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[ocmsRzr]

After being accosted by a group of goblins last year and now having my
only puny, poorly trained squad encased in tick webbing I'm wondering
if there is a way to ensure peace while my dwarves toil, and while I
learn how to train a standing army. After each visit I loose 10-20fps
permanently... and my site has a waterfall which isn't helping
anything either. I'm hovering between 50-60 fps, down from the 100 I
started out with.

I know this borders on cheating, but I'm interested in learning how to
train an army and tackle some larger engineering projects without
being attacked by goblins and giant ticks etc. I was thinking of
starting a new fort with a population cap of 50 or so, and then when I
had an efficient setup going, raising/removing the limit. (Of course
then all the bad guys can show up, that's the point)

[proxn_punkd]

Two words: "Danger Room". (Look it up!)

[Larix]

Population limits don't prevent thieves, forgotten beasts or ambushes. I have a tiny, ten-dwarf pop_cap (but no child cap, thus 40 dwarfs by now, of which 21 are adult) glacier/tundra fortress, that's been accosted by ambushes numbering more goblins than i had adult dwarfs.

The only way i know to really keep disturbances off the map is to set INVADERS:NO in the d_init file (in the /data/init folder). This results in a game that bears little similarity with Dwarf Fortress, it's more a building/management simulation.

[Skorpion]

Just turn off invasions until you feel you've got the hang of the training.

[Garath]

The only way i know to really keep disturbances off the map is to set INVADERS:NO in the d_init file (in the /data/init folder). This results in a game that bears little similarity with Dwarf Fortress, it's more a building/management simulation.

This

it's a perfectly good option when learning or experimenting. When building your first magma pumpstack and can't really be bothered with dealing with the goblins and such, or with trading for that matter, you can raise the bridge and let the world pass by, or you can turn invaders off. When doing new and interesting constructions or testing out new trap ideas for flaws, dwarfs tend to die too, so all the regular stuff is still there - food, happyness... For that matter, defence with traps is so over powered that I don't hae to notice goblins, it's just a slight annoyance. If it's an annoyance rather than something that makes the game challenging, turning it off doesn't substract anything from the game. I turned it back on again when I switched from mainly trap to mainly militia defence.

After all, DF -IS- a building/management simulation to a large degree. It's like saying sim city was only worth playing with disasters turned on. Not an entirely accurate comparison, but I think it has the general idea

[Catsup]

The first things you should build when starting a fort after digging stone are walls seal-able with only hatches or raising bridges so that you can cut off access to the outside at anytime. Once thats done you can train some marksdwarves and make some ammunition. The amount of marksdwarves dont matter as even a few can repell a siege trying to go into your fort if they are unreachable behind fortifications (beware elite goblin archers).

for the giant tick consider using a forgotten beast/titan cave-in trap like the one in my sig. Very simple to construct and maintain, and instantly gets rid of trapavoiding uninvited guests.

[monk12]

As far as the FPS part of it, waterfalls in general do bad things (despite being really neat.) FPS tends to drop after repelling sieges and ambushes due to all the loose items littering the map- sell them to the caravan, throw them in magma, or atomsmash them. Lower fortress population will help FPS across the board, and small squads of a couple dwarves each will train faster and be more effective than a mob of ten dwarf squads, and will be easier to equip as well.

[ocmsRzr]

Thanks for all the great advice! DF is seconded only by the amazing community of players.

Quick question(s):  If I set INVADERS:NO in the d_init, I can switch it later to have baddies attack me?  Also, will it prevent caravans?

I'm going to work on danger rooms next, but there always seems to be something that gets in the way.

[Larix]

I happen to prefer playing with invaders off, so i think this should be fairly accurate:
INVADERS:NO prevents incursions of thieves, ambushes, sieges, titans and forgotten beasts. The thieves it prevents includes the well-known kobolds and goblins, but also 'thieving' animals like rhesus macaques, bears and vultures. It also keeps out some types of aggressive cavern creatures (naked mole dogs, rutherers, possibly troglodytes). It will not hinder caravans, and it will not prevent homemade desasters like busting open a clown car or a loyalty cascade.

I do not know if it prevents friendly civilisations to go to war with you; it hasn't happened to me, but the only time i really tried was with invaders on.

You can switch invaders on or off at any time, you only need to re-start the game and the setting will be respected. Invasions that are already in progress (invaders already on the map, possibly also invaders 'dispatched' from the entity sending them) will still take place, but new invasions will not be set in motion. Similarly, after turning invaders on, you will need to wait a few seasons before the goblins get into full swing again. But rest assured, they'll come back...

[slothen]

Thanks for all the great advice! DF is seconded only by the amazing community of players.

Quick question(s):  If I set INVADERS:NO in the d_init, I can switch it later to have baddies attack me?  Also, will it prevent caravans?

I'm going to work on danger rooms next, but there always seems to be something that gets in the way.

Yes you can change it back for the same fort.  No it does not interfere with caravans (even get more caravans since sieges interfere with caravans).

Danger rooms work, but you can make a few squads with TWO dwarfs per squad, they'll get pretty good skills in a year or two.

I recently turned off invaders for a fortress that has some very complicated constructions.  I'm still losing plenty of dwarves to cave-ins and babies to starvation.  It would be trivial to make some entrance traps to drown/trap/kill/drop every goblin, but I'm really trying to focus my attention on designing artificial waterfalls and canal lined streets.  Trying to carve out 10 z-levels of earth into open space while your fortress is operating below is trickier than it seems.

[Garath]

my point exactly. One time I was so busy making a sort of fairy-tale fortress filled with a maze of death that I forgot to keep an eye on booze supplies. That can be quite a problem in a big fort as slowed-down brewers have serious trouble keeping up with a very thirsty population, and I was running out of plants because farming had slowed down too, same prety much went for food, which caused dwarfs to eat plump helmets and strawberries and such that I really needed for brewing... Work was suspended for 2 years and a few people tantrumed, no spiral Lucky enough, before operations were back to normal