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Author Topic: Stupid embark tricks  (Read 21812 times)

lemmily

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Re: Stupid embark tricks
« Reply #30 on: February 24, 2012, 08:35:12 am »

I don't get it, you still can't see prices if broker is not appraiser, and while single bargain is enough to fix that, I haven't seen high level traders in a while. Grower, appraiser and some military skills are the only ones I always take at the embark.
Huh, I can still see prices without any appraiser at all.  Weird.  I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that was the case...I'll double check tomorrow.

I don't think you can see them without a broker with appraisal skill, but i've found after only one trade, your broker's skill goes to adequate, so just do an insignificant trade, like some rock for a log or something silly as your first trade, and then (in theory, this is how it worked for me anyway) after exiting the screen and getting the stuff you actually want to trade to the depot, when you trade again you should be able to see the values!
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Nan

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Re: Stupid embark tricks
« Reply #31 on: February 24, 2012, 08:43:13 am »

In my experience dwarves who initiate trade actually get the appraiser skill *before* the trade window even opens. In other words you'll always see prices, unless you initiate trade then change brokers to another dwarf who doesn't have any appraisal skill. Also it seems that the amount of appraisal experience granted by a caravan varies, elves seem to give particularly poor experience and I can recall a few times when trading with an elven caravan hasn't given enough appraisal experience to see prices. But since you always get a dwarvern caravan first this is no big deal.

Even in .31 it was a waste of points to embark with appraisal, because you get it for free just by trading. In .34 it's even more a waste of points to embark with any kind of broker skills - because immigrants quite commonly have high social skills and make FAR better brokers than the starting seven possibly could. Dwarfs with "Great" level social skills seem to be capable of getting traders to accept trades at no profit at all (except for the goods quality thing).
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yggiz

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Re: Stupid embark tricks
« Reply #32 on: February 24, 2012, 10:00:59 am »

I always embark with an assortment of 2-point meats just for the barrels. Barrels/Pots are a lot faster to make now. I also bring tons of Kaolinite with any points leftover from essentials. This way I can get loads of porcelean without the slowdown of only 4 kaolinite imported per year from caravan.

Stating the obvious, the embark screen shows the availiable trade goods according to your chosen civ. I will abandon and re-embark with a different civ if I dont like the availiable trade goods. I dont need black diamonds, but I feel cheated if I wont be getting lignite or bituminous coal from my mother civilization.
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Urist McGyver

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Re: Stupid embark tricks
« Reply #33 on: February 24, 2012, 10:26:31 am »

Mod the world to give you 10,000 embark points.

*cough*

While you're at it, mod dwarves to have inate 20 in all skills.
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Lord Honk

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Re: Stupid embark tricks
« Reply #34 on: February 24, 2012, 10:43:10 am »

[...]
Stating the obvious, the embark screen shows the availiable trade goods according to your chosen civ. I will abandon and re-embark with a different civ if I dont like the availiable trade goods. I dont need black diamonds, but I feel cheated if I wont be getting lignite or bituminous coal from my mother civilization.
Similarly, it's pretty painful to see only steel anvils at embark. Why spend 300pts when you can get iron anvils for a third of that price?
Same goes for equipment. I usually start with little to no defensive capabilities when I know I can get metals quickly so a log and the first mined stone go into a carpenter's workshop and a training ax. Not much in saved points, but a point saved is a point earned as the saying goes.
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Maldevious

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Re: Stupid embark tricks
« Reply #35 on: February 28, 2012, 02:58:26 pm »

Watching with interest.
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Stupid embark tricks
« Reply #36 on: February 28, 2012, 04:05:06 pm »

Pre-Embark
Bring tons of crap
Don't unload anything
Abandon
Re-embark
You now have everything that was in your previous caravan(s).
I tried this myself once, and for some reason, my first wagon was totally indestructible. It simply would NOT be broken down into logs.
Also, I've heard that if you do the Double-Embark exploit, you can't bring any booze in your 1st-year load (it'll completely evaporate or something).

1. (d)(b)(c) :P
2. Depends on the biome. Generally depending on the temperature you can have booze survive decades.

50 year old Dwarf booze! Great way to speed legends mode along a bit too. Or maybe if you want to create a quick suit of adventurer steel.

Mushroo

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Re: Stupid embark tricks
« Reply #37 on: February 28, 2012, 04:28:45 pm »

I always embark with plenty of Potash. It basically doubles the output of my entire farming industry, with no extra material or labor cost (other than a small amount of labor to fertilize the field).

Sample embark:
(this is in addition to the usual stuff everyone brings)
30 rock nuts
8 potash
30 sand bags
Planter 5
Cook 5
Glassmaker 5

I immediately dig out an underground farm with two 3x5 plots, fertilize them, and plant the rock nuts.
Meanwhile I cut down some trees and build a wood furnace to make 30 charcoal and 24 ash, then an ashery to make 24 potash (8 potash each for summer, fall, winter).
When the charcoal is ready, my glassmaker makes 30 serrated green disks (or whatever glass goods/furniture are needed in the fortress) thereby creating 30 empty bags for process plants (bag).
At this point I usually switch one of the 3x5 plots to sweet pods, pig tails, etc.
Meanwhile my cook has been practicing on tallow, seeds, berries, etc. and is ready to start making lavish quarry bush leaf roasts.

By autumn, I will have 30 serrated glass disks and a whole bunch of prepared meals, to easily buy whatever I want from the caravan. Most times I don't even need to sell the disks and can use them for traps.
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Garath

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Re: Stupid embark tricks
« Reply #38 on: February 28, 2012, 04:40:29 pm »

For those who didn't understand the reason for bismuth bronze, I don't either.
1 cassiterite and one native copper + 1 fuel = 2 bronze bars

1 cassiterite, 2 native copper ore, 1 bismithine ore +1 fuel = 2 bronze bars + native copper ore + bismuthine ore, if you're lucky

1 cassiterite + 1 fuels + 2 native copper ore + 2 fuel + 1 bismuthine ore + 1 fuel + 1 fuel = 4 bismuth bronze bars


However, the main point is that appearantly cassiterite is cheaper than bismuthine correction, bismuthine is cheaper. However, the need for so much extra fuel (5 instead of 2) will either mean more time spent woodcutting, or spending a lot more points on fuel, more than you saved. I consider it more point efficient to make bronze. The value of the item after it is crafted is only of importance if you want to trade it away or want to raise fortress value fast, which is, as far as I understood, not the main goal of the tricks.

I Usually get iron ores to make iron picks and iron axes. They'll be of some quality and miners level up fast, it makes for a good initial militia. After that I focus a woodcutter/carpenter to make beds so I can make a fast dormitory to decrease unhappiness in the beginning. The farmer goes to preparing the farm asap, but is otherwise part of the mining team that digs out the various storages. Small in size at first (10x10), the are expanded later. Then comes the carry rush to get things inside. Stone collecting and getting wood inside is the absolutely last thing that is done. After that, whatever I feel like. Currently I'm having a great idea on how to flood the entire courtyard mith magma. Or my whole courtyard and fort. We'll see
« Last Edit: February 28, 2012, 04:44:34 pm by Garath »
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Flying Dice

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Re: Stupid embark tricks
« Reply #39 on: February 28, 2012, 04:49:24 pm »

I'm a fan of the double or even triple or quadruple embark. 7 masons (or metalcrafters, or miners, or skill for whatever I want to build) a small ammount of food/drink then rest for raw meterials (blocks, etc). Make sure none of them die, or bury/memorialize them if they do...or it's ghosts for future embarks that you can't do anything about.
I was talking with someone today who mentioned he was going to try embarking, leaving all the materials he brings with him there, and now that historical figures come back to subsequent forts, embark with dwarves that have good/useful skills built up so that, on reclaim, they'll come back as migrants, instead of 15 animal caretakers and their 45 children.
the 45 children that are good for nothing.

Whats wrong with 15 packmules?

45 live subjects to test !!DWARVEN SCIENCE!! on!

Another thing to remember is that almost all those animal caretakers come with high skills in marksdwarf, archery, ambush, and dodge. In my current fortress I've gotten a full squad of 8 marksdwarves who immigrated as animal caretakers/trainers/dissectors/hunters. Five of them arrived with Legendary +3 skill in marksdwarf, and the other three arrived at Great or Professional. Getting a whole squad of high end markdwarves without any effort is rather nice.


This one is rather simple. If you don't want to do the minimalist approach and embark without an axe or picks, switch the metal axe for a training one (though a lot of people apparently consider that to be less 'efficiency' and more 'cheating').
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SixOfSpades

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Re: Stupid embark tricks
« Reply #40 on: February 29, 2012, 12:17:01 am »

For those who didn't understand the reason for bismuth bronze, I don't either.
It's largely important only if you expect combat early on (which can be a very real possibility depending on your embark). The difference between copper and bronze is largely irrelevant for tools, as a (copper pick) is every bit as effective as a *steel pick*, but when it comes to weapons & armor, why settle for copper when all you need for bronze is to burn 1 extra unit of wood per 4 bars of metal? 
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eternaleye

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Re: Stupid embark tricks
« Reply #41 on: January 21, 2013, 01:59:06 am »

My apologies for the necro, but since this thread helped me out a great deal I thought I'd contribute back.

Bringing wood along works, but isn't the most effective source of fuel. Always check if one of the available civilizations gives embark access to either lignite (decent) or bituminous coal (amazing). Either costs only 3 embark points, same as wood, but putting it through a smelter yields multiple blocks of fuel - a profit of 8 fuel per reaction, in the case of BC. Breaking down your wagon, putting one log through a wood furnace, and using the charcoal to jumpstart the smelter works absolute wonders - it gave me enough spare points to start with two bars of steel flat-out, which I then put through the giant-axe-blade cloner, while still having more than 100 units of fuel on embark. Before summer even started, I had a +serrated steel blade+ trap component worth (guessing-by-math here, since I took the OP's advice and didn't put points into appraiser - I'll know for sure after the first trade with the caravan) about 11,000 urists. That ought to be enough to buy a resupply of plump helmets and some variety alcohol easily, and I can trivially make more.

I also brought along turkeys, since they're non-grazer egglaying meat sources that only cost 6 embark points.
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Mohreb el Yasim

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Re: Stupid embark tricks
« Reply #42 on: January 21, 2013, 02:21:44 am »

Trick #1: Forge-your-own bismuth bronze
- Bring a ton of wood.  You'll use it as your sole fuel source early on and you want to start burning it ASAP.  A cost of 3 and a little time gives you charcoal, much cheaper than the 10 that fuel normally costs.
I must disagree
you should take one wood and a lot of bitumius coal (yileds more coke / embark point)
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TruePikachu

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Re: Stupid embark tricks
« Reply #43 on: January 21, 2013, 03:14:23 am »

You are aware that the thread had long since expired?
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Gentlefish

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Re: Stupid embark tricks
« Reply #44 on: January 21, 2013, 03:23:31 am »

Hey - if it's relevant, than it's okay.
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