Also, almost two weeks from my order to smooth the Dining Room, and I just now received word that we do not, in fact, have an engraver. I attempted to assign someone to it, but everyone is busy. It would seem that no one listens to me. No wonder Kohaku went mad.
Our supply of iron is low, and I wish to conserve it for steel. The otherwise useless copper will be forged into serrated discs, and used to guard the entrance. Any silver that comes out of the tetrahedrite will be reserved for warhammers. Those will be useless, of course, unless I can talk someone into spearheading our defense. Relatedly, I've mandated mechanisms. Lots of mechanisms.
In an effort to bring steel production up to snuff, I've designated a wide section of red sand for clearing. I'm counting on spores taking root in the soil, and growing tower-caps and what-not. It'll be a slow-process, but it's better than waiting for just top-side trees, I guess. I'm no miner, but I think that, if we were going to find lignite or bituminous coal, we'd have found some kind of clue. As yet, we haven't. So, limited steel, at least for now.
It seems that, at least until I get an engraver here, my fortress improvement plan will have to wait. I'll have my work cut out for me keeping this place alive anyhow.
We have plenty of hematite and I left the game after having functionally clear-cut a 2x2 embark's worth of forest, and tapping out an entire hematite vein just east of the entrance, so we should have PLENTY of logs and hematite.
In fact, looking up my save, we have 82 pieces of hematite, 185 limestone, and 92 logs to use for the steel industry - you don't need to go hunting for more materials.
What you need to do is go into the labors of a dwarf like Dutchling, and make sure that you turn off other labors besides wood burning. If you get a dwarf dedicated to burning those logs down to charcoal, you should have your steel industry running soon.
Also, look around the surface of that embark - there is a very large area that I have enclosed by making sure there are no surfaces with ramps, so everything is either wall or cliff. That whole area is as protected as the rest of the fort is, since you have to go through the trap alley to get into it unless it's a flying creature.
Also, there's no reason to make copper weapons, just use iron if you can't wait for steel, but I'd just wait for steel, honestly.
I didn't set up a gem-maker or stone engraver because I was trying to get the industry (magma forges, atom-smasher, all applicable quarries) up and running. Ignore the stupid exploratory mining for now, I was hoping the area had sphalerite, so I could sneak that into the ceramics, since we didn't have any granite or cassiterite.
I just didn't start on the serious military (or opening up the west bank) because I thought you would have your own way of setting things up, and decided it was best to just let you play your own way unless I could make some major headway on the topic. I didn't realize you were new to the game, or I would have left more notes on how to run everything.
Don't make serrated discs unless they are at least made of iron - there's no point if they can't pierce enemy armor,
especially since setting up weapon traps will make the enemy sieges come sooner.
I also made some iron chains, but never got them installed so you might want to hook up some puppies to act as a kobold detection system.
Also, since NW_Kohaku is the only cook for right now (you need to make breadbochs a dwarf in the next migrant wave), I don't have anything cooking - be aware that ordering cooking will take NW_Kohaku away from making large pots. Large pots are free and an alternative to making wood barrels for your booze.
I also believe the stills aren't running right at the moment that I passed over control - I ran out of barrels, and left it off for a while. I left with 92 units of booze still in barrels, but it's definitely time to put Jake back to brewing. With extra large pots, it should be easy.
If you want decorations, you can wait a little while, and the stoneware statues will be created and glazed, and we already have a legendary dining room with three statues and 10 sets of tables and chairs, alone.
Also keep in mind that JohnnieRWilkins is your primary carpenter AND your only woodcutter - designating trees to be cut down means that things will no longer be built in the carpentry shop.
Designating something for dumping will have it thrown into the pit that runs through the center of the fort - this pit leads to an atom-smasher, so dumping means that the items will be atom-smashed. Designate excess stone or those 50 freakin' two-legged rhino lizard corpses for dumping, but be careful you don't accidentally dump something you want to keep by mistake.
The
spreadsheet should help tell you who has what jobs I recommend you declare migrants to be the people with the skills you need the most right now.
Finally, if you want to expand on the traps (which you will want to do since we have so few soldiers, and none of them are trained, and absolutely DO NOT put them in harm's way without full steel, we need to keep them alive,) what you can do is this:
The brown ramps are being cut away, the gray background Os are new walls being built. Build new traps in the space between.
That will let you start building up the slop of the hill to expand the length of the death traps. Eventually, we should be able to afford to build a guard tower near the entrance where our one or two marksdwarves can shoot down on invaders from above.
For now, see that empty area between the two rows of cage traps that don't have a bunch of stonefall traps? Place the chains on the middle left and middle right of that area, and put two of the war dogs there. (You don't want to put the dogs over traps, or they might set them off on themselves if they are injured, so that's why there's a clear space.)
Now, if you start cranking out plenty of iron serrated discs, replace the stonefall traps with the weapons traps, and try to move the whole row of traps forward - 15 rows of traps will stop almost any siege. ESPECIALLY weapon traps. (You don't need all 10 weapons, 4 iron saw blades is MORE than enough - also, giant axe blades and corkscrews cost half as much (and hence, make the sieges smaller) as serrated discs but do comparably overkill damage) I put the outer row of my traps to always be cage traps, though, just to catch wild animals that wander in.
You can probably get Ethicalfive suited up in what steel armor we have right now, and trianing (the barracks is hotkey F8). I only didn't do this already because I needed Dutchling working, and Dutcling is supposed to be militia captain, so I wanted to make him a soldier first.
Ethicalfive is just fishing right now, and we already have plenty of mussel shells for any mood. (I forbade most of them, don't unforbid the shells unless there's a mood and you need them.)
Oh, and one last thing, since GreatWyrmGold is going to be the baron, it's important that, when the caravan comes, you buy the items GreatWyrmGold prefers that I ordered from the caravan, and make sure those items are then forbidden so that they aren't used up by accident until a mandate hits.
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Topic: "Rinsewind the First-Bolts" - A hole for craven cowards and misfits. (Read 30897 times)