Bay 12 Games Forum

Hi! So one of my most veteran and decorated dwarves(by virtue of her neckbreaking running speed relative to everyhting else) has adopted a rather peculiar fightings style when I upgraded my 16 fort to 18. She's been missing her right hand for a while(once again a result of her running at double the speed of the rest of my military), but wasn't anything out of the ordinary in 16, holding both her hammer and shield with her left hand. She'd charge, smash body parts with her hammer, get it embedded, twist it around(...yeah), dish up an occasional shield bash, the works.

Something snapped in that hyperactive little head of hers however when I switched to the new version. Now she charges the target, bites it and latches on firmly, and then goes absolutely batshit insane and starts randomly kicking, punching, shield bashing, hammering and shaking the poor sod around by whatever body part she latched on to. It's about as effective, but somewhat slower than more orthodox fighting styles. It's however rather amusing/disturbing to try and imagine. None of my other dwarves are doing this, and the only thing setting her apart is her missing right hand and insane speed.

What do you guys think of this? Has anyone else seen this behavior? Should I conscript some more cripples into the military and see if they too go completely berserk in combat?

Hi! I had a bit of a run-in with troll dwarf physics in my latest fort.

It has a river which freezes in winter, so I decided it might be a good idea to have an underground cistern for winter months, as underground water does not freeze. To that end I channeled into the river ice, dug into the bank for a couple of tiles and then carved three z-levels of stairs straight down into a cistern. So far so good. Sort of.

Physics is not really my strong point, in fact I find most laws of nature absurd and arbitrary. I was however aware of the law of communicating vessels, but was hopeful that df does not adhere to it. As such I was fully prepared to savescum accordingly if my cistern (which was 3 z-levels below the river) was to overflow in the spring.

Spring arrived, the water melted and started pouring into my cistern, filling it completely but not at all overflowing. I sighed in relief and proceeded to install wells over the holes I punched over the top of it. Good stuff.

The following late winter I was staring idly at my masons cranking out yet another set of cabinets and other furniture in the workshop room adjacent to the well room when I got a freeze spike indicative of the coming of the spring and the unfreezing of the river. I then saw the fishing holes(I was able to fish out of the cistern during the winter, ayup) spouting water all over the place. However, since my masons and the workshop stone stockpile were so close I managed to wall off the well hall near instantaneously and prevent the flood.

So... How do communcating vessels behave in DF? Why did my cistern not overflow during the first spring? I'm mostly sure I punched the holes in the top of the cistern BEFORE it was filled with water, but am not completely sure. I guess if I did punch holes in it AFTER the filling then DF doesn't do flow computations after the flow of water stops and that's the reason I got a free year of wonky physics, but if not I am at a loss frankly.

But at any rate, what would be the best way to get rid of the excess water inside my fort? Should I just build a pump stack during the next winter and pump the water out? Should I flood the waterlogged chamber with magma somehow?