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[Marble_Nuts]

Welcome to the region of Oguspolmo

a harsh land of stone, wood, alcohol and industry (and maybe some elves hanging around somewhere around the corner...)

"You have arrived. After a journey from the Mountainhomes into the forbidding wilderness beyond. Your harsg track has finally ended. Your party of seven is to make an outpost for the glory of all of Tasterush. There are almost no supplies left, but with stout labor comes sustenance. Whether by bolt, plow or hook, provide for your dwarves. You are expecting a supply caravan just before winter entombs you, but it is Spring now now, enough time to delve secure lodgings, ere the dingoes get hungry. A new chapter of dwarves history begins here at this place! Rithstettad "Belltax". Strike the earth!"

Sooooo.... What is this all about? Well, I'm a mid experienced player which never got his fortress past a couple invasions. I'm having some trouble with many basic things, I might have caught some bad habits along my gameplay experience and I wish to best them. I will post regular progress of my fortress and will post a batch of question that I will drag from post to post until they are solved. I will often post screen shots, make sure to comment the layout/organization/defensive logic or whatever craps come to your mind :)

Just to mention, I'm rolling on mountain lion, using the MacNewbie pack with Dwarf Therapist and Ironhand graphic tile set.
Let's get on to it!

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I choose an embark I just discovered while browsing the forum and already tried a couple of time, quite successfully.
6 proficient miner/engraver and one broker/craft dwarf. I will wait for the first migrant wave for food prod, all I do is make the layout a first.

Here are all the items I brought with me at embark:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here is the ground layer. A good, clear zone that help me to understand better whats going around, especially during fights

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here is the ground+4 Layer. Not much mass to build, so I will prolly just go for a regular hole in the ground entrance with a stone fortress surrounding the entrance later on

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Just got in game and I already have a few questions, so lets get over them already:

1) Got some gold layer on the surface. How fast can a fortress overall value affect invasion, thievery and dwarf migrating? Should I not touch it for now?
2) Lotsa sand so I might set up a glass industry for the first time when the time come. I heard that placing one window for each bedroom can help to prevent vampire attack, because other dwarves can see them through while the vampire is feeding.
3) Got lucky, 2 horses that can breed. It's just a shame it take so goddamn long for them to reach adulthood... Can grazer feed on mossy ground generated by a breached cavern layer? Or do I need to keep them outside, always exposed to danger?

Edit : Ok I definitely want to go for glass since I found some rock crystal... Freaking sweet. In the wiki it says it's bugged tough, but the article is outdated. Does it work right now?

[VerdantSF]

I'll let others share their expertise on 1 & 2.  As for 3, yes, horses will eat cavern moss just fine .

[smakemupagus]

(1) Yeah, it affects all those things.  If you know how to get a secure fort up relatively quick there's no reason not to touch it.  If you get wiped by goblin attacks still, then just mine as much as you need to trade, and hold off on the solid gold dining room etc.

(2)  Sure, or just carve a fortification in each bedroom facing the hallway, or sleep in dorms, or just don't worry about vampires too much.  what are the odds you get one anyway?    Glass windows are a classy solution though.

Regarding rock crystal bug in the wiki ... Do you not see in the wiki how to tab over to the entries for the current version of the game?  At the top of the page in little colored box click on the v0.34.11, after which it will say "This article is about the current version" and there should no longer be bug warning

[Marble_Nuts]

Regarding rock crystal bug in the wiki ... Do you not see in the wiki how to tab over to the entries for the current version of the game?  At the top of the page in little colored box click on the v0.34.11, after which it will say "This article is about the current version" and there should no longer be bug warning

Actually, I didn't knew I could switch. Thats good new considering crystal glass has base val of 15 :)

On another note, the whole main floor is in alexandrite, granite, cobaltite and gold. It's freaking beautiful! I'mma save scum once to keep the untouched map for later use if I fail early. Might want to grab the seed to, such a nice embark!

[Marble_Nuts]

A couple of questions...

Since I made my hospital and an elven caravan arrived, everybody has been pilling cloth in it like crazy. My hospital now has 130 000 cloth when I set the max at 70 000. Why is that so and why won't they just stop?

Also, is it me or the charcoal units have been made bigger? It seem only 5 of them fit in a bin.

[Brilliand]

Since I made my hospital and an elven caravan arrived, everybody has been pilling cloth in it like crazy. My hospital now has 130 000 cloth when I set the max at 70 000. Why is that so and why won't they just stop?

Known bug.  There's a binary patch available (see the last note on that bug report).

[slothen]

I know this is personal preference, but I like to min-max a bit on my embark, at least when I know I won't immediately be attacked by zombies or something.  So most of my comments will be criticisms of your embark profile (don't take it too seriously though, it gives you extra work to do at the embark and doesn't make a difference in the long term usually).

6 miners/engravers.  I don't go for so many miners, but it has its advantages.  6 engravers though just seems silly.  Really silly.  That's what unskilled migrants are for.  Smoothing stone isn't a super high priority, and you won't have any cool history from engravings for a while anyway.  Much better to have skilled carpenters, masons, mechanics, smiths, brewers, cooks, planters.

With all the embark points you spend on those no-quality copper picks, you get a lot more bang for your dwarfbuck bringing a few fire-safe stones, some cassiterite, some copper nuggets, and about 30 logs.  If you know the steps of metal working, you'll have tons of bronze bars.  And if you have a proficient weaponsmith, you'll end up with some *bronze picks* instead of (copper picks).  You'll also have enough bronze left over for chains, armor, crafts, weapon traps, whatever you want.  And you'll have it all right on embark instead of needing to dig for it and chop trees.  (you'll have enough bronze to make a few trap components which you can use to go nuts when the first caravan arrives).  You'll can also save some embark points and bring more booze, or some cloth.

I like bringing some raw leather and some thread as raw materials, just in case I need to make some bags or bandage someone in the first year, before needing to go nuts with a cloth industry.  Getting rid of the crafted goods like buckets, splints, and crutches is a good idea.  Wood is cheap to bring and usually easy to find, you can make these when you need them.

I always bring more than 5 pig tail seeds.

1.  Doesn't matter if you find gold.  You have no anvil.  If you really want though, you can enable gold nuggets in the stones menu and make gold-nugget rock crafts.
2.  Glass is awesome.  You can make weapon traps, furniture, vials, and its magma safe.  Windows are baller too, and have many practical applications.  Don't worry too much about vampires until you think you have one though.
3.  Yes, cave moss works.  Don't forget to milk the females, and give them large, separate pastures.  Horses require plenty of space.

[Marble_Nuts]

>There's a binary patch available

Rolling on a mac, no patch available!

>6 miners/engravers.  I don't go for so many miners, but it has its advantages.  6 engravers though just seems silly.

Starting them at level 0 take so much fuc**** time for them to reach 10-11... Idk, I might just be a cleaning freak. I like my fortress to look slick! But in the end you are right, thats not the way to go, definitely. I end up after 3 migrant wave with unskilled dwarf for everything else than mining and engraving and I end up using my miner as hauler during that long time laps, not using their high skills. It is definitely a waste. I will refine my embark next time for sure.

> before needing to go nuts with a cloth industry. 

I know I'll sound nebbish, but nuts on cloth for what purpose? Trading? Aside from hospitals material and bags I don't really see the need. I haven't reached a point in df where the goal is trying to reach maximum wealth. Maybe one day...

>I always bring more than 5 pig tail seeds.

Why? You won't get the seeds back if you use them for cooking or crafting?

>Glass is awesome.  You can make weapon traps, furniture, vials, and its magma safe.  Windows are baller too, and have many practical applications.  Don't worry too much about vampires until you think you have one though.

Does green glass really worth it? Clear and crystal require 2 and 3 fuel unit per glass and seem rather to complicated to make early on until magma is raised up as the main fortress fuel source.

[Hurkyl]

Smoothing stone isn't a priority because it takes so long. Don't bring engravers on embark because smoothing stone isn't a priority. Smoothing stone takes a long time because you don't have skilled engravers. Smoothing stone isn't a priority because ....

Don't forget that DIYing your initial goods takes time and effort during the part of the game where time and effort are most scarce. These days I still usually bring a copper pick or two, even if I'm planning to set up an early bronze industry, so that I can get started that much faster, and can afford to wait until day 15 to set up my metal industry rather than having to set up a temporary one on day 1. Similarly with bags, and sometimes other things.

Even without an anvil, you can build rooms in the gold vein, and make gold nugget floors and walls to increase value of a room; using the gold nuggets for stoneworks this way doesn't "waste" it because it can be deconstructed and used for metalworks when you're ready.

[Hurkyl]

> before needing to go nuts with a cloth industry. 

I know I'll sound nebbish, but nuts on cloth for what purpose? Trading? Aside from hospitals material and bags I don't really see the need. I haven't reached a point in df where the goal is trying to reach maximum wealth. Maybe one day...

If your fort lasts a few years and attracts a lot of migrants, you'll need to produce a lot of clothes to replace clothes that wear out.  Robes and stuff make good trade items.  It lets your farmers do more productive work to get their skill up faster (without exploiting prepared meals). Or maybe it just gives you a thing to do if you're looking for things to do.

>I always bring more than 5 pig tail seeds.

Why? You won't get the seeds back if you use them for cooking or crafting?

I imagine it's so that you don't have to wait many years for your seed reserves to multiply (especially problematic with no skill growers!), and so that you can get plenty of thread your first year as well if that's your thing. Also, pig tails grow as fast as plump helmets, so it's nice for making ale to go with your wine.

>Glass is awesome.  You can make weapon traps, furniture, vials, and its magma safe.  Windows are baller too, and have many practical applications.  Don't worry too much about vampires until you think you have one though.

Does green glass really worth it? Clear and crystal require 2 and 3 fuel unit per glass and seem rather to complicated to make early on until magma is raised up as the main fortress fuel source.

If you have plenty of trees or coal and some bags to spare, green glass items are easy to make and worth more than stone items. More importantly, it trains your glassmaker, so that you have a skilled one available when you're finally ready to make some high quality clear/crystal glass goods!

It lets you train your jewelers too, if that's your thing.

[Brilliand]

Regarding rock crystal bug in the wiki ... Do you not see in the wiki how to tab over to the entries for the current version of the game?  At the top of the page in little colored box click on the v0.34.11, after which it will say "This article is about the current version" and there should no longer be bug warning

Actually, I didn't knew I could switch. Thats good new considering crystal glass has base val of 15

Where are you seeing 15?  The glass page says 10.

[slothen]

> before needing to go nuts with a cloth industry. 

I know I'll sound nebbish, but nuts on cloth for what purpose? Trading? Aside from hospitals material and bags I don't really see the need. I haven't reached a point in df where the goal is trying to reach maximum wealth. Maybe one day...

Ropes, wound dressings, and bags are the important ones.  My point was that setting up a cloth industry takes some time and effort, so its nice to have some of the raw material on embark, enough for one-off uses that doesn't justify setting up the industry.  YOu can import plenty of it later, which is important, as masses of bags is important in farming and glassmaking.  And once you're up to over 100 dwarfs several years in, you'll want to have that capability, even if you still import lots of cloth.

>I always bring more than 5 pig tail seeds.
Why? You won't get the seeds back if you use them for cooking or crafting?

I never have any trouble getting adequate food.  Booze and cloth are higher priorities, and pig tails are both.  Also, pig tails can only be grown half the year, so I like to be able to get a larger crop in initially, rather than plant 5 seeds and have to scour the caverns or wait until year 2-3.  Lol eating seeds.  Thats for starving dworfs.  Seeds are for planting.

>Glass is awesome.  You can make weapon traps, furniture, vials, and its magma safe.  Windows are baller too, and have many practical applications.  Don't worry too much about vampires until you think you have one though.

Does green glass really worth it? Clear and crystal require 2 and 3 fuel unit per glass and seem rather to complicated to make early on until magma is raised up as the main fortress fuel source.

I do lots of chopping.  I also chop the caverns sometimes, and buy out all the wood any caravans bring.  I don't use glass as a standard furniture material, but if you have sand, using a log for a glass weapon-trap item is better than building a wooden weapon-trap item.  Its also worth more than standard stone, you can make windows.  And again, great source for magma safe stuff.  So again, its not a go-to item for doing all your furniture, but it has some unique uses.  The green glass item that uses 1 unit of fuel is as valuable as any furniture or craft made from flux stone.

[Oaktree]

A lot also depends on what your civilization has available for you to bring along.

If they have lignite or coal then you can load up on that, plus one unit of coke, and build a smelter.  The initial unit of coke lets you produce more coke quickly and will quickly give you a fuel reserve to work with without having to chop wood logs and furnace it into charcoal on a 1:1 basis. 

Same concept applies in carrying along some base ores and making the initial bars that then can be used for making whatever you need; picks, weapons, trap components, etc.  One fireproof stone yields four blocks - and that can get you your smelter, forge, and two other furnace workshops.  And the 100 pts for the initial iron anvil is worth it since that's the basis for making more anvils and everything else.

Per getting the bars one of the better combos is a malachite stone (6 pts) and a casserite stone (6 pts).   With one unit of fuel for the smelter you get 8 bronze bars to work with. 

Green glass is a pretty flexible material.  Furniture, containers*, construction blocks, magma-proof, and can also be made into trap components that are fairly effective against at least wildlife.  And they also have fairly good trade value as well.

* - The glass vial is also needed if you ever want to start processing valley herbs into Golden Salve as a trade good.  High conversion value and not that labor intensive.

[Marble_Nuts]

Ok I think I understand why every time my fort goes bad. I seem to focus to much on the fortress layout that it postpone the point where I get enough stability to seriously dig into a steady metal industry leading to a military force that will let me overcome the third or fourth invasion without having to rely on an insanely trapped corridor.

I try to avoid using game features that I find game breaking, atom smasher, quantum dumping, danger room, trap overuse (especially cage trap which are insanely powerful) and so on... So I'll make a new game and try a new embark based on your generous tips you guys all gave me and get a steady military.

But before all this, more questions, always questions...

1) I've seen that 2 dwarf sparring is the fastest way for efficient training. Is there any way to train a huge military force that way without having to make one squad for each training pair of dwarves? Squads are buggy and it get mind blowingly difficult to memorize which dwarf haven't been assigned yet to a squad as it does not tell you if they already are.

EDIT : I found this :
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For organizing the military, put them in squads of two and reduce the "minimum soldiers required on duty" to 1 in their schedule. This ought to have them sparring (and thus training MUCH faster than by demonstration) a lot more. Make the squad leaders have the teacher skill, if they have it.

You can always sort them into proper larger squads later

No no no, you'd want to have squads of 3 with it set to train for 2 or 3. Set to 1 would be one Dwarf on their own teaching to their self. Set to 2 or 3 would allow for much larger sparring rates (including on occasion 3 Dwarves sparring altogether simultaneously).

It's a moot point though, since multiple training orders can be given. So you can give 4 training orders for 2 in a squad of 9-10 for example, and it'd have the same effect as splitting the squad into smaller squads.
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How do you set multiples training order in a single squad to make them train in pair in a squad of 9-10?

2) In the game I just made, I had surface and deep metal. I only found lead and gold at the surface. I haven't dug to deeply yet, but the lack or armor valid metal bar is a bit inconvenient. How deep should I dig to reach the "Deep" metal layers? -50?

3) You guys mentioned that that clothes eventually wear out, making you obligated to craft new one at a clothier workshop. How does item damage work out? Do they lose in quality over time? Or just simply break and "disappear"?

4) Does the quality of a pickaxe influence the working speed? What's the advantage of high quality, aside from global value or combat effectiveness for military items?

5) At what year do you guys usually pump out magma from the depths? Is it eventually required to do so or can you rely solely on wood, charcoal and worships built on top of magma chimney in caverns? Pump staking lava is a must in every steady games or a "not so required" mega project? The only time I used magma powered workshop was with surface flat volcanoes.

[BoredVirulence]

I am going to be honest. When I gen worlds, I give myself more embark points. Mostly because I tend to embark with 20+ dwarves, but whatever.

I often embark with metal ores so I can make some armor regardless of whats on the map.

Only clothes wear out. It takes a while, but its something you need to be prepared for. Its not a bad idea to get a small clothes making industry and just regularly queue up orders to clothes, sell the ones you don't want or need.

Quality does effect weapons, at least masterful and artifact quality do.

For a military, don't forget marksdwarves. They might be trouble getting started, but they are an easy way to defend your forts. Skill makes little difference when you can mass marksdwarves on the walls.