}, despite there being a roof (you do '''not''' need to make the roof out of [[glass]] for this to work).

Note that although you can construct a farm plot anywhere there is either a soil floor or a mud covering, this does not always mean seeds can be planted there. Certain biomes will not allow planting certain seeds, and some biomes will prevent the planting of '''all''' above-ground crops.

The yellow warning message, {{DFtext|No mud/soil for farm, Mud is left by water|6:0:1}}, is displayed on all above-ground tiles, regardless of whether the farm will function.{{version|0.34.11}} This warning may be ignored. Tiles that actually lack mud or soil are excluded from the construction entirely with a red warning message (either {{DFtext|Blocked|4:0:1}} or {{DFtext|Needs soil or mud|4:0:1}}).

See the article on [[crop]]s for details on the conditions needed to grow the available plants.

== Introduction to Farming ==

First, build a farm plot "building" ({{k|b}}-{{k|p}}, resize with {{k|u}}{{k|m}}{{k|k}}{{k|h}}) on [[soil]] or [[irrigation|muddy]] rock. Keep your farms ''small'' -- 2x2 up to 4x4 or so. Farms are surprisingly productive. You can always make more farms later if you run low on plants, and having several small farms lets you diversify your crops. (Each farm plot can only grow one kind of plant per season.)

Once the farm plot has been built, you must select which crops to grow. Press {{k|q}} and move the cursor over the farm. You will see a list of crops you can select to grow in the current season. You can change which season is displayed by pressing {{k|a}},{{k|b}},{{k|c}}, or {{k|d}}. Move the blue selector up and down with {{k|-}} and {{k|+}}, and press {{k|Enter}} to choose a crop to plant during that season (highlighted in white). Crops displayed in red cannot be grown at the moment, either due to a lack of seeds, or a lack of growing days left before the crop goes out of season.

You must have the appropriate [[seed]]s to plant a crop on a plot. To easily see how many of each seed you have, you can go to the Kitchen menu ({{k|z}} {{k|right}} {{k|Enter}}).

Since your dwarves require food, booze and clothing, you should set up a combination of plants that will supply all of these. [[Plump helmet]]s are a good beginning crop for a first cave farm, and [[Strawberry|strawberries]] are a good choice for outdoor fields -- both can be eaten raw, or brewed. [[Pig tail]]s produce cloth, which will become important once your clothing starts to [[wear]]. Check the [[crop]]s page for details on different seeds.

Cooking plants destroys their seeds, so you should disable the cooking of plants in the Kitchen menu. Eating them, brewing them, or processing them through a farmer's workshop, quern or millstone will produce seeds.

Instructing a plot to remain fallow ({{k|z}}) during a particular season will tell dwarves not to plant in that plot during that season. Note that, unlike in real life, crop rotation is not necessary; soil productivity is only affected by fertilizing, and the same crop may be grown indefinitely without a decrease in performance, even without fertilizer.

=== Yield and Fertilization ===
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right"
! Farm Size !! Potash !! Per Square
|-
| 1 || 1 || 1.000
|-
| 2 || 1 || 0.500
|-
| 3 || 1 || 0.333
|-
| 4 || 2 || 0.500
|-
| 5 || 2 || 0.400
|-
| 6 || 2 || 0.333
|-
| 7 || 2 || 0.286
|-
| 8 || 3 || 0.375
|-
| 11 || 3 || 0.272
|-
| 15 || 4 || 0.266
|-
| 19 || 5 || 0.263
|-
| 23 || 6 || 0.260
|-
| 27 || 7 || 0.259
|}
Each farm tile requires a single seed to be planted. Unfertilized farm tiles can produce a stack of 0-6 plants when harvested, depending upon the skill of the planter and random chance. Experimentally, fertilizing a farm plot boosts production by 1-3 additional plants per stack each harvest, though the exact mechanism is unknown. For unskilled planters, yield can be effectively doubled with the use of fertilizer. This can be particularly important early on, when your fortress's seed supply is limited, because those extra plants mean more seeds for planting next season. Many crops, like quarry bushes, are impossible to farm effectively in the beginning without fertilizer.

To fertilize a farm plot, one needs [[potash]], which is produced by processing [[ash]]. Each plot must be re-fertilized each season, and the fertilizer must be in place at the time the seeds reach maturity. It does not matter whether the plot is fertilized at the time of planting. {{cite forum|139382/5375231}}

Fertilizing a farm plot requires ''floor(plot_size / 4) + 1'' potash. The table on the right illustrates the efficiency of potash as a function of plot size. Generally, larger farms use less, approaching a limit of 1/4 bar per square. The worst sizes are multiples of 4; if one plans to fertilize, it's most efficient to have plots of size ''4n - 1'', where n is the number of potash used. Suitable sizes are 1x3, 1x7, 3x5, 3x9, 5x7, and 7x9.

Fertilizer may be applied to a plot by pressing {{k|f}} while viewing the plot. Only dwarves with the Farming (Fields) labor will apply fertilizer; this grants 30 XP of farming experience for each unit of potash used. Pressing {{k|s}} toggles seasonal fertilization. This does nothing until the next [[season]], at which time the plot will be automatically fertilized. Note that if you do not have a potash stockpile near your farm plots, your legendary farmers may spend all of their time hauling single bars of potash from all the way on the other side of your fortress, rather than growing food.

'''Potash Production Chain:'''
Wood [[Stockpile]] > Wood [[Furnace]] produces [[Ash]] (as [[bars]]) > [[Ashery]] produces [[potash]] (as [[bars]]).
Note: 5 bars are stored in a [[bin]]. An [[Ashery]] requires a [[block]], barrel, and bucket as components.

=== Subterranean Farming ===

To grow the six "dwarven" plants, you will need an underground farm plot. The seeds and spawn available to your dwarves at embark will only grow underground. Underground farm plots must be placed on soil or [[mud]]dy stone.

Muddying a stone floor requires temporarily covering it with water; common methods include a [[Irrigation#via_Buckets|bucket brigade]] or '''controlled''' [[flood]]ing (see: [[Irrigation]]) by temporarily diverting a river or pool, using a [[floodgate]] or [[door]] to stop the flow. You may also find a muddied area in a [[cavern]], but note that each tile underneath the farm plot must be muddied. Most caverns have entire open areas which will be permanently covered in mud, but if you dig into the walls of a cavern or chisel away a pillar, the freshly cut floor area will not be muddied until you get it wet. Underground caverns are dirty, and frequently contain [[Mud|piles of mud]] that are perfect for quickly setting up farms. However, given the wide variety of creatures found in caverns, you may want to take precautions. Consider keeping a [[squad]] close at hand to guard the farm, or walling off a muddied area for your dwarves' exclusive use.

Underground farming is not restricted to soil layers and caverns; underground floor of any material -- rough stone, smoothed stone, ore, gem -- can support subterranean farm plots once there is a layer of mud covering it. See [[irrigation]] for tips on getting the right amount of water to the farm plots.

=== Above Ground Farming ===
Farming of above ground crops is only possible on tiles that lie in a biome supporting their growth. Those are "land" biomes excluding the notoriously cold [[Glacier]] and [[Tundra]], but also all [[Mountain]] [[biome]]s. [[Ocean]] biomes are also excluded, since they are not "land". The biomes where above ground farming is possible are internally referred to as NOT_FREEZING, but that label is somewhat misleading, since it's a [[Biome token|shorthand]] for a group of specific biomes and doesn't imply anything about the actual temperature - mountains and oceans are generally infertile, no matter what temperature range the embark screen lists, and a [[Taiga]] with "freezing" temperatures allows farming above ground plants.

Above ground farming is basically the same as underground farming, with the simplifying distinction that above ground plots typically do not require preparatory work. However, there are some complications.

The first complication is that seeds cannot be chosen at embark, as dwarven civilizations do not have access to those sort of plants. They can be bought from [[Elves|elven]] and [[human]] caravans; above-ground plants can be gathered using the [[Plant gathering]] designation, and then [[brewer|brewed]], [[miller|milled]], [[thresher|threshed]] or [[food|eaten]] directly (depending on the plant) to produce seeds.

The second complication is that the farming must be done on [[soil]] or muddied rock, which is [[above ground]]. Typically, it is done on the surface, which is dangerous (due to aggressive animals, ambushes and sieges). However, any land which has ever been exposed to sunlight becomes permanently marked as "above ground". So, if you have multiple Z-layers of soil, you can channel some above-ground land, remove the resulting ramps, then construct a floor above, where the surface once was. The (now inside and protected) lower soil will still be suitable for farming outdoor plants like [[strawberry|strawberries]], [[longland grass]], [[rope reed]], and anything else you may find. If your soil is not thick enough, you may still get a secure above ground farm by doing the same with any stone and muddying it. Alternatively, you may build a greenhouse by [[wall]]ing around some soil.

Some crops require a particular environment to grow. On an embark which crosses multiple biomes, it's not unusual for aboveground farms in different biomes to have different lists of available crops. Whether this varies only with temperature or also with other climate factors is not yet known.

Note that when creating an above ground plot, the interface may incorrectly display "No mud/soil for farm", even though mud is present. {{bug|249}} The message can be ignored.

== Farm plots in action ==

Once a farm plot has been built and crops have been selected for the current season, dwarves with the [[growing]] labor enabled will begin planting the selected seeds. One seed is used per tile. The higher a Dwarf's grower skill in planting, the more plants will be harvested from each seed planted. The farming labor is fairly low in priority, so if you want a full-time farmer, it is best to disable all other labors.

Plants take time to grow, depending on their type. Once a plant is fully grown, a dwarf will harvest it. By default, any dwarf will do this. Harvesting plants is not affected by any skill, although it provides a small amount of grower experience. So it's a good idea to set only your planters to harvest, not anyone. To do that, set option "Only Farmers Harvest" {{k|o}}{{k|h}}. This is useful only to train your planter faster; once they're skilled enough, everyone can be allowed to harvest again so the haulers can take care of half the farming work.

<div style="float:right">
{| style="border-spacing: 0"
|{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|`|0:1}}||{{RT|τ|6:1}}||{{RT|═|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}
|-
|{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|τ|6:1}}||{{RT|═|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}
|-
|{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|τ|6:1}}||{{RT|═|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}
|-
|{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|τ|6:1}}||{{RT|═|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}
|-
|{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|τ|6:1}}||{{RT|═|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}
|}
</div>
In the farm plot shown on the right, {{Tile|≈|6:0}} indicates tiles awaiting planting, {{Tile|═|6:0}} indicates tiles that have been planted and are now growing, and {{Tile|τ|6:1}} indicates [[longland grass]] plants that are ready for harvesting.

Plants that remain in the field for too long will wither. These plants will eventually [[rot]] away. There's no use for withered plants. Farmers plant up to the last day of the growing season;{{verify}} if, when the seasons change, the previous crop can not grow anymore, all immature plants will be destroyed yielding neither seed nor plant. Therefore, it's recommended not to grow crops on the last season they're able to (for example, pig tails in autumn), to prevent losing seeds.

Depending on the number of growers and their experience and the rate at which the plant grows, not all squares of large plots may be used.

Any farm plot that has both Above Ground and Subterranean tile attributes within the plot will only be partially planted, if at all. Verify using {{k|k}} over each square of the plot and remake as needed to follow the proper attributes.

== Management ==

Create a custom [[stockpile]] near your [[farm]] which only accepts [[seed]]s. This will consolidate your seeds into one place, instead of having them littered all through the [[dining room]]. As a single barrel can hold up to 10 seed [[bag]]s (each of which can hold 100 seeds of a specific type), and there is a maximum of 200 seeds of each type in the whole fortress, this stockpile need only be three or four tiles. Unfortunately, due to an outstanding bug, consolidating your seeds will increase the amount of planting job cancellation spam; see the [[#Bugs|Bugs]] section below for workarounds.

It may also be a good idea to set aside a few seeds from each type of crop and [[forbid]] them, as a seed bank in case of [[fun|fun times]].

You can also create a custom stockpile that will only accept [[plant]]s, to avoid having it all mixed up with your [[meat]] and [[drink]]s. It would be a good idea to have this stockpile near your [[still]], [[farmer's workshop]], [[kitchen]], etc. If you suffer from plump helmet overflow, create a plump-helmet-only stockpile, forbid plump helmets from all other food stockpiles, and let the crops in the field die if they can't be picked. It is worth noting that withering crops in the field do not produce miasma.

Use the [[stocks]] menu, and go to the Kitchen tab. From here you can see how many of each kind of food you have. If you're running out of a certain kind of seed, toggle the corresponding plant "Cook" setting to red. [[Cooking]] plants doesn't leave a seed. If you have too many of a certain kind of seed, or of plump helmet, as noted above, toggle the seed "Cook" setting to blue. Just make sure you check on the stocks and toggle it back before you run out, or use the seed bank idea above.

===Managing Seeds===
[[Seed]]s are used to grow [[crop]]s. You may begin the game with a certain number of seeds, [[trade]] for them, or [[plant gathering|gather]] them. In addition to this, eating, [[milling]] and [[brewing]] plants often yield a seed (assuming your fortress hasn't hit the seed cap for that plant). [[Cooking]] plants does not yield seeds, and cooking seeds makes them unusable for planting, so you may want to watch out and make sure you don't convert the last of your plants into +strawberry roast+ without the ability to make more.

You can create a custom [[stockpile]] near your [[farm]] which will only accept [[seed]]s. This will consolidate your seeds into one place, instead of having them littered all through the [[dining room]]. Seeds are stored in [[bag]]s (up to 100 seeds per bag), and seed bags can be stored in barrels. It is recommended not to use barrels on seeds stockpiles, however, since the hauling habits of the current version lead to barrels getting carted around to collect each and every loose seed, interrupting the planting work.

Each plant has a seed cap set at 200 (this value can be adjusted in [[d_init.txt]]). [[Brewing]], [[milling]], and [[food|eating]] raw plants will not generate additional seeds once the cap is reached, although you may still get additional seed bags via [[trading]] and thus exceed this limit. Once the count of seeds falls below 200, new seeds will again be generated.

There is also a fortress-wide total seed cap, initially set at 3000 (also configurable in [[d_init.txt]]). Once your fortress reaches this cap new seeds will still be generated, but the oldest seeds on the map will disappear. Unfortunately, this cap counts all seeds on the map, including those carried by traders {{bug|8108}}, and removes old seeds even if they have already been planted {{bug|8107}}. Finally, because the two caps behave differently, they can cause undesirable behavior when both are in operation {{bug|8091}}.

Seeds may be toggled for [[cooking]] on the Kitchen tab of the [[stocks]] menu. Disabling seed cooking will keep your seeds safe from starving dwarves. Although the item properties label them as EDIBLE_RAW, [[quarry bush|rock nuts]], like all other seeds, are ''not'' consumed as-is.

===Managing Crops===
When your [[crop]]s are ripe, your dwarves will harvest them from the farm plots. This will yield one or more [[stack]]s of [[plant]]s, which will be [[hauling|hauled]] to the appropriate [[stockpile]]. It is generally a good idea to have sufficient [[barrel]]s to hold the food, as [[food]] is subject to [[wear|withering]] and the predation of [[vermin]]. [[Metal]] barrels are especially effective against vermin.

You can create a custom stockpile that will only accept [[plant]]s, to avoid having it all mixed up with your [[meat]] and [[drink]]s. It would be a good idea to have this stockpile near your [[still]], [[farmer's workshop]], [[kitchen]], etc. You may also choose to make more specialized stockpiles, for instance if your [[windmill]] is located far away from your farms, you might have small nearby stockpiles dedicated solely to millable plants and [[flour]] so as to save on hauling.

The Kitchen tab on the [[stocks]] menu allows you to control which crops, if any, your dwarves will use as ingredients when cooking. Be careful when you are cultivating new crops or running low on others, and make sure you don't cook the last of them instead of recovering the valuable seeds. Note that experienced [[farmer]]s and crop [[fertilize|fertilization]] significantly increase the return on planted seeds, and can be quite useful when attempting to build your seed stockpile.

==Bugs==

* Haulers will frequently take a full, heavy seed barrel from a stockpile to go pick up a single seed bag, having the unfortunate side effect of making all of the hauled seeds unusable for planting and spamming job cancellations. {{bug|5964}}
** Workaround #1: set your seed stockpile to only take from links ({{k|a}}). When seed supplies run low, toggle it back to "anywhere" temporarily to gather up all the loose seeds.
** Workaround #2: disable barrels ({{k|E}}) in the seed stockpile. This means making the stockpile larger, as only one seed bag will be stored per tile. However, at 100 seeds per bag and with the 200 seed cap per seed type (cf. [[seed]]), this still only amounts to 12 tiles for a full underground-crop seed stockpile, assuming each seed type is only stored in 2 bags. Haulers will still take a whole bag to gather individual seeds, but this is better than taking a whole barrel full of seed bags.
** Workaround #3: create two custom [[stockpile]]s which only accept [[seed]]s. Disable barrels in the first stockpile, and set it to give to the second stockpile. Set the second to only take from links.
** Workaround #4: disable seeds in all stockpiles and recruit a few extra farmers. No hauled seeds means no planting job cancellation spam.

* Fortress-wide seed cap counts seeds carried by traders {{bug|8108}}
* Fortress-wide seed cap removes seeds that have already been planted {{bug|8107}}
* Conflict between seed caps can cause all seeds for a crop to disappear {{bug|8091}}

{{Farming FAQ}}

== See also ==
* [[Irrigation]]
* [[Tile attributes]]
* [[Crops]]

{{Category|Buildings}}
{{Industry}}