Bay 12 Games Forum

EDIT:
Here we go. Only took about an hour in MSPaint.

Here's mine:

In general, the magma level won't go above the "median" level for the map; if it's mostly flat, that'll be whatever z-level has the most ground area. This usually isn't a big concern unless you're looking to build an above-ground fortress and want to plant your magma furnaces/forges/smelters right in the caldera, which I've done a few times. The rock around the volcano is just the result of the volcano being placed in the middle of a large mountain or hill.

It's not a bug, more of a feature. I think it's a nice one; lets your sacrificial victims see their doom rushing up to them for a couple seconds before they feel Armok's embrace.

...You do throw sacrifices in the volcano for Armok, don't you?

One of my favorite new pastimes, the idea first given to me by my own Labouredcontrolled's coin-crazy Duke, is a vault with commemorative coins for each year of the fort, made out of whatever metal you have spare at the time. Once a vault is full (don't use bins, so all those lovely coins are on display!), seal it with a floodgate, and dig out another. Few things as dwarfy as rooms full of treasure!

I would do this, but I'm too branded by D&D not to want to put a dragon in there too.

"Yeah, that's Smokey. He came around about two years ago, wanting a fight and all, but then he saw the coin vault and just walked in, sat down and told us to close the damned door. We toss a goblin in there every couple of weeks. Haven't had a problem with kobolds ever since!"

In the interest of avoiding commentary without contribution, I've lined main corridors with channels of magma, all feeding from a central "hub" that forms the center of the fortress. Smaller hallways don't need to be decorated such, as they'd make getting about difficult, but any hallway 3 wide or more had it. Even saved my fort from a giantess attack when the giantess went to dodge a fisherdwarf's feeble kick and fell into the trench to burn to a crisp. The idea came from Dragon Age: Origins, from the channels of lava lining the Deep Roads.

Thanks for all the kind replies. I will try designating the well as a water source only, and not as a meeting hall. The explanation that various animals and dwarves are scuffling seems the most reasonable, though I didn't have the foresight to check the announcements to see if any combat had occurred. There was blood in the water on more than one occasion, so that is a telltale sign.

Thank you also for the explanation of burrows. I didn't realize that they could go through multiple Z levels in this manner, so this makes things a lot better.

I'm sort of bummed out about combat changes. I mean, it's nice to have more realism, but it was hilarious to be able to have maniacal champions rending anything and everything apart with their bare hands. Now I need to worry about, you know, making weapons and stuff...

Yeah, what was happening was your animals were getting antsy from being forced into being close together, so they start attacking whatever's around them; your dwarves were dodging away in response, into the well. Animals usually don't do too much damage, though I've had some livestock deaths from cramped pens.

Don't bum too much about the need for weaponry and such now. They add a lot of versatility to your force, and there's some strategy involved, which is always fun (blunt weapons against armor, sharp against flesh, etc.) Some Forgotten Beasts are also fragile enough to be punched apart by civilians due to the material they're made of, such as fire, salt, water or ash.

As Lytha said, you have to block off the flow from the aquifer. That means stopping all surfaces that can produce water from doing so, either by smoothing (in the case of stones such as claystone) or constructing walls in front of the water-producing ones. Remember that natural ceilings within the aquifer layer will also produce water into a square, so you'll do best to make your way down in an inverted pyramid shape. Try to figure how many layers there are to the aquifer, and use that to figure how big the first pit should be.

I would love to see flooding come about again. It would wreak havoc on above-ground forts sitting next to rivers. Tornadoes sound like they could have potential. Lightning, if done with any realism, would be too unpredictable and processor-heavy to be worth simulating.

When I went out to college, I got into Dungeons and Dragons (big surprise!), and when I joined the gaming club there, I met a man everyone called Canada. When I first met him, the only word that went across my mind was "dwarf!", because he stood about 5 foot even, had curly reddish brown hair and a great, well-kept beard. Getting to know him didn't change the impression, because he had quite a taste for beer, roleplayed a dwarven cleric of Pelor very well, and toward the end of that semester, shaved his head bald while keeping the beard, which only served to reinforce the look.

Can you see it with 'q'? That is , hit 'q' to query the building, move the marker to the bed, and see if you can "destroy building" on it with 'x'.