Bay 12 Games Forum

Also make sure there is a path to him.

it does. seed barrel is taken to the still.
in fact it is even worse: seed bag is taken out of the barrel and taken to the still. then seed barrel is taken to the still to take seed bag. that is madness.

Since way back, it always drove me crazy that there were seed bags in barrels, often with very few seeds in each bag.  So I've been making sure my seed stockpiles do not allow barrels and are exactly 1x2.  Neat and tidy.  And each of my farm plots is small 1x3.  I still get the occasional plant seed cancellation, but it is very uncommon.

a couple of questions from a seminewbie:

1. when creating new squads one can chose to label them as "archers" this then helps finding potential crossbowdwarfs since they now
are labeled with an appropriate skill description when perusing the dwarfs. why are they setup with leather ? is there some reason i am not aware of that makes leather better for a crossbow dwarf than say, copper,iron or steel ?

2. does it make sense to equip crossbowdwarfs with melee weapons?

3. are some "stone types" better than others when defending against say troll and other creatures able to tear down doors and walls?
i.e are some stone types harder than others?

4. at some point, my fortress gets attacked by so many goblins and trolls and drakes (?) that i dont have a snowballs chance in h**l
to defend against them and all i can do is close the bridges and hope they dont manage to tear them down and if they do, that my moat will keep them out. how do you defend against these encounters ? i tried sending 8 of my crossbow dwars into my 2 towers (4 dwarfs into each towers which were made of stone. with fortifications and a roof/floor). Although my dwarfs managed to kill a few enemies they were also taken under fire by enemy archers and i was lucky to get 3 of them back alive. how to fight this ?

5. my melee dwarfs are like porcelain dolls when it comes to fighting and i dont dare to use them against enything but single creatures encountered undergound. i have trained them for years in their baracks and i have equiped them with the best equipment i have (silver and copper weapons and armor), but alas fighting above ground against these vile creatures is nigh impossible for me.
is there some secret way to do this that i am not aware of ? i know of the danger room, but i wanted to play withouth "cheating" this way.. was i wrong? is a danger room the only way to get a viable force able fight the darkness when it arrives ?

6. how many warriors/archers should i aim for ? i usually end up with 10 melee and 10 archers in my 150-200 dwarf fortress. is quantity better than quality ?

7. is there an underlying.. how to say..."game design", that you are encouraged to fight the baddies with tricks and creativity rather than by brute force ? it would kinda help me to look away from my army for defensive purposes.

aight. any and all help appriciated.

nappy

1. Leather is presumably lighter.  So your marksdwarves will move faster.  (Shouldn't be an issue for strong, agile dwarves with high level in "Armor User").
2. Nope.
3. Hm, interesting thought, but I suspect no.
4. There's nothing wrong with sealing up your fortress if you know you cannot defeat them.  Or you can let them slaughter you.  It's Fun!
5. Many other posts on this with much detail.  Conventional wisdom is to use 2 (or 3) dwarf squads and let 'em train nonstop.
6. Quality for melee dwarves.  Quantity for marksdwarves.
7. For this as well, much written elsewhere.  Wiki might be a good starting place.  (search "design strategies" and the appropriate links)
KD

Please excuse my ignorance.  What does "PTW" mean?

Your question was "per bar".  Breastplates take 3 bars to make.  Now, I dunno the value of stuff, but as long as a breastplate is worth 3x as much as anything that takes 1 bar to make, then you're fine.

cloth tunic (repeat)
cloth trousers (repeat)
cloth shoes (repeat)

I had this problem recently.  It turns out the announcement log has a limit...something like 3000 entries, including combat and sparring reports.  So when you started up your danger room, all those combat reports bumped out your usual announcements.
KD

There's a lot of advice here about water.  Which is kind of a good thing, I guess, since that was the OP's question.  But the OP's problem is not a water problem, it's a booze problem.  I think it cannot be emphasized enough that BOOZE is your primary basic need.  Then food.  Beyond that, maybe clothing.  Water is just something that you use in emergencies when, for some reason, your booze production gets interrupted (and of course, for the wounded).  If your dwarves are thirsty/dehydrated, your priority is NOT to look for water.  It's to figure out what happened to interrupt your booze production and fix it.