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[decius]

I embarked on a 3x3 mountain/desert biome with aquifer, no magma. The wagon didn't appear, so I went 3 seasons with no wood whatsoever. I've created a nice place for my starting seven, who slept on the ground until the dwarven caravan brought wood. They brought exactly 7, and I made 7 beds.
Now I have an additional 17 immigrants, who are complaining about sleeping on the ground. The aquifer is above me, and I've tapped it for fishing (!). I have no bins, and limited barrels. I have found some coal, flux, and several magnetite clusters.
Where can I get wood for beds? I'll make one into charcoal even it it leaves someone bedless; that and tetrahedrite should provide a supply of billon bins and barrels, but at the cost of steel weapons and armor.
I don't mind the lack of magma, but the lack of beds, barrels, or bins is killing me. Should I abandon and search for asite with underground water, for to farm tower-caps?

[smjjames]

Well, having no wood is part of the challenge for a desert fort.

What does the rest of your situation look like? If you can hold out during the winter for the elves to arrive, they should bring quite a bit of wood.

[Jim Groovester]

Supposedly creating large empty stockpiles of wood prompts the caravan to bring more of it. My observations of playing on a desert map myself seem to coincide with this conclusion.

[Zruku]

Have you tried Viagra? (couldn't resist). If you have an UG river you can make a towercap farm. If you don't, make a baracks with beds, the dwarves won't complain too much if you have something to keep them happy.

[smjjames]

Also, those 7 beds are likely to be your only beds for a while until you make enough barrels to sustain yourself.

Life in a desert fort can be pretty harsh for a while, so get a dining room set up ASAP to keep things from collapsing.

Another bit of advice, bringing along as much wood as you can buy at the supplies screen is a good idea.

[holic]

I don't quiet remember, but I think if you make a barracks they will sleep on the floor without complaining.

[guale]

You can put those seven beds in a barracks rather than individual rooms to avoid complaints about sleeping on the floor. Other than that when the liason comes order a lot of wood and give him big piles of crap for it.

[decius]

I do not have contact with an elven civiliztion as of yet... my <c>iv screen shows only my parent civ, and the 'neighboring civilizations' on embark showed only dwarves.

But all that means is I have to hold out until fall. I just realized that running out of barrels isn't that big a deal, since I have runing water. If my FPS would permit it, I'd just rig a waterfall or several.

And my hunter finally killed the one-legged cyclops that was hanging around causing cancelation spam. Why do cyclopes not have a [modvalue]? It pained me to turn his bones into more bolts.

I hadn't considerd putting everyone into one big barracks. I've always managed early happiness by making great bedrooms for everyone. I guess they'll just have to look at their +diorite statues+ as I train my mason on them.

Already put maximum priority on wood, and I'll desginate a few local tiles worth of empty wood stockpile. Update on how that works later.

[Ubiq]

I'll make one into charcoal even it it leaves someone bedless; that and tetrahedrite should provide a supply of billon bins and barrels, but at the cost of steel weapons and armor.

Why not just request charcoal from the caravan rather than using some of the wood? If you give them enough of a profit margin and put high enough of a demand on wood and charcoal, they'll bring plenty of both.

Far as bins go... well, one option is to request a whole bunch of cheap leather from both representatives, trade a trio of cheap mugs for for each bin, and dump the leather. Your dwarves should grab the empty bin for something else eventually.

You could always request barrels from the caravans, but they tend to be fairly expensive. Cheaper to just order a lot of booze.

[Fossaman]

I'd recommend requesting bituminous coal and lignite from the caravan as well. That'll save you a little more wood.

At this point, I think you're stuck with a max of three to four wood logs a year. Dwarves only bring towercap, and I've never seen them bring more than three or four of an item at a time.

[darkflagrance]

I'd recommend requesting bituminous coal and lignite from the caravan as well. That'll save you a little more wood.

At this point, I think you're stuck with a max of three to four wood logs a year. Dwarves only bring towercap, and I've never seen them bring more than three or four of an item at a time.

Actually, I once bagged ~120 logs off a dwarven caravan. Just have no logs before the caravan spawns, while having given it a large profit in the previous year.

[Amalgam]

Ouch, treeless map + no magma is brutal. I know because I had to abandon a fort because of that. For all you know you might have an underground water feature but that's being very optimistic. If you want to cheat you could use reveal to find out the easy way but you're probably not going to find anything.

Also, dig more. I found at least 5 veins of coal before abandoning my earlier fort.

[IronyOwl]

Supposedly creating large empty stockpiles of wood prompts the caravan to bring more of it. My observations of playing on a desert map myself seem to coincide with this conclusion.

Fascinating. Is this suspected to work on anything else?

[Amalgam]

Just in general, the whole trade system is very poorly documented. There's probably quite a few quirks about it we're completely oblivious to. For example, what exactly are the effects of offering things to other civs and buttering them up by giving them more goods? Everyone says something along the lines of "improving relationships" or "it makes them bring more goods" but that's not very specific, and it's a hard thing to test. Toady already answers questions aplenty about the next version in the FOTF thread, but where do we go to ask questions about the current version?

Not that I'm against a little dwarven science, but it's questions like these that are burning in the back of my head when I'm trading.

[Hyndis]

Offering goods as gifts is what triggers the king to come, even if you do not have adamantine on your map.

Your king requires a certain amount of fortress wealth, offerings, and roads.