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[DocHarley]

So I'm working on what I might as well call my first real stab at a fortress and--no surprise--I'm running into some things which appear ready to make my game extremely fun any day now. I'm hoping some of you can answer a few questions I have and pass on whatever other advice might come to mind.

First, I have no iron or copper ores where I embarked. Instead, I have zinc which appears to be useless for weapon and armor crafting. I think I can get away with that by crafting the zinc into Shiny Things and trading them for iron or copper bars, along with whatever gems my dwarves get their lazy little hands on. Is this a worthwhile strategy or should I be looking for some other way to arm my military?

Next, despite my every intention to the contrary, I fear I may have delved too deeply. I dug my main stairway right down into a cavern system and passed through three Z-levels of it before I could wrangle my dwarves into stopping. It should go without saying that a quick look around shows Bad Things in the caverns and with only three soldiers--with two weapons between them--I'm thinking things will get extremely fun if I keep that access point open. Can I just build a wall around the stairs and seal off access to and from the caverns until I'm ready?

Then there's the matter of dwarf management. I've had only two waves of migrants and already I'm having trouble sorting out how to keep them all busy. I'm using Dwarf Therapist which makes things easier, but trying to figure out how to keep the idlers from being idle, what's next on the list of things to do, and who to crack the whip at...if I'm feeling this frazzled with less than 30 dwarves I'm pretty sure I'll be chewing on my keyboard when I hit 300. Any dwarf management tips or tricks you can share would be delightful.

Lastly, and maybe I'm just completely blind or something because I couldn't see this on the wiki, can I butcher and cook critters I catch in my cage traps? I'm starting to get a small collection of dingos and other potential delectibles and if I can turn my prisoners into meat snacks that'd be swell.

Thanks!

[BlackFlyme]

So I'm working on what I might as well call my first real stab at a fortress and--no surprise--I'm running into some things which appear ready to make my game extremely fun any day now. I'm hoping some of you can answer a few questions I have and pass on whatever other advice might come to mind.

First, I have no iron or copper ores where I embarked. Instead, I have zinc which appears to be useless for weapon and armor crafting. I think I can get away with that by crafting the zinc into Shiny Things and trading them for iron or copper bars, along with whatever gems my dwarves get their lazy little hands on. Is this a worthwhile strategy or should I be looking for some other way to arm my military?

Don't just go for bars, you can melt down the useless metal toys and instruments that they bring too. They won't give too much but it is better than nothing. If you are really hurting for equipment you can make a few wooden/bone crossbows and bolts. The crossbow's material makes no difference in it's ranged damage, and even wooden bolts can be quite deadly.

Next, despite my every intention to the contrary, I fear I may have delved too deeply. I dug my main stairway right down into a cavern system and passed through three Z-levels of it before I could wrangle my dwarves into stopping. It should go without saying that a quick look around shows Bad Things in the caverns and with only three soldiers--with two weapons between them--I'm thinking things will get extremely fun if I keep that access point open. Can I just build a wall around the stairs and seal off access to and from the caverns until I'm ready?

From what I understand, most people do just wall it off and ignore it until they are ready.

Lastly, and maybe I'm just completely blind or something because I couldn't see this on the wiki, can I butcher and cook critters I catch in my cage traps? I'm starting to get a small collection of dingos and other potential delectibles and if I can turn my prisoners into meat snacks that'd be swell.

Wild animals won't be butchered unless they are already dead, and tamed animals won't be butchered if they are dead, they have to be set to be slaughtered while they are still alive. Build a cage and put all the wild animals into it, then order them tamed and set them to be slaughtered in the z animals menu. That way when they are tamed the butchers will take them automatically.

[DocHarley]

Wild animals won't be butchered unless they are already dead, and tamed animals won't be butchered if they are dead, they have to be set to be slaughtered while they are still alive. Build a cage and put all the wild animals into it, then order them tamed and set them to be slaughtered in the z animals menu. That way when they are tamed the butchers will take them automatically.

Reading the wiki on animal training it sounds--at least at first blush--that taming an animal for the purpose of butchering it isn't economical. If I need to use meat to tame a dingo in order to slaughter it for meat, it begs the question "Is it worth it?"

Even if the answer is "no," though, I might still be able to beef up security with them. Hmm...

[jcochran]

First, I have no iron or copper ores where I embarked. Instead, I have zinc which appears to be useless for weapon and armor crafting. I think I can get away with that by crafting the zinc into Shiny Things and trading them for iron or copper bars, along with whatever gems my dwarves get their lazy little hands on. Is this a worthwhile strategy or should I be looking for some other way to arm my military?

As mentioned earlier, it's perfectly viable. Although to be frank, my major source of income during my first few years are prepared lavish meals. It's surprising what a pot or two of 'em are worth. Also if you have any sand on your embark, make trap components out of green glass. They have high value and their only real cost is time and fuel. And if you have magma, well ... fuel isn't needed.

Next, despite my every intention to the contrary, I fear I may have delved too deeply. I dug my main stairway right down into a cavern system and passed through three Z-levels of it before I could wrangle my dwarves into stopping. It should go without saying that a quick look around shows Bad Things in the caverns and with only three soldiers--with two weapons between them--I'm thinking things will get extremely fun if I keep that access point open. Can I just build a wall around the stairs and seal off access to and from the caverns until I'm ready?

Yup. Although a faster way of sealing off an opening into the caverns is to slap a hatch cover over the opening, then forbid it. Building destroyers can't destroy a locked hatch cover if they can't path to the top of it.

Then there's the matter of dwarf management. I've had only two waves of migrants and already I'm having trouble sorting out how to keep them all busy. I'm using Dwarf Therapist which makes things easier, but trying to figure out how to keep the idlers from being idle, what's next on the list of things to do, and who to crack the whip at...if I'm feeling this frazzled with less than 30 dwarves I'm pretty sure I'll be chewing on my keyboard when I hit 300. Any dwarf management tips or tricks you can share would be delightful.

I wouldn't worry too much about idlers. when you have enough dwarves, make some of 'em dedicated towards critical labors (miner, mason, cook, brewer, etc. Just have the labor you want turned on and have all other labors turned off including hauling tasks) and for those dwarves that are left over, turn on their hauling and let 'em work.

[smjjames]

Next, despite my every intention to the contrary, I fear I may have delved too deeply. I dug my main stairway right down into a cavern system and passed through three Z-levels of it before I could wrangle my dwarves into stopping. It should go without saying that a quick look around shows Bad Things in the caverns and with only three soldiers--with two weapons between them--I'm thinking things will get extremely fun if I keep that access point open. Can I just build a wall around the stairs and seal off access to and from the caverns until I'm ready?

Yeah just wall it off until you're ready. What you can also do is do remove upstairs on the stairs above the breach and then build an up stairs which will make it an up stairs only.

Wild animals won't be butchered unless they are already dead, and tamed animals won't be butchered if they are dead, they have to be set to be slaughtered while they are still alive. Build a cage and put all the wild animals into it, then order them tamed and set them to be slaughtered in the z animals menu. That way when they are tamed the butchers will take them automatically.

Reading the wiki on animal training it sounds--at least at first blush--that taming an animal for the purpose of butchering it isn't economical. If I need to use meat to tame a dingo in order to slaughter it for meat, it begs the question "Is it worth it?"

Even if the answer is "no," though, I might still be able to beef up security with them. Hmm...

Unless I'm actively trying to get some specific animal to tame and domesticate, I just tame and then butcher the random creatures that get caught in my cage traps. The only ones that you'd really have to pay attention to are the grazers as they can starve in the cages.

[Rimmy, Sniper]

For the dingo part, there are two things.

First, you can let them out, one by one and let your soldiers/hunters kill it, then the butcher can chop it up, or you can just go to the animals tab and set for butchering. If I remember correctly, you don't even have to tame it. You just have to go to animals, go to the bottom, find Dingo and (B)utcher them.

[Canisaur]

Then there's the matter of dwarf management. I've had only two waves of migrants and already I'm having trouble sorting out how to keep them all busy. I'm using Dwarf Therapist which makes things easier, but trying to figure out how to keep the idlers from being idle, what's next on the list of things to do, and who to crack the whip at...if I'm feeling this frazzled with less than 30 dwarves I'm pretty sure I'll be chewing on my keyboard when I hit 300. Any dwarf management tips or tricks you can share would be delightful.

First of all, I play with my population cap at around 80-100 dwarves.  If my fortress really gets productive and well established, I might raise it later, but I usually keep it around there.  It's a matter of preference, a balancing between how fast you want things done and how much you want to avoid tantrum spirals.  When I get to the cap, I usually have roughly half my population set as Military or 'Minions' in Therapist, which is basically my catchall "profession" that includes hauling and wall smoothing.  When you suddenly have 5000 rocks to move or a huge amount of goblinite to get inside before the next siege, you'll be glad for all those 'idlers' you have sitting around.

You don't have to keep all your dwarves busy all the time.  You'll have groups of soldiers, which you don't always want to have other professions so that they can spend their downtime training.  And when you get a Manager noble you should be using the Jobs screen to produce things, which will automatically set your various specialty (non-minion, non-soldier) dwarves to work making things.

The only thing to keep in mind about idlers is that dwarves who idle together tantrum together.

[smjjames]

For the dingo part, there are two things.

First, you can let them out, one by one and let your soldiers/hunters kill it, then the butcher can chop it up, or you can just go to the animals tab and set for butchering. If I remember correctly, you don't even have to tame it. You just have to go to animals, go to the bottom, find Dingo and (B)utcher them.

Actually, don't you have to train them first before butchering? By train, I mean using the animal trainer so that it won't attack your dwarves or maybe spook them, not fully domesticate.

[Pinstar]

Regarding the surplus of Zinc, tell your caravans you want lots of copper and nickel and buy up any copper or nickel items you can find. This will give you the copper and nickel needed to make Zinc really shine: Making Brass and Nickel Silver.

Now granted: Neither brass nor nickel Silver is any good for weapons, but they DO have really high base values. If made into decorations such as statues or used to stud other trade goods, you'll find yourself with a vast amount of wealth of which you can use to trade for iron/steel...and/or the raw materials needed to make your own iron/steel.


Also: If you embarked in a multi-biome site (always a good idea) Try doing some exploratory mining in the areas of other biomes. You'll often find very different stone deposits at the same Z-levels between biomes, and you might find whole veins of different metals that didn't appear in the earth on the biome you originally dug into for your fort proper.

[chevil]

For the dingo part, there are two things.

First, you can let them out, one by one and let your soldiers/hunters kill it, then the butcher can chop it up, or you can just go to the animals tab and set for butchering. If I remember correctly, you don't even have to tame it. You just have to go to animals, go to the bottom, find Dingo and (B)utcher them.

Actually, don't you have to train them first before butchering? By train, I mean using the animal trainer so that it won't attack your dwarves or maybe spook them, not fully domesticate.

All butcherable unrotten corpses in your refuse or corpse stockpile get butchered.

I like to use the mass pitting system with my military below waiting and almost all animal corpses get butchered. It is not a perfect system and some corpses will probably rot unless you have a lot of butchers and butcher's workshops. Also build everything with minimizing hauling times in mind.

[Garath]

not mentioned yet - training an animal like that takes 1 piece of meat and will likely bring you a stack of 10+ meat, some fat and a variety of organ meat for eating/cooking. Your dwarfs happily eat dingo eyeballs. Further you get a collection of bones and a skull. The bones can be made into crafts, used to decorate or made into crossbow bolts, the skull into a totem for trading. Taming it once to semi wild and then selecting it to be slaughtered is fine, it takes a bit before it reverts to wild.

There seems to be some confusion between butchering and slaughtering for some people. The question still stands, can you set wild animals in a cage to be -slaughtered-. That is, taken out of the cage to a butchers workshop and auto-killed. Not dropping it from a height or in the middle of your militia.

So yes, taming once and butchering is very material efficient. If you want to keep a few, the re-training, or reinforcement, doesn't require the piece of food in order to work, only every time you tame it from wild

[smjjames]

not mentioned yet - training an animal like that takes 1 piece of meat and will likely bring you a stack of 10+ meat, some fat and a variety of organ meat for eating/cooking. Your dwarfs happily eat dingo eyeballs. Further you get a collection of bones and a skull. The bones can be made into crafts, used to decorate or made into crossbow bolts, the skull into a totem for trading. Taming it once to semi wild and then selecting it to be slaughtered is fine, it takes a bit before it reverts to wild.

Especially when you are talking about larger critters.

There seems to be some confusion between butchering and slaughtering for some people. The question still stands, can you set wild animals in a cage to be -slaughtered-. That is, taken out of the cage to a butchers workshop and auto-killed. Not dropping it from a height or in the middle of your militia.

I just did it with a random vulture that had blundered into the cage traps. While you can mark it for butchering, but nobody will actually slaughter it until it is trained.

[Sutremaine]

You can pit the wild animal through your barracks roof (if the military can handle it). Alternatively, you can assign the wild animal to a pasture or (more safely) a chain. While it's being transported, it's a valid target. You can set your own military on it, or parade it past the human or dwarven caravan guards. While the latter option isn't always available, the caravan guards don't have to be told to attack the dragged creature.

[greycat]

Actually, don't you have to train them first before butchering? By train, I mean using the animal trainer so that it won't attack your dwarves or maybe spook them, not fully domesticate.

Butchering means you bring a dead wild animal's corpse to the butcher's shop, and begin a long process which eventually converts the corpse into usable meat, bones, skull, hide, etc.

Slaughtering means you bring a live non-wild animal to the butcher's shop and instantly transform it into usable meat, bones, skull, hide, etc.

Wild animals can't be slaughtered.  But if you manage to kill one somehow (traps, military assault, etc.), it can be butchered, unless it is too small, or too old, or too sentient.

Tame (non-wild; not necessarily fully domesticated) animal corpses can't be butchered.  If a tame animal dies for any reason other than having been slaughtered, the corpse is completely worthless.  You might as well atom-smash it at that point to avoid the miasma once it starts to decay.

So, if you want to slaughter an animal (instantaneous) instead of butchering it (engaging it in combat and then a very long job in the butcher's shop), taming it will cost only a bit of food and some animal training labor, and will save a lot of time for the butcher (plus whatever danger your soldiers may face if the animal is dangerous).  Aside from that, the main reason for taming animals is breeding them.

Note that animals brought by the elves are already tamed.  If you get lucky, you might even get a viable breeding pair this way.

[Merendel]

Do you possibly have silver on the map?  either native silver or galena(silver/lead mix).  You can at least make hammers out of silver and they do a reasonable job.  Cant remember if silver bolts are any good but they probably beat bone/wood.   Other than that your only options will be to trade for it, harvest goblinite, or tempt fate by diging deep and going for candy.