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[steel jackal]

well i just started playing df again after a long break from it (two entire skyrim playthroughs, a terraria playthrough, making a self sustaining mun base in ksp, and a lot of misc stuff)

my newest embark has a volcano, plenty of limonite, flux, fire clay, sand, goblins, a tower, humans and elves.

my last fort harnessed the power of a volcano as a weapon, but i was sadly disappointed in how slow the magma flowed since i had 10z levels of magma above the floodgates, it barely melted any zombies and the rest escaped. so for this fort i want to make an improved magma defense that can actually kill more than one or two zombies.

in addition, i also want to get the monarch. i have never done that before (excluding once or twice when i had a dead civilization and it defaulted to me the instant i embarked, but thats not really the same)

but the main goal will be to slaughter an entire siege with the flip of one lever as a flood of magma descends upon my enemies and melts them into nothingness.
hmm, descends... maybe drop the magma on them....

[Madrigal]

My biggest goal, for most of my early forts, was to figure out how to get a proper military going. I stopped playing my first two forts specifically because they were constantly besieged and I couldn't do anything about it. I thought I had it all worked out by my 4th fort, until I sent a squad of steel-clad dwarfs up against a small group of goblins... and watched the dwarfs all die in record time... and that's how I learned about encumbrance. (The goblins were finished off by livestock. It was embarrassing.) In my next fort, though, I got everything sorted out.

My current fort's goal is to become the mountainhome, because I've never tried doing that yet; I normally set the population caps too low.

In future forts, I want to become more efficient. Currently I focus too much on one task at a time, which leads to a lot of dwarfs standing around in the tavern all day while important work (like a defensible entrance and military training) is ignored because the magma forges aren't set up yet.

[Urist McVoyager]

The trick to that is to set up all the tasks during pause time, figure out how many idle dwarves it'll take to do those tasks, then watch the idler count while the game's unpaused. When it starts climbing back up, pause and look for the completed tasks so you can reassign those dwarves to the next one.

[Madrigal]

The mechanics of how to do it aren't the issue. It's forcing myself to pause the game and switch gears when what I really want to do is watch the dwarfs finish the one task I've already given them. Comes down to discipline, really.

[Fleeting Frames]

I can understand that feeling, fellow overseer, and my recommendation is to set up long-term or infinite jobs first. i.e. set your military to start training right away with manager order to maintain free bone/leather armour and then upgrade their uniform later, injecting no job dwarves as you lack anything for them to do.

Set up workflow to produce 80 masterwork beds and leave your carpenter to it.

etc.

The shorter, smaller things are no loss to do as you get to them.

Though, I'm no longer so caring about dwarves fulfilling a purpose with their time. As long as you have defence, food and drink, they can spend some time resting.

[Urist McVoyager]

In the beginning is when you don't want idlers. After that . . . it depends. If you have big projects, you want those idlers working on them. If not, then it's no worry.

High idlers for a short period is a good thing, since it makes everyone socialize and gain relationship levels with others.

I think the biggest goal for my next fort will be setting up a creche area for training the kids in general skills, like swimming, discipline, and observation. To that end, I'll have a two level creche. The bottom level is a plus shaped swimming pool about 3-4/7 deep. Basically a wave pool with enough 4s to make swimming likely without the kids necessarily dying from them. The upper level will be four big platforms, each one housing a different need. Food, drink, sleep, and play. I'd throw food and drink together and put in a dining area, but I'm not sure if swimming forces a dwarf to drop what they're carrying. Discipline will be done by chaining a wild animal or zombie in a secured but visible spot near one of the platforms. Over time the tykes will stop panicking over it. Observation will be handled by adding a side area (easily visible) with a barracks in it.

[UristMcWanderer]

As I've literally just started playing again after years of hiatus for various reasons, I currently have five three five major goals:

1) Don't fuck up (which naturally applies to the next four)
2) Get some basic survival workshops set up
3) Dig five three reservoirs and a simple plumbing system, for wells and watering holes/trenches
4) Set up a basic armorers industry--weaponsmiths, leatherworkers, bowyers and armorsmiths
5) Set up a Swiss militia-type service system for the population

Right now, 2 and 3 are my main priority projects, 4 will advance as I get more minerals and skilled workers, 5 will probably involve a lot of wiki-checking and improvising, and naturally number 1 takes precedence with any goals I have in the future. The water system will probably be the most interesting; while I have a brook at my site, I embarked in a Warm climate, so I'm probably not going to have freezing temperatures to seasonally stop water flow. This poses a problem since I want to install floodgates to control the amount of water flow into my fort myself. Oh well, we'll have to see what Armok has in store for me.

[Sutremaine]

1. A really nice library with dwarves learning the new associated skills, and an efficient setup for producing writing materials.

2. No cave adaptation. I'm going to do this by taking the outline of the magma pipe and building it up to the top of the sky. The uneven shape of the pipe has led to some new architectural decisions.

Code: [Select]

    OOOOO
   OO777OO
  OO77777OO
   OO777OO
    OOOOO

This would be a pain in the bum to scaffold, and to de-scaffold afterwards.

Code: [Select]

   OOOOOOO
  OO+++++OO
 OO++777++OO
OO++77777++OO
 OO++777++OO
  OO+++++OO
   OOOOOOO

This takes more than twice as many blocks and is still a pain in the bum, but there's no dismantling to do. Each level of floor can only be built a few tiles at a time, but all 20 levels can be designated in one go with a temporary macro. With 20 jobs available at once, everyone has something to do and the construction goes quickly.

As for military, I find the most important parts to be wearing of uniforms and gaining of skill. Barracks in chokepoints are all I need for general stationing, and patrols and schedules are occasional conveniences.

[Urist McVoyager]

The water system will probably be the most interesting; while I have a brook at my site, I embarked in a Warm climate, so I'm probably not going to have freezing temperatures to seasonally stop water flow. This poses a problem since I want to install floodgates to control the amount of water flow into my fort myself. Oh well, we'll have to see what Armok has in store for me.

That's not difficult. Save the water tap for last. Get the rest of the water system dug out and place the floodgates where you want them, then tap the brook. Your miner will book it out of there and you can close the a floodgate to keep the water down until the miner's safe. My personal way is to build retracting bridges in the bottoms of the reservoirs and have each one able to fill at need. Bonus points to defense since locking yourself up means monsters can't break them from below.

[Sanctume]

The water system will probably be the most interesting; while I have a brook at my site, I embarked in a Warm climate, so I'm probably not going to have freezing temperatures to seasonally stop water flow. This poses a problem since I want to install floodgates to control the amount of water flow into my fort myself. Oh well, we'll have to see what Armok has in store for me.

That's not difficult. Save the water tap for last. Get the rest of the water system dug out and place the floodgates where you want them, then tap the brook. Your miner will book it out of there and you can close the a floodgate to keep the water down until the miner's safe. My personal way is to build retracting bridges in the bottoms of the reservoirs and have each one able to fill at need. Bonus points to defense since locking yourself up means monsters can't break them from below.

The way I tap from surface water source is dig up to z level of the 7/7 water, and 1 tile away.  On this level, a down stairs begins. 

When I am ready to tap, I miner channels the tile from above between the water and the downstairs tap. 

And as usual, I have a minimalist 3-tile u-bend to gravity-pressure-filter-fresh-water that is secured by grate that leads into the fort, and the required diagonal to reset water pressure before filling the well cistern.

[Dunamisdeos]

I HAVE AN ENTIRE IN-DEPTH POST WITH MULTIPLE DIAGRAMS SAVED FOR THIS EXACT PURPOSE.

I really like getting to use it. A lot.

*diagrams fly from Dunamisdeos' outstretched hands*

DON'T WORRY BROS I GOT THIS.

Spoiler: On creating a safely sealed, accessible waterway (click to show/hide)

The main thing is to create a renewable (or at least vast in volume) course of water for sick or injured dwarves, and for non-dwarf residents. However, you don't want dangerous baddies to sneak in to the system from outside, and you don't want to flood your fort.

Below is a 100% SUPER GREAT SERIES of diagrams showing how to do all this safely. So long as the water source is large enough, you can pump water to anywhere in your fort. Use grates as shown to prevent anything from entering your fort through the water system. You can even link the grates to levers if you want to access those sections of pipe later (for cleaning, perhaps). This is also the purpose of the drains in each section of pipe.

Grates are invulnerable from below, BUT it's important to note that there must be no accessible path to the rear (right hand) grate (see third diagram). This is the reason for the front (left most) grate.

Spoiler: On piercing water sources (click to show/hide)

You can almost always use this method to safely pierce a source of water from the side or above. Be sure to only pierce it after your safe pipeline is completed.

You can also pierce an aquifer from below to achieve this effect. It is more dangerous in terms of initial drowning, but hey, no baddies will ever come through your pipe if it's sourced from solid rock.

Spoiler: A GREAT diagram for GRATES ah-hah-hah (click to show/hide)

It is also easy to add wells to your underground pipe system. Just make sure that the water flows diagonally from the pressurized pipe to the well area. Your dwarves should have no problem escaping the rapidly filling well area, and the water will not rise above the well level.

Spoiler: Visual on diagonal water movement (click to show/hide)

*vanishes in smoke*

[ChristianWeiseth]

The step by step guide in the dwarf fortress wiki for military is very good to understand the system. But I have had a single goblin with metal whip take out over 30 fully geared recruits, so having them train in the barracks is more important than even the finest armor or weapons. Especially getting that dodge skill as high as possible.

When it comes to uniforms I recommend setting "replace clothing" first and micro manage the "mail shit->breastplate" to make sure everyone has a mail shirt under the breastplate. when they got all their gear then set back to "over clothing" and they are able to put on socks and pants and stuff. Not sure if this means they wear clothes over their armor but at least they get everyone on.

My goal is to just build the largest/wealthiest fortress as I have yet to complete that. I tried following the cool concept one user said here of essentially building Ironforge from wow but it was way too time consuming and my fort always broke before I could complete it as the "work camp fort" was inadequate in both industry and dwarf happiness to be stable. So now I usually just build a medium sized mountain hall 6-8 z levels deep with huge columns in the LOTR style which acts as main meeting place/tavern and throne room/treasure chamber with some waterfalls and cool stuff. I have never gotten very deep, as I always want to make my fort stable first...

[Urist McVoyager]

I build mine as a central staircase short enough to avoid the caverns. I've barely ever even used the caverns, or wildlife. I generally just use my dwarves and a little bit of livestock like turkeys and pigs. Truth be told, my attention span really just isn't enough to play this game to that level. I'm either restarting fortresses or I'm moving on to other games, long before things get that good.