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[Nexus]

I've been trying out a few new tricks lately to make my fortress more efficient and I'm wondering if there are any good suggestions?  

One thing that seems to work well for me is small custom stockpiles of alcohol at important places like the barracks and the workshops.  That way my slaves/dwarves dont run around as much.  

Another great help is training a boatload of legendary engravers to do hauling.   A bit of strength and agility and the suckers almost fly around carrying all that heavy stuff that normally takes ages to move.

And third, I try to leave on stone hauling for most dwarves (except farmers).  Since I don't use stone stockpiles much, they'll mostly be going after the ores lying around everywhere.  If I then notice workshops are getting cluttered or I have other priorities, its really easy to turn off Dwarves Gather Minerals in the (O)rders menu.  Saves a lot of micro.

Any other ideas?  Comment/discuss.

Fake edit:  First new topic for me on this forum, yay  

[Ravendas]

Small bucket only stockpiles around wells. I'm 90% sure buckets are fillable at wells for your sick and injured dwarves. This saves a trip to your main furniture stockpile.

Barracks on one side of the chasm, and a statue garden or zoo or some kind of meeting hall on the other side. Your soldiers will often times walk from one to the other, patrolling the chasm in the meantime.

Make custom refuse stockpiles to just hold bones, skulls, and shells inside. The seasonal wiping of the bones only occurs outside of your fort. Inside they are nice and safe.

Ehh, kinda just tips and tricks really, but still helpful.

[RPB]

Legendary dwarves also have other benefits as haulers: once the economy starts (and access to the stocks screen is definitely worth starting the economy for) they never have to worry about being broke, and they'll never go whining to the guilds about the availability of work.

[puke]

thats a really clever idea, and its worth doing regardless of the rain im bringing to the parade.  i often dont dig wells until the later years of a fortress, and buckets are always filled from other water sources.

now, maybe once you HAVE wells, dwarfs perfer to use them to fill buckets.  but im sure i've noticed bucket fillers running to the river even after i've dug wells.

i dont think that there are any entirely filling statements about it though, since wells are such a deep subject.

mainly though, ive got two primary ideas for you:  wide pathways (prevent things from crawling over each other and slowing down)  and pathfinding optimization.

the second one is harder than the first, obviously.  theres plenty of threads about it, and there are some great examples on the map archive.  custom stockpiles are a good start, but heres some other ideas:

seed stockpiles should be in or near your farm.  farmers should live near the farm.  kitchens should be near the raw food.  finished food should be near the dining room.  finished goods should be near the trade depot.  mostly its logical, but sometimes its hard to fit shit together.

another tricky one is that barracks should be small, to increase the likelyhood of sparring.

try getting away from grid layouts, and try something circular.  it might be easier to fit necessary pieces together that way.  try making lists like this:

code:

seeds - farm - food - food processing - dining
                    - food processing - looms / dyes / clothes
raw materials - workshops - finished goods - trade depot
                          - finished goods - shops
ore - smelter - (optional bar stockpile) - forge - armory - barracks

and then try sketching out how it might fit together.  

the OTHER way to design a fort is to try and make something that looks cool, and then insert the working pieces afterwards.  i fall into this trap often, and its not BAD, but its less effective for making a working fort.  when im doing this, i like to lay down a cool looking foundation and then export it as an image and use paint or something to draw out how the functional parts of the fort will fit onto it.

sorry if this is long and rambling.  this sand-box buildy shit is really fun to me.  its what i like about games like sim-anything, civ, 4x empire builders, and the like.  i could go on forever.  and this is really strong coffee, so maybe thats part of the problem.

[ August 10, 2007: Message edited by: puke ]

[Veroule]

Make your plant stockpiles small, and make many of them.  The way stockpiles work right now is they keep 1 empty barrel in them.  Once something is put in that barrel then the stockpile calls for another.  If you have many small stockpiles in the same space you would have made 1 large one then multiple barrels can be called for at once during large harvest events.

[puke]

you can also throttle the "minimum barrel" setting on the stockpile...

[Nexus]

Sweet, lots of good advice.  But don't worry, I'm hardly green at this game   had like 20 fortresses already.  Still, beginners can get their fill here.

quote: another tricky one is that barracks should be small, to increase the likelyhood of sparring.

Didn't know that, I'll definitely restrain my digging zeal next time.

quote: Make your plant stockpiles small, and make many of them. The way stockpiles work right now is they keep 1 empty barrel in them. Once something is put in that barrel then the stockpile calls for another. If you have many small stockpiles in the same space you would have made 1 large one then multiple barrels can be called for at once during large harvest events.

Another good idea.  But dont you get a lot of half-filled barrels that way?

quote: Small bucket only stockpiles around wells. I'm 90% sure buckets are fillable at wells for your sick and injured dwarves. This saves a trip to your main furniture stockpile.

I thought the dwarves always went for the river/cave river for water to prisoners and wounded?  Probably still a good idea anyhow, they always hang around the wells waiting for some work to come up.

quote: the OTHER way to design a fort is to try and make something that looks cool, and then insert the working pieces afterwards. i fall into this trap often, and its not BAD, but its less effective for making a working fort.

Heh, I always try to strive after getting both looks and brains; building smart and pretty at the same time.  I'll definately have to post my latest fortress on the map archive to get a few comments.