Bay 12 Games Forum

I have almost no sense of direction, so I need to ask NPCs for directions all the time. But most of the time I'll ask an NPC what kind of troubles are around, he'll list 4 monsters, an invasion, some criminals, a bandit camp, a necromancer tower, and some other things; then I'll ask for directions and he'll say "I couldn't tell you and I honestly don't know anyone who could." about every single item and every single monster/person on that list.

Even in the rare instance someone actually tells me where something is the directions are always super vague and I can never find what I'm looking for. "Oh, that forgotten beast is far to the north." Gee thanks, how far north? Is it in a cave, an abandoned fortress, just wandering around? What? Is there some easier way to know where things are without mods? My adventurers are having what must be some of the most boring adventures ever right now.

Do you get trade caravans? The trade caravans are indications of any civs within range, no civ is going to run literally across the world to steal your gold. They'll sustain more losses along the way than they will have attackers to destroy your fort. Also, if your civ happens to be near a goblin fort, it doesn't necessarily mean goblins live there. Most of the time, goblins in my world will inevitably piss off a race with better weapons and get owned. Meaning that there are a ton of goblin forts that are either abandoned or have been appropriated by other races.

You also currently cannot be sieged if it is physically impossible for a race to interact with the 30 tiles outside your map. If you live on an island or in a valley surrounded by mountains, you won't be sieged.

Quote from: cyrohound on April 12, 2017, 08:15:54 am

The patch notes say that I can specify materials and images when I make certain items. How do I do this? I don't notice any difference in the workshop screen

I know nothing about adventure mode, so I'll just answer this one.

Press 'd' on the job once it's been put into the job manager or workshop queue, but before it's started.

Oh you need to do it from the management menu? That's why I couldn't see it. Thank you!

I just updated from version .42.05 to .43.06 and I have a few minor questions that I can't find on the wiki yet. Plus some questions about adventure mode, which is missing some info on the wiki.

• Does the carpentry update in adventure mode mean I can now build my own wooden house/fortress because I can now build wooden blocks? Because that would be awesome!
• The patch notes say that I can specify materials and images when I make certain items. How do I do this? I don't notice any difference in the workshop screen
• How do you tell if your adventurer is hungry or thirst in adventure mode?

Oh, it's well documented that dwarves can make mistakes while sparring and hurt/kill their partners, espeically if you don't give them training weapons (I never do). I've never had anyone die, but I've had a few people wind up in the hospital with broken bones and blood loss and such.

If you're planning on having treehugging elves in your fortress, wooden walls might be a bad idea. I mean, I had an elf get bad thoughts near dwarven beds because they're made from wood. And I don't even have a choice in those (except that one gold bed a random moody metalsmith made that now resides in what will someday be the king/queen's bedroom.) It might be alright as long as your furniture is made from something besides wood, as elves don't react to Wooden Trade Depots. but you're going to need to test that, and with the amount of blocks you need for houses it might not be practical. Not to mention cutting down too many trees is a guaranteed way to go to war with the elves, which defeats the purpose of building housing for them.

You yourself cannot negotiate peace with anyone, as far as I'm aware. But check the civilization screen 'c' and make sure you are actually at war with goblins. They send raids no matter what, but if you're at war they come more often and are bigger. If you are stomping your opposition enough, they will send a diplomat with a peace treaty, which lasts a year. You can't ever get a diplomat, not even in a migrant wave. I mean, rarely a diplomat might get demoted and sent to your fort, but he can't actually be promoted to diplomat again. If your fortress is small enough (fortress size being judged more by exported/created wealth than population), you might not even be important enough to be approached with a treaty and you'll just get a message saying you are now at peace.

You don't really see cart systems very often because they just aren't practical in most forts and I've yet to meet anyone that understood the route system. I tried them once, but I didn't understand how the route system worked either, and still don't. They have some advantages. They store 5x what a wheel barrel does and move fast. But they also require a dedicated track system, and I had SO MANY dwarves get run over by carts filled with galena that I eventually just dismantled them. They turned that one route I put them on into The Great Dwarven Autoban, if the autoban had pedestrians being turned to putty on a regular basis. Maybe you'll be smarter at setting it up than me and have a successful system.

But as far as I'm aware, no one has tried getting a stable population of non-dwarves in a fortress. Although the tavern update hasn't been out as long as the other stuff, so it's not a shock. I also haven't seen any videos about minecarts. So you might just be making Dwarven History! Go forth and make your mistakes proudly! Post some screenshots here too, I want to see what your big above ground city looks like when it's all done. Let me know if you figure out minecarts! I'd love to make an actually safe (for DF) minecart system.

Any sentient creature of the same species can have children if they are married and not gay/sterile (which happens more often than you might think.) If you're serious about this, you need TONS of whatever blocks you're building out of. But it isn't uncommon for people to do above ground forts as a challenge. There are plenty of Lets Plays about it. Also be aware that it may take you a long time to get residents of different species, or at least, enough to  have a stable population of goblins/elves/whatever. Remember, having 2 of the same species isn't enough, they need to be married.

You should also be aware that anything above ground is considered outdoors for the purposes of temperature and farming, even if it's technically indoors. So don't put any waterfalls up there if you live somewhere cold enough for water to freeze in the winter. Otherwise you'll get some dwarf/elf/whatever playing in the waterfall and then vanishing/dying as the water they're in instantly freezes. I've had it happen more than once.

Your citizens have their own population cap. The vistor, invasion, and monarch (should you grow rich enough, or dig deep enough to get a monarch) all have their own caps and ignore your population cap. Although the monarch's entourage that would normally accompany the monarch to your fort is affected by your population cap, strangely.

Maybe 30-40 dwarves is enough to take out the clowns if you have very good equipment, training, and add some things (traps, siege weapons, ridiculous domesticated war creatures, etc.)to swing the tide in your favor. If your dwarves aren't legendary in their chosen weapon skill, dodging, and striking, I wouldn't attempt it until after that's happened. After you actually get to the fun stuff you'll need to have a permanent squad wherever you put the breach, as small troupes of clowns will still come through periodically. Also, don't try using dwarven atom smashers, they don't work on things as big as the clowns.

You may also want to have an emergency measure in case your squads fail. An artifact door (artifacts can't be destroyed), will stop the clowns from leveling your base. If you don't have one then you'll either need to have an emergency lever that leads to a collapse switch, or a bunch of idling dwarves to just build a wall before the clowns get to your main base.

Don't forget to have plenty of slabs to engrave if you can't retrieve your dwarf's bodies. You wouldn't want your captain of the guard coming back as a vengeful ghost. Build slabs at a mason, then engrave them with the dwarf's name at a crafts workshop, then place the slab, but pres x on the slab menu to expand the list and see EXACTLY which slab you're placing (this way you won't place an unengraved slab instead of a memorial slab). You must do this to each individual dwarf you can't bury, and it takes awhile if you, say, lost 40 of them to the clowns. Your memorial slabs can also be turned into memorial gardens (basically the same as a statue garden), by pressing 'q' around one of your engraved slabs.