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[butha]

I just got my first migrants on my first fort.
 The problem I have right now is that my dwarves don't always do what I want them to do.

For example
I have 2 miners mining out bedrooms, fine.
I have a guy cutting down trees, fine.
I set up a stone stockpile to clear things out a bit.
EVERYONE starts clearing stones.
I want to have my carpenter make some wood doors.
He is clearing stone.  When I go to the job list the construct doors is waaay down on the list.

What am I doing wrong here?  Can you at least point me in the direction to find the answers?  I know this is ultra newbie stuff, but thanks in advance.

[Murphy]

The easiest way to fix this is to turn off the stone hauling labor on the carpenter, it's (v), move cursor to carpenter, (p), (l), choose hauling, stone hauling. It's okay for starters, though in a large fortress with many dwarves to look after you may forget to turn it back on later. Of course, large fortresses have their own way to ensure that things get done properly, like using burrows to temporarily restrict your master carpenter's movements to his workshop's immediate vicinity.

[butha]

That helped so much.  I turned off his stone hauling and he shot right over to his shop.

One more quick one, how do I see a list of all my dwarves, and from that list can I go straight to them?

[Murphy]

(u)nit list.
Hitting (c) will zoom to highlighted dwarf.

[Jurph]

Once you accumulate more than two dozen dwarves, you'll go mad trying to assign them all labors.  Once that happens, I recommend downloading Dwarf Therapist, the most full-featured of the labor assignment tools.  It shows moods, skill levels, and currently assigned skills, and lets you make up occupation templates, like one of my favorites:

MEATSMITH

• Butchering
• Tanning
• Lye-making
• Soap-making
• Animal Training
• Animal Care
• Fish Dissection
• Fish Cleaning(?)

...two of these guys let me build a "MEAT" burrow which takes in animals and produces useful products.

[butha]

Quick question

Is there any way to clear a room of stone debris from digging?  I don't like how my indoor stockpiles are all broken up from leftover stone.

Thanks guys!

[Osdeath]

Quick question

Is there any way to clear a room of stone debris from digging?  I don't like how my indoor stockpiles are all broken up from leftover stone.

Thanks guys!

Designate a garbage dump from an activity zone (i) just make it one tile, then use d-b-d to designate stone for dumping in the garbage dump, just make it one tile and they'll chuck it all on that one tile, the dwarfs have to haul each piece of stone to the garbage dump, they drop it there and it automatically gets marked as forbidden, you can unforbid it to use it at a later date.

You can also use the loo(k) around thing and manually select a specific piece of stone from a square to be dumped, saves you dumping a barrel full of meat on the same tile as the stone you want dumped really.

[Tokeli]

I use the same garbage dump method, except I designate a broker from the nobles screen, who I then set to use highest precision (which takes a year or so to get to, so start early!). Then you can just go into the Stocks screen from the status menu, and designate all rocks to be dumped. Much quicker.

[butha]

I know you already know this  , but this game is awesome!
My fort is doing decently well.  I have a farm going, two carpenter shops, individual bedrooms for each dwarf, a mason shop, a still, a dining hall (don't know if that works).  What should I be looking to do next?  The bedrooms all have a table, a chair, and a bed.

1. Nobody eats in my dining hall.  Are they supposed to go there to eat often or what?  I feel like I set it up wrong somehow

[Ustfoo]

Have you assigned the hall as a room?

If not, press q, highlight the table, press r to make it a room, then h (i think h) to make it a meeting hall.

Next thing to do is to prepare for invaders! Early on, traps will be your friends, and to stop thieves and other sneaky creatures you can build a restraint in a hallway, chain an animal to it (a wardog ideally, but even a kitten will do.) You will ultimately want a military. Start reading up on military design and crosstraining.

[CognitiveDissonance]

...crosstraining.

Not to derail, but I do believe cross-training does not do anything anymore.

[Murphy]

It will. Just wait till .11 comes out.

[butha]

I'm fortifying my entrance with tons of stone traps and a winding wall.  I walled in the openings of the murky pools I drained to get mud.  I just want to see if I can defend an attack with about 50 stone traps. 

Learning military is next on the agenda, I think I have 15-20ish dwarves. 

Question, how do I see what crafts my dwarf made after he attempted some "make stone craft"?  How do I go to where they put them?  Do I just have to search in my stockpiles?

Thanks

[ledgekindred]

't' will show you the contents of a room, so you can cursor over the craft shop to see if anyone is putting his items away.  You can either use 'z' and select the stocks menu, or 'k' to look at individual tiles as mentioned.  'R' shows you all rooms so you can zoom to a specific one before using one of the other commands.  If someone is putting everything away you'll either have to go find them in the storage room or look at the stocks menu and look for the crafts/instruments/toys etc that have been produced.  You'll need to get a bookkeeper working to keep track of inventory it before the stocks menu will be much good.  But getting a bookkeeper and manager going quickly is a good thing, if only to be able to use the jobs manager 'j-m'. 

Don't worry too much about a military, it's still a little wonky.  If you've got a nice long hallway full of stone traps, that will keep invaders at bay for the first couple of years at least.  As of 31.10 stonefall traps do a decent amount of damage again, making them viable fort defenses.  It only takes about half a dozen to brain a goblin entirely, assuming he doesn't run away after the first couple break an arm or leg.  Plus building mechanisms for traps is a good way of using up stone.

Keep your stonecrafter making crafts, your chef cooking and brewing and make sure you have a trade depot set up.  You probably need a few things that the first couple of caravans will bring you.  You can get a lot of crafts ready for trade before the caravans arrive.  After the first year or so you'll be getting enough ambushers that you'll have enough goblinite to trade for anything you need.

[Particleman]

Learning military is next on the agenda, I think I have 15-20ish dwarves.

The military screen LOOKS a lot more intimidating than it really is. It's actually not that hard to use, you just have to study it a bit to figure how to tell your dwarves what to do. Don't let it discourage you.