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[Toybasher]

I see. Yeah my layout is pretty terrible, I have aspergers pretty bad and i find the current way of designating mining annoying (press enter, drag, press enter, drag, press enter, drag,) so it takes too much effort to like make a hallway with several small rooms attatched. My entrance was to try and make like a hallway that could be sealed off with a drawbridge and I was trying to make a guard tower at the top. hence the ramp and fortifications, i also thought it would help if i had a wall caved out with fortificiations as the marksdwarves barracks, too.

On the subject of weapons, I'm thinking having each Urist in a squad use a different weapon counter-productive, especially since i noticed the fact my hammerdwarf is giving hammer lessons to my sworddwarf and speardwarf and macedwarf probably won't help their weapon skill.

About designating. I JUST noticed you can use the mouse instead, do most players perfer using the mouse, or do they like the keyboard "press, drag, press, drag, press, drag" thing better? I was having problems with it and thats why my fort had alot of one tile wide hallways, especially when i tried to go deep down, How do you perfer digging down? What i did is build a small 1 tile wide hallway, then a downward stairway, then another 1 tile wide, hallway with a downward stairway, etc. Is there an easier way to dig deep down, or am I doing it "correctly"?

For pump training to increase toughness, etc. Didn't Toady explicitly say that atribbutes are no longer tied to skill increases anymore and that a dwarfs atribbutes were "Final" once he migrated into your fort? I remember he said something about that so I thought pump gyms were rendered unpractical unless you wanted to get a bunch of legendary pumpers?

[Caprealis]

I hope you know that you can Shift-direction over to make digging faster.

And Hammers are the best native weapons. Whips beat everything though.

[Toybasher]

I hope you know that you can Shift-direction over to make digging faster.

And Hammers are the best native weapons. Whips beat everything though.

Yeah I knew about the shift direction thing since I first started.

[krenshala]

I hope you know that you can Shift-direction over to make digging faster.

And Hammers are the best native weapons. Whips beat everything though.

Yeah I knew about the shift direction thing since I first started.

You don't designate digging with the mouse?  I personally use both, depending on what I'm designating.  Using the mouse to clear smaller areas is way easier than the arrow key navigation, but using the keyboard is faster for larger (or longer) selections.

[Snaake]

...On the subject of weapons, I'm thinking having each Urist in a squad use a different weapon counter-productive, especially since i noticed the fact my hammerdwarf is giving hammer lessons to my sworddwarf and speardwarf and macedwarf probably won't help their weapon skill.

About designating. I JUST noticed you can use the mouse instead, do most players perfer using the mouse, or do they like the keyboard "press, drag, press, drag, press, drag" thing better? I was having problems with it and thats why my fort had alot of one tile wide hallways, especially when i tried to go deep down, How do you perfer digging down? What i did is build a small 1 tile wide hallway, then a downward stairway, then another 1 tile wide, hallway with a downward stairway, etc. Is there an easier way to dig deep down, or am I doing it "correctly"?

For pump training to increase toughness, etc. Didn't Toady explicitly say that atribbutes are no longer tied to skill increases anymore and that a dwarfs atribbutes were "Final" once he migrated into your fort? I remember he said something about that so I thought pump gyms were rendered unpractical unless you wanted to get a bunch of legendary pumpers?

A different weapon for everyone in one squad probably is counter-productive, yes. Try getting 2 users of each weapon type, and put each pair in their own squad, that trains all the time.

I mostly designate with the keyboard. 3-tile wide hallways are only 2 more keypresses than 1 tile wide ones, eg. NS one is d,enter,right,right,shift-up,enter for a 3x11. I use a lot of 11x11 rooms and areas, or rooms subdivided from that (four 5x5 rooms etc), because those are fastest to use. I only really use the mouse when I want to "paint", for example to make curved digs, or diagonal ones. For digging deep down, the fastest way is to select up/down stairways (i in the dig menu), then press enter, go down as many z as you want to dig down, and press enter (dig and other designations now work across z-levels, too).

Oh, and I'm pretty sure gyms still work, since last time I used them, I had all my pump operators at 2300ish strength by the time they hit legendary, and I wasn't selecting the rookies for strength.

[Toybasher]

...On the subject of weapons, I'm thinking having each Urist in a squad use a different weapon counter-productive, especially since i noticed the fact my hammerdwarf is giving hammer lessons to my sworddwarf and speardwarf and macedwarf probably won't help their weapon skill.

About designating. I JUST noticed you can use the mouse instead, do most players perfer using the mouse, or do they like the keyboard "press, drag, press, drag, press, drag" thing better? I was having problems with it and thats why my fort had alot of one tile wide hallways, especially when i tried to go deep down, How do you perfer digging down? What i did is build a small 1 tile wide hallway, then a downward stairway, then another 1 tile wide, hallway with a downward stairway, etc. Is there an easier way to dig deep down, or am I doing it "correctly"?

For pump training to increase toughness, etc. Didn't Toady explicitly say that atribbutes are no longer tied to skill increases anymore and that a dwarfs atribbutes were "Final" once he migrated into your fort? I remember he said something about that so I thought pump gyms were rendered unpractical unless you wanted to get a bunch of legendary pumpers?

A different weapon for everyone in one squad probably is counter-productive, yes. Try getting 2 users of each weapon type, and put each pair in their own squad, that trains all the time.

I mostly designate with the keyboard. 3-tile wide hallways are only 2 more keypresses than 1 tile wide ones, eg. NS one is d,enter,right,right,shift-up,enter for a 3x11. I use a lot of 11x11 rooms and areas, or rooms subdivided from that (four 5x5 rooms etc), because those are fastest to use. I only really use the mouse when I want to "paint", for example to make curved digs, or diagonal ones. For digging deep down, the fastest way is to select up/down stairways (i in the dig menu), then press enter, go down as many z as you want to dig down, and press enter (dig and other designations now work across z-levels, too).

Oh, and I'm pretty sure gyms still work, since last time I used them, I had all my pump operators at 2300ish strength by the time they hit legendary, and I wasn't selecting the rookies for strength.

Its that easy to dig down? I thought you had to do down stairway, then go down 1 z level, up stairway, dig out a TINY one tile thing for room for the second staircase, down stairway,  go down one z level, up stairway, rinse and repeat. Thats what I did, and let me tell you I got bored rapidly. I used 1 tile wide hallways because I read on the wiki doing so will help prevent fps drops from Dwarven brains straining to pathfind.

About my labors, another thing is like lets say i need a bridge build stat for whatever reason, but Urist Mcbridgebuilder is asleep! I assign Urist McPeasent arthitecture, so the job gets done. Then I forget who's labor i turned on! Too frustrating to check EVERY SINGLE DWARF for that one labor, so I just leave it on/off.

On my squads, Shouldnt it help to have like 10 dwarves in each squad? I remember reading the more people you have assigned to one squad the better, and i dont want to end up making 30 barracks and haev to assign each one a weapon, then have to send out kill orders for each squad, etc.
Or is pairs the best choice, like you said? I'm also afraid to draft too many cause of issues with civillian jobs, like drafting Urist McMiner who once drafted, will NEVER pick up his pick again due to a bug when the game was released (may have been fixed in this version)

[Corai]

Just use two up/down staircases. Its easier IMHO.

[Caprealis]

up/down stairs are awsome.. I have pillars of them all over the place..

Also.. I was playing around with your fort. and I added a few things that might help,

Ill post it if you want.

[Snaake]

Its that easy to dig down? I thought you had to do down stairway, then go down 1 z level, up stairway, dig out a TINY one tile thing for room for the second staircase, down stairway,  go down one z level, up stairway, rinse and repeat. Thats what I did, and let me tell you I got bored rapidly. I used 1 tile wide hallways because I read on the wiki doing so will help prevent fps drops from Dwarven brains straining to pathfind.

About my labors, another thing is like lets say i need a bridge build stat for whatever reason, but Urist Mcbridgebuilder is asleep! I assign Urist McPeasent arthitecture, so the job gets done. Then I forget who's labor i turned on! Too frustrating to check EVERY SINGLE DWARF for that one labor, so I just leave it on/off.

On my squads, Shouldnt it help to have like 10 dwarves in each squad? I remember reading the more people you have assigned to one squad the better, and i dont want to end up making 30 barracks and haev to assign each one a weapon, then have to send out kill orders for each squad, etc.
Or is pairs the best choice, like you said? I'm also afraid to draft too many cause of issues with civillian jobs, like drafting Urist McMiner who once drafted, will NEVER pick up his pick again due to a bug when the game was released (may have been fixed in this version)

Yes, it is that easy. This picture below really sums things up regarding stairs and ramps, it really should be added to the stairs articles in the 2010 and 2012 namespaces on the wiki (found it in the 40d one). Down or up stairs on their own are mostly used if you want the dwarves to be able to go only in that direction. And if you have a flat surface, you'll either need to dig down stairs, or channel a ramp down to get below that surface.

(not that the channelx2 picture should actually have ramps in both tiles, which you can then remove separately with (d)-(z) remove ramps and up stairs.


Having eg. architecture on on a couple of extra dwarves isn't that bad. However, try Dwarf Therapist, it makes it a lot easier to see at a glance what labors your dwarves have, and what their skills are. Especially useful once you get larger amounts of dwarves.

Having more dwarves in the squads just means you have more soldiers, so of course it's better if you have the equipment for them and they're at least reasonably skilled. However, 10-dwarf squads will probably train their skills up pretty slowly, unless 9 of them are already legendary with teaching skill, then the 1 noob will get trained to legendary in less than a year. You should either embark with a dwarf or a couple of dwarves with teacher and some military skill (dodging is nice, not easy to learn otherwise) maxed out, and make them your trainer corps, or have dwarves spar in pairs until you have a few highly skilled dwarves, then add a noob at a time to their group (or a noob to each legendary to mentor). Miners, hunters and woodcutters are indeed bad choices for military still, because when you activate them, you're basically telling them to drop their current uniform (pick, xbow/quiver/bolts, and axe respectively), and go fetch a new one. They will pick up the civilian uniform again when they get off military duty, though.

up/down stairs are awsome.. I have pillars of them all over the place...

Regardless of all that's been said about 1 central staircase being a security issue, having multiple pillars of them creates more paths, so potentially even worse for security, and I think it might also be pretty bad for pathfinding, as you're creating lots of new options to consider.

[Caprealis]

All my fortresses have a main gate/One Entrance. I use the traffic tools to divide the traffic around the fortress.
It works well. Security is not a problem for this fort.

5 Legendary lashers in the front door. ..

And I have enough lag with everything going on.. After I set'ed up the stairs and fixed the traffic. And cleared some items
it smoothed out the game play.

[Snaake]

All my fortresses have a main gate/One Entrance. I use the traffic tools to divide the traffic around the fortress.
It works well. Security is not a problem for this fort.

5 Legendary lashers in the front door. ..

And I have enough lag with everything going on.. After I set'ed up the stairs and fixed the traffic. And cleared some items
it smoothed out the game play.

Have you modded whips to be native, or do you have some other reliable method to get decent-quality whips for your lashers? (I dislike using anything with the () imported tags, so goblinite is an inferior option for weapons/armor - goblinite clothing being the significant exception)

[Caprealis]

I weed out the lower quality ones.. Masterwork, decorated, Iron whips are sufficient versus.. pretty much everything.

I don't think its possible to get anything higher. without modding the game. Which I should probably do some time.. To bad
it does not work unless you make a new world. I kinda like this fort

[Inarius]

My solution is a hard way. And quite unusual. I have already developed it in the thread "hospital issue", which gave me this idea.


1 : Capture a big beast. Something like a cyclop or a minotaur (I tried it with these two) and I suppose it works with a lot of other beasts. It must have the ability to grab items on the ground to fight. I don't know if it would work with goblin.
2 : Build a 6z pit somewhere in your forteress with a retractable bridge. 10z makes half of your dwarves dying. 6z is fine. I don't know if it works directly by sending healthy dwarf), I will try later. But when dwarves try to fight back against the beast, the beast kill him in two shots. That's why injuried dwarves are better.
3 : Build a second room next to the pit, with bridges linked to levers to make them independant. In the second room, free the beast and place cloths in it (silk trousers, leather coat, woolen shoe, whatever). If you don't, the beast will kill the first dwarves he will meet before grabbing these item from the dead dwarves. I have built a mass pitting area above the 2nd room.
3 : Burrow all your new comers (or everybody you want to train) on the bridge, and throw them in the pit.
4 : Very quickly, the beast will fight against one of the dwarves. He will beat him twice, three times, one hundred times. So many times that he will passes out of exhaustion several times. But he won't hurt him.
5 : During this time, most of the dwarves will dies from thirst, but those who will be beaten will survive and will no longer endure thirst or hunger or anything.
6 : After 3 months, they will have 2500-3000 in strength, agility and toughness.
7 : To recover your dwarves, you will have to throw new dwarves (dwarves, or trained beasts from the mass pitting room). This will distract the cyclop who will let your dwarf take him/her back. You can then open the bridge linking your fortress to the two rooms and forbid any objets except the dwarf you want to recover. Don't forget to un-burrow him or he won't be recovered !
To make sure the beast won't hurt anybody, i use to station a squad near the two rooms in case of any problem.
8 : This recovered dwarf won't be healed (and won't suffer from anything) before the beast is killed. You can keep him in a bed for 6 months and he still wil be fine.
9 : When your hospital is full of these dwarves you can kill the beast. I did it yesterday night, with 6 dwarves already recovered. After that, you can remove the beds, and after that the dwarves will be treated as "normal" injuried dwarves (I did it one by one). They perhaps aren't trained for military, but they are unbelievably strong, agile and though which is already a good start. I also think this modify endurance.

[Toybasher]

Thanks for the tips, guys. Next fort I will make sure to have proficient teachers, wider hallways, etc. (Worried about widening my current hallways, their full of masterwork engravings and I don't think my engraver can handle it without instant insanity)

Is there a version of Dwarf Companion that works with the newest version? I heard something about the utility makers dropped support for the newer versions. How much of a help is DC? I heard stories about people who once used it, never played without it, etc. Is it really as much of a help as its hyped up to be?

edit: I got dwarf therapist working, already I'm liking this tool. One question though is I cannot seem to find where a Dwarf's "Stats" are displayed, like for example his toughness and strength. Anyone else who uses it know where this info is displayed?

[Snaake]

Thanks for the tips, guys. Next fort I will make sure to have proficient teachers, wider hallways, etc. (Worried about widening my current hallways, their full of masterwork engravings and I don't think my engraver can handle it without instant insanity)

Is there a version of Dwarf Companion that works with the newest version? I heard something about the utility makers dropped support for the newer versions. How much of a help is DC? I heard stories about people who once used it, never played without it, etc. Is it really as much of a help as its hyped up to be?

edit: I got dwarf therapist working, already I'm liking this tool. One question though is I cannot seem to find where a Dwarf's "Stats" are displayed, like for example his toughness and strength. Anyone else who uses it know where this info is displayed?

I don't think it is, in the basic version of DT. Splinterz has made his own branch, where you can see a dwarf's stats, and a few other things too. It's also in the DT thread in the modding forum, but you might have to dig around for it a bit.