Bay 12 Games Forum

Normal AFAIK: During world generation, babysnatchers steal children, and civs can take over another race's towns, so sometimes you'll get mixed attacks.

I think it works like this:
a) You have a bookkeeper, and set the precision level
b) When he/she has time (i.e. finished the current job) the bookkeeper checks whether the books precision has been reached or not. If its currently below the one you set, they start bookkeeping. If the books are in order, they do something else like haul or hang out near a statue.
c) If he/she doesn't interrupt the bookkeeping job  (e.g. to drink or eat or sleep), he/she will continue working even after reaching the level of precision you set. After a certain amount of time the bookkeeping task is completed.
d) Go to b

Erm, how so? As far as I know, if you have a small fishing zone, and only allow fishing in it, darves will ignore the fish outside the zone, allowing them to replenish each season. I think it having 0 critters left at the end of a season that makes them die out, but I may be wrong

I've had soldiers just running around as well ...

One kept picking up the only two-handed sword in the fort, dropping it, going for a drink, then going for the sword again ... he was set to have two weapons and a shield. Dunno if I forbade the sword or just set him to one weapon.

Another refused to drop a barrel he was holding, he was wielding it while sparring ... guess I dumped it or something.

Hm. You checked patrol routes and re-stationed him, right? You could force him to different jobs by e.g. setting him to "Clothes" armor level, he'll drop his armor, and set him back to Leather / Chain / Plate to make him grab new armor. Check his inventory to see if he's trying to pick up a barrel but can't because his hands are full of someone else's underwear he grabed while wrestling? Maybe remove that booze stockpile, see if he goes to another one. Hm, did I suggest anything that wasn't mentioned before? 

I would use it ... if I could figure out how to add orcs without breaking everything else *g*.

Bascially I download complete DF packages (i.e. mike mayday redist) and then despair because I can't even repair the key assignation that seem to change for every release...
... so while I'd like to try playing as Kobolds, or against Orcs, I've been too lazy to try to get either to work with the Mayday graphics and my preferred keyboard setup ...

My first forts all died that way - an Ambush comes out of hiding next to the main staircase while your woefully small military is either drinking or sleeping.

Tipps to prevent this:
a) You want a safe outside area around your fort entrance. Early on, preferably in the first year, try to make it so anything approaching your fort will have to go through some chokepoints.

b) When you get immigrants, turn one into a Mechanic and one into a Mason, unless you have these already.

c) I've had fewer random deaths since I build walls around a large "courtyard" area, so you can have outdoors farm plots, a fishing area, refuse pile for anything except bone&shell&skull ... surrounded by walls. I usually build 2 or 4 gates.

d) Surround the walls with channels, so that "building destroyers" cannot reach them. Build bridges over channels and add levers so you can open and close each gates, making your fort pretty much impenetrable to ground units.

e) Build another wall in front of the gate, to prevent marksgoblins who approach the gate from shooting into the fort. Just maike sure the paths are all 3 tiles wide.

f) Fill the approach to each gate with traps. I usually have an area covered in weapons traps with 2 wooden or glass spiked balls each, and a few cage traps further out.

g) Add more traps near the walls. When invaders come from the South, just lock all gates keeping the North Gate open, and they'll path through the majority of your traps.

... unless you modded the game, with this approach you hardly need a military except to dispose of the occasional Kobold. I built the above, and have 75 military and a full guard ... the fort is now in its eighth year and has not had a siege yet, only two ambushes :/

I found it helpful to designate several "Pond" areas to fill one single area.-

(I think, but am not sure, that each pond can only have *one* active dwarf trying to refill it. If you make four small ponds instead of one large pond, you get four "fill pond" orders instead of just one.)