Bay 12 Games Forum

I only have ONE vein of hematite on my map.

Same here. I didn't even bother to mine any of it out. I'm mining Goblins instead.

Just got a Fey Mood that turned a bonehead Peasant into a Legendary Weaponsmith:



Very useful since my Fortress Military has been training only wit War Hammer and Crossbow. It only weighs as much as a ring (8 Dwounces).

Another oddity from my "Rocky Spire" game:

So far in this Fort, I've had seven of my Dwarves die... usually in rather silly ways. But whenever I build coffins and set them up to be used for burial, they always  fill up right away, with Dwarves (?) that I've never heard of. Some rather strange names, too... elven names, goblin names, human names and dwarven names, all of them listed as "So-and-So, Peasant".

I'm up to about twenty-five filled coffins so far... only a handful of which actually contain the remains of MY Dwarves.

WTF is going on?

Before you ask... I have NOT been killing any elves or humans. Only Goblins and Kobolds.

Your fortress sounds like a sweet embark spot.

A 6x6 area, 108 above-ground levels of rock (plus the usual extra 15 levels above and below that, 138 levels total); Pools that freeze solid during the winter; a Magma vent at the surface; huge numbers of trees; soil, volcanic and plutonic rocks; contact with all the Civs; HFS; and (presumably) an underground river for Tower-Cap farming and a buried Chasm, although I haven't yet found either one.

No sand, no flux, and very little Iron Ore... although I've been mining more "Goblinite" (Steel weapons and armor brought onto the map by Goblins, confiscated and melted down) than I can find a use for.

AAARRRGH!... :mad: ... I cannot BELIEVE that it took me this long to figure out how to fill an indoor well properly!

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad: :rofl:

First, I'll explain the situation: I'm playing on my "Rocky Spire" map, which has one big disadvantage... it has no surface water except Ponds (which freeze solid in the winter), and it's so friggin' HUGE that I haven't yet found my underground river. It's hidden somewhere deep inside my 123 levels of stone.

... so any injured Dwarves are always in danger of dying of dehydration during the winter, when the Ponds are frozen solid. Eventually, I intend to channel Magma to a spot just underneath one of the Ponds, to keep it heated during the winter. EVENTUALLY, I may even find that mythical underground river.

But none of that helps me at the present moment.

As a stop-gap (Plan A), I decided to build a "dry" well indoors, designate it as a Pond/Pit, and have my Dwarves fill it up during the summer (by bucket-brigade from the nearest Pond), and then use it as an emergency water source (for treating the wounded) during the winter.

This didn't work. :mad:

The well filled very slowly, never getting deeper than 3/7, partly due to the fact that as each bucket-brigade Dwarf dumped in some water, he would just negligently toss the bucket down next to the well instead of putting it back in the Furniture stockpile... so the next Dwarf to draw bucket-brigade duty couldn't FIND the damn bucket, and would just cancel the order and do something else.

So (Plan B), I made a whole CRAP-LOAD of buckets.

This also didn't work...:mad: ... I just ended up with a whole crap-load of abandoned buckets lying next to my well, while my bucket-brigade Dwarves wandered off to find other duties.

So (Plan C), I cleverly designated all of the tiles adjacent to the well as a Furniture stockpile which holds only buckets... that way, when one of my stupid bucket-brigade Dwarves pours in some water and negligently tosses the bucket aside... it automatically lands back in the stockpile!

This ALSO didn't work... the water level in the well still never rose above 3/7, and I was at my wit's end trying to figure out why.

Then it finally hit me... FACEPALM!

As soon as the water level reaches 3/7, the well becomes usable... and at that point, instead of hiking outside to get water to pour into the well, my insane Dwarves were simply drawing water OUT OF THE WELL, and pouring it back in... then happily tossing the bucket aside, satisfied with a job well done.

AAARRRGH! :mad:

... so (Plan D), I used 't' to access the well's components, forbid them all with 'f', and sat back to watch. In less than a minute, my well was filling smoothly towards the 7/7 mark.

Two reasons:

1) Soldiers will spar with weapons only if their opponent holds a similar weapon. Otherwise, they will wrestle. Try equipping everyone with the same weapon, or setting them off-duty by weapon-type (ie: all Hammerdwarves off-duty at the same time, while Wrestlers and AxeDwarves are on-duty).

2) Check their hands. If they are holding anything in their hands in addition to their weapon, they will Wrestle instead of training their weapon. This also applies to Crossbowdwarves. Mark the extraneous objects for dumping.

Anyway to make everyone do something constantly? So they aren't idle?

You need to assign them useful jobs.

Press 'u' to get a list of your Dwarves. Select a Dwarf with the up-and-down arrows, and press 'c'. Then press 'p' and then 'l' to go to their Labor preferences. Use '+', '-', '*' and '/' to page through their Labor settings, and use <enter> to turn labors on and off.

If you need more Miners, make a few Picks and enable Mining labor on some Dwarves. If you need more Wood, make a few Axes and enable Woodcutting. Build more Workshops if you needs more Carpenters, Masons or Craftdwarves.