Bay 12 Games Forum

I've successfully used the "have someone start to fill pond" workaround, though there may be some luck involved.

First of all, I have a well, not a river.  (I try to make that a priority in year 1.)  So, the wannabe doctor is sitting at the well with a bucket and a confused look in his stony little eyes.  When I designate a pond zone and some other dwarf grabs another bucket, he's going to come to the well.  I can watch the well, and see him get there, and then run off with a bucket full of water, and he's right next to the doctor.  Pause, forbid (or dump?) the doctor's bucket, de-zone the pond.  The pond-filler drops the bucket, and the doctor should pick it up.  I've only done it a couple times, but it has worked.

Second of all, I have spare buckets.  They're just one tree apiece -- not a big deal for my embarks.

Third of all, um... OK, there is no third.

Stonefall traps do almost nothing in 0.31.x  In fact, I'd even say stonefall traps are worse than no trap at all, because as soon as the rock plinks off the side of the beastie that triggered it, some unarmored civilian is going to charge straight to the trap to reset it.  And you won't be warned that he's doing this.  And he'll get eaten.

Cage traps are good.  Albeit cheesy.

Weapon traps are a nice middle ground between wide open "come kill me, goblins!" and super-munchkin cheesy "nothing can get in -- it all gets caged".  Just my opinion.

The problem with weapon traps at your stage of the game is a shortage of weapons to put in them.  You want weapons for your military first, and maybe for hunters if you're hunting.  Without a magma smelter & forge or a good supply of trees, you simply won't have enough weapons to set up many traps at all.

Another alternative to a trapped entrance is a drawbridge.  Basically, you have a single narrow entrance (either through native stone, or by building walls around your entrance).  Then you build a bridge which can be raised or lowered, in such a way that when it's raised it walls off the cave.  Then you construct a lever somewhere in your fort where lots of civilians are going to be hanging out, and link it to the bridge.  You can keep yourself walled in until migrants or traders arrive.

Note that if you do have goblin neighbors, they like to send ambush squads to coincide with the arrival of caravans.  Usually more than one squad at a time.  So, when you're about to lower the drawbridge, you might want to have your own military in position first.

I imagine whoever got tasked with recover wounded is busy doing other things.

In my case, there was no wounded dwarf.  The only task to be performed at that point was "Place Item in Tomb".

(And in case it wasn't clear, "The broker" and "Litast Egastlitast, Miner" were the same dwarf.  Upon death, the position of broker became unfilled, so Litast reverted to the other title of Miner in between the last two lines of output.)

I appear to be doing it wrong.

The spinning *menacing tower-cap spike* strikes The broker in the head, tearing the muscle, jamming
the skull through the brain and tearing the brain!
The broker has been knocked unconscious!
Litast Egastlitast, Miner has been impaled on spikes.
 

My one-hand-chopped-off, t'other-arm-nerve-damaged dwarf won't engrave.  I'm hoping he can perform a Diagnosis, or act as a Manager or something.

It would be nice if he'd learn to pick up his damned socks with his teeth, so I'd stop getting spammed with "Urist McUseless cancels Store Owned Item: Too injured".

Edit: Urist McUseless cancels Manage Work Order: Too injured.
Urist McUseless cancels Update Stockpile Records: Too injured.

The topic says arrows.  You really don't want arrows, I hope.  You want bolts.

Wooden bolts are fine for that first round of hunting.  You get 25 per tree, and a possible quality boost (based on Woodcrafting skill, I think).  Once you've killed something and butchered it, you can make bone bolts -- hopefully, more bolts than it takes to kill the next animal.  There's a huge variance in the number of bolts you'll fire into something before you finally get a brain shot to kill it.  I've seen one-bolt kills before, and I've seen animals take a full quiver and then lie there in pain while the hunter goes back to the fortress for more.

Hunting is certainly viable right from embark.  It just takes a bit of persistence and luck.

Hmm... how weird.  I've never needed an overlapping barracks/archery range combo room.  Apparently there are still some issues with military ammo allocation that I still don't understand.

I found that fertilizing goes through trees much too quickly for my taste.  It's something like one entire tree per season for every 3-4 squares of farm, IIRC, or worse if your plots aren't just the right size.

On the subject of booze, having your booze spread out across multiple barrels is actually a good thing, up to a certain point.  You could have 20 dwarves and 20 units of booze and lose some of them to dehydration.  Why?  Because if those 20 units of booze are all in one barrel, only one dwarf at a time can drink it.  And they take their time when they're having a drink.  But if the booze is spread out in 4 barrels of 5 units each, then 4 dwarves at a time can have a drink.  (There's also the variety factor.)

Of course, this is mostly a concern in younger forts, where you don't have thousands of units of booze stockpiled yet.  Those first couple years can be touch and go sometimes.  In mature forts, I agree that having fuller barrels is a good thing.