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[Teryn]

Hello all, I recently re-discovered this great game after a long break. I never really had delved too much into it, the game felt very complex and had a steep learning curve, so I guess I didn't have the required patience to sit down and follow the quickstart guide at DFWiki quite diligently for at least 1 time to get the minimum fortress up and running.

Since that moment I have now been working on my i think either medium or large world trying to resist the urge of creating a new world from start because I think that's not how the game is supposed to be played. Instead, you are supposed to learn, adapt and to sometimes mess things around in Adventure mode too I think so you can marvel at your Legends-book after each abandoning or retirement. And that's how we get to the topic:

1) As I have been reading the Legends-mode, I noticed that there are some entries which mark a duel between two historical figures. Can those happen either in Fortress mode or Adventurer mode?

2) Is it hardcoded that when a civilization declares a war against you, the cause will always "be debated by scholars" so there is no certainty of it? Or can there be variety like in other entries found from Legends-mode?

3) I finally realized how to make a well after many attempts trying to find an underwater source. If there is no river to get water from though, what other options there are to fill your own underground reservoir relatively quickly while ensuring it doesn't flood and is deep enough (to avoid muddy water)?

4) When sieges eventually come, is it possible for them to end in time if you just seal all the entrances and skulk in the darkest corner of your fortress with your dwarves? In my latest game I was besieged by 32 goblins and 8 jabbers. I was a bit hesitant to send my 10 fully armored dwarves against them (they even had a spearlord) but I somehow managed to drive them away. Is a full defensive stance an option though?

5) I was amazed when I encountered my first titan. Do titans vary in difficulty or was I just lucky because mine had an ant-shaped body and was spitting webs?

I think that's something for start. I hope I could stick with the game this time long enough to learn some new tricks which is already happening in a way.

[smjjames]

1. No. I think it's a worldgen only thing.

2. Not sure on this myself.

3. If there are murky pools and it's a rainy climate, you can wall off the murky pool and use a pump to get the water out and send it to a cistern or something. Alternatively you can dig a 3x3 well a couple z levels deep and have your dwarves manually fill it.

4. Yeah, they'll go away after a while (usually a season) if you turtle up and close all entrances.

5. You got somewhat lucky for the first forgotten beast, but even webspitters can be formidable. They range from syndromes that do nothing to horriffic syndromes. It also varies by whether the FB is organic or non-organic.

[klefenz]

3) You can use water from the caverns. It can be very deep, but you could also build your fort at that depth, or pump the water.

4) They eventually leave, although a caravan will most likely arrive first and kill them. Als 10 amored dorfs should be enough for 32 gobbos. Spearlords are not big deal.

5) Webbing titans are actually a bit harder. Anyway the dificulty of a titan or forgotten beast is random, some are nearly invincible and some die by scratching them. Again, if you militia is fully armored and have some skill they should be able to take care of it.

[Teryn]

Thanks for quick replies guys. Another question which came to my mind is that how are the floodgates supposed to be used? Is there a way to place them "wrong" because I tried to put 2 of them down as instructed in a tutorial video but when I channeled the water to flow freely, it got stuck to the floodgate and wouldn't go ahead. Or does it take like days for the water to pass through?

[neblime]

were the floodgates open?  you have to hook them up to a lever then pull that lever.  Floodgates are built in closed position by default.
As for your other questions:

2: as of now, it will be like that, but based on the devlogs that may change next release, toady mentioned one case where an elf - dwarf conflict was caused by "mistreatment of plants"
3: The aquifer (if you have one) is a great source of infinite water for any purpose, just make sure you use a floodgate to hold it back OR only pump UP out of the aquifer.
also water is purified when it goes through a pump.

[Teryn]

were the floodgates open?  you have to hook them up to a lever then pull that lever.  Floodgates are built in closed position by default.
As for your other questions:

2: as of now, it will be like that, but based on the devlogs that may change next release, toady mentioned one case where an elf - dwarf conflict was caused by "mistreatment of plants"
3: The aquifer (if you have one) is a great source of infinite water for any purpose, just make sure you use a floodgate to hold it back OR only pump UP out of the aquifer.
also water is purified when it goes through a pump.

Ah right, duh, that must have been it. I didn't have a lever connected to them. Oh well, gotta make some. I really am looking forward to the next release's Legends mode because I think what makes Dwarf Fortress stand as a shining beacon in mids of all other "sandbox" games is that you can truly get a ton of random worlds which can be totally different from the previous one.

[neblime]

While I certainly agree that next release will be like that, dwarf fortress is already like that, the only caveat is you can't really interact with the world in many meaningful ways.  I mean you can kill everything, but neither you nor any entity will ever create once worldgen finishes, which makes it feel very sad and constricted.
Make sure your lever is somewhere that can't get flooded in case you forget to close the floodgate!

[Melting Sky]

In the current release, which will likely be replaced by a newer version shortly, the outer world goes into a sort of paused state during fortress mode. You often will find historical figures that attack your fortress and historical figures can show up in migrant waves but beyond that, you are quite limited in how you can interact with the world as a whole since the world's history generation can't be restarted once stopped. Essentially, time only continues to pass in a little bubble around your adventurer or fortress.

I've read of people starting forts where they just happened to have an army crossing their embark site on the way to war etc. I've also read of some interesting stuff people have run into while adventuring. Much of the upcoming release seems to focus on removing a lot of these current limitations and making the world at large more dynamic.

[neblime]

I've read of people starting forts where they just happened to have an army crossing their embark site on the way to war etc.

where did you read that?  I'm sure that's impossible in current version, as armies don't move around the map they just appear at their destination (always your fortress in the current version)

[catpaw]

3. Since water pressure does not go through diagonal tiles its pretty easy to make a flood safe reservoir at any depth, consult the wiki. 

However two hints with that: 1. keep a floodgate close to the water source if out of any reason you want to shut off refill. I usually do this because of FPS out of some reason vertical tubes water falling down never seem to fully fill up for me.  2. pave roads on any horizontal lines out of the tube. Since after first use the floor will be muddy, and if you breached a cavern a tree might otherwise grow there, clogging up the water flow.

[Melting Sky]

I've read of people starting forts where they just happened to have an army crossing their embark site on the way to war etc.

where did you read that?  I'm sure that's impossible in current version, as armies don't move around the map they just appear at their destination (always your fortress in the current version)

I believe it was either on a thread in this forum or possibly reddit. I'll have to look around and see if I can find the post again and provide a link.

Edit: It was something I found just the other night while looking up random DF stuff, but I'm not having much luck finding the post again. His claim was basically that he had started the embark and found a band of elven soldiers and believed they were related to something that had been going on in world gen. There was more to it than that but that was the gist of it.

[Boltgun]

1) This message is worldgen only but such events are still registered. In dwarf mode you may get the info in your site's history. On adv mode you may get the kill in the character history.

2) No, each civilization has ethics and when those differ too much they will declare wars on this. You will see the reason in the war's log. For example humans and elves may fight other the butchering of sentient creatures. However in dwarf mode, goblins and kobolds will always attack you because they are thieves.

3) The most simple is to channel a hole and designate a pond activity area over it. Dwarves will use buckets to fill it, make sure to create an water source activity area on your river to get clean water.
An alternative is to build a pump next to a river/sea/pond that drags water into a reservoir, this will also clean the water.
If you have aquifers in the area, channel on top of it for instant water.
Finally, by digging further down you will fill new places with water.

4) Yes they leave after a while, but you'd better be ready to miss on caravans. Sieges always comes with an elite soldier (their squad leader), however a fully armoured dwarf fully trained into legendary will beat up many more enemies that you'd expect. Goblins always charge into your fort so traps will tenderize them.

5) Titans comes in variety of shapes and difficulties. Web spitting is deadly and must be dealt with at least 2 squads taking it in a pincer attack, with crossbows if possible.

[Talvieno]

3. Since water pressure does not go through diagonal tiles its pretty easy to make a flood safe reservoir at any depth, consult the wiki. 

However two hints with that: 1. keep a floodgate close to the water source if out of any reason you want to shut off refill. I usually do this because of FPS out of some reason vertical tubes water falling down never seem to fully fill up for me.  2. pave roads on any horizontal lines out of the tube. Since after first use the floor will be muddy, and if you breached a cavern a tree might otherwise grow there, clogging up the water flow.

Very good advice. I was about to post that myself. I find it harder to embark without aquifers now.

[chevil]

I've read of people starting forts where they just happened to have an army crossing their embark site on the way to war etc.

where did you read that?  I'm sure that's impossible in current version, as armies don't move around the map they just appear at their destination (always your fortress in the current version)

I believe it was either on a thread in this forum or possibly reddit. I'll have to look around and see if I can find the post again and provide a link.

Edit: It was something I found just the other night while looking up random DF stuff, but I'm not having much luck finding the post again. His claim was basically that he had started the embark and found a band of elven soldiers and believed they were related to something that had been going on in world gen. There was more to it than that but that was the gist of it.

They were most likely ex soldiers turned to banditry. You can embark on bandit camps but not on armies.