Bay 12 Games Forum

I'm building a 100+ level pump stack to bring magma up for my forges. I've dug out all of the necessary rooms and channels, and I'm beginning to put in the pumps, but they keep collapsing, sometimes taking out multiple pumps.

Why? I have two theories:

1. Some of my architects are newbies, they may have been desigining flawed buildings.

2. Once I had all of the rooms dug out and channelled, I placed all the pumps at the same time, even though only the top-most and bottom-most pumps had existing supports. As soon as the dwarfs began working, however, they built some of the middle pumps, unsupported by anything. Eventually the game realized this and caused them to collapse.

I suspect #2 is the cause, as I can't find anything in the wiki about poorly designed architecture. However, even though the dwarfs built unsupported pumps, the pumps woulnd't immediately collapse. In fact, after a few delayed collapses, I became concerned about a 30+ mini-stack of unsupported (but constructed) pumps in the middle of my larger stack, so I built some gear assemblies at strategic points for support. The dwarves build the gears without problems, but when I came back later, the whole stack had collapsed.

Why is this happening? What can I do to prevent it?

Make sure the squad(s) have the training schedule active, you can change what schedule they're on on the squds screen (s), and to train war animals they cannot be either caged or in a pasture.

I've had success training War Dogs in a pasture, so long as the kennel is also within the pasture.

Wait, don't prisoners struggle and flee when you 'pit' them?

It does seem to happen from time to time -- this is one of the reasons I'm creating the execution pit. My previous pit was a multi-tiered arena with a militia training room at the bottom and statue gardens at the higher levels. Unfortunately, prisoners that escaped the pit would then be wreaking havoc throughout the fortress. If a prisoner escapes the new pit, he'll be outside the fortress and surrounded by war dogs.

So, I'd prefer the 20 dwarves.

I definitely agree that the game is easier with less dwarves, but for me, the fun in Dwarf Fortress is the challenge. I like having to constantly expand my dorms and food production to meet the demands of a growing fortress. I like it when a group of migrants arrives during a booze shortage or an ambush. And I love seeing my gigantic fortress swarming with dwarves.

Good god man, pop cap of 250? How fast does your game run? Mine would probably melt if I had 250 dwarves on screen at one time.

The only time I noticed any slowdown was when I dumped all of the loose stone in my royal aparments and about 20 dwarves went out of idle at once. Other than that I haven't had any problems.

I'm tempted to bump the pop cap up to 400 or so, just to see how big I can get this thing, but my fortress has chronic wood shortages, and I'm not sure we can make enough barrels for the brewers to keep up with 400 little Urist McChuggers

I have met all of the requirements for a monarch.

I got a message saying his entourage had arrived and that my fortress was now a mountain home. The entourage was 4 legendary warriors and a peasant, but no king or queen.

It has now been a year or so since the entourage showed up, but still no king or queen. The nobles page no longer lists requirements to be the captial, nor does it list any king or queen.

My population is around 210, above my 200 cap, so I tried raising the pop limit to 250. Migrants have arrived since then, but still no king.

Did he die along the way? Did he changes his mind? I built a whole new section of my fortress to house the monarch -- should I give it to my duke or wait a little longer?