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[cyrohound]

Been awhile since I've played DF and I have a couple of random questions.

1.) Does the quality of a quern matter? I have 2 artifacts that are querns, one of which sells for 80K because my craft dwarf used like 4 gold bars to decorate it, and I'm currently wondering if it's worth just selling that.
2.) Is the quality of ash glaze based at all on the quality of the ash, or is it just from the glazing skill?
3.) Is there some way to get my library scholars, who have no labors enabled, to actually write a book/scroll/whatever? Or is it completely random. All my scholars seem to do is contemplate X.
4.) Is there some way to ensure that at least 10 bags are only used for sand, and nothing else, without mods?

[clockwork]

Been awhile since I've played DF and I have a couple of random questions.

Welcome back!

1. Quern quality doesn't really matter. But, I'd personally use the artifact quern as it will increase your fortresses overall wealth and attract more migrants.
2. Ash has a base value which does not change and is only increased through the quality of the glaze if used in a glaze.
3.Yes, but it will take a while and I believe it is dependent on personality and skills.
4.Through micromanagement? Probably.

[cyrohound]

Thanks!

[anewaname]

3) By the time your dwarfs begin to write books, other dwarfs may become upset if they have nothing to read, so it is worth buying a few books from traders.

[PatrikLundell]

3. "Some way" doesn't exist as such, I think, but giving them time and material should allow them to eventually get some results from their pondering and discussions. However, selecting dorfs with suitable personality increases the chances.
4. Probably rather tricky, unless you have so many bags that you're bound to have some left over, in which case setting up a complicated control scheme wouldn't be needed.

[mikekchar]

1. I don't think you can sell artifacts, so it's a moot point ;-)  Might as well use it since it will give dwarfs good thoughts to do so.
...
4. There is no way that I know of to ensure that bags are never used for picking up seeds.  What I do is make a stockpile for cloth bags (with no bins) and have it give to the glass furnace.  If you want to reserve 10 bags, then make the stockpile 10 tiles in size.  Usually I make these bags out of a specific cloth, or dyed with a specific dye, but you don't have to.  Then I have a manager job at my clothier's to make 1 bag every time I have less than 10 bags (and if I've picked pigtail cloth for sand bags, then I can make it based on pigtail cloth bags -- you get the idea).  I have that job repeating every day.  Then every time a dwarf nicks a sandbag to do something else, a dwarf makes a new pigtail bag and delivers it to the furnace stockpile stockpile.

It's a shame that you can't stop dwarfs from using whatever bag for collecting seeds, but you can use stockpile links to control every other bag usage.  I admit that this kind of logical puzzle is half the fun of the game for me and while it is tedious to set up, it's not micro managing per se.  (And before PatrikLundell mentions it, yes, you *do* have to actively manage growing/shearing of the cloth materials, which sucks ;-) ).  BTW, never use bins for things that are connected to manager conditions otherwise everytime a dwarf picks up a bin you end up making more of that thing :-P

[Fleeting Frames]

You can prevent them using whatever bag for collecting seeds by having no path from bag to seeds i.e. isolating your farmer/brewer like they're a vampire, with solid food need being met by meat/fish.

[Shonai_Dweller]

You've been able to sell artifacts (or offer them) since the Artifacts release.

[mikekchar]

You've been able to sell artifacts (or offer them) since the Artifacts release.

Oh!  Thank you for the correction!  I had no idea...  I wonder what happens to the dwarfs who claim it as a family heirloom only to have it sold out from under them...  Hmmm...

[cyrohound]

You've been able to sell artifacts (or offer them) since the Artifacts release.

Oh!  Thank you for the correction!  I had no idea...  I wonder what happens to the dwarfs who claim it as a family heirloom only to have it sold out from under them...  Hmmm...

As far as I can tell, they don't seem to care. I am also not quite running the newest version of DF, so maybe that changed, but most Dwarves who claim stuff as an heirloom don't actually take the item they made. It just sits in a stock pile like any other item, until you decide to do something with it.

[feelotraveller]

1.) Does the quality of a quern matter? I have 2 artifacts that are querns, one of which sells for 80K because my craft dwarf used like 4 gold bars to decorate it, and I'm currently wondering if it's worth just selling that.
2.) Is the quality of ash glaze based at all on the quality of the ash, or is it just from the glazing skill?
3.) Is there some way to get my library scholars, who have no labors enabled, to actually write a book/scroll/whatever? Or is it completely random. All my scholars seem to do is contemplate X.
4.) Is there some way to ensure that at least 10 bags are only used for sand, and nothing else, without mods?

1.  More valuable querns lead to slightly more happiness but no change in production.  Between the two I'd recommend using the more valuable one unless your miller(s)/papermaker(s) have a preference for the materials of the other.  But an even better idea would be to put them both on pedestals somewhere prominent so dwarfs can admire them (and thiefs be baited...) and make a millstone for powered milling since the jobs will process much faster.  (All sorts of junk can be sold and the caravan brings a limited selection of often useless stuff...)

2. Glazing skill only.

3. It's sort of random.  Higher academic skill seems to help and discoveries often lead to books but are themselves apparently random.  There used to be a bug that sometimes prevented writing that was worked around by forbidding/unforbidding all writing materials but that may have been fixed by now.

4. A solution is MOAR!, bags specifically.  Early on in the fort I make them like there is no tomorrow, basically unless there is a watertight reason for something else bags are made whenever possible.  Repeat until there is a large excess of bags, and then whenever they run low again.

[Shonai_Dweller]

You've been able to sell artifacts (or offer them) since the Artifacts release.

Oh!  Thank you for the correction!  I had no idea...  I wonder what happens to the dwarfs who claim it as a family heirloom only to have it sold out from under them...  Hmmm...

As far as I can tell, they don't seem to care. I am also not quite running the newest version of DF, so maybe that changed, but most Dwarves who claim stuff as an heirloom don't actually take the item they made. It just sits in a stock pile like any other item, until you decide to do something with it.

Yeah, they only "claim it as an heirloom" to keep consistency with the rest of the world's artifact creators right now. It gives them a strong claim to the artifact, but they can't act on that until after the player retires.

[therahedwig]

For bags(and barrels, and buckets) I just have a manager order that 5 need to be as soon as there's less than 5 empty bags. This ensures there's always between 5 and 10 bags available.

You might actually be able to get your 10~ bags of sand, if you can set up 5 collect sand jobs that only execute if there's at the least 5 empty bags and less than 5 bags of sand are in the stock piles, which I think is considered a sand holding container in the manager list?

[Paralyzoid]

Regarding the sand: as mentioned above, the best way to make sure the bags aren't used for anything else is to fill them with sand first. You can do that through the manager.

My manager setup is a "Collect Sand" x5 order; the conditions are;

• "empty sewn-imageless boxes and bags available is at least 8": Since there's no manager trait to differentiate between boxes and bags, "sewn-imageless" will only count items you can sew images onto. You can't sew stuff onto a box, so this counts bags.
• "sand-bearing boxes and bags available is less than 20": You would use 10 here.

[therahedwig]

• "empty sewn-imageless boxes and bags available is at least 8": Since there's no manager trait to differentiate between boxes and bags, "sewn-imageless" will only count items you can sew images onto. You can't sew stuff onto a box, so this counts bags.

Ah, that's cleverer than my solution; I just went by material, and that means just one material of bags :p