Bay 12 Games Forum

Can you fill a created cavern and fish it for cave fish and lobster?

Very easy way to trade with caravans: create spiked balls for traps, even copper average quality unit costs around 1000, steel masterwork can worth even 10000 IIRC, build few in few seconds, and sell the happy hippies/dwarves/humans for half of their caravan, and no 9000 crafts left and right anymore

Yeah, sure, for the second year. But this first year my smelters and forge are focused entirely on steel armor and weapon production, getting my first squad equipped and I don't really need to trade for anything, since the fort is already self sufficient. Plus, I think early high value exports make a fort grow too quickly and attract too much attention, but I may be imagining things. The RNG in this game can play tricks on the mind.

First year trading should be many small value items to train your broker, IMHO. And normally, that would be cheap stone crafts for meat, but with all that obsidian laying around, rock swords sounded too tempting and you don't get multiples of those, so fewer things to trade. Thus, the fox cage and ensuing hilarity. I did queue up Yakkity Sax, because I had to form up a militia on the spot, and watch them chase it around until they cornered it and wrestled it to death. All the while, dwarfs canceling jobs left and right, "Eeek! It are A FOX!"

New fort, first trade caravan, I've been focused on fort-building, making defenses, and getting my steel industry going. Nothing much to trade, though, and I don't want to get rid of my cut gems, they are for encrusting. Okay, we can foist off the low quality obsidian swords, and hey what's this? A fox cage? I caught a fox? Okay, sell that sucker!

"Urist McJustabouteverybody interrupted by fox."

No selling untamed animals?

I think I just figured out a way to let a bunch of things loose at once, hehe. Stockpile all the wildlife you want slaughtered near your militia and when the next trade caravan comes, move all the cages to the depot. Play "Yakkity Sax" during the ensuing chaos, as civilians run screaming from the terrifying deer, bolts fly in every direction, and wrestlers bite the heads off of raccoons.

Also, the skill increase is per trade. Many small trades will raise your trader's skill quickly. If you produce many small value items, like stone crafts, and they have many small value items, like wood, you can easily train up a novice to the point that they have functional trading skills in one trade session. IIRC it takes about 30-40 individual trades, but YMMV depending on the dwarf's characteristics. Set your depot to 'anyone may trade' to train up some replacements in case your broker gets himself killed. Set your trade agreement to emphasize logs the first fall, then next year, trade one cheap stone item at a time for logs, repeat until your current trader can read their intent.

Goblin ambushes have been a pain in my arse since day one (which was back in 40d). Is there some way to turn off the ambushers in the settings? Forgotton beasts, titans, cave monsters, sieges, fine, I need something to fight after all, but the ambushers taking out migrants and lagging my game is downright bothersome.

Pick an embark location with no goblins. You won't get any sieges until you decide to piss someone off, though. Or, pick a location far from goblins, and where you are not actually at war with them. I get about one ambush a year with my current fort. My civ has been at peace with everyone for six hundred years, and my fort is half a map away from goblins. If you are at war with them, you will get LOTS of attacks.

Already got the slab built. Pretty sure the parent was ecstatic before this, they are fine now. Good to know dwarfs don't mind a few baby chunks in their water. The croc is worrying me, though. They can't attack or move through brook floor, can they? My squads got one that went for the inlet, where there is a slope down, but walked right over this guy. He's going to bide his time and pop up right in the middle of a party or something, won't he? I'm going to have to seal up my cistern and build a new one with a fortified inlet. Good thing I left two z-levels free for plumbing. Yay for halfway sort of thinking ahead. Protect your water inlets, folks, or eventually suffer baby eating cave crocs popping up out of your wells. Grah!

Is there a way to make a squad particularly focus on one combat skill? Specifically, biting?

I dunno, but I just saw a wrestler bite a kobold's head off. More specifically, he bit the kobold on the head, then shook him. His body flew off, leaving the kobold's head in the dwarf's mouth. So, biting, yeah. Pretty cool.

Is it worth it to make and layer under armor?