Editing 40d:Food guide

There are seven possible ways to get [[food]]: [[farming]], [[trading]], [[fishing]], [[hunting]],  [[Gather plants|plant gathering]], [[Butcher's shop|breeding tame livestock]] and [[trap]]ping. [[Farming]] is the most stable and plentyful of the methods, usually followed by [[trading]]. Farming, trading and plant gathering are your only sources of booze and brewable plants, so you need to do one of them because [[booze]] is a must-have.

 

This is the best you can do when you have a [[food]] shortage. It has the best returns to time value of all. Just, you won't get that much and you better invest in another method before you run out of bushes to harvest unless you are on a big, fertile map. You can also [[farming|farm]] most plants you gather with the same work and higher output, so outside a shortage its more a flavour than a sensible choice. The higher your gatherer skill, the more and faster you get. Unskilled gatherers will find frustratingly little, but will train up rather fast. Seeds from gathering also allow you to start [[farming]] above ground plants that you can't buy seeds for on embark screen. Keep also in mind that heavy gathering, like logging, will cause your dwarves to go increasingly longer distances until they find shrubs, reducing yield per time.

Activate the plant gathering labor on one or more dwarves and you're good to go. Of course bringing a proficient gatherer on embark improves early yield a lot.

You need a food stockpile, but you will have one anyway. Kitchen infrastructure is advisable as not all, but most, plants you gather will be edible raw.

Fishing will give a steady food supply, but the return to cost is low. If you can't provide a safe place like a walled-in pool or underground river (assuming you cleared that one out first), being outside and near carp is a steady risk. You can improve on supplementing your dwarves' diet with their [[preferences|likes]], and turtle or lobster shells are important for moods. You will also get some bones if the fish is eaten uncooked.

The catch with fishing though is that the catch (ahaha - horrible pun) is not immediately edible. You need to process it at the fishery first, which increases the time needed to get from rod to plate.

* "there is no [[fish]] left in X body of warter" can be safely ignored. Your dwarves will either use another fishing spot until the [[fish]] respawn or idle about until said [[fish]] respawn, which is when the season changes.

This is almost like fishing, except ther's more spectacle (and blood!), the returns are usually higher but the risk is higher as well. With hunting, you will also get stacks of [[bones]], tallow, [[leather]] and skulls (fishing just gets you single bones and shells).

* '''Wrestling''' for dodging agressive animals

The basis of a farm is seeds.  Seeds come in both subterranean and surface (indoors/outdoors) varieties - you can buy either type of seeds from traders, but the embark screen will only have subterranean seeds available and Plant Gathering ({{key|d}}esignations->Gather {{key|p}}lants)) will only yield outside plants (exception: [[underground river]]).  Any plant that is eaten or brewed produces seeds. To control dwarven hehavior a bit more, you may want to control who can harvest plants or collect stray seeds from the {{key|o}}rders menu.

The only specific farming-related skill is [[grower]] (labor:Farming). Plant Gathering (or trade) is needed to acquire above groud plant seeds.

Farming skills should be devoted to dwarfs who will be farmers or planters only.  That includes turning off lesser hauling jobs, and giving them no other skill specialization, as there is a chance they will spend more time doing other things than they will planting seeds or harvesting plants from the fields before they wither.  Mixing farming skills with cooking skills is viable, but closer attention to task execution and assignment is necessary, thus that the planters don't spend more time in the kitchen or the still than on the field.  Multiple planters - three is safe - produce a bigger stock and may even allow some skill rotation, while fewer planters - one - puts the fortress at risk if that dwarf should be killed or incapacitated.

* Potash can be used to fertilize farm plots, producing larger stacks of plants when harvested.  Potash is made by [[Wood Furnace|burning wood]] into [[ash]] and turning [[ash]] into [[potash]] at an [[ashery]].  The utility of this gain is questionable, even in dire circumstances.

* Developed skill in planting produces better harvest bundles (stacks of food from one plant harvested).  Larger bundles of food means more alcohol brewed into a single barrel, larger stacks of [[Dwarven syrup]] and [[quarry bush leaves]] for cooking, and more [[dye]] or flour/sugar per bag.

*  If you find that your seeds stock is dropping, this may be either a case of focusing too much on secondary culinary skills that destroy seeds in the process (e.g., cooking) or the inhabitants of your fortress may be consuming other kinds of food and all of your seed-breaing plants are not getting eaten or brewed thus that the seeds get recovered.  As mentioned, it is ill-advised to let your kitchen cook seeds directly.

While targeting the same source as hunting (wild animals) and eventually equaling breeding, it uses a different technique ([[cage traps]]), needs less resources (bolts versus mechanisms and cages that get recycled) and reduces risk. Caught animals need to be tamed and are then better used for breeding than instant slaughtering.

[[Trading]] for food gives you less control than farming. As it relies on trade caravans delivering your fortress food, you have to check more carefully the amount of food your dwarfs eat, possibly limiting immigration till you have built a stock or can better evaluate how much food the caravans bring. The amount of food that a caravan delivers is impossible to strictly control, but can be influenced with liaisons. At the same time, you need to maintain good relationships with the other civilizations. Be prepared for the occasional caravan to be omitted due to sieges.

More work is needed for actually accumulating trade goods like mugs to sell.  This is an expansive situation that ties into whatever kind of economy you establish - [[stone]] being the easiest. For [[Wood]] ([[Armok]] forbid), [[glass]], [[metal]], [[cloth]], [[leather]], etc.. you need a chain of [[workshops]], a supply of production materials, and the skills needed to produce the goods. Good news is that food is typically rather cheap, even if specifically requested.

Same as with skills and and materials, most of the things necessary for trading for food are already built into a typical fortress.  Ignoring the workshops that will produce what you sell, as well as what your fortress uses to live, you need a depot and a food stockpile. Done.

Trading for food can easily fill your piles with edible delights each time your fortress gets visited by merchants, but at the cost of choice on more than one occasion.  Your human and dwarven [[trading|liaison]] will allow you to set a priority for the food the merchants haul with them next year. [[Goblins]] and [[elves]] don't seem to trade much food, and the amount of food the [[humans]] bring can be sometimes great, sometimes minor.  Even setting the priority for food for the dwarves, there is a chance they'll just bring some expensive food, not a lot of cheap food (actually, this is a fallacy: the food itself is not expensive, usually, but its barrel or bag can be of absurd quality).  There is also the part where you have to keep good relations with the other races, including your own; this another part of "normal fortress behavior."  Trading for food is a fubar'd idea if everyone hates you.  Since [[sieges]] keep merchant caravans away in the later-game periods, a fortress would do well to build an early, healthy surplus too.

* Solid food - [[plant]] or [[meat]] - is not purchased in [[barrels]]; exposure to rot and wither, make sure it is hauled to a stockpile in time.