Bay 12 Games Forum

Greycat how do I do any of that?
I am having hard time maintaining control of world map generation as it is.

I can successful do channels so far and make the downstairs openings but I can't seem to figure out how to get my mining dwarves to keep digging down anywhere.

Once you have the downstairs on level, and the upstairs on the level right below it, you should be able to d->mine the squares adjacent to the upstairs on the lower level. Be careful to only designate areas that you want your miners to dig through, if you dig into a river or a lake, you will learn some stuff about !!FUN!! lol. This way you can designate your mining areas and your miners will get to it when they look for a job to do. Your miner must have mining labor enabled and have a pick, that shouldn't be a problem if you were able to connect the stairs. If you are waiting awhile for your miners to get to work, they may be asleep, or eating, or drinking, or doing another job that you can see in the "U"nit screen.

Once you mine out a large area underneath the surface, try making another set of stairs to go down another level, and dig a large area on that lower level. It is a good way to get familiar with what things look like underground, and while your miners work, practice changing z-levels with the < and the > keys, and F1 to center on wagon if you get lost. Press TAB a lot to browse the command menu, and watch the minimap.

Keep it up, and the rewards will be great. Welcome to the game!

About stairs, downstairs must be designated on top of the level that the upstairs is designated. Without the upstairs, your dwarves will not have access to the lower level. Once you get the connected stairs, you should be able to dig anyway on that lower level that you see fit.

My mistake. Not sure how I missed what you said.

You could use stockpiles set to feed the specific workshops. You feed the kitchen from a stockpile that contains only things you want cooked and fat (for tallow). They shouldn't then cook anything not in that stockpile like tallow, booze, or milk.

This. I was always a quantum stockpiler so that I could always choose what materials were available to any job, like only the trash stones for crafts, all olivine when I make doors, etc. Now I just set the feeder stockpiles for every workshop I build. I have seen 99% effectiveness this way, and the 1% was probably my fault. So if you designate a food stockpile, forbid everything in stockpile detail screen that you don't want cooked, and point the pile to your kitchens, it should control everything that way. I haven't tried it for cooking, but it works for stone/wood/etc.

For me, the more basic the graphics the more alive the world seems. To quote Sheldon Cooper: "It runs on the world's most powerful graphics chip, imagination!"

Amen brother.

And I grew up playing ascii-tiled ADOM, a roguelike that is a better diablo clone than a lot of diablo clones

Sometimes I like to pick a z-level and mark the center of each region tile with a 2x2 designation. I get pretty used to typing something like to go 48 squares (for example) east:
SHIFT+RIGHT x 5, LEFT x 2

From there it's really easy to find the center 2x2 of the map.

If I feel really ocd, I will dig-designate 5x5 or 6x6 tile areas, separated by a 1 or 2 tile black non-designation, throughout an entire z-level, and use this framework to plan a fort layout in. Easier for me to use these designations and make them into rooms/halls/hallways, and helpful for planning multi-z level pits and towers.

How do you do surface farming again?

D->P first of all to gather plants. If untrained, it may take a good deal of shrubbery to gather enough. Then brew for your starter seeds. Then build a farm plot on surface grass, shrubs, stones, boulders, trees block the plot. You can remove shrubs and saplings I think by building a dirt road before the farm plot. Then, as long as your plot is in the same biome you got your plants from, you should be all set.

You can start your fort on plant gathering only, as well. It is easy and effective.

I love the goblin supercollider ideas. So far, the mountainhomes have only theorized on the smaller component parts of goblins. I can't wait to recreate some Temple of Doom cart running as well down near the magma level.

I started back when df was 2d, and got hooked then. A Strategic Roguelike, kickass! I had played nethack, and ADOM, so the ASCII style and cumbersome interface never wore me down. I would always keep the "Tab" command menu open, and examine everything in the playarea. I kept up with it as the versions progressed, so I had an easy time gradually learning the new additions. I imagine it would be tougher trying to absorb everything availiable now in the game all at once.

DF is really a great game for detail and depth and replayability. I don't think I have ever played anything like it.