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[Sjotrik]

Have gotten myself a fair amount of dorfs in my fort, but as they come, i have less and less work for them. how do you/should I put them to work? in what tasks?

[Minnakht]

One word: Hauling

[Urist Imiknorris]

I either let them idle or engage in massive construction projects.

[Byakugan01]

One word: Hauling

[MarcAFK]

Make stone blocks, move stone blocks, build stuff from stone blocks...
Or if you really want pointless busywork and hauling make lots of steel bolts, fire them at a target behind a channel, collect the bolts, melt them and reforge them, exploiting the melting reaction to get extra steel, then decorate EVERYTHING with steel rings, steel spikes, steel what have you, While you're at it decorate everything with gems, glass, dyed cloth, etc.
Or start a megaproject

[psychologicalshock]

Build pointless crap everywhere.

[MarcAFK]

Also there's dangerrooms/screwpump gyms to keep your guys fit

[Hyndis]

If you never want any idlers build a 10x10 farm plot for each crop. Grow all crops all year round, or as often as you can. Do not cook seeds. Limit the stockpile size for farmed plants so they don't take over all of your stockpile space, and disallow storage of plants in refuse stockpiles. Just let the plants rot in the field. They won't stink up the place.

You will have dozens and dozens of legendary farmers. Also this will significantly improve everyone's stats while ensuing unlimited food. You will have very strong, tough, and agile dwarves. Strong, tough, and agile dwarves are outstanding military recruits.


plant (farmer)

    * strength
    * agility
    * endurance
    * kinesthetic sense
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Stats

[Iados]

i see idlers?

1. Open Dwarf Therapist.
2. Turn on stone detailing on every dwarf.
3. Press d, s, designate.
4. SMOOTH THE WHOLE MAP!!!
5. Press d, e, designate.
6. NOW ENGRAVE IT!!!!!!
7. YEEEEEEAaaaaaah!!

[Naryar]

Spam mechanisms and glass terrariums and cover your whole map with cage traps.

[akinzle]

I'm a neat freak, so there are usually always hauling jobs to do. Or, 70z solid gold statues of dwarves bleeding magma from the eyes to build.

[Jake]

Everyone's in the militia, so they usually end up doing individual combat drill.

[Quietust]

> How do YOU keep your dwarves from idling?..

I don't - if they don't have work to do, I let them idle. That way, if there comes a point when I have a bunch of work for them to do (e.g. after a siege, clearing the battlefield of bodies and loot), I have lots of dwarfpower to get the job done quickly.

Having 0 idlers can be the sign of an inefficient fortress - giving your population so much work to do that they never get it done. The fact that the Economy (in previous versions) caused idle dwarves to get unhappy thoughts is probably a design flaw in and of itself.

[ext0l]

Furnace operators.
Someone has to pick up the goblinite armor and weapons from the surface.

[Jeoshua]

Idle dwarves should be happy, but only if they're not idle for too long.  A vacation is one thing.  Unemployment is quite another.  And with DF's timescale, 5 minutes in-game is something like a month.  I'd go crazy, myself, being unemployed for any bit longer than that.