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[Spectre9000]

This is the the 5th fortress I've had fall because no one would pull a lever I marked as high priority. What do I need to do to make them pull a freaking lever? Dwarves didn't have jobs, they were set in the burrow of the lever, and no one would pull it. I just don't understand what I need to do to make them pull a lever.


This time I punched into HFS before even reaching magma due to an adamantine vein being hollow. Got overrun by sleet spirits. Nothing I can do against them apparently despite them being made of sleet my army was crushed and no one would pull the lever that would seal it off and stop them from entering my fort. In fact the last guy I have just went and took a nap in the middle of it all.

Also, I had a major fort (almost 200 dwarves). Can I reclaim it, or since it's punched a gateway to hell, is it forever lost?

[Dunamisdeos]

You can reclaim it but those demons will be milling about.

[Spectre9000]

Which means no, I can't reclaim it since there's no way 7 dwarves will retake it.

[Dunamisdeos]

It can be a fun challenge. Build elsewhere on the map, seal yourself into a different fort, and build a trap or sufficient military to retake the fort.

Not easy, but hey.

Also, I am not sure what could cause them to not pull the lever. What version are you playing? Also, what was the lever meant to do? If it was to raise a bridge, were there demons on it? That will prevent it from raising. Let's figure dis out.

[Spectre9000]

There were not demons on it when I told them to pull the lever for the bridge. My Hammerdwarves were holding the line at the breach (well, for as long as it took the demons to fling them down the hallway I had down there). I set my marksdwarves at my ambush area that had the bridge to raise. I had fortifications set up all around the entrance so they could safely fire at any foes and annihilate them without any chance of being reached (except my something that could turn to gas or whatever, in which case I had a secondary bridge to completely seal it off. The last of my Hammerdwarves fall and no one has pulled the lever. A couple got the job, then I guess just gave up and didn't do it. When I saw it wasn't getting pulled, I set a job to pull the second bridge as they were nearing the first, and that didn't get raised either.

I'm on version v0.42.04.


As to retaking it, there's no iron (I never get iron), copper, or anything really but silver, zinc, gold, and butimous coal, so I'd have to rebuild an economy. There are also only dwarven and elven caravans, so pretty much only dwarven caravans.

[Malakor]

Did you ever test if the levers work in generall?
Maybe that's some sort of weird bug.

Incase you test it with similar circumstances and the levers won't work:
What if you turn off the burrow (i assume you have one active) shortly?
Or if you set the levers in a room and lock a dorf in it?

[Daris]

Lever-pulling shenanigans often occur because the dwarf who takes the job is a hundred miles from the lever and takes far too long to reach it.  One solution is to see who is idle nearby and (presuming you have a manager) use the workshop profile to restrict use of the lever to just those nearby idle dwarves.  The game will then try to select from this much reduced pool rather than from your entire labor base, and the trip to the lever should be much shorter.

[Spectre9000]

I think I'll try creating a burrow lever room and stick a dorf in it solely for the purpose of pulling levers when I need him to. Hopefully then my levers will get pulled... I'll make sure to turn off lever use on other dorfs so he's the only one that will get the job. It's a lonely boring life for him, but such is the necessity of dorfen living. Any tips to keep him from going insane?

[SebasMarolo]

burrow him there, but allow others to carry food and drink to his room? I mean if you use the manager and make it so only he can use the levers, you don't have to worry about other dwarfs going inside. Also, pick someone that's married, and assign the levers for both of them. In case one of them is asleep, the other can pull the lever, and since they will be near their spouse, they'll get happy thoughts.

That's all out of the top of my head.

[Fleeting Frames]

Could also use an overseer-triggered levers for critical tasks. Not the most efficient one(I got bored and just mirrored it), but here's one that uses minecart, 10 mechanisms, 2 floodgate/bridges each.
z0:
 =║   
╔╚╗   
╚▒▒╗
  ╚╗╝
  ║=   
z1:

  F
╬╬ (╗╚ underneath)
F

╬ - Raising bridge with track underneath. Mark for deconstruction then unmark to let minecart move from 1 loop to other.
F - mid-air hanging floodgate
▒ - wall
colors on z0 reflect pressure plates on track, on z1 reflect linked furniture.

All other tiles other than yellow ones are track/ramps. Note that walls to block traversal are necessary for sequential ones on both z-levels.

Other options:

- Stick an assigned hunting dog in a hole with forbidden hatch above next to a pressure plate. Unforbid hatch to trigger plate.
- ╬^^╬ using water flowing from above/left to drain/right.

- Most options where a raising bridge can be used to block access to the fort a hatch to forbid works just as well.

Did you ever test if the levers work in generall?

I've seen many posts about accidentally making a retracting instead of raising bridge

[PatrikLundell]

I don't think it would be impossible to reclaim the fortress. Step one on arrival is to seal all entrances to the fortress from the outside. Thereafter you can build yourself a parallel fortress to build up whatever you need to actually do the reclamation itself.
My meager experience with reclaims is that the nasties inside tend to say inside, and stay fairly put at that.

Extensive use of cave-ins can allow you to literally crush the invaders, and it can be done without putting your dorfs in danger (excluding the initial sealing). Cave-ins can also be used for a divide-and-conquer tactic by separating the nasties into groups of manageable size (although my definition of that size is 0...).

Edit:
Are you sure nobody (who was far away, as indicated as a possibility by others) took the task to pull the lever? If I remember correctly, looking at the lever you can't tell if it's tasked for anyone or not, so you either have to check the task manager or remove the "Now!" designation to see the "A" indication (I've done that a number of times when the immediate crisis is over before the lever is pulled, so it's not critical to pull the lever immediately anymore).

[Azraile]

If you have a switch that important odder some one to just stand there all day beside it if you have the exstra people... or put it in the main hall where everyone hangs out....

Or if you find a vampire, just lock him inside with it. >.>   No sleep, no food, no drink, no nothing? Just stand there all day waiting to pull the switch, perfect job for a vampire.

[StarWars1981]

Create an emergency bunker room, drawbridges across a deep, channeled chasm to get in. Doubles as your usual meeting room/dining hall/food stockpile/ well zone/ whatever else you want. Levers for security go inside the main room where dwarves hang out. Lockdown lever is assigned after all dwarves are ordered to the burrow. Give them a minute to get there, then lock it down.
Dwarves WILL pull a lever eventually if they're close enough. If they get assassinated on the way, it may take awhile.