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[SannaSK]

Hi. I've been reading as many posts here as I can find, plus attempting to search with terms that might find answers, and I've been reading the wiki, but there are still several things I cannot figure out. Numbering for organization in answering, rather than priority.


1. Military. I have so many more questions but let's start here.
1.a: I finally figured out how to equip dwarves with things like swords and armor. I fended off not one but two goblin attacks. I have one dwarf who is in the hospital and one of the screens (I don't have the game open right now) says something to the effect of "has lost use of entire lower half of body." Should I take him out of a squad? I'm guessing he won't be able to walk again, and therefore can't/shouldn't be in a squad?

1.b: I have a different military dwarf who has been walking around since the first goblin raid blinking red; his health stuff has half his body parts colored yellow, and he moves very slowly (one of his screens says something about "unable to stand"!). Yet according to this post, question about injury, (I hope i did that url right), he won't go to the hospital until he's unconcious??? Is there no way I can force him to go get freaking checked out? Also, should I remove him from his squad?

1.c: Someone somewhere said to add waterskins to a uniform so dwarves will carry some booze with them. But in m>n, I can't figure out how to add waterskins. How do I do this?

1.d: I finally found/figured out how to work/read the http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Metal page. If, for example, Bronze has a material value of 5 and Iron has 10, does that mean an Iron Buckler is twice as good as a Bronze Buckler? My fort has plentiful hematite so using iron for everything is no trouble, I just want to understand what I'm getting into. (Lol, little late for that, isn't it.) I guess also, when the caravans bring bronze things, like bronze toys, should I buy them and melt them down and make them into things? Although probably not... Iron is just better all around, esp since I have hematite coming out my ears.

1.d.ii: is there some way to figure out which of my military dwarves is equipping non-iron gear (other than manually hunting them down and checking), and if I go make iron armor for them, how do I make sure they take off their non-iron and equip the iron? Do I cycle the squad through an 'unequip for a month, reequip the next month', and hope they do the whole 'pick the highest quality available' thing? Or do they do that part anyway, when an individual dwarf comes back on duty for training (I have the thing set up where there's 7 in a squad but only 4 train at a time, but I also have it set with the off duty = uniformed thing, so does that mean they'll never check again to make sure they have the highest gear?)


2: Freakin hospital. Ok.
2.a: I built some traction benches (via j>m so I know it got done, for a bit it was yelling about not having tables) but I can't find them now... when I try to (b)uild traction (whatever that key is), it says there aren't any. But I think I saw some dwarves carrying them to the coffers that I set up in the hospital. What does that even mean.

2.b: Can I look inside those coffers? I tried (k) and (q) and (p) and (t) and facesmashing on the keyboard but nothing worked. Am I just not allowed to look inside the sekrit hospital coffers?

2.c: when I do i>H to look at hospital zone info, it says there is lots of thread... but my suturer keeps going all the way to the cloth stockpile room to get thread. What is going on here? How do I make him use the thread that I think is stored in the coffers I can't see in?

2.d: I read in some thread about putting doctors on a squad (i think) and restricting them to a somewhat large and/or multi-part burrow that encompasses the areas they should be (bedroom area, food area, hospital) (and giving them waterskins, see 1.c). Is this really, like, the 'real' way to do it? Or is that an odd hacky way that's more of a last resort of 'omfg doc please stay THERE'. Currently my doctor-dorfs seem to be performing their tasks in a timely-ish fashion without this tactic, so should I set it up anyway or, wait till it's a problem?



I sort of had another section about dealing with trade caravans / where to read up on what to make, but after dayyyyys of poking around on the wiki, I only just now stumbled on http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Value , so I'll have to revamp how to ask what questions I have. But I'll start with one I still have:


3: Value things.

3.a: My mayor wants a Decent Quarters. I can go into (R) and see that some quarters are Meager, some are Decent, and I can hit some button that zooms me to my bedrooms zlvl, and mayyybeee the cursor was highlighting a Decent one (I manually assigned him and it seemed to fulfill his REQUEST)... but, is there any in-game thing where I, idk, highlight a bedroom somehow and it tells me what quality it is? Or do I just have to learn how to do the math and look at every individual bedroom?

3.b: What does x(item)x mean? Just that it's covered in blood? Is it possible to find a bloody item that doesn't have the x's? A caravan asked for more items as part of a trade and one of the things they wanted was an x()x item, so I guess there's more to them than just figuring out how to atom smash them... I guess?


4: Generic... Dwarf things?

4.a: I have a hundred and forty dwarves (migrants omg stop coming). Am I supposed to be keeping them busy at all times? Or is having lots of idlers ok? (Thank GOD for whomever wrote Dwarf Therapist, I would seriously not be playing this game without it.) Is it ok to just pick up Pesants and other low-Assigned-Task-quantity dorfs and throw them in the military, or do I need to pick dorfs that come with military skill beforehand?

4.b: Ok so. my z screen says I have enough food (or at least the number doesn't alter much, even though I haven't messed much with how much I farm). I'm managing my booze stocks well enough. I fended off 2 sets of goblins and a cyclops (altho I still need to learn how to make squads do outdoor patrols to try to catch snatchers, I just lost a kid to a goblin kidnapper and the mom's pretty hacked). I've built most if not all of the workshops. I had a fey mood dwarf who was able to get all the materials without me having to do anything, which was a pretty epic feeling. So other than learning more about military, what's my next step in fortress growth?


If y'all don't toss me out on my ear for asking so many questions at once, I'll be back tomorrow or so with more. Why is a game that is so frustrating simultaneously so addicting?

[NecroRebel]

Whew, lots of questions...

1a. That sounds like a spinal injury. Injuries to nerves and the nervous system never heal, so if his spine was broken in his lower body, he'll never walk again. Since he won't actually do anything in the squad, he's basically just taking equipment from useful soldiers lower on the pecking order, and as such should probably be removed (and possibly euthanized).

1b. Hurt him so that he needs rescue and he'll be taken to the hospital. That may not actually help him, however, as if it's been that long he probably has nervous damage.

1c. Waterskins and flasks are part of the s(u)pplies part of the military screens, not the u(n)iforms or (e)quipment parts. IIRC by default they carry water; I always tell them not to carry any supplies, as that can result in them claiming all your food.

1di. No, the material value affects how valuable it is, not how good it is. It's unclear whether iron or bronze is better, but generally bronze seems to be superior. However, since dwarves choose equipment based on value, not how good it is, they'll prefer iron to bronze.

1dii: There's no easy way, aside from making their uniform allow only a specific material. The soldiers near the top of a squad will also have first pick of any items, meaning they'll have the highest-value ones, so if your metal gear is all higher-value than your non-metal gear (likely), the people at the top will get metal gear first, so checking the last soldiers for good gear first is probably wise if you want to make sure everyone is properly equipped.

2a. Traction benches shouldn't be taken to the hospital stores. They're furniture, like beds. Maybe they're being taken to a furniture stockpile, inaccessible, or otherwise tasked?

2b. (t) should show you what's in hospital coffers 

2c. He should use the thread that's closest in a straight line. If your thread stockpile is directly below or above your hospital, he'll consider it to be closer than the stuff across the room. Otherwise, I've no idea.

2d. A squad is unnecessary. Some people find assigning dwarves with important labors to a burrow that includes what they need to perform that labor can help efficiency. Actually, it almost certainly does, since it means they're more likely to use the materials you want them to use instead of walking ten miles to pick up a stone 3 z-levels down in the mines. Really, though, the problem that this was intended to solve was how sluggish docs can be about doing medical care, but then it was determined that personality traits affect that. The very sluggish doctors were almost certainly just dwarves who weren't well-suited to medicine. If you're not having problems, there's no real reason to do this.

3a. Really, it's easier just to build quarters specifically for your nobles and just go for overkill as far as value goes. Alternatively, find his chambers in the building list, then improve it with valuable furniture and/or smoothing/engraving the stone. Engraved walls and floors have quite a bit of value (50+ per tile with a legend+5 engraver, even on common stone).

3b. xitemx means the item is damaged somehow, usually from wear and tear. Most items don't become worn, but clothing does (and flammables do too if they're set alight). Eventually, it'll become xxitemxx, then XXitemXX, and after that it will simply vanish.

4a. Having idlers is fine. And there's no real reason not to use otherwise-useless peasants as soldiers, especially if you've got all the other labors you want covered. The other thing I usually do with them is turn on masonry/carpentry/mechanics/architecture and use them to build large constructions or other projects quickly, since they don't need actual skill to build walls.

4b. That's up to you. The usual approach is to go for ever-more grandiose designs, but seeking additional challenges via modding (like the popular Fortress Defense), digging deeper, other self-imposed challenges, attempts to make your forts more efficient, and other things are often done. The sky's one limit, and the core is the other.

The game is so addicting because it's so frustrating, but you can do so damned much with it 

[Starver]

Whew, lots of questions...

Indeed, and I'm glad someone else took the vanguard.  One minor addition that I noticed might need to be said, regarding:

3b. xitemx means the item is damaged somehow, usually from wear and tear.

Furthermore, "(item)"[1] means "an item not originally created (or later changed) by your fortress.  i.e. everything traded for, nabbed from hostiles or being brought in by migrants (original 7 or the apparently copious later waves, in the OPs particular fortress).  As such, "x(item)x" is probably something brought in and damaged.  Which, if it's a piece of clothing, is fairly par for the course, IME.  It's value is less (or so it seems) but if a trader wants it, they can have it.

Most of the time XsocksX[2], or similar hang around unused anyway, and if you can actually sell them it's probably better than finding a way of atom-smashing them out of existence.  However, the vagaries of apparent individual/non-communal ownership of such discarded fripperies by dwarfs that have now claimed something *better* than what they had is something I can't always seem to get a handle on[3].

(Anyway, if you'd made the sock (or whatever it is you might have manufactured) or possibly jewel-encrusted the bolt (or whatever it is you modified) or just alloyed together some bought metals to create bars of a new kind, then the ()s disappear.  Or never appear in the first place.  Anyway, there's a hierarchy to the parenthesising method.  Check the Item Designations page on the Wiki, which is currently still only updated to 40D but appears to be relevant to 'DF2010' as well.)


Okay, a minor point that probably didn't deserve so many words applying to it, but F.OP's.I. anyway.


[1] Quotes not included, but the parentheses forced me to quote it to not look like an aside in an ungrammatical sentence.

[2] Oh yeah, I also thought, and wiki page agrees, that it went from (item) to x(item)x to X(item) to XX(item)XX, and then, I presume, to no item at all.  Regardless, either xx(item)xx and X(item)X should be easy to interpret as being between an x:xed item and an XX:XXed one.

[3] Is that x-sock-x laying on the battlements that I marked for dumping actually owned by someone and thus nobody else is touching it, or is it just that nobody has gotten around to that dumping when I've also told them to clear out a few gigatonnes of stone from the area that I want to flood?  OTOH, when might that XX*sock*XX in the middle of the area that I want to flood be moved, if at all?

[SannaSK]

Wow! Answered them all, so quick! +1 cookie for you ^_^

(1, Military)
1.a: darn, and he was my militia commander. I don't want to /kill/ him, that's not a nice thing to do to a veteran... maybe I can just totally un-jobify him and give him crutches and he can sit around in the dining hall all day and talk about the goblin invasions of 129 X D. (whups, I might have missed my chance... he's been given a crutch and he's walking around, but he's still listed as having infection in two places. Auugh this game I don't understand how to make it work.)

1.b: uhhh how do I carefully injure him? o_0

1.c: ah! supplies. Well, I'll try it and see if they do the food-claim thing (at least, hopefully I'll be able to tell if they are), and if I'm able to find out if it's problematic, I can undo it, right? I guess the only benefit is the idea that soldiers wander around less looking for sustenance, instead of doing soldery things?
Well, now that I look at supplies screen, and it says 'carry any drink' 'carry two food', I still don't see anything about waterskins. This page http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Military_interface#Supplies isn't much help either.


(2, Hospital)
2.a+b: oh NOW (t) lets me look in the coffers. I could have sworn I tried that last night but maybe I didn't. Anyway, turns out there are crutches in the coffers sooo now I don't know if I even made any traction benches at all? But hey, now I know what to do ^_^.


(3, Value)
3.a: holy junk, (t) lets me look at the value marker on placed items! I never knew that before! I had always been looking at things with (k), which only says like
Bed
Smooth orthoclase floor

but (t) will say (box)pine bed(box). Hah! Ok I guess there's not really a question here, I'm just like, hah!

3.c: neither http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Value nor http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Wood say anything (that I understand) about specific types of wood having a value in the same way that 'granite is worth x1' or 'iron is worth x10'. So a 'larch bed' and a 'pine bed' and a 'cedar bed' all have the same base value? Exactly what wood an item gets made out of doesn't really matter?

3.d: this might not be 'value' per se, but, where can I read up on how many items are stored in a particular container type? The bins in my bar/block / cloth / gem / leather hide storepiles seem to hold 10 items, but the hospital coffers have like 6 items. But I can't really tell if it's possible/necessary for me to figure out how to put bins in the hospital? I guess i'd rather use up the rock than the wood (still haven't found any native bit coal, having to do charcoal from wood), but, I dunno, 10 is the limit for bins?


(4, Generic)

4.c: When I look at some things with (t) (now that I know how to do this), sometimes there is a purple capital D next to them. like,
*cedar bed* D (B)
or
-mudstone coffer- D (B)
In fact, now that I look at it, there are three bedrooms right next to each other where all the items in it have the purple D. What is that?


Ok that's a pile more, and I'm especially curious about 1b (poor injured dwarf who won't seek treatment), plus I have to fix up my military quite a bit and make this hospital work better. Oh and clean my house irl. hah. Thanks so much for all your answers ^_^

[Starver]

1.b: uhhh how do I carefully injure him? o_0

Vveerryy ccaarreeffuullllyy......
No, seriously, it's possible to expose them to (say) a single danger-room-style vertical spike hit to graze their knee, but it might as easily just go straight into his brain and kill him outright.  Sending them onto a bridge which retracts to give them a fall of a certain height... 4Zs-worth? might do this.  Or might kill them.  Or might leave them uninjured.  (Setting up consecutive possible falls of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10Z, with the aim of stopping once minor injury has occurred, could work.  Or they could die at a Z-drop of n where they might have survived the subsequent Z-drop of n+1, I think, had they still been alive.)

Well, I'll try it and see if they do the food-claim thing (at least, hopefully I'll be able to tell if they are), and if I'm able to find out if it's problematic, I can undo it, right?

I find that food-claimers tend to take a stack and then abandon most of the stack on the ground after nibbling the top-most stack item.  Still owned by them so not able to be dumped, yet causing miasma.  I'd not have food claiming at all.  Drink-claiming (needs flask/waterskin) I let happen, not having the same kind of effect, but set to water-only, mostly, because water from the well is basically limitless, and while I haven't noticed them leaving small puddles of unused (but technically 'claimed') booze/water around, of the two commodities I really wouldn't want to waste the booze that way.

[/quote]I guess the only benefit is the idea that soldiers wander around less looking for sustenance, instead of doing soldery things?[/quote]They'll go to get top-ups (for the water, in my situation) every now and again, but it may happen less frequently than if they didn't have a flask to quickly sip that nasty dihydrogen monoxide brew from.  Without a backpack and food ordered to place in it they'll still wander off when hungry, but that's less likely to happen mere seconds after they returned from a drink-break if they didn't take the drink-break.  Or cause miasma.

Well, now that I look at supplies screen, and it says 'carry any drink' 'carry two food', I still don't see anything about waterskins.

Waterskins (or flasks, if metal (or stone?)) and backpacks aren't assigned-to-uniform, but are grabbed as a function of requiring a waterskin/backpack to put the requisite supplies in, if there are any freely available to equip.  If you have no waterskins, no-one will take any liquids with them.

now I don't know if I even made any traction benches at all?

Traction benches are made at a Mechanic's workshop from (IIRC) a table and a mechanism.  And they appear (IIRC) somewhere near the bottom of the Z-Stocks menu, the very last pane, above the crutches/casts and below the remains.  Or maybe they're in with other bits of furniture, near the Tables.  But they get themselves their own top-level item.  I'm sure.

(3, Value)
3.a: holy junk, (t) lets me look at the value marker on placed items! I never knew that before! I had always been looking at things with (k), which only says like
Bed
Smooth orthoclase floor

Press <enter> when you get that, and I think (don't have the game open) it will give you something like "This is an exceptionally crafted pine-log bed encrusted with jade and bristling with spikes of copper", or whatever the bed is.  (Actually, it'll stop at the word 'bed', with perhaps some other adjective regarding its quality level, if I misconstrue the "(box)" you mean, unless you have encrusted/decorated it in any way, or if it became that way as part of being made as a mooded artefact.)

If the square you're looking at has multiple items (excluding the floor, which is always there, and any amount of magma or water flowing there) you can scroll up/down with +/- to pick the sock that happens to be left on the same square as the bed and the several tonnes of raw rock that were dumped down upon it from the hole in the ceiling (to no ill effect of anyone sleeping there at the time!)

Exactly what wood an item gets made out of doesn't really matter?

I'm pretty sure that's the case.  But even then wood has a 'value' that can be compared with the various other materials.  Beds (non-moodcrafted ones, anyways) are all wood, though, so only quality of craftsmanship may affect the individual prices.  Moodcrafted beds could be made of ion, or diamond, or graphite, or goblin bones, or even the skull of the eventual owner's best friend, if it was one of those moods, I think...

3.d: this might not be 'value' per se, but, where can I read up on how many items are stored in a particular container type?

It might be dictated to by weight, or something else.  Someone else will know for sure.

4.c: When I look at some things with (t) (now that I know how to do this), sometimes there is a purple capital D next to them.[/quote]
"Marked to be dumped".  You either pressed "d" while k-ing over them, or (d)esignated a (b)lock to be (d)umped (I think it is) and enclosed the area in which the item exists.  If it's constructed/in-use it won't be dumped, but if you designate (or mark the individual blocks to be dumped) a set of walls to be Dumped in either manner and then deconstruct them, the blocks will retain their Dumped status and immediately be (potentially) subject to a dwarf coming along and taking them to the appropriate dumping zone.  Useful to speed up the clearing away of unwanted debris after unconstruction.  Designating a dump over a constructed cage trap will designated both mechanism and cage to be such, and I think the triggered cage is then down for a trip to the dumping zone, as opposed to the animal-stockpile(-inclusive-of-cages!).  Designating Dumping over a constructed cage containing an armoured goblin will mark the goblin's possessions to be dumped, and thus strip him/her of armour, clothing and weaponry.  (If you want a live target, some people do that, but then, through Z-stocks, de-designate all to-be-dumped armour[1][2] so that when finally released, weaponless, the unarmed but armour enemy lasts longer and generally trains your dwarfs more before dying.)  You can de-designate the trap via Z-stocks, or (once you know the items you want have been taken from their hands) by the (d)esignate (b)lock to be not (D)umped, IIRC.  The menus show you what there is.  (d)(b)(f)orbidding is countered by (d)(b)(c)laiming and (I think) (d)(b)(m)elting is countered by (d)(b)not(M)elting, but it tells you what they really are when you're in that command hierarchy, if I'm wrong.

[1] D and F (is Forbidden to be touched) and M (to be Melted) show up alongside both tabbed and non-tabbed Z-stocks menus, in a non-intense colour if it's the non-tabbed "cumulative items of a type on one line" display and only some (one or more, less then all) of those items are actually so marked, or in bright purple/I forget/red if all of them are, or if it's in one-item-one-line mode and that particular item is.

[2] More on Z-Stocks D/F/M in the default multi-item-per-line mode: It's a kind of triple toggle.  If it's a subdued colour, first press of the relevant letter will wipe that letter off.  If in all-not mode a press will change to all-set for that quality, and all-set goes back to all-not.  There's no way to backtrack to "all that were originally set to be dumped/melted/forbidden now aren't" in that mode, or indeed reverse every item's settings.  If you want finer control (e.g. all that were to be dumped now not, all that weren't to be dumped, now so, or all that were forbidden now unforbidden and set instead for Dumping, or specifically all steel objects (below a certain quality) to be melted and all other tags removed) then you need the other <tab>bable display and peruse the list.  The ordering of a "genera" of items puts forbidden/dump-set and also I think melt-set items down at the bottom of the list (or scroll 'up' from the top to wrap around and see them, if that helps.

In fact, now that I look at it, there are three bedrooms right next to each other where all the items in it have the purple D. What is that?

That's likely to have been set by you (inadvertently, if you don't know why they should be) with a (d)(b)(d) designation.  Also, when you're in the (d)(b) mode you can see background highlighting of purple, green (ah yes, forbidding is green) and (probably) red to demonstrate "one or more items on this particular tile have a dump/forbid/melt designation on them".

What you may have done, actually, is decide to clean out the rooms of rock spoil left over from their designation.  This would have covered the beds, if you had already placed them there, but (until you deconstruct the beds) would not be acted upon.  So perhaps you already know a lot of what I've just told you.   Anyway, either toggle with (D) on the k-view, or (d)(b)(D) and double-<Enter> on each of the spots with the beds or (if the rest of the area is cleared out, now) redo the same sort of all-beds-enclosing designation to cover them all with the "clear (D)ump" setting.

Thanks so much for all your answers ^_^

If you can understand what I'm telling you, you're welcome.  If it's far too much irrelevant, over-explained or plain badly explained information, then my apologies.

[Garath]

1.b: uhhh how do I carefully injure him? o_0

in my experience, off-duty soldiers do go to see a doctor. in Z-healthcare, they will show up with a green D somewhere: diagnosis required
after that they will automatically be ushered to any table or traction bench for treatment

traction bench also needs a rope/chain btw

your weaving industry often uses up all your threads
(o)rders - (W)orkshops - auto loom thread (all, dyed, none)
its the only reason i produce dimple cups, for the dye so i can set it to dyed only, which usualy leaves a sizable portion for my hospital, occasionally setting it to all if the stockpiles are getting full with thread

[SannaSK]

Whee so much to absorb. Thanks for the in-depth answers!

regarding 3.a, the (box)pine bed(box): I don't know if it's a result of the graphics pack I installed or what, but I never see any "≡Item Name≡" with the three lines and I don't see any "☼Item Name☼" with the little sunburst thing. If it's not plain, a minus, or a plus, the game just shows me a square. But now I know that it's one of those two things, and can guestimate accordingly X D.

regarding 4.c: Now I think that when I d>b>d'd the rocks away from the bedrooms, I installed furniture before waiting for the rocks to be cleared away. I vaguely recall going 'aha, the game will let me set the things there before the rocks are gone!' Soo I'll make sure to not do that in the future X D.


(1, Military)
1.e: oh gosh oh gosh I have royally effed something up. I finally decided to base my squad composition around a weapon type (an Axe squad, a Spear squad, etc), and I figured the best way to ensure they pick up the right weapon was to make an Axe uniform, a Spear uniform, etc.
-- Why won't the m>n>c options let me choose, under items / selection, things like 'metal armor', but make me specify 'mail shirt', 'breastplate', etc? I found where I can apply 'any metal' to 'breastplate', but suddenly my squad that used to be all decked out in technically I don't know what but m>e had a bunch of green boxes so I assume they had full uniforms?? And now none of them have hardly anything on?? What did I dooooo...
-- and is that the proper way to do it anyway?

(Edit: amagash I finally understand what this comment means:
"When in the 'm'ilitary 'e'quipment screen, you can hit 'P' for priority and it will show you the specific item each dwarf has assigned." - http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=94172.msg2658210#msg2658210
Wowwww I can see what they have without having to hunt down each individual dwarf via the (u) screen. Still doesn't help me understand why, when switching a 'Metal Armor'-uniform squad to a uniform that still used metal armor, just differently titled pieces of it, they all freaked the crap out and ditched half their gear.
Military Screens, y u no easier to use??)


(3, Value)
3.e: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=94351.msg2667842#msg2667842 says
"4. Build a mason's workshop with one of those rocks. Make a stone block. Deconstruct the mason's workshop, and build a new one with the stone block. Build several more stone blocks for other workshops. Aside from that first one, never build a workshop from a rock or log. Always blocks."
Is this a value thing? If not, what is the benefit of using blocks instead of plain rocks?


(4 General Dwarfy things)
4.d: What the CRAP is wrong with my stupid manager? I finally took him off being a broker because he wasn't approving j>m jobs while the traders were here... now he wont' approve ANY jobs, and it's a pain in the butt. When I (V) near him, he is always Updating Stockpile Records. He is seriously making me angrier than the military screens do.

4.e: My Z screen says I have over 600 Drink and 20 Plant, and 670 Seeds. I split my food stockpiles into what hopefully is a food pile and the other is a booze pile. Both piles are approx 10x10. Both piles are virtually empty. Checked the settings:
-- Booze pile was Food, (a) for Allow All, then went to the 2nd column and forbid everything except Drink (Plant), Drink (Animal), and Extract (Animal). (u) is set to allow Prepared Food.
-- Food pile same except for disallowing the drinks/extracts.
So... where is my 600 booze if it's not in the booze pile, and am I supposed to have such low plant count? Should I turn off my 6 brew-repeating stills until I get more plants? Is it ok to have so few plants? (I have three 3x10 farm plots growing various things.)

[Garath]

the seperation wont take place instantly. your food stockpile will continue to hold booze untill someone can be bothered to do something about it. job priority for this is somewhere below hanging around complaining there is nothing to do, so dont expect much. Did you allow barrels for the booze stockpile? that might figure too

on the building in boulder places, go back later, (q) (s) to unsuspend them. it will then take a dwarf just a moment to finishe the qork

when changing the equipment, many dwarfs will drop things that may or may not belong to them anymore and everyone will mill around for a while to see whats his armor now. Give them some time
Keep in mind that for a partial match, a copper mailshirt fits with metal breastplate (metal yes, breastplate no, partial match), and so will other items have matched preciously (metal high boots - well, they're boots)

manager: you just set things to best precicion right? give him time to handle that, afterwards it takes almost no time anymore. Untill he aproves jobs, do some mining or woodcutting or something to keep people busy

[SannaSK]

manager: ohhhhhhhh you know what, I had set him at whatever the 3rd or 4th precision was, initially, and when I split him out of the broker position I did tell him to have best precision at that time. I didn't even remember that until you said just now. So good point. Now that he's done with stock counting I guess he'll get back around to JMing.

4.e: food vs booze: back when I first made the 2 stockpiles, I had dwarves instantly swarm the one pile and pull out half the things to put into the other pile (i am terribad about keeping 160 dwarves busy all the time). But now there's virtually nothing in either pile. And what is in the booze pile doesn't say 'dwarven wine' when i mouse over it. it's things like 'seed pot'. But somewhere in my fort, there are 700+ units of booze hanging out..... I'm almost tempted to make one large food pile again just to see if the dwarves will bring it back from wherever its gone....


1.f: Barracks. Do I need individual barrack rooms for each squad? Or just one large (maybe 10x20) room for all squads? If I have all squads in one room with enough cabinets, do the squad members still choose cabinets? Or are they like 'ew i'm in a room with other squads : <"?

[Starver]

I never use Barracks.  Maybe I should, but I give them all their own rooms for sleeping purposes (with container-type furniture as and when I produce it).  Apart from setting the squads up as users of general training rooms based around the armour stands/weapon racks and/or a crossbow range based upon an archery target, I don't do anything at all special for the military that I don't also do for the civvies.

Someone will be along in a moment telling me how this causes problems that I didn't know I was having, perhaps, but this does seem to work Ok for me F.Y.I.

[greycat]

1.c: ah! supplies. Well, I'll try it and see if they do the food-claim thing (at least, hopefully I'll be able to tell if they are), and if I'm able to find out if it's problematic, I can undo it, right? I guess the only benefit is the idea that soldiers wander around less looking for sustenance, instead of doing soldery things?
Well, now that I look at supplies screen, and it says 'carry any drink' 'carry two food', I still don't see anything about waterskins. This page http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Military_interface#Supplies isn't much help either.

Waterskins/flasks and backpacks are both automatic.  If a squad is allowed (ordered) to carry water, then the squad's dwarves will be assigned a waterskin or flask, which they will carry around, and then fill with water at some point.  Likewise, if the squad is ordered to carry food, they will be assigned a backpack, equip it, then fill it with food.

Quivers work the same way.  When a dwarf is carrying a crossbow and his squad has been assigned ammo (bolts), the dwarf will automatically be assigned a quiver, equip it, and put the bolts in it.

[murlocdummy]

manager: ohhhhhhhh you know what, I had set him at whatever the 3rd or 4th precision was, initially, and when I split him out of the broker position I did tell him to have best precision at that time. I didn't even remember that until you said just now. So good point. Now that he's done with stock counting I guess he'll get back around to JMing.

4.e: food vs booze: back when I first made the 2 stockpiles, I had dwarves instantly swarm the one pile and pull out half the things to put into the other pile (i am terribad about keeping 160 dwarves busy all the time). But now there's virtually nothing in either pile. And what is in the booze pile doesn't say 'dwarven wine' when i mouse over it. it's things like 'seed pot'. But somewhere in my fort, there are 700+ units of booze hanging out..... I'm almost tempted to make one large food pile again just to see if the dwarves will bring it back from wherever its gone....


1.f: Barracks. Do I need individual barrack rooms for each squad? Or just one large (maybe 10x20) room for all squads? If I have all squads in one room with enough cabinets, do the squad members still choose cabinets? Or are they like 'ew i'm in a room with other squads : <"?

4.e:  It kind of sounds like you accidentally disabled the entire section of Food in that one swarmed stockpile and enabled the entire section of Food in the other one.  The dwarves probably came by, picked up all the disabled items, then ran around your fortress, looking for other stockpiles to put it in.  Personally, I keep most of my drinks in a single, large stockpile in the main dining hall, which causes all of my dwarves to drink and eat there.

I'm sure you've been able to navigate the control scheme of the stockpile settings by now.  One of the major issues to take note of are inadvertently (Enter) Toggled on/off items that you didn't intend on toggle on/off.  Of course, you could use the mouse to select things, even though that would be totally useless to do.

Also make sure you know where each and every one of your stockpiles is.  It WILL be necessary to adjust the settings of each of them every now and then.  I highly suggest making an Excel spreadsheet inventory of what stockpiles you have and where they are, or draw a map of your fortress, with the location of each stockpile.  Unless you can clearly remember where everything is and what it's doing there, you'll desperately need to organize everything beforehand, or else you'll have dwarves running circles around your fortress, and you won't know why.

Also, if you check closely, you'll realize that in the military screen, (P)RI/Assignments, actually DOES NOT tell you what the particular dwarf is currently equipped with.  It only tells you what the particular dwarf wants to be equipped with, and whether or not they currently are interested in having the item on them.  Generally speaking, if you give the dwarves enough time to gather the equipment, they'll eventually become equipped with all the items that are marked on the list.

[SannaSK]

I never use Barracks.  Maybe I should, but I give them all their own rooms for sleeping purposes (with container-type furniture as and when I produce it).  Apart from setting the squads up as users of general training rooms based around the armour stands/weapon racks and/or a crossbow range based upon an archery target, I don't do anything at all special for the military that I don't also do for the civvies.

I don't mean for sleeping; one of my quirks is that I have enough bedrooms with bed-coffer-cabinet-door for every dwarf to claim one (even though I have ~10 that aren't claimed but whatever).  I mean barracks for training in. One large room with TIQ set for all squads? Or individual 8x12 barracks for each squad?

1.c: ah! supplies. Well, I'll try it and see if they do the food-claim thing (at least, hopefully I'll be able to tell if they are), and if I'm able to find out if it's problematic, I can undo it, right? I guess the only benefit is the idea that soldiers wander around less looking for sustenance, instead of doing soldery things?
Well, now that I look at supplies screen, and it says 'carry any drink' 'carry two food', I still don't see anything about waterskins. This page http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Military_interface#Supplies isn't much help either.

Waterskins/flasks and backpacks are both automatic.  If a squad is allowed (ordered) to carry water, then the squad's dwarves will be assigned a waterskin or flask, which they will carry around, and then fill with water at some point.  Likewise, if the squad is ordered to carry food, they will be assigned a backpack, equip it, then fill it with food.

Quivers work the same way.  When a dwarf is carrying a crossbow and his squad has been assigned ammo (bolts), the dwarf will automatically be assigned a quiver, equip it, and put the bolts in it.

So it's a thing where I want to have my leather shop craft waterskins/quivers and then the dwarves will come pick up one if they don't have one?

4.e: food vs booze: back when I first made the 2 stockpiles, I had dwarves instantly swarm the one pile and pull out half the things to put into the other pile (i am terribad about keeping 160 dwarves busy all the time). But now there's virtually nothing in either pile. And what is in the booze pile doesn't say 'dwarven wine' when i mouse over it. it's things like 'seed pot'. But somewhere in my fort, there are 700+ units of booze hanging out..... I'm almost tempted to make one large food pile again just to see if the dwarves will bring it back from wherever its gone....

4.e:  It kind of sounds like you accidentally disabled the entire section of Food in that one swarmed stockpile and enabled the entire section of Food in the other one.  The dwarves probably came by, picked up all the disabled items, then ran around your fortress, looking for other stockpiles to put it in.  (...)

Also make sure you know where each and every one of your stockpiles is.  (...)

I gave up trying to be all customy and just deleted the supposed-food-only and supposed-booze-only piles and just made one very huge pile that contains all food. Turns out they were just leaving the jars of booze at the stills; when I made giant-food-pile, they all were like HEYYYYY and everyone went and put it all in the food pile. Oh wellll. Good enough, I suppose.

Right now my fort is small enough that I still have a mental map of where everything is. This probably means that I'm not doing enough things (for example, while I have built a loom and a clothiers shop, I do not know what I am supposed to do with it) (also I'm currently trying to understand channeling-then-floor-building in the context of making underground-'above-ground' farm plots and wells; I've read all the wiki pages I can find on those subjects and I'm just not sure I get it). However you make a very good point about making a list of piles, and I'm sure eventually I will need to get that done.

good thing to note about the pri/assig tho. Buhhh so much to do in this game buhhh X DDD

well here's a question.

5, Construction things.

5.a: So, about this channel-then-floor thing, in the context of under-above-ground farming. I don't really get exactly what commands I'm supposed to give in what order to make this happen. So far, I'm thinking: mine out a room in the soil layer that will be for the plot(s). Send a dwarf outside the fort to climb up the hill and start channeling down from the outside. I'll designate one square on the surface to be channelled, then go down one zlvl and designate the exact same next square, etc, until my commands/the dwarf fall through the roof of the farm room. At this point... the whole room will become outside area? Just from one square? Even if the room is, say, 12x12? Then I go build a floor (build>Construct?) on the one square on the surface where I initially did the digging?

5.b: The same issue also confuses me about well construction. If I dig straight down, how does the dwarf get back up? I have to build a separate stairwell down to where the well ends, first? So, stair well, then channel? And then... idk, hope there's enough space for the dwarf to dig, fall into the water, walk around somewhere and... get out of the water and get to the stair well? There's a certain geographic element to this question that I don't think I'm phrasing properly. : x.

[Starver]

I don't mean for sleeping; one of my quirks is that I have enough bedrooms with bed-coffer-cabinet-door for every dwarf to claim one (even though I have ~10 that aren't claimed but whatever).  I mean barracks for training in. One large room with TIQ set for all squads? Or individual 8x12 barracks for each squad?

Oh, I have (as said) Rack/stand-based training rooms.  I just don't call them Barracks.  (Mentally, that is.  I'm not sure what the game calls them, it's been so long since I've bothered reading that bit of the screen...)

I often set up a 3x3 or 5x5 rooms (respective focal furniture in the exact central tile) for everyone.  I occasionally set up two, three, four or so and assign one or more squads to each, in some easy to manage permutation.  Training only, though, not the other stuff, which I've never seen need to accommodate.