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[Dampe]

Hey, Dampe here. I'm currently on what is my most successful fortress ever, Whitebanner. It's lasted just over a year and a half, but things have taken a turn for the worse. I've run out of the food and booze that I brought on embark, and there are 58 hungry mouths to feed (got a migrant wave of 24 in the spring of 551, which doubled my population, and then another migrant wave of 10.) . There's dead kobolds in the halls of the fortress because I don't know how to get rid of them, and dwarves are freaking out and running naked and oh god it's a mess. It's kind of sad, because the RNG gave me a badass name for the dwarven group. Kinmelbil. (If anyone's forgotten, the Oaken Tomes was the name of the civ that founded Boatmurdered.) But, we're out of food and booze and so I've decided to open up the HFS and see what happens.

Why am I making a forum post about this?
I have a series of questions that I hope will prevent some of my failures in the future.

1) How the hell do I farm?

2) How do I build a well? (I know it has something to do with mechanisms.)

3) How do I move corpses and rocks and stuff in my fortress?

4) How do I butcher animals and make more food?

5) How do I prepare meals?

[Naryar]

Farming :

Farming is done on soil, never bare rock. Build a farm plot on soil or mud. (Mud is left by water being on top of rock) Not on bare rock, unless it has mud on top of it.

If it's inside you'll need the seeds of subterranean crops. (You should have some)

If it's outside you'll need the seeds of outside crops. You can go and gather outside shrubs if you order some dwarves to be herbalists.

when your farm plot is done, set up the seasonal alternance of crops as needed. a farm plot has orders of a single crop, or fallow, each season. Fallow means it grows nothing this season.

then if you have seeds, unoccupied dwarves with the Farming (Fields) labor activated, and access to the farm plot, dwarves will start to plant seeds, and they will grow, and dwarves will harvest the crop.

Try growing plump helmets first.

Wells:

You need to build your well over a hole which has water on it. You need to dig and channel so you make a 2z-deep cistern, then build a well over it. You can only build a well over empty space.

Obviously the well will not work if the pit under it is completely dry. The rope and bucket can go downward many z-levels, though.

Wells are made from mechanisms (made from stone at the mechanics's workshop), blocks (made from stone at the mason), and a rope/chain (made from cloth at clothier or metal at the forge/magma forge).


Move corpses and rocks :

Make stone or refuse stockpiles inside your fort, your dwarves will move them to the stockpiles. You have stockpile menus you can use to allow/disallow certain types of refuse or stones in the stockpile.

Butcher animals :

Build a butcher's workshop, have a dwarf with Butchery available, go to the units screen, then go to the animals/pets screen and you can designate animals for butchery.

Preparing meals :

Make a kitchen (it's in buildings/workshops) and order meals done from there. Careful about cooking farm-grown plants, because cooking does not produce seeds and then you run out of seeds.

Making flour or alcohol or processing plants, however, makes seeds.

[Dampe]

I've decided to open up the HFS and see what happens.

WHAT HAVE I DONE

[Naryar]

I've decided to open up the HFS and see what happens.

WHAT HAVE I DONE

Welcome to Dwarf Fortress. Enjoy the violence and screams.

[Dampe]

I've decided to open up the HFS and see what happens.

WHAT HAVE I DONE

Welcome to Dwarf Fortress. Enjoy the violence and screams.

The horror...The horror...

[Dampe]

Whitebanner has been decimated. There is but one survivor, a dwarven child who was wandering around outside, oblivious to the slaughter below. He must be rescued.

(This is such a mess.)

[MDFification]

Whitebanner has been decimated. There is but one survivor, a dwarven child who was wandering around outside, oblivious to the slaughter below. He must be rescued.

(This is such a mess.)

GG.

Next fort is naturally going to be named Redbanners in memoriam, yes?

[Loud Whispers]

HFS tends to kill everyone indeed. Will Redbanners rise?

[Albedo]

You need to make the Wiki your friend. Great place to start for any and all "basics".

1) How the hell do I farm?

This is multi-faceted, and you aren't alone in having questions (despite the wiki)...

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=150777.msg6234984#msg6234984


For a quick solution to thirst, designate a drinking zone (somewhere safe(ish)). {i} {w}

Then build a well: Well guide: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Well_guide


o Stockpiles can hold everything - those and dump zones. {i} for dump zones, [p} {?} for a variety of different stockpiles, all fully customizable.


o 4) How do I butcher animals and make more food?

o http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Butcher
o http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Meat_industry


5) How do I prepare meals?

First, go into {z} {kitchens} and DE-select "Cook" on your booze - you want to drink it, not eat it. Same w/ seeds (at least for now - later you can cook off extras, but not yet).

Then just build a kitchen {b} {w} {...?...} (forget that shortcut letter - scan the workshop list, you'll see it). Activate Cook on 1 dwarf {v} or {u}{z}, then {p} {l}. Go into the kitchen w/ {q} and {a}dd a job - choose "Lavish" meal and put on {r}repeat.

[Dampe]

Oh, also:

How do I get my military to train, other than sending them out to kill random wild animals?
And yes, it shall be named Redbanners.

[Albedo]

That's a more complex question, or at least more lengthy to cover completely.

Basically you create a squad, give them wooden weapons (or trash wooden/bone practice bolts), assign them to a Barracks,  and set them to "train" there. But it's easy to screw that up - end up with wounded trainees, or squads standing around doing nothing, or marksdwarf who are training in hammering and wrestling (by using their crossbows as melee weapons).

Here's a thread on archers: o Marksdwarf training: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=150494.0

There's another on regular military somewhere.

Wiki: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Training


(And make sure you have your Hospital set up before training, in case of accidents, and so it'll be there whenever they go to do their dangerous job:   http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Training )

[angelious]

That's a more complex question, or at least more lengthy to cover completely.

Basically you create a squad, give them wooden weapons (or trash wooden/bone practice bolts), assign them to a Barracks,  and set them to "train" there. But it's easy to screw that up - end up with wounded trainees, or squads standing around doing nothing, or marksdwarf who are training in hammering and wrestling (by using their crossbows as melee weapons).

Here's a thread on archers: o Marksdwarf training: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=150494.0

There's another on regular military somewhere.

Wiki: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Training


(And make sure you have your Hospital set up before training, in case of accidents, and so it'll be there whenever they go to do their dangerous job:   http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Training )

thank you for that marksdwarf guide link.


i currently have only one squadron of crossbow dwarfs...full of axe lords.

[MDFification]

That's a more complex question, or at least more lengthy to cover completely.

Basically you create a squad, give them wooden weapons (or trash wooden/bone practice bolts), assign them to a Barracks,  and set them to "train" there. But it's easy to screw that up - end up with wounded trainees, or squads standing around doing nothing, or marksdwarf who are training in hammering and wrestling (by using their crossbows as melee weapons).

Here's a thread on archers: o Marksdwarf training: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=150494.0

There's another on regular military somewhere.

Wiki: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Training


(And make sure you have your Hospital set up before training, in case of accidents, and so it'll be there whenever they go to do their dangerous job:   http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Training )

thank you for that marksdwarf guide link.


i currently have only one squadron of crossbow dwarfs...full of axe lords.

Your military is functioning but I don't know why or how.

In this case, there's probably something weird in your assigned equipment for the squads - the default is not actually what you want. A detailed (possibly excessively so) guide on how to get your melee dwarves to train and equip themselves properly can be found in this thread.

[synyster31]

Go through this and learn the basics: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Quickstart_guide

It will teach you all you need to run a basic fort, from there you can experiment and learn new things as you go. Use the wiki as much as possible it is quite invalueable!

[angelious]

That's a more complex question, or at least more lengthy to cover completely.

Basically you create a squad, give them wooden weapons (or trash wooden/bone practice bolts), assign them to a Barracks,  and set them to "train" there. But it's easy to screw that up - end up with wounded trainees, or squads standing around doing nothing, or marksdwarf who are training in hammering and wrestling (by using their crossbows as melee weapons).

Here's a thread on archers: o Marksdwarf training: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=150494.0

There's another on regular military somewhere.

Wiki: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Training


(And make sure you have your Hospital set up before training, in case of accidents, and so it'll be there whenever they go to do their dangerous job:   http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Training )

thank you for that marksdwarf guide link.


i currently have only one squadron of crossbow dwarfs...full of axe lords.

Your military is functioning but I don't know why or how.

In this case, there's probably something weird in your assigned equipment for the squads - the default is not actually what you want. A detailed (possibly excessively so) guide on how to get your melee dwarves to train and equip themselves properly can be found in this thread.

IDK. i just assigned them as ranged units. gave them the archery range. and for some reason everytime i went to check what they were doing there were something like "sparring" or "dodging demonstration"

and yeah my military is actually doing pretty good. i finally have adamantium and as soon as my god damn weawers that weawing it and my furnace operators starts furnacing or whatever. ill start the production of adamantium gear. atm i only have one adamantium warhammer and an adamantium mail shirt.