Bay 12 Games Forum

I generally don't give any dwarf lumberjack or herbalist on embark.  Instead, I make 2 axe dwarves with lots of dodge and they get to be my outdoor dwaves (cut trees, pick berries).  If they happen to run into an ambush, at least they have a weapon and they have prebuild dodge.  As long as it isn't a ranged attack ambush they usually do ok.

I believe that unarmed fighter will tend to try what they are best at.  So, if you start with kickers they would keep kicking.  Bah, now you have me wanting to build a fort to verify what kickers do against danger rooms...

I try to design so that there are no loops (ie, 2 ways to get somewhere).  Also, each hallway usually has a single endpoint - IE, most dwarves don't need to go someplace so they don't run into each other. The 3x3 stairway I use liberally, and will look for other bottlenecks to reduce congestion.  Definitely seal stuff off.  Also, try to limit the number of LARGE rooms the lead somewhere (they are seen as BIG hallways).  In fact, I think long skinny rooms are superior in most cases, but haven't tried to prove it.
One other thing, I avoid playing on my desktop... for some reason, the laptop with slower CPUs spins a much higher FPS.

Regarding the gathering, since there is a stock pile option for eggs, I assumed that removing that entry would allow the dwarves to leave the eggs alone (other than for eating directly).

When you set panic mode, do you use <enter> or <shift>-<enter> ?  As I recall, one is supposed to say "stay in current role" while the other says "become civilian"... note, I could be wrong

For my military, I went the route of
     Each Squad is active 100% of the time - once in the military you never get out.  Each Squad is placed in a Danger room in a strategic location (say right beside the front door).  However, only about 30% of the squad is required at any time, so people get time off to eat/drink/be lazy.  With this approach, I haven't listened to a single compliant

Oh, burrows and smelters don't mix.  Good to know (I had the same issue last night and I did have a "all underground" burrow setup. I wonder if it is because the bars were all in the smelter still, while the flux wasn't.  HHmm... might have to do a little science.

I second Paint.NET (I use it quite a bit over on GiTP).

For ideas, just read a few other threads in the forums.  For example "Combat effectiveness of cave spider silk socks", I mean that is screaming "draw me!!!!".