Bay 12 Games Forum

With the new version coming up, one thing in particular strikes me as interesting - the ability to base your fortress anywhere.

Here's the challenge. Well, not much of a challenge... You must build your fortress exactly on a preexisting dwarven fortress, or as close as you can.

That's it.

Well, you must also build your fortress so that there is free passage between yours and the preexisting one.

That's it.

Just... do it. And watch the mayhem. And report the mishaps here.  

The reason crossbows were used instead of bows, aside from the much increased power and range, was that they were a lot easier to use. You could get a crossbowman up to a decent accuracy in a matter of days, whereas a longbowman took years of training to get close.

Crossbows were a preferred huntin weapon, too, which meant people tended to have experience with them.

In the current version, roads are absent from adventure mode as far as I can tell, except for the roads through the human settlements, and which appear to begin and end at the edges of town...

The road you build in the fortress, for traders, is similarly abstract - you just build one from the depot to the edge, and it continues into infinity.

How's this going to work in the new version, and how is it going to work in the future?

I have this vision of a network of roads between human settlements, and my fortress, built smack on the middle of one of those roads, and me extracting taxes for "road maintenence"...  

Yea, I have that problem with human caravans too. If trade will work the same way in the next version, with the road stretching to infinity and all that, I am going to wall the damn road in and fill the outside with traps and guard posts and whatnot, and maybe then the pansy humans will actually reach my trade depot without being scared by the awe inspiring deer...   :mad:

I haven't found a manager that works, but I've yet to have the opportunity to test the one Savok posted about. That one seems to rely on custom profession names though...

I've forgotten to plant a couple of times too. I dunno why the dwarves can't simply remember where the field was and plant a new one next year with the same crops. I use the same area over and over again anyway, they're not goldfish are they?

The amount of farmers I have varies wildly with the amount of farmers I get through immigration. I turn all peasants to farmers unless I have critical shortage in some other field, but outside of that I leave professions alone.

Between paging through all those lists and flicking jobs on and off and trying to remeber which job goes with what profession, or simply making do with what I have, the latter option is a lot more appealing.

If the dwarves would just starve to death quietly instead of tantruming and wrecking the whole infrastructure in the process, things would balance themselves up, nice and quiet.  

I've tried all sorts of strategies, and that's the only one that works for me. I noticed as soon as I start growing anything that requires preparation, such as Quarry Bushes, starvation happens. As soon as I start cooking anything starvation happens. If I do any of those things, the next winter sees the end of my food, the following spring sees dwarves doing nothing but hunting vermin, and the summer sees them either starve to death or tantrum.

The whole food preparation system has to get more manageable before I feel like bothering with it again.

My last fortress had two legendary craftsmen children. One of them later went to sleep by the river instead of his room, and the other got in a fight with a cat and had his upper body mangled. He lived, but he'd pass out every three steps, spamming me with tons of messages.