Bay 12 Games Forum

so i need to dig a channel in the center tile of the windmill, where the millstone should be put then?
the windmill stays on the open space. i dont know, if theres any wind, but the vanes are moving.

The millstone should be built directly below the center of the windmill on the level below.

What you do is:  Once the traders have reached the depot and have unloaded their goods, you select the depot using q and toggle the "Trader Requested at Depot" option, and you should also tell your dwarves to move goods to trade to the depot which is another option in the menu there.  Once you toggle that on, the trader will come to the depot.  If he's taking too long, you can change whether it has to be the broker or just any random dwarf as well.  Once the trader reaches the depot, then you can open the trade menu from the depot, and then you just select what you want to trade to them on the right side of the menu and what you want to buy from them on the left.

Took me a moment to absorb that layout, and all I can say is it's ambitious and awesome!

As well as drainage, it would be a good idea to consider what happens to 7/7 water sitting on top of a raising bridge when it opens.

I think any water that's in the space where it becomes a wall will be destroyed, the rest...might well fall through below. I'm not entirely sure. Have you factored this into your plans?

What you do is move the dam bridges out a few tiles, giving you room to have a couple of drainage shafts dug into the bottom of the river bed in between them that head down to the caverns, with grates at the top and lever activated hatches just underneath them or something like that.  So once you pop up both dams, you just open the drains and it drains out the remaining water.  Or you could have your drains in your entry hall itself, if you don't mind it getting a little wet from time to time.

Alternatively, rather than digging your entrance tunnel into the side of the river wall, you could dig it down into the river bed, and cover it with a lowered bridge (which acts as a false river bed) that will be raised once the dam bridges are raised to reveal the ramp/stair way down into the dark.

It's also possible if you have any angry sort of ghosts for them to do all sorts of nasty stuff to your dwarves.

I've killed 3-4 dozen with my soldiers before in a straight fight.  I'm pretty sure people have beaten them with an army before.  The important thing was numbers and lots and lots of marksdwarves with good ammo I believe.  I killed that many with about 60 soldiers, most of which were melee soldiers.  Webbers will decimate even legendary melee soldiers, so having more marksdwarves helps.  Having more than 100 soldiers would probably let you beat it.

Anyway, you're not supposed to beat them.  It's supposed to be an unstoppable end to your fort related to very early versions of the game where by mining adamantine you'd start a random chance every game year for a forced game over.  The more you mined, the greater the chance per year.

Now it's just a bit more in your hands and it's actually possible to prepare for and protect yourself against the demons if you know they're coming.  At least until Toady codes in allowing building destroyers to destroy constructions, or tunneling invaders.  At that point it won't be possible to completely seal them off anymore. 

I managed to beat them with a single melee squad.  Of course, I very carefully dug out enough to give them full adamantine picks and armor first (my armies are made up of former miners).  I think all but 2 soldiers died.

Would those even be safe to eat?  lava is usually associated with all sorts of toxic fumes and ash.

Given that that close to the lava they would cook in less than a minute, I'm sure it's safe.

I'd use stairs.  Down stairs on the top level, up stairs on the bottom, up/down stairs in between.  Like scaffolding.  You can dig them from the bottom up or from the top down.

Then when you want to remove the stairs, you start at the top and channel out the down stairs, then on the next level, you designate remove up stairs/ramps, and then once the up part of the up/down stairs are removed, you channel out the new down stairs.  Rinse and repeat, level by level, all the way to the bottom, where you just remove up stairs/ramps.

Impossible to have any collapses or anything using this method, because the up/down stairs on each level supports the stairs above it.  Occasionally, a dwarf will get bonked on the head and fall to the bottom if you don't clear the scaffolding of materials before taking them down though.