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[Mumbologi]

So, i have played the tutorial fortress and another fortress. The second fortress was a giant failure because of the starting position and some modding errors.

I play the game with RantingRodent because of the Framerate and have the Dig Deeper "expansion".

This is my third fortress and i am aiming not to leave it. It has magma, woodland and Flux Stone. So the starting position is good. I was gonna show my layout and ask for some pointers in the Farming->Brewing->Carpenting and keeping my fortress as effective as possible.

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Here's my start skills and items.

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[SKILL:1:MINING:5]
   [SKILL:1:NEGOTIATION:1]
   [SKILL:1:JUDGING_INTENT:1]
   [SKILL:1:APPRAISAL:1]
   [SKILL:1:ORGANIZATION:2]
   [SKILL:2:WOODCUTTING:2]
   [SKILL:2:CARPENTRY:5]
   [SKILL:2:AXE:3]
   [SKILL:3:DETAILSTONE:2]
   [SKILL:3:MASONRY:5]
   [SKILL:3:DESIGNBUILDING:3]
   [SKILL:4:MINING:5]
   [SKILL:4:BUTCHER:2]
   [SKILL:4:TANNER:2]
   [SKILL:4:LEATHERWORK:1]
   [SKILL:5:COOK:3]
   [SKILL:5:PLANT:5]
   [SKILL:5:HERBALISM:2]
   [SKILL:6:SMELT:2]
   [SKILL:6:FORGE_WEAPON:3]
   [SKILL:6:MECHANICS:4]
   [SKILL:6:WOOD_BURNING:1]
   [SKILL:7:WOODCRAFT:3]
   [SKILL:7:STONECRAFT:4]
   [SKILL:7:BONECARVE:3]
   [ITEM:2:WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_PICK:METAL:COPPER]
   [ITEM:1:WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_AXE_BATTLE:METAL:STEEL_WOOTZ]
   [ITEM:1:ANVIL:NONE:METAL:IRON]
   [ITEM:15:DRINK:NONE:PLANT_ALCOHOL:GRASS_WHEAT_CAVE]
   [ITEM:20:DRINK:NONE:PLANT_ALCOHOL:GRASS_TAIL_PIG]
   [ITEM:5:SEEDS:NONE:MUSHROOM_HELMET_PLUMP:NONE]
   [ITEM:15:PLANT:NONE:MUSHROOM_HELMET_PLUMP:NONE]
   [PET:2:DOG:STANDARD]
   [PET:1:CAT:STANDARD]
   [PET:1:CAT:CHILD]
   [PET:2:PIG:STANDARD]

Don't be afraid to give pointers. I am very new. Give some casual tips for enhanced fun too! Worth telling is my planter died. So the craftdwarf is taking his place until immigrants arrive.

[Kagus]

Well, your entrance is open...  VERY open.  Invaders could waltz straight into the living quarters, where your civilians tend to be at their most vulnerable.  You should set up a little wall and gatehouse outside, so that you can control when your fortress is open for visitors.

From the looks of it, you've got both sand and magma.  This opens the way for a massive glass industry, which is quite handy.  Get to planting rope reeds and/or pig tails so you can start churning out cloth bags to hold the sand.  You probably won't have a thriving industry until you've got a healthy stock of dwarves to filter into glassmakers and sandbaggers, but it's nice to start prepared.

Glass is easily one of the most versatile materials around, so it's rather nice to have an infinite supply on-hand.


As for the efficiency of your internal layout, ah...  I can't say I'm particularly good at organizing that kind of thing myself, so I'll wait for someone else to say something.

[Calhoun]

Kagus is VERY right about the entrance, it's way open. Also, it's not bad, but you could do with a bigger stair case, and just a bit more effecient vertical space use. Though that's something that's slowly learned over time (I'm certainly no master).

Probably could have used a hallway somewhere between those rooms on the left. Also, Bedrooms RIGHT next to the entrance is a bit of bad idea, incase invaders do get in.

Illustration of hallway: (Be jealous of my AMAZING MSpaint Skills)

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[Dewar]

Well, your entrance is open...  VERY open.  Invaders could waltz straight into the living quarters, where your civilians tend to be at their most vulnerable.  You should set up a little wall and gatehouse outside, so that you can control when your fortress is open for visitors.

Personally, I would slowly move all your rooms that are in the sand layer down to a rock layer. That way you can smooth the walls and get things looking nice to give your dwarves happy thoughts. That also gives you the opportunity to put a lot more traps and such on the first floor to hold back any invaders.

[Dekon]

As was said, your entrance is too open.  Best to have a corridor or somesuch for goblins to run down.  The three space is nice for wagons (it looks like you're in 40D as opposed to the new version, so you'll still have wagons), but it still needs to be long enough for you to place traps - or at least give time for your soldiers to run up before your civilians get hacked to bits.

You've only got a 1x2 set of stairs.  I always go with a 2x2.  Always keep the multiple z level factor in mind.  It takes just as much time to go one square over as it does up a set of stairs, so try to layout things with that in mind.

My fortresses generally end up something like this...

First layer - Farms, farming related shops, small stockpile, maybe dining room
Second layer - small Workshop rooms, sometimes a stock pile depending
Third layer - Workshop storage - often involves stairs that go up and down to each workshop room
Fourth layer - housing (smoothed walls/floors for better rooms)
Fifth layer - noble housing/related rooms
Sixth layer - Cemetery/burial chambers/jail cells

The idea, however, is always efficiency of travel - which usually means having your most used workshops/dining room close to the main stair well.

Also, all your doorways are 1 wide.  1 wide doorways are great for individual rooms, but they're catastrophic for anything dwarves will regularly go in and out of.  You can put up to two doors side by side in any doorway, so all your hallways/main rooms ought to be at least 2 wide.

[Calhoun]

Dewar has a good point. Since they are for your original dwarfs they should be special. And that will make them beter.

[Thorik]

Civilians always should have rock bedrooms.  I'd keep the ones you have already and use them for your starting military dwarves.  When you have enough stone and masons, build a gatehouse/barracks to block your entrance and station the rest of your soldiers there.  On the first floor I usually have the workshops for anything to do with wood, bowyers, craftdwarfs(for making wooden bolts for the military training) and carpentry workshops.  It's a better idea to have later farming sites and cooking/brewing on lower floors, to be closer to your dining room/bedrooms(assuming they'll be in a rocky layer).  Keep stockpiles you're going to sell on the 1st floor and a Trade depot for caravans.  Make sure to make the gate atleast 3 tiles wide and guarded by xbowmen.  Especially in Digdeeper, enemies will siege early and with more force.

[Calhoun]

Oh man, I didn't even realize you were using Dig Deeper, QUICK build a hallway with upright spikes attached to a lever!

[Andir]

Personally, I think of a general layout to begin with and go from there.  I lay out my fortress in blocks of 10x10... well 12x12 (shift + arrow)...

I usually lead into the gate with a natural or artificial bridge that it either "T" or "L" shape and make sure that's the only way into my fort.  Then I line the walls in the fortress with battlements that look out over this bridge.

I don't know what Dig Deeper does... but:

I usually dig into the mountain 30-40 squares and begin laying out my housing block.  The most recent being:

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   #####D#D#####
   #  #     #  #
   # D#D   D#D #
   ###X#####X###
   # D#D # D#D #
   D  #  #  #  D
   #  #######  #  Main Access Floor (midpoint)
   D  #  #  #  D
   # D#D # D#D #
   ###X#####X###
   # D#D   D#D #
   #  #     #  #
#D######D#D#####
   #           #
   D           D
   #           #
#D##############
   #  #  #  #  #
   # D#D # D#D #
   ###X#####X###
   # D#D # D#D #
   #  #  #  #  #
   #############  Every other level
   #  #  #  #  #
   # D#D # D#D #
   ###X#####X###
   # D#D # D#D #
   #  #  #  #  #
   #############


Which is a nice block layout because you can fit 8 workshops in the same space.  I usually create one central stairs with a column for residence, one for workshops (opposite corner), one for resources, and one for farming/dining/misc.  Between these four columns and the gate is my defenses... barracks, depot, traps...

It's boring, but it works.

[Lord Darkstar]

Put up traps right away. Stonefall do fine to start with. Replace with real weapon traps loaded with large serrated discs and spiked balls asap. You can actually make wooden spike ball traps, and they'll do quite well in version 0.28. If you don't want to take the time to do that, you REALLY need to wall off your entrance. Since you dug into the hillside, you'll have to remember to ROOF your entrance or your enemies will just run up the slope and then come down on the inside of the wall.

You should put floodgates across your entrance, and link them to a lever far back in your fortress proper. You can leave them down until attackers show up. When you have seigers, then you pull the lever, and you can defend as wide a hallway or entrance as you like.

I'd suggest you move your entire fortress BACK ASAP. And as much as possible down to the rock. If you pull back, you can create long trap corridors so all attacking forces run in and die by trap. At the end of your trap hallway entrance, narrow the access from your trapped entrance to 2 wide, and put in doors. Then you can restrict passage out of your fortress (via forbidding the doors), and keep your dwarves all safe inside while attackers die in the trap hallway, and keep the helpful dwarves from charging into the trap corridor to collect dead attackers and reset sprung/jammed traps until things are safe for your dwarves.

Have fun! Experiment!

[Shiv]

Oh man, I didn't even realize you were using Dig Deeper, QUICK build a hallway with upright spikes attached to a lever!

This.  I enjoyed dig deeper but it was always a mad dash to get SOME kind of defense set up within the first season.  I remember once I had all 7 of my starter dwarves huddled in a room with crossbows trained on the door.  They killed all the orcs, but only 3 walked out of that room.  Was good times.


Oh and from having done a similar set up in my early days to what you're proposing, I can tell you it's bad news bears.  And that was without Dig Deeper.   


I generally do my set up like so (side view):

..d---------------d....
--u..........B.........u---

Where d and u are down and up staircases, B is my barracks, and the dashes are solid wall, dots are corridors.  This forces my attackers to plow through my defenders before they can even get to the main fortress.  If my entire army falls, well everyone else is screwed anyways. 

Also I generally have a large cavern before that where I set up traps and carve fortifications into the wall.  In 40d, it was a large shooting gallery.  In 31, it's just a big room, so I've stopped doing that set up for the time being.

You should put floodgates across your entrance, and link them to a lever far back in your fortress proper. You can leave them down until attackers show up. When you have seigers, then you pull the lever, and you can defend as wide a hallway or entrance as you like.

For the record this doesn't work in the 31 version, if that's the one you're using.  Goblins come with Cave Crawlers and Trolls now, which are both building destroyers.

[Andir]

You should put floodgates across your entrance, and link them to a lever far back in your fortress proper. You can leave them down until attackers show up. When you have seigers, then you pull the lever, and you can defend as wide a hallway or entrance as you like.

For the record this doesn't work in the 31 version, if that's the one you're using.  Goblins come with Cave Crawlers and Trolls now, which are both building destroyers.

Could you dig channels along the hall, place floodgates in the channels and close them when you want bandwidth, but open them if you want to restrict flow?  That is... do dwarfs walk over closed gates a level below? (like walls)

[Ilmoran]

You should put floodgates across your entrance, and link them to a lever far back in your fortress proper. You can leave them down until attackers show up. When you have seigers, then you pull the lever, and you can defend as wide a hallway or entrance as you like.

For the record this doesn't work in the 31 version, if that's the one you're using.  Goblins come with Cave Crawlers and Trolls now, which are both building destroyers.

Could you dig channels along the hall, place floodgates in the channels and close them when you want bandwidth, but open them if you want to restrict flow?  That is... do dwarfs walk over closed gates a level below? (like walls)

Use Hatch Covers.

[Calhoun]

You should put floodgates across your entrance, and link them to a lever far back in your fortress proper. You can leave them down until attackers show up. When you have seigers, then you pull the lever, and you can defend as wide a hallway or entrance as you like.

For the record this doesn't work in the 31 version, if that's the one you're using.  Goblins come with Cave Crawlers and Trolls now, which are both building destroyers.

Could you dig channels along the hall, place floodgates in the channels and close them when you want bandwidth, but open them if you want to restrict flow?  That is... do dwarfs walk over closed gates a level below? (like walls)

Use Hatch Covers.

Isn't this just easier managed with a bridge?

[Andir]

What part of the Dwarf Language is this word "easy" categorized in?  Is that Elven?