Bay 12 Games Forum

I only just discovered that 1 stone --> 4 blocks.  That makes a huge difference.  I'll definitely have at least one mason in my future forts dedicated to making blocks on repeat.

Play the game on a laptop?
Or is that not allowed?

Day 1:
This fortress is a maze!  First things first... the gate is shut and there are lots of caged enemies and dead dwarves outside.  Took a look at the militia.  Squads are full of vacancies and look at this -- they have women in the militia.  What barbarians are responsible for this offense against nature?

Day 2:
Can't figure out how and why jobs were assigned, so I just fired everybody from every labor.  And emptied the militia except for commander Fishybang.  I decided that my megaproject will require about 10 miners, about 10 glassmakers, 2 mechanics and lots of masons.  I assigned those jobs, then added the other things I needed - cook, brewers, metal workers, etc.  I organized a 40-man (man) militia: everyone with any skills is given an axe and put under Fishybang's command.  A second squad of spears is under my personal command.  Two squads of completely green marksdwarves will be backing us up. (Note: we need a surface rampart for them to shoot from!)  At commander Fishybang's recommendation, we will all be training our skills on the captured goblins and perhaps some of the other creatures we've caught.

Day 3:
We have hundreds of iron bars but not one of steel.  I have ordered a forest to be burned for charcoal, and a quarry's worth of marble (flux) to be mined out, and queued up enough pig iron to keep the smelters busy for a while.  My apologies to whoever decided we needed to be making electrum bars on repeat -- this is more important.
I've designated the necessary areas to be mined out for my megaproject.  I opened the gates.  The new militiamen are picking up the equipment scattered around the plain, and chopping down the forest I requisitioned.


This fortress is just killing my work computer.  I'll have to switch to my laptop.  More updates will come tomorrow or sunday.

We could do what he did with the wall of bridges, although that would take a while.

My hope is that we can be a little bit original and do something different.  Magma moat, anyone?  Or instead of preventing land animals from appearing, perhaps we can engineer a system of traps to kill them almost immediately once they spawn. I don't know.

fwinddancer, I put you at the end of the overseer list so you can have a turn later.  I'm looking forward to hearing Naryar's reports this weekend.

I just re-read Sphalerite's OP on catching sea serpents (link here - beware it's almost a spoiler) and I noticed one of the same things he noticed -- the game strongly prefers to spawn land creatures over sea creatures.  We may need to make that impossible somehow, so more sea critters will spawn.

I never train miners, woodcutters, or herbalists.  Your dwarfs will skill up in these things very, very quickly (usually my miners go from complete novice to "legendary" within the first year).  Bring skills that don't train quickly: a doctor, some military dwarves, a skilled planter, and perhaps talented metalworkers.  As for supplies, cancel most of the stuff that you could easily make yourself (for example, the crutches and splints).  Raw materials (wood) are much cheaper.  As for animals, pigs are good for meat, geese for eggs, cats for killing vermin, dogs for guarding the entrance.  Drop the copper axes (unless for your military) and get wooden training axes (or just bring wood) for chopping trees.  A nice suit of armor and weapons for your fighter(s) if you have points to spare.

Good idea.  Can I have a turn?  Call my dwarf "Joe", no need for full names.

Garbage dump is a good idea.  Make a 1x1 tile garbage dump zone near where your main stone stockpile is.  Designate d-b-d to dump all stone from a newly cleared area.  (It'll go to the nearest dump, so make sure you only have one garbage zone or are OK with stone going to the nearest one.)  One tile can hold infinite stone.  If you ever run low on stones in your stockpile (or if you want to get access to some valuable ones in the dump), then designate d-b-c to reclaim.  Dwarfs will put the stone into the empty stockpile (and leave stuff in the dump if there's nowhere to haul it).  So if your stone pile is full but you think there's some metal ore or gems in the dump, d-b-c will have the dwarves fetch all the metal ore or gems for those stockpiles.

I also recommend having somebody make rock pots on repeat.  You will never stop needing them for booze and prepared meals.

Later on you may want to make dedicated stockpiles for valuable or pretty stones for specific crafts to be made from (or mechanisms -- if you like to color code your levers like blue for the plumbing, green for the gate, red for the doomsday device...).