Bay 12 Games Forum

I've been away a few days and am surprised not to see any mention of the earth-scraper proposed for Mexico City.

240 meters square, 300 meters deep, inverted-pyramid, with a clear glass roof.

There are many technical reasons why this is unlikely to be built IRL, but in DF it doesn't seem like it would be too hard.  That suspended metro stop could be the initial fortress.  240x240 isn't a problem.  My calculations were indicating you wouldn't want to be deeper than 50m to ensure natural light reaches the entire structure, so just 50z is plenty.

Enjoy this custom 5x5 embark. Steps away from a 100+-z adamantium spire. A short commute to an equally-tall magma pipe. Heavily-forested temperate-to-cool plateau with a beautiful waterfall crashing down to 13z below. Built on an aquifered clay and soil base with iron and flux bedrock foundation. Near all the civilizations.

Serious inquiries only.

http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=5016

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dogs are OK - wooof
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If you get a dwarf who springs an ambush outside the fortress walls, is there anything you can do to save him without losing half your army?

Invariably, the civilian runs away from the city gate, so I can't just position the guard at the gates.  Is there a trick to making the civvy run indoors?  The only way to give a dwarf directions on where to go seems to be to conscript them, but then they run headlong into the enemy instead of following directions.

If I draw up the trained military and station them outside the gate to draw away the ambush from the civilian, it's a different problem: the military doesn't walk in formation, so the first two or three dwarves get cut up piecemeal before the bulk of the army shows up.  Is there a way to improve unit cohesion?

Worse, with the civilian saved (and a couple of soldiers down, but perhaps they'll survive), if I call the army back indoors by stationing them, invariably one or two soldiers ignore the new station; they go to the old station and stand there.  These are the dwarves who were drinking during the first battle -- I guess they pathed to the old station and didn't cancel that idea when I changed the station.  Those dwarves are now extremely vulnerable to a second ambush: they're mobilized so they run straight at the enemy, who will easily overwhelm them.  Any hints on avoiding the drunk latecomer problem?

The goblins ambush.

I gather my forces and send them in one big rush against the horde.  It should be a slaughter (as in, I expect the goblins to end in my bone pile and my soldiers to end in the hospital).

Just as they're about to engage, my soldiers see a small herd of capybaras.

Forget the goblin archers, they say, let's hunt capybaras!

The goblin archers pick off my soldiers one by one as they're distracted but in range.

I got beseiged by the humans, who are angry that I was unable to defend their diplomat from a goblin siege last year.  No problem; I was already disconnected from the outside, for lack of an army.

Now, before the humans lifted their seige, I have come under seige by a large host of goblins.

Interestingly, the goblins and humans seem to have found common cause this time.  They're both just sitting out there in the snow.  (Meanwhile, a forgotten beast is badly wounded below -- but all my adults are blind, and in any case all the weapons are in pools of highly poisonous blood.  Things haven't gone very well in the past year for these dwarves.)

Combat reports are hard to read at the moment:
The Recruit does X
The goblin thief does Y
The goblin thief does Z

You can't tell if those are the same goblin, you can't tell which recruit that is, etc. It would be nice if named entities had their names included:

Urist McDwarf (recruit) does X
Igor Rapeincest (goblin thief) does Y
Vladimir Incestrape (goblin thief) does Z

Of course, if they don't have a name, the current setup is fine.

I had marksdwarves who would equip ammo, it was fabulous.

Now for some reason they won't anymore.  I haven't changed anything (well, except for going through a tantrum spiral): same uniform, before they'd go up to their station and fire and then, upon running out, go back for more.  Now, whether they're on duty or off, they just sit around, and they don't pick up the piles of accessible, non-forbidden bolts on the floor.  Bone in both cases.

I would like to be able to buy miscellaneous furniture -- mechanisms in particular, but also beds and whatever else.  The impetus is building fortresses on aquifers in the desert: unless I can buy these things, I have to remember to embark with a bunch of stone and wood.

However, their prices would need some adjusting or else it would be impossible to use up my wealth.  Perhaps a shipping charge of 1 per weight?  It always feels weird to me that the caravan is willing to trek miles across the dangerous desert carrying a grand total of a dozen logs, not even getting enough revenue out of it to feed themselves.