Print

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

[lastofthelight]

Before I actually state my question, I'll spend a few sentences apologizing for the double post - the topic of my post/thread from yesterday morning is more suited to a specific question (specifically, glacial caves), the issue of which has been mined out, and so it was either add to that thread (which has sortof finished itself, since the question's been solved) - or uh, start a new thread about another question. Anyways...

I tend to abandon my fortresses, with the intent of reclaiming them later, if anything doesn't look to be going my way - I havn't gotten past 7 dwarves yet, so this isn't that big of a deal.

But I've noticed that not matter what I do, on none of them are anvils ever reclaimed. Even stating off the bat that I know you have to go around and claim/activate things, whenever I try to /build/ say - a magma vent forge, or whatever, it will completly ignore the anvil sitting <wherever>.

I've noticed this problem in other situations, but I'm not sure if its the same problem. A few fortresses ago I built two thrones, and after assigning one to a room, the other got put in a stockpile - and I couldn't assign the other. The game claimed I had no other ones built - but I could /see it/. The same happened with a statue on the same map.

Anyone know whats been going on?

[mizipzor]

When reclaiming a site, all old items are initially forbidden, designate them for reclaiming to be able to use them.

[lastofthelight]

Yes, I realize this. This has been done. For an item, I select "k" and then click "claim" which changes to "forbid"

Addendum:

I'm going over this a few more times, and trying a few things to see what could be wrong, but I have no idea.

[ May 19, 2008: Message edited by: lastofthelight ]

[Crnobog]

I've had the same problem with unmovable and unusable stone blocks and furniture, though I managed to reclaim my anvils just fine. Repeated claiming/forbidding doesn't work and neither does dumping. Can't construct anything on top of them, I just get 'item blocking site' messages. No idea what's causing it, probably some kind of a bug.

[lastofthelight]

Ah, well as long as I know for sure its a bug, I feel better.

While we are on the subject of bugs - has anyone noticed that, even with an accessible trade depot, sometimes a caravan doesn't come? I'm in the summer /after/ the first summer at a site, and I'm /almost/ damned sure I should have seen one by now. It is a glacier, but its a flat glacier - and I know I've seen them at glaciers before.

[Torak]

It depends how far away from the caravan's parent civilization you are.

[lastofthelight]

Aaaah. So, being half a world away would mean they won't come at all - or might just take a few more years?

[Areyar]

Are you sure you have a stockpile that accepts anvils?
reclaiming won't work otherwise.

You probably know this already. :/

[ May 19, 2008: Message edited by: Areyar ]

[lastofthelight]

Yes, I have at least one stockpile of (almost) every useful type, plus a custom stockpile type I made to try and shove in as much as possible. It has to be a bug. Hurray - for once a problem thats /not/ my fault - as every other one will be!

Another 'newbie' question however.

Does anyone have any food-getting advice? I'm following these tutorials and almost always starve to death. Creating a plot of plump helmets, for example - a 5x5, starting out, seems to result in about 1.5 layers being planted - usually. Sometimes they'll plant them all and then let half of them rot.

I tried planting an outdoor strawberry plot, but they never /actually/ planted anything - I have a feeling on outdoor plots, it will let me select things to plant I don't actually have.

Fishing is out; while my fishermen /can/ fish without Animal Traps, they seem to do it unreliably - and it would take half of my 7 starting people to do reliably (one to clean and process, another to cook them, another to fish) - and gathering plants (which is what I'm doing right now, alas) - takes basically all of my dwarves just to stay even.

And I'm in a heavily forested area!

[Jhoosier]

quote:<STRONG> Does anyone have any food-getting advice? </STRONG>

I killed my first fortress because I planted one season and forgot to tell them to plant anything else any other time of the year, so they went insane with hunger.  Use <q> and select something to grow for each season.  Now I'm drowning in plump helmets.

Check your kitchen rules, <z> and make sure you aren't cooking all of your seeds, maybe you cooked all your strawberry seeds.  You can also see how many of each type of food/seed you have.

Only on my 2nd fortress, so I might be missing something.  Just my 2 cents.  Maybe try raising more animals?  I butcher all the kittens, and am going to have to start doing so with the dogs.

[Surma]

quote:Originally posted by lastofthelight:
Yes, I have at least one stockpile of (almost) every useful type, plus a custom stockpile type I made to try and shove in as much as possible. It has to be a bug. Hurray - for once a problem thats /not/ my fault - as every other one will be!

are you sure you have an empty food stockpile that is accepting plants?

quote:
Another 'newbie' question however.

Does anyone have any food-getting advice? I'm following these tutorials and almost always starve to death. Creating a plot of plump helmets, for example - a 5x5, starting out, seems to result in about 1.5 layers being planted - usually. Sometimes they'll plant them all and then let half of them rot.

Make sure you have one or two dwarves set to Farming (Fields), as they get better at it they'll be able to get more plants from a single seed.

If you have a low level planter set, when they try and plant they have a good chance at actually failing and losing the seed.

quote:
I tried planting an outdoor strawberry plot, but they never /actually/ planted anything - I have a feeling on outdoor plots, it will let me select things to plant I don't actually have.

It will indeed, to check what seeds you have press z (thats lower-case z) from the main screen, then scroll over (using the left/right arrow keys, default) to stocks. Once in the stocks screen scroll down (up/down arrow keys, default) to seeds, and you'll be shown what kinds of seeds you actually have.

quote:Fishing is out; while my fishermen /can/ fish without Animal Traps, they seem to do it unreliably - and it would take half of my 7 starting people to do reliably (one to clean and process, another to cook them, another to fish) - and gathering plants (which is what I'm doing right now, alas) - takes basically all of my dwarves just to stay even.

And I'm in a heavily forested area!

Fisherdwarves do not need animal traps. As they get more experienced their catch rate will increase dramatically. Enough so that a single (not even legendary) fisherdwarf will easily over fish a given area in a season or two. And yes, to rely on fishing you'd need 3 or so dwarves going full tilt. But here's a note, you don't need to cook anything, it just increases the dwarves happiness (and possibly fills them up more) and saves space in the food stockpile.

Again, dwarves set to plant gathering without being fairly good at it will not have a good return rate. What I mean is they're more likely to destroy the bush and get nothing out of it than one who is at a rank of professional. As they get better they have a better success rate.

[lastofthelight]

That could be it. I've been assigning my dwarves to tasks rather add hoc; the first thing I'd do is set the miners to digging, and then assign the rest of the (bajillion) tasks to the other 5 default starting dwarves (most of which had no useful skills - two fisherdwarves? Ugh) - as seemed useful.

I've been much more careful about my stockpiles though, obsessively organized, and keeping the seeds /inside/ - and its helping a bit; as is keeping the dwarves to specific tasks; letting them idle when they stop doing /anything/, rather then switching the jobs (why they sit around with no job so often I have no idea) - and this focus on a single dwarves skill seems to be helping too. I'm still having to micromanage everything about food making, and not doing much /else/ the first...well, however long the past few hours have been - but I show no signs of starving to death. Woot!

[ May 20, 2008: Message edited by: lastofthelight ]

[lastofthelight]

I apologize for the double post, but I'm trying to avoid starting yet /another/ thread here, with my endless questions - you have all been most helpful!

Two images first - a top cliff side, and a statue room (which everyone seems to be ignoring, but whatever) - that I want to try and get a nice mist going in.

   

   

Now, I'm basically going to flood the entire cliff top with water - the map is a sharp gradient cliffside, and I'm going to turn the poor little brook into a massive lake/river/hell for anyone trying to approach my fort from that area.

Anyways, I'm guessing that I can do one of two things, but I'm not sure which will work.

1. The water will flow straight down, never touching or flooding my statue room, but will create a fine mist, or

2. I'll need to make grates where the empty space is - lots of them, creating a nice fine mist, but not flooding anything.

In theory.

Which of these is the best tactic to take?

2. What are the ways to reliably create fire? The wiki article just mentions how the old version used to destroy everything. I'm trying to brainstorm interesting traps involving fire to use to brutally punish any invading forces (and boy I hope I get some). Sadly, I don't remember if the map has magma or not, and I'd rather not use reveal, since I have trouble un-revealing things. I do have wood though.

And

3. Is there a way to make an anvil without a forge already? Surely /someone/ had to have made a first anvil at some point in the past, so there must be a way.

And

4. If I tightly shut the doors to my stockpiles, that will keep out pets. Will it keep out vermin, too? This seems like it would be the only logical use to tightly shutting a door - but with my luck, I'd end up with 10x as much vermin and no pets to eat them!

And

5. When I type "C" - all I see listed is one dwarven civilization, but I'm almost positive I started in a heavily populated area. Does this make me less likely to get sieges?

6. I have the following food stockpiles - and my damn dwarves are STILL STARVING! Every last one!!!!

   

As you can see, they can cook things - my hope was they'd cook the damn alcohaul, but I turned on cooking plump helmets when it became apparent they'd rather starve - though thats not helping.

I have one dwarf making meals full-time, too.

[ May 21, 2008: Message edited by: lastofthelight ]

[ May 21, 2008: Message edited by: lastofthelight ]

[Samyotix]

1. In order for the statue room to work, (q) view the Statue, and use it to designate a room.

(About the waterfall - sorry, no idea .)

2.  AFAIK there's no way of making fire.
3. No, you need an anvil to make anvils. Buy one from traders.
4. AFAIK no, vermin can go through floors and maybe walls.
5. When you embark, press TAB to see if you have contact to civilizations. Unless you're on an island, you probably do have contact to dwarves, elves, humans, goblins.
AFAIK the distance (on the world map) to the other civilizations also affects trading and diplomacy somewhat.
6. Have you got a farm plot growing Plump Helmet?  
You posted the overview ... scroll right to "stocks", and check how many edible plants and prepared meals you have.
Dwarves can eat only some plants raw. If you planted Sweet Pod, I think it'll show up as food on the overview, but you need to process it before you can cook it.

Check out this thread for hints, including my huge rant, on farming ...
http://www.bay12games.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=11&t=002600

[Emerald Hawk]

To elaborate a little:

5.  When you hit "C" to see other civs, it only shows the ones that have already contacted you.  In all likelihood you are reachable by kobolds and goblins, they just haven't bothered you yet.

6.  If your dwarves aren't cooking the alcohol (which, by the way, you shouldn't have to rely on if your farms are working properly) make sure you have a kitchen or two, and at least two dwarves with the cooking labor enabled.  Also make sure the kitchen is close to the food/drink stocks.  Do your kitchens have the prepare a meal task on repeat? (I've had this task cancel itself on me for reasons unknown.)

As a side note, I see you have squaw root and goblin wine (made from squaw root?).  That's pretty cool, I've never seen it before.  Is it from a mod you or someone else made?

I've also never seen queen ants before.  I guess you could try cooking those if the dwarves refuse to eat them raw?