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[downstroy]

Hello fellow dwarves!

I just tried this game lately (read 3 days ago), and I have quite "managed" to have a "running" fortress in a very simple environment (no aquifer, warm climate, calm zone, many metals, deep soil, river close ...)

So I will detail my play through and then comes the inevitable questions.
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We were seven young dwarves embarking to a long journey far from home. We were young. We were inexperienced. But we were hopefull.

This was our first trial, and so we didn't know what exactly to take, so a more experienced dwarf gave us some basic equipment and a priveless advice:
- In the long journey and great challenge ahead, try to make your life easier!

We did. We thoroughly examined the ancient maps and choose a good place for a strong fortress, far from any evil sources, with a nice river running across the mountain. The ancients told us that adventurers has reported many deep minerals and a good amount of soil to begin with, so it was a good place to start.

The installation was not an easy task, as we have to get familiar with our environment, but we managed to dig a small cavern and put our stuff into into. We dismantled the wagon to get some wood and then tried to enlarge the cavern.

Everything was running smoothly, migrants were happy to come join us in our duty, and to share our wealth. The fortress expands to a woping 70 or so dwarves. The first problem arise when our stockpile was full of unprepared fishes in barrels. We didn't know that we need to prepare the fish before eating it, so we made farm and leave the fishes alone, not understanding why dwarves didn't ate them (we went to aroung 900 unprepared fish at some point).


After a while, (roughlt 100 dwarves were with us), we figured how to make food from fishes! We ate to the point that there was no fish left anywhere. As the majority of the dwarves were fishing, and we went victim of our ignorance: passed a certain point, fishes disapear from the river. We didn't un derstood why, but we were very worried about it, as our first foor production comes from it. But we handled it with no casualties, and converted all the fishers to farmers in a breeze.

We were running the fortress, slowly learning, but during the course something intrigates us. The rate of the migrant and the speed of dwarf reproduction was very very fast. In a few seasons we were around 200, and we had to enlarge every single part of the dungeon, devasating forest because we didn't know that many wood construction could be done in stone (stupid young dwarves were we!), and planting farms everywhere.

When it was the most crucial our farmers went strange, and stopped planting seeds for an unknown reason. The food and booze supply went to almost 0, and the dwarves began to depress, breaking everything, going mad and ultimately dying of starvation or injuries, as we didn't know that we need a hospital. We have many casualties (aroung 60 maybe), but then, the farmers whanged their mind, and began to plant stuff again, booze flows and things calm down naturaly.

But we were know anxious, as those pesty farmers seems to control the whole things, and often went crazy and not plant anything. It is only latter that we understood what happened: we were mining underground for ore, and mining huge area, all the dwarves were busy hauling objects, too busy to farm, thus leading to a production crash. We learned from it.

At a point we went back to 230 dwarves and decided to move the fortress elsewhere. This has proven to be a big challenge, but we managed it. The only thing that we regret is that some bins and barrels couldn't be moved, ever. We took it like that and leaved many precious ores in our old fortress, for eternity.

We went then to 253 dwarves and were managing it, digging down in the ground to find ores and gems., occasionaly robed by kobold, but not a big deal. But our wealth attracts more monstruosities. A minautor comes. And with our one old military dwarf and his 5 fellow unskilled fishers/ dyers, we go kill them. We didn't know if we did, but it looks like (either we or the tamed animals deal, we couldn't tell in the rage of the battle). But before our squad was ready, he has the time to kill 30 of us, including children. we weren't too anxious, as dwarf seems to reproduce faster than cats.

Everything was under control, so we decided to make a well in the hospital, and also to behold a siege, just in case. We shouldn't have played with water...

We decided to drag water from the river, and build walls everywhere underground to make the water go where we wanted. BUT, we forgot that stairs let water pass, and then we open the gate of doom. The water comes, going as expected to the cistern we planed for our well. But it also took the stairs, and began to fill the whole 5 levels partially dug out. Something     strange      happened.    We  learned   by     ourselves    what     we     is called           dwarf       relativity.. . .. . Time is expanding         and we            are moving           so slow           now.


so we tried to stop the flow, but couldn't be fast enough to build a wall to contain the water. Everything is now hapenning very slowly and we don't know how to recover from our mimstake. I think we will abandon this fortress and make another one, if the time doesn't stop inbetween. We must act fast before being stopped for eternity here.

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So here comes the questions!!

A°) Industry related questions
--------------------------
1°) Why does farmer stop farming. It occurs many time, some farm plot are not cultivated, but I have many seeds and many farmers. Does hauling overwrite farming in priority?
2°) what are the priorities of tasks? hauling vs minning vs farming etc... Is there somewhere to find it?
3°) does my farmer need to be able to hold food in order to plant seed? (same question applies to a more extent to stonecarving, metalcrafting and other crafting industries).
4°) How to make leather ? Is leather created automaticaly and stored after slaughtering an animal?
5°) How to use bones I usually have an outside refuse stockpile, but I can't find how to use bones.
6°) I think i saw it is a bug that rivers with overficshing went empty of any living. Is there a way to prevent it? Is there a maximum number of fisher allowed to ensure fish renewal?
7°) Can we artificially create a underground pool and fish in it?


B°) general question
----------------
1°) Is the born rate and migrant arrival normal? I mean the population grow VERY fast, to a point where I didn't bother if some dwarf die because there are replaced by migrants/ new dwarves so fast
2°) I really had the fealing that until you supply you dwarves with food and booze, everything seems to autoregulates:
   unhappy dwarves die and get replaced. Hopefully leaving only the happy ones (let's call it natural selection)
   exterior threats are handled by caravan military guards (I got 2 minotaurs killed y them), I only needed some stone traps to prevent thiefs, but it was not "necessary")
3°) What is a good dwarf organisation? Is it "better" to a have dwarf dedicated to only one task (and even disable hauling), or to let them do anything? Or a mix inbetween (farmers should dye, plant seed, process plant, butcher animals etc)


C°) items question
------------------
1°) I understand that worn of clothes stay are thrown away by dwarves, and they are still assigned to them, so I run DFHack to unassigned them all so they can be dumped, I saw that this is a bug, but is there any way of preventing it to happen. running DFHack is not very game immersive
2°) Is there ANY way to move bins from one stockpile to another?
3°) Can metals bars be stored in bins? I know it can but in one of my stockpile (the metal bar one) nothing I do seems to make them go in bins, so they occupy a lot of space
4°) Can metal ores be stocked in bins
5°) Can stone be store in bins
6°) Can wood be stored in bins
4°) Does the stockpile need to accept furniture to have bins?


D°) Water question
------------------
1°) How to remove the last tile between water and the place where I want it to go
2°) Is there an easy way to stop flowing water
3°) How to place a screw pump properly

E°) Ennemy question
-------------------
1°) When do enemy began to be a threat (in a calm biome), In a 30 hours game I have yet to see something more impressive than a minautor (who almost always get killed by caravan guards ultimately)

This game is very nice! Many props to the creator (the one guy army), still the bugs and strange behaviors can lead to some stress ultimately.

Thanks for reading,


down

[usgreth]

Fields seem to pretty much sort themselves after you have set them up. One thing to check, have you enabled the crops (presumably plump helmets) for every season?
Bones are used in craftsdwarf workshops. I think it is only X bone[quantity] that are usable for this, your refuse pile probably has lots that cannot be used, although some of these may rot over time into a more useable form.
Having a dwarf die is sometimes quite unimportant. Having your legendary weaponsmith is a bigger deal. Urist McCheesemaker dying might not bother you but if he is the best friend of everyone else, you may have a lot more dwarves going crazy and berserk.
You will probably want dwarves to specialise at least to some extent, to get some high quality armour,weapons and furniture.
You also won't want your medical dwarves with every labour enabled or they will be busying carving a wooden scepter or hauling dolomite when a patient is bleeding to death.
If I remember right the normal setting for invaders to come is once you have reached about 80 dwarves or a wealth of 30000 (not sure on that wealth amount). Caravan guards will not suffice to stop a goblin siege or a bronze colossus.

I know it wasn't every question you asked, but I'm no mega-expert

[slothen]

A°) Industry related questions
--------------------------
1°) Why does farmer stop farming. It occurs many time, some farm plot are not cultivated, but I have many seeds and many farmers. Does hauling overwrite farming in priority?
2°) what are the priorities of tasks? hauling vs minning vs farming etc... Is there somewhere to find it?
3°) does my farmer need to be able to hold food in order to plant seed? (same question applies to a more extent to stonecarving, metalcrafting and other crafting industries).
4°) How to make leather ? Is leather created automaticaly and stored after slaughtering an animal?
5°) How to use bones I usually have an outside refuse stockpile, but I can't find how to use bones.
6°) I think i saw it is a bug that rivers with overficshing went empty of any living. Is there a way to prevent it? Is there a maximum number of fisher allowed to ensure fish renewal?
7°) Can we artificially create a underground pool and fish in it?

1.  Multiple potential causes.  Farmers may be busy with other tasks, the fields may not have the crop properly set for that season.
2.  No.  You get a sense for some jobs being higher priority than others, but there's no reference for this beyond experience.  Larger fortresses afford more specialization, and turning off hauling labors for critical or highly skilled dwarves is common.
3.  Your farmer must have functional arms and the ability to grasp to plant seeds.  "food hauling" labor does not need to be enabled for planting or harvesting, although if it is off the farmer will leave the food in the field after picking, and another dwarf will come put it away.
4.  If you put a tanner's workshop next to your butcher, skin will automatically be tanned to leather if set to do so automatically under the "standing orders" menu (o).
5.  Bones are used at a craftsdwarf's workshop and at a bowyer's workshop.
6.  Fishing is a very high priority task, fisherdwarves will fish all day and do nothing else, and generally generate a huge amount of food.  Depopulation is an issue that I think has been fixed or adjusted for the next release.  How fast or slow your area gets depopulated of fish depends on a number of factors specific to your location.  Moral of the story, if you run out of fish, stop fishing.
7.  I don't recall the details on this.

B°) general question
----------------
1°) Is the born rate and migrant arrival normal? I mean the population grow VERY fast, to a point where I didn't bother if some dwarf die because there are replaced by migrants/ new dwarves so fast
2°) I really had the fealing that until you supply you dwarves with food and booze, everything seems to autoregulates:
   unhappy dwarves die and get replaced. Hopefully leaving only the happy ones (let's call it natural selection)
   exterior threats are handled by caravan military guards (I got 2 minotaurs killed y them), I only needed some stone traps to prevent thiefs, but it was not "necessary")
3°) What is a good dwarf organisation? Is it "better" to a have dwarf dedicated to only one task (and even disable hauling), or to let them do anything? Or a mix inbetween (farmers should dye, plant seed, process plant, butcher animals etc)

1. yes
2. stone traps are pretty useless.  You'll see just how much/little defense you need soon enough.
3.  Mix/both/neither.  You'll figure out that in some jobs having a highly skilled dwarf is more important than for other jobs.  So unskilled jobs often get lumped in with hauling jobs.  A mix of specialization and general labor is usually good.  Dwarf therapist is useful for identifying which dwarf has the highest skills in a particular area, and is good for managing specialized labors and general haulers when you have a large population.

C°) items question
------------------
1°) I understand that worn of clothes stay are thrown away by dwarves, and they are still assigned to them, so I run DFHack to unassigned them all so they can be dumped, I saw that this is a bug, but is there any way of preventing it to happen. running DFHack is not very game immersive
2°) Is there ANY way to move bins from one stockpile to another?
3°) Can metals bars be stored in bins? I know it can but in one of my stockpile (the metal bar one) nothing I do seems to make them go in bins, so they occupy a lot of space
4°) Can metal ores be stocked in bins
5°) Can stone be store in bins
6°) Can wood be stored in bins
4°) Does the stockpile need to accept furniture to have bins?

1. you can hide the clothes, and eventually dwarves will throw them away or abandon them.  You can export/destroy worn clothes but this is click-intensive.  There are some mods that address clothing wear i believe.
2. Not in the sense of (move this from A to B).  Bins containing mixed items tend to cause trouble when used with give/take orders to other, more specific stockpiles.
3. Yes, if you have bins and the stockpile can take bins, they will put bars in them.
4. No.  Ores are stone, and they don't go in bins.
5. No.  But if you make the stone into blocks, it can be.  However, blocks cannot be used for crafts, only for building.
6. No, but wood blocks can be, just like bars and rock blocks can be.
7. To store empty bins it must be a furniture stockpile.  If you're storing crafts and you want them to go in bins, then you don't need to enable furniture for that stockpile.

D°) Water question
------------------
1°) How to remove the last tile between water and the place where I want it to go
2°) Is there an easy way to stop flowing water
3°) How to place a screw pump properly

1.  If its surface water you can channel the last tile from above without danger.  You can also dig diagonally into the water source so that it doesn't have a straight path (it has to go through a diagonal bend), this will slow the water flow down and the dwarf won't get swamped instantly by water.
2.  No.  You can use pumps to divert flowing water somewhere else, causing its previous course to become dry.
3.  Check out the entry on magma-wiki.  The pump is a two-tile building.  If it says "pump from south" then the southern tile is where a dwarf would stand if pumping, the northern tile is impassable and blocks the flow of water.

E°) Ennemy question
-------------------
1°) When do enemy began to be a threat (in a calm biome), In a 30 hours game I have yet to see something more impressive than a minautor (who almost always get killed by caravan guards ultimately)

Depends on how long in-game you've been, weather you have goblins or undead near by, and weather you have invaders on.  If you see snatchers or ambushers, then you will see goblin sieges eventually.  It depends on lots of factors specific to your game though.

[jcd]

I will answer what i know, until a more experienced overseer comes and takes charge.

EDIT - Ninja'd by Slothen


A°) Industry related questions
--------------------------
3°) does my farmer need to be able to hold food in order to plant seed? (same question applies to a more extent to stonecarving, metalcrafting and other crafting industries).
I depends on specific labour. Check the magmawiki

4°) How to make leather ? Is leather created automaticaly and stored after slaughtering an animal?
You need a tannery, a dwarf with tanning labour enabled, and an unrotten pelt from butchery

5°) How to use bones I usually have an outside refuse stockpile, but I can't find how to use bones.
Craftsdwarf workshops --> bone items and the dwarf with bonecarving enabled will do whatever he can

6°) I think i saw it is a bug that rivers with overficshing went empty of any living. Is there a way to prevent it? Is there a maximum number of fisher allowed to ensure fish renewal?
Check the wiki, but iirc you cannot exterminate the vermin population of a biome (normal fishes count as vermin). Otoh, you can fish a river so much that it will take a bit to repopulate.

7°) Can we artificially create a underground pool and fish in it?
I 'think' that you can. I have tried the same with canals. I think that vermin were getting through but not as fast as i fished them out.

B°) general question
----------------
1°) Is the born rate and migrant arrival normal? I mean the population grow VERY fast, to a point where I didn't bother if some dwarf die because there are replaced by migrants/ new dwarves so fast

It depends by what you mean fast, but it seems not right. An infant will take 13? years to reach maturity and work. (check the wiki for exacts)
But if your infants were becoming adults in a year, that is not right.
Migrants come according to fortress wealth as reported by the last outbound caravan. If you have a fort with 1000's of golden tables and engraved halls, expect many migrants.

2°) I really had the fealing that until you supply you dwarves with food and booze, everything seems to autoregulates:
   unhappy dwarves die and get replaced. Hopefully leaving only the happy ones (let's call it natural selection)
   exterior threats are handled by caravan military guards (I got 2 minotaurs killed y them), I only needed some stone traps to prevent thiefs, but it was not "necessary")

NO! There are terrors that can threaten your fort, and also sieges. You need ways to seal yourself in, and either elaborate trap systems or some military or both. If you are not digging too deep and you carefully seal caverns, then protect your entrance mostly.

3°) What is a good dwarf organisation? Is it "better" to a have dwarf dedicated to only one task (and even disable hauling), or to let them do anything? Or a mix inbetween (farmers should dye, plant seed, process plant, butcher animals etc)

specialization for some professions is good. You don't want your legendary weaponsmaker hauling dolomite to stockpiles. You want him making steel axes. (But if he is not making weapons, you could give him other things to do)
Likewise, you want a miner to mine, not do anything else.
Otoh, farmers can butcher and tan and mill and much more. Each overseer uses a different labour division system.
(dfhack autolabor plugin provides a way to control all this automatically if you configure it properly)

C°) items question
------------------

2°) Is there ANY way to move bins from one stockpile to another?

Sure. Empty bins are considered 'furniture' and go to furniture stockpiles. If the bins are filled, you have to haul what's inside the bin to a stockpile.
eg. for a weapons bin, make a new weapon stockpile and: either delete the old pile or make the new one to take from the old. The dorfs will haul as long as there space in the second stockpile.
 
3°) Can metals bars be stored in bins? I know it can but in one of my stockpile (the metal bar one) nothing I do seems to make them go in bins, so they occupy a lot of space.

Sure. Make sure you have enough bins, and that the stockpile is set to use bins.

4°) Can metal ores be stocked in bins

Nope

5°) Can stone be store in bins

Nope

6°) Can wood be stored in bins

Nope

4°) Does the stockpile need to accept furniture to have bins?

Nope


D°) Water question
------------------
1°) How to remove the last tile between water and the place where I want it to go

From above when possible. Channel the tile. Then make a floor over it for safety reasons.
If not possible: Have a fast dwarf dig it and provide him with a quick means of escape through an UPWARD stair or ramp. You could also make him smooth and then carve fortifications on stone to make water pass through.
OR, you could cause a cave in that will create a new way for water to move.

2°) Is there an easy way to stop flowing water

Cave-in on its way? Exposure to a freezing biome? Screw pumps and damming? Block its entry point?

3°) How to place a screw pump properly

It takes two tiles. If its pumping from N, then its oriented N-S. Then it takes water from one z lvl down from the N tile right above and it pumps it to the S tile right below on the same z-lvl it occupies. (check the wiki)

E°) Ennemy question
-------------------
1°) When do enemy began to be a threat (in a calm biome), In a 30 hours game I have yet to see something more impressive than a minautor (who almost always get killed by caravan guards ultimately)

I think it is on 80 ppl and 30k wealth as usgreth said, that sieges and FB's start, but ambushes and thieves are not limited by that.
And caravan guards cannot protect you from serious threats from above or below.

When and how you will get attacked is random though, so don't worry. Just get prepared. (there is always the possibility that goblins are extinct or cannot reach you. If so, there will be no sieges from them.)

If you really want fun, dig deep. Explore the underworld and eventually there will be threats.


For much much more info:  http://dwarffortresswiki.org/

[joeclark77]

A°) Industry related questions
--------------------------
1°) Why does farmer stop farming. It occurs many time, some farm plot are not cultivated, but I have many seeds and many farmers. Does hauling overwrite farming in priority?

Use Dwarf Therapist or some other tool (pencil + paper?) to organize your dwarfs labors.  You should have a few dedicated planters with only that labor allowed (by the time you have 200+ dwarves, 6 or 8 farmers would be good).  These farmers will gain skills rapidly and be much more productive.  Dwarves prefer labors they have skills in, so if you assign somebody with no skill to be a a farmer/hauler, he will do more hauling than farming.

4°) How to make leather ? Is leather created automaticaly and stored after slaughtering an animal?

Build a tanner's shop next to your butcher's shop, and make sure all your butchers have the tanning labor enabled.  They will automatically take the raw hide and tan it after butchering the animal.

5°) How to use bones I usually have an outside refuse stockpile, but I can't find how to use bones.

Build a craftsdwarf's workshop and set it to make bone bolts (for your archers) on repeat.  You can also make crafts out of bone, teeth, and horn, and "totems" out of skulls.

6°) I think i saw it is a bug that rivers with overficshing went empty of any living. Is there a way to prevent it? Is there a maximum number of fisher allowed to ensure fish renewal?

Rivers never replenish.  Even the ocean can run out of fish.  We just hope this will be fixed in a future version of the game.

7°) Can we artificially create a underground pool and fish in it?

You can pipe in water from the river (by digging a tunnel) and have it fill an underground pool, which your dwarves can fish in.  I don't think fish will appear in a pool that you fill by bucket-brigade.

3°) What is a good dwarf organisation? Is it "better" to a have dwarf dedicated to only one task (and even disable hauling), or to let them do anything? Or a mix inbetween (farmers should dye, plant seed, process plant, butcher animals etc)

Some things have much better (quality) results when done by highly skilled dwarves, like planting, cooking, crafting, and metalworking industries.  For these you will want dedicated dwarves.
For some things like mining, brewing and furnace operating, skill doesn't affect quality but it makes the work go faster, and you want the work to continue rather than your dwarfs getting distracted, so for these tasks you will also want dedicated dwarves.
For some other things, like wood chopping, you may not care so much about speed or quality, so those dwarves can be enabled to haul as well.
Finally you may also want some dedicated haulers with no other labors.

1°) I understand that worn of clothes stay are thrown away by dwarves, and they are still assigned to them, so I run DFHack to unassigned them all so they can be dumped, I saw that this is a bug, but is there any way of preventing it to happen. running DFHack is not very game immersive

Just wait a year or three and they will eventually get put into bins and you can sell them to elves.

2°) Is there ANY way to move bins from one stockpile to another?
3°) Can metals bars be stored in bins? I know it can but in one of my stockpile (the metal bar one) nothing I do seems to make them go in bins, so they occupy a lot of space
4°) Can metal ores be stocked in bins
5°) Can stone be store in bins
6°) Can wood be stored in bins
4°) Does the stockpile need to accept furniture to have bins?

Stockpiles can have a maximum number of bins or barrels assigned from the (q) interface.  Bars/blocks including metal bars and charcoal/coke, can be stored in bins.  Stones (including ores) and wood cannot be put into bins.  The stockpile does not need to accept furniture.  You simply have to set the maximum number of bins to a non-zero amount.

1°) How to remove the last tile between water and the place where I want it to go

Channel the last tile from the level above with (d)(h).

2°) Is there an easy way to stop flowing water

No

1°) When do enemy began to be a threat (in a calm biome), In a 30 hours game I have yet to see something more impressive than a minautor (who almost always get killed by caravan guards ultimately)

It's possible that you embarked in an area without any nearby goblins.  Since you have had kobolds, I know you didn't embark on a remote island.  Did you have humans and elves?  If goblins are available, then the rate at which they attack you depends on fortress wealth.  Start pumping out masterwork gold crafts or masterwork glass trap components.  Smooth and engrave your entire fortress starting with the bedrooms.  These will make you wealthy quickly and attract enemies.  If you never see a goblin, consider murdering elf and human caravans until they declare war on you and send sieges.

[VerdantSF]

Welcome to DF! 

C°) items question
------------------
1°) I understand that worn of clothes stay are thrown away by dwarves, and they are still assigned to them, so I run DFHack to unassigned them all so they can be dumped, I saw that this is a bug, but is there any way of preventing it to happen. running DFHack is not very game immersive

I don't mind it.  I look at using DFHack the same way I do Dwarf Therapist.  I tried the civilian militia work around, but keeping track of so many squads was a headache, so that ended real fast.  Every Spring, I just hit "cleanowned X" and think of it as dwarven spring cleaning . 

[downstroy]

Many thanks for all the inputs!

I finally decided to abandon the fort (mainly because it was not very well organized, and maybe also because I flooded 4 underground level). So with what I know now and what you have told me I am theorycrafting a new fortress which "may" be much more efficient!

Also many thanks for the max bin/ max barrel in stockpile, that was a gamesaver!

[Ionizer]

Note: I've only been playing a few weeks, so take this with a grain of salt.

For your problem with farmers not planting, you want to make a stockpile that only allows seeds, and make sure it doesn't take barrels.  Normally, dorfs will put individual seeds in bags, then put those seed bags into barrels.  IIRC, 100 seeds will fit in a bag, and 10 bags will fit in a barrel.  If all of your seeds are in the same barrel, only one dorf can plant at a time, even if you have hundreds of seeds.  Also, if you happen to misplace your "master seed barrel" or it gets forbidden or something, you just lost all those seeds until you fix it.  I'm assuming the reason the problem seemed to resolve itself was that your dorfs got new seeds by eating or brewing the plants and immediately planted the seeds before they could be stored in a barrel.