Greetings everyone!
I wanted to post my attempt at building a fortress, Clinchedbuttocks of Buttery Butter, and ask some questions.
So, first I will present you want I managed to do, nothing much, but I think I managed to start pretty well. I did quite some lurking and managed to make some rather complicated stuff.....well at least THIS time
.
So as for current status its autumn of 1 year of this fortress
Here you can see the entrance to the fortress, at this level there also: Carpenter, Mechanic and Mason workshops. That big room is a storage for any items said workshops create. Currently corridor also serves as communal bedroom, at least until I finish proper living quaters.
One level bellow entrance there are stockpiles for wood and stones, they are dug under workshops so craftsdwarves dont need to go around looking for materials.
Also on this level there is something Im proud of: a system that allows to flood farms bellow at will and each plot separatly.
This is third level of my fortress and I think it will be main living area. Those four big rooms are farm plots, they can be flooded separately. To their left I set up small, custom stockpile for seeds.
My miners are in process of digging living quarters, I intend to give each dwarf his/her own room.
At this level I also intend to put meeting/dining hall, I already have food storage (the bigger room) and room intended for booze storage. I read that booze fires are dangerous and common thats why I want to dig a water tank on top of it so storage can be flooded in case something funny happens.
Here I also build kitchen, still and butchery.
Oh, on this level I found gold vain as well.
This is currently a bottom of my fortress, here you can see a tank designed to hold water in case I mess up something when flooding farms (I already made that mistake
). The stairs lead all the way up to the flooding chamber, the canal and smaller tank are the so I can have water in well at the dining hall.
Now that the tour is finished I would like to ask some questions.
1. I wanted to build well, but I cant as I dont have a chain and a bucket. I assume that bucket can be created by carpenter, but I think that chain will cause me some troubles. I take it that I will need to find coal, some metal ores, set up blacksmith workshop and so on, or I could dig to magma sea and set up magma forge (well I think I could pull this off). At what level usually magma shows up?
2. Now that I have starting point more or less figured out Im at loss what to do now. Should I start building traps? What could be best ones in current situations?
3. How should I start to create military forces? I know I can order carpenter to create some training weapons. I also have bowyer, will I need metal to create crossbows (I read that they are one of the most deadly weapons in DF)?
4. I intend build flood gates at each floor so each level can be sealed off in case of some fun stuff. Is this a good idea, or unnecessary?
5. I want to stuff all the cats I can into a cage so I can keep them close to the butchery. I read that they will keep breading even if they are in cages, is that true? How do I put animals in cages?
Any more advices?
This would be all for now.