Bay 12 Games Forum

IIRC, a peasant dwarf will walk one tile in ~800 steps. That one-step button doesn't help much.

Easy, but blunt, solution: go into matgloss_layer, and remove the AQUIFER tag from everything. Poof, no more aquifers. Personally, I've never missed them.

Building a floor or wall on a mined tile of mineral (anything that's not a layer) and removing it will change the tile to the layer. Good for getting rid of those hideous microcline bombs.

Death.

Yes, it is possible, but it's by no means simple. They'll still be afraid of water, due to the way "dangerous terrain" is coded (they won't drown, though, which is nice). I'm pretty sure the civ won't be able to occupy or travel over aquatic terrain, though.

I find the best results come from bringing skill you need IMMEDIATELY, rather than ones you'll need "someday." A Grower is almost mandatory if you expect to survive (the alternative is purchasing dozens of foodstuffs, and taking anything beyond a dozen turtles for moods is ostentatious if you ask me). If your embark area's top layer isn't pure soil, a Proficient Miner (or six) goes a long way toward getting your fort dug in a timely fashion. A good cook means you don't have to make nice dining rooms or bedrooms until you have spare labor, which makes the first year much more gentle. Bringing a skilled mason/architect, despite how easy it is to level masonry and how irrelevant architecture is early on, means you can throw up a respectable keep before the Orcs arrive (and real men play with the orc mod so they can break sieges with 7 dwarfs). If you're like me and you insist on bringing an anvil (my personal anecdotes give a 50/50 chance of the caravan bringing any anvils, even when requested for year 2, so I don't like to rely on them), bring a skilled armorsmith as well (you can always swing your hammer again, you don't get a second chance to roll damage resistance with crappy armor).

Do not, under any circumstances, spend points on furnace operator, wood burner, fish-anything, glassmaker, jeweler, or anything-crafting. The first three don't give quality, so if you've got the labor to spare for them, you've got the time to wait for them. Glassmakers get infinite training, since it's not worthwhile to make glass with coal. You're pretty much guaranteed to get gem cutters/setters in immigration waves, so just have them handle your precious stones. If you're going to make crafts, you're either meeting mandates (which don't care about quality) or you're making a million of them (and aren't short on raw materials, so you've got time to train the skill anyway). High-quality beds are overrated (compared to the room value from masonry, which is vastly easier to level), a peasant can handle Carpentry just fine.

Military skills are a far-out choice, if you're embarking to a dangerous area or are having trouble repelling the first wave of orcs. If you do decide to bring guards, make them dedicated. Give one or two dwarfs shield and weapon skills and bring appropriate equipment (cheapo leather armor, shields [not bucklers], and steel weaponry [ideally an axe, so he can take up wood cutting during quiet months]). Anything less is a waste of points.

They don't become stonecrafters or masons because they don't have those skills.