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[Vargas Gray]

I know that losing is !fun! but perhaps once in awhile you don't wish to see a fortress succumb to the tantrum spiral of children and babies. Like my current fortress.

It's a total mess! My stockpiles of alcohol are almost completely dry and my farmers doesn't want to do any farming even when I ordered them to process plants.

And my poor dorfs are going missing in the forest, I've lost more then twenty to thirty dwarves to that blasted forest that I'm currently trying to cut down like possessed.

And I'm experiencing the murders by a vampire that I can't locate, a quite cowardly vampire that attacks children, mostly at least!

Oh, yes I almost forgot: also it seems that I've collected a small army of ghosts that loves to batter my dwarves to shit - some have even died!

So here I stand with more then enough problems on my hands and then a new problem emerged: the dwarven children are starting to succumb to berserker rage and melancholy.

The first case of angry child where reported down at the fields where my dwarfs where completing the last tiles before I would let lose the water. Luckily enough the child decided to go into berserker rage with two wrestlers two to three tiles way from him: they ran off with his arms...

Most cases where in the middle of the fortress so the children could be dealt with quickly.

So here's my plea: is there a way I can rescue this dying fortress?

[AleAndSteel]

tips from a greenie:

as far as i know, processing plants isn't really farming and consists more or less of making plants into threads for clothes, so that could be why the farmers aren't doing anything.
But you could also just lock up every child into a seperate room, and give them a starving month. The weak die, the rest have prooven their worth to be enlisted into military servitude :3
Maybe for the Vampire, you could build doors everywhere and if you happen to notice a fresh kill, lock ALL the doors, and execute everyone in the corridor in a spectacular fashion for 100% vampire safety.
Aren't there any rivers in your embark area? You could make an underwater resourvoir to hold out during winter.

[Garath]

This fort sounds doomed, you made too many mistakes


most likely case of child rage: no clothes

ghosts: put dead dwarfs in coffins or engrave their names on slabs and build slabs somewhere

farming has little to do with processing plants. Brewing booze certainly doesn't.

Might want to read the wiki often. The wiki is your friend. You might also find your way to the DF gameplay questions subforum
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?board=7.0

I'd advice a LP, but they usually take hours, yes, the game is complicated. There is a quickstart guide on the wiki though that is pretty accurate.
On the wiki in the page on vampires, you'll also find a list on how to identify one. If that does not help, there are several vampire spotting tactics, and even vampire stopping ones


Once you actually figure out what your questions are, we'l be glad to help, this all is a bit to supervisual

[masquerine]

For the farmers, it's best to have at least one dedicated to ONLY farming. That way you'll always have some plants being planted instead of all your farmers running off to process or mill plants. Let haulers have those jobs if you have idle dwarves and need to keep plant production going in full force.

Children tend to tantrum and go berserk without clothing. The required clothing is a shirt, pants and shoes. Any other type of clothing is optional where preventing tantrums is concerned.

Ghosts happen when dwarves don't get buried or slabbed. If your orders are set to refuse outdoor bodies, any dwarves that died outside will not be buried unless the body is unforbidden. Coffins also need to be marked to allow burial after they have been placed. If the body is lost or destroyed, use a mason's workshop to make some slabs. An engraver can make them into a memorial at the craftsdwarf workshop. The dead dwarves will all be listed, and it tells you who is a ghost.

The easiest way to spot a vampire is to check out their thought screen. They tend to come from many different places, so if there's a wall of blue text they are likely a vampire. They tend to have white hair. They like to wear sentient bone jewelry too (dwarf, elf, human). Really long kill lists are common for vampires as well, as feeding on something during worldgen is a kill. They don't eat, sleep or drink, and only feed on others when they are asleep. You could make a temporary open dorm room to weed out the vampire, as there will be witnesses to the feeding.

[Talvieno]

Honestly, I think you'll get more answers here than on the gameplay questions subforum, provided you do a quick search before you ask to try to answer your own problem.


For booze, start a farm for plump helmets going. Go to your stocks screen (z) then switch to the Kitchen tab, scroll down and turn OFF plump helmet cooking (red text instead of blue). Cooking plump helmets destroys the seeds, and you can't plant any more after that. Once you get the farms up and running, you can use plump helmets for booze or food, either that you wish. Or both. But in the meantime, build a well. Water can be as far down below it as you wish, so long as there's a straight channel to it, and the water is at least 2 deep. (if you have a stream on your map, it couldn't be easier.)

For the vampire issue (if you want to do it without exploits), put the dwarves into a dorm, lock the bedroom doors, and possibly make it so the dorm is also a meeting hall (with a statue garden, for example). That ought to keep your dwarves in the same room, and if anyone dies, everybody'll point a finger. Also, get a sherriff/captain of the guard.

For the ghosts, make slabs at masons workshops and engrave them at craftsdwarf workshops. That'll put your apparitions to rest.

If they're going missing in the forest, there's a reason. Stop sending dwarves in there. =P Only cut down the parts nearest to the fort.


Just about any fortress can be rescued, provided that you know what you're doing, you don't mind starting fresh with new migrants and there aren't enemies actively killing everyone in your fortress.


Also, ninja'd.

[Garath]

Honestly, I think you'll get more answers here than on the gameplay questions subforum, provided you do a quick search before you ask to try to answer your own problem.

doing a search on BOTH will be best I've often sent people from there here, for example on the vampire facts, or training science. Sometimes people ask here, sometimes there, however, there are some links there for farming advice and the DF34.xx little questions thread is there, for all those things you know someone can tell you in a minute and isn't really worth it's own thread.

On the other hand, this subforum is quite full of threads that are completely meaningless to people with a question

[Talvieno]

Well, of course. That's exactly what I was saying. By "quick search" I didn't mean just one or the other, but rather both. Otherwise you haven't really tried to answer your own problem. Nobody can get upset with you for making a thread to ask a question you can't find an answer to, if you've looked. What I meant was that experienced people tend to visit this forum more than the other (by a lot) and therefore asking here will get you experienced suggestions/advice. However, it could just as easily get someone pulling your leg, come to think of it...

[Garath]

Well, of course. That's exactly what I was saying. By "quick search" I didn't mean just one or the other, but rather both. Otherwise you haven't really tried to answer your own problem. Nobody can get upset with you for making a thread to ask a question you can't find an answer to, if you've looked. What I meant was that experienced people visit this forum more than the other (by a lot) and therefore asking here will get you experienced suggestions/advice. However, it could just as easily get someone pulling your leg, come to think of it...

yup, that's what I was considering. Good to see we're on the same wavelength.

Most new players tend to go to gameplay questions. I'm pretty new (a year or so) so 2/3rds of my posts are there, with about 3% in my own threads.

I've used this example before:
Q: "how do I trade? I have an elf caravan."
DFdiscussion: Kill the tree lovers!
DFquestions: (q)over depot, (g) to bring goods, (r) request trader, (t) to trade. When ready after selecting his and your items, (t) to trade, (o) to offer a gift

[Ubiq]

If your farmers aren't working the fields for whatever reason, then have them gather plants and brew whatever they come up with. If your fort is in a forest, then there should be a fair number of brewable plants around.

Also, make sure that you have the seeds necessary for that season.

[Maynot]

Best way to find a vampire is to check his relations.  If there is a diety in the list, view it and try to find the guy's name on that list.  If there is no name that matches the dwarf, he is guaranteed to be a vampire.

[Talvieno]

Best way to find a vampire is to check his relations.  If there is a diety in the list, view it and try to find the guy's name on that list.  If there is no name that matches the dwarf, he is guaranteed to be a vampire.

Don't vampires take new names when they arrive at your fortress?

[Callista]

Do you have doors on all your rooms? Start locking them to isolate insane dwarves. Let them die in these rooms, and collect the bodies when possible--preferably before they start rising as ghosts. You can do the same to very unhappy dwarves, locking them in their rooms while they tantrum, but be sure to let them out before they starve.

Everyone who is still sane should start making coffins and slabs.

Make sure that you have a legendary dining room for them to eat in, but also remember that this is where they will congregate, and if they start tantruming will start killing each other. If you see this start to happen, lock them out.

Isolate any dwarves who do not have friends. They will be the survivors you will use to restart your fort. Get them food and booze and lock them away.

Remember that berserk dwarves can be caught in cage traps. Leave them in the cages; they will eventually die.

Closely monitor your hospital. This is where dwarves will be getting that last-straw "has witnessed death" thought. Just like your dining room, this may become a nexus for tantrums. I leave it up to you whether you will try to rescue injured dwarves (with the accompanying good thoughts for rescue and being given food), or simply close the hospital to stop the insanity from spreading. Either way has its merits. The worse it is, the more likely you'll want to triage it and just close the hospital.

Take non-soldiers off military duty. Close the fortress gates and ignore caravans and invasions. You don't have time for them.

Your dwarves will be accumulating crimes. If the crimes are punished, you may end up with dwarves on chains. Try to keep them alive if they're still sane. Watch out for dwarven justice if you don't have a proper jail; your lawbreakers may end up dead if you don't. If the crimes are not punished, you will have unhappy nobles, but they're usually the first to go nuts during a tantrum spiral, so you might as well just lock them away preemptively. You could lock away whoever is responsible for hammering dwarves, of course.

Keep pets alive and out of the way of tantruming dwarves. Pasturing them somewhere out of the way is a good idea, if you can spare the workforce to drag them there. If not, lock them in a convenient room.

Prioritize slabs for ghosts in order of annoyingness, berserker ghosts first.

Prioritize rotting corpses over fresh ones or skeletons. The miasma causes bad thoughts.

The brewery should be second only to the coffin makers and slab engravers. If you run out of booze, you might as well kiss your butt goodbye.

[Garath]

Best way to find a vampire is to check his relations.  If there is a diety in the list, view it and try to find the guy's name on that list.  If there is no name that matches the dwarf, he is guaranteed to be a vampire.

not all gods that curse vampirism or werebeast curses curse ALL of their followers

[slothen]

in a tantrum spiral, you basically have to let it run its course.  There's a good chance come recent migrants won't be completely depressed when everyone else eventually dies.  However, if you want to survive, you have to make careful priorities.  When dwarves aren't tantruming, they will do work, and there's a few things that absolutely must be done even while the tantrum spiral is in effect.

You must have enough booze.  Insane dwarves stop eating and drinking, so what you do have will last a long way, but you'll be so busy with other things that you can't afford to let this slip.  When you're down to a handful of sane dwarves, a few barrels of booze can make all the difference.

Graveyard.  Build one outside where bodies won't give off miasma.  You won't have enough coffins to store everyone in them fast enough as insane dwarves die off in waves.  Getting the bodies organized and preventing miasma is a huge help.  If you're counting on 5-10 dwarves surviving the spiral, you can't afford to lose a few of them due to miasma.  Don't worry about the slabs until the very end, or unless you've got a violent ghost you can't lay to rest.

Cancel all other jobs except for refuse hauling and food hauling.  Lock off the fortress and focus on the above two jobs.  Have rooms ready to assign to the projected survivors (Therapist is a huge help in identifying the dwarves you have a chance to save).  Pray for migrants.  Allocate arms and armor to the potential survivors to protect them against berserk dwarfs, but for the love of god do not activate/draft them.

[Callista]

Don't cancel burial!--keep the ghost population down.

Yeah, drafting civilians causes bad thoughts. I once *started* a tantrum spiral that way.