Bay 12 Games Forum

The last few forts I've built always had the same phenomenon. Just after a tavern is built, the socialize activity branches into poetry recitals, musical performances, dances and storytelling with a comparable probability, but as time passes, musical performances and dances get less and less frequent, and after some years there is basically only poetry left, with some storytelling in between.
Is this a general trend, or does this just happen to my forts? Is there anything one needs to do to build a suitable environment for musicians?

Hi!

I've got an instrument lying in my tavern that nobody seems to care about any more. I guess that one of the visiting bards took it out of the box it was in, used it, and after that just dropped it where they stood. Now, I'd like to construct a table right at that spot, but the construction job gets suspended due to an "item blocking site", and I can't seem to get my dwarfs to haul this stupid thing away. I've tried dumping it, but no Dump Item job seems to be generated. Forbidding and unforbidding doesn't seem to do anything either.

The spot it's in is no longer part of the "dancefloor", as I already built chairs close to it. I'm considering removing all that chairs and tables again, just to get someone to pick use this thing and therefore pick it up, but I'd prefer not to have to deconstruct half my tavern just to get one instrument out of the way.

Has anyone experienced a similar issue, and if yes, is there a way to get the dwarfs (or visitors) to move the offending item?

Thanks in advance!

Well, the title says it all, but if you care for the long story, here it is:
I've built a tavern and would like to supply my bards there with appropriate instruments for the art forms they know of. I've seen that in the musical form's descriptions Toady posted some time ago instruments are associated with art forms. Now the question is, how can I find the full description of the musical forms generated in my world, if possible in fortress mode?

Yesterday my fort was attacked by a werebear. It was a horribly one-sided, but nonetheless epic battle, and the result was a beautiful leg-, tail-, gut.-, and headless night creature corpse.
Now the strange thing is: I have a sentients stockpile right next to a deep, deep hole where bodies are being disposed off if they get too many. I also have a stockpile for animal corpses and body parts, which mainly serves as input for the butcher's shops. And last, but not least, I have a stockpile for usable, non-edible refuse, meaning hair, bone, skulls and horn. Now from those three stockpiles, the dwarfs decided that a rotting, miasma-spilling shapeshifted treehugger corpse is best placed in the stockpile for bones. I'm now wondering if anyone has seen similar behavior, and if there's a way to prevent dwarfs from doing this.

(For me the solution is obvious: As I have a deep, deep hole to dispose of bodies nobody needs any more, I'll have this one dumped there as well, but I'd still prefer not to have anything causing miasma or thoughts of horror in my bone supply pile...)

Hi everyone!

My fortress is facing a serious issue: Butchers going insane.
As there are plenty of cavern-animals spawning on my embark area, it'd be a shame not to use this free supply of meat. Strategically placed weapon traps ensure, that nearly every crundle, rutherer or cave crocodile unlucky enough to enter my embark will get a free ride to the refuse stockpile. And that's where the problem starts. Butchers sent out to prepare this raw meat into cookable portions quite often get negative thoughts from "watching a Crundle die", although said animal is a long-dead corpse on the refuse stockpile. Of course it's not only animals, there are a few rotting would-be invaders there as well, but the majority of negative thoughts is indeed caused by non-sentient corpses.
Probably the non-butcherable remains on the stockpile contribute to the issue, so I'm currently considering dropping them into magma or to use an atom smasher. Nevertheless, the butcherable remains will then still be an issue.
Also, I'm trying to counteract the negative thoughts by decorating the butcher shops and the nearby corridors, but a few "was interested near a fine statue" thoughts can hardly compete with twenty "horrified" thoughts popping up simultaneously...
I guess that this problem is known to every DF player who managed to keep a fort alive for a few years, and I'm wondering how you are keeping your butchers in sanity.

Edit: It's actually not the crundles or other animals, I've checked again, and the bad thoughts are coming mostly from sentient cavern creatures, like gorlaks, trolls and troglodytes.

I've created a bunch of worlds in DF 2014, and while I'm generally pleased with the results, I'm a little puzzled that none of the worlds left the Age of Myth, even if they had a history of more than 1000 years. Am I just unlucky, or is it now really much more difficult to get a world to progress to a "later" age?
I've tried several small worlds with default worldgen parameters, and a few parameter sets based on the small island preset in avanced worldgen.

Hi!

I'm wondering how to get dwarfs to adopt tame small animals. Should I move them to a cage in a often frequented area, or keep them within their traps in the main general stuff stockpile? Do they need to be dumped/released (what would probably attract the attention of a cat...)?

Thanks in advance!