Bay 12 Games Forum

Intently: I would say you were really lucky. Usually, the moment you turn your back, there will be another wave on your front step.

I never counted how many waves per year I had, but it is usually more than one.

Mmmhhhh, this makes me wonder how you got that for three consecutive years (envious).

Deathworks

I do not know about HFS, but the proximity factor can be confirmed:

If there is a suitable item not tasked in any way already in the workshop, the dwarves will decorate it. Thus, if you want to make sure that several items get decorated, make sure there is stockpile space available to accomodate any successfully decorated item (you may wish to 'interfere' with storage from time to time via new productions, forbidding or whatever to avoid two or three items constantly switching places and taking turns in the workshop).

Otherwise, they pick the closest suitable item. Note, that z-levels are not calculated correctly concerning distance, so an item directly above the workshop will be preferred over one right next to it - I had my dwarves choose a leather bag from a food stockpile above the workshop in favor of the statues and doors in the stockpile right next to the workshop (two or three tiles away).

Except for that single mishap with that bag, I have been quite successful in getting statues, tables, and doors decorated.

Note that you can set quality and material for stockpiles, so you should be able to set up stockpiles as you need them.

Deathworks

I know that the cave river is much safer, simply because you can use a flood gate to connect any channel to it. But the wiki is dangerously misleading newbies with the information provided above.

Deathworks

Shadowlord: I am not absolutely sure. I may be wrong, but in at least one of my early fortresses where I dug outside river channels (before I even understood how farming was supposed to work (^_^;; ), I think I did get the "dangerous terrain" warning from a dwarf and he didn't drown.

This is just from my shady memory and all, so I may be wrong, but could it not be that the dwarf has one turn to leave a channel that is filling with water before he needs to swim? That would explain how the dwarf escaped (if I remember the incident correctly). And it could explain why otherwise dwarves drown in channels (as you suggest, they probably can't climb out once they are swimming).

If dwarves can't leave channels while swimming, wouldn't it actually be better to have them swept into the river? As far as I can tell, there is a small chance for them to get out of the river even without a bridge, so that would be better than certain death in a channel.

Deathworks

Another thing that can come in handy is this:

Mining material (turning an onyx wall into an onyx stone usable at a mason's ) is considered the same as creating an item. So, when such mandates are out is always a good time to expand your fortress a little bit. With some luck you may mine some of the material resolving the demand.

Deathworks

This actually made me wonder; how likely is it for famine to really completely destroy a fortress? As far as I can tell, even under the worst condition, a few dwarves seem to survive on vermin eating and if you succeed to generate a single unit of food, this should give you some breathing space.

So, has anyone actually seen a fortress go down without outside (goblin siege) influence? Or was it always that people abandoned the fortress when I got too ugly?

Just be careful with farming, though. Having too many farm plots can be bad as well if you have 'all dwarves harvest' activated

Deathworks

I rarely have large fortresses. However, when the big immigration waves hit, I have the following thoughts:

* Unskilled peasants are not even replacement labour. So, I make sure that each peasant gets some proper job where they can quickly get experience to improve both their professional skill (in case they are needed to replace a dead dwarf) as well as their stats (if I do decide I need to draft them). I never draft unskilled dwarves (except for when an unskilled dwarf discovers a kobold thief on the tile she is standing ).

* Engrave a lot. I usually do a lot of engraving. Usually, all workshop rooms are completely engraved. Community burial chambers are completely engraved, meeting halls are completely engraved. Over time, finished corridors get engraved (finished in the sense that no new digging will take place there).

* Remove legendaries from their favorite jobs. Especially with legendary engravers, I tend to remove the job they are legendary in so as to heighten their chance for increasing other skills. This also prevents them from taking away the work for unskilled workers.

* Traps. In my fortresses, a really complete room also has a stone fall trap at its front door. This can add quite a lot of work for your dwarves.

* Statues and decorations. Statues look nice in meeting halls, but they also add to community burial chambers. Even corridors can be improved with a few statues.  Besides keeping your dwarves busy, it also raises the morale.

* Encrust/decorate. You can put a lot of decoration on statues and the like. Have them decorated until at least one interesting image is on an item. Then replace a non-decorated item with the newly decorated item. Repeat. Besides statues, doors are also good condidates for this.

* And the all-time favorite - complex building projects, like constructed guard towers with barracks on top and the like. If you really have more dwarves than you need, make all constructions with blocks only - this can keep mason's workshops and masons quite busy.

Well, I hope some may find these thoughts useful.

Deathworks