Bay 12 Games Forum

I'm currently building an elaborate tree farm. First I dug out the rooms, flooded them, and drained them. Then I cleared the rocks and smoothed a grid of walkways, removing the mud (towercaps and trees never grow adjacent to each other). Then I restrict the traffic where the towercaps will grow and make the paths high traffic. Once it's all built I plan on tapping the underground river; I'm waiting because flooded rooms tend to lead to dead shrubs that take forever to go away. Once shrubs start growing I'll have my woodworkers clear them to maximize towercap density.

Make more barrels. Remember you can build them out of metal too. Every fort I've made has had some veins of ore I don't really need, like tin or nickel. These are perfect substitutes for wood if you have a magma forge/smelter or an excess of coal.

there was a form of it in the AD&D Dark Elves (Drow) of RA Salvatore's novels, not sure if the Grey Dwarves (Duergar) also suffered from it, but they were residents of the same Underdark and it seems likely they would.

Drow aren't dwarves. According to the actual game, duergar do not suffer from cave adaption (neither do drow).

I turn cave adaption off in the raws because:

1. Glass ceilings don't prevent it, which would be the only elegant way of dealing with it. I don't want holes in my fortress.
2. I've never heard of such a thing in any fantasy mythology, so it is not keeping with the dwarven theme. Dwarves are supposed to be tough and resilient.
3. It's a pain in the ass that doesn't make the game more fun.

If you agree with my opinions, I encourage you to turn off cave adaption.

I have never had a corrupted save from ctrl alt del. Maybe this was a problem in past versions, but not now.

As for the "spirit of the game", nothing is stopping you from playing through stupid mistakes and bugs while players like Karnewarrior and I restart. Allowing a quit without saving option would not prevent you from playing in hardcore mode if you find that enjoyable. I play games for my idea of fun, not someone else's.

I haven't experienced these problems, but similar problems are often due to something minor that you overlooked. Maybe your (o)rders are set to ignore food, or maybe your haulers are busy doing something else. Maybe you didn't buy as much food and booze as you thought and they ate it all. You might of changed your init pop cap and forgot to save, or you mistakenly changed the wrong number (like the baby cap).

1. What exactly determines how likely it is for a creature to escape while being transferred from a cage (to pit or another cage)? In my recent fortress I have yet to experience a single orc or terrifying goblin escaping their handler, even when the handler gets spooked and spends 2 seasons wondering around the map dragging them behind (an entire orc squad and goblin ambush was basically being walked around the surface until I fixed the view to my pit).

I haven't had a problem throwing orcs into my archery pit either. It could be a relic from an earlier version that people assume still happens. I do cross train all of my dwarves to proficient wrestling, so that might factor in.

2. Can creatures break out of cages? I just had a terrifying goblin thief and a wrestler presumably break out of their cages sitting in my stockpile, as there is no way they walked to that area (cage traps and military on duty at entrance). I'm also missing the only goblin thief I've cage trapped, so I'm fairly certain he was the one I had in my stockpile, and its been a couple seasons since my last goblin ambush.

The only way I know how this could happen is fire snakes (this doomed one of my earlier forts). If your cages are wooden and near a magma pipe or pool, they'll spawn near by no matter what you do. I always import my magma from a safe distance via pumps and tunnels.