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[Tawa]

Hi. I'm new to fort mode, and decided to take some tactics I found in tutorials and the wiki's quickstart guide.

I actually made it kinda-sorta far, at least for a noob, and managed to get some immigrants.

Unfortunately, I'm having trouble getting a food or booze industry up, and most, if not all, of my dorfs "have been hungry/thirsty lately".

Things look bleak in my future. Should I keep the fort or abandon it and raid the good stuff from it in adventure mode?

[Tarzanello]

I think I've learned some of the best lessons in trying to keep alive a fort which was already doomed. It is a good practice ground for micromanaging and thinking outside of the box and, well, if some "experiment" goes south who cares, those dorfs were dead meat anyways. In short: it pisses you off less when experimenting with ballistas kills your lone competent weaponsmith in a budding fortress, less so when he would have died all the same. At least you can tell yourself you simply shortened what would have been a long agony

[VerdantSF]

What sort of biome is your fortress in?  Some regions have plenty of outside plants that you can gather for both food and booze while your underground farms get up to speed.

[TheSaberTooth]

Hi. I'm new to fort mode, and decided to take some tactics I found in tutorials and the wiki's quickstart guide.

I actually made it kinda-sorta far, at least for a noob, and managed to get some immigrants.

Unfortunately, I'm having trouble getting a food or booze industry up, and most, if not all, of my dorfs "have been hungry/thirsty lately".

Things look bleak in my future. Should I keep the fort or abandon it and raid the good stuff from it in adventure mode?

If you have trouble with food/booze, then I suggest you scrape some things in your embark for more of either, make a world with more embark points for more, slaughter some dogs or other animals (assuming you have a butcher's workshop), or set up farms early.

Also, I consider booze more important than food, since without food, dwarves can manage for some time, but without booze, the dwarves will slow down in everything they do, including, say, trying to brew more beer.

As for the fortress, I would just abandon. If you like the map, you can just reclaim.

[ShadowHammer]

I think that you should keep it. Doomed forts are fun, and as mentioned above, you can usually just (d)esignate (p)lants to be gathered from the surface, if you really need to.

[Aslandus]

You'll have to be a little more specific with your problem if you want useful advice. If you're having trouble because of building materials, supplies, or just a tough-as-nails biome, it should be salvageable, but if you're stuck in a loop of dwarves attempting to brew or cook, getting stuck on something and dying, then abandoning to get a fresh start elsewhere would be best.

[Tawa]

You'll have to be a little more specific with your problem if you want useful advice. If you're having trouble because of building materials, supplies, or just a tough-as-nails biome, it should be salvageable, but if you're stuck in a loop of dwarves attempting to brew or cook, getting stuck on something and dying, then abandoning to get a fresh start elsewhere would be best.

Alright, I'll give you the details then.

First off, I picked the best spot I could see: Warm, no aquifers, a little soil. I've hit a lot of metal lately. It's "heavily forested" because all the plain old "woodland" areas had aquifers.

When I posted this, I forgot about plant gathering, lol.

I already killed some dogs, and I have some cats in a pasture, but both my water buffalo died because I remembered about pastures after it was too late. I'm waiting for kittens.

My main problem is my plump helmet and wild strawberry industries are stalling. Can you brew wild plants? If so, I'm fine.

Oh, and some kobolds got me before I setup a military, meaning they took most of our brewable food.

Dang kobolds.

[Sutremaine]

You'll have to be a little more specific with your problem if you want useful advice.

...That's not essay-length.

I already killed some dogs, and I have some cats in a pasture, but both my water buffalo died because I remembered about pastures after it was too late. I'm waiting for kittens.

If you haven't already, render the fat and cook the tallow produced. The kittens may not be any good for immediate butchering, as they're rather small and may produce only a skull.

What's the wildlife like? Sending out the military to kill it directly is one option, and channelling out the ground to force creatures into a cluster of cage traps is another.

My main problem is my plump helmet and wild strawberry industries are stalling. Can you brew wild plants? If so, I'm fine.

Oh, and some kobolds got me before I setup a military, meaning they took most of our brewable food.

You can use wheelbarrows as bait items. They're useful in their own right, made from one piece of wood, and are rather valuable. Spiked balls are also valuable and made from one log. Storing valuables behind pastured animals and meeting areas is a good idea, as it gives thieves more pairs of eyes to get past.

You can brew wild plants just fine, at least the ones that are brewable. Sometimes I make the plant stockpile exclude blade weed, hide root, and dimple cups. They can't be brewed or cooked, and since the herbalist will always haul plants to the stockpile they're just a waste of time in a fortress that's in need of gathered plants.

Above-ground plants can be grown all year round. Grow a mix of berries and other, brew-only plants.

[Tawa]

You'll have to be a little more specific with your problem if you want useful advice.

...That's not essay-length.

I already killed some dogs, and I have some cats in a pasture, but both my water buffalo died because I remembered about pastures after it was too late. I'm waiting for kittens.

If you haven't already, render the fat and cook the tallow produced. The kittens may not be any good for immediate butchering, as they're rather small and may produce only a skull.

I figured the cats would reproduce, then I could kill the parents and wait for the kittens to grow up.

What's the wildlife like? Sending out the military to kill it directly is one option, and channelling out the ground to force creatures into a cluster of cage traps is another.

I haven't set up a military yet, and the only wildlife that shows up are some ravens eyes of the Dark One that interfere with outdoor activities on occasion.

My main problem is my plump helmet and wild strawberry industries are stalling. Can you brew wild plants? If so, I'm fine.

Oh, and some kobolds got me before I setup a military, meaning they took most of our brewable food.

You can use wheelbarrows as bait items. They're useful in their own right, made from one piece of wood, and are rather valuable. Spiked balls are also valuable and made from one log. Storing valuables behind pastured animals and meeting areas is a good idea, as it gives thieves more pairs of eyes to get past.

Hmm, good ideas. Those suckers took some seeds or something, but I have no clue how they got past the dining room, which is the only passage to the food storage; there were a bunch of slackers who SHOULD have been doing something. I checked their labors, even.

You can brew wild plants just fine, at least the ones that are brewable. Sometimes I make the plant stockpile exclude blade weed, hide root, and dimple cups. They can't be brewed or cooked, and since the herbalist will always haul plants to the stockpile they're just a waste of time in a fortress that's in need of gathered plants.

Alright then, I'm set until the next caravan arrives, at which point I can pawn crafts off on them for plump helmet seeds.

Above-ground plants can be grown all year round. Grow a mix of berries and other, brew-only plants.

Aside from that, I have a bunch of frickin' slackers who have labors enabled and plenty of tools, yet don't do anything. I'm a little worried about that.

Also, I accidentally gave the dwarven caravan some stuff as gifts. They never paid me, and they took the stuff and never gave me anything back. I'm angry at them.

[ShadowHammer]

Also, I accidentally gave the dwarven caravan some stuff as gifts. They never paid me, and they took the stuff and never gave me anything back. I'm angry at them.

I did that on my first fort as well. I assumed that offering would be like asking,"What would you give me for this?" but no. It's just giving free stuff to the King.