Bay 12 Games Forum

You need to cut trees and smooth boulders to get a couple of paths from your depot to the edge of the map.  Then you can build roads to ensure that no trees will grow on the path. 

I think that to be 100% sure, you need to build a smoothed, chopped 3 tile wide path completely around the perimeter of the play area along in addition to one or two a 3x3 cleared smoothed paths from the edge of the map to your depot. 

Start out by just cutting and smoothing two 3 tile wide corridors from your depot to the edge.  That should be good to start.

Here’s how I manage mine and it works pretty well:

1)    Every dwarf gets a custom profession name with My in front of it

MyMiner
MyMiner
MyMason
MyCarpenter
MyXbow
MyXbow
MyMechanic
MyCook
MyBrewer
MyHauler
MyHauler
MyHauler
MyHauler
MyHauler

2)   Most dwarves get all the hauling tasks in addition to their primary task.  These are called Hybrid Dwarves.  My mechanic is a hybrid, so are my crafters.
3)   Some dwarves I don’t have a job for so they become Haulers
4)   Some dwarves such as my Masons, Miners, Brewer, Gatherer, Woodburner, and Woodcutter are “Exclusive Dwarves” and get the hauling tasks turned off because I want to be alerted when they are idle.
5)   Every time migrants come, I go through and make sure I rename all their professions so they all have a “My” prefix.  If I don’t have a position for them, they become MyHauler
6)   When my haulers are idle (and there are a lot of them), I always give them a  project that will take them some time to do.  In my games I can ALWAYS find something that will occupy all of them for a few minutes. 

Hauler Tasks:
*  Collect a bunch of chopped wood into a wood stockpile right outside the fortress entrance.  Once they are done I remove the stockpile and give them another task.
*  Clear all stones out of room and dump them into the trash compacter.
*  Move an entire stockpile from one area of the fortress to another
*  Collect newly mined ore.  (Like wood gathering, I prefer not to stockpile ore as it is being mined.  I would rather do it all at once by creating a large stockpile, and then removing it when my haulers have brought everyting.)
*  Furnish X bedrooms
*  Split a general stockpile into multiple specific stockpiles, ie:  Weapons, Armor, Furntiure
*  Loot x goblin corpses outside
*  Bring goods to depot

7)   Each time I give the haulers a task they all get busy on it.  Then I immediately check the idlers.  If I did everything right the only idle dwarves should be my Exclusive guys who need more things to do, such as Masons or Wood Burners, or Engravers.  Then I give them enough orders to keep them working for a few minutes but not too long until my idlers reach zero.  Then I wait until my haulers become idle again.
   This cycle helps me keep organized and focused on the task at hand.  The worst thing you can do is give any dwarf a task so big they don’t start to become idle for a long time.  This prevents a situation where you can’t bring goods to your depot because your haulers will be dumping rock for the next 30 minutes.  It also tends to group your haulers together so they are not all over the map when you get attacked.
9)   From the ranks of pure haulers, I draft my military.  Once I have a full suit of armor for each dwarf I draft two to five dwarves, make them plate-wearing wrestlers who are off duty.  When they get to the level of GREAT WRESTLER or above, then I switch them to their main weapon and let them spar or target shoot with that.  Once they become better than GREAT at their new weapon, then I swap their practice weapon, set them to ON DUTY and station them permanently.
10)   I always use the manager to give orders to my exclusive dwarfs.  The only two dwarfs who work on REPEAT TASK mode are my Iron Armor Melter and my Gem Cutter.  Everyone else gets their orders from the manager or from piecemeal designations.

You probably already know this but your dwarf won't plant at the end of the season.

I like to dig down into very flat ground, and I like to have as much as possible on one single level.  THat way I can see the action better without flipping between z-levels.  Because of the ups and downs of the terrain, and rivers, etc..   I build the main fort about 4-5 levels below the surface so I can be gauranteed a full z level.

I'm doing a design now where I have only one entrance to my fortress and a trade depot directly next to it.  Then I build a tiny keep (about 10x10) around the entrance/depot with four drawbridges, one on each side.  The only other thing in the keep is ammo storage and practice targets.  And a 4x4 booze stockpile.   The keep has fortifications one level above all the way around.  Beyond the drawbridges, dogs are chained to detect/slow anyone attempting to enter the keep.

Underground I have my downstaircase, a little gauntlet of traps, and then dig down deep to my main fort.

My Main fort takes up the entire Z level (or it will grow to do so and it is laid out in Quadrants off the center)

CENTER = Dining Room, Main Hall, Wells, Barracks, Finished Goods Storage, trash disposal chute (with atomizer at the bottom), Zoo, Garden, etc..
NW = Food and Clothing production and storage
NE = Crafts, Gems, Masons, Carpenter, Control Room, etc…
SW = Residential sprawl and offices (Might go down or up a z level if I run out of room)
SE = Armor Prod, Weapons Prod, Smelters, Furnaces, Blacksmiths, ore Storage

in the NE portion of the fort is a large control room with a small-scale model of everything outside with levers positioned that control the drawbridges above. 

I always make a small storage area for each thing, and then when I need more storage I just build a downstair with identical storage right underneath.  THat way I can scale almost unlimited my storage.  With the exception of my tomb, and my plumbing,  I never put anything new on a different z level.  The only time I ever utilize z levels is when I run out of storage space and I need to extend my stockpiles downward or upward.

On the lowest level, I clear out my tombs.  That's in the center of the fortress at the very bottom z level. 

I only do surface farming, I create FULLY WALLED farms directly above my seed/food storage and they only way to get there is by using the up stair from my food storage.  That way the farmers can work during a siege. 

On the surface, Outside my smaller keep I have a larger wall that claims a good deal of territory.  That wall also has 4 drawbridges, two of the drawbridges have roads that lead directly to my smaller keep.  The other two have gauntlets of traps and cages.  When friendlies come the safe drawbridges are opened.  When enemies come, I start opening and closing drawbridges, causing the enemies to constantly reroute, or go through my trap gauntlets.  Each trap entrance has a main section and then individual sections controlled by more drawbridges that can force the enemy through weapon traps, spike traps, cage traps, all depending on which doors are opened and closed.   All are controlled by levers in the control room downstairs, which contains a mini-replica of the outside. 

Is this a good way to reduce the clutter?  Currently I just [h]ide all the abandoned clothing that is owned by a dwarf and make sure every dwarf bedroom has a cabinet and coffer.

Thanks mate. I have a few more questions now.

1) How do you chain your war dogs in place?

2) How would I go about making a forge?

3) How long is 1 dwarf year in real time?

4) How do you set up a jail?

Thanks again all. I really am clueless

1)  If you have a rope or chain in your inventory you can (b)uild animal restraint
Then you access it with the Q menu like a cage and you can assign animal(s) to the restraint.  They stay adjacent to the chain.  They are great for detecting thieves.

2)  You need an ANVIL, one of the most important items in the game.  THen you (b)uild (w)orkshop metalsmith's forge. 

3)  Depends on your settings, the size of your fortress, the amount of activity and the speed of your computer.  Oh and the amount of cats.

4)  You place a Chain, Rope or Metal cage in a room and then you can designate them as a jail with the Q menu.

Here are some IMprovements I noticed.

*  The management of seeds is much better now, very few one seed bags.
*  If you deconstruct a stone wall you can now get rid of the stone that results from it, rather than it being invisible to all your dwarves even though it's not forbidden.
*  You can build walls and floors more than one square at a time.
*  More economic stones forbidden by default eg:  Gabbro but U can change that in the stockpile menus.