Bay 12 Games Forum

I'm sure its not *that* unique, but its still cool: I just started an embark site where the volcano doesn't quite reach the surface; its a pit straight from the surrounding flatlands down a couple z-levels to the magma.  I want to do something cool, but I haven't decided what, just yet.  Any ideas?

I just have to share this, in a 2x6 embark, I've got:
Volcano
12 z-level waterfall, two streams meeting in a narrow gorge (so its not an FPS-killer)
Flux (lots and lots of marble)
Deep Soil, Fire Clay (and other clay).
Seemingly *every* ore, including multiple types of iron ore, cassiterite, various coal ores, and plenty of gold/silver.
Heavily forested, as well, lots of flat open space between the canyon and volcano for whatever endeavors I decide to undertake.
3 magma pools (including the volcano)

About the only negatives:  Haven't found any obsidian apart from that lining the volcano (not a major poblem, given the abundance of magma and water), and I don't think I've got any sand.

Lest anyone think I've got it too easy, I made this world incredibly savage and with *lots* of mega beasts and titans, so, I'm in for some fun times ahead.  But this is definitely one fort that will actually keep my interest for quite some time.

If I want to increase the number of waterfalls in world generation, what features should I adjust?

My guess is to increase the number of river start locations, decrease the erosion cycles, turn off eroding extreme cliffs.  Anything else?

Do they cheer up based on the absolute profit or the profit margin?  IE, if you make lots of trades where they're doubling their money, but they are all small trades, how does that compare to larger trades where, proportionately, they're making less?

From my casual observations, it seems that they care about absolute profit, but I'm not 100% on that.

Hi all,

I've got some ideas that I want to throw out there; some of them have relevant threads already, but I can't decide which the total sum would go best in, so I figured I'd put them all in one new thread.  Hope I'm not cluttering things up too much.   So, in general, I would love to see the workshop system expanded.  Plenty of suggestions exist for how to make workshops individually better (making them furniture-designated rooms and other ideas).  What I'd like to see is more interplay in the entire system, through the creation of more workshops and the ability to power more of them with water/wind wheels.

I'll start with the powered workshop idea.  Pretty simple: I want to see as many workshops as possible be able to be hooked up to your power system, for increased efficiency and quality.  Furnaces and asheries could benefit from powered billows; forges could also benefit from trip hammers.  Screw presses could be powered, carpentry shops could have powered saws, leather shops would have trip hammers as well.  Etc. and so on.  I don't know if it would be easier to just create a powered version of each workshop (similar to querns/millstones), or if it would just make more sense to apply a bonus to those shops that have been hooked up to your power supply.  Either way, I just want to see a use for all those waterwheels I enjoy running down my fortress.  As a clarification, when I list the powered components (billows, trip hammers, etc.), I'm not calling for additional components to be used to build the workshops, just listing the real life use for power in such shops.

As far as more workshops, its pretty straightforward; I'd like to see the industrial process somewhat more realistic and requiring more steps.  A good example is agriculture, particularly alcohol production.  At the moment, everything's done in a still.  And each applicable crop only produces one type of drink.  I would add a new workshop, a brewery/fermentation shop.  In this shop, you could produce wine and beer.  To produce wine, you'd have to first press the applicable crop (plump helmets or the various berries) into their applicable juice (I suppose, in a pinch, your dwarves could drink the juice, but it shouldn't be any better than water; perhaps even give them an unhappy thought for wasting potential booze), and then the juice could be fermented into the relevant wine.  The various grains could be fermented into beer without a press, but would need potable water added instead.  If we wanted to add a little complexity, we could also have the initial product be 'green' beer/wine, which would need to rest and age for awhile to be proper for consumption (though, again, it could be consumed in a pinch, probably as appetizing as sewer brew currently).  Perhaps it could be something like the inverse of the rotting system currently.  Or just a task at the brewery (one task to brew green beer/wine, and another task to age them).

Meanwhile, proper spirits (whiskey, rum, vodka, brandy) would be produced at a still, which would now require fuel (more on that later) to operate and would process, instead of raw crops as is currently, the wine and beer you've already brewed (if the 'green' system is included, it would be these that you would distill, not the final product).  As these products would have a higher alcohol content and require more work, they'd also, appropriately, have a much higher beverage value.

So, in short, the alcohol industry would be more realistic, more complex, and would allow for a greater variety of drinks (as every edible crop could have a fermented drink and a higher quality distilled drink).  Other industries could similarly benefit (but who cares about them?).

In closing, the most important thing to take away from all my ideas is this:  If the alcohol industry is expanded as I suggested, we can have the ultimate expression of everything that is dear to dwarves.  We could build...
MAGMA STILLS.

Hello all,

I've been playing now for the better part of a month (I think; I haven't gone outside recently, I keep track of time by how often my fiancee asks me how my fort is doing), and I've gotten a pretty good hang of things.  I want to ask people's opinions on three matters.

1) Most importantly, I always end up getting inspired for better way to layout my fortress around the time my second year comes around.  So, I quit that fortress and start a new one (usually in a new world).  Rinse, wash, repeat.  I've yet to actually watch a fortress lose, as my perfectionist nature just keeps on egging me to try something else from scratch.  Anyone have any suggestions on how to keep my attention focused on one fortress?  The longest I ran a fortress was my first desert fortress, which happened to have a volcano and *very* tall waterfall (something like 30 z levels), and I finally got attacked by a megabeast fairly early (probably helped that my dwarves kept on going nuts producing artifacts), but i dispatched him with ease (rather, my flood chamber/entrance did; the only challenge was waiting for it to drain; didn't realize how long that would take).  However, I didn't like how I laid out my entrance way, and caravans started to actually supply me enough wood, so the aesthetics and the challenge kinda dissipated.

2) I've come up with a fairly routine format for my fortresses, and I'm curious what others think about it.  Basically, Its all centered around carving out hallways of 5x5 squares, with 3 tile wide connections (useful for bulkheads for gates made out of bridges when I want to seal off parts of the fortress, plus I like how it looks once the stones are smoothed; the idea of having regular pillars flanking my hallways appeals to me), that surround 11x11 rooms.  I prefer for my fortresses to be fairly vertical (ever since I learned I could designate orders across different z levels), as it allows me to save space.  I'll take two 11x11 rooms, stacked vertically, for any particular industry.  So, I'll have 4 mason workshops in one room, with their particular output stockpile above (or below, whatever's closer to the trade depot/main level), and the supply stockpile surrounding them (I've never needed a large enough stockpile.  I used to do 2x2 bedrooms, in a greek-cross fashion, but I've grown fond of 3x3 bedrooms, as it matches the layout of the rest of the fortress better (I can fit 8 of them per 11x11 section).  The nobility get 11x11 rooms (inclusive of their offices and personal dining rooms), segmented as I see fit.  Once things get slightly large-ish, I take the time to designate all my main hallways as high traffic, and the workshops, stockpiles, and bedrooms, as low traffic.  Overall, what do people think of this general layout?  I know its not the most space-efficient, but I like giving my dwarfs lots of room to maneuver around each other, and its still easy to create choke-points for defense.

3) For trade purposes, what do people think the best way to get ride of excess stone is?  I'm torn between mechanisms, craft goods, and cabochons.  Mechanisms are nice and valuable, but relatively heavy; I don't really focus on a craft industry much usually (other than  to give my crazy dwarves someplace to go while they go nuts), and cabochon's are my preferred way of training jewelers, but, for the most part, not too valuable.  Thoughts?