Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: Africa on August 02, 2010, 12:54:22 pm

How DO you make your civilian woodcutters hold onto their axes when drafted? In my experience there is no correlation between whether I assign them to have axes or not, and whether they drop their axes on the ground or not.

Short answer:  You don't.  At least, I haven't figured out how to.  But it's fun to watch a naked woodcutter try to wrestle to death a werewolf that has forsaken its claws in favor of a pigtail glove taken from its first victim.  (They went on and on in a total stalemate for several minutes, until the werewolf eventually used up its migrating-through-the-map time and ambled offscreen.)

It's part of the Fun.

I've found that Axes get claimed for either woodcutting or military, but not both. So if you want to have your woodcutter join the military, you must first disable woodcutting, causing him to drop his axe. Then, draft him, and he'll pick up his axe and go slaughter things. Once that's done, you have to remove axes from his squad so that he'll drop the axe again, then return him to civilian duty and enable woodcutting.

Yeah, its a pain in the butt. I find it helps to either A) avoid this rigmarole by cutting down a bunch of nearby trees at the start and then disable woodcutting/assign squad axes in order to have your military dwarf do his other duties while carrying an axe he won't drop, or to B) make a weapon stockpile near your dwarf when making him drop the axe so he doesn't gallivant off-screen and aggro while his axe is on a random mountainside.

My fortress is now in chaos. Nobody has had a meal or drink since Insurrection Day, nobody has been able to rest, several dwarves are dead, and as a result many more are miserable. The job cancellation spam is horrendous, the militia commander is tantruming through the dining hall, various members of the coup are passed out around the fortress either from exhaustion, wounds, or both, and nobody can get anywhere. Clouds of miasma obscure everything, and contribute to the foul moods. Although there are only 12 reported dead, the entire fortress has ground to a halt. Since the only pick is now lodged in my expedition leader, nobody has been able to dig away from the madness. Attempts to divide the fortress using burrows have failed. The lever that should be releasing the emergency floodgates to drown the fortress was destroyed by a tantruming dwarf, and so the Final Solution has failed. FPS has failed. Hope has failed. All has failed.


Some of the conspirators are finally dying where they lay as I type this, but the tantrum spiral is worsening. The militia commander just went insane (but not berserk), and the Metalsmith apparently killed her husband along with her child, and is now on the verge of tantrum. In fact, a cursory glance of the fortress reveals that all my dwarves are miserable with the exception of 6 dwarves who managed to haul themselves to the hospital. Those 6 are starving and dying of thirst, as nobody can bring them food past the Bone Carver, who in turn has lost the ability to stand and move from his position inside the hospital.

In lieu of watching the grisly, but predictable end, I shall elect to abandon now and go to sleep.

As far as loyalty goes, I have observed confusing and contradictory loyalty shifts that ripple beyond the initial culprits. I think the civilians may be becoming enemies of the parent civ or fortress gov after killing rebellious dwarves, causing a chain reaction. Further research is needed, and I plan to establish a small controlled fortress to note and log loyalty shifts in detail, instead of a random mass of flailing axes, hammers, and swords.

Long story short, killing your liason is FUN.

Oh Armok, those war dogs may be a death sentence. Apparently, the loyalties of the war dogs extend beyond merely their owner, as the shambling jerking killing spree of my Jeweler was cut short by a swarm of war dogs. The weaponsmith finished his fight with the baby but immediately followed up with a scrap with the Cheesemaker. The Miner was killed by a novice mason with no other significant skills, and the Fisherdwarf has managed to slaughter 4 loyalists and a wardog.

I'm still able to assign labors, but I'm having trouble telling whether they are being carried out since everybody is being mobbed by dwarves/dogs. The Militia Commander, after cleaning himself, is rather insistently attempting to have a meeting with the expedition leader, but can't get past the children who are trying to get to the well.

I have reached the limits of what anal probing my current fortress can teach me, as it was built as a prototype and experiment. It is fitting that the pursuit of Science! for which it was created be the cause of its undoing.

As we speak, I gather the 10 most valuable and most deadly dwarves of Neogorge, training them into an elite fighting squad with the sole purpose of overthrowing the Basements of Flooding in Neogorge, and ultimately, form a new government independent of the Arch of Wires and its oppressive king. My friends, I give you Neogorge's Ten:

Thob Roughnessintense, Militia Commander. She is the sole trained fighter of Neogorge, as well as the leader of a swarm of wardogs, and Legendary Woodcutter.

Kivish Tombrhymed, Legendary Miner. Neogorge is his sole child, wrought from his solitary 2 year efforts. Her only friend is her pet wardog and her goddess, Uker, patron of the seasons Kivish has never experienced.

Mebzuth Murderlabor, Expedition Leader. His vision brought the dwarves to this land, and his vision will see them free of the corrupt Monarchy.

Etur Hushedpaddle, Glassmaker. She has been instrumental in creating the wealth of Neogorge, and bears testament to the effectiveness of the 200+ sand bag embark strategy. She also has the most friends of any dwarf in this list, and as such is most likely to go insane after the coup.

Sazir Stableguild, Legendary Bonecarver. Her artifact bone greaves will be put to bloody use in the coming days, and her supply of bone helms, greaves, and armor are the only protection the Fortress has.

Urvad Finderwhip, Chief Medical Dwarf. Her skills will be absolutely necessary to see the revolutionaries safe and hale through to the next Dwarven Caravan.

Asmul Braidlenses, Jeweler. He is one of the Founding Fathers of Neogorge, and is close friends with the Medic, the Expedition Leader, and the Glassmaker.

Alath Paintedbraid, Metalsmith. She has not had the opportunity to utilize her weapon and armor smithing skills, but the recent tapping of the magma sea promises to greatly enhance her utility to the fortress.

onul Lancechances, Fisherdwarf. She has kept the fortress fed with her talents, but in the coming days she shall be a fisher of lives in a river of blood.

erith Townday, Soap Maker. Despite having a terrible name and a terrible job, he is notably the greatest security the revolution has, for his real job is Mechanic. The nearly completed flooding traps, hatchways, and bridges that segment the fortress will be finished and expanded on at his direction.


These ten dwarves form the Salves of Labor, the squad that will topple an empire. With one short season remaining, they must hone their skills for the coming test.

You can have saves active in multiple world at once. So, Region 1 could have a fortress game going while Region 2 has an adventure mode and Region 3 is virgin and unspoiled. However, there is no way to have two fortresses or a fortress and an adventurer active in the same world at the same time.

The first question that came to my mind was whether you could use this to make the entire fortress the enemy of your parent civilization, thus opening the window for Dwarf Sieges, possibly lead by the king.

I think when I'm bored with this fortress I'll have the civilians all join the military, then collectively butcher dwarven caravans until I see a result!

He activates, but does not move from his hospital bed. If they did a little work on him he could easily join my other marksdwarves on the ramparts once again.

What does his health screen say? Is he awaiting medical treatment? If your chief medical dwarf or diagnostician is a lazy putz, he may just be waiting for the Health Care Machine to kick into action.

I think that rat_pack meant was that America started as a constitutional republic and ultimately shifted to a democratic republic, not that constitutional republics are things that America started.