Bay 12 Games Forum

DF is a keyboard-based game; the mouse can be used, but only when in menus where you select things - when you're not in a menu, the only thing you can do is scroll around and look at your fort, which is controlled by keyboard only.

I run it in the default resolution.

Quitting the game without saving isn't supported, probably partially in deference to DF's roguelike roots. Saving the game brings you back to the title screen (in effect, it's a "save and quit" kind of thing). You don't want to abandon fortress, which as the name implies ends the fort you're in.

Stonecrafting is ONLY used for the stuff under the "rock" menu at the craftsdwarf's workshop, as well as probably rock shortswords.

Merchants stay around usually for at least a couple of months, while liasons prefer to leave as soon as their business is concluded. I'm not sure why you wanted to drive the merchants away so badly, but in general traders tend to fare badly and buggily if you do things like seal them in a closed room or deconstruct the depot they're trading at. Try rebuilding the depot, and they might return to trade and then leave...or maybe not. Maybe they'll go insane. who knows?

As for taking their goods, everything in your fort belongs to you except for things in the inventories of people who aren't your dwarves. When merchants reach your trade depot, however, they deposit their stuff in the trade depot, which distinguishes between the traders' property and your own - thus deconstructing it destroys that distinction, and when the trade depot is gone all the goods within are immediately claimed by your dwarves.

The result of this, however, will be exactly the same as any other method of stealing from caravans (such as hungry dwarves swiping food, or you commanding them to seize the traders' stuff) - the traders will put up no resistance whatsoever, but their civilization will get angry at you when they return with tales of your theiving dwarves. That said, if you don't care about that, and are willing to endure the everlasting hate of humans and elves and even your fellow dwarves, don't go through the trouble of constantly rebuilding and deconstructing, simply seize the traders' goods.

You don't have to avoid making coins altogether, just don't let your dwarves get the coins. A strategy I saw used in the old version (where making coins was necessary to start the economy) was to make a coin stockpile in someplace isolated, make enough coins to start the economy, then seal off the stockpile before the economy starts so no dwarves can reach it. Not only does it keep the dwarves from spreading coins all over the fortress, but it's fun to build a vault.

Stop cooking food and keep making barrels and bags. When you've got more barrels of prepared food than you have dwarves, you don't really NEED to keep the kitchen running double-time. If your stockpiles are filling up, then your food amounts aren't "pretty stable", they're growing like crazy, and if you're out of empty barrels, then your dwarves aren't starving. Theoretically, once you've got enough barrels to hold food for about 150 dwarves or so, you don't really need to make more barrels, since any that get emptied by hungry/thirsty dwarves will be reused. Though of course that's not really practical.

As for storage, make your food stockpiles expandable, since you know they're going to need to be expanded. I usually just dig a six-tile-wide hallway to nowhere (though usually conveniently near the dining room and food production areas) and make it a food stockpile, and just make the food hall longer every time I need more space.

As for seeds, considering that there's a hard limit of 200 of each type of seed, you can't possibly trace ALL your storage problems to seeds. Once you've maxed out plump helmet and pig tail seeds, your dwarves shouldn't be stuffing any more seeds in barrels and bags anyway (except when your seed numbers dip right after you plant). You're either not making enough bags or doing far too much farming.

This is actually the first time I've even considered the idea that that might be inconvenient for some - I use staircases and Z-levels extensively in my fort, building most workshops on the top couple of Z-levels and doing much mining deeper down, with plenty of staircases so that dwarves never have to travel far to change Z-levels. As such, whatever materials I need are always a staircase and a very short walk away, regardless of level.

Basically, your problem is that the mason has to walk 100 steps to go up one Z-level in the first place. There's no downsides to building staircases, you know. If you know there's a fair amount of stone a Z-level or two away but otherwise very close to your workshop, just build a staircase.

[ November 24, 2007: Message edited by: Gelmax ]

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Originally posted by Buoyancy:
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If it's stated in-game, then the information certainly isn't presented well.  All that you see on the workshop screen is that it's a rock sword after all, with absolutely no mention that you need wood to manufacture them.</STRONG>

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That's an interface problem, not a bug. I'm sure I'm not the only one that tried to craft a Wooden Weapon and ended up with a Wooden Weapon Rack thanks to a cut-off menu option. As I recall, it says in the help screen where you're told how to make obsidian short swords that they have wooden hilts. And if you've ever tried to make one when you didn't have any wood, or simply paid attention to the workshop while the craftsdwarf worked, you'd notice. Moreover, it's required wood to build obsidian short swords since I started playing DF back in January.

Now why does it require wood? Because if you could make decent weapons out of just stone, which is virtually unlimited, why would you bother making metal swords? Decreasing the damage wouldn't be realistic since well-cut obsidian is more than an equal for steel, and even when item breakability is added it wouldn't be a problem for a well-prepared military. Wood, which you can run out of even on a treeless map, puts some limit on it. And while that limit was added in older versions where obsidian and magma were guaranteed on every map, it still applies to some extent even on the current version.