Bay 12 Games Forum

Just a brief question - my fortresses always seem to implode when they hit about 120 or so Dwarves. Unfortunately, since migrants seem to arrive insanely fast at times, this means I've never managed to embark on any fancy construction or dig down to HFS/Forgotten Beasts.

In fact, the "Dwarfsplosion" seems to happen so fast I've never even seen siege gameplay before my fortress sort of caves from the inside!

I don't really understand why. My last fort, I had a pop. of 130 Dwarves. Basically when I had 50 only, about 35 of those were "Ecstatic" and the rest were happy. It was great.

I continued treating them all the same as the pop. grew, giving them all nice engraved bedrooms, keeping the booze and meals up, building furniture, giving the pompous Nobles huge luxurious offices...but then weird things happened:

1. Loads of Dwarves (about 20-30) suddenly became V. Unhappy/Miserable and started going insane. I had 10 or so deaths total from failed Moods and useless soldiers, but I buried the bodies or memorialised them pretty much instantly. Regardless, practically half of the Fort's population got upset about "dead friends" or the like and started mass-tantruming.

Their thoughts were filled with "Slept in a great bed" and other good stuff, but for some reason the one or two negative things really dominated their happiness.

2. My whole military started getting "enraged due to long patrol duty". This didn't make any sense, because I actually took them all off duty and they basically milled around still complaining about their "duty". I then put them back on again and they continued to be upset. Is this a bug or something?

Either way, I sort of get this happiness collapse for no discernible reason when I start getting to the big pop. numbers. Is there anything you can do about this, or is it just a natural aspect of fun that one has to live with?

While they're naked and mostly harmless, remember to wear armor anyway. A single lucky punch can cave your trainee's skull in without a helmet.

You weren't kidding! I've sent two Dwarves against a single unarmed/unarmoured Goblin now to train them up. Both are dead o_0

The second one I gave a helmet to, but the Goblin just broke his ribs...then killed him with a head punch anyway. I noticed the training was far quicker than normal (about 20x quicker), but it's not much good if I end up with a dead recruit at the end of it.

Quite frustrating. Shame I can't recruit "Champion Boxer Goblin" to my side too XD

I'm actually tempted to ferry some of the useless ones I have into a large room, then cave it in. It's only because it feels really mean/undwarflike that I don't do it!

I seem to get about 40 freaking Potash Makers/Cheese Makers/Thread Spinners. Or even worse, Peasants. Then they just sit around being useless and drinking all the beer.

Not to mention the Dwarven babies, I have entire corridors of rooms devoted to kids in my current fort, I think I need to start making contraception mandatory or something (under penalty of Hammering).

I just caught a bunch of Giant Keas trying to nick my stuff. Unfortunately I can't seem to tame them past "Trained", they keep reverting back to being savage wild menaces.

Is there any way to actually fully tame them and make use of them? I quite like the idea of an army of giant kleptomaniac parrots

I bought a Leopard from the Elves and trained it, but the poor thing just languished in it's room for years with nothing to mate with (a situation I can sympathise with all too well )

Elves never seem to bring the same animals twice, you can't request cool animals from the Dwarves and the Humans don't seem to keen on selling "pets" anyway. Add to that the irritating propensity truly vicious wild animals have of never spawning and sadly my plan to get sharks with frickin' laser beams war bears has been abandoned for the time being.

I'm now settling for a ludicrous excess of traps and deadly pits, but they lack teeth

So my super legendary miner/ first 7 went missing for a week. I start looking around the map and I find his corpse in my refuse stockpile.

Is their a way to determined how he died?

I don't think it was a vampire no message and he wouldn't be sleeping in the refuse pile.

Also there are no dangerous creatures around, he has not had a mining job in awhile so no accidents, and he never was hurt so no bled to death or infection.

Mine went missing, turned out he'd dug himself into a channel he couldn't get out of and apparently starved (with no message). So I doubt it's anything sinister if the body isn't all mutilated: miners tend to get themselves maimed or killed eventually. They seem to be clumsy by nature, even the best ones.

I think once a player has learned some basics, getting a viable metal industry from imported goblinite and trade is quite viable (MASTERWORK FOOD IS GROSSLY OVERVALUED IN TRADE). 

Not having the initial metal to begin is most painful for a new player.  I enjoy having a nice steel industry, but thats just because I like making stuff.  Once you learn to clobber sieges, you begin to appreciate the vast quantities of metal the goblins are importing.

 I'm considering building an entire tower out of imported goblinite copper, but I might turn it into brass first...

You know, I haven't had any luck with Goblinite on this embark either. Not a single thief or errant ambusher! Apparently some dirty Kobold nicked my Copper Battle Axe I embarked with ages ago, but other than that, not a sausage.

Since the fort is going on 3 years old now, it seems more than a little bizarre. I'm in an "untamed wilderness" segment IIRC, with giant sparrows everywhere, but no Goblins whatsoever.

I've resolved in the meanwhile to pump out shoddy Zinc cages (kind of like a giant, unusually macabre souvenir shop) and trade them for anything containing any remotely useful metal.

I think perhaps the hunk of rock I've embarked on is simply known by all and sundry for being a barren lump of Mosquitoman turd and so even raiding parties avoid it :\

(I must also note with a sense of embarrassment that I've never survived long enough to actually be sieged by Goblins, and hence have never had a plentiful Goblinite deposit. The little buggers always seem to show up with ambushes and bleed me dry when all my idiot Dwarves run outside and get killed - full sieges aren't necessary )

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I will post back with the results next time I run into one of the damned things.

I find getting water from pools is often a pain in the rear though, so I suppose they have practical uses once they become breachable.