Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 [2]

Author Topic: Newbie question about professions.  (Read 4680 times)

Mushroo

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Newbie question about professions.
« Reply #15 on: July 28, 2011, 03:41:15 pm »

Ploder: not everyone does this, but what I do is turn every new migrant into a "jack'o'trades" who has ALL labors active. I don't start to restrict labors to specialist dwarves until I have a few with high skill at a given profession. I reject entirely the notion of having 2 medium-skilled dwarves plod away at some major masonry task. for example,  when sending the entire population out there will get it done in minutes. Similarily with mining, woodcutting, plant gathering, etc. I can be ready with 1000s to trade the first caravan and fully stocked with food and booze by deploying those 7 dwarves efficiently -- restricting them to a single task each is not efficient.

A valid--but perhaps wasteful--approach. :)
Dabbling miners will waste ores and minerals, dabbling growers will produce fewer plants per seed, dabbling craftdwarves will not reach anywhere near the maximum value possible with the raw materials.

Experience is a finite resource, you want to "spend" it on the dwarves that are worth leveling up. In my opinion.
Logged

nitus

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Newbie question about professions.
« Reply #16 on: July 28, 2011, 04:23:24 pm »

That's true as far as it goes, except that such things as miners and growers level up very quickly. Mine out a 15x15 room in stone or metal ore and your miners are already better than dabbling, and probably better than you'd have embark points to squander on, in about ten minutes. I can guarantee my workforce of part-time miners or growers gets the job done far faster with more or less the same level of skill.
 
There's no way that anyone keeping dwarves as specialists will match my productivity in years 1-5. After that I too have specialist dwarves in most professions, but never such things as mining or woodcutting or growing -- by then most of my population is skilled at those things.
 
I would say the first professions that get specialists in my fortress, in the first few years, are crafting trades after someone has a strange mood and becomes legendary. 
« Last Edit: July 28, 2011, 04:53:32 pm by nitus »
Logged

Proteus

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Newbie question about professions.
« Reply #17 on: July 28, 2011, 08:23:54 pm »

My starting setup always covers the things I see as necessary/useful (which is smithing, stonecrafting, Brewing/cooking [and preparation of raw food like meat/fish], farming, mining, clothesmaking, trading and recordkeeping [the last one however only with a small skill level...it levels fast enough]).

As for new immigrants...
I always keep track of dwarves, their talents, relationships (and ultimate deaths) via excel table.
One important step with every immigrant ave is, to add the new dwarves to my excel sheet,
note their talents / relationships / gender / birth dates and after wards give them a nickname (a number combination)
and finally assign them their job/s, usually according to their talent levels (with darves who donīt have talents in any useful job usually get assigned to my stoneworkers, miners or military.

Usually dwarves with a profession where the skill level determines the quality of the product will get rarely more than a single job assigned ...
only dwarves where skill level just determines the speed of work get multiple jobs from me without hesitation  (for example I have the job of assistant cook, which is butchery and fish cleaning combines, or farm hand, who is assigned to plant processing and milling)
Logged

Dradym

  • Bay Watcher
  • if its hard, overly complex, but fun, its a dwarf
    • View Profile
Re: Newbie question about professions.
« Reply #18 on: July 29, 2011, 12:02:50 am »

a proper dwarf fortress doesnt need a therapist
Logged
Pages: 1 [2]