Dwarf Fortress you sick temptress, you!

-Dont build someone a home really far away from the rest of civilization to keep him closer to his work. He'll starve to death.

Try expanding his home a bit. Add a well, a table, and a throne. Then designate a small (1x2) food stockpile next to the table that draws from the main food stockpile. The other dwarves should be more than happy to keep his little cupboard full.

Just guessing here, but you might also want to assign him a wardog if he doesn't have a pet. Could get lonely.

-My opinion: Trappers and Fishers are worthless (though I may just need more fisheries to get better use from the fisherdwarves) Next time I'm turning every trapper I see into a farmer or a metalworker. The only time I was ever happy to have Trappers around is they seem to be in the right place at the right time when there's ambushes in my fortress. They'll fire a few bolts off and take care of it lickity split, but as long as they keep their crossbows, changing their job shouldnt make a difference there

I like fishing, but you have to keep up with it. Not all of the workshops run the same way. Unlike the Butchery, the Fishery must be periodically queued to clean fish repeatedly. Whenever the fish cleaner cleans the last raw fish, a message will pop up that there are no more raw fish and the cleaning task at the fishery goes away.

Hunters appear to follow their prey to the ends of the earth until they starve to death. Unless told otherwise, the other dwarves will make a suicidal expedition to retrieve the hunter's corpse and tools. Fun!

Detailing Stone makes things look better and I think makes the dwarves happier. You can look at their thoughts and see that they appreciate it. Also I think you have to detail any stones that stick up in your road to the outside world in order for the human wagons to make it to your trade depot.

My advice--learned the hard way--is to go into kitchen options of the status window (z) and turn off cookability option for all your booze. My stupid dwarves made simple meals out of all my booze and now I don't have any alcohol but plenty of dwarven ale cookies (made of ale and wine)... sheesh.

I tried, but I just can't seem to get into it. I'll be looking forward to a graphics pack.

I just realized a few things about the game that others may find helpful (or go 'duh')

Item quality is something to watch. Treat nobles and your legendary dwarves to some high quality items. I save these when they're created and dish out the rest to the plebian dwarves. Im sure the nobles will enjoy getting the highest quality stuff.

You can choose to create stone things out of light or dark stone, which improves their quality and makes dwarves enjoy being around them more. A jet throne makes a dwarf feel more special than the one stuck on a chalk throne.

Chum wrote:

I should have been clearer about my ineptitude ;)-- I can't figure out how to place them at all. I've got about 6 sitting in my carpenter's workshop, but I can't seem to move them (i.e. find the correct command).

Designate an area as a 'finished good' stockpile and the workers will clear out your cluttered workshop

Wow. I just now found out that I need to (should?) make bedrooms, dining rooms, etc. and assign them. So much depth. And I got my first immigrant.

Does anyone have any military tips? I created a small squad of 2 axers and 1 marksdwarf and so far at every emergency they've pretty much sat around and done nothing. They have patrol routes and a barracks but I cant seem to make them attack something I need attacked.

One occasion had 4 antmen pop up and kill 2 dwarfs right outside the barracks where the squad was sitting around, doing nothing.

It's a common mistake.

IMAGE(http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/6021/didyoumeanpp2.jpg)

I was wrong about looking in barrels. You can hit enter when looking at them with 'k' to see their contents.

I'm very curious, what's everybody's fort look like. I'm afraid I don't plan ahead enough. There's lots of weird traffic issues cropping up now.

IMAGE(http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/1001/screenshot1dr0.th.jpg)

I just recently restarted (things got a little hairy on the last one after a second wave of immigrants. Death is harsh in this game!) This is my fort just as I am entering my first winter:

IMAGE(http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i217/duttyride/FirstWinter.png)

I have:

22 Meat (This group aren't vegetarians )
6 Fish
50 Plant
48 Drink

I think this should be enough for the winter and no immigrants so far. We'll see.

Sauruman wrote:

Moria... You fear to go into those mines. The dwarves delved too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dum... shadow and flame.

Come, my friends. Sit with me and hear the sad tale of Govoslogem, the lost gem of the dwarven people.

I started by following the Surviving Your First Winter guideline. It was definitely a learning experience, this first fortress. I can't say I had any trouble surviving my first winter. I was ill-prepared for expansion though. I was always scrambling to keep up with immigrants. Several times I ran out of food. Farming, hunting, and fishing all seem like poor producers! Butchering horses and merchants kept me from starving though. Beds were almost always in short supply.

Not suprisingly, I designed poorly, but then it was my first time. Still, I soldiered on, eventually opening up a huge residential expansion about halfway between the entrance and the magma flow.

The joyful sensation you feel when you hit your first iron ore (hematite) is hard to describe. So is building your first magma smelter, and steel bridge. But hold off on that steel bridge, my friends, because shortly after the magma flow is the Deep. And the Deep is where the demons live. As you can see from my map, I had no luck in stopping their rampage.

IMAGE(http://rps.net/QS/Images/dwarfmap1.tn.gif)

I'd been thinking of starting over, so I wasn't too depressed.

Recommendations:
Dwarves aren't too bright about where they get their materials. They might get the closest matching item, they might grab it from the stockpile on the other side of the fortress. Locate your workshops and stockpiles close to each other.

The problem is that by mining rock to make mine stockpiles will produce the rock that goes into that stockpile. Apparently you can build bins to fit more into a stockpile, and while raw rock won't fit in a bin, stone blocks will. So you should be able to have a mason make stone blocks in a mason workshop.

Remember to put up supports if your room is more than say 6x6. Generally the room will cave in if you mine it before putting in ssupports, so dig out the areas where the supports will go, build them, then dig the rest.

Keep in mind that the river overflows at least once a season. It'll swarm over its banks, wash away some goods that are too close, and may even drown your dwarves and livestock. You can use this to your favor by clearing out an area for Tower Caps to grow (mushroom that can be cut like a tree after three years). Just remember not to build stuff too close. Put in some doors and set them to "keep closed" when you see that overflow warning and this should keep the water out. Hopefully.

I thought you only needed to build supports if you were planning on linking them to levers/plates to cause a cave in later. I've just been leaving single pillars every seventh block of original stone. No cave-ins yet.

I don't see the benefit of bins for hauling stone around if you have to go through the process of turning them into blocks first. Seems like it would be less work to just haul the rock unpolished one by one -- or better yet, just leave the rock laying on the ground. I can't even begin to keep up with the rocks lying around and have long since given up with mining stockpiles. Instead I just build some large ore stockpiles near the smelter.

Demons bad, good to know. I think I'll stay on the good side of the magma river.

You can tear up your wagons to get them out of the way and provide some wood at the beginning. I think that's T-X.

You're dwarves don't have beards. You can change the tileset in the init file to an 800x600 set so they look a bit more like dwarves.

I played this a little bit yesterday.. very impressive.. takes me back to the days.. would love to see a simple front end though.. just to make things a "tad" easier..

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

I thought you only needed to build supports if you were planning on linking them to levers/plates to cause a cave in later. I've just been leaving single pillars every seventh block of original stone. No cave-ins yet.

Yeah, it seems you're right. One difference is that supports can be walked through, which may or may not be useful.
[color=white].[/color]

I don't see the benefit of bins for hauling stone around if you have to go through the process of turning them into blocks first. Seems like it would be less work to just haul the rock unpolished one by one -- or better yet, just leave the rock laying on the ground. I can't even begin to keep up with the rocks lying around and have long since given up with mining stockpiles. Instead I just build some large ore stockpiles near the smelter.

But, it's so messy!

Another recommendation:
Build horizontal, not vertical. Basically your fortress will grow east-west until you hit the magma. Digging deep north-south just means more distance for your dwarves to travel when going from workshops and bedrooms to somewhere (for supplies or food). I suggest a main east-west corridor and dig only shallowly to the north and south.

Edit: Also keep in mind that dwarves can't build on piles of stone.

As far as I can tell dwarves will move stone out of the way to build something. You're right though, it is pretty messy; and I think it slows the dwarves a bit to have to walk over the stones. At this point if I set every single dwarf to only haul stones it would probably take over a year to clean the place out. Also I've accidentally bypassed the limestone issue with making steel bars since the hallway to my smelter is filled with the stuff.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Another recommendation:
Build horizontal, not vertical. Basically your fortress will grow east-west until you hit the magma. Digging deep north-south just means more distance for your dwarves to travel when going from workshops and bedrooms to somewhere (for supplies or food). I suggest a main east-west corridor and dig only shallowly to the north and south.

I'm not following. Are the "squares" actually rectangular as they appear then? So a 1x2 section is actually more area than a 2x1?

[Edit] I'm hangover slow today, not an idiot. It finally dawned on me that regardless of the unit square dimensions, 1x2 still equals 2x1...

A large fortress seems to run really inefficiently whether it is built north/south or east/west. One key problem (that has an interesting sounding solution in the works for a future version) is that you cannot get your dwarves to live close to where they work. Manufacturing living space for 100+ dwarves is an absolute chore. Dig out space, clear it out, place a door, place a bed, hope a dwarf who should live there does, and not a miner who will have a 10 minute walk to work.

I've built extra living spaces between the river and gorge, and between the gorge and lava. This helped a bit but I still couldnt get the farmers and fishers to live near the river like they should, or the miners and metalsmiths to live near the lava like they should. Bed shortage may have caused any dwarf to pick any room on the map simply because it's better than sleeping on the floor. I dont know if there's smart dwarf logic built in. Maybe after I have more rooms than dwarves, I can go through and clear out every room's owner and they'll pick more appropriate quarters. That's next on my list of things to try.

Building each set of areas as if it was independent of the others is definately a big help. Each one needs a dining area and at least a small food store, along with beds, a gathering place, storage for stone, ore and manufactured goods.

Each time I start a new game there's a new layer of strategy added to my construction. Last time it was masons and carpenter workshops outside near their piles, all others inside near their piles, multiples of all workshops, 1 big farm for the first 50 dwarves with a second after that, with food stores positioned very close. My production was very efficient. I never had to worry about food. This time I'll be adding a 3 wide corridor running the length of the place. New excavations will get doors and traps as quickly as possible. A long 2 or 3 deep tunnel will go along the front of the place for fortifications (allows you to shoot at enemies outside from the safety of your fort) with rooms for barracks. I'll also be designing each section with the independence in mind this time and hopefully my workers can make enough doors and beds for everyone. Boy is that a hassle.

Some upcoming features Im looking forward to:
-Burrows: divides your fortress into sections so that dwarves live and work in the same areas with special assignments for transporting goods between the different burrows
-Ability to specialize a stockpile further, like only Light stone in this one

My most wanted feature:
-A better interface for managing my dwarves jobs. If you've seen the 'weapons' screen within the military screen I think the same interface would work perfectly for quickly and easilly managing job assignments no matter how many dwarves you have. Maybe it could be unlocked after you get a certain noble like the Manager. Now where's the suggestion box?

Poly, you can assign bed manually. No need to worry about them picking the "right" one.

LiquidMantis wrote:

I'm not following. Are the "squares" actually rectangular as they appear then? So a 1x2 section is actually more area than a 2x1?

The squares are rectangular. But the thing is that there is a lot of necessary east-west movement. The trees are outside to the west (at least it's west in my map). Your trade depot is outside to the west. The good ore and magma are far to the east. This means there will be lots of long east-west travel as they bring goods to the depot and ore to the refineries. No need to add a lot of extra north-south movement as well.

I tried assigning it manually, the only people you could assign to are nobles and legendary figures, which is a good start, but far from a perfect solution

One change they need to do is choosing materials for buildings like bridges and supports: do I really need to see every single different pile of stone I have? No! Just list the unique types and how many I have of each one.

polypusher wrote:

I tried assigning it manually, the only people you could assign to are nobles and legendary figures, which is a good start, but far from a perfect solution

I think once the economy kicks in the non-noble dwarves no longer have assigned bedrooms and have to spend their wages to rent roooms at their discretion.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

One change they need to do is choosing materials for buildings like bridges and supports: do I really need to see every single different pile of stone I have? No! Just list the unique types and how many I have of each one.

I'd prefer they keep it like it is but add the distance column like in the trading depot. That way they could spend a little less time grabbing the siltstone across the fortress only to haul it over fifty other pieces of siltstone on their way back.

As for the most efficient shape, I'd think that'd be a more round base near the entrance with a offshoot to make a magma smelter/forge with a seperate foodstore, dining room, and bedrooms. There really isn't that much hauling going on for the smelting process. The rounder the core of your base the more routes a dwarf can consider to get to his next task and the less likely he is to have to sidestep twenty dwarves on the way there.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

I'd prefer they keep it like it is but add the distance column like in the trading depot. That way they could spend a little less time grabbing the siltstone across the fortress only to haul it over fifty other pieces of siltstone on their way back.

I disagree, only because they should be made smart enough to always grab the closest matching item in all instances.

That would be nice. Is it necessary to build doors for bedrooms? I haven't been and so far there has yet to be any issue without doors.

polypusher wrote:

I tried assigning it manually, the only people you could assign to are nobles and legendary figures, which is a good start, but far from a perfect solution

Weird, I've never had a problem assigning a bedroom. You do make it a bedroom first, right? Set the size. After that, you should be able to assign to any dwarf you want.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

That would be nice. Is it necessary to build doors for bedrooms? I haven't been and so far there has yet to be any issue without doors.

Well, I don't know. It might help them sleep better. I do know that I've had many dwarves say they didn't sleep well because of the noise. Also, I do know for sure that a door will prevent a bedroom area from extending out into the hallway or another room.

Wow, Dutty. Your fortress is so well organized. I really like the trade depot being inside. I'm having to move mine indoors before initiating the Gorilla-Lava experiment.

I just found the section in the help file that mentions the bedrooms need to be 4 units from workshops and 16 units from any active construction for noise control. It didn't mention doors helping.

I appreciate that my dwarves are happy, but they're now partying like they're in college. Lazy bastards need to quit calling parties and go cut down the damned tree that's in the middle of my road like I've been waiting on for a full season now.

[Edit] They won't be partying much longer... I realized I had way too many pillars left in my main storeroom. I took some out to make some more space but unfortunately miscalculated and went the other way -- there was a cave-in which took out all of my food stores. I'm currently butchering some newborn puppies...

I just got the bookkeeper and that appears to disable the ability to assign bedrooms with the exception of nobles and Legendary dwarves. My guys seem to like staying in the rooms they were assigned originally, but I'm afraid that one bed-ridden carpenter is about to run out of funds as he pays rent. What will happen? Is the sheriff going to give him the boot? Perhaps some sort of magma channel...

Um, when the elven traders came all they brought was same cloth so I sent 'em packing empty handed. Now that I look at my trade depot I see they left the cloth there. Is the first hit free or something?

On my second fortress, I suffered a plague of cave-ins. One of them took out my forge before I had a chance to build a second anvil.

The layout for this one was not ideal. I hit both the chasm and the river just after they forked, meaning I ended up having to bridge each one twice. My first river bridge was at a waterfall which has chasms around it. I lost probably half a dozen guys to flooding and guys being swept into the chasm.

Damn you people for introducitn me to theis game!!! They're having a party, which is great, but I don't have any food or booze (thye're happy so far, but that can't last long).

Also, apparently I HAVE food in barrels, but it doesn't show up on the z screen, why?

Scuze me, I'm having some booze myself. It's 2:30, why am I playing with dwarves?