Bay 12 Games Forum

Yeah, one thing I would say is to not dive headfirst into making sure every unmet need is met 100%. Like I start off with a dormitory, rather than individual bedrooms. I maybe hand-make a few coffins to tide me over while I make actual furniture. Ditto not immediately making any noble/officer rooms exactly what they want as long as they can function. Then as you do get the first, more important needs met, start increasing what you do.

Another thing I'll say you can do (although it can have its own downsides) - if you make a tavern and make sure you have some sleeping areas assigned to it, you'll start having guests and start having some that will want to join the fortress. Unlike at least some previous versions, you can actually give any entertainers that join some tasks to do. I honestly don't know how *good* they are at doing these tasks compared to your regular civilians, but they will work on them. So if you get caught out by the lack of a few migrants waves until word gets out about how awesome and rich your fortress is, that can help in a pinch.

For me, I tend to have my dwarfs specialize pretty narrowly, and just not even start on some tasks (tailoring, metalsmithing, furnaces) until I have enough dwarfs to start to handle more tasks. (Dunno if this is the best way to do things, it's just how I do it). And I would suggest removing the hauling task from some of your more important dwarfs that have tasks you REALLY need done (like stoneworkers - I think stoneCARVERs? I get the stonecarvers and stonecutters mixed up sometimes still). Of course that's a pain on its own because it means taking hauling away from "everyone does this" and assigning it to every dwarf as they join but it might be worth it.

Have no idea if this is related but: I've had an issue when creating a custom stockpile, a lot of the times (maybe when I start it by selecting "custom" rather than starting with a specific type and then going into custom, but haven't done real testing yet). There's a center column that, at those times, will be all unselected and includes the things like quality, material, etc. If it remains red the stockpile just won't accept anything because it doesn't accept any qualities/materials/anything.

Work around is to go through and set the middle column to "all" and then go through and remove stuff you don't want from there (or select "item types" and then "none" on the right column and reactivate what you specifically want.)

Like I said tho, no idea if this is your issue at all.

Edit: after checking while playing, probably not your problem since this doesn't *seem* to happen for food stockpiles specifically, although if it's a blended stockpile of some sort, maybe. Haven't exactly done in-depth testing.

So quick question about clothing sizes: now instead of making large, small, etc., the clothing is specifically made for a given race. So clothing for elves, goblins, etc.

Just want to doublecheck that a specific race MUST have clothing specifically made for that race now, instead of "well, it's made for dwarfs or elves but they're both medium creatures and can wear each other's clothes." Thought to ask this because I have an elf citizen-in-waiting (if you even have to go through two petitions now, don't know if you still do) that seems to be mostly nekkid, and I'm not fully sure if I just don't have enough unclaimed clothing or if I'm specifically having to make clothing for elves (and any other races I get in my fort).

Thanks! Checked the wiki but I'm a bit confused by it, can't tell if it's still got the small/normal/large thing going on or if I'm just not quite understanding it correctly.

Edit: After deciding to just make some race-specific gear for myself, it seems to just make "large" or normal or whatever clothing, so I assume it's still just the three sizes... but I could have sworn I saw some armor and such labeled just "goblin armor" or what have you. So I'll let the question stand in case anyone can shed a bit more light into the situation/better explain to my apparently too-tired brain what the wiki is saying.

Just a really small question that I think I already know the answer to: am I correct that there's just no display of (or way to change it so it does display) currently idle dwarfs? I always used to watch that as an indicator that I can throw more work that needs to be done at my dwarfs/need to find busywork/maybe I'm making my dwarfs busier than I thought/there's some problem cropping up.

Like I said, pretty sure it's just not there anymore, but I am REALLY bad with actually noticing/finding things sometimes, so thought I'd ask just in case.

Is there any way to save things like custom military uniforms or stockpiles?  After the first few years of a fort I never use the preset stockpiles, and making a custom uniform (or custom training schedule) isn't a big deal but would be much easier to set up once and just use it on every fort.

My initial response would be "macros" but... I've been having trouble with a mining one (which has its own topic) and I think the answer might be that you can't use mouse clicks in a macro, and I don't remember offhand if there's a way to set up stockpiles with keyboard only. For some things though you could probably use them.

That does sound like dumping, did you accidentally put a dump in that corner of the room?

again, the immersion has always been broken, because well who tf would pay $10,000 for a 'lavish meal' consisting of a goat bladder and two shucked oysters boiled in a soup of dwarven piss-wine??

Dwarfs apparently. (Or people who have gotten used to being around them and their cuisine.)