So I've begun playing dwarf fortress, and already had to abandon one fortress due to a completely botched irrigation project (which, unfortunately, did NOT flood the fortress), and one due to Stupidity involving dwarves, picking up tools, and a Giant Cave Spider (at least the second managed a moment of true badassery by killing the spider with his bare hands while paralyzed!). I'm playing on Dwarf Heaven due to all the interesting features, but I'm having trouble getting the fort going properly. I have some questions about how to properly plan a fortress.
1. First, in terms of proximity to the entrance where should my first farm plot be?
2. Second, how far in advance should i plan the layout of the fortress?
3. Third, how many miners should I bring along to do this-I typically have 3 proficient miners to do the job.
4. Fourth...and to me this is very important...I hear lava isn't pressurised, but is it safe to tap into it from several levels below the opening of a volcano?
5. Fifth, what rooms should I build first?
Sorry for all the newbish questions.
Hi there,
I'm a relative newby myself, and I'm also on the dwarf haven map now. Although it has most of the features you'd want (no flux or bauxite though, but it has sand), it isn't the easiest map for a beginner, because if you are not careful your dwarves will go and try gather spider silk, which is (un)fortunately produced by a giant cave spider. So the fist thing is to go into O(ptions) and for work orders disable the gathering of silk. You might also want to forbid dwarves from going outside, and only enable it if they need to gather wood or trade with the traders.
I typically dig myself in, build a moat, build a bridge over it, attach it to a lever and raise it. That way nothing at all can enter or leave your fortress. Later you can build proper defenses.
So, regarding your questions:
1. As close as possible to your kitchen. I typically only use underground farms and start out with only plump helmets, simply because they're easy to grow. I start out by digging from my central fortress to a place in the soil where I can build farms. I build a 5x5 patch there, together with a storage area that only accepts seeds. My main food area near my kitchen accepts everything except seeds. This saves the planters a lot of time. I also channel from a water source inside so that I have water. That way nobody has to dehydrate at all.
2. As a beginner: not at all. Just expand to wherever is convenient for you. Ofcourse you need to do some planning with water and laval ducts, but I assume you learned about those already. My current fort has 9 11x11 big rooms, of which the central one houses the central staircase. It has a whole bunch of those layers, so its basically a skyscraper in a mountain.
3. I typically take 2. You can always create another one if you get a bunch of soapmakers as immigrants.
4. Not at all. Lava is easier than water because it doesn't flow up, but the more levels you are below the top level, the higher the pressure is. If you breach the lava 5 levels below it's highest level, it will come out so fast that your miner will burn. I typically dig a horizontal channel close to the magma pipe, and then dig a vertical duct straight up to the top level. I then dig horizontally to one block from the magma pipe (careful with that, lval does flow through diagonals like water). I seal off the last part with a fortification, and then let a miner channel the last tile from above. Only that is totally safe.
5. I start with a farm and a water source, then a mason, mechanic and carpenter to make sure I can produce whatever I need. Then kitchen and still. I also dig out a lot of rooms for storage. I tend to try to plan where the magma is going to be in my fortress, so I can set a garbage dump over it. This lets me mass-assign (d > b > d) a lot of useless stone for dumping. When i have my basic food chain set up I try to get my metal industry started.
Anyway, grats on getting started. This game is beyond addictive
Author
Topic: Newbie learning the ropes of fortress building, and looking for suggestions (Read 1697 times)