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Author Topic: how to combat idle dwarves?  (Read 1624 times)

adecoy95

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how to combat idle dwarves?
« on: January 27, 2011, 05:08:40 pm »

i have over 20 idle dwarves in my fortress, what are some tips to put them to work, some of them are things i just dont have use for right now, like an expert tanner or a legendary weaponsmith.
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Girlinhat

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Re: how to combat idle dwarves?
« Reply #1 on: January 27, 2011, 05:17:16 pm »

Have them build a gas chamber...

Alternatively, work on something like a massive dyed clothing line.  Try and get your soldiers each outfitted with pure masterwork dyed clothing.  Milling plants, processing pig tails, dying, weaving cloth, and weaving cloaks, will take a lot of time.

EddyP

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Re: how to combat idle dwarves?
« Reply #2 on: January 27, 2011, 05:18:18 pm »

Dumping? You probably have a lot of stone you don't want cluttering up the fortress.
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Girlinhat

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Re: how to combat idle dwarves?
« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2011, 05:19:13 pm »

Useless pump operators.

shmelse

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Re: how to combat idle dwarves?
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2011, 05:19:28 pm »

1) draft them. stick everyone who sits still for more than 10 seconds into a danger room. that'll teach 'em!

2) start a mega project. to build a giant statute of a dwarf 20 z levels high with lava pouring out of its mouth and water from its eyes, you'll need a *lot* of masons. 

3) start a new industry. maybe it's time to start glass making or textiles or cheese. what do you want to *do* next?

4) drop them in magma. always an option!  :)

5) drop them from high levels, use them to train your doctors. that broken leg will teach them to get to work!

6) dig deeper. maybe they'll find some new friends/motivation down below.

7) lock them in a room with food and booze, a la The Real Wagon.  make more dwarven babies that you won't know what to do with!!

srsly though, do you not have a million hauling jobs that need to be done? how many dwarves, total, do you have in your fort? what industries are you running? you might want to tell us a bit more about your fort and what you plan to do with it, b/c otherwise... suggestions feel like kind of a shot in the dark. 
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adecoy95

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Re: how to combat idle dwarves?
« Reply #5 on: January 27, 2011, 05:30:58 pm »

i have 40 dwarves in my fort, i dont really have much industry, only a dwarf making stone crafts, and another dwarf making coal, i have tons of gold, and silver, i struck a vein of it 4 times, but i dont know what to do with it.



i just made the elves angry, i accidentally had my crafts in a wooden bin, i have no military except for one guy that i cant figure out how to equip properly... the wiki says not to bother making weapons out of copper, so i am trying to find other metals, but all i keep finding is more gold
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Girlinhat

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Re: how to combat idle dwarves?
« Reply #6 on: January 27, 2011, 05:34:30 pm »

Make furniture out of gold, and sell it to the Mountainhomes to buy steel.  Make full plate steel armor and your weapon of choice (axe or spear, mostly, both work wonders against the wood-armored elves) and stick them in a Danger Room (wiki it for help).

Javarock

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Re: how to combat idle dwarves?
« Reply #7 on: January 27, 2011, 05:38:57 pm »

I always assign useless migrants to 1, Smoothing stone or 2, Farming.
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Akura

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Re: how to combat idle dwarves?
« Reply #8 on: January 27, 2011, 05:39:52 pm »

Goblins. Oh wait, I thought you wanted to fight them...

some of them are things i just dont have use for right now, like an expert tanner or a legendary weaponsmith.
You could start churning out serrated discs. Really high value, and masterworks tend to be deadly with most metals, especially steel(iron will work, too).
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Rentorian

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Re: how to combat idle dwarves?
« Reply #9 on: January 27, 2011, 05:40:51 pm »

Some other ideas are
  • Make a couple of them engravers.  Smooth and engrave your entire fort
  • Get your miners to either carve out a massive fort capable of holding 200 dwarves
  • Dig out exploratory mining shafts, look for more minerals in deeper z-levels
  • Chop down every tree on the map, the elves already hate you
  • Test thier might against the local wildlife.  Anyone who can outwrestle a bear is allowed to be idle
  • Sacrifice the useless ones to Armok in a massive temple that they built
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Akura

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Re: how to combat idle dwarves?
« Reply #10 on: January 27, 2011, 05:43:00 pm »

  • Test thier might against the local wildlife.  Anyone who can outwrestle a bear is allowed to be idle
Which they will be, permanently, with the spine injury resulting from that.
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Rentorian

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Re: how to combat idle dwarves?
« Reply #11 on: January 27, 2011, 05:45:42 pm »

No only the ones that survive without debilitating injuries are allowed be idle.  The others get sacrificed in the temple.
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Sometimes I find myself sitting around asking myself, "Why?"
Then I come to my senses and respond "Well why the hell not?"

shmelse

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Re: how to combat idle dwarves?
« Reply #12 on: January 27, 2011, 05:56:13 pm »

Honestly, I think you're running up against the problem of early DF. Once you figure out how to make the little guys dig and you set up stable farming, there's this moment of "But what do I DO next?"

The answer is that you do whatever you want to do.  The nature of the game is pretty free form compared to a lot of stuff out there.  The wiki can give you a lot of answers about how to do things, but it can't really tell you what to do. You have to decide that for yourself.

So what do you want?

If you want a military, you can start guys training with wooden training weapons while you dig for better metals.  You can build a danger room and even with leather armor and wooden swords, they can probably handle themselves. 

If you want to buy things, start making things with your gold.  You can make gold crafts, gold furniture, decorate your stone crafts in gold.  Use it to buy leather, or steel, or cloth, or food.

I agree that it's a good idea to start a couple of dwarves smoothing out every piece of stone in your fort.  They're pretty slow at first and it's a good way to raise your wealth.

If this was your first time with the elves and you're only in your 2nd year, you probably have some people on the way who aren't quite so friendly.  Think about setting up defense - build walls, traps, bridges, channels, and fortifications so you're not caught off guard if/when enemies show up.

Mostly, though, this is something you'll have to decide for yourself.  I remember feeling the same way, but DF is about what you *want* to do.  There's no real direction to it; you have to provide that yourself. 
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"Aye, th' fortress o' Barbedgear. They say th'r was a dinin' room dere...o' such splendor tha' it'd reduce ye te tears! Masterful engravings lined th' walls! Th' food was endless!"

"An' th' tables?"

"Oh, those fuckin' TABLES...*weeps gently into beard*"

brucemo

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Re: how to combat idle dwarves?
« Reply #13 on: January 27, 2011, 06:00:46 pm »

All idle dwarves mean is that you've caught up on your hauling.  If you take them as a sign of some sort of illness, you'll end up with cluttered workshops and lots of time waiting for things to get done.  If you've caught up on your hauling, you have the option to cut haulers by increasing the military, or you can add tasks, for example dumping, cutting down a forest, making everyone a mason and building a wall, adding a glass industry, brewing drinks (hauler-intensive because of seeds), and so on.

I don't see the point of adding deliberate make-work tasks in order to avoid ever seeing an idle dwarf.  Engraving the whole fort is fine, but if you have twenty guys smoothing stone while things are rotting in the kitchen or the stockpiles next to your smelter are empty, that's poor economy.
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FallingWhale

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Re: how to combat idle dwarves?
« Reply #14 on: January 27, 2011, 06:01:29 pm »

Have them build a gas chamber...
Brimstone can be used like that.
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