Do I really need wood

You may want to have a look at the Wood Industry.

Reasons you need wood

• To build beds
  • Without beds your dwarves will get unhappy thoughts from sleeping on the ground
• To build axles
  • Without axles your ability to transfer power is severely limited.
• To build water wheels and windmills
  • These are the only generators of power. Without them, you'll be forced to do everything manually.
• To build siege engines and ballista bolts
  • These can be very effective defenses when traps fail.
• If you want obsidian short swords, they require one obsidian stone and one wood each (these swords likely consist of a thin wooden "paddle" with sharp flakes of obsidian forming sharp edges, like the ancient Aztec macuahuitl).
  • If you have access to obsidian, these can be a great source of quick weaponry early in the game, before any steel works are up to speed. Even on a tree-lite map, each weapon takes less wood to produce than a steel weapon (unless you are using magma to fuel your smelters and forges and have access to bituminous coal and lignite).

Reasons you want wood

• It is simpler to make items from wood.
  • For instance, it only takes one log to produce a bin, barrel, or bucket; but if you forge them instead then they'll take three metal bars.
• Wood can be burnt to produce charcoal and ash, which are important ingredients in other tasks such as smelting ore, forging metal items, glass making, fertilizer for crops, and other uses.
• All metalworks (smelters, forges) and glassworks are either wood-fueled or magma-fueled. If you are planning on having any sort serious metal or glass production, then you're going to need a lot of wood, or magma (and charcoal or coal for steel).

Reasons you don't need much wood

• Everything other than beds, axles, windmills, water wheels, obsidian shortswords, siege engine parts, and ballista bolts can be made without the use of wood.
• If you have magma then you don't need wood for fuel. If you have coal, you don't need (as much) wood to produce charcoal for steel. If you have both, you don't need wood to produce metal or steel products.
  • (Bituminous coal without magma triples the effective output of wood, lignite doubles it.)
• You can supplement your wood supply to a small degree via trading.
• If you're lucky enough to play in an area with an underground pool or underground river then you can grow your own wood supply underground with tower caps.

Wood FAQ
Do I really need wood?
Where can I get wood?
Where can I get even more wood?
Is it possible to grow trees underground?
How long do tower-caps take to grow?
Do dead trees spawn new trees?
How much protection does wood armor provide?
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