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[Leelu]

Hi Guys, I'm new to the game, and the forums, so 'Hey'.

This is my second attempt at getting into Dwarf Fortress, the former being a few years ago now.  I've watched many helpful tutorials and my fortress was well on the way to newbie greatness, I even had some smoothed areas, plenty of food, all was going swingingly. 

I just needed to hook up my well, after 3 missed attempts (water is not so easy for us beginners).  This time I thought I'd use a river (rather than a pond) quite some distance away.  As I watched the water heading down my long tunnel it occurred to me that I hadn't closed up the hole in the wall to allow my miner to dig out the tunnel (there is NO room for complacency in this game).  In a panic I set a job to get the hole filled and waited. Why is it that the most urgent jobs take so long to get started .  To make matter worse I'd opened up more space near the river to get the water flowing, so what had been a nice easy pace became a fast moving torrent. 

As the water hit my fortress, the dwarves suspended construction of the wall.  Then my announcements screen became a wall of red text.  But what got me laughing was the announcements that started trickling in that so-and-so had now been missing for a week, then another dwarf went missing then another and another (I have / had about 50 dwarves). Jobs were cancelled as the terrain became too dangerous.  My floors from the bottom up became swimming pools, I hadn't even opened a cavern so there was nowhere for the water to drain.   

The animals are all fine and the kittens are turning into cats.  But my fortress is a 7 water deep mess on every level.

I've been laughing until I cried and at that moment realised how great this game really is.  Losing really is fun. 

One donation to Toady on it's way

Leelu

[Astrid]

Why is it that the most urgent jobs take so long to get started .

Well they're Dwarfes, that's their nature.

Topic laughing, your Accident reminds me on my last fort. I had a little pool on its lowerst level with a bridge over it. Nothing fancy.
Hadnt even planned it to be there, it just was there and didnt bother me. Until recently (last days) i havent played DF very often either.

Neverless Later i found a single dwarf in the water floundering. In the unit lists i already saw someone on the way to the rescue.
Fine and dandy. I decided to go off, make something edible and leave him handle it. Yeah... When i came back 20 dwarfes had drowned.
Every time one jumped in to rescue the victim he became victim himself since they couldnt all swim. And tehy kept coming.
Killed half my population in the end. XD

So yeah. That wont be the first accident in your fort.

[Urist McLaptop]

Dork fortress lol

[martinuzz]

That sounds like you had some good times.
Next time, use this rule of thumb: before tapping a river, pre-install linked floodgates.

Also, install a raising bridge in the lowest level of your fortress, linked to a lever above maximum water level in case of flood. You can then use said linked bridge to slowly pump dry your fort, setting the lever on repeat (every time the bridge comes down, it crushes and destroys all water beneath it). You'd still need to cut off the waterflow first though.

[OcelotTango]

Attempting dwarven pluming is a great way to accidentally kill a fortress. More seasoned dwarf fortress players know a bunch of other cool ways to kill a fortress.

[Sutremaine]

You can also dig to the edge of the map and put a fortification there. The water will drain off naturally, though it may be rather slow unless you put perma-powered pumps at the start of each drainage tunnel. If your fortress is roughly vertical at any point you could make a pump stack and make every second drainage tunnel a J shape instead of an | shape.

But if you have the foresight to do that, you probably have the foresight to not need it in the first place.

[usgreth]

When designating access tunnels for dorfs to get working always assume that one day (probably tomorrow) water/magma/goblins/forgotten beasts/bronze colossuses(sp?)  will probably try to make their way down it.

[Tirion]

When designating access tunnelses for dorfses to get working always assume that one day (probably tomorrow) water/magma/goblinses/forgotten beastses/bronze colossuses will probably try to make their way down it.

Fixed that for you, preciouss.

[Loud Whispers]

When designating access tunnelses for dorfses to get working always assume that one day (probably tomorrow) water/magma/goblinses/forgotten beastses/bronze colossuses will probably try to make their way down it.

Fixed that for you, preciouss.

My current fort has over a hundred wells in one grand well room. One time a goat fell into one of the wells and died. It didn't stay dead however, and the Dwarven equivalent of whack a mole with crossbows ensued.

Any place in a Dwarf Fortress not completely filled with stone or walls is bound to collect invaders like dust.

[Leelu]

Thanks for all the ideas .  I started my next fortress straight after my unfortunate demise, making sure to build my well first, just incase.  All good so far.  I like the idea of the bridge on the bottom level, definitely worth doing, and floodgates too.  Lots to learn and lots of fun to be had in the process.

Thanks everyone

[thegoatgod_pan]

Try to have the water flow through a diagonal tile next time: reduces water pressure. also doors do just as well as floodgates in most cases.