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[Deathworks]

Hi!

Actually I am the type who enjoys infrastructure (The Settlers became uninteresting for me once they removed the mandatory roads).

As such, I have found that stock piles help a lot with the early game:

Refuse stock piles - unless ignored - are your weapon against miasmas who can drive your dwarves ever closer to tantrums.

Food stock piles are needed to preserve food.

Stones/ore/gem stock piles are needed to have dwarves clear mining sites. I have experienced the occasional "cancel workshop because location is blocked".

At least from a newbie perspective, having at least above stock piles right from the start on is part of what allows me to survive the first winter.

Wood stock piles are also quite good since it is usually the wood cutter himself who puts the wood there, so no uninvolved dwarves dragged in.

And having things in a workshop does not guarantee that it is actually used. One of the favorites of my craftdwarves is the following

- (Probably returning from lunch break)
- Message: Craftsdwarf X cancels Make Bone Crafts: Need Unrotten Bones
- Craftsdwarf X then walks into the workshop, picks up the turtle bones he had placed there beforehand and carries them over to the refuse pile.
- Since the Make Bone Crafts R job has been removed completely from the job queue, the bones are left there to rot.

Well, with crafts and anything that can be made of stone or wood, which are effectively unrottable, this is not too much of an issue. But the rotting corpses is really something that frustrates newbies a lot, especially after experiencing the vermin hunting meltdown time and time again. (I wish dwarves involved directly in food production like fishing or hunting would be less inclined to do vermin hunting. It just sounds weird to have "Dwarf X cancel Hunting in order to hunt for vermin for food" ... all the time!

So, I am not really concerned about hauling keeping my dwarves busy (you can toggle most hauling in the labor menu, so it's not that much of a problem), but about issues of items not being taken care of even when they are in the right workshop.

Ah, and the one feature that I would also really love to see would be a working health care system for seriously injured dwarves. Having to euthanize them feels really sad (T_T), especially if they have done so much good for the fortress.

Ah, but to cheer up the mood, in my latest fortress, the first dwarf caravan had just arrived and I bought all their stuff while having lots of crafts left. But that is not the good news. It seems that, at the same time, the racoons wanted to stage their first raid on my fortress. The caravan guards made short work of them, Hurray! There are few things as comforting as seeing that light grey/white "r" on a red background. (Even if everything they could steal is already withing the fortress, all the job cancellations because of them are really annoying).

Deathworks

(desperately trying to do something else besides playing Dwarf Fortress all day)

[Mlittle]

Custom stockpiles are the power tool. My refuse stockpiles are broken down into:

Corpses and body parts have a separate stockpile. Body parts are not worth it, but hard to prevent the dwarfs from trying to butcher them. Sometimes multiple stockpiles, each in a separate room. So I can lock the door, if the stockpile gets filled with useless corpses. Than I just wait untill it rots down to the bones.

Bones and skulls don't rot but vanish at the change of season, if left outside. No fear of miasma but keep them inside.

Skins have no stockpile that accepts them. I want them processed as soon as possible, so I keep them in butchers shop, until a tanner gets to work on them.

Only the rest of the refuse goes on the actual refuse stockpile.

[TerminatorII]

raw skins go into refuse stock piles.

[Faces of Mu]

Toady,

When you mention merchants/caravans, does this mean actually sending our own trading caravans out, stocked with goods, on their own mercantile route?

If that's what you mean, then honestly I'd be happier seeing that be implemented long before armies. I'd love a way to send all my useless crafts on the road in exchange for some money, food or arms in due course (as long as the caravan doesn't get raided on it's path due to insufficient protection)! I like the idea of the side project or primary goal of training horses, constructing wagons, preparing and equipping a caravan guard and specialising some dwarves in commerce to prepare them all for a nice long round trip to the other civilisations. Think of the social consequences of such recruitment and pioneering!

[ July 09, 2007: Message edited by: Faces of Mu ]

[TerminatorII]

Um just got a wild Idea, but can't you do farming without any other souce but a well?

make a pool chanel with a flood gate attathed, and then fill it up and pull lever?

Ill have to give it a shot.

[Tracker]

I think it would be neat if some items, when rotted, became fertilizer. That way your garbage could be compost.

[Toady One]

The foundations for armies are going in, but it won't be noticeable aside from some adventure mode migrants wandering around.  Fortress mode migrants await Life Cycles Arc and merchant migrants await Caravan Arc.

With caravans being sent out from the fortress, I haven't thought so much about that, and who'd be more in charge of that, as far as enterprising dwarves vs. the player, especially when they arrive at their destinations.  I suppose it could just throw up a menu.  Anyway, you'll likely be stuck with having the traders come to you.  The Caravan Arc concerns getting the old caravans working on the world map and giving the various locations proper goods and resources and so on.

[Baneslave]

I think caravans would work pretty well with some menu that you use before caravan leaves. You could give them tradestuff, give them destination or race to trade and some things you would like to buy.

[Tormy]

quote:Originally posted by Toady One:
<STRONG>The foundations for armies are going in, but it won't be noticeable aside from some adventure mode migrants wandering around.  Fortress mode migrants await Life Cycles Arc and merchant migrants await Caravan Arc.

With caravans being sent out from the fortress, I haven't thought so much about that, and who'd be more in charge of that, as far as enterprising dwarves vs. the player, especially when they arrive at their destinations.  I suppose it could just throw up a menu.  Anyway, you'll likely be stuck with having the traders come to you.  The Caravan Arc concerns getting the old caravans working on the world map and giving the various locations proper goods and resources and so on.</STRONG>

Argh...so basically we still wont be able to raise armies / capture towns...  

[axus]

Hey I like the new line-wrapping for the topic page numbers, no need for a new topic now   :p

[Toady One]

Some new pictures of what I'm doing on the Future of the Fortress page.  There are 3 human town pictures.  The dwarf wagon started out on the roof of the meat store.  That's fine because the store was nestled in a hill.  There's one building that required a stilt, and some that used ramps to go up from where they were nestled.  It gives them a hill-dwelling vibe right now, but it could default to stilts more often or whatever else.  Still in progress, but I'm not going to do too much more with it for now.

[Tamren]

Looks awesome.

One thing bothers me though. Will we be able to change the level viewed? Or will the level we can see be tied to where our avatar is standing at that moment?

[Misterstone]

Damn, those dwarves are going to get themselves shot if they aren't careful.  Smug little bastards riding a cart over the roof...

Looks like loads of fun!

[Eiba]

quote:Originally posted by Toady One:
<STRONG>The dwarf wagon started out on the roof of the meat store.</STRONG>

This is just one of those phrases that you read and think, "I never imagined I'd read that that phrase."

It's silly, because there are generally very few phrases that you actually imagine before reading... Nevertheless, this phrase stands out as a particularly unlikely one to conceive...

[Faces of Mu]

Looks great, Toady. Much thanks for the update!!

I think I need some help with interpretation. Like, what's happening on the roof of the low-level residences? At first I thought it was wood walls, but now I'm thinking it's what's left of the dirt hill (i.e., dirt walls), and hence why there are grass + trees on the high level there. Correct?

Also, where do the brown down ramps of the high-level near this spot go to? There's no joining ramps on the 2nd level, so what does this mean for the ramp-eager humans? Were they dug through?

What do the different colours for ramps mean?

My last question is: does this mean we can no longer change the default setting to make ground a uniform .....?

Thanks again! Towns on hills was something I hadn't even thought would happen (assumed all other civs would be on plains - but this makes it more real!).

[ July 11, 2007: Message edited by: Faces of Mu ]