Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Rurik]

My dwarf just got a strange mood and claimed the Mason's workshop. He wants shining bars of metal, stacked leather and a quarry. I understand what the first might be, but would any kind of leather produced in the leather workshop suffice or not? And what is a quarry? The wiki referred only to quarry bush.

I think I'll just have to wall the dwarf in, because I have neither leather nor metal workshops. I am still learning the game, this is my first fortress that is intended to be serious and I have spent my time building sleeping quarters and a huge moat around the fortress entrance.

[jaxy15]

Check what he likes.
He will only pick the stuff he likes.
As for quarry, it just means stone.

[Rurik]

He likes petrified wood, bronze tiger iron, green glass, two-legged rhino lizard horn and rope reed fabric. Couldn't this little bastard have chosen some preferences that fit the working class a bit more? I mean, gosh, "When possible he prefers to consume giant eagle". Would you like some caviar with that, sir?

[jaxy15]

Well, you better get some bronze and petrified wood.

[Carpman]

He will only pick the stuff he likes.

This is 100% wrong. He doesn't care if you only have diorite, he'll use it. If you have any ore at all just try to smelt it, and slaughter a cat or something for leather.

[kellen]

He will only pick the stuff he likes.

This is 100% wrong. He doesn't care if you only have diorite, he'll use it. If you have any ore at all just try to smelt it, and slaughter a cat or something for leather.

Not 100% wrong. Sometimes they will use what they like to the exclusion of everything else. In my last fort, had a dwarf demand bars, and he liked lead (wtf?). So I explicitly forbid all the lead I had and surrounded the dwarf with silver bars. He didn't even glance at the silver. Then I threw some copper bars at him. Nope, he ignored them. I unforbid one stack of lead, the furthest from my moody dwarf, and the instant I unpaused he made a bee-line for it.

And with a moody dwarf before this one, I succeeded in forcing marble on him to make a marble drum by forbidding all other stone....I forget what his favorite was, but it wasn't marble.

[AutomataKittay]

IIRC, material preferences only applies to the base material of the artifacts, the first thing taken for it, if there're one. The shell and various cloth materials needed are different issue altogether

[Rurik]

Built a wood furnace and a smelter, but it was too late - he went insane. He didn't get stuck in the cage traps I put before his workshop though, maybe because he hasn't attacked anyone yet and is not a threat.

Oh well, I guess this is a good time to start the metal industry.

[Mushroo]

For future reference, the Strange Mood page on the Dwarf Fortress wiki explains exactly what cryptic phrases like "a quarry..." refer to.

Best advice I can give is, next time the Dwarven caravan comes to trade, buy one of everything and stash it away near your workshops. The caravan sells almost everything you need for any possible Strange Mood (with a few exceptions, like bones and uncut gems). Even if you think "I don't need silk, I don't plan on starting a textile industry" for example, it is good to have one silk bin around for moods, likewise for metal bars, glass, etc. Be prepared!

[Oliolli]

Remember, he won't get caught in cages unless he goes berserk. If he was struck by melancholy or went stark, raving mad he is no threat, except to the happiness of his friends and relatives.

As for stockpiling stuff, I agree. I tend not to magma the first elven caravan that comes along so I can take some usefull stuff that would be destroyed by the magma.

[Rurik]

For future reference, the Strange Mood page on the Dwarf Fortress wiki explains exactly what cryptic phrases like "a quarry..." refer to.

I might do that. Lots of people say that Dwarf Fortress is more fun (Fun) when played so that the player discovers all nasty surprises and I'd hate to seek solution for every problem from the Wiki, but trial and error seems like too frustrating a path to take in solving what those mysterious messages mean. Unless there's really logic in them always.

Remember, he won't get caught in cages unless he goes berserk. If he was struck by melancholy or went stark, raving mad he is no threat, except to the happiness of his friends and relatives.

I had one dwarf going insane this way in my previous game and he went berserk, so I thought they always go berserk.

Thanks for the advice.

[Oliolli]

My first ever insane dwarf was also berserk. Stukos Confinedcudgels, the infamous weaver of Zuntirestil.

In case you want to know what the other insanitys are, melancholy means the dwarf will actively seek out his/her death and stark, raving mad means the dwarf will run around the fort stripping naked until death catches up, often in the form of hunger, thirst, animals, goblins or... *gasp* badgers.

[jc6036]

I once had a strange mood that requested cloth, I had yarn cloth and plant cloth, but no silk. So in certain cases, they do want specific materials.

[Lagslayer]

You were looking at the wrong page on the wiki.

[Rurik]

raving mad means the dwarf will run around the fort stripping naked until death catches up, often in the form of hunger, thirst, animals, goblins or... *gasp* badgers.

Yeah, he went raving mad and died of thirst.

Another dwarf got possessed recently and claimed the jeweler's workshop. Luckily I had black opals nearby (rough uncut), so I got The Wilted Mirrors, a perfect black opal that menaces with spikes of opal!

Thing is, I don't know where's the artifact. I can press [l] and look at it, but it doesn't appear in the gem stockpile and the dwarf that made it hasn't got it either. Is there a way I can locate it?