Print

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

[Louist]

I've had one trade caravan so far, from the Mountainhomes. I don't really understand civ relations yet, but the traders left with about a 20% "tip," so we should be on good terms.

:edit: checking my Civ screen, there are two, my Dwarf race, and a Kobold race.

[culwin]

I've had one trade caravan so far, from the Mountainhomes. I don't really understand civ relations yet, but the traders left with about a 20% "tip," so we should be on good terms.

:edit: checking my Civ screen, there are two, my Dwarf race, and a Kobold race.

The only other thing I can think of is... maybe the value of your fort isn't very high.
Or maybe it just takes longer than a year?  Not sure.

[quinnr]

1. HFS is on every map?

2. Would mining out a mutliple z-level room, and engraving the top two levels affect the dwarves at all? (as in, do the dwarves care if visible things above them look pretty.)

[Snook]

So I've been playing 40d for about a week now, and feel like I'm really starting to understand most of the DF concepts, though I'm still a newbie by no doubts. I'm considering picking up 31.06, what are the most important changes? I know that there are waaaay more z-levels (I'm hoping my computer can handle it...) and you're guaranteed HFS/caverns/magma/etc (confirm/deny?), marksmanship is broken, and there's doctoring! What else should I know?

[NinjaE8825]

Quinnr:
1: Yup.
2: That sounds like it's worth some experimenting! I know for certain that it won't add to the room's value.

Snook:
All three are confirmed. You might have to dig pretty deep for magma, though.
Aside from what you mentioned, the biggest changes are probably the new military screen, and the materials/wounds system. REDACTED warhammers are a bad idea, and never send your dwarves to a fight without full armour (since armour's received a sizable buff).

[Snook]

So if I embark on a  3x3 or 2x3 (or smaller!) I can still be guaranteed at least *decent* resources?

[Louist]

The only other thing I can think of is... maybe the value of your fort isn't very high.
Or maybe it just takes longer than a year?  Not sure.

Well, I'm using the same save-file as TinyPirate in his tutorial, and following it almost exactly, but he's picking up migrants left and right! Oh well, I suppose it's just bad rolls on my part.

Question # 2: I've started another fort on the side, and while it seems ideal in many ways (Some high cliffs for defense, but otherwise flat plateaus, which I'm finding a lot easier to wrap my head around. But digging in to start some plump helmet farms, I realize that the interior is all sand! Is sand fertile enough that I can sustain this fort with my starting seeds, or am I forced to starting outdoor farms, and hoping animals and goblins don't take away all my food?

Thanks.

[quinnr]

The only other thing I can think of is... maybe the value of your fort isn't very high.
Or maybe it just takes longer than a year?  Not sure.

Well, I'm using the same save-file as TinyPirate in his tutorial, and following it almost exactly, but he's picking up migrants left and right! Oh well, I suppose it's just bad rolls on my part.

Question # 2: I've started another fort on the side, and while it seems ideal in many ways (Some high cliffs for defense, but otherwise flat plateaus, which I'm finding a lot easier to wrap my head around. But digging in to start some plump helmet farms, I realize that the interior is all sand! Is sand fertile enough that I can sustain this fort with my starting seeds, or am I forced to starting outdoor farms, and hoping animals and goblins don't take away all my food?

Thanks.

Sand is fine, but you need to dump water on it to make it muddy first. Murky pools are probably the best bet if there are any nearby.

[Louist]

Sand is fine, but you need to dump water on it to make it muddy first. Murky pools are probably the best bet if there are any nearby.

I have some murky pools and a small pound close me, but how would I go about muddying the sand? I assume I need to make a bucket, but will my planter do it automatically? Giving tasks and such is still beyond me, I've just figured out how to set up permissions so my miners will stop collecting wood

[quinnr]

I usually just dig into it, making it flood. As long as one square of it goes down to 1 water, it'll all evaporate eventually.

Or you could designate a pool as a water source, and your farm as a wond...I think that'd work.

[SpacemanSpiff]

To irrigate with buckets, you typically need two z-levels, so that you can dig out an irrigation room above and a farm room below.  Channel out a few holes in the floor of the irrigation room, and make as many buckets (I use 4 holes for a 5x5 room).  Designate each of the holes as a pond that's not full. Your dwarves will now keep trying to fill the ponds, by throwing water onto the holes... where it falls into the farm room below.  Keep this up until every tile of your farm room has had water on it at some point, and is therefore muddy.

Things to watch out for:

• You're in a race against evaporation: you need to get enough water in to spread out and get all the tiles wet before it evaporates.  4 holes is enough for a 5x5 room even in a very hot climate, as long as the water source is nearby.
• You'll get "needs empty bucket" job cancellation spam if you don't have enough buckets, or if the dwarves take the buckets back to a stockpile every time they fill a hole (so temporarily forbid buckets from your furniture stockpile).
• Don't think that you can just channel out from the surface  The accursed sun will reach down into your farm room through the holes, turning the tiles underneath "light", and then your farmers will refuse to plant subterranean crops there.
• If you're really short on wood, you can micromanage things with one bucket.  Just activate one hole at a time, and get the water to spread out around the tile beneath it.  Once that region is muddy, deactivate that hole and activate a neighboring one.  Takes longer, uses more water, but if you only have one log you can still get a farm.

[Louist]

Thank you everyone for the help! I was wondering what would happen if I dug  out the wall between my tunnels and the pond, and figured this was as good a time as any to learn what the result would be. If anything, I was surprised that my miner easily outran the water.

Now, this pond (about 35-40 tiles) has sufficiently muddied two of my farms and a lot of tunnel space (If I go back and redesign the farms around the pond, I could do better).

Now, I have to ask, are these farms muddied forever, or has this been a temporary measure?

Thanks again!

[quinnr]

I think its temporary, but it lasts a long, long time.

[Flaede]

unless you build a wall on it. Removing the farm may do it, too.

[Medicine Man]

What do slimey rotten flies do?