Bay 12 Games Forum

I do it anthill style. 

My entrance is a simple down stair in the middle of a large flat area at river level.  The trade depot is placed adjacent to the down stair and then I build a tiny 8x8 to 10x10 keep/walls around the stair/depot section.  The keep has an upstairs section where my archers stand and shot anyone who gets close.

The keep has North, South, East, and West entrances each 3 squares wide, each with it's own drawbridge.  When trouble comes I can raise and lower the drawbridges and force the invaders to run around the outside of the keep while my crossbowdwarfs shoot at them for a while before I need to button the whole thing up.  It's amazing how long you can keep the enemy running in circles just by opening and closing drawbridges.

Eventually I will build a "city wall" that is more like 40x40 which also has 4 entrances and 4 drawbridges.  2 of the entrances go directly in for traders and two of the entrances go into mazelike structures with traps and stuff.  But all eventually lead to the keep in the middle.

Tips on how not to starve.

*  First off you should have a dedicated food dwarf that is gathering until your farms are set up.  Have him at least get up 2-3 levels of gathering skill.
*  Second you should try to get a strawberry or prickleberry farm going on the surface as soon as you get enough seeds from your gatherer
*  Thirdly, you should have your miner go ONE LEVEL BELOW the surface near a pond or lake and build the following: 

PPPPPP         TTTTT  TTTTT  TTTTT
PPPPPP         TTTTT  TTTTT  TTTTT
PPPPPPPP*TXTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
PPPPPPP       TTTTT  TTTTT  TTTTTT
PPPPPP            D          D          D
                      T          T          T
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT(LEVER)


P = Pond/Lake
T= TUNNEL/ Open Space
D = Door
X = Floodgate
* = Last wall to knock out before pulling the floodgate closed

Seriously this whole thing taks a very short time to set up.  Pull the lever to open the gate, then have your miner knock downt he last wall, then pull the lever after some water spills into the first farm room.  Then just wait for the water to dry and build your cave wheat or plump helmet farm.

The cool part is that your pond will fill back up when it rains again.

I have a shaft of channels one underneath the other and an open drawbridge at the bottom.  Every once in a while I pull the lever and evertyhing dissapears forever! 

Oh and you have to designate the top channel as a dump along with one other tile.

IMO you should train the marksdwarf in wrestling too -- it's useful to avoid damage. Just set him to train unarmed for a while. Also get them crappy armor/shields so they can train armor using/shield using.

Always use the best shields and armor you have when training so they don't get hurt while sparring.

I hate wrestling.  Too much ripped clothing .  I always makes my marksdwarves hammerdwarfs.  Have them just whack each other with silver hammers until they are adept.  Then they can assault goblins with their steel crossbows when they run out of ammo.

Masons will use the closest stone to where they are standing (including z levels) when they get the IDEA to build something.  So if you queue 5 doors the first one will be built using the economic stone that is closest to wherever the dwarf happens to be drinking at the time.  For the remaining four, the dwarf will select the stone closest to him after he finishes making the door.  You can take advantage of this by encircling your masons workshops with a small stone stockpile.  One level thick should do the trick.  Forbid or dump any stones one or two z levels above or below you to ensure he uses the stockpile.  You will just have to love your granite door that your dwarf made by accident, or just dump it and atomize it.

That's where he left his volleyball with the face drawn on it.

The trick to finding stone is to build shafts.

From your main fortress create a door and a stairs up/down to a level you are never planning to use.  When you are not mining or hauling this door should be locked to ease pathfinding.  This will be your mining hub level.  From this level you will create shafts of up/down stairs that go up just shy of the surface and down all the way to the bottom.  Off each shaft designate four hallways, one or two two shift-arrows in each direction.  (Two shift-arrows means to press d for designate, then enter to begin your designation, then hold SHIFT and press the right-arrow key twice) then press ENTER again to end the designation.  My plus signs are one or two shift-arrows in each direction.)

What you end up with are 5-10 shafts that go from top to bottom, evenly scattered around your x and y coords.  Each one has an exploratory plus sign.  This will give you a fairly quick idea of the layers of stone, metal and rock, and your plus signs will doubtless intersect many veins.  If you dig into the veins you find, this will also cause your fortress wealth to skyrocket!  Within about two seasons, you should be swimming in ores and gems.   Good luck


This what I mean about a shaft of exploratory plus signs.  Just build them one on top of the other and then dig a new shaft off to the northeast or southwest. 

           M
           M
           M
MMMMMXMMMMMMM
           M
           M
           M
           M
           M

Just make a 1 square thick stone stockpile bordering your craft workshop on all sides with the type of stone you want them to use.  Make it feed off a nearby stone stockpile of the same type.  This way only the first thing the dwarf builds might be of an undesired stone, but every one after that will be the one you want.