Bay 12 Games Forum

I'm pretty sure that this has already been asked, but I can't find any topic with the search function nor any hint on the wiki. Maybe I'm using the wrong keywords.

Anyway, I'm fond of the map I was playing in the old version, I'd like to build another fortress there in the new caravan arc versions, but I assume that I'll need a newly generated world to enjoy all the new features. How can I regen a world with the same geographical features of my old one?

So, I made this large channel that starts from a bend of the brook I have in the map and reconnects to it a hundred or so tiles south. There are two raising bridges at both entrances; the idea was to use the channel for power production with waterwheels and close the bridges to stop the flow when I don't need power (the framerate drops considerably when all the power system is in fucntion).

My problem is that it works more than I expected. It won't stop. When I tested it, the wheels kept spinning. Now it's an entire season after I closed the barriers, but the wheels are still running. Where's my error?

Hi. I have few rocks outside, a leftover of some channeling. I know that dwarves won't clean anything that's not underground, now it seems that they won't dump rocks either.

Any suggestion to get rid of them? I used the most to build the monumental entrance, but there are a few cobaltite boulders that I don't want to use; a bright blue watchtower isn't really menacing.

Since some of my old suggestions and after reading some topic in this section, I’ve been thinking about a new way to define rooms and new kind of rooms as well. So, I thought to make this thread, to collect all our ideas on the topic. Some of these ideas come from other threads, so I want to say that I’m not taking credits for them.

General
- First of all, I think that the game should dump the current system of defining a room from it’s furniture and turn all of them into activity zones. This way we could set up zones pretty quickly and change the forniture when needed/desired (for example, in the first years I use everything is available, no matter it’s quality/material/color; if the suggestion to give additional value to those rooms that have a uniform set of forniture is accepted, this will come in handy). Of course this is not ment for cheating. Dwarves will have unhappy thoughts from, say, a bedroom without a bed.

- Players should be able to assign a room to social positions (i.e. the official mayor/king/broker/militia captain/whatever mansion) and profession (farmers quarters near the farms, for example, or guildmembers quarters near the guild house) too. I know that all of this can be done manually, but it’s a long and tedious work; it requires a lot of swapping between the game and Dwarf Therapist and one second after you’ve finished, one of the farmer which happens to have a very low glasmaking skill has a mood, becomes a legendary glassmaker, and you need to reassign him again.

- In this system, some public rooms have dedicated workers and/or supplies.  Those provide a better service to dwarves which use the rooms, which means an extra happy thought and / or a faster way to satisfy the needs. Room workers may also keep the room supplied. For example, the dining room should have goblets, dishes and waiters. Dwarves can still grab food and drinks with their bare hands from the stockpiles as they do now, but with dishware and waiters they can eat more efficently, be happier and spend less time to do it. There’s no real need to actually use dishes, if it’s a hard to code;  they may just be stored in the room and speed up the eating process. Waiters too are not required to actually bring food (i’ve seen what happens with injured and arrested dwarves). A fully staffed and supplied room has an higher value.


Dining room
-   supplies: goblets/mugs, dishes/bowls, food?.
-   furniture: tables, chairs/thrones, bins (to store the supplies), well
-   workers: waiters / servants
-   other options: can work as meeting area and/or theater.

Sleeping room
-   supplies: none
-   furniture: bed(s), chests, cabinets
-   workers: none
-   other otpions: ?

Statue garden
-   supplies: none
-   furniture: statues
-   workers: none?
-   other options: meeting area, theater?

Zoo
-   supplies: food for animals (when and if they’ll need to eat)
-   furniture: cages
-   workers: animal caretakers, animal trainers, dungeon master?
-   Other options: meeting area, ?

Hospital
-   supplies: threads, cloth, cast powder bags, soap, medicines (when we’ll have alchemy)
-   furniture: beds, tables, traction tables, stretchers (to move patients from tables to beds without waking them up; only if/when carts et similia will be available).
-   workers:  nurses, doctors
-   other options: ?

Thermae / bathing house (I feel that we really need to make a proper room for this. A pond with soap stockpiles nearby just doesn’t work, half of the time my dwarves keep using the well in the dining room and splat mud on my precius engraved floor)
-   supplies: soap, cloth (for towels?)
-   furniture: chests (t store the supplies), wells, pond?
-   workers:  bath waiters?
-   Other options: ?

Theater
-   supplies: none
-   furniture: chairs
-   workers: actors/bards (even travelling bards, when and if we’ll get other travellers aside from merchants).
-   other options: meeting area?

Guild house (when we’ll have guild/social system)
-   supplies: ?
-   furniture: ?
-   workers: ?
-   other options: meeting area for members?

Temple/shrine (just a guild house for belivers?)
-   supplies: ?
-   furniture: ?
-   workers: priests?
-   other options: meeting area for worshippers?

Workshop
-   supplies: tools, materials, ?
-   furniture: workbench (more than one), ?
-   workers: depends on the kind of workshop
-   other options: ?

Farm (farmer's workshop)
-   supplies: buckets, ?
-   furniture: ?
-   workers: farmers, butchers, ?
-   other options: meeting area for animals (to speed up milking and butchering).

jail
-   supplies: food, drink, bed, table, chair ?
-   furniture: cages, chains
-   workers: prison guards, ?
-   other options: ?

Other?

I searched the forums and the eternal suggestion list with these keywords, but I couldn't find anything.

Right now we have race related caravans: elves, humans, dwarves and rarely even goblins. You can have only one for any race near you embark, and that's all you'll ever get in that place.
If we look at the world in legend mode, however, we discover dozens of empires and even hundreds of civs. It's fair and belivable that at the beginning of the life of the fort only neighbors are willing to trade with us. However, as the settlement's wealth and importance grow, more civs should be interested in trading.
Maybe the number of legendary crafters should count too (for example, Cremona is just a small italian city that very few know of, but Stradivari spent all his life there and Stradivari's violins are well known and higly prized all over the world).
When it will be implemented, diplomacy too should have a role in establishing a trade route with some civ.

I'm talking about two options, actually: "a-Allow Dwarves", "b-Allow Pets", with the ability to choose both.

Why? Well, first, I don't like how my luxurious dining hall looks like a stable most of the time, and second, to make actual stables: set a pets only meting zone frome the i menu, put butcher, farmer's workshop and maybe kennels near it and slaughter, milk and train pets efficently because everything is confined inside a single room, at a short distance.

I put this here because I wanted to know if it's is ment or not, before posting in bug reports or suggestions.

I've already seen HFS and clown fortress, but untill my newest fort I didn't know that the location of the artifact adamantine weapon that seals the whole thing is listed since the beginning in the R menu, and you can zoom to it even if it's not visible untill you breach the place.

This kinda ruins the tension in digging down, as you know where to dig to search (or avoid) fun.
Did anyone else noticed this? May the natural cave-in that I had on embark have some relation?

One of my dwarves was sent to prison and he died in there because noone gave him food and drink. Is there a way to bring him out of there aside from melting everything?

Also, every time that I set up a food stockpile, the dwarves go and steal barrels from the booze stockpile, which I set up just for the opposite reason, as I wanted to have a stable amount of barrels dedicated to drinks. Is there a way to prevent that aside from setting a maximum amount of barrels in the new stockpile?