Farming is an essential process in Dwarf Fortress if you want to produce food, alcohol, cloth, or other key resources.
However, similar to every other process in the game, farming is far from simple. Instead, players will have to take into consideration a wide variety of factors before even attempting to start plowing.
Specifically, it is important to choose the right farming locations. Not every land is farmable and not every farmable land is an ideal location.
In this guide, I will explain where to farm in Dwarf Fortress and showcase the farming locations in the game.
Where to Set Up Your Farm in Dwarf Fortress
Not every tile in the game is farmable. As a rule of thumb, any soft type of terrain can be farmed. This includes soil, sand, clay, mud, and more. Instead, any hard terrain, such as stone, cannot be farmed.
Best Early-Game Farming Locations
For early game, an ideal farming location would be inside your fort. As long as your fort terrain is clay or sand, I highly recommend starting an indoor farm.
This way, your farms will be protected in case of sieges, and your farmers will be safely located inside your fortress at all times.
Also, there is no reason to farm outdoors since all early-game seeds can grow underground.
Best Late-Game Farming Locations
As for later in the game, when you’ve expanded your fortress significantly and have built outside walls, placing an outside farm isn’t a bad idea.
Optimally, you want to place your farm between your inner base and the outside walls/moat.
This will allow you to plant different crops and add a new level of variety to your farms. Also, your farms will be safe during sieges and farmers will have time to enter your fortress in case of need.
Lastly, another option would be to make an underground greenhouse. Start by digging an area underground, channel its ceiling, and replace it with glass.
This is more expensive due to the need for glass compared to the previous methods, but it looks so much cooler!
How to Farm in Stone Terrain in Dwarf Fortress
If you want to place your farm in a very specific location but the terrain is stone, don’t worry. It’s totally possible to farm in stone terrain simply by turning stone into mud.
This is done by flooding the stone-covered terrain you want to farm until it turns into muddied stone. The new terrain can be used for farming, plant gathering, tree-growing, and grazing.
The trickiest part here is bringing water to flood it without flooding the rest of your base. Check out our relevant guide for more details on how to get water in Dwarf Fortress and avoid flooding your base by building bridges.
Keep in mind that this whole process takes more effort and time compared to the above ones, so it’s not recommended unless you’re focused on farming in a certain area.
Conclusion
To sum up, that’s everything you need to know about where to farm in Dwarf Fortress during the early and late game.
Focus on soft terrain, inside or outside your base, or turn stone into mud and farm there.
Now that you’ve decided on a farming location, don’t miss out on our guide about how to farm in Dwarf Fortress, including how to set up your farming area and which seeds to prioritize.
Where did you decide to set up your farm after all? Which seeds are you planting first? Let us know in the comments below.
He has a Master’s Degree in Philosophy, which allows him to always come up with a fresh approach to solving in-game puzzles and challenges, but also to create content that’s to the point, clean and easy to follow.
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