Bay 12 Games Forum

Playing 34.02: Arctic Embark

So my river was 1 level underground - and 1 level below that was the volcano.

I dug out about 50 squares under the river and filled the space with lava.  The river thawed. From the top, outside layer I dug channels.  This allowed fishing for few a seasons.  The the river froze over and and lava(7 deep) stopped unfreezing it.  I had a 50 square flowing river, and never more than 10 channels ever dug out.

gghggghggggg
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

g=ground h=channel r=river l=lava

Why would my entire river freeze?  I could understand the channels freezing, but not the whole thing.

Then I tried enclosing the entire ground area above the lava and river with walls and floors, but this didn't work either...

So even though I had a few years of fishing, I guess that was a fluke, and you really can't fish in Arctic enviroments?

So my current fort is 8 years old, I have all the industries up and running, and the last 3 sieges have been easily handled.  I'm thinking of starting a new fort, but first:

1. When the elven diplomat gives a warning about how many trees you can cut, what happens if I tell him to beat it?  He gave me a limit of 109 or something trees to cut, and since my stock piles were full I agreed. 

2. How can I limit my population?  My current setting in the init folder is 160, yet I have 183 dwarves in my fort.  I want to keep it close to 100, I'm starting to get slow downs and stutters with 183..  I don't kill off the nobles, so I want to be able to get all of them.

3. The King.  The incoming King wants offerings.  The wiki says thats part of trading...How?  Do I just mark things for trade, and not mark anything of his? 

4. I've read about encrusting walls - How do I do that?  Is that still an option?  I had my jewelers encrusting furniture, goods and ammo but you can't really control what they are encrusting, right?

Thanks

So in my current Fort, I built 2 trade Depots.  The first one was set to be removed to make way for a wall, but the dwarven caravan arrived and unloaded before the depot was removed.  My mason came by, and removed the Depot.  All the trade goods are now sitting on the ground, and the caravan has moved to the other depot.  Now the wiki (I just looked) says:

As a side note, if you remove your trade depot, all the caravan's items will drop to the ground, to be readily hauled away by your dwarves. This does not mark the item as stolen, and the caravan will leave.

It's my second year, and this was the first caravan. (I might have missed the first, but I don't remember seeing it.)  The wiki also says that immigration is controlled by the returning caravan.  Will I even get migrants?  I never knew this could happen.  Have I screwed up relations with the mountain home? 

So I've survived a couple of Ambushes which cost me 2 dwarves, a hunter and a mason (I still don't know what he was doing outside..).

I had a caravan of elves arrive when my screen went black and "a vile force of darkness has arrived!"
My dwarves were scattered all over the map collecting wood, and clothing from the ambushers, thieves and snatchers. (I didn't have a stockpile for their clothing )  I figured I was about to get slaughtered.

I issued the order, all dwarves inside.  This revealed my first mistake, as the level for my bridge was outside!   I had to release the dwarves back outside, and cancel all the pending trade items which were outside, to get one of them to pull the lever.  This took about 5 minutes real time.  While this was going on, the two groups of attackers I saw (maybe 10 guys) were chasing a pet horse all over the map.

The order to raise the bridge (or retract it, How do you tell which you have?) was fulfilled just before the horse lost his battle with the invaders.

My fort is surrounded by a 2 tile wall, and a 2 tile moat outside of that.  I've built a long and winding single tile wide tunnel, lined with traps as a side entrance. I've built fortifications atop the walls near the bridge and over by the trap tunnel entrance.   I have 2 squads of 6 marksdwarves each, most of them elite.

The invaders having killed the valiant horse, and a puppy who was also somehow outside, then they  entered the tunnel.  After triggering 2 stonefall traps they then left.......The siege notice on top of the screen cleared and that was that.  I didn't even get my squads outside before they left!  I then saved.

So here are my questions:
1. Is that it?  Once the siege clears from the top of the screen is it over?  Or are they still lurking on the map, waiting for my guys to go outside?

2. Is there a way to designate everything inside my wall as "inside"?  So when I order all dwarves inside, all I really want is them to do is get behind the wall.

3. If I'm still under siege, how will the elves leave?  Being elves the are only 1 tile wide, will they be able to pass the traps and leave that way, or do I have to lower the bridge?

(FYI I use the mike mayday tileset)