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[Heavenfall]

Make sure you have bags to hold the spawns. Either leather bags or cloth bags will do fine.

[NW_Kohaku]

So...the fort I started in this thread died horribly. Goblin Ambush + Tantrum Spiral which started with a failed Possessed Dwarf. So I started a new fort.

Traps are by far the easiest way to handle goblins.  Most of my ambushes are "sprung" when I suddenly notice my cage traps are now cages full of goblins.

You don't have to make your traps line just the halls of your fort, you know, you can actually use the terrain to your advantage - Just find a nice hill, and designate for all the ramps up that hill to be removed - you now have a ledge where goblins can't climb up (but can still shoot bows if they have them), but which is still "outside" and will have trees and bushes.   

Basically, build walls or remove ramps to give yourself a "courtyard" while you still need some outside access.  The best defense is to simply restrict all access to any of your dwarves to requiring that every invader has to pass through a mass of traps, followed up by some animals on chains to get the kobolds who can avoid the traps.

As for tantrum spirals, the best way to avoid that is to build yourself a legendary dining hall to improve your happiness.  Carve out a huge room in whatever decorative shape you want, and then smooth it all.  You might want to hold off on actually engraving it until your engraver gets up in ranks, though.  Then start making plenty of chairs, tables, and statues, and start filling that dining hall up.  Even with crappy non-valued stone, eventually, you will add enough value that your dwarves will be proud to dine in your hall, but if you can snag some native gold or silver for some of those statues, it's even faster.  A legendary dining hall will stave off virtually all your happiness issues.

Once of my dwarves is flashing grey. I don't know what that means. Help?

Sorry, you'll need to tell me more about what he's flashing.  Is it a down arrow?  Look at him with "v", then look at his "w"ounds page, and see if there are any conditions, if not, look at the "z"-status, and look at his thoughts.

I also cannot build Upward staircases using d - u . It won't create the icon at all, and just to be sure, I watched the spot, and no dwarf came to create one. I can make downward staircases (d - j) just fine. Am I missing something?

You can only designate stairs when they are being carved out of natural rock or soil.  If you have already cleared the wall out, then you must construct a stairwell, instead.  You have to use "b"uild - "C"onstruction - "u"p stair, and use a stone.

[athros]

Up Staircases: d-u isn't "build" up staircase, it's (d)esignate <aka DIG> upwards staircase, needs to be in an undug tile, to build on open ground or in an existing room you need to use the "(b)uild" menu (b-C-u IIRC).NB: (d)esignate will assign a Miner to the task, (b)uild will assign a Mason or Carpenter I believe (depending on materials).

You can only designate stairs when they are being carved out of natural rock or soil.  If you have already cleared the wall out, then you must construct a stairwell, instead.  You have to use "b"uild - "C"onstruction - "u"p stair, and use a stone.

  I should have known that. Thanks!

Make sure you have bags to hold the spawns. Either leather bags or cloth bags will do fine.

I'll be giving that one a try today. I have a Weaver and a Leatherworker that are not doing much else right now, so bags to the rescue.

Sorry, you'll need to tell me more about what he's flashing.  Is it a down arrow?  Look at him with "v", then look at his "w"ounds page, and see if there are any conditions, if not, look at the "z"-status, and look at his thoughts.

So down arrow. That one I'm familiar with...tantrum spirals really show you how bad they can be .

So, No wounds. Health is good. I don't see anything in the Thoughts and Preferences other than 'Tired of drinking the same old booze lately'. Legendary Miner, and not one of the original 7.  The name flashes on the "U"nits screen as well.

I am using a graphics pack...Ironhands. Maybe that's it. (Got tired of the ASCII)

Traps are by far the easiest way to handle goblins.  Most of my ambushes are "sprung" when I suddenly notice my cage traps are now cages full of goblins.

You don't have to make your traps line just the halls of your fort, you know, you can actually use the terrain to your advantage - Just find a nice hill, and designate for all the ramps up that hill to be removed - you now have a ledge where goblins can't climb up (but can still shoot bows if they have them), but which is still "outside" and will have trees and bushes.   

Basically, build walls or remove ramps to give yourself a "courtyard" while you still need some outside access.  The best defense is to simply restrict all access to any of your dwarves to requiring that every invader has to pass through a mass of traps, followed up by some animals on chains to get the kobolds who can avoid the traps.

As for tantrum spirals, the best way to avoid that is to build yourself a legendary dining hall to improve your happiness.  Carve out a huge room in whatever decorative shape you want, and then smooth it all.  You might want to hold off on actually engraving it until your engraver gets up in ranks, though.  Then start making plenty of chairs, tables, and statues, and start filling that dining hall up.  Even with crappy non-valued stone, eventually, you will add enough value that your dwarves will be proud to dine in your hall, but if you can snag some native gold or silver for some of those statues, it's even faster.  A legendary dining hall will stave off virtually all your happiness issues.

  I didn't realize most of this! Thank you very much for the information!

[mallocks]

So down arrow. That one I'm familiar with...tantrum spirals really show you how bad they can be .

So, No wounds. Health is good. I don't see anything in the Thoughts and Preferences other than 'Tired of drinking the same old booze lately'. Legendary Miner, and not one of the original 7.  The name flashes on the "U"nits screen as well.

I am using a graphics pack...Ironhands. Maybe that's it. (Got tired of the ASCII)

It's because the dwarf is legendary.

[JAFANZ]

3.) I need to figure out why my seeds keep disappearing when they get moved from outside to inside. (Ongoing...keeps happening in all of my fortresses...do Dwarves eat seeds over meat? Something else? I need to figure it out...on my other forts, I run out of seeds so I can't plant anything underground until the first caravan arrives.)

Only just noticed this. I think what's happening is that seed bags are being stored in barrels. AFAIK the only seeds, embarkable at least, that can be eaten are Rock Nuts, so if you want to plant them later, you might want to think about forbidding them.

OTOH, Rock Nuts cost DB1, everything else edible costs at least DB2... it might be cost effective to just stock up on them (haven't tried it yet as I only thought of it whilst typing this post).

[NW_Kohaku]

So down arrow. That one I'm familiar with...tantrum spirals really show you how bad they can be .

So, No wounds. Health is good. I don't see anything in the Thoughts and Preferences other than 'Tired of drinking the same old booze lately'. Legendary Miner, and not one of the original 7.  The name flashes on the "U"nits screen as well.

I am using a graphics pack...Ironhands. Maybe that's it. (Got tired of the ASCII)

It's because the dwarf is legendary.

Not if it's a down arrow.  If it's a gray down arrow, it means he's tired (and should be pathing toward a bed, unless he just wants to finish one last job).  Otherwise, yes, legendary creature icons flash to let you know they are more special/important.

Also, this is a useful wiki page right here: http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Status_icon

[NW_Kohaku]

On plump helmet spawn: Odds are your plump helmet spawn litter is caused by lazy dwarves who don't feel like cleaning up after themselves.  Returning the seeds of the food that they eat raw to the seed barrels and bags is a job, and it's a low-priority one, at that, so unless you have dwarves whose only job is to pick up litter like that, you're going to see dwarves doing things like tossing the shells of cave lobsters on the floor alongside strawberry seeds and plump helmet spawns.  If, for some reason, you ever really need that plump helmet spawn to farm more, then they'll go after it and plant it if there are no spawns that are closer, and you typically get far more than enough seeds from simply brewing to supply your farms forever, so it's not really any problem unless you want to get all neat-freaky.  The problem can be heavily mitigated by cooking prepared meals, which dwarves will prefer to eat, and which generate seeds as the prepared meal is made in the kitchen (which may be placed near the seed barrel for greater overall efficiency of fort pathing).

[athros]

I missed the no in "So no down arrow" sorry. I was typing fast last night. Legendary makes the most sense, based on the Status Icons.

I think I have enough plump helmet spawn to start cooking them. I am a little paranoid about them for the reasons I stated above. (I kept running out of spawn and seeds).

Awesome. Thank you for all the answers!

[mallocks]

I missed the no in "So no down arrow" sorry. I was typing fast last night. Legendary makes the most sense, based on the Status Icons.

Huh, that's odd. I actually read it as 'No down arrow', hence my response. Anyway, good luck with the fortress.

[NW_Kohaku]

I missed the no in "So no down arrow" sorry. I was typing fast last night. Legendary makes the most sense, based on the Status Icons.

I think I have enough plump helmet spawn to start cooking them. I am a little paranoid about them for the reasons I stated above. (I kept running out of spawn and seeds).

Awesome. Thank you for all the answers!

Cooking preserves the seeds, so there's no reason not to cook your plants (many plants require cooking or processing to even be edible, anyway).  The only problem is with cooking your SEEDS, but you have to specifically designate that in the kitchen menu before that happens.  (Keep in mind that good farmers will use one seed to produce a stack of four or five plants that each give a seed...)

You should also definitely bring along seeds for, and plant more than just one crop.  (seeds are dirt cheap, after all.) Plump Helmets aren't even very good crops - Sweet Pods produce five times as much food, and the food is far more valuable and delicious.  Plump Helmets are only really good for being the only Winter crop besides the inedible Dimple Cups.  After a while, dwarves will refuse to drink Dwarven Wine if that's all they ever get. 

Sweet Pods and Quarry Bushes are the "super crops" that give you five times the food per plant as any other crop, but you should still have a little diversity.

You might want to set up a simple above-ground farm for easy diversity, although it won't be as productive as underground farms.  First off, you should wall off or otherwise isolate from attacks an area outside that has at least one murky pool in it.  Then, designate some bushes (and labor) for picking berries aboveground to get some extra food (remember that bushes that grow within two tiles of murky pools are the "wet" crops, you only find fisher berries, rope reeds, and sunberries there).  Brew them to get the seeds.  Pave an area near the murky pool then remove it to get rid of unwanted gravel tiles.  Then build a pump and manually pump out some water to muddy the area - easy muddied farm, right next to the water source, no fuss.  You can actually eventually pave a floor over the entire outdoor enclosure to prevent any fliers from getting into your fortress if that is ever a problem, and it doesn't affect farming.  (It also lets you go "outside" without risking the adverse effects of Cave Adapatation.)  You should avoid digging any down stairwells (or just lock a hatch over it) until after muddying, but it's best if you build your aboveground farm right above your underground farm or the stockpile for pathing purposes.  If you can't find all the crops you want, don't worry, elven and dwarven traders will bring them.

Which reminds me - don't forget to build your trade depot (and enclose it behind the giant hall of traps, and at least one blind corner, so the traders don't get shot at while trading, seiges and caravans tend to come at the same times of year, although in your first year, the caravan guards might actually wind up being better suited to killing ambushers than your own dwarves are).