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[Unhacker]

So I started playing Dwarf Fortress the other day and I created my fort (called the "Crown of Hope" for reasons of irony) after my first loss due to starvation.

I set out to reclaim my fort with more food (didn't change the name, I liked it), there was less complications, I understood the military system a bit better and generally understood how to do things better, plus I had all of workstations set up and everything so there was less hassle. So I tried making a well, using a three level system. on my second level I dug two separate holes that were connected via a straight passage on another level, one of the two wholes would have eventually led to a channel at the river. Here's where it went wrong. I don't have images as I'm trying to make another fort on the same world (further up the stream) so i'm going to try to describe it to you, because of the fact that I used the up/down stairs I managed to flood a good portion of one of my mining levels (contained some Limonite and some low level gems) before I managed to build a wall to cut off the flood, no dwarves died. Then, because I'm a fucking idiot, I decided that, before trying to clog the flow of water from the river, I would make a well over the flooded level (the level used was my dormitories and dining room level) and left it be. I did a bunch of mining on lower levels found a metric fuckton of native gold ore and then found a cavern, after arranging for my military to guard the cavern, I dug deeper hoping to I'd find a level that I could use to begin the process of mining out the cavern, after digging a few more levels down, I found a magma sea (I believe that is the term used) and decided to dig to it and establish a place where I can make smelters and thus avoid having to waste more charcoal (one of the few things I was running low on, aside from meat, military equipment and sanity) then I found a bunch of raw adaminite in the magma (what I recognize as the entrance to hell) and I swear to Amok, my eyes widened more than they should have.

Then the announcements started, firstly a dwarf, a cook, died due to drowning and I thought "Wouldn't put it past the AI to jump down the well. Carry on", then another dwarf drowned, I thought "A bit odd that, didn't another dwarf just die?" I then looked and I found that the second drowned dwarf was a member of my military. I was then concerned, so I looked and found that the well had overflowed and was flooding the dormitory level, due to the fact that I was understandably more interested in the cavern and the mining and all that, I was unable to set up walls in time to save the dormitories (which had dwarves in them, and skilled ones) so I made the rational decision to sacrifice the dormitories, hoping that the dwarves vital to the running of my fort were not sleeping at the time, but due to how late I was, the dining room (which was closer to the stairs) was close to being lost, then I decided to sacrifice the entire level and build a wall at the stairs, I was too late and my fort basically drowned (and I, knowing when I'm beat) decided to abandon the fort.

The reason I post this is because I want to ask a question. How exactly would I go about saving this fort, or more accurately could I use pumps to remove the water from the fort, and if so, then how?

[Fleeting Frames]

Yeah, you could use pumps. Pumps can literally split the sea and make rivers flow backwards.

Though you could also cave-in a natural wall in the pathway to well that you have, and then drain it to caverns through a staircase.

Though iirc the water might be removed on reclaim just as it gets added in to ocean-biome tunnels after one. You'll still have the well tunnel to flood your fort, though.

[Eschar]

The following fact is not useful at all, but according to I Write Like, you wrote this in the style of Arthur Clarke.

Could you dig another tunnel up to the surface, and establish another fortress once your dwarves get out?

[anewaname]

Getting water out of a fort can be easy as "put a hole in the bottom of the fort that is big enough to drain water faster than water is coming into the fort".

If the hole lets the water flow into the caverns, the water level will drop and allow access to the fort. Then you can divert the incoming water and seal it (this is where you could put pumps, to divert the water long enough for you to seal the water source).

[Unhacker]

One thing which i should have said was that the only things which aren't liable to be flooded would be the stockpile, the barracks, the workstations (I didn't have enough time to make the magma smelters, so no loss there) and the farms, as well as the trade depots. Due to my abandonment of the fort, it means that all the dwarves are dead, or at least assumed as such until further information rises. Also If someone can inform me of how exactly to engineer a cave-in that would be great.
NOTE: Just tried to reclaim the fort, made several discoveries.
1. The two lowest levels have been flooded (below the magma pool, which is two levels below the entrance to the cavern) however, due to the speed at which dwarves work I'm not putting that much stock in being able to save many levels
2. Doors do not stop water, good to know
3. I found the partial skeleton of one of my dwarves outside the fortress, near the water, not in it. I know that abandoning the fort means that all the dwarves died in mysterious circumstances but still, I suspect there was carp involved.

[Fleeting Frames]

Cave-in occurs when a tile is unsupported from 6 orthogonal directions (up,down, north, south, east, west). This results in dust (won't propagate through diagonals, much like miasma), the falling floor/wall falling straight down till they hit a wall, support, stairs, etc. (but not floor or bridge, which they'd punch through), killing everything underneath, and deconstructing in the case of constructed wall/floor. So you'd channel away those tiles around a wall, preferably last tile through a diagonal to not batter your miner (mind that upstairs provide support to level above just like a wall).

You can also link supports to lever, which will cause the support to deconstruct upon pulling, potentially causing a cave-in. You can also cast obsidian with floating pump/bridge, neither of which will provide support and thus allowing for one to build a cave-in gun. Finally, you can also construct floors off the side of a bridge, and dwarves will build the unsupported floor to their own grisly end.

1. If you use powered pumping, there's no mechanic stopping you from freeing it all - "split the ocean" is literal. Also, you can create drainage below lowest cavern by digging to map edge and smoothing and carving fortification into the stone there.

2. They do, but only when closed and not opened by dwarf or jammed open by a sock. You can prevent them being ever opened by hanging them over a ramp (channel where door will be, build floor, build door, deconstruct floor), but it messes with your z-level below.

3. Heh, good ol' reclaim scatter. Well, mind your now sudden lack of booze due all containers being emptied.

[Eschar]

Doors do not stop water, good to know

But doors do stop water, or at least that's what they're doing in my fortress as we speak.
From the wiki page for Door:
"Doors are pieces of furniture used mainly to control the movement of dwarves, pets, and liquids [emphasis mine]."
"Doors also halt the movement of liquids (water and magma) in the manner of floodgates, and can be used in the same ways if a passageway is narrow enough."
"All doors are watertight."

[Unhacker]

Thanks for tell me that doors are, in fact, watertight.
So in case of what happened, I managed to save the fort using a plan which I was making up along the way.

1. Mine out a large hole near where some cave-ins are happening (the game kept informing me that a cavern had been caving in except I didn't know where the cavern was)
2. Build two layers of doors nearby, then flood the mined out hole.
3. When the miner is out of the hole forbid both doors from being opened and promptly forget about the submerged area.
4. Quite obviously, build a wall in front of the stairs on the level with the well in it (Quite obvious all things considered, but the problem was the fact that I had to continually un-suspend the construction because the game considers 2 Depth to be "submerged")

This means that the flow of water that was flooding my fort has been cut off.

ALSO: Does anyone know how the medical system works, as my woodcutter has his right foot torn open as a result of fighting some small fry monster. Also a recruit lost a thumb and several nerve endings fighting a giant toad.

[Fleeting Frames]

Caveins in the invisible cavern? Sounds like a fire imp or magma crab climbed out from magma pipe, got into a fight and set it on fire, leading to tree-related collapse spam.

Designate a hospital zone somewhere on the ground, enable all medical labors on nearby idlers (I believe they're just speed-dependent, but some claim higher infection rate with lower skill), and they'll come and treat him with the thread, cloth, splints, crutches (last two made in carpenter's workshop), gypsum plaster and bucket/soap to wash him that is located anywhere in the fort.

Out of those, I'd put the priority on soap to avoid infection: Use tallow (made from fat in kitchen) and lye (made from ash in ashery, which is made from logs in wood burner workshop) to make soap in soap maker's workshop.

Read http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Hospital for more in-depth guide.

[Unhacker]

Thanks flames.

Unfortunately before I was unable to read this information something happened. I'm convinced that the site is haunted due to my terrible bad luck.

I lost again.

Basically, a blind ogre came up from the visible cavern and started wrecking shit, specifically an axedwarf, then I panicked and conscripted everyone into the military seeing as there was an ogre in my bloody fort, on the un-flooded bits of the dormitory and dining floor (I had mined out some new beds and mined out another staircase, due to the doors, the dining room remained unflooded) basically my entire military was horribly broken bruised and otherwise battered, laying in a pool of their own blood and then some migrants came, three guesses what they were first conscripted into and if you guessed the military then you were absolutely right, so they then started to attack the bloody blind thing and they all ended up bruised and battered lying in a pool of their own blood.

Then to make matters even better the body of one of my previous dwarves (from the previous fortress) then spawned a ghost (I was a little busy to worry about burying the body). Oh and also the doors on the lower level that was holding back all the water were also destroyed, I didn't see it so I'm willing to bet that it was the ogre.

So to summarize, what would need to be done if i wanted to recover the fort:
1. Build a more competent military, also block of the cavern if I have to
2. Bury the dead bodies before any ghosts appear
3. try and see if i can't pump some water to make sure that i have clean water and not stagnant water
4. (this is more from experience) Get a more efficient stockpile, my shit keeps on getting stolen because my dwarves are too busy doing other stuff.

Or, I could just go to a new location. Will probably still be one the same Island though, because that is the island that doesn't contain aquifers, even if it does mean that I share the island with Kobolds, Goblins and, even worse, Elves (Only encountered an Elven caravan on the first iteration of the fort, not on the second and didn't even last long enough for the third.)

Might decide to upload my shitty ass save file for people who want to marvel at my terrible fort, or try to improve it.

So yeah, brave dwarves died, their deaths will be honored, yadda, yadda, we've all been through this song and dance before, fuck ogres, fuck giant toads, but I did have fun and that is the main thing.

[anewaname]

Take it back!

Don't worry about ghosts, they can wait until you get time to engrave slabs.

Cave ogres are best hurt by metal axes, picks, or spears. Teeth, fists, and blunt weapons are low-effective at hurting them. The dwarfs involved should all have wood shields also. If you bring a couple of tetrahedrite or hematite/limonite/magnetite, and an axe to cut trees, then you can forge enough weapons on the surface, then make a squad with weapon and shield and go hunting.

[Unhacker]

OK, will try it in the morning, for now, sleep.

[Romeofalling]

No new advice to add, but I did want to remind you that you're having !!fun!!

[Staalo]

The following fact is not useful at all, but according to I Write Like, you wrote this in the style of Arthur Clarke.

Sorry for more off-topic, but that site was a great find. Apparently I write equal parts Stephen King, Anne Rice and Kurt Vonnegut.

To keep it on-topic, I'd suggest trying again once more and dig separate accommodations to live in while you sort out the mess in the old fort. Keep it isolated from caverns and old tunnels, building airlocks when you breach them.

I've found that big cavern critters like trolls and ogres aren't usually aggressive towards your civilians if they never see a member of your military. They might break stuff, being building destroyers, but otherwise they might just party happily with the dwarves in your tavern. Bring a militia member in, though, and every single dwarf will try to punch them to death. I think it's a bug in the vengeful thoughts handling.

[Unhacker]

Reclaim No.4

It is often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. But then again, I'm on this website and I'm playing DF and that speaks quite a bit about my mental state.

So yeah, embarked again, everyone had at least novice shield user and axeman, following Anewname's advice I took what would be needed to do a fighting reclamation for my fort. One of my dwarves had novice in everyone of the medical skills and another just had novice in wound dressing, looking back on it, I think that it was quite optimistic that I suspected that anyone who would get injuries would be salvageable with a novice medical team but I digress.

Instead of bringing ore with me, I made use of the in fortress stockpile located on the workshop floor (just below the entrance) and ordered 7 Iron Battleaxes and 7 Wooden Shields. Then stuff happened, firstly the corpse of the marksdwarf I had who got slaughtered by the ogre manifested a spooky ghost who no-clipped all over the place and started to haunt the place, I then also placed an order for a burial slab, this was the least of my worries as you can tell, this is DF, I'm a new player on a world with high savagery and a high number of beasts and I've only given you one post that even remotely resembled good news.

So a few things first:
1. All three of the drawbridges in my fort are linked to a single lever, two of them block the first entrance and another one of the drawbridges blocks the other staircase.
2. Speaking of the other staircase, there was only two places were it linked up to the rest of the fort, on the level which the ogre rampaged through last time and the workshop level, so I ordered my mason to build a wall covering that staircase, construction didn't even begin.
3. Blind Ogres as it turns out, are surprisingly good ambushers.
4. Blind ogres do not care if the dwarf they are about to choke-slam into the ground repeatedly until they burst is a member of the militia or not.

So with these in mind, I want you to assume what happens because its best not to say what happened .... actually, no we're well beyond the point of tasteful restraint so here's what happened: I was minding my own business when I got the announcement "An ambush! Drive them out!" I went up to where this was happening, an ogre was attacking my Chief Medical Dwarf, I then made use of my military by randomly assigning someone the mantle of Militia Commander, forming a squad around the dullard and then attacking (NOTE: I had not finished the construction of a single battleaxe at this point and only one wooden shield had been made) The Chief Medical Dwarf lasted 1.25 pages worth of combat before being stuck down (most of the combat report is the Blind Ogre punching my dwarves into the ground, a recurring theme)

Then my most skilled combatant, Ilral Idekstakud, took to the field, there was a period of silence as my fort's champion (see: the only one with a combat rank that is above novice) faced down the bane of my fort (It was actually the same Ogre as last time, it had the same name and everything). Roughly 1.5 pages of combat reports before being struck down, I found his corpse had been thrown down the stairs and into my stockpile. Cue a few seconds of the rest of the mooks in my militia being pummeled into the dirt repeatedly, these ones didn't even get the mercy of dying.

A thing which does deserve mentioning though is that while all this was happening, my Militia Commander was wandering around trying to find equipment, then, presumably, she dragged my Expedition Leader, who was wounded to my hospital area (fat lot of good that would do when your medical staff are either dead or dying) before she took the the field (I checked her and she is described as "flimsy and very weak") she is currently getting pummeled into the ground by the Blind Ogre that is known as Orsharbuzat (25+ page combat report, but more importantly, we have discovered multiple things, this ogre does eventually get tired, as during the last few pages it repeatedly collapses from overexertion before getting back up, that and apparently its head is split open and dented, my fingers are crossed for it to bleed out.

So yeah, this iteration of the fort is deader than disco. If anyone wants the save file, I'd be happy to upload it, though its not all that special. Though on that topic does anyone know how to upload worlds onto this website and how to download them, I've been trying to download much more interesting worlds but it doesn't seem to be working.