Bay 12 Games Forum

Picked up DF again after a long hiatus, and started a new fort in an ideal location (flux, trees, hematite, magmatube... only problem is no water).

My fort is basically a circular wall centered around the magma tube with a single entrance. I have some stolen animals guarding that entrance, and several squads of marksdwarves. So far they've been able to handle any threat without casualties. That doesn't mean I haven't lost any dwarves though!

So far, there have been two kidnappings - babies snatched from dwarven mothers who went outside the fort to collect logs, a cave-in, at least one dwarf dodging spinning basalt and falling into the volcano, and some idiot kid who starved on top of a house.

SEXISM
To prevent future kidnappings, I instituted a "female dwarves may not leave the fort" policy. I also do not allow female dwarves in the military, so that they will not use baby-shields.

For obvious reasons, I'd like to make all animalmen in a biome part of one creature but as multiple castes. It seems that COPY_TAGS_FROM doesn't work in the caste level.

Does anyone have tips on this?

Something like this completely fails:

[CREATURE:WILD_BOAR_MAN]
   [CASTE:MALE]
      [COPY_TAGS_FROM:WILD_BOAR]
      [GO_TO_END]
      [CASTE_NAME:wild boar man:wild boar men:wild boar man]
      [MALE]
   [CASTE:FEMALE]
      [COPY_TAGS_FROM:WILD_BOAR]
      [GO_TO_END]
      [CASTE_NAME:wild boar woman:wild boar women:wild boar woman]
      [FEMALE]
   [SELECT_CASTE:ALL]
   [APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:ANIMAL_PERSON]
   [APPLY_CURRENT_CREATURE_VARIATION]
   [GO_TO_END]
   [APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:PUNCH_ATTACK]
   [APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:HOOF_ATTACK]
   [APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:NAIL_SCRATCH_ATTACK]
   [APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:TOOTH_BITE_ATTACK]
   [APPLY_CURRENT_CREATURE_VARIATION]
   [GO_TO_START]
   [NAME:wild boar man:wild boar men:wild boar man]
   [DESCRIPTION:A person with the head of a wild boar.]
   [POPULATION_NUMBER:30:50]
   [CLUSTER_NUMBER:5:10]
   [MAXAGE:60:80]
   [CREATURE_TILE:'B']
   [COLOR:6:0:0]
   [GO_TO_TAG:BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:BODY_HAIR_TISSUE_LAYERS:HAIR]
   [APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:NAIL_MATERIALS]
   [APPLY_CURRENT_CREATURE_VARIATION]
   [GO_TO_TAG:USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:NAIL:NAIL_TEMPLATE]
   [TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:FINGER:NAIL:FRONT]

Here are the rules:

1. All metalsmithing must be done at the magma sea.
2. All farming, plant gathering, woodcutting, and trading must be done on the surface.
3. Surface dwarves must be restricted to the surface
4. Subterranean dwarves must be restricted to the third cavern or lower.

One month out of the year, you can send a caravan (haulers with guards) to move supply your magma fort with supplies from the surface, and your surface fort with weapons and armor.

Bonus points for:

• Never closing off either fort entirely
• Embarking in a terrifying biome
• Not trapping your entrances (cage traps to collect wildlife are fine)

Those of you who have built multi-level above-ground constructions... what do you fill them with?

I have no problem visualizing a tower exterior, but I have no idea what to put in it. I have a 10 z-level valley, so I figure I could put a pretty nice 15 level tower on this map.

On my latest fortress, I'm working on a new entrance trap.

==================
G.............^..G
G.............^..G
G.............^..G
==================
G.............^..G
G.............^..G
G.............^..G
==================
G.............^..G
G.............^..G
G.............^..G
==================

G=raiseable drawbridge
^=pressure plate
==wall
.=floor

I've actually got 8 of these entrances. What I'd like to do is make it so that only one entrance is open at a time. When a goblin or other invader reaches the pressure plates, the bridges raise, trapping him and his allies inside and the next hallway opens. There should only be one hallway open at a time.

Any ideas on how to make this happen? I have a two level aquifer for easy power and repeater setups. I figure I need some sort of registry or flipflop logic to properly automate this.


I'm planning on having a floor grate installed above each entrance for dwarves to pondfill. I figure the slow drowning is more terrifying than water instantly rushing in.

I just had an unfortunate encounter with an inorganic headless forgotten beast. Anyone know if it's possible to mod out headless or inorganic beasts? Are the beasts generated from a moddable file?

I have had great success using burrows to set up base camp in the first cavern. As you might expect, there are some nasty creatures down there. Most of them don't pose a big threat to a fully armed and armored dwarf, but I had the joy of watching a giant bat grab a miner by the head, and proceed to rip it clean off.

Basically, I've set up a single burrow which encompasses all areas I expect my civilians to enter. I have a military of 4 axedwarves with bronze shields and axes, and steel platemail. They are scheduled to defend the burrows with at least 1 dwarf at all times. Any time a baddie wanders into the area, one of them runs over and hacks off a few limbs. If it's edible, it gets hauled back to the butchers, keeping my stocks full. The rest of the dwarves train and take care of themselves.

This is so much easier than 40d.

This may be a bug, but I'm posting here first to see if I'm just doing something wrong.

My axedwarf keeps taking off his clothes and putting them back on again. Constantly. He started doing this after I assigned him a uniform.

In a related note... axedwarves *destroy* their (unarmored) enemies.