How to collect water for winter?

[Youshisu]

Do I do barrels or what? :)

[Fel]

You make a citern underground, with a well (underground as well) over it.

You shouldn't need that much water in most cases if you brew drinks for your dwarves.
They don't like drinking water so usually only injured or jailed dwarves will be brought water to drink.

[Youshisu]

Originally posted by Fel:

You make a citern underground, with a well (underground as well) over it.

You shouldn't need that much water in most cases if you brew drinks for your dwarves.
They don't like drinking water so usually only injured or jailed dwarves will be brought water to drink.

Can u store water somehow? im not into brewing yet :P, I got no river, got few small ponds

[Fel]

You can't store it in barrels no, you need to dig/build a proper citern, preferably several z-levels to avoid taking water from the bottom level.
It doesn't need to be big, 3x3 is more than enough even for fairly large forts as long as it's 2-3 levels high.

To take the water there you can always get the water from the ponds by digging canals (just corridors meant for the water really) and/or pumps.

[Youshisu]

Originally posted by Fel:

You can't store it in barrels no, you need to dig/build a proper citern, preferably several z-levels to avoid taking water from the bottom level.
It doesn't need to be big, 3x3 is more than enough even for fairly large forts as long as it's 2-3 levels high.

To take the water there you can always get the water from the ponds by digging canals (just corridors meant for the water really) and/or pumps.

Canals freeze in winter :|

Whats z level? or you mean just level?

[Fel]

x and y represent the coordinates on the flat view you see and z represents the depth.

Canals freeze in winter if they are "outside", as long as they are underground they won't freeze.

[Youshisu]

Originally posted by Fel:

x and y represent the coordinates on the flat view you see and z represents the depth.

Canals freeze in winter if they are "outside", as long as they are underground they won't freeze.

Ah ok,

Ye level is already in Z axis by definition ;P

[Fel]

Yes but since there are other things in the game called "level" (skill levels or water level for example) as well we usually use z-level when talking about depth.

[8Dimensional]

Tip: make canals to ponds or rivers underground, this can be tricky and could cause some "fun" when your diggers carve out the last few sections and the water starts running, but... water that is underground will not be exposed to freezing temperatures, and therefore wil not freeze over! also, if you make an underground resevoir you do not have to worry about freezing so much at all, water consumption tends to remain quite low when you get distileries running.

Sorry for my bad english, but i hope it helps! ;D

[True Guesser, Wand Bearer, etc.]

As an aside; brewing alcohol should not be difficult unless you forgot to buy supplies or ate all the mushrooms.

[Dcethe]

Originally posted by Youshisu:

Do I do barrels or what? :)

What you gotta do is channel in a river or embark on an ocean map. your welcome

[Anna]

You could move water without channels. Construct several buckets, add zone near the pond and mark as water source. Add "pond' zone on the top of your cistern and select "fill automatically" or something like that in zone settings. They would grab the buckets and fill the cistern.

It's best to have several dwarfs working simultaneously at least at the beginning to fight initial evaporation.

[Decatsmeow]

From what I've seen, the three options i've seen is you build an external structure outside, and that heats up the water. I've also irrigated the water underground (under my fortress) is a way that I can make a well or have them collect the water directly. Lastly, I'm pretty sure you can have the dwarves get buckets and carry the water to a holding area.

[76561188078797539]

One level of the caverns should near always have water, as well.

If your layers in between caverns are set to just a few z-levels (I think the defaults are pretty low?), you can easily channel into a makeshift cistern fed directly from underground source. If you're extra paranoid prepared, make sure your well is two or three z-levels above, and smooth out the walls of its channel into the cistern to prevent any climbers.

And if you embark with Heavy Aquifer present, you'll have more water sources than it's likely healthy for your fortress' long-term survival, heh.

Also, word of caution about surface sources in embarks with periodic freezing - water freezing on a structure will destroy it, potentially causing extremely !FUN!time when things thaw.

Originally posted by Decatsmeow:

Lastly, I'm pretty sure you can have the dwarves get buckets and carry the water to a holding area.

You can designate pond zone and dwarfhandle the water used to fill it out, though that's probably the least efficient way of going about it long-term :)

It's a great method (can switch to magma as desired liquid) for filling out stand-alone magma forge feeder tiles, though.

[EmotionallyBroken]

you can also order dwarves to dump buckets of water into a zone, I read it somewhere I think on the wiki

mark it as a sometrhing zone.. what was it?

but ya, requires buckets and dwarves assaigne to something labor xD

[Fel]

Pond zone is what you meant I think.
And yeah, it requires a fairly intense amount of work from dwarves compared to other solutions.

The pond solution is often used to make a place muddy for farming but filling a water tank is kind of a big undertaking.