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Author Topic: Lots of questions on managing dwarves. 31.12  (Read 786 times)

Truean

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Lots of questions on managing dwarves. 31.12
« on: July 27, 2010, 11:05:13 am »

So, Dwarves are stupid, or I am, or the bugs are.

1.) Cleaning self:

My Dwarves seem to be OCD about cleaning themselves, except they never do. They get the job and then cancel because the area is inaccessible. What am I doing wrong? I don't get what area they are trying to get to.


2.) Shoes! Gloves! Clothes!

So I had a forgotten beast with some kind of corrupting ooze or something. From what I can tell, if you touched it, your hand rotted off. It was not pleasant. Imagine that but with your feet.... How do I get my dwarves to wear the clothes I made for them? Gloves, shoes, anything. You'd think something that wants to clean itself wouldn't mind having more than one set of clothes. It seems you'd be wrong.

How do I get them to put on clothes?

3.) Military

I can't seem to get them to spar. Help?

4.) Beds

Doesn't seem to matter what bedroom I assign a dwarf to or how nice it is. Some random dwarf will end up sleeping in some random bed. I can't see any rhyme or reason to it. Am I doing something wrong?
I don't seem to get why my dwarves won't sleep in their own beds.

5.) Magma.

It's on every map but it's really hard to get. Without exaggeration, this stuff is over 100 z levels down. I can't imagine doing a 127 z level magma safe pump stack and powering it..... How do you reasonably get magma?

6.) immigrants.

It seems crazy but I don't seem to be able to find jobs for everyone. This seems nuts given that there is a lot of work to be done. Help?

I have more questions, or I will. This should do for now. Thanks
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bpuk

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Re: Lots of questions on managing dwarves. 31.12
« Reply #1 on: July 27, 2010, 11:26:41 am »

Briefly,

1)
Partially a bug, I saw a workaround on the forum today (can't see it now though) which was to put a small pond (2/7 or so) before a soap stockpile - the idea being that walking through the water should clean them. Haven't tried it though.

2) No idea - I generally have the problem of them wearing too many clothes
3) Make sure a barracks is assigned, that the barracks is set to train. I'd also suggest specifying a weapon rather than leaving it as Indiv. Choice Melee - I've seen some odd behavior with that one.

Then wait - in a recent test (3 man squad, leader being Axedwarf 5, Teacher 5) it took about 3-4 game months before the base skills were up to a level where they started sparring. In that test, two years on, they hardly ever do any demonstrations.

4) Seems to be improved a lot in 31.12 - but yes, it's a bug
5) That's a combination of worldgen settings and luck - most of my forts have it at around 30 levels down to the sea, the current one is 160 - thankfully theres a magma pipe (pool?) running up about 80 levels making it a bit easier.

But if theres no pipes running up, and you haven't embarked on a volcano - then it's pump stack time. Given the sort of power you're likely to want to use perpetual motion - there are a couple of basic setups on the wiki.

One way to make the job seem easier is to split it into 10 stacks, so that you can build them at the same time

6) For a fortress of 180 dwarves about 10 of those are actually needed to support the rest. After drafting a bunch I tend to start megaprojects (generally involving obsidian casting) once I hit the 80 mark.

One nice idea is to have some training centres, with stockpiles to take the masterpiece's, and seperate stockpiles for the junk. Once the junk builds up a bit dump it in magma (obv. only for non-magma safe materials). Doing that with my masons helps to clear a lot of the stone that builds up.

Hope that helps
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ledgekindred

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Re: Lots of questions on managing dwarves. 31.12
« Reply #2 on: July 27, 2010, 11:27:54 am »

Dwarves aren't stupid.  They're dwarves.  It's different.  No, really.

1.) This is related to soap. Forbid soap and they will clean themselves with only water instead.

2.) You can't. Dwarves wear whatever they feel like until it falls apart. Then they'll go get something new. Maybe.  If you have the dwarven economy enabled (you shouldn't, it's a pain), you'll need to build shops once it gets enabled so that they will be able to buy new things.  If you ever get a Dungeon Keeper (which I think is still bugged in .31) check out what he is wearing.  Usually it's something like a glove, a sock, a dozen capes ... and that's it.

3.) Short answer: look at the wiki.  http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Military

4.) Dwarves'll sleep wherever they feel like it. Assigning a bedroom makes them happy that they have a room, and if you put a cabinet in there it gives them somewhere to put their stuff, but you can't make 'em sleep there if they don't want to.  My Baron is pretty much never the one sleeping in his Magnificent Bedroom.

5.) The magma sea ensures there is _always_ magma on any given map.  If you want to find magma closer, you'll have to find an embark location with a volcano or a magma pipe or magma pool.  Just like Real Life (which is a lot like Dwarf Fortress) magma is only near the surface in certain areas, but if you dig deep enough, you'll find it.

6.) Assign extra dwarves to the military.  Send them to explore the underground caverns and look for Fun.  Or both.  Start having Unfortunate Accidents for your nobles, assign useless dwarves as new nobles, wait for more Unfortunate Accidents.  Start useless and dangerous megaprojects with "volunteer" labor.  Anyway, there are multitudes of ways of dealing with freeloaders.
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I don't understand, though that is about right with anything DF related.
I just hope he dies the same death that all dwarfs deserve: liver disease.
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Niveras

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Re: Lots of questions on managing dwarves. 31.12
« Reply #3 on: July 27, 2010, 11:37:49 am »

5) You can limit the number of cavern systems to 1 to try to cut down on the number of z-levels between the surface and the magma sea. This can cause some slight problems with migrating creatures, though you'll still have full access to all of them (that is, creatures and plants normally found only in the third cavern layer will still migrate through/spawn in your cavern layer). Mostly this means if you're waiting for a specific kind of creature to migrate through, it might take a while because the chance of any given creature competes with all other creatures.

I think ocean may also have an effect on number of layers as well. Since caverns are supposed to span the entire world, it makes sense to me that if an ocean exists, the first cavern must start below the level of the lowest ocean, otherwise it risks a cavern layer cutting into the ocean wall. This may not be true (in retrospect this could be dealt with with bodies of water being surrounded by a 1 tile thick wall, much like you find obsidian around magma pipes, so even if it cuts through a cavern the ocean won't flood into the cavern), but my preferred world gen settings make sure to remove all edge oceans and reduce cavern layers to 1, and I have so far never had more than ~50 zlevels to the magma sea.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2010, 02:13:22 pm by Niveras »
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Buckermann

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Re: Lots of questions on managing dwarves. 31.12
« Reply #4 on: July 27, 2010, 11:39:36 am »

Allow me to quote myself:
re:Dwarf Cancels Clean Self: Area Inaccessible


Basically, make a pond, fill it partially with water and put a soap stockpile behind it. That way Urist McCleanself will walk through the water to get the soap. Usually when he gets to the soap, he is already cleaned.
To speed up filling the pond, it helps to have a well and bucket stockpile nearby.
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Chattox

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Re: Lots of questions on managing dwarves. 31.12
« Reply #5 on: July 27, 2010, 12:43:47 pm »

In response to question 1, there is (or was) a bug where a dwarf would have a large wound and then get some kind of dirt or blood of another creature or whatever on the exposed bone or organ. If for whatever reason the wound was left unclean, but was healed, the dwarf would then constantly try to scrub it's ribs with soap... Yeah.

Honestly I'm more surprised that dwarves don't just rip their bodies open to clean their bones.
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Darkmere

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Re: Lots of questions on managing dwarves. 31.12
« Reply #6 on: July 27, 2010, 02:48:54 pm »

There's a semi-complicated Dwarven workaround for forgotten beast goo, it just takes a bit of forethought and carefully planned cavern incursions. You can wall off most of the cavern areas, forcing Fun in through an area of your choosing. Once the filth has been splattered, keep civvies out of the toxic area with burrows, and order your squad into a decontamination chamber. Turn on mist generators to was the filth off, evacuate the chamber, drain, then flood with magma to obliterate the death dust. Mine out any obsidian leftovers, then repeat if the first shower didn't do the trick.

You could also draft everyone in your fort and give them a civvie uniform but no train-able designated barracks, though I haven't tried that one yet, so they may just not equip things until they have orders.
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Re: Lots of questions on managing dwarves. 31.12
« Reply #7 on: July 27, 2010, 03:22:42 pm »

5) That's a combination of worldgen settings and luck - most of my forts have it at around 30 levels down to the sea, the current one is 160 - thankfully theres a magma pipe (pool?) running up about 80 levels making it a bit easier.
But if theres no pipes running up, and you haven't embarked on a volcano - then it's pump stack time. Given the sort of power you're likely to want to use perpetual motion - there are a couple of basic setups on the wiki.

One can reduce cavern layers from 3 to 1 to get easier magma.
And instead of Pump Stack one can build walled-off safe magma smelter area above the magma sea, channels bring magma safely under a wall to your room. And put stone stockpile, bar stockpile and beers for the smelter-workers.
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