Hello there, i've been playing DF for about a year now and i've followed the forum for a bit longer than that, however i've noticed somethign odd, all of my fortresses never seem to get fully smoothed or engraved. I've only had one fort get above 100 pop but it was killed by a goblin seige shortly after. What i don't understand is how everyone seems to have such nicely built, fully stocked and organised forts when i'm still trying to get my bedrooms dug for the 4th migrant wave. I was wondering how you prioritise and set thigns up to be able to get so much done so quickly. Help would be nice as i just can't seem to get my forts looking decent let alone as interesting as many of you seem able to do.
Apologies in advance if I get multiple posts - net connection is messed up.
So the first thing to do, is keep the game paused at the start. Look around the map, see what resources you have available, and where you might build. Keep the game paused, and start planning/designating out your areas, and keep an idea of what order you want to build things.
Priorities, to me are this:
1. Defense - built walls, a ridge you can clean ramps from to make enemies go around, maybe a river you can use to limit attackers. Design something to funnel attackers into a small entry point, that you can close with gates, or fill with traps or war dogs. For example, my current map had a ridge outcropping that is now my pastures/farms. I dug out & cleared ramps around half of it, and built walls along the other section. Initially it had a gate closure, with a huge dog park in front of it; after I dug out & around to make the "main entry", I replaced the gate with walls. On the defense note, I tend to turn off all Fishing & Hunting, and rely on my own food production - which keeps my dwarves from wandering the countryside.
2. Food & drink. A couple of small plots (2x3) of plump helmets, restricted to brewing, then a couple of plots for other crops & a few egg laying hens for food, will last you for some time. I like to restrict my animals to a few types (chickens/turkeys, sheep, pigs, dogs), so I butcher the "excess" brought in by immigrants, for meat, lard & bones.
3. Crafting area & Trade Depot. Initially, you'll need Carpenter, Mason, Mechanic and Craftsdwarf workshops. I like to focus on Rock Crafts for trade goods, so I set someone to doing that a few at a time. (Queue up 10 jobs in the workshop every so often.) Masons crank out blocks for walls & such, and I like to get one chair fast, for the Bookkeeper. My early trading is for extra booze, empty barrels, and maybe an anvil or some bits of armor & a few crossbows. I also like buying wood.
4. Dorm/sleeping/meeting area. My initial dorm is rough, with a small supply of beds - 10 at first, and build more as I get more migrants coming in. These low quality beds are later used in the hospital.
By that point, you should have at least one migrant wave. I like to end up with about 4-6 miners, 2 carpenters, 3-5 woodcutters, 5-6 masons, 2-4 engravers, and a mix of others. My "general labor" pool tends to have all metalcrafting, leatherworking, clothesmaking, stone crafts and maybe a couple of others enabled - in the hopes of getting usable moods. My "specialists" have most other skills turned off. Having only a few engravers is better overall, instead of having 20-30 workers. Once their skill gets up, they fly through the workload! But I do draft temp workers for a skill, when I have a rush job, such as building the initial outer walls.
So now, you should have a small defensible base with a decent food & drink supply, and a nifty pre-designated mapped out fortress, that you can start working on. Isolate sections as you want to work on them, so that your miners stay focused. Now you can move on to bigger things - more intricate defenses, mass bedrooms, noble areas, temples, or whatever.
As for your fortress design... Look at other people's works for ideas, and experiment. You'll figure out how much is enough, or not enough. One example... I like to have a grand dining/meeting room, which extends upwards for 3 levels. On each upper level, a balcony overlooks the dining room below, and hallways lead off to corridors with ten 3x3 bedrooms. I have stairs in each corner leading down to the dining room, and then a single hallway leading out of it (with a mister above) to connect to the rest of the fort, so that every dwarf going out or coming back from work gets a happiness boost. Also, I like to use Dwarven Bathtubs at the entrances, to keep the mess isolated.
Author
Topic: How do you get such nice fortresses? (Read 2711 times)