Bay 12 Games Forum

Friggin' fish have been kicking my ass lately, and I've been trying a few things to stop that.

What I did this time is bring rope with me when I embarked, so I could immediately dig and create a well, keeping my dwarves safe when drinking.   That worked for the most part, but now I've dug out the main parts of my fortress, and I'm in the process of moving everything indoors.   Unfortunately, I screwed up when trying to build another well in the dining room.   Common sense, really, but I didn't think of it at the time.

This is a side view of how I tried to make my well.

     R
     ~
     ~
W    ~
~    ~
~    ~
~    ~
~~~~~~

W = well
R = above ground river
~ = path of the water

I just wanted to get water under the well.   Of course, I forgot about the laws of fricking gravity which means my base is now flooded.

Is there anything I can do to stop the water from rising, but still be able to have a well, or did I screw up that design completely?   How do you have an underground well without an underground river or lake?

How else could I deal with the carp threat?

I know this is a big request, so no worries if no one fills it completely.  

I've got early game down, I think.   I never really have any problems getting through winter, and getting some basic bedrooms and workshops going.   But once I had that down, I'm kinda lost.

Right now, my plan is.

1. Set up stockpiles outside, and clear away any trees/plants and smooth any stone in the way of my eventual road.   Also, start digging to the underground river.

2. Build a mason, craftworking, carpenter, mechanic workshops, aswell as a kennel and trade depot.   Butcher shop or fishery aswell depending on what I'm doing.

3. Start making floodgates, doors, crafts, beds, tables, chairs, blocks and buckets while clearing space for a farm and a new food stockpile.

4. Set up my farm and start farming while I clear bedrooms and a dining room.

5. Move all my furniture in while I flesh out my hallway, and dig out whatever's leftover from my rushing to get my farm and bedrooms set up.   Also, start building a bridge and road to connect offscreen.

6. Clear room to move my workshops and stockpiles inside.

This seems to work pretty good, and will usually get me to spring of the second year.   From here, I don't really know what to do.  

Should I be trying to flesh out my military?
Try to figure out how to hell to use the other workshops?
Dig to the magma?
Sit tight for a while, clean out my extra rocks and smooth everything?

If anyone has some time, I'd really appreciate it if you could give me a general outline of how you advance to having a huge, functioning fortress  .

Also, I have a couple other questions that I figured I'd just toss in here, rather than making another thread.

1. The wiki says hunting is bugged, and to avoid it.   Is it still that way?  And if so, how is it bugged.   Meat and bones would be pretty useful.

2. What do you do with all the bloody rocks?   I have a massive freaking room in my base that I keep having to expand, but its never big enough to keep it clean.   I'm a little anal, and hate having rocks all over the freaking place.

Similar to all RTSes, my early game is great, but once I get going, I'm not really sure what I should do.

For the first year, I kinda of have a plan.

Get some farming, a trade depot, basic workshops, a dining hall, and bedrooms going.

After that, I just get kinda lost.

What is your general build order?

I'm loving this game, but it probably has the steepest learning curve out of anything I've ever played.   Steeper than gothic, but that was mostly because of the foolish controls      .

I've got a bunch of n00blet questions, and rather than peppering the board with threads, I figured I'd try to keep them contained, so here they are.

These are my first batch;

1. NM, a little more searching found the answer.

2. I see a lot of people build some stockpiles outside, and I've also read that some things will get stolen by monkeys.   Which stockpiles are safe to leave outside, and do you ever eventually bring them in?

3. Is there any way to see what a given dwarf's talents are after you have started the game?  (I mean novice/competent/proficient, etc).   Sometimes after I've played for a bit, I forget who can do what.

4. Room shape, I noticed one thread about that, but didn't really understand.   When making a dining room for example, when picking the size, it is in the shape of a diamond.   Does this mean I should dig a diamond for the dining room?   Does it matter?

5. How many seeds are required to plant one square?   In the game I'm playing now, I started with 40 plump helmet spawns, went to plant a 6x6 farm, and 10 squares in, it said I'm out of spawns...

6. I had the building of a fishery suspended, because "Item blocking site".   What exactly does that mean, and how do I fix it?   A different one just says "Construction Inactive".

I'm sure there will be more, but that's all I have for now, thanks.

[ October 03, 2006: Message edited by: Sucker Punch ]

I've cleared 11 squares running along the river.   I'm planning on having 3 bridges 3 squares in width cross it, kinda like this.

B = bridge
w = water
. = ground

code:

---

.BBBBB.
.BBBBB.
.BBBBB.
.wwwww.
.BBBBB.
.BBBBB.
.BBBBB.
.wwwww.
.BBBBB.
.BBBBB.
.BBBBB.

---

What I'm concerned about is the water directly touching the ground.  Am I in danger of flooding?   Should I put floodgates there?   1 square canals?   Maybe a support?