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[Saiko Kila]

Some of these questions are unrelated, but I don't feel like spamming topics.

1. Unlike in .34.07 I played previously, in .40.03 I couldn't find a place with no access to four major civilizations. Some places had a fifth one - a tower. My world was created with default parameters (250 years etc.), I believe I only changed metals a bit. There are ~8 dwarf civs. Only thing which changes is the order the neighbours are listed - sometimes gobbos are the second one, just after dwarves, sometimes they are at the end, humans can swap with elves and so on, but the number is always four (or five). Does the order matter? Are the ones listed near beginning closer to my site than the ones near end? Is it possible to get a place so isolated that caravans won't come? Or it's a matter of luck?

2. While wiki still states that the first caravan comes late in the season, I got my first dwarven caravan just two weeks after autumn started - too early. I had depot ready, but no items to trade really, so I could buy only an anvil, booze, animals and some seeds. My civilization lies nearby, so does this mean that the time needed to come depends just on distance to it, and there are no other factors?

3. The speed of several actions is changed drastically. I've read that dwarves can't properly haul things and unfortunately it happened to be true, but I also noticed, that things like butchering or tanning are very fast. I was looking after missing skin and fat (expected quickened rotting after food items brought on embark rotted away) only to find out that they were already processed to leather and tallow. By guys with no experience. I don't mind fast workshop, I can live with slow hauling of stones, but is it possible to make dwarves more intelligent when it comes to hauling ordinary items?

  For example, two dwarves have mining disabled, they throw their picks to the ground (or water), the job to gather these picks is created. Dwarf with a wheelbarrow rushes to them, but despite the job clearly stating two picks, he picks only one pick (too many picks…), leaves the other one on the ground and returns to the stockpile and puts it in the bin. Then another dwarf picks a bin with a pick and carries it to the pick on the ground to put it inside and return. This is sheer madness. Similar actions with plant gathering leads to cancellations of brewing. I effectively cannot brew till the gathering is finished. Why? How to stop that?

4. Final question is about moats and climbing. I created a one tile wide moat, including a part of brook (probably a bad idea because of ramps leading out of water to my place). But I have doubts about its efficacy. Do enemies climb the wall or tree branches? Can they jump over one tile wide moat? I had these doubts after I seen one of my miners slowly moving along the moat one tile higher than he should, as if floating in the air:

Code: [Select]

  @
## ##
#####
side view, @= dwarf, #=wall

I don't know if this was a bug, because normally they take a longer route to avoid the moat and other barriers, and he did float while assigned a construction job only, but it was unexpected.

[martinuzz]

1. Unlike in .34.07 I played previously, in .40.03 I couldn't find a place with no access to four major civilizations. Some places had a fifth one - a tower. My world was created with default parameters (250 years etc.), I believe I only changed metals a bit. There are ~8 dwarf civs. Only thing which changes is the order the neighbours are listed - sometimes gobbos are the second one, just after dwarves, sometimes they are at the end, humans can swap with elves and so on, but the number is always four (or five). Does the order matter? Are the ones listed near beginning closer to my site than the ones near end? Is it possible to get a place so isolated that caravans won't come? Or it's a matter of luck?

I don't know about the order, but distance seems a logical assumption.
Yes, it is possible to find locations with access to less civilizations. My current embark only has access to dwarves and humans. It's on a big island. I'm not sure how the dwarves and humans manage to access it, while elves and goblins can't. Perhaps there's an underground passage crossing the ocean that is only accessible to those two civilizations.

2. While wiki still states that the first caravan comes late in the season, I got my first dwarven caravan just two weeks after autumn started - too early. I had depot ready, but no items to trade really, so I could buy only an anvil, booze, animals and some seeds. My civilization lies nearby, so does this mean that the time needed to come depends just on distance to it, and there are no other factors?

I don't know what determines exact caravan arrival time. When this situation ever happens again, prepared meals are your friend. You can always craft a few of those very quickly, if you don't have crafts for sale yet. Just one or two meals should be enough to at least buy an anvil, or whatever it is that you *really* need from that first caravan.

3. The speed of several actions is changed drastically. I've read that dwarves can't properly haul things and unfortunately it happened to be true, but I also noticed, that things like butchering or tanning are very fast. I was looking after missing skin and fat (expected quickened rotting after food items brought on embark rotted away) only to find out that they were already processed to leather and tallow. By guys with no experience. I don't mind fast workshop, I can live with slow hauling of stones, but is it possible to make dwarves more intelligent when it comes to hauling ordinary items?
  For example, two dwarves have mining disabled, they throw their picks to the ground (or water), the job to gather these picks is created. Dwarf with a wheelbarrow rushes to them, but despite the job clearly stating two picks, he picks only one pick (too many picks…), leaves the other one on the ground and returns to the stockpile and puts it in the bin. Then another dwarf picks a bin with a pick and carries it to the pick on the ground to put it inside and return. This is sheer madness. Similar actions with plant gathering leads to cancellations of brewing. I effectively cannot brew till the gathering is finished. Why? How to stop that?

Use wheelbarrows very sparsely (I only use them on stone stockpiles), and link specialized stockpiles that do not accept barrels or bins to your workshops. The manager also helps get jobs done despite cancellations.

4. Final question is about moats and climbing. I created a one tile wide moat, including a part of brook (probably a bad idea because of ramps leading out of water to my place). But I have doubts about its efficacy. Do enemies climb the wall or tree branches? Can they jump over one tile wide moat? I had these doubts after I seen one of my miners slowly moving along the moat one tile higher than he should, as if floating in the air:

Code: [Select]

  @
## ##
#####
side view, @= dwarf, #=wall

I don't know if this was a bug, because normally they take a longer route to avoid the moat and other barriers, and he did float while assigned a construction job only, but it was unexpected.

I've seen dwarves 'walk over water'. I have been told that is because they are jumping from tree to tree across the river. One of my current projects is deforestation and subsequent paving of the river's edge. Losing babies to their mom dropping them cause they need their hands to climb trees, to jump rivers, is sad. Although dead babies on the river's bottom do add to the site's scenic value.

[quarague]

3. For example, two dwarves have mining disabled, they throw their picks to the ground (or water), the job to gather these picks is created. Dwarf with a wheelbarrow rushes to them, but despite the job clearly stating two picks, he picks only one pick (too many picks…), leaves the other one on the ground and returns to the stockpile and puts it in the bin. Then another dwarf picks a bin with a pick and carries it to the pick on the ground to put it inside and return. This is sheer madness. Similar actions with plant gathering leads to cancellations of brewing. I effectively cannot brew till the gathering is finished. Why? How to stop that?

I think this is mostly just dwarfs being dwarfs. You can make life a bit better by
- having large quantities of things, if you have 5 barrels of brewable plants, and two of them are being carried to the farm to gather more plants, the brewer can still use the other ones
- not using containers for stockpiles where this becomes an issue, and using small separated stockpiles, I recently started using two gem stockpiles, one for uncut gems with no bins and one for cut gems with bins. Stops the job cancellation for the jeweller everytime I dig out a gem but still allows all cut gems to be carried to the trade depot at once instead of one by one

[Saiko Kila]

1. Unlike in .34.07 I played previously, in .40.03 I couldn't find a place with no access to four major civilizations.[…]

I don't know about the order, but distance seems a logical assumption.
Yes, it is possible to find locations with access to less civilizations. My current embark only has access to dwarves and humans. It's on a big island. I'm not sure how the dwarves and humans manage to access it, while elves and goblins can't. Perhaps there's an underground passage crossing the ocean that is only accessible to those two civilizations.

Thanks, I thought there was some bug, because difference in accessibility are a nice game changer in certain cases. Though usually I prefer access to all races. I suppose I have just a very accessible world.

3. The speed of several actions is changed drastically.[…]

Use wheelbarrows very sparsely (I only use them on stone stockpiles), and link specialized stockpiles that do not accept barrels or bins to your workshops. The manager also helps get jobs done despite cancellations.

Good idea with wheelbarrows. And I tended to use manager in earlier versions, but had no time to prepare an office for him in this version...

4. Final question is about moats and climbing.[…]

I've seen dwarves 'walk over water'. I have been told that is because they are jumping from tree to tree across the river. One of my current projects is deforestation and subsequent paving of the river's edge. Losing babies to their mom dropping them cause they need their hands to climb trees, to jump rivers, is sad. Although dead babies on the river's bottom do add to the site's scenic value.

Yes, only spikes with babies decorating banks would beat that And I don't think it is possible to do that yet. I was sure that babies grip to their mothers using their own limbs, just like closely related chimpanzees and other apes do. I wonder if elves, being even evolutionary closer to tree climbing apes, have this problem too.

I'll have to work with that brook, I hate brooks, rivers are much nicer and easier to tame, but if foes can traverse water or moats there's no choice... Or - I will create moat outside of the brook.

3. For example, two dwarves have mining disabled, they throw their picks to the ground (or water), the job to gather these picks is created. Dwarf with a wheelbarrow rushes to them, but despite the job clearly stating two picks, he picks only one pick (too many picks…), leaves the other one on the ground and returns to the stockpile and puts it in the bin. Then another dwarf picks a bin with a pick and carries it to the pick on the ground to put it inside and return. This is sheer madness. Similar actions with plant gathering leads to cancellations of brewing. I effectively cannot brew till the gathering is finished. Why? How to stop that?

I think this is mostly just dwarfs being dwarfs. You can make life a bit better by
- having large quantities of things, if you have 5 barrels of brewable plants, and two of them are being carried to the farm to gather more plants, the brewer can still use the other ones
- not using containers for stockpiles where this becomes an issue, and using small separated stockpiles, I recently started using two gem stockpiles, one for uncut gems with no bins and one for cut gems with bins. Stops the job cancellation for the jeweller everytime I dig out a gem but still allows all cut gems to be carried to the trade depot at once instead of one by one

Indeed, abandoning containers looks more and more promising. I can't look at the stupidity of the dwarves in regard to containers. As for large quantities- that's what I'm aiming for, just don't have dwarfpower to do that yes. I even haven't used services of my jewellers yet, someone is needed to haul these logs and stones

[greycat]

2. While wiki still states that the first caravan comes late in the season, I got my first dwarven caravan just two weeks after autumn started

That definitely changed in 0.40.  Caravans always seem to arrive in the first month of their seasons now, instead of the last month.  This also means that the guests which caravans tend to bring with them may arrive two months earlier.  You need to be prepared by the end of summer now.

[Saiko Kila]

2. While wiki still states that the first caravan comes late in the season, I got my first dwarven caravan just two weeks after autumn started

That definitely changed in 0.40.  Caravans always seem to arrive in the first month of their seasons now, instead of the last month.  This also means that the guests which caravans tend to bring with them may arrive two months earlier.  You need to be prepared by the end of summer now.

By the end of the second summer, I hope? Do they visit if I have less than 80 dwarves? (I think that was the threshold in the previous version)

[greycat]

Many of us (including me) have had a "bandit" siege arrive in the first month of autumn of the first year.  A bandit siege is smaller, and is not composed of members of the official goblin civilization (they don't appear on the c screen).  I've had a force of 10 armed goblins siege me when I had a population of 9.

[Saiko Kila]

Many of us (including me) have had a "bandit" siege arrive in the first month of autumn of the first year.  A bandit siege is smaller, and is not composed of members of the official goblin civilization (they don't appear on the c screen).  I've had a force of 10 armed goblins siege me when I had a population of 9.

Ouch, that would have surprised me… Do these bandits actually trigger the SIEGE status, or are they lurkers, invisible until spotted, like ambushers?

[greycat]

You get a siege popup that you have to dismiss by pressing Enter.  The word SIEGE appears in the upper left corner.