Bay 12 Games Forum

So, I've been toying around with adventure mode for the first time, in anticipation of the next DF release.  I'm pleasantly surprised to discover adventure is great fun.  I think I've grasped most of the vital concepts, and approach fights strategically rather than just rushing in.  However, I still end up getting mauled after completing a few quests, even as a demigod level character. The beauty of Dwarf Fortress is that there's no one good way to do something, but many good ways, and many many many bad ways.  I feel like I've stumbled through quite a few of the bad.  I've made a good read of the wiki, and floated around on the forums, but am still somewhat in the dark on what people are doing to achieve long-lasting heroes.

I typically focus on strength and agility, with a touch here and there of whatever the wiki says is important.  Thus far, I go for training in bladed weapons, shields, dodging, and a bit of fighting.  I aim attacks, going for the easiest limbs to lop off, or the head when it's most viable.  I also throw a lot of rocks.  I like throwing rocks.  Ask any teacher I had in grade school.

This being Dwarf Fortress, I expect and appreciate challenges and learning curves.  Of course, Dwarf Fortress also comes with its kinks, bugs, and imbalances that result in thrown fluffy wamblers exploding the extremities of bronze colossi.  That said, what am I missing that provides for sustainable adventuring?  Do I need to grind for a couple hours to better my skills?  Am I hopeless until I've somehow acquired Dwarf-fitting armor?  Should I limit my initial skill focuses so that I'm a ludicrously good dodger that can't do much else very well?

Thanks for any advice.

And all the buckets have stagnant water.  What do

Having avoided messing with raws thusfar, other than altering animals to make them tameable and trainable as war animals, I still have some questions.

I've got a war tiger stationed outside the fort, who rather heroically fended off two goblin ambushes before plummeting a stream with several goblins.  The tiger killed two more of the gobbos, and somehow managed to pull himself out of the stream JUST before the waterfall sent the remaining gobs to their deaths. 

My question is, if I wanted to train this tiger up to be super tough, would it be as simple as adding the [can_learn] tag to his raw, or does that only apply to sapient creatures?  Also, is it possible to equip him with armor after some tinkering?

Thanks.

I've floated between a few variations, but haven't pinned down anything sufficiently grand.  Looking for some inspiration.  What do you do?

Much like we have the ability to set a workshop to be usable only by dwarfs with the right skill levels, or how stockpiles allow you to move items to specific rooms based on specific criteria, would it not make sense to be able to assign dwarfs to different rooms by profession?  By default, everyone would maintain their current behavior, where they just sleep in the nearest free bed.

My reasoning for this is that if my magma forges are 50 to 150 z levels beneath everything else, short of assigning each furnace operator to a specific bed, it would make more sense to just sort it out by profession.  This would drastically reduce tedium IMO.

Thoughts?

I've got something like 500+ mugs in my trade goods stockpile on my new embark.  Whenever traders come along, none of these mugs show up on my "move goods to depot" screen.  I've got my bookkeeper working round the clock, but my broker is a noob at everything.  Could that be effecting things?

None of these should be forbidden or inaccessible.  Actually, the depot is right next to the stockpile.  Thoughts?  Edit: Also, no mandates on exports.

For me, I'm usually done once I hit around 200 dwarfs.  By then, my new fortress layout (it's always a new layout) has been well implemented, and there's usually something substantial I don't like about it and have lost interest in.  My military's pretty stacked.  My artifacts depicting that time I threw a goblin down a hole are sitting in their obscure corners.  The caves have been breached and searched for greater challenges.  By this point, I'm ready to move on and try something different.

You?  And if you do continue past this point, what goals do you implement to keep you interested?