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Author Topic: What do you do with your extra dwarves?  (Read 4221 times)

Trekkin

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What do you do with your extra dwarves?
« on: March 24, 2011, 06:42:05 pm »

By the time I have a mature fort, the whole thing is run by roughly twenty dwarves at maximum. I'm usually training a replacement for each of them, taking up forty in total and leaving 160 dwarves that do nothing but drink booze, eat food, and talk.

So what do other people do with their spare citizenry, aside from using them as a megaproject labor force? I've been thinking of training them all up, immuring them next to a spoiler pipe, and seeing how far they get, but that seems less than dwarfy somehow.
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Girlinhat

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Re: What do you do with your extra dwarves?
« Reply #1 on: March 24, 2011, 06:47:50 pm »

Lower my pop cap, or start a military.  Playing Fortress Defense or similar will give your military a real purpose.

Megaman

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Re: What do you do with your extra dwarves?
« Reply #2 on: March 24, 2011, 06:49:08 pm »

Haulers or transform them into cannon fodder. On Fort Defense some actually ascend to higher levels of warriordom.
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ThrowerOfStones

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Re: What do you do with your extra dwarves?
« Reply #3 on: March 24, 2011, 06:52:08 pm »

Every male immigrant after my first two or three waves becomes a soldier.
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Bobinater

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Re: What do you do with your extra dwarves?
« Reply #4 on: March 24, 2011, 07:40:24 pm »

I don't get how so many people have a hard time keeping their dwarfs busy.  I very rarely have enough haulers and when I do the next draft takes care of that.  maybe try using them to keep your hallways and rooms rock free by ordering some dumping.
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Akura

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Re: What do you do with your extra dwarves?
« Reply #5 on: March 24, 2011, 08:23:45 pm »

I don't get how so many people have a hard time keeping their dwarfs busy.  I very rarely have enough haulers and when I do the next draft takes care of that.  maybe try using them to keep your hallways and rooms rock free by ordering some dumping.
The same. I just can't get enough Furnace Operators. Almost anyone with military skills gets drafted immediately(along with people with no skills if I have room in the squad), unless they have some kind of redeeming skill(High Master Armorer? Well, come over here, I've got a forge built just for you. Now get to work.). Everyone else usually goes to Farmer, Hauler, or something I probably need at the moment(see note about Furnace Ops).
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bobhayes

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Re: What do you do with your extra dwarves?
« Reply #6 on: March 24, 2011, 08:27:25 pm »

By the time I have a mature fort, the whole thing is run by roughly twenty dwarves at maximum. I'm usually training a replacement for each of them, taking up forty in total and leaving 160 dwarves that do nothing but drink booze, eat food, and talk.

So what do other people do with their spare citizenry, aside from using them as a megaproject labor force?

Forge 160 picks and start clearing levels.
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Jake

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Re: What do you do with your extra dwarves?
« Reply #7 on: March 24, 2011, 08:54:07 pm »

Set nearly all my workshops making stuff on repeat and practically bury the merchants in it whenever they arrive, including the elves. Have every adult in the fortress barring medical staff and the fortress guard spend at least one month a year training for combat, and repel sieges by attacking head-on.
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I think Toady's confusing interface better simulates the experience of a bunch of disorganised drunken dwarves running a fort.

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Megaman3321

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Re: What do you do with your extra dwarves?
« Reply #8 on: March 24, 2011, 08:56:01 pm »

Do insane projects that tend to end up with some casualties.

Or assign a few of them to masonry, build some worshops, and pump out stone blocks.
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xcrissxcrossx

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Re: What do you do with your extra dwarves?
« Reply #9 on: March 24, 2011, 08:57:09 pm »

Usually when I have extra dwarves, I have many jobs that need doing:

Furnace operating
Smeltering
Metal strand extraction
Craft making (whether rocks or metal)
Farming
Hauling
Military
Wood Burning (For Steel)
Stone detailing

I am probably missing a few. Always jobs for dwarves to do though. I still have a problem once I get past 120 or so though even with all of this.
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Hellmoob

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Re: What do you do with your extra dwarves?
« Reply #10 on: March 24, 2011, 09:15:14 pm »

Never too many haulers. A few master craftspeople, a few backups if they're on break and I need crapola like barrels, bins or floodgates, 10-16 elite military and everyone else gets the simple joy of hauling blood-soaked goblin socks to the atom smasher.
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malroth

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Re: What do you do with your extra dwarves?
« Reply #11 on: March 24, 2011, 09:36:14 pm »

living in the pit underneith my bridge along with the cats and nobles,  only getting admitted to the real fort once i'm prepared or they prove themselves worthy
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MisterLich

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Re: What do you do with your extra dwarves?
« Reply #12 on: March 24, 2011, 09:36:41 pm »

Blood for the Blood God!

I like to build my fortresses as if they are ran by insane zealots to Armok, one of my superstructers always involving a shrine or temple to Armok.  When I have a giant population I begin a Culling Ceremony where only the chosen by Armok are allowed to live, where those who are not sacrifice their own blood to the Blood God.

Two different chambers, one on the left and one on the right.  In both of them I put stockpiles of booze that a dwarf will eventually path to, if they path to the left stockpile then they will be fine and I will forbid that particular dwarf from returning to either chamber, Armok has let them live.  If they path to the right, then they will walk over a pressure plate and it will drop the dwarf depending on different ways I can set up the pitfall, dropping them on an upright adamantine spike that I have placed over the center of a grand altar to Armok, and when a dwarf fails the culling test then their blood is splashed all over the altar in submission to Armok.


Or I make them haulers.
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Sarda

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Re: What do you do with your extra dwarves?
« Reply #13 on: March 24, 2011, 09:53:54 pm »

snip


Or I make them haulers.
YOU CRUEL BASTARD
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You'll have to provide warm, moist kittens at the end of each test chamber.
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IT 000

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Re: What do you do with your extra dwarves?
« Reply #14 on: March 24, 2011, 10:15:19 pm »

Magma. Because when the eighth high level fisherdwarf shows up in your scorching desert fortress you get a little twitchy.
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