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[McDwarfy]

Hello,

I'm pretty new to Dwarf Fortress, but I'm really hooked! Just recently, I finally created a fortress successful enough to get a baron. Fortunately, I have tons of gold, so I was able to build him a very nice palace to keep him happy. This is good, because he's mandated lead items, and I have no lead. :S

Naturally, the baron has his own dining room in the palace. I thought it would be a nice touch to build a kitchen and food stockpile adjacent to it, so that a dwarf could make prepared meals to store right there. The baron would never have to leave his palace, and his luxury food would make him happier! Sadly, one problem ...

Those low class dwarves from the higher levels keep coming down and stealing the baron's meals! I can't figure out if there's a way to restrict access to the food stockpile or not. There doesn't seem to be a way - that I can find - of locking the door to all but the baron and his chef. I've even tried expanding the dining room zone to include the stockpile, but it still gets robbed.

Any ideas?

[NecroRebel]

Well... You could make a burrow that included the whole fort except the baron's chambers, then assign everyone, except possibly the baron and his chef, to the outside-burrow. You'd probably also want to make a burrow that includes on the baron's chambers and assign the baron and his chef to it, especially if you assigned those two to the outside-burrow. Dwarves won't take food outside a burrow that they are assigned to unless they're starving, though this would also stop anyone except those particular 2 dwarves from hauling prepared meals to the stockpile, so that's a problem on its own.

A better option, however, would probably be to simply murder the baron. The longer you wait, the more of your metalworkers will be killed if you ever get a captain of the guard!

Also, the baron won't actually be happier due to personal luxury foods, and will eat in his personal dining room regardless of how far it is from the food stockpiles, so it's probably better to just have him take food from the main pile.

[outofpractice]

1. The baron will eventually get mad enough and just start lop'ing off heads. The order is generally the dwarves you most need then onto the least. Pro tip. Build a jail system out of all that spare gold. Saves your Legendary Armoursmith getting beheaded in the dining hall.

2. Beg the caravans for lead, since that is what your Baron obviously likes. Things like cages etc. Once you have built them and the mandate has passed, melt them back down to bars, ready for the next mandate.

3. Dont worry about the personal chef. Just create a smaller food stockpile for him near his eating area. I've found that these satellite food/drink piles always get filled first from and/ before my main pile.

4. When designing noble room systems, make sure to include shower systems that can withstand upto and above 12000 degrees dwarvish.

[Blade Master Model 42]

A better option, however, would probably be to simply murder the baron. The longer you wait, the more of your metalworkers will be killed if you ever get a captain of the guard!

Generally unnecessary, unless your nobles start asking for items that don't exist, such as black bronze beds.

Burrows would probably be your best bet, since it seems you want to treat your baron nice. As has been said, ask for lead garbage from the caravans. Also, exploratory mining is your friend.

[McDwarfy]

Thank you for all the tips!

I know nobles can be a bit of a nuisance, but I'd rather not murder him if I can help it. I have a goal this game of getting him all the way up to Duke (before he's ruthlessly overshadowed by the immigrating Monarch!). Now, an unrelated question from an unrelated save ...

What is the safest way (if there is such a thing) to harness a volcano's magma? I know the simple answer is to build your magma workshops on top of the volcano, but this fort is a glacier fort, so I'd like to keep my dwarves inside. How can I breach the side of the volcano and collect magma without flooding the whole fort? I would be grateful if this could be explained in baby steps, as I still have a lot to learn.

Thanks again!

[Evil the Cat]

That's actually quite easy. Unless this has changed in the last few updates, magma doesn't have a 'pressure' like water does so it won't rise above the level you breach the volcano at. This means that even if you build your forge pretty deep with a top level for the forge and a magma reservoir below, as long as you breach the volcano on the same level as the reservoir it will never rise high enough to overwhelm the forge. Just be careful building magma waterfalls and things (not that you'd really want to).

[McDwarfy]

That's actually quite easy. Unless this has changed in the last few updates, magma doesn't have a 'pressure' like water does so it won't rise above the level you breach the volcano at. This means that even if you build your forge pretty deep with a top level for the forge and a magma reservoir below, as long as you breach the volcano on the same level as the reservoir it will never rise high enough to overwhelm the forge. Just be careful building magma waterfalls and things (not that you'd really want to).

So basically ...

Build a room with one end connected to the volcano, another with a floodgate to keep the flow from going further, and that becomes the reservoir. Then, have a room on the level above, directly over the magma, for the forges and so on? Assuming I have that right, how do I clear the floor on that level so that the magma below is made accessible?

[Evil the Cat]

You've got it. That's how I've always done it anyway. I like the touch of adding the floodgate, that should mean you can always expand your magma operations if you want to later on (or use it as an emergency self destruct switch for the lower regions of your fort). I've always used stairs or ramps covered by hatches to access the reservoir, but either way works. Just make sure the gate is magma safe.

If I remember right, magma forges need a stable tile under the centre and open access to magma somewhere under the rest of the structure. I always channel (h) a 3 tile wide hole under either the top or bottom to provide access, and that seems to work. Something like this.

+++++
+HHH+
+XXX+
+XXX+
+++++

H = channel (then build the magma forge over the top)
X = magma forge site.

If it doesn't work immediately, give it a few minutes. The magma has to reach a certain depth under the forge, and magma flows quite slowly compared to water.

Also, unless you have agile miners, consider making the tunnel leading from your reservoir to the volcano wider than one tile, this will mean that when you breach the volcano the magma is less likely to instantly flow down the tunnel and overwhelm your miner.

[Darkmere]

Wait, stop... don't do the above, you'll let magmamen into your fort.


You only need to channel out a single tile, and making that the impassable tile for X building keeps nasty things out.

This means for kilns and smelters:

XOX
XXX
XXX

and for magma forges:

XXX
OXO
XXX

with O being channeled tiles.

[Starver]

Magma Forges have (from memory, you might be advised to check the wiki as I haven't got the game open in front of me) the following layout:

Code: [Select]

ooo
XoX
ooo
Magma smelters/kilns/glassworks have the following layout.

Code: [Select]

oXo
ooo
ooo

You only need to dig one channel under any of the eight edge/corner tiles (not the centre-centre one!) to allow magma underneath that to power it, but there's anecdotal (and possibly some !!scientific!!) evidence that channelling out the just one marked tile under the latter magma workshops or either/both marked tiles makes it so that if you ever get any magma creatures into your reservoir they can't hop up and into your workshop level.

So that's what I do.  But I very rarely get any magma creatures even bothering to wander into my magmaducts, these days (despite the habitually 7/7ths depth of magma flowing through my habitual yet potentially useless fortification connection between dug magmaduct and magmapipe/sea).

Ach, swinehund... Ninjaed.

[Evil the Cat]

That may be true.. I've never had problems with magma creatures, most of them just seem to hang around doing their own thing, but maybe I'm just lucky.

Good to know anyway. I'll try adopting that pattern myself.

EDIT: That said, since magma men are building destroyers, isn't there a risk of them destroying the floodgates and letting magma into the fortress? Damn, I thought that was quite a cool idea, but in that case stairs sealed off with constructed floors/walls may be a better way to go.

[McDwarfy]

Just wanted to thank you all for your additional ideas. I will give them a try!

As it turns out, the glacier fortress has a huge - and I do mean huge - cavern system. Biggest I've seen. It almost looks like a chasm at first, branching and going many, many screens down before it hits flat land. On the bright side, there are big expanses of clear space down at the bottom, with plants and a waterfall. My dwarves could move in down there and be forever safe from the glacier's cold. 

I'm envisioning a big fortress with lots of bridges across the chasms, and a civilization thriving at the bottom-ish area!

[Fredd]

If you smelt galena,  byproducts are lead and silver

[Darkmere]

Regarding building destroyers: Yes, swimming building destroyers are supposedly able to break through vertical (the actually walkable Z-level tiles) grates. However, destroyers can't smash things above, like hatch covers. Also supposedly, carved fortifications should keep things out, though it's a guarantee in my forts that FB's swim through fortifications and emerge triumphantly through the well and into the fort. Hence: arming peasant haulers with crossbows to form an archer militia works pretty well to wound the organic types til the soldiers arrive to lop off limbs/kick in heads.

[celem]

you shouldnt get critters coming through fortifications...but it does happen sometimes.  Weird little Df water pressure effect, very large animals can actually be pushed through