Bay 12 Games Forum

Don't have picks, just embark on a cave . You can still make stuff out of... clay?

Quote from: ancistrus on June 17, 2014, 07:18:13 am

I don't think anything happens in the world outside your fortress, not yet. So it must have been something in your fort that brought about the new age. What probably happened is that goblins already were dominant, but as long as there were some powerful creatures (titans/megabeasts), the game mechanics didn't allow the goblin age to come. What was the name of the previous age?

The prev. age was called Age of Heroes. But I reckon it is all clear to me now. The world was generated with size set to pocket, number of civs,beasts,savagery to very high and minerals to very rare. Humans were already extinct by age of 250, the only civs left were kobs, dwarves, elves and goblins.

For added challenge, I chose to embark in freezing tundra, aquifier, saltwater, untamed wilds. Obviously, such setup was pretty inhospitable to large scale-living, something migrants couldn't grasp while coming in mobs and bringing their derpy grazing pets with them. Brief 7 year history of Sarveshedud, the aboveground fort:

~Embark. The only miner encases himself in ice while digging 5x5 pond. Surface has no trees.
~Disassembled the wagon, built depot. Got the business moving. Fort grows to 136 very fast.
~Vucar Shemamkol, the pet cow calf starves to death
~128 dwarves killed in a tantrum spiral. Number is precise, because I had to personally crush all of them under cave-in. 8 survived, though.
~Stone is found. Hurray!
~up to 10 miners encased in ice while digging the stone, and subsequently breaching the aquifier.
~90+ dead in goblin siege led by clown (bull fiend, bloated, beware the sting!)
~up to 30 dwarves dead in an ambush trying to collect last year goblinite.
~Queen arrives
~5 dwarves executed for not producing aluminium statues.
~Current fort population: 112

With death toll of 250+ (counting various misc. deaths), and migrants STILL coming in clusters of 2 to 5, it's no wonder goblins dominate. I guess I am to blame...

Mercy! Please for the sake of your dear beardy little charges learn how to safely dig into aquifers. The trick is a very simple one. Channeling is extremely dangerous and should be used under only tightly controlled conditions. Staircases are extremely safe to dig under most circumstances.
So first dig downstairs into the sky-exposed floor on top of the aquifer and dig up/down stairs into the aquifer layer (this is completely safe because the tiles aren't exposed to sky at this point). The up/down stairs will fill with water, because they are filled with water, dwarves will be unable to enter the tile, thus they are unable to get frozen to death, once all the stairs are dug in, then, and only then, channel out the downstairs on top exposing the water to sky. This will be done with complete safety and because the tiles are filled with 7/7 water, proper ice floors will form on top too. You can then channel out the ice if needed to expose the next aquifer layer. Done properly, the staircase + channelling technique is a completely safe and foolproof method for penetrating aquifers in cold biomes (and has the side bonus of training mining faster since miners perform several extra actions per tile).

This message was brought to you by the sole survivor of DOHS, Dwarven Occupational Health and Safety, who is currently chained to a wall until he relinquishes his "undwarven" views and accepts that death and serious injury (and being raised by a necromancer and killed again, or chained to a wall in a room full of turkeys) is what it means to be a Dwarf.

Quote from: Panando on June 17, 2014, 05:39:23 am

Hmmmm. Capture a siege or two of enemies. Danger-room train them to legendary +5. The lever should 1) set them on fire and 2) unleash them (preferably by dropping them from the ceiling), resulting in a !!DOOMSDAY!! lever, it should also flood the fortress with pressurized magma just to be sure.

a captured or defeated siege prefers to run away rather than fight, so this method might not be fast enough for what he's going for.

If you're going to set the goblins on fire it doesn't really matter what their ambitions are . But the !!goblins!! are just to create an ambience of terror while the pressurized magma floods the fortress with purifying goodness.

It depends whether you need your military dwarf in the first two years or so. If you do, you're probably going to be better off with proficient weapon user, because the skill is just so much more powerful per-level than any other military skill.

If in the arena you create a dwarf with master hammer user but no other skill, and put him against a dwarf who has no hammer user, but master fighter, master dodger, master shield user and master armour user (and give them hammer, shield, and moderate armor) - then the hammerdwarf will resoundingly thrash the other dwarf, typically with no or only minor injuries. If in addition you make the second dwarf a proficient hammer user, then the master will still normally win but it's less of a sure thing. Hence weapon user is not just better than other skills, it's nearly incomparably better, it completely dominates every other skill. Hence until such time a dwarf is legendary +5 weapon user he will probably be better off with 1 more level in weapon user, than 5 levels in shield user.

The flipside is that if your training regime is solid it probably wont matter much because your dwarves will be powerful enough anyway, and if your training regime isn't solid, it probably wont matter much because they wont be powerful enough anyway - proficient weapon user is not nearly enough to make a dwarf functionally immortal, he will get injured, will pass out from pain, and will die or be badly mangled. Training is much more important than embark choices after the first 6 months. But if you're looking for that edge, that might allow a "lucky roll" and permit a new military dwarf to beat off a random giant badger attack (or something) then weapon user is the skill of choice.

Arena testing indicates the following relationships between skills:
Weapon user is much more powerful than fighter (and it is slower to train than fighter).
Fighter is much more powerful than dodger or shield user (but it is much much quicker to train).
Dodger and shield user are equally powerful (but dodger is significantly slower to train).

Taking weapon user is not a difficult choice, it's just so much more powerful. Also if you have to choose between dodger and shield user, dodger is an easy choice because they are the same effectiveness, but dodger is slower to train. The actual difficult decision is fighter. Fighter is a much better skill than dodger or shield user, but it's also much, much faster to train. My inclination is to think that if you expect immediate action, then 1) relying on military is a bad idea, but if you're going to do it anyway then 2) Make it a proficient weapon user and proficient fighter (also if you want your miner to be able to fight, give him fighter in preference to other skills). If you expect action in the first couple of years, then again if we're going to be brutally honest and respect the science, probably weapon user and fighter, but dodger might also be a fair choice. If you don't expect action in the first couple of years then the training and recruitment regime will be the thing which matters, you'll probably be just as well off embarking with peasants.

Hmmmm. Capture a siege or two of enemies. Danger-room train them to legendary +5. The lever should 1) set them on fire and 2) unleash them (preferably by dropping them from the ceiling), resulting in a !!DOOMSDAY!! lever, it should also flood the fortress with pressurized magma just to be sure.

I find enemy squads mostly path off the map as quickly as they can, pursued by a screaming horde of bloodthirsty drunk dwarves running very fast with sharp (and blunt) objects. But this could be something to do with my play style

You designate the dump zone where the dwarf will stand while dumping the item. They will dump it on the spot, unless they can throw it off an edge from that spot.

Minecarts move twice the ore of a regular dwarf, it moves atleast twice as fast, and if guided goes up ramps like nobody's business.

This is good to know. I know that at some point guiding a cart through magma was safe, is this still the case or does the dorf get (appropriately) evaporated?