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[Akoto]

Hello all,

I'm back to DF after quite the vacation, and per usual, I want to create a fortress around a role-playing theme! This one shall be a little unusual compared to my prior attempts in that I would like this dwarven city to be a center of knowledge!

I'm hoping some can give tips on how to get this kicked off properly, such as what skills to initially give my scholarly dwarven settlers and what I might want to pack in their caravan. Remember, it's *all* about being a fortress of scholars. If we're attacked, we're doomed, we likely won't have a military unless migrants bring the skills in. I'd prefer to avoid other skills other than what's absolutely necessary (which I imagine is a bit of Grower, Brewer, things like that).

I do understand from reading around that migrants are likely to be better scholars than my actual scholarly settlers, but I nevertheless want to give them the best odds they can get from the outset. So, from what I gather, I want them to have high Academics to encourage writing books and high Writing to increase quality of said books. I then want to give them a range of 'knowledge' skills so that they'll talk with each other about their interests and be inspired to write. But, that's a lot to spread around ten points (plus at least a few having to shoulder the above mentioned necessary labors). How would you set up the skills for our starting group of dwarven geniuses?

Any other advice about this idea, library setup, etcetera would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[delphonso]

If you're not aiming for any other industries, farming and tree cutting can get you everything you need. Booze and food from the farms, and pigtail parchment with a bit of mill work, and finally some wooden scroll rollers. (A minor amount of stone necessary, though you could embark with say...15 slate and be done with it)

Personally, I think it'd be fun to sort of separate the library into sections. Perhaps the two engineering types in one section, astronomy and geography in another, critical thinking, mathematics and logic all being together makes sense to me. Of course, the dwarves will wander between sections for greater insights. I would pour all the points into their academic skills (unfortunately, there are more than 7 topics to choose from) and not worry about the wood cutting/crafting/farming skills, as it's not a big deal if those are a bit slow.

On a more serious note, your dwarves might go a bit insane if they're just in the library all day. So you may end up needing to assign each of them some crafting jobs or a bit of military training just to cheer them up.

[Akoto]

Thanks for the advice! I've been trying to incorporate it into my designs, but I may have to go back to the drawing board overall on those. Initially, I'd wanted the library to be outside, but it felt like a huge effort just to build a relatively small structure for the dwarves to live in. By the time it was done, my first migrants had already alive. I feel a surface library looks cooler, but it may have to be underground. At least there's a volcano at this embark spot, so I can make the best of it, lots of metal to decorate my scrolls and books with.

[Hans Lemurson]

A piece of advice on milling fiber plants to slurry:  This requires the Papermaking labor, not Milling or Plant processing.  If you don't have a dwarf with that labor assigned, the job will just sit around being frustratingly ignored.