Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Truean]

Yes I know, "Magma...."

Productively though....

Setting up bedrooms for each of them (actually with a surplus) took most of my time so far. It's quite a nice complex above an underground pool I intend to make into farming and recreation areas (was devoid of life, go figure). So far, I have very good defensive battlements with fortifications and a forge/smelter setup with lots of storage for various ores/bars. I have no food production but have managed to get lots of food and alcohol from the caravan (will be fixed soon).

Army:
Currently I have no army. What is the best way to go about fixing that? I can manage to give them all decent steel armor and probably decent leather (started with armorsmith and leatherworker at proficent). I have some horn silver and silver on the map. Would it be better to train them in wrestler first or give them no quality silver weapons to spar with while wearing full steel? I just don't like how wrestler levels up too quickly otherwise.... Yet, I don't want a bunch of injured dwarves. Thoughts?

Stone:
Despite having the first floor of a somewhat impressive castle finished, I still have too much stone. I was thinking of having some of the females be stonecrafters (because I am sick of dwarven baby shields...).

Food:

I have non production of it and now have a population of 37. The trade caravan won't last me forever, though you'd be surprised how many meals you can get out of seeds.... Thus, I think I should use that underground pool to irrigate a few areas nearby. I was thinking I could just pump water onto some of the dug out areas near the shore and take things from there.

Speaking of irrigation, I have a mostly mountainous area to work with. How do I make "greenhouses" to grow above ground crops over stone. I realize you have to use water in buckets or pumps, but there will probably be a biome issue won't there? I say this because nothing grows in mountainous areas on the surface in game. I want to get around this limitation. Any ideas on the greenhouses for this?

Truean

[Jim Groovester]

Regarding your issues and my opinion on them,

ARMY:

Draft a few dwarves who will be nothing but haulers for their whole lives. Make them wrestle, and equip them in the best armor you can manage. If it's decent steel plate instead of exceptional steel plate, so be it. Don't train them in weapons until they're at legendary in wrestling. This should reduce the number of sparring injuries to a minimum, though you'll still probably get one or two that get a damaged neck or spine or something.

STONE:

Just the first floor of a castle? Keep building. Stone can go away quick if you're not keeping track of it or if you don't have enough of it, though if you spend all your time excavating enormous portions of the map you probably won't have that problem.

If you still have too much stone, turn them into crafts or instruments or mugs, stone blocks, furniture, dump them in the chasm or dump them in magma, or put them under a raising drawbridge and atomsmash them to oblivion.

FOOD:

To build a greenhouse for above ground crops, just put a floor of any material over the farm plot. Making the farm inside removes all biome restrictions.

[silhouette]

drop them onto nobles!

[CognitiveDissonance]

drop them onto nobles!

Urist McNoble has mandated construction of Hardhats

[Shaostoul]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yes I know, "Magma...."

Productively though....

Setting up bedrooms for each of them (actually with a surplus) took most of my time so far. It's quite a nice complex above an underground pool I intend to make into farming and recreation areas (was devoid of life, go figure). So far, I have very good defensive battlements with fortifications and a forge/smelter setup with lots of storage for various ores/bars. I have no food production but have managed to get lots of food and alcohol from the caravan (will be fixed soon).

Army:
Currently I have no army. What is the best way to go about fixing that? I can manage to give them all decent steel armor and probably decent leather (started with armorsmith and leatherworker at proficent). I have some horn silver and silver on the map. Would it be better to train them in wrestler first or give them no quality silver weapons to spar with while wearing full steel? I just don't like how wrestler levels up too quickly otherwise.... Yet, I don't want a bunch of injured dwarves. Thoughts?

Stone:
Despite having the first floor of a somewhat impressive castle finished, I still have too much stone. I was thinking of having some of the females be stonecrafters (because I am sick of dwarven baby shields...).

Food:

I have non production of it and now have a population of 37. The trade caravan won't last me forever, though you'd be surprised how many meals you can get out of seeds.... Thus, I think I should use that underground pool to irrigate a few areas nearby. I was thinking I could just pump water onto some of the dug out areas near the shore and take things from there.

Speaking of irrigation, I have a mostly mountainous area to work with. How do I make "greenhouses" to grow above ground crops over stone. I realize you have to use water in buckets or pumps, but there will probably be a biome issue won't there? I say this because nothing grows in mountainous areas on the surface in game. I want to get around this limitation. Any ideas on the greenhouses for this?

Truean

ARMY:

Men only, baby shields are bad, I've come to this conclusion with my baby happy fort with 50 babies on the front lines (Relentless Assault and lots of baddies) they all died... Marksdwarfs?

STONE:

You can never have enough dwarfs when making huge projects that involve going up in z-levels and making floors.

FOOD:

FISHERS! No farms.

[Malicus]

I recall reading on the wiki that a "greenhouse" won't work in mountain biomes, as it will refuse to let you plant outdoor plants on muddied rock in a mountain biome.  You may need to put your greenhouse somewhere else.

[IronyOwl]

Army:

Your military can supposedly get moods, so make sure each potential member produces a single piece of armor, glasswork, or whatever else it is you'd like artifacts of.

Let them level their wrestling/shield/armor use before handing them weapons. Wrestling continues to go up from regular dodging around, but it's an essential skill for not getting killed, so don't feel bad about them being wrestlers right up until they become hammer lords or champions.

I've heard that sparring uses a system whereby a dwarf's skill and weapon quality increase the chance of a sparring hit, rather than an injuring blow like in actual combat, so giving them higher quality weapons would actually be better. In any case, with decent wrestling, mediocre armor wearing/shield using, quality steel plate, and silver weapons, you should only rarely have to worry about training accidents.


Stone:

I tend to find that stonecrafting is one of those tasks that's best left to one or a handful of highly skilled dwarves, rather than large masses. Consider using the extra manpower to steamline the process instead, such as by having a stone stockpile right next to your shops.

If you're insistent on getting rid of the stone, you might also consider masonry or having it systematically dumped from the regions you don't want it in. Just remember how many low-value crafts you'll have to trade away if you do go the crafter's route.


Food:

I'm not aware of a biome issue, but I've heard irrigation farming only functions for subterranean crops- that is, aboveground crops can't be planted on muddy tiles, and require actual soil instead.



As a final note, you may wish to modify the population cap in the init file. It can be altered between saves without a problem, and things can get fairly unruly with more dwarves, as I'm sure you're noticing.

[Truean]

Hum,

Well the greenhouse limitation kinda sucks and makes me wonder why I would bother making greenhouses on mountain tiles if I can only grow underground food there. I could do that anywhere I can irrigate--including much deeper down near my residences. Can anyone verify this? It seems to be a major drawback to dwarves, who typically live in mountain regions.

Military:
I'm pretty sure all male immigrants will be front line soldiers, due to their lack of baby-shields. I have two questions on this:

1.) How do I get dwarves to carry two different weapons? I would like them to carry a spear as a primary weapon and a short sword as a backup weapon, because spears typically get stuck. I have figured out how to make them carry two weapons, but not two different KINDS of weapons. Any ideas?

2.) Would females be useful as Defensive Marksdwarves without running into babyshield tantrum issues. I have lots of fortifications set up near my entrance and wouldn't mind stationing a few up there to fire down on any unfortunate moron who wanders in. Ideas? Questions? Comments?

On a slightly different topic, how long should I let my troops train only in wrestler? I notice that once they hit great and are champions, I can no longer easily change their weapon preferences. This sucks, just like the economy does (can't assign beds to non legendary and thus why it is off for me).

NOTE: Will force all military dwarves to make one item of armor in case strange moods strike.

Food:
I'm pretty sure I can get some underground crops going, though as noted above, the greenhouse thing is an issue as I would like above ground crops.... Fishing could be an idea, though I was of the impression that it was not sustainable. Thoughts?

Stone:
Atom smashers. Also the occasional stonecrafters. Furthermore, masonry block productions. 'Nuff said.

Haulers:
Should I bother with training these guys on something like pump operations? Perhaps they should be used to smooth over a section of the fort? Basically I would like to consider training up their stats for a bit so as to make them haul faster. Ideas?

Truean

[darkflagrance]

1) You can't.
2) Sure...also, drafted single dwarves can take on lovers, but will never marry unless undrafted, so you'd be fine drafting single females if you're worried about babies.
3) Wrestle for as long as you can afford if you have decent armor. Some let them reach legendary, while others let only let them reach just before Elite.

Weapon preferences can be changed no matter how the dwarf trained up to champion. You do however need to manually [d]ump pieces of clothing or armor in their hands first, because the game hasn't been programmed to do this automatically yet.

For above ground crops, just wall off some non-mountain biome soil. They're not that great anyway.

[madjoe5]

1) You can't.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up. What exactly does a two weapon soldier carry then? Two swords? Two hammers, etc.

I jus assumed that it would be like having a sheathed weapon while using a different one and the occasional two-handed weapon. I never knew that they would two weapons at once.

[Jim Groovester]

They don't use two weapons at once. They use one weapon, and they have a backup weapon of the same type if anything happens to the first weapon, like it gets stuck in a goblin or something.

So get visions of dwarves twirling around cutting goblins up with two swords or whatever out of your head, because it ain't happening, and it's already pretty silly.

NOTE: Will force all military dwarves to make one item of armor in case strange moods strike.

Only recruits are eligible for strange moods. Any other soldier is not a candidate for a strange mood.

Food:
I'm pretty sure I can get some underground crops going, though as noted above, the greenhouse thing is an issue as I would like above ground crops.... Fishing could be an idea, though I was of the impression that it was not sustainable. Thoughts?

Fishing is not sustainable. Don't even bother trying to make a food supply out of fish. You'll run out of turtles and char or whatever pretty quickly and then you're in a bad spot.

Haulers:
Should I bother with training these guys on something like pump operations? Perhaps they should be used to smooth over a section of the fort? Basically I would like to consider training up their stats for a bit so as to make them haul faster. Ideas?

Truean

Don't bother training your haulers. Just let them increase their stats by chatting things up during their idle time. Training them takes up time they could be spending hauling.

It makes your fortress susceptible to tantrums, but that's what your legendary dining room, mayor/expedition leader, waterfalls, and legendary brewer are for.

[Whitney]

Bait...

...launched with retracting bridges...

...from a tower.

[Jim Groovester]

I'm not aware of a biome issue, but I've heard irrigation farming only functions for subterranean crops- that is, aboveground crops can't be planted on muddy tiles, and require actual soil instead.

I don't know where you heard that, but it's completely wrong.

I just ran a test, where I built a 5x1 row of floors a level above the ground, muddied it and put a farm plot there and selected prickle berries to grow there. My farmer successfully planted a row of prickle berries. Muddied tiles of any type, above ground or below ground, are perfectly eligible places for farm plots.

I also tested the mountain biome issue for greenhouses or whatever. It turns out that no matter what arrangement of muddied tiles I tried, nothing would grow there. So the greenhouse thing I was talking about removing biome restrictions was false. Oops.

[Grendus]

I believe that non-professional military can get moods, but once they become permanent military they're immune. I've never had a champion get a mood, and wrestlers will hit legendary within a season at best.

As for your questions:

1. You can't have them carry two different weapons or dual wield in this version, or next version for that matter. If you're worried about weapons sticking, go with hammers. Blunt weapons have 0 stick chance, and if they get a nervous wound while training they cross train into marksdwarves well (crossbows use hammerdwarf skill in melee). Maces are also a viable choice, but I wouldn't recommend them. They do less damage and don't cross train as well.

Spears main advantage is their stab damage, which can even the odds against a large creature due to a high chance of a critical wound. Unless you have a HFS, you probably don't need speardwarves unless you just want them.

2. I've never had problems with military dwarves tantrumming from a dead baby shield. However, I had a husband become miserable for a season once, til she gave birth to a new baby shield. If you're worried about it though, I've never had a marksdwarf even get hit after being properly cross training (legendary wrestling, then optional hammerdwarf training). Leave them with leather armor and bucklers, they'll be fine.

Wrestling: I'd train them to legendary+5 wrestler and beyond. It's not hard to change their weapon preferences, what's likely happening is they stripped an article of clothing off their sparring partner and didn't drop it. Currently, if they're holding multiple items in their weapon hand they wrestle instead of using melee weapons. You can get them to drop that by setting them to wear no armor, then after they drop it all reassigning them to the armor you want. If that doesn't work, check the wiki on Wrestler, covers all the other methods.

Fishing is not sustainable for a large fort, but you might be able to manage it for a small fort. I'd recommend setting up farms though. Even small farms can produce absurd amounts of plump helmets with a skilled grower. You can also check to see if there's wildlife, a good hunter can provide very large amounts of meat, leather, bone, and fat (processable into tallow, which can be cooked into food) until the zone gets overhunted.

Haulers: up to you. I don't, but they gain a lot of skill doing the unskilled labor in my fort. Most of them are up to professional in furnace operating, milling, threshing, butchering, tanning, and are at least *no adjective* growers from helping with the harvest (note: don't set "All Dwarves Harvest" until your grower is sufficiently skilled, mine's past Legendary+5 so it's just providing a buffer of farmers in case he dies). Pumps are an easy way to train them without building relationships to start a tantrum spiral.