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[vooood]

How about having a lava moat around your outside fortress?

[Skanky]

A lava moat is more difficult to set up than an empty channel around your fortress. Both are equally effective.

[E-mouse]

Except at eliminating enemies or dwarves that dodge into it. Or looking cool, for that matter.

A 10 z-level pit instead could do it, though.

[yggiz]

About hills that are in the way, you can designate the hills to be turned into up ramps. Just make sure that the top of the hill is clear of higher elevations and trees, or else you will get a collapse that will kill some miners.

This "strip mining" of terrain is something I really enjoy. Even the mountain bows to the drunken whims of dwarves!

[Bromor Neckbeard]

yggiz brings up a good point.  You shouldn't be thinking, "Gee, it's hard to get my walls to line up with the way these hills are sloped."  You should be thinking, "It sure is convenient that now that I have this area leveled off completely, I also have all the building material I'd ever need lying right where I want to build my walls."

Don't shape your fortress to fit the terrain, shape the terrain to fit your fortress.

[JoshuaFH]

mega-thanks to Bromor Neckbeard for taking the time to address all those little things. you make the world better for newbs everywhere.

i really should force the wilderness to bend to my wims. i should really listen to that advice.

i've started a new fort anyway (why can't i have more than one fort btw?), this time in a flat heavily forested area near an actual river with fish in it! i don't know why everyone's all hysterical about carp (from what i've read) all my dwarves are right next to the river and i haven't been bothered yet. anyway, i've been forced to use wood for everything because the all of the underground seems to be made of "yellow sand" or somesuch. should i dig deeper to get different minerals? also, the dwarves seem to be tracking the yellow sand everywhere as they walk around on the surface.

are there any npc type units that are hostile towards eachother?

[Bromor Neckbeard]

mega-thanks to Bromor Neckbeard for taking the time to address all those little things. you make the world better for newbs everywhere.

I'm glad some of my advice helped you.  Three months ago, I was you, so I know how it feels.  This is by far the politest, most mature, and most helpful forum on the entire Internet, I'm just trying to fit in.

i've started a new fort anyway (why can't i have more than one fort btw?)

You can have more than one fort, you just can't have more than one in the same world.  If you want to see if you're dwarf enough to handle a triple-aquifer Terrifying glacier, but you don't want to abandon your current fort that you spent sixty hours on already, it's a simple matter to create another world, then start a new fort on that world.

I've been told that this is because eventually our fortresses will have a lasting effect on the world.  When you divert mighty rivers or wipe out entire civilizations, it WILL change the world to reflect this.  I wanted to have my mountain fort trading obsidian and water for sand from my desert fort, but apparently that's not in the cards.

should i dig deeper to get different minerals? also, the dwarves seem to be tracking the yellow sand everywhere as they walk around on the surface.

Yes.  Unless you've got an aquifer, you should be able to get stone by going deeper.  Also, it's not that they track the sand around, it's that when any animal larger than a cat (except an elf) repeatedly walks over the same space, it wears away the natural vegetation to expose the bare sand underneath.  However, it will grow back over a few months.

are there any npc type units that are hostile towards eachother?

Well, it depends on their relationship in the greater world, which is randomly generated.  Usually, goblins are at war with everyone else, but sometimes you'll get weird scenarios like, the goblins are allied with the elves and the dwarves are at war with the humans.  I know that merchants' guards pretty much kill anything (except your dwarves) on sight and military groups such as siegers or ambushers will attack other species.  However, due to the random nature of world generation, there's no hard-and-fast rule that says, "goblins are always at war with humans" or anything like that.

[JoshuaFH]

i've started a new fort anyway (why can't i have more than one fort btw?)

You can have more than one fort, you just can't have more than one in the same world.  If you want to see if you're dwarf enough to handle a triple-aquifer Terrifying glacier, but you don't want to abandon your current fort that you spent sixty hours on already, it's a simple matter to create another world, then start a new fort on that world.

So your saying, all i need to do to get another fort going is create anything world?  that sounds simple enough. So i can switch between them and i won't lose anything though, right? i don't gotta fiddle with the files that contains the program?

Thanks for answering such an old topic, i made this before Wathathafatha (downtime of ages, coined by Jaybud on the temp forums).

[Bromor Neckbeard]

So your saying, all i need to do to get another fort going is create anything world?  that sounds simple enough. So i can switch between them and i won't lose anything though, right? i don't gotta fiddle with the files that contains the program?

Right.  Instead of choosing "Continue Playing" on the main menu, you choose "Create New World Now!".  It will create it in a new folder.  From then on, when you select "Continue Playing" you will have a choice of two folders to play in, and whatever you do in one won't affect the other at all.

If you don't mind a LITTLE file-fiddling, you can change the names of your folders and it won't hurt DF any.  I only learned this a couple of weeks ago, but in your Dwarf Fortress folder, in the data/save/ folder, you can change the name of your saved game.  Just change the name of the folder from "Region1" to "Primary Fortress" or whatever you want your saved game called (as long as you don't use any characters that aren't letters or numbers), and from then on, DF will call it that when you select the Continue option.

Thanks for answering such an old topic, i made this before Wathathafatha (downtime of ages, coined by Jaybud on the temp forums).

Any time, my brother.  If you've got any more questions, I would be honored to help.