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Stupid dwarf trick

2015-03-25T12:03:30Z

Coolthulhu: Magma/lava sprinkler

{{Quality|Superior|22:52, 11 September 2013 (UTC)}}
{{av}}

{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount of time and/or effort. They may provide a practical benefit, but are frequently done for the sake of doing them. They exist primarily as a challenge for experienced players.

==Adventure Mode Fortress==


Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a smörgåsbord of masterpiece adamantine weapons and armor. Possibly both. Breaching the [[caverns]] or [[hidden fun stuff]] should ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' None for fortress mode, but filling it with high-quality equipment can certainly be useful for adventure mode.

==Alarm Clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Limited. They'll sleep through <s>'''anything'''</s> the noise. Although they have been known to awaken when drenched in water, possibly due to thinking it's alcohol, making an alarm clock is not impossible, if carefully prepared.

==Alphabet Cages==
[[Image:Cage.gif|right]]
Use captured monsters in cages to spell messages.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Vowels are hard to come by.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely none whatsoever. (Easy reminders in case you're too lazy to use notes?)

==Altar of Armok==

Build a large altar made out of adamantine, clear glass, magma, and obsidian. The main altar should be hollow adamantine with clear glass "windows." It should have magma inside. The altar should be adorned with large obsidian spikes, as it pleases Armok.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, raising with the amount(and respective difficulty) of bonuses you add.

'''Usefulness:''' Little to none, except for having a cool altar that you can use to WOW other players.

*Bonus: Guard the altar with a megabeast.
*Bonus: Cover the altar with blood of a Titan.
**MegaBonus: Cover the altar with blood of a denizen of the HFS.
***ArmokBonus: Build the altar in the HFS.
*MegaBonus: Cover the altar in a temporarily lasting strength inducing extract.
*BerserkBonus: Cover the altar in a nausea-inducing extract.
*BloodBonus: Also cover the altar in an extract inducing slow death.
**SychronizationBonus: Make it so that a dwarf that goes into contact with the altar dies the moment the strength runs out.
*SacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a dwarf to the altar every day.
**MegaSacrificailBonus: Sacrifice an elf to the altar every day.
**HistorySacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a human to the altar every day
***MegaArmokBonus: Sacrifice all three species to the altar every day!
*MonarchBonus: Build the altar in the monarch's throne room! Yes, this stacks with the ArmokBonus up above.

==Aqueduct Power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels. Aquifers will absorb any amount of water at any rate. Using an aquifer as drain for the reservoir will nullify the risk of flooding the fortress due to the drain not keeping up with the supply.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Aquifer Power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheels.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. The lowly windmill pales in utility compared to a waterwheel.

==Archaeological Excavation==
A Fortress in the Caverns, built by the first dwarf tribes. Build the Fortress however you see fit for those prehistoric Dwarves (i.e. only primitive metals, elaborate tombs for the chieftains with burial objects, cave art, etc.) and abandon it. Then, embark with modern Dwarves, and excavate the ancient Fortress. Sort of like the Adventure Fortress above, only for Reclaim Mode

'''Difficulty:''' As High as you want.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

*Bonus: A Museum detailing the lives of those early dwarves
*DwarfBonus: Some of those early dwarves frozen in a block of ice

==Artificial [[Waterfall]]==
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]]. Alternatively, an [[aquifer]], or other limitless water source, makes for a waterfall entirely underground.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate (Low if there is an aquifer above pouring down).

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower frame rate.

*Bonus: Build it in a "Warm" or hotter [[climate]] so it does not freeze.
*DwarfBonus: Build it in a freezing/cold/temperate climate and keep it going entire year!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[magma]]. It does not freeze, even in a freezing climate!
*MegaDwarfBonusEXTREME+: Use magma and water in the same waterfall. The results will enshrine you in dwarf history! Possibly permanently.

==[[Ballista]] Battery==
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bastion==
Construct an isolated burrow containing a farmer and some labourers, containing at least an uncontaminated well (an [[aquifer]] is great for this) and some farms. Use whatever elaborate mechanism you wish to seal it off from the rest of the fortress. Congratulations; your bastioned dwarves and their descendants will keep your fortress alive forever until one of them goes nuts.

* Bonus: Build your bastion at least in part in a clay or sand layer, add a little magma, and continue manufacturing useless crap even as the world crumbles around you!
* Bonus: Build it on top of a tower outside, and then deconstruct the stairs up.
* Bonus: Fill it exclusively with vampires, to avoid having to worry about food, children, and aging.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Hollow out a shell around your bastion, connecting it to the rest of the cavern by a single 1x1 adamantine support, and flood the shell with magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' High. If your bastioned dwarves have high enough quality living space and few enough nonbastioned friends, it makes the fortress functionally immortal.

==Bathtub==
Stop dwarves from hauling in tons of exotic, poisonous sludges into your fortress by creating a tub filled with 3/7 water that everyone has to get through to enter the fortress. Include a system to change the water, so that they don't bathe in grime.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate

'''Usefulness:''' Low in most cases. High in some evil areas.

* DwarfBonus: Make it drain and refill itself with clean water automatically once in a year.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Clean it with magma.
* *MegaDwarfBonus*: Have an alternative bathtub-buffered entrance next to the main one, which opens automatically when cauterizing the main one and closes and cauterizes itself when it is no longer needed, so that no jobs are canceled during cleansing cycle.
* ≡MegaDwarfBonus≡ : Make it clean itself with magma automatically once in a year, but make it wait for the moment when it's unused, so that no dwarves or pets are incinerated.
* ☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: All of the above, plus make it detect when there should be no dwarves or pets around, but invaders are in it, so that the cleansing cycle can be started prematurely.

==Bolt Splitting Operation==
One curious property of Dwarven Physics is that a bar of metal makes 25 bolts, but if each of those 25 bolts is melted separately, they will become 2.5 bars, generating metal from nothing. Prior to the update that allowed splitting stacks at the [[trade depot]], the difficult part was separating the stacks of bolts into individual bolts without destroying them. EliDupree originally discovered this trick:
{{diagram|spaces=yes|color=#888|\
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
∙++++[#05F]☻∙+++++++++
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+∙[#F00]g∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#FF0]@
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+++++∙+++++++++
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
}}

The yellow @ at the right is a stack of marksdwarves (all in different squads so that they'll stand on the same tile) equipped with [[adamantine]] bolts, standing on top of a stairway surrounded by [[fortification]]s. The blue ☻ at the left is a single [[Attributes#Agility|Perfectly Agile]] soldier with orders to patrol up and down the line of green doors, with little delays at the top and bottom. (The doors are free-standing; they were built attached to a wall, then the wall was removed.) The "g" at the left is a goblin standing on a pillar (pitted from the z-level above).

When the dwarf at the left runs up or down the line of doors, it opens all of them, and some of the marksdwarves loose their bolts. By the time the bolts get there, the doors have closed, so they hit the doors and fall into the channel, where they can be collected and melted separately. (That distance is exact, by the way. Any less and they sometimes get shots through the doors, which kills your goblin. Also, with less-skilled marksdwarves, some of the bolts will stray and land on the floors, but that isn't enough to worry about even with mere dabblers.) Naturally, this is also an excellent way to train marksdwarves.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate. The hardest part is keeping the system running reliably.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate. While there are certainly [[Exploit#Infinite_Adamantine_.2F_Metals|easier ways to generate adamantine]], this is perhaps the most dwarfy.

*Bonus: Build a [[repeater]] to open and close the doors automatically.

==Break the Dam (Release the River!)==
Dam a river (or brook) using something non-permanent (floodgates, drawbridges) and build your fortress entrance in the now dry river bed, make sure you can seal it off nicely (floodgates anyone?) then wait till the first Goblin siege, let them get to your entrance floodgates, seal them, open the dam and laugh manically

'''Difficulty:''' Low

'''Usefulness:''' Instantaneous death to all sieges

*DwarfBonus: Use magma.

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that raises under its victims' feet, flinging enemies away.

Bridges don't fling creatures in any specific direction, apart from "up". So it's more of a spring-board than a catapult. If there's a lot of open space above the bridge, creatures can get flung very high - ten z-levels and more - and take appropriate falling damage. Most of them will land atop the bridge, and bringing the same bridge down will simply crush them.

'''Difficulty:''' Fairly easy. Getting the timing right promises to be the biggest challenge.

'''Usefulness:''' There are far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

===Cat-a-pult===
Essentially a Bridge-a-pult, with specific ammo.

'''Usefulness''': Can be used as a way to stop a [[catsplosion]] if used with male cats. [[Unfortunate accident|Cats can also be replaced with elite citizens of your fortress.]] 

'''Difficulty''': Very easy, given that you have live cats in your fortress.

==Corpse processing facility==
With the help of a necromancer, corpses your dwarves refuse to butcher can be brought back to life and re-killed to yield bones and skulls for your bonecarvers if they are mushed up enough.

1. The simplest way to do this is with the help of height. A 1x1 pit with a minecart stop that dumps corpses down the chute, and several alternating [[floor hatch]]es that close and open (linked to a repeater) with necromancers behind windows overlooking each layer of hatches to revive the bits of corpses. 2 windows with a mechanism controlled door in between, in front of each necromancer group can be used to control vision; but the system can only be stopped by unlinking the minecart dump to the refuse pile in your routes. Note: when I built this I had 3 hatches with 6 necromancers overlooking each (I had plenty of them since I embarked close to 4 towers). Revived corpses drop to their death and explode onto a tile with unright spikes linked (note that some of them will survive, so you need the spikes with a repeater or lever). The corpses that explode from the impact of height (or from other body parts/undead crashing into them) will hopefully yield bones. You make choose to re-haul up the body parts for another round, but only body parts still attached to a grasping part or the head will be revived, and this system isn't very efficient in the first place, so it may not be worth the trouble. Note that whole corpses usually yield 5-8 bones upon death (avg 6), arms only yield 1-4 (avg 2). You may also use this system with or without necromancers and pit live [[goblin]]s into it, they usually yield 6 bones and some body parts.

2. The second way is much more efficient than the first, but requires 1 or more [[artifact]] [[mechanisms]] to make it work. Instead of using height to kill the corpses, a weapon trap with an artifact mechanism and 10 serrated blades of any material can be used instead (since artifact mechanisms never jam). Only 1 necromancer is needed for this method, and is positioned 3 tiles away from the weapon trap, overlooking it behind 2 glass windows with a mechanism [[door]] in between to control its vision. Your 1x1 pit should still be 5 tiles deep at least though, to prevent dwarves being spooked by the revived corpses. When you're ready, link up the route to the minecart and watch body parts revive and slowly get mowed down. It's recommended you have more than 1 of these small pits set up so you can grind more corpses and clear out 1 pit at a time while the others keep grinding.

Note: To clear out pits, turn off all refuse stockpiles that accept anything other than bones and skulls by turning on "accept from links only" so your dwarves only haul out the bones and not the trash.

Note: Try to use raising bridges as the door for each pit, kobold body parts tend to get mixed into the grinders which can lock-pick its way out of doors and result in doors with "door taken by intruder" and a couple hundred zombie body parts overrunning your fortress from the inside (a.k.a fun).

Note: I didn't try this with many building destroyers, but I'm pretty sure the glass windows are safe. Fortifications are not usable since corpses and body parts tend to get tangled up in them and are hard to get out, and spook dwarves trying to clean out the pits.

*Bonus: Use water to clean out the contents of the pits and wash them onto a 1x1 refuse stockpile.

'''Difficulty:''' Hard

'''Usefulness:''' High, and becomes higher the more corpses you have; especially useful for getting something out of necromancer sieges than just useless corpses. Can also be used to recycle dead stray animals and your own dwarves that your dwarves refuse to butcher (don't forget slabs).

==[[Dam]]==
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, or an aquifer located below the river, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fulfill. The power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

*Bonus: Excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley. 
*Bonus: Build a control center to control the water flow. 
*Bonus: Draw your entire energy from a power station within. 
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use screw pumps and another dam to replace the water with magma.

==[[Danger room|Danger Room]]==
A room full of upright spear traps linked to a lever or pressure plate. Teach your dwarves to dodge the pointy sticks!

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium, depending on how you activate the traps.

'''Usefulness''': High. Trains combat skills very quickly, assuming you don't kill anyone.

'''Downside''': Civilians and pets that wander into the danger room will inevitably get killed, even if you use low quality training spears.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Menacing spikes greatly increase the danger, and may help train your medical team (and/or your coffin construction crew).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[adamantine]] spikes! On the plus side, you have a thriving coffin industry going now.

==Day Care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers. Make a room with beds and tables and stuff, then turn it into a burrow, then add all your children to it. Remember to include a food chute to quantum stockpile a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. High quality food, furniture, and socializing should keep them happy. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in various professions like an otherwise vulnerable child, but this is a small trade-off if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway. This is probably obvious, but make sure this room is guarded, otherwise it will turn into a Dwarf Orphanage (with Goblins and Minotaurs welcome!)

'''Difficulty:''' Low. With the invention of burrows, you can designate the Day Care to contain all children, so it is unnecessary to use suicide-booth-micromanagement to contain the children.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Think of the children, they will grow up and enter adult Dwarf life completely unprepared for the [[Fun|things]] [[Dragon|that]] [[Hell|await]] them, having spent their entire lives coddled in a safe room. They might make good nobles however.

*Bonus: Add dogs and/or other creatures on lashes to constantly bite and scratch the children, so their attributes will raise due to constant fighting and dodging. When they come of ages, you will have incredibly tough, strong and agile dwarves, but covered in scars and psychologically traumatized.
*DwarfBonus: Add a small amount of magma mist to mentioned above, that'll burn the fat and make them fireproof.
*ArmokBonus: Combine this with danger room.

==Doberman Bomb==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your frame rate.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to high, depending on the animal you use

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to very high, potentially fortress-saving

*Bonus : Train the dogs inside as war dogs
**DwarfBonus : Use [[giant badger]]s, [[tiger]]s, [[alligator]]s, bears, or anything big and aggressive when tamed
***MegaDwarfBonus : Use [[giant cave spider]]s, [[cave dragon]]s, [[blind cave ogre]]s, crossbow-wielding [[giant desert scorpion]]s, [[jabberer]]s or something really dangerous and rare.
****UltraMagmaArmokBonus : Use one (or more !) of the following list : [[dragon]](s), a [[bronze colossus]](es), a [[forgotten beast]](s) (bonus points for flesh-melting secretions), an [[undead]] [[giant sponge]], or the denizens of the [[Hidden Fun Stuff]].

==[[Drowning chamber]]==
'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untamable animals, or anything else. Just be ready for something that knows how to swim. Also useful for catching fishies.

*Bonus: Utilize lava.
*Bonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Edit the raws and do both.

==[[Computing|Dwarfputer]] Complex==
A big mess of [[fluid logic|fluid]], [[machine logic|machine]], and/or [[creature logic|creature]] logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics and architects will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do<s> and makes them stronger</s> (in 31.25 only military work increases stats, I was really disappointed after 4 years of nonstop pumping only to see weak in urist description). Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes and building destroyers enter your computer.
*Bonus: Use lava.
**Doombonus: Use lava ''and'' build it so that building destroyers that enter the complex get killed by the mechanisms they destroy.
***SelfRepairingbonus: Use both lava and water and implement the building destroyer killing system, but modify it so it's self-repairing, filling up broken spaces with obsidian.

==Dwarven Apartment Complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[megaprojects]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your ☼5-star service☼).

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to fun by water. Additionally, if you have the time and resources to train a sizable force of marksdwarves, placing a few "security rooms" (with barracks, ammunition store, ration cache, armory, etc.) at appropriate floors, complete with fortified balconies, will allow you to take advantage of the higher vantage point.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Extend the tower to have levels below ground as well as above.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Make the whole construction out of clear glass. (privacy? Whatever for?)

==Dwarven Courtyards==
Dig large shafts [first dig the staircase to the desired depth, digging out the size you want the shaft to be on all layers. Channel the outer later, then install supports on the base floor. Link the support to a trigger, clear everyone out, destroy the remaining staircase and pull the trigger] then cover them in glass, creating an indoor but light area that will keep dwarves from being irritated and nauseated by the sun, also improving general happiness and allowing close proximity to caverns and magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, make sure not to mess up or you will lose your miners

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. creates vertical circulation and brings light to lower levels.

*Bonus: Punch a large shaft through a multi-level aquifer (hint: punch through the aquifer from below).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Create a network of self-sufficient communities per shaft, allowing them to be sectioned off in case of disaster. (I plan on colonizing HFS eventually on this paradigm, creating a mining team of soldiers to extract, manufacture and ultimately use adamantine products without being connected to the main colony in order to take on the demons while keeping the rest of the burrow safe.)

==Dwarven Disco Ball==
Why waste all those cut gems on things that only some selfish noble will enjoy? Create as large a wall-less sphere as you can, then cover it in Gem Windows of 3 different-colored gems to make it shine! The bigger, and more valuable gems involved (e.g., [[ruby|rubies]], [[sapphire]]s, and [[emerald]]s, or colored diamonds if you're really masochistic), the dwarfier.

'''Difficulty:''' Constructing a sphere is very hard, especially the larger you make one. Gathering enough differently colored gems can also be very hard, depending on stone layers. Trading helps a lot.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. More value can be created by encrusting furniture, and Gem Windows lack quality.

*Bonus: Alternating [[alunite]] and [[obsidian]] tiles to make a 'dance floor'.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use lava contained in glass for illumination.
*UltraDwarfBonus: Caged "[[Elf|dancers]]".

==Dwarven Labor Camp (aka Dwarkuta)==
Create an aboveground walled fortress in a freezing climate with guard towers, barracks, housing, and armories. Dig a long ramp downward and add a large mining network below the surface. Make some small military squads to guard the camp. Designate the lower levels as workshops, and when migrants arrive, assign them to the mines. Give the workers minimal food and only water (no booze, booze is for the hypocritical decadence of Dwarkuta's leaders). Have them haul the stone and metal they mine back to the surface and ship the raw materials off to the Motherland. Import only food, booze, weapons, fuel, and other necessities.

*Bonus: Build the giant digging machines. They don't actually have to dig anything.
*Bonus: Go into the raws and rename the beverage of your choice to "Dwarven Vodka", and drink to the glory of the Motherland!
*MegaBonus: Escape. Wait for a goblin siege, then get everyone underground and block the entrance. Let the goblins in. Wait a few months. The goblins are now the guards you must kill.

Step 1. Secure the keys: Make improvised weapons. If you have obsidian at your disposal, make rock short swords.

Step 2. Ascend from darkness: Get your dwarves out of the mines and into the camp.

Step 3. Rain fire: Use your imagination. Try using magma, if possible.

Step 4. Unleash the horde: Attack!

Step 5. Skewer the winged beast: If the goblins brought a giant bat or other flying creature, kill it.

*Bonus: Use a ballista.

Step 6. Wield a fist of iron: Break open the armory and equip your rebels with armor and weapons.

Step 7. Raise hell: Exactly what it says on the tin.

Step 8. Freedom!

*MegaDwarfBonus: In Adventure mode, try (and probably fail) to lead the prisoners to freedom.

==Dwarven Refrigerator==
Dig down to the 3rd cavern layer and harvest as many [[nether-cap]]s as you can. Make them all into barrels! Nether caps have the unique property of being 10000° Urist, which is 32°F or 0°C. Now your dwarves can enjoy their favorite alcohol, cheese, and plump helmets chilled to perfection! If you've set your population cap very low in the INIT files, caverns aren't extremely dangerous, but you should still be on the lookout for nasties down there. Remember to wall off your entrance to the cavern once you're finished.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to Medium

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Booze stored inside will not perish due to heat if say, [[magma]] is dumped on it.

==Dwarven Machine Gun==
Build a high fire rate, minecart firing machine gun. Must be fully automatic, capable of reloading itself, and should not jam due to minecarts being disrupted by collisions or derailments.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on fire rate, reload downtime, and whether or not minecarts are filled with [[magma]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. A sophisticated minecart trap can keep out even the most persistent invaders.

*Bonus: Automatically reload minecarts with [[magma]].
*MegaDwarfBonus: Integrate the trap with a dwarfputer so that it can automatically send minecarts to where they are needed most.

==Emergency Destruct Stairs==
A tall column of stairs plunging all the way down into the underdark, with a one-tile wide area of thin destructible floor all around it. In case of subterranean invasion, a thrown switch drops a stone O straight down, ringing the staircase and neatly severing all inter-level connections at a blow. Does with one lever and one support what would take dozens of bridges or hundreds of retracting grates.

'''Difficulty:''' Harder than it sounds.

'''Usefulness:''' Sometimes... sometimes they fly.

==Execution Tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

==Flamethrower bunker==
If your fortress happens to be visited by a [[dragon]], capture it in a [[cage trap]], then release it into a sealed bunker with [[fortification]]s around the edge. When invaders arrive, watch them get roasted.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but requires a lot of luck - a dragon (or fire-breathing forgotten beast) needs to survive worldgen, then it needs to attack your fortress (instead of a giant/minotaur/ettin/cyclops or other megabeast), and finally it needs to make it to your cage trap without being killed by something else.

'''Usefulness:''' The dragon will quickly deal with any sieges and megabeasts (aside from [[titan]]s), though it will also set the hillside on fire. Also, any protective bridges in front of the fortifications will melt under sustained fire, leaving you with a bunker that ''nobody'' can safely approach; building the bridges (and mechanisms) from [[adamantine]] (or [[raw adamantine]]) will make them last longer, but '''not''' forever. A nether-cap bridge with a (preferably non-flammable) artifact mechanism should be safe. Additionally, a skilled enemy archer could easily kill your dragon with a lucky shot.

*Bonus: Capture a fire-breathing [[titan]] or [[forgotten beast]] and use it.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Release the denizens of the underworld and use them.

==Flood the World==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate unless you sink the world below water level (river or ocean).

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[giant sponge]].

*Bonus: Use magma, just like [[Main:Boatmurdered|Boatmurdered]].
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use trained fish to kill off all creatures not of your colony.
*MegaArmokBonus: Mod the game and do both.

==[[Live training|Gladiator Arena]]==
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp. Variant: build prisoner cages inside the arena, link to a lever outside the arena, lock the soldiers in, and then open the cages.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive. (If the prisoners have weapons, you can remove them by using {{k|d}}-{{k|b}}-{{k|d}} to dump the cage and its contents, then looking at and undumping the cages themselves with {{k|k}}-{{k|d}}).

'''Usefulness:''' Low to High, depending on how long your soldiers can draw out the execution. Equipping your soldiers with wooden training weapons can greatly increase the fun (and/or [[Fun]] if their armor isn't as good as you thought).

*Bonus: Losers get incinerated by Magma.
*DwarfBonus: Winners also get incinerated by Magma.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use your arena as a "trial by fire" for migrants.

==Glass Ceiling==
Sick of having your dwarves vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a glass floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

*PoliticallyIncorrectDwarfBonus: Make it a metaphorical [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_ceiling glass ceiling] and give migrants and women less pay and poorer rooms.

==Greenhouse==
A [[farming|greenhouse]] is just a farm with the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

*Bonus: Give it a glass floor to allow surface plants even lower down.
**DwarfBonus: Utilize [[obsidian|volcanic glass]].

==Hammer of [[main:armok|Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quick-smiting.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size and materials, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 attached to a handle extending from your entrance actually works against sieges.

* Bonus: Cover it with blood.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Make it hollow and fill it with Magma
* ArmoksMachineHammerBonus: Set up an automated system that allows you to reset it quickly. Obsidianizers and the magma sea will be your friends here.

==Human Fortress==
Instead of digging a fortress, build above-ground houses. Create walls to keep the nasties out. The only thing you may have underground are mines and stockpiles. Create a huge stone fort for your nobles.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Building stuff will cost you resources instead of gaining them and flyers can be a real pain. Keep several Marksmen handy!

'''Usefulness:''' N/A. (No cave adaptation)

*Bonus: Pave the roads between houses.
*HumanBonus: Dig a moat around your castle.
*MegaHumanBonus: Fill the moat with lava.
*SurfaceDwellerBonus: get the stone for your constructions entirely from open-pit quarries, i.e. by channelling instead of mining.

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], [[gold]], or [[soap]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends entirely on you.

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge are a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. Burrows help to get the whole crew inside at the same time.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles|Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

*Bonus: Drop the vessel into a deep cavern
*SuperBonus: Make the outer walls, roof and ground floor completely out of glass, so that the explorers can watch everything around them.
*VampireBonus: Send a vampire with the crew!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a halfway-empty adamantine vein
*YouHorribleEvilDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into the [[Hidden Fun Stuff]]!
*YouHorribleInsaneDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a glowing chasm.
*OhMyArmokBonus: When you arrive to the bottom of the magma sea, excavate and then create a new community under it!
**OhMyF****ingArmokBonus: Send supplies every year!
**IsThatEvenPossibleBonus: Send a piece of an aquifer down there to provide water! (Mine around a water-producing tile, build the ship around it, then send it!)
**≡MegaDwarfBonus≡: create a high enough tower and drop it into the magma sea to connect the surface and the undersea community!
***☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: create ''two'' towers and use one to send water down there!

==Single-Lever Emergency Lockdown (LEL)==

The only real requirement is that you need a fort based around a central stairwell. All you need to do is leave space for and eventually build 1*(length of your stairwell) bridges (that raise!) on each side of your stairwell on every level, and then link them all to the same lever. Friends get through all your best traps and champions? Simply pull the lever, and they're trapped in the central stairwell forever! Remember to roof off the entrance if your fort is situated on flat land otherwise the bonuses become much less useful. Also important is to ensure that you either wall off access or include sealable bridges or doors (linked to the same lever of course) for any inter-level paths that bypass the main stairwell, like vertical axles running out of centralised power generators.

3*3 stairwell setup:

{{diagram|1=
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
[#6ff]╥XXX[#6ff]╥
[#6ff]║XXX[#6ff]║
[#6ff]╨XXX[#6ff]╨
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
}}

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to High, depending on whether you use the MegaDwarfBonus below or not and how much you spread your fortress over the layers - although more spread means more usefulness. Extremely time-consuming, and requires architects, masons, and mechanics, as well as a lot of mechanisms (2 per bridge, ~4 bridges per level)

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to High, also depending on whether you use the Bonuses. With all bonuses applied it becomes a guaranteed last resort way of destroying the toughest enemies with minimal dwarven casualties; without the bonuses it's still a damn sight better than letting temporarily victorious enemies run freely about your fortress.

*DwarfBonus: Connect your cistern to the stairwell (remember to put a floodgate in too). Once the impossible-to-defeat enemies are safely trapped inside, Pull lever number 2 and watch them slowly, slowly, drown (VERY IMPORTANT: have the level of the cistern input at at least the same height as the level of the stairwell, else there won't be enough pressure to properly flood the stairwell, meaning nasties WILL survive).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Connect your MAGMA cistern to the stairwell. Laugh maniacally. (Remember to build your bridges and floodgates out of magma-safe material or a lot of !!FUN!! will be had)
*MegaArmokEntombmentBonus: Do both and cast your enemies in obsidian and boil the survivors in steam as a semi-permanent testament to their foolhardiness. This also means that you will have stairs cut out of lovely obsidian once your miners are finished making your stairwell usable again.
*MegaArmokEntombmentEXTREME+Bonus: "Forget" to pull the lockdown lever before you pull lever number 2.

==Maze==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful. You can also use the free maze-generating program Daedalus, available [http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/daedalus.htm here] if you're too lazy to come up with your own.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*Bonus: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.
*Bonus: Release a live caged [[minotaur]] into the maze.
*MegaBonus: Make it three-dimensional and [http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/maze/design/index.htm#uni unicursal].

==Magma Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma Cannon==
[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=33837.0 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma Highway==
Magma moves across the map annoyingly slowly, due to its thickness and lack of pressure. But a tunnel several Z-levels high, with magma entering at the top, will flow much faster because the magma's '''falling''' in, not flowing in, and can expand on either Z-level before falling down.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Not hard to make, but cutting open a multi-Z magmafall is [[fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' Medium.

==Magma Mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with exactly the same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

*Bonus: Put the coffin at least 20 floors down.
*MegaBonus: Build it in a volcano if possible, and put the coffin at the very bottom of the map

==Magma Sea Colony==

If you cast obsidian around the edges of the magma sea, it is possible to pump out the magma and build a colony in the empty space. Once the colony is built, you can destroy the obsidian walls and refill the magma sea. Note: you cannot cast obsidian on the bottom layer of the magma sea, so building a colony on this layer is nearly, but not quite, impossible (see below).

'''Difficulty:''' High. You need to get water down to each edge of the magma sea, and you need a pump stack to get rid of the magma.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: Build your colony on the floor of the magma sea. This will require draining the sea to the next-to-bottom layer as described above, then dumping enormous amounts of water into the bottom layer to crowd out the magma while simultaneously draining the magma from holes poked in the magma sea floor. Constructions can be built at the border between the water and the magma. See [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128226.0 This forum post] for full, detailed instructions.
* Bonus: Obsidianize the entire magma sea, leaving a single spot to use as a source for pumps. Then proceed to carve your new fortress subsection out of this bounty.

'''Difficulty:''' Insane. The project will take at least ten years of dwarf time and claim many lives.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. You can finally get the last bit of adamantine when you drain the magma sea, and the magma sea floor has a cool twinkly effect.

==<s>Magma</s> Lava sprinkler==
Build a twisting <s>magma</s> lava aqueduct above the entrance to your fortress. Leave a few thin (diagonal) holes in it, so that lava can seep out of it. When invaders arrive, pump magma into the sprinkler. Diagonal holes will limit the rate at which the fluid flows out of them, ensuring a nice steady lava rain rather than a big wave.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Similar to magma canon, except with a bit more engineering, but less pumps and smaller reservoir needed (due to less magma being required for the same effect).

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Like magma cannon it can obliterate a siege, but this time you can have a bit more control over how it happens. Lava rain doesn't depend on ground structure (your entrance doesn't need to be in a valley for it to work well) and leaves less magma to evaporate.

*Bonus: Cover the holes with floodgates or hatches and keep the lavaduct filled with lava rather than filling it only when using it.
*Bonus+1: Build the lavaduct in such a way that it starts raining on the outermost part of the area first, then goes inwards, to ensure that invaders who start burning can't escape.

==[[Mass pitting|Mass Cage Recycling System]]==

Build a [[mass pitting]] system to recycle your cage trap cages quickly.

'''Difficulty:''' Very easy. Requires basic digging and very little time.

'''Usefulness:''' Very. Keeps you from having to build cages before releasing monsters from them. With six hatches you can safely empty out 48 cages very quickly. You can build lots of cage traps without having to worry about emptying each cage individually.

*Bonus: Cover the floor of your pit with cage traps, creating a neverending cycle and giving your dwarves something to do during the long harsh summer when going outside is overly taxing on their stomachs.
*ConcentrationCampBonus: Combine with Pit of Doom below.

==[[Drowning chamber|Mega/Water Drowning Trap-Thing]]==
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire creatures to create a sauna.

==Monumental Statue==
'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*Bonus: Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.
*BestWayToGetRidOfStoneBonus: Make one for every dead dwarf.
**UberTombBonus: Use the statue as a tomb and put their coffins in it.
*Dwarfbonus: Give the statue magma eyes.
**HellNo,DwarfsYesBonus: Combine the magma eyes idea with the magma cannon idea above and place the statue just behind (and above) the entrance to your fortress.

==Moses Effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult. The same trick can be used in lieu of a drawbridge, although its practicality as compared to the drawbridge is highly questionable.

==[[Waterfall|Never Ending Shower]]==
Don't you get angry when your dwarves carry enough grime on them to dirty the entire fortress? And how they get infected because of that griminess? Suffer no more! With the Never Ending Shower (NES for short), dwarves will be able to stay (relatively) clean without having to take the time to run for a bath or dirtying your drinking water!

It is easy to understand: use the same instructions as in the Artificial Waterfall, but make it so that the waterfall is somewhere where the dwarves will be going through almost daily--a central stairway works well. It cleans them and gives them happy [[thought]]s for the same price!

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to high. You do have to make sure that dwarves don't try anything funny, and create a drain to draw the dirty water out.

'''Usefulness:''' Incredibly high. Reduces risk of infection and keeps your dwarves happy.

*Bonus: Use an aquifer to get clean water AND drain dirty water.
*Bonus: Use levers to control the NES.
*SuperBonus: Make it work as a trap!
*SuperDuperBonus: Make it work as a trap AND as a recovery system!
*ArmokBonus: Make it so that magma can be poured down, too!

==[[Obsidian farming|Obsidian Factory]]==
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber, a drowning chamber and even an obsidianizing chamber that can kill any creature that gets in (except [[ghost]]s and possibly [[vermin]]).

* MegaDwarfBonus: Make the system fully automated using [[computing]] principles.

==Pit o' Doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Traps which menace with spikes are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally. If high enough, you may be able to recover [[bone]]s from creatures your dwarves refuse to [[butcher]].

==Pressure Washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and pushes anything in the way of the flow away. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here.]

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested in version 0.28.181.40d with 50 recruits standing in front of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

* Bonus: Fill it with Magma instead (though Magma doesn't pressurize).

==Redesign the Fortress==
And when we says "redesign", we mean completely replanning and rebuilding the entire fortress, from scratch. Ever thought about a cool thing that you could add to your fortress, but can't because a critical area(such as the dining room, general-purpose stockpile, central workshop area etc.) are in the way? Did you start the fortress by building the most critical areas in the first available spot? Well, now is a good time to get rid of that! For added effects, put the sleeping areas especially close to the booze stockpile so that dwarves are always happy!

'''Difficulty:''' Varies depending on the size of the fortress.

'''Usefulness:''' Varies depending on how you carry it out, a. k. a. the efficiency of the new organization.

==Rehabilitation Centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

* MegaDwarfBonus: Points for making every other dwarf drink water and sleep on cheap beds.

==Road of the Damned==
Create a giant channel filled with spike traps, 10 tiles wide and going all the way from your fort to the map edge. Pave it over with crystal glass so traders can get that foreboding feeling that'll make them seal the deal without bargaining too hard!

'''Difficulty:''' Low-mid, depending on the rarity of crystal glass.

'''Usefulness:'''Low. The same as a normal road.

* Bonus: Spike a goblin on every trap!
* Megabonus: Spike traders who annoy you on the traps!

==Sectorized World==
Divide the world edges into multiple sectors and then gate access to each one separately. This allows you to protect your fortress from sieges whilst keeping access to most of the outside world and allowing most traders into and out of the fortress (those unfortunate enough to enter the world from the same direction as the siegers may be screwed, of course). For bonus points, build separate gateable access routes for each sector. For further bonus points, design your fortress so that you can simultaneously allow access to traders ''at the same time'' as siegers are exposed to your defensive mechanisms.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, unless you allow separate access routes for each sector in which case high.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate, increasing with each bonus you fill. Mostly for those who want to build the best possible defenses. Can also double as a means of easily trapping wild animals.

==Self-contained Vampire-based Factory==
Take advantage of the independence of vampires by building a self-contained factory. The best industries are those that require no special raw materials-- a factory containing both a magma glass furnace and a sand tile, for instance, would work well, as would a clay industry, but if you're feeling ambitious, consider building a vampire into your [[giant cave spider|GCS]] [[silk farm]]-- if you happen to have scored an [[undead]] GCS, your vampire won't even spook! You can treat your factory as a piggy bank to be broken into as needed, or for perfect fire-and-forget action, build a dropping [[User:Vasiln/Undump|undump]] into the factory, and the vampire will deliver the output to your front door.

'''Difficulty:''' The only hard part is getting yourself a [[vampire]].

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many green glass blocks you plan on using.

==Self Destruct Lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely fun.

'''Usefulness:''' Could serve as kind of a last revenge on a goblin siege, but also highly amusing. If done properly it can make reclaim easier.

* DorfBonus: Make it have a timer before your fortress self-destructs. You can do this with a water channel, or if you're particularly technical, make a [[Computing|seven segment display]].
** For bonus Dwarfy-ness, make the timer be the depth number of the magma or water that will actually trigger your fortress' destruction.
* Bonus: Build your fortress high above ground, connect the fortress to a roof through just one support and have the system, when activated, drop the whole construction into the magma sea, destroying the whole thing permanently.

==Shark Catcher==
Capture of [[Bull shark|sharks]] or [[Carp|other]], [[Sturgeon|dangerous fish]] achieved by making an artificial bay, filling it with [[Cage trap|cage traps]], opening the floodgate to the sea or river and some sort of drainage system, likely pumps and/or floodgates.

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium as drowning while setting up is very possible with bad planning.

'''Usefulness''': Low, purely aesthetic, but very cool to have a shark infested moat (Potentially kills invaders).

==[[Silk farming|Silk Farming]]==
Capture a web-slinger (generally a [[giant cave spider]]) and build a farm to efficiently harvest its [[silk]].

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium; the hardest part is generally catching the web-spinner.

'''Usefulness''': Medium to High. Provides an endless supply of potentially-valuable [[silk]] cloth and rapidly [[cross-training|cross-trains]] [[weaver]]s.

==[[Skyfort|Sky Fortress]]==

Thanks to a quirk in dwarven [[physics]], the sky can be used to provide limited support to your fortress. Specifically, a solid vertical column that reaches the top of the sky level will not collapse, but it will also no longer support neighboring tiles horizontally. In order to retain vertical support, passable areas are carved with up/down stairways. [[Obsidian]] casting is necessary to allow these stairways to be added on top of existing [[building]]s (like [[furniture]] and [[workshop]]s). Unsupported glass [[window]]s can be used to plug any holes, such as those required below magma workshops.

Please [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=133968.0 refer to the forum thread] for full details.

'''Difficulty''': High; constructing a [[skyfort]] approaches a [[megaprojects|megaproject]].

'''Usefulness''': Low to Medium. Automatically isolates your fortress from all but [[flying]] foes. While it is possible to achieve the same effect on the ground and underground, changes to enemy siege mechanics (specifically, digging and jumping) may increase the defensive value of a floating fortress.

==Steamed Vegetables==
Make a pot and drop <s>elves</s> vegetables in from about three levels up. This makes it so the vegetables do not <s>run</s> get overcooked. Proceed to bask the vegetables in [[steam]].

'''Difficulty''': Medium. Can be annoying to boil some water.

'''Usefulness''': Great way to make friends with the merchants.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Add <s>goblins</s> seasoning.
*ArmokDoubleBonus: Use [[magma mist]].

==[[Swimming]] pool==
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though. Though if you utilize a '''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform, this is a priceless necessity.

==[[Tree farming|Underground Forest]]==
Break into an underground cavern, make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium - need to dig out a suitably large area, then find a way of introducing water to the area and subsequently draining or evaporating it.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size (bigger is better) as well as proximity to wood stockpiles. A tree farm outside the caverns can grow trees from all 3 layers, and you'll never have to worry about hostile creatures threatening your wood cutters.

==Underground Perpetual Motion Power Plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times. Note: Incredibly easy with an aquifer.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater Statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water source smooth and engrave the walls and floors than fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam! underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

*Bonus: Build it on area with trees and shrubs; make walls from ice or use windows; fill it with fish and merfolk; now you'll get a big aquarium
*Note: It doesn't count if you accidentally flood your fortress and wind up with one of these. It does count if one of your nobles has an unfortunate accident in their sculpture garden.

==U.R.I.S.T. Artificial Intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriend him/her.

In order to ensure that your A.I. doesn't find sleep interfering with crucial lever pulling, you might consider incorporating an alarm clock. If a goblin siege turns up on your doorstep, a single external lever to dump 7/7 of water on the sleeping A.I. might well save your fortress (and is so much cooler than having backup levers in your meeting hall).

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
*A.R.M.O.K. - '''A'''ll-'''R'''eaching '''M'''achine '''O'''f '''K'''illing
*A.S.S. - '''A'''lmost-autonomous '''S'''ystems '''S'''elector
*C.A.T. - '''C'''reepy '''A'''utonomous '''T'''echnology
*D.E.E.P.E.R. - '''D'''warf of '''E'''ngineering the '''E'''ldritch and '''P'''ractical '''E'''xploitation of '''R'''esources''
*D.I.E.D. - '''D'''edicated '''I'''rrigation and '''E'''verything else '''D'''warf(s)
*D.O.M.E.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perated '''M'''echanics and '''E'''ngineering '''S'''ystem
*D.O.R.F. - '''D'''oes '''O'''rders '''R'''ather '''F'''ast
*D.O.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*D.W.A.R.F. - '''D'''rains '''W'''ater '''A'''nd '''R'''ecruits '''F'''armers
*G.L.A.D.O.S. - '''G'''enetic '''L'''ifeform '''A'''nd '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*H.A.L. - '''H'''airy '''A'''lternate '''L'''ifeform
*M.A.G.M.A. - '''M'''assively '''A'''lcoholic '''G'''ear-'''M'''achine '''A'''ssembly
*N.O.B.L.E. - '''N'''arcissistic '''O'''bnoxious '''B'''oastful '''L'''aughable '''E'''xcrement
*P.O.T.A.T.O. - '''P'''ossibly '''O'''rganic '''T'''echnically '''A'''live '''T'''rash '''O'''mitted
*U.R.I.S.T. - '''U'''nderground '''R'''easonably '''I'''ntelligent '''S'''ettlement '''T'''echnologist
*V.A.C.A.T.E.D. - '''V'''ampire '''A'''ssisted '''C'''omputerized '''A'''ssembly '''T'''errorizes '''E'''xtra-'''D'''warves
*V.O.D.A.P.H.O.N.E. - '''V'''ampire '''O'''perated '''D'''efence '''A'''pparatus, '''P'''erpetrating '''H'''arm '''O'''f '''N'''efarious '''E'''ntities (See Bonus for more information)


'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

Bonus: Make the A.I. dwarf a vampire. Vampires don't need food, alcohol, or sleep and cannot age, which makes them perfect for the job. As an added bonus, keeping a vampire in this way will make your fortress completely indestructible, as sealing him in will prevent the possibility of the vampire of being killed in combat or from a syndrome, while keeping the vampire from making friends he will inevitably outlive will prevent him from going insane. (It also ensures that the bloodsucker won't use any of your dwarves as a midnight snack.) NOTE: Vampires may still go insane without any blood. Might be worth considering adding on a 3rd "feeding chamber" where you assign an unfortunate victim to sleep whenever the vampire gets hungry.

===D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P.===

Dwarven Organic Switch Toggle, Neutered Gastrectomied Overpersistent Sober Prisoner. Goblins have several advantages over dwarves in the lever pulling department: they live forever, do not breed or tantrum, and need not eat, drink, or sleep. Seal one or more goblins in your supercomputer complex, and use their predictable pathing in combination with instantly lockable doors and pressure plates to make dwarven lever pulling a thing of an older, less advanced era.

Also known by several product names:
*G.O.B.L.I.N.A.T.O.R. - '''G'''oblin '''O'''perated '''B'''astion of '''L'''ogic to '''I'''nfalliably '''N'''eutralize '''A'''ntiquated '''T'''ypes of '''O'''perational '''R'''egimes
*N.G.O.K.A.N.G. - '''N'''efarious '''G'''oblin '''O'''f '''K'''illing '''A'''nd '''N'''eedless '''G'''riping
*S.T.O.Z.U. - '''S'''ecret '''T'''echnological '''O'''perative who '''Z'''aps '''U'''nruly Nobles

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. While goblin pressure plate runners require more space than dwarven lever pullers, once their room is set up, it's done, and easily copied for the next one. With only one goblin, you'll need a pressure plate for every possible combination of lever states, but it's easy to add more goblins instead.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Instant response time (<50 ticks is possible) can make lever worries a thing of the past. The D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P. requires absolutely no maintenance once set up. Unlike with the U.R.I.S.Ts of the previous generation, modern POW-based computing is never held hostage to eating, drinking, or breaks. Stay tuned for the next-generation C.A.C.A.M.E.!

==Vomitorium==
[[Image:Vomit_Trail.png‎|thumb|right|Vomitoria: preventing cave adaptation since [[23a:Vomit|23a]].]]

Prevents [[cave adaptation]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's a [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it. Variant: above-ground statue garden or zoo.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in or it will become very [[Fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "'''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform" chamber, or HELP (so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most <s>Dwarves</s> enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death. It is recommend that with the exception of the entrance you use stairs.

*Bonus: Utilize vampires (who can't drown).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Engineer it so that it performs a full cycle on one activation of a pressure plate and include that pressure plate as a part of the patrol route, then create a reverse Watervator and also include it as a part of same patrol route, so that your militia automatically uses it to get in and out the fortress.

==Zombie Thunderdome==
Embark in a [[surroundings#Evil|reanimating]] biome in the current version (preferably savage as well), find or dig a deep pit, and dump any unused (non-dorf) corpses and butchery products into it. They will animate and begin to walk around, providing you with the endless entertainment afforded by watching horse hair walk. Make sure the pit is deep enough not to scare your dwarves!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Keeping your fort safe from the threat of animated beak dog beaks is worth any price. However, [[DF2012:Defense guide|there may be better things]] [[DF2012:Mega construction|to do with your time]].

*Bonus: Set up a series of [[bridge|defenses]] that drop invaders into the pit.
*DwarfBonus: Set up a series of bridges and walls that flings invaders into the pit.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop a Megabeast into the pit and watch it do battle with multiple layers of undead.

===Zombie Shooting Gallery===

In a reanimating biome, build a holding room for your undead, wall it off with fortifications. In the adjacent (accessible) area, build an archery range and order your archery squads to train there. Your marksdwarves will go to their scheduled archery training and whenever a zombie is raised, they'll switch focus from the boring old archery target and instead shoot down the undead. Once the zombies are dead, they'll return to regular shooting practice until the corpses rise again. The raised corpses cannot attack through fortifications and thus cause no unhappy thoughts from seeing them, but will spook haulers trying to collect errant socks from the shooting range.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. The difficulty lies in finding a source of permanent undead, the actual construction is trivial.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. This setup significantly increases the skill gain from bolts used by training dwarves, since every bolt shot at a zombie counts as combat action, giving much more experience. The scheme works without any supervision once set up.

{{Category|Design}}

Surroundings

2014-08-19T12:39:45Z

Coolthulhu: /* Evil */

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'''Surroundings''' affect the types of [[crop|plant]] life, wild [[animal|animals]] and [[creatures]] which will appear in play within a given [[biome]]. It is possible to start a [[fortress]] that overlaps multiple alignment types (for example a terrifying [[forest]] and a calm [[shrubland]]). Some players consider this desirable, as it provides diversity in your little corner of the world, but it also has its dangers in the form of more ferocious wildlife.

Some plants and animals are unique to a certain type of surroundings and will only be found if those surroundings are present on the map. Note that most creatures also require a specific [[climate]] to spawn in. Again, it's important to check the specific biomes making up your site. Once a [[creature]] spawns on the map, it is under no compulsion to stay in its own biome and can roam as it pleases. Because of this, the specifics of what means what can be difficult to pin down sometimes.

== Combinations of surroundings ==

{| {{prettytable}}
|-style="background:#dddddd"
|style="background:#aaaaaa"| ||'''Benign'''||'''Neutral'''||'''Savage'''
|-
|style="background:#dddddd"|'''Good'''||Serene||Mirthful||Joyous Wilds
|-
|style="background:#dddddd"|'''Neutral'''||Calm||Wilderness||Untamed Wilds
|-
|style="background:#dddddd"|'''Evil'''||Sinister||Haunted||Terrifying
|}

===Neutral===

:including '''Calm''', '''Wilderness''' and '''Untamed Wilds'''

'''Neutral''' regions are the easiest to understand. They generally mimic the real world, with recognizable wildlife. They can be quite dangerous depending on the region, holding anything from generally non-aggressive but physically powerful enemies such as [[gorilla]]s and [[elephant]]s to the very aggressive and very dangerous [[giant eagle]]s. As one might expect, ''Benign Neutral'' zones are really very safe, while ''Savage Neutral'' areas can pose some major difficulties, depending on the dominating climate and landforms. You'll find most of the standard aboveground plants in these alignments, such as [[prickle berry|prickle berries]], [[rope reed]], [[DF2012:Wild strawberry|wild strawberries]] and the like.

===Good===

:including '''Serene''', '''Mirthful''' and '''Joyous Wilds'''

'''Good''' biomes tend to have less aggressive and weaker [[creatures]], except for the [[unicorn]]. Good regions also support the wild [[sun berry]], which makes the best [[alcohol]] in the game. There are generally slight changes between ''Benign Good'' and ''Savage Good''.

=====Distinctive flora & fauna=====
* Animals: [[mountain gnome]], [[satyr]], [[unicorn]], [[merperson]], [[gorlak]]
* Plants: [[sun berry]], [[bubble bulb]], [[downy grass]]
* Trees: [[feather tree]]
* Vermin: [[fluffy wambler]], [[fairy]], [[pixie]]

===Evil===

:including '''Sinister''', '''Haunted''' and '''Terrifying'''

'''Evil''' regions are much more <s>dangerous</s> [[fun]] than their ''Neutral'' and ''Good'' counterparts across the board. At their root, ''Evil'' regions are modified ''Neutral'' regions. In addition to a pack of other [[creatures]] that are nasty, dangerous, and spiteful such as [[beak dog]]s, [[harpy|harpies]], and [[ogre]]s, ''Evil'' regions may modify their ''Neutral'' base by infecting many (but not all) of the indigenous [[creatures]] with various forms of [[undead|undeath]].

The [[undead]] cannot be killed through conventional means; dismemberment reanimates the individual body parts, creating even more enemies than before. They must be either butchered and tanned, exposed to magma, [[Dwarven atom smasher|smashed under a drawbridge]], or repeatedly pulped with blunt damage, in order to kill them permanently in certain (always evil) reanimating biomes. Any non-undead creature that dies in such a biome will reanimate as an undead creature after it is killed, including sentient beings, and any severed body parts and loose skin will also come to life as an individual enemy. Clearly, hunting undead animals for food is pointless, and finding kills in a place where things won't stay dead is suicidal. Furthermore, there is a good chance that even soldier dwarves will flee in terror from such abominations, a bad sign when the undead feel no emotion or fear. Sea Creatures will be able to come ashore in their undead forms, so expect to deal with that if you choose such a location for embark. The trees at embark may all be dead, and though they can be harvested, will not regrow. Undead shrubs are useless for gathering, too.

Even the [[DF2012:Evil weather|weather]] is dangerous; clouds of creeping murk can inflict various syndromes on par with those of [[forgotten beast|forgotten beasts]], or instantly transform creatures into freakishly powerful thralls. Evil rains may also inflict random syndromes, albeit less severe ones, and always cause strong unhappy [[thought]]s and a desire to wash. Evil rain won't refill pools, but a single biome may have both evil and regular rain, even at the same time.

Because of the inhospitability of evil regions, even ''Benign Evil'' is very difficult for beginning players to earn a niche to work in, so it should be reserved for a challenge play only.

=====Distinctive flora & fauna=====
* Animals: [[ogre]], [[dark gnome]], [[beak dog]], [[foul blendec]], [[grimeling]], [[harpy]], [[troll]], [[strangler]], [[nightwing]], [[ice wolf]], [[blizzard man]], [[sea monster]], [[manera]]
* Plants: [[sliver barb]], [[staring eyeball]], [[wormy tendril]]
* Trees: [[glumprong]]
* Vermin: [[demon rat]], [[blood gnat]], [[knuckle worm]], [[phantom spider]]

===Savage===
: Including '''Untamed Wilds''', '''Joyous Wilds''', and '''Terrifying'''
'''Savage''' surroundings are typically more dangerous than their Neutral or Benign counterparts, due to the "wildlife" (naturally occurring creatures) found therein. Savage regions contain many giant versions of normal wildlife, as well as sentient humanoid versions. A "Savage Good" region is called Joyous Wilds, a "Savage Neutral" region is called Untamed Wilds, and a "Savage Evil" region is called Terrifying (and is the most dangerous alignment by far, if you couldn't tell by the name).

=====Distinctive flora & fauna=====
* Animals: [[giant eagle]], [[giant cheetah]], [[giant leopard]], [[giant jaguar]], [[giant tiger]], [[giant lion]], [[tigerman]], [[slugman]], [[snailman]], [[leechman]], [[giant desert scorpion]], [[sasquatch]], [[sea serpent]]
* Plants: [[whip vine]]
* Trees: [[highwood]]
* Vermin: [[two-legged rhino lizard]], [[moghopper]], [[fox squirrel]], [[acorn fly]]

{{World}}

Masterwork:Altar of Armok

2014-08-19T12:29:09Z

Coolthulhu: /* Reactions */

{{av}}
{{workshop|name=Altar of Armok|key=alt-A
|construction=
* 4 [[cv:block|fire-safe block]]
* 2 [[candelabra]]
|construction_job= [[Prayer]]
|use=
*various
|production=
*various}}
This building is part of the dwarven [[religion]] system.

The Altar allows offerings to the blood god. You have a small chance of 10-20% to get a special item from this.

== Reactions ==

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Reaction
! Reactants
! Possible Products
! Notes
|-
| Sacrifice a heart to Armok
| Heart
| All the items you can get from praying at the [[Shrine of Armok|shrine]]
| Sacrifices a whole stack of hearts.
|-
| Sacrifice a soul to Armok
| Soul
| Any of the normal [[Temple of Armok|temple]] rewards at a much higher chance (10x)
|
|-
| Offer a life to Armok
| Dwarf
| Steel armor of armok, steel war hammer of armok
| Kills the dwarf running the reaction and causes bad thoughts. This reaction is also possible at the [[Temple of Armok|temple]] for a better reward.
|-
| Offer blood to Armok
| Blood or blood containing item
| Bloody crafts or bloody war hammer of Armok
|
|-
| Offer a totem to Armok
| Totem, food storage container
| Skull frond
|
|-
| Offer bones to Armok (bone stack)
| Bones, food storage container
| Essence of marrow
| This makes use of bones in the default state, using up an entire stack.
|-
| Offer bones to Armok (separate bones)
| Stacks (separate bones), food storage container
| Essence of marrow
| This makes use of bones that have been separated into individual bones at a [[Craftsdwarf's workshop]]
|-
| Offer Alcohol to Armok
| Drink, empty food storage container
| Hell wine or Armoks wine
|
|-
| Offer meat to Armok
| Meat, empty food storage container
| Tears of Armok
| Transforms the dwarf who drinks it twice to heal them completely (with 2 announcements). Can be very annoying if it ends up in booze stockpile.
|-
| Offer ash to Armok
| Ash
| Devil thorn wood, Armoks thorn tree
|
|}

{{buildings}}
{{category|Temples}}

Irrigation

2014-08-08T23:24:13Z

Coolthulhu:

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[[farm plot|Farming]] is only possible on [[mud]] and soil. Any terrain can be made muddy, and therefore suitable for farming, by dumping water on it. In Dwarf Fortress, 'Irrigation' is used as a fancy word for dumping water onto terrain that isn't useful for farming, in order to make it so. Once your floor is successfully muddied no further irrigation will be required, unless you somehow remove the mud (by building a [[construct]]ed floor, for instance).

Any amount of water dropped, pumped, or otherwise transported onto a tile will leave behind at least 'a dusting of mud', and this is sufficient for farming. Farm plots cannot be built on terrain with [[water depth|a water level of more than 1/7]], and more mud has no apparent effect on farm output, so it's best to use a minimum of water to irrigate.

Irrigation is especially useful in [[biome|biomes]] with little soil, and deep underground. However, no amount of irrigation will make it possible to grow surface plants in a hostile [[biome]], such as mountains. This is a matter of climate, not soil conditions.

Farm plots can be built on unsuitable ground but doing so will display a warning message. If even a one tile of the plot lacks mud or soil, the entire plot will be unusable. (However, note that when placing an outdoor farm plot, the game will always erroneously report that there is no usable mud/soil. This is a bug - if the plot is green it will function correctly.)

[[Magma]] cannot be used to irrigate, as it does not leave behind mud. It's usually best not to confuse molten rock and liquid water, although the use of both in tandem may help with schemes to irrigate [[glacier|glaciers]].

All types of [[soil]] can be farmed with no need for irrigation, even [[sand]]. Irrigation is '''''not''''' required for farming. Any soil underground can be used to farm; irrigation is only required on stone.

[[Cavern|In certain conditions]] irrigation can convert rock floors into soil floors. This can be useful for transporting valuable soil like [[Fire clay]] or [[Sand]] closer to [[Magma]].

== Easy Irrigation ==

At its simplest, all that's required for irrigation is a water source, a drop-off point, and a dwarf with a bucket.

Very little land is required to provide all the farm field resources a fortress needs to survive and prosper, so this method should suffice in most cases. Of course, we have many other methods documented here for more ambitious sorts.

=== via Buckets===

This method relies on [[activity zone]]s, as water for irrigation can't simply be dropped on the ground, but must fall from the level above.

Step one: Designate a water source activity zone over the edge of a body of water. In a saltwater biome, a [[well]] must be constructed, instead.

Step two: Dig out or construct a drop-off point just above where you want your farms to be. This most often takes the form of a balcony, catwalk, or scaffolding. Alternately, [[mining|channel]] out a shaft and/or staircase all the way up to the surface. Water can safely fall any distance.

Step three: Designate a pit/pond area at the drop-off point, or several if you'd prefer speed over conservation of buckets. By default, these zones are pits, make sure to switch them to ponds, and to remove them once you have all the mud you need.

That's it!

=== via Murky Pool===

Most areas contain [[murky pool]]s, full of stagnant water. Though unpleasant to drink, in DF terms it's as useful as any water for irrigation. Like any other body of water, it can be used as a source for buckets, but the limited quantity also helps a simple plan to dig into or around it, and drain it out to create farmland.

The final [[water depth|water level must be less than 2/7]] in order for the water to evaporate and provide access to the muddy tiles for farming. When using this method, it's easier to use smaller pools.

There are two approaches to reducing the final water level, without using pumps. One is to leave plenty of room. If the area to be irrigated is 5-6 times the size of the pool, the water inside will evaporate on its own, even in [[temperate]] climates. The other way is to leave a route for the water to flow out. If the pool and the dug out area are separate, [[mining|channeling]] can be used to connect them with no danger of drowning.

== Complex Irrigation ==
The following methods of irrigation take longer to build, but they can be more powerful, better-looking, and, of course, much more [[fun]].

=== via Screw Pump ===
A [[screw pump]] can be used to lift water and dump it into a chamber directly next to the water source. There are many ways to go about this, but one particularly simple, easy, and safe method requires a chamber dug out or constructed next to a body of water, with an outlet to allow it to drain back to its source. If the water the pump is free to collect water to spread inside, the water is contained by barriers, and water in the area is free to drain out, nearly any size area can be irrigated quickly and without danger.

This method is most useful around rivers that pass by or through hills, or through canyons, as irrigation isn't much use on most outdoor tiles. If terrain at a higher elevation than the river isn't available nearby, water can drain through a tunnel down to the caverns or toward the edge of the map, instead. Although the edge of the map cannot be dug out, it can be smoothed and carved into fortifications. Fortifications allow water to pass through, providing easy drainage at any depth.

Here's one example of this method:

{{diagram|spaces=yes|\
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓[#00F]≈[#00F]~ [#FFF]l[#FFF]e[#FFF]g[#FFF]e[#FFF]n[#FFF]d
▓...▓▓▓▓[#00F]≈[#00F]~[#00F]≈ ▓ stone
▓.....[#880]%[#880]%[#00F]~[#00F]≈[#00F]~ . floor
▓...▓▓▓[#0F0].[#FFF]+[#FFF]+[#FFF]+ [#880]%[#880]% pump
▓...▓▓▓▓[#00F]~[#00F]≈[#00F]~ [#00F]≈[#00F]~ water
▓.......[#FFF]+[#FFF]+[#FFF]+ [#FFF]+ "bridge" (constructed floor tiles)
▓...▓▓▓[#00F]≈[#00F]~[#00F]≈[#00F]~
▓▓▓▓▓[#00F]~[#00F]≈[#00F]~[#00F]≈[#00F]~
}}

=== via Reservoir ===
[[File:Irrigation1.png‎|thumb|right|A reservoir system which provides enough water for 8 fields. Upper level]]
[[File:Irrigation2.png‎|thumb|right|The irrigated bottom level.]]

Water reservoirs can be used as an intermediate step in any irrigation plan. This requires a large source of [[water]] to be of much use. Using reservoirs effectively involves some calculations, a worked example is shown below.

For this example, each 7x7 farm plot needs:
:* a [[floodgate]]
:* a [[hatch cover]]
:* 4 [[mechanism]]s (for linking)
:* a [[door]]

Also needed is:
:* 2 Mechanisms for the [[lever]]s
:* at least one additional door (if you have enough time to set up a wall or floodgate as well)

Here is the pattern:

{{diagram|spaces=yes|\
▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓ [#FFF]l[#FFF]e[#FFF]g[#FFF]e[#FFF]n[#FFF]d
▓...▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓...▓ ▓ stone
▓.[#0FF]¢..[#888][#CCC]X.......[#888][#CCC]X..[#0FF]¢.▓ . floor
▓...▓▓▓▓▓.▓▓▓▓▓...▓ [#0FF]¢ floor hatch
▓▓▓▓▓▓[#FF0]1▓▓.▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓ [#888][#CCC]X floodgate
▓[#FFF]<.[#888][#CCC]┼.▓ ▓▓▓[#00F]≈[#00F]~[#00F]≈ [#00F]≈ water source
▓[#0FF]2▓▓.▓ ▓▓▓[#00F]≈[#00F]~[#00F]≈[#00F]≈[#00F]~ [#888][#CCC]┼ door
▓▓▓▓.▓▓▓[#00F]~[#00F]≈[#00F]~[#00F]≈[#00F]~[#00F]≈[#00F]~ [#FFF]< up stairs
▓▓[#FFF][#444]▓▓[#00F]≈[#00F]≈[#00F]~[#00F]≈[#00F]≈[#00F]~[#00F]≈▓▓ [#FF0]1 -> lever 1
▓▓[#00F]≈[#00F]~[#00F]≈[#00F]~[#00F]≈[#00F]~[#00F]≈[#00F]~▓▓▓ [#0FF]2 -> lever 2
▓[#00F]~[#00F]≈[#00F]≈[#00F]~[#00F]≈[#00F]≈[#00F]~▓▓▓
upper level, plumbing}} 
{{diagram|spaces=yes|\
▓.[#FFF]t[#FFF]o.[#FFF]f[#FFF]o[#FFF]r[#FFF]t.▓ [#FFF]l[#FFF]e[#FFF]g[#FFF]e[#FFF]n[#FFF]d
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓...▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ [#880]≈ farm plot
▓[#880]≈[#880]≈[#880]≈[#880]≈[#880]≈[#880]≈[#880]≈▓...▓[#880]≈[#880]≈[#880]≈[#880]≈[#880]≈[#880]≈[#880]≈▓ [#888]═ stockpile
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lower level, farms}}

After the pattern has been dug out, the tiles for each hatch are channeled out. Then, the hatch covers are placed and linked to the first lever.

Floodgates are placed and linked to the second lever. To start the irrigation, channel out the last tile to the river / murky pool. Engage the floodgate-lever to fill the reservoirs and disengage it once they're full. Finally, pull the lever for the hatches to release the water to the lower level.

This reservoir contains 70 units of water (10x7). 9 units of water are lost to the ground of the reservoir (61 left). Roughly 10 units evaporate while spreading (~51). The water should be just enough to cover the whole farm plot and evaporate quickly.

{{Farming FAQ}}
{{Category|Agriculture}}
{{Category|Guides}}

Farming

2014-08-07T01:09:10Z

Coolthulhu:

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[[Image:Df-crops-diagram.png|thumb|200px|General farming flowchart.]]

'''Farming''' is the act of growing [[crop|crops]] for [[food]], [[alcohol]] production and [[cloth]] manufacturing. While small forts can easily be sustained by plant gathering, [[hunting]] and trading, farming is vital to large settlements.

Farming is done at a '''farm plot''' building ({{k|b}}-{{k|p}}, resize with {{k|u}}{{k|m}}{{k|k}}{{k|h}}). Building uses no resources, and can only be done on soil or muddied rock. Mud-free stone will not allow the building of a farm plot on top. The "Farming (Fields)" [[labor]] must be enabled. Farm plots only display the kind of crops that they are able to grow when selected with the {{k|q}}uery key.

Depending on where the farm plot is constructed, different crops may be planted. Farm plots built [[above ground]] are not suitable for the crops grown on [[subterranean]] farm plots and vice versa. Note that the attributes {{DFtext|Inside|6:0:0}}, {{DFtext|Outside|3:0:1}} are of no relevance. You can grow surface plants indoors by channelling out the roof above the desired plot and then constructing a floor ({{k|b}}-{{k|C}}-{{k|f}}) over the open space. Doing this changes the tile from {{DFtext|Dark|0:0:1}} to {{DFtext|Light|6:0:1}}, despite there being a roof (you do '''not''' need to make the roof out of [[glass]] for this to work).

Note that although you can construct a farm plot anywhere there is either a soil floor or a mud covering, this does not always mean seeds can be planted there. Certain biomes will not allow planting certain seeds, and some biomes will prevent the planting of '''all''' above-ground crops.

The yellow warning message, {{DFtext|No mud/soil for farm, Mud is left by water|6:0:1}}, is displayed on all above-ground tiles, regardless of whether the farm will function.{{version|0.34.11}} This warning may be ignored. Tiles that actually lack mud or soil are excluded from the construction entirely with a red warning message (either {{DFtext|Blocked|4:0:1}} or {{DFtext|Needs soil or mud|4:0:1}}).

See the article on [[crop]]s for details on the conditions needed to grow the available plants.

== Introduction to Farming ==

First, build a farm plot "building" ({{k|b}}-{{k|p}}, resize with {{k|u}}{{k|m}}{{k|k}}{{k|h}}) on [[soil]] or [[irrigation|muddy]] rock. Keep your farms ''small'' -- 2x2 up to 4x4 or so. Farms are surprisingly productive. You can always make more farms later if you run low on plants, and having several small farms lets you diversify your crops. (Each farm plot can only grow one kind of plant per season.)

Once the farm plot has been built, you must select which crops to grow. Press {{k|q}} and move the cursor over the farm. You will see a list of crops you can select to grow in the current season. You can change which season is displayed by pressing {{k|a}},{{k|b}},{{k|c}}, or {{k|d}}. Move the blue selector up and down with {{k|-}} and {{k|+}}, and press {{k|Enter}} to choose a crop to plant during that season (highlighted in white).

You must have the appropriate [[seed]]s to plant a crop on a plot. To easily see how many of each seed you have, you can go to the Kitchen menu ({{k|z}} {{k|right}} {{k|Enter}}).

Since your dwarves require food, booze and clothing, you should set up a combination of plants that will supply all of these. [[Plump helmet]]s are a good beginning crop for a first cave farm, and [[wild strawberries]] are a good choice for outdoor fields -- both can be eaten raw, or brewed. [[Pig tail]]s produce cloth, which will become important once your clothing starts to [[wear]]. Check the [[crop]]s page for details on different seeds.

Cooking plants destroys their seeds, so you should disable the cooking of plants in the Kitchen menu. Eating them, brewing them, or processing them through a farmer's workshop, quern or millstone will produce seeds.

Instructing a plot to remain fallow ({{k|z}}) during a particular season will tell dwarves not to plant in that plot during that season. Note that, unlike in real life, crop rotation is not necessary; soil productivity is only affected by fertilizing, and the same crop may be grown indefinitely without a decrease in performance, even without fertilizer.

=== Yield and Fertilization ===
{| border="1" align="right"
! Farm Size !! Potash !! Per Square
|-
| 1 || 1 || 1.000
|-
| 2 || 1 || 0.500
|-
| 3 || 1 || 0.333
|-
| 4 || 2 || 0.500
|-
| 5 || 2 || 0.400
|-
| 6 || 2 || 0.333
|-
| 7 || 2 || 0.286
|-
| 8 || 3 || 0.375
|-
| 11 || 3 || 0.272
|-
| 15 || 4 || 0.266
|-
| 19 || 5 || 0.263
|-
| 23 || 6 || 0.260
|-
| 27 || 7 || 0.259
|}
Each farm tile requires a single seed to be planted. Unfertilized farm tiles can produce a stack of 0-6 plants when harvested, depending upon the skill of the planter and random chance. Experimentally, fertilizing a farm plot boosts production by 1-3 additional plants per stack each harvest, though the exact mechanism is unknown. For unskilled planters, yield can be effectively doubled with the use of fertilizer. This can be particularly important early on, when your fortress's seed supply is limited, because those extra plants mean more seeds for planting next season.

To fertilize a farm plot, one needs [[potash]], which is produced by processing [[ash]]. Each plot must be re-fertilized each season, and the fertilizer must be in place at the time the seeds reach maturity. It does not matter whether the plot is fertilized at the time of planting. {{cite forum|139382/5375231}}

Fertilizing a farm plot requires ''floor(plot_size / 4) + 1'' potash. The table on the right illustrates the efficiency of potash as a function of plot size. Generally, larger farms use less, approaching a limit of 1/4 bar per square. The worst sizes are multiples of 4; if one plans to fertilize, it's most efficient to have plots of size ''4n - 1'', where n is the number of potash used. Suitable sizes are 1x3, 1x7, 3x5, 3x9, 5x7, and 7x9.

Fertilizer may be applied to a plot by pressing {{k|f}} while viewing the plot. Only dwarves with the Farming (Fields) labor will apply fertilizer; this grants 30 XP of farming experience for each unit of potash used. Pressing {{k|s}} toggles seasonal fertilization. This does nothing until the next [[season]], at which time the plot will be automatically fertilized. Note that if you do not have a potash stockpile near your farm plots, your legendary farmers may spend all of their time hauling single bars of potash from all the way on the other side of your fortress, rather than growing food.

'''Potash Production Chain:'''
Wood [[Stockpile]] > Wood [[Furnace]] produces [[Ash]] (as [[bars]]) > [[Ashery]] produces [[potash]] (as [[bars]]).
Note: 5 bars are stored in a [[bin]]. An [[Ashery]] requires a [[block]], barrel, and bucket as components.

=== Subterranean Farming ===

To grow the six "dwarven" plants, you will need an underground farm plot. The seeds and spawn available to your dwarves at embark will only grow underground. Underground farm plots must be placed on soil or [[mud]]dy stone.

Muddying a stone floor requires temporarily covering it with water; common methods include a [[Irrigation#via_Buckets|bucket brigade]] or '''controlled''' [[flood]]ing (see: [[Irrigation]]) by temporarily diverting a river or pool, using a [[floodgate]] or [[door]] to stop the flow. You may also find a muddied area in a [[cavern]], but note that each tile underneath the farm plot must be muddied. Most caverns have entire open areas which will be permanently covered in mud, but if you dig into the walls of a cavern or chisel away a pillar, the freshly cut floor area will not be muddied until you get it wet. Underground caverns are dirty, and frequently contain [[Mud|piles of mud]] that are perfect for quickly setting up farms. However, given the wide variety of creatures found in caverns, you may want to take precautions. Consider keeping a [[squad]] close at hand to guard the farm, or walling off a muddied area for your dwarves' exclusive use.

Underground farming is not restricted to soil layers and caverns; underground floor of any material -- rough stone, smoothed stone, ore, gem -- can support subterranean farm plots once there is a layer of mud covering it. See [[irrigation]] for tips on getting the right amount of water to the farm plots.

=== Above Ground Farming ===
Farming of above ground crops is only possible on tiles that lie in a biome supporting their growth. Those are "land" biomes excluding the notoriously cold [[Glacier]] and [[Tundra]], but also all [[Mountain]] [[biome]]s. [[Ocean]] biomes are also excluded, since they are not "land". The biomes where above ground farming is possible are internally referred to as NOT_FREEZING, but that label is somewhat misleading, since it's a [[Biome token|shorthand]] for a group of specific biomes and doesn't imply anything about the actual temperature - mountains and oceans are generally infertile, no matter what temperature range the embark screen lists, and a [[Taiga]] with "freezing" temperatures allows farming above ground plants.

Above ground farming is basically the same as underground farming, with the simplifying distinction that above ground plots typically do not require preparatory work. However, there are some complications.

The first complication is that seeds cannot be chosen at embark, as dwarven civilizations do not have access to those sort of plants. They can be bought from [[Elves|elven]] and [[human]] caravans; above-ground plants can be gathered using the [[Plant gathering]] designation, and then [[brewer|brewed]], [[miller|milled]], [[thresher|threshed]] or [[food|eaten]] directly (depending on the plant) to produce seeds.

The second complication is that the farming must be done on [[soil]] or muddied rock, which is [[above ground]]. Typically, it is done on the surface, which is dangerous (due to aggressive animals, ambushes and sieges). However, any land which has ever been exposed to sunlight becomes permanently marked as "above ground". So, if you have multiple Z-layers of soil, you can channel some above-ground land, remove the resulting ramps, then construct a floor above, where the surface once was. The (now inside and protected) lower soil will still be suitable for farming outdoor plants like [[wild strawberry|wild strawberries]], [[longland grass]], [[rope reed]], and anything else you may find. If your soil is not thick enough, you may still get a secure above ground farm by doing the same with any stone and muddying it. Alternatively, you may build a greenhouse by [[wall]]ing around some soil.

Some crops require a particular temperature range to grow; so although it may be possible to plant them in any season, to obtain optimal usage of farm plots it may be necessary to coordinate planting with seasonal temperature variations.{{verify}}

Note that when creating an above ground plot, the interface may incorrectly display "No mud/soil for farm", even though mud is present. {{bug|249}} The message can be ignored.

== Farm plots in action ==

Once a farm plot has been built and crops have been selected for the current season, dwarves with the [[growing]] labor enabled will begin planting the selected seeds. One seed is used per tile. The higher a Dwarf's grower skill in planting, the more plants will be harvested from each seed planted. The farming labor is fairly low in priority, so if you want a full-time farmer, it is best to disable all other labors.

Plants take time to grow, depending on their type. Once a plant is fully grown, a dwarf will harvest it. By default, any dwarf will do this. Harvesting plants is not affected by any skill, although it provides a small amount of grower experience. So it's a good idea to set only your planters to harvest, not anyone. To do that, set option "Only Farmers Harvest" {{k|o}}{{k|h}}. This is useful only to train your planter faster; once they're skilled enough, everyone can be allowed to harvest again so the haulers can take care of half the farming work.

<div style="float:right">
{| style="border-spacing: 0"
|{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|`|0:1}}||{{RT|τ|6:1}}||{{RT|═|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}
|-
|{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|τ|6:1}}||{{RT|═|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}
|-
|{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|τ|6:1}}||{{RT|═|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}
|-
|{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|τ|6:1}}||{{RT|═|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}
|-
|{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|τ|6:1}}||{{RT|═|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}||{{RT|≈|6:0}}
|}
</div>
In the farm plot shown on the right, {{Tile|≈|6:0}} indicates tiles awaiting planting, {{Tile|═|6:0}} indicates tiles that have been planted and are now growing, and {{Tile|τ|6:1}} indicates [[longland grass]] plants that are ready for harvesting.

Plants that remain in the field for too long will wither. These plants will eventually [[rot]] away. There's no use for withered plants. Farmers plant up to the last day of the growing season; if, when the seasons change, the previous crop can not grow anymore, all immature plants will be destroyed yielding neither seed nor plant. Therefore, it's recommended not to grow crops on the last season they're able to (for example, pig tails in autumn), to prevent losing seeds.

Depending on the number of growers and their experience and the rate at which the plant grows, not all squares of large plots may be used.

Any farm plot that has both Above Ground and Subterranean tile attributes within the plot will only be partially planted, if at all. Verify using {{k|k}} over each square of the plot and remake as needed to follow the proper attributes.

== Management ==

Create a custom [[stockpile]] near your [[farm]] which only accepts [[seed]]s. This will consolidate your seeds into one place, instead of having them littered all through the [[dining room]]. As a single barrel can hold up to 10 seed [[bag]]s (each of which can hold 100 seeds of a specific type), and there is a maximum of 200 seeds of each type in the whole fortress, this stockpile need only be three or four tiles. Unfortunately, due to an outstanding bug, consolidating your seeds will increase the amount of planting job cancellation spam; see the [[#Bugs|Bugs]] section below for workarounds.

It may also be a good idea to set aside a few seeds from each type of crop and [[forbid]] them, as a seed bank in case of [[fun|fun times]].

You can also create a custom stockpile that will only accept [[plant]]s, to avoid having it all mixed up with your [[meat]] and [[drink]]s. It would be a good idea to have this stockpile near your [[still]], [[farmer's workshop]], [[kitchen]], etc. If you suffer from plump helmet overflow, create a plump-helmet-only stockpile, forbid plump helmets from all other food stockpiles, and let the crops in the field die if they can't be picked. It is worth noting that withering crops in the field do not produce miasma.

Use the [[stocks]] menu, and go to the Kitchen tab. From here you can see how many of each kind of food you have. If you're running out of a certain kind of seed, toggle the corresponding plant "Cook" setting to red. [[Cooking]] plants doesn't leave a seed. If you have too many of a certain kind of seed, or of plump helmet, as noted above, toggle the seed "Cook" setting to blue. Just make sure you check on the stocks and toggle it back before you run out, or use the seed bank idea above.

===Managing Seeds===
[[Seed]]s are what are used to grow [[crop]]s. You may begin the game with a certain number of seeds, [[trade]] for them, or [[plant gathering|gather]] them. In addition to this, eating, [[mill|milling]] and [[brewing]] plants often yield a seed (assuming your fortress hasn't hit the seed cap for that plant). [[Cooking]] plants does not yield seeds, and cooking seeds makes them unusable for planting, so you may want to watch out and make sure you don't convert the last of your plants into +wild strawberry roast+ without the ability to make more.

You can create a custom [[stockpile]] near your [[farm]] which will only accept [[seed]]s. This will consolidate your seeds into one place, instead of having them littered all through the [[dining room]]. Seeds are stored in [[bag]]s (up to 100 seeds per bag), and seed bags can be stored in barrels. It is recommended not to use barrels on seeds stockpiles, however, since the hauling habits of the current version lead to barrels getting carted around to collect each and every loose seed, interrupting the planting work.

Each plant has a seed cap set at 200. [[Brewing]], [[mill]]ing, and [[food|eating]] raw plants will not generate additional seeds once the cap is reached, although your [[trader]] may still barter for additional seed bags and thus exceed this limit. Once the count of seeds falls below 200, new seeds will again be generated.

Seeds may be toggled for [[cooking]] on the Kitchen tab of the [[stocks]] menu. Disabling seed cooking will keep your seeds safe from starving dwarves. Although the item properties label them as EDIBLE_RAW, [[quarry bush|rock nuts]], like all other seeds, are ''not'' consumed as-is.

===Managing Crops===
When your [[crop]]s are ripe, your dwarves will [[farming|harvest]] them from the [[farm plot]]s. This will yield one or more [[stack]]s of [[plant]]s, which will be [[hauling|hauled]] to the appropriate [[stockpile]]. It is generally a good idea to have sufficient [[barrel]]s to hold the food, as [[food]] is subject to [[wear|withering]] and the predation of [[vermin]]. [[Metal]] barrels are especially effective against vermin.

You can create a custom stockpile that will only accept [[plant]]s, to avoid having it all mixed up with your [[meat]] and [[drink]]s. It would be a good idea to have this stockpile near your [[still]], [[farmer's workshop]], [[kitchen]], etc. You may also choose to make more specialized stockpiles, for instance if your [[mill|windmill]] is located far away from your farms, you might have small nearby stockpiles dedicated solely to millable plants and [[flour]] so as to save on hauling.

The Kitchen tab on the [[stocks]] menu allows you to control which crops, if any, your dwarves will use as ingredients when cooking. Be careful when you are cultivating new crops or running low on others, and make sure you don't cook the last of them instead of recovering the valuable seeds. Note that experienced [[farmer]]s and crop [[fertilize|fertilization]] significantly increase the return on planted seeds, and can be quite useful when attempting to build your seed stockpile.

==Bugs==

* Haulers will frequently take a full, heavy seed barrel from a stockpile to go pick up a single seed bag, having the unfortunate side effect of making all of the hauled seeds unusable for planting and spamming job cancellations. {{bug|5964}}
** Workaround #1: set your seed stockpile to only take from links ({{k|a}}). When seed supplies run low, toggle it back to "anywhere" temporarily to gather up all the loose seeds.
** Workaround #2: disable barrels ({{k|E}}) in the seed stockpile. This means making the stockpile larger, as only one seed bag will be stored per tile. However, at 100 seeds per bag and with the 200 seed cap per seed type (cf. [[seed]]), this still only amounts to 12 tiles for a full underground-crop seed stockpile, assuming each seed type is only stored in 2 bags. Haulers will still take a whole bag to gather individual seeds, but this is better than taking a whole barrel full of seed bags.
** Workaround #3: create two custom [[stockpile]]s which only accept [[seed]]s. Disable barrels in the first stockpile, and set it to give to the second stockpile. Set the second to only take from links.
** Workaround #4: disable seeds in all stockpiles and recruit a few extra farmers. No hauled seeds means no planting job cancellation spam.

{{Farming FAQ}}

== See also ==
* [[Irrigation]]
* [[Tile attributes]]
* [[Crops]]

{{Category|Buildings}}
{{Industry}}

Stupid dwarf trick

2014-07-30T04:18:12Z

Coolthulhu: /* Obsidian Factory */

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{{Quality|Superior|22:52, 11 September 2013 (UTC)}}
{{av}}

{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount of time and effort - often for little or no practical benefit. They exist primarily as a challenge for experienced players.

==Adventure Mode Fortress==


Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a smörgåsbord of masterpiece adamantine weapons and armor. Possibly both. Breaching the [[caverns]] or [[hidden fun stuff]] should ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' None for fortress mode, but filling it with high-quality equipment can certainly be useful for adventure mode.

==Alarm Clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Limited. They'll sleep through <s>'''anything'''</s> the noise. Although they have been known to awaken when drenched in water, possibly due to thinking it's alcohol, making an alarm clock is not impossible, if carefully prepared.

==Alphabet Cages==
[[Image:Cage.gif|right]]
Use captured monsters in cages to spell messages.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Vowels are hard to come by.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely none whatsoever. (Easy reminders in case you're too lazy to use notes?)

==Altar of Armok==

Build a large altar made out of adamantine, clear glass, magma, and obsidian. The main altar should be hollow adamantine with clear glass "windows." It should have magma inside. The altar should be adorned with large obsidian spikes, as it pleases Armok.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, raising with the amount(and respective difficulty) of bonuses you add.

'''Usefulness:''' Little to none, except for having a cool altar that you can use to WOW other players.

*Bonus: Guard the altar with a megabeast.
*Bonus: Cover the altar with blood of a Titan.
**MegaBonus: Cover the altar with blood of a denizen of the HFS.
***ArmokBonus: Build the altar in the HFS.
*MegaBonus: Cover the altar in a temporarily lasting strength inducing extract.
*BerserkBonus: Cover the altar in a nausea-inducing extract.
*BloodBonus: Also cover the altar in an extract inducing slow death.
**SychronizationBonus: Make it so that a dwarf that goes into contact with the altar dies the moment the strength runs out.
*SacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a dwarf to the altar every day.
**MegaSacrificailBonus: Sacrifice an elf to the altar every day.
**HistorySacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a human to the altar every day
***MegaArmokBonus: Sacrifice all three species to the altar every day!
*MonarchBonus: Build the altar in the monarch's throne room! Yes, this stacks with the ArmokBonus up above.

==Aqueduct Power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels. Aquifers will absorb any amount of water at any rate. Using an aquifer as drain for the reservoir will nullify the risk of flooding the fortress due to the drain not keeping up with the supply.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Aquifer Power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheel.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. The lowly windmill pales in utility compared to a waterwheel.

==Archaeological Excavation==
A Fortress in the Caverns, built by the first dwarf tribes. Build the Fortress however you see fit for those prehistoric Dwarves (i.e. only primitive metals, elaborate tombs for the chieftains with burial objects, cave art, etc.) and abandon it. Then, embark with modern Dwarves, and excavate the ancient Fortress. Sort of like the Adventure Fortress above, only for Reclaim Mode

'''Difficulty:''' As High as you want.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

*Bonus: A Museum detailing the lives of those early dwarves
*DwarfBonus: Some of those early dwarves frozen in a block of ice

==Artificial [[Waterfall]]==
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]]. Alternatively, an [[aquifer]], or other limitless water source, makes for a waterfall entirely underground.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate (Low if there is an aquifer above pouring down).

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower frame rate.

*Bonus: Build it in a "Warm" or hotter [[climate]] so it does not freeze.
*DwarfBonus: Build it in a freezing/cold/temperate climate and keep it going entire year!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[magma]]. It does not freeze, even in a freezing climate!
*MegaDwarfBonusEXTREME+: Use magma and water in the same waterfall. The results will enshrine you in dwarf history! Possibly permanently.

==[[Ballista]] Battery==
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bastion==
Construct an isolated burrow containing a farmer and some labourers, containing at least an uncontaminated well (an [[aquifer]] is great for this) and some farms. Use whatever elaborate mechanism you wish to seal it off from the rest of the fortress. Congratulations; your bastioned dwarves and their descendants will keep your fortress alive forever until one of them goes nuts.

* Bonus: Build your bastion at least in part in a clay or sand layer, connect to magma (using a fortification in the channel to stop those annoying fireproof creatures from sneaking in), and continue manufacturing useless crap even as the world crumbles around you!
* Bonus: Build it on top of a tower outside, and then deconstruct the stairs up.
* Bonus: Fill it exclusively with vampires, to avoid having to worry about food, children, and aging.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Hollow out a shell around your bastion, connecting it to the rest of the cavern by a single 1x1 adamantine support, and flood the shell with magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' High. If your bastioned dwarves have high enough quality living space and few enough nonbastioned friends, it makes the fortress functionally immortal.

==Bathtub==
Stop dwarves from hauling in tons of exotic, poisonous sludges into your fortress by creating a tub filled with 3/7 water that everyone has to get through to enter the fortress. Include a system to change the water, so that they don't bathe in grime.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate

'''Usefulness:''' Low in most cases. High in some evil areas.

* DwarfBonus: Make it drain and refill itself with clean water automatically once in a year.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Clean it with magma.
* *MegaDwarfBonus*: Have an alternative bathtub-buffered entrance next to the main one, which opens automatically when cauterizing the main one and closes and cauterizes itself when it is no longer needed, so that no jobs are canceled during cleansing cycle.
* ≡MegaDwarfBonus≡ : Make it clean itself with magma automatically once in a year, but make it wait for the moment when it's unused, so that no dwarves or pets are incinerated.
* ☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: All of the above, plus make it detect when there should be no dwarves or pets around, but invaders are in it, so that the cleansing cycle can be started prematurely.

==Bolt Splitting Operation==
One curious property of Dwarven Physics is that a bar of metal makes 25 bolts, but if each of those 25 bolts is melted separately, they will become 2.5 bars, generating metal from nothing. Prior to the update that allowed splitting stacks at the [[trade depot]], the difficult part was separating the stacks of bolts into individual bolts without destroying them. EliDupree originally discovered this trick:
{{diagram|spaces=yes|color=#888|\
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
∙++++[#05F]☻∙+++++++++
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+∙[#F00]g∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#FF0]@
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+++++∙+++++++++
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
}}

The yellow @ at the right is a stack of marksdwarves (all in different squads so that they'll stand on the same tile) equipped with [[adamantine]] bolts, standing on top of a stairway surrounded by [[fortification]]s. The blue ☻ at the left is a single [[Attributes#Agility|Perfectly Agile]] soldier with orders to patrol up and down the line of green doors, with little delays at the top and bottom. (The doors are free-standing; they were built attached to a wall, then the wall was removed.) The "g" at the left is a goblin standing on a pillar (pitted from the z-level above).

When the dwarf at the left runs up or down the line of doors, it opens all of them, and some of the marksdwarves loose their bolts. By the time the bolts get there, the doors have closed, so they hit the doors and fall into the channel, where they can be collected and melted separately. (That distance is exact, by the way. Any less and they sometimes get shots through the doors, which kills your goblin. Also, with less-skilled marksdwarves, some of the bolts will stray and land on the floors, but that isn't enough to worry about even with mere dabblers.) Naturally, this is also an excellent way to train marksdwarves.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate. The hardest part is keeping the system running reliably.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate. While there are certainly [[Exploit#Infinite_Adamantine_.2F_Metals|easier ways to generate adamantine]], this is perhaps the most dwarfy.

*Bonus: Build a [[repeater]] to open and close the doors automatically.

==Break the Dam (Release the River!)==
Dam a river (or brook) using something non-permanent (floodgates, drawbridges) and build your fortress entrance in the now dry river bed, make sure you can seal it off nicely (floodgates anyone?) then wait till the first Goblin siege, let them get to your entrance floodgates, seal them, open the dam and laugh manically

'''Difficulty:''' Low

'''Usefulness:''' Instantaneous death to all sieges

*DwarfBonus: Use magma.

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that raises under its victims' feet, flinging enemies away.

Bridges don't fling creatures in any specific direction, apart from "up". So it's more of a spring-board than a catapult. If there's a lot of open space above the bridge, creatures can get flung very high - ten z-levels and more - and take appropriate falling damage. Most of them will land atop the bridge, and bringing the same bridge down will simply crush them.

'''Difficulty:''' Fairly easy. Getting the timing right promises to be the biggest challenge.

'''Usefulness:''' There are far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

===Cat-a-pult===
Essentially a Bridge-a-pult, with specific ammo.

'''Usefulness''': Can be used as a way to stop a [[catsplosion]] if used with male cats. [[Unfortunate accident|Cats can also be replaced with elite citizens of your fortress.]] 

'''Difficulty''': Very easy, given that you have live cats in your fortress.

==Corpse processing facility==
With the help of a necromancer, corpses your dwarves refuse to butcher can be brought back to life and re-killed to yield bones and skulls for your bonecarvers if they are mushed up enough.

1. The simplest way to do this is with the help of height. A 1x1 pit with a minecart stop that dumps corpses down the chute, and several alternating [[floor hatch]]es that close and open (linked to a repeater) with necromancers behind windows overlooking each layer of hatches to revive the bits of corpses. 2 windows with a mechanism controlled door in between, in front of each necromancer group can be used to control vision; but the system can only be stopped by unlinking the minecart dump to the refuse pile in your routes. Note: when I built this I had 3 hatches with 6 necromancers overlooking each (I had plenty of them since I embarked close to 4 towers). Revived corpses drop to their death and explode onto a tile with unright spikes linked (note that some of them will survive, so you need the spikes with a repeater or lever). The corpses that explode from the impact of height (or from other body parts/undead crashing into them) will hopefully yield bones. You make choose to re-haul up the body parts for another round, but only body parts still attached to a grasping part or the head will be revived, and this system isn't very efficient in the first place, so it may not be worth the trouble. Note that whole corpses usually yield 5-8 bones upon death (avg 6), arms only yield 1-4 (avg 2). You may also use this system with or without necromancers and pit live [[goblin]]s into it, they usually yield 6 bones and some body parts.

2. The second way is much more efficient than the first, but requires 1 or more [[artifact]] [[mechanisms]] to make it work. Instead of using height to kill the corpses, a weapon trap with an artifact mechanism and 10 serrated blades of any material can be used instead (since artifact mechanisms never jam). Only 1 necromancer is needed for this method, and is positioned 3 tiles away from the weapon trap, overlooking it behind 2 glass windows with a mechanism [[door]] in between to control its vision. Your 1x1 pit should still be 5 tiles deep at least though, to prevent dwarves being spooked by the revived corpses. When you're ready, link up the route to the minecart and watch body parts revive and slowly get mowed down. It's recommended you have more than 1 of these small pits set up so you can grind more corpses and clear out 1 pit at a time while the others keep grinding.

Note: To clear out pits, turn off all refuse stockpiles that accept anything other than bones and skulls by turning on "accept from links only" so your dwarves only haul out the bones and not the trash.

Note: Try to use raising bridges as the door for each pit, kobold body parts tend to get mixed into the grinders which can lock-pick its way out of doors and result in doors with "door taken by intruder" and a couple hundred zombie body parts overrunning your fortress from the inside (a.k.a fun).

Note: I didn't try this with many building destroyers, but I'm pretty sure the glass windows are safe. Fortifications are not usable since corpses and body parts tend to get tangled up in them and are hard to get out, and spook dwarves trying to clean out the pits.

*Bonus: Use water to clean out the contents of the pits and wash them onto a 1x1 refuse stockpile.

'''Difficulty:''' Hard

'''Usefulness:''' High, and becomes higher the more corpses you have; especially useful for getting something out of necromancer sieges than just useless corpses. Can also be used to recycle dead stray animals and your own dwarves that your dwarves refuse to butcher (don't forget slabs).

==[[Dam]]==
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, or an aquifer located below the river, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fulfill. The power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

*Bonus: Excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley. 
*Bonus: Build a control center to control the water flow. 
*Bonus: Draw your entire energy from a power station within. 
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use screw pumps and another dam to replace the water with magma.

==[[Danger room|Danger Room]]==
A room full of upright spear traps linked to a lever or pressure plate. Teach your dwarves to dodge the pointy sticks!

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium, depending on how you activate the traps.

'''Usefulness''': High. Trains combat skills very quickly, assuming you don't kill anyone.

'''Downside''': Civilians and pets that wander into the danger room will inevitably get killed, even if you use low quality training spears.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Menacing spikes greatly increase the danger, and may help train your medical team (and/or your coffin construction crew).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[adamantine]] spikes! On the plus side, you have a thriving coffin industry going now.

==Day Care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers. Make a room with beds and tables and stuff, then turn it into a burrow, then add all your children to it. Remember to include a food chute to quantum stockpile a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. High quality food, furniture, and socializing should keep them happy. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in various professions like an otherwise vulnerable child, but this is a small trade-off if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway. This is probably obvious, but make sure this room is guarded, otherwise it will turn into a Dwarf Orphanage (with Goblins and Minotaurs welcome!)

'''Difficulty:''' Low. With the invention of burrows, you can designate the Day Care to contain all children, so it is unnecessary to use suicide-booth-micromanagement to contain the children.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Think of the children, they will grow up and enter adult Dwarf life completely unprepared for the [[Fun|things]] [[Dragon|that]] [[Hell|await]] them, having spent their entire lives coddled in a safe room. They might make good nobles however.

*Bonus: Add dogs and/or other creatures on lashes to constantly bite and scratch the children, so their attributes will raise due to constant fighting and dodging. When they come of ages, you will have incredibly tough, strong and agile dwarves, but covered in scars and psychologically traumatized.
*DwarfBonus: Add a small amount of magma mist to mentioned above, that'll burn the fat and make them fireproof.
*ArmokBonus: Combine this with danger room.

==Doberman Bomb==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your frame rate.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to high, depending on the animal you use

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to very high, potentially fortress-saving

*Bonus : Train the dogs inside as war dogs
**DwarfBonus : Use [[giant badger]]s, [[tiger]]s, [[alligator]]s, bears, or anything big and aggressive when tamed
***MegaDwarfBonus : Use [[giant cave spider]]s, [[cave dragon]]s, [[blind cave ogre]]s, crossbow-wielding [[giant desert scorpion]]s, [[jabberer]]s or something really dangerous and rare.
****UltraMagmaArmokBonus : Use one (or more !) of the following list : [[dragon]](s), a [[bronze colossus]](es), a [[forgotten beast]](s) (bonus points for flesh-melting secretions), an [[undead]] [[giant sponge]], or the denizens of the [[Hidden Fun Stuff]].

==[[Drowning chamber]]==
'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untamable animals, or anything else. Just be ready for something that knows how to swim. Also useful for catching fishies.

*Bonus: Utilize lava.
*Bonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Edit the raws and do both.

==[[Computing|Dwarfputer]] Complex==
A big mess of [[fluid logic|fluid]], [[machine logic|machine]], and/or [[creature logic|creature]] logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics and architects will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do<s> and makes them stronger</s> (in 31.25 only military work increases stats, I was really disappointed after 4 years of nonstop pumping only to see weak in urist description). Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes and building destroyers enter your computer.
*Bonus: Use lava.
**Doombonus: Use lava ''and'' build it so that building destroyers that enter the complex get killed by the mechanisms they destroy.
***SelfRepairingbonus: Use both lava and water and implement the building destroyer killing system, but modify it so it's self-repairing, filling up broken spaces with obsidian.

==Dwarven Apartment Complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[megaprojects]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your ☼5-star service☼).

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to fun by water. Additionally, if you have the time and resources to train a sizable force of marksdwarves, placing a few "security rooms" (with barracks, ammunition store, ration cache, armory, etc.) at appropriate floors, complete with fortified balconies, will allow you to take advantage of the higher vantage point.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Extend the tower to have levels below ground as well as above.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Make the whole construction out of clear glass. (privacy? Whatever for?)

==Dwarven Courtyards==
Dig large shafts [first dig the staircase to the desired depth, digging out the size you want the shaft to be on all layers. Channel the outer later, then install supports on the base floor. Link the support to a trigger, clear everyone out, destroy the remaining staircase and pull the trigger] then cover them in glass, creating an indoor but light area that will keep dwarves from being irritated and nauseated by the sun, also improving general happiness and allowing close proximity to caverns and magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, make sure not to mess up or you will lose your miners

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. creates vertical circulation and brings light to lower levels.

*Bonus: Punch a large shaft through a multi-level aquifer (hint: punch through the aquifer from below).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Create a network of self-sufficient communities per shaft, allowing them to be sectioned off in case of disaster. (I plan on colonizing HFS eventually on this paradigm, creating a mining team of soldiers to extract, manufacture and ultimately use adamantine products without being connected to the main colony in order to take on the demons while keeping the rest of the burrow safe.)

==Dwarven Disco Ball==
Why waste all those cut gems on things that only some selfish noble will enjoy? Create as large a wall-less sphere as you can, then cover it in Gem Windows of 3 different-colored gems to make it shine! The bigger, and more valuable gems involved (e.g., [[ruby|rubies]], [[sapphire]]s, and [[emerald]]s, or colored diamonds if you're really masochistic), the dwarfier.

'''Difficulty:''' Constructing a sphere is very hard, especially the larger you make one. Gathering enough differently colored gems can also be very hard, depending on stone layers. Trading helps a lot.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. More value can be created by encrusting furniture, and Gem Windows lack quality.

*Bonus: Alternating [[alunite]] and [[obsidian]] tiles to make a 'dance floor'.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use lava contained in glass for illumination.
*UltraDwarfBonus: Caged "[[Elf|dancers]]".

==Dwarven Labor Camp (aka Dwarkuta)==
Create an aboveground walled fortress in a freezing climate with guard towers, barracks, housing, and armories. Dig a long ramp downward and add a large mining network below the surface. Make some small military squads to guard the camp. Designate the lower levels as workshops, and when migrants arrive, assign them to the mines. Give the workers minimal food and only water (no booze, booze is for the hypocritical decadence of Dwarkuta's leaders). Have them haul the stone and metal they mine back to the surface and ship the raw materials off to the Motherland. Import only food, booze, weapons, fuel, and other necessities.

*Bonus: Build the giant digging machines. They don't actually have to dig anything.
*Bonus: Go into the raws and rename the beverage of your choice to "Dwarven Vodka", and drink to the glory of the Motherland!
*MegaBonus: Escape. Wait for a goblin siege, then get everyone underground and block the entrance. Let the goblins in. Wait a few months. The goblins are now the guards you must kill.

Step 1. Secure the keys: Make improvised weapons. If you have obsidian at your disposal, make rock short swords.

Step 2. Ascend from darkness: Get your dwarves out of the mines and into the camp.

Step 3. Rain fire: Use your imagination. Try using magma, if possible.

Step 4. Unleash the horde: Attack!

Step 5. Skewer the winged beast: If the goblins brought a giant bat or other flying creature, kill it.

*Bonus: Use a ballista.

Step 6. Wield a fist of iron: Break open the armory and equip your rebels with armor and weapons.

Step 7. Raise hell: Exactly what it says on the tin.

Step 8. Freedom!

*MegaDwarfBonus: In Adventure mode, try (and probably fail) to lead the prisoners to freedom.

==Dwarven Refrigerator==
Dig down to the 3rd cavern layer and harvest as many [[nether-cap]]s as you can. Make them all into barrels! Nether caps have the unique property of being 10000° Urist, which is 32°F or 0°C. Now your dwarves can enjoy their favorite alcohol, cheese, and plump helmets chilled to perfection! If you've set your population cap very low in the INIT files, caverns aren't extremely dangerous, but you should still be on the lookout for nasties down there. Remember to wall off your entrance to the cavern once you're finished.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to Medium

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Booze stored inside will not perish due to heat if say, [[magma]] is dumped on it.

==Dwarven Machine Gun==
Build a high fire rate, minecart firing machine gun. Must be fully automatic, capable of reloading itself, and should not jam due to minecarts being disrupted by collisions or derailments.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on fire rate, reload downtime, and whether or not minecarts are filled with [[magma]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. A sophisticated minecart trap can keep out even the most persistent invaders.

*Bonus: Automatically reload minecarts with [[magma]].
*MegaDwarfBonus: Integrate the trap with a dwarfputer so that it can automatically send minecarts to where they are needed most.

==Emergency Destruct Stairs==
A tall column of stairs plunging all the way down into the underdark, with a one-tile wide area of thin destructible floor all around it. In case of subterranean invasion, a thrown switch drops a stone O straight down, ringing the staircase and neatly severing all inter-level connections at a blow. Does with one lever and one support what would take dozens of bridges or hundreds of retracting grates.

'''Difficulty:''' Harder than it sounds.

'''Usefulness:''' Sometimes... sometimes they fly.

==Execution Tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

==Flamethrower bunker==
If your fortress happens to be visited by a [[dragon]], capture it in a [[cage trap]], then release it into a sealed bunker with [[fortification]]s around the edge. When invaders arrive, watch them get roasted.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but requires a lot of luck - a dragon (or fire-breathing forgotten beast) needs to survive worldgen, then it needs to attack your fortress (instead of a giant/minotaur/ettin/cyclops or other megabeast), and finally it needs to make it to your cage trap without being killed by something else.

'''Usefulness:''' The dragon will quickly deal with any sieges and megabeasts (aside from [[titan]]s), though it will also set the hillside on fire. Also, any protective bridges in front of the fortifications will melt under sustained fire, leaving you with a bunker that ''nobody'' can safely approach; building the bridges (and mechanisms) from [[adamantine]] (or [[raw adamantine]]) will make them last longer, but '''not''' forever. A nether-cap bridge with a (preferably non-flammable) artifact mechanism should be safe. Additionally, a skilled enemy archer could easily kill your dragon with a lucky shot.

*Bonus: Capture a fire-breathing [[titan]] or [[forgotten beast]] and use it.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Release the denizens of the underworld and use them.

==Flood the World==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate unless you sink the world below water level (river or ocean).

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[giant sponge]].

*Bonus: Use magma, just like [[Main:Boatmurdered|Boatmurdered]].
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use trained fish to kill off all creatures not of your colony.
*MegaArmokBonus: Mod the game and do both.

==[[Live training|Gladiator Arena]]==
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp. Variant: build prisoner cages inside the arena, link to a lever outside the arena, lock the soldiers in, and then open the cages.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive. (If the prisoners have weapons, you can remove them by using {{k|d}}-{{k|b}}-{{k|d}} to dump the cage and its contents, then looking at and undumping the cages themselves with {{k|k}}-{{k|d}}).

'''Usefulness:''' Low to High, depending on how long your soldiers can draw out the execution. Equipping your soldiers with wooden training weapons can greatly increase the fun (and/or [[Fun]] if their armor isn't as good as you thought).

*Bonus: Losers get incinerated by Magma.
*DwarfBonus: Winners also get incinerated by Magma.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use your arena as a "trial by fire" for migrants.

==Glass Ceiling==
Sick of having your dwarves vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a glass floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

*PoliticallyIncorrectDwarfBonus: Make it a metaphorical [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_ceiling glass ceiling] and give migrants and women less pay and poorer rooms.

==Greenhouse==
A [[farming|greenhouse]] is just a farm with the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

*Bonus: Give it a glass floor to allow surface plants even lower down.
**DwarfBonus: Utilize [[obsidian|volcanic glass]].

==Hammer of [[main:armok|Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quick-smiting.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size and materials, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 attached to a handle extending from your entrance actually works against sieges.

* Bonus: Cover it with blood.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Make it hollow and fill it with Magma
* ArmoksMachineHammerBonus: Set up an automated system that allows you to reset it quickly. Obsidianizers and the magma sea will be your friends here.

==Human Fortress==
Instead of digging a fortress, build above-ground houses. Create walls to keep the nasties out. The only thing you may have underground are mines and stockpiles. Create a huge stone fort for your nobles.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Building stuff will cost you resources instead of gaining them and flyers can be a real pain. Keep several Marksmen handy!

'''Usefulness:''' N/A. (No cave adaptation)

*Bonus: Pave the roads between houses.
*HumanBonus: Dig a moat around your castle.
*MegaHumanBonus: Fill the moat with lava.
*SurfaceDwellerBonus: get the stone for your constructions entirely from open-pit quarries, i.e. by channelling instead of mining.

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], [[gold]], or [[soap]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends entirely on you.

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge are a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. Burrows help to get the whole crew inside at the same time.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles|Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

*Bonus: Drop the vessel into a deep cavern
*SuperBonus: Make the outer walls, roof and ground floor completely out of glass, so that the explorers can watch everything around them.
*VampireBonus: Send a vampire with the crew!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a halfway-empty adamantine vein
*YouHorribleEvilDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into the [[Hidden Fun Stuff]]!
*youHorribleInsaneDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a glowing chasm.
*OhMyArmokBonus: When you arrive to the bottom of the magma sea, excavate and then create a new community under it!
**OhMyF****ingArmokBonus: Send supplies every year!
**IsThatEvenPossibleBonus: Send a piece of an aquifer down there to provide water! (Mine around a water-producing tile, build the ship around it, then send it!)
**≡MegaDwarfBonus≡: create a high enough tower and drop it into the magma sea to connect the surface and the undersea community!
***☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: create ''two'' towers and use one to send water down there!

==single-Lever Emergency Lockdown (LEL)==

The only real requirement is that you need a fort based around a central stairwell. All you need to do is leave space for and eventually build 1*(length of your stairwell) bridges (that raise!) on each side of your stairwell on every level, and then link them all to the same lever. Friends get through all your best traps and champions? Simply pull the lever, and they're trapped in the central stairwell forever! Remember to roof off the entrance if your fort is situated on flat land otherwise the bonuses become much less useful. Also important is to ensure that you either wall off access or include sealable bridges or doors (linked to the same lever of course) for any inter-level paths that bypass the main stairwell, like vertical axles running out of centralised power generators.

3*3 stairwell setup:

{{diagram|1=
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
[#6ff]╥XXX[#6ff]╥
[#6ff]║XXX[#6ff]║
[#6ff]╨XXX[#6ff]╨
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
}}

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to High, depending on whether you use the MegaDwarfBonus below or not and how much you spread your fortress over the layers - although more spread means more usefulness. Extremely time-consuming, and requires architects, masons, and mechanics, as well as a lot of mechanisms (2 per bridge, ~4 bridges per level)

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to High, also depending on whether you use the Bonuses. With all bonuses applied it becomes a guaranteed last resort way of destroying the toughest enemies with minimal dwarven casualties; without the bonuses it's still a damn sight better than letting temporarily victorious enemies run freely about your fortress.

*DwarfBonus: Connect your cistern to the stairwell (remember to put a floodgate in too). Once the impossible-to-defeat enemies are safely trapped inside, Pull lever number 2 and watch them slowly, slowly, drown (VERY IMPORTANT: have the level of the cistern input at at least the same height as the level of the stairwell, else there won't be enough pressure to properly flood the stairwell, meaning nasties WILL survive).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Connect your MAGMA cistern to the stairwell. Laugh maniacally. (Remember to build your bridges and floodgates out of magma-safe material or a lot of !!FUN!! will be had)
*MegaArmokEntombmentBonus: Do both and cast your enemies in obsidian and boil the survivors in steam as a semi-permanent testament to their foolhardiness. This also means that you will have stairs cut out of lovely obsidian once your miners are finished making your stairwell usable again.
*MegaArmokEntombmentEXTREME+Bonus: "Forget" to pull the lockdown lever before you pull lever number 2.

==Maze==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful. You can also use the free maze-generating program Daedalus, available [http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/daedalus.htm here] if you're too lazy to come up with your own.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*Bonus: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.
*Bonus: Release a live caged [[minotaur]] into the maze.
*MegaBonus: Make it three-dimensional and [http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/maze/design/index.htm#uni unicursal].

==Magma Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma Cannon==
[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=33837.0 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma Highway==
Magma moves across the map annoyingly slowly, due to its thickness and lack of pressure. But a tunnel several Z-levels high, with magma entering at the top, will flow much faster because the magma's '''falling''' in, not flowing in, and can expand on either Z-level before falling down.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Not hard to make, but cutting open a multi-Z magmafall is [[fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' Medium.

==Magma Mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with exactly the same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

*Bonus: Put the coffin at least 20 floors down.
*MegaBonus: Build it in a volcano if possible, and put the coffin at the very bottom of the map

==Magma Sea Colony==

If you cast obsidian around the edges of the magma sea, it is possible to pump out the magma and build a colony in the empty space. Once the colony is built, you can destroy the obsidian walls and refill the magma sea. Note: you cannot cast obsidian on the bottom layer of the magma sea, so building a colony on this layer is nearly, but not quite, impossible (see below).

'''Difficulty:''' High. You need to get water down to each edge of the magma sea, and you need a pump stack to get rid of the magma.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: Build your colony on the floor of the magma sea. This will require draining the sea to the next-to-bottom layer as described above, then dumping enormous amounts of water into the bottom layer to crowd out the magma while simultaneously draining the magma from holes poked in the magma sea floor. Constructions can be built at the border between the water and the magma. See [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128226.0 This forum post] for full, detailed instructions.
* Bonus: Obsidianize the entire magma sea, leaving a single spot to use as a source for pumps. Then proceed to carve your new fortress subsection out of this bounty.

'''Difficulty:''' Insane. The project will take at least ten years of dwarf time and claim many lives.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. You can finally get the last bit of adamantine when you drain the magma sea, and the magma sea floor has a cool twinkly effect.

==[[Mass pitting|Mass Cage Recycling System]]==

Build a [[mass pitting]] system to recycle your cage trap cages quickly.

'''Difficulty:''' Very easy. Requires basic digging and very little time.

'''Usefulness:''' Very. Keeps you from having to build cages before releasing monsters from them. With six hatches you can safely empty out 48 cages very quickly. You can build lots of cage traps without having to worry about emptying each cage individually.

*Bonus: Cover the floor of your pit with cage traps, creating a neverending cycle and giving your dwarves something to do during the long harsh summer when going outside is overly taxing on their stomachs.
*ConcentrationCampBonus: Combine with Pit of Doom below.

==[[Drowning chamber|Mega/Water Drowning Trap-Thing]]==
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire creatures to create a sauna.

==Monumental Statue==
'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*Bonus: Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.
*BestWayToGetRidOfStoneBonus: Make one for every dead dwarf.
**UberTombBonus: Use the statue as a tomb and put their coffins in it.
*Dwarfbonus: Give the statue magma eyes.
**HellNo,DwarfsYesBonus: Combine the magma eyes idea with the magma cannon idea above and place the statue just behind (and above) the entrance to your fortress.

==Moses Effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult. The same trick can be used in lieu of a drawbridge, although its practicality as compared to the drawbridge is highly questionable.

==[[Waterfall|Never Ending Shower]]==
Don't you get angry when your dwarves carry enough grime on them to dirty the entire fortress? And how they get infected because of that griminess? Suffer no more! With the Never Ending Shower (NES for short), dwarves will be able to stay (relatively) clean without having to take the time to run for a bath or dirtying your drinking water!

It is easy to understand: use the same instructions as in the Artificial Waterfall, but make it so that the waterfall is somewhere where the dwarves will be going through almost daily--a central stairway works well. It cleans them and gives them happy [[thought]]s for the same price!

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to high. You do have to make sure that dwarves don't try anything funny, and create a drain to draw the dirty water out.

'''Usefulness:''' Incredibly high. Reduces risk of infection and keeps your dwarves happy.

*Bonus: Use an aquifer to get clean water AND drain dirty water.
*Bonus: Use levers to control the NES.
*SuperBonus: Make it work as a trap!
*SuperDuperBonus: Make it work as a trap AND as a recovery system!
*ArmokBonus: Make it so that magma can be poured down, too!

==[[Obsidian farming|Obsidian Factory]]==
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber, a drowning chamber and even an obsidianizing chamber that can kill any creature that gets in (except [[ghost]]s and possibly [[vermin]]).

* MegaDwarfBonus: Make the system fully automated using [[computing]] principles.

==Pit o' Doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Traps which menace with spikes are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally. If high enough, you may be able to recover [[bone]]s from creatures your dwarves refuse to [[butcher]].

==Pressure Washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and pushes anything in the way of the flow away. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here.]

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested in version 0.28.181.40d with 50 recruits standing in front of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

* Bonus: Fill it with Magma instead (though Magma doesn't pressurize).

==Rehabilitation Centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

* MegaDwarfBonus: Points for making every other dwarf drink water and sleep on cheap beds.

==Road of the Damned==
Create a giant channel filled with spike traps, 10 tiles wide and going all the way from your fort to the map edge. Pave it over with crystal glass so traders can get that foreboding feeling that'll make them seal the deal without bargaining too hard!

'''Difficulty:''' Low-mid, depending on the rarity of crystal glass.

'''Usefulness:'''Low. The same as a normal road.

* Bonus: Spike a goblin on every trap!

==Sectorized World==
Divide the world edges into multiple sectors and then gate access to each one separately. This allows you to protect your fortress from sieges whilst keeping access to most of the outside world and allowing most traders into and out of the fortress (those unfortunate enough to enter the world from the same direction as the siegers may be screwed, of course). For bonus points, build separate gateable access routes for each sector. For further bonus points, design your fortress so that you can simultaneously allow access to traders ''at the same time'' as siegers are exposed to your defensive mechanisms.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, unless you allow separate access routes for each sector in which case high.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate, increasing with each bonus you fill. Mostly for those who want to build the best possible defenses. Can also double as a means of easily trapping wild animals.

==Self-contained Vampire-based Factory==
Take advantage of the independence of vampires by building a self-contained factory. The best industries are those that require no special raw materials-- a factory containing both a magma glass furnace and a sand tile, for instance, would work well, as would a clay industry, but if you're feeling ambitious, consider building a vampire into your [[giant cave spider|GCS]] [[silk farm]]-- if you happen to have scored an [[undead]] GCS, your vampire won't even spook! You can treat your factory as a piggy bank to be broken into as needed, or for perfect fire-and-forget action, build a dropping [[User:Vasiln/Undump|undump]] into the factory, and the vampire will deliver the output to your front door.

'''Difficulty:''' The only hard part is getting yourself a [[vampire]].

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many green glass blocks you plan on using.

==Self Destruct Lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely fun.

'''Usefulness:''' Could serve as kind of a last revenge on a goblin siege, but also highly amusing. If done properly it can make reclaim easier.

* DorfBonus: Make it have a timer before your fortress self-destructs. You can do this with a water channel, or if you're particularly technical, make a [[Computing|seven segment display]].
** For bonus Dwarfy-ness, make the timer be the depth number of the magma or water that will actually trigger your fortress' destruction.
* Bonus: Build your fortress high above ground, connect the fortress to a roof through just one support and have the system, when activated, drop the whole construction into the magma sea, destroying the whole thing permanently.

==Shark Catcher==
Capture of [[Bull shark|sharks]] or [[Carp|other]], [[Sturgeon|dangerous fish]] achieved by making an artificial bay, filling it with [[Cage trap|cage traps]], opening the floodgate to the sea or river and some sort of drainage system, likely pumps and/or floodgates.
'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium as drowning while setting up is very possible with bad planning.

'''Usefulness''': Low, purely aesthetic, but very cool to have a shark infested moat (Potentially kills invaders).

==[[Silk farming|Silk Farming]]==
Capture a web-slinger (generally a [[giant cave spider]]) and build a farm to efficiently harvest its [[silk]].

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium; the hardest part is generally catching the web-spinner.

'''Usefulness''': Medium to High. Provides an endless supply of potentially-valuable [[silk]] cloth and rapidly [[cross-training|cross-trains]] [[weaver]]s.

==[[Skyfort|Sky Fortress]]==

Thanks to a quirk in dwarven [[physics]], the sky can be used to provide limited support to your fortress. Specifically, a solid vertical column that reaches the top of the sky level will not collapse, but it will also no longer support neighboring tiles horizontally. In order to retain vertical support, passable areas are carved with up/down stairways. [[Obsidian]] casting is necessary to allow these stairways to be added on top of existing [[building]]s (like [[furniture]] and [[workshop]]s). Unsupported glass [[window]]s can be used to plug any holes, such as those required below magma workshops.

Please [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=133968.0 refer to the forum thread] for full details.

'''Difficulty''': High; constructing a [[skyfort]] approaches a [[megaprojects|megaproject]].

'''Usefulness''': Low to Medium. Automatically isolates your fortress from all but [[flying]] foes. While it is possible to achieve the same effect on the ground and underground, changes to enemy siege mechanics (specifically, digging and jumping) may increase the defensive value of a floating fortress.

==Steamed Vegetables==
Make a pot and drop <s>elves</s> vegetables in from about three levels up. This makes it so the vegetables do not <s>run</s> get overcooked. Proceed to bask the vegetables in [[steam]].

'''Difficulty''': Medium. Can be annoying to boil some water.

'''Usefulness''': Great way to make friends with the merchants.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Add <s>goblins</s> seasoning.
*ArmokDoubleBonus: Use [[magma mist]].

==[[Swimming]] pool==
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though. Though if you utilize a '''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform, this is a priceless necessity.

==[[Tree farming|Underground Forest]]==
Break into an underground cavern, make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium - need to dig out a suitably large area, then find a way of introducing water to the area and subsequently draining or evaporating it.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size (bigger is better) as well as proximity to wood stockpiles. A tree farm outside the caverns can grow trees from all 3 layers, and you'll never have to worry about hostile creatures threatening your wood cutters.

==Underground Perpetual Motion Power Plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times. Note: Incredibly easy with an aquifer.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater Statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water source smooth and engrave the walls and floors than fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam! underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

*Bonus: Build it on area with trees and shrubs; make walls from ice or use windows; fill it with fish and merfolk; now you'll get a big aquarium
*Note: It doesn't count if you accidentally flood your fortress and wind up with one of these. It does count if one of your nobles has an unfortunate accident in their sculpture garden.

==U.R.I.S.T. Artificial Intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriend him/her.

In order to ensure that your A.I. doesn't find sleep interfering with crucial lever pulling, you might consider incorporating an alarm clock. If a goblin siege turns up on your doorstep, a single external lever to dump 7/7 of water on the sleeping A.I. might well save your fortress (and is so much cooler than having backup levers in your meeting hall).

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
*A.R.M.O.K. - '''A'''ll-'''R'''eaching '''M'''achine '''O'''f '''K'''illing
*A.S.S. - '''A'''lmost-autonomous '''S'''ystems '''S'''elector
*C.A.T. - '''C'''reepy '''A'''utonomous '''T'''echnology
*D.E.E.P.E.R. - '''D'''warf of '''E'''ngineering the '''E'''ldritch and '''P'''ractical '''E'''xploitation of '''R'''esources''
*D.I.E.D. - '''D'''edicated '''I'''rrigation and '''E'''verything else '''D'''warf(s)
*D.O.M.E.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perated '''M'''echanics and '''E'''ngineering '''S'''ystem
*D.O.R.F. - '''D'''oes '''O'''rders '''R'''ather '''F'''ast
*D.O.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*D.W.A.R.F. - '''D'''rains '''W'''ater '''A'''nd '''R'''ecruits '''F'''armers
*G.L.A.D.O.S. - '''G'''enetic '''L'''ifeform '''A'''nd '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*H.A.L. - '''H'''airy '''A'''lternate '''L'''ifeform
*M.A.G.M.A. - '''M'''assively '''A'''lcoholic '''G'''ear-'''M'''achine '''A'''ssembly
*N.O.B.L.E. - '''N'''arcissistic '''O'''bnoxious '''B'''oastful '''L'''aughable '''E'''xcrement
*P.O.T.A.T.O. - '''P'''ossibly '''O'''rganic '''T'''echnically '''A'''live '''T'''rash '''O'''mitted
*U.R.I.S.T. - '''U'''nderground '''R'''easonably '''I'''ntelligent '''S'''ettlement '''T'''echnologist
*V.A.C.A.T.E.D. - '''V'''ampire '''A'''ssisted '''C'''omputerized '''A'''ssembly '''T'''errorizes '''E'''xtra-'''D'''warves
*V.O.D.A.P.H.O.N.E. - '''V'''ampire '''O'''perated '''D'''efence '''A'''pparatus, '''P'''erpetrating '''H'''arm '''O'''f '''N'''efarious '''E'''ntities (See Bonus for more information)


'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

Bonus: Make the A.I. dwarf a vampire. Vampires don't need food, alcohol, or sleep and cannot age, which makes them perfect for the job. As an added bonus, keeping a vampire in this way will make your fortress completely indestructible, as sealing him in will prevent the possibility of the vampire of being killed in combat or from a syndrome, while keeping the vampire from making friends he will inevitably outlive will prevent him from going insane. (It also ensures that the bloodsucker won't use any of your dwarves as a midnight snack.) NOTE: Vampires may still go insane without any blood. Might be worth considering adding on a 3rd "feeding chamber" where you assign an unfortunate victim to sleep whenever the vampire gets hungry.

===D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P.===

Dwarven Organic Switch Toggle, Neutered Gastrectomied Overpersistent Sober Prisoner. Goblins have several advantages over dwarves in the lever pulling department: they live forever, do not breed or tantrum, and need not eat, drink, or sleep. Seal one or more goblins in your supercomputer complex, and use their predictable pathing in combination with instantly lockable doors and pressure plates to make dwarven lever pulling a thing of an older, less advanced era.

Also known by several product names:
*G.O.B.L.I.N.A.T.O.R. - '''G'''oblin '''O'''perated '''B'''astion of '''L'''ogic to '''I'''nfalliably '''N'''eutralize '''A'''ntiquated '''T'''ypes of '''O'''perational '''R'''egimes
*N.G.O.K.A.N.G. - '''N'''efarious '''G'''oblin '''O'''f '''K'''illing '''A'''nd '''N'''eedless '''G'''riping
*S.T.O.Z.U. - '''S'''ecret '''T'''echnological '''O'''perative who '''Z'''aps '''U'''nruly Nobles

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. While goblin pressure plate runners require more space than dwarven lever pullers, once their room is set up, it's done, and easily copied for the next one. With only one goblin, you'll need a pressure plate for every possible combination of lever states, but it's easy to add more goblins instead.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Instant response time (<50 ticks is possible) can make lever worries a thing of the past. The D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P. requires absolutely no maintenance once set up. Unlike with the U.R.I.S.Ts of the previous generation, modern POW-based computing is never held hostage to eating, drinking, or breaks. Stay tuned for the next-generation C.A.C.A.M.E.!

==Vomitorium==
[[Image:Vomit_Trail.png‎|thumb|right|Vomitoria: preventing cave adaptation since [[23a:Vomit|23a]].]]

Prevents [[cave adaptation]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's a [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it. Variant: above-ground statue garden or zoo.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in or it will become very [[Fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "'''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform" chamber, or HELP (so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most <s>Dwarves</s> enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death. It is recommend that with the exception of the entrance you use stairs.

*Bonus: Utilize vampires (who can't drown).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Engineer it so that it performs a full cycle on one activation of a pressure plate and include that pressure plate as a part of the patrol route, then create a reverse Watervator and also include it as a part of same patrol route, so that your militia automatically uses it to get in and out the fortress.

==Zombie Thunderdome==
Embark in a [[surroundings#Evil|reanimating]] biome in the current version (preferably savage as well), find or dig a deep pit, and dump any unused (non-dorf) corpses and butchery products into it. They will animate and begin to walk around, providing you with the endless entertainment afforded by watching horse hair walk. Make sure the pit is deep enough not to scare your dwarves!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Keeping your fort safe from the threat of animated beak dog beaks is worth any price. However, [[DF2012:Defense guide|there may be better things]] [[DF2012:Mega construction|to do with your time]].

*Bonus: Set up a series of [[bridge|defenses]] that drop invaders into the pit.
*DwarfBonus: Set up a series of bridges and walls that flings invaders into the pit.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop a Megabeast into the pit and watch it do battle with multiple layers of undead.

===Zombie Shooting Gallery===

In a reanimating biome, build a holding room for your undead, wall it off with fortifications. In the adjacent (accessible) area, build an archery range and order your archery squads to train there. Your marksdwarves will go to their scheduled archery training and whenever a zombie is raised, they'll switch focus from the boring old archery target and instead shoot down the undead. Once the zombies are dead, they'll return to regular shooting practice until the corpses rise again. The raised corpses cannot attack through fortifications and thus cause no unhappy thoughts from seeing them, but will spook haulers trying to collect errant socks from the shooting range.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. The difficulty lies in finding a source of permanent undead, the actual construction is trivial.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. This setup significantly increases the skill gain from bolts used by training dwarves, since every bolt shot at a zombie counts as combat action, giving much more experience. The scheme works without any supervision once set up.

{{Category|Design}}

Campfire

2014-07-24T15:57:26Z

Coolthulhu: Removed "migrated" tag

{{av}}
{{quality|unrated}}

'''Campfires''' can be created in [[adventurer mode]] by pressing {{k|g}}. Currently campfires do not require anything to build, although it has been indicated that in the future there will be more work involved in their creation. Walking into a tile containing a campfire is not possible, even for creatures immune to fire. [[jump|Jumping]] over and even into a campfire is possible and harmless. Campfires can't be destroyed but will disappear on their own after few hours.

== Uses for a Campfire ==
* Heating Objects.
* Melting snow or ice in containers to water — Campfires do not seem to melt frozen water in landscape.
* Creating Barriers.

== In Fortress Mode ==
In previous versions, [[human]] and [[necromancer]] sieges will light campfires. This has been turned off for the time being in the 0.40 series, so at present, campfires are not found in [[Dwarf fortress mode]].

Campfire

2014-07-24T02:56:11Z

Coolthulhu:

{{Migrated_article}}
{{av}}
{{quality|unrated}}

'''Campfires''' can be created in [[adventurer mode]] by pressing {{k|g}}. Currently campfires do not require anything to build, although it has been indicated that in the future there will be more work involved in their creation. Walking into a tile containing a campfire is not possible, even for creatures immune to fire. [[jump|Jumping]] over and even into a campfire is possible and harmless. Campfires can't be destroyed but will disappear on their own after few hours.

== Uses for a Campfire ==
* Heating Objects.
* Melting snow or ice in containers to water — Campfires do not seem to melt frozen water in landscape.
* Creating Barriers.

== In Fortress Mode ==
In previous versions, [[human]] and [[necromancer]] sieges will light campfires. This has been turned off for the time being in the 0.40 series, so at present, campfires are not found in [[Dwarf fortress mode]].

Climber

2014-07-13T15:45:03Z

Coolthulhu: Described how the skill works

{{Quality|Fine|21:55, 30 December 2010 (UTC)}}
{{Skill
| color = 3:0
| skill = Climber
| profession = Unknown
| job name = None
| tasks = None
| attributes =
* Unknown
}}
{{av}}

Climber is a [[skill]] currently only used in [[Adventurer mode]] which allows an adventurer to climb. Higher levels improve the chances of successfully stopping the "In flight" status (falling, jumping or being knocked back) by holding onto something and decrease the chance of losing hold when climbing.

Trees and 1 z-level tall cliffs and buildings are always safe to climb. Unskilled climbers will often lose hold when attempting to climb walls (not trees) while "In air" - at least 1 z-level above floor.

Climbing trees doesn't improve the climber skill. Climbing walls (even at floor level) and attempting to stop flight by grabbing onto things (including trees) will improve climbing skill by 5 exp regardless of success.

Climbing requires at least one free body part with [GRASP] tag (usually hand). Some creatures such as [[cat]]s and [[giant cave spider]]s have a [STANCE_CLIMBER] tag and use [STANCE] parts (legs) instead.
Starting climbing is not possible while prone, but "In flight" and "In air" statuses override proneness.

Climbing speed does not depend on stats or skills. Some creatures (notably giant cave spiders) can climb as fast as they walk.

{{skills}}

Web

2014-07-13T11:21:35Z

Coolthulhu: Climbing adventurer can avoid and pick webs

{{Migrated_article}}
{{av}}{{Quality|Superior}}
[[File:GCS Webs.png|thumb|left|104x132px|alt=Webs from a Giant Cave Spider|Webs from a [[Giant cave spider]]]]
{{catbox|DF2012:Webs}}

'''Webs''' are the source of [[silk]], and appear in [[cavern]]s. The web itself looks like a light-grey [[gem]], and is most often labeled as being from [[cave spider]]s, [[giant cave spider]]s, or (in [[evil]] biomes) [[phantom spider]]s. If an embark region is populated by web-making creatures, a number of its webs will be present immediately after embark, though further webs will only appear if the creature itself shows up and leaves them.

Webs will be collected ''automatically'' by dwarves with the [[weaving]] labor enabled, but not until the fortress has a [[loom]]. A ''collect webs'' task will be triggered at the loom as long as webs are present within the loom's [[burrow]] (even if they are not actually accessible {{bug|3525}}). This can be comfortably deactivated with {{k|o}}-{{k|W}}-{{k|w}}, an important option since webs often occur in dangerous places you might want to secure first. The [[weaver]] will drop the collected thread in the loom and, depending on the loom setting and availability of a stockpile, either leave it there, immediately weave it to cloth, or put it on a stockpile. Other ways to prevent collecting are preventing any dwarf from using the loom ({{k|q}}-{{k|P}} - requires [[manager]]), deactivating the weaving [[labor]] on all dwarves, or removing all looms (lack of stockpiles alone will ''not'' prevent this). An easier alternative is just to suspend the collect webs task in each loom ({{k|q}}-{{k|s}}). It may be a good idea to only allow non-skilled weavers to collect webs and only skilled ones to actually weave cloth. Set high minimal skill on the actual weaving loom ({{k|q}}-{{k|P}}) and just as high maximal skill on the collecting loom. Suspend weaving on collecting loom and collecting on weaving loom. This allows higher efficiency, since collecting is not in any way affected by weaving skill (it happens instantly), but trains it and the skill affects quality of woven cloth.

Webs become [[thread|silk thread]] the moment they are picked up. (They are, however, shown in the {{k|z}}-stocks menu under -> thread.) Cave spider and phantom spider silk thread are worth 6[[currency|☼]]; giant cave spider silk webs and thread are worth 24[[currency|☼]].

[[Giant cave spider]]s shoot long strings of dangerous entangling webs at targets prior to attacking - this behaviour can be used to create [[giant cave spider]] [[silk farm]]s. It is not advised to allow weavers to randomly gather webs on maps where giant cave spiders might be lurking nearby. Certain types of [[titan]]s, [[forgotten beast]]s, and [[clown]]s also shoot webs, and just as other spider webs are found naturally in their environments, [[HFS]] may also contain clown webs.

Webs are delicate, and can be destroyed by contact with any creature (except a dwarf that is gathering that web), or by any other rough treatment such as [[Irrigation|irrigating]], etc. It also appears that if open to the outside, [[rain]] will destroy the webs remarkably quickly.

[[Vermin]] that come into contact with a web will immediately turn into [[corpse|remains]], and large creatures caught in thick webs (as left by giant cave spiders, titans, forgotten beasts, etc.) will be immobilized for a short period of time, forcibly activating any [[trap]]s they are standing on (even if they are immune to traps). Creatures that spin webs, however, are generally also immune to them - this means that cave spiders and phantom spiders are immune to webs' vermin-killing effect, and that web-spinning forgotten beasts cannot be captured by webbed [[cage trap]]s.

In [[Adventurer mode]], you are unaffected by webs on your tile while [[Climber|climbing]]. While climbing and sharing a tile with the web, you can pick it up as a thread.

{{Category|Items}}
{{Category|Creature attributes}}

v0.34:Stupid dwarf trick

2014-01-17T18:27:11Z

Coolthulhu:

{{Quality|Superior|22:52, 11 September 2013 (UTC)}}
{{av}}

{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount of time and effort - often for little or no practical benefit. They exist primarily as a challenge for experienced players.

==Adventure Mode Fortress==

Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a smörgåsbord of masterpiece adamantine weapons and armor. Possibly both. Breaching the [[caverns]] or [[hidden fun stuff]] should ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' None for fortress mode, but filling it with high-quality equipment can certainly be useful for adventure mode.

==Alarm Clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Limited. They'll sleep through <s>'''anything'''</s> the noise. Although they have been known to awaken when drenched in water, possibly due to thinking it's alcohol, making an alarm clock is not impossible, if carefully prepared.

==Alphabet Cages==
[[Image:Cage.gif|right]]
Use captured monsters in cages to spell messages.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Vowels are hard to come by.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely none whatsoever. (Easy reminders in case you're too lazy to use notes?)

==Altar of Armok==

Build a large altar made out of adamantine, clear glass, magma, and obsidian. The main altar should be hollow adamantine with clear glass "windows." It should have magma inside. The altar should be adorned with large obsidian spikes, at it pleases Armok.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, raising with the amount(and respective difficulty) of bonuses you add.

'''Usefulness:''' Little to none, except for having a cool altar that you can use to WOW other players.

*Bonus: Guard the ALTAR with a megabeast.
*Bonus: Cover the ALTAR with blood of a Titan.
**MegaBonus: Cover the ALTAR with blood of a denizen of the HFS.
***ArmokBonus: Build the ALTAR in the HFS.
*MegaBonus: Cover the ALTAR in a temporarily lasting strength inducing extract.
*BerserkBonus: Cover the ALTAR in a nausea-inducing extract.
*BloodBonus: Also cover the ALTAR in a extract inducing slow death.
**SychronizationBonus: Make it so that a dwarf that goes into contact with the ALTAR dies the moment the strength runs out.
*SacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a dwarf to the ALTAR every day.
**MegaSacrificailBonus: Sacrifice an elf to the ALTAR every day.
**HistorySacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a human to the ALTAR every day
***MegaArmokBonus: Sacrifice all three species to the ALTAR every day!
*MonarchBonus: Build the ALTAR in the monarch's throne room! Yes, this stacks with the ArmokBonus up above.

==Aqueduct Power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels. Aquifers will absorb any amount of water at any rate. Using an aquifer as drain for the reservoir will nullify the risk of flooding the fortress due to the drain not keeping up with the supply.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Aquifer Power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheel.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. The lowly windmill pales in utility compared to a waterwheel.

==Archaeological Excavation==
A Fortress in the Caverns, built by the first dwarf tribes. Build the Fortress however you see fit for those prehistoric Dwarves (i.e. only primitive metals, elaborate tombs for the chieftains with burial objects, cave art, etc.) and abandon it. Then, embark with modern Dwarves, and excavate the ancient Fortress. Sort of like the Adventure Fortress above, only for Reclaim Mode

'''Difficulty:''' As High as you want.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

*Bonus: A Museum detailing the lives of those early dwarves
*DwarfBonus: Some of those early dwarves frozen in a block of ice

==Artificial [[Waterfall]]==
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]]. Alternatively, an [[aquifer]], or other limitless water source, makes for a waterfall entirely underground.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate (Low if there is an aquifer above pouring down).

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower frame rate.

*Bonus: Build it in a "Warm" or hotter [[climate]] so it does not freeze.
*DwarfBonus: Build it in a freezing/cold/temperate climate and keep it going entire year!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[magma]]. It does not freeze, even in a freezing climate!
*MegaDwarfBonusEXTREME+: Use magma and water in the same waterfall. The results will enshrine you in dwarf history! Possibly permanently.

==[[Ballista]] Battery==
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly-trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bastion==
Construct an isolated burrow containing a farmer and some labourers, containing at least an uncontaminated well (an [[aquifer]] is great for this) and some farms. Use whatever elaborate mechanism you wish to seal it off from the rest of the fortress. Congratulations; your bastioned dwarves and their descendants will keep your fortress alive forever until one of them goes nuts.

* Bonus: Build your bastion at least in part in a clay or sand layer, connect to magma (using a fortification in the channel to stop those annoying fireproof creatures from sneaking in), and continue manufacturing useless crap even as the world crumbles around you!
* Bonus: Build it on top of a tower outside, and then deconstruct the stairs up.
* Bonus: Fill it exclusively with vampires, to avoid having to worry about food, children, and aging.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Hollow out a shell around your bastion, connecting it to the rest of the cavern by a single 1x1 adamantine support, and flood the shell with magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' High. If your bastioned dwarves have high enough quality living space and few enough nonbastioned friends, it makes the fortress functionally immortal.

==Bathtub==
Stop dwarves from hauling in tons of exotic, poisonous sludges into your fortress by creating a tub filled with 3/7 water that everyone has to get through to enter the fortress. Include a system to change the water, so that they don't bathe in grime.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate

'''Usefulness:''' Low in most cases. High in some evil areas.

* DwarfBonus: Make it drain and refill itself with clean water automatically once in a year.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Clean it with magma.
* *MegaDwarfBonus*: Have an alternative bathtub-buffered entrance next to the main one, which opens automatically when cauterizing the main one and closes and cauterizes itself when it is no longer needed, so that no jobs are canceled during cleansing cycle.
* ≡MegaDwarfBonus≡ : Make it clean itself with magma automatically once in a year, but make it wait for the moment when it's unused, so that no dwarves or pets are incinerated.
* ☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: All of the above, plus make it detect when there should be no dwarves or pets around, but invaders are in it, so that the cleansing cycle can be started prematurely.

==Bolt Splitting Operation==
One curious property of Dwarven Physics is that a bar of metal makes 25 bolts, but if each of those 25 bolts is melted separately, they will become 2.5 bars, generating metal from nothing. Prior to the modification that allowed splitting stacks at the [[trade depot]], the difficult part was separating the stacks of bolts into individual bolts without destroying them. EliDupree originally discovered this trick:
{{diagram|spaces=yes|color=#888|\
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
∙++++[#05F]☻∙+++++++++
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+∙[#F00]g∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#FF0]@
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+++++∙+++++++++
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
}}

The yellow @ at the right is a stack of marksdwarves (all in different squads so that they'll stand on the same tile) equipped with [[adamantine]] bolts, standing on top of a stairway surrounded by [[fortification]]s. The blue ☻ at the left is a single [[Attributes#Agility|Perfectly Agile]] soldier with orders to patrol up and down the line of green doors, with little delays at the top and bottom. (The doors are free-standing; they were built attached to a wall, then the wall was removed.) The "g" at the left is a goblin standing on a pillar (pitted from the z-level above).

When the dwarf at the left runs up or down the line of doors, it opens all of them, and some of the marksdwarves loose their bolts. By the time the bolts get there, the doors have closed, so they hit the doors and fall into the channel, where they can be collected and melted separately. (That distance is exact, by the way. Any less and they sometimes get shots through the doors, which kills your goblin. Also, with less-skilled marksdwarves, some of the bolts will stray and land on the floors, but that isn't enough to worry about even with mere dabblers.) Naturally, this is also an excellent way to train marksdwarves.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate. The hardest part is keeping the system running reliably.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate. While there are certainly [[Exploit#Infinite_Adamantine_.2F_Metals|easier ways to generate adamantine]], this is perhaps the most dwarfy.

*Bonus: Build a [[repeater]] to open and close the doors automatically.

==Break the Dam (Release the River!)==
Dam a river (or brook) using something non-permanent (floodgates, drawbridges) and build your fortress entrance in the now dry river bed, make sure you can seal it off nicely (floodgates anyone?) then wait till the first Goblin siege, let them get to your entrance floodgates, seal them, open the dam and laugh manically

'''Difficulty:''' Low

'''Usefulness:''' Instantaneous death to all sieges

*DwarfBonus: Use magma.

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that opens outwards, to fling enemies away. Ideally, they land in a very nasty place.

'''Difficulty:''' The hard part is the nasty place they get flung to.

'''Usefulness:''' There are far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

==Corpse processing facility==
With the help of a necromancer, corpses your dwarves refuse to butcher can be brought back to life and re-killed to yield bones and skulls for your bonecarvers if they are mushed up enough.

1. The simplest way to do this is with the help of height. A 1x1 pit with a minecart stop that dumps corpses down the chute, and several alternating [[floor hatch]]es that close and open (linked to a repeater) with necromancers behind windows overlooking each layer of hatches to revive the bits of corpses. 2 windows with a mechanism controlled door in between, in front of each necromancer group can be used to control vision; but the system can only be stopped by unlinking the minecart dump to the refuse pile in your routes. Note: when I built this I had 3 hatches with 6 necromancers overlooking each (I had plenty of them since I embarked close to 4 towers). Revived corpses drop to their death and explode onto a tile with unright spikes linked (note that some of them will survive, so you need the spikes with a repeater or lever). The corpses that explode from the impact of height (or from other body parts/undead crashing into them) will hopefully yield bones. You make choose to re-haul up the body parts for another round, but only body parts still attached to a grasping part or the head will be revived, and this system isn't very efficient in the first place, so it may not be worth the trouble. Note that whole corpses usually yield 5-8 bones upon death (avg 6), arms only yield 1-4 (avg 2). You may also use this system with or without necromancers and pit live [[goblin]]s into it, they usually yield 6 bones and some body parts.

2. The second way is much more efficient than the first, but requires 1 or more [[artifact]] [[mechanisms]] to make it work. Instead of using height to kill the corpses, a weapon trap with a artifact mechanism and 10 serrated blades of any material can be used instead (since artifact mechanisms never jam). Only 1 necromancer is needed for this method, and is positioned 3 tiles away from the weapon trap, overlooking it behind 2 glass windows with a mechanism [[door]] in between to control its vision. Your 1x1 pit should still be 5 tiles deep at least though, to prevent dwarves being spooked by the revived corpses. When you're ready, link up the route to the minecart and watch body parts revive and slowly get mowed down. It's recommended you have more than 1 of these small pits set up so you can grind more corpses and clear out 1 pit at a time while the others keep grinding.

Note: To clear out pits, turn off all refuse stockpiles that accept anything other than bones and skulls by turning on "accept from links only" so your dwarves only haul out the bones and not the trash.

Note: Try to use raising bridges as the door for each pit, kobold body parts tend to get mixed into the grinders which can lock-pick its way out of doors and result in doors with "door taken by intruder" and a couple hundred zombie body parts overrunning your fortress from the inside (a.k.a fun).

Note: I didn't try this with many building destroyers, but I'm pretty sure the glass windows are safe. Fortifications are not usable since corpses and body parts tend to get tangled up in them and are hard to get out, and spook dwarves trying to clean out the pits.

*Bonus: Use water to clean out the contents of the pits and wash them onto a 1x1 refuse stockpile.

'''Difficulty:''' Hard

'''Usefulness:''' High, and becomes higher the more corpses you have; especially useful for getting something out of necromancer sieges than just useless corpses. Can also be used to recycle dead stray animals and your own dwarves that your dwarves refuse to butcher (don't forget slabs).

==[[Dam]]==
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, or an aquifer located below the river, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fulfill. The power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

*Bonus: Excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley. 
*Bonus: Build a control center to control the water flow. 
*Bonus: Draw your entire energy from a power station within. 
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use screw pumps and another dam to replace the water with magma.

==[[Danger room|Danger Room]]==
A room full of upright spear traps linked to a lever or pressure plate. Teach your dwarves to dodge the pointy sticks!

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium, depending on how you activate the traps.

'''Usefulness''': High. Trains combat skills very quickly, assuming you don't kill anyone.

'''Downside''': Civilians and pets that wander into the danger room will inevitably get killed, even if you use low quality training spears.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Menacing spikes greatly increase the danger, and may help train your medical team (and/or your coffin construction crew).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[adamantine]] spikes! On the plus side, you have a thriving coffin industry going now.

==Day Care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers. Make a room with beds and tables and stuff, then turn it into a burrow, then add all your children to it. Remember to include a food chute to quantum stockpile a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. High quality food, furniture, and socializing should keep them happy. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in various professions like an otherwise vulnerable child, but this is a small trade-off if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway. This is probably obvious, but make sure this room is guarded, otherwise it will turn into a Dwarf Orphanage (with Goblins and Minotaurs welcome!)

'''Difficulty:''' Low. With the invention of burrows, you can designate the Day Care to contain all children, so it is unnecessary to use suicide-booth-micromanagement to contain the children.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Think of the children, they will grow up and enter adult Dwarf life completely unprepared for the [[Fun|things]] [[Dragon|that]] [[Hell|await]] them, having spent their entire lives coddled in a safe room. They might make good nobles however.

==Doberman Bomb==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your frame rate.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to high, depending on the animal you use

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to very high, potentially fortress-saving

*Bonus : Train the dogs inside as war dogs
**DwarfBonus : Use [[giant badger]]s, [[tiger]]s, [[alligator]]s, bears, or anything big and aggressive when tamed
***MegaDwarfBonus : Use [[giant cave spider]]s, [[cave dragon]]s, [[blind cave ogre]]s, crossbow-wielding [[giant desert scorpion]]s, [[jabberer]]s or something really dangerous and rare.
****UltraMagmaArmokBonus : Use one (or more !) of the following list : [[dragon]](s), a [[bronze colossus]](es), a [[forgotten beast]](s) (bonus points for flesh-melting secretions), an [[undead]] [[giant sponge]], or the denizens of the [[Hidden Fun Stuff]].

==[[Drowning chamber]]==
'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untamable animals, or anything else. Just be ready for something that knows how to swim. Also useful for catching fishies.

*Bonus: Utilize lava.
*Bonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Edit the raws and do both.

==[[Computing|Dwarfputer]] Complex==
A big mess of [[fluid logic|fluid]], [[machine logic|machine]], and/or [[creature logic|creature]] logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics and architects will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do<s> and makes them stronger</s> (in 31.25 only military work increases stats, I was really disappointed after 4 years of nonstop pumping only to see weak in urist description). Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes and building destroyers enter your computer.
*Bonus: Use lava.
**Doombonus: Use lava ''and'' build it so that building destroyers that enter the complex get killed by the mechanisms they destroy.
***SelfRepairingbonus: Use both lava and water and implement the building destroyer killing system, but modify it so it's self-repairing, filling up broken spaces with obsidian.

==Dwarven Apartment Complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[megaprojects]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your ☼5-star service☼).

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to fun by water. Additionally, if you have the time and resources to train a sizable force of marksdwarves, placing a few "security rooms" (with barracks, ammunition store, ration cache, armory, etc) at appropriate floors, complete with fortified balconies, will allow you to take advantage of the higher vantage point.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Extend the tower to have levels below ground as well as above.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Make the whole construction out of clear glass. (privacy? Whatever for?)

==Dwarven Courtyards==
Dig large shafts [first dig the staircase to the desired depth, digging out the size you want the shaft to be on all layers. Channel the outer later, then install supports on the base floor. Link the support to a trigger, clear everyone out, destroy the remaining staircase and pull the trigger] then cover them in glass, creating an indoor but light area that will keep dwarves from being irritated and nauseated by the sun, also improving general happiness and allowing close proximity to caverns and magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, make sure not to mess up or you will lose your miners

'''Usefullness:''' Medium. creates vertical circulation and brings light to lower levels.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Create a network of self sufficient communities per shaft, allowing them to be sectioned off in case of disaster. (I plan on colonizing HFS eventually on this paradigm, creating a mining team of soldiers to extract, manufacture and ultimately use adamantine products without being connected to the main colony in order to take on the demons while keeping the rest of the burrow safe.)

==Dwarven Disco Ball==
Why waste all those cut gems on things that only some selfish noble will enjoy? Create as large a wall-less sphere as you can, then cover it in Gem Windows of 3 different-colored gems to make it shine! The bigger, and more valuable gems involved (e.g., [[ruby|rubies]], [[sapphire]]s, and [[emerald]]s, or colored diamonds if you're really masochistic), the dwarfier.

'''Difficulty:''' Constructing a sphere is very hard, especially the larger you make one. Gathering enough differently colored gems can also be very hard, depending on stone layers. Trading helps a lot.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. More value can be created by encrusting furniture, and Gem Windows lack quality.

*Bonus: Alternating [[alunite]] and [[obsidian]] tiles to make a 'dance floor'.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use lava contained in glass for illumination.
*UltraDwarfBonus: Caged "[[Elf|dancers]]".

==Dwarven Labor Camp (aka Dwarkuta)==
Create an aboveground walled fortress in a freezing climate with guard towers, barracks, housing, and armories. Dig a long ramp downward and add a large mining network below the surface. Make some small military squads to guard the camp. Designate the lower levels as workshops, and when migrants arrive, assign them to the mines. Give the workers minimal food and only water (no booze, booze is for the hypocritical decadence of Dwarkuta's leaders). Have them haul the stone and metal they mine back to the surface and ship the raw materials off to the Motherland. Import only food, booze, weapons, fuel, and other necessities.

*Bonus: Build the giant digging machines. They don't actually have to dig anything.
*Bonus: Go into the raws and rename the beverage of your choice to "Dwarven Vodka", and drink to the glory of the Motherland!
*MegaBonus: Escape. Wait for a goblin siege, then get everyone underground and block the entrance. Let the goblins in. Wait a few months. The goblins are now the guards you must kill.

Step 1. Secure the keys: Make improvised weapons. If you have obsidian at your disposal, make rock short swords.

Step 2. Ascend from darkness: Get your dwarves out of the mines and into the camp.

Step 3. Rain fire: Use your imagination. Try using magma, if possible.

Step 4. Unleash the horde: Attack!

Step 5. Skewer the winged beast: If the goblins brought a giant bat or other flying creature, kill it.

*Bonus: Use a ballista.

Step 6. Wield a fist of iron: Break open the armory and equip your rebels with armor and weapons.

Step 7. Raise hell: Exactly what it says on the tin.

Step 8. Freedom!

*MegaDwarfBonus: In Adventure mode, try (and probably fail) to lead the prisoners to freedom.

==Dwarven Refrigerator==
Dig down to the 3rd cavern layer and harvest as many [[nether-cap]]s as you can. Make them all into barrels! Nether caps have the unique property of being 10000° Urist, which is 32°F or 0°C. Now your dwarves can enjoy their favorite alcohol, cheese, and plump helmets chilled to perfection! If you've set your population cap very low in the INIT files, caverns aren't extremely dangerous, but you should still be on the lookout for nasties down there. Remember to wall off your entrance to the cavern once you're finished.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to Medium

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Booze stored inside will not perish due to heat if say, [[magma]] is dumped on it.

==Emergency Destruct Stairs==
A tall column of stairs plunging all the way down into the underdark, with a one-tile wide area of thin destructible floor all around it. In case of subterranean invasion, a thrown switch drops a stone O straight down, ringing the staircase and neatly severing all inter-level connections at a blow. Does with one lever and one support what would take dozens of bridges or hundreds of retracting grates.

'''Difficulty:''' Harder than it sounds.

'''Usefulness:''' Sometimes... sometimes they fly.

==Execution Tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

==Flamethrower bunker==
If your fortress happens to be visited by a [[dragon]], capture it in a [[cage trap]], then release it into a sealed bunker with [[fortification]]s around the edge. When invaders arrive, watch them get roasted.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but requires a lot of luck - a dragon (or fire-breathing forgotten beast) needs to survive worldgen, then it needs to attack your fortress (instead of a giant/minotaur/ettin/cyclops or other megabeast), and finally it needs to make it to your cage trap without being killed by something else.

'''Usefulness:''' The dragon will quickly deal with any sieges and megabeasts (aside from [[titan]]s), though it will also set the hillside on fire. Also, any protective bridges in front of the fortifications will melt under sustained fire, leaving you with a bunker that ''nobody'' can safely approach; building the bridges (and mechanisms) from [[adamantine]] (or [[raw adamantine]]) will make them last longer, but '''not''' forever. A nether-cap bridge with a (preferably non-flammable) artifact mechanism should be safe. Additionally, a skilled enemy archer could easily kill your dragon with a lucky shot.

*Bonus: Capture a fire-breathing [[titan]] or [[forgotten beast]] and use it.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Release the denizens of the underworld and use them.

==Flood the World==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate.

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[giant sponge]].

*Bonus: Use magma, just like [[Main:Boatmurdered|Boatmurdered]].
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use trained fish to kill off all creatures not of your colony.
*MegaArmokBonus: Mod the game and do both.

==[[Live training|Gladiator Arena]]==
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp. Variant: build prisoner cages inside the arena, link to a lever outside the arena, lock the soldiers in, and then open the cages.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive. (If the prisoners have weapons, you can remove them by using {{k|d}}-{{k|b}}-{{k|d}} to dump the cage and its contents, then looking at and undumping the cages themselves with {{k|k}}-{{k|d}}).

'''Usefulness:''' Low to High, depending on how long your soldiers can draw out the execution. Equipping your soldiers with wooden training weapons can greatly increase the fun (and/or [[Fun]] if their armor isn't as good as you thought).

*DwarfBonus: Losers get incinerated by Magma.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use your arena as a "trial by fire" for migrants.

==Glass Ceiling==
Sick of having your dwarves vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a glass floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

*PoliticallyIncorrectDwarfBonus: Make it a metaphorical [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_ceiling glass ceiling] and give migrants and women less pay and poorer rooms.

==Greenhouse==
A [[farming|greenhouse]] is just a farm with the the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

*Bonus: Give it a glass floor to allow surface plants even lower down.
**DwarfBonus: Utilize [[obsidian|volcanic glass]].

==Hammer of [[main:armok|Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quick-smiting.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size and materials, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 attached to a handle extending from your entrance actually works against sieges.

* Bonus: Cover it with blood.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Make it hollow and fill it with Magma
* ArmoksMachineHammerBonus: Set up an automated system that allows you to reset it quickly. Obsidianizers and the magma sea will be your friends here.

==Human Fortress==
Instead of digging a fortress, build above-ground houses. Create walls to keep the nasties out. The only thing you may have underground are mines and stockpiles. Create a huge stone fort for your nobles.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Building stuff will cost you resources instead of gaining them and flyers can be a real pain. Keep several Marksmen handy!

'''Usefulness:''' N/A. (No cave adaptation)

*Bonus: Pave the roads between houses.
*HumanBonus: Dig a moat around your castle.
*MegaHumanBonus: Fill the moat with lava.

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], [[gold]], or [[soap]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends entirely on you.

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge are a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. Burrows help to get the whole crew inside at the same time.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles|Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

*Bonus: Drop the vessel into a deep cavern
*SuperBonus: Make the outer walls, roof and ground floor completely out of glass, so that the explorers can watch everything around them.
*VampireBonus: Send a vampire with the crew!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a halfway-empty adamantine vein
*YouHorribleEvilDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into the [[Hidden Fun Stuff]]!
*youHorribleInsaneDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a glowing chasm.
*OhMyArmokBonus: When you arrive to the bottom of the magma sea, excavate and then create a new community under it!
**OhMyF****ingArmokBonus: Send supplies every year!
**IsThatEvenPossibleBonus: Send a piece of an aquifer down there to provide water! (Mine around a water-producing tile, build the ship around it, then send it!)
**≡MegaDwarfBonus≡: create a high enough tower and drop it into the magma sea to connect the surface and the undersea community!
***☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: create ''two'' towers and use one to send water down there!

==Maze==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful. You can also use the free maze-generating program Daedalus, available [http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/daedalus.htm here] if you're too lazy to come up with your own.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*Bonus: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.
*Bonus: Release a live caged [[minotaur]] into the maze.
*MegaBonus: Make it three-dimensional and [http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/maze/design/index.htm#uni unicursal].

==Magma Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma Cannon==
[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=33837.0 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma Highway==
Magma moves across the map annoyingly slowly, due to its thickness and lack of pressure. But a tunnel several Z-levels high, with magma entering at the top, will flow much faster because the magma's '''falling''' in, not flowing in, and can expand on either Z-level before falling down.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Not hard to make, but cutting open a multi-Z magmafall is [[fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' Medium.

==Magma Mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with the exact same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

*Bonus: Put the coffin at least 20 floors down.
*MegaBonus: Build it in a volcano if possible, and put the coffin at the very bottom of the map

==Magma Sea Colony==

If you cast obsidian around the edges of the magma sea, it is possible to pump out the magma and build a colony in the empty space. Once the colony is built, you can destroy the obsidian walls and refill the magma sea. Note: you cannot cast obsidian on the bottom layer of the magma sea, so building a colony on this layer is nearly, but not quite, impossible (see below).

'''Difficulty:''' High. You need to get water down to each edge of the magma sea, and you need a pump stack to get rid of the magma.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: Build your colony on the floor of the magma sea. This will require draining the sea to the next-to-bottom layer as described above, then dumping enormous amounts of water into the bottom layer to crowd out the magma while simultaneously draining the magma from holes poked in the magma sea floor. Constructions can be built at the border between the water and the magma. See [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128226.0 This forum post] for full, detailed instructions.
* Bonus: Obsidianize the entire magma sea, leaving a single spot to use as a source for pumps. Then proceed to carve your new fortress subsection out of this bounty.

'''Difficulty:''' Insane. The project will take at least ten years of dwarf time and claim many lives.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. You can finally get the last bit of adamantine when you drain the magma sea, and the magma sea floor has a cool twinkly effect.

==[[Mass pitting|Mass Cage Recycling System]]==

Build a [[mass pitting]] system to recycle your cage trap cages quickly.

'''Difficulty:''' Very easy. Requires basic digging and very little time.

'''Usefulness:''' Very. Keeps you from having to build cages before releasing monsters from them. With six hatches you can safely empty out 48 cages very quickly. You can build lots of cage traps without having to worry about emptying each cage individually.

*Bonus: Cover the floor of your pit with cage traps, creating a neverending cycle and giving your dwarves something to do during the long harsh summer when going outside is overly taxing on their stomachs.
*ConcentrationCampBonus: Combine with Pit of Doom below.

==[[Drowning chamber|Mega/Water Drowning Trap-Thing]]==
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire creatures to create a sauna.

==Monumental Statue==
'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*Bonus: Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.
*Dwarfbonus: Give the statue magma eyes.
**HellNo,DwarfsYesBonus: Combine the magma eyes idea with the magma cannon idea above and place the statue just behind (and above) the entrance to your fortress.

==Moses Effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult. The same trick can be used in lieu of a drawbridge, although its practicality as compared to the drawbridge is highly questionable.

==[[Waterfall|Never Ending Shower]]==
Don't you get angry when your dwarves carry enough grime on them to dirty the entire fortress? And how they get infected because of that griminess? Suffer no more! With the Never Ending Shower (NES for short), dwarves will be able to stay (relatively) clean without having to take the time to run for a bath or dirtying your drinking water!

It is easy to understand: use the same instructions as in the Artificial Waterfall, but make it so that the waterfall is somewhere where the dwarves will be going through almost daily--a central stairway works well. It cleans them and gives them happy [[thought]]s for the same price!

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to high. You do have to make sure that dwarves don't try anything funny, and create a drain to draw the dirty water out.

'''Usefulness:''' Incredibly high. Reduces risk of infection and keeps your dwarves happy.

*Bonus: Use an aquifer to get clean water AND drain dirty water.
*Bonus: Use levers to control the NES.
*SuperBonus: Make it work as a trap!
*SuperDuperBonus: Make it work as a trap AND as a recovery system!
*ArmokBonus: Make it so that magma can be poured down, too!

==[[Obsidian farming|Obsidian Factory]]==
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber ''and'' a drowning chamber.

* MegaDwarfBonus: Make the system fully automated using [[computing]] principles.

==Pit o' Doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Traps which menace with spikes are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally. If high enough, you may be able to recover [[bone]]s from creatures your dwarves refuse to [[butcher]].

==Pressure Washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and pushes anything in the way of the flow away. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here.]

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested in version 0.28.181.40d with 50 recruits standing in front of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

* Bonus: Fill it with Magma instead (though Magma doesn't pressurize).

==Rehabilitation Centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

* MegaDwarfBonus: Points for making every other dwarf drink water and sleep on cheap beds.

==Road of the Damned==
Create a giant channel filled with spike traps, 10 tiles wide and going all the way from your fort to the map edge. Pave it over with crystal glass so traders can get that foreboding feeling that'll make them seal the deal without bargaining too hard!

'''Difficulty:''' Low-mid, depending on the rarity of crystal glass.

'''Usefulness:'''Low. The same as a normal road.

* Bonus: Spike a goblin on every trap!

==Sectorized World==
Divide the world edges into multiple sectors and then gate access to each one separately. This allows you to protect your fortress from sieges whilst keeping access to most of the outside world and allowing most traders into and out of the fortress (those unfortunate enough to enter the world from the same direction as the siegers may be screwed, of course). For bonus points, build separate gateable access routes for each sector. For further bonus points, design your fortress so that you can simultaneously allow access to traders ''at the same time'' as siegers are exposed to your defensive mechanisms.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, unless you allow separate access routes for each sector in which case high.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate, increasing with each bonus you fill. Mostly for those who want to build the best possible defenses. Can also double as a means of easily trapping wild animals.

==Self-contained Vampire-based Factory==
Take advantage of the independence of vampires by building a self-contained factory. The best industries are those that require no special raw materials-- a factory containing both a magma glass furnace and a sand tile, for instance, would work well, as would a clay industry, but if you're feeling ambitious, consider building a vampire into your [[giant cave spider|GCS]] [[silk farm]]-- if you happen to have scored an [[undead]] GCS, your vampire won't even spook! You can treat your factory as a piggy bank to be broken into as needed, or for perfect fire-and-forget action, build a dropping [[User:Vasiln/Undump|undump]] into the factory, and the vampire will deliver the output to your front door.

'''Difficulty:''' The only hard part is getting yourself a [[vampire]].

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many green glass blocks you plan on using.

==Self Destruct Lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely fun.

'''Usefulness:''' Could serve as kind of a last revenge on a goblin siege, but also highly amusing. If done properly it can make reclaim easier.

* DorfBonus: Make it have a timer before your fortress self destructs. You can do this with a water channel, or if you're particularly technical, make a [[Computing|seven segment display]].
** For bonus Dwarfy-ness, make the timer be the depth number of the magma or water that will actually trigger your fortress' destruction.
* Bonus: Build your fortress high above ground, connect the fortress to a roof through just one support and have the system, when activated, drop the whole construction into the magma sea, destroying the whole thing permanently.

==Shark Catcher==
Capture of [[Bull shark|sharks]] or [[Carp|other]], [[Sturgeon|dangerous fish]] achieved by making an artificial bay, filling it with [[Cage trap|cage traps]], opening the floodgate to the sea or river and some sort of drainage system, likely pumps and/or floodgates.
'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium as drowning while setting up is very possible with bad planning.

'''Usefulness''': Low, purely aesthetic, but very cool to have a shark infested moat (Potentially kills invaders).

==[[Silk farming|Silk Farming]]==
Capture a web-slinger (generally a [[giant cave spider]]) and build a farm to efficiently harvest its [[silk]].

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium; the hardest part is generally catching the web-spinner.

'''Usefulness''': Medium to High. Provides an endless supply of potentially-valuable [[silk]] cloth and rapidly [[cross-training|cross-trains]] [[weaver]]s.

==[[Skyfort|Sky Fortress]]==

Thanks to a quirk in dwarven [[physics]], the sky can be used to provide limited support to your fortress. Specifically, a solid vertical column that reaches the top of the sky level will not collapse, but it will also no longer support neighboring tiles horizontally. In order to retain vertical support, passable areas are carved with up/down stairways. [[Obsidian]] casting is necessary to allow these stairways to be added on top of existing [[building]]s (like [[furniture]] and [[workshop]]s). Unsupported glass [[window]]s can be used to plug any holes, such as those required below magma workshops.

Please [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=133968.0 refer to the forum thread] for full details.

'''Difficulty''': High; constructing a [[skyfort]] approaches a [[megaprojects|megaproject]].

'''Usefulness''': Low to Medium. Automatically isolates your fortress from all but [[flying]] foes. While it is possible to achieve the same effect on the ground and underground, changes to enemy siege mechanics (specifically, digging and jumping) may increase the defensive value of a floating fortress.

==Steamed Vegetables==
Make a pot and drop <s>elves</s> vegetables in from about three levels up. This makes it so the vegetables do not <s>run</s> get overcooked. Proceed to bask the vegetables in [[steam]].

'''Difficulty''': Medium. Can be annoying to boil some water.

'''Usefulness''': Great way to make friends with the merchants.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Add <s>goblins</s> seasoning.
*ArmokDoubleBonus: Use [[magma mist]].

==[[Swimming]] pool==
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though. Though if you utilize a '''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform, this is a priceless necessity.

==[[Tree farming|Underground Forest]]==
Break into an underground cavern, make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium - need to dig out a suitably large area, then find a way of introducing water to the area and subsequently draining or evaporating it.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size (bigger is better) as well as proximity to wood stockpiles. A tree farm outside the caverns can grow trees from all 3 layers, and you'll never have to worry about hostile creatures threatening your wood cutters.

==Underground Perpetual Motion Power Plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times. Note: Incredibly easy with an aquifer.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater Statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water source smooth and engrave the walls and floors than fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam! underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

*Bonus: Build it on area with trees and shrubs; make walls from ice or use windows; fill it with fish and merfolk; now you'll get a big aquarium
*Note: It doesn't count if you accidentally flood your fortress and wind up with one of these. It does count if one of your nobles has an unfortunate accident in their sculpture garden.

==U.R.I.S.T. Artificial Intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriend him/her.

In order to ensure that your A.I. doesn't find sleep interfering with crucial lever pulling, you might consider incorporating an alarm clock. If a goblin siege turns up on your doorstep, a single external lever to dump 7/7 of water on the sleeping A.I. might well save your fortress (and is so much cooler than having backup levers in your meeting hall).

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
*A.R.M.O.K. - '''A'''ll-'''R'''eaching '''M'''achine '''O'''f '''K'''illing
*A.S.S. - '''A'''lmost-autonomous '''S'''ystems '''S'''elector
*C.A.T. - '''C'''reepy '''A'''utonomous '''T'''echnology
*D.E.E.P.E.R. - '''D'''warf of '''E'''ngineering the '''E'''ldritch and '''P'''ractical '''E'''xploitation of '''R'''esources''
*D.I.E.D. - '''D'''edicated '''I'''rrigation and '''E'''verything else '''D'''warf(s)
*D.O.M.E.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perated '''M'''echanics and '''E'''ngineering '''S'''ystem
*D.O.R.F. - '''D'''oes '''O'''rders '''R'''ather '''F'''ast
*D.O.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*D.W.A.R.F. - '''D'''rains '''W'''ater '''A'''nd '''R'''ecruits '''F'''armers
*G.L.A.D.O.S. - '''G'''enetic '''L'''ifeform '''A'''nd '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*H.A.L. - '''H'''airy '''A'''lternate '''L'''ifeform
*M.A.G.M.A. - '''M'''assively '''A'''lcoholic '''G'''ear-'''M'''achine '''A'''ssembly
*N.O.B.L.E. - '''N'''arcissistic '''O'''bnoxious '''B'''oastful '''L'''aughable '''E'''xcrement
*P.O.T.A.T.O. - '''P'''ossibly '''O'''rganic '''T'''echnically '''A'''live '''T'''rash '''O'''mitted
*U.R.I.S.T. - '''U'''nderground '''R'''easonably '''I'''ntelligent '''S'''ettlement '''T'''echnologist
*V.A.C.A.T.E.D. - '''V'''ampire '''A'''ssisted '''C'''omputerized '''A'''ssembly '''T'''errorizes '''E'''xtra-'''D'''warves
*V.O.D.A.P.H.O.N.E. - '''V'''ampire '''O'''perated '''D'''efence '''A'''pparatus, '''P'''erpetrating '''H'''arm '''O'''f '''N'''efarious '''E'''ntities (See Bonus for more information)


'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

Bonus: Make the A.I. dwarf a vampire. Vampires don't need food, alcohol, or sleep and cannot age, which makes them perfect for the job. As an added bonus, keeping a vampire in this way will make your fortress completely indestructible, as sealing him in will prevent the possibility of the vampire of being killed in combat or from a syndrome, while keeping the vampire from making friends he will inevitably outlive will prevent him from going insane. (It also ensures that the bloodsucker won't use any of your dwarves as a midnight snack.) NOTE: Vampires may still go insane without any blood. Might be worth considering adding on a 3rd "feeding chamber" where you assign an unfortunate victim to sleep whenever the vampire gets hungry.

===D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P.===

Dwarven Organic Switch Toggle, Neutered Gastrectomied Overpersistent Sober Prisoner. Goblins have several advantages over dwarves in the lever pulling department: they live forever, do not breed or tantrum, and need not eat, drink, or sleep. Seal one or more goblins in your supercomputer complex, and use their predictable pathing in combination with instantly lockable doors and pressure plates to make dwarven lever pulling a thing of an older, less advanced era.

Also known by several product names:
*G.O.B.L.I.N.A.T.O.R. - '''G'''oblin '''O'''perated '''B'''astion of '''L'''ogic to '''I'''nfalliably '''N'''eutralize '''A'''ntiquated '''T'''ypes of '''O'''perational '''R'''egimes
*N.G.O.K.A.N.G. - '''N'''efarious '''G'''oblin '''O'''f '''K'''illing '''A'''nd '''N'''eedless '''G'''riping
*S.T.O.Z.U. - '''S'''ecret '''T'''echnological '''O'''perative who '''Z'''aps '''U'''nruly Nobles

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. While goblin pressure plate runners require more space than dwarven lever pullers, once their room is set up, it's done, and easily copied for the next one. With only one goblin, you'll need a pressure plate for every possible combination of lever states, but it's easy to add more goblins instead.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Instant response time (<50 ticks is possible) can make lever worries a thing of the past. The D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P. requires absolutely no maintenance once set up. Unlike with the U.R.I.S.Ts of the previous generation, modern POW-based computing is never held hostage to eating, drinking, or breaks. Stay tuned for the next-generation C.A.C.A.M.E.!

==Vomitorium==
[[Image:Vomit_Trail.png‎|thumb|right|Vomitoria: preventing cave adaptation since [[23a:Vomit|23a]].]]

Prevents [[cave adaptation]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's a [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it. Variant: above-ground statue garden or zoo.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in or it will become very [[Fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "'''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform" chamber, or HELP (so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most <s>Dwarves</s> enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death. It is recommend that with the exception of the entrance you use stairs.

*Bonus: Utilize vampires (who can't drown).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Engineer it so that it performs a full cycle on one activation of a pressure plate and include that pressure plate as a part of the patrol route, then create a reverse Watervator and also include it as a part of same patrol route, so that your militia automatically uses it to get in and out the fortress.

==Zombie Thunderdome==
Embark in an Evil biome in the current version (preferably savage as well), find or dig a deep pit, and dump any unused (non-dorf) corpses and butchery products into it. They will animate and begin to walk around, providing you with the endless entertainment afforded by watching horse hair walk. Make sure the pit is deep enough not to scare your dwarves!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Keeping your fort safe from the threat of animated beak dog beaks is worth any price. However, [[DF2012:Defense guide|there may be better things]] [[DF2012:Mega construction|to do with your time]].

*Bonus: Set up a series of [[bridge|defenses]] that drop invaders into the pit.
*DwarfBonus: Set up a series of bridges and walls that flings invaders into the pit.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop a Megabeast into the pit and watch it do battle with multiple layers of undead.
{{Category|Design}}

==single-Lever Emergency Lockdown (LEL)==

The only real requirement is that you need a fort based around a central stairwell. All you need to do is leave space for and eventually build 1*(length of your stairwell) bridges (that raise!) on each side of your stairwell on every level, and then link them all to the same lever. Friends get through all your best traps and champions? Simply pull the lever, and they're trapped in the central stairwell forever! Remember to roof off the entrance if your fort is situated on flat land otherwise the bonuses become much less useful. Also important is to ensure that you either wall off access or include sealable bridges or doors (linked to the same lever of course) for any inter-level paths that bypass the main stairwell, like vertical axles running out of centralised power generators.

3*3 stairwell setup:

{{diagram|1=
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
[#6ff]╥XXX[#6ff]╥
[#6ff]║XXX[#6ff]║
[#6ff]╨XXX[#6ff]╨
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
}}

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to High, depending on whether you use the MegaDwarfBonus below or not and how much you spread your fortress over the layers - although more spread means more usefulness. Extremely time-consuming, and requires architects, masons, and mechanics, as well as a lot of mechanisms (2 per bridge, ~4 bridges per level)

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to High, also depending on whether you use the Bonuses. With all bonuses applied it becomes a guaranteed last resort way of destroying the toughest enemies with minimal dwarven casualties; without the bonuses it's still a damn sight better than letting temporarily victorious enemies run freely about your fortress.

*DwarfBonus: Connect your cistern to the stairwell (remember to put a floodgate in too). Once the impossible-to-defeat enemies are safely trapped inside, Pull lever number 2 and watch them slowly, slowly, drown (VERY IMPORTANT: have the level of the cistern input at at least the same height as the level of the stairwell, else there won't be enough pressure to properly flood the stairwell, meaning nasties WILL survive).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Connect your MAGMA cistern to the stairwell. Laugh maniacally. (Remember to build your bridges and floodgates out of magma-safe material or a lot of !!FUN!! will be had)
*MegaArmokEntombmentBonus: Do both and cast your enemies in obsidian and boil the survivors in steam as a semi-permanent testament to their foolhardiness. This also means that you will have stairs cut out of lovely obsidian once your miners are finished making your stairwell usable again.
*MegaArmokEntombmentEXTREME+Bonus: "Forget" to pull the lockdown lever before you pull lever number 2.

v0.34:Stupid dwarf trick

2014-01-17T18:25:43Z

Coolthulhu: /* Greenhouse */

{{Quality|Superior|22:52, 11 September 2013 (UTC)}}
{{av}}

{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount of time and effort - often for little or no practical benefit. They exist primarily as a challenge for experienced players.

==Adventure Mode Fortress==

Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a smörgåsbord of masterpiece adamantine weapons and armor. Possibly both. Breaching the [[caverns]] or [[hidden fun stuff]] should ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' None for fortress mode, but filling it with high-quality equipment can certainly be useful for adventure mode.

==Alarm Clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Limited. They'll sleep through <s>'''anything'''</s> the noise. Although they have been known to awaken when drenched in water, possibly due to thinking it's alcohol, making an alarm clock is not impossible, if carefully prepared.

==Alphabet Cages==
[[Image:Cage.gif|right]]
Use captured monsters in cages to spell messages.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Vowels are hard to come by.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely none whatsoever. (Easy reminders in case you're too lazy to use notes?)

==Altar of Armok==

Build a large altar made out of adamantine, clear glass, magma, and obsidian. The main altar should be hollow adamantine with clear glass "windows." It should have magma inside. The altar should be adorned with large obsidian spikes, at it pleases Armok.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, raising with the amount(and respective difficulty) of bonuses you add.

'''Usefulness:''' Little to none, except for having a cool altar that you can use to WOW other players.

*Bonus: Guard the ALTAR with a megabeast.
*Bonus: Cover the ALTAR with blood of a Titan.
**MegaBonus: Cover the ALTAR with blood of a denizen of the HFS.
***ArmokBonus: Build the ALTAR in the HFS.
*MegaBonus: Cover the ALTAR in a temporarily lasting strength inducing extract.
*BerserkBonus: Cover the ALTAR in a nausea-inducing extract.
*BloodBonus: Also cover the ALTAR in a extract inducing slow death.
**SychronizationBonus: Make it so that a dwarf that goes into contact with the ALTAR dies the moment the strength runs out.
*SacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a dwarf to the ALTAR every day.
**MegaSacrificailBonus: Sacrifice an elf to the ALTAR every day.
**HistorySacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a human to the ALTAR every day
***MegaArmokBonus: Sacrifice all three species to the ALTAR every day!
*MonarchBonus: Build the ALTAR in the monarch's throne room! Yes, this stacks with the ArmokBonus up above.

==Aqueduct Power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels. Aquifers will absorb any amount of water at any rate. Using an aquifer as drain for the reservoir will nullify the risk of flooding the fortress due to the drain not keeping up with the supply.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Aquifer Power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheel.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. The lowly windmill pales in utility compared to a waterwheel.

==Archaeological Excavation==
A Fortress in the Caverns, built by the first dwarf tribes. Build the Fortress however you see fit for those prehistoric Dwarves (i.e. only primitive metals, elaborate tombs for the chieftains with burial objects, cave art, etc.) and abandon it. Then, embark with modern Dwarves, and excavate the ancient Fortress. Sort of like the Adventure Fortress above, only for Reclaim Mode

'''Difficulty:''' As High as you want.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

*Bonus: A Museum detailing the lives of those early dwarves
*DwarfBonus: Some of those early dwarves frozen in a block of ice

==Artificial [[Waterfall]]==
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]]. Alternatively, an [[aquifer]], or other limitless water source, makes for a waterfall entirely underground.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate (Low if there is an aquifer above pouring down).

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower frame rate.

*Bonus: Build it in a "Warm" or hotter [[climate]] so it does not freeze.
*DwarfBonus: Build it in a freezing/cold/temperate climate and keep it going entire year!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[magma]]. It does not freeze, even in a freezing climate!
*MegaDwarfBonusEXTREME+: Use magma and water in the same waterfall. The results will enshrine you in dwarf history! Possibly permanently.

==[[Ballista]] Battery==
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly-trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bastion==
Construct an isolated burrow containing a farmer and some labourers, containing at least an uncontaminated well (an [[aquifer]] is great for this) and some farms. Use whatever elaborate mechanism you wish to seal it off from the rest of the fortress. Congratulations; your bastioned dwarves and their descendants will keep your fortress alive forever until one of them goes nuts.

* Bonus: Build your bastion at least in part in a clay or sand layer, connect to magma (using a fortification in the channel to stop those annoying fireproof creatures from sneaking in), and continue manufacturing useless crap even as the world crumbles around you!
* Bonus: Build it on top of a tower outside, and then deconstruct the stairs up.
* Bonus: Fill it exclusively with vampires, to avoid having to worry about food, children, and aging.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Hollow out a shell around your bastion, connecting it to the rest of the cavern by a single 1x1 adamantine support, and flood the shell with magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' High. If your bastioned dwarves have high enough quality living space and few enough nonbastioned friends, it makes the fortress functionally immortal.

==Bathtub==
Stop dwarves from hauling in tons of exotic, poisonous sludges into your fortress by creating a tub filled with 3/7 water that everyone has to get through to enter the fortress. Include a system to change the water, so that they don't bathe in grime.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate

'''Usefulness:''' Low in most cases. High in some evil areas.

* DwarfBonus: Make it drain and refill itself with clean water automatically once in a year.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Clean it with magma.
* *MegaDwarfBonus*: Have an alternative bathtub-buffered entrance next to the main one, which opens automatically when cauterizing the main one and closes and cauterizes itself when it is no longer needed, so that no jobs are canceled during cleansing cycle.
* ≡MegaDwarfBonus≡ : Make it clean itself with magma automatically once in a year, but make it wait for the moment when it's unused, so that no dwarves or pets are incinerated.
* ☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: All of the above, plus make it detect when there should be no dwarves or pets around, but invaders are in it, so that the cleansing cycle can be started prematurely.

==Bolt Splitting Operation==
One curious property of Dwarven Physics is that a bar of metal makes 25 bolts, but if each of those 25 bolts is melted separately, they will become 2.5 bars, generating metal from nothing. Prior to the modification that allowed splitting stacks at the [[trade depot]], the difficult part was separating the stacks of bolts into individual bolts without destroying them. EliDupree originally discovered this trick:
{{diagram|spaces=yes|color=#888|\
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
∙++++[#05F]☻∙+++++++++
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+∙[#F00]g∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#FF0]@
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+++++∙+++++++++
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
}}

The yellow @ at the right is a stack of marksdwarves (all in different squads so that they'll stand on the same tile) equipped with [[adamantine]] bolts, standing on top of a stairway surrounded by [[fortification]]s. The blue ☻ at the left is a single [[Attributes#Agility|Perfectly Agile]] soldier with orders to patrol up and down the line of green doors, with little delays at the top and bottom. (The doors are free-standing; they were built attached to a wall, then the wall was removed.) The "g" at the left is a goblin standing on a pillar (pitted from the z-level above).

When the dwarf at the left runs up or down the line of doors, it opens all of them, and some of the marksdwarves loose their bolts. By the time the bolts get there, the doors have closed, so they hit the doors and fall into the channel, where they can be collected and melted separately. (That distance is exact, by the way. Any less and they sometimes get shots through the doors, which kills your goblin. Also, with less-skilled marksdwarves, some of the bolts will stray and land on the floors, but that isn't enough to worry about even with mere dabblers.) Naturally, this is also an excellent way to train marksdwarves.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate. The hardest part is keeping the system running reliably.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate. While there are certainly [[Exploit#Infinite_Adamantine_.2F_Metals|easier ways to generate adamantine]], this is perhaps the most dwarfy.

*Bonus: Build a [[repeater]] to open and close the doors automatically.

==Break the Dam (Release the River!)==
Dam a river (or brook) using something non-permanent (floodgates, drawbridges) and build your fortress entrance in the now dry river bed, make sure you can seal it off nicely (floodgates anyone?) then wait till the first Goblin siege, let them get to your entrance floodgates, seal them, open the dam and laugh manically

'''Difficulty:''' Low

'''Usefulness:''' Instantaneous death to all sieges

*DwarfBonus: Use magma.

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that opens outwards, to fling enemies away. Ideally, they land in a very nasty place.

'''Difficulty:''' The hard part is the nasty place they get flung to.

'''Usefulness:''' There are far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

==Corpse processing facility==
With the help of a necromancer, corpses your dwarves refuse to butcher can be brought back to life and re-killed to yield bones and skulls for your bonecarvers if they are mushed up enough.

1. The simplest way to do this is with the help of height. A 1x1 pit with a minecart stop that dumps corpses down the chute, and several alternating [[floor hatch]]es that close and open (linked to a repeater) with necromancers behind windows overlooking each layer of hatches to revive the bits of corpses. 2 windows with a mechanism controlled door in between, in front of each necromancer group can be used to control vision; but the system can only be stopped by unlinking the minecart dump to the refuse pile in your routes. Note: when I built this I had 3 hatches with 6 necromancers overlooking each (I had plenty of them since I embarked close to 4 towers). Revived corpses drop to their death and explode onto a tile with unright spikes linked (note that some of them will survive, so you need the spikes with a repeater or lever). The corpses that explode from the impact of height (or from other body parts/undead crashing into them) will hopefully yield bones. You make choose to re-haul up the body parts for another round, but only body parts still attached to a grasping part or the head will be revived, and this system isn't very efficient in the first place, so it may not be worth the trouble. Note that whole corpses usually yield 5-8 bones upon death (avg 6), arms only yield 1-4 (avg 2). You may also use this system with or without necromancers and pit live [[goblin]]s into it, they usually yield 6 bones and some body parts.

2. The second way is much more efficient than the first, but requires 1 or more [[artifact]] [[mechanisms]] to make it work. Instead of using height to kill the corpses, a weapon trap with a artifact mechanism and 10 serrated blades of any material can be used instead (since artifact mechanisms never jam). Only 1 necromancer is needed for this method, and is positioned 3 tiles away from the weapon trap, overlooking it behind 2 glass windows with a mechanism [[door]] in between to control its vision. Your 1x1 pit should still be 5 tiles deep at least though, to prevent dwarves being spooked by the revived corpses. When you're ready, link up the route to the minecart and watch body parts revive and slowly get mowed down. It's recommended you have more than 1 of these small pits set up so you can grind more corpses and clear out 1 pit at a time while the others keep grinding.

Note: To clear out pits, turn off all refuse stockpiles that accept anything other than bones and skulls by turning on "accept from links only" so your dwarves only haul out the bones and not the trash.

Note: Try to use raising bridges as the door for each pit, kobold body parts tend to get mixed into the grinders which can lock-pick its way out of doors and result in doors with "door taken by intruder" and a couple hundred zombie body parts overrunning your fortress from the inside (a.k.a fun).

Note: I didn't try this with many building destroyers, but I'm pretty sure the glass windows are safe. Fortifications are not usable since corpses and body parts tend to get tangled up in them and are hard to get out, and spook dwarves trying to clean out the pits.

*Bonus: Use water to clean out the contents of the pits and wash them onto a 1x1 refuse stockpile.

'''Difficulty:''' Hard

'''Usefulness:''' High, and becomes higher the more corpses you have; especially useful for getting something out of necromancer sieges than just useless corpses. Can also be used to recycle dead stray animals and your own dwarves that your dwarves refuse to butcher (don't forget slabs).

==[[Dam]]==
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, or an aquifer located below the river, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fulfill. The power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

*Bonus: Excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley. 
*Bonus: Build a control center to control the water flow. 
*Bonus: Draw your entire energy from a power station within. 
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use screw pumps and another dam to replace the water with magma.

==[[Danger room|Danger Room]]==
A room full of upright spear traps linked to a lever or pressure plate. Teach your dwarves to dodge the pointy sticks!

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium, depending on how you activate the traps.

'''Usefulness''': High. Trains combat skills very quickly, assuming you don't kill anyone.

'''Downside''': Civilians and pets that wander into the danger room will inevitably get killed, even if you use low quality training spears.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Menacing spikes greatly increase the danger, and may help train your medical team (and/or your coffin construction crew).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[adamantine]] spikes! On the plus side, you have a thriving coffin industry going now.

==Day Care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers. Make a room with beds and tables and stuff, then turn it into a burrow, then add all your children to it. Remember to include a food chute to quantum stockpile a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. High quality food, furniture, and socializing should keep them happy. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in various professions like an otherwise vulnerable child, but this is a small trade-off if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway. This is probably obvious, but make sure this room is guarded, otherwise it will turn into a Dwarf Orphanage (with Goblins and Minotaurs welcome!)

'''Difficulty:''' Low. With the invention of burrows, you can designate the Day Care to contain all children, so it is unnecessary to use suicide-booth-micromanagement to contain the children.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Think of the children, they will grow up and enter adult Dwarf life completely unprepared for the [[Fun|things]] [[Dragon|that]] [[Hell|await]] them, having spent their entire lives coddled in a safe room. They might make good nobles however.

==Doberman Bomb==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your frame rate.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to high, depending on the animal you use

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to very high, potentially fortress-saving

*Bonus : Train the dogs inside as war dogs
**DwarfBonus : Use [[giant badger]]s, [[tiger]]s, [[alligator]]s, bears, or anything big and aggressive when tamed
***MegaDwarfBonus : Use [[giant cave spider]]s, [[cave dragon]]s, [[blind cave ogre]]s, crossbow-wielding [[giant desert scorpion]]s, [[jabberer]]s or something really dangerous and rare.
****UltraMagmaArmokBonus : Use one (or more !) of the following list : [[dragon]](s), a [[bronze colossus]](es), a [[forgotten beast]](s) (bonus points for flesh-melting secretions), an [[undead]] [[giant sponge]], or the denizens of the [[Hidden Fun Stuff]].

==[[Drowning chamber]]==
'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untamable animals, or anything else. Just be ready for something that knows how to swim. Also useful for catching fishies.

*Bonus: Utilize lava.
*Bonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Edit the raws and do both.

==[[Computing|Dwarfputer]] Complex==
A big mess of [[fluid logic|fluid]], [[machine logic|machine]], and/or [[creature logic|creature]] logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics and architects will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do<s> and makes them stronger</s> (in 31.25 only military work increases stats, I was really disappointed after 4 years of nonstop pumping only to see weak in urist description). Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes and building destroyers enter your computer.
*Bonus: Use lava.
**Doombonus: Use lava ''and'' build it so that building destroyers that enter the complex get killed by the mechanisms they destroy.
***SelfRepairingbonus: Use both lava and water and implement the building destroyer killing system, but modify it so it's self-repairing, filling up broken spaces with obsidian.

==Dwarven Apartment Complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[megaprojects]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your ☼5-star service☼).

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to fun by water. Additionally, if you have the time and resources to train a sizable force of marksdwarves, placing a few "security rooms" (with barracks, ammunition store, ration cache, armory, etc) at appropriate floors, complete with fortified balconies, will allow you to take advantage of the higher vantage point.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Extend the tower to have levels below ground as well as above.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Make the whole construction out of clear glass. (privacy? Whatever for?)

==Dwarven Courtyards==
Dig large shafts [first dig the staircase to the desired depth, digging out the size you want the shaft to be on all layers. Channel the outer later, then install supports on the base floor. Link the support to a trigger, clear everyone out, destroy the remaining staircase and pull the trigger] then cover them in glass, creating an indoor but light area that will keep dwarves from being irritated and nauseated by the sun, also improving general happiness and allowing close proximity to caverns and magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, make sure not to mess up or you will lose your miners

'''Usefullness:''' Medium. creates vertical circulation and brings light to lower levels.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Create a network of self sufficient communities per shaft, allowing them to be sectioned off in case of disaster. (I plan on colonizing HFS eventually on this paradigm, creating a mining team of soldiers to extract, manufacture and ultimately use adamantine products without being connected to the main colony in order to take on the demons while keeping the rest of the burrow safe.)

==Dwarven Disco Ball==
Why waste all those cut gems on things that only some selfish noble will enjoy? Create as large a wall-less sphere as you can, then cover it in Gem Windows of 3 different-colored gems to make it shine! The bigger, and more valuable gems involved (e.g., [[ruby|rubies]], [[sapphire]]s, and [[emerald]]s, or colored diamonds if you're really masochistic), the dwarfier.

'''Difficulty:''' Constructing a sphere is very hard, especially the larger you make one. Gathering enough differently colored gems can also be very hard, depending on stone layers. Trading helps a lot.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. More value can be created by encrusting furniture, and Gem Windows lack quality.

*Bonus: Alternating [[alunite]] and [[obsidian]] tiles to make a 'dance floor'.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use lava contained in glass for illumination.
*UltraDwarfBonus: Caged "[[Elf|dancers]]".

==Dwarven Labor Camp (aka Dwarkuta)==
Create an aboveground walled fortress in a freezing climate with guard towers, barracks, housing, and armories. Dig a long ramp downward and add a large mining network below the surface. Make some small military squads to guard the camp. Designate the lower levels as workshops, and when migrants arrive, assign them to the mines. Give the workers minimal food and only water (no booze, booze is for the hypocritical decadence of Dwarkuta's leaders). Have them haul the stone and metal they mine back to the surface and ship the raw materials off to the Motherland. Import only food, booze, weapons, fuel, and other necessities.

*Bonus: Build the giant digging machines. They don't actually have to dig anything.
*Bonus: Go into the raws and rename the beverage of your choice to "Dwarven Vodka", and drink to the glory of the Motherland!
*MegaBonus: Escape. Wait for a goblin siege, then get everyone underground and block the entrance. Let the goblins in. Wait a few months. The goblins are now the guards you must kill.

Step 1. Secure the keys: Make improvised weapons. If you have obsidian at your disposal, make rock short swords.

Step 2. Ascend from darkness: Get your dwarves out of the mines and into the camp.

Step 3. Rain fire: Use your imagination. Try using magma, if possible.

Step 4. Unleash the horde: Attack!

Step 5. Skewer the winged beast: If the goblins brought a giant bat or other flying creature, kill it.

*Bonus: Use a ballista.

Step 6. Wield a fist of iron: Break open the armory and equip your rebels with armor and weapons.

Step 7. Raise hell: Exactly what it says on the tin.

Step 8. Freedom!

*MegaDwarfBonus: In Adventure mode, try (and probably fail) to lead the prisoners to freedom.

==Dwarven Refrigerator==
Dig down to the 3rd cavern layer and harvest as many [[nether-cap]]s as you can. Make them all into barrels! Nether caps have the unique property of being 10000° Urist, which is 32°F or 0°C. Now your dwarves can enjoy their favorite alcohol, cheese, and plump helmets chilled to perfection! If you've set your population cap very low in the INIT files, caverns aren't extremely dangerous, but you should still be on the lookout for nasties down there. Remember to wall off your entrance to the cavern once you're finished.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to Medium

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Booze stored inside will not perish due to heat if say, [[magma]] is dumped on it.

==Emergency Destruct Stairs==
A tall column of stairs plunging all the way down into the underdark, with a one-tile wide area of thin destructible floor all around it. In case of subterranean invasion, a thrown switch drops a stone O straight down, ringing the staircase and neatly severing all inter-level connections at a blow. Does with one lever and one support what would take dozens of bridges or hundreds of retracting grates.

'''Difficulty:''' Harder than it sounds.

'''Usefulness:''' Sometimes... sometimes they fly.

==Execution Tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

==Flamethrower bunker==
If your fortress happens to be visited by a [[dragon]], capture it in a [[cage trap]], then release it into a sealed bunker with [[fortification]]s around the edge. When invaders arrive, watch them get roasted.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but requires a lot of luck - a dragon (or fire-breathing forgotten beast) needs to survive worldgen, then it needs to attack your fortress (instead of a giant/minotaur/ettin/cyclops or other megabeast), and finally it needs to make it to your cage trap without being killed by something else.

'''Usefulness:''' The dragon will quickly deal with any sieges and megabeasts (aside from [[titan]]s), though it will also set the hillside on fire. Also, any protective bridges in front of the fortifications will melt under sustained fire, leaving you with a bunker that ''nobody'' can safely approach; building the bridges (and mechanisms) from [[adamantine]] (or [[raw adamantine]]) will make them last longer, but '''not''' forever. A nether-cap bridge with a (preferably non-flammable) artifact mechanism should be safe. Additionally, a skilled enemy archer could easily kill your dragon with a lucky shot.

*Bonus: Capture a fire-breathing [[titan]] or [[forgotten beast]] and use it.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Release the denizens of the underworld and use them.

==Flood the World==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate.

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[giant sponge]].

*Bonus: Use magma, just like [[Main:Boatmurdered|Boatmurdered]].
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use trained fish to kill off all creatures not of your colony.
*MegaArmokBonus: Mod the game and do both.

==[[Live training|Gladiator Arena]]==
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp. Variant: build prisoner cages inside the arena, link to a lever outside the arena, lock the soldiers in, and then open the cages.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive. (If the prisoners have weapons, you can remove them by using {{k|d}}-{{k|b}}-{{k|d}} to dump the cage and its contents, then looking at and undumping the cages themselves with {{k|k}}-{{k|d}}).

'''Usefulness:''' Low to High, depending on how long your soldiers can draw out the execution. Equipping your soldiers with wooden training weapons can greatly increase the fun (and/or [[Fun]] if their armor isn't as good as you thought).

*DwarfBonus: Losers get incinerated by Magma.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use your arena as a "trial by fire" for migrants.

==Glass Ceiling==
Sick of having your dwarves vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a glass floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

*PoliticallyIncorrectDwarfBonus: Make it a metaphorical [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_ceiling glass ceiling] and give migrants and women less pay and poorer rooms.

==Greenhouse==
A [[farming|greenhouse]] is just a farm with the the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

*Bonus: Give it a glass floor to allow surface plants even lower down.
**DwarfBonus: Utilize it [[obsidian|volcanic glass]].

==Hammer of [[main:armok|Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quick-smiting.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size and materials, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 attached to a handle extending from your entrance actually works against sieges.

* Bonus: Cover it with blood.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Make it hollow and fill it with Magma
* ArmoksMachineHammerBonus: Set up an automated system that allows you to reset it quickly. Obsidianizers and the magma sea will be your friends here.

==Human Fortress==
Instead of digging a fortress, build above-ground houses. Create walls to keep the nasties out. The only thing you may have underground are mines and stockpiles. Create a huge stone fort for your nobles.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Building stuff will cost you resources instead of gaining them and flyers can be a real pain. Keep several Marksmen handy!

'''Usefulness:''' N/A. (No cave adaptation)

*Bonus: Pave the roads between houses.
*HumanBonus: Dig a moat around your castle.
*MegaHumanBonus: Fill the moat with lava.

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], [[gold]], or [[soap]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends entirely on you.

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge are a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. Burrows help to get the whole crew inside at the same time.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles|Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

*Bonus: Drop the vessel into a deep cavern
*SuperBonus: Make the outer walls, roof and ground floor completely out of glass, so that the explorers can watch everything around them.
*VampireBonus: Send a vampire with the crew!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a halfway-empty adamantine vein
*YouHorribleEvilDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into the [[Hidden Fun Stuff]]!
*youHorribleInsaneDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a glowing chasm.
*OhMyArmokBonus: When you arrive to the bottom of the magma sea, excavate and then create a new community under it!
**OhMyF****ingArmokBonus: Send supplies every year!
**IsThatEvenPossibleBonus: Send a piece of an aquifer down there to provide water! (Mine around a water-producing tile, build the ship around it, then send it!)
**≡MegaDwarfBonus≡: create a high enough tower and drop it into the magma sea to connect the surface and the undersea community!
***☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: create ''two'' towers and use one to send water down there!

==Maze==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful. You can also use the free maze-generating program Daedalus, available [http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/daedalus.htm here] if you're too lazy to come up with your own.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*Bonus: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.
*Bonus: Release a live caged [[minotaur]] into the maze.
*MegaBonus: Make it three-dimensional and [http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/maze/design/index.htm#uni unicursal].

==Magma Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma Cannon==
[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=33837.0 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma Highway==
Magma moves across the map annoyingly slowly, due to its thickness and lack of pressure. But a tunnel several Z-levels high, with magma entering at the top, will flow much faster because the magma's '''falling''' in, not flowing in, and can expand on either Z-level before falling down.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Not hard to make, but cutting open a multi-Z magmafall is [[fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' Medium.

==Magma Mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with the exact same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

*Bonus: Put the coffin at least 20 floors down.
*MegaBonus: Build it in a volcano if possible, and put the coffin at the very bottom of the map

==Magma Sea Colony==

If you cast obsidian around the edges of the magma sea, it is possible to pump out the magma and build a colony in the empty space. Once the colony is built, you can destroy the obsidian walls and refill the magma sea. Note: you cannot cast obsidian on the bottom layer of the magma sea, so building a colony on this layer is nearly, but not quite, impossible (see below).

'''Difficulty:''' High. You need to get water down to each edge of the magma sea, and you need a pump stack to get rid of the magma.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: Build your colony on the floor of the magma sea. This will require draining the sea to the next-to-bottom layer as described above, then dumping enormous amounts of water into the bottom layer to crowd out the magma while simultaneously draining the magma from holes poked in the magma sea floor. Constructions can be built at the border between the water and the magma. See [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128226.0 This forum post] for full, detailed instructions.
* Bonus: Obsidianize the entire magma sea, leaving a single spot to use as a source for pumps. Then proceed to carve your new fortress subsection out of this bounty.

'''Difficulty:''' Insane. The project will take at least ten years of dwarf time and claim many lives.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. You can finally get the last bit of adamantine when you drain the magma sea, and the magma sea floor has a cool twinkly effect.

==[[Mass pitting|Mass Cage Recycling System]]==

Build a [[mass pitting]] system to recycle your cage trap cages quickly.

'''Difficulty:''' Very easy. Requires basic digging and very little time.

'''Usefulness:''' Very. Keeps you from having to build cages before releasing monsters from them. With six hatches you can safely empty out 48 cages very quickly. You can build lots of cage traps without having to worry about emptying each cage individually.

*Bonus: Cover the floor of your pit with cage traps, creating a neverending cycle and giving your dwarves something to do during the long harsh summer when going outside is overly taxing on their stomachs.
*ConcentrationCampBonus: Combine with Pit of Doom below.

==[[Drowning chamber|Mega/Water Drowning Trap-Thing]]==
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire creatures to create a sauna.

==Monumental Statue==
'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*Bonus: Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.
*Dwarfbonus: Give the statue magma eyes.
**HellNo,DwarfsYesBonus: Combine the magma eyes idea with the magma cannon idea above and place the statue just behind (and above) the entrance to your fortress.

==Moses Effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult. The same trick can be used in lieu of a drawbridge, although its practicality as compared to the drawbridge is highly questionable.

==[[Waterfall|Never Ending Shower]]==
Don't you get angry when your dwarves carry enough grime on them to dirty the entire fortress? And how they get infected because of that griminess? Suffer no more! With the Never Ending Shower (NES for short), dwarves will be able to stay (relatively) clean without having to take the time to run for a bath or dirtying your drinking water!

It is easy to understand: use the same instructions as in the Artificial Waterfall, but make it so that the waterfall is somewhere where the dwarves will be going through almost daily--a central stairway works well. It cleans them and gives them happy [[thought]]s for the same price!

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to high. You do have to make sure that dwarves don't try anything funny, and create a drain to draw the dirty water out.

'''Usefulness:''' Incredibly high. Reduces risk of infection and keeps your dwarves happy.

*Bonus: Use an aquifer to get clean water AND drain dirty water.
*Bonus: Use levers to control the NES.
*SuperBonus: Make it work as a trap!
*SuperDuperBonus: Make it work as a trap AND as a recovery system!
*ArmokBonus: Make it so that magma can be poured down, too!

==[[Obsidian farming|Obsidian Factory]]==
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber ''and'' a drowning chamber.

* MegaDwarfBonus: Make the system fully automated using [[computing]] principles.

==Pit o' Doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Traps which menace with spikes are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally. If high enough, you may be able to recover [[bone]]s from creatures your dwarves refuse to [[butcher]].

==Pressure Washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and pushes anything in the way of the flow away. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here.]

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested in version 0.28.181.40d with 50 recruits standing in front of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

* Bonus: Fill it with Magma instead (though Magma doesn't pressurize).

==Rehabilitation Centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

* MegaDwarfBonus: Points for making every other dwarf drink water and sleep on cheap beds.

==Road of the Damned==
Create a giant channel filled with spike traps, 10 tiles wide and going all the way from your fort to the map edge. Pave it over with crystal glass so traders can get that foreboding feeling that'll make them seal the deal without bargaining too hard!

'''Difficulty:''' Low-mid, depending on the rarity of crystal glass.

'''Usefulness:'''Low. The same as a normal road.

* Bonus: Spike a goblin on every trap!

==Sectorized World==
Divide the world edges into multiple sectors and then gate access to each one separately. This allows you to protect your fortress from sieges whilst keeping access to most of the outside world and allowing most traders into and out of the fortress (those unfortunate enough to enter the world from the same direction as the siegers may be screwed, of course). For bonus points, build separate gateable access routes for each sector. For further bonus points, design your fortress so that you can simultaneously allow access to traders ''at the same time'' as siegers are exposed to your defensive mechanisms.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, unless you allow separate access routes for each sector in which case high.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate, increasing with each bonus you fill. Mostly for those who want to build the best possible defenses. Can also double as a means of easily trapping wild animals.

==Self-contained Vampire-based Factory==
Take advantage of the independence of vampires by building a self-contained factory. The best industries are those that require no special raw materials-- a factory containing both a magma glass furnace and a sand tile, for instance, would work well, as would a clay industry, but if you're feeling ambitious, consider building a vampire into your [[giant cave spider|GCS]] [[silk farm]]-- if you happen to have scored an [[undead]] GCS, your vampire won't even spook! You can treat your factory as a piggy bank to be broken into as needed, or for perfect fire-and-forget action, build a dropping [[User:Vasiln/Undump|undump]] into the factory, and the vampire will deliver the output to your front door.

'''Difficulty:''' The only hard part is getting yourself a [[vampire]].

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many green glass blocks you plan on using.

==Self Destruct Lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely fun.

'''Usefulness:''' Could serve as kind of a last revenge on a goblin siege, but also highly amusing. If done properly it can make reclaim easier.

* DorfBonus: Make it have a timer before your fortress self destructs. You can do this with a water channel, or if you're particularly technical, make a [[Computing|seven segment display]].
** For bonus Dwarfy-ness, make the timer be the depth number of the magma or water that will actually trigger your fortress' destruction.
* Bonus: Build your fortress high above ground, connect the fortress to a roof through just one support and have the system, when activated, drop the whole construction into the magma sea, destroying the whole thing permanently.

==Shark Catcher==
Capture of [[Bull shark|sharks]] or [[Carp|other]], [[Sturgeon|dangerous fish]] achieved by making an artificial bay, filling it with [[Cage trap|cage traps]], opening the floodgate to the sea or river and some sort of drainage system, likely pumps and/or floodgates.
'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium as drowning while setting up is very possible with bad planning.

'''Usefulness''': Low, purely aesthetic, but very cool to have a shark infested moat (Potentially kills invaders).

==[[Silk farming|Silk Farming]]==
Capture a web-slinger (generally a [[giant cave spider]]) and build a farm to efficiently harvest its [[silk]].

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium; the hardest part is generally catching the web-spinner.

'''Usefulness''': Medium to High. Provides an endless supply of potentially-valuable [[silk]] cloth and rapidly [[cross-training|cross-trains]] [[weaver]]s.

==[[Skyfort|Sky Fortress]]==

Thanks to a quirk in dwarven [[physics]], the sky can be used to provide limited support to your fortress. Specifically, a solid vertical column that reaches the top of the sky level will not collapse, but it will also no longer support neighboring tiles horizontally. In order to retain vertical support, passable areas are carved with up/down stairways. [[Obsidian]] casting is necessary to allow these stairways to be added on top of existing [[building]]s (like [[furniture]] and [[workshop]]s). Unsupported glass [[window]]s can be used to plug any holes, such as those required below magma workshops.

Please [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=133968.0 refer to the forum thread] for full details.

'''Difficulty''': High; constructing a [[skyfort]] approaches a [[megaprojects|megaproject]].

'''Usefulness''': Low to Medium. Automatically isolates your fortress from all but [[flying]] foes. While it is possible to achieve the same effect on the ground and underground, changes to enemy siege mechanics (specifically, digging and jumping) may increase the defensive value of a floating fortress.

==Steamed Vegetables==
Make a pot and drop <s>elves</s> vegetables in from about three levels up. This makes it so the vegetables do not <s>run</s> get overcooked. Proceed to bask the vegetables in [[steam]].

'''Difficulty''': Medium. Can be annoying to boil some water.

'''Usefulness''': Great way to make friends with the merchants.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Add <s>goblins</s> seasoning.
*ArmokDoubleBonus: Use [[magma mist]].

==[[Swimming]] pool==
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though. Though if you utilize a '''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform, this is a priceless necessity.

==[[Tree farming|Underground Forest]]==
Break into an underground cavern, make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium - need to dig out a suitably large area, then find a way of introducing water to the area and subsequently draining or evaporating it.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size (bigger is better) as well as proximity to wood stockpiles. A tree farm outside the caverns can grow trees from all 3 layers, and you'll never have to worry about hostile creatures threatening your wood cutters.

==Underground Perpetual Motion Power Plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times. Note: Incredibly easy with an aquifer.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater Statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water source smooth and engrave the walls and floors than fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam! underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

*Bonus: Build it on area with trees and shrubs; make walls from ice or use windows; fill it with fish and merfolk; now you'll get a big aquarium
*Note: It doesn't count if you accidentally flood your fortress and wind up with one of these. It does count if one of your nobles has an unfortunate accident in their sculpture garden.

==U.R.I.S.T. Artificial Intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriend him/her.

In order to ensure that your A.I. doesn't find sleep interfering with crucial lever pulling, you might consider incorporating an alarm clock. If a goblin siege turns up on your doorstep, a single external lever to dump 7/7 of water on the sleeping A.I. might well save your fortress (and is so much cooler than having backup levers in your meeting hall).

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
*A.R.M.O.K. - '''A'''ll-'''R'''eaching '''M'''achine '''O'''f '''K'''illing
*A.S.S. - '''A'''lmost-autonomous '''S'''ystems '''S'''elector
*C.A.T. - '''C'''reepy '''A'''utonomous '''T'''echnology
*D.E.E.P.E.R. - '''D'''warf of '''E'''ngineering the '''E'''ldritch and '''P'''ractical '''E'''xploitation of '''R'''esources''
*D.I.E.D. - '''D'''edicated '''I'''rrigation and '''E'''verything else '''D'''warf(s)
*D.O.M.E.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perated '''M'''echanics and '''E'''ngineering '''S'''ystem
*D.O.R.F. - '''D'''oes '''O'''rders '''R'''ather '''F'''ast
*D.O.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*D.W.A.R.F. - '''D'''rains '''W'''ater '''A'''nd '''R'''ecruits '''F'''armers
*G.L.A.D.O.S. - '''G'''enetic '''L'''ifeform '''A'''nd '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*H.A.L. - '''H'''airy '''A'''lternate '''L'''ifeform
*M.A.G.M.A. - '''M'''assively '''A'''lcoholic '''G'''ear-'''M'''achine '''A'''ssembly
*N.O.B.L.E. - '''N'''arcissistic '''O'''bnoxious '''B'''oastful '''L'''aughable '''E'''xcrement
*P.O.T.A.T.O. - '''P'''ossibly '''O'''rganic '''T'''echnically '''A'''live '''T'''rash '''O'''mitted
*U.R.I.S.T. - '''U'''nderground '''R'''easonably '''I'''ntelligent '''S'''ettlement '''T'''echnologist
*V.A.C.A.T.E.D. - '''V'''ampire '''A'''ssisted '''C'''omputerized '''A'''ssembly '''T'''errorizes '''E'''xtra-'''D'''warves
*V.O.D.A.P.H.O.N.E. - '''V'''ampire '''O'''perated '''D'''efence '''A'''pparatus, '''P'''erpetrating '''H'''arm '''O'''f '''N'''efarious '''E'''ntities (See Bonus for more information)


'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

Bonus: Make the A.I. dwarf a vampire. Vampires don't need food, alcohol, or sleep and cannot age, which makes them perfect for the job. As an added bonus, keeping a vampire in this way will make your fortress completely indestructible, as sealing him in will prevent the possibility of the vampire of being killed in combat or from a syndrome, while keeping the vampire from making friends he will inevitably outlive will prevent him from going insane. (It also ensures that the bloodsucker won't use any of your dwarves as a midnight snack.) NOTE: Vampires may still go insane without any blood. Might be worth considering adding on a 3rd "feeding chamber" where you assign an unfortunate victim to sleep whenever the vampire gets hungry.

===D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P.===

Dwarven Organic Switch Toggle, Neutered Gastrectomied Overpersistent Sober Prisoner. Goblins have several advantages over dwarves in the lever pulling department: they live forever, do not breed or tantrum, and need not eat, drink, or sleep. Seal one or more goblins in your supercomputer complex, and use their predictable pathing in combination with instantly lockable doors and pressure plates to make dwarven lever pulling a thing of an older, less advanced era.

Also known by several product names:
*G.O.B.L.I.N.A.T.O.R. - '''G'''oblin '''O'''perated '''B'''astion of '''L'''ogic to '''I'''nfalliably '''N'''eutralize '''A'''ntiquated '''T'''ypes of '''O'''perational '''R'''egimes
*N.G.O.K.A.N.G. - '''N'''efarious '''G'''oblin '''O'''f '''K'''illing '''A'''nd '''N'''eedless '''G'''riping
*S.T.O.Z.U. - '''S'''ecret '''T'''echnological '''O'''perative who '''Z'''aps '''U'''nruly Nobles

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. While goblin pressure plate runners require more space than dwarven lever pullers, once their room is set up, it's done, and easily copied for the next one. With only one goblin, you'll need a pressure plate for every possible combination of lever states, but it's easy to add more goblins instead.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Instant response time (<50 ticks is possible) can make lever worries a thing of the past. The D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P. requires absolutely no maintenance once set up. Unlike with the U.R.I.S.Ts of the previous generation, modern POW-based computing is never held hostage to eating, drinking, or breaks. Stay tuned for the next-generation C.A.C.A.M.E.!

==Vomitorium==
[[Image:Vomit_Trail.png‎|thumb|right|Vomitoria: preventing cave adaptation since [[23a:Vomit|23a]].]]

Prevents [[cave adaptation]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's a [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it. Variant: above-ground statue garden or zoo.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in or it will become very [[Fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "'''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform" chamber, or HELP (so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most <s>Dwarves</s> enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death. It is recommend that with the exception of the entrance you use stairs.

*Bonus: Utilize vampires (who can't drown).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Engineer it so that it performs a full cycle on one activation of a pressure plate and include that pressure plate as a part of the patrol route, then create a reverse Watervator and also include it as a part of same patrol route, so that your militia automatically uses it to get in and out the fortress.

==Zombie Thunderdome==
Embark in an Evil biome in the current version (preferably savage as well), find or dig a deep pit, and dump any unused (non-dorf) corpses and butchery products into it. They will animate and begin to walk around, providing you with the endless entertainment afforded by watching horse hair walk. Make sure the pit is deep enough not to scare your dwarves!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Keeping your fort safe from the threat of animated beak dog beaks is worth any price. However, [[DF2012:Defense guide|there may be better things]] [[DF2012:Mega construction|to do with your time]].

*Bonus: Set up a series of [[bridge|defenses]] that drop invaders into the pit.
*DwarfBonus: Set up a series of bridges and walls that flings invaders into the pit.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop a Megabeast into the pit and watch it do battle with multiple layers of undead.
{{Category|Design}}

==single-Lever Emergency Lockdown (LEL)==

The only real requirement is that you need a fort based around a central stairwell. All you need to do is leave space for and eventually build 1*(length of your stairwell) bridges (that raise!) on each side of your stairwell on every level, and then link them all to the same lever. Friends get through all your best traps and champions? Simply pull the lever, and they're trapped in the central stairwell forever! Remember to roof off the entrance if your fort is situated on flat land otherwise the bonuses become much less useful. Also important is to ensure that you either wall off access or include sealable bridges or doors (linked to the same lever of course) for any inter-level paths that bypass the main stairwell, like vertical axles running out of centralised power generators.

3*3 stairwell setup:

{{diagram|1=
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
[#6ff]╥XXX[#6ff]╥
[#6ff]║XXX[#6ff]║
[#6ff]╨XXX[#6ff]╨
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
}}

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to High, depending on whether you use the MegaDwarfBonus below or not and how much you spread your fortress over the layers - although more spread means more usefulness. Extremely time-consuming, and requires architects, masons, and mechanics, as well as a lot of mechanisms (2 per bridge, ~4 bridges per level)

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to High, also depending on whether you use the Bonuses. With all bonuses applied it becomes a guaranteed last resort way of destroying the toughest enemies with minimal dwarven casualties; without the bonuses it's still a damn sight better than letting temporarily victorious enemies run freely about your fortress.

*DwarfBonus: Connect your cistern to the stairwell (remember to put a floodgate in too). Once the impossible-to-defeat enemies are safely trapped inside, Pull lever number 2 and watch them slowly, slowly, drown (VERY IMPORTANT: have the level of the cistern input at at least the same height as the level of the stairwell, else there won't be enough pressure to properly flood the stairwell, meaning nasties WILL survive).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Connect your MAGMA cistern to the stairwell. Laugh maniacally. (Remember to build your bridges and floodgates out of magma-safe material or a lot of !!FUN!! will be had)
*MegaArmokEntombmentBonus: Do both and cast your enemies in obsidian and boil the survivors in steam as a semi-permanent testament to their foolhardiness. This also means that you will have stairs cut out of lovely obsidian once your miners are finished making your stairwell usable again.
*MegaArmokEntombmentEXTREME+Bonus: "Forget" to pull the lockdown lever before you pull lever number 2.

v0.34:Stupid dwarf trick

2014-01-14T21:26:29Z

Coolthulhu: Undo revision 195547 by Coolthulhu (talk)

{{Quality|Superior|22:52, 11 September 2013 (UTC)}}
{{av}}

{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount of time and effort - often for little or no practical benefit. They exist primarily as a challenge for experienced players.

==Adventure Mode Fortress==

Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a smörgåsbord of masterpiece adamantine weapons and armor. Possibly both. Breaching the [[caverns]] or [[hidden fun stuff]] should ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' None for fortress mode, but filling it with high-quality equipment can certainly be useful for adventure mode.

==Alarm Clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Limited. They'll sleep through <s>'''anything'''</s> the noise. Although they have been known to awaken when drenched in water, possibly due to thinking it's alcohol, making an alarm clock is not impossible, if carefully prepared.

==Alphabet Cages==
[[Image:Cage.gif|right]]
Use captured monsters in cages to spell messages.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Vowels are hard to come by.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely none whatsoever. (Easy reminders in case you're too lazy to use notes?)

==Altar of Armok==

Build a large altar made out of adamantine, clear glass, magma, and obsidian. The main altar should be hollow adamantine with clear glass "windows." It should have magma inside. The altar should be adorned with large obsidian spikes, at it pleases Armok.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium

'''Usefulness:''' Depends how many bonuses you add.

*Bonus: Guard the ALTAR with a megabeast.
*Bonus: Cover the ALTAR with blood of a Titan.
**MegaBonus: Cover the ALTAR with blood of a denizen of the HFS.
***ArmokBonus: Build the ALTAR in the HFS.
*MegaBonus: Cover the ALTAR in a temporarily lasting strength inducing extract.
*BerserkBonus: Cover the ALTAR in a nausea-inducing extract.
*BloodBonus: Also cover the ALTAR in a extract inducing slow death.
**SychronizationBonus: Make it so that a dwarf that goes into contact with the ALTAR dies the moment the strength runs out.
*SacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a dwarf to the ALTAR every day.
**MegaSacrificailBonus: Sacrifice an elf to the ALTAR every day.
**HistorySacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a human to the ALTAR every day
***MegaArmokBonus: Sacrifice all three species to the ALTAR every day!
*MonarchBonus: Build the ALTAR in the monarch's throne room! Yes, this stacks with the ArmokBonus up above.

==Aqueduct Power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels. Aquifers will absorb any amount of water at any rate. Using an aquifer as drain for the reservoir will nullify the risk of flooding the fortress due to the drain not keeping up with the supply.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Aquifer Power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheel.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. The lowly windmill pales in utility compared to a waterwheel.

==Archaeological Excavation==
A Fortress in the Caverns, built by the first dwarf tribes. Build the Fortress however you see fit for those prehistoric Dwarves (i.e. only primitive metals, elaborate tombs for the chieftains with burial objects, cave art, etc.) and abandon it. Then, embark with modern Dwarves, and excavate the ancient Fortress. Sort of like the Adventure Fortress above, only for Reclaim Mode

'''Difficulty:''' As High as you want.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

*Bonus: A Museum detailing the lives of those early dwarves
*DwarfBonus: Some of those early dwarves frozen in a block of ice

==Artificial [[Waterfall]]==
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]]. Alternatively, an [[aquifer]], or other limitless water source, makes for a waterfall entirely underground.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate (Low if there is an aquifer above pouring down).

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower frame rate.

*Bonus: Build it in a "Warm" or hotter [[climate]] so it does not freeze.
*DwarfBonus: Build it in a freezing/cold/temperate climate and keep it going entire year!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[magma]]. It does not freeze, even in a freezing climate!
*MegaDwarfBonusEXTREME+: Use magma and water in the same waterfall. The results will enshrine you in dwarf history! Possibly permanently.

==[[Ballista]] Battery==
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly-trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bastion==
Construct an isolated burrow containing a farmer and some labourers, containing at least an uncontaminated well (an [[aquifer]] is great for this) and some farms. Use whatever elaborate mechanism you wish to seal it off from the rest of the fortress. Congratulations; your bastioned dwarves and their descendants will keep your fortress alive forever until one of them goes nuts.

* Bonus: Build your bastion at least in part in a clay or sand layer, connect to magma (using a fortification in the channel to stop those annoying fireproof creatures from sneaking in), and continue manufacturing useless crap even as the world crumbles around you!
* Bonus: Build it on top of a tower outside, and then deconstruct the stairs up.
* Bonus: Fill it exclusively with vampires, to avoid having to worry about food, children, and aging.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Hollow out a shell around your bastion, connecting it to the rest of the cavern by a single 1x1 adamantine support, and flood the shell with magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' High. If your bastioned dwarves have high enough quality living space and few enough nonbastioned friends, it makes the fortress functionally immortal.

==Bathtub==
Stop dwarves from hauling in tons of exotic, poisonous sludges into your fortress by creating a tub filled with 3/7 water that everyone has to get through to enter the fortress. Include a system to change the water, so that they don't bathe in grime.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate

'''Usefulness:''' Low in most cases. High in some evil areas.

* DwarfBonus: Make it drain and refill itself with clean water automatically once in a year.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Clean it with magma.
* *MegaDwarfBonus*: Have an alternative bathtub-buffered entrance next to the main one, which opens automatically when cauterizing the main one and closes and cauterizes itself when it is no longer needed, so that no jobs are canceled during cleansing cycle.
* ≡MegaDwarfBonus≡ : Make it clean itself with magma automatically once in a year, but make it wait for the moment when it's unused, so that no dwarves or pets are incinerated.
* ☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: All of the above, plus make it detect when there should be no dwarves or pets around, but invaders are in it, so that the cleansing cycle can be started prematurely.

==Bolt Splitting Operation==
One curious property of Dwarven Physics is that a bar of metal makes 25 bolts, but if each of those 25 bolts is melted separately, they will become 2.5 bars, generating metal from nothing. Prior to the modification that allowed splitting stacks at the [[trade depot]], the difficult part was separating the stacks of bolts into individual bolts without destroying them. EliDupree originally discovered this trick:
{{diagram|spaces=yes|color=#888|\
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
∙++++[#05F]☻∙+++++++++
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+∙[#F00]g∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#FF0]@
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+++++∙+++++++++
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
}}

The yellow @ at the right is a stack of marksdwarves (all in different squads so that they'll stand on the same tile) equipped with [[adamantine]] bolts, standing on top of a stairway surrounded by [[fortification]]s. The blue ☻ at the left is a single [[Attributes#Agility|Perfectly Agile]] soldier with orders to patrol up and down the line of green doors, with little delays at the top and bottom. (The doors are free-standing; they were built attached to a wall, then the wall was removed.) The "g" at the left is a goblin standing on a pillar (pitted from the z-level above).

When the dwarf at the left runs up or down the line of doors, it opens all of them, and some of the marksdwarves loose their bolts. By the time the bolts get there, the doors have closed, so they hit the doors and fall into the channel, where they can be collected and melted separately. (That distance is exact, by the way. Any less and they sometimes get shots through the doors, which kills your goblin. Also, with less-skilled marksdwarves, some of the bolts will stray and land on the floors, but that isn't enough to worry about even with mere dabblers.) Naturally, this is also an excellent way to train marksdwarves.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate. The hardest part is keeping the system running reliably.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate. While there are certainly [[Exploit#Infinite_Adamantine_.2F_Metals|easier ways to generate adamantine]], this is perhaps the most dwarfy.

*Bonus: Build a [[repeater]] to open and close the doors automatically.

==Break the Dam (Release the River!)==
Dam a river (or brook) using something non-permanent (floodgates, drawbridges) and build your fortress entrance in the now dry river bed, make sure you can seal it off nicely (floodgates anyone?) then wait till the first Goblin siege, let them get to your entrance floodgates, seal them, open the dam and laugh manically

'''Difficulty:''' Low

'''Usefulness:''' Instantaneous death to all sieges

*DwarfBonus: Use magma.

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that opens outwards, to fling enemies away. Ideally, they land in a very nasty place.

'''Difficulty:''' The hard part is the nasty place they get flung to.

'''Usefulness:''' There are far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

==Corpse processing facility==
With the help of a necromancer, corpses your dwarves refuse to butcher can be brought back to life and re-killed to yield bones and skulls for your bonecarvers if they are mushed up enough.

1. The simplest way to do this is with the help of height. A 1x1 pit with a minecart stop that dumps corpses down the chute, and several alternating [[floor hatch]]es that close and open (linked to a repeater) with necromancers behind windows overlooking each layer of hatches to revive the bits of corpses. 2 windows with a mechanism controlled door in between, in front of each necromancer group can be used to control vision; but the system can only be stopped by unlinking the minecart dump to the refuse pile in your routes. Note: when I built this I had 3 hatches with 6 necromancers overlooking each (I had plenty of them since I embarked close to 4 towers). Revived corpses drop to their death and explode onto a tile with unright spikes linked (note that some of them will survive, so you need the spikes with a repeater or lever). The corpses that explode from the impact of height (or from other body parts/undead crashing into them) will hopefully yield bones. You make choose to re-haul up the body parts for another round, but only body parts still attached to a grasping part or the head will be revived, and this system isn't very efficient in the first place, so it may not be worth the trouble. Note that whole corpses usually yield 5-8 bones upon death (avg 6), arms only yield 1-4 (avg 2). You may also use this system with or without necromancers and pit live [[goblin]]s into it, they usually yield 6 bones and some body parts.

2. The second way is much more efficient than the first, but requires 1 or more [[artifact]] [[mechanisms]] to make it work. Instead of using height to kill the corpses, a weapon trap with a artifact mechanism and 10 serrated blades of any material can be used instead (since artifact mechanisms never jam). Only 1 necromancer is needed for this method, and is positioned 3 tiles away from the weapon trap, overlooking it behind 2 glass windows with a mechanism [[door]] in between to control its vision. Your 1x1 pit should still be 5 tiles deep at least though, to prevent dwarves being spooked by the revived corpses. When you're ready, link up the route to the minecart and watch body parts revive and slowly get mowed down. It's recommended you have more than 1 of these small pits set up so you can grind more corpses and clear out 1 pit at a time while the others keep grinding.

Note: To clear out pits, turn off all refuse stockpiles that accept anything other than bones and skulls by turning on "accept from links only" so your dwarves only haul out the bones and not the trash.

Note: Try to use raising bridges as the door for each pit, kobold body parts tend to get mixed into the grinders which can lock-pick its way out of doors and result in doors with "door taken by intruder" and a couple hundred zombie body parts overrunning your fortress from the inside (a.k.a fun).

Note: I didn't try this with many building destroyers, but I'm pretty sure the glass windows are safe. Fortifications are not usable since corpses and body parts tend to get tangled up in them and are hard to get out, and spook dwarves trying to clean out the pits.

*Bonus: Use water to clean out the contents of the pits and wash them onto a 1x1 refuse stockpile.

'''Difficulty:''' Hard

'''Usefulness:''' High, and becomes higher the more corpses you have; especially useful for getting something out of necromancer sieges than just useless corpses. Can also be used to recycle dead stray animals and your own dwarves that your dwarves refuse to butcher (don't forget slabs).

==[[Dam]]==
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, or an aquifer located below the river, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fulfill. The power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

*Bonus: Excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley. 
*Bonus: Build a control center to control the water flow. 
*Bonus: Draw your entire energy from a power station within. 
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use screw pumps and another dam to replace the water with magma.

==[[Danger room|Danger Room]]==
A room full of upright spear traps linked to a lever or pressure plate. Teach your dwarves to dodge the pointy sticks!

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium, depending on how you activate the traps.

'''Usefulness''': High. Trains combat skills very quickly, assuming you don't kill anyone.

'''Downside''': Civilians and pets that wander into the danger room will inevitably get killed, even if you use low quality training spears.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Menacing spikes greatly increase the danger, and may help train your medical team (and/or your coffin construction crew).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[adamantine]] spikes! On the plus side, you have a thriving coffin industry going now.

==Day Care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers. Make a room with beds and tables and stuff, then turn it into a burrow, then add all your children to it. Remember to include a food chute to quantum stockpile a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. High quality food, furniture, and socializing should keep them happy. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in various professions like an otherwise vulnerable child, but this is a small trade-off if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway. This is probably obvious, but make sure this room is guarded, otherwise it will turn into a Dwarf Orphanage (with Goblins and Minotaurs welcome!)

'''Difficulty:''' Low. With the invention of burrows, you can designate the Day Care to contain all children, so it is unnecessary to use suicide-booth-micromanagement to contain the children.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Think of the children, they will grow up and enter adult Dwarf life completely unprepared for the [[Fun|things]] [[Dragon|that]] [[Hell|await]] them, having spent their entire lives coddled in a safe room. They might make good nobles however.

==Doberman Bomb==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your frame rate.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to high, depending on the animal you use

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to very high, potentially fortress-saving

*Bonus : Train the dogs inside as war dogs
**DwarfBonus : Use [[giant badger]]s, [[tiger]]s, [[alligator]]s, bears, or anything big and aggressive when tamed
***MegaDwarfBonus : Use [[giant cave spider]]s, [[cave dragon]]s, [[blind cave ogre]]s, crossbow-wielding [[giant desert scorpion]]s, [[jabberer]]s or something really dangerous and rare.
****UltraMagmaArmokBonus : Use one (or more !) of the following list : [[dragon]](s), a [[bronze colossus]](es), a [[forgotten beast]](s) (bonus points for flesh-melting secretions), an [[undead]] [[giant sponge]], or the denizens of the [[Hidden Fun Stuff]].

==[[Drowning chamber]]==
'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untamable animals, or anything else. Just be ready for something that knows how to swim. Also useful for catching fishies.

*Bonus: Utilize lava.
*Bonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Edit the raws and do both.

==[[Computing|Dwarfputer]] Complex==
A big mess of [[fluid logic|fluid]], [[machine logic|machine]], and/or [[creature logic|creature]] logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics and architects will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do<s> and makes them stronger</s> (in 31.25 only military work increases stats, I was really disappointed after 4 years of nonstop pumping only to see weak in urist description). Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes and building destroyers enter your computer.
*Bonus: Use lava.
**Doombonus: Use lava ''and'' build it so that building destroyers that enter the complex get killed by the mechanisms they destroy.
***SelfRepairingbonus: Use both lava and water and implement the building destroyer killing system, but modify it so it's self-repairing, filling up broken spaces with obsidian.

==Dwarven Apartment Complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[megaprojects]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your ☼5-star service☼).

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to fun by water. Additionally, if you have the time and resources to train a sizable force of marksdwarves, placing a few "security rooms" (with barracks, ammunition store, ration cache, armory, etc) at appropriate floors, complete with fortified balconies, will allow you to take advantage of the higher vantage point.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Extend the tower to have levels below ground as well as above.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Make the whole construction out of clear glass. (privacy? Whatever for?)

==Dwarven Courtyards==
Dig large shafts [first dig the staircase to the desired depth, digging out the size you want the shaft to be on all layers. Channel the outer later, then install supports on the base floor. Link the support to a trigger, clear everyone out, destroy the remaining staircase and pull the trigger] then cover them in glass, creating an indoor but light area that will keep dwarves from being irritated and nauseated by the sun, also improving general happiness and allowing close proximity to caverns and magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, make sure not to mess up or you will lose your miners

'''Usefullness:''' Medium. creates vertical circulation and brings light to lower levels.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Create a network of self sufficient communities per shaft, allowing them to be sectioned off in case of disaster. (I plan on colonizing HFS eventually on this paradigm, creating a mining team of soldiers to extract, manufacture and ultimately use adamantine products without being connected to the main colony in order to take on the demons while keeping the rest of the burrow safe.)

==Dwarven Disco Ball==
Why waste all those cut gems on things that only some selfish noble will enjoy? Create as large a wall-less sphere as you can, then cover it in Gem Windows of 3 different-colored gems to make it shine! The bigger, and more valuable gems involved (e.g., [[ruby|rubies]], [[sapphire]]s, and [[emerald]]s, or colored diamonds if you're really masochistic), the dwarfier.

'''Difficulty:''' Constructing a sphere is very hard, especially the larger you make one. Gathering enough differently colored gems can also be very hard, depending on stone layers. Trading helps a lot.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. More value can be created by encrusting furniture, and Gem Windows lack quality.

*Bonus: Alternating [[alunite]] and [[obsidian]] tiles to make a 'dance floor'.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use lava contained in glass for illumination.
*UltraDwarfBonus: Caged "[[Elf|dancers]]".

==Dwarven Labor Camp (aka Dwarkuta)==
Create an aboveground walled fortress in a freezing climate with guard towers, barracks, housing, and armories. Dig a long ramp downward and add a large mining network below the surface. Make some small military squads to guard the camp. Designate the lower levels as workshops, and when migrants arrive, assign them to the mines. Give the workers minimal food and only water (no booze, booze is for the hypocritical decadence of Dwarkuta's leaders). Have them haul the stone and metal they mine back to the surface and ship the raw materials off to the Motherland. Import only food, booze, weapons, fuel, and other necessities.

*Bonus: Build the giant digging machines. They don't actually have to dig anything.
*Bonus: Go into the raws and rename the beverage of your choice to "Dwarven Vodka", and drink to the glory of the Motherland!
*MegaBonus: Escape. Wait for a goblin siege, then get everyone underground and block the entrance. Let the goblins in. Wait a few months. The goblins are now the guards you must kill.

Step 1. Secure the keys: Make improvised weapons. If you have obsidian at your disposal, make rock short swords.

Step 2. Ascend from darkness: Get your dwarves out of the mines and into the camp.

Step 3. Rain fire: Use your imagination. Try using magma, if possible.

Step 4. Unleash the horde: Attack!

Step 5. Skewer the winged beast: If the goblins brought a giant bat or other flying creature, kill it.

*Bonus: Use a ballista.

Step 6. Wield a fist of iron: Break open the armory and equip your rebels with armor and weapons.

Step 7. Raise hell: Exactly what it says on the tin.

Step 8. Freedom!

*MegaDwarfBonus: In Adventure mode, try (and probably fail) to lead the prisoners to freedom.

==Dwarven Refrigerator==
Dig down to the 3rd cavern layer and harvest as many [[nether-cap]]s as you can. Make them all into barrels! Nether caps have the unique property of being 10000° Urist, which is 32°F or 0°C. Now your dwarves can enjoy their favorite alcohol, cheese, and plump helmets chilled to perfection! If you've set your population cap very low in the INIT files, caverns aren't extremely dangerous, but you should still be on the lookout for nasties down there. Remember to wall off your entrance to the cavern once you're finished.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to Medium

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Booze stored inside will not perish due to heat if say, [[magma]] is dumped on it.

==Emergency Destruct Stairs==
A tall column of stairs plunging all the way down into the underdark, with a one-tile wide area of thin destructible floor all around it. In case of subterranean invasion, a thrown switch drops a stone O straight down, ringing the staircase and neatly severing all inter-level connections at a blow. Does with one lever and one support what would take dozens of bridges or hundreds of retracting grates.

'''Difficulty:''' Harder than it sounds.

'''Usefulness:''' Sometimes... sometimes they fly.

==Execution Tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

==Flamethrower bunker==
If your fortress happens to be visited by a [[dragon]], capture it in a [[cage trap]], then release it into a sealed bunker with [[fortification]]s around the edge. When invaders arrive, watch them get roasted.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but requires a lot of luck - a dragon (or fire-breathing forgotten beast) needs to survive worldgen, then it needs to attack your fortress (instead of a giant/minotaur/ettin/cyclops or other megabeast), and finally it needs to make it to your cage trap without being killed by something else.

'''Usefulness:''' The dragon will quickly deal with any sieges and megabeasts (aside from [[titan]]s), though it will also set the hillside on fire. Also, any protective bridges in front of the fortifications will melt under sustained fire, leaving you with a bunker that ''nobody'' can safely approach; building the bridges (and mechanisms) from [[adamantine]] (or [[raw adamantine]]) will make them last longer, but '''not''' forever. A nether-cap bridge with a (preferably non-flammable) artifact mechanism should be safe. Additionally, a skilled enemy archer could easily kill your dragon with a lucky shot.

*Bonus: Capture a fire-breathing [[titan]] or [[forgotten beast]] and use it.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Release the denizens of the underworld and use them.

==Flood the World==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate.

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[giant sponge]].

*Bonus: Use magma, just like [[Main:Boatmurdered|Boatmurdered]].
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use trained fish to kill off all creatures not of your colony.
*MegaArmokBonus: Mod the game and do both.

==[[Live training|Gladiator Arena]]==
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp. Variant: build prisoner cages inside the arena, link to a lever outside the arena, lock the soldiers in, and then open the cages.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive. (If the prisoners have weapons, you can remove them by using {{k|d}}-{{k|b}}-{{k|d}} to dump the cage and its contents, then looking at and undumping the cages themselves with {{k|k}}-{{k|d}}).

'''Usefulness:''' Low to High, depending on how long your soldiers can draw out the execution. Equipping your soldiers with wooden training weapons can greatly increase the fun (and/or [[Fun]] if their armor isn't as good as you thought).

*DwarfBonus: Losers get incinerated by Magma.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use your arena as a "trial by fire" for migrants.

==Glass Ceiling==
Sick of having your dwarves vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a glass floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

*PoliticallyIncorrectDwarfBonus: Make it a metaphorical [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_ceiling glass ceiling] and give migrants and women less pay and poorer rooms.

==Greenhouse==
A [[farming|greenhouse]] is just a farm with the the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

*Bonus: Give it a glass floor to allow surface plants even lower down.

==Hammer of [[main:armok|Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quick-smiting.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size and materials, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 attached to a handle extending from your entrance actually works against sieges.

* Bonus: Cover it with blood.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Make it hollow and fill it with Magma
* ArmoksMachineHammerBonus: Set up an automated system that allows you to reset it quickly. Obsidianizers and the magma sea will be your friends here.

==Human Fortress==
Instead of digging a fortress, build above-ground houses. Create walls to keep the nasties out. The only thing you may have underground are mines and stockpiles. Create a huge stone fort for your nobles.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Building stuff will cost you resources instead of gaining them and flyers can be a real pain. Keep several Marksmen handy!

'''Usefulness:''' N/A. (No cave adaptation)

*Bonus: Pave the roads between houses.
*HumanBonus: Dig a moat around your castle.
*MegaHumanBonus: Fill the moat with lava.

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], [[gold]], or [[soap]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends entirely on you.

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge are a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. Burrows help to get the whole crew inside at the same time.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles|Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

*Bonus: Drop the vessel into a deep cavern
*SuperBonus: Make the outer walls, roof and ground floor completely out of glass, so that the explorers can watch everything around them.
*VampireBonus: Send a vampire with the crew!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a halfway-empty adamantine vein
*YouHorribleEvilDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into the [[Hidden Fun Stuff]]!
*youHorribleInsaneDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a glowing chasm.
*OhMyArmokBonus: When you arrive to the bottom of the magma sea, excavate and then create a new community under it!
**OhMyF****ingArmokBonus: Send supplies every year!
**IsThatEvenPossibleBonus: Send a piece of an aquifer down there to provide water! (Mine around a water-producing tile, build the ship around it, then send it!)
**≡MegaDwarfBonus≡: create a high enough tower and drop it into the magma sea to connect the surface and the undersea community!
***☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: create ''two'' towers and use one to send water down there!

==Maze==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful. You can also use the free maze-generating program Daedalus, available [http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/daedalus.htm here] if you're too lazy to come up with your own.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*Bonus: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.
*Bonus: Release a live caged [[minotaur]] into the maze.
*MegaBonus: Make it three-dimensional and [http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/maze/design/index.htm#uni unicursal].

==Magma Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma Cannon==
[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=33837.0 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma Highway==
Magma moves across the map annoyingly slowly, due to its thickness and lack of pressure. But a tunnel several Z-levels high, with magma entering at the top, will flow much faster because the magma's '''falling''' in, not flowing in, and can expand on either Z-level before falling down.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Not hard to make, but cutting open a multi-Z magmafall is [[fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' Medium.

==Magma Mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with the exact same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

*Bonus: Put the coffin at least 20 floors down.
*MegaBonus: Build it in a volcano if possible, and put the coffin at the very bottom of the map

==Magma Sea Colony==

If you cast obsidian around the edges of the magma sea, it is possible to pump out the magma and build a colony in the empty space. Once the colony is built, you can destroy the obsidian walls and refill the magma sea. Note: you cannot cast obsidian on the bottom layer of the magma sea, so building a colony on this layer is nearly, but not quite, impossible (see below).

'''Difficulty:''' High. You need to get water down to each edge of the magma sea, and you need a pump stack to get rid of the magma.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: Build your colony on the floor of the magma sea. This will require draining the sea to the next-to-bottom layer as described above, then dumping enormous amounts of water into the bottom layer to crowd out the magma while simultaneously draining the magma from holes poked in the magma sea floor. Constructions can be built at the border between the water and the magma. See [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128226.0 This forum post] for full, detailed instructions.
* Bonus: Obsidianize the entire magma sea, leaving a single spot to use as a source for pumps. Then proceed to carve your new fortress subsection out of this bounty.

'''Difficulty:''' Insane. The project will take at least ten years of dwarf time and claim many lives.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. You can finally get the last bit of adamantine when you drain the magma sea, and the magma sea floor has a cool twinkly effect.

==[[Mass pitting|Mass Cage Recycling System]]==

Build a [[mass pitting]] system to recycle your cage trap cages quickly.

'''Difficulty:''' Very easy. Requires basic digging and very little time.

'''Usefulness:''' Very. Keeps you from having to build cages before releasing monsters from them. With six hatches you can safely empty out 48 cages very quickly. You can build lots of cage traps without having to worry about emptying each cage individually.

*Bonus: Cover the floor of your pit with cage traps, creating a neverending cycle and giving your dwarves something to do during the long harsh summer when going outside is overly taxing on their stomachs.
*ConcentrationCampBonus: Combine with Pit of Doom below.

==[[Drowning chamber|Mega/Water Drowning Trap-Thing]]==
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire creatures to create a sauna.

==Monumental Statue==
'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*Bonus: Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.
*Dwarfbonus: Give the statue magma eyes.
**HellNo,DwarfsYesBonus: Combine the magma eyes idea with the magma cannon idea above and place the statue just behind (and above) the entrance to your fortress.

==Moses Effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult. The same trick can be used in lieu of a drawbridge, although its practicality as compared to the drawbridge is highly questionable.

==[[Waterfall|Never Ending Shower]]==
Don't you get angry when your dwarves carry enough grime on them to dirty the entire fortress? And how they get infected because of that griminess? Suffer no more! With the Never Ending Shower (NES for short), dwarves will be able to stay (relatively) clean without having to take the time to run for a bath or dirtying your drinking water!

It is easy to understand: use the same instructions as in the Artificial Waterfall, but make it so that the waterfall is somewhere where the dwarves will be going through almost daily--a central stairway works well. It cleans them and gives them happy [[thought]]s for the same price!

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to high. You do have to make sure that dwarves don't try anything funny, and create a drain to draw the dirty water out.

'''Usefulness:''' Incredibly high. Reduces risk of infection and keeps your dwarves happy.

*Bonus: Use an aquifer to get clean water AND drain dirty water.
*Bonus: Use levers to control the NES.
*SuperBonus: Make it work as a trap!
*SuperDuperBonus: Make it work as a trap AND as a recovery system!
*ArmokBonus: Make it so that magma can be poured down, too!

==[[Obsidian farming|Obsidian Factory]]==
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber ''and'' a drowning chamber.

* MegaDwarfBonus: Make the system fully automated using [[computing]] principles.

==Pit o' Doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Traps which menace with spikes are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally. If high enough, you may be able to recover [[bone]]s from creatures your dwarves refuse to [[butcher]].

==Pressure Washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and pushes anything in the way of the flow away. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here.]

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested in version 0.28.181.40d with 50 recruits standing in front of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

* Bonus: Fill it with Magma instead (though Magma doesn't pressurize).

==Rehabilitation Centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

* MegaDwarfBonus: Points for making every other dwarf drink water and sleep on cheap beds.

==Road of the Damned==
Create a giant channel filled with spike traps, 10 tiles wide and going all the way from your fort to the map edge. Pave it over with crystal glass so traders can get that foreboding feeling that'll make them seal the deal without bargaining too hard!

'''Difficulty:''' Low-mid, depending on the rarity of crystal glass.

'''Usefulness:'''Low. The same as a normal road.

* Bonus: Spike a goblin on every trap!

==Sectorized World==
Divide the world edges into multiple sectors and then gate access to each one separately. This allows you to protect your fortress from sieges whilst keeping access to most of the outside world and allowing most traders into and out of the fortress (those unfortunate enough to enter the world from the same direction as the siegers may be screwed, of course). For bonus points, build separate gateable access routes for each sector. For further bonus points, design your fortress so that you can simultaneously allow access to traders ''at the same time'' as siegers are exposed to your defensive mechanisms.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, unless you allow separate access routes for each sector in which case high.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate, increasing with each bonus you fill. Mostly for those who want to build the best possible defenses. Can also double as a means of easily trapping wild animals.

==Self-contained Vampire-based Factory==
Take advantage of the independence of vampires by building a self-contained factory. The best industries are those that require no special raw materials-- a factory containing both a magma glass furnace and a sand tile, for instance, would work well, as would a clay industry, but if you're feeling ambitious, consider building a vampire into your [[giant cave spider|GCS]] [[silk farm]]-- if you happen to have scored an [[undead]] GCS, your vampire won't even spook! You can treat your factory as a piggy bank to be broken into as needed, or for perfect fire-and-forget action, build a dropping [[User:Vasiln/Undump|undump]] into the factory, and the vampire will deliver the output to your front door.

'''Difficulty:''' The only hard part is getting yourself a [[vampire]].

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many green glass blocks you plan on using.

==Self Destruct Lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely fun.

'''Usefulness:''' Could serve as kind of a last revenge on a goblin siege, but also highly amusing. If done properly it can make reclaim easier.

* DorfBonus: Make it have a timer before your fortress self destructs. You can do this with a water channel, or if you're particularly technical, make a [[Computing|seven segment display]].
** For bonus Dwarfy-ness, make the timer be the depth number of the magma or water that will actually trigger your fortress' destruction.
* Bonus: Build your fortress high above ground, connect the fortress to a roof through just one support and have the system, when activated, drop the whole construction into the magma sea, destroying the whole thing permanently.

==Shark Catcher==
Capture of [[Bull shark|sharks]] or [[Carp|other]], [[Sturgeon|dangerous fish]] achieved by making an artificial bay, filling it with [[Cage trap|cage traps]], opening the floodgate to the sea or river and some sort of drainage system, likely pumps and/or floodgates.
'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium as drowning while setting up is very possible with bad planning.

'''Usefulness''': Low, purely aesthetic, but very cool to have a shark infested moat (Potentially kills invaders).

==[[Silk farming|Silk Farming]]==
Capture a web-slinger (generally a [[giant cave spider]]) and build a farm to efficiently harvest its [[silk]].

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium; the hardest part is generally catching the web-spinner.

'''Usefulness''': Medium to High. Provides an endless supply of potentially-valuable [[silk]] cloth and rapidly [[cross-training|cross-trains]] [[weaver]]s.

==[[Skyfort|Sky Fortress]]==

Thanks to a quirk in dwarven [[physics]], the sky can be used to provide limited support to your fortress. Specifically, a solid vertical column that reaches the top of the sky level will not collapse, but it will also no longer support neighboring tiles horizontally. In order to retain vertical support, passable areas are carved with up/down stairways. [[Obsidian]] casting is necessary to allow these stairways to be added on top of existing [[building]]s (like [[furniture]] and [[workshop]]s). Unsupported glass [[window]]s can be used to plug any holes, such as those required below magma workshops.

Please [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=133968.0 refer to the forum thread] for full details.

'''Difficulty''': High; constructing a [[skyfort]] approaches a [[megaprojects|megaproject]].

'''Usefulness''': Low to Medium. Automatically isolates your fortress from all but [[flying]] foes. While it is possible to achieve the same effect on the ground and underground, changes to enemy siege mechanics (specifically, digging and jumping) may increase the defensive value of a floating fortress.

==Steamed Vegetables==
Make a pot and drop <s>elves</s> vegetables in from about three levels up. This makes it so the vegetables do not <s>run</s> get overcooked. Proceed to bask the vegetables in [[steam]].

'''Difficulty''': Medium. Can be annoying to boil some water.

'''Usefulness''': Great way to make friends with the merchants.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Add <s>goblins</s> seasoning.
*ArmokDoubleBonus: Use [[magma mist]].

==[[Swimming]] pool==
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though. Though if you utilize a '''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform, this is a priceless necessity.

==[[Tree farming|Underground Forest]]==
Break into an underground cavern, make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium - need to dig out a suitably large area, then find a way of introducing water to the area and subsequently draining or evaporating it.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size (bigger is better) as well as proximity to wood stockpiles. A tree farm outside the caverns can grow trees from all 3 layers, and you'll never have to worry about hostile creatures threatening your wood cutters.

==Underground Perpetual Motion Power Plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times. Note: Incredibly easy with an aquifer.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater Statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water source smooth and engrave the walls and floors than fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam! underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

*Bonus: Build it on area with trees and shrubs; make walls from ice or use windows; fill it with fish and merfolk; now you'll get a big aquarium
*Note: It doesn't count if you accidentally flood your fortress and wind up with one of these. It does count if one of your nobles has an unfortunate accident in their sculpture garden.

==U.R.I.S.T. Artificial Intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriend him/her.

In order to ensure that your A.I. doesn't find sleep interfering with crucial lever pulling, you might consider incorporating an alarm clock. If a goblin siege turns up on your doorstep, a single external lever to dump 7/7 of water on the sleeping A.I. might well save your fortress (and is so much cooler than having backup levers in your meeting hall).

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
*A.R.M.O.K. - '''A'''ll-'''R'''eaching '''M'''achine '''O'''f '''K'''illing
*A.S.S. - '''A'''lmost-autonomous '''S'''ystems '''S'''elector
*C.A.T. - '''C'''reepy '''A'''utonomous '''T'''echnology
*D.E.E.P.E.R. - '''D'''warf of '''E'''ngineering the '''E'''ldritch and '''P'''ractical '''E'''xploitation of '''R'''esources''
*D.I.E.D. - '''D'''edicated '''I'''rrigation and '''E'''verything else '''D'''warf(s)
*D.O.M.E.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perated '''M'''echanics and '''E'''ngineering '''S'''ystem
*D.O.R.F. - '''D'''oes '''O'''rders '''R'''ather '''F'''ast
*D.O.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*D.W.A.R.F. - '''D'''rains '''W'''ater '''A'''nd '''R'''ecruits '''F'''armers
*G.L.A.D.O.S. - '''G'''enetic '''L'''ifeform '''A'''nd '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*H.A.L. - '''H'''airy '''A'''lternate '''L'''ifeform
*M.A.G.M.A. - '''M'''assively '''A'''lcoholic '''G'''ear-'''M'''achine '''A'''ssembly
*N.O.B.L.E. - '''N'''arcissistic '''O'''bnoxious '''B'''oastful '''L'''aughable '''E'''xcrement
*P.O.T.A.T.O. - '''P'''ossibly '''O'''rganic '''T'''echnically '''A'''live '''T'''rash '''O'''mitted
*U.R.I.S.T. - '''U'''nderground '''R'''easonably '''I'''ntelligent '''S'''ettlement '''T'''echnologist
*V.A.C.A.T.E.D. - '''V'''ampire '''A'''ssisted '''C'''omputerized '''A'''ssembly '''T'''errorizes '''E'''xtra-'''D'''warves
*V.O.D.A.P.H.O.N.E. - '''V'''ampire '''O'''perated '''D'''efence '''A'''pparatus, '''P'''erpetrating '''H'''arm '''O'''f '''N'''efarious '''E'''ntities (See Bonus for more information)


'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

Bonus: Make the A.I. dwarf a vampire. Vampires don't need food, alcohol, or sleep and cannot age, which makes them perfect for the job. As an added bonus, keeping a vampire in this way will make your fortress completely indestructible, as sealing him in will prevent the possibility of the vampire of being killed in combat or from a syndrome, while keeping the vampire from making friends he will inevitably outlive will prevent him from going insane. (It also ensures that the bloodsucker won't use any of your dwarves as a midnight snack.) NOTE: Vampires may still go insane without any blood. Might be worth considering adding on a 3rd "feeding chamber" where you assign an unfortunate victim to sleep whenever the vampire gets hungry.

===D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P.===

Dwarven Organic Switch Toggle, Neutered Gastrectomied Overpersistent Sober Prisoner. Goblins have several advantages over dwarves in the lever pulling department: they live forever, do not breed or tantrum, and need not eat, drink, or sleep. Seal one or more goblins in your supercomputer complex, and use their predictable pathing in combination with instantly lockable doors and pressure plates to make dwarven lever pulling a thing of an older, less advanced era.

Also known by several product names:
*G.O.B.L.I.N.A.T.O.R. - '''G'''oblin '''O'''perated '''B'''astion of '''L'''ogic to '''I'''nfalliably '''N'''eutralize '''A'''ntiquated '''T'''ypes of '''O'''perational '''R'''egimes
*N.G.O.K.A.N.G. - '''N'''efarious '''G'''oblin '''O'''f '''K'''illing '''A'''nd '''N'''eedless '''G'''riping
*S.T.O.Z.U. - '''S'''ecret '''T'''echnological '''O'''perative who '''Z'''aps '''U'''nruly Nobles

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. While goblin pressure plate runners require more space than dwarven lever pullers, once their room is set up, it's done, and easily copied for the next one. With only one goblin, you'll need a pressure plate for every possible combination of lever states, but it's easy to add more goblins instead.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Instant response time (<50 ticks is possible) can make lever worries a thing of the past. The D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P. requires absolutely no maintenance once set up. Unlike with the U.R.I.S.Ts of the previous generation, modern POW-based computing is never held hostage to eating, drinking, or breaks. Stay tuned for the next-generation C.A.C.A.M.E.!

==Vomitorium==
[[Image:Vomit_Trail.png‎|thumb|right|Vomitoria: preventing cave adaptation since [[23a:Vomit|23a]].]]

Prevents [[cave adaptation]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's a [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it. Variant: above-ground statue garden or zoo.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in or it will become very [[Fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "'''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform" chamber, or HELP (so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most <s>Dwarves</s> enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death. It is recommend that with the exception of the entrance you use stairs.

*Bonus: Utilize vampires (who can't drown).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Engineer it so that it performs a full cycle on one activation of a pressure plate and include that pressure plate as a part of the patrol route, then create a reverse Watervator and also include it as a part of same patrol route, so that your militia automatically uses it to get in and out the fortress.

==Zombie Thunderdome==
Embark in an Evil biome in the current version (preferably savage as well), find or dig a deep pit, and dump any unused (non-dorf) corpses and butchery products into it. They will animate and begin to walk around, providing you with the endless entertainment afforded by watching horse hair walk. Make sure the pit is deep enough not to scare your dwarves!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Keeping your fort safe from the threat of animated beak dog beaks is worth any price. However, [[DF2012:Defense guide|there may be better things]] [[DF2012:Mega construction|to do with your time]].

*Bonus: Set up a series of [[bridge|defenses]] that drop invaders into the pit.
*DwarfBonus: Set up a series of bridges and walls that flings invaders into the pit.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop a Megabeast into the pit and watch it do battle with multiple layers of undead.
{{Category|Design}}

==single-Lever Emergency Lockdown (LEL)==

The only real requirement is that you need a fort based around a central stairwell. All you need to do is leave space for and eventually build 1*(length of your stairwell) bridges (that raise!) on each side of your stairwell on every level, and then link them all to the same lever. Friends get through all your best traps and champions? Simply pull the lever, and they're trapped in the central stairwell forever! Remember to roof off the entrance if your fort is situated on flat land otherwise the bonuses become much less useful. Also important is to ensure that you either wall off access or include sealable bridges or doors (linked to the same lever of course) for any inter-level paths that bypass the main stairwell, like vertical axles running out of centralised power generators.

3*3 stairwell setup:

{{diagram|1=
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
[#6ff]╥XXX[#6ff]╥
[#6ff]║XXX[#6ff]║
[#6ff]╨XXX[#6ff]╨
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
}}

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to High, depending on whether you use the MegaDwarfBonus below or not and how much you spread your fortress over the layers - although more spread means more usefulness. Extremely time-consuming, and requires architects, masons, and mechanics, as well as a lot of mechanisms (2 per bridge, ~4 bridges per level)

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to High, also depending on whether you use the Bonuses. With all bonuses applied it becomes a guaranteed last resort way of destroying the toughest enemies with minimal dwarven casualties; without the bonuses it's still a damn sight better than letting temporarily victorious enemies run freely about your fortress.

*DwarfBonus: Connect your cistern to the stairwell (remember to put a floodgate in too). Once the impossible-to-defeat enemies are safely trapped inside, Pull lever number 2 and watch them slowly, slowly, drown (VERY IMPORTANT: have the level of the cistern input at at least the same height as the level of the stairwell, else there won't be enough pressure to properly flood the stairwell, meaning nasties WILL survive).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Connect your MAGMA cistern to the stairwell. Laugh maniacally. (Remember to build your bridges and floodgates out of magma-safe material or a lot of !!FUN!! will be had)
*MegaArmokEntombmentBonus: Do both and cast your enemies in obsidian and boil the survivors in steam as a semi-permanent testament to their foolhardiness. This also means that you will have stairs cut out of lovely obsidian once your miners are finished making your stairwell usable again.
*MegaArmokEntombmentEXTREME+Bonus: "Forget" to pull the lockdown lever before you pull lever number 2.

v0.34:Stupid dwarf trick

2014-01-14T21:19:32Z

Coolthulhu: /* Greenhouse */

{{Quality|Superior|22:52, 11 September 2013 (UTC)}}
{{av}}

{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount of time and effort - often for little or no practical benefit. They exist primarily as a challenge for experienced players.

==Adventure Mode Fortress==

Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a smörgåsbord of masterpiece adamantine weapons and armor. Possibly both. Breaching the [[caverns]] or [[hidden fun stuff]] should ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' None for fortress mode, but filling it with high-quality equipment can certainly be useful for adventure mode.

==Alarm Clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Limited. They'll sleep through <s>'''anything'''</s> the noise. Although they have been known to awaken when drenched in water, possibly due to thinking it's alcohol, making an alarm clock is not impossible, if carefully prepared.

==Alphabet Cages==
[[Image:Cage.gif|right]]
Use captured monsters in cages to spell messages.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Vowels are hard to come by.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely none whatsoever. (Easy reminders in case you're too lazy to use notes?)

==Altar of Armok==

Build a large altar made out of adamantine, clear glass, magma, and obsidian. The main altar should be hollow adamantine with clear glass "windows." It should have magma inside. The altar should be adorned with large obsidian spikes, at it pleases Armok.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium

'''Usefulness:''' Depends how many bonuses you add.

*Bonus: Guard the ALTAR with a megabeast.
*Bonus: Cover the ALTAR with blood of a Titan.
**MegaBonus: Cover the ALTAR with blood of a denizen of the HFS.
***ArmokBonus: Build the ALTAR in the HFS.
*MegaBonus: Cover the ALTAR in a temporarily lasting strength inducing extract.
*BerserkBonus: Cover the ALTAR in a nausea-inducing extract.
*BloodBonus: Also cover the ALTAR in a extract inducing slow death.
**SychronizationBonus: Make it so that a dwarf that goes into contact with the ALTAR dies the moment the strength runs out.
*SacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a dwarf to the ALTAR every day.
**MegaSacrificailBonus: Sacrifice an elf to the ALTAR every day.
**HistorySacrificialBonus: Sacrifice a human to the ALTAR every day
***MegaArmokBonus: Sacrifice all three species to the ALTAR every day!
*MonarchBonus: Build the ALTAR in the monarch's throne room! Yes, this stacks with the ArmokBonus up above.

==Aqueduct Power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels. Aquifers will absorb any amount of water at any rate. Using an aquifer as drain for the reservoir will nullify the risk of flooding the fortress due to the drain not keeping up with the supply.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Aquifer Power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheel.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. The lowly windmill pales in utility compared to a waterwheel.

==Archaeological Excavation==
A Fortress in the Caverns, built by the first dwarf tribes. Build the Fortress however you see fit for those prehistoric Dwarves (i.e. only primitive metals, elaborate tombs for the chieftains with burial objects, cave art, etc.) and abandon it. Then, embark with modern Dwarves, and excavate the ancient Fortress. Sort of like the Adventure Fortress above, only for Reclaim Mode

'''Difficulty:''' As High as you want.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

*Bonus: A Museum detailing the lives of those early dwarves
*DwarfBonus: Some of those early dwarves frozen in a block of ice

==Artificial [[Waterfall]]==
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]]. Alternatively, an [[aquifer]], or other limitless water source, makes for a waterfall entirely underground.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate (Low if there is an aquifer above pouring down).

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower frame rate.

*Bonus: Build it in a "Warm" or hotter [[climate]] so it does not freeze.
*DwarfBonus: Build it in a freezing/cold/temperate climate and keep it going entire year!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[magma]]. It does not freeze, even in a freezing climate!
*MegaDwarfBonusEXTREME+: Use magma and water in the same waterfall. The results will enshrine you in dwarf history! Possibly permanently.

==[[Ballista]] Battery==
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly-trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bastion==
Construct an isolated burrow containing a farmer and some labourers, containing at least an uncontaminated well (an [[aquifer]] is great for this) and some farms. Use whatever elaborate mechanism you wish to seal it off from the rest of the fortress. Congratulations; your bastioned dwarves and their descendants will keep your fortress alive forever until one of them goes nuts.

* Bonus: Build your bastion at least in part in a clay or sand layer, connect to magma (using a fortification in the channel to stop those annoying fireproof creatures from sneaking in), and continue manufacturing useless crap even as the world crumbles around you!
* Bonus: Build it on top of a tower outside, and then deconstruct the stairs up.
* Bonus: Fill it exclusively with vampires, to avoid having to worry about food, children, and aging.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Hollow out a shell around your bastion, connecting it to the rest of the cavern by a single 1x1 adamantine support, and flood the shell with magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' High. If your bastioned dwarves have high enough quality living space and few enough nonbastioned friends, it makes the fortress functionally immortal.

==Bathtub==
Stop dwarves from hauling in tons of exotic, poisonous sludges into your fortress by creating a tub filled with 3/7 water that everyone has to get through to enter the fortress. Include a system to change the water, so that they don't bathe in grime.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate

'''Usefulness:''' Low in most cases. High in some evil areas.

* DwarfBonus: Make it drain and refill itself with clean water automatically once in a year.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Clean it with magma.
* *MegaDwarfBonus*: Have an alternative bathtub-buffered entrance next to the main one, which opens automatically when cauterizing the main one and closes and cauterizes itself when it is no longer needed, so that no jobs are canceled during cleansing cycle.
* ≡MegaDwarfBonus≡ : Make it clean itself with magma automatically once in a year, but make it wait for the moment when it's unused, so that no dwarves or pets are incinerated.
* ☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: All of the above, plus make it detect when there should be no dwarves or pets around, but invaders are in it, so that the cleansing cycle can be started prematurely.

==Bolt Splitting Operation==
One curious property of Dwarven Physics is that a bar of metal makes 25 bolts, but if each of those 25 bolts is melted separately, they will become 2.5 bars, generating metal from nothing. Prior to the modification that allowed splitting stacks at the [[trade depot]], the difficult part was separating the stacks of bolts into individual bolts without destroying them. EliDupree originally discovered this trick:
{{diagram|spaces=yes|color=#888|\
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
∙++++[#05F]☻∙+++++++++
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+∙[#F00]g∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#FF0]@
∙+∙∙∙[#0A0]┼∙+++++++++++++[#BBB]╬[#BBB]╬
∙+++++∙+++++++++
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
}}

The yellow @ at the right is a stack of marksdwarves (all in different squads so that they'll stand on the same tile) equipped with [[adamantine]] bolts, standing on top of a stairway surrounded by [[fortification]]s. The blue ☻ at the left is a single [[Attributes#Agility|Perfectly Agile]] soldier with orders to patrol up and down the line of green doors, with little delays at the top and bottom. (The doors are free-standing; they were built attached to a wall, then the wall was removed.) The "g" at the left is a goblin standing on a pillar (pitted from the z-level above).

When the dwarf at the left runs up or down the line of doors, it opens all of them, and some of the marksdwarves loose their bolts. By the time the bolts get there, the doors have closed, so they hit the doors and fall into the channel, where they can be collected and melted separately. (That distance is exact, by the way. Any less and they sometimes get shots through the doors, which kills your goblin. Also, with less-skilled marksdwarves, some of the bolts will stray and land on the floors, but that isn't enough to worry about even with mere dabblers.) Naturally, this is also an excellent way to train marksdwarves.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate. The hardest part is keeping the system running reliably.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate. While there are certainly [[Exploit#Infinite_Adamantine_.2F_Metals|easier ways to generate adamantine]], this is perhaps the most dwarfy.

*Bonus: Build a [[repeater]] to open and close the doors automatically.

==Break the Dam (Release the River!)==
Dam a river (or brook) using something non-permanent (floodgates, drawbridges) and build your fortress entrance in the now dry river bed, make sure you can seal it off nicely (floodgates anyone?) then wait till the first Goblin siege, let them get to your entrance floodgates, seal them, open the dam and laugh manically

'''Difficulty:''' Low

'''Usefulness:''' Instantaneous death to all sieges

*DwarfBonus: Use magma.

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that opens outwards, to fling enemies away. Ideally, they land in a very nasty place.

'''Difficulty:''' The hard part is the nasty place they get flung to.

'''Usefulness:''' There are far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

==Corpse processing facility==
With the help of a necromancer, corpses your dwarves refuse to butcher can be brought back to life and re-killed to yield bones and skulls for your bonecarvers if they are mushed up enough.

1. The simplest way to do this is with the help of height. A 1x1 pit with a minecart stop that dumps corpses down the chute, and several alternating [[floor hatch]]es that close and open (linked to a repeater) with necromancers behind windows overlooking each layer of hatches to revive the bits of corpses. 2 windows with a mechanism controlled door in between, in front of each necromancer group can be used to control vision; but the system can only be stopped by unlinking the minecart dump to the refuse pile in your routes. Note: when I built this I had 3 hatches with 6 necromancers overlooking each (I had plenty of them since I embarked close to 4 towers). Revived corpses drop to their death and explode onto a tile with unright spikes linked (note that some of them will survive, so you need the spikes with a repeater or lever). The corpses that explode from the impact of height (or from other body parts/undead crashing into them) will hopefully yield bones. You make choose to re-haul up the body parts for another round, but only body parts still attached to a grasping part or the head will be revived, and this system isn't very efficient in the first place, so it may not be worth the trouble. Note that whole corpses usually yield 5-8 bones upon death (avg 6), arms only yield 1-4 (avg 2). You may also use this system with or without necromancers and pit live [[goblin]]s into it, they usually yield 6 bones and some body parts.

2. The second way is much more efficient than the first, but requires 1 or more [[artifact]] [[mechanisms]] to make it work. Instead of using height to kill the corpses, a weapon trap with a artifact mechanism and 10 serrated blades of any material can be used instead (since artifact mechanisms never jam). Only 1 necromancer is needed for this method, and is positioned 3 tiles away from the weapon trap, overlooking it behind 2 glass windows with a mechanism [[door]] in between to control its vision. Your 1x1 pit should still be 5 tiles deep at least though, to prevent dwarves being spooked by the revived corpses. When you're ready, link up the route to the minecart and watch body parts revive and slowly get mowed down. It's recommended you have more than 1 of these small pits set up so you can grind more corpses and clear out 1 pit at a time while the others keep grinding.

Note: To clear out pits, turn off all refuse stockpiles that accept anything other than bones and skulls by turning on "accept from links only" so your dwarves only haul out the bones and not the trash.

Note: Try to use raising bridges as the door for each pit, kobold body parts tend to get mixed into the grinders which can lock-pick its way out of doors and result in doors with "door taken by intruder" and a couple hundred zombie body parts overrunning your fortress from the inside (a.k.a fun).

Note: I didn't try this with many building destroyers, but I'm pretty sure the glass windows are safe. Fortifications are not usable since corpses and body parts tend to get tangled up in them and are hard to get out, and spook dwarves trying to clean out the pits.

*Bonus: Use water to clean out the contents of the pits and wash them onto a 1x1 refuse stockpile.

'''Difficulty:''' Hard

'''Usefulness:''' High, and becomes higher the more corpses you have; especially useful for getting something out of necromancer sieges than just useless corpses. Can also be used to recycle dead stray animals and your own dwarves that your dwarves refuse to butcher (don't forget slabs).

==[[Dam]]==
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, or an aquifer located below the river, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fulfill. The power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

*Bonus: Excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley. 
*Bonus: Build a control center to control the water flow. 
*Bonus: Draw your entire energy from a power station within. 
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use screw pumps and another dam to replace the water with magma.

==[[Danger room|Danger Room]]==
A room full of upright spear traps linked to a lever or pressure plate. Teach your dwarves to dodge the pointy sticks!

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium, depending on how you activate the traps.

'''Usefulness''': High. Trains combat skills very quickly, assuming you don't kill anyone.

'''Downside''': Civilians and pets that wander into the danger room will inevitably get killed, even if you use low quality training spears.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Menacing spikes greatly increase the danger, and may help train your medical team (and/or your coffin construction crew).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[adamantine]] spikes! On the plus side, you have a thriving coffin industry going now.

==Day Care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers. Make a room with beds and tables and stuff, then turn it into a burrow, then add all your children to it. Remember to include a food chute to quantum stockpile a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. High quality food, furniture, and socializing should keep them happy. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in various professions like an otherwise vulnerable child, but this is a small trade-off if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway. This is probably obvious, but make sure this room is guarded, otherwise it will turn into a Dwarf Orphanage (with Goblins and Minotaurs welcome!)

'''Difficulty:''' Low. With the invention of burrows, you can designate the Day Care to contain all children, so it is unnecessary to use suicide-booth-micromanagement to contain the children.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Think of the children, they will grow up and enter adult Dwarf life completely unprepared for the [[Fun|things]] [[Dragon|that]] [[Hell|await]] them, having spent their entire lives coddled in a safe room. They might make good nobles however.

==Doberman Bomb==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your frame rate.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to high, depending on the animal you use

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to very high, potentially fortress-saving

*Bonus : Train the dogs inside as war dogs
**DwarfBonus : Use [[giant badger]]s, [[tiger]]s, [[alligator]]s, bears, or anything big and aggressive when tamed
***MegaDwarfBonus : Use [[giant cave spider]]s, [[cave dragon]]s, [[blind cave ogre]]s, crossbow-wielding [[giant desert scorpion]]s, [[jabberer]]s or something really dangerous and rare.
****UltraMagmaArmokBonus : Use one (or more !) of the following list : [[dragon]](s), a [[bronze colossus]](es), a [[forgotten beast]](s) (bonus points for flesh-melting secretions), an [[undead]] [[giant sponge]], or the denizens of the [[Hidden Fun Stuff]].

==[[Drowning chamber]]==
'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untamable animals, or anything else. Just be ready for something that knows how to swim. Also useful for catching fishies.

*Bonus: Utilize lava.
*Bonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Edit the raws and do both.

==[[Computing|Dwarfputer]] Complex==
A big mess of [[fluid logic|fluid]], [[machine logic|machine]], and/or [[creature logic|creature]] logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics and architects will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do<s> and makes them stronger</s> (in 31.25 only military work increases stats, I was really disappointed after 4 years of nonstop pumping only to see weak in urist description). Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes and building destroyers enter your computer.
*Bonus: Use lava.
**Doombonus: Use lava ''and'' build it so that building destroyers that enter the complex get killed by the mechanisms they destroy.
***SelfRepairingbonus: Use both lava and water and implement the building destroyer killing system, but modify it so it's self-repairing, filling up broken spaces with obsidian.

==Dwarven Apartment Complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[megaprojects]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your ☼5-star service☼).

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to fun by water. Additionally, if you have the time and resources to train a sizable force of marksdwarves, placing a few "security rooms" (with barracks, ammunition store, ration cache, armory, etc) at appropriate floors, complete with fortified balconies, will allow you to take advantage of the higher vantage point.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Extend the tower to have levels below ground as well as above.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Make the whole construction out of clear glass. (privacy? Whatever for?)

==Dwarven Courtyards==
Dig large shafts [first dig the staircase to the desired depth, digging out the size you want the shaft to be on all layers. Channel the outer later, then install supports on the base floor. Link the support to a trigger, clear everyone out, destroy the remaining staircase and pull the trigger] then cover them in glass, creating an indoor but light area that will keep dwarves from being irritated and nauseated by the sun, also improving general happiness and allowing close proximity to caverns and magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, make sure not to mess up or you will lose your miners

'''Usefullness:''' Medium. creates vertical circulation and brings light to lower levels.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Create a network of self sufficient communities per shaft, allowing them to be sectioned off in case of disaster. (I plan on colonizing HFS eventually on this paradigm, creating a mining team of soldiers to extract, manufacture and ultimately use adamantine products without being connected to the main colony in order to take on the demons while keeping the rest of the burrow safe.)

==Dwarven Disco Ball==
Why waste all those cut gems on things that only some selfish noble will enjoy? Create as large a wall-less sphere as you can, then cover it in Gem Windows of 3 different-colored gems to make it shine! The bigger, and more valuable gems involved (e.g., [[ruby|rubies]], [[sapphire]]s, and [[emerald]]s, or colored diamonds if you're really masochistic), the dwarfier.

'''Difficulty:''' Constructing a sphere is very hard, especially the larger you make one. Gathering enough differently colored gems can also be very hard, depending on stone layers. Trading helps a lot.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. More value can be created by encrusting furniture, and Gem Windows lack quality.

*Bonus: Alternating [[alunite]] and [[obsidian]] tiles to make a 'dance floor'.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use lava contained in glass for illumination.
*UltraDwarfBonus: Caged "[[Elf|dancers]]".

==Dwarven Labor Camp (aka Dwarkuta)==
Create an aboveground walled fortress in a freezing climate with guard towers, barracks, housing, and armories. Dig a long ramp downward and add a large mining network below the surface. Make some small military squads to guard the camp. Designate the lower levels as workshops, and when migrants arrive, assign them to the mines. Give the workers minimal food and only water (no booze, booze is for the hypocritical decadence of Dwarkuta's leaders). Have them haul the stone and metal they mine back to the surface and ship the raw materials off to the Motherland. Import only food, booze, weapons, fuel, and other necessities.

*Bonus: Build the giant digging machines. They don't actually have to dig anything.
*Bonus: Go into the raws and rename the beverage of your choice to "Dwarven Vodka", and drink to the glory of the Motherland!
*MegaBonus: Escape. Wait for a goblin siege, then get everyone underground and block the entrance. Let the goblins in. Wait a few months. The goblins are now the guards you must kill.

Step 1. Secure the keys: Make improvised weapons. If you have obsidian at your disposal, make rock short swords.

Step 2. Ascend from darkness: Get your dwarves out of the mines and into the camp.

Step 3. Rain fire: Use your imagination. Try using magma, if possible.

Step 4. Unleash the horde: Attack!

Step 5. Skewer the winged beast: If the goblins brought a giant bat or other flying creature, kill it.

*Bonus: Use a ballista.

Step 6. Wield a fist of iron: Break open the armory and equip your rebels with armor and weapons.

Step 7. Raise hell: Exactly what it says on the tin.

Step 8. Freedom!

*MegaDwarfBonus: In Adventure mode, try (and probably fail) to lead the prisoners to freedom.

==Dwarven Refrigerator==
Dig down to the 3rd cavern layer and harvest as many [[nether-cap]]s as you can. Make them all into barrels! Nether caps have the unique property of being 10000° Urist, which is 32°F or 0°C. Now your dwarves can enjoy their favorite alcohol, cheese, and plump helmets chilled to perfection! If you've set your population cap very low in the INIT files, caverns aren't extremely dangerous, but you should still be on the lookout for nasties down there. Remember to wall off your entrance to the cavern once you're finished.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to Medium

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Booze stored inside will not perish due to heat if say, [[magma]] is dumped on it.

==Emergency Destruct Stairs==
A tall column of stairs plunging all the way down into the underdark, with a one-tile wide area of thin destructible floor all around it. In case of subterranean invasion, a thrown switch drops a stone O straight down, ringing the staircase and neatly severing all inter-level connections at a blow. Does with one lever and one support what would take dozens of bridges or hundreds of retracting grates.

'''Difficulty:''' Harder than it sounds.

'''Usefulness:''' Sometimes... sometimes they fly.

==Execution Tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

==Flamethrower bunker==
If your fortress happens to be visited by a [[dragon]], capture it in a [[cage trap]], then release it into a sealed bunker with [[fortification]]s around the edge. When invaders arrive, watch them get roasted.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but requires a lot of luck - a dragon (or fire-breathing forgotten beast) needs to survive worldgen, then it needs to attack your fortress (instead of a giant/minotaur/ettin/cyclops or other megabeast), and finally it needs to make it to your cage trap without being killed by something else.

'''Usefulness:''' The dragon will quickly deal with any sieges and megabeasts (aside from [[titan]]s), though it will also set the hillside on fire. Also, any protective bridges in front of the fortifications will melt under sustained fire, leaving you with a bunker that ''nobody'' can safely approach; building the bridges (and mechanisms) from [[adamantine]] (or [[raw adamantine]]) will make them last longer, but '''not''' forever. A nether-cap bridge with a (preferably non-flammable) artifact mechanism should be safe. Additionally, a skilled enemy archer could easily kill your dragon with a lucky shot.

*Bonus: Capture a fire-breathing [[titan]] or [[forgotten beast]] and use it.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Release the denizens of the underworld and use them.

==Flood the World==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate.

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[giant sponge]].

*Bonus: Use magma, just like [[Main:Boatmurdered|Boatmurdered]].
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use trained fish to kill off all creatures not of your colony.
*MegaArmokBonus: Mod the game and do both.

==[[Live training|Gladiator Arena]]==
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp. Variant: build prisoner cages inside the arena, link to a lever outside the arena, lock the soldiers in, and then open the cages.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive. (If the prisoners have weapons, you can remove them by using {{k|d}}-{{k|b}}-{{k|d}} to dump the cage and its contents, then looking at and undumping the cages themselves with {{k|k}}-{{k|d}}).

'''Usefulness:''' Low to High, depending on how long your soldiers can draw out the execution. Equipping your soldiers with wooden training weapons can greatly increase the fun (and/or [[Fun]] if their armor isn't as good as you thought).

*DwarfBonus: Losers get incinerated by Magma.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use your arena as a "trial by fire" for migrants.

==Glass Ceiling==
Sick of having your dwarves vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a glass floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

*PoliticallyIncorrectDwarfBonus: Make it a metaphorical [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_ceiling glass ceiling] and give migrants and women less pay and poorer rooms.

==Greenhouse==
A [[farming|greenhouse]] is just a farm with the the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

*Bonus: Channel its floor and cast a new obsidian floor back in its place to allow surface plants even lower down. Farms need natural rock (or soil), but casting obsidian doesn't darken the tiles with light on them.

==Hammer of [[main:armok|Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quick-smiting.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size and materials, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 attached to a handle extending from your entrance actually works against sieges.

* Bonus: Cover it with blood.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Make it hollow and fill it with Magma
* ArmoksMachineHammerBonus: Set up an automated system that allows you to reset it quickly. Obsidianizers and the magma sea will be your friends here.

==Human Fortress==
Instead of digging a fortress, build above-ground houses. Create walls to keep the nasties out. The only thing you may have underground are mines and stockpiles. Create a huge stone fort for your nobles.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Building stuff will cost you resources instead of gaining them and flyers can be a real pain. Keep several Marksmen handy!

'''Usefulness:''' N/A. (No cave adaptation)

*Bonus: Pave the roads between houses.
*HumanBonus: Dig a moat around your castle.
*MegaHumanBonus: Fill the moat with lava.

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], [[gold]], or [[soap]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends entirely on you.

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge are a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. Burrows help to get the whole crew inside at the same time.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles|Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

*Bonus: Drop the vessel into a deep cavern
*SuperBonus: Make the outer walls, roof and ground floor completely out of glass, so that the explorers can watch everything around them.
*VampireBonus: Send a vampire with the crew!
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a halfway-empty adamantine vein
*YouHorribleEvilDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into the [[Hidden Fun Stuff]]!
*youHorribleInsaneDwarfBonus: Drop the vessel into a glowing chasm.
*OhMyArmokBonus: When you arrive to the bottom of the magma sea, excavate and then create a new community under it!
**OhMyF****ingArmokBonus: Send supplies every year!
**IsThatEvenPossibleBonus: Send a piece of an aquifer down there to provide water! (Mine around a water-producing tile, build the ship around it, then send it!)
**≡MegaDwarfBonus≡: create a high enough tower and drop it into the magma sea to connect the surface and the undersea community!
***☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: create ''two'' towers and use one to send water down there!

==Maze==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful. You can also use the free maze-generating program Daedalus, available [http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/daedalus.htm here] if you're too lazy to come up with your own.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*Bonus: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.
*Bonus: Release a live caged [[minotaur]] into the maze.
*MegaBonus: Make it three-dimensional and [http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/maze/design/index.htm#uni unicursal].

==Magma Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma Cannon==
[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=33837.0 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma Highway==
Magma moves across the map annoyingly slowly, due to its thickness and lack of pressure. But a tunnel several Z-levels high, with magma entering at the top, will flow much faster because the magma's '''falling''' in, not flowing in, and can expand on either Z-level before falling down.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Not hard to make, but cutting open a multi-Z magmafall is [[fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' Medium.

==Magma Mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with the exact same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

*Bonus: Put the coffin at least 20 floors down.
*MegaBonus: Build it in a volcano if possible, and put the coffin at the very bottom of the map

==Magma Sea Colony==

If you cast obsidian around the edges of the magma sea, it is possible to pump out the magma and build a colony in the empty space. Once the colony is built, you can destroy the obsidian walls and refill the magma sea. Note: you cannot cast obsidian on the bottom layer of the magma sea, so building a colony on this layer is nearly, but not quite, impossible (see below).

'''Difficulty:''' High. You need to get water down to each edge of the magma sea, and you need a pump stack to get rid of the magma.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: Build your colony on the floor of the magma sea. This will require draining the sea to the next-to-bottom layer as described above, then dumping enormous amounts of water into the bottom layer to crowd out the magma while simultaneously draining the magma from holes poked in the magma sea floor. Constructions can be built at the border between the water and the magma. See [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128226.0 This forum post] for full, detailed instructions.
* Bonus: Obsidianize the entire magma sea, leaving a single spot to use as a source for pumps. Then proceed to carve your new fortress subsection out of this bounty.

'''Difficulty:''' Insane. The project will take at least ten years of dwarf time and claim many lives.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. You can finally get the last bit of adamantine when you drain the magma sea, and the magma sea floor has a cool twinkly effect.

==[[Mass pitting|Mass Cage Recycling System]]==

Build a [[mass pitting]] system to recycle your cage trap cages quickly.

'''Difficulty:''' Very easy. Requires basic digging and very little time.

'''Usefulness:''' Very. Keeps you from having to build cages before releasing monsters from them. With six hatches you can safely empty out 48 cages very quickly. You can build lots of cage traps without having to worry about emptying each cage individually.

*Bonus: Cover the floor of your pit with cage traps, creating a neverending cycle and giving your dwarves something to do during the long harsh summer when going outside is overly taxing on their stomachs.
*ConcentrationCampBonus: Combine with Pit of Doom below.

==[[Drowning chamber|Mega/Water Drowning Trap-Thing]]==
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire creatures to create a sauna.

==Monumental Statue==
'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*Bonus: Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.
*Dwarfbonus: Give the statue magma eyes.
**HellNo,DwarfsYesBonus: Combine the magma eyes idea with the magma cannon idea above and place the statue just behind (and above) the entrance to your fortress.

==Moses Effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult. The same trick can be used in lieu of a drawbridge, although its practicality as compared to the drawbridge is highly questionable.

==[[Waterfall|Never Ending Shower]]==
Don't you get angry when your dwarves carry enough grime on them to dirty the entire fortress? And how they get infected because of that griminess? Suffer no more! With the Never Ending Shower (NES for short), dwarves will be able to stay (relatively) clean without having to take the time to run for a bath or dirtying your drinking water!

It is easy to understand: use the same instructions as in the Artificial Waterfall, but make it so that the waterfall is somewhere where the dwarves will be going through almost daily--a central stairway works well. It cleans them and gives them happy [[thought]]s for the same price!

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to high. You do have to make sure that dwarves don't try anything funny, and create a drain to draw the dirty water out.

'''Usefulness:''' Incredibly high. Reduces risk of infection and keeps your dwarves happy.

*Bonus: Use an aquifer to get clean water AND drain dirty water.
*Bonus: Use levers to control the NES.
*SuperBonus: Make it work as a trap!
*SuperDuperBonus: Make it work as a trap AND as a recovery system!
*ArmokBonus: Make it so that magma can be poured down, too!

==[[Obsidian farming|Obsidian Factory]]==
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber ''and'' a drowning chamber.

* MegaDwarfBonus: Make the system fully automated using [[computing]] principles.

==Pit o' Doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Traps which menace with spikes are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally. If high enough, you may be able to recover [[bone]]s from creatures your dwarves refuse to [[butcher]].

==Pressure Washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and pushes anything in the way of the flow away. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here.]

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested in version 0.28.181.40d with 50 recruits standing in front of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

* Bonus: Fill it with Magma instead (though Magma doesn't pressurize).

==Rehabilitation Centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

* MegaDwarfBonus: Points for making every other dwarf drink water and sleep on cheap beds.

==Road of the Damned==
Create a giant channel filled with spike traps, 10 tiles wide and going all the way from your fort to the map edge. Pave it over with crystal glass so traders can get that foreboding feeling that'll make them seal the deal without bargaining too hard!

'''Difficulty:''' Low-mid, depending on the rarity of crystal glass.

'''Usefulness:'''Low. The same as a normal road.

* Bonus: Spike a goblin on every trap!

==Sectorized World==
Divide the world edges into multiple sectors and then gate access to each one separately. This allows you to protect your fortress from sieges whilst keeping access to most of the outside world and allowing most traders into and out of the fortress (those unfortunate enough to enter the world from the same direction as the siegers may be screwed, of course). For bonus points, build separate gateable access routes for each sector. For further bonus points, design your fortress so that you can simultaneously allow access to traders ''at the same time'' as siegers are exposed to your defensive mechanisms.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, unless you allow separate access routes for each sector in which case high.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate, increasing with each bonus you fill. Mostly for those who want to build the best possible defenses. Can also double as a means of easily trapping wild animals.

==Self-contained Vampire-based Factory==
Take advantage of the independence of vampires by building a self-contained factory. The best industries are those that require no special raw materials-- a factory containing both a magma glass furnace and a sand tile, for instance, would work well, as would a clay industry, but if you're feeling ambitious, consider building a vampire into your [[giant cave spider|GCS]] [[silk farm]]-- if you happen to have scored an [[undead]] GCS, your vampire won't even spook! You can treat your factory as a piggy bank to be broken into as needed, or for perfect fire-and-forget action, build a dropping [[User:Vasiln/Undump|undump]] into the factory, and the vampire will deliver the output to your front door.

'''Difficulty:''' The only hard part is getting yourself a [[vampire]].

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many green glass blocks you plan on using.

==Self Destruct Lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely fun.

'''Usefulness:''' Could serve as kind of a last revenge on a goblin siege, but also highly amusing. If done properly it can make reclaim easier.

* DorfBonus: Make it have a timer before your fortress self destructs. You can do this with a water channel, or if you're particularly technical, make a [[Computing|seven segment display]].
** For bonus Dwarfy-ness, make the timer be the depth number of the magma or water that will actually trigger your fortress' destruction.
* Bonus: Build your fortress high above ground, connect the fortress to a roof through just one support and have the system, when activated, drop the whole construction into the magma sea, destroying the whole thing permanently.

==Shark Catcher==
Capture of [[Bull shark|sharks]] or [[Carp|other]], [[Sturgeon|dangerous fish]] achieved by making an artificial bay, filling it with [[Cage trap|cage traps]], opening the floodgate to the sea or river and some sort of drainage system, likely pumps and/or floodgates.
'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium as drowning while setting up is very possible with bad planning.

'''Usefulness''': Low, purely aesthetic, but very cool to have a shark infested moat (Potentially kills invaders).

==[[Silk farming|Silk Farming]]==
Capture a web-slinger (generally a [[giant cave spider]]) and build a farm to efficiently harvest its [[silk]].

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium; the hardest part is generally catching the web-spinner.

'''Usefulness''': Medium to High. Provides an endless supply of potentially-valuable [[silk]] cloth and rapidly [[cross-training|cross-trains]] [[weaver]]s.

==[[Skyfort|Sky Fortress]]==

Thanks to a quirk in dwarven [[physics]], the sky can be used to provide limited support to your fortress. Specifically, a solid vertical column that reaches the top of the sky level will not collapse, but it will also no longer support neighboring tiles horizontally. In order to retain vertical support, passable areas are carved with up/down stairways. [[Obsidian]] casting is necessary to allow these stairways to be added on top of existing [[building]]s (like [[furniture]] and [[workshop]]s). Unsupported glass [[window]]s can be used to plug any holes, such as those required below magma workshops.

Please [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=133968.0 refer to the forum thread] for full details.

'''Difficulty''': High; constructing a [[skyfort]] approaches a [[megaprojects|megaproject]].

'''Usefulness''': Low to Medium. Automatically isolates your fortress from all but [[flying]] foes. While it is possible to achieve the same effect on the ground and underground, changes to enemy siege mechanics (specifically, digging and jumping) may increase the defensive value of a floating fortress.

==Steamed Vegetables==
Make a pot and drop <s>elves</s> vegetables in from about three levels up. This makes it so the vegetables do not <s>run</s> get overcooked. Proceed to bask the vegetables in [[steam]].

'''Difficulty''': Medium. Can be annoying to boil some water.

'''Usefulness''': Great way to make friends with the merchants.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Add <s>goblins</s> seasoning.
*ArmokDoubleBonus: Use [[magma mist]].

==[[Swimming]] pool==
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though. Though if you utilize a '''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform, this is a priceless necessity.

==[[Tree farming|Underground Forest]]==
Break into an underground cavern, make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium - need to dig out a suitably large area, then find a way of introducing water to the area and subsequently draining or evaporating it.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size (bigger is better) as well as proximity to wood stockpiles. A tree farm outside the caverns can grow trees from all 3 layers, and you'll never have to worry about hostile creatures threatening your wood cutters.

==Underground Perpetual Motion Power Plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times. Note: Incredibly easy with an aquifer.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater Statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water source smooth and engrave the walls and floors than fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam! underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

*Bonus: Build it on area with trees and shrubs; make walls from ice or use windows; fill it with fish and merfolk; now you'll get a big aquarium
*Note: It doesn't count if you accidentally flood your fortress and wind up with one of these. It does count if one of your nobles has an unfortunate accident in their sculpture garden.

==U.R.I.S.T. Artificial Intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriend him/her.

In order to ensure that your A.I. doesn't find sleep interfering with crucial lever pulling, you might consider incorporating an alarm clock. If a goblin siege turns up on your doorstep, a single external lever to dump 7/7 of water on the sleeping A.I. might well save your fortress (and is so much cooler than having backup levers in your meeting hall).

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
*A.R.M.O.K. - '''A'''ll-'''R'''eaching '''M'''achine '''O'''f '''K'''illing
*A.S.S. - '''A'''lmost-autonomous '''S'''ystems '''S'''elector
*C.A.T. - '''C'''reepy '''A'''utonomous '''T'''echnology
*D.E.E.P.E.R. - '''D'''warf of '''E'''ngineering the '''E'''ldritch and '''P'''ractical '''E'''xploitation of '''R'''esources''
*D.I.E.D. - '''D'''edicated '''I'''rrigation and '''E'''verything else '''D'''warf(s)
*D.O.M.E.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perated '''M'''echanics and '''E'''ngineering '''S'''ystem
*D.O.R.F. - '''D'''oes '''O'''rders '''R'''ather '''F'''ast
*D.O.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*D.W.A.R.F. - '''D'''rains '''W'''ater '''A'''nd '''R'''ecruits '''F'''armers
*G.L.A.D.O.S. - '''G'''enetic '''L'''ifeform '''A'''nd '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*H.A.L. - '''H'''airy '''A'''lternate '''L'''ifeform
*M.A.G.M.A. - '''M'''assively '''A'''lcoholic '''G'''ear-'''M'''achine '''A'''ssembly
*N.O.B.L.E. - '''N'''arcissistic '''O'''bnoxious '''B'''oastful '''L'''aughable '''E'''xcrement
*P.O.T.A.T.O. - '''P'''ossibly '''O'''rganic '''T'''echnically '''A'''live '''T'''rash '''O'''mitted
*U.R.I.S.T. - '''U'''nderground '''R'''easonably '''I'''ntelligent '''S'''ettlement '''T'''echnologist
*V.A.C.A.T.E.D. - '''V'''ampire '''A'''ssisted '''C'''omputerized '''A'''ssembly '''T'''errorizes '''E'''xtra-'''D'''warves
*V.O.D.A.P.H.O.N.E. - '''V'''ampire '''O'''perated '''D'''efence '''A'''pparatus, '''P'''erpetrating '''H'''arm '''O'''f '''N'''efarious '''E'''ntities (See Bonus for more information)


'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

Bonus: Make the A.I. dwarf a vampire. Vampires don't need food, alcohol, or sleep and cannot age, which makes them perfect for the job. As an added bonus, keeping a vampire in this way will make your fortress completely indestructible, as sealing him in will prevent the possibility of the vampire of being killed in combat or from a syndrome, while keeping the vampire from making friends he will inevitably outlive will prevent him from going insane. (It also ensures that the bloodsucker won't use any of your dwarves as a midnight snack.) NOTE: Vampires may still go insane without any blood. Might be worth considering adding on a 3rd "feeding chamber" where you assign an unfortunate victim to sleep whenever the vampire gets hungry.

===D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P.===

Dwarven Organic Switch Toggle, Neutered Gastrectomied Overpersistent Sober Prisoner. Goblins have several advantages over dwarves in the lever pulling department: they live forever, do not breed or tantrum, and need not eat, drink, or sleep. Seal one or more goblins in your supercomputer complex, and use their predictable pathing in combination with instantly lockable doors and pressure plates to make dwarven lever pulling a thing of an older, less advanced era.

Also known by several product names:
*G.O.B.L.I.N.A.T.O.R. - '''G'''oblin '''O'''perated '''B'''astion of '''L'''ogic to '''I'''nfalliably '''N'''eutralize '''A'''ntiquated '''T'''ypes of '''O'''perational '''R'''egimes
*N.G.O.K.A.N.G. - '''N'''efarious '''G'''oblin '''O'''f '''K'''illing '''A'''nd '''N'''eedless '''G'''riping
*S.T.O.Z.U. - '''S'''ecret '''T'''echnological '''O'''perative who '''Z'''aps '''U'''nruly Nobles

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. While goblin pressure plate runners require more space than dwarven lever pullers, once their room is set up, it's done, and easily copied for the next one. With only one goblin, you'll need a pressure plate for every possible combination of lever states, but it's easy to add more goblins instead.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Instant response time (<50 ticks is possible) can make lever worries a thing of the past. The D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P. requires absolutely no maintenance once set up. Unlike with the U.R.I.S.Ts of the previous generation, modern POW-based computing is never held hostage to eating, drinking, or breaks. Stay tuned for the next-generation C.A.C.A.M.E.!

==Vomitorium==
[[Image:Vomit_Trail.png‎|thumb|right|Vomitoria: preventing cave adaptation since [[23a:Vomit|23a]].]]

Prevents [[cave adaptation]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's a [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it. Variant: above-ground statue garden or zoo.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in or it will become very [[Fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "'''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform" chamber, or HELP (so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most <s>Dwarves</s> enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death. It is recommend that with the exception of the entrance you use stairs.

*Bonus: Utilize vampires (who can't drown).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Engineer it so that it performs a full cycle on one activation of a pressure plate and include that pressure plate as a part of the patrol route, then create a reverse Watervator and also include it as a part of same patrol route, so that your militia automatically uses it to get in and out the fortress.

==Zombie Thunderdome==
Embark in an Evil biome in the current version (preferably savage as well), find or dig a deep pit, and dump any unused (non-dorf) corpses and butchery products into it. They will animate and begin to walk around, providing you with the endless entertainment afforded by watching horse hair walk. Make sure the pit is deep enough not to scare your dwarves!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Keeping your fort safe from the threat of animated beak dog beaks is worth any price. However, [[DF2012:Defense guide|there may be better things]] [[DF2012:Mega construction|to do with your time]].

*Bonus: Set up a series of [[bridge|defenses]] that drop invaders into the pit.
*DwarfBonus: Set up a series of bridges and walls that flings invaders into the pit.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Drop a Megabeast into the pit and watch it do battle with multiple layers of undead.
{{Category|Design}}

==single-Lever Emergency Lockdown (LEL)==

The only real requirement is that you need a fort based around a central stairwell. All you need to do is leave space for and eventually build 1*(length of your stairwell) bridges (that raise!) on each side of your stairwell on every level, and then link them all to the same lever. Friends get through all your best traps and champions? Simply pull the lever, and they're trapped in the central stairwell forever! Remember to roof off the entrance if your fort is situated on flat land otherwise the bonuses become much less useful. Also important is to ensure that you either wall off access or include sealable bridges or doors (linked to the same lever of course) for any inter-level paths that bypass the main stairwell, like vertical axles running out of centralised power generators.

3*3 stairwell setup:

{{diagram|1=
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
[#6ff]╥XXX[#6ff]╥
[#6ff]║XXX[#6ff]║
[#6ff]╨XXX[#6ff]╨
O[#6ff]╞[#6ff]═[#6ff]╡O
}}

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to High, depending on whether you use the MegaDwarfBonus below or not and how much you spread your fortress over the layers - although more spread means more usefulness. Extremely time-consuming, and requires architects, masons, and mechanics, as well as a lot of mechanisms (2 per bridge, ~4 bridges per level)

'''Usefulness:''' Medium to High, also depending on whether you use the Bonuses. With all bonuses applied it becomes a guaranteed last resort way of destroying the toughest enemies with minimal dwarven casualties; without the bonuses it's still a damn sight better than letting temporarily victorious enemies run freely about your fortress.

*DwarfBonus: Connect your cistern to the stairwell (remember to put a floodgate in too). Once the impossible-to-defeat enemies are safely trapped inside, Pull lever number 2 and watch them slowly, slowly, drown (VERY IMPORTANT: have the level of the cistern input at at least the same height as the level of the stairwell, else there won't be enough pressure to properly flood the stairwell, meaning nasties WILL survive).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Connect your MAGMA cistern to the stairwell. Laugh maniacally. (Remember to build your bridges and floodgates out of magma-safe material or a lot of !!FUN!! will be had)
*MegaArmokEntombmentBonus: Do both and cast your enemies in obsidian and boil the survivors in steam as a semi-permanent testament to their foolhardiness. This also means that you will have stairs cut out of lovely obsidian once your miners are finished making your stairwell usable again.
*MegaArmokEntombmentEXTREME+Bonus: "Forget" to pull the lockdown lever before you pull lever number 2.

v0.34:Fire imp

2013-12-19T10:43:22Z

Coolthulhu: /* Defense Strategies */

{{Quality|Fine|07:27, 27 July 2010 (UTC)}}
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[[File:Fire_imp.png|thumb|left|Admired for its terrifying features.]]

'''Fire imps''' are small demonic creatures straight from the magma sea. They are able to spit small firebolts and can ignite whole landscapes. Trying to drown them is futile because they don't breathe. [[Trap|Take measures]] when you spot some in a near magmapipe.

In an amusing example of the intricacies of Dwarf Fortress, Fire imps can not get [[syndrome|fevers]]. It makes sense when you know what a fever is (higher body temperature, by a few degrees), and the fact that fire imps are extremely resistant to high temperatures. This is not likely to affect gameplay unless you are playing with dwarves [[modding|modded]] to breathe fever-causing gas.

Fire imps are glass cannons (a [[dog]] can take care of them most of the time), but resist heat much more than most creatures, only taking damage at {{ct|15000}}. This makes them immune to fire and magma (obviously), but not dragonfire.

It is possible for fire imps (and other magma creatures) to travel to the surface, via a volcano. If you are building near a volcano and your dorfs get set on fire for no apparent reason, look around for a fire imp in the volcano. You can try channeling to the surface of the magma and baiting it or just dump water on it from above.

==Defense Strategies==
To avoid unwanted [[fun]] when dealing with Fire Imps and other nasty Magma-dwelling creatures, you can have a narrow channel leading between your source and the point you want to send it to, then put in a Magma-safe [[grate]] or set of [[bars]] ([[fortification]]s are useless when submerged, as creatures can swim through them). Beware, though, that [[magma man|magma men]] and [[fire man|fire men]] can and will [[building destroyer|destroy]] such barriers.

A safer, but more complicated way to do this is having a floor grate cover the magma intake point and getting magma from it through a [[pump]]. Due to building destroying mechanics, floor grates can't be destroyed from below. Pumps can take magma from a grated source. The pump and grate should obviously be magma-safe. Also, the pump should be powered, not manually operated - a dwarf operating the pump would be in line of fire should an imp find itself under the grate.

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v0.34:Magma

2013-12-14T15:52:21Z

Coolthulhu: Iron is a better material for pumps because it's cheaper

{{av}}{{Quality|Exceptional|21:13, 6 July 2010 (UTC)}}
'''Magma''' is a red-hot [[flow|fluid]] that wells up from deep within the earth (but not so deep that it cannot be found by dwarves), entering your map either by the edges or by the area beneath a magma pool. Magma that is above the ground is called '''Lava'''; the substance itself remains the same. Magma is very [[Fun]].

Magma serves as a heat source, replacing [[fuel]] in [[magma smelter]]s, [[magma forge]]s, [[magma glass furnace]]s, and [[magma kiln]]s. Magma is ''extremely'' hot which can lead to even more [[Fun]]. Workers that dig into a magma reservoir are not instantly killed as the magma touches them, but they are set on fire, which will kill them very quickly. For this reason, taking steps to ensure there is adequate water available to extinguish flaming dwarves running in random directions is advised before digging into any magma pools from the side. Channeling a single square wide pit across the planned magma pipe one tile away from the wall to breach and filling it with water using the [[Activity zone#Pit/Pond|pond zone]] tool is recommended, so the panicking dwarves have no choice but to run through the water, and the water itself turns into an obsidian wall as soon as the magma flows into it.

The list of materials that are '''[[magma-safe]]''' is extensive.

Magma never cools, but can [[evaporation|evaporate]] if left at a depth of 1/7 for long enough. When magma is mixed with water it forms [[obsidian]]. Note that magma located above [[semi-molten rock]] will be listed as a Magma Flow and cannot be cooled into obsidian.

Without [[screw pump]]s to impart [[pressure]], magma flows rather slowly (though no more slowly than unpressurized water). A pipe to bring magma across the full map can take as much as a year to fill. This, combined with the fact that it will evaporate, can make filling a reservoir difficult and tedious. As a rule of thumb, the area coming out of a 1-wide-pipe shouldn't be more than three squares wide and 20 squares long, or else it will evaporate as fast as you fill it.

== Bringing Magma Up ==

Magma can be brought to the surface by three different methods: [[pump|pump stack]]s, magma pistons, and minecarts. Pump stacks are conceptually the simplest, but require an enormous amount of in-game time to make. Magma pistons tend to be faster to make, but require more time to understand how to build them. Minecarts are a simple solution, but require more management than pump stacks because they can overfill a reservoir.

=== Pump stacks ===
Pumping magma up from the [[magma sea]] via a conventional [[pump#Example layouts#pump stack|pump stack]] is a lot of work, requiring dozens of pumps and significant amounts of power. Making all of the pumps [[magma safe]] also requires a lot of precious materials like iron or glass.

=== Magma pistons ===
[[Magma piston]]s are another way to move magma near the surface. Magma pistons require less time and fewer precious materials to construct than pump stacks. However, magma pistons are a bit more complicated than pump stacks, so it takes more time to understand how to operate and build them.

=== Minecarts ===
[[Minecart]]s submerged in 7/7 magma will fill with magma. Minecarts full of magma can be tipped at track stop, which will pour the magma in a specified direction from the stop. Mine cart tracks can be built from the magma sea to the surface. Minecarts used for this must be magma safe. It may also be necessary to build rollers in magma to pull the minecarts out, which would also need to be magma safe. A minecart track can be operated by dwarves or fully automatic, using powered rollers. Depending on the placement of the track stop, dangerous overflow can be prevented by making the track stop of a material that will melt/burn once the reservoir begins to overflow.

[[Minecart#Impulse ramps|Impulse ramps]] can be used to get magma-filled carts to whereever they need to go without having to provide power to an extensive system of rollers, and will fully automate bringing magma to the surface. Since such systems require comparatively little designation and magma-safe materials, work can be begun much earlier than some other methods of bringing magma to the surface.

In [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=125679.msg4217863#msg4217863 one design] posted to the forums by gchristopher, a pump can provide power the roller, making the ramp eligible for building the roller, and keeping the trench at 7 magma so the carts fill instantly.

{{diagram|spaces=yes|\
▒▒▒
▒#▒ # {{=}} floor grate
▒%▒ % {{=}} south facing pump
▒%▒▒
▒▲▲▒ Left ramp ▲ has a left-pushing roller
▒▒▒▒ Right ramp ▲ has a retracting bridge
}}

If you drop minecarts in directly from at least 2 z-levels above onto the right ramp, this setup has the magical property that it can handle an arbitrary number of minecarts, and dispense them at a constant controlled rate. Carts are pushed up the left ramp by the roller.

If you extend the right bridge, that tile ceases to be a ramp. Exactly one minecart will fall onto the tile and stay there, and all other minecarts dropped from above will form a quantum pile 1 z-level up.

The last time I {{who}} built one, I timed the cart dispensing rate at 1 per 8 ticks. This is slow enough that carts can be brought to the surface using an impulse ramp spiral, but fast enough that you can still quickly cover a large area with magma.

The same design works with water, for giving you a lot of flexibility creating tall waterfalls without pump stacks, quickly and cheaply.

==Magma pools==
{{main|Magma pool}}
Although the name suggests them as pools, they are more like pipes. They can be found underground, however they rarely reach the upper z-levels (40+). Most end a few z-levels above the magma sea, though some may span more than 100 z-levels.
Magma pools seem to be always connected to a magma sea, and the sea and pipe can occasionally reach up to the same level, making them hard to separate. However, magma pools can be identified by the obsidian walls which surround them.
Magma pools will slowly refill themselves, giving the player an infinite source of magma. The entire embark tile containing the pool will produce sporadic bursts of magma until the magma within it is at its natural level (ie. the magma level at embark) or until it is halted by a bridge, floor, or bottom of a wall.

==Volcanoes==
[[Volcano]]es are magma pools that extend all the way to the surface. Volcanoes are an endless source of magma as they will always refill themselves. They never erupt, unlike their real-life counterparts.

Magma in volcanoes does not exert [[pressure]] unless you pump magma into it so it is possible to cause magma to flow safely out of the volcano for use in industry or defense. One of the main difficulties of doing so is the risk of the miner getting engulfed by the magma. There are ways to minimise this risk however:

'''Digging From Above:'''
If you can find a suitable position, at least in the top of the volcano you can, standing on one level above and dig a channel.

'''Diagonal Digging:'''
Magma moves more slowly diagonally than orthogonally, giving the miner more time to escape. However, slower flow means you must keep in mind the evaporation. You should dig a smaller channel, wait for it to fill up, and extends the channel by Digging From Above.

'''Busy To Leave:'''
[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=111883.0]
Dwarves who dig into magma often die not because they are unable to flee but because they choose not to. By ensuring a dwarf has another task (ideally far away) they will run away from the ensuing magma flow.

Simply mine up to the corner of a lava tube and then smooth the last tile. Dig a staircase within a few tiles of the place where you will be breaching that leads up and back into your fortress, this will allow your dwarf to get out before the magma gets him. Now designate the smoothed corner to be carved into a fortification. Now immediately when the dwarf begins to carve the fortification, (and this is the most important part!), designate a bunch of other tiles to be smoothed/carved. It's not important that your dwarves actually smooth, carve, or engrave those tiles, what is important is that your dwarf immediately takes another smooth/carve/engrave task elsewhere in the fortress when they finish the current one. If they do not then they will pause for the briefest of instants as they pick a new task, resulting in their death. If they have the job though, they will instantly turn and head up the staircase, stopping the magma from catching and killing them."

'''Exploit From Below:'''
[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=110724.0]
Miners are able to mine out tiles diagonally above them '''even if there is a bridge over their heads'''. First you dig out your magma tunnel to feed magma to wherever in your fort you need it and dig it right up against the volcano pipe. Then you channel a trench against the pipe that can be the width of the tunnel if you wish. Build a magma-safe bridge over the trench, making sure to cover it completely, and then seal off access to the magma tunnel. Dig a new separate path to access the now bridged-over trench. Finally, designate the volcano pipe wall '''on the Z level of the magma tunnel''' for mining. Your dwarves will stand in the trench beneath the bridge but will somehow still mine out the squares diagonally above them, causing the magma to flow safely onto the bridge leaving your dwarves unscathed."

Example:

{{Diagram|spaces=yes|
Z 0
═════╗[#F00]≈[#F00]≈[#F00]≈
....[#080]╥[#000][#880]║[#F00]≈[#F00]≈[#F00]≈
....[#080]║[#000][#880]║[#F00]≈[#F00]≈[#F00]≈
....[#080]╨[#000][#880]║[#F00]≈[#F00]≈[#F00]≈
═════╝[#F00]≈[#F00]≈[#F00]≈

Z -1
║.║[#F00]≈[#F00]≈[#F00]≈
║▲║[#F00]≈[#F00]≈[#F00]≈
║▲║[#F00]≈[#F00]≈[#F00]≈
║▲║[#F00]≈[#F00]≈[#F00]≈
║.║[#F00]≈[#F00]≈[#F00]≈
}}
Make sure the top z-level is sealed off from miners and '''[[dig]]''' ({{k|d}}-{{k|d}}) the highlighted tiles on the upper z-level.

==Properties of magma==
Magma behaves the same way as water with the exception of not being affected by [[pressure]] (except when being moved by a [[screw pump]]) and apparently not showing [[flow]]. Magma will turn into [[obsidian]]1 if it touches [[water]]. In the game, magma's temperature is {{ct|12000}}. See the list of '''[[magma-safe]]''' materials for more information on what can (or cannot) be safely submerged in magma.

Tiles directly adjacent to magma will be heated to a temperature of {{ct|10075}}, causing revealed unmined tiles to flash with {{Tile|☼|6:4:1}} when placing digging designations and causing unrevealed mining-designated tiles to cancel their designation (with a "warm stone" warning) once they are revealed.

1 - specifically, one of the inorganic materials having the [LAVA] tag, selected randomly ''per biome'' during worldgen.

==Dangers of magma==
Any contact with magma results in nearly instant immolation, followed by death if water is not close at hand. Additionally, dropping items into magma can generate clouds of [[magma mist]] which can set your haulers on fire if you aren't careful.

{{D for Dwarf}}

Magma is very well known for being the perfect solution to any problem encountered by dwarves. Giant badger invasion? Pour magma on it. Noble being his usual snotty, useless, arrogant self? Pour magma on it. Door locked due to invaders? Pour magma on it! Flooded your fortress with magma? Pour... Um, wait a minute...

{{gamedata|{{raw|DF2012:hardcoded_materials.txt|MATERIAL|INORGANIC}}}}
{{Magma FAQ}}

{{Category|Physics}}

v0.34:Well guide

2013-12-10T09:10:50Z

Coolthulhu: why/why not

{{quality|Masterwork|22:15, 22 September 2012 (UTC)}}{{av}}
''This guide assumes you've read the main article on '''[[well]]s''' and are familiar with the basic information found in that article, of what a well does and what is required to build one.''

A well can be vital to any fortress, but deciding that you need one and building one are two different things. Draining water from the surface can flood your fortress if you aren't careful, and building a well only to see the water source dry up or freeze is beyond frustrating. This guide will walk you through a number of different situations, and explain solutions that have been found for these problems.
If you are looking for the step by step guide: [[#Step by Step|see below]].

== Why Build a Well? ==

Honestly, not every fortress NEEDS a well. But they all need some form of safe ''water source'' to bring water to patients and prisoners. If they do not have this and you find yourself in a siege with six injured dwarves, you're in for a little bit of [[Fun]]... But a hole full of water can be just as good for that as a well.

=== Why You Might Not ===

* Wells are a yet another opportunity to flood your fort (not like trenches aren't, though). Playing with water is generally dangerous if you don't know what are you doing.
* For the purposes unrelated to drinking and bathing, well is just a hole in the floor. Fighting dwarves and animals can easily dodge into it, as they would into any other hole.
* They take a lot of time and effort to construct, especially when compared to alternatives.
* Because of the way wells are, a single hole in a flat ceiling, it makes it more difficult for creatures to get out, should they find themselves in your water source.
* Technically, tiles adjacent to a trench full of water can be designated as a water source just as easily as a well, and dwarves will sanely path around such a trench, as well as bathe in it more easily.
* If you do make a shallow pool (mixture of 3/7 and 4/7 water) as a water source, and have a meeting hall designated therein, unoccupied dwarves will hang out in the water, gaining swimming skill.

=== Why You Might ===

* While a trench full of water can be used as a water source, a well can draw water from a source that is 30+ levels below. Also, a trench water source can only be one level deep, dwarves will not draw water from any level deeper than that. A well will.
* Wells can be made to have extraordinarily high value, due to the various skills and materials, each with their own quality levels, which go into its construction. Thus, as the center piece for a meeting room, even if they have no water, wells can be very handy in making dwarves very happy.
* As far as the well itself goes, they take up very little space in your actual fortress. With a water-filled channel, the reservoir is equivalent to the floor space occupied.
* This is a glitch, but wells are the easiest method for making salt water drinkable. Wells will ignore salinity and allow dwarves to drink salt water directly from its source without a glitch. So long as it isn't murky.
* Drinking from a well is much faster than drinking from a trench. Also less annoying to dwarves.
* You can build a well over a trench, combining best parts of both.

== Choosing a Location ==

Once you've decided it's time to construct a well, you need to consider where the well needs to be. It helps if you've been planning for this while building the rest of your fortress, and have made room for it.

You want a well central to your dwarves, so they'll all get good thoughts from seeing it, and near any [[hospital]] beds you have, but you want it off the main traffic routes. You can have more than one well, which solves that problem, but raises the one of engineering water to feed them all. If it's indoors (or behind walls), then there's little threat from [[carp]], [[goblin]]s, or [[animal]]s, and it can provide a safe source of drinking water during a [[siege]].

Depending on your start location, you may already have a pre-existing water source, such as a flooded cavern, which you can just build a well over. Or, as is usually the case, you may need to transport water from some other location to where you want your well to be. This is where things get complicated.

== Water sources ==

A well needs a water source of at least 3/7 depth, at least 1 [[z-level]] somewhere directly below its opening, with no obstructions between itself and said water. Pre-existing water is safe because it's the most predictable - what you see is what you've got, no surprises. You can instead use dwarven engineering to bring water from a distant source to beneath your well, with a safety factor based on your experience and the complexity of the project. (See [[flood]].)

The important part about the well is to make sure that you don't create a situation where the water will [[flood]] your fortress, due to [[Water_pressure|pressure]] from a source at a higher level. If the water is stable before you build the well above it, it will be safe (unless your dwarves change things), but if you are introducing a flow, make sure you understand how ''dwarven'' pressure works and will not fall victim to its surprises. (See [[Water_pressure|pressure]].)

=== Pre-existing sources ===

A [[brook]], [[river]], [[murky pool]], or [[cavern]] lakes can provide water under a well. If the water source is only one z-level deep and contains a pile of mud, the water produced will be [[Water#Water_laced_with_mud|muddy]]. 'A dusting of mud', however, is not an issue - your well and its water are <s>fine</s> wonderful.

The surface of a brook tile will have to be channeled out, but it otherwise works just fine.

Murky pools are not optimal: they can dry up in warm seasons, and water directly from murky pools is [[Water#Stagnant_water|stagnant]], which is just as bad as being muddy. Murky pools can refill from [[rain]], but on hot maps, this may never happen.

=== [[Aquifer|Aquifers]] ===

If you have an aquifer, just channel a 1x1 square in any open stretch of floor above it and build the well. It will automatically fill and never flood. You'll have other construction projects to worry about.

Water coming into contact with a floor or slope may create "a dusting of mud". However, both 'A dusting of mud' and a 'Muddy Upward Slope' are not an issue - your well and its water are <s>fine</s> wonderful.

=== [[Ocean|Oceans]] ===

Oceans and aquifers near oceans carry [[Water#Salt_water|salty]] water. This is normally unusable for treating wounds or drinking. However, salty water obtained from a well is used just like normal. This is a bug{{bug|1260}}.

=== [[Reservoir|Reservoirs]] ===

If you need to move water to your well, you need to dig/build a reservoir. A reservoir is basically a big hole intended for the storage of large quantities of water.

When digging a reservoir, you need to consider your needs and the space you have available. Do you really need a 20x20x20 reservoir, holding 56,000 tiles of water, requiring 560,000 uses of the well to fully dry up? Frequently, in well-managed fortresses, wells are really only used for the care of sick or imprisoned dwarves and animals. As a result, it doesn't really need to be anything special, unless it's a meeting hall, in which case dwarves will drink from it at random.

Another consideration is safety. Specifically, dwarves fighting near wells can fall into them, whether as a result of sparring or due to overcrowding of animals. You may wish to place some sort of escape route from the well, should anyone do so. At the least, this just needs to be a staircase going up the side of the well to the surface. The shorter the distance they need to go, the better off they are. Keep in mind, of course, that if any wildlife is able to access your reservoir, and if any of them are able to leave the water, they may wander into your fortress through the escape route. If they're particularly malicious, they may even path their way in to attack your dwarves.

If you are filling the reservoir by aqueduct, consider the fill point. If you are using only gravity to fill the well, but the water needs to flow up to do so, you may experience problems when it comes time to refill your well. Specifically, water floods upwards into empty space very easily, but for some reason doesn't like to flood through still water. Thus, it may be more appropriate to have the reservoir fill from its top, though keep in mind that this is a very fast fill method and can flood a bit if you aren't watching and have a small reservoir. (As a side note on that, it is possible to fill a well by pouring water directly through the well opening itself)

Finally, you may find some circumstance where you'd wish to make changes to the well. For example, building a statue in its reservoir, or recovering a lost loved one who fell in and cracked his skull open. In these instances, you may wish to construct a manual drain. All it requires is a hatch or floodgate at the bottom of the well, connected to a lever, covering a tunnel leading to an appropriate dump site... Like your subterranean farming operation. Or your obsidian factory. Or a room full of captured <s>nobles</s> goblins. If you already have a drain for the aqueduct, you can easily connect the two.

== Filling the Well ==

If you've had to construct a well separate from a pre-existing water source, you need to move that water to the well itself. There's two main ways to go about this.

=== Bucket Filling a Well ===

If you designate your well as a pit/pond and have empty buckets, dwarves will fill the well manually. Keep in mind that this is slow, time-consuming and occupies dwarves who could be doing something else. Of course, for particularly small wells, it may be of no concern. If the walking distance is quite far, (Like STUPIDLY far- your fortress would need to be a truly tangled maze for this to happen) the water may evaporate faster than dwarves can fill the well. If you don't have enough buckets, this will happen even to the tinniest of wells, though.

=== Piping water to your reservoir ===

If the water is not where you want to build the well, you can dig a tunnel or channel and/or otherwise create an [[aqueduct]] to bring it to where you want it. You should consider adding a door or floodgate somewhere near the water source so that you can dry out your tunnels for future projects, repair, or recovery of lost items.

Channels are open to the sky, and if not done properly, (taking advantage of some weird quirks in game functionality) they are subject to evaporation and freezing. As a result, they aren't normally an optimal method of moving water. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from digging a moat, then filling your well from that. Keep in mind, however, that open water frequently becomes a random hazard, as dwarves can be quite careless at times. If you do have open water set up somewhere, make sure your dwarves have some way out of it. You never know when a random goblin will kick your elite stonecrafter into your moat.

Digging tunnels, then, is generally a better way of moving water from place to place. You need to be careful about how you dig such aqueducts. Water can move through diagonal openings, so be sure to avoid flooding nearby rooms from accidental corner intersections. Make sure that any unnecessary access points to your aqueduct are properly sealed before letting the water flow.

The generally accepted method for digging an aqueduct has five steps.

1. Dig out the reservoir where you want to store the water.

2. From the reservoir, dig a tunnel up to your water source, but leave one space of earth to prevent water from flooding in and killing your dwarf.

3. Build a door or floodgate in the aqueduct, either at the end of the tunnel or at the entrance to the reservoir. Or both if you're fancy. (Doors are better, because the dwarf can walk through it if he builds it from the wrong side)

4. Connect the door/floodgate to a lever, and make sure any dwarves stuck in the tunnel are safely evicted.

5. Channel out the final tile from above, pull the lever. Let the water fill the reservoir, then pull the lever again, sealing the water source.

Keep in mind, when you command the lever to be pulled to end filling, it may take some time for an available dwarf to actually do it. Even then, there is some lag time between the lever pull and the action it causes. Finally, if your plug is at some point in the aqueduct, but not at the entrance of the reservoir, any water in the aqueduct above the water level in the reservoir will continue to pour in.

If you want to empty the aqueduct, use a similar method to build a drain to some reasonable dumping location, like a cavern. Make sure you can control it with levers, however, or it will constantly drain instead of filling your well.

== Safety ==

A well is not an obstructing object. That is to say, it doesn't stop things from passing through its space. This is why wells can function through other wells, why water will flood out of them, and why a (very) few monsters may be able to climb out through them if you're tremendously unlucky.

=== Flooding ===

More fortresses have fallen at the hands of a flooding well than they have to megabeasts, sieges or demons. If you are going to be shifting water around in any form other than buckets, be prepared for the worst.

There are several solutions to the flooding problem.

1. Overflow Drainage. At the top of a reservoir, dig a tunnel to drain water out the side, and have it dump out into some appropriate sump, like a cavern full of armok-knows-what.

2. Emergency auto-plug. You can make pressure plates sense water. If you set up a pressure plate beside your well, and connect it to a hatch or door blocking your reservoir, it will automatically seal the reservoir off from its flow source, should the thing flood.

3. No Exits. The safest and easiest way to do it, is to dig out the reservoir, ''but not the opening for the well itself''. This way, you can fill the reservoir completely, and because there's nowhere for it to flood out to, it simply WON'T! Then you can seal off the reservoir at your leisure and dig the opening without concern! (Though not without caution. Make sure you turned the taps off first.)

=== Monsters ===

You don't need to worry too much about monsters crawling out of your well to gobble down your hairy friends these days, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. It all depends on what beasts may be lurking around- and how you build your well.

First off, if you're bucket-filling a well, you need to make sure that their initial water source is safe. Make sure it isn't full of crocodiles or carp. (Or other dangerous fishy things)

If you are draining water through an aqueduct, and you know there may be dangerous animals (Or even just unwanted regular animals) living in it, there is a way to stop them from wandering in. You can place [[Grate|wall grates]], [[Bars|upright bars]], or [[fortification]]s in the aqueduct to act as filters. These allow water to pass through, but animals cannot. It has been observed that in very rare occasions, animal may be pushed through. If you're that concerned about it (Or have HORDES of angry crocodiles in your river) putting two filters in a row pretty much eliminates any chance of this happening. If you plan to use filters in conjunction with [[floodgate]]s, remember to connect your floodgate to its trigger ''before'' placing the filters.

Even if monsters do get into your well, they're rarely a genuine threat, and at worst can give your dwarves an unhappy thought by scaring them. However, if your reservoir is filled right to the brim, carp and other fish CAN attack your dwarves, just as they would from a river. Also, any amphibious creatures may be able to use an escape passage to make their way into your fortress and make a mess. (Keep in mind, zombified fish are amphibious) And, of course, anyone who falls into a well full of predators is pretty much doomed.

To prevent amphibians from getting out of your well, should they somehow get there, simply put a lockable hatch over the escape route.

Finally, if you are drawing directly from a cavern lake, and have simply opened a hole in its ceiling for the well, any flying creatures in the cavern may be able to use the well as an access point to your fortress. You could potentially construct a wall surrounding the pathway of the bucket. This would prevent flying creatures from entering, unless they are also capable of swimming. Do not forget the perils of dwarves falling into a well, however, falling into a cavern lake full of cave crocodiles will cause lots of [[fun]].

== Above Ground ==

The previous sections focused mostly on subterranean wells and gravity-filling reservoirs. Now we need to consider the special circumstances of wells built at ground level, above ground level, and simply outdoors.

The main problem is that anything above what was ground level at embark is considered "above ground" and has different behavior, even if enclosed to be indoors. In particular, it will freeze and evaporate according to the temperature. This includes everything on level 0 and -1, unless there is something about them preventing the temperature from removing them, like rivers flowing faster than the water can evaporate out of them.

Enclosing the water, so that it is "indoors" will decrease the rate of evaporation, but there isn't much you can do to prevent water from freezing above ground. (There is a way, but if you're new, you may not enjoy [[#Fighting the Ice|the prospects of actually constructing it]].)

=== Outdoor Wells ===

There are plenty of good reasons to build a well outdoors. First and foremost, to be decorative or thematic. The wells don't necessarily need to be functional if this is your intent. But another use would be as a functional source for an outdoor meeting hall... Or in other words, a vomitorium. Because dwarves will clean themselves in a well, having one in such a vomitorium would just make things more efficient!

Of course, as with any outdoor meeting place, you need to be certain that it is a safe place, where goblins and giant eagles are unlikely to descend upon your sickly party-goers.

=== On The Level ===

Now, about ground level, or specifically, the place where "above ground" and "below ground" meet. Z-levels 0 and -1 on flat maps. If you are on a very cold or very hot map, any water open to the sky on these levels will freeze or evaporate very quickly. As said before, you can minimize this by simply roofing in the water and making it "indoors".

Also keep in mind the floor type. Murky pools, even when roofed over, will behave as though they are open to the sky. This is because murky pools, rivers, oceans, etc. all have a special floor tile which modifies the behavior of any water above it. Simply putting floor tiles on the basin of a murky pool can minimize evaporation, but it will eliminate rain refill.

If you dig a channel down to z-2, the water in it will not evaporate very quickly at all, as it's "under ground".

=== In the Sky ===

And now for the final type of well, and this one is very uncommon, you may wish to build a well high above ground. A well tower may indeed be a cool, though completely non-functional idea. Be aware what the environmental conditions are before you do this, of course, as the only real way of dealing with ice involves pumping magma up the tower as well.

In all honesty, a sky well would be built and function pretty much the same as a subterranean well. The only difference is that it is very difficult to get the water up there. You need to build a pumpstack, lifting the water, level by level, pump by pump, up to your reservoir. And you need to lift the water to the top of your reservoir, as pumps will not pump upward naturally.

== Style and Design ==

This section discusses purely aesthetic and functional decisions people have made in the past with their wells, as well as advanced designs.

=== Fighting the Ice ===

So you have a frozen well, and you want to know how to keep it liquid do ya? You're going to need to build a heated reservoir.

First, have magma on your map. If you don't, dig deeper and be prepared for [[Fun]].

Next, you need some [[magma-safe]] materials. You'll need this to build floodgates and pumps.

Now, you need to pipe and pump the magma with the magma-safe pumping equipment. Be sure to use mechanical power for these, as dwarves are too likely to kill themselves.

The magma needs to be piped under your reservoir. That is to say, there needs to be just one floor tile between the two, just enough to keep them from touching and turning into an accidental obsidian factory.

The magma needs to be piped around under your water, it needs to keep on moving or the water will freeze again. That means it needs an infinite, cyclical flow.

And even if you get all of this built and working, it will only melt one level. Which means the reservoir can only be 1 level deep.

That's a lot of work to have an above-ground well in a frozen environment. Probably easier to melt a pool and drain it.

=== Ultimate Party Machine ===

It is possible to pour water through the mouth of a well from above. This frequently causes water to spray out in a mist, which pleases dwarves. If you power it, you could have a pump stack draw water from beneath the well and pour it back in from above, turning your fancy meeting hall into a FANCIER meeting hall! Throw in some platinum statues while you're at it.

=== Well Stacking ===

Have you ever needed to have more than one well on multiple z-levels and disliked the work of setting up multiple reservoirs? Well fret no more!

Because a well can function through the opening of another well, it's possible to stack well openings through z-levels! So long as they're all in a perfectly straight line above each other, and there's at least 3/7 tiles of water somewhere directly below them, they will all be perfectly functional!

Of course, if you go too far, this may become something of a safety concern, as dwarves would plummet mile after mile, through dozens of well openings before finally hitting the bottom.

=== Multitasking Wells ===

Because wells aren't actually USED all that often, and are usually more valuable as decorations, there isn't really any reason to keep its reservoir completely full all the time. So, what can you do with a giant bucket of water in the middle of your fortress? Well, luckily, there are a few other reasons you could have for piping water around.

First, you need to "irrigate" stone floors before you can actually farm on them. Instead of making a separate, elaborate irrigation system for just one use, (mud doesn't dry naturally, though it could be smoothed/floored over and disappears when reclaiming a fortress) why not just drain it out of your well?

You could also use your well as a water reservoir for an obsidian factory. Fill a chamber with a single layer of magma, then pour your well's contents over it!

You could use your well to dispose of unwanted life forms, such as siegers, elves, goblins, nobles and other miscellaneous things that wandered into your cage traps. (This only works on non-amphibious creatures)

=== The Dwarven Toilet ===

I built this in an experiment. At the top of the reservoir is a platform with a pressure plate on it. When the pressure plate senses 5/7 water, it triggers, closing the fill pipe, and opening the drain. So, when you pull the lever to fill the thing, it fills up to the top, then drains. Just like a giant toilet. I have not found any functional use for this. In all honesty, it was a simple accident I made, connecting the pressure plate to the drain as well as the plug. But, hey, what the heck, I made a giant toilet. There ya' go. Perhaps you could use this to get rid of the crud that accumulates in a well as dwarves clean themselves in it?

This can be VERY useful when you have a larger reservoir that fills your well. This way every pull of the lever delivers a set amount of water into your well. Thus eliminating1 the risk of flooding due to the well becoming pressurized. 
1Beware dwarves that throw tantrums, they randomly pull levers.

{{Category|Guides}}
{{Category|Design}}

[[ru:Well_guide]]

v0.34:Thought

2013-09-20T07:49:50Z

Coolthulhu:

{{quality|Masterwork|03:04, 13 June 2013 (UTC)}}{{av}}

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; margin-left:5px;" align=right
! Number
! Happiness
|-
| style="background:#00FF00;" | ≥150 || ecstatic
|-
| style="background:#33cc00" | 125 to 149 || happy
|-
| style="background:#669900" | 75 to 124 || quite content
|-
| style="background:#996600" | 51 to 74 || fine
|-
| style="background:#cc3300" | 26 to 50 || unhappy
|-
| style="background:#cc0000" | 1 to 25 || very unhappy
|-
| style="background:#cc0033;" | ≤0 || miserable
|}

'''Thoughts''' are the reported observations and sentiments of [[dwarves]] in [[Dwarf fortress mode|Fortress mode]], visible on the [[thoughts and preferences]] subscreen of their [[profile]]. Over the course of play, a dwarf will experience things that make them more or less happy, with each experience recorded and displayed as a thought. The rate at which a dwarf gains these thoughts is controlled by varying aspects of their [[personality]].

Dwarven psychology is relatively simple. There are good thoughts and bad thoughts; lots of good thoughts will make your dwarves ecstatic, too many bad thoughts and your dwarves will throw [[tantrum]]s. Too many tantrums and the Bad Thoughts will [[fun|spread]], leading to a potentially game-breaking [[tantrum spiral]] (for exact mechanics of tantrums, see [[tantrum]]). The thoughts themselves are graded by their strength and recentness, modified by any relevant personality traits (the exact formula is known only to [[Toady One]]), and then added together.

The resultant total happiness score indicates the dwarf's emotional state, displayed on the thoughts and preferences screen in somewhat subjective terms. A dwarf's level of happiness will affect the type of [[strange mood]] he can undergo, and the changes in [[Status icon|status]] that triggers bad thoughts about thirst, hunger, and fatigue extoll physical costs on the dwarf and, except (directly) in the case of fatigue, can be lethal. To avoid bad thoughts and any resultant tantrums, make [[keeping your dwarves happy]] a priority.

To view a dwarf's recent thoughts and current happiness level, press {{k|k}}, move the cursor to the dwarf, and press {{k|enter}} twice, or {{k|v}}, move to the dwarf, then {{k|z}} and {{k|enter}}. This brings you to the thoughts and preferences screen for that dwarf, which, among other things, describes the dwarf's overall happiness as well as their constituent thoughts. Below is a list of common thoughts that your dwarves may experience; for a full list of the game's programmed thoughts (many of which do not yet appear in-game, or only appear in corner cases), please see the [[List of Dwarven Thoughts]].

'''Note:''' Thoughts marked as "Tragedy" have their happiness penalties reduced based on the dwarf's combat hardness - somebody who "doesn't care about anything anymore" will receive the minimum penalty listed.
{{clear}}

== Accommodations ==
{| class=" wikitable" width=100%
! width=35% | Thought
! width=15% style="text-align:center" | Value
! width=50% | Trigger
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
|Slept in a (good/very good/great/fantastic/bedroom like a personal palace recently).
| +2/+3/+5/+10/+20
|Slept in '''a''' (not necessarily assigned) [[bedroom]] of a certain [[Room|quality]] recently; see [[Room#Quality]].
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
|Slept in a (poor/very poor/awful/horrible/horribly substandard) bedroom recently.
| -2/-3/-5/-10/-20
|A member of the dwarven [[noble|nobility]] who has slept in a less-than-satisfactory bedroom; see [[Noble#Needs]].
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
|Dined in a (good/very good/great/fantastic/legendary) dining room lately
| +2/+3/+5/+10/+20
|Dined in '''a''' (usually not assigned) [[dining room]] of a certain [[Room|quality]] recently; see [[Room#Quality]].
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Dined in a (poor/very poor/awful/horrible/horribly substandard) dining room recently.
| -2/-3/-5/-10/-20
|A member of the dwarven [[noble|nobility]] who has dined in a less-than-satisfactory dining room; see [[Noble#Needs]].
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Conducted a meeting in a (good/very good/great/fantastic/setting worthy of legends) recently.
| +3/+5/+10/+20/+30
|The ranking member of the dwarven [[noble|nobility]] has conducted a [[meeting]] in a more-than-satisfactory office; see [[Noble#Needs]].
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Conducted a meeting in a (poor/very poor/awful/horrible/horribly substandard) setting recently.
| -3/-5/-10/-20/-30
|The ranking member of the dwarven [[noble|nobility]] has conducted a [[meeting]] in a less-than-satisfactory office; see [[Noble#Needs]].

|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Slept (uneasily/very uneasily) due to noise lately.
| -2/-5
| Was sleeping in the zone of influence of a [[noise]] source.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Woken by noise while sleeping recently
| -10
| As above, but a worser thought from being closer to [[noise]].
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Slept without a proper room recently
| -?
| Was sleeping and couldn't find a bed designated as a [[bedroom]] not assigned to someone else.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
|Slept (in/on) the (mud/dirt/grass/rocks/ice/a rough cave floor/a floor/a pile of driftwood/pebbles/ice) recently.
| -?
|Could not find any [[bed]] for sleeping, or Dwarf is a [[ambusher|Hunter]]. The thought may be dependent upon the terrain.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
|Has been (tired/exhausted) lately
| -5/-30
|Became sleepy but wasn't able to [[sleep]] because a task had to be completed. Extreme tiredness will lead to [[insane|insanity]], but could only really happen when a mother is looking for her infant.
|}

== Nourishment ==
{| class=" wikitable" width=100%
! width=35% | Thought
! width=15% style="text-align:center" | Value
! width=50% | Triggered by
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
|Had a (fine/pretty decent/wonderful/truly decadent/legendary) drink lately
| +2/+3/+5/+10/+20
|Dwarf drank [[booze]] they have a [[preference]] for, mechanisms of preference level unknown.
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
|Had a (fine/truly decadent/legendary) meal lately
| +2/+3/+5/+10/+20
|Dwarf ate food they have a [[preference]] for.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Complained of (hunger/thirst) lately.
| -5
| Got [[hungry]] or [[thirsty]] and didn't eat or drink soon enough.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Has been (starving/dehydrated) recently.
| -30
| Has not had food or drink for a long time and will soon [[death|die]] if immediate remedial action is not taken.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
|Forced to eat vermin to survive lately
| -30/-20/-10
| Dwarf hunted vermin for food due to starvation. Will still die if real food is not provided immediately.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
|Complained about the nasty water lately.
| -10/-5/-3
| Got thirsty and had to drink [[stagnant]] water because no alcohol or fresh water was available.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Has been tired of (drinking the same old booze/eating the same old food) lately.
| -5
| Drinking the same variety of [[alcohol]] or eating the same type of [[food]] repeatedly.
|- style="background:#FFA3A3" |
| Was forced to eat a (beloved creature/treasured pet) to survive lately.
| -50/-1000
| Of course if things get this bad a tantrum spiral can't make it that much worse.
|}

== Amenities ==
{| class=" wikitable" width=100%
! width=35% | Thought
! width=15% style="text-align:center" | Value
! width=50% | Trigger
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
|Admired (a/own) (fine/very fine/splendid/wonderful/completely sublime) (tastefully arranged) (building) lately.
| +x/+2x/+2x/+4x, x based on value
|Passed by a constructed piece of [[furniture]] or [[building]] requiring [[architecture]] and noticed it. Bonus is randomly determined: x is based on value, multiplier based on and whether or not the dwarf owns the item in question (x2) and whether or not they have a [[preference]] for it (a further x2).
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
|Had a nice bath recently.
| +3
|Was cleaned with [[soap]] during the administration of [[healthcare|medical care]].
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
|Had a wonderful soapy bath recently
| +10
|Dwarf cleaned [[contaminant]]s from self using [[soap]].
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
|Was comforted by a lovely waterfall lately.
| +5
|Sprayed by [[mist]] from a [[waterfall]], which dwarves find relaxing.
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
|Was comforted by a wonderful creature in a cage recently.
| +3
|Passed near a [[cage]]d [[creature]] the dwarf has a [[preference]] for; see [[zoo]].
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was (disgusted by a miasma/choked on smoke/choked on dust) recently.
| -5 or -3 or -2
| Dwarf was exposed to [[miasma]], [[smoke]], or a [[cave in]] recently. Impact based on personality traits.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
|Complained of the lack of chairs lately.
| -?
|Was eating and couldn't find an unoccupied [[chair]].
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Complained of the crowded tables lately.
| -2
| Tried to eat at a table someone else was already eating at (only occurs if there are no free tables).
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Complained of the lack of dining tables lately.
| -?
| Was eating and couldn't find a [[table]] next to an available chair sat on while eating.

|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Has been annoyed by flies lately.
| -5/-3/-2
| Shared a tile with [[fly|flies]] and noticed it.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Has been accosted by terrible vermin lately.
| -30/-20/-10
| Exposure to a [[vermin]] that the dwarf particularly hates.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Saw something unpleasant in a cage recently.
| -10/-5/-3
| Dwarf examined a cage containing [[preference|hated]] [[vermin]] (moral of the story, don't cage hate-able vermin in sight).
|}

== Relations ==
{| class=" wikitable" width=100%
! width=35% | Thought
! width=15% style="text-align:center" | Value
! width=50% | Trigger
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Talked with (somebody/a pet/spouse/mother/father/lover/friend/sibling/child) lately.
| +2 (all)
| Dwarf employed their [[social skill]]s and conversed with someone while idling or attending a [[party]] recently.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was forced to talk to somebody annoying lately.
| -2
| Had to endure the presence of the object of a [[grudge]] recently.
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Was (overjoyed to be able/happy to have been able/pleased to have been able/able) to help somebody to bed lately.
| +20/+10/+5/+3/0
| A dwarf with a helpful or at least indifferent [[personality]] was recently tasked with moving an [[unconscious]] (usually [[wound|injured]]) dwarf to a bed; strength varies with their personality.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was (irritated at having/was unhappy at having/has suffered the pain of having) to help somebody to bed lately.
| -3/-5/-10/-20
| A dwarf with a selfish [[personality]] was recently tasked with moving an [[unconscious]] ([[injury|injured]]) dwarf to a bed; severity varies with their personality.
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Was (overjoyed to be/happy to have been/pleased to have been/able) to give somebody (food/water) lately.
| +20/+10/+5/+3/0
| A dwarf with a helpful or at least indifferent [[personality]] was recently tasked with feeding or quenching another dwarf; strength varies with their personality.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was irritated at/was unhappy at/has suffered the pain of) having to give somebody (food/water) lately.
| -3/-5/-10/-20
| A dwarf with a selfish [[personality]] was recently tasked with feeding or quenching another dwarf; severity varies with their personality.
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Made a friend recently.
| +5
| Initiated a [[friend]]ship recently; note that having a large body of fleshy, vulnerable friends increases the chances of a [[tantrum spiral]].
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Adopted a new pet recently.
| +10
| Adopted a domesticated [[stray]] animal recently; note that adopted animals cannot be [[butcher]]ed without serious happiness penalties, which can cause [[Catsplosion|problems]].
|}

== Job satisfaction ==
{| class=" wikitable" width=100%
! width=35% | Thought
! width=15% style="text-align:center" | Value
! width=50% | Trigger
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Satisfied at work lately
| +5
| The dwarf was able to work with materials, items or animals they have a [[preference]] for in their job.
|- style="background:#99E699" |
| Is quite pleased with making an artifact.
| +1000
| Crafted an [[artifact]].
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Knocked out during a cave-in lately.
| -20/-10/-5/-3
| The dwarf was caught in a [[cave in]] and knocked unconscious, check for injuries.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Has suffered the travesty of art defacement.
| -200/remaining number of masterworks
| A [[quality|masterwork quality]] good crafted by this dwarf was lost, stolen, or destroyed. Potentially extremely damaging to the dwarf's happiness if it's their only one, or one of a few; solution is to make more.
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Formed a bond with an animal training partner recently
| +?
| The dwarf grew attached to an animal during training.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Lost an animal training partner to tragedy recently.
| -?
| A trained animal that the dwarf was attached to was killed or died of old age.
|}

== Clothing ==
{| class=" wikitable" width=100%
! width=35% | Thought
! width=15% style="text-align:center" | Value
! width=50% | Trigger
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
|Was upset to be wearing (old/tattered) clothing lately.
| -5/-3/-2
| Wearing [[wear|Old or tattered]] [[clothing]] with no available replacement.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was very upset to have worn clothes rot away lately.
| -10/-5/-3
| An article of clothing on the dwarf wore away completely.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was very embarrassed to be uncovered lately.
| -20/-10/-5
| All of the dwarf's clothes have rotted away and now they're stark naked.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
|Was embarrassed to have no (shirt/shoes) lately.
| -10/-5/-3
| Missing specific articles of [[clothing]].
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was very embarrassed to be uncloaked lately
| -20/-10/-5
| The dwarf's cloak rotted away.
|}

== Wedlock ==
{| class=" wikitable" width=100%
! width=35% | Thought
! width=15% style="text-align:center" | Value
! width=50% | Trigger
|- style="background:#99E699" |
| Gave birth to a child recently.
| +1000
| [[Children]] may tax a fortress's resources and [[population cap]], but they do tantrum-proof their mothers.
|- style="background:#99E699" |
| Became a parent of a child recently
| +500
| They help a lot with their fathers, too.
|- style="background:#99E699" |
| Gained (a) sibling(s) recently.
| +100
| Finally! A family member with a lesser [[beard]]!
|- style="background:#99E699" |
| Got married recently.
| +250
| Marriage (and childrearing) is the secret to happiness.
|- style="background:#99E699" |
| Became caught up in a new romance recently.
| +250
| The (bachelor[ette]) dwarf gained a [[lover]] recently.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Had a miscarriage recently. (Tragedy)
| -50/-30/-20/-10
| Pregnant dwarf miscarried due to starvation, dehydration, or severe injury. Value basis unknown.
|}

== Noble pretensions ==
{| class=" wikitable" width=100%
! width=35% | Thought
! width=15% style="text-align:center" | Value
! width=50% | Trigger
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Celebrated having a (good/very good/great/fantastic/legendary) tomb after gaining another year.
| +3/+5/+10/+20/+30
|A member of the high dwarven [[noble|nobility]] had a more-than-satisfactory [[tomb]] upon having reached their [[age|birthday]] recently; see [[Noble#Needs]].
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Worried about (having a poor/very poor/awful/horrible/horribly substandard/not having a tomb) after gaining another year.
| -3/-5/-10/-20/-30/-50?
| A member of the high dwarven [[noble|nobility]] had a less-than-satisfactory [[tomb]] upon having reached their [[age|birthday]] recently, or none at all; see [[Noble#Needs]].
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Was (greatly pleased/very pleased/pleased) at the state of demands recently.
| +10/+5/+3
| Noble dwarf [[demand]]ed something and it was provided before or on time.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was (angered/very angered/greatly angered) at the state of demands recently.
| -3/-5/-10
| Noble dwarf [[demand]]ed something and it was provided late or not at all.
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Was pleased to have a mandate deadline met lately.
| +10
| Noble dwarf [[mandate]]d something and it was provided on cue.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was upset by having a [[mandate]] (deadline missed/ignored) lately.
| -3/-5
| Noble issued a [[mandate]] that went beyond time or was unfulfilled entirely.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
|Upset by not having enough (chests/cabinets/weapon racks/armor stands) lately
|Noble doesn't have enough of their position's furniture requirements.

|A member of the high dwarven [[noble|nobility]] worried about the low quality of or lack of [[tomb]] upon having reached their [[age|birthday]] recently; see [[Noble#Needs]].
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was (put off/flustered/upset/very upset/greatly upset/angered/enraged/shattered/traumatized/utterly traumatized) by a lesser's pretentious (office/sleeping/dining/burial) arrangements recently.
| -4*severity
| A member of the dwarven [[noble|nobility]] who is unhappy that his accommodations are worse than those of a lower-ranked dwarf's room.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was (very) embarrassed to have to conduct an official meeting in a (dining room/bedroom).
| -?
| Noble dwarf had to meet with a diplomat without an office (or any dining room if a bedroom was used)
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Incredibly embarrassed not to have any rooms lately
| -?
| Noble dwarf without any kind of room to conduct a meeting in.
|}

== Justice ==
{| class=" wikitable" width=100%
! width=35% | Thought
! width=15% style="text-align:center" | Value
! width=50% | Trigger
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Was glad to have punishment delayed recently.
| +20
| No one was around to carry out the dwarf's [[justice|punishment]].
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Was glad to have punishment reduced recently
| +20
| No [[jail]]s were available, so the [[justice|punishment]] was "reduced" to a beating (unless precautions are taken, this is likely to be lethal for the unfortunate dwarf).
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Beat somebody recently.
| +5
| Justice, dispensed.
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Beat somebody with a hammer recently.
| +5
| Criminals, smitten.
|- style="background:#99E699" |
|Is happy to be free
| +1000
| Was [[Justice|jailed]] or [[thief|snatched]], and was released recently (...disproportionate bonus?)
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was upset that a criminal could not be properly punished.
| -5
| The victim of the crime, upset that it goes improperly punished.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was upset by the delayed punishment of a criminal.
| -5
| The victim of the crime, upset that punishment was delayed.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
|Depressed about being confined
| -10
| Dwarf is in a [[cage]] ([[jail]]ed or [[cage trap|trapped]]), or has been abducted by a goblin [[snatcher]].
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was worried by the scarcity of (guards/cages and chains) lately.
| -10
| Dwarves in a sufficiently large fortress don't like to be without a [[fortress guard]] or the lack of a proper [[jail]].
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was beaten recently.
| -10/-5/-3/-2
| Justice was administered unto this dwarf recently.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was beaten with a hammer recently.
| -20/-10/-5/-3
| Justice was smitten unto this dwarf recently (they're likely lying in a hospital with broken ribs at the minimum, and just plain dead at worst).
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Was outraged at the bizarre conviction against all reason of the victim of a crime recently
| -?
| When you convict a victim as the perpetrator of the crime--for example, convicting a blood-drained dwarf of draining his own blood
|}

== Injury and death ==
{| class=" wikitable" width=100%
! width=35% | Thought
! width=15% style="text-align:center" | Value
! width=50% | Trigger
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
|Was (rescued/able to rest and recuperate) lately.
| +10/+10
|A wounded dwarf was rescued and carried to a [[bed]], and is now resting.
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Received (food/water) recently.
| +10
| A wounded dwarf is receiving nourishment from his fellows while recovering from his injuries.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Has been attacked lately.
| -30/-20/-10/-5
| Dwarf was [[combat|assaulted]] by a hostile creature. (Tragedy)
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Has been attacked by the dead lately.
| -50/-30/-20/-10
| Fighting [[Undead|undeath]] extolls a heavy mental cost on dwarves, as does getting attacked by [[ghost]]s.
|- style="background:#FFA3A3" |
| Has been attacked by a dead (pet/spouse/family member/lover/friend/dead and still annoying acquaintance) lately.
| -100/-60/-40/-20
| ...especially when your own child's reanimated corpse is gnawing on your ear.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Sustained (minor/major) injuries recently.
| -30/-20/-10/-5/-3
| Dwarf sustained a [[wound]] recently.So losing an arm and a leg carries at most a -30 penalty while getting lucky in bed is an instant +250? Huh. (Tragedy)
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Has witnessed death recently.
| -30/-20/-10/-5
| Saw another dwarf die. (Tragedy)
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Lost a (friend/pet/family member) to tragedy recently.
| -50/-30/-20/-10
| A dwarf or favored animal of the dwarf died recently. (Tragedy)
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Forced to endure the decay of a (friend/pet/family member/annoying acquaintance).
| -20/-10/-5/-3
| The corpse of the dwarf's companion, loved one, or rival is rotting on the ground rather than being properly [[coffin|entombed]]. (Tragedy)
|}

== Military duty ==
{| class=" wikitable" width=100%
! width=35% | Thought
! width=15% style="text-align:center" | Value
! width=50% | Trigger
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Took joy in slaughter lately.
| +10
| Landed the [[kill list|killing blow]] on another creature in the line of duty.
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Had a satisfying sparring session recently
| +10
| Military dwarf in training successfully [[sparring|sparred]].
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Complained about the draft lately.
| -30
| A civilian dwarf with no [[combat skill]]s was enlisted in [[military]] duty and became a recruit in a time of peace (this thought does not occur when enlisted during a [[siege]]).
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Upset about being relieved from duty.
| -30
| [[Combat skill|Military dwarf]] with no civilian skills is removed from active duty and is relegated to hauling around stone as a [[peasant]].
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| (Complained about/Enraged by/Depressed by) long patrol duty
| -3/-5/-10
| Military dwarf has active order for more than one month (one if complaining, two if depressed, three if enraged). Soldiers stop getting this thought upon becoming [[Soldier#Heroes|Heroes]]. Due to a bug, training currently counts as patrol duty.{{bug|3190}}
|}

== Tantrums ==
{| class=" wikitable" width=100%
! width=35% | Thought
! width=15% style="text-align:center" | Value
! width=50% | Trigger
|- style="background:#CCFFB2;" |
| Enjoyed (throwing something/toppling something over/smashing up a building/starting a fist fight) recently.
| +5/+10/+20/+20
| The dwarf recently threw an item, threw something over, smashed up a building, or punched someone while throwing a [[tantrum]]. Needs to be controlled immediately or else a [[tantrum spiral]] may result.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Accidentally killed somebody in a fit of rage recently.
| -50/-30/-20/-10
| Killed another dwarf or someone's pet while throwing a tantrum. A very bad thing, obviously. (Tragedy)
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| (Yelled at/Cried on) somebody in charge lately
| -?
| The dwarf was unsuccessfully consoled by a noble.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Unable to find somebody in charge to (cry on/yell at) lately
| -?
| The dwarf was not consoled because a noble is inaccessible or busy.
|}

== Weather ==
{| class=" wikitable" width=100%
! width=35% | Thought
! width=15% style="text-align:center" | Value
! width=50% | Trigger
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
| Caught in (the rain/a snow storm/freakish weather) recently.
| -2/-2/-?
| Went outside while it was [[weather#rain|raining]], [[weather#Snow and Cold |snowing]], or in [[weather#evil weather|evil weather]]. [[Ambusher]]s are used to bad weather and don't get this thought, and dwarves who like working outdoors won't get unhappy from this.
|- style="background:#FFCCCC;" |
|(Irritated/Nauseated) by the sun lately.
| -10/-20
| Is suffering from [[cave adaptation]] and went outside. Nausea indicates a more serious case.
|}

{{Category|Thoughts}}

v0.34:Challenges

2013-08-22T18:21:35Z

Coolthulhu: /* Peasantry */

{{av}}
{{Quality|Exceptional|[[User:Reilwin|Reilwin]] 03:58, 3 April 2012 (UTC)}}
==Pre-Embark Build Ideas==
Before you embark, you can optimize or sabotage your fortress from the very start, depending on how you distribute your points. After a few years, a well-developing fortress may or may not stabilize (depending on your idea of [[fun]]), leaving you to other challenges.

=== Diplomacy ===
* Six dwarves with only social [[skill]]s
* One skilled dwarf

Six courtiers of the king's court made some ill-advised remarks within earshot of the king, and as a result have been ordered to go found an outpost. They've hired you to make sure they survive. The six nobles only have social skills and refuse to do any work that is beneath them.

=== Minimalist/Survivalist build===

* 1 anvil
* 1 copper ore

Nothing else. From that alone, forge your pick and axe. Real dwarves won't need to peek...

{{Spoil small|
* Deconstruct the initial wagon for the 3 wood it provides.
* Build a wood furnace with the copper nugget
* Make 1 ash and 2 charcoal from the wood.
* Deconstruct the wood furnace.
* Build a smelter with 1 ash ''(a fire-safe "bar")''.
* Smelt the nugget into 4 copper bars using 1 charcoal.
* Deconstruct the smelter.
* Build a metalsmith's forge with 1 anvil and 1 ash.
* Forge a battle axe using 1 copper bar and 1 charcoal.
* Chop more trees.
* Deconstruct forge, construct wood furnace.
* Make more charcoal.
* Deconstruct wood furnace, construct forge.
* Forge a pick.
... and proceed as normal.|Step-by-step}}

Alternative: use 1 of the wagon logs to make a wooden practice axe, and use that to chop down more trees. This saves some workshop deconstruction and reconstruction.

===Peasantry===
* Spend 0 Points on embark

This challenge is moderately difficult to impossible, depending on the wildlife and outdoor food and water sources. Note that the three logs from the wagon are just enough to build a trade depot.

Sadly, the wooden axes of v0.31 make this challenge remarkably easy. All you end up with is a fort that decided not to dig until the first caravan. Of course, you could just choose not to use wooden axes (on the honor system, naturally) or to embark in a place too dwarfy for aboveground trees. Deserts and glaciers are excessively dwarfy, though - with no plants and no water, there's no way to survive till caravans arrive (none of the starting dwarves can drink blood). You don't need a trade depot if ''something'' happens to a caravan that carries a pick.

===Race Against the Clock===
* Spend all embark points on [[cat]]s; 50/50 male and female

A variant of Peasantry: can you slaughter enough cats to prevent the [[catsplosion]] while eking out your pitiful livelihood?

=== Stranded Scout Squad ===
* Military skills
* Weapons, ammunition, armor, war dogs
* Picks are not weapons

Your civilian 'friends' promised a caravan in the fall as they left, laughing. Hopefully, you can survive until then with your forward scouts.

==Races==
Pretend to be another race! You can mod the game or just pretend that Elves have hair. It doesn't matter what you look like, just what you build, with what materials, and what's for lunch after we build it.

===Elves - The Ultimate Hippy Challenge===
Peace, man.
* Don't gather plants except those you plant yourself.
* Don't gather wood nor trade for it with humans or dwarves.
* Trade for plants and wood only with the elves; they understand your environmental code.
* Don't burn any [[fuel|coal]]. Do you know what that does to the environment, man?
**Magma-smelting is an option, but steel can't be had.
* Don't cause any creature's death, except in self-defense.
**No military, induced submerging, or lethal implementation of corkscrews.
* Only use cage traps, and either tame the creatures you catch, or release them back into the wild.
* [[Elf|Hippies]] prefer sunlight and wooded areas, with minimal use of rock (digging and building).

Bonus: Declare war on human and dwarven caravans that try to trade you wooden items.

For an extra challenge try this in an area with a cave.

===Hobbitton===
Forget about deep-delving adventures and armoursmithing. You're playing hobbits.

* You're not in a dwarf fortress. You're in a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
** Hobbit-holes are all on one level - store-rooms, wine-cellars, bedrooms and all.
** One family per hobbit-hole, though that may include the help. No underground connections between holes, either.
** Walls are to be lined with blocks of good polished wood, or clay bricks. Floors can be surfaced in stone or wood.
** Don't forget your glass skylights and brick chimneys over the kitchen! While you're at it, how about a greenhouse for those exotic plants?

* Your primary industries are farming and distilling. Trade primarily in these. Purchase all metals and avoid industrial mining.

* Hobbits are uninterested in machines more complicated than the odd water-mill - no traps of any sort, though a drawbridge, dogs and militia as a concession to safety may be acceptable. And, of course, a mill.

* Elves are your friends - always give them your preference as a trading partner. Go to the effort of storing your trade goods in barrels and large pots, so you can sell them your finest liquors for their valuable woodcrafts.

===Humans - Living Large and Standing Tall===
Pretend you're a filthy above-ground dwelling [[Human|human]].
* Build a town wall.
** Only hovels and farms outside the town walls.
* House your dwarves in small town homes
** 5-10 dwarves per house (they had pretty big families back in the day)
** Upstairs bedrooms, small dining room, maybe a single level basement.
* House your workshops according to profession, not convenience.
* Build warehouses for stockpiles, and set guards outside them.
* Create a keep, with its own wall, barracks, treasury, etc.
** House your nobles within the keep.
* Create a market square.
* Create a main street from the town wall to the market square and/or keep. Well-paved blocks, statues and decorative shubbery are a must.
* No underground connections between different areas.
* For obtaining stone, metal, etc. a mine may be built, but must have separate entrance from other buildings. It can be outside the fortress, but must not connect to the interior, or vice versa.
** If you create a side hill mine, only carve large (at least 2 tiles) tunnels, and create shaft to the surface to allow air circulation.
** Or better than that, create an open pit mine / quarry, with ramps to access lower floors.
* BONUS: Miniproject: Build a large, multiple-z-level fountain complete with decorations.
* BONUS: Miniproject: Human Inn, containing your only booze stockpile and should be party-oriented.
* BONUS: Miniproject: Farm simulation, complete with crops and free-range livestock, etc.
* BOUNS: Miniproject: Have a series of canals for transport.
* BONUS: Easy Play: Embark on top of a Human Town.
* BONUS: Advanced Play: Modify the raws and actually use humans to make the fort.
* MEGABONUS: Build your entire fortress as [[mega construction|one huge arcology]].
* MEGADWARFBONUS: Build your City in a giant, artificial cave. (or the caverns, if you can't manage that)

==="Humans"===
Make your dwarves pretend to be an ordinary, albeit short human village, to disguise the secret diggings below. Prepare to launch an invasion on the unsuspecting Big Folk.

* Embark as close to the human towns as possible.
* Construct a "manor house" to house your mayor and broker, with a stone-walled ground level containing office, dining room and kitchens, wood-block walls and windows above for the mayor's bedroom, and a large cellar with a discreetly concealed entrance to the Secret Fortress.
* Construct a walled village including a token number of shacks, barns and workshops, a mill and a blacksmiths' for that authentic touch.
* Surround the village with large fields, growing typical human crops.
* While all this is going on, excavate an extensive fortress underground, with a focus on a well-trained militia. If the map permits, build a secret training area for your army, perhaps hidden in the top of a large hill.
* Trade only raw crops to the human and elven caravans, in exchange for the minor needs of a human village.
* Lure the goblins underground before meeting them in battle - best to hide the evidence, you understand.

===Luddite===
Shun technology and contraptions. Who can really trust them, with all those [[Gremlin|gremlins]] running around? This may be challenging, as it forbids easy isolation/defense from attacks, all traps and wells. Irrigation is reduced to solid elbow grease and maybe a bucket or two. This challenge may be even harder combined with another challenge.
* No mechanics or [[mechanism]]s
* No [[machine]]s

** BONUS: Hey, wait, aren't crossbows machinelike?

===Earthworms===
Live constantly tunneling. Churn up the soil as you go and visit the surface only rarely to collect the stuff you need..
* Create one long tunnel. Dig forward at one end whilst sealing off (collapsing, building walls across) the other end.
* Workshops should be built directly behind the row of miners. When they reach the point where they would be destroyed, take them apart and rebuild back by the miners again.
* To make it easier, you can come up to the surface now and then.
* Try to keep the tunnel as short as possible.
* Like this: ||||||||==========> (| is walled off end section, = is tunnel and > is the miners.
* BONUS: Leave those pesky nobles walled in as you tunnel away from them!
* BONUS: Leave stockpiles of armour and weapons for any future diggers to find!
* MEGABONUS: Surprise a goblin siege by tunneling up underneath them!
* MEGABONUS: Leave a group of dwarves behind in a cavern farming. Carry no food, and return to the cavern to restock the dwarves.

=== Kill demons ===
Try to kill as many demons as possible. Use siege-engines and fortifications. Remember, that collapsing caves (use supports) kills everything.

===Eskimo===
Live like the Eskimo! Only try if you are an expert
* Embark somewhere with tundra or glacial biome.
* Lot of fishermen, hunters and only a few diggers.
* Every dwarf is at least novice mason
* Build everything out of ice.
* Only spears and crossbows allowed in the military
* BONUS: Axes? what axes?
* BONUS: Only BONE crossbows, bolts and spears. Metal is for losers.
* BONUS: Embark near an ocean and create a floating ice fortress.

===Amazon dwarves===
*Kill or lock in somewhere all male dwarves, kids are allowed until they grow up.
*BONUS: military use only bows and spears.
*DOESTHISMAKEITOFFENSIVE Bonus: Do the same but with women instead

Alternative: Instead of killing the males, use them as slaves and make them work for the females dwarves. Put all the females in the military, no male nobles allowed.

===The Oregon Trail===
Settle like those who traveled the (in)famous Oregon Trail.
*Optional: Wait to stop world gen until the year 1840.
*Embark in an area that has mostly grassland biome.
*Bring 10 food and 15 booze per dwarf.
*All dwarves must embark as peasants.
*Bring a few rabbits along for skins.
*Bring a few chickens along for eggs, meat and skins.
*Bring 10 copper bars and three random rocks, but only one axe and pick.
*If points allow, bring some leather along.
*If points allow, bring some cloth along.
*Hint: You may want to find an area with clay.

Post-Embark:
*Set one miner, one woodhacker, one main farmer, one weaver/clothier, one potter/glazer, one metalsmith and one glassmaker/gem cutter if you have or found sand.
*All dwarves must plant their own crops, process their own plants, spin their own cloth and cook their own meals.
*Chop down enough of one tree to make one 4x5 inner-tile log cabin.
*Repeat the above step for the rest of the 6 dwarves you came with.
*Hint: Use a rock you brought with to make a kiln. Set a clay collection zone and set Collect Clay on repeat. Use the clay to make houses, instead.
*Dig your dwarves a 5x5 root cellar and place food stockpiles in them.
*Place a 10x10 farm plot by each dwarf's cabin.
*Dig a side hill mine for stone and ore, and make it go down 5 to 6 levels.
*BONUS: Make a huge 40x40 quarry and decrease size by 2 tiles for each level going down.
*Settler BONUS: Place 1x10 farm plots that all grow the same crop 1 tile from each other, channel between them, tap into a surface river, and voila. Western-style irrigation.
*See how long you can survive like this.
*Modding BONUS: Mod the raws and actually embark as humans.
*Naming BONUS: Name the fort 'Tombstone'.
*Modding BONUS: Mod the raws to make sentinents butcherable, cause a food shortage and attempt to recreate the Donner Party.
*Modding BONUS: Add dysentery.
*Mega Modding BONUS: Add guns and bullets of some sort.

As you can see, this challenge is similar to the City-States challenge below. Try 'em both and see which one you like better!

==Utter Dwarfiness==
Need new ways to behave or new techniques to dip your toes into? Give any or all of your starting 7 some quirks to live up to. Want to try making your Boss a hell-bent, paranoid despot? Or establish a routine mass murder of small animals to provide your fort with raw meat by a vaguely intimidating, estranged butcher?

===Bandit Camp===
* Three or more Marksdwarves (perhaps with [[Ambusher|ambushing]])
* Embark site featuring places to hide

Attack and loot every enemy sentient creature you can find, such as goblins & kobolds. Develop sneaky and even horrific methods of trapping and 'processing' friendly sentients (merchants, diplomats, and even migrants). Take no prisoners and leave no evidence of foul play.

===City-States===
* All dwarves embark as peasants
* 7 or multiple of 7 of everything you bring (especially picks and axes)
* BONUS: Make one state for only nobles and force the other states to sustain it

At the start your dwarves split everything equally and move to 7 different locales that are not interconnected. They have to mine their own rooms, plant their own crops, use their own craft piles. This will probably require a bit of cross-fertilization until you get [[door]]s and can lock everyone in, but after that it is every dwarf for him/herself!

Burrows are very useful for this.
===Dwarftopia===
*Embark only with dwarves that have max skills, with no more than one miner; but bring extra copper picks.
*Separate the fortress into 2 parts: a vibrant city above, and a depressed slum below.
**BONUS: Reverse the order; elite dwarves get to live underground, while the poor have to scratch a living off the surface.
*Throw all low-skill immigrants into the pits, where they will spend the rest of their lives (unless called up for the draft).
*'''DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES''' let said immigrants socialize whatsoever with the Elite; so nobody (who matters) will be upset when they die.
**BONUS: Make it impossible for anybody to escape by using trapdoors to drop them in and bridge-a-paults for sending goods out (preferably with a carp-based sterilization system).
***MEGADWARFBONUS: Set it all up so that none of the 'elite' have to do any work; all their needs are met by the laborers. Watch what happens and laugh as the laborers die out and high society breaks down.
****MEGAUBERLITERARYBONUS: build the community from "The Giver", all dwarves keep all jobs they come with, 3-time troublemakers get "released" (spoiler alert) use magma instead of lethal injection, and remember, no death or pain! (mod the game for ultra control over marriage and jobs!)

===Equaland===
* No embark requirements
* Construct a successful fortress
* All dwarves are given equal attention regarding quarters, dining, armament and burial
* One dwarf elected to be "The Leader" commands a lever system capable of killing a single dwarf of your choice in their room, however you wish
* Allow the Leader (your id) free reign on his power, enforcing impossible and unannounced criteria on your other dwarves with death being the only punishment
* BONUS: Construct a large sickle-hammer at the fortress enterance to show the regime.

===Hermit===
* Spend points ONLY on ONE [[Pick]]

A well known and popular challenge. Kill off 6 starting dwarves and any [[immigrant|immigrants]] as they arrive, and try to make a living for the last dwarf. Turn away merchants. If they don't leave, kill them.

'''Variants'''
To moderate difficulty, feel free to allow these exceptions:
* Keep one male and one female dwarf as the Dwarven Adam and Eve.
* Keep your starting seven, but no immigrants.
* Selectively admit dwarves based on name, profession, etc.
* Embark with an anvil as well.
* Become a lone fisherman. The old man and the sea.

===Hunting Party===
* One Marksman+Ambusher
* One Cook+Farmer
* One Brewer+Farmer
* Four exclusively social dwarves
* Embark with no anvil, many hunting dogs, into a challenging biome (terrifying areas may have no supply of wood)

===Immigration and customs enforcement===
* One miner/mason/architect
* One woodcutter/carpenter/architect
* Five military dwarves
* Embark into a canyon or on a road
* Don't embark with an anvil

Spend the first year building fortifications to interdict traffic. Immigrants can build a town around you, but your original seven dwarves remain dedicated to their mission (purely military in purpose).

*BONUS: Make the two areas self-sufficent of each other, no resource-sharing.
*BONUS: Make the main construction capable of dispatching any interlopers into the main building through drowning.

==="Let Slip the Dogs of War"===
* No military Dwarves are permitted, including Fortress Guard.
* No weapons or armor may be forged, and any obtained from looting must be melted down.
* War dogs must be your only form of attack and defense.
** Bonus : No traps or defense mechanisms of any kind may be utilized, only dogs.
* D'ont forget to cry "Havoc!".

===28 Drinks Later===

*Embark in an evil biome. Set up a wall around your camp. Never leave the perimeters. All migrants are survivors from the Zombie plagued cities, decide carefully whether to let them into your walls.
*Bonus: If you have "reason" to believe the migrants are infected, sacrifice them to [[Main:Armok|Armok]]. Remember, he loves Magma!
*Bonus: Only Marksdwarves for defense, You shouldn't get near the zombies, they tend to bite. If they are wounded, they must be quarantined, and shall therefore die.
*AdvancedPlay: Embark in a evil biome near a necromancer, so you will occasionally be besieged by hordes of zombies.
**Bonus: Send one heroic guy to save the migrants from the zombies, like in 28 days later.
***Bonus: Keep a diary from one of the character's perspectives, to be read when the world is repopulated.

===Master Of One===
Pre-Embark:
* All starting dwarves must have only one skill

Post-Embark:
* No changes are allowed on any dwarf's labor screen, except to ''disable'' hauling labors (enabling hauling is forbidden)
* All immigrants must stay with the profession(s) they arrive with
* All peasants must be activated into the military

'''Variant:'''
*Only allow one dwarf for each skill to remain in your fort (1 mason, 1 miner, 1 farmer, etc.). Slaughter or draft all other dwarves.

===Urist of All Trades, Master Of None===
Opposite of "Master Of One" above. 
Pre-Embark:
* You may distribute points to as many skills as you want on each dwarf, but no more than 1 point on any skill (no dwarves above Novice).
 
Post-Embark:
* Enable all labors on all dwarves, at all times.
* Since only one of Mining, Woodcutting, or Hunting can be enabled at once, try to have an equal number of dwarves in each job. At least once every year, change them around, try to assign them to whichever they have the lowest skill in. Of course, you can leave out Woodcutters if there are no trees (but enable some if you reach a cavern with underground trees), and leave out Hunters if there are no huntable critters.
* Make/buy enough Picks, Axes, and Crossbows so any dwarf who wants to try Mining, Woodcutting, or Hunting can at any time.
* Shuffle around your Administrators yearly, or whenever you notice them getting too skilled in their jobs. You can check the personalities of your replacements to make sure they're at least capable of learning appropriate social skills for the job.
* Draft any (or better yet, every) dwarf into the military. Use the default uniforms. You can only add Individual Choice Melee/Weapon/Ranged, do not assign specific weapons. Keep a variety of weapons in your stockpiles (including any exotic weapons from other races) so your soldiers have plenty to choose from. Periodically switch out your Militia Commander/Captains and squad leaders, so everyone gets a chance to lead. Unless there is a siege, only 1 squad can be active/training at any time.
* Always have some areas designated for Digging/Channeling, tree Cutting, Smoothing/Detailing, and Plant gathering, so dwarves can practice Mining, Woodcutting, Stone Detailing, or Herbalism whenever they want.
* No workshop restrictions via profiles or burrows. Let anyone work anywhere they want, regardless of skill level.
* Try to build at least 2 of every type of workshop, so if a moody dwarf claims one, other dwarves can still have a chance to try that kind of work.
* BONUS: If any dwarf manages to become Legendary, disable the labor(s) associated with that skill. If one reaches Legendary in a weapon or other combat skill, discharge them from the military. You may re-enable the labor(s) (or re-enlist) ONLY if the skill rusts all the way back down to Novice.
* SUPERBONUS: Set that skill threshold lower, (eg. Master, Expert) depending on your own masochism.

===Monarch with a grudge===
* Forbid any and all use of stone and metal
* No exposed tile may be labeled "Underground"
* Artifacts containing stone and metal are to be destroyed '''utterly''' (magma or the [[Dwarven atom smasher|DAS]])

"Nay, no ponderous stone doors or shining silver arcades, not while I live!"
The new king has decided rocks and metals can no longer be used in construction. He'll be overthrown shortly, but in the meantime construct your fortress without them.

'''Variants'''
* Embark with no construction materials, into an area devoid of trees.
* Construct a fortress made entirely out of glass. Try not using magma or limit yourself only to clear and crystal glass.
* Build with soap bars. Show those elven traders just how much you despise their philosophies by building with stuff derived from dead trees ''and'' dead animals. Cats are an excellent source of tallow.
* Choose one type of rock, one type of metal, one type of gem, one type of wood, and optionally one type of glass. All constructions can only use those types in their construction. An easy way to enforce this with stone is to mark all but your choice "Economical".
* Bonus points: Stone is forbidden along with digging

===Noblesse requiro===
* Construct a fortress only to please nobles (who, for the sake of this challenge, are all criminally psychotic)
* Criminals who deserve justice should be incarcerated, tortured, and executed for ''any'' offense. Use your imagination for every step of the process. Remember, there is no right to a fair and speedy trial in Armok's eyes.
* All Nobles must be treated to the highest quality living conditions
* All others must be treated to the bare minimum needed to physically keep them alive
* Elected nobles are to be treated as regular dwarves, but mandates hold equal sway regarding justice

===Urist McHoHoHo===
* Embark in a glacier biome
* Take at least 3 craftsdwarves to serve as Santa's Elves.
* Export as many toys as possible. These are your only permitted trade good.
* Bonus: Use this Christmas-themed tileset: [[http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/User:Sphr/gfx_set#Christmas_Special_2007]]
* Bonus: Cycle nobles frequently, use their mandates as people's wish lists.
* Mega Bonus: Use [[Olivine]], [[Serpentine]], [[Bauxite]], [[Kaolinite]], [[Cinnabar]], [[Petrified wood]], [[Realgar]], (red and green) to build your fortress.
* Dwarven Spirit Bonus: Edit the raws to embark with [[elves]]. Utilize elf labor to craft your toys.
* Mega Dwarf Bonus: Embark with a group of elves, choose the fattest elf to be Santa. Clothe him in reindeer wool clothing, dyed red, with accents of un-dyed wool. Feed him ☼Longland Flour Cookies☼ and reindeer milk. Build a brick fireplace and burn coal for a warm cozy fire. Train Santa to be a legendary pump operator to make him flash red.

===Sitting on trees===
* Construct a wooden "tree" or several, spanning many (a dozen or so) z-levels
* Establish a successful fortress not inside, but around, these constructed trees

===The Mad Butcher===
* One dedicated Butcher+Tanner
* Minimal supplies and skills, so you can bring...
* As many puppies and kittens you can afford
* All food-gathering skills (except your Butcher+Tanner and Brewing) are forbidden

Caging your animals will increase performance to prepare a suitable butchery. Construct a wide, deep shaft to be zoned as an animal pit. At the bottom, outfit an isolation chamber complete with food and alcohol stockpiles, a bed, a butchery and a tanner's workshop. An active well will prevent mishaps. You should include during the construction either an airlock chamber (to enable the butcher to pass on food) or a second pit where the butcher dumps his created food. After construction, seal your butcher+tanner inside and live only off of his work.

===The Night's watch===
Make a replica of The Wall from the novel series "A Song of Ice and Fire"
* Embark on area with north half of terrifying glacier area and south half of some non-evil taiga.
* IMPORTANT: build a HUGE ice wall to cut the north half away
* BONUS: assign each dwarf to one group: rangers, stewards, builders where rangers go regularly ranging to the other side of The Wall, builders build it (duh) and stewards do everything else
* MEGA BONUS: All of your dwarves have to have basic 1-year battle training after which are they assigned to some group and start to be somewhat useful

===The World is Flat===
* No pre-embark requirements
* You'll probably want a region with lots of hills/mountains.
* You may only work/build/live on the original Z level where your wagon was
* No moats allowed, as this requires a channel, which goes below your z-level

===Hunter and Gatherer===
Pre-Embark (World-Gen)
* Try creating a world in year 1 (optional)
Post-Embark
* Everything allowed except Farming and Cattle Breeding.
Bonus
* BONUS: Embark in a desert, so only hunting and (aquifer) fishing.
** Extra Points: Dont fish in the aquifer. How could the turtles get there anyway?
** Create a huge pyramid and sacrifice living beings or valuables to Armok for rain by dropping it in the hollow inaccessible pyramid from the top.
*** Extended version: Fill the pyramid with magma!
** Create lines like the Nazca to honour Armok, so he will send some rain (maybe).
* BONUS: No Mechanics and only limited (i.e. only copper) or no metalworking.
* BONUS: Live underground in the caverns. Create there little huts out of rock and shrooms

===Cave Men===
Pre-Embark
An Overworld accessible cave

Post-Embark
Go into the cave with all your dwarves, and try to survive the harsh environments of the new cave systems.
You can't use items from ground zero, all wood must be harvested in the caves, along with food.

*Bonus: no trading, who wants to enter that creepy cave anyways?
*MEGA BONUS: No dogs and no warrior dwarves.

===Fort wars!===

*The initial 7 create 2 forts on opposite sides of a map.

*After the initial 7, 1/2 of all immigrants get assigned to a burrow that encompasses one of the forts. New children get assigned to their parents' fort. Each fort is self-sustaining and produces their own goods. Then it turns into a competition to see which fort can produce the most wealth.
* Nobles are given free reign and will be quartered in the winning fort.
* Make a giant wall separating the forts above ground. On one side of the wall is an artificial lake made of water and on the other, one made of magma. Call forts Reliable.Excavation.Demolition and Builders.League.United.
** Bonus points if you make residents of both sides wear only team colors.

===Deep dwarves===
Following the embark, lock yourself up under the ground.
Don't let any of your dwarves go outside. Let invaders into your underground maze of doom!

*BONUS: Dig deeper and deeper, abandoning the upper levels and rebuilding your fortress as you get more deep.
*MEGA BONUS: create a caste of deep dwarves (nobles?), who will only live on the bottommost levels.

===Earth Mover===
*Do what you need to get a huge guild of miners
*Dig every square in the map.
**Hint: you might want to turn cave-in on
**Another hint: Do you really want to put your castle up there, when your dwarves are digging down there?

===Minimalist===
The opposite of Earth Mover
*Only dig a stone you need
*There should be no unused stones on the map
*BONUS: No spare items or furniture also
*MEGA-BONUS: No wars, as war leaves corpses and other useless crap

===Oh, The Humanity!===
*Live like humans do.
*Make about half of your buildings out of wood- structures that serve no defensive purpose, such as workshops, meeting halls, dining halls, the homes of the serfs and peasants etc should be wooden. You can also divide a large building up as sensible- you might make the main structure of a castle or wall out of stone for strength, then make the interior detailing, shacks, and other "addon" buildings out of wood. The important thing to keep in mind is that for humans, drafty, damp stone buildings are sometimes a functional necessity, not something they prefer.
*Build an aboveground outer wall of wood to start- you can replace it with stone once you reach fifty individuals.
*Underground areas are ONLY for mining shafts, root cellars, plumbing/mechanics, and perhaps a secret passage for your nobles to take in emergencies. No workshops, living spaces, or large-scale storage allowed.
*Most of your mining for ore and minerals should be done quarry-style, as humans are not well-suited to long-term underground life. A quarry should be a big, wide-open pit, shaped like an inverted pyramid, with a ramp leading out, so you don't feel boxed in and claustrophobic. Don't worry about the ecological impact of your surface strip mining.
*An exception to the mining rule is excavation for purposes of putting up outdoor buildings- so you can carve away a cliff wall to make room for a building, but you can't actually build *into* the wall like a dwarf would, so channel that natural dirt/stone roof out!
*All farming must be done with surface plants. No underground plants.
*Humans need several pubs so they can go bar hopping in their free time- they get bored with just one. Make sure you have a separate pub for every 15 individuals.
*Unlike dwarves, few humans have enough beard to hide their naughty bits when they run around naked. Make sure your humans have enough clothing to wear at all times.
*Finally, you need an aboveground castle. Early on, a small building will suffice but by the time royalty arrives, you'll need to have at least begun constructing a castle worthy of their station.

*BONUS: Humans enjoy bathing. If there is no pond inside your walls, build a channel to carry fresh water to an artificial pond so your people have a place to cleanse themselves. Build a 1-level waterfall in it so they can shower, and stock soap nearby.
*BONUS: Every family has its own house. Each house has a "sink" (well), garage (shack) filled with owned tools, a driveway leading to the main thoroughfare, etc. Multiple-floor apartment buildings for the poor/immigrant dwarves. Once they become useful, they become "wealthy" and are moved to better housing. If they get married, they are moved to better housing for a year - if they're not "wealthy" by then, their house is foreclosed. If they arrive married/with kids, they get cheap housing anyway.
*BONUS: Humans, as opposed to the elves reverence for nature and the dwarves utter disregard for it, actually believe it is their duty to pollute and destroy nature.
**Designate large refuse stockpiles and garbage dumps in the wilderness, and fill them.
**Chop down enough trees to piss off the elves every once in a while.
**Fill the map with paved roads. Pavement rules!

*MEGABONUS: The ultimate in human engineering. Build a 5-level above-ground mega-mall displaying all your salable wares. Build various stores for your goods, back room storage, a wishing pool for the main atrium, a food court with several "restaurants" specializing in specific foods and meals, a hair salon, a bank, and a security office staffed with rent-a-cops. Come up with more if you feel like it.
**UBER-ULTRA-BONUS: Give all the mall's stores security doors that can be controlled from the security office, for instant lockdown in case of a shoplifter. Can't have too much security!

=== [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=61614.0 Orbital Defense Network] ===

Build a 40z-level high magma rain-dropper. Build reservoirs connected to a volcano with retractable bridges at the bottom to drop magma on invaders! In a 50 tile wide hexagonal system, a 4x4x4 is all that is needed per reservoir.

=== Dwarven Prison ===
Faced with rising criminal rates the king has decided to go for a zero-tolerance policy. He sent out seven dwarves to build and manage a prison to hold the worst of the worst criminals of dwarvenkind.

* Only your initial 7 dwarves may do any work
* All immigrants are treated as inmates sentenced to life-long prison sentences. Yes, even the children. Don't ask, you are just doing your job and who are you to criticize the dwarven justice system?
* Every inmate is locked up in solitary confinement within his/her own <strike>bedroom</strike> cell with only a bed and a forbidden metal door. Metal bars instead of walls are optional.
* Inmates have to be kept alive in their cells, but don't pamper them: Make them live on a diet of water and raw plump helmets. Feed them by dumping the plump helmets through holes in the cell ceilings or using an airlock system. Water can be provided through a water hole in the floor leading to a sewer system.
* Should an inmate [[tantrum|start to rebel]] the <strike>[[sheriff]]</strike> chief warden should restore discipline with an iron hand.
* It won't take long until a few inmates start to [[strange mood|go insane]] from sensory deprivation. Too bad for them.
*BONUS: build a lever for mad dwarves to commit suicide by cave-in

=== Cavernous Dwarves ===
A version of ‘Deep Dwarves’ and ‘Cave Men’, this challenge takes advantage of the large, underground caverns you find when you dig deep enough.

*Dig out a few rooms near the surface to hold all your starting goods and move them all underground as quickly as possible. (Don’t forget to disassemble your wagon.)
*Designate a meeting area underground so that none of your dwarves will be on the surface and then remove the stairs/ramps leading up.
*Start digging. Dig until you find the underground caverns (around lvl 10 - 15 depending on your map).
*Treating the caverns as ‘outside’, build your rooms and halls with windows looking into the caverns/underground lakes.
*Try as much as possible to not disturb the natural formations of the caverns. Building around a pillar is fine, carving out a pillar and building inside of it is fine, but avoid removing pillars. Use the cavern floor as your main hallway.
*Starting with at least one combat-ready dwarf is advisable (you may want more than one) as there creatures lurking around every corner.
*'''BONUS POINTS''': Construct a castle in a large cavern to house your nobles and make sure that all their rooms/offices overlook the working peasants.
*'''Extra Room Challenge''': If you are looking to expand the caverns, you may drain lakes into magma seas. (WARNING: This is a frame-rate killer!!! If you try this, make sure to disable the auto-pause/re-centering for collapsing cavern messages, and expect it to take a long time to complete.) Once you have one or more lake drained, you will likely have doubled the size of available caverns to build in.
*Optional: you can have 1 year above surface

=== Roman Empire ===
This challenge tries to emulate Europe during the Roman Era.

*All new male non-noble dwarves must be conscripted into the military for a period of no less than a year. Your initial seven are exempt, as they may be thought of as having fulfilled their military duty earlier in life.
*Steel, Aluminum, and Pig Iron are banned.
*All full-time military dwarves must have a matching set of iron platemail ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorica_segmentata lorica segmentata]) and iron short swords.
**All conscripted dwarves must have a full set of leather armor (material doesn't matter) and wooden crossbow.
***BONUS: All conscripted dwarves must have bows and arrows instead of crossbows and bolts. Trade with the filthy [[elf|Gauls]] for them.
*BONUS '''Peloponnesian War''': All full-time military units may only wear bronze armor and use spears.
*BONUS '''Aztec Empire''': All military may only use jaguar leather armor, obsidian short swords, bows, and copper war hammers.
*BONUS '''Dwarven Aztecs''': Dwarves can only wear cat leather products (Yes, even armor) and the military can only use weapons up to steel metal.
**MEGA BONUS '''Pre-Historical''': All metal production is banned.

=== Incompetent Advisors ===
After wrongly advising the king about which stones were safe from magma's fiery heat, he sent you off with a party of six others, most of which never made it out of dwarf high.

*Using the wiki and asking questions on the forums are forbidden! The king only laughs when your inquiries arrive. You only know what you knew from the start, anything else has to be tested with experiments
**BONUS only embark with peasants and only accept immigrants with adequate or lower skills.
***MEGABONUS when the king comes (to apologize) decide he isn't sincere and dump him into the magma with his advisors (anyone who comes with him)

===Steve Jackson's Dwarfanoia===
*Make colored layers for the dwarves to live in Black (infrared), red, yellow orange green blue EVERYTHING in each layer must be that color a purple computer is at the "best" layer
** If you see a dwarf leave his color to go to a nicer one kill them.
*** Bonus: make it impossible to function without crossing the color boundary once in a while. (bedroom must cross a blue hallway or something)
**** hey wait, didn't the blue dwarves make the purple computer? and its room?
** decide with random goals or by random when dwarves may go to the next color
** Bonus: everybody in the black level should be miserable -- the red should be merely unhappy, the yellow and orange mildly happy, and green and blue ecstatic.
* computer is in charge of random death traps
* encourage grudges between dwarves
** put dwarves with grudges in the same military unit
*Sheriff is the most deadly dwarf (and everybody other than soldiers go in civvies)
*Bonus make a weapons testing area which may kill the dwarves or give them awesome weapons via untested modding.
** Extra bonus -- the weapons are all either effective or deadly.
*Mega bonus -- have the computer give a sign to check happiness. Press "v" if the first dwarf it finds is unhappy or had an unhappy thought kill them.

Notes: I think you have to mod [mostly from scratch) for orange, so instead you may make cheap stone layer, flux stone etc, or just skip orange.

===Paladins===
* decide which dwarves are paladins and which are support -- paladins refuse to work and support may not fight
* embark to an evil (preferably terrifying) locale
* nothing evil may live
** how to define evil: standard -- use the wiki -- if it says that it lives specifically in an evil climate, it is.
** bonus - include trees
** bonus - all non-good
** bonus - all non-dwarf
** bonus - all non-controlled dwarf
** ultra-bonus - all non-related to the 7 first dwarves
* no profit may be made from anything evil -- that includes trees and plants.
* if all paladins die, end your game -- the other dwarves have no purpose there and will leave/ commit suicide
* how long will you survive?

===Survivor Dwarves===
Dwarves try to survive, stranded on an uninhabited island.

* Find an island in your generated world (or keep making worlds until at least one island appears).
* Try to ensure that there are no neighbors on the island (except other dwarves, of course).
** Bonus: try to find an island that only has hostile neighbors (ie [[goblin|goblins]], [[Kobold|kobolds]], [[Evil#Evil|evil]]).
* Take only the bare essentials along with you (see [[Challenges#Minimalist.2FSurvivalist_build|Minimalist/Survivalist]] build above).
** Bonus: only peasants managed to survive the incident which landed your dwarves on the island (see [[Challenges#Peasantry|Peasantry]] above).
* NO TRADING! Ignore the dwarven traders that come (or kill them).
* [[immigrant|Immigrants]] are now other survivors; limit the number of survivors your island can have (either by changing the population cap or just killing off new immigrants).
** Bonus: play 'Survivor' with your dwarves and have them vote a dwarf 'off the island' once a month (or some other frequency).
*** Bonusx2: tribal colony sacrifices any dwarf that is 'voted off'.
** Bonus: new survivors (immigrants) are a rival survivor band (or tribal dwarves) that are trying to steal your supplies/kill you. Kill them or sacrifice them to Amok!

* Bonus: try to build large outdoor fires to signal rescue craft.
* Bonus: if a new mayor is elected, sacrifice the old mayor for 'failure to ensure the rescue of the survivors.' (Obviously you will need a large enough population to be able to have mayors).

===Venice===
Build a perfect replica of Venice.

*Building next to a river-side, carve out canals and make a picture-perfect replica or Venice, down its basilicas and plazas.
*Make sure to have an expansive glass industry.

* Bonus: make models of other famous historical-era cities.

===Dwarf Hoarder Challenge===
(edit and improve this please)

Step 1: Embark with 7 proficient miners and 7 picks.

Step 2: Once you reach the outpost location, strip the outside world of all valuable minerals.
(valuable = metal ores, gems and anything else that you can make a decent profit from)

*BONUS : Ravage the land! Take everything! Cut down every tree, gather all the plants! Leave NOTHING outside!

Step 3: Mine deep underground and make a very large room to store all of your wealth in.

Step 4: Kill and loot the bodies of all migrants and caravans that come to your fortress and take it down into the stockpile

*BONUS: Put all nobles that arrive in cage traps in your stockpile.

Step 5: Do what you did in step two, but underground!

Step 6: Install over complicated, dwarfy defenses to your underground stockpile.

Step 7: Continue until the King or Queen arrives.

Step 8: Cage them and store them in the stockpile.

*BONUS: Cast them in obsidian and have the obsidian mined and carved into masterwork statues.

**MEGABONUS: Make them statues of the nobles you have captured thus far. (Including the king or queen.)

Step 9: Continue until your fortress crumbles in a spectacular and hilarious way.

Step 10: Brave your defenses in adventure mode and gain access to your great fortune!
*BONUS: Make sure one of the founding dwarfs survives, after possibly killing every other founder, so you must fight the berserk HoardLord to get the fortune!

*BONUS: Make a system so the nobles stay alive.
**MEGABONUS: Make a system so the nobles can be set free.
***MEGADWARVENBONUS: Make that system be part of the defenses so when you get to the stockpile the nobles are released and tear you apart.

NOTE: Modding may be required so the nobles stay there and so that you may release them.

===You Can't Teach an Old Dwarf New Tricks===
* Never enable new labors.
* You may disable labors, but never re-enable them. Disabled labors on your Broker/Expedition Leader to stop distractions from them meeting the Caravan/Trade Liaison? Now, diplomacy is all they're good for.
* Only dwarves who already have combat skills when they immigrate/embark may join the militia. Assign whatever armor you want, but only assign them weapons they are already skilled with, NOT "Individual Choice". They're skilled in some foreign weapon, like blowgun? Better try your darndest to get them a blowgun if you want them to be useful!
* "I have tenure" - The Nobles/Administrators you appoint keep their positions for life, even if somebody with better skills/personality shows up. You can only appoint new dwarves when the position opens up due to the previous Noble's death/madness. [[Unfortunate_accident|Intentionally forcing the position open]] is against the rules of this challenge.

EASYMODE variations:
* Enable whatever labors you want on your starting seven, regardless of the skills you've given them, to make sure all your initial bases are covered. You can only do this right at the start of the game though, as soon as you unpause you're stuck with your choices.
* When immigrants show up with multiple skills, often only the labors associated with the highest-ranked skills will be enabled. Go ahead and enable all the labors in which the dwarf has at least Novice skill. However, you can only do this right when the immigrant first arrives (while there is a flashing X over the character).
* Unskilled Peasant immigrants and dwarven children who grow up may be assigned ONE labor. You can only do this right when they show/grow up, so check the population on your status screen to see what jobs your fortress is lacking, and choose carefully. If you play without this variation, your Peasants are destined to be nothing more than haulers/cleaners (and harvesters if you have "all dwarves harvest" enabled in the .ini), or deadbeat welfare bums if you disabled their labors for some reason.
** SUPEREASYMODE variation of the above: new Peasants may be assigned 1 labor Category, ex. press shift+enter on the Stoneworking category to enable Masonry and Stone Detailing.

==Arbitrary Law==
Rule your fortress with a Soapen Fist! Or see how far you get until a (voluntary) significant flaw sends you into an inevitable sadness spiral. Whatever it is, be sure to stick by it or you'll be meeting the Hammerer.

===Work with what you have===
* Build for one year as you normally would. Be as efficient as you like.
* At the end of the year, no more mining, constructing, or anything else.
* Wood may be gathered
* Walls may be constructed, but can only be used in already-existing constructions, like dividing a room into multiple separate rooms
* No new aboveground/belowground space-creation. You may only use the space you mined out in the first year
This challenge forces you to utilize space you haven't before. A large 5x hallway may be converted into a 1x with bedrooms on either side. Whatever you have to do to fit your current population. Be sure to build without any thought into the future of the fortress when you can no longer build. Instead, make it as hard as possible.
Variations:
* you may build aboveground to a maximum of two stories above ground. Make big slums/refugee camps/bazaars. Anything that involves mass-small-one-story-buildings
* you may increase/decrease the time before you can no longer dig or build new space
* (decreased difficulty) you may plan ahead

===DSPCA===
* [[Animals]] are forbidden from the fortress
* Animals following immigrants cannot enter the fortress
* Lethal traps forbidden, caged non-sentients must be immediately released
* Butchery is forbidden, but leatherworking is allowed

Rather than forbidding immigrant pets from entering, you can choose to deal with the owner of that pet instead for a more sadistic challenge.

===Commune===
* After embarking, enable all labors on all dwarves (including immigrants).
* Beds can only be designated as barracks or a dormitory, and no dwarf can be assigned to a bed (even nobles).
* Coins are forbidden.
* Be aware that nobles are to be considered part of the "bourgeoisie" and [[Unfortunate accident|dealt with]] immediately.
* Establish a communal military plan and force everybody to be a part of the military at some time or another. Share all weapons and armor, anybody that tries to make an artifact weapon, either share the weapon, or somehow destroy it, and then execute the individual who made it.
* Force everybody to take turns and act as the executive dwarf for the month/season/year. If that person makes decisions that go against the good of the commune, execute them.

===Couples only===
* As soon as a married couple exists in your fortress:
** Kill all single dwarves (or put them in a meeting area for a year to find a lover. Kill the rest)
** Kill all incoming single dwarves
** Try to save children, until they are adult and single

===Dieting Dwarves===
* Exclusively dine on a food type of your choice (meat, fish, plants, alcohol)
* Optionally, forbid alcohol consumption to limit carbohydrate intake
**Note: forbidding alcohol permanently is as good as accepting a slow but continuous fortress death

===Dwarf Liberation Movement===
* Nobles are worthless scum, we give them nothing!
* As soon as possible, cage your expedition leader.
* Never appoint any dwarf into becoming a noble.
* Cage any dwarf that appears on the nobles and administrators screen.
* When your population elects a new mayor, release your old one and cage the new one.
** Bonus : Cage the king and all of his escorts!
** Extra Bonus : Once you have caged all nobles, administrators, the king and his advisor; you must unleash the Dwarf Atom-Smasher upon them.

===Citizenship===
* All dwarves must earn citizenship. To do so they must prove themselves by reaching legendary mining skill. Because REAL dwarves know how to dig. Until then they are forbidden to do any work.
** Bonus : Hauling is forbidden too.
** Extra Bonus : Non-citizens are prohibited from entering into a fortress, and they must remain outside. Above-ground constructed buildings count as part of the fortress.

===Fight for your name===
* Before embarking, randomly generate a fortress name and be sure to know its English translation
* Do the same with your group name
* Creatively designate a serious goal for your fortress, based on these names
* Fanatically reach your goal

===Fort Geneva===
* Lethal traps are forbidden
* Caged sentient creatures are to be considered prisoners of war and treated humanely

Suggested provisions for prisoners: a bed, a personal cell, a commons area, aboveground exercise yard, and the clothes the creature was wearing when captured. For more inspiration, go to: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions Geneva Conventions]

===Government in Exile===
* Only Military and Social skills can be purchased and enabled in your entire fortress

All dwarves are either nobles or in the military. The only useful dwarves you'll have will be your broker, manager, mayor, bookkeeper, and dungeon master. If you can survive until the sheriff arrives, transfer your entire military into the fortress guard. With a little luck, and a lot of exported roasts, you too can rule without proletarian interference.

===Hardcore Altruism===
* Do not allow the death of any Dwarf

Though not viscerally entertaining, an incredible challenge. All strange moods must be given what they crave. All medical attention must be done ASAP. Mining, fishing and hunting must be done with much care. Sadness must be met with excellent social skills and quality furniture.

===Industrial Plant===
* Choose one industry that produces commercial goods
* No other industries permitted, only imported

===Johannesfort===
* Find a starting location with a lot of gabbro, containing Kimberlite
* Mine and cut all the diamonds on the map
* Only gems can be traded.
** BONUS: Your leader [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_denialism#In_South_Africa denies the existence of infections]. Soap is neither manufactured nor traded for. Even if you know a dwarf has an infection, do not quarantine it or treat it any differently.
** BONUS: Use the Burrows tool to establish "gated communities" for select dwarves, such as legendaries and nobles. Keep the fortress guard confined to these gated communities. If a dwarf throws a tantrum outside these designated areas, let him or her rage.

===<s>Preposterous</s> Realistic Dwarves?===
* No magma smelters- magma doesn't have the heat to smelt ores
* No use of perpetual motion machines
* All doors must be locked by the use of levers- no auto-locking doors for you!
* No use of the Dwarven Atom Smasher
* Load only one weapon per weapontrap
* No use of Adamantine

===Sexist Segregation===
* Establish two functioning and stable fortress
* One must be entirely male, the other entirely female
* Married couples are to be processed

===THIS! IS! SPARTAAAA!===
* Change your population cap to 300.
* At least half of your fortress population must be active in the military.
* Crossbows and traps are forbidden.
* Only spears, swords, wrestling, helmets (helms) and shields may be equipped by military and used to fight.
** BONUS: All weapons and armour must be made from bronze.
* Civilian dwarves have all labors enabled.
** If ever activated, cannot use quality weapons or armor.
* Maimed dwarves (perceived to be) incapable of being fully healed must be killed. (This includes incurable spinal injuries in military dwarves!)
* Devise methods of dropping Liaisons down pits during meetings. Yell, "THIS IS SPAARRTAAAAA..." at your monitor.
* Demand goods be turned over from all caravans.
* Recreation is forbidden, as well as any 'improving' action, such as smoothing/engraving, or constructing things out of metals what can be done with rock and wood (besides spears, swords and shields).
* Building city walls is considered weak and cowardly.
Note that the above suggestions are modeled on the popular movie [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_(film) 300], an adaption of the graphic novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_(comics) 300], both of which are historically inaccurate. For a more "realistic dwarven Sparta", try reading the Wikipedia article on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta#Society Spartan society].

===Xenophobia===
Difficulty increases with each bullet point:
* Kill all non dwarves...
* ...and dwarf traders (or are they race traitors?)
* ...and all immigrants (or are they spies?)
* Make sure you kill all animals and especially find those collosi, dragons etc.,
Extra-gore version - make sure to make elves, goblins, humans etc., butcherable and wear only sentient hide clothing.
* BONUS: You realize this is how most experienced players run their forts anyway.

===Mesoamerican dwarves===
* All food must be grown above ground, on small plots, surrounded by canals (chinampas)
** BONUS: Flood the farms annually.
* All buildings must be above ground.
* Capture as many of your enemies as possible.
* Build a massive step pyramid at the center of your fortress. Appoint one dwarf high priest and have him kill the prisoners at the top.
** BONUS: Build it upside-down.
*** MEGABONUS: Build the entire city on top of the upside-down pyramid, with another pyramid-temple in the middle.
* Surround your fortress with an artificial lake.
** BONUS: Build it in the middle of a natural lake.
* Use only copper or bronze metal for weapons. Gold may be also be smelted.
* BONUS: The filthy steel-wearing [[human|conquistadors]] have come to plunder your city! sacrifice them to the blood god!
* Soldiers can only use obsidian short swords. Axes are only for wood cutting.
* No armor except leather and only let champions use it. All others must fight unarmored.
** BONUS: Divide your soldiers into "Jaguar[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_warrior]" and "Eagle[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_warrior]" warrior societies and outfit them with leather armor made from their respective animals.
* BONUS: Demand that all non-dwarf caravans surrender their goods as tribute.

===French Revolution===
*Keep your nobles happy and your proles subjugated until you have a king issue a particularly stupid mandate.
*Build some manner of guillotine.
*Kill the king, everyone he is aquainted with, and everyone within the same room.
*Kill other important nobles as soon as your guillotine frees up.
*Unimportant Nobles are to be executed upon first mandate, or exiled at a random point in time.
*Any dwarf that has any relation to any noble must be executed.
* Kill any other dwarf if he has any whiff of aristocracy about him. Use your discretion.

===Specialized economy===
* The goal is to reach maximum efficiency. To do this, you must assign all your workshop dwarves to an individual burrow.
* Each dwarf must have his own dining room, bedroom just next to his workshop.
* You have to assign a stockpile for food and booze next to each of your workshop dwarves so they can feed. Specialized haulers will have to bring them their foods.
* You have to assign a raw material stockpile next to your workshop so your dwarf can work. Specialized haulers will have to bring them these raw materials.
* No workshop dwarf should leave their respective burrow. Ever.
* Good luck keeping all these stockpiles supplied all the time without getting lost!

===Becoming the abomination you sought to kill===

The seven founders are trying to hide a terrible secret that can doom all dwarfkind, so each took on an arbitrary law that must be followed until the related dwarf is dead. Their ultimate goal is to kill everyone in the forteress but none of them actually KNOWS the other are pursuing the same goal undetected!

Here is a typical set of laws:

-No hunting

-No trading

-Only one batch of alcohol is to be produced per year (that's 1 drink per dwarf, tops).

-Constant war with all elves

-No military training

-No magical materials (nothing above steel)

-Forteress should be over a magma-based doomsday trap, with 20 levers able to trigger it at any time (aka the "glorious death defeating the dragon by any means necessary" plan). Did I mention the alcohol restrictions turns dwarf insane?

You shall attempt to make as many of the original dwarves as possible die from old age rather than any other cause. So pray for strategic deaths early(no cheating)! This way even your UNCONCIOUS is untrustworthy...

Overall, any of the seven laws shouldn't be TOO deadly, but certain death should be a result of following them all permanently.

Success is acheived by one criteria only: at the death of the forteress you must have learned your unconscious planned Dwarf deaths you didn't plan consciously... that's the only way to "win".

=== Dwarves need magma===
*Every workshop needs to be a "magma"workshop -- Magma carpentry, for example.
*Magma workshops must have one tile touching a magma tile (preferably 3 and for bonus be nearly surrounded by magma tiles)
*Every trap must be magma powered -- including cage traps
*Dining rooms and bedrooms need magma lights to keep dwarves happy.
*Extra Bonus - forbid all non-magma safe materials
** Super Bonus - include clothes
** Utterly Dwarfy bonus - Mod the game so that the dwarves can all wear obsidian clothes.

=== Insane Asylum within a Labor Camp ===

Build up a large area that contains small rooms with nothing in them. Have the area heavily guarded. When any dwarves are idle for too long or do something you don't like,place them in one room. Outside each room place racks of high quality weapons and armor. When the imprisoned dwarves go insane and there are enough to badly damage your fortress, Let them all loose. Watch the [[Fun]].

Bonus: Rig up traps so when othere dwarves rush into combat, the area becomes filled with deadly creatures and traps.

===The Hive===
*All dwarves have all labors on.
**Dwarf Therapist helps with this.
**Hunting and fishing are optional.
*The endgoal is to make a fully functioning "bee hive" like fortress, All rooms inside the hive must be the same size.
*The hive must be suspended in the sky like below (scale is your choice)
**BONUS: Suspend it over a volcano.
***MEGABONUS: Have a lever to drop the whole thing down into the volcano.
= is a Up/down stairway
O is the hive parts

======
OOOO =
OOOOOO =
OOOOOO =
OOOO =
=

'''Urist's Legion'''
*Women are allowed no jobs, and must be held as breeding stock.
*Most of the men are military, and the rest are workers.
*All military armor must be leather. All weapons must be iron swords and spears.
*Only appoint named dwarves to noble position.
*The expedition leader must be kept safe, and will do nothing.
*He must also have a royal bedroom, dining room, and tomb.
*BONUS: Build an artificial lake. Make a replica of Hoover Dam. Build walls to make sure the goblins only appear west of the dam. Guard it againts the GolbiNCR!
MEGABONUS: Build a camp with walls out of aluminum bars. make the entire thing a barracks.

===Alcoholic Dwarves Anonymous===
*Make your fort a rehab center for dwarves trying to stay sober.
*Alcoholic beverages are not allowed. Water only.
*Any booze brought by migrants must be confiscated and destroyed.
*BONUS: Keep the booze and have the expedition leader/mayor secretly be an alcoholic. Make a stockpile that holds only booze behind a secret door in his quarters. Ensure he is the only one that can access it.
**MEGABONUS: Have him removed from his position and/or imprisoned if a dwarf sees him access this stash.

==The Bunker==
*No Embark Requirement
*Set up a fort as you usually would, build , mine, construct and so forth.
*Dig out a self sufficient bunker, containing farming facilities, A massive area for water storage (at least 20x20x5) with a purifying mechanism (pumps can purify stagnant water), Plenty of wood (at least 100), Seeds for whatever crops you will plant (at least 75), a large storage of food (at least 300), have fully operational medical facilities, worker facilities, as well as recreational facilities
*When you get a siege, gather up a fourth of your dwarves, regardless of who they are, and put them in the bunker. Seal up the bunker permanently, no one gets in or out. That also includes the water supply. That's right, once you run out of water, you are screwed.
*You may dig out mines for the bunker, but if you open a cavern then you must immediately wall it off, with the miner trapped outside, sentenced to death.
*All crimes are punished with death once inside the bunker.
*What the leader says is law.
**BONUS: Dedicate your bunker to a specific goal, such as producing enough booze for 100 years, or some arbitrary and pointless lay
***MEGABONUS: Cause an accident that will kill off a majority of the bunker, except for a handful of dwarves (such as cracking open the water tank to flood the residential areas of the bunker)
*Variant: Send a quarter of your dwarves into the bunker while it's being constructed with only the farm functional as well as a small amount of food, seed, water, and wood.

==Überdwarves==

Basically, each and every dwarf in your fortress must aim to be the pinnacle of dwarvenkind. Both a great talker and possible leader of men, an exceptional craftsdwarf in multiple disciplines, and a deadly warrior whose body is a terrific weapon. See Friedrich Nietzsche's work for more info.

* All dwarves are to be conscripted into the military. Dwarves must kill personally the animals they wear the skin/bone of.
**BONUS : no weapons better than iron, unless you are faced with an enemy made from a better metal
***MEGABONUS : no weapons other than base quality
**BONUS : all dwarves must be at least at least Proficient in military skills
***MEGABONUS : all dwarves must be Legendary in MS
****ULTRABONUS : all dwarves must have slain a whole siege all by themselves
*****SADISTICDWARFBONUS : Assault [[HFS]] with your bunch of überdwarves. Win. No traps allowed.
* All dwarves have to have and train at least one truly dwarven skill, like leatherworking, metalworking (any), stoneworking, bone carving, or brewing.
**BONUS : one of these to legendary.
* All dwarves have to train mining. Not allowed for fighting, excepted for creatures that cannot be harmed by weaponless combat. (iron FB's, steel titans, demons, etc.)
* All dwarves must have very high willpower.
** BONUS : All dwarves must have MAXIMUM willpower
* Dwarves may eat only animal based products. You need lots of protein for these überdwarves. Plant-based drinks are alright.
**BONUS : All dwarves must have generally superior physical attributes
***MEGABONUS : No attributes in the red
****ULTRABONUS : All attributes at maximum. We're talking about überdwarves after all.
*No dedicated haulers. No large amount of idlers.
**BONUS : Keep a minimum amount of idlers, excluding breaks
*No hospital. If the dwarf doesn't heals by himself and becomes useless, kill him.
**BONUS : No tombs, dump the corpses in lava
***MEGABONUS : No drinking water, of for that matter anything else than alcohol. Water is not dwarven.
****ULTRABONUS : Infect your whole fort with a werebeast curse. (A sufficiently dwarven animal is required, like badgers). No more need for hospital.
* All dwarves must have at least Adept in most social skills.
** BONUS : Legendary in most social skills.
*As soon as your babies turn into children, put them into a hellish training regimen that will train him and make him into a true dwarf. Death is of course, synonym of weakness.
**BONUS : Make them fight wild creatures into an arena.
***MEGABONUS : 40 children VS 1 megabeast. WHO WILL SURVIVE ?
****ULTRABONUS : Get all the children at Legendary Fighter skill by the time of their adulthood. If they aren't, kill them.
*****SADISTICDWARFBONUS : Each young dwarf must pass a test of adulthood : killing enough creatures in fair combat and earning a title. If they don't, kill them.
*All dwarves must be hardened of spirit. You must give all of your dwarves "doesn't care about anything anymore" trait.
**BONUS : Trait must be earned by killing, NOT seeing death.
*Each dwarf must kill at least one beast and one sentient enemy.
**BONUS : Each dwarf must have earned a title by slaying enemies, which MUST be suitably appropriate and badass.
***MEGABONUS : Each dwarf must have killed at least 10 sentient enemies. Each dwarf must also have some Butcher skill, for added terror.
****ULTRABONUS : Each dwarf must have killed at least 100 sentient enemies
*Each dwarf must have a pet that will help him in combat.
**BONUS : each dwarf must have a fearsome predator as pet
***MEGABONUS : each dwarf must have a semimegabeast as pet
****ULTRABONUS : each dwarf must have a megabeast as pet
*No vampires allowed, vampires gain things far too easily.
**BONUS : Mod difficult creatures that blood gives stat bonuses to your dwarves.
*Fortress must end in a loyalty cascade and a fight to the death, to see which dwarf/which faction are the REAL überdwarves. Then abandon fort and follow your überdwarves in legends mode.

==Megaprojects==
Try building some <s>ridiculously</s> humongous, <s>over</s>complicated construction, using whatever <s>in</s>appropriate building method your fevered imagination can come up with! Need some ideas? Take a look at the [[Megaprojects|Megaprojects page]]!

v0.34:Fire

2013-02-18T11:14:30Z

Coolthulhu: /* Dragonfire */

{{av}}{{Quality|Fine|17:51, 12 May 2012 (UTC)}}
[[Image:Running around on fire.gif|thumb|250px|''(click to enlarge)'' '''‼'''Dwarves'''‼''' on fire (flashing red/yellow), and trailing [[smoke]].]]
'''Fire''', like its real-life counterpart, is an immensely [[fun|destructive]] force. In-game, entities on the map which are on fire flash red and yellow. In item lists, anything which is on fire will also be surrounded by double exclamation marks, like ‼THIS‼. Fire will burn [[grass]], [[shrub]]s, [[log]]s, [[clothes]], [[dwarves]] (and generally all creatures that are not composed of [[fire-safe]] materials), wooden [[furniture]], wooden [[building]]s and wooden [[road]]s, [[lignite]] and [[bituminous coal]] rocks, and bars of [[charcoal]] and [[coke]]. Except for dragonfire, fire won't burn rock, metal or trees. Constructions (wall, floor, etc) will never burn, no matter what.

Despite [[fire-safe]]ty being defined as stability at a [[temperature]] of {{ct|11000}}, actual burning items rapidly heat up to several degrees below {{ct|11640}} (due to being cooled by the surrounding air).

== Cause ==

A fire can stem from several sources, for example:
*[[Dragon]]s breathe [[#dragonfire|dragonfire]], which can set things on fire and will melt most metals, at anything hostile they see. The dragonfire spreads out in a conical shape and burns anything it touches.
*A [[fire imp]] can throw fireballs, which may set things alight.
*[[Magma]] can and will burn anything flammable it touches. However, any item set alight by this method will likely just be doused in magma until it is completely destroyed.
*[[Magma mist]] burns stuff just as well as magma.
*Some [[titan]]s, [[forgotten beast]]s, and [[demon]]s can breathe fire/throw fireballs, too.
*[[Fire man|Fire men]] and [[magma man|magma men]], as well as other procedurally generated beasts composed of flame, have high fixed body temperatures, causing them to spread fires (and [[fun]]) in their path.

Note that it is currently difficult to safely start (and then control) a fire. Fire is most easily started by either [[magma]] or a fire breathing attack. An area enclosed by [[water]], metal, stone or Z-level difference can be used to start a fire which can be used as a way of increasing [[FPS]] by removing objects or can be used as part of a complex trap, though this may lead to [[fun]] when something comes out burning which then sets the rest of the fort on fire. Players of modded DF can have fire-breathing (fire spell casting) [[goblin]] castes.

== Spread ==
Fire will not spread across Z-Levels by itself. Walls with trapped passages block the fire too. Trees and shrubs will not catch fire, but you can set them on fire in Adventure Mode.

== Ghosts ==

One thing to note is that dwarves that burn to death do not leave remains and will produce ghosts even if buried in a coffin. Be sure to engrave a memorial to all dwarves that burn to ashes, unless of course you want a ghost infestation.

== Dragonfire ==

'''Dragonfire''' is a very powerful form of fire that reaches temperatures much above regular fire, up to {{ct|50000}}. [[Building]]s (but not [[construction]]s) receive the full effect of dragonfire, so it will easily melt or otherwise destroy all buildings but those made of [[nether-cap]]. Fire left on the ground and the objects affected by dragon's breath is no longer dragonfire - only the initial blast is hot enough to destroy [[fire-safe]] materials.

Dragonfire can only naturally be emitted by [[dragon]]s.

== Dangers ==

The main problem with fire is that dwarves tend to ignore fire, up to and past the point where they become !!Dwarves!!. As such, typical dwarven activities will be carried out despite the fact the dwarf is both burning to death, and will spread the fiery destruction to his peers. This will not only kill your dwarves but also incinerate a good many useful items. And don't, for Armok's sake, let the flaming dwarves anywhere dear the booze.
{{Category|Physics}}

v0.34:Fire

2013-02-18T10:58:07Z

Coolthulhu:

{{av}}{{Quality|Fine|17:51, 12 May 2012 (UTC)}}
[[Image:Running around on fire.gif|thumb|250px|''(click to enlarge)'' '''‼'''Dwarves'''‼''' on fire (flashing red/yellow), and trailing [[smoke]].]]
'''Fire''', like its real-life counterpart, is an immensely [[fun|destructive]] force. In-game, entities on the map which are on fire flash red and yellow. In item lists, anything which is on fire will also be surrounded by double exclamation marks, like ‼THIS‼. Fire will burn [[grass]], [[shrub]]s, [[log]]s, [[clothes]], [[dwarves]] (and generally all creatures that are not composed of [[fire-safe]] materials), wooden [[furniture]], wooden [[building]]s and wooden [[road]]s, [[lignite]] and [[bituminous coal]] rocks, and bars of [[charcoal]] and [[coke]]. Except for dragonfire, fire won't burn rock, metal or trees. Constructions (wall, floor, etc) will never burn, no matter what.

Despite [[fire-safe]]ty being defined as stability at a [[temperature]] of {{ct|11000}}, actual burning items rapidly heat up to several degrees below {{ct|11640}} (due to being cooled by the surrounding air).

== Cause ==

A fire can stem from several sources, for example:
*[[Dragon]]s breathe [[#dragonfire|dragonfire]], which can set things on fire and will melt most metals, at anything hostile they see. The dragonfire spreads out in a conical shape and burns anything it touches.
*A [[fire imp]] can throw fireballs, which may set things alight.
*[[Magma]] can and will burn anything flammable it touches. However, any item set alight by this method will likely just be doused in magma until it is completely destroyed.
*[[Magma mist]] burns stuff just as well as magma.
*Some [[titan]]s, [[forgotten beast]]s, and [[demon]]s can breathe fire/throw fireballs, too.
*[[Fire man|Fire men]] and [[magma man|magma men]], as well as other procedurally generated beasts composed of flame, have high fixed body temperatures, causing them to spread fires (and [[fun]]) in their path.

Note that it is currently difficult to safely start (and then control) a fire. Fire is most easily started by either [[magma]] or a fire breathing attack. An area enclosed by [[water]], metal, stone or Z-level difference can be used to start a fire which can be used as a way of increasing [[FPS]] by removing objects or can be used as part of a complex trap, though this may lead to [[fun]] when something comes out burning which then sets the rest of the fort on fire. Players of modded DF can have fire-breathing (fire spell casting) [[goblin]] castes.

== Spread ==
Fire will not spread across Z-Levels by itself. Walls with trapped passages block the fire too. Trees and shrubs will not catch fire, but you can set them on fire in Adventure Mode.

== Ghosts ==

One thing to note is that dwarves that burn to death do not leave remains and will produce ghosts even if buried in a coffin. Be sure to engrave a memorial to all dwarves that burn to ashes, unless of course you want a ghost infestation.

== Dragonfire ==

'''Dragonfire''' is a very powerful form of fire that reaches temperatures much above regular fire, up to {{ct|50000}}. [[Building]]s (but not [[construction]]s) receive the full effect of dragonfire, so it will easily melt or otherwise destroy all buildings but those made of [[nether-cap]].

Dragonfire can only naturally be emitted by [[dragon]]s.

== Dangers ==

The main problem with fire is that dwarves tend to ignore fire, up to and past the point where they become !!Dwarves!!. As such, typical dwarven activities will be carried out despite the fact the dwarf is both burning to death, and will spread the fiery destruction to his peers. This will not only kill your dwarves but also incinerate a good many useful items. And don't, for Armok's sake, let the flaming dwarves anywhere dear the booze.
{{Category|Physics}}

v0.34:Impassable tile

2013-02-12T23:34:53Z

Coolthulhu:

'''Impassable tiles''' are tiles in a [[building]] that creatures cannot move into--they function similarly to a constructed [[wall]]. Some [[workshop]]s, like the [[bowyer's workshop]] and [[jeweler's workshop]], have what is in effect a three square wall down one side. Non-workshop buildings (such as [[furnace]]s and [[screw pump]]s) may also include impassable tiles.

Impassable tiles appear as a dark green color during initial placement (passable tiles are shown in light green). One common use for impassable tiles is to block access to other [[z-level]]s. A [[magma smelter]], for instance, has a single impassable tile in the top center--placing this tile over your [[magma]] access channel prevents unlucky dwarves from falling in, and [[fire imp|unwelcome beasts]] from crawling out. It is worth noting that [[building destroyer]]s can only destroy buildings on their own z-level. For [[machinery]], the impassable tiles can be used to connect power through z-levels (see [[pump stack]] for an example).

Be careful when building workshops in tight quarters; more than one dwarf has perished from thirst after constructing a building that blocks the only path back to the fortress proper.

v0.34:Cave dragon

2013-01-13T20:47:58Z

Coolthulhu: No child tag means there's no such thing as a breeding couple.

{{Quality|Exceptional|07:22, 10 August 2010 (UTC)}}
{{Creaturelookup/0
|wiki=no
|contrib=no
|bone=174-225
|meat=247-622
|fat=35-195
|eye=2
|lung=24-32
|heart=6-8
|intestine=37-48
|liver=12-16
|tripe=12-16
|sweetbread=6-8
|spleen=6-8
|kidney=12-14
|brain=12-15
|ivory=3
|skull=1
|skin=scale
}}
{{av}}
{{creaturedesc}}

'''Cave dragons''' are gigantic beasts which were once [[dragon]]s who have adapted to life underground. Unlike their above-ground [[dragon|brethren]], they do not breathe fire, but they do appear to be immune to the effects of fire. Happily, they are not immune to the effects of a [[magma|dwarf's best friend]]. They have wings (which lack the ability to fly) and white scales, but besides this are not nearly as dangerous as their above ground cousins (due to being smaller and not breathing fire). Oddly, despite their description, regular dragons do not have wings, much less functional ones, though cave dragons do.

Cave dragons are among the largest creatures in the game, and grow into their adult size of 15,000,000 after 1000 years. The butchery values in the right-hand column assume that an adult is being butchered: worlds younger than 1000 years will only have juvenile cave dragons, which drop far less meat.

Cave dragons are [[building destroyer]]s which means, among other things, that [[door]]s are useless as defense. The may also be used as mounts during a [[siege]].

Cave dragons provide the insanely wonderful pet value of 10,000 and are very good war animals, due to high natural fighting skills and sheer size.

{{gamedata}}
{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Creatures}}

v0.34:Health screen

2012-12-12T06:00:58Z

Coolthulhu: /* Third Key Column */

{{quality|Exceptional|23:31, 17 April 2011 (UTC)}}

In the status menu (accessed using the {{k|z}}-status key), one of the sub-menus is '''Health'''. This sub-menu becomes available when a dwarf is appointed to the [[Chief medical dwarf]] position. It does not display information unless the CMD is at least a novice [[diagnostician]]. 
The z-health menu is used to monitor the health of friendly dwarves. A subject dwarf's status effects and injuries are cataloged in the health menu by [[Healthcare|hospital staff]] upon diagnosis. Some basic needs are automatically shown in the menu whenever a dwarf becomes hungry, thirsty, or tired. Doctors will begin treating injured or otherwise unhealthy dwarves only after diagnosis and when proper equipment is available. 
Note: The screen is entirely mouse enabled. 

Listed below are all of the conditions displayed in the z-health screen:
===First Key Column===
This is the column that lists requests and requirements of the subject.
{{HealthStatus table head}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=D|color=2:0:1|desc='''Diagnosis request''' - [[Diagnostician]] needed to diagnose the subject}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=≈|color=3:0:1|desc='''Cleaning request''' - Dwarf with a water bucket and cleaning labor enabled needed to bathe off contaminants, preferably using [[soap]] }}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=S|color=4:0:1|desc='''Surgery required''' - [[Surgeon]] needed to excise necrotic tissue or repair organ damage}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=R|color=5:0:1|desc='''Inoperable Rot''' - [[Surgeon]] needed to amputate a necrotic limb}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Ø|color=7:0:1|desc='''Suture request''' - [[Suturer]] needed to repair cuts, wounds and nerve damage (!!) using thread}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=B|color=6:0:1|desc='''Setting request''' - [[Bone doctor]] needed to set the subject's fractured bones}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=<s>°</s>|color=7:0:1|desc='''Dressing request''' - [[Wound dresser]] needed to top off the medical procedure using cloth bandages}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=T|color=6:0:1|desc='''Traction request''' - [[Traction bench]] needed to immobilize subject with overlapping fractures}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=I|color=6:0:1|desc='''Immobilization request''' - [[Gypsum plaster|Cast]] (wound dresser) or [[splint]] (bone doctor) needed to stabilize a repaired fracture}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=C|color=6:0:1|desc='''Crutch required''' - [[Crutch]] needed for the subject to walk}}
|}

===Second Key Column===
This column shows different degrees of bleeding, blood loss, numbness, and paralysis.
{{HealthStatus table head}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=B!+|color=4:0:1|desc='''Heavy bleeding''' - Subject is quickly losing blood through many wounds or torn arteries. This is an emergency.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=B!~|color=4:0:0|desc='''Bleeding''' - Subject is losing blood through a wound. Typically harmless due to dwarves' fast natural healing rate.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Bl+|color=5:0:1|desc='''Severe Blood Loss''' - Subject is Pale. Caused by massive blood loss, typically from a severed limb. This is an emergency.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Bl~|color=5:0:1|desc='''Blood Loss''' - Subject is Faint. Caused by moderate blood loss from wounds or necrosis.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Pz+|color=3:0:1|desc='''Paralyzed''' - Subject is completely paralyzed. Common effect of upper spinal injury. Death by suffocation is imminent}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Pz~|color=3:0:1|desc='''Partially paralyzed''' - One or more limbs unusable due to severed nerves}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Slg|color=3:0:1|desc='''Sluggish''' - Characteristic of weak or lessening paralysis}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Nm+|color=3:0:1|desc='''Completely numb''' - Symptom of syndromes or sensory nerve damage. Eliminates pain sensation in affected areas and severely hampers motor ability. Protracted syndrome effects may cause permanent damage.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Nm~|color=3:0:1|desc='''Partially numb''' - Symptom of syndromes or sensory nerve damage. Further reduces pain in affected areas and hampers fine motor ability.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Nm-|color=3:0:1|desc='''Slightly numb''' - Symptom of syndromes or sensory nerve damage. Reduces pain in affected areas.}}
|}

===Third Key Column===
This column shows different degrees of pain, exhaustion and fever and also shows dizziness and whether the subject is stunned.
{{HealthStatus table head}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=F!|color=4:0:1|desc='''Serious fever''' - Reduces focus stat, may stun. Typical warning sign of more dangerous syndromes.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=F+|color=4:0:1|desc='''Moderate fever''' - Reduces focus stat. Typical warning sign of more dangerous syndromes.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=F~|color=4:0:1|desc='''Slight fever''' - Reduces focus stat. Relatively harmless.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Dz|color=3:0:1|desc='''Dizzy''' - Common symptom of snakebite. Chance for subject to stumble in a random direction instead of performing an action, depending on severity.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Pn!|color=6:0:1|desc='''Extreme pain''' - Bone fracture or a staggering number of surface wounds. Subject can't take any more and falls unconscious, giving into pain. Thresholds depend on subject's willpower stat.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Pn+|color=6:0:1|desc='''Moderate pain''' - Serious, recent damage to muscle and/or fat. Interferes with actions?}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Pn~|color=6:0:1|desc='''Slight pain''' - Subject has suffered minor cuts or bruises.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=St|color=3:0:1|desc='''Stunned''' - The wind has been knocked out of the subject by an unexpected fall, impact, cave-in or takedown. Cuts speed by half until it wears off (usually in about 100 frames).}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Ovx|color=6:0:1|desc='''Over-exerted''' - Last stage of tiredness, caused by drawn-out combat, usually only seen in wrestlers or when creatures resistant to weapon used. Reduces speed, will cause unconsciousness if exertion continues.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Exh|color=6:0:1|desc='''Exhausted''' - Second stage of tiredness. Reduces speed.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Tir|color=6:0:1|desc='''Tired''' - Caused by executing many combat actions in short time or operating a [[screw pump]]. Reduces speed.}}
|}

===Fourth Key Column===
This column shows breathing problems and various needs (including extreme like starvation and dehydration).
{{HealthStatus table head}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Dr|color=1:0:1|desc='''Drowning''' - Cannot breathe due to being stuck underwater. This is an emergency.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Wd|color=7:0:0|desc='''Winded''' - Typical of punctured lungs. Comparison against breathing trouble needed.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Br|color=4:0:1|desc='''Cannot breathe''' - Usually indicates severe lung injury or asphyxiation. Death is imminent unless one lung was injured a long time ago and will finish healing to the point of being able to breathe before subject dies.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Br|color=7:0:0|desc='''Trouble breathing''' - Usually indicates lung injury or extreme exertion}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=T!|color=4:0:1|desc='''Dehydrated''' - If the subject doesn't receive booze (or [[water]], if hospitalized) they will die. This is an emergency.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=T~|color=1:0:1|desc='''Thirsty'''}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=H!|color=4:0:1|desc='''Starving''' - If the subject doesn't receive food they will die. This is an emergency.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=H~|color=6:0:0|desc='''Hungry'''}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Dw|color=4:0:1|desc='''Very drowsy''' - If the subject doesn't get sleep soon they will go [[insane]]. This is an emergency.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Dw|color=1:0:1|desc='''Drowsy''' - Subject is tired enough to go to bed, but hasn't done so yet. Also caused by syndromes.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Na|color=2:0:1|desc='''Nauseous''' - Symptom of cave adaptation or injury to the guts. The subject may stop and [[vomit]] instead of making an action. Excessive vomiting can cause dehydration.}}
|}

===Fifth Key Column===
This column shows vision and grasping impairment, problems with nerves, and being unable to stand or fly.
{{HealthStatus table head}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=V|color=4:0:1|desc='''Vision lost''' - Subject will have a very hard time completing normal tasks}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=V|color=6:0:1|desc='''Vision impaired''' - Subject will have a hard time completing normal tasks}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=V|color=7:0:0|desc='''Vision ~impaired''' - Subject will have a slightly hard time completing normal tasks. Caused naturally by old age (110+ with dwarves).}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=P|color=2:0:1|desc='''Popped out''' - Subject's intestines have popped out. Death is imminent.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Sx|color=6:0:1|desc='''Cannot stand''' - Subject can only crawl due to dismemberment or lower body paralysis. Subject needs a [[crutch]] to stand or walk.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=S~|color=6:0:1|desc='''Stand impaired''' - Subject has trouble standing due to numbness or injury to the legs. Subject might need a crutch? {{verify}}}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Gx|color=6:0:1|desc='''Cannot grasp''' - Subject cannot manipulate objects due to dismemberment or paralysis.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=G~|color=6:0:1|desc='''Grasp impaired''' - Subject has trouble with fine motor control, but can still grasp things. Typically caused by injury or numbness.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Fx|color=6:0:1|desc='''Cannot fly''' - Subject can no longer fly due to paralysis or injury. Applied only to former flyers.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=F~|color=6:0:1|desc='''Flight impaired''' - Subject has trouble flying due to injury. Applied only to flyers.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Mn|color=3:0:1|desc='''Motor nerve''' - A motor nerve has been damaged, which can affect the subject's ability to move, stand, or fly}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Sn|color=3:0:1|desc='''Sensory nerve''' - A sensory nerve has been damaged, which can affect the subject's ability to feel sensations, to see, and to breathe{{verify}}}}
|}

===Sixth Key Column===
This column shows torn arteries, tendons and ligaments along with fractures and bruising.
{{HealthStatus table head}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=A!|color=4:0:1|desc='''Major artery torn''' - Heart injury or torn throat. This is invariably fatal.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=A+|color=4:0:1|desc='''Artery torn''' - Subject will probably suffer bleeding of some type. This can be an emergency.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Of|color=4:0:1|desc='''Overlapping fracture''' - A widely displaced limb fracture in real life, only seems to represent extreme damage ingame. Cannot be set without a traction bench.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Cf|color=4:0:1|desc='''Compound fracture''' - A fracture that has also broken a tissue directly subordinate to the bone, such as fingernails or spinal nerves. Tissues torn by bone fragments jammed through them also count.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Tn|color=4:0:1|desc='''Torn tendon''' - Sinew damage. Limb is disabled. Cannot be set, heals on its own.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Tn|color=6:0:1|desc='''Tendon strain''' - Sinew damage. Rarely this slight.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Tn|color=6:0:0|desc='''Tendon bruise''' - Sinew damage. Rarely this slight.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Lg|color=4:0:1|desc='''Torn ligament''' - Sinew damage. Limb is disabled. Cannot be set, heals on its own.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Lg|color=6:0:1|desc='''Ligament strain''' - Sinew damage. Rarely this slight.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Lg|color=6:0:0|desc='''Ligament bruise''' - Sinew damage. Rarely this slight.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Ns|color=6:0:1|desc='''Need setting''' - A [[bone doctor]] is needed to treat injuries}}
|}

===Seventh Key Column===
This column shows broken tissue, different degrees of pain, damage and swelling, and whether the subject has an infection.
{{HealthStatus table head}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=X!|color=4:0:1|desc='''Broken tissue'''}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=D!|color=4:0:1|desc='''Heavy damage''' - Typical amount of bruising sustained in combat. Also caused by syndromes.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=D+|color=6:0:1|desc='''Moderate damage''' - Varying degrees of bruising. Typically caused by syndromes.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=D~|color=6:0:0|desc='''Light damage''' - Varying degrees of bruising. Typically caused by syndromes.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=X~|color=6:0:1|desc='''Partially broken tissue''' - The subject's skin or muscle is cut or torn open. Not necessarily an emergency.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Pb!|color=6:0:1|desc='''Extreme pain''' - Not caused by injuries. Syndrome symptom?}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Pb+|color=6:0:1|desc='''Moderate pain''' - Not caused by injuries. Syndrome symptom?}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Pb~|color=6:0:1|desc='''Minor pain''' - Not caused by injuries. Syndrome symptom?}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Sw!|color=6:0:1|desc='''Extreme swelling''' - Typically caused by syndromes. Further impedes use of affected limbs and matures into necrosis. Swelling of the throat can cause suffocation.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Sw+|color=6:0:1|desc='''Medium swelling''' - Typically caused by syndromes. Impedes use of affected limbs.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=Sw~|color=6:0:1|desc='''Minor swelling''' - Typically caused by syndromes. Slightly impedes use of affected limbs.}}
{{HealthStatus table row|symbol=In|color=5:0:1|desc='''Infection''' - Appears in open wounds either exposed to contaminated water or left untreated for too long. Cannot be treated. Subject's health attributes may affect survival rate?{{verify}}}}
|}

{{Category|Healthcare}}
{{Category|Interface}}

v0.34:On break

2012-12-04T14:37:19Z

Coolthulhu:

{{quality|Exceptional|01:42, 2 June 2012 (UTC)}}
{{av}}

Dwarves will occasionally go '''on break'''. Breaks last about 14 days and dwarves tend to take breaks every few months. Dwarves on break will behave as though they are jobless, and will wander between their [[bedroom]]s and public meeting places. There is no way to force a dwarf to work while on break, therefore the best use of this time is boosting the happiness of said dwarf. A high [[quality]] [[dining room]], [[statue|statuary]], [[zoo]], or [[Activity zone#Meeting Area|meeting area]] will help in this respect. If a dwarf can be confined there by [[burrow]]s, a [[danger room]] can still be used while the dwarf is on break, making this another productive use of the time spent on break.

Breaks probably do you more bad than good. Idling dwarves are never a good thing, as they do no work, build [[social skill]]s, and tend to build friendships that can lead to temper [[tantrum]]s later on if someone really well-liked passes away. On the other hand, they do give dwarves time to examine [[furniture]] and raise their [[happiness]].

[[Personality trait|Disciplined]] dwarves are theorized to take either shorter or less frequent breaks.

v0.34:Butcher

2012-11-11T04:50:47Z

Coolthulhu: Slaughtering is instantaneous

{{quality|Masterwork|13:48, 26 July 2012 (UTC)}}
{{Skill
| color = 6:0
| skill = Butcher
| profession = [[Farmer]]
| job name = [[Butchery]]
| tasks =
* Butcher [[animal]]
| workshop = [[Butcher's shop]]
| attributes =
* Strength
* Agility
* Endurance
* Kinesthetic Sense
}}
{{av}}

'''Butchers''' do the dirty job of killing tame animals, processing animal [[corpse]]s, skeletons and body parts for [[meat]], [[fat]], [[skin]], [[bone]]s, [[Skull|skull]](s) and many other objects at the [[butcher's shop]].

To butcher a tame animal either
* go into {{K|v}}iew mode, place the cursor on the animal, go to the {{K|p}}references page and press {{K|s}} to flag (or un-flag) the animal for slaughtering
or
* go to the {{K|z}} ([[Status]]) screen, then the Animals page, select the animal and press {{k|b}} to flag (or un-flag) for slaughter.

A butcher will then drag the animal to the nearest butcher shop and perform the bloody deed. Butchering living animals is instantaneous - the moment the dwarf sets their food in the shop, the animal dies and its body is split into individual parts. Note that animals adopted as [[Pet|pets]] can not be butchered.

[[Ambusher|Hunters]] will, once per hunting trip, bring back a corpse to the butchery. If the hunter kills more than one creature on a single hunting trip the rest of the corpses will just be left on the ground; the same is true for creatures killed by [[trap]]s or the [[military]]. To get those corpse butchered you need to put a [[stockpile|refuse stockpile]] next to the butchery and set it to only accept corpses, and then set [[standing orders]] to gather outside refuse.

Dwarves will refuse to butcher the corpses of sentient creatures.

The type and number of objects produced from butchering a creature varies greatly, since not all creatures have the same parts. See each animal's page for a breakdown of what happens when you break that animal down.

=Effect of skill=
A butcher's skill affects the speed of butchery, which can be important for processing a large number of corpses before they begin to [[rot]]. Note that butcher shops can become [[clutter|cluttered]] quickly, because most animals create a large number of different items of different categories when butchered. So make sure that you have nearby stockpiles for refuse, raw hides, meat, prepared organs and fat. To minimize the amount of [[miasma]] created in case the rotting parts are not removed fast enough, a butcher's shop should always be blocked by a [[door]].

Of course, placing the Butchery outside will prevent any and all miasma generated by rotting, but dwarves won't haul the inedible parts away unless the global orders allow to "gather refuse from outside" (o-r-o)
==Bugs==
*A dead tame animal that was not killed by your military cannot be butchered.{{bug|1180}} This includes tame animals killed due to age, starvation or due to goblins.
*Unlike in 40d, Dwarfs will not dis-assemble (butcher) skeletons of sentient creatures' for their bones.{{bug|1180}}
{{Skills}}

==See also==
*[[Meat industry]]

v0.34:Challenges

2012-11-03T03:30:38Z

Coolthulhu:

{{av}}
{{Quality|Exceptional|[[User:Reilwin|Reilwin]] 03:58, 3 April 2012 (UTC)}}
==Pre-Embark Build Ideas==
Before you embark, you can optimize or sabotage your fortress from the very start, depending on how you distribute your points. After a few years, a well-developing fortress may or may not stabilize (depending on your idea of [[fun]]), leaving you to other challenges.

=== Diplomacy ===
* Six dwarves with only social [[skill]]s
* One skilled dwarf

Six courtiers of the king's court made some ill-advised remarks within earshot of the king, and as a result have been ordered to go found an outpost. They've hired you to make sure they survive. The six nobles only have social skills and refuse to do any work that is beneath them.

=== Minimalist/Survivalist build===

* 1 anvil
* 1 copper ore

Nothing else. From that alone, forge your pick and axe. Real dwarves won't need to peek...

{{Spoil small|
* Deconstruct the initial wagon for the 3 wood it provides.
* Build a wood furnace with the copper nugget
* Make 1 ash and 2 charcoal from the wood.
* Deconstruct the wood furnace.
* Build a smelter with 1 ash ''(a fire-safe "bar")''.
* Smelt the nugget into 4 copper bars using 1 charcoal.
* Deconstruct the smelter.
* Build a metalsmith's forge with 1 anvil and 1 ash.
* Forge a battle axe using 1 copper bar and 1 charcoal.
* Chop more trees.
* Deconstruct forge, construct wood furnace.
* Make more charcoal.
* Deconstruct wood furnace, construct forge.
* Forge a pick.
... and proceed as normal.|Step-by-step}}

Alternative: use 1 of the wagon logs to make a wooden practice axe, and use that to chop down more trees. This saves some workshop deconstruction and reconstruction.

===Peasantry===
* Spend 0 Points on embark

This challenge is moderately difficult to impossible, depending on the wildlife and outdoor food and water sources. Note that the three logs from the wagon are just enough to build a trade depot.

Sadly, the wooden axes of v0.31 make this challenge remarkably easy. All you end up with is a fort that decided not to dig until the first caravan. Of course, you could just choose not to use wooden axes (on the honor system, naturally).

===Race Against the Clock===
* Spend all embark points on [[cat]]s; 50/50 male and female

A variant of Peasantry: can you slaughter enough cats to prevent the [[catsplosion]] while eking out your pitiful livelihood?

=== Stranded Scout Squad ===
* Military skills
* Weapons, ammunition, armor, war dogs
* Picks are not weapons

Your civilian 'friends' promised a caravan in the fall as they left, laughing. Hopefully, you can survive until then with your forward scouts.

==Races==
Pretend to be another race! You can mod the game or just pretend that Elves have hair. It doesn't matter what you look like, just what you build, with what materials, and what's for lunch after we build it.

===Elves - The Ultimate Hippy Challenge===
Peace, man.
* Don't gather plants except those you plant yourself.
* Don't gather wood nor trade for it with humans or dwarves.
* Trade for plants and wood only with the elves; they understand your environmental code.
* Don't burn any [[fuel|coal]]. Do you know what that does to the environment, man?
**Magma-smelting is an option, but steel can't be had.
* Don't cause any creature's death, except in self-defense.
**No military, induced submerging, or lethal implementation of corkscrews.
* Only use cage traps, and either tame the creatures you catch, or release them back into the wild.
* [[Elf|Hippies]] prefer sunlight and wooded areas, with minimal use of rock (digging and building).

Bonus: Declare war on human and dwarven caravans that try to trade you wooden items.

For an extra challenge try this in an area with a cave.

===Hobbitton===
Forget about deep-delving adventures and armoursmithing. You're playing hobbits.

* You're not in a dwarf fortress. You're in a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
** Hobbit-holes are all on one level - store-rooms, wine-cellars, bedrooms and all.
** One family per hobbit-hole, though that may include the help. No underground connections between holes, either.
** Walls are to be lined with blocks of good polished wood, or clay bricks. Floors can be surfaced in stone or wood.
** Don't forget your glass skylights and brick chimneys over the kitchen! While you're at it, how about a greenhouse for those exotic plants?

* Your primary industries are farming and distilling. Trade primarily in these. Purchase all metals and avoid industrial mining.

* Hobbits are uninterested in machines more complicated than the odd water-mill - no traps of any sort, though a drawbridge, dogs and militia as a concession to safety may be acceptable. And, of course, a mill.

* Elves are your friends - always give them your preference as a trading partner. Go to the effort of storing your trade goods in barrels and large pots, so you can sell them your finest liquors for their valuable woodcrafts.

===Humans - Living Large and Standing Tall===
Pretend you're a filthy above-ground dwelling [[Human|human]].
* Build a town wall.
** Only hovels and farms outside the town walls.
* House your dwarves in small town homes
** 5-10 dwarves per house (they had pretty big families back in the day)
** Upstairs bedrooms, small dining room, maybe a single level basement.
* House your workshops according to profession, not convenience.
* Build warehouses for stockpiles, and set guards outside them.
* Create a keep, with its own wall, barracks, treasury, etc.
** House your nobles within the keep.
* Create a market square.
* Create a main street from the town wall to the market square and/or keep. Well-paved blocks, statues and decorative shubbery are a must.
* No underground connections between different areas.
* For obtaining stone, metal, etc. a mine may be built, but must have separate entrance from other buildings. It can be outside the fortress, but must not connect to the interior, or vice versa.
** If you create a side hill mine, only carve large (at least 2 tiles) tunnels, and create shaft to the surface to allow air circulation.
** Or better than that, create an open pit mine / quarry, with ramps to access lower floors.
* BONUS: Miniproject: Build a large, multiple-z-level fountain complete with decorations.
* BONUS: Miniproject: Human Inn, containing your only booze stockpile and should be party-oriented.
* BONUS: Miniproject: Farm simulation, complete with crops and free-range livestock, etc.
* BOUNS: Miniproject: Have a series of canals for transport.
* BONUS: Easy Play: Embark on top of a Human Town.
* BONUS: Advanced Play: Modify the raws and actually use humans to make the fort.
* MEGABONUS: Build your entire fortress as [[mega construction|one huge arcology]].
* MEGADWARFBONUS: Build your City in a giant, artificial cave. (or the caverns, if you can't manage that)

==="Humans"===
Make your dwarves pretend to be an ordinary, albeit short human village, to disguise the secret diggings below. Prepare to launch an invasion on the unsuspecting Big Folk.

* Embark as close to the human towns as possible.
* Construct a "manor house" to house your mayor and broker, with a stone-walled ground level containing office, dining room and kitchens, wood-block walls and windows above for the mayor's bedroom, and a large cellar with a discreetly concealed entrance to the Secret Fortress.
* Construct a walled village including a token number of shacks, barns and workshops, a mill and a blacksmiths' for that authentic touch.
* Surround the village with large fields, growing typical human crops.
* While all this is going on, excavate an extensive fortress underground, with a focus on a well-trained militia. If the map permits, build a secret training area for your army, perhaps hidden in the top of a large hill.
* Trade only raw crops to the human and elven caravans, in exchange for the minor needs of a human village.
* Lure the goblins underground before meeting them in battle - best to hide the evidence, you understand.

===Luddite===
Shun technology and contraptions. Who can really trust them, with all those [[Gremlin|gremlins]] running around? This may be challenging, as it forbids easy isolation/defense from attacks, all traps and wells. Irrigation is reduced to solid elbow grease and maybe a bucket or two. This challenge may be even harder combined with another challenge.
* No mechanics or [[mechanism]]s
* No [[machine]]s

** BONUS: Hey, wait, aren't crossbows machinelike?

===Earthworms===
Live constantly tunneling. Churn up the soil as you go and visit the surface only rarely to collect the stuff you need..
* Create one long tunnel. Dig forward at one end whilst sealing off (collapsing, building walls across) the other end.
* Workshops should be built directly behind the row of miners. When they reach the point where they would be destroyed, take them apart and rebuild back by the miners again.
* To make it easier, you can come up to the surface now and then.
* Try to keep the tunnel as short as possible.
* Like this: ||||||||==========> (| is walled off end section, = is tunnel and > is the miners.
* BONUS: Leave those pesky nobles walled in as you tunnel away from them!
* BONUS: Leave stockpiles of armour and weapons for any future diggers to find!
* MEGABONUS: Surprise a goblin siege by tunneling up underneath them!
* MEGABONUS: Leave a group of dwarves behind in a cavern farming. Carry no food, and return to the cavern to restock the dwarves.

=== Kill demons ===
Try to kill as many demons as possible. Use siege-engines and fortifications. Remember, that collapsing caves (use supports) kills everything.

===Eskimo===
Live like the Eskimo! Only try if you are an expert
* Embark somewhere with tundra or glacial biome.
* Lot of fishermen, hunters and only a few diggers.
* Every dwarf is at least novice mason
* Build everything out of ice.
* Only spears and crossbows allowed in the military
* BONUS: Axes? what axes?
* BONUS: Only BONE crossbows, bolts and spears. Metal is for losers.
* BONUS: Embark near an ocean and create a floating ice fortress.

===Amazon dwarves===
*Kill or lock in somewhere all male dwarves, kids are allowed until they grow up.
*BONUS: military use only bows and spears.

Alternative :
instead of killing the male, use them as slaves and make them work for the females dwarves and put all the females in the military, no male noble allowed.

===The Oregon Trail===
Settle like those who traveled the (in)famous Oregon Trail.
*Optional: Wait to stop world gen until the year 1840.
*Embark in an area that has mostly grassland biome.
*Bring 10 food and 15 booze per dwarf.
*All dwarves must embark as peasants.
*Bring a few rabbits along for skins.
*Bring a few chickens along for eggs, meat and skins.
*Bring 10 copper bars and three random rocks, but only one axe and pick.
*If points allow, bring some leather along.
*If points allow, bring some cloth along.
*Hint: You may want to find an area with clay.

Post-Embark:
*Set one miner, one woodhacker, one main farmer, one weaver/clothier, one potter/glazer, one metalsmith and one glassmaker/gem cutter if you have or found sand.
*All dwarves must plant their own crops, process their own plants, spin their own cloth and cook their own meals.
*Chop down enough of one tree to make one 4x5 inner-tile log cabin.
*Repeat the above step for the rest of the 6 dwarves you came with.
*Hint: Use a rock you brought with to make a kiln. Set a clay collection zone and set Collect Clay on repeat. Use the clay to make houses, instead.
*Dig your dwarves a 5x5 root cellar and place food stockpiles in them.
*Place a 10x10 farm plot by each dwarf's cabin.
*Dig a side hill mine for stone and ore, and make it go down 5 to 6 levels.
*BONUS: Make a huge 40x40 quarry and decrease size by 2 tiles for each level going down.
*Settler BONUS: Place 1x10 farm plots that all grow the same crop 1 tile from each other, channel between them, tap into a surface river, and voila. Western-style irrigation.
*See how long you can survive like this.
*Modding BONUS: Mod the raws and actually embark as humans.
*Naming BONUS: Name the fort 'Tombstone'.
*Modding BONUS: Mod the raws to make sentinents butcherable, cause a food shortage and attempt to recreate the Donner Party.
*Modding BONUS: Add dysentery.
*Mega Modding BONUS: Add guns and bullets of some sort.

As you can see, this challenge is similar to the City-States challenge below. Try 'em both and see which one you like better!

==Utter Dwarfiness==
Need new ways to behave or new techniques to dip your toes into? Give any or all of your starting 7 some quirks to live up to. Want to try making your Boss a hell-bent, paranoid despot? Or establish a routine mass murder of small animals to provide your fort with raw meat by a vaguely intimidating, estranged butcher?

===Bandit Camp===
* Three or more Marksdwarves (perhaps with [[Ambusher|ambushing]])
* Embark site featuring places to hide

Attack and loot every enemy sentient creature you can find, such as goblins & kobolds. Develop sneaky and even horrific methods of trapping and 'processing' friendly sentients (merchants, diplomats, and even migrants). Take no prisoners and leave no evidence of foul play.

===City-States===
* All dwarves embark as peasants
* 7 or multiple of 7 of everything you bring (especially picks and axes)
* BONUS: Make one state for only nobles and force the other states to sustain it

At the start your dwarves split everything equally and move to 7 different locales that are not interconnected. They have to mine their own rooms, plant their own crops, use their own craft piles. This will probably require a bit of cross-fertilization until you get [[door]]s and can lock everyone in, but after that it is every dwarf for him/herself!

Burrows are very useful for this.
===Dwarftopia===
*Embark only with dwarves that have max skills, with no more than one miner; but bring extra copper picks.
*Separate the fortress into 2 parts: a vibrant city above, and a depressed slum below.
**BONUS: Reverse the order; elite dwarves get to live underground, while the poor have to scratch a living off the surface.
*Throw all low-skill immigrants into the pits, where they will spend the rest of their lives (unless called up for the draft).
*'''DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES''' let said immigrants socialize whatsoever with the Elite; so nobody (who matters) will be upset when they die.
**BONUS: Make it impossible for anybody to escape by using trapdoors to drop them in and bridge-a-paults for sending goods out (preferably with a carp-based sterilization system).
***MEGADWARFBONUS: Set it all up so that none of the 'elite' have to do any work; all their needs are met by the laborers. Watch what happens and laugh as the laborers die out and high society breaks down.
****MEGAUBERLITERARYBONUS: build the community from "The Giver", all dwarves keep all jobs they come with, 3-time troublemakers get "released" (spoiler alert) use magma instead of lethal injection, and remember, no death or pain! (mod the game for ultra control over marriage and jobs!)

===Equaland===
* No embark requirements
* Construct a successful fortress
* All dwarves are given equal attention regarding quarters, dining, armament and burial
* One dwarf elected to be "The Leader" commands a lever system capable of killing a single dwarf of your choice in their room, however you wish
* Allow the Leader (your id) free reign on his power, enforcing impossible and unannounced criteria on your other dwarves with death being the only punishment
* BONUS: Construct a large sickle-hammer at the fortress enterance to show the regime.

===Hermit===
* Spend points ONLY on ONE [[Pick]]

A well known and popular challenge. Kill off 6 starting dwarves and any [[immigrant|immigrants]] as they arrive, and try to make a living for the last dwarf. Turn away merchants. If they don't leave, kill them.

'''Variants'''
To moderate difficulty, feel free to allow these exceptions:
* Keep one male and one female dwarf as the Dwarven Adam and Eve.
* Keep your starting seven, but no immigrants.
* Selectively admit dwarves based on name, profession, etc.
* Embark with an anvil as well.
* Become a lone fisherman. The old man and the sea.

===Hunting Party===
* One Marksman+Ambusher
* One Cook+Farmer
* One Brewer+Farmer
* Four exclusively social dwarves
* Embark with no anvil, many hunting dogs, into a challenging biome (terrifying areas may have no supply of wood)

===Immigration and customs enforcement===
* One miner/mason/architect
* One woodcutter/carpenter/architect
* Five military dwarves
* Embark into a canyon or on a road
* Don't embark with an anvil

Spend the first year building fortifications to interdict traffic. Immigrants can build a town around you, but your original seven dwarves remain dedicated to their mission (purely military in purpose).

*BONUS: Make the two areas self-sufficent of each other, no resource-sharing.
*BONUS: Make the main construction capable of dispatching any interlopers into the main building through drowning.

==="Let Slip the Dogs of War"===
* No military Dwarves are permitted, including Fortress Guard.
* No weapons or armor may be forged, and any obtained from looting must be melted down.
* War dogs must be your only form of attack and defense.
** Bonus : No traps or defense mechanisms of any kind may be utilized, only dogs.

===28 Drinks Later===

*Embark at a terrifying biome, make sure there are zombie somethings. Set up a wall around your camp. Never leave the perimeters. All migrants are survivors from the Zombie plagued cities, decide carefully whether to let them into your walls.
*Bonus: If you have "reason" to believe the migrants are infected, sacrifice them to [[Main:Armok|Armok]]. Remember, he loves Magma!
*Bonus: Only Marksdwarves for defense, You shouldn't get near the zombies, they tend to bite.If they are wounded, they must be quarantined, and shall therefore die.
*AdvancedPlay: Mod zombies into your game, give them a civilization, and make it hostile so that they will go to war with your Dwarves.
**Bonus: Send one heroic guy to save the migrants from the zombies, like in 28 days later.
***Bonus: Keep a diary from one of the character's perspectives, to be read when the world is repopulated.

===Master Of One===
Pre-Embark:
* All starting dwarves must have only one skill

Post-Embark:
* No changes are allowed on any dwarf's labor screen, except to ''disable'' hauling labors (enabling hauling is forbidden)
* All immigrants must stay with the profession(s) they arrive with
* All peasants must be activated into the military

'''Variant:'''
*Only allow one dwarf for each skill to remain in your fort (1 mason, 1 miner, 1 farmer, etc.). Slaughter or draft all other dwarves.

===Urist of All Trades, Master Of None===
Opposite of "Master Of One" above. 
Pre-Embark:
* You may distribute points to as many skills as you want on each dwarf, but no more than 1 point on any skill (no dwarves above Novice).
 
Post-Embark:
* Enable all labors on all dwarves, at all times.
* Since only one of Mining, Woodcutting, or Hunting can be enabled at once, try to have an equal number of dwarves in each job. At least once every year, change them around, try to assign them to whichever they have the lowest skill in. Of course, you can leave out Woodcutters if there are no trees (but enable some if you reach a cavern with underground trees), and leave out Hunters if there are no huntable critters.
* Make/buy enough Picks, Axes, and Crossbows so any dwarf who wants to try Mining, Woodcutting, or Hunting can at any time.
* Shuffle around your Administrators yearly, or whenever you notice them getting too skilled in their jobs. You can check the personalities of your replacements to make sure they're at least capable of learning appropriate social skills for the job.
* Draft any (or better yet, every) dwarf into the military. Use the default uniforms. You can only add Individual Choice Melee/Weapon/Ranged, do not assign specific weapons. Keep a variety of weapons in your stockpiles (including any exotic weapons from other races) so your soldiers have plenty to choose from. Periodically switch out your Militia Commander/Captains and squad leaders, so everyone gets a chance to lead. Unless there is a siege, only 1 squad can be active/training at any time.
* Always have some areas designated for Digging/Channeling, tree Cutting, Smoothing/Detailing, and Plant gathering, so dwarves can practice Mining, Woodcutting, Stone Detailing, or Herbalism whenever they want.
* No workshop restrictions via profiles or burrows. Let anyone work anywhere they want, regardless of skill level.
* Try to build at least 2 of every type of workshop, so if a moody dwarf claims one, other dwarves can still have a chance to try that kind of work.
* BONUS: If any dwarf manages to become Legendary, disable the labor(s) associated with that skill. If one reaches Legendary in a weapon or other combat skill, discharge them from the military. You may re-enable the labor(s) (or re-enlist) ONLY if the skill rusts all the way back down to Novice.
* SUPERBONUS: Set that skill threshold lower, (eg. Master, Expert) depending on your own masochism.

===Monarch with a grudge===
* Forbid any and all use of stone and metal
* No exposed tile may be labeled "Underground"
* Artifacts containing stone and metal are to be destroyed '''utterly''' (magma or the [[Dwarven atom smasher|DAS]])

"Nay, no ponderous stone doors or shining silver arcades, not while I live!"
The new king has decided rocks and metals can no longer be used in construction. He'll be overthrown shortly, but in the meantime construct your fortress without them.

'''Variants'''
* Embark with no construction materials, into an area devoid of trees.
* Construct a fortress made entirely out of glass. Try not using magma or limit yourself only to clear and crystal glass.
* Build with soap bars. Show those elven traders just how much you despise their philosophies by building with stuff derived from dead trees ''and'' dead animals. Cats are an excellent source of tallow.
* Choose one type of rock, one type of metal, one type of gem, one type of wood, and optionally one type of glass. All constructions can only use those types in their construction. An easy way to enforce this with stone is to mark all but your choice "Economical".
* Bonus points: Stone is forbidden along with digging

===Noblesse requiro===
* Construct a fortress only to please nobles (who, for the sake of this challenge, are all criminally psychotic)
* Criminals who deserve justice should be incarcerated, tortured, and executed for ''any'' offense. Use your imagination for every step of the process. Remember, there is no right to a fair and speedy trial in Armok's eyes.
* All Nobles must be treated to the highest quality living conditions
* All others must be treated to the bare minimum needed to physically keep them alive
* Elected nobles are to be treated as regular dwarves, but mandates hold equal sway regarding justice

===Urist McHoHoHo===
* Embark in a glacier biome
* Take at least 3 craftsdwarves to serve as Santa's Elves.
* Export as many toys as possible. These are your only permitted trade good.
* Bonus: Use this Christmas-themed tileset: [[http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/User:Sphr/gfx_set#Christmas_Special_2007]]
* Bonus: Cycle nobles frequently, use their mandates as people's wish lists.
* Mega Bonus: Use [[Olivine]], [[Serpentine]], [[Bauxite]], [[Kaolinite]], [[Cinnabar]], [[Petrified wood]], [[Realgar]], (red and green) to build your fortress.
* Dwarven Spirit Bonus: Edit the raws to embark with [[elves]] utilize elf labor to craft your toys.
* Mega Dwarf Bonus: Embark with a group of elves, choose the fattest elf to be Santa. Clothe him in reindeer wool clothing, dyed red, with accents of un-dyed wool. Feed him ☼Longland Flour Cookies☼ and reindeer milk. Build a brick fireplace and burn coal for a warm cozy fire. Train Santa to be a legendary pump operator to make him flash red.

===Sitting on trees===
* Construct a wooden "tree" or several, spanning many (a dozen or so) z-levels
* Establish a successful fortress not inside, but around, these constructed trees

===The Mad Butcher===
* One dedicated Butcher+Tanner
* Minimal supplies and skills, so you can bring...
* As many puppies and kittens you can afford
* All food-gathering skills (except your Butcher+Tanner and Brewing) are forbidden

Caging your animals will increase performance to prepare a suitable butchery. Construct a wide, deep shaft to be zoned as an animal pit. At the bottom, outfit an isolation chamber complete with food and alcohol stockpiles, a bed, a butchery and a tanner's workshop. An active well will prevent mishaps. You should include during the construction either an airlock chamber (to enable the butcher to pass on food) or a second pit where the butcher dumps his created food. After construction, seal your butcher+tanner inside and live only off of his work.

===The Night's watch===
Make a replica of The Wall from the novel series "A Song of Ice and Fire"
* Embark on area with north half of terrifying glacier area and south half of some non-evil taiga.
* IMPORTANT: build a HUGE ice wall to cut the north half away
* BONUS: assign each dwarf to one group: rangers, stewards, builders where rangers go regularly ranging to the other side of The Wall, builders build it (duh) and stewards do everything else
* MEGA BONUS: All of your dwarves have to have basic 1-year battle training after which are they assigned to some group and start to be somewhat useful

===The World is Flat===
* No pre-embark requirements
* You'll probably want a region with lots of hills/mountains.
* You may only work/build/live on the original Z level where your wagon was
* No moats allowed, as this requires a channel, which goes below your z-level

===Hunter and Gatherer===
Pre-Embark (World-Gen)
* Try creating a world in year 1 (optional)
Post-Embark
* Everything allowed except Farming and Cattle Breeding.
Bonus
* BONUS: Embark in a desert, so only hunting and (aquifer) fishing.
** Extra Points: Dont fish in the aquifer. How could the turtles get there anyway?
** Create a huge pyramid and sacrifice living beings or valuables to Armok for rain by dropping it in the hollow inaccessible pyramid from the top.
*** Extended version: Fill the pyramid with magma!
** Create lines like the Nazca to honour Armok, so he will send some rain (maybe).
* BONUS: No Mechanics and only limited (i.e. only copper) or no metalworking.
* BONUS: Live underground in the caverns. Create there little huts out of rock and shrooms

===Cave Men===
Pre-Embark
An Overworld acessable cave

Post-embark
Go into the cave with all your dwarves, and try to survive the harsh environments of the new cave systems.
You cant use items from ground zero, all wood must be harvested in the caves, along with food.

*Bonus: no trading, who wants to enter that creepy cave anyways?
*MEGA BONUS: No dogs and no warrior dwarves.

===Fort wars!===

*The initial 7 create 2 forts on opposite sides of a map.

*After the initial 7, 1/2 of all immigrants get assigned to a burrow that encompasses one of the forts. New children get assigned to their parents fort. Each fort is self sustaining and produces their own goods. Then it turns into a competition to see which fort can produce the most wealth.
* Nobles are given free reign and will be quartered in the winning fort.
* Make a giant wall separating the forts above ground. On one side of the wall is an artificial lake made of water and on the other, one made of magma. Call forts Reliable.Excavation.Demolition and Builders.League.United.
** Bonus points if you make residents of both sides wear only team colors.

===Deep dwarves===
Following the embark, lock yourself up under the ground.
Don't let any of your dwarves go outside. Let invaders into your underground maze of doom!

*BONUS: Dig deeper and deeper, abandoning the upper levels and rebuilding your fortress as you get more deep.
*MEGA BONUS: create a caste of deep dwarves (nobles?), who will only live on the bottommost levels.

===Earth Mover===
*Do what you need to get a huge guild of miners
*Dig every square in the map.
**Hint: you might want to turn cave-in on
**Another hint: Do you really want to put your castle up there, when your dwarves are digging down there?

===Minimalist===
The opposite of Earth Mover
*Only dig a stone you need
*There should be no unused stones on the map
*BONUS: No spare items or furniture also
*MEGA-BONUS: No wars, as war leaves corpses and other useless crap

===Oh, The Humanity!===
*Live like humans do.
*Make about half of your buildings out of wood- structures that serve no defensive purpose, such as workshops, meeting halls, dining halls, the homes of the serfs and peasants etc should be wooden. You can also divide a large building up as sensible- you might make the main structure of a castle or wall out of stone for strength, then make the interior detailing, shacks, and other "addon" buildings out of wood. The important thing to keep in mind is that for humans, drafty, damp stone buildings are sometimes a functional necessity, not something they prefer.
*Build an aboveground outer wall of wood to start- you can replace it with stone once you reach fifty individuals.
*Underground areas are ONLY for mining shafts, root cellars, plumbing/mechanics, and perhaps a secret passage for your nobles to take in emergencies. No workshops, living spaces, or large-scale storage allowed.
*Most of your mining for ore and minerals should be done quarry-style, as humans are not well-suited to long-term underground life. A quarry should be a big, wide-open pit, shaped like an inverted pyramid, with a ramp leading out, so you don't feel boxed in and claustrophobic. Don't worry about the ecological impact of your surface strip mining.
*An exception to the mining rule is excavation for purposes of putting up outdoor buildings- so you can carve away a cliff wall to make room for a building, but you can't actually build *into* the wall like a dwarf would, so channel that natural dirt/stone roof out!
*All farming must be done with surface plants. No underground plants.
*Humans need several pubs so they can go bar hopping in their free time- they get bored with just one. Make sure you have a separate pub for every 15 individuals.
*Unlike dwarves, few humans have enough beard to hide their naughty bits when they run around naked. Make sure your humans have enough clothing to wear at all times.
*Finally, you need an aboveground castle. Early on, a small building will suffice but by the time royalty arrives, you'll need to have at least begun constructing a castle worthy of their station.

*BONUS: Humans enjoy bathing. If there is no pond inside your walls, build a channel to carry fresh water to an artificial pond so your people have a place to cleanse themselves. Build a 1-level waterfall in it so they can shower, and stock soap nearby.
*BONUS: Every family has its own house. Each house has a "sink" (well), garage (shack) filled with owned tools, a driveway leading to the main thoroughfare, etc. Multiple-floor apartment buildings for the poor/immigrant dwarves. Once they become useful, they become "wealthy" and are moved to better housing. If they get married, they are moved to better housing for a year - if they're not "wealthy" by then, their house is foreclosed. If they arrive married/with kids, they get cheap housing anyway.
*BONUS: Humans, as opposed to the elves reverence for nature and the dwarves utter disregard for it, actually believe it is their duty to pollute and destroy nature.
**Designate large refuse stockpiles and garbage dumps in the wilderness, and fill them.
**Chop down enough trees to piss off the elves every once in a while.
**Fill the map with paved roads. Pavement rules!

*MEGABONUS: The ultimate in human engineering. Build a 5-level above-ground mega-mall displaying all your salable wares. Build various stores for your goods, back room storage, a wishing pool for the main atrium, a food court with several "restaurants" specializing in specific foods and meals, a hair salon, a bank, and a security office staffed with rent-a-cops. Come up with more if you feel like it.
**UBER-ULTRA-BONUS: Give all the mall's stores security doors that can be controlled from the security office, for instant lockdown in case of a shoplifter. Can't have too much security!

=== Orbital Defense Network[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=61614.0] ===

Build a 40z-level high magma rain-dropper. Build reservoirs connected to a volcano with retractable bridges at the bottom to drop magma on invaders! In a 50 tile wide hexagonal system, a 4x4x4 is all that is needed per reservoir.

=== Dwarven Prison ===
Faced with raising criminal rates the king has decided to go for a zero-tolerance policy. He sent out seven dwarves to build and manage a prison to hold the worst of the worst criminals of dwarvenkind.

* Only your initial 7 dwarves may do any work
* All immigrants are treated as inmates sentenced to life-long prison sentences. Yes, even the children. Don't ask, you are just doing your job and who are you to criticize the dwarfen justice system?
* Every inmate is locked up in solitary confinement within his/her own <strike>bedroom</strike> cell with only a bed and a forbidden metal door. Metal bars instead of walls are optional.
* Inmates have to be kept alive in their cells, but don't pamper them: Make them live on a diet of water and raw plump helmets. Feed them by dumping the plump helmets through holes in the cell ceilings or using an airlock system. Water can be provided through a water hole in the floor leading to a sewer system.
* Should an inmate [[tantrum|start to rebel]] the <strike>[[sheriff]]</strike> chief warden should restore discipline with an iron hand.
* It won't take long until a few inmates start to [[strange mood|go insane]] from sensory deprivation. Too bad for them.
*BONUS:build a lever for mad dwarves to commit suicide by cave-in

=== Cavernous Dwarves ===
A version of ‘Deep Dwarves’ and ‘Cave Men’, this challenge takes advantage of the large, underground caverns you find when you dig deep enough.

*Dig out a few rooms near the surface to hold all your starting goods and move them all underground as quickly as possible. (Don’t forget to disassemble your wagon.)
*Designate a meeting area underground so that none of your dwarves will be on the surface and then remove the stairs/ramps leading up.
*Start digging. Dig until you find the underground caverns (around lvl 10 - 15 depending on your map).
*Treating the caverns as ‘outside’, build your rooms and halls with windows looking into the caverns/underground lakes.
*Try as much as possible to not disturb the natural formations of the caverns. Building around a pillar is fine, carving out a pillar and building inside of it is fine, but avoid removing pillars. Use the cavern floor as your main hallway.
*Starting with at least one combat-ready dwarf is advisable (you may want more than one) as there creatures lurking around every corner.
*'''BONUS POINTS''': Construct a castle in a large cavern to house your nobles and make sure that all their rooms/offices overlook the working peasants.
*'''Extra Room Challenge''': If you are looking to expand the caverns, you may drain lakes into magma seas. (WARNING: This is a frame-rate killer!!! If you try this, make sure to disable the auto-pause/re-centering for collapsing cavern messages, and expect it to take a long time to complete.) Once you have one or more lake drained, you will likely have doubled the size of available caverns to build in.
*Optional: you can have 1 year above surface

=== Roman Empire ===
This challenge tries to emulate Europe during the Roman Era.

*All new male non-noble dwarves must be conscripted into the military for a period of no less than a year. Your initial seven are exempt, as they may be thought of as having fulfilled their military duty earlier in life.
*Steel, Aluminum, and Pig Iron are banned.
*All full-time military dwarves must have a matching set of iron platemail ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorica_segmentata lorica segmentata]) and iron short swords.
**All conscripted dwarves must have a full set of leather armor (material doesn't matter) and wooden crossbow.
***BONUS: All conscripted dwarves must have bows and arrows instead of crossbows and bolts. Trade with the filthy [[elf|Gauls]] for them.
*BONUS '''Peloponnesian War''': All full-time military units may only wear bronze armor and use spears.
*BONUS '''Aztec Empire''': All military may only use jaguar leather armor, obsidian short swords, bows, and copper war hammers.
**MEGA BONUS '''Pre-Historical''': All metal production is banned.

=== Incompetent Advisors ===
After wrongly advising the king about which stones were safe from magma's fiery heat, he sent you off with a party of six others, most of which never made it out of dwarf high.

*Using the wiki and asking questions on the forums are forbidden! The king only laughs when your inquiries arrive. You only know what you knew from the start, anything else has to be tested with experiments
**BONUS only embark with peasants and only accept immigrants with adequate or lower skills.
***MEGABONUS, when the king comes (to apologize) decide he isn't sincere and dump him into the magma with his advisers (Anyone who comes with him)

===Steve Jackson's Dwarfanoia===
*Make colored layers for the dwarves to live in Black (infrared), red, yellow orange green blue EVERYTHING in each layer must be that color a purple computer is at the "best" layer
** If you see a dwarf leave his color to go to a nicer one kill them.
*** Bonus: make it impossible to function without crossing the color boundary once in a while. (bedroom must cross a blue hallway or something)
**** hey wait, didn't the blue dwarves make the purple computer? and its room?
** decide with random goals or by random when dwarves may go to the next color
** Bonus: everybody in the black level should be miserable -- the red should be merely unhappy, the yellow and orange mildly happy, and green and blue ecstatic.
* computer is in charge of random death traps
* encourage grudges between dwarves
** put dwarves with grudges in the same military unit
*Sheriff is the most deadly dwarf (and everybody other than soldiers go in civvies)
*Bonus make a weapons testing area which may kill the dwarves or give them awesome weapons via untested modding.
** Extra bonus -- the weapons are all either effective or deadly.
*Mega bonus -- have the computer give a sign to check happiness. Press "v" if the first dwarf it finds is unhappy or had an unhappy thought kill them.

Notes: I think you have to mod [mostly from scratch) for orange, so instead you may make cheap stone layer, flux stone etc, or just skip orange.

===Paladins===
* decide which dwarves are paladins and which are support -- paladins refuse to work and support may not fight
* embark to an evil (preferably terrifying) locale
* nothing evil may live
** how to define evil: standard -- use the wiki -- if it says that it lives specifically in an evil climate, it is.
** bonus - include trees
** bonus - all non-good
** bonus - all non-dwarf
** bonus - all non-controlled dwarf
** ultra-bonus - all non-related to the 7 first dwarves
* no profit may be made from anything evil -- that includes trees and plants.
* if all paladins die, end your game -- the other dwarves have no purpose there and will leave/ commit suicide
* how long will you survive?

===Survivor Dwarves===
Dwarves try to survive, stranded on an uninhabited island.

* Find an island in your generated world (or keep making worlds until at least one island appears).
* Try to ensure that there are no neighbors on the island (except other dwarves, of course).
** Bonus: try to find an island that only has hostile neighbors (ie [[goblin|goblins]], [[Kobold|kobolds]], [[Evil#Evil|evil]]).
* Take only the bare essentials along with you (see [[Challenges#Minimalist.2FSurvivalist_build|Minimalist/Survivalist]] build above).
** Bonus: only peasants managed to survive the incident which landed your dwarves on the island (see [[Challenges#Peasantry|Peasantry]] above).
* NO TRADING! Ignore the dwarven traders that come (or kill them).
* [[immigrant|Immigrants]] are now other survivors; limit the number of survivors your island can have (either by changing the population cap or just killing off new immigrants).
** Bonus: play 'Survivor' with your dwarves and have them vote a dwarf 'off the island' once a month (or some other frequency).
*** Bonusx2: tribal colony sacrifices any dwarf that is 'voted off'.
** Bonus: new survivors (immigrants) are a rival survivor band (or tribal dwarves) that are trying to steal your supplies/kill you. Kill them or sacrifice them to Amok!

* Bonus: try to build large outdoor fires to signal rescue craft.
* Bonus: if a new mayor is elected, sacrifice the old mayor for 'failure to ensure the rescue of the survivors.' (Obviously you will need a large enough population to be able to have mayors).

===Venice===
Build a perfect replica of Venice.

*Building next to a river-side, carve out canals and make a picture-perfect replica or Venice, down its basilicas and plazas.
*Make sure to have an expansive glass industry.

* Bonus: make models of other famous historical-era cities.

===Dwarf Hoarder Challenge===
(edit and improve this please)

Step 1: Embark with 7 proficient miners and 7 picks.

Step 2: Once you reach the outpost location, strip the outside world of all valuable minerals.
(valuable = metal ores, gems and anything else that you can make a decent profit from)

*BONUS : Ravage the land! Take everything! Cut down every tree, gather all the plants! Leave NOTHING outside!

Step 3: Mine deep underground and make a very large room to store all of your wealth in.

Step 4: Kill and loot the bodies of all migrants and caravans that come to your fortress and take it down into the stockpile

*BONUS: Put all nobles that arrive in cage traps in your stockpile.

Step 5: Do what you did in step two, but underground!

Step 6: Install over complicated, dwarfy defenses to your underground stockpile.

Step 7: Continue until the King or Queen arrives.

Step 8: Cage them and store them in the stockpile.

*BONUS: Cast them in obsidion and have the obsidion mined and carved into masterwork statues.

**MEGABONUS: Make them statues of the nobles you have captured thus far. (Including the king or queen.)

Step 9: Continue until your fortress crumbles in a spectacular and hilarious way.

Step 10: Brave your defenses in adventure mode and gain access to your great fortune!

*BONUS: Make a system so the nobles stay alive.
**MEGABONUS: Make a sytem so the nobles can be set free.
***MEGADWARVERNBONUS: Make that sytem be part of the defenses so when you get to the stockpile the nobles are released and tear you apart.

NOTE: Modding may be required so the nobles stay there and so that you may release them.

===You Can't Teach an Old Dwarf New Tricks===
* Never enable new labors.
* You may disable labors, but never re-enable them. Disabled labors on your Broker/Expedition Leader to stop distractions from them meeting the Caravan/Trade Liaison? Now, diplomacy is all they're good for.
* Only dwarves who already have combat skills when they immigrate/embark may join the militia. Assign whatever armor you want, but only assign them weapons they are already skilled with, NOT "Individual Choice". They're skilled in some foreign weapon, like blowgun? Better try your darndest to get them a blowgun if you want them to be useful!
* "I have tenure" - The Nobles/Administrators you appoint keep their positions for life, even if somebody with better skills/personality shows up. You can only appoint new dwarves when the position opens up due to the previous Noble's death/madness. [[Unfortunate_accident|Intentionally forcing the position open]] is against the rules of this challenge.

EASYMODE variations:
* Enable whatever labors you want on your starting seven, regardless of the skills you've given them, to make sure all your initial bases are covered. You can only do this right at the start of the game though, as soon as you unpause you're stuck with your choices.
* When immigrants show up with multiple skills, often only the labors associated with the highest-ranked skills will be enabled. Go ahead and enable all the labors in which the dwarf has at least Novice skill. However, you can only do this right when the immigrant first arrives (while there is a flashing X over the character).
* Unskilled Peasant immigrants and dwarven children who grow up may be assigned ONE labor. You can only do this right when they show/grow up, so check the population on your status screen to see what jobs your fortress is lacking, and choose carefully. If you play without this variation, your Peasants are destined to be nothing more than haulers/cleaners (and harvesters if you have "all dwarves harvest" enabled in the .ini), or deadbeat welfare bums if you disabled their labors for some reason.
** SUPEREASYMODE variation of the above: new Peasants may be assigned 1 labor Category, ex. press shift+enter on the Stoneworking category to enable Masonry and Stone Detailing.

==Arbitrary Law==
Rule your fortress with a Soapen Fist! Or see how far you get until a (voluntary) significant flaw sends you into an inevitable sadness spiral. Whatever it is, be sure to stick by it or you'll be meeting the Hammerer.

===Work with what you have===
* Build for one year as you normally would. Be as efficient as you like.
* At the end of the year, no more mining, constructing, or anything else.
* Wood may be gathered
* Walls may be constructed, but can only be used in already-existing constructions, like dividing a room into multiple separate rooms
* No new aboveground/belowground space-creation. You may only use the space you mined out in the first year
This challenge forces you to utilize space you havn't before. A large 5x hallway may be converted into a 1x with bedrooms on either side. Whatever you have to do to fit your current population. Be sure to build without any thought into the future of the fortress when you can no longer build. Instead, make it as hard as possible.
Variations:
* you may build aboveground to a maximum of two stories above ground. Make big slums/refugee camps/bazaars. Anything that involves mass-small-one-story-buildings
* you may increase/decrease the time before you can no longer dig or build new space
* (decreased difficulty) you may plan ahead

===DSPCA===
* [[Animals]] are forbidden from the fortress
* Animals following immigrants cannot enter the fortress
* Lethal traps forbidden, caged non-sentients must be immediately released
* Butchery is forbidden, but leatherworking is allowed

Rather than forbidding immigrant pets from entering, you can choose to deal with the owner of that pet instead for a more sadistic challenge.

===Commune===
* After embarking, enable all labors on all dwarves (including immigrants).
* Beds can only be designated as barracks or a dormitory, and no dwarf can be assigned to a bed (even nobles).
* Coins are forbidden.
* Be aware that nobles are to be considered part of the "bourgeoisie" and [[Unfortunate accident|dealt with]] immediately.
* Establish a communal military plan and force everybody to be a part of the military at some time or another. Share all weapons and armor, anybody that tries to make an artifact weapon, either share the weapon, or somehow destroy it, and then execute the individual who made it.
* Force everybody to take turns and act as the executive dwarf for the month/season/year. If that person makes decisions that go against the good of the commune, execute them.

===Couples only===
* As soon as a married couple exists in your fortress:
** Kill all single dwarves (or put them in a meeting area for a year to find a lover. Kill the rest)
** Kill all incoming single dwarves
** Try to save children, until they are adult and single

===Dieting Dwarves===
* Exclusively dine on a food type of your choice (meat, fish, plants, alcohol)
* Optionally, forbid alcohol consumption to limit carbohydrate intake
**Note: forbidding alcohol permanently is as good as accepting a slow but continuous fortress death

===Dwarf Liberation Movement===
* Nobles are worthless scum, we give them nothing!
* As soon as possible, cage your expedition leader.
* Never appoint any dwarf into becoming a noble.
* Cage any dwarf that appears on the nobles and administrators screen.
* When your population elects a new mayor, release your old one and cage the new one.
** Bonus : Cage the king and all of his escorts!
** Extra Bonus : Once you have caged all nobles, administrators, the king and his advisor; you must unleash the Dwarf Atom-Smasher upon them.

===Citizenship===
* All dwarves must earn citizenship. To do so they must prove themselves by reaching legendary mining skill. Because REAL dwarves know how to dig. Until then they are forbidden to do any work.
** Bonus : Hauling is forbidden too.
** Extra Bonus : Non-citizens are prohibited from entering into a fortress, and they must remain outside. Above-ground constructed buildings count as part of the fortress.

===Fight for your name===
* Before embarking, randomly generate a fortress name and be sure to know its English translation
* Do the same with your group name
* Creatively designate a serious goal for your fortress, based on these names
* Fanatically reach your goal

===Fort Geneva===
* Lethal traps are forbidden
* Caged sentient creatures are to be considered prisoners of war and treated humanely

Suggested provisions for prisoners: a bed, a personal cell, a commons area, aboveground exercise yard, and the clothes the creature was wearing when captured. For more inspiration, go to: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions Geneva Conventions]

===Government in Exile===
* Only Military and Social skills can be purchased and enabled in your entire fortress

All dwarves are either nobles or in the military. The only useful dwarves you'll have will be your broker, manager, mayor, bookkeeper, and dungeon master. If you can survive until the sheriff arrives, transfer your entire military into the fortress guard. With a little luck, and a lot of exported roasts, you too can rule without proletarian interference.

===Hardcore Altruism===
* Do not allow the death of any Dwarf

Though not viscerally entertaining, an incredible challenge. All strange moods must be given what they crave. All medical attention must be done ASAP. Mining, fishing and hunting must be done with much care. Sadness must be met with excellent social skills and quality furniture.

===Industrial Plant===
* Choose one industry that produces commercial goods
* No other industries permitted, only imported

===Johannesfort===
* Find a starting location with a lot of gabbro, containing Kimberlite
* Mine and cut all the diamonds on the map
* Only gems can be traded.
** BONUS: Your leader [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_denialism#In_South_Africa denies the existence of infections]. Soap is neither manufactured nor traded for. Even if you know a dwarf has an infection, do not quarantine it or treat it any differently.
** BONUS: Use the Burrows tool to establish "gated communities" for select dwarves, such as legendaries and nobles. Keep the fortress guard confined to these gated communities. If a dwarf throws a tantrum outside these designated areas, let him or her rage.

===Realistic Dwarves?===
* No magma smelters- magma doesn't have the heat to smelt ores
* No use of perpetual motion machines
* All doors must be locked by the use of levers- no auto-locking doors for you!

===Sexist Segregation===
* Establish two functioning and stable fortress
* One must be entirely male, the other entirely female
* Married couples are to be processed

===THIS! IS! SPARTAAAA!===
* Change your population cap to 300.
* At least half of your fortress population must be active in the military.
* Crossbows and traps are forbidden.
* Only spears, swords, wrestling, helmets (helms) and shields may be equipped by military and used to fight.
** BONUS: All weapons and armour must be made from bronze.
* Civilian dwarves have all labors enabled.
** If ever activated, cannot use quality weapons or armor.
* Maimed dwarves (perceived to be) incapable of being fully healed must be killed. (This includes incurable spinal injuries in military dwarves!)
* Devise methods of dropping Liaisons down pits during meetings. Yell, "THIS IS SPAARRTAAAAA..." at your monitor.
* Demand goods be turned over from all caravans.
* Recreation is forbidden, as well as any 'improving' action, such as smoothing/engraving, or constructing things out of metals what can be done with rock and wood (besides spears, swords and shields).
* Building city walls is considered weak and cowardly.
Note that the above suggestions are modeled on the popular movie [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_(film) 300], an adaption of the graphic novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_(comics) 300], both of which historically inaccurate. For a more "realistic dwarven Sparta", try reading the Wikipedia article on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta#Society Spartan society].

===Xenophobia===
Difficulty increases with each bullet point:
* Kill all non dwarves...
* ...and dwarf traders (or are they race traitors?)
* ...and all immigrants (or are they spies?)
* Make sure you kill all animals and especially find those collosi, dragons etc.,
Extra-gore version - make sure to make elves, goblins, humans etc., butcherable and wear only sentient hide clothing.
* BONUS: You realize this is how most experienced players run their forts anyways.

===Mesoamerican dwarves===
* All food must be grown above ground, on small plots, surrounded by canals (chinampas)
** BONUS: Flood the farms annually.
* All buildings must be above ground.
* Capture as many of your enemies as possible.
* Build a massive step pyramid at the center of your fortress. Appoint one dwarf high priest and have him kill the prisoners at the top.
** BONUS: Build it upside-down.
*** MEGABONUS: Build the entire city on top of the upside-down pyramid, with another pyramid-temple in the middle.
* Surround your fortress with an artificial lake.
** BONUS: Build it in the middle of a natural lake.
* Use only copper or bronze metal (except for iron anvils).
* Soldiers can only use obsidian short swords. Axes are only for wood cutting.
* No armor except leather and only let champions use it. All others must fight unarmored.
** BONUS: Divide your soldiers into "Jaguar[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_warrior]" and "Eagle[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_warrior]" warrior societies and outfit them with leather armor made from their respective animals.
* Demand that all non-dwarf caravans surrender their goods as tribute.
* Build a giant, multistory building for holding skulls.

===French Revolution===
*Keep your nobles happy and your proles subjugated until you have a king issue a particularly stupid mandate.
*Build some manner of guillotine.
*Kill the king, everyone he is aquainted with, and everyone within the same room.
*Kill other important nobles as soon as your guillotine frees up.
*Unimportant Nobles are to be executed upon first mandate, or exiled at a random point in time.
*Any dwarf that has any relation to any noble must be executed.
* Kill any other dwarf if he has any whiff of aristocracy about him. Use your discretion.

===Specialized economy===
* The goal is to reach maximum efficiency. To do this, you must assign all your workshop dwarves to an individual burrow.
* Each dwarf must have his own dining room, bedroom just next to his workshop.
* You have to assign a stockpile for food and booze next to each of your workshop dwarves so they can feed. Specialized haulers will have to bring them their foods.
* You have to assign a raw material stockpile next to your workshop so your dwarf can work. Specialized haulers will have to bring them these raw materials.
* No workshop dwarf should leave their respective burrow. Ever.
* Good luck keeping all these stockpiles supplied all the time without getting lost!

===Becoming the abomination you sought to kill===

The seven founders are trying to hide a terrible secret that can doom all dwarfkind, so each took on an arbitrary law that must be followed until the related dwarf is dead. Their ultimate goal is to kill everyone in the forteress but none of them actually KNOWS the other are pursuing the same goal undetected!

Here is a typical set of laws:

-No hunting

-No trading

-Only one batch of alcohol is to be produced per year (that's 1 drink per dwarf, tops).

-Constant war with all elves

-No military training

-No magical materials (nothing above steel)

-Forteress should be over a magma-based doomsday trap, with 20 levers able to trigger it at any time (aka the "glorious death defeating the dragon by any means necessary" plan). Did I mention the alcohol restrictions turns dwarf insane?

You shall attempt to make as many of the original dwarves as possible die from old age rather than any other cause. So pray for strategic deaths early(no cheating)! This way even your UNCONCIOUS is untrustworthy...

Overall, any of the seven laws shouldn't be TOO deadly, but certain death should be a result of following them all permanently.

Success is acheived by one criteria only: at the death of the forteress you must have learned your unconscious planned Dwarf deaths you didn't plan consciously... that's the only way to "win".

=== Dwarves need magma===
*Every workshop needs to be a "magma"workshop -- Magma carpentry, for example.
*Magma workshoprs must have one tile touching a magma tile (preferably 3 and for bonus be nearly surrounded by magma tiles)
*Every trap must be magma powered -- including cage traps
*Dining rooms and bedrooms need magma lights to keep dwarves happy.
*extra bonus - forbid all non-magma safe materials
** superbonus - include clothes
** utter dwarfy bonus but superbonus removed Mod so that the dwarves all wear obsidian clothes.

===The Hive===
*All dwarves have all labors on.
**Dwarf Therapist helps with this.
**Hunting and fishing are optional.
*The endgoal is to make a fully functioning "bee hive" like fortress, All rooms inside the hive must be the same size.
*The hive must be suspended in the sky like below (scale is your choice)
**BONUS: Suspend it over a volcano.
***MEGABONUS: Have a lever to drop the whole thing down into the volcano.
= is a Up/down stairway
O is the hive parts

======
OOOO =
OOOOOO =
OOOOOO =
OOOO =
=

'''Urist's Legion'''
*Women are allowed no jobs, and must be held as breeding stock.
*Most of the men are military, and the rest are workers.
*All military armor must be leather. All weapons must be iron swords and spears.
*Only appoint named dwarves to noble position.
*The expedition leader must be kept safe, and will do nothing.
*He must also have a royal bedroom, dining room, and tomb.
*BONUS: Build an artificial lake. Make a replica of Hoover Dam. Build walls to make sure the goblins only appear west of the dam. Guard it againts the GolbiNCR!
MEGABONUS: Build a camp with walls out of aluminum bars. make the entire thing a barracks.

===Alcoholic Dwarves Anonymous===
*Make your fort a rehab center for dwarves trying to stay sober.
*Alcoholic beverages are not allowed. Water only.
*Any booze brought by migrants must be confiscated and destroyed.
*BONUS: Keep the booze and have the expedition leader/mayor secretly be an alcoholic. Make a stockpile that holds only booze behind a secret door in his quarters. Ensure he is the only one that can access it.
**MEGABONUS: Have him removed from his position and/or imprisoned if a dwarf sees him access this stash.

==The Bunker==
*No Embark Requirement
*Set up a fort as you usually would, build , mine, construct and so forth.
*Dig out a self sufficient bunker, containing farming facilities, A massive area for water storage (at least 20x20x5) with a purifying mechanism (pumps can purify stagnant water), Plenty of wood (at least 100), Seeds for whatever crops you will plant (at least 75), a large storage of food (at least 300), have fully operational medical facilities, worker facilities, as well as recreational facilities
*When you get a siege, gather up a fourth of your dwarves, regardless of who they are, and put them in the bunker. Seal up the bunker permanently, no one gets in or out. That also includes the water supply. That's right, once you run out of water, you are screwed.
*You may dig out mines for the bunker, but if you open a cavern then you must immediately wall it off, with the miner trapped outside, sentenced to death.
*All crimes are punished with death once inside the bunker.
*What the leader says is law.
**BONUS: Dedicate your bunker to a specific goal, such as producing enough booze for 100 years, or some arbitrary and pointless lay
***MEGABONUS: Cause an accident that will kill off a majority of the bunker, except for a handful of dwarves (such as cracking open the water tank to flood the residential areas of the bunker)
*Variant: Send a quarter of your dwarves into the bunker while its being constructed with only the farm functional as well as a small amount of food, seed, water, and wood.

==Überdwarves==

Basically, each and every dwarf in your fortress must aim to be the pinnacle of dwarvenkind. Both a great talker and possible leader of men, an exceptional craftsdwarf in multiple disciplines, and a deadly warrior whose body is a terrific weapon. See Friedrich Nietzsche's work for more info.

* All dwarves are to be conscripted into the military. Dwarves must kill personally the animals they wear the skin/bone of.
**BONUS : no weapons better than iron, unless you are faced with an enemy made from a better metal
***MEGABONUS : no weapons other than base quality
**BONUS : all dwarves must be at least at least Proficient in military skills
***MEGABONUS : all dwarves must be Legendary in MS
****ULTRABONUS : all dwarves must have slain a whole siege all by themselves
*****SADISTICDWARFBONUS : Assault [[HFS]] with your bunch of überdwarves. Win. No traps allowed.
* All dwarves have to have and train at least one truly dwarven skill, like leatherworking, metalworking (any), stoneworking, bone carving, or brewing.
**BONUS : one of these to legendary.
* All dwarves have to train mining. Not allowed for fighting, excepted for creatures that cannot be harmed by weaponless combat. (iron FB's, steel titans, demons, etc.)
* All dwarves must have very high willpower.
** BONUS : All dwarves must have MAXIMUM willpower
* Dwarves may eat only animal based products. You need lots of protein for these überdwarves. Plant-based drinks are alright.
**BONUS : All dwarves must have generally superior physical attributes
***MEGABONUS : No attributes in the red
****ULTRABONUS : All attributes at maximum. We're talking about überdwarves after all.
*No dedicated haulers. No large amount of idlers.
**BONUS : Keep a minimum amount of idlers, excluding breaks
*No hospital. If the dwarf doesn't heals by himself and becomes useless, kill him.
**BONUS : No tombs, dump the corpses in lava
***MEGABONUS : No drinking water, of for that matter anything else than alcohol. Water is not dwarven.
****ULTRABONUS : Infect your whole fort with a werebeast curse. (A sufficiently dwarven animal is required, like badgers). No more need for hospital.
* All dwarves must have at least Adept in most social skills.
** BONUS : Legendary in most social skills.
*As soon as your babies turn into children, put them into a hellish training regimen that will train him and make him into a true dwarf. Death is of course, synonym of weakness.
**BONUS : Make them fight wild creatures into an arena.
***MEGABONUS : 40 children VS 1 megabeast. WHO WILL SURVIVE ?
****ULTRABONUS : Get all the children at Legendary Fighter skill by the time of their adulthood. If they aren't, kill them.
*****SADISTICDWARFBONUS : Each young dwarf must pass a test of adulthood : killing enough creatures in fair combat and earning a title. If they don't, kill them.
*All dwarves must be hardened of spirit. You must give all of your dwarves "doesn't care about anything anymore" trait.
**BONUS : Trait must be earned by killing, NOT seeing death.
*Each dwarf must kill at least one beast and one sentient enemy.
**BONUS : Each dwarf must have earned a title by slaying enemies, which MUST be suitably appropriate and badass.
***MEGABONUS : Each dwarf must have killed at least 10 sentient enemies. Each dwarf must also have some Butcher skill, for added terror.
****ULTRABONUS : Each dwarf must have killed at least 100 sentient enemies
*Each dwarf must have a pet that will help him in combat.
**BONUS : each dwarf must have a fearsome predator as pet
***MEGABONUS : each dwarf must have a semimegabeast as pet
****ULTRABONUS : each dwarf must have a megabeast as pet
*No vampires allowed, vampires gain things far too easily.
**BONUS : Mod difficult creatures that blood gives stat bonuses to your dwarves.
*Fortress must end in a loyalty cascade and a fight to the death, to see which dwarf/which faction are the REAL überdwarves. Then abandon fort and follow your überdwarves in legends mode.

==Megaprojects==
Try building some <s>ridiculously</s> humongous, <s>over</s>complicated construction, using whatever <s>in</s>appropriate building method your fevered imagination can come up with! Need some ideas? Take a look at the [[Megaprojects|Megaprojects page]]!

v0.34:Glass industry

2012-09-02T08:45:14Z

Coolthulhu:

{{quality|Masterwork|04:13, 15 October 2010 (UTC)}}{{av}}

The '''Glass Industry''' is an extremely versatile source of items. Everything from [[trade good]]s to [[furniture]] to low value [[glass]] [[gem]]s to [[block]]s to [[trap component]]s can be made from glass, making [[Glassmaker]]s an extremely useful profession. As glass is [[magma-safe]] and all [[screw pump]] components can be made from glass, glassmaking industry becomes very important once [[magma]] is found.

=Producing glass=

In order to produce [[glass]] in great quantities, your map should have [[sand]]. Sand is offered by [[caravan]]s, but very little can be acquired at a time. If you want a massive glass industry, check on your pre-[[embark]] map for sand layers.

To make items from glass, sand must first be gathered in [[bag]]s using a task available at any [[glass furnace]], "Gather Sand". You must designate a [[activity zone|Sand Collection zone]] from the ({{k|i}})-menu that includes an accessible area of sand in order for this task to succeed.

Once you have one bag of sand you can order glass to be created at a furnace. A standard [[glass furnace]] will consume one unit of [[fuel]] per job; a [[magma glass furnace]] uses no fuel.

==Collecting sand==

All types of glassmaking require at least a [[container|bag]] of [[sand]]. The "Collect [[Sand]]" order at the glass furnace requires the "[[hauling#Item_hauling|item hauling]]" labor, not glassmaking. The Collect Sand order does however still occupy the glass furnace, preventing glassmakers from working in it until it has been completed. Collecting sand is also a time consuming task, and glassmakers quickly become faster at making items than at gathering materials to the point that jobs are canceled as sand becomes scarce.

===Collecting sand efficiently===

There are two main ways around this problem, each with its own benefits and drawbacks.

====Brute force====
The fast, somewhat sloppy method is to build additional glass furnaces for the sole purpose of [[repeat]]ing the Collect Sand order while others are used for actual glassmaking. Keep in mind that ordering glass goods through the [[manager]] will schedule jobs in your sand collection glass furnaces, which can get irritating and interfere with your balance of sand supplies and glassmaking orders. To avoid this, queue ten sand collection jobs and set them all to repeat. This will prevent new jobs from being assigned to the [[furnace]].

'''Benefits:'''
*This method will free up time for your glassmakers to focus on making glass items.

*It is possible to turn off all of your craftsdwarves' hauling labors and let your pack of otherwise useless [[Potash maker|Potash Maker]]s do all the grunt work of filling [[container|bags]].

'''Drawbacks:'''
*This method is hard to balance. Just when you think you have found an equilibrium between supply and demand, a legendary glassmaker goes to sleep and every bag is filled with sand during his absence, resulting in a cascade of canceled bag filling jobs. If you go too far the other way and order more bags than can be used, hundreds of surplus sand bags accumulate until you eventually run out of bags or tweak the balance again.

====Slow and easy====
The slightly slower but more controllable method of collecting sand efficiently. Assign each glass furnace to an individual glassmaker, and make sure that the dwarf's item hauling labor is turned on. Stagger work orders so the glassmaker hauls their own sand, then makes their item, then hauls their own sand.

'''Benefits:'''
*Orders can be set to repeat endlessly in the background with no oversight, which is particularly excellent when mass producing [[Gems#Glass|raw glass]] or [[block]]s.

*Usage of bags is set to a minimum, which frees [[cloth]] and [[leather]] for other purposes.

'''Drawbacks:'''
*Tandem job orders like this mean that only five orders can be placed at a time, meaning that orders are placed most effectively as [[repeat]]s. A way around this is to set five different types of tandem orders and [[suspend]] and unsuspend them as desired.

*This method is slower than the brute force method, and doesn't give your horde of idle dwarves anything to do.

*The manager can still be a burden with this system and ruin the balance of labors.

==Varieties of glass==

:*Producing '''green glass''' requires only a bag of sand. Green glass items are [[value|worth]] twice as much as objects made from most [[stone]], making it equivalent to cheap metals like [[copper]] and [[zinc]].

:*Producing '''clear glass''' requires one bar of [[pearlash]] in addition to a bag of sand. Clear glass items are worth five times as much as items made from most stones, making it equivalent to metals like [[bronze]].

:*Producing '''crystal glass''' requires no sand, but does require pearlash and rough [[rock crystal]]s, a [[gem]] which is not found on all maps. Cut rock crystals bought from [[trader]]s will not work for producing crystal glass. Crystal glass is worth ten times as much as objects made from most stones, making it equivalent in value to metals like [[silver]].

See also "[[Glass]]" for a full discussion of the properties of glass items.

==Glass Industry Flowchart==

[[Image:Glassflow2.png|Thumb|800px|Flowchart of the glass industry and its interaction with surrounding industries.]]

=Glassmaking vs. masonry=
There is considerable overlap between items produced from [[stone]] at a [[Mason's workshop]], and items produced from glass at glass furnaces. [[Mason]]ry is easier to get running and will [[stone management|clear excess stone]] from your fortress. Glass produces items with a higher base [[value]] (unless you make your masons use flux or [[obsidian]]), and using a [[magma glass furnace]] allows you to make green glass objects without consuming anything but dwarven labor. Glass also provides a [[magma-safe]] alternative, to prepare for magma-based projects before it's discovered or avoid stockpile micromanagement for the correct building materials.

=Glassmaking and [[minecart]]s=
In a typical fortress, [[magma]] is located deep below, while sand is a soil layer and thus without some creative management is just below ground. Without minecarts, each sand bag will be carried by a single dwarf, thus requiring a lot of dwarf labor and wide staircases. With minecarts one can not only transport a lot of sand bags to the magma furnace without much dwarftime wasted on hauling, but also transport all the glass products back up. If set up, the track can be also used to supply (and grab from) [[magma smelter]] which is likely to be located close to [[magma glass furnace]].
If one is too lazy to set up a track, minecart system can be easily used simply to haul all the sand bags in a convenient container (requires a wooden minecart). If both endpoints are set to '''guide''', but are left disconnected, dwarves will just grab the minecart and haul it to destination. Since sand bags and wooden minecarts are both very light, the dwarf won't slow down much.
{{Category|Industry}}
{{Industry}}

v0.34:Megaprojects

2012-09-01T20:23:50Z

Coolthulhu: /* City */

{{Quality|Fine}}{{av}}{{old}}

Instead of deliberately inhibiting yourself, create a wonder of the dwarven world that would make the Mountainhomes proud. Be sure to upload it to the [http://mkv25.net/dfma/ Dwarf Fortress Map Archive] when it's finished. More projects can be found where [[Stupid_dwarf_trick|stupid dwarves try crazy tricks]]. [[Mega construction|Incredible feats of construction]] are usually very [[Fun|fun]] so you'll see many different (and probably similar) constructions across the Wiki. Use whatever ideas you think are ingenious.

===Aqueducts===
For some reason, a noble was harmlessly pulling a lever when suddenly, magma flooded the river and exploded the booze! The king requires your band of seven to build a great aqueduct to bring water to the capital. Start with supports, and build up your aqueduct until it is 10 z-levels high!

*Bonus: Start over a human town, build a wall around it, pump water through the aqueduct and into it!
*Bonus: Mod the game so you can start on the dwarven capital and actually bring about the story.
*Bonus: Once you have completed your aqueduct, embark in a slightly different location and build the next section. repeat until you've built it all the way to the capital!

Variation: On a map containing a river, completely enclose it with glass walls, and floors. Use overhead pipe sections to move the water to places more <s>convenient</s> Fun.

===Biodome===
All material, seeds, food, tools, and dwarves must be in the fortress within one year. Then, seal up the entrance. Any new immigrants... well, they might be in trouble. Survive for as long as possible!

No pits/underground rivers/magma vents allowed.

===Casting===
Who needs to construct giant statues?! We need ours made from natural walls, however, we want it above ground level as well. For casting your goal is to create some giant structure out of natural obsidian walls through the use of an extremely elaborate scaffold of lava and water pools and screw pumps. When you are finished, just deconstruct the scaffolding and smooth/engrave the statue as you go. Just imagine the bridge over that chasm, now complete with two giant dwarf statues on either side to strike fear into all who enter and to show them the power of your fortress.

*Bonus: Make the statues spit lava.

===Castle===
Build a castle, greater than anything built by human, elf or dwarf. This is highly time
consuming if you want it to be a good castle. There must be floor indoors, and no underground
constructions except for mining operations and cellars. For an even greater challenge, build
a gigantic tower in the middle, where the nobles stay.

===Ceremonial Sacrifices===
Build an amazingly complex or spectacular killing device. A shaft that extends across the entire Z-plane is a good start. A constantly shifting maze of atomsmasher drawbridges is another. For the minimalist, a very confined space where you will drop a dwarf wrestler along with the gobbos once in a while. Perhaps a waterslide that carries your prisoner all the way down into a chasm? Just cut their heart out? Whatever your idea, build it and dedicate your fort to the construction, maintenance and improvement of your device.

Do not kill any of your invaders. Capture them using cage traps, and them set them off in your device. Keep a record of the number of victims you drop into it.

BONUS: Create a statue garden to memorialize your victims, with one statue per victim. Structure your fortress such that sacrificial victims have to pass through the garden on the way to their demise.

===Computing===
Can your dwarves build the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism Antikythera mechanism]? Can you program the fortress to play tic-tac-toe? More details at [[computing]].

===Colosseum===
Build a pit, around it on steps lots of Thrones, make the whole thing a meeting area, train Gladiators, capture goblins, leave them their weapons and let them fight against your gladiators. If they win, let them go.

===Crematory Fortress===
* Requires a [[magma| magma pipe]] and [[bauxite]].

Build a temple structure above a [[magma|magma pipe]] and [[engraving|engrave]] every available surface. The temple should be as opulent as possible. In the temple, build a retracting [[bridge]] over a hole in the floor, and designate a [[coffin]] [[stockpile]] on it. Whenever a dwarf dies, build a [[bauxite]] or other [[magma safe|magma-proof]] [[coffin]] for him, place it on the [[bridge]], and retract it, committing his body to the [[magma|fiery blood of the mountain]].

::Note: Since coffins are unassigned and emptied when deconstructed and cannot be constructed on top of a bridge, this will not actually work. An alternative would be to place the coffins in individual chambers which can then be flooded with magma afterwards.

::: You could expose the magma pipe, build a one-tile wide floor span across it, and then above that build a support that holds up your temple floor on the z-level above. The temple floor would be separated from the walls of the temple and would be connected for walking access diagonally. The support holds it up. You would have to construct the coffins in the temple, then when someone gets buried you pull the lever attached to the support. You then rebuild the narrow span below, the temple floor, and the support, then link the lever to the new support.
::: You can do this without scaffolding if you build the temple floor access straight in, and then the span below and the support, then once the support is in place you destroy the straight temple access leaving only a diagonal temple access.

::: Another method would be simply to make a hole in your temple that goes straight down to the magma, of at least 3X3 squares, then build a floor of 2 squares long and 1 wide from the upper middle edge of the hole so that the second square is only connected to the temple by the first, then build your coffin on the second square and once your dwarf is inside deconstruct the first square leaving nothing holding the square with your coffin up and it will fall into the magma. On a side note it is best to start from the upper edge of the hole so the dwarf doing the deconstructing is a lot less likely to fall into the magma.

::: Retracting bridges work well to provide access to build the support and floor, and can then be retracted before dropping the coffin. Use a single lever to retract the bridge, then begin filling a chamber with water to trigger a pressure plate to destroy the support, dropping the coffin, and also draining the water to encase the coffin in obsidian.

===City===
Live like a human!

Build all of your buildings above ground. to make this easier, mod in a plentiful building material similar to bricks, however you want it. Make sure that your city is unplanned for that medieval look; build when you need to as close as you can to where it needs to be. As each migration wave comes you're going to need more and more buildings. Protip; you're going to need a caste of dedicated builders.

* Extra points; Emulate your favourite city.
* Combo bonus; Build your city around some other megaproject; a pyramid or giant colloseum.
* ULTRADWARF; Start in a mountainous area and hollow out the above ground city from the projecting mountains, including all four sides, thus leveling the mountain range to leave a series of *surprisingly natural* looking streets.
* Build each building (or section of one) out of the same materials or...
** Bonus: Create pixel art from the colors of the stones!
** Bonus: Try to build all freestanding structures
* Geek Reference Bonus: Build the city on the side of a mountain, using only marble, and make it look like Minas Tirith.
* Modern bonus: Have dwarves ride in minecarts from their home burrow to work burrow and then back once they finish their work.
** Bonus: Design traffic lights system, complete with carts stopping, waiting till green "light" turns on and then continuing. Stop dwarves from jaywalking and getting themselves killed in the process.
** Computing bonus: Don't build a track for every single cart, reuse tracks with pressure plates coupled with bridges, hatches and floodgates and clever usage of minecart mechanics like derailing or even water skipping.

===Doomsday Clock===
Build a water or mechanical clock whose final state triggers the support which holds your fortress up or a megabeast out.
See how much wealth you can achieve before the clock runs out.
*Bonus: Create something that resets itself, as well as purging the map, so that you can reuse the same fortress over and over.
*Super-Bonus: Create something that involves pressure plates and a small kitten, when the pressure plates are hit in the right order, your map ends. Toss the kitten in and hope for the best. Alternatively, make the sequence quite unlikely, but add 2 kittens; breeding introduces a probability of doomsday that is a function of time (depending on the mechanisms involved)
*Super-Bonus: Create the super-bonus above, but place the kitten on the lowest Z-level and never return to either look at it or see how many of the conditions for the doomsday device have been met. This way, the kitty mimicks Schrodinger's cat: we cannot observe the state of the kitty, but we can infer it from the state of the world (spin-pairs effectively).

===Dungeons of Doom===

Beneath your fortress, carve out an immense dungeon starting from the surface. Each dungeon floor must be filled with rectangular rooms connected by twisting one-tile passages, with an occasional wider hallway, and each floor must lead to the next by a single-tile staircase (no up/down stairs). A few floors into the dungeon, build a small fortress and designate a few quarries away from the dungeon itself. The dungeon should not be exposed to the caverns, but the caverns should be exposed to the surface to free the fun creatures. The dungeon must go down until it reaches HFS. Dump an artifact amulet inside HFS. Build puzzles and thematic branches of the dungeon as you see fit.

* Bonus: Fill the dungeon with gnomes, goblins, kobolds, and horrible monsters of all kinds.
* Mega Bonus: Litter the floors of the dungeon with artifact items (especially weapons).
* Cosmic Bonus: Lead the dungeon into an upright spoiler and build a Labyrinth inside HFS.
* Nerd Bonus: Build the last few levels above your fortress, and fill one with lava, one with water, one entirely empty, etc, to mimic the last few levels of NetHack. The uppermost one should have three temples, and if possible megabeasts that cannot escape but which an adventurer could reach...

===Dwarf like an Egyptian===
*Build a pyramid of epic proportion.

Build a legendary dwarven pyramid, with a corridor running to a central tomb for your favourite noble. Then construct lots of different [[trap]]s in it to avoid grave robbery. Perhaps build it entirely out of glass? Or try to make the top twist in a bit of a swirl. Alternatively, make your entire fortress inside a pyramid, which stretches below the ground.

*Build rows of Obelisks

* Build a double row of Obelisks before the Pyramid, and engrave the sides. Build ramps on the tops.

*Build the whole thing upside down.
** And then another one on the upside-down one.

* BONUS: Make a Sphinx out of solid gold. Solid! Nobody lives or goes inside of it. Entomb the builders in an [[unfortunate accident]] - preferably inside the sphinx - so that they can never build one for anybody else.

* When the time has come, or when your fortress is about to be destroyed by a siege or something, perform the ceremony to translate the mortal form of the noble to the underworld. Give him a ritual death, and make sure you kill his servants as well. Pile wealth into the tomb. If the tomb is built for your king make every dwarf die but one, who inters everyone into their resting place. His final act will be to pull a lever that seals the tomb as well as kills him. Then enjoy going back and reclaiming your fortress to observe your efforts.

*BONUS: Dwarf like a Sumerian and make the Pyramid a Ziggurat.

===Graveyard Master===
Every dwarf deserves a decent resting place:
*Build a tomb for every dwarf that dies, the more dwarves you manage to bury the better.
*Tombs must be rooms with exactly 5x5 of size and 1 of height, with only one entrance tile that must be closed by a door.
*Tombs must have all its surfaces engraved.
*Tomb must contain at least 4 statues.
*Once complete, the door must be replaced with a wall and the tomb must not be ever entered again.

===How high can you go?===
Construction, construction, construction! Just how big a tower can you build? Out of glass maybe, clear glass? Steel? Pump water to the top? Make your tower a ''pinnacle'' of achievement and stun humans, elves and goblins alike - for they know nothing of construction and engineering like dwarves do!

===Land battleship===
Turn your mountain into a huge battle-station, complete with crew quarters, decks, command centre, cantina, and a large collection of deadly weapons : Batteries of marksdwarves, ballista cannons, catapults, boarding bridges and teams, but also lava projector or remote explosive devices (ie cave-ins in a part of the map triggered by a lever). Make sure it ends up looking like a real battleship, with nothing but plains surrounding it (you could build it on an actual plain, or destroy a mountain, choice is yours). The battleship has to be autonomous, and dwarves shouldn't wander outside it.

*Bonus: The weaponry covers every tile of the map (i.e., everything that enters the map can be shot)
*Bonus: Build several other ships, maybe dedicated to a specific product (food, ammo etc.)
**Bonus: Find a way to let them fight each other in a naval battle
*Bonus: Each crew member has a civil and military formation, and when the enemy arrives, stop every economic activity. All hands to quarters!
*Bonus: Rebuild Noahs Ark: Completely out of wood, with every animal twice, as well as one dwarven family with three sons on board. Flood everything around it AND LET EVERYTHING NOT ON THE ARK DIE! MUAHAHAHA!!! FEAR THE WRATH OF ARMOK!!
*Mega Bonus: Use lava instead of water (Although you shouldn't use wood, as it will burn, [[v0.31:Fun|unless that's your intent]]

===Labyrinth===
Build or dig out an elaborate labyrinth. It should be filled with traps, periodically flooded with water and magma, and decorated to your liking.

*Bonus: Build a prison and/or execution chamber somewhere inside the labyrinth.
*Bigger Bonus: Build all the labyrinth walls out of statues and make the entire thing a statue garden.
*Mega Bonus: Make it three-dimensional.

(A labyrinth is a [http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/algrithm.htm unicursal maze]: labyrinths offer no choices of path as they curve in and back on themselves to the endpoint. Mazes usually have choices of paths and therefore usually dead ends. Given how pathing will usually let sapient beings in DF avoid dead ends, a labyrinth is preferable to a traditional maze with dead ends.)

[http://sourceforge.net/projects/daedalus/ Daedalus] has many maze algorithms and tools, including for unicursal mazes (GPL, free).
A [http://www.billsgames.com/mazegenerator/ traditional maze generator] may be helpful if you somehow open the dead ends (such as with drawbridges) to attract traffic.

===Moria===
Build a huge hall - at least 3 z-levels high. Leave few pillars symmetrically placed in the hall (don't build them, carve them out). Smooth and possibly engrave everything (not only the lowest z-level!). Then build thin bridge (not the bridge building, just a thin piece of rock to walk on) above magma or above a chasm- support it with bauxite supports connected to a lever (bauxite mechanisms needed in support). Destroy stone holding it at the both ends and replace it with floor hatches (so when you pull the lever it all goes down). After that build a bridge above the chasm.
When it's all done seal your dwarves deep inside in safe place and get invaded by goblins. At the same time dig out HFS. Lead the HFS across the both bridges and then collapse the second one when one of the champions clashes with it (it doesn't matter that the champion has killed the HFS with one hit).

bonus - cast the walls of the hall out of obsidian using water and magma

BONUS - Build the real [http://www.rpg-ash.me.uk/lotro/moria_special_edition/moria_map.jpg Moria]

===Mountain audit/core sample===
Start in a mountainous area and strip mine everything down, down, down to ground level. Stockpile everything, and calculate the mountain's composition. For kicks, try not excavating one tile on each z-level. You'll be left with one enormous core sample.

===Project Mayhem===

*You do not talk about project Mayhem
*Build a series of towers, at least 10 z-levels high, of different size and shape. They must be supported by a series of supports linked to a lever.
*Store all your riches in the towers : crafts, precious metal bars, gems, artifacts, everything. You may also want to house your nobles on top of the towers.
*Pull the lever and watch the collapse of financial history.

Bonus : make the towers' walls out of glass!

Bonus : Make soap! And remember, elf fat is ideal...

Extra Bonus: Make one large tower, and make it collapse onto a smaller tower, filled with all your artifacts/engravings. (Essentially, you only get the extra bonus if you've read the book)

===Santa Claus===
Get ten thousand toys built and offered to caravans yearly. Optionally, build ten thousand toys, fetch them in adventure mode and deliver them to every single city of the world.

BONUS: Make the toys out of lead.

MEGABONUS: Modding Elves to be pets, embark with 100 of them and force them to make the toys for you.

===Skull collector===
What proves the might of a civilization better than a hall full of skulls?
*Try to collect as many skulls as you can during your fortress life, and put them in a special skulls-only storage. The more skulls the better.

BONUS: Cover all the skulls in blood, and make the stockpile also a throne room. Blood for the Blood God, Skulls for the Skull Throne!

SUPERBONUS: Also fill the throne room with kittens.

===Space Ship===
Create a giant space ship fit for space travel. It should be able to hold about 100 dwarves for at least 2 years.

*BONUS: Use exploding [[booze]] as ignitable fuel.
*BONUS: Make a removable [[ramp]] for boarding.
*BONUS: Make the [[water]] for the 2 years be on the ship using removable pumps.
*BONUS+: Make it totally self sufficient. (Make an internal system which pumps the [[water]] supply through a room every few years to muddy the floor. Plant [[seed]]s in the [[mud]] that's now on the floor. Manage your consumption to maintain self sufficiency.)
*Modding BONUS: Mod the game so that merchants can fly their new wagonships into your docking bays. ''(If possible)''
*BONUS+: Make it all out of [[steel]] and [[aluminum]].
*[[fun|FUN]]: Let it be held by a single [[support]], ignite the [[booze]], remove the support an let it "fly".
*EVEN BETTER: Drop it down a chasm.
*More [[fun|FUN]]: Set up a mining operation on the surface and dig into the HFS. Watch the alien creatures take over your ship and hunt down your dwarves. Form a squad of heroes to overload the booze reactor to prevent the aliens from reaching earth. (See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Space_%28video_game%29 Dead Space] and/or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_%28film%29 the Alien series])

===This Was A Triumph===
Build Aperture Laboratories, with marble test chambers supported by struts and columns of granite.
Lab should have (Connected through paths)-
1) Multiple test chambers, with observation booths and connecting staircases/elevators.
2) An end goal, with an incinerator.
3) Background systems, with catwalks and large areas of waste management.
4) An AI Control Chamber.
5) A cake chamber

*BONUS*- Make an entire model of the original Portal chambers
*BONUS*- Make a sealed off area, the original testing area in Portal 2 (Include a statue of a Noble named Cave Johnson)
*BONUS*- An extended map, including the Subject Suspended-Animation life support system
*BONUS*- Make a field on top with access, a single small shed
*BONUS+*- Build a 20:1 model of the Companion Cube

===Swiss Precision===
Build a working clock. The clock should accurately track DF days, months, and years.

Bonus Points:
*If the clock has a mechanical effect in the fortress proper to announce new days
*If the clock creates seasonally appropriate effects at the change of months and/or seasons.
*If the clock is used to aid in the operation of the fortress in addition to its role as a clock (automatically controls farmland irrigation at particular times, automatically opens the <s>blast doors</s> <s>floodgates</s> <s>Magma Channels</s> Gate in time for those <s>evil</s> friendly merchants, etc...).
*If the clock governs the schedule of a working rail station (which is always on time). (Definitions of 'working' and 'rail station' are subject to player imagination).
*If the clock takes measures to protect itself. ''"I can't let you do that, Urist."''

But don't worry about the bonus points, a precision time device should be hard enough.

===Temple===
Designing a temple to Armok. Aesthetics count - the god will be very angry if there are no stained-glass windows and domed ceilings carved with frescoes. To gain more favor, make regular sacrifices and keep the fountains and rivers red with [[blood]].

===The cube===
Play a fort as usual, but emphasize catching goblins in cages to support and fill this construction:
Construct a series of rooms in a symmetrical fashion, all connected to each other with appropriate doors. Of course, enough rooms to make a maze-like structure, and if you feel like it, an exit that is hard to reach. Fill a bunch of the rooms with traps and pressureplates. Then fill one room with 4-6 goblins (preferably in cages, opened by an outside lever), release them and watch them randomly walk around the rooms dying to traps and whatnots.

*Bonus: Do multiple story maze (3d-maze)
*Bonus: Use pressureplates to open/close the exit randomly; otherwise, all the goblins will just follow the shortest route to the exit.
*Bonus: Use multiple doors connected to multiple pressure plates in order to access certain rooms, so the goblins have to go through the maze in the correct order.
*Bonus: Figure out a way to have competing teams wandering through the maze at the same time. Can you say "elimination round?"

===The great brewery===
Disaster has struck the kingdom. A strangely glowing [[Fire|‼peasant‼]] visited the greatest brewery of the empire, and as a result the whole thing exploded. No time for weeping — create its successor, a fort dedicated to alcohol production, and get the alcohol supplies flowing! Try to make the widest variety possible, and give or trade it to the dwarven [[caravan]] each year.
* BONUS: Create a working sprinkler system to douse any fires that might occur.

===The Great Wall of Urist===
Build a dwarven great wall of china that splits the map in half. Must be at least 10 tiles thick and reach the highest z-level.
* BONUS: Make it block the <s>mongols</s> goblins out of your half of the map.
* BONUS: Make it out of obsidian.
**BONUS+: Embark on a map without obsidian.
* BONUS: Find a way to make it touch the boundaries.
* BONUS: Build one gate
* BONUS: Arm it with ballistas.
** MEGABONUS: Once you have split your embark in half, abandon the fortress and embark adjacent to it, and continue the wall until it splits the continent in half.
Someone should make a bonus for this but I'd like to point out that the actual wall was made from (compressed) dirt with on outer layer of stone and that the bodies a those who died from exhasution while building it were put into it.
** BONUS+: Encase all workers who died during building in caskets built into the wall. Possibly with traps to protect them from grave robbers
*I'd like to point out that it is just a myth that the bodies were put into the wall. In reality, they were buried nearby.

===The Monolith===
As the inevitability of a fortress-wide mental breakdown looms over every single fortress why not have something that alludes to that precipice of [[insanity]]. Like the book and feature film, 2001: A Space Odyssey you must have a Monolith. This has to be made from [[obsidian]] and have a completely smooth surface (You cannot build it from blocks) You can have it be any size as long as it is outside, at least 2 tiles thick to ensure there are no pillar tiles, and has about the same ratio of width to height as it does in the movie (1:4:9) to make it as close to the real thing as possible. It would be preferable to make it large so that it seems to be dominating the landscape and your dwarves' psyche. The bigger the better.

*If the rock obsidian strata isn't deep enough in parts to make a monolith feasible consider casting a monolith with a large rectangular block in the exact same dimensional criteria as above.

===Statue of greatness===
Build a giant statue, spanning 10-20 z-levels and make it in the shape of say, a dwarf you like or an animal you like.
* Bonus: make it in the shape of a teapot that has a working boiling system and a spout that water can come out of.
* Bonus+: Steam instead of water coming out of the spout.
* Bonus++: Magma mist instead of steam coming out of the spout.

===Underwater fortress===
Encase your entire fortress in [[water]]! Your fortress should be watersealed: surrounded by water against all [[wall]]s and the top of the fortress.
* Bonus: Build all water-touching walls/roof in clear glass!
* Bonus: Use [[magma]] instead of water (warning: will almost certainly lead to [[fun]])!
* Bonus: Build it in the [[ocean]] or a non-freezing lake
**Bonus: Build it in the magma sea
**Bonus: Built it in a volcano
* Bonus: Build large glass domes that encase the fortress. A dome 20 tiles wide should be 10 z-levels tall (creating a hemi-sphere). Which may be hard to cover in water.
* Bonus: Have a mechanism for dropping your enemies into the water to drown! Or fill the water with carp.
**Superbonus: Don't use pansy walls, use pumps to keep the water out!
* Mod: Make your dwarves amphibious and include airlocks between the wet fortress and the dry.
* Remake: Make Rapture city from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioshock Bioshock]
** Remake Bonus: Mod in plasmids to give dwarves superpowers, but will eventually drive them mad!
*** Remake MegaBonus: Big Daddies for military, anyone?
**** Remake MegaDwarfBonus: Edit the save raws and name the mayor "Andrew Ryan".

===Flying fortress===
Turn cave-ins off in the init, the build a flying fortress. Perhaps some flying islands only connected with bridges, maybe combined with an orbital defense network.
* Bonus: Turn cave-ins back on.
* History Bonus: Try and make them look like B-17 Flying Fortress bombers from WWII.

===Wealth===
The kingdom's coffers need lining, so hop to! Found a fort and start accumulating wealth as fast as possible. Attain as high a fortress value as possible, and make most of your wealth into coins for the vault. Try to beat your record for one year, two years, or five years.

===We Are Dorf===

Embark site biome parameters: Mountain. Fortress shape: Cubicle (assume 7 tiles high), cut from natural rock and separated from the remaining stone so it is held by a single support. Migrant dwarves must report to assimilation chamber where a collapsing dust trap will launch them into large serrated disk [[trap component|traps]] to remove unnecessary appendages, or have their offending limbs removed some other way. Dorf drones must be cataloged and arranged in squads of varying number. The naming structure is as follows: First of Ten, Second of Ten, and so on. Clothing is irrelevant.

There is no trade, or unmerited contact with lesser species, they will be assimilated. Nobles are irrelevant. Economy is irrelevant. Solitary creatures that do not pose a notable threat to the Collective are not to be bothered with when there is important work to do. Corpses are to be vaporized or atom-smashed along with all [[pet|other useless material]]. Cage traps should be common.

We are the Dorf. Lower your shields and surrender your booze. We will add your biological and technological reaction mats to our stockpiles. Resistance is canceled: Dangerous Terrain. You are caught in a pool of magma! You are melting! x18

===World Domination===
Pretend you are an evil mastermind. Now come up with some device or machine to render the world (or at least your portion of the map) totally unlivable, aside from, of course, your hidden lair.

You will receive bonus points for making a more realistic World Domination setup. Some suggestions:

* Make one dwarf the evil mastermind. The evil mastermind will have no empathy whatsoever, and they will hate all other races, and put no value on the lives of his minions. Protect him at all cost. If he should die, switch his position to his oldest child (who will avenge his father, because insanity is hereditary.) or the most insane, diabolical dwarf in your fort or make a noble the evil mastermind. (everyone knows nobles are pure evil)
* Impractical, overkill solutions to everyday problems ("Sir, the dungeon master wants a better room" "Well then turn his room into a tomb and flood it with magma, and do not bother me with such trivial matters again or I will have you shot.")
* Give the evil mastermind a pet to obsess over. Give it a name like Mr. Bigglesworth or Snuggles. Even better if it's something really dangerous like a Giant Desert Scorpion.
* Have a science lab. Use living creatures and people as test subjects.

Doomsday device suggestions:
* Flood the map with water/magma (may require building walls around the edge of the map)
**BONUS: the water has carp in it.
***BONUSMOD: Carp with ''frickin' laser beams'' attached to their heads.
* Build an "Earthquake Machine" (the entire map is supported by a single support, which is connected to a lever)
* Build an extensive holding cell network for "scientific purposes". Fill it with megabeasts and <s>elephants</s> <s>unicorns,</s> skeletal carp in secret. Have a lever that lets everything free to feed on the general population.
* Embark in an evil area, and capture and tame all those undead animals if possible to create your own undead army
* Bonus: Eliminate the dwarves who constructed your device before you set it off. They must not be allowed to warn the rest of the citizens.
* Build an orbital weapons platform in space (which should be 12-15 stories above the ground, use your imagination), then arm it with magma bombs (droppable tank of magma) to glass the planet, rendering it uninhabitable for a few years.
* Build a door (or hatch) in every space of your fortress. Have all the doors set to lock at the flip of a switch. Have the switch kill the person who pulls it. Give the nobility their toy.
* Build [[User:Vattic/Mechanical Volcano Explained|Mechanical Volcano]] to flood entire map with searing magma.
*do all of the above and link all the devices to one lever in the room of the king/queen


=== The Grand Treasury ===
At first, have the king come to you. Then excavate a laaarge room and fill it with i.e.: Lots of coins, shiny gems, artifacts, golden statues, silver mugs, etc. pp. But the king is still not satisfied with his possessions, so he wants more and more shiny and sparky things.
Of course sooner or later (probably sooner) those filthy kobolds and goblins will come and try to steal this enormous hoard. We must never tolerate this! Turn your treasury into a strongroom like the world has never seen before! Secret doors, traps in abundance, guards at every door, ballistae, guard dogs, the whole program. If anything gets lost, you have proven your incompetence, and the king will have your fortress abandoned and founded another to guard his treasures.

*Bonus: Build up the treasury and raid it successfully in Adventure Mode

=== Heaven ===
Build a dwarven version of heaven. Every dwarf must want to come to you! Important pieces:
# Streets paved with gold.
# The mindless hordes are held back by pearly gates -- or at least a close equivalent. Marble doors with diamond encrustations.
# No dwarves die (except for criminals). Heaven is everlasting.
# All criminals must be cast into the fires of Hell. Ideally, this would either be HFS or the bottom of a magma pipe.
# Nothing is ever stolen. St. Peter doesn't screw up.
# After the King has arrived, any male children he has must be sent out to fight sieges alone.

BONUS: No dwarves are ever unhappy -- no tantrums and no insanity. 
BONUS: When migrants arrive at the pearly gates, view their thoughts and preferences and only allow those with a similar/same Diety as your population. 
BONUS: Make Heaven 10 stories above the ground 
Mod: Make Angel dwarves and a godly being. (suggestions: Cacame, Morul, Ironblood.) 
ULTRABONUS: Make Heaven in the air, an earthly society on the ground (a wooden town perhaps?), and carve the HFS place into Hell, complete with a lake of Magma/fire.Look up the character of every dwarf and send him to the appropriate place. 
MEGABONUS-(Re)Make: The Seven Seals have been broken and the Apocalypse arrives.
# The Sky darkens (an obsidian ceiling spanning over the map).
# Meteors (opened lava tanks and cave-ins) devastate the earth.
# All bodies of water turn bloody.
# Dig into the HFS and have a battle between Heaven and Hell. 

=== City of Ember ===
Show those filthy humans that when dwarves build a secret underground refuge, they build to last! In other words, recreate Ember from the film "City of Ember" (yes, everyone is aware there is a book, that came first, an was part of a series), but do it right - none of these leaking pipes and crumbling buildings stuff, after only two and a half centuries underground!
# Mine out a massive cavern multiple z-layers high , and build a human-style city underneath it instead of carving out various chambers.
# You must seal it off. How long you wait to do this is up to you, but once it is sealed, you cannot unseal it for at least 200 years (if you decide to play that long). Ideally, use a utility to embark with a full set of dwarves (to represent the immigrating population) and seal the city off within one year of embarking.
# Build individual houses with their own dining rooms and bedrooms. Multiple dwarves can live in one house, but usually only a single family will live in one house.
# Build streets connecting all of the buildings, in the way that in the film, Ember didn't really have any space that wasn't either paved or built on until you got to the outskirts of the city.
# Have a "greenhouse" out on the outskirts for farming.
# You MUST have an underground river and use it for power.
# You MUST have magma and use it for power.
# Build City Hall, where the mayor has his office, with a nice fountain out front that actually works (probably involving water pressure, and as a testament to the fact that dwarves do it better, and their underground refuge isn't running desperately short of food, water, or power).
# No military, because there is simply no need for one, but have a fortress guard (to function as police, basically).
# After 200 or more years, unseal the city and colonize the surface.

BONUS: Instead of building your houses/other structures out of blocks or rocks, plan it all out beforehand and simply don't dig out the tiles that you want to be the walls of buildings, and smooth it all down so it looks the same, but your buildings are actually made out of solid natural rock. 
BONUS: Actually cause some kind of catastrophe on the surface (flood it with magma or something) that makes it uninhabitable, to FORCE yourself to stay underground, but when you unseal the city after 200 years, the surface should have healed and be habitable again. So, don't do something permanent.

===The quake===

# Make your entire forteress supported by one support.
# on year 5, remove the support so your entire forteress drops one level.
# Tell us the death rate.
# double the height of the support every year, see how much is too much of a drop!

===Pull A Boatmurdered===

What's this? Too many goblins? Not enough fun? You may be needing excess amounts of lava!

# Flood the entire map with water or lava
# Maybe both and have an obsidian farm in the center
# Pump all lava resources to the surface and watch it burn!

#Most famously employed in [[Main:Boatmurdered|Boatmurdered]].

===Hippie Exterminator===

Much like trees, better water those elves.

# It's a gigantic drowning chamber for [[Elf|Elves]].
# Construct a very long wall all the way around an Elf-village
# Build a floor on top, sealing them in
# Connect some screw pumps to this and the local water supply
# Really processor intensive! Not for calculators!

# At nothing else, at least build the box around your Trade Depot, and flood it when Elves are inside.
# Drainage can be done with a [[floodgate]] to release the water from the depot.

===Dwarven Arcology===

# Build your entire fortress above ground in one structure.
# A subterranean level (the basement) on the bottom floor provides plump helmets, pig tails, and so on.
# On the ground floor, grow above-ground plants and carve fortifications into all the walls.
# Every other level is packed with food stores, refuse dumps, wood stockpiles, workshops, archery ranges, and bedrooms.
# The only subterranean activity permitted is digging, although you may be able to get away with building your depot below ground.
Bonus: Cast the entire thing in Obsidian using magma and water and engrave all the sides with your greatness.

===D For Dwarvendetta===

# Create the parliment building or some such construction
# Rig it to explode or collapse spewing lava everywhere
# Detonate the fortress while you play the 1812 overture somewhere
Bonus: make an underground [[minecart]] track that detonates it.
Bonus: make a metal statue at the top which gets exploded.

MegaBonus: send burning [[graphite]] or [[lignite]] flying into the (strangely always daytime) sky.

CosmicBonus: Have an important Dwarf in a coffin play a role in detonating it.

===The Two Towers===

#Build a ring of stone [may be slightly difficult] and build a tower with four blades protruding from the top
#Build a (much larger) tower with only two blades protruding from the top
#Have the two towers combat each other ''without'' siege weapons

Bonus:
#Rig the first one to flood and the second to explode! (and you only get the points if you've seen the movies and record the videos. Try to make the towers' destruction as close to the movies as you can!)

===Twin maze of doom!===

-Make a complicated maze pair where pressure plates on any floor will trigger the rapid death of everything one floor before that in the OTHER maze.

-Check what survives the ratrace longer: goblins or elves? Kittens or dogs?

-BONUS: make it self-cleaning so it can be reused over and over!

-Double bonus: make it flood the map with lava if anything ever reaches the end of their maze, meaning their victory is for all time - as well as the last thing the world will ever see before the end.

===The doomsday temple of greed===

1- Prepare a game with the poorest skills starting dwarves and nothing on embark.

2- Edit files to add a little castle with 10 switches, some of which open up to desirable stuff, or a mild trap. Have the lineup fairly obvious so people know which prize/trap pair they're going for.

3- After learning the principle and getting say a starting pick, 100 wood, 10 obsidian, 10 slade, freeing an angry elephant, an artifact crossbow, alcohol for 10 years, freeing a carp guarding the exit (simple enough puzzle, dig yourself another exit), getting an anvil and 7 bronze armor sets, and avoiding the one trap/prize which has a dragon... let them look up the stairs to the next bit on the next floor...

4- THIS floor has mild traps/good prizes again, but one of them frees 7 goblins AS WELL AS trigger an unnanounced very distant magma-flooding system of immense power and speed (they think the goblins are all there is to the trap, mwa ha ha). Make sure the slope means the greedy player will get what's coming at him fully...

5- Share this fun map without announcing what's on it. Surprise!!!

==The Cathedral==

Make an epically tall cathedral out of obsidian. Encrust it with gems, make multiple spires. Build giant stained-glass windows and make rows of chairs for pews. In niches high in the walls, place masterpiece or better statues, also encrusted and engraved. Underneath, make noble tomb catacombs.
BONUS: Build it near a human/dwarf town. Kill heretics.
MEGABONUS:Build a chalice that you fill with the corpses of heretics, and then use water to drain the blood out, and cast obsidian out of said bloody water.

BONUS: Make several cathedrals, one to each in-game god. Once built, assign worshippers of a god to a burrow encompassing that god's cathedral. Build walls around each cathedral and let them fend for themselves.

==Railroad==

Minecarts have finally been added! Use them to transport dwarves and goods around the fortress!
BONUS: Build several mini-fortresses, each devoted to a different industry or other purpose (e.g, trade, mining, living quarters, etc). Only minecarts can be used to travel between these mini-forts.

==Vampire King==

Dedicate your entire game to finding and glorifying a Vampire citizen as the 'government appointed' King of your fortress. Who cares about Nobles? Who cares about a king? (unless he's a vampire) They all die off anyway from, unfortunate accidents. Your Eternal King will need only the best for his eternal throne. Dedicate grand rooms and buildings in his/her name. Make statues out of solid obsidian, encased in with the corpses of his enemies. Do everything in your power to protect and serve your eternal master.

BONUS: Assign a personal guard to your Vampire King.
* BONUS: Undead Dragons?
BONUS: Have a Heirarchy of Kings/Queens from your Vampire's family (If they are present)
* BONUS: Make seperate 'forts' for your various Royal Vampire Monarchs.
BONUS: Wait for the king to arrive at your fortress and make him/her into a Vampire!

{{Category|Design}}
{{Category|Guides}}

v0.34:Creepy crawler

2012-08-30T20:11:21Z

Coolthulhu:

{{Quality|Exceptional|00:29, 10 June 2010 (UTC)}}
{{verminlookup/0|wiki=no}}
{{av}}
{{creaturedesc}}

'''Creepy crawlers''' are a type of [[underground]] [[vermin]]. They are found in deep [[caverns]], and may [[rot]] [[food]] [[stockpile]]s if they are nearby.

They sometimes appear above ground. They can be butchered for meat and 3 organs, unlike most vermin.

{{gamedata}}
{{vermin}}

v0.34:Vermin

2012-08-30T19:33:38Z

Coolthulhu: creepy crawlers can produce meat. Somehow.

{{av}}{{Quality|Exceptional|22:00, 9 June 2010 (UTC)}}

'''Vermin''' are small [[creature]]s such as [[rat]]s, [[bat]]s, and [[lizard]]s which are difficult to see, and also the type of [[fish]] which are caught by [[fisherdwarf|fisherdwarves]]. They are below 2 kg (4 lb) in size, much smaller than cats. The presence of vermin can be noted if you are particularly observant, as they will occasionally blink into and out of view on the screen. The main distinctions between vermin and [[creature]]s are that vermin:
# Do not attack and cannot be engaged in [[combat]] or trigger [[trap]]s
# Do not usually provide [[meat]], [[bone]]s and other by-products of butchery. There seem to be some exceptions - [[creepy crawler]]s are somehow butchered for meat and organs.
# Do not breed, but "spawn", spontaneously appearing in their natural environment or [[biome]]{{verify}}
# Some vermin are "hateable", meaning dwarves can have an anti-[[preference]] which gives them a negative [[thought]] when they see the hated vermin

Vermin can be problematic as many types feed on [[stockpile]]s, thus making it more difficult to keep enough [[food]] and [[alcohol|drink]] to survive. Vermin can be hunted by [[cat]]s and [[peregrine falcon]]s to reduce this problem, though the [[remains]] will still need to be [[Activity zone#Garbage Dump|removed]].

Vermin can, however be captured in [[animal trap]]s, and can be tamed as [[pet]]s.

Dwarves will eat vermin if no [[food]] source is available, resulting in an unhappy [[thought]].

See {{Catlink|Vermin|the vermin category page}} for a list of vermin.

==Hateable vermin==
* [[Bark scorpion]]s
* [[Bat]]s
* [[Blood gnat]]s
* [[Brown recluse spider]]s
* [[Cave spider]]s
* [[Fire snake]]s
* [[Fly|Flies]]
* [[Hamster]]s
* [[Jumping spider]]s
* [[Large roach]]es
* [[Leech]]es
* [[Lizard]]s
* [[Moon snail]]s
* [[Mosquito]]s
* [[Mussel]]s
* [[Oyster]]s
* [[Purring maggot]]s
* [[Rat]]s
* [[Slug]]s
* [[Snail]]s
* [[Toad]]s
* [[Worm]]s

{{Category|Vermin| }}

[[ru:DF2012:Vermin]]
{{Vermin}}

v0.34:Thirst

2012-08-30T12:17:58Z

Coolthulhu: vomit drinking

{{quality|Exceptional|18:23, 11 November 2010 (UTC)}}{{av}}

[[Image:Thirsty_Dwarves.gif‎|thumb|left|Dwarves quenching thirst.]]
Dwarves, given time, will eventually get thirsty, as indicated by a blue down arrow blinking over the thirsty dwarf. A thirsty dwarf prefers to drink [[booze]]. If none is available, they will go to the nearest [[water]] source and drink. This is usually a [[well]] inside your fortress, but they will drink from a [[river]] or [[brook]] if there are no wells nearby, and have been observed to drink from [[murky pool]]s if there are no other sources of water. A dwarf can live on water indefinitely if there is no booze to be had, but will get [[thought|unhappy thoughts]] from doing so - dwarves are highly dependent on alcohol.

A heavily wounded dwarf (whose icon flashes a red cross){{verify}}, on the other hand, will not drink booze, even if they are capable of getting themselves to it. They instead require other dwarves to bring them water in [[bucket]]s.

Dwarves seem to be capable of subsiding on [[vomit]] and [[slime]] in particularly dire times, though this is traumatizing and will quickly result in [[tantrum]]s and [[insanity]]. This will usually only happen in cases of dwarves walling themselves in and being forgotten and in challenge embark locations.

Note: if you're low on booze but not completely out yet, but find that dwarves are already getting thirsty, check that the remaining stocks are actually in barrels and not in flasks being carried around. You may find that your civilian dwarves are suffering because your supplies are all in the hands of the <s>oppressive dictators</s> military.

v0.34:Nest box

2012-08-28T09:30:51Z

Coolthulhu:

{{quality|Exceptional|18:13, 28 April 2011 (UTC)}}
{{av}}{{Buggy}}
{{Building|name=Nest box|key=N|job=[[Food hauling]]
|construction=
* Nest box
* Adult, female, tame, egg producing animal
* ''(Optional)'' Any male animal of the same species
|construction_job=
* [[Food hauling]]
|use=
* [[Nest box]]
|purpose=
* Producing [[egg]]s
* Producing [[Domestic_animal#Comparison_of_domestic_poultry|poultry]] (with male present)
}}

A '''nest box''' is a 1x1 building that, once created and placed, a tame, [[egg]] laying creature will claim and use to lay eggs in.

== Creation ==
A nest box is created using a single piece of [[wood]] or [[stone]] at a [[craftsdwarf's workshop]], a single bag of [[sand]] (and optional crystal/pearlash) at a [[glass furnace]] or [[magma glass furnace]], or a single bar of [[metal]] at a [[metalsmith's forge]] or [[magma forge]]. Unplaced nest boxes are stored in the [[tool]] section of a finished goods [[stockpile]].

* To create one at a Craftdwarf's workshop, {{K|q}}uery the workshop, select {{K|w}}ood products, then use {{K|+}}/{{K|-}} to manually highlight "Make wooden Nest Box", or select {{K|g}} rock products, then use {{K|+}}/{{K|-}} to manually highlight "Make rock Nest Box".
* For a glass nest box, {{K|q}}uery the workdshop, select {{K|g}}reen/{{K|c}}lear/{{K|k}} crystal glass, then use {{K|+}}/{{K|-}} to manually highlight "Make ''type'' glass Nest Box".
* For either forge, {{K|q}}uery the forge, select {{K|o}}ther objects, then use {{K|+}}/{{K|-}} to manually highlight the metal and then use {{K|+}}/{{K|-}} to manually highlight "Make ''metal'' Nest Box".

== Construction and use ==
Once created, the nest box is then {{k|b}}uilt using {{K|Shift}} + {{K|n}} and will not block movement. The box will then be claimed by an egg laying animal when it is ready to lay eggs. The animal that claims the nest box will periodically lay [[egg]]s into the nest. This process is very quick (<1 day) and the eggs are ready to be collected immediately if they are to be cooked, but require time to hatch if you wish to start a breeding program.

If dwarves have access to the nest, a dwarf with the [[food hauling]] labor enabled will then remove the eggs and take them to a food stockpile and the animal will vacate the nest until it is ready to lay again. If a dwarf does not collect the eggs, the animal will remain on the nest box until the eggs hatch, after which it will also vacate the nest box until it is ready to lay again. In either situation, the nest box remains claimed by the animal. To free the nest for rapid turn around of eggs from a single box, deconstruct the nest after the eggs are collected or hatched and rebuild it - a different animal, ready to lay, will claim the nest box and immediately lay a clutch of eggs.

== Fertilized eggs ==

A nested female will lay eggs regardless of the presence of a male of the same species, however the eggs will not be fertilized and will not hatch unless a male is present. If a male is present, the eggs may be fertilized and hatch if the dwarves can be prevented from collecting them out of the nest box and hauling them to be eaten. To achieve this, eggs can be [[forbidden]], or access to the nest box can be blocked with locked doors, or eggs can be forbidden as a cooking ingredient in the kitchen menu and disabled in all food stockpiles reachable from the nest. There may be no way of telling whether or not eggs have been fertilized, but if they sit in a nest box for more than two seasons, they are unlikely to ever hatch. Eggs do not appear to go rotten and can be collected and cooked after two or more seasons without generating [[miasma]].

=== Incubation Chamber ===
A simple way to make sure that eggs can hatch without having dwarves try to make omelettes out of them is to build incubation chambers for your female birds.

1. Build 1x1 rooms, with lockable doors. 
2. Put one nest box in each room. 
3. Create a 1x1 pasture [[zone]] on top of the nest box, and assign one female egg-layer to it. She should claim the nest box when she is ready to lay eggs. 
4. Pasture or chain at least one male of the species somewhere. It needn't be close to the nest box. 
5. When you want the eggs to remain undisturbed, lock the door to the room.

If the eggs are fertile, you should eventually get a message about eggs having hatched. When you do, go to the nest box and unlock the door so the crowded chicks can get out (crowded animals will fight, and if they do, you may lose a chick or two in the melee; luckily they are always much smaller than their mother and unlikely to hurt her.)

It's a good idea to keep a [[cage]] nearby to assign newly hatched chicks to, so they won't get in the way and lower your FPS. When they are grown, they can be re-assigned to pastures for breeding or egg-laying, or butchered.

== Bugs ==
It should be noted that most domestic birds have tremendous reproductive potential, and a few species of breeding birds can cause a population explosion that rivals even the deadliest of [[catsplosion]]s. Entire fortresses can be fed with [[egg production]].

[[Elk bird]]s are both [[grazer]]s and egg layers. Females left undisturbed near a nest box will probably starve themselves to death (certainly, if there are no males available).

[[category:buildings]]

v0.34:Starting build

2012-08-25T08:29:40Z

Coolthulhu:

{{quality|Exceptional|10:09, 24 April 2011 (UTC)}}{{av}}

:''This is not a tutorial, a FAQ, or a new players guide. This is a mildly advanced theoretical treatment for someone ready to take the plunge and make all the decisions about their own fortress. The following are intended for beginners:''
::*[[Quickstart guide]]
::*[[Main:From Caravan to Happy Dwarves|Beginner Flowchart]]
::*[[User:Calite/Gloss_Guide|Beginner Checklist]]
:''For an explanation of the interface for starting out, see [[Embark]].''

A '''starting build''' is a personal strategy for choosing the initial supplies, equipment, and [[skill]]s of your initial seven dwarves when starting a new game in [[fortress mode]]. (See [[Sample Starting Builds]]). These skills and items which you assign to your dwarves will have a large impact on life in your new fortress, especially in its first year.

This page attempts to provide a discussion about how and why you make the choices on what you bring with you. This page is not an explanation of the mechanics of doing so, see the [[embark]] page for an explanation of the interface itself. This page assumes you have already made certain decisions, such as where you plan on settling, and that you are looking at the [[Embark#Prepare_Carefully|Prepare Carefully]] screen.

One thing should be made clear - there is no "best" build, no "perfect" or "clearly superior" final mix of skills and items, if only because there isn't any one goal of play. The goals you have for a fortress will dictate which sets of items and skills are best suited to achieving that goal - in your opinion. And then there is the environment, where your dwarves will arrive, the creatures, the resources available, and so forth. Finally, some people do things solely because it is hard, and that makes it more [[fun]] for them.

__TOC__

== Components of a Starting Build ==
There are two main components of a starting build: skills and items.

Skills for your initial dwarves determine how quickly they will work early on, what industries you are guaranteed to be able to start with skilled workers, how well you can defend your dwarves early on, and what the quality of various goods they produce will be, and possibly many other considerations. This page considers in detail how you might go about choosing skills for your starting dwarves, and examines the multiple competing perspectives from which you can make that decision.

The items that your dwarves bring with you can be tailored a number of ways. There are trade-offs to cheaper and more expensive alternatives, and reasons why you might choose either. This section explores the nature of these trade-offs and the reasons for making a decision. It also looks at optimizing goods brought in more general contexts.

Starting builds can and should vary based upon a number of other variables. [[location|Where you choose to settle]] will give you a fortress that supplies different raw materials and thus require different skill sets to utilize, not to mention different threats from native wildlife based on [[biome]], [[surroundings|savagery]], and [[surroundings|alignment]]. Which dwarven civilization you come from will restrict the materials with which you can start. Making choices about these variables is not part of a starting build. What you choose for skills and items because of these choices is part of your starting build, and so some general guidelines about different environments is given last.

This page does not cover the interface for accomplishing these tasks. Please see the [[embark]] page.

== Skill Optimization ==
With only 7 dwarves, you can't take every [[skill]], so you have to balance what you do take. At this starting phase, each dwarf can only be assigned a maximum total of 10 skill levels, with no single skill starting higher than "5". Maximum skill distribution is thus constrained to 1 level in each of 10 skills, or 5 levels in each of two skills, or something in between. Because dwarves can [[experience|learn]] any and all skills once your fortress starts, these initial choices do not dictate what the dwarves can do, opening up incredible latitude to choose skills for reasons other than survival.

:''(* Note that an unskilled dwarf starts with all Skills at Level '''0'''. Adding +5 Levels is then Level '''5'''. This is true regardless of how many "points" a level costs when first buying skills at embark.)''

A brief list of considerations governing skill choice:
:* Maximizing starting skill ranks vs. generalizing and having more skills covered at lower levels.
:* Balancing multiple skills for a single dwarf, so they aren't constantly needed for two different tasks at critical periods
:* Military vs economic needs
:* Your goals vs "basic survival needs" to keep your fortress healthy and happy.
:* Speed that a skill can be trained in game
:* Demand for a skill during a game
:* Whether quality or speed are significant considerations for tasks/final product
:* Balancing the desire to create [[wealth]] ''(with high-value products)'' with the need to maintain [[thought|morale]] ''(with low-value but commonly used products, like [[bed]]s, which normally are made from [[wood]])''.
:* most importantly - ''your playstyle'' - what '''you''' think is "[[fun]]"!

==== Breadth vs. Depth ====

A dwarf with only 2 starting skills at 5 ranks each is pretty good at 2 tasks, but untrained at anything else. A dwarf with nothing higher than level 1 is passable at many tasks, but not good at anything. Each dwarf in your party is going to be somewhere along this continuum, and you'll need to choose where.

Level in a skill dictates how fast a dwarf completes a task (most of the time), and how well he completes it (if applicable). On one extreme, [[butchery]] has no time variance for slaughtering a tame animal, and has no quality associated with the outcome. On the other extreme, [[Metal industry|metalworking]] tasks can take a long time for an untrained worker to complete and their high material value means the quality multiplier has a large impact on the end value.

Dwarves who complete tasks faster can do more total [[job]]s within a given timeframe. The rate at which speed increases with level varies with skill, so some skills will benefit more than others.

Dwarves who make items of higher quality will contribute more to fortress wealth and may have a large impact on fortress happiness if their work is readily available to be seen by other dwarves. Items which typically contribute to happiness are low value but common public items, like beds and tables. Items which contribute the most to fortress wealth often cannot be displayed, but make useful trade goods or equipment for your military.

A dwarf highly skilled in few areas will work faster at those tasks and produce higher quality work than his more generalized counterpart. However, he will do worse at any other task he is set to.

Aside from the obvious trade off, there is another reason to prefer depth - dwarves can obviously only complete so many total jobs within a given timespan. If a dwarf is busy doing one thing, he can't simultaneously be doing something else. So a dwarf who is highly skilled in a few skills may not actually experience any disadvantage thereby if he is kept doing those things in which he specializes. The generalist dwarf, on the other hand, may be able to do many more different tasks adequately, but he can still only do one type of task at a time. A dwarf with one highly used skill (such as Mechanics or Mining) can feasibly spend all his time using only his primary skill and thus has no need to generalize. In effect, the generalist is wasting more skill points whenever he does jobs than the specialist, so long as the specialist tends to do jobs he has levels in. Specializing your initial skill investment is therefore superior if you specialize the division of labor in your fortress.

Of course, you can still only bring 7 dwarves with 10 total levels of skills each, so covering everything you want to do in 14 skills may be hard, if not impossible. A generalist or two can cover more bases that have little quality need or are otherwise fast even without a high level. The generalists real problem arises from the fact that any dwarf can do any task, and having 1 level isn't much better than having no levels. Which isn't to say there isn't a situation where a 1/1/1/1/1/5 dwarf is the right solution (indeed, the typical recommended leader/broker takes 1/1/1/1/1 in appraiser/judge of intent/negotiator/+2 social skills because none of these skills have a time or quality component), but most less-specialized dwarves are more likely to fall in the 5/3/2 or 4/3/3 end of the spectrum solely because there is a minimum investment necessary to be noticeably better than not having any levels at all.

==== Design Constraints: Which skills do I need, really? ====

The only thing that you absolutely must do in the first year is get your food supplies into a food stockpile, preferably inside, or your food will rot on the ground and your dwarves will starve. Anything else you want to do can be accommodated by sufficient investment in initial supplies and/or skills. This means the options for possible starting builds are vast because virtually any set of starting skills for your dwarves is viable (and that's before you even think about equipment, which adds more variables). So the short answer is: none.

That said, there are some skills which will be '''used''', to one extent or another, by virtually every fortress - but that doesn't mean you '''need''' or even want to invest points in them to start. You could even manipulate the fortress (see [[challenge]]) to completely avoid one or more of the following, but these are the skills you will find it exceptionally hard to avoid creating jobs for:

*[[Mining]] - to dig your fortress, and gain stone for projects. Only possible to avoid using if you're secretly an elf.
** Inexperienced [[miner]]s work very slowly. Mining can be leveled up quite quickly by mining [[soil#soil|soil]], but taking two dwarves with at least some points in mining is recommended in most cases.
*[[Carpentry]], [[wood cutter|Wood cutting]] - [[bed]]s can only be produced from [[wood]] (rare [[mood]]s aside). This skill can also be used to make [[bin]]s without having to have an [[anvil]], use any metal [[bar]]s, or use any [[fuel]].
** It's best not to have your carpenter and your wood cutter be the same dwarf. Doing that would create a bottleneck, as your carpeter would have to stop working to go cut down some trees.
*[[Masonry]] - to build walls and stairs, and fashion dwarven furniture from stone. Possible to work around, but incredibly hard and annoying to do.
*[[Grower|Growing]] - your farmers' work echoes throughout so many other tasks, it's stunning.
** Skilled planters produce larger stacks of crops, which means more food, more booze, more cloth, more dye, ....
** While it's possible to feed your fortress on nothing but caravan goods, you'll never come by enough alcohol that way, so you'll eventually need to grow or gather plants for brewing. Dwarves will literally go crazy if forced to drink nothing but water for long periods. Thus you'll want to plan for farming eventually - not that you need to bring a highly skilled [[Grower]], but it'll certainly be ''very'' helpful.
*[[Brewer|Brewing]], [[Cook|Cooking]] - A skilled brewer produces [[alcohol]] more quickly. Likewise, a skilled [[cook]] prepares [[prepared meal|meals]] more quickly (and more appealingly). However, most food can be eaten raw, and so long as they are not starving there is life.
*[[Mechanics]] - If you want traps, and most people will. Also needed for most machinery. Mechanisms sell for a high price as a bonus.
*[[Architecture|Building Designer]] - Mandatory for some buildings and constructions, but skill only improves speed a tad and increases structure [[value]]
*[[Appraiser]] - you will use this whenever you trade with a caravan. Without it, you won't know how much anything is worth, making trading difficult. It's highly recommended to start with a dwarf with Novice (1 pt) Appraiser skill.

The very fact that you ''will'' use these skills can make many of them desirable to choose as starting skills for your dwarves. Of the above, Mining, Masonry, Growing, Cooking, and Mechanics are generally worth considering as "highly desirable". However, '''any skill can be used untrained, and/or get trained on the job''' - it just means a slower process and/or average lower quality product than if done by a dwarf with a higher [[experience|skill level]]. Some skills (e.g. Record Keeper) are rarely worth investing initial points in even though you will almost always use them; you can simply let the dwarf learn on the job. Others (e.g. Mining, Carpentry) may be worth investing points in depending on your goals or the tempo with which you want to achieve them. (Mining is easy to train so you could forgo initial investment and just train on the job, but this could force you to spend longer on the surface, increasing your exposure to dangers. A skilled carpenter can contribute a lot to fortress mood, but won't produce much value; see the discussion of Quality below.)

Many other skills are optional as to whether they'll get used or not. You need to deliberately want to use them. The skills above are essential to basic aspects of the game, and avoiding one requires a deliberate choice ''not'' to use it (and likely a lot of effort spent to avoid doing so). A fortress could make its wealth by smithing fine weapons, weaving quality cloth, encrusting precious stones onto furniture, or crafting quality trinkets. Or all of those. But it doesn't have a compelling reason to do any one in particular. A fortress that never designates a tile for mining, however, requires exceptional effort to achieve.

This means there is no universal design constraint on which skills to start with. Ultimately the answer to "What skills do I need?" is "Whichever ''you'' want". Choosing a mixture of these commonly used skills and your desired specialized skills will make starting up your fortress easier and more efficient, but you don't need to start with any of them. Choosing to avoid some skills may force you to use some others, but nothing compels you to invest in any skill in particular.

A common skill list (Just as a general quick start):
*2 Miners
*1 Woodcutter
*1 Grower/Cook
*1 Grower/Brewer
*1 Carpenter
*1 Mason

This is not the be all end all, of course; it all depends upon your location, your goals, and what you consider fun.

==== Balancing military and economic needs ====

Not all embarks will require a military presence in the first year, but anyone planning an expedition to a sinister, haunted, or terrifying biome would be foolish not to be prepared for nasty dwarf-killing creatures. The solution doesn't strictly need to be military skills; quick delving and a skilled mechanic may be sufficient; but starting with a military dwarf will give you the earliest possible protection and a lot more versatility in where that protection can be applied. Whatever you choose to do, understand the risk and be prepared for it.

==== Training considerations ====

Some skills are harder to gain experience in than others - requiring valuable resources or taking an extended period of time, and thus inconvenient to train from the ground up. Investing in some of these extensively in your initial dwarves can make those industries much less painful to start. For example, metal-related skills generally eat metal bars, and thus the less time you spend training metal workers up to a decent level, the faster they'll be churning out high-quality items for you, and the fewer bars they'll waste becoming skilled. On the other hand, despite its importance, skills like mining train relatively quickly and barring extenuating circumstances (expected need to accomplish particular digging projects in the first month or you'll get mauled by a Giant for example) there's little need to actually invest your starting skills in it - they can learn on the job.

==== Quality, value, and happiness ====

[[Quality]] is an important part of Dwarf Fortress. Higher quality items produce better and more frequent happy thoughts and are worth more money. Valuable commodities will trade for more goods from caravans that visit. When choosing skills that produce objects of quality, the desire to produce valuable goods for trade will often conflict with the desire to produce objects that will make your dwarves happy. Built items that are frequently encountered tend to be things like furniture, especially beds, which tend to have low material values and thus low total value no matter how high the quality of the work. Further, these things tend to be inconvenient to trade. It is often best to strike a balance between dwarves who produce valuable trade goods and dwarves who produce quality items that will make your population happy - and thus be able to achieve both goals simultaneously.

It's worth noting that built furniture and worn clothing counts its value twice -- once under the appropriate category and once for displayed value. If you're trying to maximize your created wealth total, a good metalsmith producing furniture from high-value metals is optimal. A mason or stonecrafter can also build furniture from ore such as gold nuggets, if these are enabled in the stocks screen. Presently there is no disadvantage in doing so, as the furniture is just as valuable as if it had been made by a metalsmith from metal bars, and masonry is much easier to train.

==== Moodable skills ====

[[Strange mood]]s can give a dwarf Legendary skill in his/her highest-level "moodable" skill, and moods take hold of dwarves with different professions at different rates. Some skills are "moodable" where others are not. You might choose to take a certain skill solely because it opens up moods for that skill with that dwarf. Some moodable skills are more valuable than others - a legendary weaponsmith is both valuable and useful. A legendary tanner is generally a waste of a mood since tanned hides have no quality.

Because a dwarf can only have a strange mood in one skill, pairing a moodable skill with a non-moodable skill can ensure that if the dwarf has a mood it will be in the skill you desire. See the section on combining skills below for more details on ways to pair skills.

Dwarves with no moodable skill can be allowed to do one task using a moodable skill to give them a moodable skill with no starting build investment, so moodable skill considerations should not be considered a primary reason to choose particular skills - you should also want to make use of them for other reasons.

==== Combining Skills ====
Every dwarf is going to have 2 or more [[skills]]. This means that even once you know which skills you want, you're going to need to pair them up before assigning them. Not all skill combinations are equally functional.

Some skills are highly time-consuming, either because the skill is in frequent demand (eg, [[mining]]) or because it takes a long time to do an individual job (eg, [[strand extraction]]). If a dwarf is spending most of their time using that skill, they aren't making much use of their other skill. Pairing two time-consuming skills together therefore tends to be a bad idea, as one or both jobs are not going to get the attention they need or deserve. Similarly, pairing a skill with time-critical jobs with a time-consuming skill also tends to be a bad idea. If your [[grower]] is also mining, he may not stop to plant crops one season. Or he might neglect to harvest your crops in a timely fashion and they could rot on the ground (if you only let your growers harvest). Arranging your skill combinations to avoid these situations is generally beneficial. For example, Masons, miners, growers, and any craft that your fortress will base their economy off of (glass, stonecrafts, armour, etc) will take a lot of time, so plan accordingly.

Instead, pairing relatively time-intensive tasks with less time-intensive tasks will let your dwarf accomplish all such tasks adequately. Once you get a metal industry rolling, an armorer/weaponsmith will need to make a lot fewer weapons to outfit your soldiers than he will armor components. Thus he can usefully do both jobs without hurting your productivity overly much. Similarly, a mason might also be your architect, since building designer is a very infrequently used skill.

Working at different jobs levels up specific [[attribute]]s. One could level up a miner until he becomes mighty and ultra-tough - and then turn him into a soldier, or retire him to haul stone. If you plan on doing so, it may not be a good idea to give this guy a second critical job that will demand a lot of time away from their focus.

Since tasks will take place in specific areas, another approach is to combine tasks into dwarves who will take care of a specific industry, or spend all their time in one generally narrow part of the fortress - the forges, or the kitchens, or outdoors, for instance. So combining Farming with cooking, rather than mining, for example, and turn on only Haul Food, not Haul Stone. Metalworkers spending their time in the forge can easily handle more than one type of metalworking skill, and are also well-situated to be furnace operators.

Similarly, you can also make the craftsmen of your finished products also responsible for the production of intermediate products from raw ingredients. This way when they run out of materials to make into finished goods they can immediately switch over to working raw products into intermediate products so they'll have more to work with later. This works better in some industries than in others. A single butcher/tanner/cook trying to process multiple animals simultaneously will likely result in rotten food, carcases, or skins. But a weaponsmith who doubles as a furnace operator can usefully ensure he has material to work with when you want him to. Later on, however, a highly skilled craftsdwarf is often better suited at sitting in their [[workshop]] and having others deliver raw materials to them than going out and obtaining their own raw materials themselves, but in the early game dwarf-time is limited, and a single dwarf who can work an entire production chain can do so relatively efficiently and let your other dwarves be used elsewhere.

There is no requirement that a dwarves job combination needs to look 'right' or logical. A weaponsmith will most probably not spend nearly 100% of their time creating weapons - what they do with the other part of their time may have nothing at all to do with forges or smithing. Jobs which require little time in general, or little time early even if time-intensive later, may well be paired with any time-intensive task solely to provide the dwarf with something to usefully and skillfully do with most of their time, and freed from that duty as needed for the other tasks.

Another constraint you can impose on your skill combinations is to try to limit dwarves to [[moodable]] skill and one non-moodable skill (or a moodable and a less desired moodable skill at lower level), so any mood will improve the desired one. For example, pairing craft skills with farming skills gives you dwarves that will perform useful food production or raw good processing services while also getting their mood in a valuable finished goods skill. Example: Clothier/Grower.

==== Which dwarf should have which skill? ====
Dwarves who craft goods they prefer, or work materials they prefer, gain a bonus to the quality of the finished work. This can inform your choice of which skills you choose, for example by choosing a weaver because you notice a preference for sheep wool yarn, or you might choose the skills you want and then try to find a suitable dwarf to use that skill. In the latter case, since all dwarves have one metal preference you might assign an armorsmithing skill to a dwarf with a preference for iron, steel, or adamantine.

The dwarf with the most social skills will end up being the [[Expedition leader]], who will then become the [[mayor]] and start making [[mandate]]s. Thus you should avoid giving the most social skills to dwarves who have [[preferences]] for things like [[adamantine]].

Dwarves have physical and mental attributes that affect the performance of certain skills. You may wish to give a socially adept and patient dwarf the leadership/broker skills, or a dwarf who doesn't tire easily a skill which will be in frequent use like mining. You can also try to match skills to [[personality]], some of which have obvious implications for their willingness to work long hours or how frequently they might take breaks.

Of course, all combined these represent a lot of possible constraints on where you assign particular skills, and it would be impossible to apply them in total to your entire desired skill load. Use these as a guide, but don't be upset if all your dwarves are anti-social psychopaths - someone still needs to be the leader, after all.

==== Other considerations ====
Migrants can and will arrive with a wide selection of decently trained skills. While it is a gamble, chances are pretty decent that migrants will arrive with a highly trained skill that is also highly desirable and would usurp the job of one of the seven starting ones. The first few migration waves are likely to give you a much better talent pool than what you can assign at embark. On the other hand, you may never get the skill you really want if you don't start with it.

Skills atrophy if not used (they are marked "rusty" and later "very rusty"), and they can eventually decrease in level. Consider that skills which you will use years after embark are going to be rusty or even deleveled. Embark to the first caravan is long enough for a skill to start rusting, so you might want to make sure you'll use every skill you embark with before the first year ends to avoid catastrophic rusting.

Remember that you need to survive in order to accomplish any goals. Have a plan for lasting to at least the first caravan, if not one for longterm sustainability.

== Items ==

The items you choose to bring with you will need to satisfy a number of needs. Most importantly, you need to keep yourself alive - at least until the caravan arrives in the fall to resupply yourself. You probably also want to plan on some way of making a shelter, whether that be the traditional delved hall, a majestic castle, a log cabin, or something even more exotic. You may want to plan for mishaps by bringing essential medical supplies, especially those which may be hard to acquire on site. And you might bring items which will assist in creating items for trade to that first caravan, should you need anything for the skills you're planning on.

For the purposes of this article, livestock are considered items.

All embarks get the following items without paying for them: 2 animals (who pulled the wagon), and the 3 wood that make up the wagon.

=== Motivations ===

==== Survival ====

A single dwarf eats about 2x/season, and drinks about 4x/season. With 7 dwarves that's ~approximately~ 14 meals per season and 28 alcohol per season, or ~42 meals and ~84 alcohol until the end of Fall. The dwarf caravan tends to arrive in the third month of fall, so you will probably need to plan on a full 3 seasons. You are also likely to get at least one if not two small waves of migrants before the caravan arrives.

It is possible to bring enough food and drink to make it to the caravan - indeed, bringing enough food isn't especially hard (especially once you factor in slaughtering the animals who hauled your wagon. Bringing sufficient alcohol is harder, although bringing plump helmets to brew can significantly cut the cost.

The likely best way to keep your dwarves in drink is also the most labor intensive - setting up farming in the first season or two is perfectly plausible, allowing to grow your own [[plants]] from seeds and brew the products. (Keep in mind not all plants can be brewed - don't plant dimple cups and expect to make alcohol). In addition to the necessary seeds, starting your own farming operation is going to require either some [[soil]] or [[irrigation|some way to get the ground muddy]]. While sometimes simple digging can accomplish this, many times you're going to need a screw pump. Basic construction requirements are discussed under shelter.

It is possible to make all your alcohol by harvesting aboveground plants, if highly inefficient. It also only works in biomes with collectable plant life. Notably evil biomes and glaciers are unlikely to provide.

==== Shelter ====
Barring a convenient cave, you're going to have to do something for shelter. Shelter is your first defense against roving creatures, keeping them away from where your dwarves are working so they don't spam job cancellations and strew items all over the place. (As you might guess, most 'convenient caves' aren't actually that convenient, as they tend to have residents). Basic walls that allow you egress won't stop a dedicated invader, but you don't expect to see those until year 3, so you have time to develop more elaborate defenses.

Food outside will also spoil a lot faster than food inside, so making a cellar of some sort to store your food in will increase the longevity of your food supplies. The rate at which food spoils depends on ambient temperature, so the urgency of making a cellar will depend on where you settled. It might be possible to go without a cellar in a freezing biome.{{verify}} The only way you can avoid thinking about food storage in the first year is if you collect food and make alcohol as needed - ie, by using an herbalist to collect local plants - which can avoid needing to mine at all.

Delving a shelter requires mining, which means having picks to dig with. One can always bring one or more picks at embark, but its also possible to bring the supplies necessary to make them. See [[Starting build#Finished product or do it yourself|finished product or do it yourself]].

An aboveground shelter can be made with stone or wood or possibly more exotic materials. Stone of course requires mining, and thus picks. Wood can be had with an axe assuming trees are present, and axes, like picks, can similarly be brought at embark or made on site. It is of course possible to bring sufficient raw materials to build walls with, but this is far less efficient than just bringing a pick or an axe, although it could make a fun challenge. Building your initial fort out of soap, while possible, is not recommended, although possibly hilariously entertaining.

==== Industry ====
Most industries require little more than materials you can collect at the site and a workshop. So long as you can get stone, you won't need to bring anything for these. However, if you want to get an industry going immediately, it does help to bring a few building materials along (or be willing to use the wood from the wagon, if only temporarily).

Some industries require fire-safe materials to build with. Nearly all stone qualifies, as does metal. Wood can be converted to a fire safe material by burning it to ashes in a wood burners workshop, but of course that workshop requires a fire-safe material. If you're mining, this condition is easy to satisfy, but if you intend to run any of these industries right away you will need to plan on bringing appropriate materials.

Some industries require plant or animal matter to work with. Clothiers ultimately need cloth, which comes from certain plants or animals. Leatherworkers need tanned skins. (And while you can get 2 off your pack animals, this isn't sufficient to run an industry). If you plan on running these types of industries you will need to have a plan for providing suitable raw materials. Hunting can cover leatherworking needs (although this requires a hunter and hunting implements), and foraging can find rope reed plants, but its usually better to bring enough appropriate animals or plant seeds to have a good shot at getting started in a predictable and sustainable way. Similarly, milking and cheese making require milkable animals, and bonecarving requires a dependable source of bones.

Metal industries require metal and an anvil. You cannot make an anvil on site without already having an anvil, so if you plan on doing any forging before the first caravan you will need to bring one with you. Metal can be brought as bars or as ores to be smelted in a smelter into bars, or can be mined yourself. You will need to provide fuel or magma to run these workshops, so bringing some coal can make the operation run smoother.

Soap requires a lot of wood consumption and a source of tallow to be done in a sustainable way. Lye can be bought at embark to skip the first steps and make soap more directly. You will still need to bring or make buckets and have an empty barrel to actually produce soap though, but fortunately this is just a matter of having sufficient wood.

Jewelers require gems. Cut gems can be brought at embark, but are too expensive to bring in quantity. Generally a jeweler requires mining to find sufficient gems or a glassworker to produce raw glass to work with.

Glassmaking and Pottery requires sand or clay and fuel - pay attention to your site report before embarking. Its hard to run a viable industry solely off imports in these cases. Like metal workshops, coal can be brought to substitute for fuel fairly efficiently.

As is probably obvious, certain industries depend on similar inputs. Planning on a set of industries which require similar complementary inputs can let you more efficiently spend your starting points at embark or more efficiently plan your digging during the first year. If you plan on a lot of fuel-dependent industries, it may be worthwhile to prioritize finding a source of magma.

=== Optimization ===

==== Container mechanics and free items ====

Many items come in containers such as barrels and bags, including food, liquids, seeds, and powders. The cost to embark with these items can be cheaper than the cost of the container itself. Each different type of item for each category will come in its own container. Furthermore, you'll get a new container after every 10th instance for food, most liquids, and seeds, and after every item of powders.{{verify}} Alcohol gets a new barrel after every 5th unit. (Food actually groups by animal type, so if you get horse tripe and horse meat they'll combine them, but they won't combine horse meat and donkey meat). Thus diversifying your initial food supply with 1 of each low-cost food item will net you a large number of barrels. Similarly, it is worth taking 1 of each seed you weren't planning on taking more of solely for the bags. Taking some sand or gypsum powder is also a cheap way to get bags. Lye (for soap) and milks can be brought for more barrels - and milk can be made into cheese for a low-cost embark option that becomes food.

As stockpiling and some jobs are container limited, getting as many free containers as you can will free up labor (and possibly valuable materials) that would otherwise be used making containers.

==== Finished product or do it yourself ====
Bringing raw materials and making the finished product yourself is often easier on your embark points than bringing the finished product. On the other hand, making it yourself takes time during which you aren't making use of the finished product.

The most common scenario involves [[Make your own weapons|forging your own metal tools and weapons]]. While not usually too much of a hardship, it can be dangerous to make your own weapons or picks if you expect possible hostile creatures. Furthermore, you will lose time - possibly 1/4 to 1/2 the first month - if you forge your own picks.

Of special note regarding weapons is that a training battle axe is perfectly capable of chopping trees, and is made with nothing more than a carpentry workshop and a log. While the delay in acquiring one is minimal, a wood battle axe is not a good weapon, and so it loses utility for doing anything other than acquiring more wood.

You can also easily plan on making all or most of one's own booze, as plump helmets can be bought at embark and brewed at a still.

Any finished good can of course be made from raw materials that you bring, but most of them are not essential like the above, and thus you can generally wait until you find suitable resources on site or buy them from caravans.

==== Biome considerations: Dude, where's my wood? ====
Some environments have a shortage of trees. While you can direct production of a lot of item types to other materials, beds need to be made out of wood. In addition, it is difficult to make barrels and bins out of non-wood materials early in the game, especially without ready magma (since otherwise you'll probably need to burn wood to make metal equivalents). If you have an aquifer it can be even worse - stone may be difficult or impossible to access easily. While you can ultimately ask for wood from your liaison and buy whatever the humans and elves happen to bring, and eventually you can create a tree farm underground, tight wood will limit storage and sleeping arrangements for at least the first year if not longer. You may wish to plan accordingly if embarking in a site with sparse or no trees.

==== Items for moods ====
When a dwarf is taken by a [[strange mood]], he often needs obscure material or he will go insane and die, possibly with severe consequences to an entire fortress. Bringing along some of the harder-to-find ores ([[cassiterite]], [[sphalerite]], [[bismuthinite]], [[garnierite]]), and putting those aside, forbidding their use "just in case", is spending a few points on an insurance policy. Many players also choose to bring a few items like pig tail cloth and cave spider silk just in case.

Alternately, if you're otherwise being minimalistic on gear you're bringing you can choose to bring a few valuable components to try to maximize the value of mood items. That artifact animal trap will be worth a lot more if your woodcarver grabs a blue diamond instead of moss agate.

==== Free Equipment ====

Unfortunately, no free equipment is available when embarking in Dwarf Fortress mode. This is in contrast to [[Adventure mode]], in which the only equipment available on starting is free equipment.

==Site considerations==
Each fortress [[location]] offers particular challenges and opportunities, and can make different demands on your starting build. Your starting build may need to be adjusted depending on the [[region]] your fort occupies, the specific vision you have of your fortress, and what it will take to [[losing|stay alive]] where you're going!

The differences include what [[biome]]s, [[region]]s and likely [[metal]]s are present in your chosen embark site.

=== General Surroundings ===
Simply put, if your [[surroundings]] are [[evil]] or [[savage]], your dwarves have a higher risk of suddenly facing personal combat before they are safely behind their defenses. Consider bringing extra weaponry, in the form of axes, picks or crossbows (see [[Starting_builds#Free_Equipment|free equipment]]). Hand in hand with those, consider skill mixes that include [[axedwarf]], [[mining]] (the skill used to wield a pick), [[marksdwarf]], or [[wrestling]] (a solid unarmed-combat skill).

The same is true if you are embarking near an exposed magma vent or an open chasm - these features can be seen on the embark map, but it's impossible to tell if they are "open" to the surface or not, until you are there in person.

Be sure to include some source of [[water]] on the map, preferably running [[water]]. Water is (almost) essential for any fortress. In Cold and Freezing climates streams and [[lake]]s will often be frozen year-round and your dwarves may quickly die of exposure, in Hot climates [[murky pool]]s will dry up, and in Dry ones rain will only rarely re-fill them, if ever. Choose Temperate or tropical zones for an easier game.

===Aquifers===
If an [[aquifer]] is present in the first soil or stone layers (visible on the pre-embark menu), it may bar all access to [[stone]] and [[ore]] until you find a way through the water barrier. Consider bringing some stone for building, and ore for your first basic needs. This may be critical to getting your fortress running smoothly.

=== Mountains ===
Mountains often have abundant [[ore]]s, but at the loss of trees and plants. In previous versions lacking [[cavern]]s, this was a serious drawback. Brave pioneers can dig down into the caverns to find essentials like water, mud, and plants. However, players should be aware that above-ground crops will not grow in mountain biomes, no matter how muddy you may make the surface.

Depending on the exact layers, it's common to find exposed [[vein]]s of useful [[ore]]s that can be immediately mined for [[Make your own weapons|DIY]] weapons and tools.

=== Wooded/Plains ===
Flatlands with at least some trees and gatherable plants can also make for highly successful fortresses. Advantages over mountain zones include abundant trees and plants and (unless frozen) more abundant water. There are even (rare) magma vents. More water also means a high likelihood of an [[aquifer]] being present. Make sure to check on embark.

The greatest disadvantage is the potential lack of exposed [[stone]] to mine. The first level(s) below the surface is often [[soil]] of some type, which offers no building materials. However, soil is mined much more quickly than stone (x3-x4 faster), and expansive accommodations (rooms) can be achieved quickly even by untrained miners. You will find stone, you just have to go down a bit for it - but that's what dwarves do, isn't it?

[[Experience|Training]] a [[Miner]] from No Skill to Proficient takes less than a month (~20 days with hauling disabled) in soil, and to Legendary in just under a season after. From embark, this means you should have legendary miners in early summer if you dig only in soil. Times increase slightly for each additional miner used.

=== Oceanside ===
With many features in common with some of the above locations, [[beach]]es are often a mix of ease intermingled with bouts of extreme difficulty. Minerals and trees are often abundant, as well as farmland and sand, but there is often no drinking water unless the biome has a flowing [[water]] of some sort.

By definition, the settlement will fall between (at least) two [[biome]]s (one land, one water), potentially hazardous if the player expects a peaceful oceanside meadow, without realizing the [[terrifying]] ocean is full of amphibious zombie [[whale]]s.

Hunters should be replaced with fisherdwarves and a fish cleaner (although the latter can be easily trained). Depending how much water vs. land, more starting wood and ores might be helpful. Swimming is rarely useful in Fortress mode, even at the beach, and can be trained.

=== Desert, Glaciers, and Barren ===
Treeless (or near-treeless) [[biome]]s are challenging sites for a fortress: you get most of the disadvantages of a flatland site without having access to nearly as many trees and plants. However, near-lifeless zones such as [[glacier]]s are wonderful for players with slower computers, as there's little to burden the CPU but your dwarves and livestock. [[Desert]]s and barren areas often have sand; with a sufficient source of energy (preferably magma), you can build almost anything out of unlimited glass.

==Sample starting builds==
See [[Sample Starting Builds]]

{{Starting FAQ}}
{{Category|Guides}}
{{Category|Fortress mode}}

v0.34:Embark

2012-08-25T08:26:28Z

Coolthulhu:

{{quality|Exceptional|02:26, 13 April 2012 (UTC)}}{{av}}

'''Embark''' is the time at the very beginning of [[Fortress mode]] before actual game play begins (but after [[World generation|generating a world]]), when you and your initial 7 dwarves:
# Choose a site.
# Assign starting [[skill]]s to each dwarf.
# Select an initial load of [[supplies|supplies and equipment]].
# Arrive at the site with your wagon full of supplies.

==Choosing a Site==
The main considerations to keep in mind when choosing a site are the presence of aquifers, the availability of wood, ores, & soil, the climate, and your neighbors.
There is just ONE BIG RULE: when your home civilization is too small, you will recognize after the second winter that you won't get any more [[Immigration|immigrants]], which can be [[Fun|extremely fun]]. To avoid this situation, select a home civilization with ''at least'' two dwarven sites on the map.

[[File:Embark.jpg|center|Choose Fortress Location screen (v0.31.19)]]

The Choose Fortress Location screen shows four separate sections, with three of them being views of the land at different levels of magnification: Local, Region, and World. A section of highlighted tiles in the Local view indicates the current embark location within the region. The local view constitutes a 16x16 grid of embark area tiles (each representing 48x48 tiles when you are playing the game) that is within a single region tile. The world map cannot be directly controlled, and exists only to give you the overall view of where, relative to the rest of the features of the world, the region map is focused on.

The arrow keys control the X cursor in the center "Region" view while {{k|u}}, {{k|m}}, {{k|k}}, and {{k|h}} move the embark location around within the Local view. {{k|Shift}}-{{k|u}}, {{k|m}}, {{k|k}}, and {{k|h}} will resize the embark location.

The size of the embark location directly affects how much data about a map the game will have to store in your computer's memory and the size of your save files. This may correspondingly make pathfinding more resource-intensive, generally [[Frames per second|slow your game down]], and have a dramatic effect on the save and load times for your map. As such, smaller maps are recommended, especially for less powerful computers. Remember that each tile on your embark screen is 48x48 tiles large.

On the far right of the screen is a list of local features in the dominant biome. Individual biomes, which form at least one map-tile of your embark location, can be cycled with the {{k|F#}}-keys; for example, an area with 3 biomes present can be cycled using {{k|F1}}, {{k|F2}} and {{k|F3}}. The selected biome will be highlighted with flashing Xs on the Local Map, and the biome's information will be displayed on the right side of the screen.

===Biomes===
Main article: [[biome]]

A '''biome''' is a biotic area with homogeneous features, characterized by distinctive [[plant]]s, [[creatures|animal species]] and [[climate]].

In the above image, the biome is "Temperate Savanna", and the region the biome is part of is given a specific name: "The Jade Horn-Land".

Biomes will also contain only one set of stone layers, though these usually expand beyond a single biome. Your [[dwarves]] will find different resources depending on which biomes they select when starting a fort.

Biomes are important when choosing a fortress location in order to understand your [[surroundings]].

====Climate====
Main article: [[climate]]

Climate determines the maximum temperature range of the region, which in turn impacts the severity of exposure to the outside, whether water will freeze in winter, and how quickly water evaporates.

The climate is displayed as "Temperature: Warm" in the above image.

Very hot and very cold biomes bring their own challenges which may be further compounded with overlapping features, such as a glacier being frozen for half the year, and being devoid of trees, and lacking a river. Very hot climates may see all its surface water quickly evaporate, making finding a water supply more dangerous, as underground caves filled with hostile creatures may be the only supply of water.

====Plant Life====
Main articles: [[tree]]s and [[shrub]]s

Seen in the above image as "Trees: Sparse" and "Other Vegetation: Moderate".

Trees are useful for the [[wood]] they provide, and wood is a basic building material, important for being the only material that can be used to create beds. Also, because creating bins and barrels from metal is an involved process involving more steps, less common resources, and fuel, wood is often preferred for making these items as well. Wood is also a source of [[charcoal]], one possible [[fuel]] used to make metal products in standard smelters and forges and required for making steel even when you have magma forges. Wood is also useful in making [[potash]], for soap or fertilizing farms.

Despite wood's many uses, it is entirely possible to play without any trees in your biomes. Due to the inexpensive nature of wood, it is possible to simply embark with a large quantity and rely on trade caravans from the elves, humans, and dwarves for your wood needs. Also, at a certain point, trees can be farmed in muddied underground areas regardless of how barren the surface is.

Shrubs can provide some quick food through the [[herbalist]] skill, [[still|brewable materials]], and [[seeds]] for some very helpful above-ground [[crops]] which are generally only available through trading with Elves.

====Surroundings====
Main article: [[surroundings]]

Surroundings affect how powerful and hostile local wildlife will be, and some forms of plants are available only in specific types of surroundings.

The surroundings of the example image are listed as "Surroundings: Wilderness".

Any biome can have any set of surroundings; for example a glacier could be haunted, wilderness or mirthful. However, a named region (which is a contiguous area of one category of biomes, such as forests or wetlands) will be either good, neutral, or evil.

There are two axes for surroundings: savagery and alignment. Calm and neutral savagery are functionally identical. Savage lands are like normal lands, except they will frequently have giant or hostile humanoid versions of normal animals. For example, you might have a [[Tigerman]] instead of "merely" a [[tiger]] in a savage jungle.

Good biomes are similar to neutral biomes, except have more fanciful (and generally benign) creatures like [[pixie]]s, [[fluffy wambler]]s, or [[unicorn]]s, and are generally no more dangerous than neutral biomes. Evil biomes are home to many dangerous creatures, often dead vegetation and even including undead versions of normal creatures, making for a far more hostile environment specifically for players who want to face a greater challenge to stay alive, especially early on. Trees might not grow in an evil area.

It is possible to start a fortress that overlaps multiple alignment types (for example good, evil, savage, and benign). Some players consider this desirable, as it provides diversity in your little corner of the world, but it also has its dangers in the form of more ferocious wildlife.

====Layers====
Main articles: [[layer]], [[ore]] and [[stone]]

At the bottom right of the biome view, some of the main features of the site are reported. You will be told whether the biome has a layer of soil on top of it (and how thick it is), and whether that soil includes [[clay]]. Deep soil layers make underground farming extremely quick to set up, as no [[irrigation]] will be needed. If there are metal ores, ''Shallow metal(s)'' and/or ''Deep metal(s)'' are reported. [[Flux]] is also reported if present.

The depth of the soil layers is indicated by light brown text: ''Little soil'', ''Some soil'', ''Deep soil'' or ''Very deep soil''. Clay is reported as either ''Shallow Clay'' or ''Clay''. [[Sand]] is ''not'' reported here; the only way to be sure you'll have sand is to embark on a Sand Desert.

You won't be told which kinds of metals are present. Your best bet for finding the raw materials for making [[steel]] is to look for a site with ''Shallow metals'' (note the plural) and ''Flux''. A biome with shallow metals listed has an extremely high chance of containing [[iron]]-bearing ores in a sedimentary layer near the surface. Failing that, you're practically guaranteed to get some [[copper]] ore (tetrahedrite).

====Aquifer====
Main article: [[aquifer]]

An aquifer is a layer of soil or stone saturated with water, and a biome may contain up to 3 aquifer layers (theoretically more, but such would be rare to say the least). Embarking on an aquifer brings up a warning before embark as an aquifer can significantly raise the difficulty of starting a fort. For specific tactics on working with an aquifer, see ''[[Aquifer]]''.

===Changing Views===
Pressing {{k|Tab}} will cycle the presented information through a variety of different views and panels.
*Neighbors - other civilizations that are closest to your current location. Proximity increases the chance of interaction, though at present this largely means "nearby goblins are more likely to attack you." If any race is not represented on this page, it means that the civilization cannot reach you if you are in that location. Embarking on an [[island]], or a location completely surrounded by mountains will make it impossible for any civilization but your own dwarven civilization to reach you, as world map travel across oceans or mountains is impossible. If not even "Dwarves" appears, it means that your home civilization is dead, and there will be no [[immigration]] waves or [[Trading#Caravans|trade caravans]] from your home civilization. If this is the case, it is recommended you change to a still-existent civilization unless you want the challenge of having no support from the mountainhomes. Races that are hostile to you are represented by a series of red "-" marks. In vanilla DF, goblins are always hostile, but humans or elves may also be at war with particular dwarven civilizations.
*Your Civilization - indicates all Dwarven civilizations in the world. {{k|*}} and {{k|-}} will cycle through the civilizations allowing you to choose which your settlers will be embarking from. Civilization choice will affect who is at war with you, what goods are available for trade and at embark, who your regent will be (considering [[Main:Cacame Awemedinade|one might be surprised by who turns out to be one's regent]]), and if there are any surviving members of your civilization left to migrate to or trade with your fort. Some of this information is only viewable in [[Legends]] Mode, but you can view accessible goods and materials after hitting {{k|e}}mbark by looking at what items you can choose to embark with. If you don't like the options, simply {{k|Esc}} to get the main menu and choose Abort Game. You will have to find the site again, but it saves you from needing to abandon the fortress.
*Relative Elevation - Shows the land height relative to the lowest point in the region.
*Cliff Indicator - Shows the severity of cliffs. With the exception of rivers that cut through mountains, even apparently very steep cliffs will still have ramps that make it perfectly accessible for any creature or even the wagons in caravans (unless you have turned erosion off).

===Reclaiming a fortress===
:''Main article: [[Reclaim fortress mode]]''
If you [[Reclaim fortress mode|reclaim the site]] of an abandoned fortress, upon arrival you may see goods, materials, and corpses left from the previous effort. These items will initially be [[forbid|forbidden]] and you will have to [[Reclaim|reclaim items]] before your dwarves will acknowledge their existence, for example to haul them to a graveyard or refuse [[stockpile]].

==Creating Your Settlers==
===Play Now!===
You can forgo the process of assigning skills and supplies and instead select '''Play Now!''' This option will give you a selection of Dwarves with the following profiles:

* Miner: Adequate Miner
* Woodworker: Novice Carpenter, Bowyer
* Woodcutter: Novice Wood Cutter, Brewer, Cook, Grower, Herbalist, Furnace Operator, Wood Burner, Lye Maker, Potash Maker
* Stoneworker: Novice Engraver, Mason, Mechanic, Building Designer
* Jeweler: Novice Gem Cutter, Gem Setter, Wood Crafter, Stone Crafter, and Bone Crafter
* Fisherdwarf: Novice Fisherdwarf
* Fish Cleaner: Novice Fish Cleaner, Butcher, Tanner, Weaver, Clothier, and Leatherworker

One of these will be randomly flagged as Expedition Leader at the start.

The default embark value for a custom embark is 1274: 974 in pre-chosen goods and 300 unassigned. The Play Now! embark only uses 1038 points. While a Play Now! embark is no more doomed than any other embark, it is always better to Prepare Carefully once you know what you're doing with the set up of an early fort.

===Prepare Carefully===
Preparing allows the player to customize their embarking party and supplies by spending a pool of points which is shared between skills and equipment, with each skill rank and equipment item having a set value. The total value of embarking is set at 1,274 points, though all but 300 of these are pre-spent on an array of basic equipment (the same equipment Play Now! uses). It stands that one should try to maximize the value of their embark by spending all available points.

====Using the menu====
Use {{k|Tab}} to switch between selecting Skills and Items. Use the 4 directional keys or number pad to navigate to highlight the different choices/columns, and {{k|+}} or {{k|-}} to choose more or less of the highlighted item or skill. When viewing items, hit {{k|n}} to go to a menu for any "new" items, that are not currently listed, including any you removed by reducing the number to 0; select the item, hit {{k|Enter}}, then increase the number desired as above ({{k|+}} or {{k|-}}) in the main menu.

If you cannot buy additional skill levels, you are out of points and must return some items for additional points. Higher-priced items will automatically be removed from view when selecting new items if you do not have enough points for those selections, showing only what you can afford with your current points.

====Skills====
Main article: [[skills]]

The seven settlers you begin with can be assigned up to ten skill ranks picked from the entire Dwarven skill list, including military, though only a maximum of 5 ranks can be bought in any one skill (for a maximum starting rank of "Proficient"). Skill ranks are bought from the shared pool at a cost of 5 for the first rank, 6 for the second, 7 for the third, and so on. Maxing out a skill thus costs a total of 35 points. Although this is already fairly involved, between the long skill list and the floating cost, the value of a rank is subject to further scrutiny given the early-game value, or lack thereof, of certain skills as well as the relative ease or difficulty of training ranks in a given skill. Many skills are performed just as well by a Novice (skill level 1) or even a Dabbler (level 0) as they are by a Legendary (level 15+). A Novice Furnace Operator won't produce Coke as fast as a Legendary Furnace Operator, but they will produce it fast enough to keep their neighbor smelting hematite until the cows come home.

For a more complex example, there is much overlap between what can be produced out of wood and what can be produced out of metal, but wood is plentiful in the early game (often throughout, if a tree farm is established, and caravans will bring in several pages worth of wood if you request it) while metalworking can take much longer to establish, or would take several times longer to produce a given product in the early game due to the multiple steps required. Metalworking skills also train slower than woodworking, and metal products have a longer base production time than wood products.

From one point of view, the Woodworking skills would be of more immediate use in producing quick goods of higher value in the early game, especially given the high volume needed; however furniture quality is of little concern in the early game, and the high volume of value-independent goods (such as barrels which you won't be trading away on their own or using to furnish chambers) will cause your carpenter to train his skills fairly quickly. Even on a strictly functional level, a Novice carpenter can produce beds, barrels, and bins fast enough to keep up with a fledgling base. Lastly, once metal production is up and running, it can be agonizingly slow if a Farmer or Peasant has to be re-assigned to learn from scratch, thus a proficient Metalsmith stands to pay off much more in time than starting with a proficient Carpenter. Consider as well that you may receive a highly-skilled Metalsmith during an [[immigration]] wave, if you care to take that chance.

====Supplies====
The default array of supplies covers a broad range of foodstuffs, seeds, drink, tools, and medical equipment, and is reasonable, though extra food and drink never hurt anyone.
:* 2 Copper [[pick]]s
:* 2 Copper battle [[axe]]s
:* 1 Iron [[anvil]] ( or Steel [[anvil]] if your home civilization has no access to iron)
:* 60 units alcohol (20 each of 3 random types1, 12 free barrels)
:* 6 bags containing 5x dimple cup, cave wheat, plump helmet, sweet pods, pig tail, and quarry bush [[seed]]s
:* 15 units of meat (one random type, 10 + 5 units in 2 barrels)
:* 15 units of fish (one random type, 10 + 5 units in 2 barrels)
:* 15 units of plump helmets (10 + 5 units in 2 barrels)
:* 5 pig tail fiber thread
:* 5 pig tail fiber cloth
:* 5 pig tail fiber bags
:* 3 pig tail fiber ropes
:* 3 wooden buckets
:* 3 wooden splints
:* 3 wooden crutches
:* 2 dogs (random sex)
:* 2 cats (random sex)
:* 1 random cow/ox/mule/horse (random sex)

Embark sites with minimal Trees should definitely consider bringing extra logs to cover the early demand for beds and such.

Do not overlook the value of bringing animals. Dogs in particular can provide an excellent early warning system, good fighters against kobolds and other thieves, and a healthy supply of meat and bones. Cats are useful for controlling the vermin population, but beware the [[Fun|dangers]] of a [[catsplosion]].

You may also want to consider replacing the pig tail fiber items with much cheaper cave spider silk items (regular, not giant).

====Saving a starting mix====
Once you have the mix of items and skills that you like, you can hit {{k|s}} and save it to a template with a custom name. In a later game, you can pick that profile when you embark. If your selected civilization does not have some of the desired items in your template, this is announced clearly, and a different civilization can be tried as described above, or you can continue and change your mix.

If you match skills to the [[preferences]] and [[personality|personalities]] of your dwarves, it may be an idea not to include any skills in such a template, as they will simply be applied in the original order to the current dwarves as they appear on the list.

If you find additional items that you wish to add (perhaps another type of cheap meat, or an ore not previously available), you can edit those in by hitting {{k|s}}, overwriting your old template. You can also go into the .txt file, located at data/init/embark_profiles, and edit in the SKILLS or ITEMS as you want - the syntax is fairly straightforward.

==Embark Strategies==
Main article: [[starting build]]

The strategies below are suggestions. They are not universal, and many are even contradictory. This is because there is no one true way to play Dwarf Fortress. Some may not work for you because of unstated assumptions about priority, value, fun, or procedure. However, since Losing is Fun, it's always worth it to try something out, even if it doesn't go well.

===Picking the Right Location===
'''Need More Dirt''' - three layers of soil before the stone layers begin provides a very large area that can be used to quickly carve out efficient storage rooms, as well as easy construction of large farms and tree farms without the need to flood/muddy large areas of stone.

'''Flowing Water (and Its Inverse)''' - flowing water (river or stream) is a must have for the infinite power it supplies for working machinery and because underground water supplies are too dangerous to tap into. There is no guarantee of infinite water underground, you could embark on a map with completely dry caverns. However, rainier climates will always have murky pools, which with careful management can be refilled from the rain. Infinite power for working machinery can be created using a limited amount of water in a perpetual motion machine. Although, being limited in quantity, murky pools simply do not have the capacity to permanently flood your fortress, while a single mistake with an infinite source can easily do so.

===Preparation Strategies===
'''Free Barrels''' - many products are stored in bins, barrels, or bags and do not stack with other items even if they're in the same broad classification. Plump Helmets and Horse Meat come in separate barrels even though they're both food. Purchasing a single item of food (or increasing the number to one above the storage limit of the barrel i.e. 11, 21, 31) will also produce a free barrel for it to be stored in. As barrels have a cost of 10 to buy empty, buying a single unit of cost 2 foodstuffs gets you a value of 5. Anything above cost 2 bought for the express purpose of getting barrels would be better off just buying barrels empty or raw logs. This concept can be extended to many different goods, and for any stored good you were "going to buy anyway" you should avoid buying exactly a containerful. Do not get 20, get 21.
* Note that meat products from the same animal will store in the same barrel, thus 1 unit of Horse Meat and 1 unit of Horse Tripe will only get you one barrel, not two.
* Upon arrival you can build a kitchen and prepare lavish meals out of all those single units of meat. This will "compress" your food, and free up some barrels for brewing. Size of stacks of food from cooking is equal to sum of stack sizes of ingredients, so you lose nothing.

'''Cheaper food''' - you can bring lots of [[milk]] (worth 1 embark point each), build a [[farmer's workshop]], and make [[cheese]] out of that milk. Combine this with the trick for free barrels, cook lavish meals out of that cheese and meat, and you will get some free barrels, and good quality food for cheap. Making milk into cheese is very fast and requires no skill, you just need to enable cheese making on your cook or brewer.
* To save on alcohol (you should probably still bring some of it, though) get plump helmets for 4 embark point each. Remember to disable cooking them in z -> Kitchen menu. Build a still, and brew them all, each will make 5 units of alcohol. You can supplement this with gathering and brewing local plants.
* Cooking lavish meals out of 1 unit of meat, and full barrels of alcohol made on the spot from plump helmets (known as booze cooking) can produce even more food, but only if one knows how to do it.
* When choosing all that different food, be smart. Press "n" Go to "Meat" section, press "e", and search for one particular kind of food, "meat", for example. Press enter, rinse and repeat. This way, you can quickly add food from different animals and be sure you don't have any 2 foods from the same species. Also, it's good to make a template so you won't have to do the whole thing all over again when you start another fortress.

'''Cheap Bags''' - while even the cheapest bags (made from cave spider silk and low-value leather) cost 10 points each, you can instead simply bring several units of [[sand]] costing 1 point each, as each unit of sand will be stored in its own bag made from a randomly selected material (including giant cave spider silk and valuable creature leather).

'''Don't Really Need That''' - unless you have tailored your embark for metal production quick and early, an anvil is typically unnecessary and the 100 points you get from refunding it can be better spent on skills or additional foodstuffs (can't really have enough foodstuffs). By the time the Dwarven caravan arrives in the fall, a 100☼ iron anvil, or even a 300☼ steel anvil, should be little more than an inconvenience. This can sometimes be <s>problematic</s> [[Fun]] if you are unlucky and the caravan does not bring an anvil.

'''REALLY Don't Need That''' - For players more familiar with the game. Bring no pre-constructed goods (weapons, buckets, etc.), just the materials to make them with. This requires several (3-10, though you're likely to bring way more) logs, some fire-safe stone (ores are fine if you don't mind some micromanagment), few nuggets of copper ore, and an anvil. Upon arrival, build a Wood Furnace and a Forge, make charcoal, then picks for the [[miner]]s and an axe for [[wood cutter]]s. Medical supplies should be unnecessary to start with, because if you need them you're [[fun|screwed]]. You may want to bring some [[rope]] (or just [[thread]]) along though. You can start your fortress with just 106☼ worth of items (iron anvil - 100☼, 1 copper nuggets for 1 pick - 6☼, logs can be gathered from deconstructing the wagon and made into 1 training axe - 0☼, fire-safe building material = ash - 0☼, everything else can be made with the raw materials you get from wood-cutting and mining.).

'''Yes, I Do Need That''' - <s>never</s> <s>don't</s> NEVER leave without alcohol unless you have a [[brewer]] and a way to gather plants early (untrained [[herbalist]]s designated after embarking are enough) or a safe water source (preferably flowing).

==See Also==
*New players may find the [[Quickstart guide]] useful.
*The [[Starting build]] article has more detailed embark strategies.

{{Category|Interface}}

v0.34:Stupid dwarf trick

2012-08-23T08:19:05Z

Coolthulhu:

{{quality|Fine|13:08, 22 June 2010 (UTC)}}{{av}}

{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount of time and effort - often for little or no practical benefit. They exist only as a challenge for experienced players.

==Adventure Mode Fortress==

Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a smörgåsbord of masterpiece adamantine weapons and armor. Possibly both. Breaching the [[caverns]] or [[hidden fun stuff]] should ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

==Alarm Clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Limited. They will sleep through <s>'''anything'''</s> Noise. Although have been known to awaken when drenched in water, only waking up due to thinking it's alcohol, making an Alarm clock not impossible, if carefully prepared.

==Alphabet Cages==
[[Image:Cage.gif|right]]
Use captured monsters in cages to spell messages.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Vowels are hard to come by.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely none whatsoever. (Easy reminders in case you're too lazy to use notes?)

==Aqueduct Power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels. Aquifers will absorb any amount of water at any rate. Using an aquifer as drain for the reservoir will nullify the risk of flooding the fortress due to the drain not keeping up with the supply.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Aquifer Power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheel.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. The lowly windmill pales in utility compared to a waterwheel.

==Archaeological Excavation==
A Fortress in the Caverns, built by the first dwarf tribes. Build the Fortress however you see fit for those prehistoric Dwarves (i.e. only primitive metals, elaborate tombs for the chieftains with burial objects, cave art, etc.) and abandon it. Then, embark with modern Dwarves, and excavate the ancient Fortress. Sort of like the Adventure Fortress above, only for Reclaim Mode

'''Difficulty:''' As High as you want.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

*Bonus: A Museum detailing the lives of those early dwarves

==Artificial Waterfall==
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]]. Alternatively, an [[aquifer]], or other limitless water source, makes for a waterfall entirely underground.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate (Low if there is an aquifer above pouring down).

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower frame rate.

*Bonus: Build it in a "Warm" or hotter [[climate]] so it does not freeze.
*DwarfBonus: Build it in a freezing/cold/temperate climate and keep it going entire year!
*MegaDwarf Bonus: Use [[magma]]. It does not freeze, even in a freezing climate!
*MegaDwarf Bonus EXTREME+: Use magma and water in the same waterfall. The results will enshrine you in dwarf history! Possibly permanently.

==[[Ballista]] Battery==
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly-trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bastion==
Construct an isolated burrow containing a farmer and some labourers, containing at least an uncontaminated well (an [[aquifer]] is great for this) and some farms. Use whatever elaborate mechanism you wish to seal it off from the rest of the fortress. Congratulations; your bastioned dwarves and their descendants will keep your fortress alive forever until one of them goes nuts.

* Bonus: Build your bastion at least in part in a clay or sand layer, connect to magma (using a fortification in the channel to stop those annoying fireproof creatures from sneaking in), and continue manufacturing useless crap even as the world crumbles around you!
* Bonus: Build it on top of a tower outside, and then deconstruct the stairs up.
* Bonus: Fill it exclusively with vampires, to avoid having to worry about food, children, and aging.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Hollow out a shell around your bastion, connecting it to the rest of the cavern by a single 1x1 adamantine support, and flood the shell with magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' High. If your bastioned dwarves have high enough quality living space and few enough nonbastioned friends, it makes the fortress functionally immortal.

==Bathtub==
Stop dwarves from hauling in tons of exotic, poisonous sludges into your fortress by creating a tub filled with 3/7 water that everyone has to get through to enter the fortress. Include a system to change the water, so that they don't bathe in grime.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate

'''Usefulness:''' Low in most cases. High in some evil areas.

* DwarfBonus: Make it drain and refill itself with clean water automatically once in a year.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Clean it with magma.
* *MegaDwarfBonus*: Have an alternative bathtub-buffered entrance next to the main one, which opens automatically when cauterizing the main one and closes and cauterizes itself when it is no longer needed, so that no jobs are canceled during cleansing cycle.
* ≡MegaDwarfBonus≡ : Make it clean itself with magma automatically once in a year, but make it wait for the moment when it's unused, so that no dwarves or pets are incinerated.
* ☼MegaDwarfBonus☼: All of the above, plus make it detect when there should be no dwarves or pets around, but invaders are in it, so that the cleansing cycle can be started prematurely.

==Bolt Recovery Operation==
One curious property of Dwarven Physics is that a bar of metal makes 25 bolts, but if each of those 25 bolts is melted separately, they will become 2.5 bars, generating metal from nothing. The trick is in separating the stacks of bolts into individual bolts without destroying them, for which EliDupree found this trick:

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
∙++++@∙+++++++++
∙+∙∙∙┼∙+++++++++++++++
∙+∙g∙┼∙++++++++++++++@
∙+∙∙∙┼∙+++++++++++++++
∙+++++∙+++++++++
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

The @ at the right is a stack of marksdwarves (all in different squads so that they'll stand on the same tile) with [[adamantine]] bolts. The @ at the left is a single Perfectly Agile soldier with orders to patrol up and down, with little delays at the top and bottom. The "g" at the left is a goblin standing on a pillar (I pitted it from the z-level above.)

When the dwarf at the left runs up or down the line of doors, it opens all of them, and some of the marksdwarves shoot their bolts. By the time the bolts get there, the doors have closed, so they hit the doors and fall into the channel, where they can be collected and melted separately. (That distance is exact, by the way. Any less and they sometimes get shots through the doors, which kills your goblin. Also, with less-skilled marksdwarves, some of the bolts will stray and land on the floors, but that isn't enough to worry about even with mere dabblers.) Naturally, this is also an excellent way to train marksdwarves.

Certainly, there are other ways to set-up a recovery/live fire operation.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate. The hardest part is getting the marksdwarves to shoot from exactly the right spot.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Even in .18 or worlds generated with high mineral availability, because you can do this to generate [[adamantine]].

==Break the Dam (Release the River!)==
Dam a river (or brook) using something non-permanent (floodgates, drawbridges) and build your fortress entrance in the now dry river bed, make sure you can seal it off nicely (floodgates anyone?) then wait till the first Goblin siege, let them get to your entrance floodgates, seal them, open the dam and laugh manically

'''Difficulty:''' Low

'''Usefulness:''' Instantaneous death to all sieges

SuperDwarf bonus: Do this with magma

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that opens outwards, to fling enemies away. Ideally, they land in a very nasty place.

'''Difficulty:''' The hard part is the nasty place they get flung to.

'''Usefulness:''' There are far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

==Dam==
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, or an aquifer located below the river, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fulfill. The power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

*Bonus: Excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley. 
*Bonus: Build a control center to control the water flow. 
*Bonus: Draw your entire energy from a power station within. 
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use screw pumps and another dam to replace the water with magma.

==[[Danger room|Danger Room]]==
A room full of upright spear traps linked to a lever or pressure plate. Teach your dwarves to dodge the pointy sticks!

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium, depending on how you activate the traps.

'''Usefulness''': High. Trains combat skills very quickly, assuming you don't kill anyone.

'''Downside''': Civilians and pets that wander into the danger room will inevitably get killed, even if you use low quality training spears.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Menacing spikes greatly increase the danger, and may help train your medical team (and/or your coffin construction crew).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[adamantine]] spikes! On the plus side, you have a thriving coffin industry going now.

==Day Care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers. Make a room with beds and tables and stuff, then turn it into a burrow, then add all your children to it. Remember to include a food chute to quantum stockpile a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. High quality food, furniture, and socializing should keep them happy. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in various professions like an otherwise vulnerable child, but this is a small trade-off if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway. This is probably obvious, but make sure this room is guarded, otherwise it will turn into a Dwarf Orphanage (with Goblins and Minotaurs welcome!)

'''Difficulty:''' Low. With the invention of burrows, you can designate the Day Care to contain all children, so it is unnecessary to use suicide-booth-micromanagement to contain the children.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Think of the children, they will grow up and enter adult Dwarf life completely unprepared for the [[Fun|things]] [[Dragon|that]] [[Hell|await]] them, having spent their entire lives coddled in a safe room. They might make good nobles however.

==Doberman Bomb==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your frame rate.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium, potentially fortress-saving

*Bonus: Train all dogs inside as war dogs when they mature.

*DwarfBonus: Make it a bear trap.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Combine with a drowning chamber and carp trap.
*SadisticDwarfBonus: Make it a [[giant badger]] trap.
*YouHorribleEvilDwarfBonus: Make it a drowning trap with a [[giant sponge]].
*SomeDwarvesJustWantToWatchThe‼World‼Bonus: Make it a magma chamber with an undead giant sponge.

==Drowning Chamber==

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untamable animals, or anything else. Just be ready for something that knows how to swim. Also useful for catching fishies. See [[drowning chamber]].

*Bonus: Utilize lava.

*Bonus: Utilize trained fish.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Edit the raw and do both!

==[[Computing|Dwarfputer]] Complex==
A big mess of [[fluid logic|fluid]], [[machine logic|machine]], and/or [[creature logic|creature]] logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics and architects will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do<s> and makes them stronger</s> (in 31.25 only military work increases stats, i was really disappointed after 4 years of nonstop pumping only to see weak in urist description). Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes and building destroyers enter your computer.

==Dwarven Apartment Complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[megaprojects]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your 5-star service).

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to fun by water. Additionally, if you have the time and resources to train a sizable force of marksdwarves, placing a few "security rooms" (with barracks, ammunition store, ration cache, armory, etc) at appropriate floors, complete with fortified balconies, will allow you to take advantage of the higher vantage point.

Megadwarfbonus: Extend the tower to have levels below ground as well as above.

==Dwarven Courtyards==

I came upon this idea while doing my architecture theory paper.

Dig large shafts [first dig the staircase to the desired depth, digging out the size you want the shaft to be on all layers. Channel the outer later, then install supports on the base floor. Link the support to a trigger, clear everyone out, destroy the remaining staircase and pull the trigger] then cover them in glass, creating an indoor but light area that will keep dwarves from being irritated and nauseated by the sun, also improving general happiness and allowing close proximity to caverns and magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, make sure not to mess up or you will lose your miners

'''Usefullness:''' Medium. creates vertical circulation and brings light to lower levels.

Megadwarfbonus: create a network of self sufficient communities per shaft, allowing them to be sectioned off in case of disaster. (I plan on colonizing hell eventually on this paradigm, creating a mining team of soldiers to extract, manufacture and ultimately use adamantine products without being connected to the main colony in order to take on the demons while keeping the rest of the burrow safe.)

==Dwarven Disco Ball==
Why waste all those cut gems on things that only some selfish noble will enjoy? Create as large a wall-less sphere as you can, then cover it in Gem Windows of 3 different-colored gems to make it shine! The bigger, and more valuable gems involved (e.g., [[ruby|rubies]], [[sapphire]]s, and [[emerald]]s, or colored diamonds if you're really masochistic), the dwarfier.

'''Difficulty:''' Constructing a sphere is very hard, especially the larger you make one. Gathering enough differently colored gems can also be very hard, depending on stone layers. Trading helps a lot.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. More value can be created by encrusting furniture, and Gem Windows lack quality.

*Bonus: Alternating [[alunite]] and [[obsidian]] tiles to make a 'dance floor'.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Use lava contained in glass for illumination.

*UltraDwarfBonus: Caged "[[DF2012:Elf|dancers]]".

==Dwarven Labor Camp (aka Dwarkuta)==
Create an aboveground walled fortress in a freezing climate with guard towers, barracks, housing, and armories. Dig a long ramp downward and add a large mining network below the surface. Make some small military squads to guard the camp. Designate the lower levels as workshops, and when migrants arrive, assign them to the mines. Give the workers minimal food and only water (no booze, booze is for the hypocritical decadence of Dwarkuta's leaders). Have them haul the stone and metal they mine back to the surface and ship the raw materials off to the Motherland. Import only food, booze, weapons, fuel, and other necessities.

*Bonus: Build the giant digging machines. They don't actually have to dig anything.

*MegaBonus: Escape. Wait for a goblin siege, then get everyone underground and block the entrance. Let the goblins in. Wait a few months. The goblins are now the guards you must kill.

Step 1. Secure the keys: Make improvised weapons. If you have obsidian at your disposal, make rock short swords.

Step 2. Ascend from darkness: Get your dwarves out of the mines and into the camp.

Step 3. Rain fire: Use your imagination. Try using magma, if possible.

Step 4. Unleash the horde: Attack!

Step 5. Skewer the winged beast: If the goblins brought a giant bat or other flying creature, kill it.

*Bonus: Use a ballista.

Step 6. Wield a fist of iron: Break open the armory and equip your rebels with armor and weapons.

Step 7. Raise hell: Exactly what it says on the tin.

Step 8. Freedom!

*MegaDwarfBonus: In Adventure mode, try (and probably fail) to lead the prisoners to freedom.

==Dwarven Refrigerator==
Dig down to the 3rd cavern layer and harvest as many [[nether-cap]]s as you can. Make them all into barrels! Nether caps have the unique property of being 10000° Urist, which is 32°F or 0°C. Now your dwarves can enjoy their favorite alcohol, cheese, and plump helmets chilled to perfection! If you've set your population cap very low in the INIT files, caverns aren't extremely dangerous, but you should still be on the lookout for nasties down there. Remember to wall off your entrance to the cavern once you're finished.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to Medium

'''Usefulness:''' None except pretty colored barrels

*Bonus: Nether-caps are magma-resistant. Flood your food stocks with magma to keep them safe from vermin and marauders.

==Emergency Destruct Stairs==
A tall column of stairs plunging all the way down into the underdark, with a one-tile wide area of thin destructible floor all around it. In case of subterranean invasion, a thrown switch drops a stone O straight down, ringing the staircase and neatly severing all inter-level connections at a blow. Does with one lever and one support what would take dozens of bridges or hundreds of retracting grates.

'''Difficulty:''' Harder than it sounds.

'''Usefulness:''' Sometimes... sometimes they fly.

==Execution Tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

==Flood the World==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate.

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[giant sponge]].

*Bonus: Use magma, just like [[Main:Boatmurdered|Boatmurdered]].

*MegaDwarfBonus: Use trained fish to kill off all creatures not of your colony.

==Gladiator Arena==
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp. Variant: build prisoner cages inside the arena, link to a lever outside the arena, lock the soldiers in, and then open the cages.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive. (If the prisoners have weapons, you can remove them by using {{k|d}}-{{k|b}}-{{k|d}} to dump the cage and its contents, then looking at and undumping the cages themselves with {{k|k}}-{{k|d}}).

'''Usefulness:''' Low to High, depending on how long your soldiers can draw out the execution. Equipping your soldiers with wooden training weapons can greatly increase the fun (and/or [[Fun]] if their armor isn't as good as you thought).

*Dwarf Bonus: Losers get incinerated by Magma.
*Mega Dwarf Bonus: Use your arena as a "trial by fire" for migrants.

==Glass Ceiling==
Sick of having your dwarves vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a glass floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

*Politically Incorrect Dwarf Bonus: Make it a metaphorical [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_ceiling glass ceiling] and give migrants and women less pay and poorer rooms.

==Greenhouse==
A [[farming|greenhouse]] is just a farm with the the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

*Bonus: Give it a glass floor to allow surface plants even lower down.

==Hammer of [[Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quick-smiting.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size and materials, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 attached to a handle extending from your entrance actually works against sieges.

* '''Bonus:''' Cover it with blood.

* '''Mega Bonus:''' Cover it in [[DF2012:Demon|clown]] blood.

* '''Mega Bonus:''' Make it hollow and fill it with Magma

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], [[gold]], or [[soap]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends entirely on you.

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. Burrows help to get the whole crew inside at the same time.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles |Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

*MegaDwarfBonus: Design it so that it can return.
(NOTE: I am very curious as to how this can be done, even with dwarven technology)

==Maze==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful. You can also use the free maze-generating program Daedalus, available [http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/daedalus.htm here] if you're too lazy to come up with your own.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*Bonus: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.
*Bonus: Release a live caged [[minotaur]] into the maze.
*MegaBonus: Make it three-dimensional and [http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/maze/design/index.htm#uni unicursal].

==Magma Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma Cannon==
[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=33837.0 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma Highway==
Magma moves across the map annoyingly slowly, due to its thickness and lack of pressure. But a tunnel several Z-levels high, with magma entering at the top, will flow much faster because the magma's '''falling''' in, not flowing in, and can expand on either Z-level before falling down.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Not hard to make, but cutting open a multi-Z magmafall is [[fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' Medium.

==Magma Mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with the exact same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

*Bonus:Put the coffin at least 20 floors down.
*Megabonus:Build it in a volcano if possible, and put the coffin at the very bottom of the map

==Mass Cage Recycling System==

Build a '''[[Mass pitting]]''' system to recycle your cage trap cages quickly.

'''Difficulty:''' Very easy. Requires basic digging and very little time.

'''Usefulness:''' Very. Keeps you from having to build cages before releasing monsters from them. With six hatches you can safely empty out 48 cages very quickly. You can build lots of cage traps without having to worry about emptying each cage individually.

*Bonus: Cover the floor of your pit with cage traps, creating a neverending cycle and giving your dwarves something to do during the long harsh summer when going outside is overly taxing on their stomachs.

==Mega/Water Drowning Trap-Thing==
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire creatures to create a sauna.

==Monumental Statue==

'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*Bonus: Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.

==Moses Effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult. The same trick can be used in lieu of a drawbridge, although its practicality as compared to the drawbridge is highly questionable.

==[[Obsidian]] factory==
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

* Megadwarf bonus: Make the system fully automated using [[computing]] principles.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber ''and'' a drowning chamber.

==Pit o' Doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Traps which menace with spikes are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally.

==Pressure Washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and pushes anything in the way of the flow away. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here.]

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested in version .40d with 50 recruits standing in front of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

*Bonus: Fill it with Magma instead (though Magma doesn't pressurize).

==Rehabilitation Centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

MegaDwarfBonus: Points for making every other dwarf drink water and sleep on cheap beds.

==Road of the Damned==
Create a giant channel filled with spike traps, 10 tiles wide and going all the way from your fort to the map edge. Pave it over with crystal glass so traders can get that foreboding feeling that'll make them seal the deal without bargaining too hard!

'''Difficulty:''' Low-mid, depending on the rarity of crystal glass.

'''Usefulness:'''Low. The same as a normal road.

*Bonus: Spike a goblin on every trap!

==Sectorized World==
Divide the world edges into multiple sectors and then gate access to each one separately. This allows you to protect your fortress from seiges whilst keeping access to most of the outside world and allowing most traders into and out of the fortress (those unfortunate enough to enter the world from the same direction as the seigers may be screwed, of course). For bonus points, build separate gateable access routes for each sector. For further bonus points, design your fortress so that you can simultaneously allow access to traders ''at the same time'' as seigers are exposed to your defensive mechanisms.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, unless you allow separate access routes for each sector in which case high.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate, increasing with each bonus you fill. Mostly for those who want to build the best possible defenses. Can also double as a means of easily trapping wild animals.

==Self-contained Vampire-based Factory==
Take advantage of the independence of vampires by building a self-contained factory. The best industries are those that require no special raw materials-- a factory containing both a magma glass furnace and a sand tile, for instance, would work well, as would a clay industry, but if you're feeling ambitious, consider building a vampire into your [[giant cave spider|GCS]] silk farm-- if you happen to have scored an [[undead]] GCS, your vampire won't even spook! You can treat your factory as a piggy bank to be broken into as needed, or for perfect fire-and-forget action, build a dropping [[User:Vasiln/Undump|undump]] into the factory, and the vampire will deliver the output to your front door.

'''Difficulty:''' The only hard part is getting yourself a [[vampire]].

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many green glass blocks you plan on using.

==Self Destruct Lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely fun.

'''Usefulness:''' Could serve as kind of a last revenge on a goblin siege, but also highly amusing. If done properly it can make reclaim easier.

'''DorfBonus:''' Make it have a timer before your fortress self destructs. You can do this with a water channel, or if you're particularly technical, make a [[Computing|seven segment display]].

==[[Swimming]] pool==
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though. Though if you utilize a '''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform, this is a priceless necessity.

==Underground Forest==
Break into an underground cavern, make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium - need to dig out a suitably large area, then find a way of introducing water to the area and subsequently draining or evaporating it.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size (bigger is better) as well as proximity to wood stockpiles. A tree farm outside the caverns can grow trees from all 3 layers, and you'll never have to worry about hostile creatures threatening your wood cutters.

==Underground Perpetual Motion Power Plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times. Note: Incredibly easy with an aquifer.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater Statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water source smooth and engrave the walls and floors than fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam! underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

*Bonus: Build it on area with trees and shrubs; make walls from ice or use windows; fill it with fish and merfolk; now you'll get a big aquarium

*Note: It doesn't count if you accidentally flood your fortress and wind up with one of these. It does count if one of your nobles has an unfortunate accident in their sculpture garden.

==U.R.I.S.T. Artificial Intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriend him/her.

In order to ensure that your A.I. doesn't find sleep interfering with crucial lever pulling, you might consider incorporating an alarm clock. If a goblin siege turns up on your doorstep, a single external lever to dump 7/7 of water on the sleeping A.I. might well save your fortress (and is so much cooler than having backup levers in your meeting hall).

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
*U.R.I.S.T. - '''U'''nderground '''R'''easonably '''I'''ntelligent '''S'''ettlement '''T'''echnologist
*H.A.L. - '''H'''airy '''A'''lternate '''L'''ifeform
*D.O.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*N.O.B.L.E. - '''N'''arcissistic '''O'''bnoxious '''B'''oastful '''L'''aughable '''E'''xcrement
*M.A.G.M.A. - '''M'''assively '''A'''lcoholic '''G'''ear-'''M'''achine '''A'''ssembly
*A.R.M.O.K. - '''A'''ll-'''R'''eaching '''M'''achine '''O'''f '''K'''illing
*A.S.S. - '''A'''lmost-autonomous '''S'''ystems '''S'''elector
*D.I.E.D. - '''D'''edicated '''I'''rrigation and '''E'''verything else '''D'''warf(s)
*D.O.R.F. - '''D'''oes '''O'''rders '''R'''ather '''F'''ast
*G.L.A.D.O.S. - '''G'''enetic '''L'''ifeform and '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*P.O.T.A.T.O. - '''P'''ossibly '''O'''rganic '''T'''echnically '''A'''live '''T'''rash '''O'''mitted
*D.O.M.E.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perated '''M'''echanics and '''E'''ngineering '''S'''ystem


'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

Bonus: Make the A.I. dwarf a vampire. Vampires don't need food, alcohol, or sleep and cannot age, which makes them perfect for the job. As an added bonus, keeping a vampire in this way will make your fortress completely indestructible, as sealing him in will prevent the possibility of the vampire of being killed in combat or from a syndrome, while keeping the vampire from making friends he will inevitably outlive will prevent him from going insane. (It also ensures that the bloodsucker won't use any of your dwarves as a midnight snack.)

===D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P.===

Dwarven Organic Switch Toggle, Neutered Gastrectomied Overpersistent Sober Prisoner. Goblins have several advantages over dwarves in the lever pulling department: they live forever, do not breed or tantrum, and need not eat, drink, or sleep. Seal one or more goblins in your supercomputer complex, and use their predictable pathing in combination with instantly lockable doors and pressure plates to make dwarven lever pulling a thing of an older, less advanced era.

Also known by several product names:
*G.O.B.L.I.N.A.T.O.R. - '''G'''oblin '''O'''perated '''B'''astion of '''L'''ogic to '''I'''nfalliably '''N'''eutralize '''A'''ntiquated '''T'''ypes of '''O'''perational '''R'''egimes

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. While goblin pressure plate runners require more space than dwarven lever pullers, once their room is set up, it's done, and easily copied for the next one. With only one goblin, you'll need a pressure plate for every possible combination of lever states, but it's easy to add more goblins instead.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Instant response time (<50 ticks is possible) can make lever worries a thing of the past. The G.O.B.L.I.N.A.T.O.R. requires absolutely no maintenance once set up. Unlike with the U.R.I.S.Ts of the previous generation, modern POW-based computing is never held hostage to eating, drinking, or breaks. Stay tuned for the next-generation C.A.C.A.M.E.!

==Vomitorium==
Prevents [[cave adaptation]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's a [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it. Variant: above-ground statue garden or zoo.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in or it will become very [[Fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "'''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform" chamber, or HELP (so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most <s>Dwarves</s> enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death. It is recommend that with the exception of the entrance you use stairs.

*Bonus: Utilize vampires (who can't drown).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Engineer it so that it performs a full cycle on one activation of a pressure plate and include that pressure plate as a part of the patrol route, then create a reverse Watervator and also include it as a part of same patrol route, so that your militia automatically uses it to get in and out the fortress.

{{Category|Design}}

v0.34:Stupid dwarf trick

2012-08-23T07:33:10Z

Coolthulhu: /* Doberman Bomb */

{{quality|Fine|13:08, 22 June 2010 (UTC)}}{{av}}

{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount of time and effort - often for little or no practical benefit. They exist only as a challenge for experienced players.

==Adventure Mode Fortress==

Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a smörgåsbord of masterpiece adamantine weapons and armor. Possibly both. Breaching the [[caverns]] or [[hidden fun stuff]] should ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

==Alarm Clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Limited. They will sleep through <s>'''anything'''</s> Noise. Although have been known to awaken when drenched in water, only waking up due to thinking it's alcohol, making an Alarm clock not impossible, if carefully prepared.

==Alphabet Cages==
[[Image:Cage.gif|right]]
Use captured monsters in cages to spell messages.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Vowels are hard to come by.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely none whatsoever. (Easy reminders in case you're too lazy to use notes?)

==Aqueduct Power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels. Aquifers will absorb any amount of water at any rate. Using an aquifer as drain for the reservoir will nullify the risk of flooding the fortress due to the drain not keeping up with the supply.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Aquifer Power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheel.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. The lowly windmill pales in utility compared to a waterwheel.

==Archaeological Excavation==
A Fortress in the Caverns, built by the first dwarf tribes. Build the Fortress however you see fit for those prehistoric Dwarves (i.e. only primitive metals, elaborate tombs for the chieftains with burial objects, cave art, etc.) and abandon it. Then, embark with modern Dwarves, and excavate the ancient Fortress. Sort of like the Adventure Fortress above, only for Reclaim Mode

'''Difficulty:''' As High as you want.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

*Bonus: A Museum detailing the lives of those early dwarves

==Artificial Waterfall==
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]]. Alternatively, an [[aquifer]], or other limitless water source, makes for a waterfall entirely underground.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate (Low if there is an aquifer above pouring down).

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower frame rate.

*Bonus: Build it in a "Warm" or hotter [[climate]] so it does not freeze.
*DwarfBonus: Build it in a freezing/cold/temperate climate and keep it going entire year!
*MegaDwarf Bonus: Use [[magma]]. It does not freeze, even in a freezing climate!
*MegaDwarf Bonus EXTREME+: Use magma and water in the same waterfall. The results will enshrine you in dwarf history! Possibly permanently.

==[[Ballista]] Battery==
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly-trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bastion==
Construct an isolated burrow containing a farmer and some labourers, containing at least an uncontaminated well (an [[aquifer]] is great for this) and some farms. Use whatever elaborate mechanism you wish to seal it off from the rest of the fortress. Congratulations; your bastioned dwarves and their descendants will keep your fortress alive forever until one of them goes nuts.

* Bonus: Build your bastion at least in part in a clay or sand layer, connect to magma (using a fortification in the channel to stop those annoying fireproof creatures from sneaking in), and continue manufacturing useless crap even as the world crumbles around you!
* Bonus: Build it on top of a tower outside, and then deconstruct the stairs up.
* Bonus: Fill it exclusively with vampires, to avoid having to worry about food, children, and aging.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Hollow out a shell around your bastion, connecting it to the rest of the cavern by a single 1x1 adamantine support, and flood the shell with magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' High. If your bastioned dwarves have high enough quality living space and few enough nonbastioned friends, it makes the fortress functionally immortal.

==Bolt Recovery Operation==
One curious property of Dwarven Physics is that a bar of metal makes 25 bolts, but if each of those 25 bolts is melted separately, they will become 2.5 bars, generating metal from nothing. The trick is in separating the stacks of bolts into individual bolts without destroying them, for which EliDupree found this trick:

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
∙++++@∙+++++++++
∙+∙∙∙┼∙+++++++++++++++
∙+∙g∙┼∙++++++++++++++@
∙+∙∙∙┼∙+++++++++++++++
∙+++++∙+++++++++
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

The @ at the right is a stack of marksdwarves (all in different squads so that they'll stand on the same tile) with [[adamantine]] bolts. The @ at the left is a single Perfectly Agile soldier with orders to patrol up and down, with little delays at the top and bottom. The "g" at the left is a goblin standing on a pillar (I pitted it from the z-level above.)

When the dwarf at the left runs up or down the line of doors, it opens all of them, and some of the marksdwarves shoot their bolts. By the time the bolts get there, the doors have closed, so they hit the doors and fall into the channel, where they can be collected and melted separately. (That distance is exact, by the way. Any less and they sometimes get shots through the doors, which kills your goblin. Also, with less-skilled marksdwarves, some of the bolts will stray and land on the floors, but that isn't enough to worry about even with mere dabblers.) Naturally, this is also an excellent way to train marksdwarves.

Certainly, there are other ways to set-up a recovery/live fire operation.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate. The hardest part is getting the marksdwarves to shoot from exactly the right spot.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Even in .18 or worlds generated with high mineral availability, because you can do this to generate [[adamantine]].

==Break the Dam (Release the River!)==
Dam a river (or brook) using something non-permanent (floodgates, drawbridges) and build your fortress entrance in the now dry river bed, make sure you can seal it off nicely (floodgates anyone?) then wait till the first Goblin siege, let them get to your entrance floodgates, seal them, open the dam and laugh manically

'''Difficulty:''' Low

'''Usefulness:''' Instantaneous death to all sieges

SuperDwarf bonus: Do this with magma

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that opens outwards, to fling enemies away. Ideally, they land in a very nasty place.

'''Difficulty:''' The hard part is the nasty place they get flung to.

'''Usefulness:''' There are far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

==Dam==
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, or an aquifer located below the river, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fulfill. The power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

*Bonus: Excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley. 
*Bonus: Build a control center to control the water flow. 
*Bonus: Draw your entire energy from a power station within. 
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use screw pumps and another dam to replace the water with magma.

==[[Danger room|Danger Room]]==
A room full of upright spear traps linked to a lever or pressure plate. Teach your dwarves to dodge the pointy sticks!

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium, depending on how you activate the traps.

'''Usefulness''': High. Trains combat skills very quickly, assuming you don't kill anyone.

'''Downside''': Civilians and pets that wander into the danger room will inevitably get killed, even if you use low quality training spears.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Menacing spikes greatly increase the danger, and may help train your medical team (and/or your coffin construction crew).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[adamantine]] spikes! On the plus side, you have a thriving coffin industry going now.

==Day Care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers. Make a room with beds and tables and stuff, then turn it into a burrow, then add all your children to it. Remember to include a food chute to quantum stockpile a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. High quality food, furniture, and socializing should keep them happy. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in various professions like an otherwise vulnerable child, but this is a small trade-off if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway. This is probably obvious, but make sure this room is guarded, otherwise it will turn into a Dwarf Orphanage (with Goblins and Minotaurs welcome!)

'''Difficulty:''' Low. With the invention of burrows, you can designate the Day Care to contain all children, so it is unnecessary to use suicide-booth-micromanagement to contain the children.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Think of the children, they will grow up and enter adult Dwarf life completely unprepared for the [[Fun|things]] [[Dragon|that]] [[Hell|await]] them, having spent their entire lives coddled in a safe room. They might make good nobles however.

==Doberman Bomb==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your frame rate.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium, potentially fortress-saving

*Bonus: Train all dogs inside as war dogs when they mature.

*DwarfBonus: Make it a bear trap.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Combine with a drowning chamber and carp trap.
*SadisticDwarfBonus: Make it a [[giant badger]] trap.
*YouHorribleEvilDwarfBonus: Make it a drowning trap with a [[giant sponge]].
*SomeDwarvesJustWantToWatchThe‼World‼Bonus: Make it a magma chamber with an undead giant sponge.

==Drowning Chamber==

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untamable animals, or anything else. Just be ready for something that knows how to swim. Also useful for catching fishies. See [[drowning chamber]].

*Bonus: Utilize lava.

*Bonus: Utilize trained fish.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Edit the raw and do both!

==[[Computing|Dwarfputer]] Complex==
A big mess of [[fluid logic|fluid]], [[machine logic|machine]], and/or [[creature logic|creature]] logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics and architects will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do<s> and makes them stronger</s> (in 31.25 only military work increases stats, i was really disappointed after 4 years of nonstop pumping only to see weak in urist description). Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes and building destroyers enter your computer.

==Dwarven Apartment Complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[megaprojects]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your 5-star service).

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to fun by water. Additionally, if you have the time and resources to train a sizable force of marksdwarves, placing a few "security rooms" (with barracks, ammunition store, ration cache, armory, etc) at appropriate floors, complete with fortified balconies, will allow you to take advantage of the higher vantage point.

Megadwarfbonus: Extend the tower to have levels below ground as well as above.

==Dwarven Courtyards==

I came upon this idea while doing my architecture theory paper.

Dig large shafts [first dig the staircase to the desired depth, digging out the size you want the shaft to be on all layers. Channel the outer later, then install supports on the base floor. Link the support to a trigger, clear everyone out, destroy the remaining staircase and pull the trigger] then cover them in glass, creating an indoor but light area that will keep dwarves from being irritated and nauseated by the sun, also improving general happiness and allowing close proximity to caverns and magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, make sure not to mess up or you will lose your miners

'''Usefullness:''' Medium. creates vertical circulation and brings light to lower levels.

Megadwarfbonus: create a network of self sufficient communities per shaft, allowing them to be sectioned off in case of disaster. (I plan on colonizing hell eventually on this paradigm, creating a mining team of soldiers to extract, manufacture and ultimately use adamantine products without being connected to the main colony in order to take on the demons while keeping the rest of the burrow safe.)

==Dwarven Disco Ball==
Why waste all those cut gems on things that only some selfish noble will enjoy? Create as large a wall-less sphere as you can, then cover it in Gem Windows of 3 different-colored gems to make it shine! The bigger, and more valuable gems involved (e.g., [[ruby|rubies]], [[sapphire]]s, and [[emerald]]s, or colored diamonds if you're really masochistic), the dwarfier.

'''Difficulty:''' Constructing a sphere is very hard, especially the larger you make one. Gathering enough differently colored gems can also be very hard, depending on stone layers. Trading helps a lot.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. More value can be created by encrusting furniture, and Gem Windows lack quality.

*Bonus: Alternating [[alunite]] and [[obsidian]] tiles to make a 'dance floor'.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Use lava contained in glass for illumination.

*UltraDwarfBonus: Caged "[[DF2012:Elf|dancers]]".

==Dwarven Labor Camp (aka Dwarkuta)==
Create an aboveground walled fortress in a freezing climate with guard towers, barracks, housing, and armories. Dig a long ramp downward and add a large mining network below the surface. Make some small military squads to guard the camp. Designate the lower levels as workshops, and when migrants arrive, assign them to the mines. Give the workers minimal food and only water (no booze, booze is for the hypocritical decadence of Dwarkuta's leaders). Have them haul the stone and metal they mine back to the surface and ship the raw materials off to the Motherland. Import only food, booze, weapons, fuel, and other necessities.

*Bonus: Build the giant digging machines. They don't actually have to dig anything.

*MegaBonus: Escape. Wait for a goblin siege, then get everyone underground and block the entrance. Let the goblins in. Wait a few months. The goblins are now the guards you must kill.

Step 1. Secure the keys: Make improvised weapons. If you have obsidian at your disposal, make rock short swords.

Step 2. Ascend from darkness: Get your dwarves out of the mines and into the camp.

Step 3. Rain fire: Use your imagination. Try using magma, if possible.

Step 4. Unleash the horde: Attack!

Step 5. Skewer the winged beast: If the goblins brought a giant bat or other flying creature, kill it.

*Bonus: Use a ballista.

Step 6. Wield a fist of iron: Break open the armory and equip your rebels with armor and weapons.

Step 7. Raise hell: Exactly what it says on the tin.

Step 8. Freedom!

*MegaDwarfBonus: In Adventure mode, try (and probably fail) to lead the prisoners to freedom.

==Dwarven Refrigerator==
Dig down to the 3rd cavern layer and harvest as many [[nether-cap]]s as you can. Make them all into barrels! Nether caps have the unique property of being 10000° Urist, which is 32°F or 0°C. Now your dwarves can enjoy their favorite alcohol, cheese, and plump helmets chilled to perfection! If you've set your population cap very low in the INIT files, caverns aren't extremely dangerous, but you should still be on the lookout for nasties down there. Remember to wall off your entrance to the cavern once you're finished.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to Medium

'''Usefulness:''' None except pretty colored barrels

*Bonus: Nether-caps are magma-resistant. Flood your food stocks with magma to keep them safe from vermin and marauders.

==Emergency Destruct Stairs==
A tall column of stairs plunging all the way down into the underdark, with a one-tile wide area of thin destructible floor all around it. In case of subterranean invasion, a thrown switch drops a stone O straight down, ringing the staircase and neatly severing all inter-level connections at a blow. Does with one lever and one support what would take dozens of bridges or hundreds of retracting grates.

'''Difficulty:''' Harder than it sounds.

'''Usefulness:''' Sometimes... sometimes they fly.

==Execution Tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

==Flood the World==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate.

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[giant sponge]].

*Bonus: Use magma, just like [[Main:Boatmurdered|Boatmurdered]].

*MegaDwarfBonus: Use trained fish to kill off all creatures not of your colony.

==Gladiator Arena==
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp. Variant: build prisoner cages inside the arena, link to a lever outside the arena, lock the soldiers in, and then open the cages.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive. (If the prisoners have weapons, you can remove them by using {{k|d}}-{{k|b}}-{{k|d}} to dump the cage and its contents, then looking at and undumping the cages themselves with {{k|k}}-{{k|d}}).

'''Usefulness:''' Low to High, depending on how long your soldiers can draw out the execution. Equipping your soldiers with wooden training weapons can greatly increase the fun (and/or [[Fun]] if their armor isn't as good as you thought).

*Dwarf Bonus: Losers get incinerated by Magma.
*Mega Dwarf Bonus: Use your arena as a "trial by fire" for migrants.

==Glass Ceiling==
Sick of having your dwarves vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a glass floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

*Politically Incorrect Dwarf Bonus: Make it a metaphorical [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_ceiling glass ceiling] and give migrants and women less pay and poorer rooms.

==Greenhouse==
A [[farming|greenhouse]] is just a farm with the the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

*Bonus: Give it a glass floor to allow surface plants even lower down.

==Hammer of [[Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quick-smiting.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size and materials, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 attached to a handle extending from your entrance actually works against sieges.

* '''Bonus:''' Cover it with blood.

* '''Mega Bonus:''' Cover it in [[DF2012:Demon|clown]] blood.

* '''Mega Bonus:''' Make it hollow and fill it with Magma

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], [[gold]], or [[soap]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends entirely on you.

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. Burrows help to get the whole crew inside at the same time.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles |Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

*MegaDwarfBonus: Design it so that it can return.
(NOTE: I am very curious as to how this can be done, even with dwarven technology)

==Maze==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful. You can also use the free maze-generating program Daedalus, available [http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/daedalus.htm here] if you're too lazy to come up with your own.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*Bonus: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.
*Bonus: Release a live caged [[minotaur]] into the maze.
*MegaBonus: Make it three-dimensional and [http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/maze/design/index.htm#uni unicursal].

==Magma Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma Cannon==
[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=33837.0 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma Highway==
Magma moves across the map annoyingly slowly, due to its thickness and lack of pressure. But a tunnel several Z-levels high, with magma entering at the top, will flow much faster because the magma's '''falling''' in, not flowing in, and can expand on either Z-level before falling down.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Not hard to make, but cutting open a multi-Z magmafall is [[fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' Medium.

==Magma Mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with the exact same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

*Bonus:Put the coffin at least 20 floors down.
*Megabonus:Build it in a volcano if possible, and put the coffin at the very bottom of the map

==Mass Cage Recycling System==

Build a '''[[Mass pitting]]''' system to recycle your cage trap cages quickly.

'''Difficulty:''' Very easy. Requires basic digging and very little time.

'''Usefulness:''' Very. Keeps you from having to build cages before releasing monsters from them. With six hatches you can safely empty out 48 cages very quickly. You can build lots of cage traps without having to worry about emptying each cage individually.

*Bonus: Cover the floor of your pit with cage traps, creating a neverending cycle and giving your dwarves something to do during the long harsh summer when going outside is overly taxing on their stomachs.

==Mega/Water Drowning Trap-Thing==
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire creatures to create a sauna.

==Monumental Statue==

'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*Bonus: Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.

==Moses Effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult. The same trick can be used in lieu of a drawbridge, although its practicality as compared to the drawbridge is highly questionable.

==[[Obsidian]] factory==
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

* Megadwarf bonus: Make the system fully automated using [[computing]] principles.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber ''and'' a drowning chamber.

==Pit o' Doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Traps which menace with spikes are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally.

==Pressure Washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and pushes anything in the way of the flow away. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here.]

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested in version .40d with 50 recruits standing in front of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

*Bonus: Fill it with Magma instead (though Magma doesn't pressurize).

==Rehabilitation Centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

MegaDwarfBonus: Points for making every other dwarf drink water and sleep on cheap beds.

==Road of the Damned==
Create a giant channel filled with spike traps, 10 tiles wide and going all the way from your fort to the map edge. Pave it over with crystal glass so traders can get that foreboding feeling that'll make them seal the deal without bargaining too hard!

'''Difficulty:''' Low-mid, depending on the rarity of crystal glass.

'''Usefulness:'''Low. The same as a normal road.

*Bonus: Spike a goblin on every trap!

==Sectorized World==
Divide the world edges into multiple sectors and then gate access to each one separately. This allows you to protect your fortress from seiges whilst keeping access to most of the outside world and allowing most traders into and out of the fortress (those unfortunate enough to enter the world from the same direction as the seigers may be screwed, of course). For bonus points, build separate gateable access routes for each sector. For further bonus points, design your fortress so that you can simultaneously allow access to traders ''at the same time'' as seigers are exposed to your defensive mechanisms.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, unless you allow separate access routes for each sector in which case high.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate, increasing with each bonus you fill. Mostly for those who want to build the best possible defenses. Can also double as a means of easily trapping wild animals.

==Self-contained Vampire-based Factory==
Take advantage of the independence of vampires by building a self-contained factory. The best industries are those that require no special raw materials-- a factory containing both a magma glass furnace and a sand tile, for instance, would work well, as would a clay industry, but if you're feeling ambitious, consider building a vampire into your [[giant cave spider|GCS]] silk farm-- if you happen to have scored an [[undead]] GCS, your vampire won't even spook! You can treat your factory as a piggy bank to be broken into as needed, or for perfect fire-and-forget action, build a dropping [[User:Vasiln/Undump|undump]] into the factory, and the vampire will deliver the output to your front door.

'''Difficulty:''' The only hard part is getting yourself a [[vampire]].

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many green glass blocks you plan on using.

==Self Destruct Lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely fun.

'''Usefulness:''' Could serve as kind of a last revenge on a goblin siege, but also highly amusing. If done properly it can make reclaim easier.

'''DorfBonus:''' Make it have a timer before your fortress self destructs. You can do this with a water channel, or if you're particularly technical, make a [[Computing|seven segment display]].

==[[Swimming]] pool==
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though. Though if you utilize a '''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform, this is a priceless necessity.

==Underground Forest==
Break into an underground cavern, make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium - need to dig out a suitably large area, then find a way of introducing water to the area and subsequently draining or evaporating it.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size (bigger is better) as well as proximity to wood stockpiles. A tree farm outside the caverns can grow trees from all 3 layers, and you'll never have to worry about hostile creatures threatening your wood cutters.

==Underground Perpetual Motion Power Plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times. Note: Incredibly easy with an aquifer.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater Statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water source smooth and engrave the walls and floors than fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam! underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

*Bonus: Build it on area with trees and shrubs; make walls from ice or use windows; fill it with fish and merfolk; now you'll get a big aquarium

*Note: It doesn't count if you accidentally flood your fortress and wind up with one of these. It does count if one of your nobles has an unfortunate accident in their sculpture garden.

==U.R.I.S.T. Artificial Intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriend him/her.

In order to ensure that your A.I. doesn't find sleep interfering with crucial lever pulling, you might consider incorporating an alarm clock. If a goblin siege turns up on your doorstep, a single external lever to dump 7/7 of water on the sleeping A.I. might well save your fortress (and is so much cooler than having backup levers in your meeting hall).

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
*U.R.I.S.T. - '''U'''nderground '''R'''easonably '''I'''ntelligent '''S'''ettlement '''T'''echnologist
*H.A.L. - '''H'''airy '''A'''lternate '''L'''ifeform
*D.O.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*N.O.B.L.E. - '''N'''arcissistic '''O'''bnoxious '''B'''oastful '''L'''aughable '''E'''xcrement
*M.A.G.M.A. - '''M'''assively '''A'''lcoholic '''G'''ear-'''M'''achine '''A'''ssembly
*A.R.M.O.K. - '''A'''ll-'''R'''eaching '''M'''achine '''O'''f '''K'''illing
*A.S.S. - '''A'''lmost-autonomous '''S'''ystems '''S'''elector
*D.I.E.D. - '''D'''edicated '''I'''rrigation and '''E'''verything else '''D'''warf(s)
*D.O.R.F. - '''D'''oes '''O'''rders '''R'''ather '''F'''ast
*G.L.A.D.O.S. - '''G'''enetic '''L'''ifeform and '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*P.O.T.A.T.O. - '''P'''ossibly '''O'''rganic '''T'''echnically '''A'''live '''T'''rash '''O'''mitted
*D.O.M.E.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perated '''M'''echanics and '''E'''ngineering '''S'''ystem


'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

Bonus: Make the A.I. dwarf a vampire. Vampires don't need food, alcohol, or sleep and cannot age, which makes them perfect for the job. As an added bonus, keeping a vampire in this way will make your fortress completely indestructible, as sealing him in will prevent the possibility of the vampire of being killed in combat or from a syndrome, while keeping the vampire from making friends he will inevitably outlive will prevent him from going insane. (It also ensures that the bloodsucker won't use any of your dwarves as a midnight snack.)

===D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P.===

Dwarven Organic Switch Toggle, Neutered Gastrectomied Overpersistent Sober Prisoner. Goblins have several advantages over dwarves in the lever pulling department: they live forever, do not breed or tantrum, and need not eat, drink, or sleep. Seal one or more goblins in your supercomputer complex, and use their predictable pathing in combination with instantly lockable doors and pressure plates to make dwarven lever pulling a thing of an older, less advanced era.

Also known by several product names:
*G.O.B.L.I.N.A.T.O.R. - '''G'''oblin '''O'''perated '''B'''astion of '''L'''ogic to '''I'''nfalliably '''N'''eutralize '''A'''ntiquated '''T'''ypes of '''O'''perational '''R'''egimes

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. While goblin pressure plate runners require more space than dwarven lever pullers, once their room is set up, it's done, and easily copied for the next one. With only one goblin, you'll need a pressure plate for every possible combination of lever states, but it's easy to add more goblins instead.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Instant response time (<50 ticks is possible) can make lever worries a thing of the past. The G.O.B.L.I.N.A.T.O.R. requires absolutely no maintenance once set up. Unlike with the U.R.I.S.Ts of the previous generation, modern POW-based computing is never held hostage to eating, drinking, or breaks. Stay tuned for the next-generation C.A.C.A.M.E.!

==Vomitorium==
Prevents [[cave adaptation]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's a [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it. Variant: above-ground statue garden or zoo.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in or it will become very [[Fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "'''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform" chamber, or HELP (so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most <s>Dwarves</s> enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death. It is recommend that with the exception of the entrance you use stairs.

*Bonus: Utilize vampires (who can't drown).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Engineer it so that it performs a full cycle on one activation of a pressure plate and include that pressure plate as a part of the patrol route, then create a reverse Watervator and also include it as a part of same patrol route, so that your militia automatically uses it to get in and out the fortress.

{{Category|Design}}

v0.34:Stupid dwarf trick

2012-08-23T07:28:09Z

Coolthulhu: /* Watervator */

{{quality|Fine|13:08, 22 June 2010 (UTC)}}{{av}}

{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount of time and effort - often for little or no practical benefit. They exist only as a challenge for experienced players.

==Adventure Mode Fortress==

Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a smörgåsbord of masterpiece adamantine weapons and armor. Possibly both. Breaching the [[caverns]] or [[hidden fun stuff]] should ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

==Alarm Clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Limited. They will sleep through <s>'''anything'''</s> Noise. Although have been known to awaken when drenched in water, only waking up due to thinking it's alcohol, making an Alarm clock not impossible, if carefully prepared.

==Alphabet Cages==
[[Image:Cage.gif|right]]
Use captured monsters in cages to spell messages.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Vowels are hard to come by.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely none whatsoever. (Easy reminders in case you're too lazy to use notes?)

==Aqueduct Power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels. Aquifers will absorb any amount of water at any rate. Using an aquifer as drain for the reservoir will nullify the risk of flooding the fortress due to the drain not keeping up with the supply.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Aquifer Power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheel.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. The lowly windmill pales in utility compared to a waterwheel.

==Archaeological Excavation==
A Fortress in the Caverns, built by the first dwarf tribes. Build the Fortress however you see fit for those prehistoric Dwarves (i.e. only primitive metals, elaborate tombs for the chieftains with burial objects, cave art, etc.) and abandon it. Then, embark with modern Dwarves, and excavate the ancient Fortress. Sort of like the Adventure Fortress above, only for Reclaim Mode

'''Difficulty:''' As High as you want.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

*Bonus: A Museum detailing the lives of those early dwarves

==Artificial Waterfall==
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]]. Alternatively, an [[aquifer]], or other limitless water source, makes for a waterfall entirely underground.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate (Low if there is an aquifer above pouring down).

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower frame rate.

*Bonus: Build it in a "Warm" or hotter [[climate]] so it does not freeze.
*DwarfBonus: Build it in a freezing/cold/temperate climate and keep it going entire year!
*MegaDwarf Bonus: Use [[magma]]. It does not freeze, even in a freezing climate!
*MegaDwarf Bonus EXTREME+: Use magma and water in the same waterfall. The results will enshrine you in dwarf history! Possibly permanently.

==[[Ballista]] Battery==
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly-trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bastion==
Construct an isolated burrow containing a farmer and some labourers, containing at least an uncontaminated well (an [[aquifer]] is great for this) and some farms. Use whatever elaborate mechanism you wish to seal it off from the rest of the fortress. Congratulations; your bastioned dwarves and their descendants will keep your fortress alive forever until one of them goes nuts.

* Bonus: Build your bastion at least in part in a clay or sand layer, connect to magma (using a fortification in the channel to stop those annoying fireproof creatures from sneaking in), and continue manufacturing useless crap even as the world crumbles around you!
* Bonus: Build it on top of a tower outside, and then deconstruct the stairs up.
* Bonus: Fill it exclusively with vampires, to avoid having to worry about food, children, and aging.
* MegaDwarfBonus: Hollow out a shell around your bastion, connecting it to the rest of the cavern by a single 1x1 adamantine support, and flood the shell with magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' High. If your bastioned dwarves have high enough quality living space and few enough nonbastioned friends, it makes the fortress functionally immortal.

==Bolt Recovery Operation==
One curious property of Dwarven Physics is that a bar of metal makes 25 bolts, but if each of those 25 bolts is melted separately, they will become 2.5 bars, generating metal from nothing. The trick is in separating the stacks of bolts into individual bolts without destroying them, for which EliDupree found this trick:

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
∙++++@∙+++++++++
∙+∙∙∙┼∙+++++++++++++++
∙+∙g∙┼∙++++++++++++++@
∙+∙∙∙┼∙+++++++++++++++
∙+++++∙+++++++++
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

The @ at the right is a stack of marksdwarves (all in different squads so that they'll stand on the same tile) with [[adamantine]] bolts. The @ at the left is a single Perfectly Agile soldier with orders to patrol up and down, with little delays at the top and bottom. The "g" at the left is a goblin standing on a pillar (I pitted it from the z-level above.)

When the dwarf at the left runs up or down the line of doors, it opens all of them, and some of the marksdwarves shoot their bolts. By the time the bolts get there, the doors have closed, so they hit the doors and fall into the channel, where they can be collected and melted separately. (That distance is exact, by the way. Any less and they sometimes get shots through the doors, which kills your goblin. Also, with less-skilled marksdwarves, some of the bolts will stray and land on the floors, but that isn't enough to worry about even with mere dabblers.) Naturally, this is also an excellent way to train marksdwarves.

Certainly, there are other ways to set-up a recovery/live fire operation.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate. The hardest part is getting the marksdwarves to shoot from exactly the right spot.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Even in .18 or worlds generated with high mineral availability, because you can do this to generate [[adamantine]].

==Break the Dam (Release the River!)==
Dam a river (or brook) using something non-permanent (floodgates, drawbridges) and build your fortress entrance in the now dry river bed, make sure you can seal it off nicely (floodgates anyone?) then wait till the first Goblin siege, let them get to your entrance floodgates, seal them, open the dam and laugh manically

'''Difficulty:''' Low

'''Usefulness:''' Instantaneous death to all sieges

SuperDwarf bonus: Do this with magma

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that opens outwards, to fling enemies away. Ideally, they land in a very nasty place.

'''Difficulty:''' The hard part is the nasty place they get flung to.

'''Usefulness:''' There are far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

==Dam==
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, or an aquifer located below the river, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fulfill. The power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

*Bonus: Excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley. 
*Bonus: Build a control center to control the water flow. 
*Bonus: Draw your entire energy from a power station within. 
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use screw pumps and another dam to replace the water with magma.

==[[Danger room|Danger Room]]==
A room full of upright spear traps linked to a lever or pressure plate. Teach your dwarves to dodge the pointy sticks!

'''Difficulty''': Low to Medium, depending on how you activate the traps.

'''Usefulness''': High. Trains combat skills very quickly, assuming you don't kill anyone.

'''Downside''': Civilians and pets that wander into the danger room will inevitably get killed, even if you use low quality training spears.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Menacing spikes greatly increase the danger, and may help train your medical team (and/or your coffin construction crew).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Use [[adamantine]] spikes! On the plus side, you have a thriving coffin industry going now.

==Day Care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers. Make a room with beds and tables and stuff, then turn it into a burrow, then add all your children to it. Remember to include a food chute to quantum stockpile a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. High quality food, furniture, and socializing should keep them happy. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in various professions like an otherwise vulnerable child, but this is a small trade-off if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway. This is probably obvious, but make sure this room is guarded, otherwise it will turn into a Dwarf Orphanage (with Goblins and Minotaurs welcome!)

'''Difficulty:''' Low. With the invention of burrows, you can designate the Day Care to contain all children, so it is unnecessary to use suicide-booth-micromanagement to contain the children.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Think of the children, they will grow up and enter adult Dwarf life completely unprepared for the [[Fun|things]] [[Dragon|that]] [[Hell|await]] them, having spent their entire lives coddled in a safe room. They might make good nobles however.

==Doberman Bomb==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your frame rate.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium, potentially fortress-saving

*Bonus: Train all dogs inside as war dogs when they mature.

*DwarfBonus: Make it a bear trap.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Combine with a drowning chamber and carp trap.
*SadisticDwarfBonus: Make it a [[giant badger]] trap.
*YouHorribleEvilDwarfBonus: Make it a drowning trap with a [[giant sponge]].

==Drowning Chamber==

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untamable animals, or anything else. Just be ready for something that knows how to swim. Also useful for catching fishies. See [[drowning chamber]].

*Bonus: Utilize lava.

*Bonus: Utilize trained fish.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Edit the raw and do both!

==[[Computing|Dwarfputer]] Complex==
A big mess of [[fluid logic|fluid]], [[machine logic|machine]], and/or [[creature logic|creature]] logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics and architects will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do<s> and makes them stronger</s> (in 31.25 only military work increases stats, i was really disappointed after 4 years of nonstop pumping only to see weak in urist description). Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes and building destroyers enter your computer.

==Dwarven Apartment Complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[megaprojects]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your 5-star service).

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to fun by water. Additionally, if you have the time and resources to train a sizable force of marksdwarves, placing a few "security rooms" (with barracks, ammunition store, ration cache, armory, etc) at appropriate floors, complete with fortified balconies, will allow you to take advantage of the higher vantage point.

Megadwarfbonus: Extend the tower to have levels below ground as well as above.

==Dwarven Courtyards==

I came upon this idea while doing my architecture theory paper.

Dig large shafts [first dig the staircase to the desired depth, digging out the size you want the shaft to be on all layers. Channel the outer later, then install supports on the base floor. Link the support to a trigger, clear everyone out, destroy the remaining staircase and pull the trigger] then cover them in glass, creating an indoor but light area that will keep dwarves from being irritated and nauseated by the sun, also improving general happiness and allowing close proximity to caverns and magma.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, make sure not to mess up or you will lose your miners

'''Usefullness:''' Medium. creates vertical circulation and brings light to lower levels.

Megadwarfbonus: create a network of self sufficient communities per shaft, allowing them to be sectioned off in case of disaster. (I plan on colonizing hell eventually on this paradigm, creating a mining team of soldiers to extract, manufacture and ultimately use adamantine products without being connected to the main colony in order to take on the demons while keeping the rest of the burrow safe.)

==Dwarven Disco Ball==
Why waste all those cut gems on things that only some selfish noble will enjoy? Create as large a wall-less sphere as you can, then cover it in Gem Windows of 3 different-colored gems to make it shine! The bigger, and more valuable gems involved (e.g., [[ruby|rubies]], [[sapphire]]s, and [[emerald]]s, or colored diamonds if you're really masochistic), the dwarfier.

'''Difficulty:''' Constructing a sphere is very hard, especially the larger you make one. Gathering enough differently colored gems can also be very hard, depending on stone layers. Trading helps a lot.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. More value can be created by encrusting furniture, and Gem Windows lack quality.

*Bonus: Alternating [[alunite]] and [[obsidian]] tiles to make a 'dance floor'.

*MegaDwarfBonus: Use lava contained in glass for illumination.

*UltraDwarfBonus: Caged "[[DF2012:Elf|dancers]]".

==Dwarven Labor Camp (aka Dwarkuta)==
Create an aboveground walled fortress in a freezing climate with guard towers, barracks, housing, and armories. Dig a long ramp downward and add a large mining network below the surface. Make some small military squads to guard the camp. Designate the lower levels as workshops, and when migrants arrive, assign them to the mines. Give the workers minimal food and only water (no booze, booze is for the hypocritical decadence of Dwarkuta's leaders). Have them haul the stone and metal they mine back to the surface and ship the raw materials off to the Motherland. Import only food, booze, weapons, fuel, and other necessities.

*Bonus: Build the giant digging machines. They don't actually have to dig anything.

*MegaBonus: Escape. Wait for a goblin siege, then get everyone underground and block the entrance. Let the goblins in. Wait a few months. The goblins are now the guards you must kill.

Step 1. Secure the keys: Make improvised weapons. If you have obsidian at your disposal, make rock short swords.

Step 2. Ascend from darkness: Get your dwarves out of the mines and into the camp.

Step 3. Rain fire: Use your imagination. Try using magma, if possible.

Step 4. Unleash the horde: Attack!

Step 5. Skewer the winged beast: If the goblins brought a giant bat or other flying creature, kill it.

*Bonus: Use a ballista.

Step 6. Wield a fist of iron: Break open the armory and equip your rebels with armor and weapons.

Step 7. Raise hell: Exactly what it says on the tin.

Step 8. Freedom!

*MegaDwarfBonus: In Adventure mode, try (and probably fail) to lead the prisoners to freedom.

==Dwarven Refrigerator==
Dig down to the 3rd cavern layer and harvest as many [[nether-cap]]s as you can. Make them all into barrels! Nether caps have the unique property of being 10000° Urist, which is 32°F or 0°C. Now your dwarves can enjoy their favorite alcohol, cheese, and plump helmets chilled to perfection! If you've set your population cap very low in the INIT files, caverns aren't extremely dangerous, but you should still be on the lookout for nasties down there. Remember to wall off your entrance to the cavern once you're finished.

'''Difficulty:''' Low to Medium

'''Usefulness:''' None except pretty colored barrels

*Bonus: Nether-caps are magma-resistant. Flood your food stocks with magma to keep them safe from vermin and marauders.

==Emergency Destruct Stairs==
A tall column of stairs plunging all the way down into the underdark, with a one-tile wide area of thin destructible floor all around it. In case of subterranean invasion, a thrown switch drops a stone O straight down, ringing the staircase and neatly severing all inter-level connections at a blow. Does with one lever and one support what would take dozens of bridges or hundreds of retracting grates.

'''Difficulty:''' Harder than it sounds.

'''Usefulness:''' Sometimes... sometimes they fly.

==Execution Tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

==Flood the World==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate.

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[giant sponge]].

*Bonus: Use magma, just like [[Main:Boatmurdered|Boatmurdered]].

*MegaDwarfBonus: Use trained fish to kill off all creatures not of your colony.

==Gladiator Arena==
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp. Variant: build prisoner cages inside the arena, link to a lever outside the arena, lock the soldiers in, and then open the cages.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive. (If the prisoners have weapons, you can remove them by using {{k|d}}-{{k|b}}-{{k|d}} to dump the cage and its contents, then looking at and undumping the cages themselves with {{k|k}}-{{k|d}}).

'''Usefulness:''' Low to High, depending on how long your soldiers can draw out the execution. Equipping your soldiers with wooden training weapons can greatly increase the fun (and/or [[Fun]] if their armor isn't as good as you thought).

*Dwarf Bonus: Losers get incinerated by Magma.
*Mega Dwarf Bonus: Use your arena as a "trial by fire" for migrants.

==Glass Ceiling==
Sick of having your dwarves vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a glass floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

*Politically Incorrect Dwarf Bonus: Make it a metaphorical [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_ceiling glass ceiling] and give migrants and women less pay and poorer rooms.

==Greenhouse==
A [[farming|greenhouse]] is just a farm with the the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

*Bonus: Give it a glass floor to allow surface plants even lower down.

==Hammer of [[Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quick-smiting.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size and materials, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 attached to a handle extending from your entrance actually works against sieges.

* '''Bonus:''' Cover it with blood.

* '''Mega Bonus:''' Cover it in [[DF2012:Demon|clown]] blood.

* '''Mega Bonus:''' Make it hollow and fill it with Magma

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], [[gold]], or [[soap]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends entirely on you.

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. Burrows help to get the whole crew inside at the same time.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles |Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

*MegaDwarfBonus: Design it so that it can return.
(NOTE: I am very curious as to how this can be done, even with dwarven technology)

==Maze==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful. You can also use the free maze-generating program Daedalus, available [http://www.astrolog.org/labyrnth/daedalus.htm here] if you're too lazy to come up with your own.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*Bonus: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.
*Bonus: Release a live caged [[minotaur]] into the maze.
*MegaBonus: Make it three-dimensional and [http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/maze/design/index.htm#uni unicursal].

==Magma Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma Cannon==
[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=33837.0 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma Highway==
Magma moves across the map annoyingly slowly, due to its thickness and lack of pressure. But a tunnel several Z-levels high, with magma entering at the top, will flow much faster because the magma's '''falling''' in, not flowing in, and can expand on either Z-level before falling down.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Not hard to make, but cutting open a multi-Z magmafall is [[fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' Medium.

==Magma Mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with the exact same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

*Bonus:Put the coffin at least 20 floors down.
*Megabonus:Build it in a volcano if possible, and put the coffin at the very bottom of the map

==Mass Cage Recycling System==

Build a '''[[Mass pitting]]''' system to recycle your cage trap cages quickly.

'''Difficulty:''' Very easy. Requires basic digging and very little time.

'''Usefulness:''' Very. Keeps you from having to build cages before releasing monsters from them. With six hatches you can safely empty out 48 cages very quickly. You can build lots of cage traps without having to worry about emptying each cage individually.

*Bonus: Cover the floor of your pit with cage traps, creating a neverending cycle and giving your dwarves something to do during the long harsh summer when going outside is overly taxing on their stomachs.

==Mega/Water Drowning Trap-Thing==
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire creatures to create a sauna.

==Monumental Statue==

'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*Bonus: Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.

==Moses Effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult. The same trick can be used in lieu of a drawbridge, although its practicality as compared to the drawbridge is highly questionable.

==[[Obsidian]] factory==
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

* Megadwarf bonus: Make the system fully automated using [[computing]] principles.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber ''and'' a drowning chamber.

==Pit o' Doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Traps which menace with spikes are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally.

==Pressure Washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and pushes anything in the way of the flow away. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here.]

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested in version .40d with 50 recruits standing in front of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

*Bonus: Fill it with Magma instead (though Magma doesn't pressurize).

==Rehabilitation Centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

MegaDwarfBonus: Points for making every other dwarf drink water and sleep on cheap beds.

==Road of the Damned==
Create a giant channel filled with spike traps, 10 tiles wide and going all the way from your fort to the map edge. Pave it over with crystal glass so traders can get that foreboding feeling that'll make them seal the deal without bargaining too hard!

'''Difficulty:''' Low-mid, depending on the rarity of crystal glass.

'''Usefulness:'''Low. The same as a normal road.

*Bonus: Spike a goblin on every trap!

==Sectorized World==
Divide the world edges into multiple sectors and then gate access to each one separately. This allows you to protect your fortress from seiges whilst keeping access to most of the outside world and allowing most traders into and out of the fortress (those unfortunate enough to enter the world from the same direction as the seigers may be screwed, of course). For bonus points, build separate gateable access routes for each sector. For further bonus points, design your fortress so that you can simultaneously allow access to traders ''at the same time'' as seigers are exposed to your defensive mechanisms.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, unless you allow separate access routes for each sector in which case high.

'''Usefulness:''' Moderate, increasing with each bonus you fill. Mostly for those who want to build the best possible defenses. Can also double as a means of easily trapping wild animals.

==Self-contained Vampire-based Factory==
Take advantage of the independence of vampires by building a self-contained factory. The best industries are those that require no special raw materials-- a factory containing both a magma glass furnace and a sand tile, for instance, would work well, as would a clay industry, but if you're feeling ambitious, consider building a vampire into your [[giant cave spider|GCS]] silk farm-- if you happen to have scored an [[undead]] GCS, your vampire won't even spook! You can treat your factory as a piggy bank to be broken into as needed, or for perfect fire-and-forget action, build a dropping [[User:Vasiln/Undump|undump]] into the factory, and the vampire will deliver the output to your front door.

'''Difficulty:''' The only hard part is getting yourself a [[vampire]].

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many green glass blocks you plan on using.

==Self Destruct Lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely fun.

'''Usefulness:''' Could serve as kind of a last revenge on a goblin siege, but also highly amusing. If done properly it can make reclaim easier.

'''DorfBonus:''' Make it have a timer before your fortress self destructs. You can do this with a water channel, or if you're particularly technical, make a [[Computing|seven segment display]].

==[[Swimming]] pool==
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though. Though if you utilize a '''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform, this is a priceless necessity.

==Underground Forest==
Break into an underground cavern, make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium - need to dig out a suitably large area, then find a way of introducing water to the area and subsequently draining or evaporating it.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size (bigger is better) as well as proximity to wood stockpiles. A tree farm outside the caverns can grow trees from all 3 layers, and you'll never have to worry about hostile creatures threatening your wood cutters.

==Underground Perpetual Motion Power Plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times. Note: Incredibly easy with an aquifer.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater Statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water source smooth and engrave the walls and floors than fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam! underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

*Bonus: Build it on area with trees and shrubs; make walls from ice or use windows; fill it with fish and merfolk; now you'll get a big aquarium

*Note: It doesn't count if you accidentally flood your fortress and wind up with one of these. It does count if one of your nobles has an unfortunate accident in their sculpture garden.

==U.R.I.S.T. Artificial Intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriend him/her.

In order to ensure that your A.I. doesn't find sleep interfering with crucial lever pulling, you might consider incorporating an alarm clock. If a goblin siege turns up on your doorstep, a single external lever to dump 7/7 of water on the sleeping A.I. might well save your fortress (and is so much cooler than having backup levers in your meeting hall).

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
*U.R.I.S.T. - '''U'''nderground '''R'''easonably '''I'''ntelligent '''S'''ettlement '''T'''echnologist
*H.A.L. - '''H'''airy '''A'''lternate '''L'''ifeform
*D.O.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*N.O.B.L.E. - '''N'''arcissistic '''O'''bnoxious '''B'''oastful '''L'''aughable '''E'''xcrement
*M.A.G.M.A. - '''M'''assively '''A'''lcoholic '''G'''ear-'''M'''achine '''A'''ssembly
*A.R.M.O.K. - '''A'''ll-'''R'''eaching '''M'''achine '''O'''f '''K'''illing
*A.S.S. - '''A'''lmost-autonomous '''S'''ystems '''S'''elector
*D.I.E.D. - '''D'''edicated '''I'''rrigation and '''E'''verything else '''D'''warf(s)
*D.O.R.F. - '''D'''oes '''O'''rders '''R'''ather '''F'''ast
*G.L.A.D.O.S. - '''G'''enetic '''L'''ifeform and '''D'''warf '''O'''perating '''S'''ystem
*P.O.T.A.T.O. - '''P'''ossibly '''O'''rganic '''T'''echnically '''A'''live '''T'''rash '''O'''mitted
*D.O.M.E.S. - '''D'''warf '''O'''perated '''M'''echanics and '''E'''ngineering '''S'''ystem


'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

Bonus: Make the A.I. dwarf a vampire. Vampires don't need food, alcohol, or sleep and cannot age, which makes them perfect for the job. As an added bonus, keeping a vampire in this way will make your fortress completely indestructible, as sealing him in will prevent the possibility of the vampire of being killed in combat or from a syndrome, while keeping the vampire from making friends he will inevitably outlive will prevent him from going insane. (It also ensures that the bloodsucker won't use any of your dwarves as a midnight snack.)

===D.O.S.T.N.G.O.S.P.===

Dwarven Organic Switch Toggle, Neutered Gastrectomied Overpersistent Sober Prisoner. Goblins have several advantages over dwarves in the lever pulling department: they live forever, do not breed or tantrum, and need not eat, drink, or sleep. Seal one or more goblins in your supercomputer complex, and use their predictable pathing in combination with instantly lockable doors and pressure plates to make dwarven lever pulling a thing of an older, less advanced era.

Also known by several product names:
*G.O.B.L.I.N.A.T.O.R. - '''G'''oblin '''O'''perated '''B'''astion of '''L'''ogic to '''I'''nfalliably '''N'''eutralize '''A'''ntiquated '''T'''ypes of '''O'''perational '''R'''egimes

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. While goblin pressure plate runners require more space than dwarven lever pullers, once their room is set up, it's done, and easily copied for the next one. With only one goblin, you'll need a pressure plate for every possible combination of lever states, but it's easy to add more goblins instead.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Instant response time (<50 ticks is possible) can make lever worries a thing of the past. The G.O.B.L.I.N.A.T.O.R. requires absolutely no maintenance once set up. Unlike with the U.R.I.S.Ts of the previous generation, modern POW-based computing is never held hostage to eating, drinking, or breaks. Stay tuned for the next-generation C.A.C.A.M.E.!

==Vomitorium==
Prevents [[cave adaptation]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's a [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it. Variant: above-ground statue garden or zoo.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in or it will become very [[Fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "'''H'''ydraulic '''E'''levation and '''L'''owering '''P'''latform" chamber, or HELP (so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most <s>Dwarves</s> enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death. It is recommend that with the exception of the entrance you use stairs.

*Bonus: Utilize vampires (who can't drown).
*MegaDwarfBonus: Utilize trained fish.
*MegaDwarfBonus: Engineer it so that it performs a full cycle on one activation of a pressure plate and include that pressure plate as a part of the patrol route, then create a reverse Watervator and also include it as a part of same patrol route, so that your militia automatically uses it to get in and out the fortress.

{{Category|Design}}

v0.34:Animal trainer

2012-03-24T17:14:07Z

Coolthulhu:

{{quality|Exceptional|03:36, 10 January 2012 (UTC)}}
{{Skill
| color = 2:0
| skill = Animal Trainer
| profession = [[Ranger]]
| job name = [[Animal training]]
| tasks =
* Train [[dog|war animal]]
* Train [[dog|hunting animal]]
* Tame large animal
* Tame small animal
| workshop = [[Kennel]]
| attributes =
* Agility
* Toughness
* Endurance
* Intuition
* Patience
* Empathy
}}
{{av}}

'''Animal trainer''' is the skill associated with the '''animal training''' [[labor]]. An animal trainer works at an [[animal training zone]], taming certain animals (with food), turning some [[tame animals]] into war or hunting animals and reinforcing tameness of animals captured in a [[cage trap]] and tamed later.

==Notes==

Animal tab ({{k|z}} - {{k|Enter}}) has a list of all animals that are tame (and belong to your civilization) or are caged and can be tamed. Each animal on the list can be assigned a trainer, who will then tame (if needed) the animal, increase its tameness (if not born from tamed animals) or train it for war or hunting (if selected for hunting or training). Not all animals can be trained for war or hunting. Taming or increasing tameness requires food (edible [[crop|plant]] for herbivores, [[meat]] for carnivores), which the trainer will bring to the animals. If a caged animal is fed a plant, [[seed]]s will stay in the cage, possibly making it unusable until all the in it seeds are [[dump]]ed.

Certain animals are trivial to tame ([[domestic animal]]s are well known by dwarven civilizations), some are rather easy to tame (animals from [[Cavern]]s aren't alien to dwarves). Other creatures will require more attention, at least until your fortress manages to get familiar with them. Which animals are known and how well can be checked in the second sub-tab in "Animals" tab. Badly trained animals can revert to a wild state, resulting in [[fun|dragons rampaging through the fortress]].

== Trainable Animals ==
Giant versions of these animals are also trainable.

* [[Dog]]
* [[Leopard]]
* [[Lion]]
* [[Tiger]]
* [[Jaguar]]
* [[Cheetah]]
* [[Mandrill]]
* [[Gorilla]]
* [[Grizzly bear]]
* [[Polar bear]]
* [[Giant eagle]]
* [[Elephant]]
* [[Giant bat]] (hunting only)
* [[Giant cave swallow]] (hunting only)
* [[Dragon]]

If you trade for one of these animals, and they are already tame then they will remain tame when they become yours.

== Bugs ==
* Wild animals can't be tamed with food bought from the embark screen or from caravans. If no home-grown food is available, you'll get a "needs unrotten item" error. {{Bug|3667}}

{{skills}}

v0.34:Animal trainer

2012-03-24T17:10:16Z

Coolthulhu: Rewrote for 06

{{quality|Exceptional|03:36, 10 January 2012 (UTC)}}
{{Skill
| color = 2:0
| skill = Animal Trainer
| profession = [[Ranger]]
| job name = [[Animal training]]
| tasks =
* Train [[dog|war animal]]
* Train [[dog|hunting animal]]
* Tame large animal
* Tame small animal
| workshop = [[Kennel]]
| attributes =
* Agility
* Toughness
* Endurance
* Intuition
* Patience
* Empathy
}}
{{av}}

'''Animal trainer''' is the skill associated with the '''animal training''' [[labor]]. An animal trainer works at an [[animal training zone]], taming certain animals (with food), turning some [[tame animals]] into war or hunting animals and reinforcing tameness of animals captured in a [[cage trap]] and tamed later.

==Notes==

Animal tab ({{k|}} - {{k|Enter}}) has a list of all animals that are tame (and belong to your civilization) or are caged and can be tamed. Each animal on the list can be assigned a trainer, who will then tame (if needed) the animal, increase its tameness (if not born from tamed animals) or train it for war or hunting (if selected for hunting or training). Not all animals can be trained for war or hunting. Taming or increasing tameness requires food (edible [[plant]] for herbivores, [[meat]] for carnivores), which the trainer will bring to the animals. If a caged animal is fed a plant, [[seed]]s will stay in the cage, possibly making it unusable until all the in it seeds are [[dump]]ed.

Certain animals are trivial to tame ([[domestic animals]] are well known by dwarven civilizations), some are rather easy to tame (animals from [[Cavern]]s aren't alien to dwarves). Other creatures will require more attention, at least until your fortress manages to get familiar with them. Which animals are known and how well can be checked in the second sub-tab in "Animals" tab. Badly trained animals can revert to a wild state, resulting in [[fun|dragons rampaging through the fortress]].

== Trainable Animals ==
Giant versions of these animals are also trainable.

* [[Dog]]
* [[Leopard]]
* [[Lion]]
* [[Tiger]]
* [[Jaguar]]
* [[Cheetah]]
* [[Mandrill]]
* [[Gorilla]]
* [[Grizzly bear]]
* [[Polar bear]]
* [[Giant eagle]]
* [[Elephant]]
* [[Giant bat]] (hunting only)
* [[Giant cave swallow]] (hunting only)
* [[Dragon]]

If you trade for one of these animals, and they are already tame then they will remain tame when they become yours.

== Bugs ==
* Wild animals can't be tamed with food bought from the embark screen or from caravans. If no home-grown food is available, you'll get a "needs unrotten item" error. {{Bug|3667}}

{{skills}}

v0.34 Talk:Werebeast

2012-03-11T01:06:43Z

Coolthulhu: /* Getting cursed */ new section

<s>Technically this refers to humans, but oh well</s> [[User:Headjack|Headjack]] 22:29, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

So, how about some content around here? Anybody know something 'bout these Werebeasts? I don't.
[[User:Headjack|Headjack]] 23:41, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to try and help out here by experimenting with werebeasts and such in the arena, see if we can pin down some specific stats or characteristics. If anybody else encounters one (in Fortress) they should document it here, I propose. [[User:BaronNinja|BaronNinja]] 20:12, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I think I did. I had a Human "arrive", and he just left right after. I assume that was a werebeast.
[[User:Headjack|Headjack]] 09:48, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

== Getting cursed ==

Is a single bite that deals damage a sure way to get infected? Does the bite from a natural-formed creature transfer the infection (say, a human bite)?

v0.34:Evil weather

2012-03-10T05:44:07Z

Coolthulhu:

Evil weather, such as fogs, clouds, and rains, afflict those caught in them with syndromes or curses, such as poisonings or transformation into [[zombies]]. It is found in [[surroundings|evil surroundings]]

Beware of both kinds of evil weather effects: evil rain causes a random [[Symptoms|symptom]] which can cause death, thralling clouds change living beings into undead, that are hostile towards all life and incredibly hardy.
Thralling clouds are also dangerous in adventure mode. Undead status means hostility from civilized beings, reduced speed and no regeneration. However, other undead will ignore you.
Name for evil weather is randomly generated, typically something along the lines of "abominable mist", "unholy gloom" (clouds) or "creeping murk", "horrid goo" (rain).

Evil weather forms on the edge of the map and moves about the screen. It does not necessarily respect walls, and may enter a fortress to affect your dwarves.

Some evil weather effects condense on creatures, making their effects semi-permanent - symptoms won't go away until the source is washed. Those effects also can spread like a disease. In most cases, it will just infect dwarves that carry contaminated bodies to caskets, but it can mean zombie apocalypse if the symptom is "conversion to undead thrall", and this symptom is quite common.

v0.34:Weather

2012-02-23T15:52:23Z

Coolthulhu:

{{av}}{{Quality|Fine}}
Weather refers to any type of weather effect in DF. As of this version, it will either be snow, rain, evil rain and thralling clouds (the latter two occur in [[surroundings|evil surroundings]]). Regular Rain falling in concentrated areas will muddy the ground, and eventually create standing water. Rain also cleans any tile it lands on, removing blood, [[vomit]] and other bodily fluids on contact. Any dwarf caught outside when it rains will receive a minor unhappy thought.

Beware of both kinds of evil weather effects: evil rain causes a random [[Symptoms|symptom]] which can cause death, thralling clouds change living beings into undead, that are hostile towards all life and incredibly hardy.
Thralling clouds are also dangerous in adventure mode. Undead status means hostility from civilized beings, reduced speed and no regeneration.
Name for evil weather is randomly generated, typically something along the lines of "abominable mist", "unholy gloom" (clouds) or "creeping murk", "horrid goo" (rain).

Freezing will refill [[murky pool]]s which are found in some biomes (mainly temperate). After the murky pool unfreezes, it will be full again. This happens in biomes of moderate temperature as well as cold biomes.

Weather can be disabled by changing [WEATHER:YES] to [WEATHER:NO] in the [[init]] file. Disabling weather is a quick and largely harmless fix to improve framerate on older machines if required.

v0.34:Weather

2012-02-23T14:40:20Z

Coolthulhu:

{{av}}{{Quality|Fine}}
Weather refers to any type of weather effect in DF. As of this version, it will either be snow, rain, rotting stench rain, thralling coulds and clouds of creeping murk (the latter three occur in [[surroundings|evil surroundings]]). Regular Rain falling in concentrated areas will muddy the ground, and eventually create standing water. Rain also cleans any tile it lands on, removing blood, [[vomit]] and other bodily fluids on contact. Any dwarf caught outside when it rains will receive a minor unhappy thought. Beware of both kinds of evil clouds: creeping murk causes [[Symptoms|dizziness]] and suffocation shortly after, thralling clouds (name is randomly generated, typically something along the lines of "abominable mist" or "unholy gloom") change living beings into undead, that are hostile towards all life and incredibly hardy.

Thralling clouds are also dangerous in adventure mode. Undead status means hostility from civilized beings, reduced speed and no regeneration.

Freezing will refill [[murky pool]]s which are found in some biomes (mainly temperate). After the murky pool unfreezes, it will be full again. This happens in biomes of moderate temperature as well as cold biomes.

Weather can be disabled by changing [WEATHER:YES] to [WEATHER:NO] in the [[init]] file. Disabling weather is a quick and largely harmless fix to improve framerate on older machines if required.