Bay 12 Games Forum

Thanks all, last time I mucked with a river I managed to flood the world, so I've been avoiding trying again. Hopefully I'll have better luck this time....

The trick is you need a proper "drain" for your screw pumps.  There are only two proper types of drains: Aquifer and edge-of-map.  Aquifers are just magical.  They are both infinite sources and sinks for water.  If you have one present, a quick couple of tiles to channel into it is all you need.  Edge-of-map means water flowing off the map edge effectively disappears.  You can't dig out the last tile bordering the edge, but you can carve it into a fortification.  Water flows freely down stairs, so you can just make a (wide) up/down stair into the first stone layer then dig to the map edge.  Carve those fortifications (since water can freely pass them) and begin working.  Note that screw pumps can't work OUT of stair tiles but have no problem pumping INTO them.  Also keep in mind that a single tile won't hold all the water being pumped into it.  To be safe, you can wall in the "drain" tiles to make sure water doesn't splash about/Urist McDerp doesn't trip into it. 

I can *ALMOST* confirm that undead, considering the changes to evil biomes as a whole, will now only be alied the person who raised them, as well as other undead risen to that master.

I have no idea how this will work with other necromancers, but I will say that necromancer nobles will spawn undead that still murder the rest of your civilization.

So... yet another reason to keep killing nobles.  Got it!

I'd basically like to mine the ore out of a river bank in a warm biome & wandering how to do it.

Edit: Can you pump fast enough for a non-swimming hauler to just grab them?

Just dam the river.  This is very easy if you have an aquifer to use as a "sponge," but draining off-map works too.  First, find out which end of hte map the water if flowing into and which its flowing out of.  The "upstream" edge will always be a full 7/7 of water.  Damn this off as close to the map edge as you can.  Yes, pump's can pull water out of a tile faster than it can enter the tile.  Use this to create a few floodgates/walls directly in hte river bed.  It helps immensely to choose a part of hte river at its narrowest.  Once done, the river should dry up soon enough.  You'll be free to mine out all hte gems/ore you want.  You can also then set up tunnels from the riverbed to get drowning chambers and reservoirs set up for your fort.

That's actually not such a bad idea. Bring: 1 iron anvil, 10 granite boulders and 1 granite block, a bunch of kaolinite+bitimous coal+Copper nuggets, 1 unit of fuel, some logs, and a bunch of drinks and milk. Dogs, hens, and cats. I'm doing this on my next fort.

no no no, don't bring a block.  You get 4 (10 point) blocks form one 3 point boulder.  The forge/smelter can be made of either.  Just bring 3-4 stones and you can cut them quikly enough at a masonry.  Kaolinite isn't a great idea either.  You won't have a pottery skilled enough to make proper use of it and you don't want to push too much needless wealth too soon.  If anything just bring fire clay.  Its water-tight, light weight, and can be traded to elves.  It is worth less than half the porcelain... but this is a good thing early on.  I suppose you can still bring the kaolinite, but I just hate making porcelain with anything short of a master potter... same with the higher tiers of glass.

My production model is basically farmfarmfarfarmfarm and when there is a problem, I send out some herbalists or slaughter an animal or two.

How many total farm tiles do you have and how skilled are your planters? Its actually best to turn off "all dwarves harvest" until you have 2-3 legendary planters.  Harvesting gains skill points but isn't affected by skill levels- only planting is.  So you need to hoard that harvesting skill experience on your planters (who will actually put it to use).  Thus you can go from harvesting 1-3 to 5-7 per plot as quick as possible.  If you don't need to save wood for charcoal, consider making potash as a fertilizer.  If you use fertilizer you might need to reshape your fields.  Fertilizer uses a similar formula to bridges and paved roads.  You want multiples of 4n-1 (3, 7, 11, 15 etc) for maximum efficiency.  I also disable barrels in my seed stockpile (so someone picking up a plump helmet seed doesn't also cancel planting of sweet pods).  If you only get an average of 3 per farm tile, then you are going to need over 100 tiles of farms to provide food+drink for all your dwarves.  I typically farm for booze only, and supply my food through butchering and fishing.  If I use plant food, its derived products (flour, sugar, syrup) so I don't have to worry about cooking up my last seeds.  A line of cage traps throughout the caverns can return massive amounts of food in prepared organs, fat, and meat.  You can even use your military to go slaughter hordes of crundels and other edible beasties (sadly no Troll burgers).  Otherwise, it takes a very long time to get a proper livestock farm going.  Not only do you have to coral 20 of them, but you need to wait a year for hte critter to be fully grown (and ready to butcher).  Sometimes I embark with a handful of sheep.  By the time I need massive amounts of food they -maybe- have bred enough.  In the meantime, they can be milked and sheared for cheese/cloth. 

Consider egg-layers as well.  While Cave Crocs take 2 years to reach full size, they lay about 40 eggs (20-60) on average per clutch.  Pastures some into a room and drop in some nest boxes.  You can lock the door/forbid eggs that you want to hatch while your dwarves eat the rest.  They are worth x4 as much as standard critters, so while you don't get leather from them their bones are -excellent- trade goods.  You get about 80 meat when you butcher a full sized one too.  I think Turkeys are the best domestic bird to get eggs from, although peafowls mature in half the time (better for butchering, worse for egg laying). 

Undead get triple stats and keep all their skill levels from life.  Normal zombies aren't much of a threat because being killed causes them to drop all their equipment.  Triple strength and legendary fighting still doesn't mean munch when you are nekid fighting a steel clad dorf.  TOWER zombies (and thralls) tend to retain equipment.  So you got skilled, triple strength, armored warriors immune to pain, drowning, and organ failure.  That last one is huge, as piercing weapons rely almost entirely on damaging organs to stun/kill a creature (collapsed lunges, crushed brains, pierced heart are all one hit kills essentially)  Warhammers are very strong (blunt) weapons, but do more organ damage (crushed skulls) than pulping.  They are -very- dangerous without the necromancer reanimating any fallen corpses. 

However... they can still be trapped and killed by cave ins.  In particularly, falling items are extremely lethal.  Dropping a worn out sock from a couple Z's can drop a Z :p

If they aren't encroaching on your fort, its because the fort is sealed off.  Enemies will choose the shortest path.  If there is no path... they won't tend to move.  If you open your corridor they should shuffle in and fall to traps.  Or you could create a cave in, or trap them in a pit.  Bonus points- bolts don't damage zombies much, so you can use them as live archery targets once pitted!

As stated, maces do the most pulping damage.  So while they normally suck, taking the time to shatter bones and mangle tissue will prevent the zombie from resurrecting.  Silver is the best metal for blunt weapons, and I lke to pretend it deals more damage to undead.  The only superior material would be platinum- but that takes an artifact made by a weaponsmith that likes platinum and maces to make without much chicanery (save scumming and/or forbidding all non-silver metal).

Honestly? Just use shields.  Wooden shields can protect against syndromes and dragonfire.  In fact, the only statistic that matters for shield is weight- heavier shields bash for more damage.  Addy shields are actually the worst shields you can give your soldiers for this reason (since -only- weight matters)  You could also set up a few ballistae ~100 yards down the hall and use those. 

personally? I'd bunker him near the start of your fortress and have him toss fireballs at goblins.  If gobbo archers get close then drop a bridge cutting off its line of sight.  Think "giant cave spider silk farm," but instead with a flaming beast and roasted goblins!   Name him "Torchy" and use him as your mascot.  Let him give the elves hugs! The possibilities are endless. 

You can't "trap" forgotten beasts, but you can create corridors sealed off by bridges and baited with puppies (put them behind walls so they have ot path forward to get in range).  Channel out the tiles adjacent to hte beast room from above, but have a bridge ready to be lowered over said hole to keep the beast from firing on your miner.  Then have it wander down the corridors/up the ramps to the puppy bait in your fortification carved/bridge sealed room at your entrance. 

I hate simply killing forgotten beasts- its far more dwarfy to bend them to your will, or at least keep them as pets.  You can go all "Jabba the Hutt" and have them in a pit under your throne room.  You can give out maniacally laughter as you drop other nobles and liasons into the pit! If they have syndromes you can coat your weapons/ammo with it and spread it to enemies.  You can also use them as a silk farm, but sadly they have no material modifiers to said silk.  Ones made of steel can be used as target practice for marksdorfs with wooden bolts... etc.