Bay 12 Games Forum

Zactly - Could you have forbidden it all, via the stocks menu?  Try <d, b, c> and see if it's highlighted.

Good call - if a dorf has issues, they'll follow your fortress leader around until they have their meeting, bitch and whine, and then feel better about it.  The sooner you can make that happen (by removing all other jobs from the leader), the sooner the whiner will get back to work.

I havent tried this yet, but couldnt the trees somehow, accidentially, been forbidden.

Can't forbid trees or shrubs, or animals, only portable objects apparently (and buildings, etc).

It seems that I can't embark on areas with chasms and oceans.

Not with a vanilla version of the game.

There are 3rd party utilities on the Wiki that can let you do it - "Embark Anywhere" or something like.  Look up "utilities".

If he's on break, he's hanging out at the meeting area.

Lessee...  let's go down the numbers...

He can get outside, so you don't have that Order set to "dwarfs stay inside" <o, i>.

The trees are highlighted <d, t>, and you can see them highlighted.  (And they're trees, not shrubs, of course.)  He has an axe in his hands, you can see it in <v, i>.  He has Wood Cutting selected (or he'd drop the axe.)

The trees aren't beyond his reach, over a chasm or something? You didn't raise the drawbridge to the entrance... (No, didn't think so...)

Hmmm...

He's an elf in disguise.  Get some magma.

Sorry, I got nuthin.  It sounds like a path problem, like he can't access them so he's ignoring them - but that's not what you're describing.

Try removing his Wood Cutting duty, and after he drops the axe (maybe threaten to make him mine, then abort), assign wood-cutting to someone else - see if they're any diff.

If they act the same, there's something blocking access to the trees - "what?", I have no idea from here.

(Unless, somehow, you Activated him to the military somehow? He'd still have an axe then, and possibly wander about a bit.  <v, p, A> )

Stone mugs weigh nothing (13?), and have value equivalent to any furniture.  They're great. 3 per stone crafted.  If they're a bit heavier than wood, they're also more valuable by far. 

  If you can find at least an economic stone (flux, value 2), and have a Proficient stonecrafter, you only need spend about 4 weeks to get enough (plus rejects from masons/etc) to trade.   If you can find/make obsidian (value 3), even better.  I regularly have my one crafter fire up less than a month before fall, and have ample to trade for 105% of what I want (meh, get the herring bone scepter, the silk mittens and that over-decorated barrel that costs 200 - have another 6 mugs, what do I care?)

With elves, it's even easier, because altho' they can carry less, they also have so little of significant value to trade in the first place.

(As for the forges, I usually dive into soil to carve out a temporary, ware-house quality shelter, and drive my miner up to Legendary before end of Spring.  About then, I'll dedicate a week to carve a 1-wide tunnel to the magma, tap it, and power some magma forges.  It seems like a death march when you start, but it's fast, and the payoff is HUGE in savings of wood cutting, wood hauling, and charcoal burning.

Then buy every iron anvil the dwarves have - often get 3 running by end of Fall.)

I put a large Restricted traffic area <d, o> around and towards my lake on the surface - no go! 

The area took some carving to get right (didn't want a rectangle), but they don't go anywhere near it unless they have very specific business, and then I take additional precautions.

Unpossible, aquifers hold infinite amounts of water. xP

Dispossible to drain, not to deal with.  There are several approaches, among them digging around, collapses and magma.  Aquifers can be a stone bitch (no pun intended).