Dwarf Fortress you sick temptress, you!

I dont know how fast that Athlon is but 10 hours is too long. My 1ghz machine took 20 minutes. I'd retry. Also there is a pre-made world on the game's site that you can download to use instead of generating one.

LiquidMantis wrote:

Are you getting a ton of rejections? My poor laptop managed to get a world created in about 15 minutes or so.

134 rejected and counting.

You can just download a premade world from the website. 5 mins vs 90 hours

I'd say start over, it really shouldn't take THAT long.

Thanks for the advice, PP. I forgot about just putting a refuse thing under his body. I've been leery of the "collect refuse outside" switch, last time I did it, half my dwarves suddenly left the fort.

Yeah the dwarves don't follow the 'stay freaking indoors!' order very well. The only way to enforce that is to lock the doors. When the dwarf caravan guards got demolished after chasing elephants to the ends of the earth, all my idlers took off to go get their equipment, despite 'no going outdoors' and 'no gathering refuse from outside' Equipment isnt refuse I guess, and I must have had places available to store the crap. I had to send in my squad to clear the area so we could clean up and get on with our lives.

I always get quite a few rejections as well, but like Poly, my total creation time is never more than 10-20 minutes. Usually 10ish. I'm running a 3ghz Pentium.

This game took me about 10 hours before I figured out how to properly link up floodgates to a field (have to be patient and only link one floodgate before building the next), but once I did, I haven't had any problems. Military seems to be my next big hurdle, as the frogmen are becoming increasinly lethal. I'm glad I picked a tame area to build, or I would be struggline more.

It only took me about 4 hours to get over the ASCII graphics, and to help out with that I just ran in windowed mode and put a nice fantasy painting of a dwarven stronghold in the background. Seriously, do whatever helps if you're struggling with the graphics, because after you get over that hill, the game is brilliant.

I started again. It's compiling legends at the moment.

Montalban wrote:

It only took me about 4 hours to get over the ASCII graphics, and to help out with that I just ran in windowed mode and put a nice fantasy painting of a dwarven stronghold in the background. Seriously, do whatever helps if you're struggling with the graphics, because after you get over that hill, the game is brilliant.

Growing up and reading Tolkien, the dwarves were the race that really captured my imagination. The stoic nature, craftsmanship, the whole dwarven mythos was captivating. In my mind's eye, that's what I'm recreating here.
Except DF has a slightly more 'ridiculous' turn to it. Probably because of the names of things. And the fact that elephants and leopards and giant Toad-men attack my dwarves.

No, you cannot place magma forges on a channel connected to a magma floodgate.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

No, you cannot place magma forges on a channel connected to a magma floodgate. :(

I hope that's something that gets fixed. I assume you can't do the same thing with the Mill and a river channel (not that it's as important as the magma forges).

How do I remove an installed floodgate?

Slackeyed wrote:

How do I remove an installed floodgate?

Press Q (or possibly T) and move the cursor to the floodgate. Press X once its highlighted and the removal task will be enabled, so someone will come along and remove it.

polypusher wrote:
Slackeyed wrote:

How do I remove an installed floodgate?

Press Q (or possibly T) and move the cursor to the floodgate. Press X once its highlighted and the removal task will be enabled, so someone will come along and remove it.

That's not working because "No buildings nearby" and the T option doesn't recognize the fllodgate either.

Is there a chance that the symbol I'm seeing is an order to have a floodgate installed there and it hasn't been built yet?

If it was a placeholder for a future floodgate you would be able to select it. Since you can do neither, I think that it might be a floodgate that is not installed. Its just sitting there. You may be able to simply choose to install it where it is. If you do not have that option, build a furniture stockpile nearby and a dwarf should move it, then you'll be able to install it.

polypusher wrote:
Slackeyed wrote:

How do I remove an installed floodgate?

Press Q (or possibly T) and move the cursor to the floodgate. Press X once its highlighted and the removal task will be enabled, so someone will come along and remove it.

Leaving behind a permanent channel, mind you.

polypusher wrote:

If it was a placeholder for a future floodgate you would be able to select it. Since you can do neither, I think that it might be a floodgate that is not installed. Its just sitting there. You may be able to simply choose to install it where it is. If you do not have that option, build a furniture stockpile nearby and a dwarf should move it, then you'll be able to install it.

Yes, it's likely just an unused floodgate that's just sitting there. Create a "finished goods" stockpile somewhere and hopefully a kindly dwarf will come and move it there.

This is driving me nuts... every once in a while an announcement comes up that says, " cancels store item in barrel: Job item misplaced."

What does that mean?!?!??!

Yoyoson wrote:

This is driving me nuts... every once in a while an announcement comes up that says, " cancels store item in barrel: Job item misplaced."

What does that mean?!?!??!

Yeah, that's a confusing message. At least it changed some. In the prior versions it said "Item lost or destroyed." All it means is that someone used the barrel or container that the complaing dwarf was going to use.

LiquidMantis wrote:
Yoyoson wrote:

This is driving me nuts... every once in a while an announcement comes up that says, " cancels store item in barrel: Job item misplaced."

What does that mean?!?!??!

Yeah, that's a confusing message. At least it changed some. In the prior versions it said "Item lost or destroyed." All it means is that someone used the barrel or container that the complaing dwarf was going to use.

Yup. Dwarf A went to put an item in a container, but Dwarf B moved the container before Dwarf A could get to it.

I think I've found a good way of dealing with the thousands of stones you'll be digging up. For the first few years I had a mason or 2 parked right on the 2 big stone stockpiles. They've been churning out doors, tables etc since the dawn of time which takes up tons of space too, but at least I have 50 doors when I want some, and talented masons who can make some high quality dark/light stone doors.

Over the course of the years I've gotten 2 legendary craftdwarves, who can make crafts out of rock. I've got the craftdwarf workshop set on 'make rock craft' and repeating indefinately and the new workshop I put right on the quarry. The guy zips back and forth and absolutely vacuums up all the rock, converting them into trinkets, many of which are legendary. They've cluttered the hell out of his workshop but that doesnt seem to slow him down. I imagine these will go to a general store when I've built one. They'll also make valuable trading stock. It seems like this is just as good as pulverizing the rock. He made 6 pages of stuff in just a few minutes. That will take a while to unclutter At least I have more room for all the damn rock.

Edit: About 3 pages of rock crafts (at least that much anyways, possibly more) will fit into a bin. Much more efficient than making stone blocks. A bin full with no legendary crafts was worth over 1600. For those keeping track, that's about 8 stacks of gold coins. I'd be careful of selling a legendary trinket made through this process. I dont know if anything bad would happen, but I'd save before I try it.

Wow Quintin, I thought I was ready for what was on the other side of the magma river. I was not. I feel your pain, now.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

Wow Quintin, I thought I was ready for what was on the other side of the magma river. I was not. I feel your pain, now.

YOU SHALL NOT PASS!

Seriously, don't bridge the magma until you've made yourself a hell of an army. IMAGE(http://rps.net/QS/Images/Smilies/m1helmet.gif)

So, are you all doing ANYTHING outside anymore? I mean, my stone and wood ad refuse and graveyard are all outside. I'm reluctant to, say, but my masons workshop out there. What about things like your finished goods stores?

I really don't put anything outside, save the refuse pile and graveyard. Once you get further into the mountain it will be such a pain to have your storage areas all the way out front. Also, the more dwarves you have out front, the harder it will be to keep out intruders.

I have a refuse and a big mine stockpile outside. The refuse I do because it keeps miasma away (I have another refuse pile by the chasm, inside a tightly closed door). The mine stockpile is a sad necessity due to the sheer amount of rock my miners produce. I mean, I also have 5 giant indoor rock stockpiles as well. Here's my current fortress:

IMAGE(http://rps.net/QS/Images/DW/map2.tn.gif)

Check this guy out:
IMAGE(http://rps.net/QS/Images/DW/kol-miner.gif)

He's a damn super-star. I really want to turn him into a soldier. I bet he'd seriously kick ass.

Quintin, all your dwarves must be super happy. They say you only need a 3X3 to please the average worker. Plus, your fortress is a lot more gridlike than mine. I'll definitely plan ahead more next time.

It has just dawned on me, and this is why I'm checking the thread...is the magma flow the last obstacle? I've been naively hoping that you can eventually tunnel all the way to the other side of the mountain, but it sounds like you guys are alluding to a Balrog of some sort that marks the end of the map.

Has anyone reached the "end" of the mountain? Is there an endgame to the fortress mode?

There is supposedly a 'game over' for mining too much adamantite, which is supposed to be very deep. According to the wiki, 'too much' is a 1% chance per season per adamantite extracted. I havent heard an explanation as to why, yet... nor have I actually found any adamantite.

After the magma flow comes pockets of red chasms. You hit one and very soon a group of about 10-15 demons will be doing its best to take out your fortress. The demons are very powerful. Once I managed to hold them off, it cost me about 60 dwarves. But once you take them out, you're free to dig deeper.

Montalban wrote:
LiquidMantis wrote:
Yoyoson wrote:

This is driving me nuts... every once in a while an announcement comes up that says, " cancels store item in barrel: Job item misplaced."

What does that mean?!?!??!

Yeah, that's a confusing message. At least it changed some. In the prior versions it said "Item lost or destroyed." All it means is that someone used the barrel or container that the complaing dwarf was going to use.

Yup. Dwarf A went to put an item in a container, but Dwarf B moved the container before Dwarf A could get to it.

Ah, thank ye both for helping me here.

I spent most of today playing Dwarf Fortress. About 3-4 hours ago I decided to drown all my dwarves. I locked the front door and dismantled the door that protects my fortress from my farm-flooding area. I made a quick save so that I could go back. Then I hit the switch on the floodgate, and.... I got to watch them all drown, kinda sad. It just so happened that I had a Hunter wandering around outside for a while. He had lost one of his limbs for unknown reasons, and then a Jaguar knocked him out.

Here's the most important part of this story: After the last dwarf died, the game went to a screen saying something to the effect of "Your settlement has crumbled." And then the game AUTO SAVED. It wrote over my fortress!

So, just be careful if you decide to nuke your dungeon for kicks. If everyone dies, you really do have to start over completely. Luckily, I had been half thinking of doing that anyways.

Yoyoson wrote:

warning

Yeah, I am trying to be extra careful. I've put so much loving detail into my fortress, it would be just my luck to have something like that happen. After I get some sleep I will be sure to back up my save files.

I've been trying to do something similar to a couple of my bed-ridden dwarves. My jewelers always seem to get injured and end up in bed needing food and water and never doing work ever again, so I've planned an "extermination room" next to the river. Everything just takes so darn long to execute in the game, though. Operation Useless Dwarf Drowning will have to wait until tomorrow....oh, it's already tomorrow. Well, anyway...

I restarted at about 9 last night. I made a starting party that was highly specialized - level 10 miner, two level 10 farmers, maxed woodcutter, mason, and mechanic. minor fishing and fish cleaning. Made my preliminary run straight to the river while I had the other dwarves outside chopping wood like crazy, stilling, and generally getting everything else done. I really micromanaged them, making sure I had no idlers and nobody having more than one job, doing no cleaning or hauling of stone.

The end result (at midnight) was a really functional farm by late spring. The downside is I had basically have nothing else - I'm now in a hurring to get some crafting done, get bedrooms and dining rooms, inside stockpiles and workshops.