Bay 12 Games Forum

Mason/mechanic/carpenter/hunter/farmer/farm processor.

I call them Braceros.

Just set a dining hall from a table. They need food, too. And your convenient hospital well, of course. And prison wells.

I usually neglect farming, but my current fort has HUGE farms. I have all three kitchens set to make the highest quality food, all three stills set to brew drink, six farmers workshops set to process plants, six querns set to mill plants... Oddly enough, the system was inefficient with specialized workers, so I said screw it and set 30 dorfs to be builders/haulers/farmers. Had no problem ever since, though I did have to forbid seeds and drinks from being cooked.


By the way, I would suggest weapon traps behind your front doors and a few cages, on the off chance that intruders get in. Or just set up the Dwarven CCC: Civilian Crossbow Corps. What they lack in aim, they make up for in enthusiasm.

In (almost) every fort, there is THE LEVER.

THE LEVER is connected to every bridge, floodgate, mechanism, and anything designed to keep things in or out that is not a door. THE LEVER also has a few other things that may happen as a result of being pulled. Sometimes, the booze stockpile gets dropped into the caverns.

Sometimes, the zoo and arena get released.

Every now and then, an innocent hole in the middle of the dining room gets turned into a magma fountain. Occasionally, a pump stack turns on and the waterfall becomes too fast to drain.  There are times when only source of water becomes mixed with forgotten beast extracts, while the dining room closes, emergency tantrum weapon stockpiles open, and outdoor weapon caches open up for everyone stuck outside to go on a grand, suicidal charge into the face of the enemy become personalized organic ammunition storage.

Only once have I ever attempted to cast the entire inside of my fort in obsidian. It didn't work, but the resulting pattern of lava | obsidian with pockets of lava, water, and random corpses | water was rather aesthetically pleasing.

It's more of an "up yours" lever on the chance that the fort were to fall. If the fort is to go down, it will go down in as dwarvenly of a way as possible, take as many invaders with it as possible, and make it impossible for anyone but dwarves to reclaim.

Solar. Wind. Hemp, or just biofuel in general. Tidal power. Geothermal power.

All of these are renewable. We should do them.

Not nuclear power. Too many problems. Even if you trust computers and people enough to where a meltdown is impossible (and I trust neither), you're forgetting acts of God and sheer human incompetence. Like, say, building a reactor on a fault line. Not to mention storage of waste, getting the stuff out of the ground, the inevitable cancer that occurs as a result, inevitable accidents from transport and storage, terrorism, etc, etc. Not to mention: non-renewable resource.

Call me irrational all you like; I surf right next to San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

Buy ore, smelt ore, build weapon at forge. I usually embark with 3 units of cassiterite and 3 of bismthinite, and typically dig for 6 copper units. Smelt everything to bars, then smelt them into bismuth bronze. That will give you a LOT of metal: 1 tin + 2 copper + 1 bismuth = 4 bismuth bronze bars. Triple that, and you've got weapon, mail shirt, boots, and chain leggings for 3 dorfs. Also, bring iron ore, fuel, and flux. Enough for ONE bar per military dorf. Turn it into steel helms.

OR get wood, build crossbow at bowyer's workshop, make bolts at craftdorf shop. Draft everyone in 10 man squads, give them crossbows and quivers.

Also: when you embark, make your military dorf a Proficient Teacher and Proficient Dodge OR a weapon skill. Maybe 2 teachers, one with dodge and one with a weapon skill. They will POWERLEVEL together.

Well, I'm stealing some ideas, here. I'm gonna re-organize my military - 3/4 of the year training, 1/4 working pumps. My reservist force is gonna be the opposite
Incidentally, every dorf gets a steel helm. I'd prefer them to not die of smashed skulls. Every military dorf gets chain, leggings, helm, cap, high boots, socks, cloak, and gauntlets. My best soldiers have steel breastplates, but I lack flux stone to make steel.

My 40-strong Bracero force (as in, farmer/builder) usually has Hunting enabled. All my other non-uniformed dorfs are in 10 man inactive crossbow/leather armor squads, although I am considering taking every unskilled un-uniformed dorf and making them cannon fodder.

I also once had a standard Sword/Board Civilian Squad. It was awe-inspiring.

Oh, okay. Thanks.

you need to dig a shaft from the chamber which powers the waterwheels horizontally to the map edge, and carve a fortification and let it flow off the map edge.

Similar problem.

How? I can't designate the edge of the map to be carved... am I just stuck with having a MASSIVE underground power plant or going with windmills?