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[[P]sYDoNiA]

Hey everyone,

I have recently decided to make my first long term fortress (Lasting for over 5 years) and I'm gonna plan out each step in advance to make it as wakefieldian as possible.

Basically, a wakefieldian settlement is a settlement with everything pre-planned, arranged and set up: all that is needed is people to live in them.

So that means for the first year or two I will mostly just be making 'apartment' rooms and setting up workshops my future immigrants, and seeing how most immigrants are useless, I came up with a logistal figure (not sure if its the right word) to manage the various jobs and occupations of my dwarves... The first 7 settler excluded.

So basically,

[P]sYDoNiA's Logistical Plan

For every 10 dwarves...

- 2 Military Dwarves
These dwarves will be straight away drafted and trained hard to become elite soldiers, possibly a few to become royal or whatever guards when my fortress (hopefully never) attracts nobles. These guys will also be on patrol all around my entrance tunnel, which will be surrounded by a 2 square thick wall 3 z-levels high. Of course with 2 doors to block colossi. Hi Five! 


- 3 Peasants / Soldiers
These dudes will be handling the unskilled and unwanted labours; stone, wood and furniture hauling, carrying refuse around and of course, being my guinea pigs where there are no kittens or elfs around. These guys will be training 1 military skill each until they reach the 'skilled' level or the average level (no prefix). This is so they can be drafted into the military to help provide extra dwarfpower to protect myself against sieges and to replace their fallen superiors. Until they manage to replace their military superiors, they are, essentially, everybody's bitch.


- 3 Workers / Conscripts

I couldn't really think of a better word, so these guys are the 'workers.' The workers do the more menial tasks that still require some level of skill. These tasks detail mining, stone smoothing, farming, fishing, cooking, growing and so on. These guys take care of the pragmatic side of running a fortress, growing food and brewing drink (and growing cannabis, when someone mods it). In times of extreme, dire need, the 'workers' can be conscripted. Strongly advised to NOT do this, as they will just be a liability. However, if they do die, they can be easily replaced.

- 2 Hardcore Artisans

Due to my occasion habit of overindulgence and greed in DF (it is supposed to be histories of it), I usually have a whole bunch of dudes just churning out hundreds of stuff by the frame (slight exaggeration). The role of these artisans are to non-stop make things. Artisans are the craftsdwarves of my fortress; carpentry, fine engraving, masonry, alchemistry, etc. all fall under the banner of the artisans. Through sun, rain and snow these guys will be hard at work. Basically all other labours will be disabled for them. These guys should NEVER go in combat as their extreme skill levels (expert, legendary, etc.) will just all go down the drain. Furthermore, these dudes get the second best lodgings, lagging only to the nobles and administrators.

Context

To put it into context, here are some simple figures...

There is a fortress with a population of 80 living dwarves.
Lets call it Catstrangler.

The nearby Goblins have decided to come knocking on Catstrangler's doorstep.

There are 16 elites, or 'regiment commanders' if you will.
These guys all have insanely high skills in the military branch.
Furthermore, there are 24 soldiers with some solid skill.

Thats half of Catstrangler's total population.
Additionally, if by some miracle they manage to whittle Catstrangler's forces down, there are another 24 conscripts, ready to die for their evil overlord to protect their homes evil overlord.

So, when the occasion calls for it, Around 3 quarters of Catstrangler can be militarised...

Whoa! That reminds me of Prussia!



So that's basically it...

To recap:

Out of 10 dwarves..

2 will focus on military professions, become elites and other military roles.

3 are designated for unskilled labours such as hauling and are prospective for possible military advancement.

Another 3 take on the roles of the commonfolk; farming, fishing and other non-crafting jobs.

The last 2 are the real gems of my fortress. These lucky bastards are going to become some of the most skilled craftsdwarves and they are set to live in the upper echelons of my dwarfdom by plying the trades of carpentry, masonry, gem cutting and others...

SO..

Any comments?

Anything I should change or add?

[Derakon]

Personally I would say that 20% military is excessive, while 30% hauling is insufficient. Also, you only really need 1 farmer. Similarly, I suspect that having a skilled fisher will give you a much larger return on fish before you fish out the local water sources. Really, the only common jobs where skill doesn't affect the utility of the result are:

 * Wood burning, furnace operating, and creation of raw glass
 * Wood cutting
 * Stone smoothing, but not engraving
 * Mining, if you don't care if stone is created
 * Milling and threshing
 * Butchery and tanning

So you could probably turn on all of these jobs for your "commonfolk laborers" (well, except glassmaking, unless you want to muck around with workshop profiles a bunch). Just make a lot of workshops to make up for the fact that non of your workers have any particular skill.

Most forts tend to need gobs of masons to do construction work; generally I end up giving that job to all of my haulers so they can build walls while they aren't hauling. I also tend to leave one dwarf with nothing to do except food hauling; on his own he'll do a reasonably good job of keeping seeds out of the farmer's workshop, querns, still, etc. and keep prepared meals from rotting.

Finally, I'm not certain how much room you have to have 20% of your fortress be skilled laborers. I mean, there's enough different industries to assign one dwarf to each, but most of them will not be used constantly (e.g. you'll only really be making weapons when your military needs them).

[zooeyglass]

i like it! it's definitely not a template i would employ, but if it works for you, then go for it.

personally i've been exploring more and more the idea for individual specialisation - one dwarf in the fortress population with particular skills (and most hauling consequently turned off). i've come to learn (thank you forum!) that one highly skilled farmer is better than many, so finding the professions where quality is better than quantity and setting up my fortress to accommodate that has become a new priority. thus i wind up with a few very high skilled masons/carpenters/farmers/craftsdwarfs with all other labours turned off, and a larger pool of haulers to make up for the speed with which masons/craftsdwarfs can churn out high quality goods.

for skills like tanning/butchery/weaving i am also trying to get a few dwarfs to a high skill level, rather than allowing many to weave/tan/butcher. partly this is because when dwarven economy kicks in, it is very hard to encourage dwarfs that have any skill other than hauling to do the hauling - i think as soon as values become attached to jobs hauling becomes a job that dwarves are far less inclined to select (if they can in fact do a job that pays a bit more). as a result, i have more idlers, and even some complaints about the lack of jobs, when there are plenty available, the dwarves are allowed to haul, but they are getting selective. so to avoid that, i'm trying not to let many dwarves get to being dabbling in skills that i actually want only one person to do.

[loopoo]

Like Derakon said, the military part is a bit too excessive. I for one only have 1 guy in each thing, but anything to do with forging is exempt. I can have 2 armourers and weaponsmiths and smelters, because it is a time-intensive task. But for carpentry and masonry, i'd only have one guy, perhaps two for masonry, that churn out goods.

Also, like Derakon said, most guys go into building. I have atleast 9 Builders who do nothing but build, in a 82 population...Atleast 10 are babies and children.

So overall, you need more in haulers, less in menial tasks and a few in time-intensive tasks. Then a FEW (I mean, a squad consisting of 6 men is perfect. 3 squads can handle ANY siege, Orc or goblin...) go into military, a few weaklings go into Fortress Guard (They charge out into battle and don't listen to orders, so don't put your most prized warriors into it, cause they'll most likely die...) and the rest haulers. You'll be fine like that.

[Foxbyte]

The military thing isn't so bad if you consider half of them are going to be part-time reserves.

Does the military include Royal Guard and such? They have some pretty heavy quotas, something like 15% of your population.