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Author Topic: Very old and mediocre player coming back  (Read 1232 times)

Ragnarock

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Very old and mediocre player coming back
« on: March 05, 2018, 01:23:36 pm »

Hey guys,

It's been ages since I've actually played DF, and even then I remember my forts being absolutely shit. I'm looking for all possible tips regarding fort mode, no matter how trivial. The thing is I don't need to watch a tutorial, since I know the controls pretty well. I studied the flowchart from dfwiki, but it's very superficial.

Think about what you'd like to share with a new player - all posts will be appreciated.
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Ulfarr

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Re: Very old and mediocre player coming back
« Reply #1 on: March 05, 2018, 02:22:35 pm »

In game tips:
- Prepared food is way overvalued making it a broken an excellent trade good if you really need to get lots of stuff from a single caravan.
- cage traps are overpowered for both defense and food production (place a few in random spots to capture wild animals).
- leather is dirt cheap to buy and if you order some from your liaison, it's in great supply too. You can use it instead of plant/wool/silk cloth for your dwarves clothing if you don't
  don't want to bother setting their infastructure.
- Heavily forested areas may lead to fps death sooner.
- Quantum stocpiles are great for minimalistic fortress designs.


Out of game:
- I personaly disable aquifers because I find them a pain in the ass to deal with and they tend to be in all the intresting/nice spots.
- Sometimes, when I want to have an easier/more comfortable start, I set an extremely low population cap and then raise it progressively.
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Bring Kobold Kamp to LNP! graphics compatibility fix.

So the conclusion I'm getting here is that we use QSPs because dwarves can't pilot submarines.

Madrigal

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Re: Very old and mediocre player coming back
« Reply #2 on: March 05, 2018, 03:11:28 pm »

Some random tips:

You can build workshops for temporary use and then disassemble them when you don’t need them anymore (or want to move them somewhere else).

Try to get a small supply of the three different kinds of thread (plant thread, silk, and yarn), in case moody dwarves demand them for their artifacts.

If you want to build fortifications for your marksdwarves to shoot through, don't build them directly. Instead, build a wall and then carve fortifications into that wall; that way the fortifications come with a roof and your dwarves will be less likely to jump through.

If you have fisherdwarves, make sure you have some fish-cleaner dwarves who don't have the fishing labor enabled, to make sure all the freshly caught fish gets processed quickly.

When recruiting dwarves into the military, look out for the mining, hunting, and woodcutting labors. Those jobs include equipment, which conflicts with military uniforms. To avoid conflicts, it's easiest to turn off those three labors for all your military dwarves.

The hospital should have separate rooms that can be locked or walled away, so that injured dwarves can be quarantined if necessary.
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bloop_bleep

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Re: Very old and mediocre player coming back
« Reply #3 on: March 05, 2018, 04:45:59 pm »

There is a very large amount of tips that would be useful to you, much larger than what we can summarize in this thread in any reasonable of time. Try reading the guides and other pages on the wiki; I amassed quite a large amount of DF knowledge simply from reading random pages.

Having said that, here are some general tips:
  • Get a military and secure the entrance to your fort AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Werebeasts, FBs, titans, and later on in the game, sieges can arrive at any time.
  • Similarly, set up a working hospital zone as soon as you can. You will save many dwarves that way.
  • If a werebeast attacks, make sure to look at the combat reports to see everyone who got bitten, and quarantine them away, preferably in separate rooms.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2018, 04:49:49 pm by bloop_bleep »
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Triaxx2

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Re: Very old and mediocre player coming back
« Reply #4 on: March 05, 2018, 10:51:06 pm »

Distances at least used to be calculated shorter up and down z-levels so I always put my workshop stockpiles above and below my workshops, with stairs. Usually input underneath and output above towards the depot. Except for the forges which have magma under them and get two levels above them.
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Ragnarock

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Re: Very old and mediocre player coming back
« Reply #5 on: March 06, 2018, 03:57:26 am »

These are all extremely useful and this is exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for. If you feel like it, please keep them coming. I'll try to read random articles on wiki as well  8)
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Ulfarr

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Re: Very old and mediocre player coming back
« Reply #6 on: March 06, 2018, 08:11:12 am »


If you want to build fortifications for your marksdwarves to shoot through, don't build them directly. Instead, build a wall and then carve fortifications into that wall; that way the fortifications come with a roof and your dwarves will be less likely to jump through.

I'd like to expand a little upon Madrigal's post about fortifications.

- Both enemy and friendly units can (and will)  jump over fortifications/walls that are 1 z level high. Building another layer of wall above them is enough to prevent this. Alternatively, a full roof (either floor or a bridge on the above z level) will also block flyer units.

- There is a bug that can cause units to teleport through walls (both built and natural ones) when dodging. It doesn't happen always but you have to keep it in mind when you decided where your dwarves will fight or train.
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Bring Kobold Kamp to LNP! graphics compatibility fix.

So the conclusion I'm getting here is that we use QSPs because dwarves can't pilot submarines.

Ragnarock

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Re: Very old and mediocre player coming back
« Reply #7 on: March 07, 2018, 04:11:10 am »

- cage traps are overpowered for both defense and food production (place a few in random spots to capture wild animals).


Is there a particular layout I should be going for when deploying traps? I remember placing lots of weapon traps in the previous build and they never repelled any thieves.
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Luriant

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Re: Very old and mediocre player coming back
« Reply #8 on: March 07, 2018, 05:56:49 am »

Thieves are Trap_Inmune, and some Procedural Generated Megabeast.
Don't activate the trap.

But a Upright Spike trap filled with Spikes or Spears, linked to a mechanism, can kill any creature in the tile after activation. Link the trap to a lever and Repeat with a dwarf, or pressure plate and move a minecart over the plate.
Beware of your own dwarfs/pets.
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Ulfarr

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Re: Very old and mediocre player coming back
« Reply #9 on: March 08, 2018, 12:49:23 am »

As Luriant said, thieves don't trgger traps. You can put (using a chain/rope) an animal near your entrance to spot any thieves, they usualy leave once spotted.

Efficient trap layout is a bit tricky and depends heavily upon what you want to trap/defend. I' m definately not an expert on this but I'll try to give some examples of how I tend to use them.

Keep in mind:
- In all cases, the most important factor is that all units try to move through as little tiles as possible when moving from point A to point B.
- Enemies are more likely to flee in terror if they see someone getting killed than seeing someone getting injured. Some players might like it and is deffinately more useful if you don't have a good military to finsih off any enemy that survive the "mine field", but I prefer to use weaker* traps so I can soften the enemies without halting their assault completely. It also means that the traps themselves are less likely to jam because fewer enemies will die on them.

* Using 3-5 low quality weapons (and not trap components) instead of the maximum 10 per trap.

1) In narrow (1 tile wide) corridors with lots of turns, the enemy will (preferably) move diagonaly in every corner stepping only on the tiles I marked as "2" below. That, in turn means that any trap placed in the "1" tiles is unlikely to ever trigger.

w= wall

wwwww
w 1 2          <- Enemy comes from here
w 2 www
w 1 2          -> to fortress
w wwww

2) For staircases, the easiest way is to just trap all the surrounding tiles but it is a bit of an overkill. However, if you haven't assigned any traffic restrictions on your dwarves, you can observe which tiles they tend to use and emphasize these when placing traps.

x= up/down stairs, t = trap, w= wall
wwwwwwww w   
w x t t t t t t t          units avoid pathing through
w x t t t                  the middle tiles.
w x t t t t t t t       
wwwwwwwww

wwwwwwww
w x t t                    Units prefer the lower tiles.
w x t t t
w x t t t t t t
wwwwwwww

3) "Herding" enemies to your entrance

e = fortress entrance, w= wall, t= trap

ee t t
ee t t 
ee t t t t
www t t t
     wwt t t t
       wwwt t t
         wwww t t
               www t
                               
                                enemy comes from here


4) For catching wild animals, you can either just place randomly traps around the map or if the map permits (large area on the same z level) it you can again observe where these animal move through and place traps around that area.
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Bring Kobold Kamp to LNP! graphics compatibility fix.

So the conclusion I'm getting here is that we use QSPs because dwarves can't pilot submarines.

Xyon

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Re: Very old and mediocre player coming back
« Reply #10 on: March 08, 2018, 03:52:44 pm »

I suggest spending time to learn how to use the minecarts, they are an easy way to set up quantum stockpiles that you don't need to manage very often.
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Hiarhu

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Re: Very old and mediocre player coming back
« Reply #11 on: March 09, 2018, 07:31:25 pm »

Creatures can climb now so factor it in when designing defenses. Build walls out of blocks and smooth natural stone walls to make them harder to climb. A floor hanging over the edge of a wall will prevent any creature from climbing past it. Also if you build a moat cut back any trees which overhang it as enemies can and will swing across. 
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TomiTapio

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Re: Very old and mediocre player coming back
« Reply #12 on: March 10, 2018, 07:12:52 am »

Nowadays I like having an inn-type-meetingarea at the entrance to my underground rooms. So anything coming from the to-surface stairs, or from to-caves stairs, has to travel through the useless bards and entertainers.

Beyond the 13x13 kitchen room I have a 23x23 room of: refusepile + corpsepile + butchershop + tannershop + craft shops (bone and shell armor).

I drain a surface pond downwards to out living area, into channel-dug mini ponds, and build wells there for drinking. The draining operation also gives mud tiles for underground farming.

Stone fall traps in the caves next to the up-stair.

Options-workshopoptions-turn off auto collect webs (which takes dorfs to heavy danger).

When low on citizens, turn off collecting of refuse, stone, wood.

Use Dwarf Therapist app to look for best fighters and give them nickname. Turn off all hauling from best dorfs (AKA the initial seven). Turn off patient carry&feed from your doctordwarf.

d-b-forbid dead people gear in the caves, unless you want to retrieve them from the ultra-alligator.

Weapon traps are over-powerful, it's just cheating to defeat 20 goblins with "trap corridor of 6x10 weapons". N years from now, invaders can destroy walls and dig, it just hasn't been coded yet.
« Last Edit: March 10, 2018, 07:19:18 am by TomiTapio »
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