Print

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

[BigJake]

Sigh.  Three goblin ambushes spawning right ON my drawbridge in a row, and FOUR dwarves seriously injured (missing leg) while attempting to take down ONE goblin.

It seems that military forces effectiveness varies so much from fort to fort  - I've had 4 dwarves take down a bronze colossus, while 6/8 are out of it taking out 2 goblin bowmen.  And don't ever get me started on lashers...

Anyway, sorry for complaining - I have had NO dwarves with Diagnostic skills in the last two forts.  It's still a completely randomly generated skill right? So I can just enable it and someone will do it, but do it very badly?

That's true of every labor.  You could also just give it to one of your starting dwarfs at embark.

[Carl]

Thanks for the tips.

So the next big step is to create some way of digging up/down fast like shafts or something and an elevator to transport dwarves/goods,since climbing about 40 stairs everytime just to get to magma forges or whatever lives down that deep, seems like a waste.

Is anything like that being worked on or are we stuck on the stairs?



 

[Blood-Dwarf]

i have lots of cassiterite, orthoclase and gabbro sitting in 7/7 magma and it doesn't melt. shouldn't the magma melt that stuff away?

[GaxkangtheUnbound]

i have lots of cassiterite, orthoclase and gabbro sitting in 7/7 magma and it doesn't melt. shouldn't the magma melt that stuff away?

Cassiterite, Gabbro, and Orthoclase are magma-safe.

[Blood-Dwarf]

i have lots of cassiterite, orthoclase and gabbro sitting in 7/7 magma and it doesn't melt. shouldn't the magma melt that stuff away?

Cassiterite, Gabbro, and Orthoclase are magma-safe.

ok, thanks
another question, i got a dwarf who has withdrawn from society. he is a metalcrafter but he doesn't want to clame a magma forge.
what do i do?

[GaxkangtheUnbound]

i have lots of cassiterite, orthoclase and gabbro sitting in 7/7 magma and it doesn't melt. shouldn't the magma melt that stuff away?

Cassiterite, Gabbro, and Orthoclase are magma-safe.

ok, thanks
another question, i got a dwarf who has withdrawn from society. he is a metalcrafter but he doesn't want to clame a magma forge.
what do i do?

Construct a normal forge. They'll only claim normal forges, it seems.
Don't worry about fuel; he provides it himself.

[Flaede]

They also cause damage for anything that falls on them if they are raised.

Was this changed in DF2010? because it was never the case before, though I guess with combat logs this is easy to find out now.

Yes. It doesn't work for short 1z drops, but higher heights will work.

[nickbii]

Sigh.  Three goblin ambushes spawning right ON my drawbridge in a row, and FOUR dwarves seriously injured (missing leg) while attempting to take down ONE goblin.

It seems that military forces effectiveness varies so much from fort to fort  - I've had 4 dwarves take down a bronze colossus, while 6/8 are out of it taking out 2 goblin bowmen.  And don't ever get me started on lashers...

They didn't spawn *on* the drawbridge. They spawned on an edge of your map, and walked to the drawbridge without being seen. Ambushers are sneaky like that. And strictly speaking you probably only had one multi-squad ambush because each squad has to be discovered individually.

There are several ways to deal with this. An ambushers caught in a cage trap reveals his squad, so an impenetrable line of cage traps 5-10 squares before your fort starts work. So do animals, so chain a few random donkeys in front of the drawbridge, or let your kitty-cats roam the map to hunt for vermin, and you'll be better off.

Bowman beat melee dwarves in long distance fights, which means if your military is only axedwarves they all have to charge the bowman at once and somebody's gonna die. The solution is to have some Crossbowdwarves of your own, and a nice safe place for them to shoot from, near your entrance. Right now I've got a tiny little tower overlooking the road to my depot, when I get some bowdwarves it'll be permanently manned. Note that the line of cage traps I mentioned will reduce this problem significantly because lots of their archers will be behind bars, and not trying to kill you.

Archers and traps are the only current solution to lashers. Whips are hideously overpowered in the current version, so you have to get them before they get you.

Anyway, sorry for complaining - I have had NO dwarves with Diagnostic skills in the last two forts.  It's still a completely randomly generated skill right? So I can just enable it and someone will do it, but do it very badly?

My current Chief Medial Dwarf has basically no medical skills. He has managed to diagnose injuries (but not infections), suture up wounds, and set broken bones. So you'll probably lose a few guys if you don't get a trained Diagnostician in the next immigrant wave, but hey.

A small fort can't have everything.

Nick

[Arekis]

Can anyone shed some light on sparring/training effectiveness?  Here's my experience in the last two forts:

First fort.  Embark with one maxed out axedwarf with skills in teaching and organization.  Another maxed out axedwarf with something else.  Put both into a squad with the teacher/organizer the leader and let em train non-stop.  Result: in 2-3 years, 15+5 axedwarves.  Awesome.  When I added a newbie to the squad, they brought him from nothing to axelord in a season.

Second fort.  Identical embark point allocation (reused save from first embark).  Result: in 4-5 years, axedwarves are level 8 and level 7.  Not so awesome.  I've noticed these guys will still do the occasional demonstration, but they've been definitely sparring.

Are there other variables at play?  As I was typing this, I realized that in the first fort I likely picked the dwarves with best strength/toughness attributes to be axedwarves.  The second embark I let the saved settings be autoassigned.  Do the attributes make that much difference?  Anything else I might be missing?

[Cheese]

Can anyone shed some light on sparring/training effectiveness?  Here's my experience in the last two forts:

First fort.  Embark with one maxed out axedwarf with skills in teaching and organization.  Another maxed out axedwarf with something else.  Put both into a squad with the teacher/organizer the leader and let em train non-stop.  Result: in 2-3 years, 15+5 axedwarves.  Awesome.  When I added a newbie to the squad, they brought him from nothing to axelord in a season.

Second fort.  Identical embark point allocation (reused save from first embark).  Result: in 4-5 years, axedwarves are level 8 and level 7.  Not so awesome.  I've noticed these guys will still do the occasional demonstration, but they've been definitely sparring.

Are there other variables at play?  As I was typing this, I realized that in the first fort I likely picked the dwarves with best strength/toughness attributes to be axedwarves.  The second embark I let the saved settings be autoassigned.  Do the attributes make that much difference?  Anything else I might be missing?

Teaching and student skills did get a big increase in importance in one of the previous updated a few months ago, apparently it should help alot. It might just be luck, like whether they decide to spar or do demonstrations.

My own question: What does the green P next to civilisations on the 'c'ivilisations screen mean?

[nickbii]

That they're at peace with the selected civilization.

Nick

[Cheese]

Weird, it says P next to Goblins and Humans, even though there's a Human siege outside.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Do undead inflict syndromes? If I had, say, a thousand undead helmet snakes, would I have to worry about their venom?

_{Why did it have to be snakes...}

[bcd1024]

I ran into my first Gorlak. Wiki says it's an advice giver. What does this mean?

[GaxkangtheUnbound]

I ran into my first Gorlak. Wiki says it's an advice giver. What does this mean?

Inside joke, most likely. Don't worry about it attacking you. It is benign.