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[kzwix]

Hello,

I'm new to this promising game, and I've already reset several forts, due to starvation and berserk-going, thirst (didn't create ponds or wells, and had no river or aquifer either...), or whatever. I had especially a nice mountain fortress, which had broken through the ceiling of some caverns, had found lots of nice minerals and gems, and was, overall, doing pretty well. The only drawback being that, in the mountains, it was quite hard to find food (bees didn't produce enough, I think, and my farming areas didn't seem enough either. Maybe because the farmer was a total noob, I dunno).

Thus, I traded with the first caravan I found and asked for seeds, food, mead, and wood, against some stones and trinkets. A good deal, I guess.


The problem is, I never ever got any of those items (or they were super-extra stealthy, for I never saw them being moved by dwarves, my dwarves kept saying that they lacked wood, etc).
In the end, I got starving dwarves going berserk and killing skilled - and needed - workers, because they didn't find anything to eat. And I had just traded to get some food.

In another fortress, I bought other things, and, then again, didn't get them. I have storage areas and haulers, so I was expecting some kind of beeline of dwarves emptying the depot after the merchants left (or, better, right after we traded), but I saw nothing like this.


Is there something I should be aware of ?  Also, I 't'ed the contents of the trading post, and saw the items I had moved there and not traded yet (the ones I had traded had vanished, which seems normal to me), but not what I had bought. I have quite a horrible doubt... the right key to validate the trade is 'o', right, to make your offer and see how the opposite merchant will react, right ?  It doesn't mean "offer those items for free, while not getting all the stuff you selected from the merchant", does it ?


Thanks in anticipation.

[AdirianSoan]

It sounds like you're offering rather than trading, but if I recall my own experiences correctly, an offer in which you ask for goods is rejected as if you offered a bad trade.

Are you holding the cursor over an item when you hit "o", or are you selecting it for trade?

[kzwix]

Errr... I dunno which cursor you're talking about. I have no mouse cursor, I think, or, at least, it is non-functional.

I have a selected, highlighted item, however (either in my stuff, or in the merchant's), obviously. I select what I'm offering for trade with "enter", and do exactly the same on the merchant side (they get a nice little 'T' near them, stating they're selected for trading).

I see the merchant benefit plummet, and when it's merely a few "suns" above zero, I hit "o" to validate. Then, I end up with nothing, and my stuff disappears...

[RiderofDark]

I have quite a horrible doubt... the right key to validate the trade is 'o', right, to make your offer and see how the opposite merchant will react, right ?  It doesn't mean "offer those items for free, while not getting all the stuff you selected from the merchant", does it ?

Sadly, it does. The key you're looking for is (t)rade.

Some suggestions for food/booze, in case you didn't know about it before:

1) Plant gathering. While it's not that exciting, it can be a godsend in the beginning. Get one dwarf with that skill and let him/her gather a chunk of the bushes on the surface. That'll provide an instant supply of edible foods. Plus some (a lot of it, I think) can be brewed into alcohol.

2) Underground Farm Plots + Seeds. Bring plump helmets and build a farm plot on an underground soil layer (if it's available). Plump helmets are not only edible in their current state, they can also be brewed into Dwarven Wine.

2.5) Aboveground Farm Plots. Once you've gotten some experience keeping invaders away, build some aboveground farm plots. You can take the seeds you got from plant gathering on the surface and grow more yourself. You can also build walls and a roof (floor on the Z-level above) to secure it.

Make sure that you've got the Farming labor enabled. Also note that aboveground crops can't be planted on underground plots, and vice versa.

3) Animals. Bring a couple of cows (or some other large-ish beast.) Butcher 'em, they'll provide lots of meat. If you're using the latest version and plan on getting your own herd, make sure that you designate them their own pasture. Buthering animals produces other items (like bones) and a skin. Build a Tanning workshop near the Butcher shop and the skin/hide will get produced into a unit of leather. (Respectively, the Butcher and Tanning skills.)

3.5) Cheese. Cows don't just provide meat. You can milk them and turn that milk into cheese. There are a few other animals that also provide milk: yaks, water buffalo, llamas, alpaca, pigs, sheep, one- and two-humped camels, horses, and reindeer. (Llamas, sheep, and alpaca have a third item they can produce: wool. That can in turn be turned into yarn thread, which is then used in the textile industry.) Note that all of those actions happen in the Farmer's Workshop.

[ShinWalks]

I have quite a horrible doubt... the right key to validate the trade is 'o', right, to make your offer and see how the opposite merchant will react, right ?  It doesn't mean "offer those items for free, while not getting all the stuff you selected from the merchant", does it ?

Boom. 'O'ffer means to send a gift-offering to the leader of the civilization from which the caravan hails. You've been giving all your stuff away for free :/ It's the other one that makes a trade happen (I don't remember and don't have the game open atm). As for "[seeing] how the opposing merchant will react," when you propose a trade, they will either accept it or not; if they accept it, it happens immediately (so, to be clear, you don't get to ask them if they'd accept and then think about it; if they accept, the trade just happens.)

Once you've been playing a bit it mostly ceases to be an issue, since you'll be producing so much wealth that the caravans can't possibly keep up. Good luck, and welcome to the game!

[AdirianSoan]

The selection is your cursor, yeah.

It's been a while since I've made the mistake of offering rather than trading, and I may be misremembering the "Bad trade" reaction to requesting goods in an offer, but you're definitely offering your goods rather than offering to trade.

"t" is the default key for trading.  You might unbind or rebind the offer key to avoid this mistake in the future.  (esc, key binding, dwarf mode).

In addition to the previously mentioned ideas, I generally bring along some lifestock.  If you're playing .18, cows are a very reliable source of food.  (Water is somewhat harder, especially if you, like me, like playing in deserts, and unlike me, hate aquifers.)

[RiderofDark]

In addition to the previously mentioned ideas, I generally bring along some lifestock.  If you're playing .18, cows are a very reliable source of food.  (Water is somewhat harder, especially if you, like me, like playing in deserts, and unlike me, hate aquifers.)

Brooks are great for starting locations for newer players. There's almost never an aquifer to deal with, plenty of water to work with. Streams are almost as good except that a bridge has to be built to be able to cross 'em.

[kzwix]

Thanks everybody for the answers.

Now that the trade problem is settled, I'd like to explain about food and drink :

Yep, I'm farming, and there's a farmer working (I manage jobs, that's not a problem). I also pick up all the plants I can from the surface (when there are plants, of course. In the mountain area I was speaking about, there were none to speak of). That's why I was farming under, and beekeeping above. And fishing and hunting, but with very limited success...


So, I'd like to know :

1) How come that I get so few from farming ?  I worked with plump helmets all year round (as said in the tutorial), but I would have expected to get more and more seeds, soon enough to fill a full biggest-size plow spot with them. But, usually, even after a year, I had about the same ammount that I had at start (like, 7 or 8 spots being cultivated, the rest of my field staying blank)

2) Should I transform the food ?  Like, brew it, or "extract" from it (dunno what it does), or "process it to containers" (then again, no idea what it's for. Is it merely to put in jugs, crates, barrels, sacks, and the like, to save storing space / help trading) ?

3) I had some cattle die of starvation. How do I prevent this ?  They were standing on "dirt" tiles (maybe clay, maybe rock, dunno, but no grass to graze on), while there were grassy tiles a bit away (yup, grass was about the only vegetal thing available on that damn mountain). I tried putting an "animal" storage area, to no avail.

4) Those dead cattle, how do I butcher them for food ? Is it possible, or do I have to slaughter them MYSELF in order to be able to chop them to bits ?  My people merely moved the corpses to the Refuse storage, while I had a butcher's workshop with "butcher dead animal" active (on repeat).

5) As for fish, I sometimes got one (a fish out of the water), but nobody would pick it up. Do I have to have, first, a fisher's workshop with "butcher fish" (or whatever it's called) activated, so that they understand it's edible ?

6) As for hunting, what is the difference between hunting animals and "capturing" them ? Is the first one easier to do ? Ain't the second option better, like keeping it either to breed, milk, shave for wool, or butcher only if needed ?  How do I work it out ?


As you can see, those points aren't really addressed in the tutorial (I don't play with the pre-set savegame they tell to use, so it's not as easy)


Also, as for aquifers, I like them for the water they provide, but.. I have to say I yet have to manage at breaking through one. My latest fortress, very young, is built nearly on the aquifer (top level on map is 3 above aquifer, I can dig 2 levels (of red sand and fire clay) and then I'm hitting water. So, I'm trying to pump and setup wooden walls, but I'm not sure I'll succeed in breaking the layer.

So, about that, is a "full" block pumpable, or do I have to make it a slope for it to work ?  I read the wiki pump page, and the one on aquifers, but I have to say it's still kinda obscure to me, how to pump that water successfully.

Also, if I successfully build a wall on the aquifer level, how will my carpenter (yup, wooden wall, I've got no stone) come up out of the hole ?  Do I have to keep an unbuilt slope near the edge of the wall ?

[RiderofDark]

1) Farming was changed around so that it takes a lot for everything to grow. It looks like crops take at least a full season to grow. The crop yield is dependent on the level of the Farming skill. The higher the skill, the more likely that you'll get a larger stack when harvest time comes.

2) Cave wheat and sweet pods in their natural forms are inedible. They can be milled at a quern (requires the Milling labor) (built from the Mason workshop) to procure flour and sugar respectively. Those can then be cooked in a Kitchen (with the Cooking skill.)

These can also be brewed in the Still workshop, with the Brewing labor, along with plump helmets and Pig tails. Pig tails are otherwise inedible, and are used in a Farmer's Workshop (process plants) to make pig tail thread.

Quarry bushes must be processed into a bag (which must be empty beforehand). It also requires the plant processing labor at the Farmer's Workshop. Each unit of quarry bush will yield a stack of 5 quarry bush leaves.

3) Designate a zone (i) that has grass. Then designate that zone as a pe(n). Then desig(N)ate which animals will go to that pen.

4) Create a Butcher shop near the refuse pile. Make sure the Butcher labor is enabled. There might also be a point where the corpse becomes too rotten to be butchered even though it might not say so. (There's also a possible matter of how it was killed, but I'm unclear on that aspect.)

5) Harvesting fish requires the Fishery workshop and the Fish Cleaning labor.

6) Hunters will stalk a target and (try to) kill it. I'm not sure about capturing, haven't played around with either of those.

7) Aquifers can be a lot of fun, but I'd advise using an aboveground source of water, like a brook or a stream, while you're learning the ropes. Then again, Losing is Fun!

You'll want pumps (one enormous screw, one block, one pipe section for each pump) which can be built from the (M)achine selection. Make sure that you've got some place for all that water you'll be pumping out. You'll need the Pump Operating labor enabled to use them. To plug the aquifer, you'll need to build walls around the dig site. This is easier when the aquifer is in a stone layer since all you'll need to do is d-(s)mooth the stone.

To access that layer, you could build ramps or a set of staircases. Constructing those can be done from the b-(C)onstructions menu.

Another option, one that I've no experience with as yet, is to construct walls (and staircase) above where you want to punch into the aquifer. Dig the area out (channeling works well to keep the dwarves dry) and collapse the constructed walls into the aquifer layer.

[Lord Darkstar]

In addition to the previously mentioned ideas, I generally bring along some lifestock.  If you're playing .18, cows are a very reliable source of food.  (Water is somewhat harder, especially if you, like me, like playing in deserts, and unlike me, hate aquifers.)

Brooks are great for starting locations for newer players. There's almost never an aquifer to deal with, plenty of water to work with. Streams are almost as good except that a bridge has to be built to be able to cross 'em.

BRIDGE? BRIDGE? BRIDGE? What are you, trolls? Just build a tunnel UNDER the stream/river. Good practice for your miners.

5) Harvesting fish requires the Fishery workshop and the Fish Cleaning labor.

Also requires a fishery. A fishery (a type of workshop) is where fish cleaners turn raw fish into usable/edible fish.

6) Hunters will stalk a target and (try to) kill it. I'm not sure about capturing, haven't played around with either of those.

Hunters kill their prey. Trappers use animal trap to catch vermin. To catch big animals (deer, elephants, bears, unicorns), you have to (b)uild (T)rap (c)age. That requires mechanisms from a mechanic, a mechanic labor to create at the mechanic workshop and to install the mechanism, and some form of cage (NOT animal cage). Note: the easiest cage to make at the start of a fortress is a wood cage in a carpenter's workshop.

Remember--- the wiki has all this information and more in it. Great source for learning who things work, and great reference for setting up stuff.

[AdirianSoan]

In addition to the previously mentioned ideas, I generally bring along some lifestock.  If you're playing .18, cows are a very reliable source of food.  (Water is somewhat harder, especially if you, like me, like playing in deserts, and unlike me, hate aquifers.)

Brooks are great for starting locations for newer players. There's almost never an aquifer to deal with, plenty of water to work with. Streams are almost as good except that a bridge has to be built to be able to cross 'em.

BRIDGE? BRIDGE? BRIDGE? What are you, trolls? Just build a tunnel UNDER the stream/river. Good practice for your miners.

A simple tunnel is hardly very dwarfy.  Dam the stream, drain it, dig down, and build a glass tunnel, so your dwarves can sneer at the carp.

[kzwix]

Well, I've read those advice, and they sound... sound, to me

Right now, I've built a wooden wall in the aquifer, on one quarter of the perimeter I think I'll need to go down. It's horribly slow, for I need to wait for the water to evacuate my "throwaway" path before I can dismantle the pumps and put them on another side. I guess my design ain't the best possible, but, heh, it seems to get the job done, for now.


Once I have "boxed" some aquifer, if I understand correctly, I should be able to drain it dry inside the box, using pumps, is that correct ?  Can I "suck" at a full lower floor (like, a complete block I could watch after having done a down set of stairs), or do I have to carve it a bit, like by using "channel" so as to pump a slope, not a block ?


As for the rest of your answers, I'm trying them out myself little by little. Thanks, and I'll keep you posted


Oh, and I *love* the glass tunnel idea, but, as of now, I'm gonna stick with bridges. Especially when the river is at aquifer level ^^

[Lord Darkstar]

In addition to the previously mentioned ideas, I generally bring along some lifestock.  If you're playing .18, cows are a very reliable source of food.  (Water is somewhat harder, especially if you, like me, like playing in deserts, and unlike me, hate aquifers.)

Brooks are great for starting locations for newer players. There's almost never an aquifer to deal with, plenty of water to work with. Streams are almost as good except that a bridge has to be built to be able to cross 'em.

BRIDGE? BRIDGE? BRIDGE? What are you, trolls? Just build a tunnel UNDER the stream/river. Good practice for your miners.

A simple tunnel is hardly very dwarfy.  Dam the stream, drain it, dig down, and build a glass tunnel, so your dwarves can sneer at the carp.

While you speak the truth, in the beginning, if you want access to the other side, build that simple tunnel. Then later, when you put in the glass tunnel, you can go back, put hatches into the river bed, grates in the brook/river inlet tunnels (to prevent swim throughs), drawbridges at either end of the tunnel (to act as movable walls), and some plumbing to drain out the tunnels on command, assorted levers and links, and NOW you can trap anything using that tunnel and drown it--- elf traders, migrants, seiging goblin forces, etc.

[Lord Darkstar]

Once I have "boxed" some aquifer, if I understand correctly, I should be able to drain it dry inside the box, using pumps, is that correct ?  Can I "suck" at a full lower floor (like, a complete block I could watch after having done a down set of stairs), or do I have to carve it a bit, like by using "channel" so as to pump a slope, not a block ?

Oh, and I *love* the glass tunnel idea, but, as of now, I'm gonna stick with bridges. Especially when the river is at aquifer level ^^

An aquifier tile will produce water until you do something to stop it. Like smooth it. THEN it will stop producing water.

Why are you having such difficulty with drainage? Just drain your pumped water back into another aquifier tile. They give water, and they take it back.

You are stuck with bridges if your aquifier is within a couple of levels of your river.

[kzwix]

Well, I didn't make a "chute to the aquifer", in fact, I made a tunnel exiting outside. I must have drowned thousands of rabbits in the process, an ecological disaster any dwarf would probably be proud of (just as the deforestation of a whole region in a week's time, or anything else nature-related ^^)

I guess I'll channel the water downwards, if those mechanisms allow it.


As for the aquifer, I can't smooth it, it's clay. So, I'm gonna "box" a part of it in wooden walls, to cut the "outside" water supply. Now, I suppose the inside part will *also* generate water, and my question will be : how do I get rid of it ? Merely pump out as much as I can while I dig it away ? Channel it, and drain it, then remove the slopes ?  I have to say, I don't know exactly how to do it.