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[Wungar]

So yeah, some friends pointed me towards DF.  Downloaded it and the therapist (so much easier) and dove in with just some basic guidance from a friend who's played for a while.

Some problems I've ran into so far are probably trivial but I just can't seem to wrap my head around them.

Military is semi-confusing to me, I've made squads set the training up, made the barracks and archery range etc.  So far I've been lucky I suppose, had to handle one actual 'invasion' type deal with some goblins flinging arrows at me.  Lost a few dwarves but I won.  The problem comes with cleaning up afterwards.

I had built a wall around my entrance with doors, had some bears wandering around killing my pets so I took care of them -- One died in the doorway.  I had set up a dump site to get rid of things and set the corpse to dump.  Didn't work, so when the goblins came they just walked into my fenced in area and started shooting (Not to mention my wall apparently didn't do anything as I watched arrows just fly through it).  After I killed them all, I couldn't seem to get rid of those bodies either even after setting them to be dumped.

Another thing I've had zero luck with is channels and traps.  Tried setting up a simplistic pressure plate to a door, a no go.  Wouldn't work, noone would use it, ended up dismantling it and throwing my hands up in frustration at the notion.

The main type of info I'd love to get ahold of and talk to people about is using ideas I've read in the wiki and on the forum work.  Draw-bridges, flood-traps, pit traps and possibly a danger room.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Avo]

Is your wall perhaps fortifications? Think of fortifacations as a wall with a big hole in it so your dwarfs can shoot through. As for the bear/dumping problem, you need to set outdoor refuse to be gathered. This can be done by using the sequence O>R>O. You might want to turn on gather vermin remains from outdoors if your afraid they will get stuck in doors as well.
 
As for the pressurepad/door. Its better to just lock it with the Q menu when something bad comes until your good with that stuff. Traps don't need to be attached to pressure plates, think of them already having one in place directly under it.

A danger room is fairly simple, you dig out a small room and cover it in wooden spike traps. Then you hook up all of the spike traps to a lever before giving your soldiers the best armor you can find and stationing them inside. Lock the doors and set the lever to be pulled repeatedly.

As for saving your military, its probably best to let traps take care of your first batch of gobbos and use the goblinite they drop to get some basic equipment until something good comes along.

On an off note: HOLY HELL. My 4th migration wave just included 22 dwarfs.

[Wungar]

nope, not fortifications.  Just regular chalk walls.

I'm going to start a new fortress soon.  Learn a little and use it the next time, rinse and repeat.

But thank you for the info on the outside refuse gathering.

[blue emu]

Things marked for dumping are considered "refuse". You probably still have your Standing Orders set to "Ignore Refuse Outdoors".

Press 'o' (orders), then 'r' (refuse orders), and set your orders to collect outside refuse. Leave it on "Ignore vermin", though... or your stupid Dwarves will run halfway across the map to collect a dead dragonfly.

As far as your ineffective walls... I suspect that the Gobbos (or possibly your fort) were on a hill, and just shot OVER your walls. Make them taller.

When it comes to more complex constructions, I haven't used pressure plates much.

I'm pretty good at Power sources (Windmills, Waterwheels, etc), Pump-stacks, Huge Magma-belching Doomsday Devices like this one:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=76108.0

... lever-controlled thing-gummies, smashing holes through Aquifers, and that sort of thing.

[agatharchides]

As far as drawbridges and doors go, I usually just use a lever. The easy way to make a repeater for a danger room or whatever is just to build a lever and tell them to (r)epeat the job. It will stop periodically as Urist McIdler 23 goes to get a drink and McIdler 24 comes to take his place, but for most purposes it is good enough.

[Wungar]

As far as drawbridges and doors go, I usually just use a lever. The easy way to make a repeater for a danger room or whatever is just to build a lever and tell them to (r)epeat the job. It will stop periodically as Urist McIdler 23 goes to get a drink and McIdler 24 comes to take his place, but for most purposes it is good enough.

Errr.  So I'm guessing you simply make a bridge and link a lever to it and when you activate the lever the bridge raises?

[agatharchides]

Correct. And if you link a lever to a door it will open/close it. If you link a lever to a spike trap (not a weapon trap) it will cause them to retract or extend. Those can be pretty useful since they hit TRAPAVOID things which weapon traps do not.

[Wungar]

A quick followup question.

When setting up a new embark and preparing carefully what are some good rules of thumb for items/professions?

I tend to put 2-3 skillsets per dwarf and try to vary them so if they aren't busy with one thing then they are busy with something else and also setting up to have one military dwarf (give him something like dodge, teacher and a weapon skill)

As far as items... Generally just a random assortment of stuff I may need and tons of booze.

Suggestions?

[agatharchides]

Honestly, as long as you bring some picks and an axe you can't go that far wrong. I tend to take skills like weaponsmithing and doctoring that are hard to train and a mason and/or carpenter right for instant valuable furniture. I know other people like to take skills useful right away like farmer and brewer and that works fine as well. Mechanics, masons, carpenters, brewer and farmers are all popular since they are useful right away. Anyone working with metal or medical skills is a good long-term investment since those skills are hard or expensive to train in the long run.

[proxn_punkd]

As far as drawbridges and doors go, I usually just use a lever. The easy way to make a repeater for a danger room or whatever is just to build a lever and tell them to (r)epeat the job. It will stop periodically as Urist McIdler 23 goes to get a drink and McIdler 24 comes to take his place, but for most purposes it is good enough.

Errr.  So I'm guessing you simply make a bridge and link a lever to it and when you activate the lever the bridge raises?

You have to indicate a direction for the bridge to rise as you're ordering it built.

[cancel.man]

Errr.  So I'm guessing you simply make a bridge and link a lever to it and when you activate the lever the bridge raises?

Technically it does what you told it to do when you built the bridge- pay attention when building bridges, while you place then you also have the option for setting the direction it raises. By default a bridge will "retract" which is to say disappear. If a bridge raises in a direction it occupies the space it raises to- creating an effective wall against invaders. That's why direction-raising bridges make good doorways on fort entrances- you retract them to become an instant wall.

As for your embark questions- there are some good pre-built embarks in the Lazy Newb Pack (I highly recommend this, you should give it a go). Take a look at those presets and you'll learn a lot about what makes a good embark.

I always tend to forget important things (like picks and anvils) when I prepare "carefully" so I generally use presets and maybe modify a couple things.

Ultimately skills aren't that important since your first 7 dwarves do all the work and tend to level up everything really fast. Even a novice miner can be legendary by the time the first migration arrives (don't quote me on that).

[blue emu]

A quick followup question.

When setting up a new embark and preparing carefully what are some good rules of thumb for items/professions?

I tend to put 2-3 skillsets per dwarf and try to vary them so if they aren't busy with one thing then they are busy with something else and also setting up to have one military dwarf (give him something like dodge, teacher and a weapon skill)

As far as items... Generally just a random assortment of stuff I may need and tons of booze.

Suggestions?

There's lots of options for your skill-sets. There isn't any "wrong" way to do it... unless you forget to bring picks or some way to make them.

I usually bring:

Miner-1
Miner-1
Miner-1/Mason-1/Engraver-1/Architect-1
Lumberjack-1/Carpenter-1/Ambusher-3/Axedwarf-1
Grower-5/Weaponsmith-1
Brewer-3/Cook-3/Armorsmith-1
Mechanic-1/Architect-1/Negotiator-1/Judge of Intent-1/Appraiser-1/Consoler-1/Organizer-1/Leader-1

For items... lots of booze, a few stones (in case I need to bust through an Aquifer to reach the rocks, I'll need stone for Mechanisms), a few Dogs (one male), two cats (one male), several Chickens or oter fowl (one male), some thread, some leather, three picks, one axe, one anvil, two ropes... lots of junk.

[Wungar]

Why so many animals?

I've never really had much luck with butchering/tanning.  It's one of those things I try, but beyond randomly assigning things ready for slaughter and hoping my butcher gets some meat from them without a huge miasma resulting, I don't have much luck.

I normally make a butcher/tanner workshop close together, wall/door in the butcher to hold in the miasma and hope that I get some food out of the whole mess with leather just being a 'perk'.

Played one fortress for a few years and ended up just having a few awesome craft-dwarves, made trinkets/cut gems and traded them for leather/cloth as the most I've been able to do with farming is just get some food -- No luck processing plants or anything like that to get cloth/fiber etc.

[blue emu]

Why so many animals?

I've never really had much luck with butchering/tanning.  It's one of those things I try, but beyond randomly assigning things ready for slaughter and hoping my butcher gets some meat from them without a huge miasma resulting, I don't have much luck.

I normally make a butcher/tanner workshop close together, wall/door in the butcher to hold in the miasma and hope that I get some food out of the whole mess with leather just being a 'perk'.

Played one fortress for a few years and ended up just having a few awesome craft-dwarves, made trinkets/cut gems and traded them for leather/cloth as the most I've been able to do with farming is just get some food -- No luck processing plants or anything like that to get cloth/fiber etc.

Dogs to train into Wardogs, Cats to catch vermin (vermin degrade your food supplies if not killed), Chickens for the Eggs... give each female Chicken a Nest Box (made at a Craftdwarf's Worksjhop) and you can eat Eggs all year round.

If you're planning to Butcher and Tan, you should set up a Refuse stockpile near your Butcher Shop / Tannery, with everything disabled except "Fresh Raw Hides". On your outdoor Refuse Stockpile, disable Fresh Raw Hides (so that they won't go to the outdoor Refuse Stockpile). In a sealed room inside your fortress, set up another refuse stockpile set to allow only useful animal parts... bones, horn, teeth, shells, etc. You'll need them for moods.

Miasma won't spread diagonally, only orthogonally (right-left, top-bottom, up-down) so you can contain miasma by making the entrance to your abbatoir a diagonal corner-to-corner entrance.