Bay 12 Games Forum

What is the latest version which would work with Vista x64? Version 39.0.0 works (with DF 0.44.10), while version 39.3.1 doesn't (it requires a kernel function implemented in Win7). I suppose a compiler was changed in meantime. It would be nice to get the latest version before this change...

I've seen red arrow in v0.40+.x, but not only it is rare, always when it happens I'm like "really? now?". As if the trigger wasn't anything that important, compared to other things that happened, so it's unexpected. Maybe it is a result of accumulated stress. One guy with that effect was just a military, who liked doing some civilian job, but couldn't, because he was often scheduled for military duty. And when he wasn't scheduled then someone else was taking the materials, or workshop. It wasn't anything gruesome at all. More like "Argh! I REALLY want to blow... glass!"

I always build a combination of both. My dwarves live underground, and deep enough that industrial area noise doesn't bother them, but most of actual building is above.

The absolute minimum are two structures:
1. A tower surrounding military training area, often with retractable roof (or no roof at all - this to prevent cave adaptation). This tower is sometimes 5-6 tiles high above ground, and about the same deep below ground. It often has two bridges as roof (one is too small). It has shooter area on top, to shoot on converging zombies or goblins, and often passages (bridges to the walls or other structures, high above ground).

2. Walls with several gates. Completing walls often takes years, but I like it.

Other surface structures I often build are drop-towers, water pressure towers, magma chutes (to incinerate select places around my territory), water chutes (to fight fires in select places around my territory, and main entry), landmines, "high altitude bombardment" structures, sentry posts (often with animal, accessible only from underground), bait-mazes (troll and thief defence), primary waste heap with atom smasher, windmill housing (this is mostly for powering up kitchen, water mist generator in the main hall several tiles below, and pumps for drowning area near main entry), some structures for controlling invaders or caravans, including above ground passageways (dodge-traps).

So, while all dwarves sleep underground, and more than half of them work there, most interesting and time consuming(*) pieces are above ground, and area on surface, near entry, is my main zoom point. I build all my structures in matching colour and stone/glass/bricks, and exclusively from blocks. I never use raw materials, even for workshops.

The only time I would consider fully underground fortress would be in evil biome with funny weather, or maybe in some extreme cold glacier.

*)Well, except an underground farming area, which is artificial cave like 20x10x5 tiles, and I try to have at least a couple of them. This one takes much more time to construct than above ground buildings, thanks to enormous amount of stone which has to be transported away.

But my steel clad axe lords each legendary in more or less every combat skill. All three that tried to fight the clown died. I'm not sure it was even injured.

Which seems rather absurd given the same super soldiers have been killing forgotten beasts so effortlessly it looked like a police brutality video. (And no, not ones made of salt and vomit). Though they are probably even *more* legendary by now, admittedly. I'm reluctant to send any of them after the clown again, with in mind I might just lose several.

The fight is certainly simulated to a degree, and you have no fine control over it, but based on my experience fighting "clowns" in adventure mode, Forgotten Beasts are like puppies compared to a  war dog of a clown. So yes, I would expect deaths. By the way, in adventure it is usually easy enough to separate the master from goblin/trolls underlings (he often has no bodyguards in his throne room, and not too many on the way), so the actual fight is more like a duel, than a field battle against a legion of goblins lead by a monstrous general. Still, I would think than a normal squad of experienced soldiers would win against a clown. Three may be too few.

So the elves left a marble cabinet in the mouldy cave, let the roots take hold, then extracted it and sold to dwarves at a premium? Because I don't know how to grow decorations otherwise.

I don't know how water flows based on your picture, but unless you have a constant flow underneath, you practically never get the full power. I've been using water reactors and the like for as long as I remember, and I rarely get more than 700 continuous power out of 10 wheels. I get full 1000 at the start, but in time it goes down and stabilises at lower level (like 70% or so). Without supplementing water occasionally the power output falls further, till it's too small to move all attached wheels and mechanisms, and the reactor stops. This is due to water evaporation. And fluctuating power is normal with reactors, so you need to observe it a bit and then average, to get actual power rating.

Hence it's hard to do an infinite reactor, I always build a "starter" mechanism, to ditch new quantity of water in case it stopped on its own, or I had to stop it manually for maintenance (the last one was especially frequent when trees were one tile big).

Also, every wheel needs 10 power to move, so one working wheel can move a couple of others, plus attached gears and axles (hence the animation). If you have only one wheel, then it uses 10 power out of 100 produced, giving your net power of 90, but some of this is always used by the axle or gear required by the wheel, plus the rest of transmission line.

Most of problems can be avoided by utilising either an aquifer or a constant source of water, like river, instead of a reactor. Advantage of reactor is that it can be almost completely isolated (and thus protected from enemies), easily scaled (if you thought about it) and built where you want it, even far from water sources, like down there near magma.

I know that if you fall from high enough, limbs that hit the ground can snap off. I can't think of any other way to intentionally remove limbs from yourself in adventure mode. And even if you did have a controlled way of removing limbs, I feel the chances of bleeding out are significant.

I have removed a limb from my adventurer by use of an alligator, near a river. And yes, I later carved some craft from the butchered arm (it was 0.42.x, I think).