Bay 12 Games Forum

Yes that works for dodging cave adaptation, I used to skylight the meeting hall but flier defenses is a fun point to consider.  Easier just have a surface statue garden as meeting and then a proper indoor dining room for eating than cutting deep skylights.

Bees ought to work too though cant say i've done that.

Quote from: celem on August 13, 2014, 07:34:40 am

Building destroyer:

They cannot ever destroy something on the z above or below them, so locked hatches over ramps is a fine access, he cannot break the hatch from the ramp and minotaurs cant pick locks.

I thought that was "fixed".

Ok, I cant say either way then, I dont recall reading that though i've been away.  Possible, YMMV (Your Monster May Vanish)

Yeah eventually came some key info, was reading the thread waiting for people to touch general defense rather than pure military interface.

The general is the most important guy in the military, thats you.  If you dont pitch the battles your military will be curb-stomped all across the map day-in day-out.  Only total legend weaponlords are going to survive a foolish general, and then only sometimes.  The random nature of df combat means your candy-clad axelord can and will be skullbusted by a surprising range of targets given enough time.

(example:  ordering a squad that is training or off duty to kill an invader is poor play.  they will turn up in 1's and 2's in a string as they finish their tasks, take a piss, refill the waterskin and show up.  If the invader is any good he's gonna ruin your day.  Instead order the squad to station infront of the invader, get him to path to them.  Hopefully that way they gather and then suddenly he comes into sight, where their own nature takes over)

Control the movement of the hostiles, whether they come from cavern or surface.  Compartmentalizing the surface can allow you to handle traders/migrants during sieges.
Funnel into choke-points.  This is where the traps go and where the cross-fire should be.  You can also put a military squad where a chokepoint opens to try and get them numbers advantage, though they traditionally are pretty much a norse berserker once they see a hostile and pass from your control.  Dont ever, ever have your dwarves fighting on top of your traps.  If they black out for even a second they get hit by whatever they are standing on.

Learn how to train and equip them.  Much of that in first posts here.  Marksmen can be finicky to train effectively and deploy safely.  Some hints in my sig thread.

Dont over-estimate the military, commit them loosely and watch their numbers thin.  Only thing gonna keep your dwarves alive is you and your caution.
Be wary of over-extending them.  Pushing to meet an enemy far from your part of the map can end ugly if you find an ambush out there, you have no control.
Remember always that once they are engaged they are not listening to you anymore.  So you want all the fighting to go down in 1 go, extended conflicts, switching targets and tactical retreats are not dwarven concepts, dont be surprised if they wont obey an order until they cannot see a living hostile.

Cages is indeed a great solution.

Heads-up:  Dont build 1 cage and use it as your quantum chick pile.  Use a minimum of 3-4.  Reason being its the cage generates the jobs, not the animals.  So if you assign 40 chicks to 1 cage you get 1 dwarf who takes a month to wade about grabbing each little fuzzball.  3-4 cages results in 3-4 dwarves.  At the fps you get right after a hatching this makes a big deal.  (lol, they always hatch together, its a conspiracy by the avian population to eat your fps)

Anecdotal:  I've seen a dwarf assigned to gather a big flock of chicks into a cage disturb nesting mothers and cause them to move off a nestbox.  Possibly the targetted chick stepped onto it too bringing the dwarf into the tile.

11 fps is not really longterm viable unless you already got a lot of what you wanted done.  When it slows up that much then digging stuff out takes forever, even with a bunch of legends.  Takes a long real time for me to get an ingame year done too.  Im taking steps by 25 and 20 is a point at which it becomes 'fix at all costs', 15 is dead.

I prefer it to farming and trading for leather.  Once you get a routine of caging chicks until they mature then it feeds you, gives you your leather and leaves bone for decorating (yay, my favorite fix ever).  That said buying leather bins is easy, its cheap as chips and trading for it is totally viable.

Good work khearn.  I've never even seen this 'Emotional Shock' yet.  Only seen Horrified cancels.

I agree, this oughta be properly science'd by personality trait.

Preparing for the harshness of the world:  I folded some time ago, every creature in my world has natural novice disc.  You still get heroes and wusses, just less of the '90% combatants sitting like a lemon at any given moment'

Sounds awesome.  In my mind they are arguing over who has rights to the nearest Human hamlet.

Cant say i've heard of that, and cant see why night critters would keep animals.  Doesnt sound super normal tbh.

(unless this really is night creature territoriality at work in which case, epic)

I didnt see much noticable in past versions, but this may have changed with 40.xx and active world

They always seemed to save, load and generate slower (with all that stuff to load/offload).  as the historical figures rises sharply the generation speed dies very quickly.  the entire embark process seems slower too, selecting the site etc.  Once i was embarked i never minded or noticed so much

Now that we have the calendar and active world...the calendar will also be heavily affected, and the stuff deciding the events of the world in the background could get quite weighty depending how often its happening.  Really not sure yet.

I also hate small/smaller, i gen medium/large with around 300 years and am happy as larry.  I rarely pass 300 years just because it takes so long to generate.

I was sure it still behaved that way too.  So, im off to see...

Nope, they still haul by hand.

Embarked with 50 shale, no barrows, designate general stone pile, set 3 barrows, unpause, all haul by hand.

Once at least 1 barrow shows up then it behaves how we want, guess we still doing it the longway.