Auto here checking in. Sooooo… yeah. Wow. I must admit I really underestimated how complex this game really is. I mean that in the most positive way. It really is awesome.
With that said, after 10+ hours of training and practice, I still feel like a total ignoramus. I feel like taking my turn is going to ruin everything. I don’t say that out of low self-esteem but because that’s really my realistic self-assessment.
One thing that has really helped is the series of “Let’s Play DF2010” videos on Youtube. I’m up to 10 or so on that and I feel that with these under my belt maybe, just maybe, I’m ready.
Gosh I’m making this sound like an Oscar-worthy production here, but I guess that’s my perfectionist side coming through.
The last couple of days my GF has been over and while she’s been appreciative of the occasional training session, I felt guilty plugging away for three hours or more while she sat on her bum…
But enough excuses. The time has come. I’m going to take my turn tomorrow for better or worse. That’s a promise. I’ve made y’all wait long enough. I apologize for the delay.
So a basic mechanical question from a DF noob; how the heck do I dig into new levels? I’ve put a stair down on the floor above, and found the little red square on the next level that indicates where it is, but when I try do build a stair up directly below, it says it’s blocked. Do I need to build immediately adjacent to the down stair?
Because the space you want to put a stair on the lower level is solid rock, you need to dig out stairs, not build them. Use the (d)esignate menu to designate either an up/down stair or an up stair to be dug out directly under the down stair you’ve built.
Ah. I was confused by the option to build one in the build menu. I think I’d seen the (d) option but by the time I’d figured out how to switch levels I’d forgotten it.
They build option is for if you want stairs in an open air already dug out place. Nice option to have, but is pretty much admitting you screwed up your fortress design somewhere along the line.
That river isn’t going anywhere unless you actually breach it somehow. Maybe a cave-in would do the job, but it’s pretty hard to have an accidental cave-in.
Personally I like lots of stockpiles. Lots and lots of stockpiles. Stockpiles that link to other stockpiles, which link to yet other stockpiles, giving dwarves lots of little jobs rather than one big long one. Seems to keep things moving more steadily that way.
But, at first, I did what you did. Gigantic room, full of stockpiles. It works, it’s just that now I like to plan the “flow” of the fortress a certain way. Nothing’s worse than finding the random guy you need for one specific thing going 1,000 tiles and back for something. :smack:
Don’t forget that you can customize stockpiles, too, so you can set (for example) just metal ores in a pile by the smelter, or just thread (but not cloth) by the loom. Or whatever. I do a lot of this (e.g. stone and bone finished goods by the trade depot, leather finished goods by the armor stockpile, furniture piles of just mechanisms outside for traps, full cages by the kill room, empty cages go back outside, etc. etc.).
Once you get going, you can even set up stockpiles by quality too, e.g. exceptional steel armor and better goes by the armory near your barracks, everything else near the smelter to melt off and rework). Otherwise, I found that by the time I had over 100 dwarves, the massive-stockpile-room method was meaning pretty much half the working dwarves had to be haulers just to try to keep up on critical jobs.
Beware of rivers in winter! I built my current fortress by a river and forgot about the sudden melting in spring. And, for whatever reason, they just love hanging out on the frozen river. (Or, worse, in it – when I have to mine out dead invader bodies that are interfering with my dams).
Finally I just had to set the alert for all dwarves to go inside at around mid-winter, just to make sure no more accidental drownings occurred.
The ghost fisherdwarves were pretty rad, though. I found one of them, motionless, hovering over the moving water where he drowned, holding a dead fish. For about six months.
I agree that FlyingRat’s turn went too smoothly - what we need is some kind of giant disaster. Isn’t it time we dug into the great magma seas and used some kind of windmill-powered pump stack to get magma to the surface to power a fuel-free metal industry? Who better to initiate such a plan than our newest player, right?
Don’t worry about the death of Dinaroozie the Unwise, by the way. I knew what I was doing when I spent the year building myself an awesome tomb without bothering digging out a proper office/dining room/bedroom. Since he was the chief medical dwarf, and he died of an infection, it’s probably fair to say he brought this on himself anyway.
You can use the [d] menu to set the avoidances for various areas, such as the surface of the river. Avoidance seems to work on a game level by making a square a greater/lesser obstacle to get through, so if you set it to High, the dwarves will just find another way around. It works pretty well most of the time. (I’ve also had random drownings, too, but not for that reason once I learned how to manage it! Maybe they slip crossing the bridges or something?)
The ghosts/haunts are a fun (in the dwarfy sense) new twist, aren’t they?
Wouldn’t that be !!Babies!!?
And, yeah, seriously, Auto, don’t worry about it and remember the game’s motto! It’s all good, whatever happens (and if the worst happens, there’s always Reclaim Fortress mode down the line!)
Hah! Fair enough. Lesson learned: always keep a few bars of hoary marmot soap around. (I think that Toady needs to incorporate amputations into the medical system, too…)
I definitely agree that my turn went far too smoothly. I think it’s time for a Forgotten Beast or two, don’t you think? (I once had two in a single year-- but it was a complete non-issue, given that each one was essentially a giant balloon of gas with a few little wiggly limbs sticking out. One well-placed shot from a Marksdwarf and the beast was dead with “half its body gone” and the Marksdwarf got a custom title, and, I like to imagine, came in for some good-natured ribbing from fellow dwarves.)
Oh, the river itself (except bridges) is already marked as a restricted traffic zone. Idle dwarves still hang out there, and for some reason they also love cleaning up the stagnant water that’s left behind by mining out ice.
I never make soap due to the bugs I’ve seen with it. Does it actually work better now? My dwarves seem to live years and years (if not indefinitely) with infections anyway.
The only ones I’ve lost to infections were the ones who lost all of their skin and fat to a Forgotten Beast cloud, and were infected on every part of their body. And even some of those guys STILL survived, admittedly blind. I left 'em in the military - what’s scarier than being met on the field of battle by a cadre of dwarves with no skin, lips, or eyelids – wearing full plate mail. shudder
OK. So… I have finished Spring. It only took me 3 hours. Is that normal? I mean it’s been a blast, but seriously?! One year takes 12 hours?! What kind of people have the time to play this game!!! (cancelled order: need more exlamation marks)
I’ve taken copious notes but nothing too crazy has happened. I got a lot of idlers that I can’t seem to fix and I’m probably screwing up trade somehow (no trade window has popped up.) My main project is the “Autolycus Dining Hall of Legend.” I think I went a bit over-board, but it should support a massive population of dwarves.
I won’t be able to finish the next 3 seasons until tomorrow (at least). My girlfriend is over again and somehow she thinks she is more important than some random digital dwarves. The nerve! Seriously though… I’m surprised she waited the 3 hours the first season took…
Oh man, I can’t wait to see what the “Dining Hall of Legend” is going to look like! Do give the room a custom name (I should have done more of that but I’m not used to it).
Idlers: If all of the jobs are happening that you’ve scheduled and everyone is happy, I wouldn’t necessarily worry too much about it. You could always add them to another military squad (as when they’re idle they’ll default to training in the training hall instead of standing around) or you could press them into service dumping items such as stones that are cluttering up your floors. If you’d like to do either of those and want some guidance, let us know and we can walk you through it.
Trade: When traders arrive you should see a message, but sometimes it sneaks by. The elves usually arrive at the end of Spring. Take a peek at your trade depot and see if anyone is waiting there unnoticed. I have had the experience in my non-succession games of the fortress liaison not showing up the first year, so I suppose it’s possible for other groups to skip years as well…
On winter. Took me another 3 hours. I guess I could have let it go a lot faster if I wasn’t such a perfectionist. The fortress is pretty self-sustaining at this point so it seems. Anyway, this game is boatloads of fun but gosh darn if it’s not life-consuming even more than some MMOs I’ve played.
Since he was the chief medical dwarf, and he died of an infection, it’s probably fair to say he brought this on himself anyway.