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[Airpi]

I suppose this might overlap a bit with that automated fortress topic, but whatever.

When I first started playing DF, I was terrified of what would happen if I wasn't constantly monitoring the game. I would pause whenever I went to do anything, no matter how brief. In my mind, untold calamity would have befallen my fort if I didn't. Zombie elephants would come and stomp everything flat, kobolds would steal the pants off my dwarves, the booze would run dry, or explode, etc etc.

Recently though, I've found myself trusting the dwarves to keep things going while I was away. Surely they could survive at least five minutes without me. So I'd go to get a cup of coffee or whatnot, assured that they would make do. Besides, half the time I was mining, so they'd strike microcline within a minute or so anyway.

So this morning I performed an experiment, mostly on myself rather than the fort. I loaded up a new game I had started last night, made sure the farms were set for the next season, set some work orders in the job manager, and then I walked away and took a shower. Then I shaved(sorry, it's only because of my job). Then I had some breakfast. I came back to find the game paused, a season had passed and some migrants (a woodcarver, a lye maker, a wood burner, a cheesemaker, and a thresher, fffff) had shown up. Nobody had died, my stockpiles were full of cave wheat and +Rhyolite Amulets+, everything was fine. It was incredibly refreshing.

So, what about you? How much do you trust your dwarves?

[2xMachina]

Not so much.

I only leave them to run (for a few minutes) if they've got boring things to do. I normally oversee them.

Not much risk though. I've made an entrance that would automatically lock out intruders (and place them somewhere where they can get shot at with little risk for my dwarves)). Still need to get some markdwarves to shoot them to complete the system though. Forgot to lock them in though (might fix that later). In any case, cage traps line the area. There's still some idiot dwarves fishing outside when there's a river in my fort.

I've a question though. How do you find out what the immigrants' jobs are? I normally look at them while they walk into my fort. Is there a list instead?

[Airpi]

I usually look at them when they come in 'cause I'm impatient, but you could also just use the (u)nit list.

[2xMachina]

Meh, the unit list includes (and mixes with) the old dwarves. I end up wondering which ones are the immigrants.

[Gergination]

I don't trust my dwarves with something as simple as building a wall.

[Jervous]

Usually when I leave everything is ok, but all my dwarves become idle and a few have probably died from sparring strangulation. (word?)

[Kidiri]

Meh, the unit list includes (and mixes with) the old dwarves. I end up wondering which ones are the immigrants.

Mark the old dwarves either with names or by deactivating hauling for them. The new ones will light up like a Christmas tree because of, respectively, the 'weird' names or the hauling jobs.

[Skorpion]

Oh, I trust my DWARVES. I just don't trust the goblins not to ambush, and my dig designations not to cause huge disasters.
Also, my forts run so inefficiently that the whole computer lags despite it only using up one core. It eats my RAM, so I leave it on while grabbing food and little else.

Also, I tend to run out of booze given half a chance, thanks to the huge consumption rate. Possibly related to the desert.
I'm also working on big construction projects, and monitoring the magma pipe until I can top off a moat section and expand it.

For the most part, my fort is designed so I DON'T need to oversee everything. Most of 'playing' dwarf fortress for me is sitting there watching it, and occasionally checking production levels.
Of course, even mandates now are less of a bother. The new mayor likes billon instead of the old one's rose gold fetish. I've got plenty of copper around, and I hit a vein of silver a while ago.
I also have no goddamn liasons. The human one went insane due to missing a hand, and was eaten by a dog. The dwarf one stopped showing up when the king arrived.

[Atarlost]

I leave it running overnight.  Sieges and ambushes pause, and I geet terrible frame rates on developed fortresses. 

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

I trust my dwarfs to do exactly what I tell them in exactly the wrong order and from the wrong side.

[Jude]

I often get a game going, issue a bunch of orders, and then just take off, whether it's to make food, run an errand, or even leave the house for an extended period of time. Best case scenario, the fort will run itself for a while. Worst case, something bad will happen and the game will get paused; that bad thing would probably have happened anyway if I was watching. What happens 90% of the time is the game gets paused right away anyhow. It's near impossible to run any fort for more than five minutes without some notification force-pausing the game. Generally "you have struck microcline."

[CursedBurger]

I usually leave mine running (alt-tabbed) while browsing the forums. Every few minutes I'll come back and check to make sure nobody's managed to dehydrate themselves to death.

[Frogwarrior]

Heh, I trust my dwarves very little... as soon as the idler count is positive for more than a few seconds, I always go into the Unit menu and fix it, RIGHT AWAY.

[bluea]

If I raise the drawbridge, I basically consider the fort completely "safe". (Knock on steel.)

226 dwarves in an old fort. The problem areas: tree cutting, shrub harvesting, moods. Even sieges, liasons, diplomats, migrants and traders are fine - I don't much need anything from them.

There's no way to say "Designate area for tree cutting/harvesting" or "Designate some new mining."

So it will eventually revert to 100 idle guys in the various dining rooms.

[Blaze]

Trust? They can't even dress themselves properly.

If I left my fortresses on overnight, they'd probably manage to activate every nuclear weapon on the face of the Earth.