Bunch of random questions here, some might be i am just new to DF overall..
I saved an embark profile from my first game with v3. I felt then like I had way more embark points than I deserved, so I grabbed a turret and some relatively expensive animals. Now I load this profile and have nowhere near enough points.. it seems low even just for food and more basic animals. Do the embark points vary or I am just confused?
The first thing that happened in the first game was my ward of Armok got into a fight with a toolbox. This means that the toolbox "animal" was a hidden cult member? Various animals and turrets and stone decoys and sprites were fighting with each other. I don't quite get how these things are used or where I put them before I have whatever building they are supposed to be used with.
How do I pick up stuff on the battlefield? Last game the elven caravan got attacked by something. I swear my military was inactive, I got no notice, but one of my guys ran out to the corner of the map and died, along with the caravan leader. Logs didn't show anything. There was a caged raptor, moon arrows, tiaras, all sorts of goodies I wanted to pick up.. but I couldn't. I just got some ridiculous settler wave, so had 30 idle.
I tried o> r> o to have them not ignore refuse outside. I tried forbidding and reclaiming. I tried dumping. I tried adding stockpiles for the types of things in the treasure pile. I tried AOE designate > building properties to get them to claim/dump/set forbid and un-forbid. I tried going into stocks and seeing if stuff was forbidden. Nothing worked, they just ignored the gear. I left open a gate so people could go out and was getting owned by thieves/mages sneaking in, got pissed and ragequit the game.
I had 50 settlers and some of them were complaining about being naked or something... What is my clothing strategy? I'm looking for any guides on setting up barracks, archer towers, scheduling training and all that if anyone can point me to these.. What are some good strategies for defense with the stuff Masterwork adds? I get to about a point where I have walls and a couple bridges up, but no traps and defenses beyond that and get sieged immediately or something goes wrong.
How can I get an actual river or brook in my embark? I search for has a river. It lists a stream or brook. 80% of the time, the map actually just has random murky pools, even though the world view shows what looks like a nice stream running through it... I selected a spot with an aquifer once and the whole map down about 5 levels was coated in water, so I just avoid aquifers. Is there any other water underground? I don't see how to make a well.