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[Naryar]

Or dig up loads of soil, breach the caverns, and make large underground pastures with all that soil.

Or you can even put your yak IN the caverns. However, you might want to protect it from the often aggressive cavern wildlife.

[Manic Typist]

Well that was annoying. The caravan unloaded its goods, but I couldn't figure out how to trade.

I also tried that trick to see if I could speed through the diplomat's talking, but so far nothing is happening.


*Grumble*

I probably didn't have much of value to trade anyway.

[billybobfred]

[q]uery the trade depot. [r]equest a trader. If necessary, tell the [b]roker to allow anyone. Once there's a dorf at the depot and the goods are unloaded, [t]rade.

[Darkmere]

Re: The sped up meetings: I didn't think when I posted it, but if your leader is busy he can actually walk away from the liaison after meeting starts and it won't work. It happens a lot early on when your leader is busy doing important setup stuff (i.e. has a job instead of just worthless booze sponge), so that's probably what happened. I forgot about it, because my fort's year 17 now and the duke doesn't do much except hold meetings and demand things I can't make. (Iron slab in bedroom, anyone?)

[Manic Typist]

Well, survived the first winter. Since the caravan left without any trading, food was.... supplemented by vermin. Guess I didn't need those cats after all....

Made it to spring, where I managed to find a way (again, and a different way) to slaughter the last two tame yaks (the bull and the calf) to feed my guys. Some had, for the first time, begun to become unhappy. The yaks seemed to make a difference.
.
Now if only I could get farming running better, and by that I mean at all. Eat the food that has been planted!

Need to figure out fishing, and actually start industry running. Coal? Bah, I've lived a year without coal!

As an aside, it's good to finally figure out that you can't build stairs in the middle of a room. They must be cut out of a wall, and cannot be added back in later. At least, not that I've figured out.

Hunting. No idea why I can't get anyone to actually go out and hunt, even if that is their labor. I also can't figure out who has the copper battle axe that is my only real weapon (the picks are busy....)

At the very least, if this group dies, the next batch will have it easier by settling into a prebuilt starter fortress...

[Manic Typist]

Oh, and thanks for the specific prompts regarding odd and ends. 'tis very helpful.

[ledgekindred]

In DF, hunting == shooting stuff with a crossbow, and requires a crossbow, bolts and a quiver.  if you didn't think to bring any of those, or didn't assign "Ambushing" as the top skill of one of your original dwarves to get a "free" hunting set, you are SOL until you can trade or make some.  He'll also run out of bolts quick, so you'll want to make some wooden or bone bolts or something. 

The axe is very likely being carried around by some woodcutter or other, waiting for you to ask him to cut down some trees.  Unless something attacks him directly, it's now a work tool and no longer a weapon.

Fishing at least is easy.  Give someone Fishing and Fish Cleaning skills and if there is fishable water, they will fish.  Make sure you build a Fishery workshop so they can do something with the fish they bring back other than let them rot. If, however you have no fishable water, then they won't do much of anything.

Some plants cannot be eaten raw and must be cooked or brewed.  Plump helmets are great because they can be eaten raw, cooked or brewed and can be planted all year 'round.  Plant up as many of those as you can fit in your fields for now.  You can go back later and give them a variety once you actually have food and booze.  Chances are nobody is doing anything with plants that are grown because either a) you don't have a food stockpile for the dwarves to store them in, or b) you have a bunch of plants that can only be brewed or cooked, so nobody will eat them raw.

Also this might seem obvious to me but it's probably worth pointing out that if you don't actually tell someone to cook meals and brew drinks, nobody will.  Either order at the workshop directly or use the job manager screen to queue up some work orders.

[Manic Typist]

In DF, hunting == shooting stuff with a crossbow, and requires a crossbow, bolts and a quiver.  if you didn't think to bring any of those, or didn't assign "Ambushing" as the top skill of one of your original dwarves to get a "free" hunting set, you are SOL until you can trade or make some.  He'll also run out of bolts quick, so you'll want to make some wooden or bone bolts or something.

I used the default for the LazyNewPack, so I've been trying to buy or make a crossbow and bolts. No luck so far.... I have bones in the refuse pile. Still not there yet...

The axe is very likely being carried around by some woodcutter or other, waiting for you to ask him to cut down some trees.

Which I find confusing since I currently have two big blocks of trees marked for cutting.

Fishing at least is easy.  Give someone Fishing and Fish Cleaning skills and if there is fishable water, they will fish.  Make sure you build a Fishery workshop so they can do something with the fish they bring back other than let them rot. If, however you have no fishable water, then they won't do much of anything.

I've seen frogs at least, so I'll go back and check this.

[/quote]Some plants cannot be eaten raw and must be cooked or brewed.  Plump helmets are great because they can be eaten raw, cooked or brewed and can be planted all year 'round.  Plant up as many of those as you can fit in your fields for now.  You can go back later and give them a variety once you actually have food and booze.  Chances are nobody is doing anything with plants that are grown because either a) you don't have a food stockpile for the dwarves to store them in, or b) you have a bunch of plants that can only be brewed or cooked, so nobody will eat them raw.[/quote] Probably the latter, since I definitely have a food stockpile.

[Darkmere]

you can make stairs and such wherever, cutting them out of walls is easier when you're digging but you can [ b ] uild [ C ] onstruction and use stone to make stairs/floors/walls/fortifications wherever. Requires masonry for stone, carpentry for wood, and any metalworking for metal bar constructions.

Wooden bolts require woodcrafting and are made at a craftsdwarf's workshop.

If you have assigned a bookkeeper and given him/her an office (chair, [ q ] eried, make room, assign to bookkeeper selected from [ n ] obles screen) you can go to the Z -> stocks menu and look at weapons to find the axe.

[Manic Typist]

Good to know.

I've successfully traded with the elves... they haven't left yet, but to my understanding we've traded. Is there a way to get the stuff I've purchased back into my fort before they leave?

Fishing seems to be taking place, at least on a small scale.

I've also created my first squad, a unit of marksdwarfs and an archery range. Fortunately, I'd already mined out the basics for my "military" level (and have begun the initial layout for my prison/gladiator area). Unfortunately, I now have to figure out how all this military stuff works...

Puppies and cats (and a chicken) have shown up out of nowhere, so now I'm trying to get some animal training going on, with little success. I've activated those labors and made a kennel....

Oh, and one of my dwarves has fallen into a fey mood! Hopefully that turns out well. He seems to have claimed a mason's workshop....


Oh, this is annoying. I keep getting announcements that "so and so" has canceled "collect sand" due to a need for a bag or somesuch. Except I've checked every workshop I can find/think of, and the standing orders, work orders, etc. Nothing I see indicates that people are being ordered to collect sand; and if you have canceled it why do I keep getting TOLD about it??

[billybobfred]

I've successfully traded with the elves... they haven't left yet, but to my understanding we've traded. Is there a way to get the stuff I've purchased back into my fort before they leave?

The goods will be hauled into an appropriate stockpile (if one exists) as soon as you own the items. Otherwise, they'll sit in the trade depot until something else happens to them (food might rot, most supplies will get used, etc)

Oh, this is annoying. I keep getting announcements that "so and so" has canceled "collect sand" due to a need for a bag or somesuch. Except I've checked every workshop I can find/think of, and the standing orders, work orders, etc. Nothing I see indicates that people are being ordered to collect sand; and if you have canceled it why do I keep getting TOLD about it??

Sand is collected at glass workshops, did you check those?

[Manic Typist]

First, second, tenth, and fifteenth place I looked. Just checked again. NADA.

[billybobfred]

Well, check the [j]ob list. I can't imagine the job glitched its way into an inappropriate workshop, but who knows?

[Number4]

plants: plump helmets are good, quarry bushes, cave wheat and sweet pods need to be processed and cooked  - check the wiki. pig tails are for clothing but can be brewed...which is good, as it ensures that this crop will go 100% to the brewer if you don't make any clothes. dimple cups are for dyeing clothes, which is a bit elfy and usually useless. avoid.

[Manic Typist]

Whew. Lots has happened. Another wave of migrants. My first squad, from reviewing their sparring reports, are hilariously incompetent at hitting things (except colliding and falling over). At least their dedicated in their training....

Had my first flood! Near disaster, but I managed to get a door in the path of it. Fortunately it was down a long tunnel decently far from my fort itself, part of a speculative mining mission. I saw some precious stones along the bed of the brook.... learned the hard way that if the water is DIAGONAL from your hallway, it is NOT separated from it. Would have blocked it off sooner (water was slowly coming down the hall, yet it was surprisingly intense to watch it go and hope the dwarf got there with a door in time!) but all of a sudden some tiles not connected to it and further ahead began to flood. Caught me off guard.

I think my guys drank a small, two level pond dry.

Several masterpieces have been produced, though of what I can never tell since you can't zoom to the item or even the act.

Another guy went into a fey mood and took over a glass furnace. He demanded raw green glass and cut stones. I had tons of the latter, and only one sand.... so I managed to find some sand tiles and designate them for collection. I checked on him later  using [v] and it no longer said he was "screaming" for ingredients. However, he still went insane and then became melancholy. I'm watching him stagger down the hall to the mess, and getting ready to sick my inept squad on him if necessary. Not sure what went wrong there.

Oh! I remembered I'd had some statues made. The first one? A bronze colossus killing an elf in a famous battle. I was tempted to hold on to it to sell to the elves, but I decided to put it in the dining area instead. The other was of some dwarves toiling to found a city, so I put that in the entry way that connects the surface to my fort. Suitable inspiration in my mind.

I completely lack metal. So I've decided to dig deeper. We'll see how that goes.


Dwarven caravan here. If only they had some more picks.... oh well. Guess I'll buy up cloth and leather then.