Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[MonsteR]

I typically pick my entrance, and then dig it out and shoot a long hallway through the mountain, and build all my rooms off of that. Then I build my kitchen/dining hall and my crafting/storage areas, go down a level and build my farm.

I'm pretty focused on farming this time around, took 2 farmers instead of a hunter. Unfortunately I almost starved my dwarves out when the water was taking forever to drain out of my farm xD

[Berserkenstein]

You can set up this defensive entrance pretty quick:



Start cutting down trees, then make a carpenter's shop, craftshop, bowmaker's shop, mechanic's shop in the main area.

Pump out some crossbows, wood bolts, mechanisms, cages and trap components to finish the early defences.

Designate some marksdwarves and put some targets up in their nook in the defensive area. 

Then you can start on your food/drink industry and then the rest of your industry.

You should be able to do this well before even the first ambushes/thieves or caravan even comes.

Just close the first bridge when the ambushes come (Every third month i.e. Felsite, Galena, Timber, Obsidian)  to funnel the gobbos down the bypass into your marksdwarfs/traps. 

Close the secondary bridges if necessary.

Oh and make sure to remove the ramps in the channel, you will have to leave one ramp, make a wall over it or at least make sure it doesn't allow access to the marksdwarves/interior of the fort.

Unfortunately I almost starved my dwarves out when the water was taking forever to drain out of my farm xD

If you dig out your farm area in a soil layer, you don't have to irrigate. 

You can just build the farms on the soil, irrigation has little if any effect.

[lanceleoghauni]

1) Assign Nobility
2) Dig out Large room and designate a farm and stockpiles
3) Make a Carpenter and mason shop.
4) Masonry shop makes 1 throne, and then is set on Make Stone Crafts (R)
5) Woodcutter(s) are chopping wood during 3/4, Make beds.
6) Take a look around and see what madness I can unleash upon the countryside.

[Poindexterity]

1- set up farming, brewing, and mechanic industry.
2- dig out enough bedrooms and dining area for 200 dwarves.
3- set up metal industry

after that, i just wing it.

[Broseph Stalin]

Well I use genesis so my plan in one word is Cave Crocodiles. I always embark with a breeding pair and quickly have an amphibious army of murder incarnate. Put a few in front of your entrance and the entrance to the caverns to deal with most annoyances and build bombs to take out small seiges. Not only that but if you keep a few of them laying eggs you can feed your fortress indefinitely (I average about 50 per clutch). With food and day to day security taken care of you can focus on keeping the booze reserves full and micromanaging your affairs.

[Samoorai]

Note my second sig link. That entire fortress, top to bottom (apart from the power generation which I found later needed fresh water) was designated but a few ticks after my dwarves arrived on site. BTW, as soon as the next version comes out I will be restarting Roadhouse in a new world, complete with underground grazing areas, so this is a what I have done/what I will do description.

To ensure I actually have a proper living space somewhat soonish, I don't designate the doors to various sections until the previous one is mined out. For example, the entryway and farming areas must be finished before I designate the doorways to the fortress proper, which is then mined out one level at a time (mostly). Interim workshops and stockpiles are built on areas which will be channeled out later. The surface constructions are a high priority, but even so are made only from blocks and only from one material (marble or better). Once the drawbridge at the entrance and the water supply are done, all fortress mining/construction can continue no matter how much Fun the goblins send.

[qoou]

Wow, thanks guys. DF community is probably the nicest community ive ever been apart of.

The DF community is the best online community I have ever seen.


My fortresses are always very planned out. I don't plan them beforehand though; I have a loose general formula that I adapt as I find interesting things on the map.

As soon as I embark, I look for a pretty entrance, and start designating. I designate ~20 workshops, ~20 stockpiles one level below the workshops, ~20 bedrooms one level below the workshops, a central staircase, a dining room, a room that serves as a trade depot / miscellaneous stockpile, a hospital, a future dwarven spa, a place for a barracks, and so on and on. Then I have to go through and undesignate little bits so I get the bedrooms and essential workshops dug out first.

After the first two or so years, the hauling jobs are starting to die down, at which point I activate masonry and the real fun begins. I'm talking large towers to house magma guns or orbital magma cannons, elaborate cruel arenas to dispose of elves in, sewage systems, mechanisms for flushing the fortress section at a time (with magma or water), etc. I've yet to get to the point where I run out of FUN ideas; in my current fortress, I'm starting to build an orbital magma cannon (I hope I understand the FPS-neutral magma pump stack right, because I have no intention of dropping under 50 fps, and this will be one tall pump stack), I have a biochemical warfare laboratory up (complete with dwarves lying around dead in failed hazmat suit prototypes) and soon I'll be able to flush forgotten beast syndrome anywhere around the fortress I want through the modified sewage system (though no useful syndromes like blindness or sensory nerve eaters so far; just the usual temporary numbness and chronic deathsies).





Hmmm. Does hand numbness cause creatures to drop their weapons/shields? I have this small population of tame tigers... I could douse some fully-armed goblins in numbness juice in the arena cells, send them up against the tigers, and just as they're sure they'll win, bam, their arms go numb and the tigers are free to tear them up . And of course, I'd engrave this on the arena walls for the next batch of goblins to see.

Edit: Can water be heated to some point between 10000 and 10180 reliably? Do hot rocks heat water around them?

[Kay12]

My startup plan...

1. CHOPPITY CHOP CHOP! Start cutting trees right away!
2. DIGGITY DIG DIG! Out of tradition, my entrance tunnels are 3-tile wide until my trade depot.
3. CRAFTITY CRAFT CRAFT! Build important workshops, the trade depot and start creating items necessary for survival and prosperity. Start farming.
4. DEFENDIDITYDY... aww just forget it. Cage traps, watch animals, drawbridges and such. Immigrants often get wall-building jobs - securing some land on the surface is not a bad idea. Start a military if that's how you roll.
5. Get wealthy, prosper.
6. Prepare execution facilities for the first goblin siegers.
7. Find the caverns - knowing where they are is always a good thing.

[UristMcHuman]

I like making above-ground forts. This is how I usually do it:

I bring an extra rock to make a kiln if I have a site with clay.
I hit my site, channel down to the clay layer, and build the kiln.
I set a stone stockpile to accept ONLY clay.
I then put collect clay on repeat.
Once the stockpile is sufficiently full, I make houses. Everyone camps out around the waggon until houses are built.

Or, if I have no clay, here's how I do it:
Hack down lots of trees. Make houses entirely out of one type of log. Y'know, like one house made of oak, another of pine, another of cedar, etc. Don't bother with floors yet.
Burn some trees for fuel later on.
Dig a 40x40 pit quarry, with mine-shafts in the sides of each level of the quarry NO WIDER than 5 tiles and NO LONGER than 35 tiles. If you find metal veins, dig the vein until it is devoid of ore.
Smelt the ore (hopefully iron) and SAVE IT for later.
Keep a-collecting clay and make a large 5 thick wall around your city.
Dig a moat around the wall, and make a drawbridge going INTO the wall. When a caravan arrives, lower the bridge and let them cross.
Forge all that useful metal you've been saving into weapons and armor. NO TRAPS are allowed, but mechanisms may be used.
Well before the royalty arrives, start building a stone keep with floors.
Place the homes of farmers and farm plots and animal pastures outside the walls. If a siege comes, bring the farmers inside.
Place workshops, the homes of the wealthy, and a couple of apartment buildings inside the walls. Keep all the farming workshops but the still in the farmers' basements.

Do whatever else you want once this is complete. You could do this other ways, if you want.