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[TheSilverHammer]

I have heard about this game for quite some time, and I finally decided to give it a go.  It seems really cool, but *really* confusing.   I have some questions which have probably been asked dozens on times.  Id did read the help pages and look around a bit before asking them.

1.   Sometimes dwarves will die of thirst.   I have some ponds near my fortress, yet two of my first dwarves died of thirst on the 2nd year.   Why didn't they get water?   The other dwarves seem fine.

2.  Is there a better graphics set anyone can reccomend?  I am having problems seeing rooms / buildings outside (and sometimes inside).   With all the noise of the various plants and stuff around, it is hard to see if there is an actual building somewhere.  It would be easier for me if there was something a bit clearer to make it stand out, maybe even if buildings had a background color that gave them distinct patterns to stand out from trees or grass or whatever.

3.  Do dwarves need tools to do certain jobs?  IE: Mining picks?  I know when you create your expadition you can start with two mining picks, and the merhcant that visits sells them.  However, I can't see any stores of them that I might have.  In other words, if they are needed, how do I know how many I have?   What other tools are there you might need?   How do you craft tools?  I have not seen a building that makes tools yet.

4.  Frequently Ill have idle dwarves even when they have a profession set (in white) that is needed.   IE: I can designate a big area to be mined out, and only two dwarves will be mining it.   I can have 6 dwarves with mining set, and they will have 'no job'.   Why don't they mine?

5.  This may be related to 4, but someitmes Ill make buildings and it will say 'needs architecture' or 'needs masonry'.  Ill have dwaves with those jobs highlighted yet these buildings still are not built.

6.   What is the purpose of roads?   Where should I build them to?   This might be related to the next question.

7.  Is there a way to get a regional map?   I noticed my area has 'limits'.  I was digging to the left and ran into the edge of the map I think.  I couldn't scroll left anymore.  I assume I am on a regional boundry or something.   Is there any way to see the regional map?   Maybe I can see where roads are needed from this?   Is my fortress limited to this one map?

8.  Job management is a huge issue for me.   Maybe I am just missing something, but when you end up with a lot of dwarves, it seems like it will be unmanagable.   How do you make sure that dwarves have a job selected that can be used all the time?  Finding each dwarf and tweaking them seems to be very problematic.

9.   The tweaking problem is exasberated by the fact that setting some professions unsets others.   How many 'jobs' can dwarves do?   Id rather simply let the dwarves do jobs they like, but it seems i need to designate them all the time.   Do hauling jobs take up the job limit? IE: If I unselect hauling stuff around can I pick more professions that will stick without unselecting others?

10.  Does increasing a room size do anything?  I think I have seen some rooms or buildings I can increase in size, but I have no idea if that does anything useful.

11.  Do you need to micromanage all aspects of the economy?  For example, if I need stone blocks, it seems that I need to select the stone workers place and ask for a block of stone 10 times.   It would seem that I should either be able to ask for a finished product and then the production chain starts, OR simply say, keep at least 10 stone blocks available and if any are used, replenish the supply.

12.  I made a stairs down, but I couldn't figure out how to go 'down' to see the next level.   How do I do that?   I also noticed a building called support, which I figured out is a structural support.   When you are doing multiple levels, how do you know when you need these?   On my one-level fortress I created some huge open rooms without any cave-ins.

13.  A kobold theif kept showing up.   How do I get my dwarves to attack him or drive him off?

14.  How do I raise animals?  I made a storage area for them, but things like cows and whatnot never get put in there.   Can you get a pen for animals so that you can start a farm for meat production?

15.  How do you make pot-ash?   I kept getting messages about not being able to fertalize a field because of it.  I had a ash maker.  I read something about mud being needed for that and fields.   How do you make mud?

16.  Land clearance.  Is there any way to do this? IE: Clear an area of all obsticals so that you can make a farm?  I also noticed an indoor thing that seemed like this, smooth stone.   What is the point of smoothing stone?

17.  Is there a newbie guide anywhere, maybe a 'tutorial'?   The basics of starting a fortess to get food production, then a basic economy that produces goods to be sold, and finally building a basic socioty?   Maybe much of what I have asked would be answered there.

[InquisitiveIdiot]

1: If you started near an ocean, it may all be salt water.  Use 'i' to designate some ground near a pond, and see if "water source" is an option.  Aside from that, your dwarves should really be drinking booze.  If the happiness bonus weren't enough reason, sober dwarves are friggin' useless.

2: Big thing: turn off tile variation in your init file. It makes floors seem much less cluttered, because an empty floor is a '.'

3: Yes.  Miners need picks, woodcutters need axes, hunters should have crossbows.  Nothing else requires tools.

4: Because you only have your two starting picks?  Build a forge and smelt some new ones!

5: It takes a while to build bridges and such.  Your architect dwarf has to haul all of the building materials to the site before you see any progress at all.  Use 'q' to look at the building and see if it's inactive or not.  If it is, give the asked-for skill to someone idling.  Over time, almost all my dwarves get architecture.

6: Not much, atm.  In the old version, human wagons would not travel on anything but roads or smoothed stone, so we had to build a road to the edge of the map to get wagons.  Now roads are just there to look purty.

7: Your local map's size and location on the world map is decided at the time you embark.  You can't resize it, sorry.

8: It is.  I usually pause the game each wave of immigrants and sort them then and there.  I've got three or four job sets dwarves can fit into, depending on what I need:

carpentry, masonry, stone detailing, all the crafting, weaving, clothesmaking, wood burning, furnace operating, blacksmithing, metalcrafting, plant processing, architecture, butchery, tanning, leatherworking makes for a good general purpose craftsdwarf.  None of these skills really require a high skill level, so it doesn't matter to me that my mason decides he's going to make some charcoal.

Then I have some uber-specialized dwarves.  A few of them farm and brew, farm and cook, or just cook. I've dwarves that just smith weapons or just smith armor as well.  High quality products of these jobs provide substantial happiness benefits and trade goods, and help my military live that much longer/not kill each other in training.

Everyone else is given an axe and pointed in the direction of the goblins.

[edit] holy hell, I missed half your questions.

9: Dwarves can do all jobs at the same time, except for mining and woodcutting which require different tools (note that you cannot select both).  Some jobs take priority over others though; fisherdwarves will do nothing but fish all damn day, which is why I never ever use them.  Apart from that, it might be a good idea to take hauling off your trader and specialized dwarves, so they don't decide to stop doing anything useful and start dragging a stone from one end of your fort to the other.

10: It makes the room better which makes dwarves happier, mostly.  Archery ranges need a certain size for a decent firing distance, you'll want a large barracks for homeless dwarves and a large dining hall for the happiness bonus.

11: The Manager screen allows you to "place an order" for a job without fussing with individual workshops.  You'll need a manager (nobles screen) and a chair for him to process stuff at.  You can't request finished products, but you can request all the steps in the assembly at the same time, and the later ones will just spam annoying job cancellation messages until the previous jobs are done.

12: Shift+> will go down, shft+< goes up.  The 2d version did have caveins, but the cave in code is not implemented in this version.  Supports are basically walls that you can rig to collapse, good for traps.

13: Thieves.  Kobolds "siege" every year or so, consisting of a few inept thieves who try to sneak in and steal stuff.  Cage some animals at the front of your fortress so that the kobolds can't get in without brushing past them, and they'll spot the kobolds nearly every time, scaring them off.

14: Pets have a number of similarities to vermin in Dwarf Fortress.  They're annoying as hell, slow everything down and exist only to be slaughtered.  The difficulty is in getting them to STOP breeding.  On the bright side, you can get a tiny amount of meat from them!

15: Don't bother with potash.  Fields don't really need fertilization, and wood is far too valuable to waste on them.  You can make mud by pumping water onto dry land and waiting for it to evaporate or run off.

16: Farmers clear areas when building the farm, but there seems to be no way to "clear off" an area of stones and crap.  That'd be rather nice, actually.

Smoothed stone makes dwarves happier to walk on or less unhappy to sleep on.

17: No, losing is fun.  Blood for the dwarf god!

[ December 13, 2007: Message edited by: InquisitiveIdiot ]

[Dopefish]

It may also help to have a look at the wiki, located here: http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Main_Page

It has a number of useful tutorials as well as guides for the beginning player.

[Jefepato]

1. Not sure, but do you have any booze?  Dwarves will drink booze in preference to water, and you really should have a brewer working.  I've never had dwarves die of thirst except when I deliberately Cask of Amontillado'd some unwanted migrants.

2. I think some tilesets do exist, but I'm not sure where to find them.  I found that one gets used to the graphics surprisingly quickly (though I agree that workshops don't stand out so well outdoors).

3. Yes.  A dwarf needs a pick to do mining, and an axe (I think a steel battle axe is the cheapest) to chop down trees...

4. ...and that's probably why only two of your dwarves are mining.

5. How long have you waited?  Those dwarves may be asleep or on break or eating, or they may just be doing something else that needs doing.  (Sometimes it helps to set your most important dwarves not to do hauling jobs, etc.)

6. I think they're used to help human caravans reach you, though I don't know how to figure out which direction to build them in.

7. I don't think there is.

8. Pressing u brings you to the unit list, so you can see all your dwarves and zoom to each one without having to find him.  But yes, it becomes very hard when your population goes from 7 to 22.

9. I don't think there's a limit on jobs as such, but there's a limit on how much time your dwarves have between eating, sleeping, etc.  Efficient fortress organization can help a little, but as I said, it can help to turn off hauling jobs for important dwarves.

10. Which rooms do you mean?  Larger bedrooms and dining halls are higher-quality rooms, for example.

11. As far as I know, you do.

12. You move up a z-level with <and>.  You'll need a matching up-staircase or up/down-staircase on the level below to use your down-staircase properly.  I'm not sure how supports work in the current version; it used to be that making a room over 7x7 was risky.

13. I believe they have to be in the military.  In my experience, drafting nearby dwarves causes them to chase the kobold and smack him down.

14. Not a clue, sorry.

15. http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Potash   I never really found the need for it; farming produced more than enough crops for my dwarves anyway.

16. Depends what the obstacles are.  I think most can be eliminated.  Smoothing stone makes rough stone nicer, increasing its value (if it's in a room where that matters), and making it possible to engrave; both require the Engraver skill (which is the Stone Detailing job).

17. This is your new best friend: http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Main_Page

[TheSilverHammer]

How do I see how many mining picks I have?   How do I produce more?  I was looking at various shops, but none of them had an option to make a mining pick.

[Skanky]

You can see current holdings of weapons (and any other stock) by looking at the 'z' screen. Scroll down to weapons and it will show you how many of each type you have. By default you start with two copper picks and two steel battleaxes. Of note, the accuracy of this list is related to your bookkeeping accuracy, set in the 'n' menu. Your bookkeeper will need a room with a chair in it assigned to him to increase accuracy above minimal. Without accuracy, the stock screen will only show exact numbers and a breakdown of types of items if you hold less than 10. With maximum accuracy, it will always show exact numbers and types of items. When you look now, it will show "weapons: 4 - 2 copper picks, 2 steel battleaxes". If you built another 7 picks, it would only say "weapons 10?" and not tell you what types of weapons you had until you improved bookkeeping accuracy.

[Skanky]

To make picks, you need: a fuel source and some metal ore.
This can either be magma, or charcoal from a wood burner workshop. 'b'-'e' gets you to the smelting-related buildings. You will need a smelter to convert the ore into a metal bar (consumes 1 unit of fuel) and then a forge to convert the metal bar into a pick (consumes 1 unit of fuel). A metal industry is difficult to set up early on, however.

An easier option is to start out with 6 or 7 picks if that is what you want early on, or to trade with a caravan for them. You can request them to bring more picks, which they will do the following year.

[Skanky]

14. Place a cage somewhere, then assign all your animals to that cage. Once in, they will cease causing lag but still continue breeding (works for dogs and mules in my experience, presumably works for other animals too). Their babies will need to be assigned to the cage once they are born.

16. Smoothing stone outside removes boulders and allows you to build a road over that site. I don't know if you can build farms over that area after smoothing the stone, as I don't really use outdoor farms. Inside, you can remove stones by dumping them. This may not be what you were asking about, but it is useful enough that I will mention it anyway. To dump stones, use the 'i' menu to designate a single square as a dump site. Then use 'k' to look at the stones you want removed. Press 'd' on each stone and a dwarf with the refuse hauling task will eventually get around to dumping that stone. You can then reclaim the entire pile using 'd' then the reclaim items/buildings option which I can't recall the shortcut to at the moment.

[JoRo]

Picks are weapons in the forge menu, if you weren't looking there.

[Tayrin]

Just a few extra bits of information that may be relevant:

1. Do you know if the thirsty dwarves had any injuries? If a dwarf has gotten badly injured (by an enemy, wild animal or angry dwarf, or from falling down a hole, etc.), he or she will be required to rest in bed, often for a long time, in order to recover. A badly injured dwarf will display a rapidly blinking red cross on a white background.

Dwarves resting in bed will be unable to fetch any food or drink for themselves, and other dwarves will need to fetch these things for the injured dwarf. I believe they need the "Health Care" labor enabled to do this. Food is simple enough to fetch, but the drinks must be water, not alcohol, and must be carried in a bucket. A bucket can be made from wood at a Carpenter's Workshop, or forged from metal at a Metalsmith's Forge.

Also, a dwarf who has lost his or her sanity (this can be as a result of being too miserable, or not getting what they want during a so-called "Strange Mood") will no longer make any attempt to eat, drink or sleep, so this is another possibility for them dying of thirst. A dwarf's general status screen (press "v", move to a dwarf, press "g"; or press "u", scroll to a dwarf, press "c" then "g") may inform you that the dwarf is "babbling" or "melancholy", for example, and this is a sign that dwarf is going to die. Even worse, if the dwarf is "berserk", you'd best kill them as soon as possible, before they lash out.

It might help to know what the different colors of flashing, downward-pointing arrows on dwarves mean, if you don't already know. I believe brown means hungry, blue means thirsty, white means drowsy and red means unhappy.

6. I believe building roads leading from your Trade Depot to the edges of your map can be useful in forested areas to stop trees from growing back. This can decrease the chances of trade caravans being blocked by trees from reaching your depot. You can always chop the trees down, but more trees may grow where you don't want them.

I'm not sure how a wagon's route to your fortress is decided, but I try to keep the roads as straight and direct as possible (but always three squares wide) to match them to the most efficient route. I think a dirt road erodes away over time, but other roads will stay in place.

[TheSilverHammer]

I started another fortress, my old one was hosed.   The dwarves went nuts and starting killing each other.   The second one is going much smoother, except for one problem.

That is, I am not getting any immigrants.  I got some caravans, but after a few years I still only have my original 7 dwarves.   Any ideas?

Edit: As soon as I alt-tabbed back, my dwarves finished some tunnel and then suddenly 20 immigrants showed up.  Quite odd.   Now I am just trying to figure out how to do indoor farms.

I also can't seem to get my dwarves to mine down to another level.  I made some up-down stairs, and I show a select able area on the next level down where I can select it to mine, but they never go down and dig it out.

[ December 13, 2007: Message edited by: TheSilverHammer ]

[Tahin]

quote:Originally posted by TheSilverHammer:
<STRONG>I started another fortress, my old one was hosed.   The dwarves went nuts and starting killing each other.   The second one is going much smoother, except for one problem.

That is, I am not getting any immigrants.  I got some caravans, but after a few years I still only have my original 7 dwarves.   Any ideas?

Edit: As soon as I alt-tabbed back, my dwarves finished some tunnel and then suddenly 20 immigrants showed up.  Quite odd.   Now I am just trying to figure out how to do indoor farms.

I also can't seem to get my dwarves to mine down to another level.  I made some up-down stairs, and I show a select able area on the next level down where I can select it to mine, but they never go down and dig it out.
[ December 13, 2007: Message edited by: TheSilverHammer ]</STRONG>

Indoor farming is achieved by digging into a soil layer and building a [p]lot from the uild menu. If you're playing on 33e (The latest version) You'll have to digg down two layers instead of one, or else it won't count as aboveground, for some reason. You can also use water to create mud, which can be farmed, but that is infinitely more complex.

To dig down, [d]esignate a down stair, then move down one z-level and [d]esignate an up stair exactly under the down. You can also build an up ramp exactly 1 z level below where you want the down ramp, but that can be a tad bit more complex, so I suggest stairs, for now.

Up-down stairs are for connecting the level above and the level below. Think of them like a spiral staircase. They need an up-down/down stair above them, and a up-down/up stair under them to work properly.

[EDIT]: Oh, and about the dwarves going crazy and killing each other; get used to it. Quite frankly, seeing the little buggers kill each other is one of the best things about this game.

[ December 13, 2007: Message edited by: Tahin ]

[TheSilverHammer]

Things seem to be going a bit better on my second fort, although it seems like I really need to buy my food from merchants since my farms never seem to produce enough or much.  I also can't ever brew anything even though it seems that I have the right items (though I can't grow them).

One thing I noticed is that some tasks never get finished.  In the beginning I made a flint road, and made 2 sectons.   The first one was finished quickly.   The second just says it needs architecture.  It has been like that for 'years'.

Then I laid out some wall (is there a way to do this more then 1 piece at a time?) and a few wall sections just never get built, it says suspended even though other wall sections get made and if I make even newer ones, they also get made.

Currently I just got a goblin siege, but so far the goblins have not attacked my fort.   They are hanging out somewhere across the zone.  I have a few soldiers which I set to use plate and axes, I hope they can deal with them.  

I also can't seem to make steel.   I found out I need to make pig-iron, and it seems I just need iron to make pig iron, yet I never seem to be able to make it.  It just says "need item"  but never what item.

[ December 14, 2007: Message edited by: TheSilverHammer ]

[RogerN]

quote:since my farms never seem to produce enough or much. I also can't ever brew anything even though it seems that I have the right items (though I can't grow them).

What are you trying to grow, and how big is your farm plot?  A single farm ought to supply plenty of food (and drink) for a large population of dwarves.  Plump helmets and pig tails are your staple crops.  Quarry bushes have great yield, but you need bags and an extra processing step.  For simple plants, the process goes like this:

Start with seeds, a few empty barrels
Plant seeds -> Produces plump helmets / pig tails
Brew drink -> Produces dwarven wine / ale, and seeds
Cook dwarven wine / ale -> Produces Dwarven ale roast / wine roast, empty barrel(s)
Replant seeds

You must, however, make sure that your kitchen does not cook the raw plants.  Go to 'z' > 'Kitchen' to set cooking preferences.

[ December 14, 2007: Message edited by: RogerN ]

[Tayrin]

I remember I experienced some confusion about getting farming up and running when I started. It's easy to miss out a step, and have no idea what's going wrong.

Whenever your farmers finish creating a new farm plot, make sure to press "q", move to the farm plot, and select what you want to be grown in that particular plot. By default, "fallow" will be highlighted in white. This means nothing will be planted. Once you select a crop to be planted (press +- and Enter), the chosen crop will be highlighted in white, instead of "fallow".

In addition to this, you should be aware that crops are planted on a per-season basis. While choosing options for a farm plot, pressing a, b, c or d will display the crop that will be planted on that plot during spring, summer, autumn or winter respectively. I believe that if a crop is displayed in red, it is too late to plant that crop in the current year or season, and you should try again next year.

I don't believe there is currently any way to build more than one construction, such as walls or floors, at once. It would be nice to have this feature in a future version, as setting large structures to be built above ground can take a long time at the moment.

Dwarves will often suspend the construction of walls, floors and so on if they are interrupted by a dangerous creature, or are ordered to head back indoors. A suspended task will stay suspended until you press "q", move to the item in question, then press "s" to unuspend it.

If a construction is taking a long time to complete, it may well be because there's no healthy dwarf with the correct labor enabled who isn't currently busy with something else. You can check if something is being built, by pressing "q" and moving to the object in question. A yellow "construction inactive" means that no dwarf is even thinking about working on it at the moment, usually because any dwarves with the correct labor enabled are currently occupied. However, if there's no "construction inactive" or "construction suspended" displayed, but just a "needs architecture", for example, you can be assured that a dwarf, somewhere, is currently making some attempt to get the thing built.

Be very careful if you allow any dwarves to go near goblin siegers. In particular, watch out for the goblins shown in green, as their ranged attacks are currently pretty much lethal unless your dwarves are insanely resilient and well-protected (training with shields is said to be the best way to block ranged attacks, except fire), or have tricks up their sleeves. Although siegers don't do much more than mill around at the edges of the map in the current version, they will normally eventually go away after enough time has passed, and the "SIEGE" notification at the top of the screen will disappear to indicate this.

As for pig iron, the wiki mentions that it requires one iron bar, one flux material and one fuel.

[ December 14, 2007: Message edited by: Tayrin ]