Print

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

[Voyd211]

Starring me, your ineffectual, stubborn, memory-selective and nonsensical host.

So. First question. How do I actually get the dwarves to DO something? They're just standing there with their hands in the air like they just don't care. Care dammit!

[Particleman]

Depends on what you want them to do. If you want them to dig halls and stairs and ramps and such, for instance, you need at least one pick and a dwarf with the Mining labor enabled. Then, you need to designate what you want dug out, and how. If you want them to make stone chairs and tables, you need to build a mason's workshop first, then queue up some "make rock throne" and "make rock table" jobs there.

[Voyd211]

How do I get a pick? (I am very, very clueless)

I really don't know how to build, mine or even give any kind of basic orders.

Also, how do I go up and down layers?

[MonkeyHead]

You need the Wiki.

[Quietust]

How do I get a pick? (I am very, very clueless)

Unless you heavily customized your embark parameters, you should have 2 of them stored in the wagon - if you've unpaused the game for any period of time, one of your dwarves (with the "Miner" profession) should have picked one of them up already.

I really don't know how to build, mine or even give any kind of basic orders.

To mine, press the "d" key to enter the Designations menu, select the type of desifnation you want to place ("d" to dig a tunnel in the wall, "h" to dig a hole in the floor, "u" to cave upward stairs out of a wall, "j" to carve downward stairs into a floor, "i" to carve upward AND downward stairs out of a wall, "t" to cut down trees for your Carpenters, "p" to harvest plants from shrubs, etc.), move your cursor to the upper-left corner of the area you want to designate, press Enter to begin selecting, move the cursor ro the bottom-right corner of the area, then press Enter again to complete the designation. When in this mode, you can right-click on a tile to quickly move the cursor there, or you can draw designations directly on the map by left-clicking. If you place a designation in the wrong place and change your mind, press "x" to use the "Remove Designation" mode.

To build something (using the stone mined or trees cut down by doing the above), press the "b" key to enter the Build menu, select the type of building you want to build (most of the time you'll want to press "w" to select Workshops and then pick the type of workshop from that list), use the cursor to specify where you want the building to go, press Enter to place it, then select what you want to build it out of (the closest appropriate building material will be selected by default, so you can just press Enter again at this point). Once you unpause, a Dwarf should go pick up the building material, drag it to the construction site, and put the building together. If this doesn't happen, you might need to enable more labors on your existing dwarves.

Once you have buildings, press the "q" key and hover the cursor over them - from there, you can add new tasks to the queue, reorder existing jobs, suspend them, or mark them to auto-repeat.

Also, how do I go up and down layers?

Use the < and > keys.

[Trif]

You need the Wiki.

This is a good way to start.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Idiot-check: Have you unpaused?

[highmax28]

Quietust made a pretty good explination. The wiki is there if you need an in depth look on this. Personally, how I make my stuff is first, I make sure im paused. Secondly, I dig out a basic hole somewhere (usually in the side of a mountain) and cut down ALOT of trees and harvest ALOT of plants. Then I unpause and let things go off and build afterwards

[Particleman]

http://afteractionreporter.com/2009/02/09/the-complete-and-utter-newby-tutorial-for-dwarf-fortress-part-1-wtf/

I suggest at least reading the first three or four parts of this, even if you don't play along. It should help you get a handle on the absolute basics (making workshops, furniture, rooms, etc.) Yes, it's for a horribly outdated version of the game, but the absolute basics are still the same.

[highmax28]

Better yet, use captainduck's tutorials on youtube. Its for DF2012 (currentish version) and he goes in pretty good detail how to do things the right way from when you create a world to when you rule the world with an iron fist

[Voyd211]

Okay, I have an area that my miner's supposed to dig out, but he's idling. What's going on with Rigoth?

(no, he's not sleeping/eating/drinking)

EDIT: Okay, got him to work on other stuff and then do that. Now he's "on break." Better than idling, I suppose.

[Azated]

Okay, I have an area that my miner's supposed to dig out, but he's idling. What's going on with Rigoth?

(no, he's not sleeping/eating/drinking)

EDIT: Okay, got him to work on other stuff and then do that. Now he's "on break." Better than idling, I suppose.

I don't mean to dissuade you from the game, but you should really check out some tutorials. Unless you dedicate a very large chunk of time to playing the game (I mean days of successive game time), it's practically impossible to learn on your own.

You might want to check out the Lazy Newb Pack. It's essentially a collection of mods designed to make the game easier to learn for beginners while changing as little base gameplay as possible. Also, I highly recommend you download and use Dwarf Therapist. It allows you to see and modify your dwarves labor assignments from an easy to use third party program. I can guarantee without a shadow of doubt that every single person that plays DF uses it. It makes the game playable, for lack of a better description.

[thiosk]

You can read the wiki all day long.  I do.

But, go here, and do every tutorial, in detail.

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=31928.0

Start over and redo the first several tutorials several times.  FoCus on achieving the goals of the tutorials Earlier and earlier, then start thinking about more!

[The_Jester]

 Also, I highly recommend you download and use Dwarf Therapist. It allows you to see and modify your dwarves labor assignments from an easy to use third party program. I can guarantee without a shadow of doubt that every single person that plays DF uses it. It makes the game playable, for lack of a better description.

Actually there are quite a few DF players that don't use Therapist. Probably more that don't than those that do.

[Voyd211]

Hm, how do I get my dorfs to get stuff for brewing? My designated brewer didn't have anything to distill.