March 6, 2024: Dwarf Fortress 50.12 has been released.
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News: February 4, 2021: Dwarf Fortress Talk #28 has been posted.
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Aside from the fact that I almost missed all three deposits, yes flux can have coal in it.
This is a ACII movie. It's crafdwarfship is of highest quality. This object is encrusted with ACII and menaces with spikes of ACII. This object is decorated with an image of a dwarf and a goblin in ACII. the dwarf is pushing the goblin. This object is decorated with an image of a goblin in ACII, the goblin is falling. This object is decorated with an image of a goblin and a dwarf in ACII, the goblin is striking down the dwarf. This object is decorated with an image of a dwarf in ACII, the dwarf is falling. This object is decorated with an image of a dwarf and a goblin in ACII, the dwarf is laughing, the goblin is making a plentive guesture.
On the military problem, two things. 1. Toady is improving it via the army arc that he is working on right now. 2. Even a moderatly trained military can handle most foes.
I'll take an example from my current fort (only in it's fourth year, but going strong), in every one of the true ambushes I've had (as in, armed goblins) I've had less than a fifth of all my opponents killed or captured by traps. Instead I relied on my squad of elite marksdwarves (totaling six. All skilled or better) and my nearly-legendary wrestlers in Iron Plate. To the goblins i've lost a total of five dwarves, nearly all of whom died in my first ambush. Two wrestlers (died in an early ambush before I could improve their skills much), two marksdwarves (one was my original sheriff, who was ambushed while hunting, the other died near the end of my first ambush), and a crafter who was ambushed most recently while in my courtyard. Following this pattern, I shouldn't have more than one loss in my next ambush or siege, especially considering the status of my active defenses (walls, dry moat, fortifications on walls, bridges connected to levers, etc). Especially considering my military dwarves are nearly all wrestling/hammerdwarf champions who will be switching to learning xbow once my current marksdwarves hit Elite status. For me, a strong military and a solid action plan for attacks has proven just as useful, and much more fun, than any traps have been.
Honestly, I would like traps to be required to be used more intelligently. Rather than trapping enterances where caravans and lone merchants go, how about trapping random cul-de-sacs and off-limits areas for your visitors? Or do what Flok did and use two enterances? It's not like it's game-breaking to place your traps differently and actually have certain dwarves fight.
[ February 21, 2008: Message edited by: Jamini ]
As is has been stated (by Toady and others), traps in general are broken. Up until this update a fortress could make itself neigh-impregnable by simply surrounding every feasible entrance with five or six layers of traps, and simply recalling dwarves inside the walls when a significantly dangerous enemy approached. For many forts, goblin snatchers and master thieves are virtually a non-issue simply because whenever they try and go in any entrance they will either get ripped apart by weapon traps, knocked out by stonefall traps (and promptly executed by your military or fortress guard.), or caught by cage traps.
Now, with the most recent version any friendly non-local unit (unfortunatly, including your Liason and non-allocated migrants) can be affected by traps. This leads to playes needing to make an important decision, either A. Not use traps and risk snatchers/thieves/ambushes, B. Only use traps, but not on main caravan routes and potentially trap migrants and Liasons, or C. Let them all die in a gory death and risk elevn ambushes and human sieges. In any case, this decision is a good thing. It increases the risk of trading (already moderatly increased, since snatchers, thieves, and ambushes tend to happen around the same time as caravans), it gives players additional options on how to handle outsiders (the more bloody-minded players can simply sit and laugh as the elves tear themselves apart on their weapon traps), and it makes sense(how would traders know about the traps anyway?)!
My only real complaint about traps is the high chance of Liasons and Migrants getting captured (and going instantly berserk), maimed, or killed as they go though the much narrower and harder to navigate passages. But even then, the migrant problem can be solved by well-placed meeting areas, and Liasons can be handled by actually keeping your brokers office near to the depot (and untrapped) and meeting with him/her/it/them before you trade. (excepting the whole *follows you to eat,drink,sleep* problem. Perhaps Liasons could wait at the depot until the broker "collects" them and leads them to his/her office?)
Either way, I feel that the current state of traps is not overly broken, and should not be removed. Is our motto not, "Losing is fun!"?
P.S. Apologies for the long post, I just finished writing a paper for my English class (argumentative writing) and I haven't gotten the "loads of text" out of my system quite yet.
However, if you want swimming skill you need to lock them in a room with water between 4/7 and 6/7 (7/7 drowns, 3/7 isn't deep enough). don't expect your dwarves to willingly walk though 3/7 water either. Once they encounter 3/7 or higher they will cancel their jobs and try and get to dry land.
Set your ini file to allow at least 5 childeren per couple, assuming optimal conditions it would take 6 generations (each producing 5 dwarves of their own).
Assuming optimal conditions
Generation 0 - 12 Dwarves, 6 Couples
Generation 1 - 30 Dwarves, 15 Couples
Generation 2 - 75 Dwarves, 32 Couples
Generation 3 - 160 Dwarves, 80 Couples
Generation 4 - 200 Dwarves, 100 Couples
Generation 5 - 500 Dwarves, 250 Couples
Generation 6 (Generational Cap) - 1250 Dwarves, 625 Couples
Even taking deaths, incompatibility (One family having all sons, for instance) and other logistical problems, you could easily have more dwarves than any normal fortress could endure. Increasing the max births per couple in the ini file further expands these numbers even further. Not to mention that we don't know if anything over 3 generations (great grandparents) are even recorded at all.
However, these are just the ramblings of a mad person. Take everything with a grain of salt and a splash of dwarven wine.
Crossbowmen will not drop metal bolts when standing down. Meaning that if you HAVE quivers and shields equiped they will fill the quiver with the metal bolts and not grab bone/wood bolts to practice with. If they don't have quivers then they'll ue their free hand to hold the metal bolt instead.
Not having shields equipped and carrying a quiver is the only workaround I've been able to manage. And it seems to work quite well except for artifact crossbows (which apparantly, can't be loaded with bolts. So forbid them!)
Simplicity = fun.
Thearfor, ordering hammerstrikes against the player is the same as ordering hammerstrikes against the community. Thusly validating our actions AND noble punishments. Additionally, this validates killing difficult nobles. (Since we ALL (the dwarves) want them to die horribly!(as a community))
Seven Z-levels up.
Hi ho to my fellow evil ocean brother!
