Dwarf Fortress 2010!

The Game Room
41

I keep picking up this game every so often but man, the learning curve is throwing me for a loop. Wondering if any of you guys can help with my issues.

I tried this not entirely updated but stil useful guide but got a bit stuck after importing the tileset. For some reason, this makes changing levels with < and > not work. This page says that shift-5 and ctrl-5 also work, but while I can use ctrl-5, I can’t use shift-5. So I guess shift is broken? It worked during my first attempt playing in ASCII. Not sure how to fix this or troubleshoot. Makes the game mostly unplayable but the ascii version is really hard for me to get a grip on, too, so that’s frustrating.

Anyway, so I tried just working on one level to try to get a handle on things. I got through most of the guide but I can’t figure out farming at all. I can’t seem to get dirt to be where I want it to be by using water. There was a little water on my level and so I dug a room around it, but it just sort of oozed in a few tiles and stayed there. I got maybe 5 tiles of dirt for all my efforts and made a big mess. On my first attempt with ASCII, I dug down to water but it just flooded everywhere, even when I eventually managed to dig it out to flow outside – the water never receded from the flooded room I meant to farm even with a 8-tile-wide channel to outside the mountain. How on earth do you get a big square underground plot like the guide says (I guess farming/irrigation was changed since the guide was written)?

42

In the Mayday graphic pack, he has it changed to / and * for changing levels.

Also, for the second part, in the version that the guide is from, farming wasn’t bugged like it is now. Before, you should farm on sand/dirt without muddying the ground first. I’ve been struggling with farming, but I’ve had the most success popping small ponds into fields. I’ll put a video up on youtube later if I manage it.

43

the new version also has water volume and flow. Some underground lakes are big and full(7/7 water) some are very low(1/7, 2/7) and just won’t cover much ground once you open up the wall. And a small area lake of 5/7, once it cover a few tiles maybe be down to 1/7all over.

My game I actually had to dig to a lake, to fill my farm spot. But it emptied into only a few spots, so I had to send my guy through the now low lake and dig to another lake and another lake, and get the volume and flow from all three to cover my intended 30 or so farm tiles.
WHat I do, because I have bugs with flood doors, is dig my farm area. Then put a single wide hallway through to near the water. Then put a normal door way in the hall, and built a lever somewhere on the outside of the whole area(door protected). Then mark the last spot or two to the water for digging, and watch the dude do it. Then he finishes and runs away through the door. As soon as he is through, I mark the door for no permit passage. Then I connect the lever to the door. Then finally lock the outside door, and have the lever pulled, opening the door, and letting the water flow into my farm. Then once it is good pull the lever again, and permit the outside door.

It is also a good idea to mark for dump any rock in the levered door passage, before you dig the last two walls. Rocks can get pushed with flow into the square of the levered door, and make it impossible for the lever to close it again, making the farm lost space.

44

:smack: Thanks!

Ah… how do you tell if it’s 1/7, 2/7, etc. water? Sorry if this is too newbie of a question

45

Press ‘k’ and scroll over it. There’s also an option in the init files to replace the water symbol with a coloured number saying how much water there is, but I prefer not to use it.

46

Ran home over lunch and thought I’d give it a go - this doesn’t seem to work either. I checked the init file and found these entries:

[A_MOVE_UP_AUX:SHIFT+COMMA]
[A_MOVE_DOWN_AUX:SHIFT+PERIOD]

So it seems like < and > should do it, but they don’t.

I also found this:
[A_MOVE_UP:SHIFT+5]
[A_MOVE_DOWN:CTRL+5]

So again there seems to be some weirdness because ctrl+5 works but shift+5 doesn’t. I’m flummoxed. Should I try starting over with a different tileset? Is there a decent one, if so?

47

The A_<Thing> commands are for adventure mode.

You want whatever is set to CURSOR_UP_Z and CURSOR_DOWN_Z.

Are you on a laptop by chance? Most laptops don’t have / and *.

48

the standard for me is Shift +> for down and shift + < for up, that and the already mentioned / and * keys in the pack I am currently running

49

Okay, I feel like a moron. I wasn’t using / and * on the number pad.

Anyway, so that’s working! I even managed to get a working farm going after a few tries at managing water levels.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be something wrong with my original location. Despite setting up a trade depot, and checking that it was accessible, no caravans ever showed up. No dwarves, elves, humans, nobody. I did get about 3 waves of immigrants though, so I don’t know what happened. This was frustrating, so I’m trying generating a new world and site.

So far I seem to be grasping most of it, except the military. I’m not really sure how to get the guys to spar and train. I appointed a squad and those loungers just sit around.

50

I do actually have a question if anybody has figured it out yet. How do I stockpile Robes and tunics and shirts?

The finished goods stockpile doesn’t seem to have a torso wear category to turn on, and my yard is littered high with former gobo shirts and robes I would like to clean up.

51

Armor stockpiles.

52

Try Finished Goods -> Armor.

53

ahh thank you guys, I just didn’t think of that. Of course now my fortress is tied up for a year or so taking all that crap to the stockpile now :slight_smile:

54

well that was a new one.

a full siege appeared, maybe 50 gobos. so I set to burrow, called up the army, and set siege weapons to ready. Then suddenly the dwarfen traders appeared. Ohh well a bunch of free crap I guess after the siege is broken. But nope, the caravan must have had legendary guards this time. The four guards ripped through the gobos like government Toilet paper. 15 were dead by the time I scrolled back, the rest ran like little girls with the guards chasing and excavating livers all over the place. a trail of bloody carnage back off the screen.

They stole all my fun. :wink:

55

Wow, my Saturday was destroyed. Thanks guys! :wink:

I feel like I’ve grasped the basics, but man I’m having trouble with military stuff. It didn’t help that my blacksmith dwarf went into a strange mood before I managed to get my hand on an anvil, and went insane just as I managed to trade for one (trading is hard without a broker!).

Some questions:

  • Whenever I try to make certain things, the job seems to stall. Nobody seems to know how to make them, but I don’t get a message that I don’t have the materials. Making wooden things like beds, barrels, or bins works, for example; making traps or cages doesn’t. I can make rock crafts, but I can’t seem to make other rock items. Am I missing something?

  • After I create a squad and activate the leader, how do I get the guys to equip up and spar? Is being in the military full-time?

  • Should I be doing anything with these war dogs or just let them wander? I see you can assign them to dwarves, is that better?

56

Always bring and anvil at the beginning. Yeah they take a lot of points, but they are worth it

You have to manage the professions.`Dwarf therapist is nice for this, but on a small fortress the game interface isn’t bad.

If you are making rock crafts you have a stone crafter and a Craftman’s workshop. If you want to make rock doors for example you need a mason’s workshop and a dwarf with masonry(under stoneworking) enabled. Same with wood. A wood crafter can use the crafts shop, but a carpenter needs a carpenters workshop and a dwarf with carpenter turned on. Even if they have no skill they will do it(poorly, but item quality is unimportant at early stages)

Im not the best source here. I keep getting bugged, but what I end up doing, is creating a squad. Setting up a baracks(you need to build a weapon rack or armor stand, preferably in a room where you can also put tables and puts and chests and stockpiles). then Q over to the stand or rack and turn it in to a baracks, select the squad you want and put set those baracks for training. I then go into the main menu and hit s for squad, and leave them inactive. They still spend most of their time training, but will actually go eat, drink and sleep when they need to. Then when there is a gobo to kill I go into the menu, and tell the squad to attack it(‘k’) When it is dead I cancel their orders and they go back to mostly training. To equip you need either a single guy, or the whole squad highlighted, then hit e for equipment. The you can hit ‘W’ for weapon, or whatever for each piece of armor then you want then to use. I usually just set metal or leather at the beginning, and assign them a weapon type(or just leave them on individual choice). Going sideways between menus makes thing wierd and I never know what I will end up with.

Unfortunately being always inactive prevents patrols, which are useful, so I end up with baracks and different squads at every entrance(usually the front door, and at pinchpoints at the bottom just before the caverns. It also prevents martial teaching(“is giving a demonstration”) which is a much quicker way to train an army, but when I set them to active, some will never go off active, and eventually go insane from thirst., so I let them all solo train as they feel like it.

I usually llet them wander. Hunting dogs don’t do anything I can see, and war dogs are better wandering alone(they can buy you time slowing down gobos, while your woodcutter runs back to the burrow, and your army gets activated. If they are tied to a fighter, they only get there when he does usually(although they don’t necesarily really stay with they guy they are assigned to all the time)

57

I tend to assign war dogs to dwarfs who have a reason to be active outside the walls, like my woodcutters, hunters, etc. They’re not very useful assigned to troops, but they do well enough in helping to hold off the occasional ambush whole the woodcutter beats feet for the gates.

58

Yeah that’s not a bad idea. I the old days I used to assign them to wood cutters, and deep delve miners, then I stopped doing that because My woodcutters and miners all became legendary so quickly. And back in the day any Dwarf with a legendary skill was so damn tough(and those guys either have an axe or a pick) they were badasses without any military training so the dog just kept them company. The new releases makes it a good idea again.

59

Okay, I’ve been playing more. This is great! Managed to figure out the basics of military stuff and trading. I hired a broker and bookkeeper, and managed to trade pretty much everything a human caravan was trading in exchange for a metric buttload of rock piccolos and live rats. :wink:

I hope you guys’ll humor me with a few more questions:

Animal training: I can’t get this to work. I have kennels and an animal trainer, and I have plenty of dogs to train (both puppies and adults), but I can’t train wardogs. I also couldn’t train any of the rats that my traps caught using the small animal training. I keep getting the message I have no available animal. Do they have to be in cages? If so, how do I get a free dog in a cage, or a trapped rat into a cage? Also, can you train dogs that are already adopted as pets?

Magma: Where is it? I’d love to experiment but I don’t see any. Do I have to dig down really deep? Do I actually have to get adjacent to it, like water, or will it show up on the map when I reach that level? Where should I look?

Enemies: Where are they?! I’m in the third year and nobody has shown up. Nothing hostile whatsoever. No combat has occurred. My only casualty so far was a war dog I accidentally set as ready for slaughter. :smack: I don’t really mind, since I chose a calm biome, but I’m beginning to get suspicious. It took about a year for the Goblin civilization to show up on my list of civs, but now it does. I haven’t found anything underground yet… just layer upon layer of stone and ore. I guess I should count my blessings but I won’t ever learn until something shows up, and I’d prefer my first experience wasn’t a massive siege…

Military: So I managed to get my guys to train themselves. However, I really had cruddy equipment at the start. However, I finally figured out how to make copper and forge weapons/armor, which is a marginal improvement, plus I traded for a bunch of bronze armor. How do I get them to trade their wooden weapons/shields for metal ones? I can see the uniform menu, but there doesn’t seem to be an option based on material. Do they do this automatically at some point? I put the weapon and armor stockpiles right by their barracks.

Also, one of my miners seems to be really confused. I set him in the military temporarily (I didn’t have much mining to do at the time) and then took him out again, but all he does is individual training drills, all the time. Even if I set training off in the barracks. Even though he’s not in any squad. ??? How do I get him to stop? All he does is stand there, all day long, training. Occasionally, he’ll eat or sleep, and then he’ll train again. He trains more than the guys in my actual squad! I appreciate his devotion but I want my legendary miner back. It’s been several seasons since I removed him.

Just plain stupidity: Some of my dwarves are starving and dying of thirst, despite a huge abundance of food and alcohol! One particular moron had a tantrum because he was starving and sleeping on the floor. He’s on my farming level, and I even put an extra bunch of beds up there because the farmers wouldn’t always walk to their rooms, but he didn’t use that either. How do you starve when you’re never more than 10 squares away from a food stockpile?! The dining room is probably a 15 square walk from the food, but I put an extra food stockpile next to the dining room, too. My fortress isn’t that big, so I’m confused why the dwarves won’t always eat. This only seems to happen to certain dwarves – usually the farmers, which makes no sense to me.

60

That’s the bug I keep running into. I can’t give much help, but sometimes if you remove the armor stand or weapon rack that defines the barrack they will stop training.

That’s an interesting one. Have you checked his preferences? ‘v’ near him, then once he is selected hit ‘z’ then enter, you should get his whole spiel.

You probably don’t have to worry about a siege yet. If you put it in a safe place, then it takes a while for them to find you. If they just showed up on the civ menu, you probably have a little time. Usually first you get a snatcher or two, then a year or so later an ambush(maybe 6-8, hopefully no lords). Then after a couple ambushes you start getting the seiges with 16-50 or so gobos, and eventually trolls and ogres and fun stuff.
There are also the caverns which usually start about 12-15 levels below z0. Although if you vertical delve you can miss the first one entirely. Once you find one a whole bunch of caves on many levels open up as part of the complex, and you start getting little invaders. It’s a good idea to have a barracks down my the cavern. Sometimes you get a forgotten beast which is like a titan , but from the caves not the wilderness.

Magma is usually about 150levels below the starting level. It’s quite a delve through dangerous caves.

I don’t know why you can’t train dogs, If there are tame grown dogs around you should be able to. Training large animals is cages is usually pretty bug free too. Small animal training is screwy at times.

As for weapons, you can go into the military equipment menu, then hit e. From there find a guy move to his weapon selection and hit ‘M’ to get the material list and it should allow you to select metal as the choice. That menu is easy to screw up, so I prefer to create a uniform that includes the weapon choice and armor choices, then disband the squad and recreate it designated with the new uniform. Once you have around 50 dorfs, you should get a noble called the arsenal dwarf. you will need to assign someone and build him the correct noble requirements including an office to work in. He will then “work on equipment manifests” and start assign weapons to squads. If you have the noble slot at all, even empty, no one will ever get new weapons or armor without it being assigned by the Arsenal dwarf.