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[Teach]

I've recently started playing dwarf fortress and have read through most of the wiki, I understand most concepts but there are some questions which could not be answered by the wiki.

1. My third fortress (and most successful one) was in a terrifying region, I settled there because I wanted to play somewhere more interesting. I haven't seen any zombies/skeletons or anything that would be more of a threat to my fortress than the migrants that eventually exhausted my food stockpiles. I'm seeing a severe lack of wild/hostile animals any clue why?

2. How do people handle 20+ dwarves? I was fine with my 7, then a wave of 7 more came and I just drafted those into the military and had them spar. The next wave was too much, 20+, I just set most of them to hauling and was barely producing enough food for all of them.

3. After giving up on that fortress and trying to drown them I came across another problem, none of my dwarves would work. They were all chasing small animals. What causes them to chase those animals?

[Neonivek]

"2. How do people handle 20+ dwarves?"

Plump Helmets

[Dwarfler]

quote:Originally posted by Teach:
<STRONG>2. How do people handle 20+ dwarves? I was fine with my 7, then a wave of 7 more came and I just drafted those into the military and had them spar. The next wave was too much, 20+, I just set most of them to hauling and was barely producing enough food for all of them.</STRONG>

A smallish plot of farmland (7x7 or so) growing plump helmets year-round with maybe two or three dedicated farmers should feed your fort indefinitely.  Supplement with fishing and herb-gathering as necessary, and build a kitchen to cook surplus seeds, butchered meat and other ingredients you don't have another use for.

quote:<STRONG>3. After giving up on that fortress and trying to drown them I came across another problem, none of my dwarves would work. They were all chasing small animals. What causes them to chase those animals?</STRONG>

Cat scratch fever?

[Derakon]

Dwarves chase vermin when they don't have anything else to eat. This is a sign that you aren't providing adequate supplies of food for them. The aforementioned 7x7 farm plot is overkill to start with; you can get by with a 3x3 plot while you learn how it works. Read up on farming on the wiki. Bring a Proficient Grower with you as one of your starting seven dwarves, and only give him other work to do when he's planted all of the tiles in the farm (they'll change from tildes to equals signs to indicate they have seeds). Plant plump helmets to start - they can be eaten raw, they grow quickly, and they can be planted at any time of the year.

[Teach]

Thanks for the quick replies.
I had a 5x5 farm plot and a proficient grower tending to it.

[Lairian]

If a 5x5 wasn't sufficient food, change to quarry bushes, process them to bags in a farmer's workshop (one plant becomes 5 leaves), and then cook them in a kitchen using the lavish meal setting.  A good farmer -> thresher -> cook chain will net over 100 meals from 4 plants.

[Solara]

quote:2. How do people handle 20+ dwarves? I was fine with my 7, then a wave of 7 more came and I just drafted those into the military and had them spar. The next wave was too much, 20+, I just set most of them to hauling and was barely producing enough food for all of them.

If you were barely producing enough food, then you probably should have used these guys to make more of it instead of having them just haul rocks or whatever. (Heck, if nothing else have them carve the rocks so you can buy out the caravans.) Also, I suggest ditching the anvil in the beginning and using the extra points to buy tons of food and booze, that way you should be able to keep everyone fed for quite awhile until you get the hang of things.

Though really if a 5x5 plot can't keep your dwarves fed then something's seriously wrong...to begin with, did you turn off all other jobs (especially hauling) for your farmers, and make sure to have a seed stockpile right next to the plot? Is the main food stockpile, kitchen, and brewery reasonably close as well? You were growing plump helmets and not something that needs to be processed before it's edible, right?

And I think most people have difficulty dealing with migrants when they first start playing, but the key is to switch your thinking and your focus to the bigger picture. It's not about micromanaging a tiny handful of dwarves anymore and you'll run yourself ragged trying to keep up with what each individual is doing.

[ May 14, 2008: Message edited by: Solara ]

[Teach]

My farm was quite a was off from the kitchen, and no seed stockpile. Also, should I set the kitchen to repeat making easy meals?

[Loctavus]

Fish.

Seriously.

One skilled fisherdwarf can provide a veritable horde of fish to feed your dwarves, particularly if he hasn't got far to go once he's caught something. You can also apparently fish quite successfully from almost any water source. I usually dig an offshoot from the well I build in my fortress and channel it out, then mark it with a fishing zone. That seems to work just fine if you arn't too far from the river.

When more show up, draft some of them in to fish as well, and designate one as a fish cleaner then leave 'prepare raw fish' on repeat in the fishery. I usually have problems with food storage, not really a lack of it.

[ May 14, 2008: Message edited by: Loctavus ]

[martinuzz]

In reply to 1.)

It happens sometimes that you embark on a map that lacks in wildlife / undeath.
It definitly has its advantages, as the following dialogue will explain.

Human trader: "Please, do not kill us, just take our goods and let us go!
Mayor:   "Kill you? We've just come to trade with your caravan."

Human trader:   "Why is it, then, that you have us surrounded by 200 soldiers the moment we arrive?"

Mayor:   "They're not soldiers. They're civilians."

Human trader:   "Civilians, eh? Civilians clad in full steel and armed to the teeth. You expect me to believe that? Come on you sadist, just get it over with and kill us now."

Mayor:   "We're... Hunters."

Human trader:   "Hunters. Right. You know as well as I do that nothing bigger than a fluffy wambler lives in these lands.

Mayor:   "Yes. That is... very conveniant!"

In a area devoid of wildlife, you can turn on the hunting skill for all civilians and use the [m]ilitary menu to arm (and more importantly, armor) them.
Normally turning on hunting will cause dwarves to wander outside looking for wildlife, and turning it on on all your dwarves would delay your economy greatly. But without wildlife, no hunting jobs are generated.
Those goblins are surprised every time they think they have an easy kill on my civilians.

So for more of a challenge, your map did not provide the undead you hoped for. But then again, If you are still at the stage of having food problems, then I doubt you have seen any serious goblin sieges yet (population 50+, before that only minor ambushes, although those can be dangerous as well if they're archers)
So you could stick with the map for a while, practice your farming skills and let the goblins come. (They will come independant of the hostility / alignment of the territory)

For feeding my dwarves in the first year, I usually have one 3x5 farming plot producing only plump helmets. (EDIT: O, and don't forget to set the crops to be harvested for all 4 seasons.) Maybe some herb gathering. (take 15x PH spawn when embarking, and some points in growing skills on embark helps as well). When the first immigrants arrive, I usually make one extra planter and make a second 3x5 field. And indeed one dedicated fisher. And a fish cleaner. (Can have more jobs)
After that, It don't really matter. Food aplenty. Just make sure you have enough (specialized) plant and seed stockpiles. Experiment to your liking, familiarize yourself with the production chains.

Have fun!

[ May 14, 2008: Message edited by: martinuzz ]

[ May 14, 2008: Message edited by: martinuzz ]

[ May 14, 2008: Message edited by: martinuzz ]

[juckto]

quote:How do people handle 20+ dwarves?

Changing their labours over to something useful, and renaming their professions so I can remember who I set to do what, at least until they get good enough at it that they change colour.

Things to keep the newbies occupied:

Turning off hauling on all the decent dwarves, so they spend their time working and the peasants (and useless professions) spend their time hauling.

Stone detailing. When in doubt, smooth that wall!

Test-run elaborate traps.

Military training.

[ May 14, 2008: Message edited by: juckto ]

[Solara]

quote:Originally posted by Teach:
<STRONG>My farm was quite a was off from the kitchen, and no seed stockpile. Also, should I set the kitchen to repeat making easy meals?</STRONG>

No seed stockpile means your farmers have to walk all the way to the main food pile and back for every seed they plant, and they might suddenly decide they're hungry or thirsty or sleepy and drop the seed, which means someone else would have to come along and carry it back to the stockpile again before they can repeat the process. Just put a little spot that only allows seeds next to your farms, and forbid seeds in any other food stockpiles and you should start seeing a lot more crops actually get planted.

And it's not as vital, but still recommended to have the rest of your food stored reasonably close to the farms, because every plump helmet that grows needs to be harvested and moved there.

As for your kitchen, you don't want to cook your plump helmets because that destroys the seeds. (later when you have a huge surplus of plump helmet spawn you can cook that for extra meals since it's not possible to have more than 200 of each seed anyway, but of course by then you won't need the food so badly)

Mainly I use my kitchen for cooking the seeds of aboveground plants I'm not interested in farming, quarry bush leaves, flour, rendered fat, etc. If you're just growing plump helmets your dwarves can eat them raw. (The most efficient to do is brew them into alcohol and then cook the alcohol, though that's something of an exploit...)

[chaoticag]

Terrifying lands lack undead, or so I've heard. Try haunted lands.

[Derakon]

Lands where the plants are dead (indicated on the embark map by grey/red plants) will house undead.

[Goblin Dragoon 085]

@martinuzz thanks for the armed civilians principle.
Sound very interesting and convenient. I need to try it some time.