Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[LordUbik]

So, let's explain the situation: i'm having quite a successfull fortress, plenty of dwarves, drinks, ores and so on, with high walls and deep halls. Pretty happy about that, since i'm also having decent goblin sieges and a good number of !funny! uninvited guests.

This fortress is situated in a plain that, at least in the beginning, had only "sparse" trees, and i really loved that.
I say in the beginning because now, in the fourth year of the fortress, this place has, as dfhack says, 1012 trees.

1012?

Ok, i know it counts also those in the caverns, but believe me, the plain outside the gates are totally engulfed with trees.

Now i have 20 dwarves with axes that spend their days and night trying to fight that menace, but without any result.

Anyone saying "Magma is your best friend!"? Yep already tryed. Big fire, big flames, big smoke, big cave-ins. Nothing else, totally a waste of time.

Now, after all these words, the question:
Is there a way, also using dfhack, to eliminate those elves nests? Or someone has at least some suggestion?

Paving the whole map sounds a little bit extreme, and using the "extirpate" command on dfhack gave no results.

I hope someone has a solution!

(Oh and by the way, english in not my first language so i apologize about anything stupid i could have said!)

[utunnels]

The dwarfy way: coat the ground with obsidian after chopping them down.
A less dwarfy way: remove all soil layers after chopping them down
A more direct way: chop them down and pave the groud with logs.

There is a dfhack command tiletypes which allows you to turn your ground level into solid stone floor. But it is a bit hard to learn and dangerous.

[LordUbik]

The dwarfy way: coat the ground with obsidian after chopping them down.
A less dwarfy way: remove all soil layers after chopping them down
A more direct way: chop them down and pave the groud with logs.

There is a dfhack command tiletypes which allows you to turn your ground level into solid stone floor. But it is a bit hard to learn and dangerous.

Yep i saw that command but yeah, it doesn't sounds safe at all!

As for the other ones... it takes so long to chop everything down! But it's probably the only way...

As for a side question, is there a way to mod the growth speed of trees or it is hard-coded?

[utunnels]

If you are already using dfhack, you can use fastdwarf command to speed your wood cutters up. After removing all trees, you can just turn it off.

[PatrikLundell]

I suspect the growth rate is hard coded and biome dependent, but have no proof of this. The main problem, however, is that there isn't a growth cutoff that blocks further trees from maturing once the normal biome density has been reached.

I second utunnels in that strip mining and/or paving is the best way, but obsidianizing is the dwarfiest one. Strip mining is probably the easiest, because all those logs will interfere with paving, while channeling will just cause the logs to fall down to the new level. Be careful not to dig down so you expose your fortress, though.
Also note that you can just chip away at the problem one area at a time, i.e. remove the trees in one area, secure it, take the next one and secure it, and so on. You don't have to attack all the trees on the map at the same time.

Also, if you've got bodies of water, you can expand those by channeling away at their edges (but don't let the water level go below 2/7 anywhere, or they risk drying out). Rain should fill the pools up, allowing you to chip away a bit more. That might be an alternative if you've got many layers of soil.

If using strip mining or lakeification, make sure to still provide a path for the caravans (unless you don't want any).

[utunnels]

Wait, but then why did you embark on a tree infested land in the first place?
There are bad land and glacial.

[Albedo]

Can't swear for the new version, but used to be that if you dug out the soil immediately beneath the surface, no trees would grow directly above your excavations. Something about no room for roots.

Now that there actually ~are~ roots, I'd think it'd only be more effective, but that's just "common sense", and so really has no particular bearing on Dwarf Reality.

[PatrikLundell]

I've noticed that when I've had to build my farm just below the surface no trees grew above that area, so I think Albedo is correct.

My latest embark consisted of 8 tiles of badlands and 1 tile of sparsely wooded land. Unfortunately, the sparsely wooded tile contained a single feather-tree, which sort of threw my timber plans out the window. The badlands were covered in fire clay, and a fair bit of clay encroached into the wood bearing tile, ensuring it couldn't support that many trees even with a treeplosion.

[LordUbik]

Wait, but then why did you embark on a tree infested land in the first place?
There are bad land and glacial.

Yep i know, but that spot was just sweet! Close to all races, very close expecially to gobbos, shallow and deep metal (turned out tetrahedrite and native gold, with lignite too) and i stupidly tought "Ehy, there are just sparse trees, i can keep them under control!"... nope you can't.

I've noticed that when I've had to build my farm just below the surface no trees grew above that area, so I think Albedo is correct.

Uhm... yeah now that i think about it that is a nice thing. Insead of strip mining the whole map of soil i can simply dig out the first level and eventually move my farms down with a bit of water labour...

Well, probably i'll try first to pave the whole map, then if i fail badly (or got badly bored) then i'll try that one!

Thank you guys!

[PatrikLundell]

Remember to cut the trees down above the area you intend to build your farm in before digging, or you'll end up with a hole in the roof when you do cut the tree down. You can also let the tree stand there, but would then have to make very sure you don't accidentally designate it for cutting, and thus create a Titan side entrance.

[Albedo]

...Instead of strip mining the whole map of soil i can simply dig out the first level and eventually move my farms down with a bit of water labour...

If you're tunneling out a soil level, no need to add water. Underground crops grow on soil just fine - it's a stone floor that needs to be "muddied".  Same w/ subterranean plants and trees once the caverns have been breached - they'll show up any/everywhere there's soil on the ground (and low traffic).

[LordUbik]

If you're tunneling out a soil level, no need to add water. Underground crops grow on soil just fine - it's a stone floor that needs to be "muddied".  Same w/ subterranean plants and trees once the caverns have been breached - they'll show up any/everywhere there's soil on the ground (and low traffic).

Yep, but it would be quite... strange to me to live in an empty level, so my idea was to dig out it, the simply pretend that it never existed! XD

Moreover, anything falling could break the floor creating a passage to your fortress. Sure you can simply seal the stairs down with some walls but... i don't know, i'll probably end up flooring the whole map with tons and tons of gabbro blocks!

[Pirate Santa]

Other than as a big finger to the elves, what is your reason for wanting to get rid of the trees?
Is it for access or FPS?
If it's just an access issue paved roads will solve that easy.
If it's FPS beware the effect having thousands of logs flooding your map may have.

[endlessblaze]

I don't mind trees.

They make good building mats for when you need something built NOW without worring about the weight of stone.

[Naryar]

Other than as a big finger to the elves, what is your reason for wanting to get rid of the trees?

Is that not reason enough ?

The solution is hordes of woodcutters. And then make wooden paved roads everywhere.