Bay 12 Games Forum

Yup. Advanced world generation is all parameters. Check the wiki for a guide on using them.

What are you trying to get rid of the first layer for? Do you need more space above, or don't want to dig through multiple caverns for fun trees like tunnel tubes and goblin caps?

If it's the former, instead of removing the first cavern (which is hard to do without just removing them all), go into advanced generation (or worldgen.txt in the init folder) and raise the number next to the "ABOVE FIRST LAYER" parameter to the minimum number of levels you want before your first cavern layer.

Minerals, including ores, are now controlled by the SCARCITY parameter. The lower it is, the more minerals and ores you can find.

Sometimes dwarves are really quite silly.

That said, your dwarves would have fared better against the iron boltstorm with shields, and decent skill in them. The material doesn't matter; copper is suggested for its weight to improve damage with bashes. Marksdwarves do better with a perch one z-level above their targets, behind fortifications; it keeps them from wanting to run out and club goblins instead of shooting them.

The name of the individual is on the combat log list (the first menu opened when you hit 'r'), and only combat involving that individual is shown; that is, any attacks that individual made, and any that were made against that individual. I can usually piece together who did what to what beastie by first checking the beast's log, finding out how it went, then piecing it together using the other logs.

If you want it to be easier to read through, give your militia custom profession names that distinguish them (Spear1, Axe3, RedSword, etc). The combat reports won't be rewritten, but any following combat will use the new profession names. Custom professions can be done either by customizing the dwarf's name from it's specific unit screen ([either 'u'nits -> find the dwarf in question -> 'v'iew OR 'v'iew units -> find the dwarf on the map -> 'z' (Status)] -> 'y' (Customize) -> Customize 'p'rofession name) or by using DwarfTherapist, which is far faster.

Quote from: CapnUrist on May 06, 2011, 12:21:24 am

There are a few things you can do; one approach I once did was create the entrance to my fortress behind the waterfall, and create a machine to "turn off" the waterfall, by redirecting it to either side of the bridge instead of straight onto it. It made a lovely defensive curtain that washed goblins away as they tried to rush into the fortress.

Won't the dorfs get washed away because they saw a sock in the river or something??

or you won't use it for ambushing ambushes?

It was only opened for caravans and migrants, and then only when I felt like letting traffic through. Otherwise it was left splashing the bridge, in case of thieves or ambushes. No dwarves ever went for the clothing in the river, since there was no way to path to it.

Is there any cancellation messages, such as "Urist McCaptain cancels Pickup Equipment: Equipment mismatch" or similar?

It's not entirely broken, just severe. There are two ways dwarves become criminals: violating production orders (which is somewhat random, as no matter what the item mandated was, most of the time the dwarf selected to be punished will have no skills related to its production) and tantruming, which results in vandalism, building destruction, and fights. There are two possible punishments for crime in a fortress: beatings and imprisonment. If there is no where to imprison criminals, all sentencing reverts to beatings. Your sheriff or fortress guard will mete out justice however they can, with whatever they have on hand.

In order to make justice less lethal, you can do a few things. First of all, build a jail. The simplest jail is a room with some ropes, chains or cages in it, designated as a room from one of the cages/ropes, and set to be "used by justice". It's advised to keep your prisoners happy, since if they keep throwing tantrums, they'll never get out of prison. Therefore, since you want your prison to look nice, chains are the best choice, usually of some valuable material so the prisoners have something nice to admire. Adding beds, food and booze stockpiles, and even a chair and table can keep prisoners happy (and if your manager or bookkeeper get imprisoned, they can still work if there's a chair available). Even smoothing the walls and floors helps. With any sort of jail in place, your guard won't have to resort to corporal punishment all the time. (Things like murder and multiple offenses at once will still sometimes warrant a beating.)

Secondly, the cotton candy axe you've handed your guard captain was a death sentence for those dwarves. A warhammer of the same material is next to harmless, usually only bruising its victims. They'll heal quicker, and you won't have to worry about their friends getting upset and asking for a beating of their own.

What happened was those dwarves had been selected for punishment by a noble, probably your mayor, when you missed a couple mandates, or they had been tantruming and knocked something over. You can check the crimes your dwarves have committed, as well as any unfulfilled punishments that are lines up, by going to the status menu ('z') and opening the Justice menu. When you assigned a guard captain, he went out to deliver the punishments that had been long overdue.

I think another possible distinction between mega and style projects is that the style projects don't necessarily need to take up either types of time, or many resources. For me, a lot of them are simple "What would my dwarves enjoy?" type projects, or things that would be commonsense or practical in a real-world situation even without in-game value.

Such as: A fenced-in outdoor garden, with a pond with a small dock out onto it, and a smooth marble pavilion with tables and chairs underneath designated as a small dining room.  Practical use? Next-to-none. Difficulty/time of construction? Negligible. Character and flavor added to a fortress? A whole lot.

Maybe that's how I see the "style project": adding flavor and vibrancy to a fortress. I build style-projects for a fortress. I build a fortress for a megaproject.

I prefer this distinction as well. A megaproject is something you build for the Ozymandias effect: "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Style projects have more of a "Yeah, that would be nice" flavor, something that, while having no real benefit, gives the fortress life in your own eyes.