Bay 12 Games Forum

How can you tell where a goblin settlement/fort is on the map when you pick your starting location?

First, I want to apologize for asking so many questions, I've been trying many new things with DF lately and seem to hit bugs/problems everywhere.

I used to be happy with iron and didn't bother trying to make steel, but today I felt like it and checked the wiki. It said that I could make pig iron at a smelter, weird thing is that in the list of things I can make at the smelter Pig Iron does not show up, I have 3 different ores for iron and enough iron bars to make a tower. Is making pig iron bugged or am I missing something?

[ February 06, 2008: Message edited by: Brooder ]

I was making towers, the first level had normal walls but the second and third levels would have walls for the corners and fortifications for walls, everything went well until I reached the third floor and tried building. Seems fortifications don't build floors above them so I didn't have access to the corner tiles to build walls, so I built floors to access them. Problem is you cant build fortifications or walls on refloors, so I designated for them to be removed, the weird thing is that it dropped the stone from the floor into the fortifications below them and it looks lame and I cant remove the stones. Is there a way around this or is the only way to remove the walls and rebuild?

Thanks for letting me know that they breed correctly.

Also another question. I found that sometimes when I build double doors (2 doors next to each other) sometimes one of the doors just doesn't show up even though it is supposedly there. Is this a bug? Does the door still function normally or will stuff pass through?

I have been fairly successful with my fortresses so far, but I am now looking to make a fortress somewhere less peaceful for more fun. I was wondering, what would a good starting spot, where I can get enough action to enjoy myself but not so much that I get obliterated at the beginning, look like?

Basically I am looking for a place where my military dwarves can have a use without being doomed from the start.

In the older versions of Dwarf fortress I remember there was an option in the mason's workshop to choose what kind of stone to use, I badly need to make obsidian blocks but the mason will just pick a random stone.
How can I choose the material to use for the mason's workshop now?

It would make sense that they don't count as nobles anymore, I know, but I don't know whether the game still sees them as such or not. I guess I'll have to test it or maybe someone who knows for sure will post before I get results.

I have turned many new immigrants into masons and made my mason's workshop only let a certain skilled mason work at it.

The problem is that I am building a gigantic city above ground and that the skilled mason is constantly building walls/floors with the peasants instead of manning his workshop.

Is there any way to have the skilled mason not do any of the construction work and keep working at his workshop, other than locking him in the workshop with food/booze/stone?