Bay 12 Games Forum

How do I bury deceased human caravan guards?  (Goblins got em, not me; I like humans, they bring me leather and timber.)  I have built coffins, designated for burial use, some for and some not for citizens, idlers have the burial labor enabled, dwarfs are allowed to gather bodies and allowed to gather refuse from outside, (and in fact did bury a dorf struck down outside) and still nothing happens.

So I've been churning out roasts to deal with a food explosion.  I started with barrels disabled in prepared food stockpiles but allowed a few when I ran out of room.  And I noticed for the first time in the trading screen I had a prepared food pot (bismuth bronze, large) with a trade value of $230,693.  It's an imported pot with a base value of $60 and 12 1/2 pages of high quality roasts listed in the contents.  This one food pot apparently accounts for one fifth of my fortress's entire created wealth.  I'd never previously seen a food barrel go over ten items, but maybe I've just led a sheltered life.

Anyway, trade it away, or keep it, or does it matter much?  I'm okay with more immigrants, and I'm also okay with trader profit, but if I understand the wiki there's a trade-off between trader profit driving next year's caravan and kept created wealth driving immigration, correct?

I've been blessed with one of the infamous artifact blowguns, and I'm wondering how best to use it.  I know about the weapon trap option but I'd like more.  Is there a way to edit in production of blowdarts?

Alternately I'm considering using it as a training weapon for a swordsdwarf to beat a goblin with, but I'm still confused by weapon stats and I'm curious as to whether it's better or worse than a simple training sword in melee.

I leave recruits on duty/training continuously for at least the first year, or until they hit novice.  They get the one unhappy thought (long patrol), but avoid the other (drafted).  Combined with a legendary dining room and decent individual bedrooms they usually stay happy, even with the "angry over long patrol" thought in the mix, as long as they're not under other pressures.  Also consider an artifact weapon trap, high-value statue, or caged creatures near the barracks entrance where they have to see it.

Alternatively, the wiki says you can create a squad, leave it inactive/off duty but assign weapons and set uniform to be used off-duty, and the squad members will eventually try out individual drills with their weapons till they hit novice when you can activate them.  It sounds like it relies on starting early and I haven't tried it myself, but I may be missing out by not using it.

Stone detailing is one good labor choice for unskilled peasants before drafting them.  Just have them smooth stone until they're a novice so they have a civilian job.

I'll mention in passing I've seen a 2 months on/1 month off rotation recommended.  I haven't compared enough to recommend from personal experience.

One other thing to do is keep an eye on plump helmet stocks through [z], then kitchen, and when they start to get low turn off the cook option, to leave them for your brewer.

Are these peasants only?  They're slower figuring things out on their own.  Consider embarking with something like a teacher 4 - fighter 3 - dodger 3, turning on woodcutting or mining (probably mining) until you need him, then making him the captain when drafting the peasants.  You'll have to turn off woodcutting and mining before you draft him though, it's buggy if those are active on military dorfs.  Similarly, if you do luck into any skilled military immigrants mix those into the unskilled squads.

If I understand Darkweave's post, he's starting a small squad by the end of the second season, correct?  And presumably splitting it later to captain new squads?  Do you start with skilled dorfs, or does that timeline work even with peasants?

You could edit their raw to include [TRAINABLE] and make War Tigermen.