Bay 12 Games Forum

I just create guard stations.  All my dwarves are in their own squads so I just create archers towers, guard stations and station my dwarves in strategic locations in case of a seige.  

Since I rotate my soldiers on/off duty every other season and I station three dwarves from each group in any one spot (gauranteeing that one or two will always be there if the others are sleeping/on break) that means that at any one spot where I want to have military I need to assign six military dwarves, three at any one time.  So If I set up two spear stations

                xxx
      SprStation1^

      SprStation2v
                xxx

That would require 12 speardwarves
  *  Three speardwaves who are on duty on Winter/Summer (Train spring/fall) and stationed at zone 1
  *  Three speardwarves who are on duty Spring/Fall (Train winter/summer) and stationed at zone 1
  *  Three speardwaves who are on duty on Winter/Summer (Train spring/fall) and stationed at zone 2
  *  Three speardwarves who are on duty Spring/Fall (Train winter/summer) and stationed at zone 2

So those two positions just ate up 12 dwarves.  That's what I do when I start to get a lot of dwarves.  It creates a very high level of military readiness.  Setting up 5 or 6 positions like that eats up 30-36 military dwarves, making it so that it is pretty easy to find a use for immigrants.

[ March 28, 2008: Message edited by: greggbert ]

How about a 2x1 booze stockpile near where they are stationed?  That keeps mine ready for the fight at all times!

Send him out hunting unarmed and with no armor.  That's like 2 keystrokes and no digging/building.

[ March 26, 2008: Message edited by: greggbert ]

I have nicknames also

Bow_WS(MFall) = XBowman active in Winter and Summer Standing Down in Spring and Fall, Marksmaan training in fall, wrestling in Spring.  

Bow_SF(MWint) = XBowman active in Spring and Fall, Standing down in WInter and Summer, Marksman training in Winter, Wrestling in Fall

Spear_WS - Spearman active in winter and summer wrestling in Spring and Fall

Cage all your cats quickly before they adopt a dwarf.  Keep checking cats every season.  You need to get those cats locked up.  Put them in metal cages so you can sell them to the elves.

Ideally you tunnel a 3 wide tunnel out to an access point that has a clear path to the edge of the map.  In reality, you may need to wait until the first traders come to see where they come from, then you should make a 3 wide tunnel to your underground depot.

Alternatively you can create a depot on the edge of the screen to ensure trading, and then move it later.

[ March 21, 2008: Message edited by: greggbert ]

Create a furniture stockpile (or whatever stockiple) one square away from the jewelers worshop.  Then restrict it to the type of item you want to encrust.  Further restrict it to a certain BASE QUALITY so you are encrusting items that are already valuable.  For example Beds with Master or better quality or statues with exceptional or bettter quality.  Once the haulers bring the item you want to encrust, then give the encrust furniture command.  The gem setters ALWAYS get the jem first, then the item to encrust, so as long as your master bed or exceptional door is the closest item to your jeweler, you have a great deal of control over what gets encrusted.  

There is a catch.  These stockpiles will also hold already-encrusted items, so only encrust furniture if you are right about to (B)uild it, and only encrust a type of craft if you are ready to trade it, or else the already encrusted items will clog up your stockpile.

If you have a legendary metalcrafter, for example, you could set your gem shop stockpile to metal cratfts with master or better quality, and encrust them as your dwarves bring them in.  Once all the items are encrusted, then remove your stockpile, and they will go back to finished goods.

[ March 21, 2008: Message edited by: greggbert ]