Bay 12 Games Forum

I did initially set dwarves to stay inside and drafted one woodsman to try and kill the imp, but when he just chased it off, I undrafted him and once again set the orders to allow dwarves out again. They came out and continued their activities and when another imp came bumbling along I drafted them all and sent them after the imp. When that imp ran away, I undrafted them all and sent them back to work.

That's when I started getting the forbidden messages.

I decided to try out not having to mine for coal or chopping down hundreds of trees to feed my metal industry and so generated a world in which I found a suitable location with a nice big caldera, with no terrifying undead wildlife or anything of that sort.

I was doing well, delving out rooms and storerooms, and found a passel of gems and a huge vein of copper which I was blissfully smelting and creating jewel encrusted crafts with at my magma forge/smelter. I hadn't noticed much of anything but then scrolled down and saw a fire imp.

So I decided to throw my entire 7 dwarf force against it and hope to win. Anyways, whenever the squad got near the little imp ran away. After chasing it all the way across the map, I undrafted everyone and tried to send them back to work.

Unfortunately, every task, location, and material they tried to access afterwards was marked as forbidden. I was spammed endlessly with "Urist cancels X, location is forbidden" etc. My dwarves could do nothing and stood about stupidly as they slowly starved and died of thirst as their food and drink stockpiles were also somehow forbidden. I looked at every barrel and plump helmet, and none of them were marked forbidden, and also checked zones and there was no forbidden zone either.

SO, what the hell is going on?

I don't see why it couldn't as long as it relates to DF, though most people like to make stories out of their experiences. But, even then I don't see how it would be unacceptable. This community seems to enjoy those sorts of things because such a complex game still allows you to use your imagination as far as what happens, and that's one of the most charming things about it.

Even if they do get a name, I'm still going to call them turtles, cause that's what the symbol is.

BTW, maybe I'm missing something obvious here, or just haven't played into a part of the game which uses it, but is the $ used for anything?

Yeah, you can't sell pets, but you can sell them if you manage to cage them before they adopt anyone. As far as selling the cage, I usually build it right next to a one tile animal stockpile designation, and build it near the dwarf's bedrooms because they get a happy thought from looking at it. Then, when the caravan comes you deconstruct it and let it be put in the stockpile and then you can sell it.

If I find myself making stockpiles out of stone rooms, I've never really had a problem just designating all the stone produced by mining it out to be dumped in a one-tile dumping zone. Sure it takes a time, but it's not too bad. What I usually do is dig out a hall, establish a plump helmet farm, cut enough trees to make beds and then just put the beds in the hall. You can also make a chair for your bookkeeper and set him to updating the records. Just put it any old place in the hall, you'll be able to move it later. Generally my first workshops are just built any old place outside close to the fort, and I move them inside later when I have that luxury.

Then I set about making stockpiles. First for booze, then food, then usually furniture and goods. Hauling the stone away to your one tile dump directly outside the door shouldn't be too terribly hard. This early in the game you're not going to need much space for stockpiles. And create separate stockpiles for booze and food, and forbid barrels entirely in the food stockpile because you need them more for booze. Anyways, one 5x5 plump helmet farm can easily support 30 or 40 dwarves. You won't even need to haul stone if you find yourself in an area with a lot of silt.

Once I have stockpiles and a small farm going, I'll start mining out proper rooms for my dwarves and create a still to start making booze. After that, it kind of evolves depending on my resources.

Maybe all death sentences could be carried out by an alcoholic midget in medieval armor wielding a steel war hammer.

I have the population cap set to fifty in the ini file, but I just went from 49 to 67 dwarves. 

Why doesn't it work?