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[simonthedwarf]

Hello everyone. I'm a new player. Thank you all for the lazy newb pack. It helped me get into DF.

I have some questions though:

1) How deep down are there creatures and caves? I've dug like 10-15 levels down in my previous fortress, fearing/hoping to find a cave. But I've never found anything except - stone, stone and more stone. God I hate all that stone.
2) Silver Warhammers - I've read these are pr0 for dwarves to use. Should I keep making them for my army if I have silver?
3) Military squads. My friend snuggles tells me its good to have several squads with 2 or 3 dwarfs in it. What should my structure look like?
4) I've read about the stone garbage pit exploit. Does it ruin the game to use it? Sounds kind of convenient given how stone crops up everywhere.
5) I usually make most of my fort even the later tech buildings in one single level, while mostly digging down to create graveyards and more storage space. Usually that means I have clay walls.
But only stone can be smoothed or engraved. How can I make a pretty fort using the clay walls? Do I have to dig them down and replace them with something else to make good thoughts for my dwarfs?
6) My tanner has entered a fell mood! He wants spider silk, but I dont have any. Dig down?

[AutomataKittay]

1: Depends on the embark, it can be anywhere from five levels down to a couple dozen. You'll want to branch off an exploration tunnel every few levels with at least one shift-arrow from the staircase.

2: Yes you should, you'll want other weapons, but silver is best for warhammers, followed by copper.

3: Up to you, I just fill squads up and leave it at 10/10 and training.

4: Nope, quantum dumping don't bugs the game up. It more personal opinion than anything. Some people -feels- that it's cheaty, others have no problem with it. Up to you!

5: Dwarves don't thinks much about walls at all, unless it's in assigned room, like bedroom or dining room. Even then furnishing quality matters more. The tearing walls down and replacing it's more player taste, though using valuable materials for dining room and bedrooms of favored dwarves are the usual.

6: Yes, dig down, explore out, keep digging until you hit cavern. Or buy it off the dwarf traders if you're got good timing.

[simonthedwarf]

I keep making floors. They are pretty. I read somewhere  that dwarves dont care what the floor is made out of. Considering the pain of filling rooms with objects with floors (since you can't just square select and it will "use" the available spots for floor) this seems a bit weird. Should I just stop making floors? I want to focus on a functional fortress.

[arzzult]

1) How deep down the caverns are depends on the world gen parameters.
2) Silver Warhammers are good, but Steel and Cotton Candy Battleaxes are great.
3) Not sure what you mean here since dividing you dwarves into squads of 2-3 defines the structure of your military.
4) Ruin the game? I guess that's a personal thing on whether it good or bad. I just find it very convenient in that it helps keep things looking nice and if you are making mass amounts of things from stone it speeds up production since the workers don't have to walk as far. But it does eat up lots of hauling labor. You decide.
5) Smoothed walls don't directly give good thoughts, but they do increase room value which can give good thoughts for having a nice room. Though engravings of high quality can give good thoughts but those can only be carved into natural stone walls that have been smoothed. You should consider moving deeper underground into the stone layer since its more dwarfy. Or if you want to get really brave and go for a mega-project you could read up on magma pump stacks and obsidian casting. It wouldn't be easy by any means but it could be fun, or !!Fun!!, and rewarding.
6) You can but you might want to be ready to seal it at a moments notice in case of forgotten beast. Or you can wait and pray your caravan brings some soon enough.

[Ragingpantsless]

1) That one was previously answered.

2) Silver warhammers are awesome at taking out creatures that use armor. If you're facing something that doesn't have armor, or is undead, Steel/spoiler battle axes are better. Mind you, training up marksdwarves is usually an equally valid choice. Material doesn't matter for shooting, only the quality, though a platinum crossbow is one of the best weapons your dwarves can field. (Partially because of the density of weapon, but mostly because they can only be artifacts.)

3) 2 dwarves in a squad train and equip faster than a whole 10. But it takes longer to field them and more effort to track/equip and supply them all.

4) Gotta do something with that metric crapton of stone. Might as well put it outside your masons shop and put it to good use.

5) Easiest way to keep dwarves from killing each other in a tantrum spiral is having their dining hall floor as smooth as an elf's disgusting beardless face and having the walls engraved with images of horrific violence.

6) Yes. Unless you can get to it in a season, that dwarf's a goner. Wall em up if you can't. Or build a wonderful dining hall. You'll find out why.

[Lectorog]

I keep making floors. They are pretty. I read somewhere  that dwarves dont care what the floor is made out of. Considering the pain of filling rooms with objects with floors (since you can't just square select and it will "use" the available spots for floor) this seems a bit weird. Should I just stop making floors? I want to focus on a functional fortress.

Floors are rarely worth it. They barely affect room value, are a pain to designate, and take up all of your masonry force. Unless you've got a lot of gold laying around, don't bother.

Smoothing, however, is great. All the benefits of a floor, but it's easier, doesn't use the masonry labor, and can be turned into a (possibly) valuable engraving. That only works on stone, though, not clay, sand, etc.

1) Just keep digging. You'll find Fun stuff eventually. I use a 2x1 up/down stairwell designated 10 levels at a time. It goes pretty fast.
2) Silver warhammers are one of the best weapons you can have. If you don't have ready access to steel, keep with those.
3) Doesn't matter. They're terribly uncontrollable no matter what way you do it. Try out different methods and see which you think works the best.
4) I use quantum stockpiling for stone all the time. It's easy, and I think it's pretty reasonable. Alternatively, you can hide it with d-b-h, if visuals are your problem.
5) "Prettiness" is rarely a factor in my fortresses. Dwarves don't really care about the clay until it's in their rooms or dining hall. Digging and replacing with stone just looks worse. Keep digging, relocate your living areas into a stone layer. Move into the caverns if you must.
6) Dig down or wall him in. If you don't mind losing a tanner, the easiest solution is to kill him (or, rather, lock him up and let him die). There's no guarantee you'll find spider silk.

[simonthedwarf]

great news everyone!

I was able to trade with the caravan, and traded like 100 pages of stone craft for cave spider silk.

My clothier immediatly went and retreived it from the caravan, producing:

"Stukandastot Squashedsword", a giant cave spider silk sock..

I am kind of dissapointed. Can I sell the sock to a caravan or will that make my Dorf angry?

[simonthedwarf]

What is the name of ore I just to make iron?

[NecroRebel]

There are 3 iron ores: limonite, hematite, and magnetite. They appear in sedimentary layers, which means that they're almost always near the surface if present. Hematite also appears in igneous extrusive layers, which also almost always appear near the surface but can occasionally be further down. Look up stones on the wiki for a list of what stone types are layers of which variety.

[kotekzot]

No, you can't sell artifacts.

[IT 000]

3) Military squads. My friend snuggles tells me its good to have several squads with 2 or 3 dwarfs in it. What should my structure look like?

I would only suggest this if they were elite dwarves. Elite dwarves can usually take out entire sections of the sieges. Dividing them up would allow you to engage multiple targets. However, if your military isn't very good, I highly recommend putting as many low level dwarves in one group as possible and have one or two high level dwarves in the same group to teach the others how to fight.

[Lectorog]

You can't sell artifacts. The best you can do is dump it in some lucky dwarf's room. Your dwarves won't even wear it.

[Sutremaine]

I would only suggest this if they were elite dwarves. Elite dwarves can usually take out entire sections of the sieges.

The solution here is to keep the squads small for fast training and send in as many as you need. There's really very little difference between one 9-dwarf squad and three 3-dwarf squads.

[thegoatgod_pan]

Imagine, your dwarf, possessed by the ancestors, created the greatest sock ever seen by dwarfkind.  Finally a sock worthy of rushing out into a siege to get butchered by goblins, worthy of continuous irritating attempts at recovery should it end up under water or in magma.  Speaking of which, if you manage to light in on fire it will burn forever and ever. Good trap component.

[simonthedwarf]

A sock  that burns forever?

How can I apply this to .. well, anything.