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[The Dog Delusion]

Okay, so after a short hiatus (My job), I'm back on the DF wagon for a month or so (my summer break). It's been a while - minecarts, wheelbarrows, and the hauling update! Plus a bunch of sorta back-end stuff relating to adventure mode and world gen, I guess. Cool stuff! Anyways, now that I've managed to re-learn the interface and keystrokes and managed to build (and subsequently lose) a couple of fortresses, I have questions!

1) I have devised a long, snaking path through some weapon traps for the caravans to pass through to get to the depot. Occasionally, the entire wagon train kinda..hangs for a minute, then a wagon or two will disassemble themselves, leaving a couple pieces of "Wagon wood" as well as all of the contents in a single-tile pile of forbidden goods. The entire caravan stops unloading, does an about-face, and slowly creaks back to the edge of the map. I un-forbid goods and rejoice. It would be nice, however, if, just once or twice, the caravan made it to the depot for some actual trading. are my traps the problem? Are badgers showing up and "popping" my wagons? Or is this just a known and mysterious bug?

2) Wheelbarrows are pretty sweet. Are minecarts equally awesome? I haven't used any, but it seems like work.

3) Dwarves actually want to wear clothes?!? That's surprising, and unexpected. What articles of clothing do people generally create to supply this demand - I've been doing cloth robes, trousers, and leather shoes. Am I on the right track? How many "extras" are recommended? And if I use a dorm instead of individual bedrooms, should I put storage in there for dwarves to use for their hideous, un-dyed, pigtail cloth clothing?

4) Training animals also got changed! I think I've gotten the general hang of it, but are there any generally accepted "tricks" I should know about? Simultaneous Pasture/training area for at least certain kinds of animals seems to have been a good call so far, but I may be missing other obvious things.


It's good to be back, I hope that my questions aren't too noobish. 

[Matoro]

1) I guess the problem is your traps. Badgers, hovewer, can kill the wagons, but it should be shown in the combat reports. Never noticed that kind of behavior before myself. I guess it may be because of "long, snaking path" which makes wagons get stuck into each other and disassemble. I'd reccomend either a lot of moving space for wagons or shorter/not-so-labyrinthy -road.

2) Wheelbarrows are boring if compared to minecarts. While minecarts require some infrastructre and are complex, they are killers. Minecart shotguns, minecart water guns, impulse minecart space program, minecarts flying over magma, automated quantum stockpiling... The community has done some awesome things with minecarts.

3) Yeah. I usually use rope reed which I buy/steal from elves, but pig tail is fine too. You're in right rails - they need a shoes/socks, pants and something for upper body (robe/coat/shirt etc). There is a good for have at least some extras - for 100 dwarves, ten sets of extra clothing should be sufficient. Invaders bring much clothes, too. And if you are using bedrooms, put cabinet there. If dwarves don't have cabinet, they will leave their socks lying into your front door blocking it and letting goblins in.

[Bandreus]

1) Wagons can't path over traps. If you want to have a traps corridor leading to the fort while still keeping the depot inside, you can set up a longer, twisty 3-wide way for the wagon together with a shorter, traps-covered corridor for invaders-slaughtering. Because of how pathing works, enemies (and dorfs) will always take the shortest way to the fort, while the wagon will walk the longer, twistier route suitable to it.

2) Minecarts are awesome. A bit of a mess to set up until you get the hang of it (some quirk stuff is going on, so you want to experiment with it for a bit), but an incredibly powerful system once you know what you're doing. You can set up quantum stockpiles and various weapon systems by using minecarts, among other awesome things.

3) Yes, they need clothing. You want at least a piece for chest, legs and feet per dorf. Having extra around is always nice as dorfs will replace worn out clothing asap if spares are available (you can trade worn out clothing, caravans are that nice to take your junk for very high prices actually). You don't need to set up a fully fledged clothing industry ultra quickly, as whatever cloth-bins caravans bring to your fort can be easily turned into good enough stuff and that alone will suffice replacing worn out clothing. Once your fortress grows a lot tough, you'll likely find producing stuff yourself is good. Also a skilled clothier and dieying your thread can easily produce huge amounts of wealth, on top of keeping your dorfs happy.

4) I'm not that much into training, but you want to be aware trained wild-animals will revert back to wild status at some point, unless you're dealing with fort-born animals. Check elven caravans for exotic, tame animals as you can quickstart some awesome breeding program if you're lucky with those. Also, restraining dangerous wild animals while training is advised, for Animal Trainers have a tendency to lose limbs when dealing with unrestrained, nasty stuff. Oh and having meat around is required for taming animals too I suppose.

[The Dog Delusion]

1) I guess the problem is your traps. Badgers, hovewer, can kill the wagons, but it should be shown in the combat reports. Never noticed that kind of behavior before myself. I guess it may be because of "long, snaking path" which makes wagons get stuck into each other and disassemble. I'd reccomend either a lot of moving space for wagons or shorter/not-so-labyrinthy -road.

1) Wagons can't path over traps. If you want to have a traps corridor leading to the fort while still keeping the depot inside, you can set up a longer, twisty 3-wide way for the wagon together with a shorter, traps-covered corridor for invaders-slaughtering. Because of how pathing works, enemies (and dorfs) will always take the shortest way to the fort, while the wagon will walk the longer, twistier route suitable to it.

Right now I do have a proper, 3-wide path leading to the depot (and the depot path checking function confirms that the path is clear), but I suppose that if it's too twisty, the wagons might get confused and backed up and collide or something (?). I'll try moving the depot to out front, while I close up the trap path behind it. The depot itself might be less secure, but the fort will be safe, I guess. What kids of entrances do folks build these days? Is the wagons not going over traps thing new? I don't remember that from before, but I could be wrong about that.

[0cu]

A clean and easy design is a winding path, 3 tiles wides. This one is for the caravan wagons.
Dig another path straight into your fortress, which has intersections with the caravan path. Place your traps there.

Enemis will take the shortest path, running right into your traps. The caravan will the take the longer, trapless path.

[Bandreus]

What Ocu said. You don't need to make the wagon-path overly twisted, just long enough for enemies to take the traps one instead.

I like to have multiple drawbridges at strategic points in my entryway. Like for instance, a single drawbridge separating your depot from the inner fort is a good way to avoid ambushes/stealthy enemies form entering your fort after leading into the merchants' trails. This is especially important if you have your other entrance shut down for whatever reason. Restrained guard animals are very helpful with spotting concealed enemies too.

You can find lots of tips about defending your entryway both on the forums and the wiki. The Defense guide and related articles have lots of great, in depth tips on how to properly defend your fort.

[enolate]

Okay, so after a short hiatus (My job), I'm back on the DF wagon for a month or so (my summer break). It's been a while - minecarts, wheelbarrows, and the hauling update! Plus a bunch of sorta back-end stuff relating to adventure mode and world gen, I guess. Cool stuff! Anyways, now that I've managed to re-learn the interface and keystrokes and managed to build (and subsequently lose) a couple of fortresses, I have questions!

1) I have devised a long, snaking path through some weapon traps for the caravans to pass through to get to the depot. Occasionally, the entire wagon train kinda..hangs for a minute, then a wagon or two will disassemble themselves, leaving a couple pieces of "Wagon wood" as well as all of the contents in a single-tile pile of forbidden goods. The entire caravan stops unloading, does an about-face, and slowly creaks back to the edge of the map. I un-forbid goods and rejoice. It would be nice, however, if, just once or twice, the caravan made it to the depot for some actual trading. are my traps the problem? Are badgers showing up and "popping" my wagons? Or is this just a known and mysterious bug?

2) Wheelbarrows are pretty sweet. Are minecarts equally awesome? I haven't used any, but it seems like work.

3) Dwarves actually want to wear clothes?!? That's surprising, and unexpected. What articles of clothing do people generally create to supply this demand - I've been doing cloth robes, trousers, and leather shoes. Am I on the right track? How many "extras" are recommended? And if I use a dorm instead of individual bedrooms, should I put storage in there for dwarves to use for their hideous, un-dyed, pigtail cloth clothing?

4) Training animals also got changed! I think I've gotten the general hang of it, but are there any generally accepted "tricks" I should know about? Simultaneous Pasture/training area for at least certain kinds of animals seems to have been a good call so far, but I may be missing other obvious things.


It's good to be back, I hope that my questions aren't too noobish. 

1) I don't think it's a bug, but traps now block wagon access.
2) Minecarts have an industry of their own.
3) That is fine, but I also make cloaks, so they look like mysterious badasses.

[Tevish Szat]

1) As others have said... trap beats wagon.  Though you must have access somewhere for the wagons to even consider entering your fort, so clearly your traps haven't walled you off.  Still, they're crashing into something.

2) Minecarts are awesome.  They're OK as hauling solutions, but have revolutionized quantum stockpiling, computing, and trap design in really interesting ways

3) Your list seems about right for a minimal clothing industry, but I'm not sure you need trousers if you give your dwarves robes/dresses.  Remember to drop XX☼Clothing☼XX on traders rather than letting it rot away, so your clothiers don't go insane.