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[kerzack]

Hey all, new poster here and I've got a few questions..

Do all of the tables in my meeting/dining hall have to be set to meeting hall and sized to the room size? I have a big room and a LOT of tables. Also, I just checked the room menu and it showed up with a bunch of dining rooms from the tables I've already laid down.

What can I do with the 30-40 extra dwarfs that I don't really have any work for? Things with professions like thresher/miller/peasant/soap maker/etc. I usually just toss peasants into military, but it seems like I have far too many dwarfs running around doing nothing (except partying of course).

Lastly, is there any way I can have some sort of safe indoor fishing area? The map is free of carp, and currently I have a cistern that fills my well and my moat (grate separating the moat for safety). I currently have a pumping tower and aqueduct-type-thing that fills my cistern up, but I'm not sure if it's possible for me to populate it with fish.

Thanks,

[Demonic Spoon]

Firstly, you simply need to designate one large dining hall ecompassing all the tables and chairs. Making the dining hall a meeting area is not necessary, it simply cuases all your idle dwarves to congregate there.

As to idle dwarves try organizing everything into nice stockpiles all over the place. Also try setting up some new industries like the cloth and glass industries. Expand you current industries as well.

You can set a zone for fishing in the indoor cistern using zones (i). If i remember correctly any source of water will automatically spawn the tiny vermin fish that will then be fished by dwarves with the fishing labour. The fishing zone is not necessary for dwarves to fish there but they will then thereafter prefer to fish there or if you so set it in the (o)rders menu will only be allowed to fish there.

[Scarpa]

Just one table needs to be set as a hall. All the buildings/furniture that falls under the room boundaries counts towards the room value and will be used.

Setup efficient industries for farming, cooking/brewing, cloth, glass, metal, stonework, animal byproducts (leather, meat, bones). Build giant things outside, build lots of levers, pumps, bridges, etc to use mechanics, etc. If you explore the breadth of the game you won't be worried about extra dwarves.

You don't fish large fish like carp, you fish vermin. So go ahead and designate a fishing zone by your cistern and see if you catch anything.

[kerzack]

Thanks for the quick replies. I'll give all that a shot, probably starting with a smelting/forging industry.

I was thinking of building some sort of large, unnecessary outdoor military outpost with underground tunnels to connect it to my fortress. From there I could bait orcs/goblins in by lowering my drawbridge, raise it at the last second, and fire down from my towers.

How much of a z-level difference does there have to be before marksdwarves will stop firing? Also, is there any way to make siege operators not run away at the first sight of danger beyond my fortifications?

[Stargrasper]

Thanks for the quick replies. I'll give all that a shot, probably starting with a smelting/forging industry.

I was thinking of building some sort of large, unnecessary outdoor military outpost with underground tunnels to connect it to my fortress. From there I could bait orcs/goblins in by lowering my drawbridge, raise it at the last second, and fire down from my towers.

How much of a z-level difference does there have to be before marksdwarves will stop firing? Also, is there any way to make siege operators not run away at the first sight of danger beyond my fortifications?

People generally recommend arrow towers be three z-levels high.  Feel free to vary that however you'd like, but remember that the higher you go, the less range you have and the lower, the easier it is for the enemy archers/marksmen/etc to shoot you.  3 z-levels is generally taken as a good balance between range and safety.

As to siege operators...they're civilians, not soldiers.  They'll run.  Keep a strong enough defense ahead of them to prevent it.  If I'm not mistaken, siege engines will happily shoot through fortifications as though they weren't there...so try to place those far enough ahead that the engineers won't run off.

[Albedo]

I'd suggest you read the wiki on "room".

What we think of as "walls" don't always define a room in DF.  Rooms are designated to whatever size you want/can (designated internal/external doors can limit the area).  That  "room" encompasses the whole of that area - one easy way to have a top-quality dining hall early is simply make it as big as possible.  (Note that when room designations overlap, those areas reduce their value significantly!)  But it's the designation, not area between walls and not the furniture, that is "the room".

[bluea]

A moat around your arrow tower does wonders. If you have a three-tile-wide moat, with just a one-level-high tower (fortifications one level above ground level), goblin archers are wildly outclassed by random people drafted on the spot and handed a cruddy bow.

A 'meeting area' also gets the unassigned animals to congregate somewhere other than the spot where the wagon was disassembled.

Thirdly, 30-40 idlers is trouble for me. They're busy making friends - and if one of them dies, they'll all get irritated. At the very, very least, I'd make a row of screw pumps, and make all the soap makers into pump operators. The pump doesn't need to actually -pump- anything. Think dwarven exercise machine.

[kerzack]

Thanks for the tips, I think I'll just steer clear of siege weapons for now.

@Albedo, Thanks for the pointer to the wiki article. Makes things a bit more clear on how to designate rooms and such. Just double checking, only one bed/target in the barracks/archery range has to assign the room and barracks/range, right?

Also, I channeled a line into my cistern, made a pathway, and designated a fishing zone and everyone tries to fish there once a season, but it says that there isn't anything to catch after a while. Anyone have any ideas?

[Stargrasper]

Thanks for the tips, I think I'll just steer clear of siege weapons for now.

@Albedo, Thanks for the pointer to the wiki article. Makes things a bit more clear on how to designate rooms and such. Just double checking, only one bed/target in the barracks/archery range has to assign the room and barracks/range, right?

Also, I channeled a line into my cistern, made a pathway, and designated a fishing zone and everyone tries to fish there once a season, but it says that there isn't anything to catch after a while. Anyone have any ideas?

Yes, when designating rooms, you only have to do it once and appropriate furniture in that room will be utilized properly.

And yeah, get to know the wiki.  It's your friend on so many topics.

And the cistern...it's an artificial water supply.  Therefore there wasn't anything in it to begin with.  That's means all you get are the vermin fish(turtles normally) that spawn in it every...season, I think.  Overfishing can and will exhaust the supply of vermin fish in ANY body of water.  Vermin will spawn in there again and will happily teleport around until disappearing or you catch them.  Just give it time.

[kerzack]

Gotcha. I've read the article on magma pipes, but I was wondering what would happen if I ran water from a river over the top of my magma pipe. It's exposed to the surface, and fire imps are a bit of a problem. Could I seal off the top by making an obsidian cap and still use magma on my lower levels?

[Demonic Spoon]

Yes.

[Albedo]

@Albedo, Thanks for the pointer to the wiki article. Makes things a bit more clear on how to designate rooms and such. Just double checking, only one bed/target in the barracks/archery range has to assign the room and barracks/range, right?

NP.  Yes on barracks, but archery - not sure.  I want to say that some problems have been reported if each range is not allocated separately? (That's how I do it.)

The wiki is 99% accurate - but that's a better average than this forum.    (Of course, that one obscure out-dated or poorly worded piece of info will cause the ruin of your entire fortress, natch.) 

[SquirrelWizard]

another thing regarding idle dwarves.

If you dont have a dwarven gym operating (screwpumps) instead just use the dump command on your useless stone, and set the dump point to somewhere near your workshops. Once you've cleaned up your fortress, you can then move the dump posistion and redump the stone to keep them busy.

If you need any stone for crafting, make sure you claim the stones after its dumped. Its not very constructive, but its busy work, keep an eye out on your caregivers and planters as soemtimes they'll forget to give water/harvest which can lead to other problems

[Albedo]

Its not very constructive, but its busy work

The drawback is that it does not give experience, so no new stats (pumping does give stats, if slowly).  The advantage is that it allows skilled masons and craftsdwarfs to only walk a few steps to get their raw materials, and so they'll stay doing what they do best, while unskilled dwarfs do the grunt lifting.

Optimally, you want take your unskilled immigrants and give them just enough experience in something quick (like mining soil or BookKeeping) for a little Agility and Strength, the perfect hauler combo.  High Strength can be stone haulers, and no-Strength/high-Toughness are safe to put into military training (won't hurt each other, and more stats are coming.)

keep an eye out on your caregivers and planters as soemtimes they'll forget to give water/harvest which can lead to other problems

If I have dwarves with critical jobs (mining, masons, growers), I often turn most or all hauling off on them - certainly anything like "busy work".  I don't need them taking long hikes to move one stone to a dump when they should be doing what they're trained to do, and what the fortress depends on them to do, and quickly. 

For growers, I have some support crew who specialize in farm/kitchen/food stuff, and they have food/refuse hauling.  The Grower just does that, 100% of the time (and I have "Only Farmers Harvest" turned on - gets them more experience and fast (Legendary Grower by 2nd Spring or so?), and if they're dedicated to only that it works np.)