MASSIVE Drinks problem (HELP, MY DWARVES ARE SOBER...AND DYING!)

[Bloody Bubba]

Yea. title says it all. i made sure to turn off the Ability to Cook the Plump Helmets, as well as the Plump Helmet Spawn. ive got to the point where i ran out of Beer/Drinks and now Nobody will do anything. ive even got Corpses laying all over the place, and nobody cares. i have a Tomb, but it might as well be on Mars, cause they're not using it!
not to mention i have area i want dug out, nobody will Mine. idk, i think my Dwarves are pretty SOL, but for next time, what am i doing wrong?

[vakapad777]

gather plants, those can also be brewed. Dwarves will also drnk water, if they have no alcohol.

[Astronomygoon]

Well, let's start with the obvious...did you build a still?

[Teemo]

do you have a still?
do you have liquid containers to put the drinks?
do yo actually have some plump helmets?
are there any fruits/veggies outside you can gather?

[Arcanua]

Were you making sure to plant said plump helmets and brewing them shortly after they were harvested? Or at least brewing when low on booze? That's one way to help, another is just buy as many booze as you can spare both at embark and from caravans. Even if you have 2 or even 300 units. Just in case something happens, even in small forts for example I try to keep my stock at over 500 at all times since 1. winter sucks 2. if a dwarf gets depressed and over eat/drinks 3. just extra safety.

[sajmon]

also buy plump helmets and seeds from caravans and ask them to get you more next time they arrive too
after that you should never ran out of plump helmets if you set up farms and kitchen properly

[Bloody Bubba]

Originally posted by sajmon:

also buy plump helmets and seeds from caravans and ask them to get you more next time they arrive too
after that you should never ran out of plump helmets if you set up farms and kitchen properly

Yeah, i don't think i did honestly. i did a Work order to Brew constantly if i dip below 50 i think it was, but i had plenty of Barrels.. i think they ate the Spawn, far as i can tell that was the issue, they ran out of drinks and stopped doing anything. they even left corpses laying around, when i built a Tomb.
though this is my first time playing the game, so i could be messing up on a LOT.

[Astronomygoon]

Originally posted by Mr. Killemoff:

Originally posted by sajmon:

also buy plump helmets and seeds from caravans and ask them to get you more next time they arrive too
after that you should never ran out of plump helmets if you set up farms and kitchen properly

Yeah, i don't think i did honestly. i did a Work order to Brew constantly if i dip below 50 i think it was, but i had plenty of Barrels.. i think they ate the Spawn, far as i can tell that was the issue, they ran out of drinks and stopped doing anything. they even left corpses laying around, when i built a Tomb.
though this is my first time playing the game, so i could be messing up on a LOT.

Anybody who tells you that they never had to restart a fort due to a drinking problem is lying to you :)

[AmesNFire]

Originally posted by Mr. Killemoff:

though this is my first time playing the game, so i could be messing up on a LOT.

One thing I understand about DF is to never expect your first fort to survive past the third year and that's if you're doing well.

[Xcorps]

For your initial emabark of 7 dwarves you need 10 tiles of farm dedicated to plump helmets. I usually just plop a 5x5 and don't worry about it again.

That will produce the minimum requirements for survival, assuming that you have seeds, planters, farmers, stockpiles, containers, and the still.

To set it up, you need stockpile>plump helmet seed> farmland plump helmet every season>stockpile plump helments>still brew dwarven wine into a barrel>stockpile dwarven wine.

Each plump helmet processed will produce 2 dwarven wine. To satisfy thirst, each dwarf consumes 5 drinks per season, so all 7 of your embark team will consume 35 drinks per season, call it 18 plump helmets. Thirst satisfaction is not the same as survival, but you don't want your dwarves to not be thirst satisfied or they become...uncooperative.

Each dwarf must eat 2 food items per season 14 total, so you need to generate 32 plump helmets per season to sustain your embark team if there is no other food or drink brought or gathered. Each tile of farmland will yield 0-6 plump helmets per season, this is affected by random chance, and skill level. Fertilizing a tile effectively doubles the yield for unskilled growers.

As your grower skills up, your yield will improve. Adding fertilizer will boost your production a lot and give your farmers good exp. An optimized 5x5 plot will generate enough plump helmets to satisfy the survival needs of 256 dwarves. I have run forts of 200 dwarves without fertilizer with about 30 total tiles of farmland.

Keep in mind this is for starvation prevention only. Once you have enough labor, you need to provide a variety of food and drink to your dwarves or they start having !!!FUN!!! eventually.

Another important lesson here is that you have to occasionally take a look at individual dwarves and pay attention to their moods. Booze deaths should only happen if a dwarf gets trapped without access somewhere on the map and you miss it.


This should all be mostly easy to get rolling quickly in a normal embark. If you can't find suitable underground soil in your embark, create mud with a bucket brigade.

[Xcorps]

Originally posted by Mr. Killemoff:

Yea. title says it all. i made sure to turn off the Ability to Cook the Plump Helmets, as well as the Plump Helmet Spawn. ive got to the point where i ran out of Beer/Drinks and now Nobody will do anything. ive even got Corpses laying all over the place, and nobody cares. i have a Tomb, but it might as well be on Mars, cause they're not using it!
not to mention i have area i want dug out, nobody will Mine. idk, i think my Dwarves are pretty SOL, but for next time, what am i doing wrong?

Your dwarves are probably oversaturated with labor. Some of the labors they are trying to do have unfulfilled needs, so they do Labor 1, then they try to do Labor 2, cancel it, revert back to labor 1.

Build a craftsdwarf workshop.
Build a carpenters shop. If you don't have access to wood ignore this.

Create the following work orders with the manager (NOT THE SHOP)

Build rock pot 10 if less than 10, set it to top priority.
Build wood barrel 10 if less than 10, set it to second priority. Again, ignore if no wood.
Brew drink from plant. Use 5x your current number of dwarves for the order and half that for the condition check. So if you have 10 dwarves Brew 50 if less than 25.
Brew Drink from Fruit same numbers as drink from plant.

Those orders will guarantee that you always have enough booze for a full season, or 2 if you have access to enough plants.

You need to make sure that your labors are not killing your dwarves. Brewing enough for embark and having enough to eat are super simple.

[Dufflebags]

Originally posted by Mr. Killemoff:

Originally posted by sajmon:

also buy plump helmets and seeds from caravans and ask them to get you more next time they arrive too
after that you should never ran out of plump helmets if you set up farms and kitchen properly

Yeah, i don't think i did honestly. i did a Work order to Brew constantly if i dip below 50 i think it was, but i had plenty of Barrels.. i think they ate the Spawn, far as i can tell that was the issue, they ran out of drinks and stopped doing anything. they even left corpses laying around, when i built a Tomb.
though this is my first time playing the game, so i could be messing up on a LOT.

Each coffin needs to be it's own tomb. Just found this out myself.