March 6, 2024: Dwarf Fortress 50.12 has been released.
News: February 3, 2024: The February '24 Report is up.
News: February 4, 2021: Dwarf Fortress Talk #28 has been posted.
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1) What is the purpose of an animal stockpile? My unused cages go into the furniture stockpile, and once I (B)uild a cage it doesn't seem to move anywhere. Also I can (b)uild a cage anywhere so why would I need an animal stockpile.
2) Once you (B)uild a cage and add animals to it, how do you get it so it can be sold? Do you have to remove construction?
3) If you (B)uild a cage and add an animal to it, how do you know that the task has actaully been completed? What dwarf (l)abor jobs need to be active in order to get that animal caged up, or does it happen instantly?
4) What types of animals will walk around your fortress but are not cagable? Only adopted cats and assigned wardogs?
5) If you (b)uild a cage and go into the menu to add animals, are those the only animals that you can cage to reduce FPS? Or are there some friendly animals that need to be trapped?
With Single dwarves, you get more control over where your active soldiers will stand, but the problem is that micromanagement is a pain, and sometimes they have to eat/drink/sleep, so you lose your force.
If you put at least 6 dwarves in a squad, you can usually be gauranteed that if you station them in an area, at any one particualr time you will have at least 3 of them ready to fight.
Every once in a while I will create a squad of 2 archers to station inside a fortificaton, but if I ever go down to 1 dwarf per squad I simply cannot keep up wtih the micromanagment of having dwarves where you need when you need them.
What are the experts thougths?
However now, all my dwarves have lots of clothing lying around their bedrooms. Some is marked with XClothingNameX and some is not spoiled at all.
My questions are:
1) Is the only way to get rid of xClothingNamex by assigning it to DUMP?
2) How come when I do this nobody picks it up, especially when it is inside a dwarves bedroom? Do I just need to be patient?
3) What's the deal with non-spoiled clothing? Do they need sometihng besides a coffer to store it in? Is it discarded? What's up with that?
I've got about 12 soldiers in 2 squads. Each squad has 2spears and 4 crossbows.
In the Winter and Summer Squad 1 wrestles unarmed while Squad 2 patrols with thier standard weapons. In The spring and fall Squad 2 wrestles unarmed while Squad 1 patrols with standard weapons.
I've got a couple of questions/problems though:
1) I've got TONS of chain and plate armor but my dwarves won't wear it even though they are assigned to plate. Do they just need to keep wrestling to get stronger? Or do I need to make a bunch of leather armor for them to "train their armor skill?"
2) Markswarves won't shoot at my 6 targets when weiling crossbows and off-duty. Only one will shoot and the other 3 will just stand around. They are all set up as different archery rooms, but they are all outdoors. Does that affect anything? Plus the ones that does shoot always equips crappy bolts and then is not ready when goblins come.
My solution to 2 is to just make sure all standing down squads are unarmed so they can wrestle. Then when they need to go active, and I switch weapons to crossbow, they always grab the right xbow and bolts.
Where can I find a link to good troop training strategies?
Is this a good approach?
Other barrier questions:
1) Can you build walls that go up and down hills, and are they effective?
2) Can a wagon go through a "double door" of two standard doors?
3) Can I use a bunch of floodgates to create gates at my walls (no water involved) so that I can open and close them for raids/traders?
4) If I wanted to create only one "entrace" into my trade depot will the wagons find the entrance as long as there is a clear path? Or do I need to create one gate in every direction?
5) Can I build fortifications directly on top of fortifications so there are two levels archers can shoot out of?
6) Is there any way to build a wall faster than one section at a time? This drives me nuts!
[ February 29, 2008: Message edited by: greggbert ]
I've never built one because I assumed this was true. Am I missing out?
What factors determine how much stuff they bring and how valuable it is?
I learned the hard way that it's a big mistake to channel the water Z-3 or Z-4 because as soon as you create the well on Z2 the water will come rushing out and flood your fortress. So I created an upward staircase from Z2 and put the well on Z-1 tapping into a water source I had channeled in at Z-2 area where my fortress didn't extend.
The only problem is that the dwarves seem to ignore my well! They will walk far, far away to a lake to bring water for sick dwarves rather than just go up the stairs and grab the water and then go down to the dwarves. I know the stairs work because I have a wine cellar up there that I use for long term wine storage and they go up and down those stairs.
My question is what do other people do? Do you build your main fortress on Z-2 or do you do it higher so you're above the river water and wells are easier to get at? (It seems like so much less available space for your fortress if you restrict it to Z0, and also Z0 and Z-1 tend to have lots of dirt which is not suitable for most rooms. Or do you do something completely different?
How
I always set reserved bins = 0 (the default).
So my question is this. If dwarves are OK to leave empty bins in non-furniture stockpiles rather than move them to the furniture stockpile, I can live with that. But If I need a bin somewhere else, will the dwarves eventually use the 15-20 empty bins I have sitting in my finished goods, bar/block, and weapons stockpiles, or will they only take an empty bin if it exists in the furniture stockpile?
Currently I always make more the second my furniture stockpile gets empty.
BTW: My empty barrels are always prompty returned to the furniture stockpile, but they never seem to return empty bins to the furniture stockpile. That makes it kind of hard to count the empty bins. Come to think of it I cant ever once remember a stockpile having less bins in it than it has had in the past, except if I sold the bins (which I no longer do because U never know when wood will be scarce.)
[ February 27, 2008: Message edited by: greggbert ]
How do I resolve this if I don't have enough experienced troops to guard the dead bodies while they are looted? Can you set a "danger zone" within wich your dwarves will not go to "store item in stockpile?" How do I get out of this pickle?
