Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Modding => Masterwork DF => Topic started by: !!Fyre!! on August 15, 2013, 12:44:08 am
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Other than the the ones posted on the tips and tricks section of the manual, what is the best tip you would give to a new player. Please say if the tip is for players new to DF or to MasterworkDF.
I'm new myself but for my tip - bring at least a pair of dewbeetles on embark. They can be milked 2x a season and the extract can be brewed into 15 units of alchohol which can help get you through the long haul until the caravan arrives or your first crop matures. Plus when butchered they drop chitin which is less labor intensive than leather to get to iron quality.(Masterwork)
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MW: Don't turn off the Metallurgist and Archaelogist, currently it just makes it impossible to make alloys and get the loot from ruins.
Use the Fish Pond. Use it. Do it now. :) Seriously, your fishers can fish with a bucket, indoors. You can even specify you want turtles if you need shells. But don't expect the Fishing skill to work there, you need the Fish Farm skill. As a little tip for Vanilla or MW, you need a fish cleaner now to get turtle shells, it seems. Your dorfs don't just slurp the turtle out of the shell.
MW or Vanilla: Don't bring your wealth up too quickly with lots of crafts and gem encrusted furniture. Many of the baddies are generated based on your wealth. When I stopped my crafters from carving up bins full of crafts right as soon as I got a hole in the mountain, I stopped getting ambushes and titans so quickly. Gives you a little time to set up, cut down all the trees, train your militia.
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An early defense is a good defense.
You may THINK the baddies will leave you alone just because you're 7 short, bearded dudes in the forest - but you'd be wrong. Those giant hamsters are murderous MONSTERS.
I have learned the hard way to always wall my dwarves in (if playing above ground) or immediately building temporary quarters into a hill and placing a locked door at the entrance. Both are crude, but you'll at least won't get stomped by stray monkeys or something.
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But monkeys are FUN! Anyway new MW food related tip, crank out stonework instruments at the crafters shop and build a tavern in your dining hall/meeting room. The buffs can be insanely powerful. For instance I had lost my hunter and my breeding stock to a giant hamster invasion because i didn't get a hiding hole dug quick enough (see above tip). So at the end of the first spring I had 6 drinks and 3 plants available, no meat, fish, fishers, hunters, or animals to butcher. Along comes a guy with 0 bard skill and starts playing the no food/drink song on repeat and with a little plant gathering I made it through till the end of autumn when the first caravan arrived. And the bard is now skill lvl 10 after 2 seasons. Plus the excess instruments are just as valuable as any other craft so trade em away.
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What I don't understand about bards is this: I have three dedicated bards and two taverns (one in the barracks and one in the dining room) and I've only once had any of them transform. Their skills seem to be increasing but they just won't PLAY. I'm a little confused.
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Doesn't seem to work if you put the skill on repeat for some reason.
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1 - Food will be much harder to get. The first tip every noob will need is to plant aboveground crops because they will be harvest each season while the underground ones will only be harvested once a year.
This being considered any other source of drinks and food will help a LOT your fortress. Blood for bloodwine and boozebelly goat cheese are some options for drinks.
2 - If you know how to avoid the bugs with hivekeeping (they are DF bugs, nothing the MW developers can do about them) it can be extremely useful. Not only bees are a source of drink and food but you can get venom and silk from spiders and red dye from cochineals (still have to confirm, i know they give bags of cochineals and wikipedia tells me they are used to make red dye, but i have no idea if that's what they are used for in MW and if that is implemented).
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2 - If you know how to avoid the bugs with hivekeeping (they are DF bugs, nothing the MW developers can do about them) it can be extremely useful. Not only bees are a source of drink and food but you can get venom and silk from spiders and red dye from cochineals (still have to confirm, i know they give bags of cochineals and wikipedia tells me they are used to make red dye, but i have no idea if that's what they are used for in MW and if that is implemented).
Yep, make the dye at the millstone or quern.
My advice: turn OFF the harder x options until you're ready for the challenge.
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MW: Plan only to focus on going deep into a couple of industries at first. It takes a real master to be able to run all of them with all the new features at the start of a fortress. Most dwarves are going to if course want the metal industry, so pair it with the timberyard for scrap wood fuel or if you have magma then try the advanced leathers for under armor clothing.
Vanilla: I always try to make some sort of automated pressure plate flood, fall, ambush trapt which never completes before first attacks and holds up my water supply to the wells. Don't do that. Now there's no water for hospitals.
MW: Make an apothecary workshop per doctor you have and assign each to one. The chief can repeat on diagnosis training all day long when the hospitals are empty and the others on their given med skills. If you have the cloth, have them all learn bandage wounds. Probably most common and helps prevent infections better.