Bay 12 Games Forum

You can't beat a butterfly gunking up the front doors.

I only got into DF about two months ago. I've played nothing else in the mean time. It has eaten my life.

Dwarves with rooms and access to a legendary dining room are usually ecstatic. That's a good baseline happiness level and keeps tantrum spirals away despite the odd death. Although I normally go for 3x1 rooms (4x1 if you include the door), which leaves space for an bed, and coffer, and an cabinet, I tend to think that 3x3 rooms just look nicer. Plus, when dorfs noble up, you have enough space to throw in some nicer furniture without having to bother carving out special noble bedrooms. Also, 3x1 rooms are good, but stones on the ground can make it hard for dwarves to place cabinets and coffers, and clearing out all stones can be a pain. With 3x3 rooms, there's usually enough space for dwarves to shift stones aside to place furniture, so you don't have to bother tidying.

Of course it's best to tailor your starting dwarves to the embark, but lately I've been thinking it's best to start with all of your starting dwarves as miners, with say level four or five in the skill, and also one mason, woodcutter, and carpenter. I also usually have one mechanic (which doesn't always get used right away, I can cope without mechanisms early on) and one brewer, and usually I go for a herbalist off the bat rather than a grower. If possible, I like to give one dwarf at least one in appraise and diagnostician, since you're never guaranteed that a diagnostician is going to turn up. I usually pay for the skills by removing all the bags, cloth, thread, splints and crutches at startup, most of these things can be easily traded/made within the first year and they yield a lot of points for skills.

I tend to go with lots of miners because it annoys me if I have to wait too long before building my workshops and storage areas before I can begin cranking out beds, tables, chairs and doors or have anywhere to put them.

Yeah, when the Starbase commander asks 'What then?' right at the beginning, you have the option to reply, "Then, commander, we will slowly gather strength, build a unified alliance of starfaring alien races, and bring the Ur-Quan to their knee-equivelants." Or something like that.

knee-equivalents

Is that a Star Control II reference?

I tend to play for hours at a time in silence.

First piece of full colour art I made just using a computer

Second piece of full colour art I made just using a computer. Possibly a bit risqué, but not too bad (it's the full sized image I use for my avatar, which is a sweet (but dwarfy) maternal scene. I really like this one.